The Home Service Expert Podcast - Empowering Your Employees To Scale Your Business 10x

Episode Date: March 6, 2018

Ellen is a successful franchisor, helping launch a plumbing franchise to 47 locations and $40 million in sales in under 2 years.  Recently, Ellen and her partners launched ZOOM DRAIN Franchise Company, LLC, an exciting and unique franchise opportunity, currently in 8 locations. In this episode, we talked about mentorship and leadership, as well as effective business management strategies...

This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Home Service Expert podcast. I'm here to introduce Ellen Rohr.

Ellen is one of those people that once you meet her, you're going to want to meet her again. She's amazing. She's always happy. And she's just a ball of joy. She was the president of Benjamin Franklin, the punctual plumber, a large, large company that really set her in her path. The founder of Bare Bones Business. It's a venture capital and consulting company. She's helped grow her home service company from zero to 40 million in the franchise. And she's got 47 locations in less than two years. She writes as a columnist for Huffington Post, PHC News, business journals and trade magazines around the country. And she has around four books selling over 60,000 copies.

And she really just, like I said, I've got to know her. She's visited me several times. And she's just one of those people that once you meet her, you're going to want to meet her again. And she can make a huge difference in a company. So without further ado, I have Ellen Rohr here. Hey there, ladies and gentlemen. I'm back with a lovely lady. Very excited to have her on today.

Her name is Ellen Rohr. And she's had quite the amazing story. She's worked have her on today. Her name is Ellen Rohr, and she's had quite the amazing story. She's worked for several different companies. I've kind of done an introduction already, but I kind of want to hear from her own mouth what she's done in the past and where she's been and some of the lessons she's learned in the process. So without any further ado, I have Ellen Rohr on the line. How's your day going, Ellen? Hey, well, if you live long enough, you could create an interesting story. And that's what I have.

I know. I'm really excited because you've worked around a lot of different people, a lot of different character types. You've picked up a lot along the lines. Tell me a little bit about what got you into the home service niche anyways and what you're doing these days and some stories here? Well, I'm delighted to be here and I'm kind of starstruck by you because I love young people. I love it when someone has achieved success, especially when you've probably experienced a lot of people in your life who told you how hard it is and how long it's going to take. And you just did what you wanted anyway. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that.

Well, you know, I just, I'm a fan of people making their dreams come true, of crafting some intention and then taking a line to action just for the sheer joy of it. And so, you know, I'm a lot more focused now than I was as a kid. I was a scatterbrained kid. I probably had over 50 jobs. When I was a kid, I started working and I liked to work because I liked the money and the social aspect of it. So I had a lot of jobs, but I was always a troublemaker, fence tester. I got fired a few times.

You know, I bring this up because so much of what I'm obsessed with these days is about helping people make their dreams come true. And that involves every person on our team. And so often people will disparage their employees, especially younger ones. I don't care if I ever hear the word millennial again, I've had it with that word because it seems like we use that word as a way to trash talk the younger generation. Millennials are all like this. Even if it's not trash talking, just create a stereotype that doesn't really seem to be helpful. And I relate because as a kid, I, you know, very short attention span. And I was always looking to play a game. I think most people are like, okay, what do we do here? And how do we win? And what do I do to make more money?

And what's the game? What are we supposed to do here? What's good enough for you people? Like, that's what I would think as an employee and so often be disappointed in my bosses. And occasionally, I would be called out to do better. And those are the bosses that I, you know, Tommy, I don't even remember realizing it at the time. But later on, in retrospect, saying, you know, where were the great leaders in my life and just putting together what makes someone a leader and a champion of other people, I realized that I had a few employers like that, that I didn't really recognize them at the time, but now I realized what they were doing. And what they were doing is calling me out to play a bigger game. Yeah, you could not wear the uniform and you can be fired tomorrow, or you could wear the scratchy

uniform and we could play a bigger game together. And I would play. When someone called me out, when someone saw me, I would play. And so anyway, I've had all these jobs. And so I didn't really intend to be in the dirty jobs industry when I was a kid. I had a lot of restaurant jobs. I did a lot of dirty jobs. I was a maid and a windsurfer instructor, a ski patroller, a ski instructor. I just had lots of different jobs. I'd do anything if it suited my fancy and I could make money or gain an adventure by doing it. But then something changed everything. And that's that I married a plumber. So I am a plumber's wife. And that was how I got introduced to the dirty jobs industry. Like when I was growing up, my family called people.

If the toilet didn't work, you called the plumber or the electrical system was down, you'd call the electrician. I just thought it was a miracle when these guys showed up, you know, like where did the poop go? I didn't know. It's like a miracle. And so when I married my husband, the plumber, it was the first glimpse I ever had into dirty jobs. And I fell in love with the trades and trades people.

It is a miracle that people can connect the wires and the pipes. And, you know, when I started to see what went on behind the walls, I absolutely fell in love with the industry. And my husband, a man who works with his hands, who understands how the material world works, just has always been very interesting and seductive to me. That world was not part of what I experienced growing up. So that really changed everything for me. So that's how I got introduced to Dirty Jobs. And my background is also, you know, one of being that troublemaking employee, which I find is a common challenge with folks in our industry. You know, finding and developing great people on their team seems to be the number one challenge that people have. So that was kind of my start. Is that the direction you wanted to go? You know, that's perfect because now I love it. You give me just enough to really write down a few interesting things. And the first thing that I really like to think about is a great leader. And I've talked to a lot of amazing leaders. And you make me kind of self-reflect a little bit in my life.

And if I had to grab every person that works for me, which, you know, going on 200 here by the end of the year, I'd say they wouldn't all say he's a great leader. But when I think about it, I've really enabled people underneath me, my direct seven to 10 people that report to me to become a great leader for their people. And what is your take on that? Because it's impossible to be this founding father that everybody reports to every day. I mean, don't you believe that when somebody comes to me, I go, did you go over that with Pat? Or did you talk to Adam? Or what did Shannon talk to you yet?

