The Home Service Expert Podcast - How To Get Out Of The “Firefighter” Mentality As A Business Owner

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

Paul Maskill is the host of the Business Owners Freedom Formula Podcast. He is a true-blue entrepreneur with years of experience in owning and running companies. He also successfully sold his last company. Building a $500,000 service business while putting it on auto-pilot and keeping his freedom—a feat that not many entrepreneurs can claim—is among Paul’s career highlights. In this episode, we talked about finance, management, entrepreneurship, small business survivability...

Many times, most business owners, they just wake up every morning and they put their firefighter hat on and it's like, okay, what's coming at me today? And I'm going to go put that out. And I was kind of the same way because I didn't know really any different. And I see a lot of business owners do the same thing. So for me, the best way to start focusing on what actually matters and getting really productive is getting really clear on your vision. Why did you start your business in the first place? We had all these hopes and dreams. And then within a couple of weeks, a couple of months of running our business, those are like gone out the window and it's kind of survival mode. But if we don't have a clear destination, we don't really know what we should be working on anyway. So that's really where I start with

everybody. Whether it's businesses that I run or businesses that I've invested in or businesses that I'm coaching is, where do you really want to go? What does your ideal life look like? Where are you spending your time? You know, what are you doing? Are you traveling? Are you playing golf, spending more time with your kids, whatever it is. And then how much money do you actually need to make that happen? And when we get really clear on that dollar amount, it starts to take the emotion out of business decisions. Because so many times we as business owners, we just say, I think this is what we should be doing. And instead, let the numbers dictate what you should actually be doing. So if you know exactly where you want to go personally, then you just figure out what type of business do I actually need to build

to actually make that happen. 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. Today, I have an expert from Raleigh, North Carolina. He's an expert in financepack Pet Care, he's a part of. That was 2018 to 2019. And Simpler Home co-founder from 2015 to 2017. Host of the Business Owner's Freedom Formula podcast, which is twice a week. Owned and ran four companies and successfully sold his last company. Built a 500,000 service business while putting it on autopilot and keeping its freedom. Paul, it's a pleasure to have you on today.

Really looking forward to this. Yeah, thanks for having me, Tommy. Excited to be here. So you told me about your father had a wood floor business. Yeah. And he pretty much came out of the business with nothing to show, which a lot of business owners, you know, I was on a podcast about a month ago, and I was looking at the responses. And I made the comment during this other person's podcast

that some people have no right to go into business because they're literally technicians. And they say they could just come out and do it, but they always stay a technician. And someone said, I don't think this guy knows what he's talking about. He has no right to shoot down someone's dreams. And trust me, my first five years of business, I was in that same boat. I was the guy out in the truck every day, all day. I was the guy doing all of it. Hard to hire employees. They never lived up to my expectations. So I understand that. I just think people do it. They're not rational. They just say, I'm sick of working for somebody. This is what I'm going to do. And my goal is not to discourage them. It's just to really say you have no right to a business until you really have a business plan. You have the

standard operating procedures. You have manuals. You really think it through. You have enough money. Money is a big deal because people don't have money when they start a business. But I want to dive into that right after I get your whole story, where you've been, where you are today, and what you aspire to do here in the next decade. Yeah. So I'm in Raleigh, North Carolina, like you said, to live here with my wife, Angela. We've got a four-year-old daughter, Emmy. She keeps us busy. And my journey, I started in Michigan, which is very blue collar. And everybody there said, don't go do your own thing. Go to school, get good grades, get a good job, climb the corporate ladder, do that for 40 years. So I didn't know any different. I just listened to what everyone else said. And kind

of looking back on it, someone like my dad would say that. And really every business owner, there was no internet. There was no, hey, you can do this entrepreneur thing. It was, hey, you're self-employed. So you got the window guy, you got the landscape guy, you know, you got the plumber, you got the HVAC guy. My dad was a hardwood floor guy. So everyone was just like a one-man band. So I thought that's what business ownership was. And so I was like, I don't think I really want to do that thing. I'd rather go not do manual labor and sit in a cubicle. So I did that. I got a finance degree, moved to Chicago, sat in a cubicle, watched pretty much half of the people I work with lose their job during 2008.

