The Home Service Expert Podcast - How Building Trust Can Take Pricing Concerns Off The Table

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

Meridith Elliot Powell is an award-winning author, a public speaker, and a business strategist. She travels approximately 300 days a year for speaking engagements and hosts her own podcast, providing valuable business insights to entrepreneurs based on years of industry expertise and experience. She has been cited as one of the top 15 Business Growth experts to watch by Currency Fair. In this episode, we talked about leadership, business development, sales, marketing, consulting...

I always tell people it isn't what you sell, it's how you sell it. I can find a garage door anywhere, quite frankly. Now, you have a million reasons why yours is better and all those types of things, but you have to understand for me as a customer, it looks vanilla. I'm buying it because I know you, I like you, and I trust you. And the only way I get to know you, this is really important, is that you get to know me first. I don't get to know you by you telling me about you. That's not what I want. The first thing I want is for you to feel like you care about me. And the thing that's so crazy to me about that, Tommy, is that I don't understand why business owners, sometimes sales professionals don't do this, is if you ask people questions, you get two

very powerful things happening. Number one, they will tell you exactly what they want, exactly when they want it, and exactly what words they want you to use in order to ensure the sale. But the second seals the close. And that is that the moment I ask questions about you, that feels good to me. I feel like you care. I feel like my goals are more important than your goals. And that builds trust and trust opens the door and takes price off the table. 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. My name is Tommy Mello, and today I have a very special guest. I got to meet her. We did some public speaking together. She got paid. I didn't. That's how I know she's amazing. Her name is Meredith Elliott Powell, and she lives in Asheville. And she's a coach, a strategic planner. She specializes in leadership, business development, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, consulting, program management. She's an author. She's huge. I mean, this lady travels almost 300 days out of the year to public speak. She's a keynote speaker, an award-winning author, and a business strategist.

She's everywhere. She's got her own podcast, Thrive in Uncertainty, and voted one of the top 15 business growth experts to watch my currency fair. She wrote a book called Cut Through Excuses and Send Sales Through the Roof. And she just came out with a new book, Who Comes Next? Leadership Succession Planning. That's a hard word for me. You know, we've canceled this about, you canceled it twice, I canceled it twice, I think. And I'm so excited to have you on finally. Well, you know, all good things happen if you are patient. That's true.

I'll tell you what, when I saw you speak, you own that stage. You and I met up afterwards and you told me, you said, you know, I love my life. You said, hey, every day is a vacation. I remember that. You were just walking. I think we were walking to meet up. Yeah. And you said, hey, this is a great life.

Me and my husband get to travel the world together. Yeah, it is. Back in the day before this crisis, that was right. I would have been traveling about 200 days a year. But you know, the thing that's really funny about it is you think I would be going through anxiety or something being at home so much, but I don't. I really like that too. So it's just, I feel lucky to be healthy. I still feel lucky to be getting outside and being active and feel lucky that still finding my way from a work perspective through this crisis. Yeah, it's switched everything on its head. It's definitely changing the way we do things.

Let me ask you this. So you've done a lot. You became a speaker, a life coach, you're an entrepreneur, you're an author. Tell me a little bit about the journey of where you are today and what you've been through to kind of cause all this to happen? Yeah. I was the kid who really shouldn't have amounted to much. I was talking with this about somebody earlier today. I failed out of college the first time I got into it. I couldn't get out of bed before 11 o'clock in the morning. And here I sit maybe closer to 25 years later, and I am the person who's up at 5 a.m. I am the person really disciplined in things. And I feel like the journey has been that I had to find what worked for me. And I'm the type of person who I run to the sound of the gunfire. Every time I've done well in business, it's because I've come into business at times of crisis. I

started in travel and tourism right when a hurricane wiped out the community where I lived and worked. I went into healthcare right when Medicare and Medicaid were getting cut to the bone and doctors, right or wrong, felt like they went from making a lot of money to making nothing. I got into the financial services industry right when the SNL crisis happened. And 2008, we all remember 2008, that was the year I went into business a couple of years before 2008 for myself. And 2008 was a breakout year for me because I really liked the challenges and the problems. So while I am not much of a bookworm, I'm not much one to study, won't find me with a litany of degrees. What I am really good

on and where the journey has been is that where there is a problem, that's where I turn on and I'm good at solving that problem and then helping others find the path forward with it. You know, that's really interesting because right now a lot of companies are having huge problems. And I think this was a big test, this whole coronavirus. It was like, this has never happened before. You just shut off the economy and we're sitting here. And the best thing about it is it's survival of the fittest, isn't it? Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I think there's so much popping up. Number one, if your business, it has put a spotlight on any problems you had beforehand, right? I mean, the lights have come on and the rats have scattered. The second thing is that when you and I were talking a little bit about this before we came on is I find that some people are really paralyzed and struggling to move. And I just finished a webinar series for our local chamber of commerce, trying to help people go through the steps to move from being stuck to being able to actually find the opportunities in this crisis. I mean, the people that are going to come out of this, it really was a testament

