The Home Service Expert Podcast - Generating 1100% Business Growth By Adopting The Right Mindset

Episode Date: December 27, 2018

Amanda Holmes is the CEO of Chet Holmes International, and CMO of Divine Bliss International. Chet Holmes International is a successful consultancy business that has helped over 200,000 businesses worldwide in the last 25 years. After the death of her father in 2012, Amanda left her professional singing career to take over her father’s business, and has since grown the business by 1100%. In this episode, we talked about customer service, productivity, mindset...

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

Holmes. I'm going to do a quick introduction of where this young lady's been. She's the CEO of Chet Holmes International from 2012 to present the CMO of Divine Bliss International and that's from 2016 to as of today professional singer amandaholmes.com that's h-o-l-m-e-s.com she's grown the international sales by 1100 percent Chet Holmes International has assisted over 200,000 businesses over the last 25 years. And I got to tell you, this book I refer to as the Red Bible. I've been reading this book. My CPA advised that I read it five years ago, and it became a very, very inspirational book in my life. If you haven't read The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet

Holmes, Amanda's father, then you've got to check it out. It's how to turbocharge your business with relentless focus on 12 key strategies. And these 12 key strategies are super important if you want your business to double, triple, quadruple over the next few years. So check out the book. Amanda, I'm very, very excited you came on. You're a busy woman. You've got a lot of employees. I think you're running 12 companies with over 200 staff. It's unbelievable. How's your day? It's going great. I'm looking forward to this. This is going to be fun, Tommy. Yeah. So you were a singer, a songwriter. You had four records out. You're going to USC. And I know that your dad, Chet Holmes, got sick. And he

unfortunately passed away of leukemia. Was it? Yeah. And then you basically were thrown into the business. Tell me a little bit about that whole transition. I don't want to spend too much time on this. I really want to dive into what you're dealing with today. Yeah. I'm sure that many of the people that are listening to your podcast, a lot of them are family-run businesses. So the torch gets passed down or there's family members within your organization. So for me, I wasn't a part of my father's family business. He always said, Oh, you should take it over. And I would laugh and say, but I'm singing. I'm a singer. I'm a singer-songwriter. And so when he passed and I inherited a couple hundred staff, I'll double my

age. I looked around and said, you've got to be kidding me. This organization without my father has no heart anymore. What do I do? Because it was all based around his 12 core competencies for doubling sales. Everything from how to get 9 times more leads, the fastest, least expensive way to double sales, how to hire sales superstars, time management secrets of billionaires, all these great foundational principles that have set the way for how marketing is run today, really.

A lot of them are foundational. And you can read them in that Ultimate Sales Machine, which is a New York Times bestseller. So when I inherited the business, I looked around and said, right before then, I was studying. I have... My mentor is a saint from India. Her name is Guruji Shishipunamji. So I was actually in Asia studying alternative medicine when the doctors called and said, your father's passing away. You need to come home. So I came home. I inherited this whole business. And over a couple of months after looking into the kind of people that we serve as medium-sized businesses...

I mean, we've worked with over 60 of the Fortune 500. But the heart that I felt from our business owners and how much they were so grateful for what my father had given them and what our organization had given them to really make their dreams come true, take them to that next growth spurt, whether it's, I'm at a million, I'm trying to get to five, or I'm at 10 million, I'm trying to get to 20 million. There's different phases of growth. So I dug in all I could and ended up becoming CEO and managed to double our business 2 years in a row, which was really beautiful. And I took my healing background of, okay, if this company was a person, how would I treat them? And really came from this place of, you know, how do I become this conduit of light and love?

And the hippie that I am then translated into sales. And so we've had a really beautiful ride. That's where I'm at at the moment. I love it. You know, when I asked you how your day was going, I think you replied, peaceful, which is admirable and really, really nice because you run a lot of employees. You know, you're in charge of a lot, but you know, I don't think a lot of people out there understand how you could be so peaceful with hundreds of employees. And I don't even know how much you get

interrupted and just things happen. So how do you find that peace? I'm really curious because that's for my own benefit. I'm selfish now in this part, but how do you manage? Oh, that's good. Well, so today I'm now out of the day to day. I really only meet with my staff maybe twice a week. And then an occasional, my CRM, I have it occasionally send me one of our clients just to keep abreast with them and make sure that I'm taking care of them and they feel loved. But for the most part, I'm actually working my time in Divine Bliss. You said I'm CMO of Divine Bliss, which is a nonprofit that teaches people how to connect to who they really

are and uplift themselves, mind, body, spirit. And it's all based around these teachings of my mentor, Guruji. And it's to find the peace within yourself, you really have to come to terms with who you are and be able to find that acceptance in every moment of being present in the now. I mean, man, I have a long, long ways to go. I saw a quote over Thanksgiving. If you think you're enlightened, go spend the Thanksgiving with your family and you'll realize you're not.

It's so funny. But yeah, I think it's perpetual work on self, which Tommy, I have a feeling that you're good at working on yourself too. A lot of entrepreneurs are, you know, to be a leader and to lead a group of people, you really have to have that self-reflection and be able to grow

because your organization is only gonna grow as big as you're willing to let it. Yeah, you know, I agree with that. I think you gotta get out of your own way and realize the first thing I told my technicians and I get on a phone call in the morning with I call it my morning mojo call. As I said, you don't have to be afraid anymore. I said, you can ask these questions. Don't be afraid of a no. I said, I can get over any no. I'm persistent. I think there's a wise man that once said, pig-headed discipline. But, you know, I think it's important to really be okay. It's really hard to change a mindset of somebody. And it takes a lot more time than it does.

When I go hire somebody, I'm looking for mindset. I'm not looking for skill level, somebody that's been doing this for 20 years and has all the experience. I'm looking for somebody that I can adapt that actually has an optimistic outlook. And one of the things I do, Amanda, is I cheat a little bit. I look at their Yelp and I find out if they're leaving good reviews out there. Because if it's all one stars, they're probably a negative Nancy. I make sure I call their last employer and I say, here's the question I ask. When I call your past employer, Amanda, what are they going to tell me about you? And I think that that's very positive. And I think

that there's a skill to get A players. And in the book, it talks a lot about that. Tell me a little bit about your experience because you've had to, I mean, tell me in the last, obviously you stepped out quite a bit and you're doing the same thing at Divine Bliss. I'm sure you're hiring people for that. How do you find great people? And then how do you get the bad people out? When you had to take it over and you realized there's a bad apple, what is your process? Oh man, that is like so many hours. How do I digest it into a succinct message? Because, well, for me, taking over the organization at such a young age, I was 24 at the time or 25 at the time. And running a consulting agency, the majority of great consultants are in their 40s and 50s. It's not in their 60s. So it was really coming to terms with who's going to work with me on this as opposed to...

