The Home Service Expert Podcast - Developing Persuasive Employees to 10x Your Sales

Episode Date: November 4, 2022

Michael Bernoff is the President and Founder of Human Communications Institute, a company that specializes in working with people whose success depends on communication clarity. He is also a leader in the personal and professional development industry, and has worked directly with individuals as well as corporate executives who desire to transform their corporate culture in an ever changing marketplace. Michael is a seasoned public speaker who specializes in direct sales, corporate recruitment, and sales training. In this episode, we talked about self-development, personal transformation, psychology, sales, employee training and retention…

This is where people have it wrong. So like most people, they think training is like school, like they're educational bulimics. They go to an event, they learn Spanish like we all learned or French in school and they puke it out at the end of the test, they get rid of it. Real training is the application of what you do. It's a role play. It's role playing and it's using. So I'm less even interested in training. What I'm really interested in is practice being great. Does that make sense? And that is really what I know that you're really doing. So you want to get trained and then you practice it because training alone, like I say to all people all the time, learnings for losers, implementations for winners, because I know a lot of people that you and I know that can tell you everything, but they don't know how to do it

themselves. So it isn't training really you're after. Really what you're after is getting better. So I go to these things to get better. So it's how someone actually frames the training. So at the beginning of a training, you're working with your people. You've got to be able to say, hey, listen, we're all going to get better in the next hour. Not you're going to learn something. We're all going to get better than we are right now at the opening line in the next hour. And you're getting them to realize that's what we're doing. Because training is a part of our brain, like, okay, I got to go through my corporate training. In the next hour, we're going to do a training. What that means for our company is everyone in this room is going to be better at opening lines or whatever you want to call it,

or prospecting in the next 20 minutes. And you're going to walk away with a few things you're more comfortable with and that you're better at. So I love training. I mean, I love what the world calls training, but I'm really obsessed with implementation. 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 to the Home Service Expert. I got Michael Bernhoff here, and he's an expert in sales, training, recruitment, communication,

personal growth, and development. Very good at getting in the brain. I've actually gone to a bunch of his stuff. Big fan of yours. The psychology behind everything you do, the words we say say the way we do it the energy that flows i've seen you make people get hypnotized i mean you're part of the human communication institute founder president and actually i'm certified i got a certification around yeah you made it to the weekend you learned a bunch of great stuff yeah this is gonna be good this is good so you were just talking you're the keynote at Huge, there's going to be like 1,800 people there.

That's going to be really cool. Michael is the president and the founder of Human Communications Institute that specializes in working with people who success depends on communication clarity. He's also a leader in the personal and professional development industry and has worked directly with individuals as well as corporate executives who desire to transform their corporate culture in an ever-changing marketplace. He released his book entitled Average Sucks, Why You Don't Get What You Want and What to Do About It in 2020 and hosts the Average Sucks podcast, a show which features conversations with people of influence that have learned how to

create an average and above average life. Where you usually get started, Michael, is jumping into just who you are, how you got started. I've heard the story, just really what you got going on and who you are throughout the years. I know we've done a lot of stuff, so I'll just give you the quick version of it. I know you and I are part of all kinds of masterminds and groups. And the best way I could put this is there's like two, anytime you're in a group of people, there's the good people that are good at what you do in service industry. And then there's the people that are not like really good people, but they're still selling a similar product. So what our company does and what we really obsessed with, they've got two groups of people. We got, you got the people

that my friends and stuff that work for the media and they work for TikTok, Instagram, they work for Facebook, all this stuff. And they are using the same techniques we are, but they're using them to get your attention, lower your resistance and increase receptivity. So for 21 years, instead of doing what the addiction experts do, and I get you to go on the journey they do, we teach you how to use your own psychology, your own language and communication to get people's attention, to lower resistance, increase receptivity, whether it's sales or even your communication. I work with UFC fighters right before they walk in the ring. I have a few people that we work with. They cannot get into names because of contracts, but I'm the last voice they hear. And I talked

to them for a few minutes before they go in the ring or the octagon or whatever they're going to do. And I get their psyche straight, or it's the company that's about to needs to rewire how they pitch their IPO that day or entire sales organizations like the service industry that want the ability to say it in a way that the customer feels safe, comfortable, and has very little resistance to make a quick decision and save a company a whole bunch of time and money. So that's the quick version of what we do is we do very cool neuroscience psychology to make you effectively explain what you do better and make more people interested, make things happen. That's a quick version, buddy. Hey, I love it. The neuroscience, it's all about the, what did they call that? NLP? Yep. Yep. I've been studying that since I've been around neuro-linguistic programming and psychology. I don't, I, I failed psych one,

one, three times. I was never very good at school, but I charge more than any therapist in the country for what I do. And I've been doing this since 2001. I've been around the use of words to affect the nervous system. And that's where the slightest shift... I have things that if you say to your kid, you think it's a good idea to say, but by saying it, you're actually disempowering your child. I've been teaching this lately, like everyone in the service industry, I'm going to give you like a set of lines that you could say, especially with

your industry, that if you said these like two sentences at the beginning, you literally induce a drug inside of somebody to empower themselves, to make a quick decision and feel good about what they do. So I will gladly just give nuggets like that away today. But at the end of the day, like I'm not kind of, I definitely am a drug dealer. Like I am literally like you are like getting the right drugs at the right time in someone's brain. So they're empowered or make a decision or they feel good or they feel connected. We're all releasing drugs, but are you doing one that scares people? Are you doing one that makes someone feel good or make somebody feel like they can make a decision? And very few people understand this. And I can teach it in a short period of time.

Yeah. You know, the deal is, is I go by the 96-4 rule. I don't know if that's still what it is, but 96% of communication and 4% is the words we say. But we've got a whole board that we train on. Never say contract. You say agreement. Never say sign here. You say, okay, the the paperwork we never use words uh the way we stand the eye contact the body language

how to win friends and to folks people when to shut up actively listening we go into literally when i have a new group upstairs that's just started and i said guys you're not going to learn a whole lot about fixing garage doors here i'm going to show you how to fix a garage door. That's the easy part. The hard part is eye contact, what to say, when to say it, when to back up. And I'll tell you what, I've not near studied the psychology side, but I've studied a lot of body language. And I'm just fascinated by what you can do when you do it right. But the biggest thing I say, listen, you will believe in my products. I promise you that because there's nothing better. I'll prove it to you listen you will believe in my products I promise you that because

there's nothing better I'll prove it to you you will believe in me you'll believe in the company the problem I can't do is make you believe in you and if you can't look in the mirror and say I'm a badass and I love myself and I'm not I love me I said listen I'm the baddest ass dude here and I said but if you walk in a room and you feel inferior and you can't look at yourself and you walk out of your house and you've got this baggage and you've got these bad people in your inner circle, you live in a cage. And that's the hardest part is me breaking them free because human beings go through a lot of stuff. And I, as long as they're good with themselves, the rest is easy. Easy. Yeah. That's a big piece of puzzle. So like, I'll give an example.

It's amazing. So we've got these two drugs that we sell, especially in the service industry. We sell people something better. Like we sell them a dopamine hit, like, Oh, you know, you could do this and you could feel good. Like some people do windows and stuff, or maybe in your industry, you're putting new doors on, right? Cause you'll put new like, Oh my God, you'll feel good. And they get a high for like a couple of minutes or you make them scared out of their mind. And they're like, if you don't fix this now, three people could die. Does that make sense? And this is where most people in the industry. And it's that middle drug where that's cortisol is fear and dopamine is excitement. It's the serotonin that changes things. So I'm going to throw something out here to everyone watching this right now. If you've children or you've been a

child, a lot of people want their parents to say they're proud of them. Or you want to tell your, like, you might even want to tell your sales team or your crew, you're proud of them. There's nothing worse in the world that you can say than I'm proud of you. And I'll explain why in a second, because if you tell your kid or your sales team, dude, I'm proud of you, man, you did good numbers this month. It's like Pavlov. I'm like, do you like, I'm like, I'm doing that to you. And then you need me to come back and keep on reminding you. Let me give you a different perspective. So in Tommy, instead of saying, dude, I'm proud of you. How does this fit? Tommy, you should be proud of yourself for what you built. So what's funny is you get the smirk on your face. And what's funny is when you say to somebody, you should be proud of yourself for

working hard and getting good grades. You give the power to them because the reason we keep it to ourselves, it's called serotonin. When somebody like, so let's just say you set an appointment, right? And let's say you walk in, you're doing a service appointment. You walk in, you're meeting the first time. Imagine saying this, Tommy, Tommy, I just want to commend you in advance for even booking this appointment. Very few people wait a lot longer until things get bad. Having the courage to call us and even have this conversation, it says a lot about how

you live. So great work. What's amazing is commending somebody for doing something empowers them. And then they can decide. But very few people take an extra second and say, I just want to commend you in advance for even having the courage to call a company you've never heard of before. I know we're A1 since day one. Does that make sense?

