The Home Service Expert Podcast - Growing from $2M to $15M in 20 months with the Right Systems and Mindset

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

Lance Bachmann is the Founder of 1SEO Digital Agency, a Digital Marketing firm dedicated to achieving success for clients through proven and ethical internet marketing strategies. He is also the Co-Founder of Shock I.T. Support, the Vice President for Yellow Pages, and the owner of home-service-based businesses. He is releasing an upcoming book titled “Let it RIP!”, where he shares his personal story and how this has helped him grow his businesses further. In this episode, we talked about sales, advertising, employee growth, hustle, business mentality, partnerships...

People say don't be weather dependent. I mean, well, you don't have to be weather dependent, but weather does play a role into some things. Let's be realistic. When it's hot out, you jump in a pool. I mean, you don't jump in when it's cold, right? So you got to look at it. So everything comes down to advertising.

I truly, if you can do advertising and you can get leads, you can feed the machine, you can bring people in that are great at doing systems and processes and how to sell. But the hardest thing to do, honestly, is get the phone to ring in most companies. Now, some people have that. They've been around, their phone's ringing, they can't handle the work. Then you have a demand issue, right? So that's when you got to bring someone in that understands demand process and systems. So that was my biggest learning curve in the home service business was that understanding the demand issue. Getting the phone ring for any of my clients is never an issue or myself. That's the easy part. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs

and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. All right, guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I have an episode in the office. I've got Lance Bachman here, the man, the legend, the myth himself. How's it going, my man? It's going great. Enjoyed being here with you.

Having a great time. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, no, it's going to be great. You're from Philadelphia, correct? time. Thank you for inviting me. Yeah, no, it's going to be great. You're from Philadelphia, correct? Yes. And you own one SEO. Tell us about some of the other companies you're an owner of. I own one SEO.

I own Shock IT. I also own four home service-based businesses also in the HVAC, painting, and roofing industry. And possibly... I'm going to be buying a plumbing company right now. And I got another LOI out there. Okay. So hopefully that goes through here by the time this is out. So tell me a little bit about... You've got two stories I want to share.

One is you've had a great history with just being a top guy at YP. Yeah. Yellowpages.com. I was one of the founders of that. And then I went on my own with 1SL. Tell me a little bit about just the history of that. And then I want to hear about your personal story. Yeah. I mean, so I was at Verizon. I was one of their top SuperPages people. We helped build that product, SuperPages.com. And then YellowPages recruited me to start their premise

division. I left there with eight people, grew it to 159 million, 23 offices, 900 plus employees, walked out a full officer of AT&T, and started One SEO, which I believe is the best agency in the country by far for digital marketing. I don't think there's a close second. So you guys specialize in digital mostly? All digital. All digital marketing. We don't do any billboards, radio, traditional, anything like that.

It's all digital. It's all digital google mostly i'm gonna say it's google facebook instagram some linkedin some tiktok email marketing remarketing okay seo obviously yeah seo so tell me a little bit about well let's go into the story about and you've had a pretty rough life i mean you got a great story so if you don't mind we could maybe share some of it. Yeah, I wouldn't call it a rough life. I think it's relative, right? You got to keep things in perspective. I'm one of 14 kids. My dad had 14. My mom had nine. Nine brothers, five sisters. Four of my brothers are passed away. I grew up in and out of orphanages, group homes,

foster care systems, in trouble constantly. And finally, by the time I was about 20, 21, I strained up and hit a few bumps. But listen, it's all perspective. I thank God for every day that I lived. I don't regret some of the trouble I got into, let me put it that way, but I don't regret the path I took to get here because I'm just wiser, better, and built some great companies and have some great leaders around me. You talked on stage here at Vertical Track, and you were just talking about how you and your brother just used to go through some real crap.

Perseverance, right? Oh, yeah. Listen, business is the same thing. We went from being locked in the bathrooms to being beaten. I was beaten by every adult male that I knew probably to the time I was 13 or 14, just being half to death, me and my brothers, I mean, just abused. And that's just, that comes with that pattern of life, right? I mean, that's just what happens. The system, people always say the system, well, the system fails most people. That's what

people don't realize. But you got to dig in, move on. And as you always believe, there's two types of people, people that can see the positive in things and people that can see the negative. I never look back and hold any ill will. I just want to move forward and keep building what I'm building. Well, yeah, there's a victim mentality their whole life. Everything they do, they'll continue to be a victim. That's poor me, but it's just not my turn. I'll start tomorrow. I always talk about the things that losers always say. Hey, listen, you got lucky. Oh, yeah.

What do they always say? They say, easy for you to say. That's the thing I hate the most. Easy for you to say. I got to tell you a funny story on that. I always got to get invited to speak, especially to juvenile delinquent places and things like that. I believe some of the best impact I have can be around those type of young kids. That's why I love kids so much. But I was speaking one time to all these people that were in rehab and in trouble. I said, look around you. I said, see these senators,

see these drug rehab people, see the CEO of these people. I say, they want to hear your story, so they're a crutch for you, but they don't give a shit. When they walk out of here at five o'clock, they're back with their family. They're doing their thing. You're here, stuck here. They're living their lives. I said, you're a revolving door for their paychecks. Understand that.

I said, they were like, I can't believe you just said that. But it's the truth. Think about what all... There are a few people in the system that do have good care and will, but the majority of it, why do you think it keeps growing? It's payroll. It's money.

Where can we grab the money? It's a very messed up system. The thing about this, prisons are privately held. I hate to get into the weeds here. Over 60% of them now in the country. What CEO, Tommy, if you owned prisons, would you want them to be empty? No. I don't want cemeteries. I want people dying. I can't see that. It's just that simple. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's really that simple. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's really that basic. If you own drug rehabs, you want people. Here's a true story.

My nephew went to rehab. I don't think I'll mind sharing this story. And literally a year from the date, they called me and said, hey, listen, we're just checking on him. I said, wait a minute. Hold on here. You haven't spoke to him in the last year. I said, is there any coincidence that most people coming out of rehab relapsed in that 9 to 15 month period and they were like huh i'm like listen i grew up with brothers that were in and out and did a lot of drugs i know it so they even have it built

no different than you if someone buys a house or me if someone gets the hvac system 10 years later i'm going to follow up with them this and that that. They know the metrics and it's sick. They go after the metrics for the money. But at least we're providing a good service where I don't believe a lot of these people are. Well, yeah, no, it's just completely, it's, you know, I was with my cousin in Colorado Springs and he walks into the garage and I love the guy. I mean, my cousin, he's the best. But he wasn't wearing his Slit logo shirt. He didn't have a logo truck. He was driving his nicer truck. And he took his cell phone out instead of having any brochures or anything.

And we started talking about door sale. And he's like, well, the opener's still working, so you don't need that. And I was like, well, listen, sir, have you ever had a hot water heater go out? And he goes, yeah, actually, two years ago, because the house was 2009. So he got 13 years out of, this was just this year. And I said, most garage door openers, most hot water heaters, lots of things, garbage disposals.

I can go through about 15 things on the house in 10 years. You consider it lucky if it goes past that. And I said, regardless, would you like an opener that you can control from your phone? Would you like one that closes after five minutes? Would you like one that if you leave the house you know if it's open would you like one that if you're out of town you could open if the neighbors want to go in to check on the water whatever it is and he's like wow i didn't even know i said amazon could deliver groceries into your garage into the fridge automatically for you he goes really and he's like i want to do that I'm like, it's just giving options.

I know this is kind of off topic, but I'm like, when you're talking about the age of stuff, it's like, it really is that 10 year mark for a lot of this stuff. You hit the nail on the head. So Philadelphia, I mean, other than Rocky, why stay? Well, my wife and my kids are, I mean, honestly, I would move.

You know, I'd probably- You got a house in Delaware, right I mean, honestly, I would move. You got a house in Delaware, right? No, Philadelphia. Bucks County. But don't you have... New Jersey. You have another house in Jersey. Yeah, my shore house. So yeah, New Jersey.

Shore house in Jersey. Yeah, so... Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore. Shore Jersey. I don't think Irish guys like me make those type of shows. No, I'd probably move to Florida, truthfully, down south. But I mean, I i can't all the businesses

i have the whole network i have the community my wife honestly is the biggest reason she'll never move from philly she ain't philly's the spot she ain't moving out of bucks county i don't think you and bill took me out let us come out there and uh we had a blast i mean bill took us around we got to see dan antonelli we got to see your shop. It's not like five guys are working there. I don't even know. There was like 100 people there on computers doing crazy stuff. It's not like 10 got people

just that are really smart. It's a huge company. You guys are just optimizing all day long. All we do are working on campaigns to help people grow their businesses. That's how I fell in love with. That's what I started with. And I still love that more than anything else today, believe it or not.