There were a lot of people that were upset that I was CEO and I understood because I was upset. I wasn't planning on losing my dad at 55. So I completely changed my whole world. I guess my answer for you is really whoever agreed or was willing to run with me, I kept and everyone else I let go. So I mean, my father has very specific ways of hiring sales superstars. And I can give you some of those great gems of information. But for me, my journey with my executive team and with the people that were already in my organization, it just had... We had to be in the same...

We had to come from the same place. And obviously, as you can tell, just a bit, I'm a bit different from my father. And that goes back to that self-reflection of accepting, yes, you may run your organization different from somebody else, but it has to run how you want it or else it won't. So my father really did groundbreaking things. I mean, he made sure that his organization didn't cost him a dime if it didn't make him a dime. So all of his salespeople... He started this a long time ago. All of his

salespeople were peer commissioned. All of his consultants and coaches, they only got paid if they made money. And all of the executive team got a percentage of what they made revenue wise. So everyone, every single person was driven in the organization to excel and produce. And it was fascinating. It was a fascinating dynamic. I think that that's genius because we go through this thing in the home service niche of commission versus hourly versus salary versus different spiffs on certain things. And I think the best performers expect to

get paid more. And the opposite of that is, it's coming to the end of the month and my rent is due. Am I going to be dishonest with the customer because I have to make a big sale? But I think it's different in consulting. So I think there's pros and cons to each of them. I'm a big fan of commission personally. And I know that if I go work for somebody ever, which I never will again, but if I did, I would definitely say, I want to make commission because I don't want limits. Give me something to get by on for the first month and I'll show you what I can do because I'm a closer. And that ABC thing, I don't believe in closing a customer. you know that ABC thing. I don't believe in closing a customer. I believe in building relationships. I don't believe in

transactions. I believe in interactions with your clients. So I know closing sounds bad, but look, it's the term we use in business and I'm sorry, it's a layman terms. I have a great, I have a great mind shift for you here. So one day I was running a webinar and this is how I was able to double our clientele. I got on webinars and instead of selling one-to-one, I sold one-to-many. So I'd have 500 business owners on the line and I would show them my core story, basically, on coaching. And then they would sign up for our group coaching thing that we were running at the time. But I would come in and I would tell my guru in this healing center in Florida. We have a healing center in Florida. I'd run in and I'd say, Guruji, I closed this many business. And she'd look at me and she'd go, closed business? Amanda, you should... We don't close anything that makes the energy close off. Instead, why don't you plant a seed? And when you plant that seed, instead of planting one seed,

plant a tree because a tree can plant more seeds and grow an orchard. So how about you grow an orchard? And I thought, that is so completely opposite of everything I've learned my whole life about closing a room. I mean, even when I was a singer-songwriter, I would tell you, I was the best at closing the most amount of CD sales out of anybody you know. I would close 90% to 95% of a room where everyone else would maybe close 5%. Because singer-songwriters aren't really interested in closing CD sales. I don't know where they don't have that mind frame. They're just thinking about singing their songs, whereas my father was a sales trainer. So every song was about CD sales and bringing that home

or whatever. So it was a huge mind shift for me. But when I made that shift of I'm closing deals to I'm growing orchards it really it fueled it came from a different energy you feel that Tommy I do I do it's it's very it really is I'm going to use the word enlightening but it's different to kind of see things through different lenses and so many I talked to a guy the other night and he goes, Tommy, you know, the old Simon Sinek talk, the TEDx about finding your why. And it's the first chapter of my book and my whole time of my life up to this date, I said, I want to do what I want with, I want to do what I want when I want with whoever I want. And he said, Tommy, that's good and dandy, but what's your real why? What,

what drives you? And I said, well, he goes, when you got money, when you got more money than you could ever handle, but what's your real why? What drives you? And I said, well, it is when you got money, when you got more money than you could ever handle, then what? And I said, you know, potentially what I'd like to do is, you know, this is my true why. Potentially, I'd like to go teach people. I like to be in front of maybe 12th, 11th graders, some junior in colleges. And there's so many things they don't teach you. They don't teach you about life and business and credit cards and compound interest and how to do things the right way. So that's my passion. I'm really embracing that, but it really took someone to dig deep. And it sounds like your whole, the divine bliss is something about truly understanding yourself and truly understanding what that little thing inside your mind does

to kind of make you go forward. Is that kind of the nature of the divine bliss? Yeah, actually, it is. We're in the process right now of getting 100 acres so that we can do more retreats. And it's something that I'm very... It's my passion project right now. So it's the thought of taking

organizations and entrepreneurs and really anybody and bringing them out to the middle of the forest and just having them disconnect from the world that's made us so wrapped up in things that don't matter. And instead connecting back to what really does. Because it's almost as if I feel that now what salespeople need to learn is how to... Infusionsoft had asked me to write something for their upcoming marketing predictions of what will happen in 2016. What will be the trends in marketing? And when I meditated upon it, I really came up with that. Act like there is no marketing. Act like there is no sales. Because you see these millennials coming up and younger and they can sniff you out a mile away if they feel that you're doing something sleazy,

gimmicky, something that is inauthentic. They have their meter for inauthenticity is so high that you see the people that are truly succeeding right now are those that are able to have that authenticity within them. Tommy, you have it too, where it's just, you are unabashedly so, right? I am unapologetic about who I am, and this is what I'm going to do. And people admire that in you because they feel that you are who you are. If I could really take...