I know we're the first people in the, I know you love hearing that. It's true. It's great. In the phone book in the old day, I know we're the first people in the, I know you love hearing that. It's true, it's great. In the phone book in the old day, I know we're number one, but having the courage to call a person you don't know to come to your house, very few people, they live with their problems.

You picked up the phone. What's amazing is you just empowered them and you just spoke to them in a way that they wish their mommy and daddy would have talked to them. And what's fascinating is it's the truth and they feel good. And when they feel good and empowered, they will then take your bid and they

will roll with it. They will take your invoice and say, I'll buy that. You know, it's pretty interesting because I try to really, really stack the deck. And if you look what, what stack the deck meant, it always has to be an extra ace. Yep. And I've got about five aces on my sleeve at all times. This isn't the shirt for this but yeah i'd say you gotta like like get in the sleeve here yeah yeah but the first thing we do is we text the client automated through service titan here's it's like uber like service where they're at when they're coming and it's like some text them a profile so i'm like take a cool picture with your family make sure you look professional have your dog in there and look it's almost like a dating like people laugh they're like it's like a dating site

yeah well you want to do things that people love dogs you know and then the second thing is I always tell my guys to call on the way and offer them something hey Mr. Burnoff listen Tommy Mello the garage drawer guy I'm here to save the day listen I wanted to let you know I'm stopping at 7-Eleven. It's a hot day here. I'm going to grab a Gatorade. Is there anything I can grab for you? It's awesome.

Now, here's the deal. I like to assume, too, sometimes, and I've tried this, and I don't know which way to go. You'll know better. But I either say, listen, don't make me guess because I doubt you like green Gatorade because I'm going to bring you something because I'm trying to get, you know, Robert said, do you need the law of reciprocity? He was my college professor. What's that? He was my college professor. That's awesome.

I got some stuff going on back here with the dumps, but you know, reciprocity. And then I use, and you might not like this because I think I'm getting the wrong drug, but I don't lie to my clients, but I say, listen, doors are six months out. The prices are going up. Interest rates are going up on the financing. If we don't do this today, and that's the scarcity. I love this. And then there's the liking principle.

You buy things from people you like. So I try to do as many of those things. I got the old, old textbook in the shelf right over there. But I try to really focus on those principles and the words matter too is like we try to do it to where you know a door could go anywhere 20 30 grand depending on what you want because when I come at seven they're like hell yeah but if I said 7,000 to 2,000 what are they thinking yep so after if I say 30 just like he says in the book if you want your kids to clean their home,

don't you got to clean the whole house? Yeah, I love it. What I'd add to that, what's interesting is I love you. You were such an implementer. And I got to tell you, you are in this one thing. If everyone watching this right now, if you don't know much about Tommy, why he does this literally he's bringing when he shows up at events and he goes to things, he's bringing you with him. He's like, how do I give this to our people immediately? Your implementation and your ability to share is incredible. The piece of the puzzle I'd add is like, you know, it's a doors are six months out and this is where oxytocin comes in the connection. But what we do here is we like to make certain you have all the

information. What we do here, when you say we is make sure you have all the information so you can make an empowered decision. The power decision is the serotonin, the feeling you get like you can decide you're in control. But then when you say we, when you're offering the green Gatorade and you bring the orange, oh my God, that is so nice. You know, that's what our company is about. We work with your family to not just fix your door to make your day better. Do you know what I'm saying? So if we can do something to make your day better, we work with you.

Oxytocin is what people lost in 2020 when everything on Zoom and they didn't get to hold anyone, hug anyone, or really give gifts to each other at the same level. So we want to make sure that we comes out. So to add to it, when you show up with the orange Gatorade, that is so thoughtful. We are not a garage door company. We are not a window washing company. We are a company that is dedicated to work with your family to make your home run better. We work with you. Your home should work great. We work with you. What's fascinating is when you stop saying you're a garage door company and we work with you to make your home better, you now became more valuable. So I would say from our trademark on the side of our trucks, we're a garage door company. Really we're a relationship based company that

works directly with you to make certain your house runs safely and effectively. Now you just did what's called ancillary benefit. You just offered something greater. And I want to be one phone call away. So you have to worry less about what's going on and you never have to understand your garage door. That's our job to understand it so you can enjoy your family that's strong man i love this stuff i'm like i just love getting bullets i'm just collecting them over this you got you got like you got like somebody had like a 50 cal you got like all these 50 cows just sitting around you know i don't think gone joker sarah is a record setter in the hvac industry and he went out and started coaching and he said what he's learned to do is ask you what your career is.

Oh, my God, you're a teacher? You're giving back to this community? It's so great to have somebody like you. You mind if I take a selfie with you? I respect what you do. But he's like, here's the secret sauce. It's find out their wants and needs and what happens is i want to make sure that i got a safe garage door for when i go to my hospital visits i need to be able to leave on time so he calls

his estimates he gives it one through five star whatever then he says this is my get you to the hospital safe bid this is the one this is the one that's going to make sure that you make it to the hospital every time on time. And you have to take that one, right? He calls it what they want it. He puts in there. He calls the bid that he thinks. And here's the deal for me. If you tell me, Tommy, I'm probably here for another year.

I'm building a house right now. I want to make sure I can sell it. And I'm selling a quality product when I sell the home, but I'm not looking for my lifetime door. It's not fair for me to offer you the A1 package because I don't think that's what I would offer my mom in that case. So I try to make sure that my guys and my coworkers are offering the things that they feel in their mind are right. I don't care if it's the 30th of the month and you got to make rent, you got to do what's right for the client because we're making

friends forever. Yes. So that's big. I mean, so like when I work with real estate agents, one of the things I say is this, I said, we don't want to sell you a house real estate. That's not what we do. We help almost being a coach to know what you're going to need 10 years from now. So when I bought my house right around the time you and I met, I had a one-year-old or two-year-old when you and I first met 10 years, Maya's 10 and Tara's 21, my oldest, right? Our needs changed. So now our garage door needs are different too. Like we have three cars coming in and out. So the question is, you might say to someone, I just got to ask you how many kids you got? And you're like, oh, I got five kids, right? Okay. Three kids. How old are they? They're eight. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, the garage door goes open up and

down a couple of times. There's only so many times that thing goes up and before we have to change out. What's that thing called? The spring, right? And I have an A1 sticker at my house from, I don't know if you knew that, but you guys have been there. And what's interesting was the spring has to get changed. So right now your garage door probably opens 50% of what's going to in three years, you're gonna have a teenager. And you remember being a teenager, they came and went. So right now your garage door probably opens 50% of what's going to in three years. You're gonna have a teenager. And you remember being a teenager, they came and went. So the kids are going to come, go, come, go friends in, out, sneaking in a night, doing

all this stuff. It's going to go quicker. So we want to buy the garage door now for 20% more to save you down the road or whatever it is. Do you see what I'm saying? So now you're like, whoa, I never thought of that. So, and that's a, that's a thing all people go through. Like as your teenagers get older, they drive.