Because I trust my people and I got to have a hierarchy and I got to put trust that they're able to make the right decisions before those people come to me. So what is your take on that? Well, yeah. And your organization is a demonstration of your ability to push down the org chart, to first off create an org chart and then push down the org chart responsibility and opportunity in a better game, right? So that you're not the one. So often, I think what happens is when I was a kid, and I don't know, I'm a lot older than you, you could be my son. My son's going to be 32 in two weeks. So when I was a kid,

I watched cartoons on Saturday morning. And I remember seeing that the bosses of these cartoon characters were always these like smoke pouring out of their ears, yelling, absolutely assaulting their employee people. Like Fred Flintstone's boss would just like they'd end up like hitting each other and stuff like that was the image I had of a boss. The boss had all the answers. The boss was mean and bellicose. And that's kind of what I thought bossing was all about. And then my experience as I was an employee is that's what being a boss is all about, I want nothing to do with it. But over the years, as an employee and later on as a manager and a business owner, I started to notice that real mentorship and real leadership is absolutely what you were just describing. It's a matter of empowering people to make decisions and to follow guidelines and procedures. Now, not long ago, you interviewed my best friend, Al Levy, the 7 Power Contractor. Now, he's my partner at Zoom Drain. So he and I started Zoom Drain with our other partners, Jim and Jason Crennitty, brothers who own Zoom Drain

in Philadelphia. And our mission statement is to demonstrate the best that business can be. You know, as a business consultant now for the last so many years, if I'm so smart, why aren't I doing a business of my own? That was very compelling to me. And so I thought, I'm going to partner up with people I love and trust and who have a similar philosophy. And we are grounding this franchise opportunity on developing people with no experience to come into our family, learn the skills that they need to be successful, and to promise them a career opportunity. That there will be some place to go and grow. And that really is what led us to franchising, although it doesn't have to be franchising. It could be a company-owned store, a publicly held company. Any organization with some growth and opportunity could adopt this philosophy, right? But if you want to really promise that the people on your watch are going to have a place to go, then you may have to grow. And that's what we decided to do, is to figure out

a model where we could grow. And the foundation of that model is really operations manual. Now, that sounds totally unsexy, doesn't it? It does sound unsexy, but it's needed. It does. It does. You know, so going back a little bit, like before I learned that lesson from Al Levy, what would happen is, you know, if someone gets elected boss, you know, their boss comes to him and says, ding, now you're operations manager, you're service manager.

Now you're going to adopt that persona of the guy with all the answers who yells to get his way, unless you have another model, unless you have something else to emulate. But I lived a lot of that, of that poor leadership in terms of, you know, just someone bossy telling people what to do and not trusting that the people who worked with them might have a clue or have an idea of how to fix things. Because I knew as an employee, as a frontline person, that if someone would only ask me, I could fix the problem for them.

I knew what was going wrong. I was living it every day. I mean, that was my experience over and over. So when I first got a clue with my husband's business, I was so fortunate to find a great mentor. His name is Frank Blau. Now, have you heard of Frank Blau in all your travels so far, Tommy? It rings a bell, but I can't put a finger on it. Tell me a little bit about him. Make a point to meet Frank. Frank is just a hard-boiled union contractor from Milwaukee. And if you scratch the surface of a lot of contractors who've reached a lot of success in the Nextar organization, he was the founding member of Nextar, one of them. And he had a huge impact on my life. He taught me this when I was struggling with the family business

with me and Hot Rod once upon a time. Hot Rod's my husband, Tommy. Okay. I got your name, baby. And he said Hot Rod. So I married him. Okay. So Hot Rod, the plumber is my husband. So Hot Rod and I have this business and we're really struggling with it. We're not making any money. We're hating on each other. It was just, you know, the cliche family mom pop business, right? Yep. And so I met Frank Blau in the pages of Plumbing and Mechanical magazine, and I wrote him a letter and he called me up and he told me I had my head in a dark place and that I didn't know what I was doing. And so I was very offended, but he was right. Like, so sometimes your mentors hit you with a brick and Frank is a brick thrower.

Man, he does not mince words still to this day. He's a tough guy. How do you spell his last name? B-L-O-U? B-L-A-U. B-L-A-U. Frank Blau. Okay. You can get his book at shooby.com. And I wrote a book about his life at his direction. He's just the nut. I love him. And it's on Amazon called soaring with eagles. It's Frank Blau biography. He's a very interesting dude and he's helped a lot of contractors. And this is what

his message was. And a really important part of my journey is if you're writing things down, write this one down. You've got to charge more than it costs. That is a Frank Lyle message in a short sentence. You've got to charge more than it costs. And for me, I was thinking, no, I thought you had to charge what other contractors charged. I thought you had to charge the going rate and what the market would bear and that your customers would dictate and all this garbage. In business, you have to charge more than it costs or you're going to operate at a loss. And if you operate at a loss, you're going to go into debt. And if you go into debt,

you'll end up compromising your integrity and ruining your relationship. That was my story. That's what happened to me. So Frank really taught me the basics. Add up your cost of doing business. Divide by the number of billable hours you could sell. Charge more than that. And then figure out how to add so much value to the interaction,

to the transaction, that customers will go, oh, they're expensive, but so worth it. I got that from Frank Blau, and so did hundreds of other contractors. My relationship with Frank Blau isn't unique. He's helped a lot of us, a lot of the old timers. So now you're in the group, Tommy, because now you know Frank. Oh, this is it. This is what I know, Frank. He'll love it. He'll love it if you get a hold of him. So Frank really helped me with that. So we turned our little company around and then my husband and I working together. Another, you know, lesson learned. One of the lessons I've learned is, is, you know, create a really great game for the people who work with you.

Gamification. Yeah. I was going to ask you. Yeah. You know, Jack Stack, The Great Game of Business. If you haven't read that book, changed my life. Love it. I love him. But mentors, right? Throughout my story, I'm going to share with you the people who had an impact on my life. None of them perfect, all of them imperfect, but every one of them had a piece of the puzzle. An eternal student, and it sounds like you are too, you pull this information through your filter and then you decide what resonates with you and what you're going to keep and what you're not. You get to choose. But one of the things that Frank taught me is how to

make money. So once we started to make money, money buys options. So I turned to my husband, Hot Rod, and I go, wow, we used to be in debt. We're starting to stockpile money. This is cool. What do you want to do? This was another huge moment in my life and in my career. I turned to my husband. I said, what do you want? This is the quintessential question in life. What do we want? What is it? What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? And he said, he said to me, I want to work all by myself. Yeah, he had it with me. Right. Of course. Right. I mean, it was just really hard when we were picking on each other so much. And I was picking on him, man, if he were only different, if he would only do this.