I mean, yes, I have amazing sales advice and wonderful marketing trends. And the Dream 100 strategy is something that everybody should implement into their business. But then from the come from, where do you come from on a day-to-day basis? If you can come from who you really are and release that necessity to be salesy or be marketing or project out what you think the world needs to hear, what you think the world needs to want,

if you can let all that go, I think that's needs to hear, what you think the world needs once, if you can let all that go, I think that's going to be, we're going to see it more and more as 2019 comes around and the future is that, that authenticity is going to reign way, way better. Because we're getting attacked every which angle, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, you know, all these different things, the social media, there's double the billboards, there's commercials and movies, there's Hulu, there's, I can't, you know, there's too many things to keep track of that, especially in the United States, we're being attacked from every angle. And we say, this country is the best. And

I agree that this is a great country, because you can make it here. Everybody wants to be here. I'm not going to discount the United States. But what makes me happy here is so much different when you go. And I've not been to India, but my brother-in-law has been there. He goes, Tommy, you drive around there and there will be a truck full of 19 people. And they're singing, smiling, laughing with nothing. They barely, they don't know where their next meal is coming from but they're so happy and it's really mind-blowing to think about the kind of things that we're talking about right now because the people that are listening i hope this is getting through to a lot of people because really define what makes you happy and for me i like to be a guy

that's able to do things with people and what i understand something that i'm good at is helping people out financially. If we go out to dinner, I could pick it up because I've been blessed to be able to do that. And that's kind of one thing. And also I like to be open to listening to people. And one thing is truly listening to somebody who's not coming up with answers. And I've learned that through several relationships, unfortunately. But tell me a little bit about just that whole concept of when you're around people and how you get to really figure out who they are and help them release their, maybe their inner demons and be who they are. Because I'm really getting into this. And I think it's important because we don't talk about this stuff enough in business.

Well, I think it ties right back to sales too, because a lot of the time, if we get into a sales interaction and we start thinking, did I do this right? Should I do this? What should I do here? And it becomes I, I, I. If instead, and this is one of my father's favorite quotes, he repeated to me since I was very young. He said, maturity is when all of your mirrors turn to windows. It was a Henry Thoreau quote. Maturity is when all of your mirrors turn to windows. And it's really stop looking at yourself and said, just look at the person in front of you. Every person is just a typical, normal person. When I came in to the organization and closed

companies like Panasonic and I've been working with Ford lately and some of these big, heavy hitters, instead of looking at them like, Oh, this is a real big deal. How do I do this? How do I do that? Instead, I just looked at them. They're just a person like I am. And then if you know the methodology of the first step to a sale is building rapport. Okay. What do I do to build rapport? Well, if you build rapport correctly, you've earned their trust, their respect, and they feel that you're credible. And you're 60% of the way to a sale if you just do that one thing.

Like you were saying, right? It's not about the clothes. It's about building a relationship. So you really just have to look outside of yourself. And that's the whole journey of self-realization is something that I really feel wholeheartedly is we've gotten so tied up in ourselves and what we need to do to excel and grow when really the greatest gift and the true abundance comes when you start giving and you start serving. And some of the best salespeople I've known have been people that feel that every day they go to

work and they're serving their clients. My father was that way a hundredfold. When he got into a room, the reason why he closed triple from everyone else is because with all the grit and heart and pig-headed discipline and determination in his bones, he knew that every person in that room needed what he had to offer. There was just no stopping him. It was magical. But it's because he came from that place of service. And I find that similar because it's so funny. You look at my father, such a strong salesman. And then my mentor now is the most loving, compassionate saint I've ever experienced. And I've been around a lot of successful, intelligent people, and she is by far the most intelligent I've ever met.

So they're quite opposites in this spectrum because she's a renunciate that doesn't really have to chase the dollar. It runs after her. And then I have my father that made a great fortune. But what they both had in common is this wanting to give and serve. And I think we're going to see this. I'll give you a crazy stat here, Tommy. So from 1966 to 2012, the United States had 90 mass shootings, 90 over a 30-year period. And we actually were the number one country for the most mass shootings out of every country in the entire world, more than the previous four combined. And in 2016, we had 384 mass shootings, almost four times what we had had in the previous 30 years combined in one year. So you wonder, why have people stopped trusting salespeople?

Why have people stopped trusting businesses? Really, inherently, we've gotten to a pretty dark place in our society right now where there is so much mayhem. Man, all you got to do is just love yourself, honestly, number one, because you can only give what you have. So love yourself first and foremost, be compassionate to yourself. I'm probably on this podcast with a lot of men listening, which they may hear that and go, here's this woman coming in. But we need to remember, be compassionate towards yourself. And then number two, come from that place of

serving, knowing that the world is a really crazy place right now. What we were thinking about 15 years ago, 20 years ago, today has become a pretty hectic society. And of those 386 mass shootings, majority of them were in the workplaces and at children's schools. 386 in 2016, 346 in 2017. So that's the place we're at at the moment. So if we can come, if we can go the extra mile to do something for our clients that gives back to them that my organization teaches education. You can educate your clients so you stop selling and you start educating them. And then you build rapport and respect and trust and credibility. And it's much more effortless and easy to close business or to grow an orchard because you're coming from this place of service. So I think it's more important

now than ever before. Even the 30 years ago when my father started teaching that methodology that we just really have to come from that place of service. That is amazing. And I love that whole thing. And it's really, I think you made a good point on millennials. Millennials bought more houses than baby boomers for the first time last year. And one of the things that I teach every one of my employees and the businesses I work with is ref, build rapport, educate the crap out of the customer. They need to understand why, if you truly believe in it, do not sell something you don't believe in and then follow up. You need to make sure you follow up because 99% of sales get lost in the follow up.