And one, I didn't love the job. Two, there was no reward. I didn't feel like I was making an impact. And then I watched all these people whose life was so leveraged based on one job. It's basically like having your own business with one client and that client fires you and now you're out of business. So I saw all these people who had, you know, they had the car payments, they had the kids in college, they had the second house, they had the mortgage, they had all these things and they lost their job and they lost everything. So I was like, why do people tell me this is so secure when it doesn't seem that secure at all? So long story short, I quit that job, moved down to Raleigh, North Carolina, started my first business. It was a service-based business. We're actually running afterschool golf and tennis

programs for elementary kids. I love sports, love the idea. And at first I just wanted to be the technician because I didn't know any different. I said, I'd rather do this and make 30 grand a year and be happy and make an impact and hang out with kids in sports instead of like go sit in a cubicle because I didn't really know any different. Every business owner that I ever saw, that's what they did. They were the technician, like you said. So once I got to the point where I was that person working 60 to 80 hours a week, I realized that this isn't sustainable. This is like a job, but without all the benefits. And if something happens to me, if I get hit by a bus, my business is going to go to zero pretty quickly. So, you know, I took the time,

like you said, put the systems and processes, the standard operating procedures, the leadership team in place, put the employees in place. And then I actually had a business because I didn't have to work to make money. You know, basically the definition of a job is you only make money when you work and most self-employed people, that's what they have. So to your point, you know, being self-employed isn't really what it's all cracked up to be. And there's a lot of people who have no business being a business owner because they haven't taken the time. So for me, it was really, I didn't know any different. And I thought, Hey, I'd rather be self-employed instead of work for somebody else for 40 years until I

realized that there was more to this. So that's kind of my backstory. We grew that company, sold that company. And then ever since then, you know, have been getting my hands dirty and other small businesses here in Raleigh, as well as helping small business owners automate and scale their business so they can make more money, have more time and, you know, really do what they really want to do in this world because we only got one shot at it. You're right. It's tough to jump into a business. You know, there's two types of mindsets when you go into business. One person, like my good buddy, Ken Goodrich, who owns Gettle, he flips businesses and people are amazing at it. They go in, it's almost like, I think of that movie, Pretty Woman, where Richard Gere goes in and just finds companies that are about to crumble, goes and buys them for pennies on the dollar, fixes them. And ultimately, I like the idea that as long as you're keeping the employees hired and you're not screwing the owner. But a lot of people are in trouble out there that actually have a decent business. They just don't know how to get it to

the next level. Then you got the people that say, this is my livelihood. I'm kind of in the middle because you always want to build a business to sell it, but I'm having too much fun. I mean, I feel like we're, you know, 2006, but I'm still in the fetal stages. Things are starting to click. Obviously this whole pandemic has been really eyeopening and a game changer and a historical event that, that no one's ever seen. And, you know, you've got in the landscaping business, how have you prepared and gone through this whole thing? Yeah. So I think to your point, you know, it's really right now could be a massive opportunity, even just looking at your references of help taking businesses that are failing. Usually businesses don't fail because they don't provide a good product. There's plenty of

businesses who do a great service. They just don't know how to run a business. They just want to be the technician. So, you know, now it could be a great opportunity to find those people and let them do what they want to do, right? So they can keep being the technician. You can run the business and then you both win. So you're building your business bigger. You got a great employee and that person is finally getting a secure paycheck because when you're your own boss, a lot of times it doesn't happen. So with our landscaping business, I would say the biggest thing that we did about two years ago. So two years ago, when originally he was just a client, consulting client of mine, and then a little over two years ago at the beginning of 2018.

So he brought me on kind of as a partner, Hey, help me really scale this thing, put the systems and processes in place. Let's get our cashflow,, all that kind of stuff. I would say the biggest thing that we did. So we flipped to basically a subscription model. So everyone pays in advance for their monthly service, just like almost everything else. Although home services always kind of gets the short end of the stick. So, you know, historically he was just charging every time he went and cut someone's grass or every time he went and sprayed someone's weeds or whatever, which really hurts your cashflow because if you cut someone's grass on May 1st and you don't invoice them till June 1st, then you don't get paid till, you know, June 15th to June 20th. All of a sudden it took you like 50 days to get paid for what you did. And that's, I don't know about you, but that's not a sustainable business model as you scale.