Life is just too short. And that is so hard. It's such a dumb position to take. If only they would change. You can't change anybody. You can't change your. Are you married? No, not right now, actually.

All right. Well, next time around. I'm not divorced either. I just, I'm not, I don't have kids. No, I was going to dig into that stuff with you too here in a bit, but... Well, what I've learned, I don't have much relationship advice to give. There are other experts for that. But one of the things that I've learned that works for me is to just let people be.

You can't change anybody. You can't change your spouse or your mom or your dad or your kids or your coworkers or your employees. You can't change anybody. But as you change, everything changes for you. That's a Wayne Dyer quote. Once you change, everything changes. Until you change, nothing changes. And once you change, everything changes. And what I found is once I changed, all my relationships change. Like that is always the point of power is the work that you have to do within your own hula hoop. So when Hot Rod said, I want to work all by myself, at first I was devastated. I'm thinking, wow, we've got this four truck outfit. It's starting to gather some steam. I'm thinking, wow, we've got this four-truck outfit. It's starting to gather some steam. I'm starting to figure out some things about business and really digging it. And I put out as an intention, I'd like to see if I have the chops to run a bigger company. I remember specifically putting that intention out there. I could run a bigger company. I bet

I could run a bigger company. And then I could run a bigger company. And then Hot Rod says, I want to work all by myself. So now the vehicle that I thought was going to be the one to take me to the next level of my career, his business was now no longer an option. Are you following this? Absolutely. And he went on, I will tell you this. I'm not proud of this as a still married, by the way, I'm still married. It's a miracle, too. I love, love, love him. But one of the things that I learned in this experience was, well, I thought when he went out on his own that he was going to be terrible without me. Isn't that a nasty thing, right?

That they're going to fail without me. Oh, I hear that all the time. Right, right. Isn't that terrible? So your employee leaves, they're going to start their own business. They're going to realize how hard it is, how awful it is. What if they just crush it? Wouldn't that be fabulous?

So that was an interesting moment for me realizing that, wait a minute, why would I be jubilant at his success? And he absolutely rocked it. He went on to do all sorts of great things. My husband's career dazzles me. He's amazing. But I'm left with that decision now. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? How mom-pop companies, teaching the stuff that I'd learned from my mentors, how to make money, how to get out of debt, how to read and use financial reports, how to put a little business plan together, starting with this question, what do you want? Why do you want it? Another mentor of mine and friend of mine is Simon Sinek. Do you read any of his stuff or see his text? I got right here. Start with why the next book i got the seven power contractor the book i just read the happy customer book i've got customer satisfaction worthless customer loyalty is priceless i mean i've got about 20 books here

i've got emus mastery i've got off balance on purpose but it's funny because I got Start With Why by Simon right here. Yeah, I love Simon. His TED Talk is really good, too. He did a TED Talk. It's one of the most watched TED Talks of all time. It really just nails it. But this idea of, you know, asking the big questions. That's what business planning is. That's what life planning is, is going inside your hula hoop and asking those questions. What do I want? Why do I want that? You know, and then one of those questions is how do I do it? And the reality is that this is what I learned from Jim Abrams. This is what I learned from this next piece of my career, which was working with the Clockworks team and Benjamin Franklin is clarity of intention. You know, Jim Abrams is a focused guy. It's not like he doesn't make mistakes.

He makes mistakes all the time. Everybody does. But he can say no to things that don't fit where he wants to go. So when you're clear on your intention, you can take less action. So when I'm out there trying to figure out what I want to do, I remember thinking, I'd like to see if I could run a bigger company. And then Jim Abrams ended up approaching me and saying, okay, we're going to start this franchise called Benjamin Franklin. It's going to be the country's largest home service plumbing company. Are you in? And I said, yes. Now, Tommy, I said, yes. Now keep in mind that the only relevant

experience I've had is working with my husband in a four-track company in a small town. So what will happen is when you get clear on what you want, this is what I can promise, when you get clear on what you want, when you're willing to put the intention out in front of you, then the universe will serendipitously supply opportunities. Stuff will come from the left and the right that you never could have planned. So there's this lovely paradox that I keep an eye out for, which is this idea of crafting the intention, making decisions, putting in the corner of the room some form of what you're after, and then being open to serendipitous intervention.

That stuff's going to come along. So just keep your eyes peeled. Yeah, absolutely. Doesn't that make sense? I mean, does it make sense to you? Or is this a little esoteric? No, it makes a lot of sense. Are you cool with it?

It's not, you know, tell me what that means. Tell me a little bit about what, when we talk about this stuff, it's just the finding your why. And I understand it because I've studied it, but I feel like, listen, our listeners are anywhere from thinking about going into business to maybe a five person to maybe a 20 million, $50 million company. And I think that changes. The other day I was on a podcast a few weeks ago, and the guy said, well, find your why, but also find out why people would follow you. Why would somebody follow you? So it's an engineering problem.

This is that's another thing I got from John Young, another one of my associates at Clockworks. John Young used to say he loved problems. Bring me a juicy problem. Bring me an engineering problem. And what he meant by that was bring me a problem with lots of variables. He was an engineer by education. So it's an, you. So life and business is an engineering problem. There isn't just one thing. There's these paradoxes. In fact, there's

seemingly incompatible things that exist at the same time. There's an old Arab proverb that goes something like, trust in God, but tie your camel. All right. That demonstrates the paradox that you set this intention, but the deliciousness of this lifetime is that you still get to take some action in that direction, that that's how that intention will come about is through some kind of thought that's been delivered in, you know, in some kind of action, some activity. So business planning is gaining clarity on what you want and you can make it anything. It can be a rock and one man company. It could just be the West Coast chopper of hydronic heating.