Yeah. So we got to hang out. We went to your house. It was the middle of just got done with wrestling practice. You've got four kids, all boys, but three younger ones. Yes. And they're all wrestlers. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the family?

So my wife, Emily, we've been together for a little over 10 years now. She gave me three boys. I have a 31-year-old, Andrew, from a nice mother, great woman, Connie. Can't say nothing bad about her. Very fortunate to have her as the mother of his kids. My son sells real estate, doesn't want to work with his dad. Everybody has kids out there, understands that. And then my other three sons, LJ, Greggy, and Hammer.

I mean, and Davey. Davey just started wrestling. LJ and Greggy wrestle. They love it. And then my other three sons, LJ, Greggy, and Hammer. I mean, and Davey. Davey just started wrestling. LJ and Greggy wrestle. They love it. And they're good kids. I mean, I love my family. So you get in together,

they all sleep with you? Every one of my kids sleep in my bedroom. No matter what house we're in, we all sleep in the same rooms. In my main house, we have two beds in my master,

in my shore house. So all the kids, our whole family, sleep together. And you get to watch Sonic the Hedgehog, you said. Well, yeah. I mean, that's my favorite show, but you'll see when you have more than just a dog, my friend. You'll be watching some of the dumbest

shows. So you've got these home service companies. You've been very fortunate because you combine a little bit of sales experience, which you're really good at sales, with really good marketing. And it's crazy, things explode. Yes.

Those are like the two. I love operations, man. I love the day-to-day. I love call bookings. I love my dispatchers. But man, if you can't keep that phone ringing, booking those phone calls, and getting guys out there that can convert,

you're not making money. Every time someone's sitting, you're losing money. You've been pretty good. You took companies, I don't know if you want to go into the details, but pretty low. A couple million to 20 million. My HVAC company was doing 2 million when I met them. We're going to crack over 15 million. Could even be higher this year.

That's in 20 months. I only bought them 20 months ago. That's in 20 months. The only thing I first tell everyone is I dialed up that. When you have line reporting in our AI, people say don't be weather dependent. I mean, well, you don't have to be weather dependent, but weather does play a role into some things. Let's be realistic. When it's hot out, you jump in a pool. I mean, you don't jump in when it's cold, right? So you got to look at it. So everything comes down to advertising. I truly believe that. If you can do advertising and you can get leads, you can feed the machine, you

can bring people in that are great at doing systems and processes and how to sell. But the hardest thing to do, honestly, is get the phone to ring in most companies. Now, some people have that. They've been around, their phone's ringing, they can't handle the work. Then you have a demand issue, right? So that's when you got to bring someone in that understands demand, process, and systems. So that was my biggest learning curve in the home service business, was that understanding the demand issue. Getting the phone ring for any of my clients is never an issue or myself. That's the easy part. You know, me and Jim talk about this a lot,

capacity planning. It's making sure you got enough jobs, but you get too many. You started to get people that just are like, ah, this one's tough. I'm going to move on to the next one. It's like you almost spoil them with phone calls. Have you ever just like, ah, this one's tough. I'm going to move on to the next one. It's like you almost spoil them with phone calls. Have you ever experienced like, ah, this is a tough customer. I don't want to go through the process. I know I got five calls today, which five calls, I believe, is too many calls for a tech, at least in my industry. So we try to keep it to three for all my companies a day. That's good.

We try to keep it to three. We really try to limit them to three for my roofing company. So my roofing company I bought was doing about $1.8 million. I just bought it this January. We're on pace to do 10 million this year already. Just literally. And it's a simple thing, Tommy, I did. The first thing I do with every company I buy is the advertising, right? We start looking at the website, SEO, Google LSAs, Google AdWords, social media. Then we, believe it or not, this sounds so stupid. See your slick A1 shirt. Believe it or not, this sounds so stupid. See your slick A1 shirt? Believe it or not, this sounds crazy. We put you in a shirt with your logo on. I mean, I know it

sounds, woo, I mean, but most companies don't even have that. And then we obviously go on Service Titan, which I'm a big believer in Service Titan. They're actually opening up the roofers for my companies and painting because I believe Service Titanens the future for any home service business. That's my opinion. But we both work with, I got Dan's book on the shelf, but we both work with Dan on some branding stuff. Yes. Kick charge. Definitely was cool. We got to see me and Bill went and visited. Actually, so Jim and Bree came. So there were four of us that came and then it was Dan and he had his whole staff there. And is that one of the first things you do? Not only the shirts, but you change, do you work on the branding?

Everything, the wraps. I mean, so we do all Dan's digital marketing for all of his clients, which we have a very good relationship for years. Dan's a great guy, Dan. So yeah, we actually go through the logo. We go through the website and then we wrap everything. I mean, every company I bought, their trucks weren't even wrapped. They weren't even wearing shirts, uniforms, tablets. They weren't even using review things like Podium.

The basic things that you need to build credibility and grow your organization. And each of these companies that have been around, I mean, the one company's been around since 1955. Think about that. So companies have been around for over 30, 80 years. I bought, it was doing $2 million. We're going to do almost close to $18, $20 this year in 20 months. The roofing company was around for

37 years. They did a little under $2 million. We're going to do $10 million in our first year together. The painting company was right about $2 million. And we're going to do a little over $5 million. We've been around for 17 years. I mean, so these aren't like companies that are just all brand new and Lance is getting lucky. These are companies that have been around for 17 years i mean so these aren't like companies that are just all brand new and lance is getting lucky these are companies that have been around established and i go in and you know we opened up a new brand new hvac company we had to do from scratch our first

year we'll do four million dollars three and a half and that's from scratch yeah with no nothing i said no what was going into the market we're going well it's crazy 20 months to do you know 15 but i guess you could be pacing towards that so what is it about these guys and i meet them every day they're listening some of them they're just like yeah i can't afford a rap right now yeah i know i need manuals yeah i know i should get on service titan but i really think that uh blah blah blah blah blah let's just call it QuickBooks CRM. There's a million other CRMs, Jobber, whatever. And I'm not knocking those.

But they say, I'm just not big enough to have a wrap truck or a good CRM or have a manual or have a nice shirt or to afford nice tools. They say it all the time. They said it to you. How do you afford not to? So there's two types of mentality in business. This is what happens in businesses. And these are only three things that happen in business. And make no mistake, you go

out into the ocean and you immediately sink and you never get off. You just can't make it. Then you go out and you start treading water. You think you're doing great, you're treading water. You're making $2 million or $3 million, whatever it is that number is. But you're treading there. The worst thing you see in a business is it's stagnant. It has that 2% growth, 2% backward

through. That's the company. Three, four, five million even. Those numbers. Then you have the purse. And when you tread water long enough, you go under. Just that simple. You can't tread water forever. Or you just jump in and you swim.

There are three things in business. And I truly believe once you're in business, you got to swim. You got to grow. So these people that say that to me, I'm like, you're going to have the same thing about this. You go and speak all the time. You go and speak all the time. I go and speak all the time. The same people sit in the same audience at different conferences at the same size they were a year ago, two years ago, or three years ago. But yet you're still coming to the same conferences or different conferences because you never took action.

You never got out of your own way. I think some people, they're scared. They get nervous. I mean, why wouldn't you? Some people actually say, my one partner, Michael from Dylan, I hate to put him on blast. He was so afraid to put a logo on his truck. And two of his guys were, right? And these guys are South guys, right? And these guys are built, good looking, strong guys. And they're like, we don't want the company logo. If I'm with my kids or if i'm here and someone says something to the gas station we mess something up i said do you guys hear yourself you should immediately if someone says you mess something up or something that immediately fixed the problem no matter who you're with you know there's some

shady companies out there that are bred literally thoroughbreds of ripping people off so in roofing a lot of these guys they don't do the fulfillment, right? Do you guys do the fulfillment? So what we, ours is I'll be very transparent with roofing and painting. We're about 50% employees, 50% subcontractors, but our subcontractors only work for us. Okay. Does that make sense? So they're great. So we are demands to think about this, Tommy, my demand in my roofing business right now, we're six weeks out. Could we put a roof on six weeks? That's not good to have. So we're constantly recruiting subcontractors. My painting is literally five, six weeks out also.