And a lot of people say, well, if we bring in enough accounts, it'll help. It's like, no, you're just making it worse. So we flipped it and we just put everyone on subscription. We're going to send you an invoice the 15th of the month. It's due on the 1st of the upcoming month for that month service. So if it's May 15th, we send you June's invoice. That invoice is due June 1st. And then we provide June service.

If you don't pay your June invoice, we'll give you a little bit of grace period, but eventually we're not going to come service you because we're not going to work for free either. So I feel a lot of times in the home service world, business owners are kind of scared to do that because there's so much competition, right? A lot of home service businesses, it's pretty easy to start. And if you do, that's not the race you want to win. That was the biggest thing that really helped propel us through this whole pandemic is cashflow is pretty consistent. Yeah. Some of our big jobs, like big installations,

we're recording this in the spring, big time in North Carolina to do installations. So some of those got put on hold, but luckily we try to attract premium customers and this really hasn't affected them too much. So all the guys are still busy. Cashflow is still coming in. And to your point, I think we'll come up better on the other side of this, whether it's,

you know, helping other business owners and wrapping them up into our business or just grabbing more of the market share that's out there because some people aren't able to deliver service. Yeah. I think there's a huge opportunity during any time there's a huge event like this, whether it be the crash in 2008, nine, it's kind of survival, the fittest. And I'm one of those people that I'm a little bit of a procrastinator, way better

under pressure. This was, this was not good for me. This is terrible for the country, terrible for humankind. But as far as what I'm in control of, there's only a few things that I'm in control of, everything in my business and my life. So it pushed me to that next level of leadership, make hard decisions. And really, I see a lot of people right now. And look, look, we're essential. We're very, very fortunate. The PPP worked in our favor. It's not working in a lot of people right now and look look we're essential we're very very fortunate the PPP worked in our favor it's not working in a lot of others so a lot of it had to be a flip of a coin luck so I'm not going to take all the credit but my team's amazing and they're going to get tough it's really who's going to be able to push themselves to that next level you know what I've

noticed is we've been so much more productive, even the people working from home. A lot of people, especially me, were like, well, what's going to happen? Most of our people are on performance pay, which is amazing. So this didn't affect us very much. People are still booking phone calls from home. They're still, I mean, it's crazy to see. I'm not even excited for people to come back. I'm like, stay at home. At this point, you're doing great. I'm not going to force you if you want to stay at home. But there's a difference between productivity and just staying busy.

There's a difference between getting those big things done in the day that most people push off. There's a difference between working in your business versus on your business. Can you kind of give me your experience of how you be more productive and how you get a business owner to start focusing on things that actually matter? Yeah, that's a great question because it's tough because many times most business owners, they just wake up every morning and they put their firefighter hat on and it's like, okay, what's coming at me today? And I'm going to go put that out. And I was kind of the same way because I didn't know really any different. And I see a lot of business owners do the same thing. So for me, the best way to start focusing on what actually matters and getting really

productive is getting really clear on your vision. Why did you start your business in the first place? We had all these hopes and dreams. And then within a couple of weeks, a couple of months of running our business, those are like gone out the window and it's kind of survival mode. But if we don't have a clear destination, we don't really know what we should be working on anyway, so That's really where I start with everybody you know whether it's businesses that I run or businesses that i've invested in or businesses that i'm coaching is

Where do you really want to go? What does your ideal life look like? Where are you spending your time? You know, what are you doing? Are you traveling you playing golf spending more time with your kids? Whatever it is and then how much money do you actually need to make that happen? And when we get really clear on that dollar amount, it starts to take the emotion out of the business decisions. Because so many times we as business owners, we just say, I think this is what we should be doing. And instead, let the numbers dictate what you should actually be doing.