Or you could be an exclusive, very small company that works an exclusive niche. Or you could create an army like you have and there's no wrong in any of it. You just get to decide and then line up some action that's going to move you in the general direction. And this is what I mean about having clarity of intention allows you to take less action. Because when you do know what you want, and when you're willing to impose some purpose on it, deliver some why, then you can say no to things that don't line up. I think so many people waste time, and I do this too. When I find my life getting too busy, I look at, okay, what activities am I doing that are not aligned with what I say I really want? I want a lot of things. It's hard to weed things out, but I'll

do a little bit of gardening, do a little bit of gardening do a little bit of weeding to make sure that that which i'm doing is aligned with what i really really want so you know then i get to the experience of working with the benjamin franklin the punctual plumber and i have a pretty good ride i, I've got the support of the investor team and Clockworks, but we grow from zero to 47 locations, 40 million in franchisee sales in under two years, which was exciting. Now, I was always behind goal. I was always peddling furiously, but it was such a learning experience. And a couple of great things came out

of that. One is I embraced the power of the ride along. Tommy, do you ever get in the truck and ride along with your guys? I've gone and ridden with all of them. I used to be in the field, but yeah, it's fun. It's fun. And you make a friend and you learn something. And if you shut up and watch and listen, then you can see how you could maybe help them. And even better, you could ask them good questions and listen to their answers and they'll fix all your problems for you. So when I signed on with Abrams and Benjamin Franklin, I was completely ill-prepared. I had no reason to say yes to that job except for it aligned with what I wanted. But I didn't know how I was going to do it. So I started to ride along with prospective

franchisees and their guys. And I'd get in the truck and I would ask great questions like, what do you hate about your job? What do you love about your job? Why do you stay? I hate the uniform. So why do you stay? I hate the uniform. So why do you stay? If you hate the uniform, why do you stay? And they'll tell you. And if there's one thing that I could do, like, I don't know how to do what you do, and I'm going to honor and respect you doing that. But I do have the opportunity to craft the organization. And what is something I should know about Benjamin Franklin? How are we going to make this really good? How are we going to make it different and better for you, for the

customers? And they would tell you, and I'd put the list together. And that's the kind of thing I could impose. And most of the time, the dumb ideas, the things, I'd ask the question, what's getting in the way of you serving your customer? Was some dumb idea I came up with in the ivory tower? Some dumb idea that I thought would be really I came up with in the ivory tower. Some dumb idea that I thought would be really helpful to them out in the field without asking them. So I learned so much from the ride along and I never do it enough. Every time I ride shotgun, I think I should do this more. This is the best use of my time. You make a friend, you're forever changed. 10 years from now, you're going to have a story with this more. This is the best use of my time. You make a friend, you're forever changed.

10 years from now, you're going to have a story with this person. The ride along changed everything for me. So as I grew with Benjamin Franklin, there did come a point where I want to give a shout out to the, there were a few franchisees who really made it work. So of all the franchisees I signed on, there was a handful of them who pulled way more than their weight. Come to mind right off the top of my head are my friends, JR and Carissa Richardson and their family business down in Texas. They went to 40 visits out of 47 franchises just on their own dime to help out, to grow this company. And I had a handful of franchisees who really rolled up their sleeves and helped me create something great. So when I left, I left, I want to say like 14 years ago, it's been a while. And when I left, it was kind of a lead, follow, get out of the way

moment for me, the executives at Clockworks were being required to move down to Florida. And my parents live in the barn on my property. And my dad, my dad's died since then, but he would have gotten lost if I went to Florida. It was just not, I wasn't going to move, you know? So it was time to go do something else. And that's how these cycles go in your life. You know, I know how to make money. I know how to organize and grow a company. And when you know how to do those things, you have so much more freedom than if you don't. And so it was time for me to say goodbye to that very satisfying, although brutal at times, experience. And then I had this business planning moment again. Okay,

now what do I want to do? How can I serve? How can I help? And I started to think about franchising again. Now it took me a while. In the meantime, I'm consulting with clients. I'm helping them grow their companies. I'm seeing what works and what doesn't. I'm going on a lot of ride-alongs. I'm just absolutely in love with the trades as a career opportunity as an industry. And then my best friend, Al Levy, and I, I knew him from Nexstar once upon a time. He's also a business consultant.

He has had tremendous experience in his family business. He brought a whole nother piece of the puzzle to my life. Al Levy is the best operations man I've ever met. His philosophy is if you're going to make the phone ring, shouldn't you know how to answer it? Like, what are you going to do when they call? How are you going to make sure you don't blow up this call? What is your tech going to do? So he's sometimes, for those of us who like to move fast and like things new and sexy and exciting, Al is a plotter. He's an oak tree grower, right? He's going to make sure that the systems are in place before you pull your trigger on marketing. Yep, you got to have the phone ringing. Yep,

you got to make some mistakes until you get the systems really, really good. You can't plan this for five years and then turn on the phones. You're going to make some mistakes as you fail forward. But what he taught me and really changed my life with this is the power of defining what is good enough at this company. Good enough is doing it by procedure. You can't have a procedure for everything. Your team needs to know that they're free and clear to make decisions and you expect them to, and you're going to stand behind them when they do. But you make procedures so that you're not stuck in housekeeping all day.

Like who wants to be 50 miles away from the shop and not have the pump that's supposed to be in the back of their truck? Right. That sucks the life out of you. It sucks the life out of your company. and follow it and fire people who don't play so that those who do want to play can play a much bigger game, which is to make money, to serve customers, to grow in skill and status and achievement at the company, as opposed to, I wonder whether or not he's going to notice if I showed up on time or whether or not I took this extra pump and put it on my truck. Those are small games. So what Al does

is creates a bigger game by handling the stuff that sucks the life out of you. And so as I was working with Al and flirting with the idea of franchising again, I said, I'd like to franchise again, but could we do it differently? I feel like I should take a pause. I'm doing all this talking. No, no, I'm good. Listen, I'm intrigued that, you know, usually I got to ask the questions to get this out of some of the guests. And, you know, the fact is that I think you understand who our listeners and I think Al and you are a very dynamic team that's really learned a lot together. And I love the way you're running with it and keep going. I mean, this is great. I'm just like, let me share what I've learned with you. You can take it or leave it, you know, take what you need and leave the rest. But I feel like this might be

useful to you. So that's why. No, it's great. I'm taking notes. I've got a lot of great notes. This is amazing. Well, and there's a ton you can teach me. I mean, a guy who's grown a company like you have, I'm going to have to interview you. We're going to have to turn the table here so I can get the rest of your story. Fair enough? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we'll do that on our next one. Well, let's see what we have time for. I may still have a question or two for you, amigo.