These people aren't thinking, they have a 12 year old. In five years, this door will be here. We either put on the regular spring or the one that's appropriate for down the road when your teenagers are coming in and out three to five times. No one in the industry has ever said it except for people listening right now.

One of the things I say, and this is gold, number one, the garage is the smile of your home. But I say this, Michael, let me ask you this. Are you using this door like your front door? That's great. Because it looks like to me that you're using this every day and you're probably not using your front door. And I always shake my head because I can tell the shoes out there.

Like, I don't go to a crowded garage with a firing cabin. You're trying to sneak through and say, using this like the front door. And I always shake my head because I can tell the shoes out there. Like I don't go to a crowded garage with a filing cabinet. You're trying to sneak through and say, using this like the front door. But people are like, this is the crazy thing. Michael, people look at me and they go, how did you know that? We don't even use our front door. And it's like you're Houdini or Nostradamus or something. And then you're gaining points the whole time. And the one thing that- You're falling in love with you. Oh, that's the key is smile, play with the dog. I talk about these little things. But one of the things I've always talked about

is you got to build rapport, right? If you got a Harley in there, we're going to talk about the Harley. And a guy corrected me two weeks ago. And we call him the GOAT, the greatest of all time salesperson. His name's Dale. And he said, they're not buying from you.

They are, but they're not. They're buying the warranty and the company and the lifetime value of the company. So when you walk in there as a technician and you say, man, Tommy Mello, this dude cares. You should see, he gets us new trucks, whatever this is this. And here's the deal about this company. We're enrolled in the Dave Ramsey program. They want us to buy a home. Let's put it this way. Mike, I've got an opportunity to work anywhere in the world with garage drawers, and I choose this company, and this is why I choose it, and I think you should choose it too.

That's great. But I feel like that's – No, no, no. I've never heard an A, I love the passion, but B, it's the truth. It's like when I got my roof, I could pick the 20- or the 30-year warranty on the roof, right? It's the same kind of thing. Or the quality of the truth. It's like when I got my roof, I could pick the 20 or the 30 year warranty on the roof, right? It's the same kind of thing when I put, or the quality of the roof. When the guy said that to me, he goes, listen, we can offer you both our companies based on, we work with people that

are looking to make their home more valuable. Does that make sense? We work with a certain type of person. So the fact that you're selling the company, which I love about this is the trucks and everything. It's you're supporting. Yeah. The dude you're supporting, you're supporting the future wind because you're right. They're not just buying a garage door they're buying in two years if i need someone to call there's going to be someone there well also the background check drug test i'm in your home i'm with your kids in the garage you're going in and out i mean it's not as big as a big remodel in your basement or something where they're there for three months but is the guy safe is he on drugs is he okay to be around? And one of the things I do, I kind of have this test I call it the

take you out for a beer test is what I take you out for a beer. Could we have a good conversation? Because all I do is ask questions that are open-ended. Like Michael, tell me the last time you were with a colleague and you had a big win, you worked together. And all I'm looking for is a little bit of eye contact and just storytelling. If they got the ability to smile, tell me a story, they've already won. They got the job because I'll teach them, but they got to make eye contact and I got to see them not stutter. They can't be like, well, I'm like, if you do that in front of me, you're going to do it in front of clients. A hundred percent. How much do you believe in training? Because this is a big topic that I invest a ton,

but let me just repeat, it's an investment, but I think training is just role play, role play, role play. This is where people have it wrong. So like most people, they think training is like school, like their educational bulimics. They go to an event, they learn Spanish, like we all learned or French in school and they puke it out at the end of the test, they get rid of it. Real training is the application of what you do. It's a role play. It's role playing and it's using. So I'm less even interested in training. What I'm really interested in is practice being great. Does that make sense? And that is really what I know that you're really doing. So you want to get trained and then you practice it because training alone, like I say to all people all

the time, learning's for losers, implementation's for winners. Because I know a lot of people that you and I know that can tell you everything, but they don't know how to do it themselves. So it isn't training really you're after. Really what you're after is getting better. So I go to these things to get better. So it's how someone actually frames the training. So at the beginning of a training, you're working with your people. You've got to be able to say, hey, listen, we're all going to get better in the next hour. Not you're going to learn something. We're all going to get better than we are right now at the opening line in the next hour. And you're getting them to realize that's what we're doing. Because training is a part of our brain, like, okay, I've got to go through my corporate training. In the next hour, we're going to do a training. What that means for our company is

everyone in this room is going to be better at opening lines or whatever you want to call it or prospecting in the next 20 minutes. And you're going to walk away with a few things you're more comfortable with and that you're better at. So I love training. I mean, I love what the world calls training, but I'm really obsessed with implementation. Yeah, that's it. You know, I always make this joke. I say, Michael, I'll tell a bunch of employees because we used to do this. I'm going to send you a video of how to hit a golf ball 300 yards. And if you can't do it after you watch that video, you're an idiot. You're a failure. Well, the problem is I need you to hit a thousand balls with me for two months and I need to make sure everything's perfect and we need to practice and

I need to have you. Now, here's the deal. We're going to start on the driving range, but I need to see that you could do it in a tournament too, because sometimes you could do it on the driving range, but you can't do it in the tournament. And that's where I really need you succeeding, that it's second nature. We teach you to have no fear. You're not afraid of the crowd. You're just, you're all you. And that comes from practice.

And then we need to get you practicing. You can practice your speech, and we'll get you practicing on stage. The first time you go on stage, you ain't going to be perfect. But we're going to get you better. The training will start happening on stage because I'm going to come out with you to customers' houses. But the one thing I'll tell you this, we don't train our people. I think a lot of people, they're training in the garage full-time.

You're going to go out there for a week. You're going to go shadow somebody for a week. Then I'm putting you on your own. They're learning on the job, how to fix garage doors, how to do pools or whatever you do. My guys know I'm just always perfecting. We're always working on these things. And I can tell you, my buddy owns, you ever heard of Bottle Blonde? Yeah. Yeah. So less than Diane and my other buddy, Charlie runs it and their average table per night is $6,000. Wow. And I said, how in the hell do you do that? He goes, we spend two hours a night training our cocktail servers, how to go on social media, how to go for birthdays, exactly how to sell when they upsell the next bottle,

how to get the guys to buy the bottle, how to get the guys interested in the girl. They've got a whole training program. That's all bar science, like John Taffer shit. And so I don't feel bad with all the stuff we do because we're making good human beings in the process. Well, that's the thing. When you feel like you can communicate better and you're more effective with people, you feel better about your life. I stumbled into Oregano's one day at like 11 o'clock in the afternoon, like 10 years ago. And the place is packed usually at night and people go there. It's good enough food. It's good.

And I went there and they're like talking how to sell what with what. And they're having a same meeting that every day, like they were doing it. Like they were going to the Marines. Hey guys, in 15 minutes, here's what's going to happen. And I asked the lady, go, do you do this all the time? She goes every single day. And that's why for 30 fricking years, that restaurant is busy breakfast, lunch, I mean, lunch and dinner.

And it's, they, they make certain to go through basics. When they say shrimp scampi, you say that goes great with blank. Does that make sense? And it was annoying. I'm like, I'm watching, not annoying in a bad way. I'm watching this. I'm like, are they really putting this much effort to sell a $9 glass of wine? But a $9 glass of wine times 30 locations times 50 tables is a company that's worth like when Sam Fox sold his companies, you know, three, $400 million. I mean, that's the same way he runs those restaurants. So it's same concept trainings, but here's the thing. This is your masterful thing. I'm gonna give you a major, major. When you know about you is you sell people on the idea of why they'd want the training.

And that's, that's the benefit. Like you let people know that this is going to make them better. Not we're here just for the job. Like you're helping them become better people and selling them on the training that helps them sell better. So that's, I've seen it. I've seen you do this. That's it's powerful. Well, we got a dream manager program and it's really, we put it through a $10,000 course and her goal is to really figure out dreams. And one of the things, this new class, I said, guys, when I met with one of the biggest home service trainers in the world, he said to me that over 2000 companies, he's analyzed the one main thing. There's a few of them, but the biggest one was they have a plan. It's detailed.