So if you know exactly where you want to go personally, then you just figure out what type of business do I actually need to build to actually make that happen. So if you want to take home personally $200,000 a year and you only want to work 25 to 30 hours a week being the CEO, great. How big of a business do you actually need to build instead of just winging it every day? It's like, okay, you know, we need an office manager, we need an account manager, we might need a salesperson. We might need four crews out in the field. You know, maybe we need some sort of maintenance guy, whatever it is. Now you have like a legitimate target to work towards. And once you get there, then maybe, Hey, let's just keep doing this and let's build this bigger. But most business owners don't even know where they're going. It's basically they're,

they get in their car and they drive all day and they say, wow, that was a busy day. I just drove for like 12 hours, but they didn't get any closer to their destination. So they went on a road trip all day and didn't go anywhere. They just kept the car running. So for me, once I got really clear on my vision, it allowed me and allows my clients, you know, the businesses that I work with to take the emotion out of decisions because then that becomes your ultimate filter. Is this getting me closer to the final destination? If yes, let's do it. If not, why am I still doing it? Or maybe it is yes, but I don't need to do it anymore because I need to be focused on X, Y, and Z. I need to be working on my business. I need to be creating standard operating procedures. I need to be more of a leader. I need to get out of the truck,

whatever it might be. But when you know exactly where you're going, it's a lot easier to make those decisions. You know, oh, I'm scared to delegate. It's my baby. Nobody can do it as well as I can. It takes that out and says, I know this is what needs to be done in order to get to where I want to go. So let's do it.

So I would say, you know, for anybody out there, get super clear on your personal vision, because it's my belief that we should build a business, you know, and leverage that business. And that business becomes the ultimate vehicle to create that life that we really want. Yeah, I agree with you with that. You know, I'm thinking you got my mind kind of wandering a little bit because I've gotten to business and done some deals to where I kind of went in and I said, okay, what am

I good at? Well, I'm good at putting marketing and sales into place, creating a nice CRM to get, deliver good numbers that we could rely on. But then again, you have to have a business owner that's willing to listen. I think the hardest part about working with another business owner is they're stubborn and they say, you don't know my industry like I do. I've done this now with one of my best friends and I kind of walked away. Now I'm a silent partner and said, I don't want this to affect us, which it has. But one of the things I'll tell you is I said, there's no way that he's going to listen because he doesn't agree and he's running the

operations the day to day. So I said, my best skill is not going to be because he doesn't agree and he's running the operations the day-to-day. So I said, my best skill is not going to be in there in the office day-to-day. It's going to be giving you the systems, making us rank number one on Google, handling our marketing, delivering. There's two things that need to happen. You need a lot of clients. You need people to run those calls efficiently. Of course, there's a lot of stuff in between, but I just realized at this point he's too I don't want to say arrogant, but maybe just too proud to say I don't know the industry or whatnot. So

Ultimately, it takes somebody that's really just I think my biggest strength is I ask a lot of questions. Look You know my goal is to do a billion dollars in revenue in the next five years That means i'm gonna have to learn from people like you. I'm going to have to read books, listen to podcasts. There's a lot of things that need to happen. Go visit shops that are successful. I think the biggest strength I have is I'm always asking questions. Even though I might think I know the answer, I'm asking 10 pros, what would you do?

Do you know any software for this? Is there a pro that I could hire to help me? Yesterday, I talked to a guy about canvassing. It's very, very expensive. This guy's not cheap. I mean, we're talking darn near six figures for him to consult for less than a year. But you know what? I can make that back in a week if it's done correctly. And I know this guy, I've looked at his testimonials. I've literally gone through the motions. So I think a strength is being able to listen. And you deal with a lot of business owners. Where are some of the hiccups? Where are

some of the things that all of us could be better? I'm not trying to brag because there are so many things I'm horrible at. The reason why I ask so many questions, I'm the first guy to ask for directions when I'm lost. Some people are arrogant. They don't want to do that, maybe to a fault. But talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. I mean, I would agree with you there. The reason we were able to get to a certain point is because we could do it ourselves. We went against the grain. I can do this. I can figure it out. That's great until you get to a certain point where you realize, I'm kind of stuck and it's okay to ask for help. I see way too many business owners who, like you said, they might be too proud or maybe they have an ego.