So, okay, so as Al and I are talking about this franchise again, I said, you know, what if we franchise again, but we did it this way? Not that there's any right or wrong in any of these decisions, but it was just what I was forming in my head is what I wanted. So what if we did it this way? What if we just selected a few franchisees and committed to helping them get big. So we're going to target big metro areas, and we're going to have this niche business, which is drain cleaning. And we end up partnering. The reason we chose drain cleaning is because just as Al and I are talking about franchising again, out of the blue, Jim Crennitty calls Al and says, you know what? I'm thinking about franchising

Zoom Drain. Now, Al and I had both worked with Jim and they were doing great and they were making money and having fun and it fixed the problems that were making them crazy and caused them to call Al in the first place. But he just had the same, you know, these serendipitous things will happen. And this was absolutely one of them. So he calls Al just as Al and I are starting this conversation about maybe franchising. And I said, well, this time around, I would want to have a model center. I didn't have that. When we started Benjamin Franklin, we didn't have a checklist. We didn't have anything. And at Zoom, I said, let's have a model center first. Let's create this experience. Let's demonstrate that

what we're doing is working. And then we can show show people this is how it goes. This is, you know, would you like one? This is what it looks like. So, you know, this is what we're crafting in our head. And then the Croniti brothers joined forces with us and we partner up and we create this franchisor. The four of us are franchise partners and a franchisor. And we start this and our intention now is this is a niche business. It's just drain cleaning. It doesn't do any other niches. And so it's going to be most predictably successful in a population that can support a niche business. Like if you're in a town of 10,000 people, I don't think there's enough drain cleaning for this to work. Do you know what I'm saying? You would have to do multiple trades. So we've got this idea that we're going to do this niche business. It's going to be in major metropolitan areas. And if we do it right, what we could promise is that a few contractors could grow their companies with these systems, all written, all done, all cooked, all proven, use these systems to grow their company. And the best part, Tommy,

is to grow their teams, to be able to advertise no experience necessary, come to work with us, demonstrate that you're willing and basically capable of doing the work that we ask you to do. And we're going to help you get good. We're going to provide everything required. You don't have to go to college and go into debt. If you don't want to, you can come work with us and we're going to train you to get good, to move up the ranks if you like from, you know, there's office positions as well as apprentice to tech, to senior tech, to field supervisor, and then additional hub and spoke expansion of the company. Exactly exactly what you're experiencing. I mean, what you've got at A1 is, you know, if I came to work there, right, I could see

a career path. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's the goal. We're here to move people up. There's a lot of room for a growing company to move up. From everybody I interview that I hear the same thing. Well, I want to work for a growing company. Yeah. And it depends on what you want that it don't let anybody make you wrong, you know, dear listener. But if you're looking for a career going someplace where the org chart is

expanding and there's a path, like it's not just, well, you know, have a great attitude and in 10 years you're going to be somebody like, how do I get good? What are the steps I have to take? Where are the classes? How do I get signed off? Is there a checkride? You know, what we do is very behavioral. So there is this image, you know, this vision of what we see in terms of the company growing in a hub and spoke way, opportunities for people to move up the ladder, and the how is laid out. There's manuals to help you get good. And the manuals are the curriculum of the training classes, as well as the accountability. If you do it our way, it's going to work, A, or we're going to fix it, which is great. You get to put your thumbprint on it. And then you're going to be free and clear to make decisions without being stuck in housekeeping all day long. This is our promises.

We're going to help you get good and that there would be an opportunity. We tell team members, we're going to teach you how to run a business, every bit of it. It's a transparent business. It's open book management. We're going to teach you every bit of what you need to know to run a business of your own. And if you choose to do that, that's your right. And congratulations and good luck to you. And our job is to make the game so compelling that you might want to stay, which is why our model is this hub and spoke growth. So all of this, like this is the vision. This is the intention.

And we're just getting started. We have six franchisees now. Super excited about them. And the main one in Philadelphia is tracking about 7 million in sales. That's Jim and Jason Crenity. And then some of our franchises have other companies and they're adding a company. So for instance, Tommy, you would have a Zoom drain in addition to A1. It would be a separate company, especially if you have a plumbing company or a sister contracting company, that may be a nice move. And our Baltimore franchise that you just signed on is a pure play company.

So this is going to be a conversion of a drain cleaning company. I'm real excited about them coming on board with us because this will be a way to demonstrate the pure play model as well as the plus play, which is the added additional vertical. So, I mean, we make mistakes every day. I'm learning every minute, but I'm super excited to demonstrate the best of what I've learned. And that's why our mission statement at Zoom Drain is to demonstrate the best that business can be. It just so happens that we do drains, but what we're after is to demonstrate how good business can be. I do want to brag. I mean, Al Levy is aces. His nickname is Ace Troubleshooter from back in his service tech days. He's an ace guy. And Jim and Jason Kennedy are just fun and wonderful.

One of the things I promised myself, Tommy, I'm not going to work for people who if they call me and I see my phone go off, right? I want to be delighted by that. I don't want to work with anybody ever again that makes my stomach hurt. Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. And I think that's a good point to the listeners out there. And I can appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, and this is just, again, kind of a stuff you figure out along the way. Like I am clearer now in my intention. I'm more focused now than I used to be. I'm still naturally a troublemaker, a tester, a rule breaker, a short attention span.