They know how many leads they need. They know what their average chicken needs to be, their conversion rate. They understand their budget. They've made their goal a reality by figuring out what they need to do to get there so i said guys if you do not come to me with less than 100 grand or i'm gonna be very upset with you because you guys are all six-figure earners so pick what you need to make and i want to work with you on building a budget of what you need to do each day each week each quarter each month each quarter each year because if you don't have any idea how many calls you need to run and another thing is i want you guys actively asking for reviews and don't say hey the company loves it when i get a review say my name is tommy did i do a great job for you today

listen we've got a competition going on i would love it if you'd leave me a review with my name in it yep i'll leave a review for any person i don't give a shit about the company so you got to make it personalized but that helps them hit revenue goals and recruit people. So we've got all these opportunities to make money in the company, whether it's reviews or recruiting or just your normal work category stuff you do. But I just think without a clear path to understand how you're going to get there incrementally, it's very hard because most home service people, Michael, they just say, I want to get big and I want to make more money, more profit, and I need more time with family. That's my plan. I'm going to come busted every day. I'm a firefighter. I'm going to make it happen.

And I go, so what are you going to do tomorrow? What's on your schedule? Show me you own your school. What are you going to do to work on the business? They go, man, I'm just going to be busy. I'm going to go in there and hustle like I always do.'s always growing i'm a hustler and they will get they'll become a millionaire i promise you that they're going to get burned out though possibly too just hustling instead of becoming more effective well it's not it's not a business no it's a job and if you can't leave your business i tell you this all the time if i said michael i'm going to fly you and your family to hawaii today we're going for a month and paying for the dolphins and paying for all the liquor, the beer, whatever, the food. We're going to be doing the volcano tours. When you come back in one month, what does your business look like?

And I'm telling you, there's very few people that say the business is still running perfectly. And that's because they don't have a company. They have a job. You are like the guy with your stuff. You've got to be able to teach those courses. I know you've got other people. Your wife handles a lot of the stuff too, but it's a little bit different. But not a lot of home service companies. And then they get mad that I charge the prices I do. And I say, do you work on Christmas?

What happens when you go on a three-day vacation? Do you go out at nights? What happens if something goes wrong and you're on Christmas? What happens when you go on a three-day vacation? Do you go out at night? What happens if something goes wrong and you're not there? And it's frustrating because you go on these Facebook forums and they always complain that this company is charging too much because there are the companies that are charging a lot of money without an infrastructure. But it's just. It's interesting.

I think that's our natural tendency, especially entrepreneurs. Like we become stubborn. We become entrepreneurs because we're stubborn and we're hardworking. We try to figure it out ourselves. And we think that's our natural tendency, especially entrepreneurs. We become stubborn. We become entrepreneurs because we're stubborn and we're hardworking. We try to figure it out ourselves. We think that's our solution. My parents always said, work hard and be a good person. That's how you get ahead. I took advice from a school teacher and an engineer. That's one way to do it. Number two is, I think when you're training, actually, I know when you're training people, one of the things, and you got to say it correctly, is it's okay if you're not good at this right away, but in the next couple of weeks, you can be dramatically better.

So some of you are going to be naturally good at this. Others of you, it's going to take a couple of minutes, but in two weeks from now, after you do this, this is all going to start coming out natural to be coming out of your mouth. So when you start using this stuff naturally, you're going to get more predictable business and then you could train other people. So I think one of the reasons we want to do it ourselves and we want to like, just can't take a break or whatever it is for reason. And I could take off a couple of years if I wanted to, because our business, we have

programs and different things that we've set up that don't require me anymore. And one of the things that I recognize, I think we want all the kudos that we want to be the only one that can do it. So I think if you've got a crew of people, having the belief that you're the best and nobody can be better automatically kills your ability to get a lifestyle. And I think you're going to say, you know what I'm doing? I'm very interested in finding some people that are even better than me at certain things. Doesn't mean you're not going to be good, but I mean, you'd love it, Tommy. If you found five people

that were better at sales than you, would you love that? All day long. The thing is for me is I've always focused on hiring somebody that's better, especially when it comes to like a CFO, like getting the right people right now. I feel like I'm less involved than I've ever been. And it's scary to a certain because I still want to be valued. But there's a great book by Jim Collins built to last. That's a great book. And it's all about making sure you're hiring people that if it's all relying on one, two, three, five people, when they leave, it's over. So that's not a great company. That's not a great mindset. The mindset should be,

I built a legacy company that's going to be so good. I'm going to leave it better than when I found it, better than when I founded it. And it's tough because you're going, oh my God, they don't need me anymore. It's like they're making decisions and do I agree with them? And then you get mad because I'm going through this shit right now. Okay. Let me give you an example. We're in the middle of an LOI buying a company. Yep.

And we haven't done, we've got this huge 500 checklist that we check out when we do a purchase. And I said, how much money are we going to gain when we get our parts? Like our parts costs. Cause we such a, we're a national buyer. We've got a much better rate on parts.

And they said, well, we haven't got into that. And we're closing in two weeks. And I said, okay. And I said, this is important. And I would have thought with our financial team, the size that is, the due diligence period we had, that we would have been able to see this stuff. But also I said, we're 90% there as we do more of these and we continue to do more. I just don't want to keep making these mistakes. So all I ask is that you build this into the system. Yesterday, Bree, my girlfriend, texted me because she gave me the wrong location. We made a mistake together. I'm just going to be an open book here. And those of you listening that know me, we got a great relationship. I love her to death, but I'll just tell you guys, there are times in a relationship when you work with somebody,

she said, I guess I'm a F up. She said, sorry, I'm such an F up or whatever, because we were talking about this. Cause I said, can we start doing confirmations because I don't want to keep going to the wrong places. And I said, the definition of insanity is continue to do the same things over and over and not make and making the same mistakes. We need to do better at the systems to make sure this doesn't happen again. Every time you screw up, you can't say, I'm sorry, I'm a screw up. Can we try some different systems? I'm not mad at you.

The thing is, is that that's a tough one because I'm not mad at her about anything. I'm just like, what do you do after the third time when you keep doing it? You know, I don't know. You had a good response. You had a good response there to her. When she says I'm a screw up, you could say that definitely could be an answer to this. And we can go with that. You ever had anybody complain about something? Oh yeah. When she complains or says that I call it a complaint, you can say, I can join you and I could jump on this bandwagon that you're a screw up, or we can come up with a solution and do better next time. So you, when you offer people, you offer them a way out. So that's

just a natural response mechanism that she has. And she created when she was a kid. I mean, we're going to both get in trouble for having this conversation right now, but the point is we all do that. We all do like our kids do that. Like, Oh, I'm just a screw up. It's just to get someone to say, no, no, no, you're not, you're not, you're not. It's a way of getting love back into our lives or whatever it is. So response, if someone's like, you know what, did nobody ever treats me well. Like someone, let's say somebody calls your customer service office. Right. And they start complaining and they're like, you don't get it, man. This, this person did this and they came over and they smelled like smoke and this and that, or they got, I know your company would never have that. You could say, listen,

I hear what you're saying. I could join you in the complaining. Cause I'd be mad also. Like I could jump on the complaining with you, or we can come up with a solution to get your garage door back up and running. You just tell me what you want, how you want me to spend my time. Do you want me to join you in the complaint? Or do you want to come up with a solution? You just gave them the control back. Cause all they felt was they're out of control at that moment. So that little technique is huge that you can i don't know how we got there to that but that little diffuser i like that no i didn't you know this stuff is actually actionable you know a lot of the things that i'm talking about i think a lot about these things and how we deal with people i was going to tell you something else but i lost it it was about um you'll find it well a lot of times with

customers i diffuse them i just i tell them i'm the owner of the company because they want the I lost it. It was about, um, you'll find it. Well, a lot of times with customers, I defuse them. I just, I tell them I'm the owner of the company because they want the command. They want to know they're dealing with the top. And then I say, and I'm telling you, I've had people sit in front of me and watch me do it. And they said, this customer's called 10 times. They're irate. And I say, Michael, I realized we wasted your time. I'm the owner of the company. I want to hear exactly what's going on. And I want to tell you upfront that I'm embarrassed at the situation. And I want to hear all about it. And then I literally put my phone on mute and put it on speaker.