So we have a demand issue and we got about seven, eight crews in each one of them. So we're trying to fix the demand issue. Now you got to remember, I've been owning these companies for six months now, but they have great names, great reputation. So as you go through that demand, like you said, you and Jim, that capacity issue, it's when something skyrockets so fast, it's not as easy to knee jerk and fill the demand because what happens is the quality of work goes down. So you got to find the balance. You were just at my graduation. Yeah, I loved it.

You've seen 20 people graduate. The next class I told you last night at dinner, 53, 54 guys coming into that. It's going to be nuts. And I know we're going to hit 100 this year. It's almost God sent that I could build technicians. And I'm not saying I build them, but we built together our training recruiting team. We're able to do that in eight weeks. Find a pretty good technician, get them out there for a month, retrain them again. So it's really about 14 weeks to get a good tech. But when I'm buying a company, these are what I love to hear. Or just partnering. I should say partnering because you partner with all the owners, right?

So partnering means we could help them out and actually they could do really, really well, better than they've ever done. I love hearing, I can't find trucks. I can't find employees. I can't figure out the CRM. I can't make the phone ring. These things are like, I barely, rarely hear, dude, we're killing it every day. I love waking up.

I'm ready to sell. I just, I don't hear those things. I hear that I'm kind of stuck. And I think you could help me get loose and help me start growing again. What do you look for? Because this is the fourth time in the plumbing that you're really doing it. What are the things that, I think, obviously, you're on back here that you can keep an eye on things that go into your office?

It is. I mean, having the company down in North Carolina is challenging at times, but it's growing because North Carolina... I do believe Charlotte's an easier market than Philadelphia. It's just a smaller market, easier market. People are like, it's booming. What I look for in a partner, honestly, is character and hustle. If you aren't willing to hustle, it doesn't matter.

We had this conversation last night. You don't have to be the brightest person in the room. You just have to be the one that's willing to outwork everyone because what happens is this. I always tell people I was probably the dumbest guy in the room. You just have to be the one that wants to outwork everyone. Because what happens is this. I always tell people, I was probably the dumbest guy in the room my whole life. I'm still one of the dumbest people in the room. By the time I came here for two days, what I do is watch you,

mirror you, listen to you, every word you said. I've taken two pages of notes. That's what good people do. You learn and you execute. The reason why these people are partnering with me is they're not going to do that. They're not going to execute. But the reason why these people are partnering with me, they're not going to do that, right? They're not going to execute. They're not going to execute. So I ask for one thing though, at least hustle. Give me your best

from seven in the morning, seven at night or six, whatever it is. Don't stay content. Just give me your best. If we're going to roll out, service tight and get on board with it. We're going to roll out a uniform, get on board with it. If we're going to have a checklist for something, get on board with it. So I think that's the biggest thing, character and hustle. I mean, I can tell you right now, it starts with sales. If your partners aren't sales driven, meaning when a lead calls and they don't want to call them right back and they find something more important than a lead, well, that's a problem. Nothing else matters. I heard someone say to me, I don't know what to do,

full transparency. I'm not sure what i do because if i sell the job how can i get the job done i'm like well shit if you don't have the job it never gets done people say i don't like the phone after five i hear people they're not open weekends or they're like i work too hard to have to work at night and weekends i'm like you never learn how to delegate number one and you're too content they become content they say i'm good enough and this is what i understand people say what happens when you do what we're gonna do well well well 150 million they say well what happens when you hit 200 million i'm like i mean i'm a shark sharks need to swim to survive they don't just sit there no and there's no number that i

can hit i don't care if it's 500 billion it's not like all of a sudden, oh, finally hit it. When I hit this number, someone's going to take my hand, put it down and bury me six feet under. No. This is what people don't understand about entrepreneurs, people that grind every day is once you become a multimillionaire, you're not doing it for the money anymore. You have security. You have security. I have security. My kids have security. It's now I'm doing it. I want to win. How many people's lives can we change along the way doing it. I want to win. How many people's lives can we change along the way? What can we get this to? How many people will follow that vision? And you can take care of a lot of people. You can't take care of a lot of people on a $5 million

company, a $10 million company. On a $100 million company, it gets that much better. $500 million company, it gets that much better. And that's what people don't realize. Your goal is to keep growing, growing, growing. Well, they think it turns into a movement. It does. If you do it the right way. If you do it the right way. And, you know, what did I tell them? I said, look, homeownership, great credit, those special times with the family.

You've owned really nice cars over the last decade, right? Yeah. Are you ever like, man, that day that I was in a Mercedes was the best day of my life, the day of the sunshine? Or is it spending time with family and great vacations and the quality time with family? I mean, I'm not a car person, so I'm tough with that. Even my house. I love my house. It's a nice house.

But my funnest time is being with my sons. Playing soccer, wrestling practice. Where are you going to Ohio for? For wrestling camp. Wrestling camp. I'm going to go away from here to Jeff Jordan's wrestling camp. But that's where if i'm not working i'm going to be with my children like you know you gotta change your mindset you

know i saw something out here it said let them go to the bar let them go away play this and that and then you work and then you get the rewards you have to change what you're doing here around if you're at the bar at your friends at night and you're still going away out on the weekends there's no way you can go 100 miles per hour during the week if you're going doing happy hours every night and going out drinking. So you have to change your whole mentality and say, I'm going to conquer work and be with my family. That's for me.

That's for me. Well, that phrase, it says something like, you know, work while they party. And then it says something else. And it says, live like they dream. And the fact is, is, you is, there's also some cool ones. They want to drive first class when we're on the plane. There's a lot of cool things

that I have around here that are motivating. And I just, it's not me. I want them all to have this stuff. I want some of my coworkers to have 10 houses. I mean,

the hardest part that I always hear, Lance, especially from business owners, you work with a lot of them, is we work too hard. We deserve this. We deserve these depreciating assets. We deserve this Harley that we bought for ourselves that they use once every 10 months. What does your future self deserve is what I always ask. They're always like, we busted our butts for this. We deserve it. And I go, your company started paying ROI to you because of all the sweat equity you put into it.

Imagine if you keep feeding the beast. Yeah. Now it becomes instead of 10 million, it's 80 million. It's 150 million. And they go, well, and then now it's time for them to live. But I guess what's important for me is just I always said what I want to do when I want to do it with whoever the hell I want to do it with. But then I started realizing maybe my dream has got to be big enough to let everybody

have that same dream that i have yeah i mean i think what people get into is they buy like some guys i know make my kind of money they'll have five six different cars seven different cars i'm like i drive a pickup truck you see what i drive yeah i drive a pickup truck i mean i think people get caught up in things i do like watches but that's not depreciating asset all my watches have gone up in value i wouldn't have bought them i mean so i try and look at it that way. I'm a big real estate person too, like you. I believe in that.

And what people don't understand is this, is your sales people make, so you're going to take a look at small businesses, right? Most small businesses don't even do a million dollars. Let's just say you're dealing with a guy that does 1 million to 3 million, right? He's going to make, let's just say, 200, $300,000 a year.

He's going to pull his goddamn hair out every single day, have tons of stress. Short life. Or someone can come sell for you or me that's making that kind of money and make that all day long and become a millionaire in the process. Without half the problems and use their money and go buy property

to give them cash flow. And they're going to be around people like me, you and other people and can educate them to a path of success. But the problem is a lot of small business owners, they don't understand that. I don't want to give up my freedom. You have no freedom. Yeah. Well, it sounds like me and you are giving a pitch to a lot of people, but the real deal is I talk to these guys every day and I go, they go, well, if you could do it, why can't I? And I say this, of course you could do it. Yeah, I've got a lot of help.

I've been very fortunate the people that have walked into my life. You know, you've got a lot of great leaders around you, but the people that have helped me, I'm like, the day you figure out what I know today, well, let's just say it's three years. Where do you think we're going to be in three years? You think I'm just going to stop while you start growing?

The problem is this, is you can't figure it out. Like, yeah, I said it when I was speaking a lot, is someone said there's probably $50 million worth of mistakes. And I laughed. I said, there's probably $200 million worth of mistakes in this room

speaking to you right now, right? Because we made so many mistakes, so many things that by the time a company we're looking to acquire or that smaller person even tries to figure out how to get there, your hardest years, as you know,

are going from $1 million, $2 million, $3 million, $4 million. Once you get above $10 million, it just starts going, right? It just does. It's a rollercoaster. For me, it was $18 million. It was a tough year, but also, I don't know any garage door companies when I was doing $18 million that were even doing $3 million.