They think there's some magical trophy at the end of this journey that says, hey, you did it all by yourself. Here's your trophy. When instead, if you look at every successful entrepreneur, whether it's Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, or someone local that you admire, they are surrounding themselves with people

who are rock stars. They got their personal board of directors. They got a mastermind. Whatever it is that keeps them focused, holding them accountable and always learning, right? So having the understanding that what got you here isn't going to get you there and you always need to be learning. You always got to be picking other people's brains, finding mentors, whatever it is, instead of saying, like you said, you don't know my industry. I can figure this out. And a lot of times it's just having tough love.

And I'll do kind of discovery calls or strategy sessions, whatever you want to call it, with potential clients. And they're stuck. But every time I offer something, they're like, yeah, that doesn't work for my industry. You don't know it. I'm like, well, if you know everything, why have you only done $100,000 a year for the last 10 years?

So I usually go back to the numbers. I'm a numbers guy, like you said, with a finance background. So the numbers will tell me where the problems are. And if they don't know their numbers, that's usually kind of the first red flag of what's probably wrong because you don't need to be an expert. You don't need to do the books, but you need to know what those numbers mean and how you can make a business decision off of that. So I think it really depends on what people really want to do because some people are, hey, I'm just going to be a one-man band. And if you're cool with that, that's fine. But if you're going to complain about it and ask for help, then you got to be willing to listen. So having that self-awareness is huge. And then I believe having empathy as well, because as you've experienced,

a lot of business owners in that boat know they need to hire but once they hire they they like don't have any empathy it's like tommy that's your job you're getting paid for it figure it out and then they blame everybody else but themselves of why you know why they can't find good help i can't find employees when really it all comes back to them yeah it is it is and the fact is i can't tell you enough. This doesn't work, this or that. And when we talk about numbers, I have a whole data integrity team because I got to rely on these numbers. I'm a pretty simple person. People on the podcast have heard me say this. I look at this average ticket. I back that in. So I want to know how much you want to make. You want to make a

million dollars. Let's say you're doing 5 million. Let's say you're hitting 20%. Let's back this up. What's your average ticket? Then what's your conversion rate when you're in the field? What's your conversion rate to get the phone call booked? And then what's your cost per acquisition? If I have those metrics, those alone, I can fix your whole business because we focus on conversion sales, better marketing, and hitting your goals. It's that simple. What I find is the call booking rate is always, well, we're probably like 90%. How are you pulling those numbers? Then they might have a system.

But then I realized you're not counting a lot of the calls. Well, that one was impossible to book. That was a price shopper. We don't even care. I don't want to count that against their numbers. Well, then these numbers are not even close to being accurate. Well, that's an out of service here. Well, why are we getting out of service call areas? That's a parts call. All these things. Well, why are we doing marketing that's getting us out of, unless they count against you,

unless we can dig into it, we can't fix the problems. And yes, the CSRs might not have as good of numbers, but the business gets stronger. And so just because someone's got a balance sheet, you know, I look at that show, The Profit by Marcus Lamone, and he looks at a balance sheet, a lot of times he rolls his eyes because they're so far off. You know, I think there's a good book. I really enjoy the book by Michael McKellar, What's Profit First? And it's understanding, you got to make money. I always used to be this guy, let's make as much revenue as possible, profit will come later. And it worked for me. But now I'm like, why not make profit going all the got to make money. I always used to be this guy. Let's make as much revenue as possible. Profit will come later. And it worked for me. But now I'm like, why not make profit going all the way up?

Because I remember I was talking to a girl I was dating, talked to her briefly yesterday. And I said to her, but remember those days I tell you I did 200 grand? I mean, this is two and a half years ago. She's like, oh yeah. She's like, everybody we'd go out with, like, just thought you were going to cover everything. And I was like, I was so poor on the finance and the accounting side. I barely kept any of that. I mean, you know, I was buying stuff, you know, I was buying, you know, houses and I do have something to show for it for the most part. We built something really cool. That's profitable. Very, very profitable. I mean, you know, very rarely in this industry do you find anybody that does over 20%. We're very fortunate that we've hit a couple months that we've done that. But typically, you're hitting 5% to 10%. I really love the idea of 15%. But talk to me a little bit about that.