But we sit here. And 10 minutes later, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Listen, here's what I'd like to do. Your time's important to me. I'm sure you probably make $1,000 an hour. But what I'd like to do is if $200 makes sense for the time we've wasted or whatever it is, sometimes it's not money. But I never give them everything. They say they couldn't believe that I took the time to listen.

They couldn't believe that I took the time to call. And it's crazy because you can diffuse the situation. But what's funny is a lot of times they want to deal with the owner. They have to deal with the owner. They feel like the owner's got to know. But one day I was at, I worked at dealers, women's shoes and this lady i'm trying to fit this too small of a shoe on her foot and i knew it was too small she knew it was too small and i like ma'am your your foot i don't think i'll make it in here you know i'll go see if i got a wider shoe and she said i don't think mr dillard would like your attitude and i said what would what would mr Dillard say to me right now? The shoe doesn't fit. What was the response?

She was very upset at me. I guess I would be upset if I fit in a shoe 10 years ago or something. I don't know. But those shoes were ruined after she tried to put them on. But, you know, what are you supposed to do? I mean, I guess we have a certain policy there. This was in my early 20s, so this is a long time ago. But you learn. And a lot of people don't know that, like,

we learn in these interesting environments, like shoes and stuff like that. It's the people business. Everyone needs to experience getting out there, like our kids and stuff. We need to get people out as quickly as you can into sales environments because you're going to need that stuff later in life. Most people don't know about your shoe background. I didn't know about that. That's fascinating. Which one did you work at?

The dealers in Chandler. So I worked at the Cheesecake Factory. The Cheesecake Factory, I worked at P.F. Chang's. At the Chandler? All in Chandler. I opened up the mall with the Cheesecake Factory as a busboy. Wow. You learn people.

And with that menu, you still can't keep people happy with 7 million items on it. Can I change this? Can I do that? People, a lot of times, they want to be right. And we got to let them be right. Sometimes we also got to make them wrong. Sometimes let me ask you this question. What is the response that your company has to

when somebody says, how much is it? So if you're on the phone, I say, the first thing I say is, listen, let me ask you a few questions. I always say, let me ask you a few questions. Do you know the size of your garage door? Do you know what the insulation is? Do you know what the R value is?

Do you happen to know the radius of the track? Anybody that's going to go ahead and give you a price over the phone without coming out there, it's like diagnosing your car over the phone when you got a transmission problem. It's just really, it's not wise to do. But what I could do is I could stop by. If you like what my guy has to say, we'll be able to do the work right then and there. But if not, send him on his way. But I'll tell you what, Michael, we're going to do whatever it takes to try to earn your

business. Apples to apples, we guarantee to be the best value. I love it. I love it. Yeah. The reason I asked that, if you do a version of what we would do, I would say like when someone says, how much is it? I always say wrong question. And the reason I say wrong question is I could just throw a number at you. That's not going to do anything. The real question is what do you want the garage door to do? Do you know what I'm saying? What kind of garage door do you have? Like, what do you want it to do? So when you say, what do you want it to do is, well, I just want it to work again. Okay. Well, I can just get a garage door that works. I mean, do you want it to be safe? Do you want it to work? Do you, how many times are you coming in and out? How big is it? We're asking the wrong question.

So a lot of times we naturally ask questions about price because you weren't expecting this. Now, this is what's fascinating. Let me give you one thing I know that nobody says in the service industry. When someone says that's expensive, here's my favorite thing to say. And I taught this to, I think you know my friend Aaron who works in the auto shop business. I believe you know Aaron as well. And Aaron Stokes. And one of the things that is great guy. And I taught all these guys say, when someone says that's expensive, I say, actually, it's a going rate. It's just unexpected. And I really wish I would have met you three years ago. And I would have told you to save money away for this garage door and knowing the one you had, but I don't have it. So when you switch the word expensive to unexpected, when someone goes, God, it's expensive,

20 grand for new garage doors, actually it's unexpected. Like if we would have known this 10 years ago, we would have saved the money for it. You would have had it away and it was a known expense. So forgive me that we didn't know each other, but now I do let's work on finding a way to make this work. So they're thinking expensive. If you can quickly transfer the word into unexpected, then it feels different inside their brain. I like that unexpected it's unexpected you know when someone says that's expensive to me i say if i charge you less would you trust me more that's good it's really good you and i should just hit the streets one day and just sell shit it'd be hilarious walk into stores like we pretend when i was a kid my parents left me

at the mall because i got left at sears when i was a kid my parents like leave me so they go shopping and leave me with the speakers and i was just like 13 years old and I was selling Bose speakers and Samsung and Tachi TVs and selling people Ataris and stuff like I didn't know better. It's like I would just like practice talking to people. I loved it. It's interesting because I learned a lot in the restaurant industry, but I used to flip Bowflexes. Okay. What I learned is, a quick story. I bought Bowflexes. One day, I go to Arizona Republic. I see this great infomercial.

And I'm like, man, the guy's like perfect. He's in shape and he's tan and he's got the girl there. And I'm like, I want that. I mean, they spend a lot of money on that infomercial. So I go on Arizona because I'm too cheap. I mean, it was $2,200 15 years ago. I mean, literally, I'm 39, so I'm talking 19 years ago. I go on Arizona Republic, and I find one.

I call the guy right then and there. The Sunday paper, I call him. He goes, dude, you're the fifth one to call. The first guy came and already picked it up. And my roommate hears me, and he goes, have you ever heard of that site called Craigslist? And I go, yeah. I mean, this was like when Craigslist first came out. Like literally, I'd never heard of it.

So I go online. I don't even know if I was using AOL or whatnot. But I go on Craigslist and I found four of them. I buy all of them. And I clean them all up. And I got a whole routine I do. When the father and son would come by, I'd say, this is my routine. But I put an endless ad in Arizona Republic for the next three years.

Wow. After year one, I started doing total gyms, anything they could sell on TV. I'd buy on Craigslist and sell in the Arizona Republic. And it was just, it's a different, different buyer. You got a lot of people that ever heard of Craigslist for years and years and years, but they knew the Arizona Republic. So it was an affluent buyer that wanted to pay full price. They didn't haggle with me certain times they would, but if I, and they wanted it now, they knew they Arizona Republic. So it was an affluent buyer that wanted to pay full price. They didn't haggle with me. Certain times they would, but if I-

And they wanted it now, they knew they could pick it up today. Well, plus they were like, an infomercial sold them. They didn't want to pay 2,500. But the thing is for me is I'm like, I could deliver it because I was going and picking them up all day, every week. And then once I saw Chuck Norris and he's like, this is what gets me my strength. I'm 80 years old. I was like, I need that damn total gym. So I realized anything I could find on an infomercial that sold, if I could get it used, I could sell it in a different marketplace. So it started pre-sold. Oh, it was crazy. I sold hundreds and hundreds of Bowflexes, probably 150 total gyms.

That's amazing. It makes a lot of sense because I think about the two, I've seen that. And then two reasons. One, people are going, where else can I get one of these? And also, they don't want to wait three to five weeks. And they know they're already thinking to themselves, I may not follow through and use this. So why would I pay full price? Someone else maybe didn't follow through either. I love this stuff. I want to go into some psychology. You know, I bought your CDs. Yep. Wow. That's old school i haven't had the cd player in a while so it's been a while so we're digital now i'll get a hold of the company i'll get you everything on digital so you can have it on digital i would love that because i was thinking i had i think i

might have them down somewhere here you gotta find a cd player even my new car i got my new escalade coming tomorrow and it's like they're like no more cd player i'm like no more cd player because i have a 2020 and still has a CD player in it. So yeah. No, no. My last track did is I missed the CD world. I still like my old Jim Rohn audios and like put my own CDs. I wish I got a tape deck.