So it was like, you know what's crazy? It's taking an industry that's never even been on the map. And now there's vultures all over this industry. I think they saw what you did with it. I mean, you are a pioneer in the garage door industry. I mean, you plugged and played the HVAC model. Yeah, that's it. That's what you did. I mean, I have to say that. That's exactly true. You went and burned the HVAC model, and you plugged and played. I mean, I see what's going on here.

I mean, it's the exact same thing. You're absolutely right. But these HVAC guys say, we we could do it but the difference is you don't see a warehouse full of five ton units i wish i could just have one product like a multi-speed and a couple different options for the thermostats to say hey i've got the unit let me bring out the crane today oh yeah i'm like no let's wait six months for your door to come in if we get, it's not messed up by the manufacturer. That, by the way, has no way of reading what's in stock whatsoever. Not any one of them that are doing 500 million plus. So the only thing is, is I'm like, the ticket averages aren't as high. My buddy called me up.

And this guy lives in Kentucky. And he goes, I've been doing garage doors, listening to your podcast for the last five years. But he goes, I've been in business for 12 years. He goes, after hearing you say, I wish I was in HVAC, I freaking said, F it. I went out and did it. I did it last summer. My whole life I've been in garage doors.

We did $8 million last year. The summer I got into HVAC, I did $7 million. He goes, without buying. He goes, because I've applied the principles that you talk about. And it wasn't me. I'm not taking any credit for what he did. He actually kept doing what he told him. Seven million.

He did just under what he did in a summer in HVAC, what he spent his whole life doing in garage doors. I love the HVAC guys that go, oh, dude, if I was in garage doors, why aren't you? Bring it on. If there is a time that I get an HVAC. Yours is more complex. Listen, widgets are widgets. But listen, I went in your warehouse. You got every garage door underneath the sun back there.

It's crazy because you got different installation, different R values. I could go on it, but listen, plumbing to me is even more complicated. But if I was a plumber, I'd do what my buddies do. Jim Crennitty over in your neck of the woods, Zoom Drain. They just focus on the expensive-ass drains. And here's what they do. They partner with every plumber in the city and say, I'll just take the complex stuff

and cut you in on it. It's $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, sometimes $100,000. Just their set-up's $100,000. They've got a very good model. Listen, there's money in home services, and that's what people don't realize. You don't have to educate yourself. All you have to do is

just go and listen to these podcasts, read some of these books, join some of these groups, and you're't have to educate yourself all you have to do is just go and listen to these podcasts read some of these books join some of these groups and you're gonna have success as long as you execute well yeah like julian right like you look at next turn julian's been here a couple times he was here when you were here yeah he comes out and he's got a heart that wants people to succeed you know what his number one rule is that he said i will never let a member in the next star if you're still in the truck. If you're still running a job. Now, if you've got to make a sales call every now and then, listen, me and you

still will get out and jump on the phone for anything. But if you're still running every job day to day, answering the phone in the truck, he said, I will not work with you. Why is that? Why do you think Julian has said that? And he's been doing this a long time. Well, I mean, it's just a fact. If you're working in your business, you're not working on your business.

It's impossible. It's literally impossible. There's only so many hours in a day, right? The reality is this. The majority of people have kids that own businesses. I'd be willing to bet on that. I don't know what it is. So you get up early at 4 or 5, say 6 in the morning.

You go work out, get your kids ready. Then if you're, let's just say you're installing garage doors, HVAC, that means you're not selling during that time. That means you're not handling your advertising during that time. That means you're not making your systems better. You're a worker. You're an employee. Yeah. You're literally an employee. You are the employee that does all the work. So now you're answering fans, you're the CSR,

the warehouse guy, the dispatcher. You got everything. Then you go and you go home and you're going to spend some time. I'm very lucky my wife never would put me at my wife's house. She's just the easiest laid back person in the world. But I still want to go and see my kids. So during that time, I don't work. Then I go back to work afterwards.

So you don't have enough time to build your business if you're in the truck. And I actually agree with Julian is I don't think when I say we have anyone that's in the truck. Anyone. It's really hard. Look, I was in the truck. But one day I said, I'm going to train a guy and I'm going to train for my weaknesses. And here's what I had to learn. No one's going to be as good as me or they'd be out there doing it themselves. So

I was a really good tech. That was the problem is I was a damn good tech. And I knew I'd get five-star reviews on four different sites. I'd get a video. Back then, there was no camera videos. I'd have this little flip out video, and it was like three megapixels or something. And look, I'd go edit the video afterwards while I was getting a master's degree, but I learned real quick. I'm building the business. And I say, I need these reviews. Can you post this on your Facebook? And all of a sudden, I'm like, I had to settle for 70% of how good I was. For someone else to go into the field. I mean, can you imagine if you had to run every sales call?

Do you believe you're still a good salesman? I believe I'm a great salesman. Do you believe you're one of the best still? I still believe, because I know my product. Yeah, but you had to step out, right? I'm going to tell you why I stepped out. So this is, it was easy for me. It was very easy for me.

So I've always said this, you know, when I was at yellowpages.com, I built that from a hotel conference room to $159 million. And this sticks into my brain all the time. Everyone's like, this wouldn't be you. My ego was bigger than Phoenix. Like, I was like, ah, I'm on the man, on the man, on the man. And when I left, I'll never forget, I wasn't even at the airport, even at the airport, and I was replaced. And at that point in time, now my question is this, is everyone that works for me or with me or in any of my organizations, you've got to be replaceable. For if you quit, if you die, the show has to go on. If you win the lottery.

Whatever it may be, you have to go on. So for me, it's easy. Then when Bill came and joined us, I think we have five sales, six salespeople at one SEO. I've never sold HVAC. I've never even been on a sales call. I've never been in an install. I've never been on a roofing job. I've never been on a roof ever.

I've never been in a painting. So these companies I own, it's the same systems and processes I'm putting in place for everything, Tommy. But I believe if you teach people how to sell and you teach the right way of installing things and doing things, it's going to probably be better than me and you anyway. But it's just innate in us that we think

that we have to dot every T and cross every I, dot every I and cross every T and make it perfect. But even we make mistakes at times. So- Well, I'm challenged to find people that are better than me at everything. I mean, every single thing. I'm not looking for somebody that's just subpar that says, hey, I'm challenged to find people that are better than me at everything. I mean, every single thing. I'm not looking for somebody that's just subpar that says, hey, but I used to because I didn't

have enough money. Listen, I didn't have enough money. I was bartending. I was fixing garage doors. I was trying to get a degree. I was literally selling boat flexes, anything I get my hands on. And then I go out of town. One of the stories I always tell is when I went out of town to Hawaii, the bill came.

Well, first it said this crazy thing called MP next to it. I thought, like, maybe this is trademark, but I thought TM meant trademark. But it didn't have a price. It meant market price. Oh, yeah. So I was like, I'll take this. Didn't ask. Bill came.

I slid my card in it. Didn't even look at the bill. It was very expensive for me at the time. But I knew I made it. Because I was like, because every time you ever look at a menu when you don't have money and you're like, well, that looks good, but that's not worth chicken, chicken. You know, you're getting the chicken tonight. So I remember the days when I was looking at the menu,

really wondering if I was going to order that based on the price. Yeah. I mean, there's no doubt. It wasn't that long. It feels like yesterday, actually. I mean, everything, your memory doesn't let things go. That's the problem. Especially when you come up with nothing.

You know, I heard you say something. You said, you know, the founders built it and these guys messed it up. And that's the truth. I mean, if you think about it, I mean, the founders, the people that are building these companies like me and you, we want greatness. We want the best. We want the best for our employees. They don't understand that sometimes.

Like, you know, I'll be very transparent. Don't go to North Carolina. Michael had an argument with some of our employees because they're working day and night right now. But they don't realize we lower our costs during the winter times, these slower months to keep them busy. We don't make our same margin because it's just slower

during those times. We got four months to make a lot of our money. The HVAC industry. It's how it is. It's universal throughout the country. in those times, right? We got four months to make a lot of our money, right? I mean, just the HVAC industry. It's how it is. It's universal throughout the country. Throughout the country.