I mean, that's still who I am. However, I have benefited from pausing long enough to gain focus about what I want. I learned to meditate, which has helped me tremendously to quiet my incessant mind and get clear on what it is that I want and who I am, and to shut up long enough to receive inspiration. That's been big. And these are things that I just discovered as an old lady. I mean, I think it's okay to take your whole life to become the person you're intending to be. Yeah. Does that make sense?

I mean, I'm saying that to a young person. Like so many people are frustrated with where they are. I spent a lot of my life frustrated. Why isn't this happening faster? Why didn't this happen? Why did I do that? Oh, my gosh, regret. You know, I'm really getting over a lot of that.

Okay, so that's kind of my story. Did I leave out anything important? Oh, my gosh. Regret. You know, I'm really getting over a lot of that. Okay. So that's kind of my story. Did I leave out anything important? Yeah. Yeah, you did. I loved it. And I got everything here. I got all the books.

You know, tell me a little bit. So you guys crossed each other's paths, you know, Al and you. Tell me a little bit about how you guys decided to work together. And tell me what he hands off to you and you hand off to him. I know quite a bit about it, but I want to show people how two partners can work together and really what that looks like. Well, I'm going to just throw out something that's going to sound a little bit random, but it really has everything to do with this. Have you ever been involved with anything like disk testing? Yeah, yeah. I trained disk. Yeah. You trained disc. Okay. No, we use something called flag pages,

but it's like Coke and Pepsi. Like if you use flag pages, you wouldn't use disc and vice versa. Is it Dr. Rome who created the disc? I mean, he's awesome and has a lot of really great training. Disc is kind of the more well-known. I really like five pages just because it kind of appeals to me. But any of these tools are fabulous and there's quite a few of them. But let's talk DISC because it's the most popular and the most well-known. So when I first took a DISC test once upon a time, oh, this is so embarrassing to admit now. When I first took this test, I was like blown away that people were inherently so different. So I was with Nexstar at the time. It was Contractors 2000 back then. And we were doing this management training and this training just blew me away because it was the first time I realized that I used to think that inside everybody was a little Ellen just trying to get out. Like if they would only let loose, let go, that they could be like me. I mean, is that the most arrogant thing you've ever heard?

But it really was my reality. I thought that when I saw someone who was quiet, I would think, oh, I wish they could just let loose. Not understanding that they are quiet people, that we are all different in different ways. So DISC really opened me up to this idea that we're inherently different, and it is important to honor and recognize and respect that diversity. This is one of the reasons why I hate a word like millennial. Because within the millennial group, there's all these different personalities. That's not a good brush to paint with. But DISC is a great tool. So if you ask people at your company to do a DISC report, it tells you something about them. They are volunteering information about themselves. They may say, hey, I have a really high eye. I like to be with people. Relationships are really important. I'm fine taking center stage.

Or someone who's a D and a driver wants to be in control is going to have strengths associated with that. So there's no bad answers. There's no bad personalities. It's just a way to honor and recognize what's great about people. Well, with Al and I, Al and I could not have more different personalities. In the disc world, Al would be a very high D with a high S. He is very relationships focused. He likes peace. He likes calm and he's got to be in control. Like I don't even bother vying control from Al. You know what I mean? Trying to wrest control from Al. I wouldn't even bother. He's more comfortable in the lead role and I'm fine with him as a leader. Now I am a high I. I will take the lead position if there isn't one. But if there is a good, strong

leader, I can line up behind that person. And I have no interest in things running smoothly or consistently. I kind of like chaos. So I don't have a lot of S or C in my personality. So thank goodness for Jim, another one of our partners, who's got a very high C and is going to make sure that the legal contracts are read, the I's are dotted, the T's are crossed. So what I've learned from working with people, I love the team and I love finding the strengths of the team. We have this hashtag we use internally that's hashtag better together, that could we as a team magnify our strengths and overcome our weaknesses? I don't want to try and be different than I am. I just want to complement what I can do with the people that I have around me and the people I have on my team. That to me is delicious. That's part of my vision is creating a team where we celebrate the differences in the diversity of the team to great effect for the whole. Like you have a chance to run with your

strengths and someone else will be available to pick up the places where we may need a skill set that you don't have. So that for me and Al, like when we started to work together, I met him at Contractors 2000. He was a member I met him at Contractors 2000. He was a member and I worked for Contractors 2000 at the time. And then after I left and went to join the Clockworks group, Al left the group and he, you know, created the manuals at his company. And then he left the family business and went out on his own as a consultant. So when I left Clockworks, the two of us are out in the world as consultants. And right away, because we were friends, we said, let's have a powwow and make sure we're not competing against each other. Like if we're both going to be offering consulting services, is that going to be a conflict? We wanted to prioritize our relationship

and our friendship. And we thought we better figure out what some boundaries are. Well, what happened is Al is awesome at operations, the best I've ever met. He's very, very good at sales and marketing and all areas of the business, really. But he doesn't love the financial piece or creating the game compensation and bonus. We both like to do business planning. But what happened is because I will defer to a good leader, Al's clients would become my clients because I would handle the financial and compensation and bonus, like the scorekeeping, the game aspect of a business. And then Al could do the stuff that I really didn't want to do. Like I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than write another operations manual. Sure. So it was really fun to discover, based on our uniquenesses, how we could work together

to an amplified effect. And that's really what obsesses me right now with creating a team, a team of franchisees, the franchisees, team members, you know, can we find out who these team members are, what they want, why they're doing it, what their goals and dreams are. There's another book that I would recommend. Have you read the dream manager? No, I've read 750 books on my audible and I don't have the books you're mentioning, but geez, you're giving me some assignments. Dream manager. And the thing is, some of these books,

like when I go running, I'll listen to them on Audible, right? Or driving or something. But many business books could be a lot shorter. Have you found this? Yeah. I think, yeah. It's like they fill them with fluff.