about who you are. You know, I'm very, very lucky because it's not only about the decisions we made, but it's, we're essential business. I mean, you wouldn't think garage doors would be, but we are. And I'll tell you what, I used to be in the restaurant industry. I was a bartender. I was a busboy. I washed dishes. I mean, they had to shut down. Can you imagine just having to close the door to your business? You can't do a zoom call and get people to eat your food. I mean, right, right. But you know, I have been amazed at how kind of, as you said, the survival of the fittest, the people have kind of risen to the top and they figured out a way. I have a small retail business that I read about that their whole business was toys and

people would come in and work with the store owner to find the perfect toy for their child. And of course her business blew up overnight. But what she did was she just started talking and engaging with customers and she gathered all the stuff and she delivered Easter baskets. She made $4,000 in a day. Wow. You're absolutely right. People won't make it through this crisis. But one thing about a crisis is it really, it causes you to invent. It causes you to create, causes you to bring out what is best about you as an entrepreneur. It sounds like me and you are like the same person

because you put me against the wall and I'm like this. I mean, you should have seen all of a sudden I got up two hours earlier. I was like a drill sergeant. I was like, here's what we're going to do. Here's how we're going to do it. And I like it when you push me against the corner because I'll show you what I can do. Yeah. And you, you coach a lot of businesses. So I'm just curious, what areas of businesses do most entrepreneurs struggle with?

I have my own philosophy on this and I want to hear yours. What areas of business? What areas of business do really, you know, ultimately, what's the biggest thing you see? And tell us a little bit about the businesses you work with too. Yeah, I work all across the board. I work with large businesses. I work with small businesses and I do that on purpose because what I love about small business and what I love about entrepreneurs, what I love about anybody who's running their own business, and I mean, when I mean running it, I mean, you're in the thick of it, is there's no fat in the margin. There's no room for let's have a meeting about that, right? You can't waste time when you are an entrepreneur.

But I like working with big business because I feel like they have more space to be innovative and creative. And working with both helps me be more effective with each. But I feel like one of the areas, a couple of the areas that I really see business owners struggle with is just the whole strategy and really running the business,

working on the business and moving the business forward and being a step ahead. We can get so caught up in just running the day-to-day that we're not thinking about the changes coming and really leading the business strategically for what's next. Cashflow, I don't feel like I've never felt like businesses run that really well and understand their break-evens and their cost points and what's effective business and what isn't effective business, what customers to let go of. And then for some entrepreneurs, sales is not really their thing. Yeah. I mean, sales and marketing are my favorite things, but I can't do a pivot table on Excel.

I hate the details, the minute details, but you kind of got to hire around that. So your book about succession planning, I'm really interested in that. Yeah. Because it's just, I love Jack Welch the most. Yes, me too. Jack was amazing with GE and I love the book, both the last. And the thing is a lot of owners have a lot of pride. Like they say, when I'm gone,

I want to see the business fall apart because I was the glue that made it happen. Right. And ultimately a leader's role is to make the business better when they leave. I mean, ultimately that's just pride getting in the way, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. The reason that I wrote the book and I wrote it with a partner of mine, Dr. Mary Kelly, who's a former Naval Intelligence Officer and a leadership expert. And the reason we wrote the book was we were both doing a lot of work with organizations. And one of the biggest things we saw was push back to succession planning. And that succession planning was just complicated and it was overwhelming to people. And it just wasn't something that they did. On top of it, people started to think about succession planning

as only being for the business owner. And it isn't. It's for every critical position in your organization. I mean, you know, Tommy, look at your group. You lose your lead salesperson and you're in trouble, right? So what are you doing to really understand those critical positions? What are you doing to really build that leadership depth without your organization? Number one, it ensures the sustainability of your business. It attracts top talent because you appear to have your act together and you've got a future for people. And then it puts you in a position to really have the brightest and best on your team, which at the end of the day is your only competitive advantage. So we wrote the book to really simplify the process and drive home the idea that this isn't just for the person who owns

and operates the business. It's for everybody. So succession planning, when do you start to think about, because personally, you know, I have financial planners and they ask me, what's going to happen if you die? Right. And I hate that question because I'm not that old and I don't have a family yet. I'm not married. I don't have any kids. I've never been married, but anything could happen at any time.

Yes. So thinking about that is I've got a pretty big responsibility. I have hundreds and hundreds of employees. And what happens? Does the business fall apart? Does everybody's life change? Because I didn't plan, right? So I guess it's a tough thing to do, but I think everybody should have a plan. And a lot of people take out like key man insurance policies against the other business owners, their partners and stuff like that. So what is the main topic of the book? The main topic of the book, look, you've got to talk with your professionals about what

you should be doing with Keyman Life Insurance and all that kind of stuff. And we definitely make reference to that. What are the tools and resources you have to have? But I'm so glad you asked this question because the book is bigger than that. And what the book really is, the best way to describe it is we all remember just before this pandemic started that Jamie Dimon with JPMorgan Chase had a heart attack or something happened. You know, he had some type of heart issue.