And they're like, oh my God, we're working day and night. Well, if I have you at home in June, you're going to hate me, right? Where's the balance? Where you make all the money. That's where it's a balancing act with employees and employers. I think communication is key. The one thing I noticed about you, you communicate a lot. I communicate a lot. I wish my leaders,

I own multiple companies. This is your main company. So it's easy for you to be a lot more hands-on. It's harder for me with multiple companies to speak to all the employees, 300 plus employees and communicate. We're actually doing a lot of this for your own benefit and your own growth at this point. And I don't think my leaders always do a good job at that right now. We got to work on that for sure. Hey there, guys. I hope you're enjoying the conversation. I just wanted to let you know that we have a special offer from Lance Bachman today just for you. So stick around to the end and I'll reveal how you can take advantage of it. But if you're in a rush, here's all you got to do. Just go to 1sco.com forward slash Tommy and check out the exclusive offer we put together for our listeners because about two dozen of our

listeners have already signed up. So I worked out a deal that's special for you guys. So take advantage of it. Now let's get back to our chat with Lance. I want to go back to the founder conversation because Steve Jobs got kicked out of his own company. And there are times that we get upset. We're like, we've made these mistakes. Now, the founders sometimes also have a limit. One thing that Ken Goodrich said is, you know, he sees me reading a lot of books. He sees me traveling like you are out of town.

Forget the speaking. Speaking's talking to people. I'm listening. I'm trying to get two ears, one mouth. And a lot of people have this limit of growth. And I was on a podcast last week, and the guy said, we're getting ready. It's a private equity company. And he consults this private equity company.

Still a lot of the original team, but not the founder. The founder's toxic, and we've got to get rid of him. And we're getting ready to do that. And that's a big cup of tea. But you to remember if they're in pe the founder just got paid a lot of money well this is a problem with founders this is what happens a lot of times founders don't understand once you sell right and you actually sell it's no longer your company right now you're working for a board you're working for stockholders there's just a lot more goes into it becomes a lot more corporate you're squeezing every penny so you don't have the final say. You got to say, I think a lot of times when people

sell, they think nothing's going to change. And when you sell to a private equity firm, make no mistake, it's going to change. Well, it's got to change. I think the main thing is, from my point of view, the founder is good. I've seen it happen two ways. You look at a guy like Ken Goodrich, he said, they're not, they needed me to make. They're out there more focused on buying companies and rolling them under with our exact business process. So as long as we're making, they're not getting these companies stacked under us with the same exact core values, you know, processes, booking rates. He's like, he is still the godfather. Yeah.

You know what I mean? So I look at his model and I'm like, it's exciting. But then I look at other people's models that are just literally kicked out the first month. I think it comes down to, I mean, I could tell you Rand Fishkin from Moz, if you've heard of that product. Moz, you've been on every product out there. He got kicked out of his own company. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.

I think there's two types of people. I think someone that's politically correct, that knows how to communicate and talk well and be a good leader is probably going to have no problems i'm just because you're a founder and you grow to a 200 million dollar company or you know me i'm gonna do over 100 million dollars doesn't mean that everything you do is correct and i've been having to clean up my facebook just because i want to be politically correct i mean the pain in the butt and i've had to change i had to go through a lot of growing pains over the years and i used to yell at employees back in the day i would never yell at an employee now you heard what i said to you this morning about hey hey, your HR guy's just trying to protect you, right? And it sucks we live in that world. It just sucks when you're... What happened today is we had a truck that had an engine problem and it burnt up and a lot of smoke in here.

We put the fans in. I couldn't smell it. And everybody's working from home today. And I'm like, I care more about the health of the employees. I'm not like, let's work through flames. You know, it's not, I'm not like, hey, only the half the building's burning. We're going to work through the other half. Get on fire, I'm saying with you. I'm just like, when are we over cautionary? They're like, someone's uncle got COVID. Call off work.

The whole company, you know what I mean? It's like, I'm a little bit more, that's just who I am. So I know HR is a different animal and it's so hard because I've always kept the HR department pretty small, but we're getting bigger and there's more stuff happening. So it's just, it's growing pains for me. And I, believe it or not, I've always told people to accept the change. You can't function at a $200 million company when you're a $500 million company. It's not the same.

It's almost like you need a rebirth. You have to. And redevelop the tools. It's almost like you need a rebirth. You have to. And redevelop the tools and some of the stuff that brought you here. I mean, look, Service Titan's a great, great, great, great company, but we're building four different softwares

on top of it. And we also use HubSpot. And you're using, you just said you're using, what's the review tool? Podium. We use Podium. We use HubSpot.

I mean, obviously, I'm in a digital agency. I use every tool. Iium. We use Podium. We use HubSpot. I mean, obviously, I own a digital agency. I use every tool. I mean, I use every tool. I use ServiceTitan for, yeah, I'm a tech guy. I mean, there's a reason why ServiceTitan is letting my roofing and painting company come on, because I'm a tech guy, right? I mean, I implemented Salesforce for my whole digital agency. So I think ServiceTitan is a good product, though.

I think. I love ServiceTitan. But I think they have problems. Oh, they have a lot of problems. Go online. But that a good product, though. I love Service Titan. But I think they have problems. Oh, they have a lot of problems. Go online. But that's every company, though. But it's mitigating the problems. Correct.

And they're working on it. It's funny. I got a chance to really spend time with Tom Howard. He's a great guy. Absolutely. And I wish people could just see us trying to do the right thing instead of just looking at the bad. But it's easy for people to look at the bad instead of the good. That means your employees and your customers.

But there is so much good service Titan does. There's so much good A1 does every day. So much good 1SEO does every day. And I say this all the time. McDonald's can mess your lunch up literally driving through there. One time. And you never even complain. McDonald's, you just go back.

I messed my cheeseburger up. You messed my thing up. But if you mess up one time or I mess up one time, all hell breaks loose. I want my money back. Give me everything back. I want a discount. And they put two guns to your head. You're going to get a one-star reveal. It's a very crazy mentality.

I think the hard part for me right now, and people say, what's your biggest challenge? I think the hardest part is I said I've got over 50 guys coming. All those guys need support. They need CSRs, dispatchers. They need trainers. They need the training group to fly in there.

They need to have a phone call to check in every now and then. So it's the infrastructure, because I'm really good at making CSRs, dispatchers, and technicians. But to give the infrastructure that they need, and we're having a lot of internal discussions now on the best infrastructure. How do you give them the most support? Is it internal? Is it sending ride-alongs? Is it bringing them back to Phoenix? And everybody's got their own ideas.

And I always point back, I say, who do we spend several hundred thousand dollars on? Who's the two consultants just recently? You know, Al Levy and Jonathan Wissman. I'm like, both of them agree with this ride-along methodology. You get them riding along at least once every two weeks, making sure they're doing things right, making sure they understand the big thing we're struggling here with. And we have our own internal discussions. Is it better to train somebody, be able to sit here in an office, undistracted, and be able to help manage people or be out there

in the field working with them? And maybe you're on a job and you get a phone call. And it's a very good debate. And I don't care if I win or lose. I want to do the best thing for the company. I think that's another thing with founders. There's a good book that I talk a lot about called Built to Last. Jim Collins.

And it talks about how there's certain... Really good book. It talks about the asshole founders and CEOs that when they leave, when they're not there, they want it to fail. They want to say, aha, I told you you needed me. It means you're a crappy leader. You're out of town right now. Bill's out of town right now.

There's a place burning down, falling apart. I can tell you this. Since I stepped aside from one SEO, it's had its best years. Listen, I did a great start. I did. I'll be the first one to tell you cj bill have blown me away i think joelyn joelyn joelyn's like my right hand person everything so she's with me on all my companies but cj runs one seo i'm not even involved at one seo anymore

except for product that's it like i'll help with the product yeah bill's the go-to for sales with the sales team everything yeah yeah so. Yeah, so I mean, that's what people don't realize, but I hope one day if I ever sell one SEO that it goes on to be a hundred times bigger than I was ever there and that everyone gets better lives

and more money if I ever did sell it. I mean, why would you want not that for something you built from the ground up? That's just someone with a bad character.

Somebody says, I hope they screw it up and I get to buy a bag for pennies on the dollar. I hear a lot of founders say, and they say, well, they haven't been through what I've been through. You know what it means? They didn't build the company on systems, processes, checklists, and operating procedures. That's the problem is they built it through personalities.