And then, you know, if you listen to Robert Cialdini, he's an ASU instructor who wrote the book, Influence is the Law of Reciprocation. And then there's a book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, who talks about, ask questions, learn about people and open your mind up. But when you're building

rapport, I don't want to talk about something I don't like. Okay. If I'm, for example, if I don't like the Dallas Cowboys and they've got Dallas all over the place, you don't have to be fake to build rapport. You just have to listen and understand. And there's so many things in common. We all have so many things in common and talk about things that we like. And you do that by asking the right questions. And I think the number one thing that separates me and you from a lot of the people is I have passion. You have passion. You believe in what you believe in. And people can smell passion a mile away. It's the strongest thing in the world, I believe. It's what I wrote. My first Forbes article was passion, passion, passion. They strive on your passion. They listen to you. They make eye contact with you. Your body language is all about passion. And I just, I'm really a big fan of what you just talked about is

it's a different climate out there in this day and age. And it's truly going there and saying, my goal, let me ask you a question, Amanda, This is a garage store, so we're hypothetical here, but how long are you gonna stay in this home, number one? Oh, you might say I'm moving in six months. Okay, perfect. Did you realize that 40% of your curb appeal is your garage door? Let me show you what your house will look like

and how much quicker I think it'll sell if we show this. Do you like this picture? And then I'm slowly leading with questions and I nod my head, yes, yes, yes. I'm affirming you. I'm saying, yes, you're liking this. And it's so funny, the body language. And I'm not a tricky guy.

I just know I sometimes help people make up the decision for them by leading them in the direction I want to lead them in. But there's nothing wrong with that. When you teach a lot with your divine bliss, I'm sure that you're asking questions that will help them internalize and really understand why they need to be okay with themselves. Because it's very, very hard. Depression's a bad thing. Look at Robin Williams. I mean, you look at a guy like that. And I saw something on Facebook the other day that said, really be careful around

the friends that seem too happy all the time because they might be depressed. And if you want to be a good friend, really, really dig a lot deeper and ask for their true inner feelings about that. And I just dig this part of it because so often we don't talk about what changes in a person. And if they don't believe in it, I've had so many people that don't believe in service agreements. And I'm like, what don't you believe? Well, I'd never buy one. Well, tell me why you'd never buy one. Well, because I just don't believe blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm like, well, the customer never had a chance then if you don't believe in it. And just because you don't believe in financing or a service agreement or a better part because you wouldn't buy it doesn't mean it's not right for the customer because that's why we give choices. And do you ever find that people don't believe in something, therefore, specifically to studying these limiting beliefs. Everybody has their own limiting beliefs that's stopping them from, again, tie it back to being who they really are and being in a positive flow, which is a perfect example of what you're saying here with service agreements. Just because somebody has a frame in their head of what they would do doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. It's just from our past experiences. And we all live

by what we've seen in the past dictates who we are today or what society says should be. So that's been a huge part of what I've done at Divine Bliss actually is because... So when I took over my father's business, he ran it the way that he wanted to run it. And it was through lots of meditation that I came up with the ideas of what the organization would be with me leading it. And I did things that we've never done before. And an organization that's been around for 30 years has a very specific way of doing things. With so many moving parts,

it's hard to move such a big ship. But this is something that I found a bit difficult to teach in my sales training workshops, but it's more, the divine bliss side is more about learning how to surrender and to let a divine answer flow through you. That coupled with my father's very specific methodology is how I've found success in business. And then also just in my own personal growth of understanding how to feel abundance. Because you can have money all around you and yet still feel broke. I've seen... And I've heard such interesting stories of billionaires that still wore tattered clothes and holes in their socks and couldn't come out of the poverty and yet they were obsessed with it. Finding abundance is something that radiates within you where you just have complete trust that you are overflowing. You have so much abundance that you can perpetually give and it doesn't bother you. And actually, the giving only brings more to you. And if we can have that

feeling of abundance within us every day as we take every sales call, so you're not coming from a place of, I need this sale. Because people feel that desperation and they don't want anything to do with it. But to instead become that magnet where people gravitate towards you because you feel whole and complete and peaceful, that is something that the world needs. That's my next project. That's what I'm working on. Hey, I want to hear all about the project. I'll get involved with it. There's so much to be said about that. The other day, I love it when somebody comes and grabs me in the call center and says, they don't do it enough if you ask me, but I'm pretty busy.

I got my door locked all the time, but at least there's a window. They can see I'm doing something, but they come get me and they say, Tommy, we can't close this. I'm not going to say close we can't plant this orchard right now we can't get this person to book so the other day I went out there this was a couple weeks ago and I said sir obviously it sounds like you're looking for an affordable solution am I right and he said yeah Tommy I'm not going to stay in the house for more than two more years I said okay well we're not going to install the part you want because I don't feel comfortable installing that part. And I can't put my name behind that. And I can give you a good company that can,

let me tell you a few things about the part that I want to install and what the, the reason that I don't want to install that other part is because they give a one-year warranty. And anybody that gives a one-year warranty, it's going to last one year. They went from a five-year to a three-year to a one-year. But I said, here's what I can do for you. I'm gonna give you three companies to call. If you don't wanna use us and get it done the right way, and I say the right way just because of the warranty,

then go feel free. And I said, here's my cell phone, by the way. Text me if you wanna do the job. Eight days later, the guy texted me and said, Tommy, I've done my research. I called the companies. I've checked out your company. I wanna use use you. We want to do it the right way. But I wasn't like, oh my gosh, if you don't, if you don't book with me today, there was no pressure sales. I came from a point of just really being open with the guy and saying,

look, figure out what's best for you. If you want to choose us, even if he didn't, I guarantee you, he kept my number and was like, this is a great company, the way that that was handled. And it's really not coming from a point of desperation. And I feel like a lot of people on the call, Amanda, is you've been fortunate enough to have great employees and really be successful. And a lot of the people are figuring out step one to get there because they walk into work, they pull their hair out, they're the tax coordinator, they're handling all the marketing. 90% of the time, they're in the field, they're working in the business, and they've got an employee that just quit. They're not booking all the calls because they can't keep up. And where do we get started? Where's the first

thing to take a step back and take a deep breath and really look at ourselves and really start to get this figured out. Oh man. Okay. Well, the yoga therapist in me says, don't take one deep breath, take three. Because it's amazing what breath can do. And if you're ever stressed, taking deep breaths into your nose and out through your mouth. I'm going to teach you really quick. It's called a ha breath. You breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth like a ha. Hear that?

I guarantee everybody out there doing it right. Me and my assistant, I just heard her take a deep breath through her nose. So this is amazing. Good. Do it. Do it again. Do a second one. Do it with me, Tommy. So breathe in through your nose. Out through the mouth. Good. Do it. Do it again. Do a second one. Do it with me, Tommy. So breathe into your nose. Oh yeah. You pick up quick. One last one. I picked it right up. I'm skilled.