That may not be exactly right. But in a matter of seconds, the gentleman who runs one of the most important financial institutions that has one of the biggest impacts on our financial system, the leader, the figurehead, was out of commission. And in no time at all, everybody in the organization, with Jamie Dimon completely incapacitated, knew what to do, what steps to take to not only ensure that the business moved forward, but to ensure customers were communicated with, felt comfortable with what was going on, and the impact of the financial systems was taken care of too. That's what the book is about.

If anything happened to you, positive, negative, or whatever, and you couldn't run the business, can the business run without you? If you lost your top salesperson, are you going to still hold on to all of your customers? Is that going to move through seamlessly? If your IT person walked out the back door, do you have a plan? And that in essence is what the book is about. I love it. Yeah, that's interesting because I think my business, and I always tell people this, I say, Meredith, if I was to take you to Hawaii today for a month and take, I'm going to take your puppy, I'll take your kids. I'm paying for everything, but here's the deal. You're not allowed to look at your CRM. You're not allowed to contact anybody back CRM. You're not allowed

to contact anybody back home about your business. How does a business look like when you get back? And I always tell people, if your business is falling apart and it's failed, then you don't really have a business. You have a job. Right. So true. And it's tough. It's tough because people go, well, how did you do it? And I say, I don't even know. I have the best team ever because I have a big heart and I hire people that are way better than me. But honestly, I barely get to tie my own shoes. So a lot of businesses get into trouble. Sometimes a lot of people aren't dealing with this whole pandemic the right way. And some of them don't have a choice. We talked about essential versus not essential earlier before we got on the podcast. Talk to me a little bit about what

we should be doing during this time. Well, there's three things I think that you should be doing. What I'm really guiding people to do is number one is the first thing you've got to do is stabilize the business. And what I mean by that is that we are in crazy times, right? I mean, we don't know what's happening, when it's going to happen. I've got businesses that are doing well, that are just praying to God that the economy holds and businesses that everything is blown up and they're not sure where they're going to get generated revenue. You've got to answer those hard questions. What do you need to do to make sure that the business can run for the next six months? What expenses do you need to cut?

What revenue do you have? How stable is that revenue? Where can you get other revenue, whether that means your loan or whether that means that you have to go deliver pizzas at Domino's to just funnel some cash into your business? Once you stabilize the business, it calms your anxiety and makes all that worry settle down so that you can allow yourself to be creative. And when in the creative mode, I say the first thing you need to do is figure out how you're going to grow in this crisis because you can grow in this crisis. There is opportunity out there right now. You just have to find it. And the way you find it is I want you

to call every customer you have had for the last three years. And I want you just to have a really deep conversation with them. Tell me what's going on. Tell me where your challenges are. Tell me where your opportunities are. Tell me how this is impacting you. And if you listen, you are going to find the path to the problems they're having and what you can solve. And it may be the products you currently have, but it may be products that you need to evolve or to create. And that's what you need to evolve or to create. And that's what you need to be doing. You've got to stabilize the business. You've got to find the crack of light in this prison where you're in. And there's a crack. But if you focus your time

and energy on that crack and listen to your customers, they're going to tell you exactly what you need to do to create the path forward. And I know all this because it's based on a new book I've got coming out in the fall called Thrive Strategies to Turn Uncertainty to Competitive Advantage. And I interviewed businesses that have been around since the late 17, early 1800s. They're still in business today and they have come through every economic downturn. They've come through a pandemic. They've come through depression. They've come through world wars. And it's a methodology of what they have done to really succeed through a pandemic. They've come through depression. They've come through world wars. And it's a methodology of what they have done to really succeed through those times.

Wow. Well, that's pretty cool. So I think that the hardest part of a business, you look at General Electric and the GE came out. Do you know what GE was founded from? No, I don't. So back in the day, Edison, right? Thomas Edison. General Electric was just, it was all about lighting up America. And it was just about the light bulbs and electricity.

And out of that evolved, all of a sudden they became, everybody knew General Electric from Sears back in the day. And then right after the depression, General Electric was, they built really, really good appliances. And then now my brother-in-law is a vice president at General Electric. Very, very successful guy.