And like you said, everybody's replaceable, but not really. If you don't have a manual for what that person did, and they leave, they got all the passwords to everything, you're kind of SOL for a while. You'll still recover from it, but... I'm lucky, you know, like I just said, we're growing

at 35 or 40% this year. It's 13 years in business. Most companies don't have my revenue. What did you do after you left? Oh, this is important. I'm sorry. What did you do after you left Vertical Track? Oh, I raised my prices. Oh, yeah. important. I'm sorry. What did you do after you left Vertical Track? Oh, I raised my prices. Oh, yeah. I mean, listen, that was a debate.

But this is what hanging out with good people and talking to good people was. Travis, I've heard the name of his company out here, but me and him became friendly. Oh, Travis Ringy. Yeah, I spent time with Aaron Gaynor. And then you. And you were like, raise your prices, raise your prices. And I never have in 13 years of business. I looked at what we were spending.

I looked at literally my labor cost of hiring employees over the last four years. No one would believe me. It's not went up 20%, 30%. I've doubled in pure cost. Pure cost. My business didn't- Well, you don't look at that as a line item and know it.

Most people have no idea. They're speculative. Oh yeah, no. We got broken down by line, by department, by what your title is. We have it broken down. My P&L is to the sheets. I mean, Jolynn's a beast. I mean, that's why she's with me everywhere I go.

I mean, I just showed you how the numbers are for the plumbing company I'm looking at. But yeah, you had to increase your pricing. But Louie, you know what, Tommy? Only one person called up and said something. Only one person. Yeah, the lawyers. It's who it was. Yeah, of course. It was a law firm.

Exactly. How'd you do it? I told you. God damn. But yeah, I mean, no one else. They understood. They understood. Everybody understands.

Like the cost of doing business. Inflation is highest it's ever been in 50 years. Of course, prices need to go up. Yeah, I mean. I don't expect prices to go up. I don't take pride in that. We had no choice. Why are you in business? To break even?

What did we just say? Would you rather own a $50 million business at 20% or $100 million at 10%? I'm taking the $50 million because it's not going to give me as many headaches. That's why they say, now I sold it to a couple of buddies that actually got in the business with me. We had a Christmas late business and I said,

we got to double our prices the next year. Based on this, I'm telling you guys, if we don't double, we're literally, because I can't have A1 bail on us out anymore. And I mean, we were using our facility, my trucks, my everything. And I said, we need to get our own trucks. We need to get it wrapped.

We need to build a brand. We need to do this. And they said, we're going to lose every customer. I'm like, let's just start. So we ended up losing 40%. We doubled our prices. So we we did half literally we lost 40 so we were doing 60 of the capacity for double the price so we made 120 for almost half the work you made more profit way more well i don't think we were profiting before i mean that's a no-brainer it was well these guys were

worried that and it's, it's Christmas. I thought when I went into business Christmas, I was like, dude, this is going to be a job. It's so easy. I had to say this to my partner, Scott, at Shock IT. We've been partners for five years now. When I bought in, he had three employees. We now have over 80 employees.

And I said this to him as a friend. I said, Scott, our job is to employ people, give them a home, give them a family, he can be part of and grow. But our job is to make money at the end of the year, me and you too. Our job is not just to give people that. We have to make money. Yeah. And like I said, if we don't make money, it don't make sense, Scott.

Yeah. And I had to be so directly with him and he got it at that point in time, you know, because he was against increasing his pricing at Shock IT. I gave him the speech. Jelon was breaking the P&L down. How long was that speech? It was right at the vertical track. Oh, good. Well, good.

I took a hard look at all my companies. No, you did. I saw you were very serious in the hallway. I saw you with a lot of your inner circle, and you were like, we're doing this. Yeah, I mean, I did it across the board. And everything's grown. I always thought about this, and I've been in partnerships, and it's difficult. I always thought about this and I've been in partnerships and it's difficult. What is it that makes a partnership tick?

Communication, I think. Communication, number one. I'm fortunate. I had great partners. Listen, I had partners I've been partners with that are no longer my partners that I love and they were part of my journey and I can't say a bad word about them. I think partners is this. You have to bring something good to the table while the partner doesn't. Make sense? I'm not going to go out and put a garage door in. I'm not going to go

out and put an HVAC system in. I'm not going to go do any of these things. But what I'm going to do is take care of the P&Ls, the marketing, take care of the systems processes. Those type of things are going to help us scale and grow that company. So that takes that off the table with you. But if you can't hustle and sell the leads and add some value, and every deal that I've gotten across the board, I've gotten. No one's ever brought a deal to me and said, hey, listen, any of my partners. They're like, oh, let's go buy this house or this property or let's go buy this business together. I've done it. And that could be taxing on someone, but I've had great partnerships. I've bought partners out. And there's only one reason why you leave partners

and this and that. It's just, it isn't working. You don't, nothing isn't working because I've never fought my partners that I bought out. We don't have the same vision, the same. If I don't see a clear path, Tommy, I'm out. If I don't see a clear path to making money, I'm gone. And if I don't feel like you can add to that

for me making money, I'm gone. Well, that's like, okay, you know, it's like Mr. Wonderful. Like I'm in business And if I don't feel like you can add to that for me making money, I'm going. Well, that's like, well, okay. You know, it's like Mr. Wonderful. Like I'm in business to make a profit.

It's like, we're not a charity. If I want to get into a charity, I will, but it's a different, complete different structure. Well, you'd be surprised how many people will be your partner or friend when you're

giving them checks. But when you're not giving you checks back, it just doesn't work. Oh, and that's where like, you know, you just got to say, this is business,

man. Like you're a great person or whatever it is but i've given you millions i've gotten none or i've given you a few hundred thousand i've gotten none it's over so the partnership's real simple if you just calculate it all are we making money and you know the one thing i said is i went to buy into a deal probably about two years ago with a friend of mine joey burns i said let me in on a deal and he said brother i'd let you in. There's not enough meat on the bone. And it was like a punch in the face.

Not that he said no, but I used that as there's not enough meat on the bone of how much money do I want to make on every deal? And am I bringing anyone else into that deal? And it's not being rude. Sometimes you just got to make sure there's enough meat on the bone for everyone. You can't do it.

Well, you know, what's interesting about this whole thing is when people get married, they go into a certificate. There's all this legal paperwork that goes into it. And I just wish when people go into partnerships, they put down the expectations. What's going to make or break it? What's going to happen during this, this, this, this, this, this, this? If they go into this knowing black and white, most marriages go into it saying we're going to be together forever. I mean, they vow.

But 60% of them end up in the divorce. So I just wish we went into business with the same mentality of this could fall apart. What happens if it does? Let's just hope for the best, plan for the worst. This is the thing. You're not probably going to be partners forever. And that's the reality of it. That doesn't make it a bad thing.

It means you're taking it to the journey and the destination to where you hopefully don't need each other anymore. That's what it comes down to. Like for me, I gave you one partner that I bought out, I'm not going to say his name, but great guy. It was actually my first partner ever. We were together for over 10 years. Still one of my best friends. I love him.

I love his kids. It just was the end of our journey together. Makes sense. My vision was going and building and doing what I'm doing and working and missing things. I'm here with you for two days. I'm going to Tom Howard in a few weeks. I'm going to Julian. I'm on the road this whole summer. Learning, understanding, trying to better myself. His commitment wasn't that. So if that's not your path and vision, that's mine. Like you said, in a marriage, how does this work? If you want to go to church every Sunday, but your wife doesn't want to go to church every Sunday, how does that work? Well, there's always some compromise, but at the end of the day, you should go into this saying,

look, we've got these vows that we're committing to. This is my lane. This is your lane. You're going to let me stay in my lane. You're going to stay in yours, and we're going to trust each other and have a way to quantify it. It's just things change. They do. I think if marriages can end with people that have kids and that's the most precious thing to them, I think that businesses, relationships can end. And I don't have hard feelings towards any of my partners ever. I love them all. I think they're great people. I hope they go on to surpass me.

I really do. I wish they built bigger and better businesses than me and I would be their biggest cheerleader. I would be. I'm a fan. I want you to go kill it, man. Have fun. For me to succeed doesn't mean you need to fail. I tell these garage door companies, I'm like, look, even if we're friendly competitors,

we can both kick ass in the same market. There's enough water in the ocean for both of us. It's funny because I haven't obviously been in my place. I'm one of the biggest digital agencies in the country. Nobody comes to see me except for a few people. I can name five people that ever come to see me in 13 years besides Google and Facebook. Besides them,

since I've owned home service businesses, more people have opened up the horizon. I can name it. Bigger than me. I'm the small guy in the home service industry. I'm the peon. People are showing me and teaching me and I'm laughing. I'm like, so many businesses don't get it.