Jim Rohn is the man. I've been listening to my mentor right there. That right there. That was the guy right there. Jim Rohn took me under his wing when I was right there when I was 19 years old. Yeah. That's it. So can you share with us a

few tips on how salespeople can influence a customer to make a huge, you kind of went into this, but a huge purchasing decision. So instead of just doing random, let's create a scenario, anything. If you want to do garage doors or you want to do, I see a guy right here with an electric company. Yeah, I do best in real scenario. Okay, so let's just go through this. So a lot of times the biggest things you're going to sell as an electric company, obviously you've got the panel. There's a lot of upgrades you could do on the panel. I know Mr. H. had very well.

But as far as the cost go, sometimes to switch out all the original lines, you're talking $, 30 grand. So let's just use the example of it. It's a $30,000 sale. And I know a lot of people, here's the problem is that most guys that work for me never spend $30,000 on anything. They don't own a house. And so that's why I like the monthly payments to offer them, hey, listen, 79 bucks a month

or $100 a month or a hundred dollars a month, but you go into this $30,000 sales, but it's a work that cause a fire, right? And there's a lot of things that you got to get permits for this stuff. You got to have an inspector come out. There's a lot of things that you go through. So, so I would start with this. So there's two things I would use that are going to help people out. I'm gonna give two techniques that are very helpful. One is very basic. So I see this guy, Mr. Electric's asking about outsourcing training. I'm just gonna give a training. One is very basic. So I see this guy, Mr. Electric's asking about outsourcing training. I'm just thinking of a training piece that everyone can use. So I got this one indirectly I created years ago, and this is responsible for hundreds

of millions of dollars sales for our company and other companies. And this is powerful. So what I would do is I would say very simply, like, so I would say, let's say, I think, is Mr. Electric an actual company? Is that a company? Yeah. Okay. So I would say, so how familiar are you, Tommy, with Mr. Electric's very simple four-step

process? And the reason I would say how familiar are you with the four-step process is when three things are true, the fourth is automatically true. I'm not going to get into the details of that, but if I told you, hey, Tesla stock's going to go up today and it went up 20% today, you'd probably listen to the next thing I'd say. I'd say, hey, when you make a right turn on Apache today in Mesa, you're going to see a fire. And if you saw it, then I'd tell you, hey, by the way, there's going to be an announcement tomorrow that Michael Jackson came back from the dead. And let's say all three of these things came true. The fourth would automatically, you would trust me after that. Because when three things are true, the fourth is automatically true.

So the reason I create a four-step process is to build a connection with somebody, but also to show proof of concept of what happened. So I would say, so how familiar are you with Mr. Electric's very, very simple four-step process? What are most people going to say, Tommy? You know, I'm not sure exactly what it is. Could I just take 30 seconds and tell you the process so you know how this whole thing works? You bet. Let's go through it. Now you feel like you're in control, even though I wrote the contracts and you know that if you're buying this company, you should probably write the contract, not let them write the contracts. You're in control. So then I'd say the first step is we are relationship based company. And we make certain that we want to work directly with you and your home and your family to put only things in here.

They're going to work long-term because we're doing this for a while. So first step is I need to make sure we get along. I'm going to talk to you for a couple of minutes and find out like, just, we have to connect because this is an important decision you're making. Step two, is it okay if I move to step two? No, absolutely. Now what's funny is you think you're in control. You're not. Does that make sense? I am. Step two is I want to find out exactly what you're looking for because there's a thousand options that you can pick. And we need to think about the one that's best long-term for this home, whether you're planning on being here long-term or not. Step three is I'm going to show you what we have. And step four, you can pick what's best for

you. The reason I'm doing this is I'm laying out for you that I'm going to sell you. And I'm also telling you in advance that you're in control and I'm telling you what's going to happen next. So the predictability of what's going to happen. Then I also want to tell you that a lot of people go into a home and then I'd go through the steps and blah, blah, blah, but I can cover that later. The biggest thing, can I give you the biggest piece of advice that I learned in the garage door business? Or can I give you the biggest piece of advice that I learned in the electric business? And they're going to say, yeah, it's the difference between two very important things. How you look at our transaction today is important. So my mentor, Tommy Mello taught me. So I would say this if I was your people, right? The difference between a

purchase and an investment. An investment conversation is different than a purchase decision. So if you just want to talk price and we're just going to get a bandaid on this thing, that is very different than working together to make your home more valuable long-term. Do you see what I'm saying? So an investment is one conversation, a purchase is another. So what's powerful about this is when I tell you that we can put in a brand new air conditioning unit, we just raise the value of your home. You're investing in a future sale of conditioning unit, we just raise the value of your home. You're investing in a future sale of this home because you don't want to fix this thing five days prior to it.

So when I educate you, can I give you some advice that I got from my mentor, Tommy, or from the owner of our company, Tommy Mello? And they would say, yeah, that'd be great. What do you have? Well, Tommy teaches all of us for our own homes to understand the difference between a purchase and an investment. If you purchase something that fixes your current problem, like a Starbucks coffee, you get a 45 minute high. An investment is something that 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now

has raised the value of something. So then what you're doing is when you tell them the price, that's $30,000, the way you, we got to know, are you buying something or are we investing in making your property more valuable? If all they're worried about is buying something, we're not here to convert that person today. That's not that conversation. They don't have the access to the money. It's a different thing, but for the appropriate person, the investment conversation, here's a chance for you to tell you that your home is probably one of the greatest investments you're going to make in your lifetime. Do you know that if this looks attractive to somebody else, this could be worth 50 to a hundred to $200,000 down the road extra to you. So that's how I would layer that. Those are the little techniques that I would use,

but the four-step process. I think that's genius. Yep. I love that process. Obviously people on the podcast too. One of the things that we realized, Michael, is when we get somebody pre-financed, we walk in and we say, hey, Michael, listen, a lot of our clients are taking advantage of our killer promotions right now. It's literally with interest rates going through the roof right now, inflation up. Let's just use A1's money, see what you qualify for. It's not a hard credit pull. It takes a couple seconds. Let's just see. And if we get that pre-financed, I'll just tell you this, the money just went out the window. And all of a sudden, you say, listen, you don't have to start payments for six months. I got you at a lower rate.

Credit cards, they're what, 22% these days? I got you locked in at 8.99. It's unheard of. Let's just use the company's money while we're in this inflationary period. But you go up. Our conversion rate is over 80% when it's pre-financed. But the problem is a lot of people don't want to fill. If I said,

Michael, you look like a guy that can do some financing. You go, am I broke? You think I'm broke? So you got to put it in the right context. Our company decided to do something really crazy over the last couple of years. They're doing something almost ridiculous right now that even the smartest people, I got multimillion dollar homes that are taking advantage of this right now. And they are using, they bound the ability to create their own financial program where they're taking advantage of tax loops and savings and different types of things right now that they're just turning it over to the customer. So they would love for you to be able to get what you want now and not have to wait. So the way our financial program works, it's not for everyone because there's

certain people who'll just pay cash for things, right? But for people that are super smart financially, they know, pay attention, like a mortgage, okay? They know they can get more and down the road sell it for more. So here's an opportunity for you to not come out of pocket for anything. Take this deal and let A1 cover the interest for you. So that's the exciting part. Oh, no. It's all in how the words you say matter and the confidence level. And if you believe in it, because I find that my top guys, they don't use the word hundreds. They say, hey, it's 4126.

And they make that eye contact. They're not afraid of that number. They're not afraid of 78 to 32. I watched Tim Lucco make a $40,000 door sale. He said, 43 to 86. Do you want to get this done this next week or what? And I'm telling you, it's no fear. They don't use the word hundreds or thousands.

They don't say $43,286.73. Cause that's scary. And it's 43, 26. Yeah. So that, those are little things. And then I met this guy. He's the number one sales trainer for real estate agents that do flips. So motivated sellers, right?