They make so much money. And it's funny that people that make money, they spend it pretty well too. But it's such an interesting company. And you think about Jack Welch, but you got all this different, you got the CEOs of different eras and you see this company just evolving. And then you watch huge companies fail overnight. And it's interesting that you say that because I'm curious to hear something

about some of these, like, give me one business that you interviewed that you really. Sure. I'm obsessed now with Procter and Gamble P&G. P&G, one of their founding core values was to listen to their customers. And it's still a core value today. 1941, they developed the 800 number. 1941, toll-free number that their customers could use to give them feedback on their products and services. And you can watch the growth and the pullback in products that they offered. I mean, P&G was in all different types of product lines. Now they've really skinnied that back. It's completely done by listening to their customers. I mean, during our world wars, civil war, they developed soap

because soap would be hard to come by. When women started to go back into the workforce, they were ahead of the game providing products and services that made taking care of your house or making dinner easier than it had been like if a woman was home full time. So they have morphed and changed

their products and services, but they've never walked away from their core values of who they are. And most of the businesses I interviewed have used that as a guiding light to decide which direction to take in an uncertain marketplace. That's interesting. I really think the wealthiest companies in the world right now are the ones that make it through the bad times. It's not about the good times. It's about how do you deal with stuff in the bad times. And, you know, people that listen to podcasts, they read books, they literally see a lot of keynote speeches. They, they attend just successful groups are part of a group of people that are

successful. These are the people that are listening and they're doing things to change your lives. And I love the fact that you listen to your customer. I've got, I've got a customer that spends a million dollars with me, $1 million every year. I wouldn't mind 20 more of those. And I asked him the other day,

I said, I really appreciate your business. It's guys like you and women. I've got plenty of women owners that spend a lot of money with us. And I talked to these customers and I say, if you were me, how would I find more of you? I tell my guys to have a top hundred list, but really what you need is a top 10 list of customers that would change your life. Yes. And I mean, I know you, you do very, very well when you do a keynote speech, but if you get the right company to hire you 10 times a year and pay that

enough money, that's a huge living. Absolutely. It's crazy. Yeah. So how do you get in front of your, your ideal customers? What do you do to get in front of ideal customers? You know, typically what I do to get in front of ideal customers. and by that, do you mean prospects as well? Yeah. Yeah. So really what I do is I know my customers' pain points. I intimately know their pain points. And the way I know their pain points is I do that from interviewing my existing customers.

And then I produce things of value. And that's how I get in front of people. It's how I start every single relationship. Even if somebody, even if, Tama, you connected me with somebody, you say, gosh, I've worked with Meredith. You ought to meet her or whatever. My first reach out is going to be, hey, I would love to connect. Tell me a little bit about what you've got going on. And I'm listening for something they need and something of value. Like right now, the way I've been getting in front of prospects is a couple of months ago, I developed a website right when this pandemic started called Emerge Successful. And every week I shoot videos, I write articles, I put podcasts of everything you need to do to lead, to sell, to do all these types of things to emerge successful.

I've been using that tool to reach out and get in front of prospects. Wow. I love that. So I feel like it's value. That's how you do it. You know, we deal with customers. There's two types of customers. There's those long-term relationships, but most home service businesses that are on the podcast, we have a very short time to build rapport. And what I tell them,

every single one of my employees, every morning on our morning mobile call, spend 20 to 30 minutes, not even talking about the garage door. You're in their garage. You know, what's in your garage is your tents. It's your Harley Davidson.

It's your, the stuff that you love. It's a poster of the green Bay Packers, whatever it is. I can find a million things to talk to you about in your garage. And if we spend time and we listen, you know how it is. The customer sells themselves if they like you. And it's not easy for a lot of people to do that. But I tell each and every guy, if you don't enjoy talking to customers, this is not the right business because we're not in the garage door business. We're in the people business. Yes, that's exactly right. I always tell people, it isn't what you sell. It's how you sell it. I can find a garage door anywhere, quite frankly.

Now you have a million reasons why yours is better and all those types of things, but you have to understand for me as a customer, it looks vanilla. I'm buying it because I know you, I like you, and I trust you. And the only way I get to know you, this is really important, is that you get to know me first. I don't get to know you by you telling me about you. That's not what I want. The first thing I want is for you to feel like you care about me. And the thing that's so crazy to me about that, Tommy, is that I don't understand why business owners, sometimes sales professionals don't do this, is if you ask people questions, you get two very powerful things happening. Number one, they will tell you exactly what they want, exactly when they want it, and

exactly what words they want you to use in order to ensure the sale. But the second seals the close. And that is that the moment I ask questions about you, that feels good to me. I feel like you care. I feel like my goals are more important than your goals. And that builds trust and trust opens the door and takes price off the table. It's so fun to hear that stuff because I remember one day I talked to this guy and I'm talking like a world war two bet. This guy is like in his nineties. I couldn't walk away. I was there for three hours and he, I have a hard time like cutting people off and just, I've seen people do it really much better than I can, but it's not even about selling. It was like I was learning.