They think everyone's competing. You're not. You can't get all the business. It's impossible. You're the biggest garage store company here in Phoenix by far. There's no one even close to you. Do you have over 75% market share? No, not even close.

Even if you hit, they say at 20, you get diminishing returns. It'd be lucky to have five. Tommy, I was hitting you with a right hook. Suck the punch. Yeah, you know what I mean? But that's my point. You can never have it all. When someone says to me, how can you represent me and the other home service business in my same area?

Because your budget could be a million dollars a month, which it's not going to be. And you still couldn't literally own all the search volume. There's that much business out there. And you never know where life takes you. I tell people that all the search volume. There's that much business out there. And you never know where life takes you. I tell people that all the time. The best thing I ever made was to go on the road show like I have this last six months and be in different businesses and really learn. Because you got to remember, everyone that's my partners has asked me to buy their companies.

So the HVAC company came to me. The painting company came to me. The roofing company came to me. They all came and found you. They all came and found me and asked me. They're all my clients. So let me just go speed company came to me. The roofing company came to me. They all came and found you. They all came and found me and asked me. They're all my clients. So let me just go speed around here real quick. So CJ and Bill run one SEO. You've got a lot of partnerships. You brought in the equation AI. Let's switch to that for a second. So

you said not a lot of businesses are using AI properly. And you were talking, I think, specifically about weather. You know, there's tools out there like Lion Reporting, there's other weather tools where you can actually take your historical data matched up over the weather patterns and see what your budget has to be for a three-day job or for how many leads you need to field. And that's what will give you, map out your road to success to keeping your tech. Every time a tech's not on the road for a business, you're losing money. So people say to me all the time, what's your cost per conversion? What's your cost per conversion?

During your busiest time of the year, your cost per conversion is going to be the lowest it ever is. During your slowest time, it's probably going to trickle up. But are you going to be willing to pay more for your cost per conversion to keep your techs on the road? I am. I don't know if you are. I am. I don't care. I don't have a season, luckily. You don't.

For sure. I look at it that way. I also think people don't use enough... luckily i mean we don't here but i'm saying for sure so i look at it that way i also think people don't use enough you said it's called lions lions reporting lions weather reporting so lions ai and it works incredible i don't think people use ai in their daily life or just even following a simple pattern of your highest conversion what's your highest keyword well that's your best thing ai can literally just make sure you're number one for that every single time. I mean, it is.

It just adjusts the bid. Correct. And people aren't using that type of things, AI. So, I mean, I think if you get into what AI can do for your marketing, also just systems and process

with Salesforce, some of these tools, LeadForensic, some of these other things that Pardot, I mean. They're all doing it. Even the phone systems are using AI.

Of course. You can actually tell me the empathy. I could go and look at every single time someone brought up price and go directly to that and tell the empathy and how they rebuttaled it. And it'll give me a report without even having someone look at everything. You could do it with your phone system and just put how many people looked for replace garage door. Put that key phrase in it and it'll spit it out to you. Yeah. So you don't have to go listen to calls.

You know, they say in three to five years, things are going to change so much. When people tell me this, they say, I'll be just like you, Tommy, in five years. I want them to be great or better, like you said. But how? First of all, they're a technology handicap. They don't have a gym or a bill. And, you know, I know you've got a lot of people. Why is one SEO the best? Why are they better than

the rest? What are the secret sauce? I mean, are the people, the tools? We have our tools. I mean, listen, we're one of a few companies in the country that's a Google premier agency. We're a Facebook premier agency. Obviously, we have relationships with Service Titan. We're a marketing agency there, Nexstar. So I mean, these elite companies don't partner with us because we're bad at what we do. They partner with us because we're bad at what we do. They partner with us because we're great at what we do. And I think the reason why 1SEO is so good, we have such great talent. I do. I believe we have the best talent in the world at 1SEO. I believe we also have the most people that care about our customers. I tell everyone that comes

through our business, our doors, that we're like financial advisors. People are trusting us with their money to grow their companies. And either you're a fraud or you deliver. There's no in-between. Our job is to get your phone to ring and get you more leads and help you build your brand. Either you're doing that or you're screwing people over. And I'm not going to be attached to anything

that screws people over. What happens if you get somebody leads and you're realizing they're not even answering the phone? I mean, is there a little come to Jesus conversation every now and then? I mean, you got to remember, I don't interact with clients. You're not that guy. What, I?

Yeah, hell yeah. I mean, I've been fired because of how I interact with customers. I've said, dude, you're a moron. You're spending all this money on advertising and no one answers your phone.

Like, makes no sense to me. Even the shittiest answering service is better than no one answering. Yeah, you said it. I mean, we talked about that yesterday. So let's talk about the new book coming out. Tell us a little bit about Let It Rip. I mean, it's a book that I've been working on for about a year and a half, two years now. It's been a slow process, still working on

it. Just about growing these businesses and what I went through in my personal life. And I look back on my personal life and a lot of your personal will dictate your business and how you handle things and how you persevere. I think a lot of people quit before they're just ready to win. I truly believe that. What finds me funny is, for example, what's in the book, is all your friends and people will look at you. My wife's restaurant failed. I shut it down. So I had a restaurant in the city called M's Place, opened up for about four months. We did great numbers, doing about 100,000 a month. I have documents to show it. But COVID, this and that, 100,000 a month. I have the documents show it, right? But COVID, this and that,

so I shut it down. And people would be like, oh my God, on the forums and other places, look, this guy couldn't make in the restaurant business or this or that or this and that. Listen, I showed the hell up.

I tried. I went for it. Not everything's going to work out. I'd rather be the guy that keeps showing up and going for things and bettering and buying businesses and growing them and have a few losses here and there. No one's going to remember out. I'd rather be the guy that keeps showing up and going for things and bettering and buying businesses and growing them and have a few losses here and there.

No one's going to remember you for your losses. Do you remember when Michael Jordan lost that game? No. No, I don't either. The haters will, but they never try. I think that's what scares people. They're so afraid of what other people will say when they fail. I don't give a shit what anyone says anymore at this point in my life.

I'm so laser focused on where we're going and what we're doing. Either get on the yacht with me or be on the canoe. Either way, I'm going. You know, it's interesting because Simon Sinek was saying at Pantheon, he was the keynote, and he was just like, look, guys, just forget about this world that you live in, that it's day by day. Ice Cube said, life ain't a track meet, it's a marathon. And Simon Sinek said the same thing in a little bit different tone when he said it, but did you spend time with family? Did you overall enjoy your life? Did you leave a life of giving? Did you give back? Did you truly say you're the most fulfillment? And it doesn't need to be you feel fulfilled overall, but I mean, there are days that you feel empty. There are

days that, you know, there's another book called Off Balance on Pur on purpose but there's definitely days that I feel like man that was a tough day or maybe it was a laid-back day maybe I didn't do the best I could that day but no one wins every minute of every day it's impossible every one of us have a real life comes at you and this is what I say to people so Monday and Tuesday I had a rough day at work and I called you and I said listen tomorrow morning I never go to gym at night I know you do I said, listen, tomorrow morning, I never go to the gym at night. I know you do. I go in the morning, early in the morning. I ran this morning. But I left work early on Tuesday.

I need to reset my mind because Monday and Tuesday just weren't great days for me. Not branding my company for Lance Bachman. I didn't feel like I was winning. I was contributing the way I should be.

So I went to the gym Tuesday night, came home, got early sleep, came here, flew out to meet you. And it's been great, right? Because the whole goal and the whole aspect of that story is you got to punch through and keep going through, but the great ones recognize when things aren't going right for themselves and they adjust real quick. You can't get into that pattern of not feeling good, of not doing the right stuff. You got to see it and adjust to it and say, well, I got to make a change real fast or it will spiral.

You know what you should do? We're coming out with a new book. I don't have the name of it. We've got a couple of chapters written and, you know, Jim and I have been working on it with a couple other people on the team and just, we're really looking for that. When you look at the E-Myth, actually Michael Gerber was here, work on it, not in it. You know, if you think about profit first is you think about revenue minus profit equal expenses. I can say this about a lot of books. We want to create a movement, so we can't go back to the drawing boards. I'm actually flying out to Nashville to pull all my thoughts into my main focus. One of the things I want to do is build a course, but this course is going to be like,

I want to fly to see you. I want to go see Dan again. I want to talk to Bill. I want to fly. I want to do like a road show of like the 20 biggest companies and build a whole course on it and have a few different courses. But it's not about a money grab. It's hard to teach without a course format. So hard. And so that's what we're working on. And then obviously, we're on vertical track and just giving back.