I really just want to hear your thought on just the whole notion of revenue and just the notion of just sometimes we don't make profit. We don't know our numbers. Yeah. I would say all business, you know, especially in the home service world, everyone focuses on the top line. You know, it's kind of like that's their measuring stick and they'll go tell everybody, well, I did half a million. I did a million. It's like, cool. How much did you actually keep? I don't know. But like I did a million dollars this year, you know, that's kind of like the, the Holy grail. But if you're not making any money, that just means you have more bigger problems. Right? So like if you have problems at a hundred thousand, what makes you think they're going to go away if you get to a million, you know,

if you don't know your numbers to begin with. So that's really kind of where, where I see a lot of home service businesses kind of get stuck. Cause they start out as one-man bands and they don't have to charge as much because they don't have the overhead. So it's like, yeah, I can charge 30 bucks an hour, $30 a man hour, and I can make plenty of money, blah, blah, blah. And I don't have to work a lot. Well, what happens when you have to pay an employee and you got overhead and you got workers comp and you got burden and you got all these other numbers, all of a sudden you need to charge like $70 an hour. And then it's like, what? That's ridiculous. Like, no one's going to pay me $70 an hour to cut their grass. So, you know, that's really kind of where I focus on, especially with the home service business, because they're all pretty similar. Some have a

little bit more overhead than others, but our targets are we need at least 40% gross profit. And then like you said, of net, net, all the way at the bottom, if you can get 15% net profit, that's really good. Assuming you're also including yourself in the pay, like in the overhead, especially if you're not a technician. So if you're only making 15% and that doesn't include your pay to run the business, if someone's valuating your business, it's like, okay, well, that's great. You're doing 15% on a million, you're making 150. But if I bought your business, how much would I have to pay someone like you to run it? Or maybe a hundred? Yeah. So let's say it's 75 grand. So you're really only making seven and a half percent. Right. So I think that's where a lot of business owners get stuck

because they just don't know their numbers. When I ask them, why are you charging what you're charging? Like, I don't know, because the other guy was at 55. So I thought 50 would be good. You know, in the landscaping world, a lot of it is what do you charge, you know, per yard of mulch. So they got all these different numbers. And then when we ask them why it's like, I don't know, that's what they charge in Raleigh. If you go outside a little bit, it's a little bit cheaper. So real life story, our company was always charging like $55 a yard and that seemed expensive. But when we actually calculated how much time it takes to pick up the mulch, deliver it, install it, in order to make our 40% gross profit, we actually had to charge $90 a yard.

And the owner, he was like, $90 a yard? No one's going to pay that. Well, we changed it overnight and no one has said a thing. And they gladly pay $90 a yard because it's better than them going to Home Depot and getting like a hundred bags of mulch and trying to do it themselves. Yeah, I think the pricing is probably, I met this lady named Ellen Rohr who also consulted me and put a chapter in my book, The Home Service Millionaire. And she said, raise your prices. There's something about people that every other company looks at the top guy,

and they go, this guy's highway robbery. You know what you hear? How do you sleep at night? I'll tell you how I sleep. I got a brand new mattress. It's a Tempur-Pedic. I got the best pillows. I got the best sheets.

I think it's funny when I tell people that. Here's the thing. How do you sleep at night? Making your wife. You promised your wife and kids you were going to spend more time. You promised them a better life. You promised them more vacations, being a soccer or baseball coach. You, how do you sleep at night? How do you sleep when you made a lot of promises? You made a lot of goals. You told people you were going to do a lot of stuff. You told your mother-in-law you're going to have her out more often. You promised all this stuff. How the hell do you sleep is my question. Why don't you charge the price where you could actually make a good living,

where you can pay your people well, where you could get a great CRM, where you could buy new trucks, when you could have brand new iPads, when you could have a great place to take people out and do fun things and order lunch and dinner and breakfast and take people to a hockey game. Why is that so bad for people? They go, they can't stand it. They go, well, I'm stuck in a truck. They almost have envy, despise, their jealousy. And I look at these, and I always go back to the Facebook forums because it's a crock of crap. It's a bunch of people on there that basically are slaves to their business. They're jealous. There's animosity. And it drives me crazy, Paul, because there's enough water in the ocean to share.