I mean, some people have a lot to offer. And I think the biggest secret of successful people is they do, you have two years in one mouth. And if you listen to people, they'll tell you everything, especially if you ask them the right questions. Yes, that's exactly right. They will. And they'll be beholden to you. It's interesting. You know, some of my guys, we sell things for a higher price than most other companies. And people look at me in the industry and they go, oh yeah, you price gouge. And I go, well, you work at home. Your wife answers your phone calls. Your son works for you and your daughter does your inventory. And when you leave town, your business doesn't run you see i have a nice big building we have

expensive trucks we have 24-hour service and i love this this lady named ellen roar she wrote a chapter in my book and she said don't base your prices on the market base your prices on how much you have to make to turn a profit. So everybody looks at their prices and there's this industry average. And a lot of people think the pricing you should charge is based on what the industry is doing. I believe you should make 15% all day, every day. You should add up your expenses and tell people,

I don't need to brag about my expenses, but I do need to tell them why I have these expenses. If I die or if I go out of town or something happens, the business still goes on. And my warranty is better than most companies. And so many companies brag that they're cheaper. I go on Facebook, like the forums out there, and people really, they brag that they're less. You know, there's Gary Vee. I guess he charges a quarter million dollars

for certain speeches. That's crazy. And to not look at that and say, wow, that's amazing. Who else? Grant Cardone. I know he was in town that my buddy paid him $50,000 to come to his office and talk to everybody. He left there midday and wouldn't made a hundred grand more to go and talk to a group. I mean, isn't that crazy? I mean, you make, trust me, the thing that I met you at, and I won't go into details, but you were making great money. I was there kind of because they invited me and they paid for the flight and the hotel and everything. But for me, it was just getting the experience, but it was amazing to watch you. You own that stage and I would tell on everything, but for me, it was just getting the experience. But it was amazing to watch you. You own that stage, and I'm going off on a different topic here,

but that's all you do, right? Like you love keynote speaking. I do. But I don't know what I'll do going forward. I mean, I think like so many people, we're in a little bit of a transition. See, I think the thing about price is that it's – I don't think that people who are your customers believe that they're paying more for the product i believe what they think is that what they're

getting is worth the price that they're paying probably more than worth the price that they're paying the cheapest yeah the cheapest i remember when i first moved out on my own and all my bills were my own and i remember thinking i used to go to walmart to buy my pants and all my bills were my own. And I remember thinking, I used to go to Walmart to buy my pants and I didn't understand why my mother would drag me to Neiman Marcus and you need a pair of black pants. Why would you pay a couple of hundred at Neiman Marcus when you could get them for, you know, 15 bucks at Walmart. And then you throw them in the washer the first time at Walmart's and all of a sudden they're two sizes smaller. Now I understand what the difference is between a $15 pair of pants. And I'm sure that nobody thinks as much when, you know, they're, you may be looking

at price when you put in a garage door, but let's, you know, what we have to sell is what happens if something happens to the garage door? You know, what is the length that this garage door is going to last me? I mean, there's a lot more to putting in a garage door and it's our job. If we lose on price, it's because we didn't sell what the options were. Well, there's only 4% of the population that buy on price. And if you're marketing to those people, you've got a failed business. Exactly. It can save you 300 bucks in the summer by giving you insulation. 40% of your curb appeal is your garage door. Not to mention that it's the only thing on your home you get 102% return on investment. It's more than your kitchen or

bathroom. And that's why I'm so passionate about it. And if you're not passionate about what you do, I see a lot of business owners, and this is what I wrote in my book is, why are you in business is because I didn't like working for that asshole. And I'm like, that's the reason you went into business, because you didn't like working for somebody? Yeah. They're not passionate about their business. And they're never going to be successful because they can't wait for Saturday. You know what day I can't wait for?

Monday. Monday. Monday, and it's weird. I mean, Sunday's become a really great day for us, really profitable. A year ago, I said, Sundays really, really are bad. How do we make Sundays busy? So we started scheduling more installs on Sunday. We started hiring for Sundays. Then it's a holy day. So I know a lot of people don't get stuff done on Sundays, but we made our weakness, our strength. And I think it lot of people don't get stuff done on Sundays, but we made our weakness,

our strength. And I think it's important to really look at the key ingredients. I love that you've, so it's called Thrive, the businesses you've interviewed, the book you're coming out with. Yeah, it's called Thrive, Turning Uncertainty to Competitive Advantage. I became fascinated before this pandemic that when the economy was red hot, I would walk into organizations and say, how are things going? And everybody was saying, oh my God, we're having our best year on record. It's been amazing, da, da, da, da, da. But oh, this uncertainty, as if uncertainty was going to be the thing that dropped out of the sky that killed their business. And I just started to wonder, I wonder if there were businesses that

looked at uncertainty as opportunity, looked at it as their chance to move forward. And let me tell you, Tommy, there are not a lot that look at it that way. But then I became fascinated with, gosh, you know, we've been through most of these things that we've been through before. We've even come through a pandemic, right? And it's fascinating. I just started, I nailed it down to, I think there's nine businesses and it's the story of those businesses. It starts out with take a breath. We've been here before, get ready for the ride because this is what being in business is. If you're an entrepreneur, whether you're a corporation, whatever, you're going to go for a ride and some years are going to be amazing. And

then the bottom is going to fall out. And then it's the story of those businesses. And then the last section of the book is the methodology. Okay, this is what we've learned. This is exactly what we need to do. And this is how you need to run your business if you want to thrive in uncertainty. I love it. So you've got Procter & Gamble.