Yeah, they just like, their editor makes them be 250 words or something. But the team manager could be a lot shorter. It could have been like a killer essay. But the message is just absolutely phenomenal, which is to find out what your team members really, really want and commit to helping them get that. And it may be something really simple. Like a lot of people have had the dreams beaten out of them. So by the time you ask them as a young adult, or maybe

someone in their thirties, what is it that you want? It might be the first time that they've asked that question in a very long time, maybe if ever. And so they might start with something like, you know, I had a guy tell me once I want to get a hunting rifle. And I remember in my head thinking, wait a minute, that's it? Like, that's all you got? Don't you want bigger? And having the presence of mind to not verbalize that? Because that's a start.

Yeah. Right? Okay. Well, a hunting rifle seems like something that you could get, right? Do you have a game plan for that? Could we help you do that? Maybe your bonus dollars could go towards the hunting rifle. As you start to engage people to make your dreams come true, here's one other mentor. And I absolutely love this guy who does this really, really well. His name is Howard Partridge, howardpartridge.com. He'd be great on your show,

Tommy. He's awesome. And Howard is all about making people's dreams come true. Like if you talk for him for 10 minutes, you're going to get to that point in the conversation. In fact, he's a good reminder because before we run out of time, now Tommy is, let me ask you two questions. Can I do that? Absolutely. Did this company of yours, did it grow by design? Did you set out to create a multi-state, multi-shop company? Absolutely. Okay. So as Michael Gerber says, what was the entrepreneurial seizure? What was the moment that caused you to think that way? Well, I'm a high D. I hate losing. I remember this is very quick. One day we were sitting,

I had my shoes untied. I was greasy. I was sitting at one of my manufacturers in an older truck. I had no money. I just had gotten into the garage industry within a year. And the guy said, Tommy, you're really creating a name for yourself, but you're really disrupting the marketplace with your pricing. And he didn't understand what I was doing at the time, but I used pricing as a loss leader to get in the door because I'd never would say compete on price unless you have to, which I had to at that time. But, you know, I was by myself. I didn't have anybody else as far as workers or anything. And I said, I'll be doing $500,000 a month within the next year and a half or two. And he goes, Tommy, he starts laughing at me.

He goes, that's impossible. He goes, nobody does that in this market. And I remember I hit my goal and it was a driving force. And then I always set up three goals, a good goal. That's realistic and realistic. And my book is like a huge goal. Then I set a huge goal. Then I set a monster mammoth. No way in hell you're going to hit that number. And that's the one I always go for. So shoot for the stars, land on the moon. But that's kind of one of the things. And I just say,

everybody asks me, like, what do you want? Where is enough enough? And my answer to that is simple. You know, I still work for money. Money is going to work for me very soon because there's no stronger thing in this world than compound interest. And it frees up a lot of choices. Money's not happiness. They're fun tickets. So I'll have a lot more fun tickets creating more fun tickets. So that's my elevator one minute pitch. That's really awesome. And I always say money buys options. Right. It does. Money buys options. That's what it's good for. And it's better than trading chickens. When Haran and I were first married, we traded chickens. Like, we didn't have any money.

It's so much easier with money. Oh, yeah. You could be a lot. Yeah. It doesn't buy happiness by any means, but the fact that me and you got started, we didn't have money. We love the opportunities it gives and we're not spoiled by money and we help people out, right? I mean, I don't give a ton of charity because I have about 200 people that need it within my organization that need a Thanksgiving dinner or

a set of tires changed. I try to give as much as I can, but I'd rather help out my internal people, not buy them rifles and give them their dreams, but help them raise their family and feel good about that their kids got a new set of clothes and they could afford diapers or whatever they're going through, you know? Yeah. And, you know, that's the game and you get to change your mind. You get to refine it. You get to pick another point on the horizon as you achieve that next goal. I like what you said, too, that sometimes someone saying that you can't can be very motivating for people. That sounds like that was absolutely motivating for you.

It was. Bet you can't. Yeah. You know, I think that comes back to your stuff that you'll reveal with your desk. You know that you said you're really high D, you're a driver, you're going to need a bigger game. Did you have mentors in your life who recognized that and helped you? Oh, absolutely. I think the biggest thing for me is I had a grandfather and most of my grandparents and my dad, especially that they're talkers. So I learned young, I could have two ears and one mouth because I got lucky to get a word in. So I generally go to people.

And like you said, I really am a sponge. I read books. I take it out. I let it go through my filter. But, you know, I read books at different times in my life and they mean something different, too. So I go back to my favorite books. But mentorship to me has been a huge thing. And I find the best in people. And I take that five percent, that thing that nobody else does is good. And I really look for that, but I don't focus on my negative, the things that I don't like. I don't focus on, if you looked at my desk, you'd see it probably don't focus on organization,

but I got a great assistant that handles that for me. To work on your weaknesses, in my opinion, is a mistake. It's like saying, hey, I'm really good at shooting pool, but I'm going to really work hard on my golf game. Well, become the best you could be at pool before you go on to practice golf. And I feel like a lot of people, we practice all these different things. We think we're going to become a pro. I hate accounting.

I've got a master's degree. I've taken a lot of accounting, but that doesn't mean anything. I hate it. So I hired the best CPA you can imagine along with the best controller so I think it's exactly like you said figure out what you love to do and these people they love accounting they dig it man they love doing their I'm gonna go all motherly on you for a minute are you ready I'm ready you pay attention do you look at the numbers I look at the numbers all the time.

Okay. That's a critical thing. I mean, it's a different thing to be a good bookkeeper, but understanding and reading and using financial reports. I think if you're going to be in business, it's one of those skills that you cannot get good enough at. I mean, like, let me re-say that you have to be minimally good at it. You've got to know how to do it. Don't get ripped off. You've got to know how to read and use financial reports. Otherwise you're putting everybody at risk. It's too risky. You know, but I'm going to get a little millennial here. Oh no. See, as a younger guy, I guess, and I'm not super young. I will tell you this. I like to have everything in one user interface. I mean, we build KPIs. I have a whole team that builds KPIs and everything we need

from our CRM. So rather than going to QuickBooks one day, then I'm going to go to my CRM. Then I'm going to go on to call cap or call source. And then I'm going to log into my reputation management tool. And then I'm going to go ahead and log into my call center pro, you know, that trains my call center staff. I'm like, no, I want one thing that kicks it all out on me. I'm a user interface guy. I want to know all my KPIs in one spot. I want to click a button and dig into it. I can see my P and L for the day. I can click on the technician. I can click on the job. I can listen to the phone call And then I could call the customer from the back end. That's how quick I could do that with four clicks. So I think a little bit previous to these systems we use today, people would say, well, you got to log into this.