You are, but see, see, that's actually our body is normally what you described to me is our body being in fight or flight. And in fight or flight, you're not using your higher form of intellect. So you're just being in a reactive mode at all times. So if you take that moment to take that deep breath, it actually sends from your head down through your nervous system, through your whole body to tell yourself, stop being in fight or flight, Take that breath so you can use your brain. And when we use our brain, we come up with much better ideas. And there's... Man, so I would start there by just realizing that take this second to be in the now so that you can use your higher intellect instead of just reacting to everything.

Then I would... The second step would be time management for people that are really falling under the gun. And that's something they can get in the ultimate sales machine. It's chapter one. We also have it in our institute online. We have a video training course on... Time management.

Time management secrets of... Yeah, the time management secrets of billionaires. I mean, my father learned it. He was running six different divisions for billionaire Charlie Munger, who's Warren Buffett's business partner. And he managed to double the sales of every one of those divisions all within 12 months and multiple within several years consecutively. And that's where all of his sales acumen really came from or where he polished it. And he realized that when he had to meet Charlie Munger, this billionaire, he wasn't just reacting to everything. You had to come up and you had to

write down your agenda for the meeting. And there was a specific time that you had to show up and there was an allotted time. And there's really just six simple steps for time management secrets to make sure that you're nine times more effective in your day. So for people that are just running around crazy, I'd say number one, make sure it's that old saying, two people had wood that they had to chop and one chopped it in half the time the other. And we asked, why did that person chop it in half the time? He's like, because I sharpened my saw. I took the time to sharpen my saw. So that's one skill set that every person today really needs to learn because we're in such a reactive society, especially since now we have beyond just email, we have text messaging, we have social media. There's really no time where you're by yourself to focus. And I did read a study that said every time that an email pops up or something distracts you, it takes at least 45 minutes to bring your

focus truly back to what it was focused on, our brain. They studied this in a science lab of where our brain is. And if you think, when was the last time you sat without any kind of interruption for longer than 45 minutes? I mean, today, it's just nonstop everywhere. So for those business owners, I would say, get better about your time management

because I'm all about maximizing the efficiency of your brain and making sure that you can work from a smarter space. Because, man, we can all spend all day long slogging away in our businesses. But wouldn't it be nice if we could just lift up out of that and work from a smarter place? What's the old saying? Work smarter, not harder. Yeah. The definition of insanity is when there's so many people listening and I've been in that boat and I still get in this boat where you just get overwhelmed and you say, if I don't take care of this, nobody else will. And I'll tell you, my biggest number one piece of advice is get an assistant if you can, because you don't have to open up all your email and you got to open up the important things and it really helps. They

got to know your personality. They got to help. But some people look at it as an expense, but I look at it as a miracle personally. And there's, speaking of miracles, The Miracle Morning is a great book to listen to or read because you turn off your cell phone in the morning, you work on your body, which is letting out a ton of endorphins for 15 minutes. You read 15 minutes of a book, you journal, you meditate, and you just get to work on yourself when you start your day that way after you make your bed. Start with making your bed as the first success you could do. And I'll be honest, I usually get six out of seven days. There's that one day that I think I'm late or something, but, uh, yeah, I think that, uh, turning your phone off, it's very hard for me because I'm just, my brain's going 99 miles an hour. And I just,

I try to do things that I multi, I consider it multitasking, but really you're right. Every time I take my mind off of something, something, it really distracts me. That's, I have a whiteboard in my kitchen, in my family room that I just, I'm a whiteboarder. I whiteboard like crazy. And that's my time. My cell phone's in the other room and I'm contemplating and getting everything dialed into my brain and ideas come to me. And it's like, I do that for about an hour, hour and a half each night. And it really allows me, that's what works for me. Some people like to be on the computer.

Some people like to build mind maps. What is your way of just kind of decompressing your thoughts? I'm curious. Well, to get me there, yeah, to get me there, usually I use mantra meditation. So a lot of people that sit in silence and try to calm their mind to... So for me, I like to kind of just find that complete peace and quiet in my brain to where then answers just get downloaded. And you know, it doesn't happen like clockwork, but I make a daily effort

of it twice a day. I do this meditation, but it's not about being silent because majority of people, their brain just gets louder when they get silent. So majority of people think that meditation is being silent, but it's the exact opposite. So what Guruji has taught me is you can actually use the sound of your own voice to calm your mind. And if you just get into a repetitive melody line and voice that, and it's something that's positive, we're all made out of sound. If we got on a scientific level here, Tommy, we're all made out of sound, of wavelengths. We're all just atoms, right, that are moving. And scientists call it, you have an electromagnetic field around you. Hippies may call it an aura.

There's a lot of different ways to call it, but you have this electromagnetic field around you. And if you meet somebody that has a good disposition, you might say, oh, they have a great vibe. Let's actually directly talking about the oh, they have a great vibe. Well, that's actually directly talking about the vibration, what they're vibrating at, their sound vibrational frequency. So every thought you think and every word you voice turns into a vibration in your electromagnetic field, and it's vibrating around you. So if you're thinking negative thoughts, you have this dark cloud around you. And I'm sure you know some people, right? You just know them where they just have that dark cloud around them. You just feel that vibe coming off of them. And then you can also think of those people that have really positive vibes coming off

of them. And those people, a lot of the time, are great salespeople too, right? If their vibe is that they're in this successful place, people will gravitate towards them because they just want to be part of that success. So this all ties back to sales too. So if you think of these vibrations around you, and you want to turn the negative ones to positive, you can actually use the sound of your own voice to create positive vibrations in your aura and it cleanses away the negative ones. Because when the negative ones start to clump up, these angers we have, the fears we have, the frustrations, the guilt, the anxieties, the depressions, all these thoughts around us,

they clump together, they get absorbed by the body. And I study this, that it's actually every disease in our body is a dis-ease of our minds. So I know you just asked how do I download ideas and I gave you this whole thing about vibrational frequency. Hey, you're on topic. You're doing good. I enjoy this. But that can be completely transparent. You know, I've been hiding out and not really sharing these things. And today I just felt so peaceful. And, you know, I can feel your ambition from where are you in the world? You're in Arizona, right? Correct. Tempe.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm across the nation from you, but I can feel your heart and your pigheaded discipline and determination. I know that's why you love my father's book because you live and breathe that and you're a force to be reckoned with. So I think also your spirit is really, really brings a smile to my face, the passion and the ambition that you have. So I thought, why not be real with Tommy and share some of the things that I play with. Well, this is so important. I share some of the things that my swing that I, that I play with. Well, this is so important. You know, I just thought of the song,