You know, there's a lot of companies that have been out. I don't know any companies that have been around. Hundreds and hundreds. I'll give you two more. There's Brooks Brothers has been around around they're great they're an unbelievably great story and um bush beans now i live in north carolina and bush beans is just over the hill in tennessee i don't know if they're a big deal out in phoenix where you are but we are bush baked beans canned eaters in the south southeastern part of the country so

they're a great story and and here's the thing, Tommy, is what you find is that these companies have been very married to who they are as a company, their values, but their products and services have morphed and changed. Yeah, actually, there's a company called Clopay for garagers. And I went and visited their facility in Ohio. And Clopay stands for cloth cloth paper is originally what they did another agrogero manufacturer and uh it's interesting to see the roads that people travel through is you got to get innovative you got to grow with the times like I really was a big fan of blockbuster you remember

blockbuster yeah sure but then I remember Netflix and they'd send you the video and you didn't have any late fees. And I'm like, I kind of like going to blockbuster and just seeing all the choices I have rather than going. And now you look at it, blockbusters out of business and Netflix is a streaming company. I mean, Netflix is more profitable today than they've ever been. And they're going through this, through this whole pandemic. I realized one thing, I'm very fortunate. I can't control the fact that I'm an essential business. I mean, I can't control the fact that the PVP program worked in my favor. I can't control the fact that we did take out an SBA loan at 3.7%.

Who would have? And I had to lay off people. I mean, ultimately, we were making choices not knowing. The scariest thing in my life. Meredith is a uncertainty is not knowing things are out of my control that I can't, I can't control. I can't control. If they told us you cannot leave your house and there was tanks driving through the streets. I don't know what would have happened, but I was, I was, I thought about it, but I prepared for it. The only thing I knew that I did is I controlled everything that I could control.

And I did everything in my power to make sure that everybody knew what was going on. And I communicated fairly throughout the company. And I told you this. We set a record week last week. We set a record day. We had a record month. And here's the thing. Throughout all this uncertainty, we're going to be growing

out of control because this is the time. I never planned on this. I didn't like the fact that people are dying everywhere because of the coronavirus, but I know us, we're prepared for it now. And there's never been a better time to grow. Warren Buffett said, you'll make your money in a bad economy. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think the biggest challenge people have is letting go. And if you can let go, because I'm telling you, if you'd have been stuck at home, you would have found a way. I do believe that.

And so we got to focus on what we can control and let go of the rest and take it from there. Yeah, exactly. And you got to be innovative in this economy. You know, I came up with an idea the other day and it might be a stupid idea. We're going to definitely try it, but I'm going to start sending people Uber Eats lunch and say, let's have a virtual lunch.

Let me just go over a quick. Oh, I love that. There's certain customers, I told you this, they spend anywhere from a hundred thousand to a million dollars i figured out a way to identify those customers first of all you got to recognize your avatar and then if i could get in front of them and say maybe you're really happy with your current garage or provider or whatever it might be but do me a favor give me an opportunity to bid on the next few, and here's why.

Number one, I'm one of the largest companies in North America, so I get a better multiplier. Number two is I realize you have a schedule to keep, and my most important thing is that I stick to that schedule and I give you a quality product within your budget. And here's the thing. It's only a matter of time before the other company screws up and they give me. So I got this whole thing. It's only a matter of time before the other company screws up and they give me.

So I got this whole thing. It's a handwritten letter. It's a voicemail blast. It's several emails. And during this whole thing, I'm like, people are used to getting on zoom calls now, you know? So I just think that if you start thinking outside of the box, this is going to be the most innovative companies that come out of this. And I love what you said earlier. You said, it's this little crack. It's like a prism, this little crack of opportunity. And it's those who

have an open mind that see it. Yes. They've studied prisoners of war and those that survive and those that don't. And those that survive are not optimists or pessimists, they're realists. But in that realism, they look for the opportunity and they focus all their energy on that opportunity and they forget about the rest. I had a friend call me yesterday and he goes, how are you doing? And I said, what do you mean? He said, how are you mentally and emotionally? And I thought, maybe I'm just stupid or I'm not that deep a thinker, but I don't have time to drown in all the stuff that could happen that I don't know isn't going to happen. I am dealing with what is in front of me now and I am finding the path to keep my business going and come out the other side. I've got a vision of where I want to be and I'm just plugging it that and I don't have time for that other stuff.

It's like everybody, they fall into depression and there's a good book that you just reminded me of. It's called the consistency chain. And if you get a chance, I'm telling you, this book will change your life. And what he says is there's two Navy SEALs and these guys are best friends and they just, they compete against each other all day. Well, there's a bell that they let you ring. They basically drown you and put a bell in front of you to quit. And if you quit, you get a big steak dinner and you get to leave with pride. Well, these guys, the difference from the mindset was, as one said, I don't know if I can make it through this, but I know I can make it to dinner. I know I can make it to tomorrow morning.

The other guy was, I don't think he was more of like, this is so difficult. And he thought about it holistically. The guys that make it through, and the gals, they think about that next. It's all about consistency.