So I've got another company that we sell motivated seller leads. So the goal is they want to sell their house for cash. They want to sell quick, right? Obviously, they know they're not going to get full market. Now with a couple different companies, they're paying full market pricing. But you get the appointment and he sits down. He goes, your number one goal. What do you think most people say the minute they call him?

How much are you looking for? He goes, wrong. Never say that. He goes, your job is to get out to the home and sit down with them. And then after you get done talking to them, you let them do all the talking. You diagnose the person before the problem, right? And they say, listen, I want to sell my house and I want 20% more than the home value is even worth, because I've seen something on Zillow. Jim said to me, he goes, here's what you do. You look at

them and smile. You say, okay, let's just do that then. So I've got one through six star, basically, the A1 package is my six star. And so I go down and I'm like, well, listen, we've got other options here. You wanted a four star. Let me see if I can get you into that four star with some of the attributes you wanted in the package, but we'll go down to a three-star and I might be able to get you the other upgrades. But that way, when you give people options, what I want them to do is make a buying decision on me. Then we'll decide what product they're going to get. And so part of my eight-step sales process is get the work started. If you call me out for a keypad and I look at anything else but the keypad, you'd be like, if I went for an oil change and the guy popped my hood and started looking at the radiator, I'd be like, dude, I just asked you for an oil change.

It just seems like I think this is the biggest mistake is people just make themselves and they go, oh, I found all these other things. And you might believe that person, but you're like, okay, can you just leave me an estimate? I wasn't planning on spending that today. And then you go shop it. I think that's a mistake And then you go shop it. I think that's a mistake. Let's go through some. You know, what's interesting about the keypad one.

This is a great one that everybody needs to use, especially how fear-based people are. How often do you change that code? You should ask that question to people because like, I want to show you how to simply change that now. Cause it's been a year or two. You should probably change it every couple of months and I'll let you pick what it is and help them do it. Cause it's annoying as hell to change that thing.

People know it's annoying. If all of your people said like, Hey, how often do you change it? It's probably a good idea to change that about every year. Has it been at least a year? You and I know it's been 10 years, right? But if they ask that you just became more valuable, you care about the safety of their home now. I love this stuff, man. I love the psychology of all this stuff. So when you're dealing with an employee, one of the things I heard Simon Sinek said is a lot of times you go through this and they come in and you say, Hey, we're going through a performance improvement plan this week.

You're not hitting your KPIs. We need you to work harder. We need to train you better. What Simon Sinek says, Hey, come here for a minute. Listen, give me a hug. Listen, I noticed your numbers just don't really know where they are. What's going on with you? Is everything good at home? Because you had a sharp decline and I just want to make sure it's this empathy. I don't know like my whole deal of how I deal with negative employees as I have them present to me their KPIs and then I know their dreams and their goals. So then I could say, Michael, you told me you want to take your wife on an amazing 10-year anniversary. Now, listen,

I want that more than anything. I love your wife and she's going to dig it. But right now, we're not hitting these goals. So I kind of turn it back on them with their dreams and their goals. But what do you find is the best way to communicate with somebody that's not exactly hitting their key performance indicators or just their potential? Yeah. So if someone's not hitting their potential, one of the things you could sit down and go, listen, here's the deal. Sometimes things take people longer to get to and that's okay, but we want to help you get there as quicker as possible. So here's my question. Are you open to having an ally, somebody, I don't know if you knew this, that I think about you helping you get what you want as much as you do. So I go to bed at night and none of my wife likes it or not, but I bring

you with me because I want to make certain that I have your dreams on my mind. It's the truth. I'm always thinking about my team, making their lives better. So when you do better, not only does the company do better, we're able to grow more. So are you cool with even becoming a bigger ally to get what you want? I'm not going to do the work for you, but I want to help you with this. So here's my question. Let's switch roles here for a minute. What advice would you give you? And what do you think the best thing that you would be doing if we switch roles right now? And you're now Tommy. Okay. And I'm you, what would you recommend that I do? And they can't say work harder. You can't say be a better person. What could we do? So the reason I know this one works is I taught something like that

recently and a mom just decided to use it with her kids. And she walked up to a kid that was addicted to YouTube or sitting there all day. And here's what she said. She walked up to her child and goes, let me ask you a question. Is what you're doing right now the best thing for your mind? Three minutes later, the kid was outside playing with playing at soccer outside with a friend. So let me ask you a question. Do you think that what you're currently doing is the best thing for your goal or is it a thing? And I think it's just a thing. So you think that what you're currently doing is the best thing for your goal or is it a thing? And I think it's just a thing. So how about we work together and just kind of soup it up a little bit? Cause you're not off track. You're just, you're on track. We're just

not getting there as quick as you want to get there. So let's work on getting there quicker. Cause if they think they're off track, they're fucked. Does that make sense? We got a real problem. So you want to tell them they think they're off track. Oh my God, I'm off track. I'm gonna get fired. Listen, you're not off they think they're off track. Oh my God, I'm off track. I'm going to get fired. Listen, you're not off track. You're on track. It's just taking you longer than it should, because I don't know if anybody told you this recently, you're very talented and we only have people around.

So one thing about me, Tommy, whether you know it or not, is I would say is I would say, if I stopped talking to you, I'd be very, very concerned. And the fact that we're having this conversation means I care. I stopped talking to you. We're done. Does that make sense? It's over. But the fact that we're sitting here right now, this is the powerful stuff. It's like, we're not avoiding the conversation. Yes, you are the man. Michael is the man. He can sell anything. I want to talk about selling Sucks because the hardcover is available for $23.17 on Amazon. Tell us a little bit about the book and why people should get it. I want to talk to you, too, a little bit later.

I know we're doing a podcast on yours, but there's a couple opportunities. It's been a while since we talked. We've got to get together. All he does is tell stories about Grant Cardone told me this and this billionaire told me this. So one of the things that I've realized that I do is I'll tell everybody everything. Like there's no secrets. You come here, I'll show you my CRM. I'll show you, I can't give you my manuals because I bought those from Al Levy. They're his intellectual property, but you can buy them at a discount from us. But overall, I'll give you the shirt off my back.

And what I learned is, is that's just a natural thing for me but i would listen to alex and he got like 200 000 hits on one hour thing he did because he's just sitting there saying this billionaire told me this uh grant cardone told me this you know dean graziato showed me and he's paying all these things and i love that because that's all i do is i listen to a book and i'm like i happen to be an avid reader and i'm this book, visual cell told me exactly how to do this. And like, and this book told me this. And so I get it a little bit differently. I've trained with you and I love to share things because I've learned too, is it's hard

for people to implement. And that's, I think what you've realized. That's what we figured out. So like when I work with companies like yours, one of the biggest things we do, i was doing a zoom earlier today where the lady that has a mastermind a group in a community interested but i love working with you michael and our friend kent clothier you know kent through kent's one of my dear friends for a decade i've worked with kent's people because kent teaches some of the greatest real estate stuff in the world but if people don't take action nothing happens so i get people to learn how to trigger themselves and sell themselves

into doing things. So they actually can listen to Tommy. They can listen to people. So you mentioned a minute ago with the Average Sucks book. You get it on Amazon if you want. You can get it on AverageSucks.com. I think we're giving away a bunch of audios with it. If you get it there, I'd recommend you get it there.

You can get it on Amazon. Doesn't matter. Whatever you choose. I wrote it for people with ADD like me, so it can actually be read. But here's what the book does. It's not about being better than others. It's about that feeling we get inside, which every one of us runs into. And it's about our own average. It's our own.

We make the same amount of sales every month. We have the same amount of intimacy every month. We weigh about the same. How to literally change your personal average because your actual average will never make you happy if you want more. So Tommy has an average for 2022, but that's not going to make Tommy happy. So I'm six foot six. If I play my life like five foot five, it's okay if I am five foot five, but I'm six foot six. I got to play six foot

six, the full version of me. Right? So the point is what average sucks is about is that feeling and getting you to understand how to actually have the courage to people admire earlier. You're talking about your girl, like how we talk and how we're open about talking about this kind of stuff. Some people wish they could be that way with a significant other. That's not fear in your way. Fear is a bullshit concept. That is your average, your old identity holding you back.