the Beach Boys, you're giving me the good vibrations because it's a good little analogy about that. It's one of my favorite songs, but I know those people and I, people wonder why I close off and not necessarily why I don't hang out with them because I'm busy and there's no excuse to not hang out with friends. But if I spent five minutes with every one of my friends, I got friends, family work and take care of myself as well. So I'm off balance, but on purpose, there's a book called Off Balance and Purpose, but I am because there's no way that you perfectly align in every piece of your five pieces of your life. But I think that it's important. This conversation that we're having is very,

very important because so often we neglect ourselves. I went to church for the first time on Sunday for a long time and I got a lot out of it. It was like, great. Erica's looking at me like I'm crazy right now. She didn't know I went to church. I went to church. I went to church. It was a rock group. The guy is the preacher for the Cardinals.

And every time they have the spring training come into Scottsdale, he's their minister as well. And I mean, I got a lot out of it. I was like, this is cool. And it was for my heart. You know, it was for, I needed that. And I'm not telling you whatever you believe in, whether you're a Christian or Buddhist or whatever, for anybody

out there, I think your heart needs some of this too at times and to feed your heart. And just, I walked out of the smile and it's really done a lot for me. And I think I'm going to go back because I really, really enjoyed it. And I'd like to start doing more of that and healing myself and just being okay and letting yourself go and forgiving yourself. And it's crazy how your mind works. 95% of our brain is subconscious. We don't use that part. We use the 5% and we think we make decisions cognitively with our brain, but we're not. It's a subconscious that's choosing what company you're going to use next. It's a subconscious telling you to do things. It's the alligator brain. That's the fight or flight side of it. And so often we think, oh no, I chose that. My 5% chose that. No, it didn't.

It's conditioned to think a certain way. So we are who we put ourselves around. And my spirit or whatever we want to call it, really dislikes negative nancy spirits and the negative aura that bad vibration because i get i get disgusted i can't even sit in a room with it i'm like i don't even want to be around this you're bad for me so it's bad i don't surround myself with those people get in the way you know that's great and that's know, making those choices. I heard a quote the other day. Oh, who was it? It was by some billionaire. It said, successful people say yes to everything. Very, very successful people say no to most things. This is something along those lines, where it's like, you really have to choose your environment and make that decision that I'm going to live a positive life and I'm going to wake up in the morning and feel refreshed. What will it take for me to do that? And I really feel that our organizations would be much more successful. I mean, Gallup says that 75% of our employees now

are working inefficiently. Inefficiently. Not even in any kind of efficient manner. And I think partially, it's just because of all this technology that we have today. But then it's also because we're just all focused outward.

We think that the way to feel content and alive and fulfilled and accomplished is by chasing after the things that our whole world says are important. The perfect relationship, the perfect job, the perfect business, the perfect amount of money in your bank account. And ultimately, over the years, what I've found, and I've been studying this pretty intensely, is that it has nothing to do with any of that. Ultimately, when it comes down to it, it's all about how you feel about yourself. And if you can reconcile everything that you feel within you and feel that you're doing something positive and you're a positive person or at least you strive that is your focus that you're striving to be you know

a positive human being i used to my prayer in the morning was please assist me to be a conduit of light and love i grant myself permission to connect my higher self because you know i'm not really interested in doing the mundane or doing things that are that fight or flight reactive life. I want to be proactive about pursuing the things that I'm passionate about and change them live in the process. But ultimately, it all comes back to my relationship with me. And I know you probably wanted me to talk about marketing and sales, and this has been more on the divine bliss side,

but I think they go one in the same. And I'm really grateful that you shared with me about the church. I feel that there's a lot of people that are lost right now trying to find that faith. They want to believe in something. I just finished a song this last week, back to my songwriting days. It's called Divine Love. And the first verse is, I feel Jesus in the wind. I feel Guru Nanak in a flame. I feel Buddha when I sit by a tree. Divine love is what I seek. And it's kind of just this idea that it doesn't matter where you're from or who you believe in.

Ultimately, it's just about that divine connection of feeling good and feeling that you're doing good. And that's what matters most. So I'm glad you opened up and shared that about you. Yeah, I don't really tell a lot of people that. It just felt really good. And you're right. We live in this little rat race on a daily basis. Who can get to work?

Who can work the longest? Who can work out the best? Who can look best on Instagram or Snapchat or whatever? I don't even know all that, but it's just this world we live in and it's a race. But what's the race too? I mean, you can't bring your treasures to heaven is what they say, or at least your earthly things or whatever heaven is to you. You can't take all your worldly possessions with you.

So I think it's important to understand what's going to drive you forward. What's the ultimate goal? And really define that as a business owner or as just a manager or whatever, whoever is listening is what really is going to make you happy? Is it getting a promotion? Is it really doubling in size next year? What's the ultimate goal? And when I ask people, what's your why? They give me a why. Then I say, okay, why? So they say, so for example, I asked the guy the other day, I said, why do you work for me? He goes, cause I got to pay my bills. Why? Well, I have a family I need to provide for. Why? Because they're my responsibility. Why? Because I had the,

you know, you go five layers deep, you peel that onion back, you could really understand what drives them. And what's your ultimate goal? And sometimes it's not all monetary. Sometimes it's, I want to be somewhere where I could grow as a person and I could be around a culture of people who love me. And I want to be something better and more in life than just this or whatever company I'm working for. And I love that we didn't dive into all this stuff. I mean into all this stuff. I mean, all this stuff that we could have talked about is in the book. And I'm telling you, it's fine. It's stuff that they'll get out of the book, but there's another side of it.