So I don't want to work out, but I'm going to just go get it done. You know, I'm going to go. And there's another book called the five second rule. Have you heard of that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Mel Robbins. Yeah. So five, four, three, two, one. It's like, so I used to do that at the grocery store right before I got to the checkout. And I used to put all the crap that I got in my cart. I used to just put it on a shelf. They hated me, I'm sure, at the grocery store. But isn't that crazy how just that split second thinking? One of the greatest, I was listening to a show one time and they had all these gurus on there talking about diet and health, asking what's their best diet tip. And people are given

crazy exercises and crazy food. And they got to Deepak Chopra and he said, the greatest diet tip ever is mindfulness. And he said, just think about what you're doing before you do it. And he's right, whether it's your health, whether it's your business, whether it's your finances, really ask yourself, do I need to spend the money? What could I do right now to generate revenue? Do I really need to eat that donut? Why don't I want to get up and take a run? Whatever in mindfulness is so powerful. Well, we know the right answers. I tell people all the time, people go, why do you have a podcast? Why did you write a book? Like, why do you give everybody your secrets? And I'm like, well, my biggest secret is don't drink alcohol. Don't smoke cigarettes.

No, no, no. This is not my example. Trust me, but drink a lot of water each day, eat healthy and work out once a day. You'll have the perfect body, but nobody does it. Right. It's just this miracle diet they could get. And the thing is, is you want to get smart, read books, find a mentor, work on yourself. And people go, well, why do you share your secrets? Why do you tell everybody what you're going to do? I'm like, cause they can't do it. Simple fact is I'll tell them exactly what I'm going to do. I've had 30 garage door owners in my office, garage door business owners, 30 of them. I showed them my CRM. I showed them our price book. I showed them our training.

I showed them our manuals. And I said, guys, just so you know, I'm coming to a city near you soon. I don't know where you live, but I'll be there soon. And I tell people, look, don't get mad at me. Here's what I look at, Meredith. I look at it like this. I got a five gallon bucket and I'm walking to the ocean to grab some water. So many people focus all their attention on me or their competitors. And I'm like, man, if I had, all I think about is how I could grow forward. What is our business going to do? If I start my whole life thinking about other people and what they're going to do to the industry, man, I would hate my life. I'd wake up every day fearful of what's going to happen to me. But I know one thing. I give two shits about every other competitor of mine.

I hope there's enough for both of us or all of us. But ultimately, I'm going to evolve and I'm going to be better. And I want to change this whole industry. Yeah. And if people had that mentality, you deal with a lot more business owners than I've ever dealt with. What is it about people that they lead with fear? That's a really good question. And I don't know if it's baked into our society. You know, I do think that we have a big fear of a failure. We also have made things too comfortable. I mean,

I was lucky enough to be playing golf in Florida one time, and it was a really beautiful club. And I had gone in to grab lunch with my friend who was a member there. And her husband came in with three of his friends. And they uninvited sat down to have lunch with us. And all of these men were self-made billionaires who had come from absolutely nothing. I mean, one guy didn't even have running water in his house. And I really became fascinated as they introduced me to them with their stories. And I had the luck to be staying the weekend and we ended up all having dinner together. It made me start to think, so these men were raised with no net.

And what I mean by no net is that there was no PP loan for them. There was no unemployment. Their parents were not going to pay their apartment rent if they lost their job. And what it gave them, why that may sound cold, what it gave them was this, you know, they were all like, I was in my 20s. I had a wife and a kid. I had to do something, whatever it took. And through the very fact that there was no net, through ferocious reading and education, at least three of them not formal, it built an unbelievable confidence to believe they could accomplish whatever they want to accomplish, whatever they want to accomplish. And I feel like we have eroded that out of our society because there's big nets up under all of us. I mean, I don't mean to take away from people needing help right now,

but just imagine how much more innovative we'd be if the government wasn't coming to our rescue, right? And out of necessity is born, you know, as a mother of invention. And there's something to be said about what these men had to go through. And so they said that, speaking of Jack Welsh, they said they would, speaking of Jack Welch, they said they would go to a big golf tournament in Florida every year, and it would always be the self-made billionaires against the inheritors. And Jack Welch was at that tournament, was on the self-made list. But they said there was just a very different energy about those people. Yeah. And the weird thing is it's hard to have succession planning.

We spoke of this because I used to write for Inc.com. I wrote a lot of articles on Forbes. I've done a lot on Huffington Post. And the first article I ever wrote was called Passion. And the one thing is when you inherit it, it's very difficult to create passion. This is a tough one because I don't believe there's wrong parenting necessarily, unless you're not there and you're beating your kid or something. But ultimately, when you can instill values in your children, my dad was on a transmission shop when I was a kid and not a very successful business guy. And it's not a bad thing. I learned a lot from it. But you know what? This is what's crazy a bad thing. I learned a lot from it. And, but you know what,

this is what's crazy. This is something I think about is what truly is successful. I remember one day I saw this video of like eight kids with their heads out and it's this small little car in India and they're singing this song and they were generally happy. They didn't have anything. They had no possession and you can't take it with you. So I think in America, we're raised in this way that we just, we need more, more, more, more. And I'm like, but I see these people, they're so successful, but they're not happy. And I'd rather be happy than whatever success is called. I see you, you know, you were so happy that day.