You're right. At some point, it's not about the money. But there are a lot of people here that have families that want to be able to win too. So we got to charge for stuff. I wish I could just give back, but I am going to be philanthropist, but I'm just not there yet. I mean, I help out. Like I told you, the only thing I help out is juvenile delinquents and troubled kids and poor kids. I mean, that's my only thing. And I give a lot of money to that. And I have no problem with that. That's my main goal.

I'll probably open a reform school for kids one day that have all been in trouble. You don't need the bureaucracy. You don't need the governor and the mayor to take a little bit of what they need for their mansions. Just go straight to the source. Those people don't understand about capitalism. You're giving back to a great cause.

My in is this. I'm very direct with everyone I donate money to. And this is why I love anyone ever wants to donate to Beat the Streets Philadelphia. Don't let, you'll give them the money. Okay. And they'll let me

literally cut the check and they'll show me the check cut to the people that are using my money. I mean, it doesn't get better than that. I mean, because I got screwed a few times where I donate to these organizations

and then it didn't go to where it's supposed to go. There's a site that actually rates where the money goes and the best foundations go straight to the cause. Other ones, you know, I used to bartend the only black cards and this is in the early 2000s that I ever seen were nonprofits. The only black Amex as I saw were nonprofits. I mean, so it goes down to, in Philadelphia, it's real simple, right? The sugar tax was supposed to help kids in school. It was all for school.

They taxed soda 10% more, whatever tax. You should look it up. And they said, all this money will not go to politicians or any of our stuff. It will go to all school kids, this and that. I think less than 5% of that money even goes to the kids. I think it all got redistributed back to politicians, reallocated. It happens all the time. It's disgusting.

It's disgusting. Never vote for a bigger bill for taxes. All it is is go to the politicians. So three questions I always ask at the end of a podcast. Number one, two things to reach out to. Obviously, your roofing, your painting, your air conditioning. But if they want to get a hold of oneO or you, what are the two ways to do so? I mean, anyone just call my cell phone [phone]. I put it out there for anyone.

I don't care. You want to ask me a question, you want to talk, I'm pretty easy going. Email me, go to 1SEO's site. I'm not one of those people that hide from any conversation. I enjoy them. And then if they want, do they reach out to Bill from 1SEO? Yeah, I would reach out to Bill Rizzo. You can reach out to Bill Rizzo or CJ or Jill Spite. There's a bunch of people. Just go right to 1SEO.com, fill out a form, chat. Somebody will get back to you right away.

All right. Bill's always taking care of me. He's a great guy. He returns the phone calls. Hey, and sometimes there might be bad news. He's good at that too. Like, look, your website sucks. He'll tell you.

And you know, here's the good thing. Guys didn't answer the phone no matter what. You know, I answer my phone when shit hits the fan. You know, our garage door didn't come in on time or it got damaged. Or there was a fire and your garage door got damaged. And we're going to take care of you, but we'll always answer your calls. So I had a real quick, I'm going to wrap up. I was walking to a football field

the other day, probably two, three weeks ago. And this guy by the name of Brian Boss, he sells insurance. This guy just sells insurance for freedom. This is one of my clients for years. Nice guy.

And he helps run the football league. And he said he was working all day Saturday. And I was like, man, that's awesome, dude. He goes, my best ability is my availability. I said, what did you just say? And that is a guy.

I mean, I don't know what he makes, probably 200 quid. I'm not counting his money by any means, but you sell insurance, you might make 300, 400, whatever it is. But his words to me were, my best ability is my availability. And he got it. Like, when you get that, life gets easier. I stole his line. Sorry

about that. No, no, no, I like that. You know, one of the things I'll tell you is I was listening to Roland Frazier the other day, and he was a got-a-minute guy. And then he started charging $25,000. You want to have a day, 25 grand. Well, he did 800 grand off the 25 grand in one year. The hard part is when you're trying to have a family, you're trying to be this person for everybody.

I still want to take every phone call, but eventually you get torn in 80 directions. What he said was, when people pay for my time, they tend to come through and work with me and build a great company. So he said, when they have no skin in the game, so I think there's two perspectives. It's like, I'm available. I'm not in the consulting business, but people are going to pay

for one SEO. People are going to pay for my HVAC services. I mean, if you want five, ten minutes of my time, if you want to come to one SEO and mirror me, no different than I'm doing right now, come. But he's in the consulting business of coaching people how to build their businesses. That's not what I do. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Garage Door Freedom is a great another example of that's why you pay to be part of that. I mean, I saw all the access you guys give. I mean, that's worth every penny. A lot of the guys go, well, wait a minute, A1. Well, it's built out the back of A1, and I don't want you to become A1.

We're just trying to teach you how to recruit, train, retain. The fact is, A1 is the proof's in the pudding. You know what I mean? You've been there. Yeah, and the thing is, you can't have graduate freedom and Tommy Mello without having a little discussion about A1. Because, yes, we own multiple companies now. I showed you. There's a lot of companies we're trying to partner with,

but at the end of the day, it's gotta be a win-win. I'll tell you that. Oh, that's 100%, has to be. So tell me a few books that stood out to you. If you got some books that really changed your life. Well, my best one is Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the best books. Winning Jack Welsh.

I think that's another great book. Yeah. Freakonomics is another great book. E-Myth, obviously a good book. Built to Last, Good to Great. I need to read Winning. I haven't read that. Winning is a good book.

Okay. I mean, there's a lot of great books out there. And I think as you read, I listen to a lot of Audible books now. Yeah. And I think as you read and listen more, and I mean, I must've listened to Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I must listen to it once a month. And it always just reminds me of, don't be the guy that's just building a living for yourself. It makes you go L and E ledge, use your time wisely, invest your money.

If you got money sitting in the bank and you're not using your money to buy other things, like people ask, why do I keep acquiring companies? Well, what else am I going to do? You're right. If I'm not growing, once again, I'm treading water. Sooner or later, I'm going to die. I'm going under. So we talked about a lot of stuff here. We talked about OneSEO.

We talked about your family, Philly. Talked a little bit about Let It Rip. The book's going to be coming out soon. Kids, out of everything we talked about, I'd just like to give you the chance to maybe close this up, maybe give everyone that's listening a big takeaway or something to get started today or implement this or whatever you want to get us finished here. Yeah, my biggest takeaway for anyone that's listening to this is just do one thing. Just move forward.

It's like going to the gym. You just got to get your ass in the gym day one. Day two gets easier. Day three gets easier. Building your business is the same exact way. If you're trying to out-roll five things, and if you have vertical track or any other conference, and you try to implement five different things right away, it's not going to work. Take one thing, implement it, then go to the second thing. Then the third thing, prioritize. So I'm a big believer in that, but you've got to start somewhere and you just got to do it.

I know it sounds like a Nike commercial. You got to start somewhere and just do it. I mean, it started as half the battle getting started. Well, a lot of people overthink things. I say this all the time. The worst decision a leader can make is no decision. Just make some decision wrong or right. We'll figure it out. I need to take that, that little thing that Lance just said and have every single executive listen to that from a one. We need to take that and we need to send that out as an email. Can you please chop that, just that little piece, and it's going to the whole executive team. Just get started.

Make a decision today. Lance, appreciate you being here, my man. Thank you. Great podcast. Great time. Hey there, I hope you enjoyed the podcast with Lance today. A lot of people ask me who they should hire to help them with SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Hey there, I hope you enjoyed the podcast with Lance today. A lot of people ask me who they should hire to help them with SEO, Google ads, Facebook,

you name it. And unfortunately, this market is plagued with terrible agencies that promise you the mood, but deliver a bad return on your investment. But I can tell you that Lance's agency, 1SEO, is the best agency that we've worked with so far. If you want the name of your company to be at the top of Google, I highly recommend you get in touch with 1SEO. Go to 1seo.com forward slash Tommy and fill out their form to get connected to one of their advisors.

They'll show you the opportunities that you're missing out on and how you can seize them up. Just go to 1seo.com forward slash Tommy and fill out the form.