So it is the easiest read in the world. It's powerful. And it's, it's going to piss you off a little bit in a way, because you're going to say, I wish I would have known this when I was five and I would've lived my life differently. You're better off saying, Hey, I'm 50 now. At least I know it now. And not me 50, I'm not 50 yet, but you know what I'm saying? The purpose is that's the purpose of it all. So I highly recommend it to everyone. And funny thing is you have it on your nightstand and your car, because average sucks. You can't be a loser. It's impossible.

Now. Yeah, no, it's a sea Canyon all the time. the time every time i've seen he's got an average sucks sure no so no this is great man i i really appreciate it uh if someone wants to get a hold of you how do they do that you could just get a hold of us through the company you can send me an email uh you can send it to uh what would you send to mike mike at michael burnoff.com real easy mike michael burnoff.com i'll send it to my team and we have a process for that obviously right i definitely recommend uh check michael sold on buying the average sex limited edition box you should cody you're gonna dude when you see that box let me tell you something buddy you are gonna steal that idea for your company when you open that thing it's impossible not to tag and show

everybody online what you got it's a shock and awe dan kennedy would have drool over that thing or frank kern or anybody we know because when you open it it buys people into the agenda it's awesome it's pretty badass i feel like this is what i'm sending to does it start playing a video uh no what it does is that i now i'm buying the limited editions yeah so what happens you open up the box and the box talks to you and it's got really cool stuff in it it's things you'd want so you open up the box and when you open it up it the box actually has words written inside of it and you're not here to be like everyone else. And it's got the book. It's a signed copy of the book. And it's got a water bottle. That's also like a lantern that you use and stuff you can't throw away stuff you'd want. So it's, it's pretty impressive.

And it's great marketing. I had the company that we bought the boxes from, they loved it so much, the box they made, and they sell hundreds of millions of boxes a year. They actually featured our box, which is super cool. And we're not as large a company as Costco and stuff that they make stuff for. So check it out. It's right there on the upper right-hand corner. Average Sucks T-shirt, limited edition box. It's right there.

There's at the top. Okay, let's just go through last couple of questions. If you had a few books that changed your life, is there any books that not the E-Myth Revisited? No. Pitch Anything. You're a Pitch Anything? Yeah. Pitch Anything. Pitch Anything is really good. I love Pitch Anything. A lot of the books that I read are so weird and good weird. I read books that are old NLP books that I've read that are just mind-blowing, I don't usually send people in that direction, but I will tell you some of the biggest books that I've read that were big back in the day.

If we'll go back to old school, it's the greatest miracle in the world. That book by Ogmandino, not the greatest salesman, but the greatest miracle. That's one of those that woke me up in a big way. Cause it got me to realize that people are living without a hope, a prayer and a dream. And our job in life is to wake people up. Oh, I believe one of the best books you can get is our happy chemicals. And I believe it's called our happy chemicals. And it's, it explains how we use the different drugs in our brain.

Have you read that Tommy? No, no, I believe it's called that. And I love it. And it explains how to use them. I believe it's called our happy chemicals or our happy brain or something like that. Let me, let me grab that. Cause I've read that like 10 times. You're still using infusion stuff? What's that? Yeah, we still use infusion. We've got a full-time expert on it. So it's great.

Did you use it for a while? I haven't used it in a long time. I, you know, right now we're, we're, we've moved to HubSpot and then there's, there's a couple of things I've used Salesforce in the past, but the one that's really come out, it's called... It's Habits of a Happy Brain is the new book. Habits of a Happy Brain. Dude, get it.

It's the rebrand of it. You're going to be amazed. It is incredible. Retrain your brain for boost. I mean, boost your dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin. And I mean, it's going to blow your mind. That one right there is like, boom. I'll tell you what,

I'm going to close it out with this. I'm going to buy the book. Oh, I got to just finish yours. They've got the nice kit one. We talked about a lot of things and I'll let you close us out. Maybe we didn't hit something. Maybe there's something you think the audience should hear. They need to hear, but let's just have you close us out with something that's inspiring and gets them to take some action. So this is the biggest thing that we're dealing with in life. Most of the reasons we do the things that we do, and this comes right out of the book, but it's important to understand. Most people do the things that we do because the majority of our goals and ideas are outdated

information, which means that your drive, your desires, your dreams were all designed when you had a problem one day that you wanted to solve. So we identify as somebody that wants things that were a long time ago. So I think one of the biggest ideas that you can do, and I, my buddy, Brad Costanzo had me on a show once, you know, Brad, Brad had me on a show and super cool guy. He worked at Jesse Itzler at the beginning to get his brand off the ground, which is awesome. And one of the things that I said to him, I said, when is the last time you looked in the mirror and realized how far you've come in life? And I want you to think about this. A lot of us are still trying to fix our nine-year-old self or a 12-year-old self

instead of going like I'm 44 right now. What can a 44-year-old man do that's done, I don't know, $800 million in sales in our business that's traveled around the world and owns real estate that's done that? What can that guy do? Or maybe what can a 52-year-old woman or man do that's raised three kids, that's been through tough stuff, that's made it through a divorce? What can that person do? And then really realigning your goals and the things from the person you are, not from the decisions you made a while ago. That was my biggest realization. I went from, the only reason that book has 50,000 copies out in the world right now is because I fought it for 10 years, Tommy. I think I was talking about writing that book when I first met you and I couldn't get it done. And then one day I asked myself that question, what can a 40 year old guy do?

That's got a great wife, great family, great kids. What can that guy do? And three days later, I asked my wife for help and we got the book done and it's out in the world. So I think a lot of us are wanting to get rich or make our businesses work based on insecurities and problems from the past or different things that we do. Like I tell everyone, if you haven't taken our call to action program, you definitely want to do that. That telecourse is badass. Everybody should do that. The reason I say that is if we would just reassess the things we want based on who we are today and stop wanting things you always wanted, you'd be amazed. You might want different things. Like right now, the things I want and the way I want to live is different. So that's my wisdom for all of you. It's like, I guarantee the things

you're chasing, the stuff you're after is 10 years old and outdated and you get, it's not going to make you happy anyways. Like you get a new car and you're like so proud of your new car. Then you get a little mud on your feet the next day and you got 39 more payments. The question is, what is it you want today as the person you are not, what are you chasing? And you're going to be amazed. You elevate your goals. You elevate your dreams. You'll get there faster because you are probably living a life that's looking to solve a problem from a decade ago.

And it's fascinating how that changes, even in your relationships. So there's your wisdom, Tommy. That's great. No, it's got my brain going. I can't wait to sit down with you in the studio. Yep. Listen, I'll text you here in a little bit. I know you got to run, but thank you for doing this, brother.

Thank you. It's an honor, man. It's a privilege. And what you're doing for the world, if you don't get this, folks, he gives a shit. He really cares. And if you don't know Tommy, you never met him face to face, maybe a part of the company. You don't have to be like this. He doesn't have to do these things.

He's doing it because he's excited about it. It matters, but it's made such a difference in his life. He wants you to experience the same things as well. So whether you're with the company or with another company, and I'm not saying this, he didn't ask me to say this. I see it. And I love being around people that want other people to be better. So, you know, I got kids. I want people like you in this world. So when my kids get older and I'm not here, you've developed other people. So they have great people to be around. So your company, man, a one is not just about garage doors.

It's about developing better human beings for this world. And the world needs this. Hey, man, I love you, buddy. I appreciate you very much. Love you too, man. Let's have fun. And I'll see you in the studio here coming up soon. All right, buddy.

Take it easy. Take care. See you, bud. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me. And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff.

And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor, leave a quick review. It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review. Make it four or five sentences. Tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick, we started a membership. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company. And we're just we're telling everybody our secrets, basically. And

people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's home service, millionaire dot com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your lives even further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it.