I saw you, you know, you were so happy that day. I saw you walking, we walked together and you just said, every day of my life is a vacation. You said, I come here, I speak, I make a really good amount of money. I pay for my husband's flight and we just have a blast. Isn't that great? Yeah, it is. And I think that I really believe that happiness comes from progress. Happiness comes from progress. Tell me a little bit about that. You know, I just really believe that it's not even about accomplishing the goal. It's about moving forward. Am I a little better today than I was yesterday? And am I putting effort into that? That's what I think. And when I think somebody comes in and does it for you,

it takes away your true happiness. People hire you for consulting. What would you say your, your core competency is that people hire you for? I really feel like my core competency is that it is a balance between problem solving, but more than that is that my core competency is I have an ability to influence people to follow. And so if you've got to institute radical change in your organization, I can get people to buy in, get engaged, and get passionate about that. I love that. Tell me about all the books. So you're working on a couple. You got one that just came out.

You got another one, Thrive, coming out. Tell me about the books that you're involved with. So my first book was called 42 Rules to Turn Prospects into Customers. I backed that up by a book written in 2010 about the 2008 crisis called Winning in the Trust and Value Economy, all about how you needed to do business post-2008. Followed that up by a book called Own It, Redefining Responsibility, which is the ultimate book of employee engagement. It's written not only how you engage employees, but the flip of that is what you need to do as an employee to get engaged. It's your life. It's your career. What are you doing waiting on somebody else? From there, I wrote the sales book on cut through the excuses and send sales through the roof. Who comes next? Leadership, succession planning, made me easy.

And then Thrive comes out in the fall. Whoa, that is, I wrote one book. It took me two years and I had 12 co-authors and you wow that's awesome so the last few questions I usually ask is if you had to pick three books and they could be they could be fiction they could be about religion they could be about business they could be about just self-motivation what are the three books that you'd recommend for the listeners? Number one is How to Win Friends. I knew you were going to say that. Did you?

I got 20 of those books sitting on my shelf by Dale Carnegie. I make everybody read that book that I work with. I love Jack Welch's Winning. That's one of my absolute favorite books that I like to read and I go back and read. And then I don't know that it's a must read, but it's definitely a book that had a profound impact on me. And that was the book about Made to Stick. It's a marketing book. It's like the ultimate guerrilla marketing book. All right. And if someone wants to get a hold of you, they want to reach out to you,

what's the best way to do that? They can find me at my website at valuespeaker.com, the words value and speaker.com. I'm on all the social networking sites. I tend to live a little more on LinkedIn, but I am a big believer that if you build your network, it will change your life. So if you connect with me, I will connect back with you. I promise you that. All right, Meredith. And the last thing I do here is I'll give you kind of a minute to just give some final thoughts, maybe some motivation to the listeners out there. Okay.

I realize that we never understood that a virus could so drastically disrupt our marketplace. It's got businesses shut down. Social networking has become the norm. And we are waiting to see if life will ever return to normal, whatever that's going to look like. And it can feel like you cannot be successful in times like this. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you gain the history from businesses and leaders that have gone before us, if you stabilize the business, if you find the crack in the crisis, you can grow the business. And ultimately, if you listen to your customers,

you'll transform it. There are things that you can do to turn all this uncertainty into opportunity and you can emerge successful. I love it. You know, you are just so passionate and motivational. I just love your energy. I really do. You like get me going and I hope that the listeners out there, they just, if you look at every day, like it's an opportunity, wake up in the morning and you just realize that life is good.

We're not here forever. Right. You just such a ball of sunshine. And I really appreciate you coming on and just, it's been fun. This is awesome. And I look forward to you staying connected and talking further. Listen, Meredith, thank you so much for coming on.

I really appreciate you. All right. We'll talk to you soon. Hey, I just wanted to take a quick minute and thank you for listening to the podcast. You know, most people don't understand this, but the way that the podcast has grown is when people subscribe and they leave a review. So if you would please, please, please, while it's top of mind,

take a quick minute to subscribe and leave a quick review. It'll help me out so much. If you just took a little bit of time right now, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate the listeners and the feedback. And also when you subscribe, what I'm gonna do is let you know the next guest coming on the podcast. And I'll let you email me anything you want me to ask that next person coming on. All the pros I have on here. I want your feedback. I want you to subscribe so you can start do is go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast.

You got to cover the shipping and handling, but I'm giving the material out for free. It's 200 pages. It's a hardcover book. Homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast. I appreciate each and every one of the listeners. And thank you for making this Home Service Expert podcast a success. I hope you're having a great day. And thanks again.