Why do we want to step in and have... You obviously were raised around your dad and these teachings and you knew it. And it must have not been... I mean, he's a karate expert, right? He used to study martial arts if i remember correctly yeah yeah yeah i i feel very lucky that i had somebody as a parent that really looked at his world and said i'm going to create my own reality. So when I was really young, if I ever said, Oh, dad, I can't do that. He'd say, what's that called? And my brother and I would have to say, failure reinforcement. We weren't allowed to say I can't do anything. And that was a huge part of my upbringing. And same with if I was ever trying to achieve something, which was my

obsession. I always wanted to achieve something. I became a competitive gymnast for 15 years. And then from that, I became a songwriter and released 4 records in 6 years, which normally takes 1 record for 6 years. I just was always trying to find some way to excel. And being able to be positive about it. My father would write... I remember he would write them on a notepad. He'd say like, good grades come effortlessly and easily to me. Everything comes effortlessly and easily to me. So you could even say like, sales come effortlessly and easily to me or happiness comes effortlessly and easily to me. It's like right before we go

to bed at night, our brain starts, the brainwaves start to slow down. And when they slow down, they're more susceptible to the information that you give it. So it's right before you go to bed. I think that's why so many religions right before you go to bed, you pray because then when you sleep, you can sleep with that energy of, okay, I'm connecting to something greater than myself and that thing is good, whatever it may be. But I, a lot of the time I've used it for connecting to an answer that I'm looking for in my business, in my life, with my wealth, whatever it may be. And that helps me while I'm sleeping to be productive. And it's the same when you wake up too. So if you wake up in the

morning and you say your five affirmations, that really makes a huge difference too. My father learned a lot of that from the martial arts and just from studying himself. I love that. I love affirmations. I was going to call, I was going to say, look, you got to use these affirmations and you almost brainwash yourself in a way because you're telling yourself all the time. And I don't want people to use affirmations as a way to say something that's unobtainable because it's not realistic. You can't keep up with your own goals. If they're, I'm going to be a billionaire by 2020. That's not a real affirmation. But what you want to do is use affirmations

that are obtainable, like a big goal. And your brain will start figuring out ways to get you there. And I'll tell you, well, I just look at people and they say, you know, there's a mess underneath the kitchen table every night because of my kids. And then there's another person that says,

you have food to feed your family. And there's another person that says, you have food to feed your family. And there's another person that says, these kids cry all the time. And they say, you have a loving family around you all the time. And there's just two different perspectives. And I think it's just the way you need to look into the world is it's not even half full or half empty. It's that you have something in there. And it's that every single thing that you could say is there's clothes everywhere. Well, at least you can put warm clothes on your kids' backs or your family or whatever it might be. Or, you know, there's so many people that are unhealthy in this world, although, you know, vets or they'll be on a wheelchair for the rest of their lives.

So we have at least, we can walk around and talk to people and we've got our health. And not everybody listening might have their health and I'm sorry. And I'm glad what I find is people that don't have their health. Maybe they've lost a limb or two. They're the most positive people in the world. They're the people that somehow are in a race or a 500 meter dash that never did that before. And they say, I'm so fortunate to have what I have now. And so many times we, and I'm guilty of it. There's, I'm not sitting here preaching to anybody. I need to look in the mirror myself. And if there's any problem in this business or in my life, the last thing I do is point the other direction. I look in the mirror and I say, but I don't dwell on the negative.

I go change it. I mean, I've had the worst delivered over and over again, where people would just be in the funk and they'd go hide in the hole. And I'm like, okay, all right, what are we going to do about it? Let's move on. And I walk out of meetings, when they deliver bad news, I'm like, okay, deal with it. I'm done with it. I don't want to deal with that crap. I'm like, this is not, this is not healthy. That's great. You know, I see that as a difference between companies that may be like $500,000 to a mil compared to a business owner that's $5 million and above. That's one of those skill sets that changes. When you get above seven figures, the CEOs are much quicker to react to what someone

else would deem negative news. Like when you're in the younger phases of your business, something goes wrong and you're down. And maybe you're down for a whole week about it or a whole month about it or darn, maybe six months about it. I was talking to somebody recently who was in politics and he was working under a governor for 30 years, 20 years. He was very involved in politics. And he was working under a governor for 30 years, 20 years. I don't know. He was very involved in politics and did great work for the South. And he ended up losing his job after he raised like $100 million for this new building. And then when it was finally done, they said, yeah, and you can't work there. And it was five years ago.

And today he acts as if he talks about it as if it happened yesterday. I was like, oh, wow, that sounds really hard. When did that happen? He's like, yep, five years ago. I'm like, oh my gosh, that happened five years ago? You were talking about it like it happened a month ago. And it's things like that where if we can find a way to come into acceptance, which is, wow, the hardest thing. But if you practice it, if you use it like a muscle,

if acceptance was like a muscle that you went and you worked out every day to come into that acceptance, then we'd be able to move past what we believe to be our traumas or our pitfalls or our downfalls or our failures. And instead just said, oh, there's another indication. Thank you. It's my opportunity to rise above this and find acceptance in it. Okay. I've understood. Now what? Now what can I do about it? Just like you're saying. And that's one of those skill sets that you see difference as the revenues get higher and higher. Yeah, it's funny. You just reminded me of an opportunity. So I've listened to every sales coach. I've read thousands of books and I listened to a lot of them now on Audible, but Tom Hopkins is a pretty famous coach in real estate. And there's what's called a PMI,

or a prepayment penalty. And he goes, you don't call it a prepayment penalty. You call it a prepayment privilege because you have the privilege to pay it off early. And it's just funny how the mindset of changing these words around it just the way, and I never talk about contracts. That's a word I stay away from. I talk about an agreement between you and yourself and myself. So those are just simple little things, but it's so much fun to have this conversation. Let me ask you this, Amanda, I'll wrap it up. I know you're a hard gal to get ahold of, and I hope I can continue to communicate with you

because I think you're great for me, and I'm definitely gonna get involved. I'm gonna ask you how to get more of you on a bunch of different levels here, but if you have three books, and they don't need to be business-related because we're really talking about other things during this conversation, but if you have three books, and they don't need to be business related because we're really talking about other things during this conversation. But if you had three books that have really been life-changing for you, what would those

three books... Other than, listen, Ultimate Sales Machine by far, Red Bible. It's the unicorn on my freaking bookshelf. I got several copies of it. I've listened to it. I ordered the CDs before there was Audible. And now I have it on Audible too, but, and I always listen to the same, I always listen to this book a lot because it hits me with different parts of my business at different times in my business. But let's hear your top three that you would recommend. Oh man. Well, you took away my,