And I don't look at my competition. I got to tell you, of course, I want to know if there's a large franchise in that city, but it doesn't bother me. It just tells me we did good. They're here. And a lot of people chase McDonald's or Walmart because they know they do all these analytics and they know that if they go into that city, there's a market there. So talk to me a little bit about why charging people when you can make

a good profit and paying yourself well on top of that is a sin. Because I think a lot of people think that. Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't realize what it takes to build an actual business either. And one of the things that you said is pay your employees well. So everybody that I talk to that says, I can't find good help, it's probably because people just don't want to work for you. If you pay them well, take care of them, have the empathy of what it takes to be an employee in the home service world and understand what they're going through and appreciate, recognize them. You won't have a problem of finding good help. That's probably one of the biggest complaints I hear from anybody is,

I just can't find good help. I would scale if I could find good help. And then usually I say, well, what are you doing to attract them? How much time are you spending recruiting? I don't know. I put an ad on Craigslist once and all I got were a couple of guys that weren't worth anything. It's like, well, you probably need to feel a little bit more diligent on actually finding good help if you want good help. So when you do charge well, it does a couple of things. One, it's the perceived value, right? So the customer's going to be like, I'm paying a premium. I'm going to get a premium service. And I would say two of the biggest or probably the biggest problem in the home service world is just not showing up, not answering your phone, not doing what you say you're going

to do. And when you charge a premium, you charge what you need to charge, you're able to deliver on your promises. Like when we answer the phone or call somebody back, you probably get the same thing. They said, oh my God, you actually called me back. You know, I've called five guys and you're the only one to call back. Like you got the job, just show up. So, you know, there's a reason those other people aren't delivering. And it's probably because they're not charging enough because they are a slave to the truck that, you know, they're on the hamster

wheel. They're just trying to keep money in the bank. They're chasing the next job. Instead, what I believe is, so if you look at kind of the customer journey, most home service, most businesses in general, not just home service, they treat it so transactional. They work so hard to get a job. They'll do anything to get a job. And once that person says yes or pays them, they like totally forget about that person. They move on to the next one. When really, if you have that really good CRM system, you have the employees, you got the standard operating procedures. The first time they pay you, that's like the start of a long relationship. And you're able to do a lot of cool things for those customers because you are charging what you need to charge to do the things that you need to do

to deliver the service you said you're going to deliver. And when people, we've had customers complain like, what, like $700 to put in eight yards of mulch? I'm like, hey, like, you know, eight yards of mulch, that's 120 bags from Home Depot. You're more than welcome to go there and pick up 120 bags of mulch and do it yourself. And they're like, whoa, I didn't realize it was that much. Or we've had people call and, you know, we go out there, meet them, give them a quote. And they say, ah, that's too expensive. I'll buy all the plants and do it myself. They'll call us by mid Saturday. And they've been doing it for four hours. They're like, man, I would have paid double what you were charging to have you

do this because I'm done. Like, this is not for me. So I think that's the other part that a lot of home service businesses run into is you might make it look really easy. So then the customer's like, why would I pay so much when I could do it myself? And then they go do it themselves. So they try and watch YouTube videos or they try and read a bunch of blogs. And then they're like, okay, yeah, you got the job. So there's all sorts of things that go in it. But when you do charge that, it empowers you, it empowers your team, it empowers your customers to really have a well-working relationship instead of just playing that pricing game and just onto the next one. And that's not sustainable either. And I think everybody would want their garage door guy to be in business when they need them again. But if they're not charging a premium, they're not

going to be in business in the next 10 they need them. So talk to me a little bit about, because this is one of my huge pet peeves, is you're right. People say yes to everything. So if I'm a landscaper and someone says, can you dig a 40 foot hole for a pool? And I'm like, well, I know how to get a crane. And all of a sudden we're doing stuff that's, we probably know how to do, but we're not set up for it. And I find that small businesses, and I'm one of them, trust me, you want a commercial swing door, I'll figure out how to do it. But, and I make money. I really do. A lot of times I walk out with a little bit of profit because I got a callback. I got to get my specialist. There's always issues. But you know what people say at the end of the year, but that was a $40,000 job