And then you need to go over here. And then you need to whiteboard it. And then you need to make sure that you write it all down. And then it's in. Now I'm like, listen, it's all there. I could add my notes. I could put reminders. And I'm a technology guy through in and throughout throughout i'm a technology guy that just fell into garage

stores so i love that no and i think we make it way too fancy with the number of kpis there's only a few there is only a few drivers i love labor as a percentage of sales is a great driver total sales is good you know there's a few pay total payroll is a i can. Total sales is good. You know, there's a few. Total payroll is a pretty big deal. What are your big rocks? Listen, okay, here's the deal. Okay. Okay. I'm going to go over a few things that are important real quick to the listeners out there. Number one, you need to know your industry average of where you should be, right? You should be around 18 to 22% on profit margin. Now, those are a fancy way for EBITDA is earnings before interest tax and appreciation. So you got to know where you should be. Number two, you should know

your marketing campaign. Now, I am overzealous on my marketing campaign. I go upwards of 20%, which is crazy. And if your payroll is more than between 27 and 30%, you got issues. If it's less, you need to get people raises. So you want to be within that target. And I always am. Next, you want to look at cost of goods sold. Now, that's predetermined with your industry. Air conditioning is going to be a little bit higher as a percentage, but service should be a lower cost of goods sold. Like mine's between eight, nine percent on service, which is great. That's why I could do the marketing. And I'm just trying to fit this in. That's why I'm talking really fast. No, you're good. And I'm nodding. I'm nodding my head

in agreement. But, you know, I look at this stuff and I say, where do you want to go? I just built a chart that I'm going to be sharing in my book. I say, what do you want to make? You need to figure out what your average ticket needs to be. You need to go back up there, the numbers of job that you need to complete. Then you need to figure out how much is your conversion rate on form fills. And then you need to figure out your appointment set. Then you need to look at how many phone calls are you driving and form fills, phone calls and form fills. And then you need to go back and figure out your marketing budget. Now that's a simple eight step process that gets a lot deeper. But if you're not, why are you marketing if you can't

book the phone calls? And if you book the phone calls, why are you guys going and only closing out 60% conversion rate? If you booked them up and they got a broken garage door or a cloggy drain, it just, you know, that's what I teach in my book is know your numbers, but most of all, don't guess at them. You know, when I first started and I had- You are good. You are so good. And I love the way your energy just was like totally off the charts with that. You got totally engaged there. Yeah. That's the thing too, is I say that all the time. I read customers and it's body language is 50%, tone of voice is 40%, and 10% are the words. And if we look at this correctively or the correct way, when I'm talking to a customer, I will keep digging till I get that. Do you see them smile?

And they're like, yeah, that's my motorcycle. And if you could hit that spot with your clients, you're going to make money, man. And it's going to be fun. And I've talked to people that are the main sales trainer of Valpak corporate. He came and talked to me about eight years ago. And he goes, Tommy, my secret is I get the customer talking about what they want to talk about. And he goes, I have a rule. If it's over 44 minutes that they're talking about themselves and their business, then it's almost a guaranteed close. He goes, if it gets to 50. You better sell me something because I just talked for 45 minutes.

No, the good news is I'm not selling anything. I'm actually going to push people to go get your book. I'm just laughing. I'm just laughing. No, because I wish we'd spent more time talking about you. So I've got to come back and I get to interview you this time. The thing is, realistically, I don't like to talk. I don't mind talking.

Obviously, I do not mind helping and talking and telling my story. But the people can hear me anytime. I'm on these podcasts all the time. And I always usually give my two cents after stuff. But nobody has quite a story that goes, this is what taught me this, this, this, this, this. They don't have it as well as you do kind of moments in time. So I thought it was great. You kind of came on.

Aw, thanks. Oh, it was wonderful. I really enjoyed it. And I feel like you gave me such a nice open canvas to explore some of these, you know, aha moments and salient moments in my life. And hopefully that's been of service to you and our listeners today. Ellen, you kicked butt. I'm super impressed. So I want to get you back our listeners today. Ellen, you kicked butt. I'm super impressed.

So I want to get you back on. I want to meet you in person. So you let me know. Okay, I'm going to come out to Phoenix in January. Nice time, right, to come out there? You come out and I'll take you out to dinner. I'd love to meet you. It would be great.

I'd love to see your shop, too, if you don't mind. All right, it's on. Yay. Okay, I will keep in touch. I'd love to see your shop too, if you don't mind. All right. It's on. Yay. Okay. I will keep in touch. I'll let you know. I'll make a note to give you a holla mid-December. Okay. All right. You got my number. Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Love to Ian for keeping us on track today too. Thank you. All right, Ellen. Have a great day and happy Thanksgiving. Thanks. You too. Bye bye. Hey, guys, I just wanted to say thank you for listening to the podcast. And I wanted to talk real quick about the new book I have coming out in November.

It's called The Home Service Millionaire. And I discuss everything it takes to hire the right people, train your salespeople, how to get tax breaks. It talks about how to sell your company for the most amount of money. We've got a lot of great contributorships coming on. Everybody from Paul Akers about how to go lean to how you do sales from enterprise, how to get the best write-offs in the industry and save a ton on taxes and actually make your company look more professional. I got the CEO of Service Titan. I got the CEO of Val pack we've got great people on here that know everything there is to know about

marketing and Google and there's basically no secrets we left out of this book literally there's people that have read it so far say I cannot believe you're giving all this information away and the reason I did that is I just feel like you guys could just take each one of these gold nuggets and run with them I mean the ultimate goal of the book is to make sure that everybody is successful and makes money. If I could contribute to your lives, then that would be amazing. And I feel like it's the least I can do. And I really appreciate listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoy the book. Go to Home Service Millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com and pre-order your book today. Thank you.