I mean, ultimate sales machine is in my top, Usually, I give two. So maybe... Can I give you just two? Because third might take me a while. So it goes between Ultimate Sales Machine and Autobiography of a Yogi. Have you ever heard of Autobiography of a Yogi? No. Okay. So Steve Jobs had one book on his iPhone, and it was Autobiography of a Yogi. And when he passed, when he knew he was passing, he asked that Autobiography of a Yogi be the book that be passed out to every person that went to his funeral. And it's the story of a man from the East called Yogananda Paramahansa. And he came to the West and over the boat rides from the East to the

West, he learned English. And he came to the West to teach Westerners how to understand themselves. It's back to that self-realization idea. And he created lots of little retreat centers around the United States. And there's ones in India as well. But it's this whole journey of this man understanding himself and meeting these saints. And Steve Jobs once said that, he's like, I think Bill Gates will be much more successful if he went and smoked a joint and visited an ashram. Something funny like that. And it was just him trying to say that, take yourself out of the box. Take yourself out of that comfort zone and find your own reality. And that's something that I really practice in my day-to-day. And I think I've touched on that quite a bit, actually,

in our conversation, Tommy, is this idea of lifting yourself up out of the fight or flight reactive mode of our day-to-day lives and just going inward and connecting to something greater than yourself so yeah autobiography of yogi is a pretty great one so the only yogi i know is yogi bear sog-i yeah yogi oh it is it's the same thing as you oh that's what i had i had yogi bear but okay got it okay and i'm not making fun of it because i'm gonna was you is that on audible as well because i'm i'm a big fan yeah oh yeah that's my next one i'll cut that in line okay so if they want to get more of you number one is how do they get your albums? Where are those available? What are they called? Oh my gosh, that's hysterical. I mean, it's been 10 years since I released a record now, man. My last one was in 2009. It's crazy to think that,

but I think a new one's coming. So it's so funny that you say that because this new song that I just wrote, I really feel that it's the next step on another evolution of music that needs to be heard. But yeah, the people can go to iTunes and type in Amanda Holmes. And if you wanted to learn more about some of that self-realization stuff I'm talking about on Facebook and Instagram, yeah, Divine Bliss,i-v-i-n-e bliss international that there's some nice quotes and and blogs and such talking about and the founder guruji shishi she's just absolutely brilliant we're like i said we're in the process of getting a hundred acres where people can come and do retreat like

experiences unlike anything you've ever experienced before but um something really magical so that's been what i've been working on and we have a center in clearwater florida which by the way needs a new uh garage door so I think I might have to talk to you and tell me about so how far away is that from Tampa I don't know it's like 15 minutes oh we can take care of that well yeah I'll be out there January are you are you in California are you in Florida right now I'm in Florida okay I'm gonna. I'll be in Clearwater in January. So maybe we could sit down. Oh, great.

I would love that. Is this, well, I'm going to wait until we're offline in a minute here, but let me ask you this just to kind of close everything up. What is one last thought to leave with all the listeners out there about maybe getting whatever it might be. It doesn't need to be anything. There's no expectations, but maybe something we didn't talk about. Maybe just a

good drill for them to do on a daily basis. Whatever you want. Just leave them with one last thought. Man, we covered so much. I guess I would encourage every person to be who you really are. It'll assist you in everything you do.

You'll feel... It's like that whole idea that the truth will set you free. I think a lot of us feel that it's what social media or what the people around us believe will make us feel better. But ultimately, it's really what's inside of you and being honest about how you feel and what your dreams are and what your goals are. And if you live that in every moment, that brings a certain kind of contentment. Nobody even cares about contentment anymore, which is a bit sad, but it brings a fulfillment. Fulfillment to know that, you know, you're

connected to you. I think you have a leg up on that, Tommy. I feel like you have been on that path and continue to be on that path of who you really are. And you see that in the success around you, right? Yeah, I've been trying to reflect. And I'll tell you you for a guy like me it's very very difficult to take the time to actually think about reflection and look back and try to learn from your mistakes and take the time to see what's missing and say am i being the best i can for those around me and as you spend time doing that and actually deal with the right answers that come to your mind and don't be dishonest with yourself as it becomes easier and easier and easier. And it's an exercise. Like you said, it's a muscle. All these things are muscles,

your spirit, your heart, your soul, and the more you use them. And I'm by far not as close to you as far as spirituality. I mean, I'm not even ready to go smoke a joint right now. So what does that I don't smoke joints. Hey, listen, Amanda, I got to tell you, this has been different, but it's been absolutely, I think this has been one of the best podcasts. And I've talked to people doing 500 million a year and they talk about their tactics and culture and hiring, but this has been something completely different. Super exciting for me. And I'm so happy I got to have you on here. Been amazing. And I'm going to come visit you in Florida because I'm already going out there in January. So this is perfect.

Oh, well, I will accept you with loving arms. Hey, guys, I really appreciate you tuning into the podcast. I want to let you know that my book is available right now on Amazon. It's called The Home Service Millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com. Just go to the website. It'll show you exactly where and how to buy the book. I poured two years of knowledge into this book, and I had 12 contributors.

Everybody from the COO at HomeAdvisor to the CEO of Alpac and of course Aura the CEO of Service Titan it tells you how to have the right mindset and become a millionaire and think like a millionaire it goes into exactly how to turn on lead generation have those phones ringing off the hook for the customers that you want to be calling where you can make money and get great reviews it also goes into simple things like how to attract A players. Listen, if you want a great apple pie you need to buy good apples and you need to know where to buy those apples and it also talks about simple things like knowing how to keep the score. You

should have your financial check every week. You should know exactly what's coming in and out of your account. You should know when to cut advertising that's not working and more than anything you should know how to cut advertising that's not working. And more than anything, you should know how to cut employees that aren't making it for you. Listen, you might have a big heart, but this book is gonna show you how to make decisions built on numbers.

I hope you pick up the book and I really appreciate everything. I hope you're having a great day. Tune in next week. Thank you.