or whatever. But the opportunity cost with not being a specialist, by being not a jack of all trades, but I'm a specialist, I'm a master. And I think that's a huge issue. Talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah. So we say, yes, you know, there's plenty of things we could do, but the real question is, should we do that? So, you know, like you said, the opportunity cost is one thing. So how much money could I have made or how much business could I have drummed up if I wasn't spending so much time, energy, and effort on that swing door, even though I knew I could do it, like, was it really worth it? But I think the other thing is, you know, it really devalues your brand. So then that customer's like, yeah, they were okay. I wouldn't call them back. And then

I'm not going to recommend them to anybody. Whereas if you would have said, no, we're not the best person for you, but I know somebody who is, now they know you, they like you and trust you even more because you didn't try and take their money. And they'll probably call you back the next time they need the service that you actually provide. So when you can really get dialed in on that, and you had mentioned Mike Michalowicz before, his pumpkin plane concept, in my opinion, is awesome because it really allows you to figure out who do you serve best and how do you kind of double down on that. So we did it in our landscaping business. So when I came in, we had big commercial properties, we had small commercial properties, we had residential properties that we had no business driving to and were super inefficient. So, you know, we had bi-weekly

accounts where we'd only go once every two weeks and the homeowner said they'd cut the grass the other week, which never happens. So then you're spending twice as much time there getting paid half because you said we'll come every other week instead. So what we've done, you know, over the last two years is kind of transition out of that. So the first thing to go was all the big commercial accounts. And we figured out the people that like to serve as big commercial accounts, they like to pay their employees minimum wage, 10 bucks an hour. They'll get H2B workers, nothing wrong with that. But we paid our employees 18 to $25 an hour. And we just can't go blow off a parking lot and actually make money because of, you know, what the commercial guys do. They have a different business model. So we realized we have

really skilled people and we just need to serve the higher end residential and the small commercial guys who will pay a premium because they want their doctor's office or attorney's office or marketing office to look really good. So we got rid of all the commercial, which top line was huge, but you know, we were able to cut a couple hundred thousand dollars in revenue and actually make more money because we, we didn't need as many resources to deliver on that. And we, we were starting to make profit on the stuff that we actually did. And it also opened up a lot more capacity. So, you know, that was one thing. And then the next thing we did was we got rid of all of our bi-weekly accounts. So now if you want us to come, we're going to cut your grass every week.

Like we're not just going to come. We're not, you know, Johnny on the spot. Give us a call and we'll come. It's we're going to be here every week and you're going to pay us in advance for it. So slowly figuring out, you know, I think at the beginning, it's okay to say yes to everything because yeah, you need cash in the door, but eventually that's kind of like your kind of testing ground to figure out what you're really good at. What do you like doing? What do you set up for success? And then you need to start getting comfortable saying no,

referring people to maybe your competition and really just focusing on what you're best at, because that's where you'll really take it to the next level because you establish yourself as the expert in one niche, which then allows you to charge more for what you're doing. Another topic that I want to just jump into is hiring seems to be one of the hardest things is a lot of people say you need more jobs. And I say, no, you don't because you're not maximizing within your call booking, your conversion rate, and your average ticket. You're not selling people stuff that you feel like they don't need. I talked to a guy one time, he said he runs 10 service

calls a day and he bragged about it. I said, so what's the customer's name? Oh, you don't remember. Let me ask you what you did out there. Let me ask you this. Did you check their bottom rubber to make sure the bugs aren't getting in? Did you make sure they have an operator bracket? Did you offer a new opener with the new technology? Well, they didn't need a new opener. It wasn't broken. Well, do you know now Amazon Prime could come deliver the stuff in your garage with a camera? The thing is, they didn't need financing either. Most customers that use financing don't need it. And I hate that answer. But tell me about your first couple of hires. And I think there's a real problem with how we delegate, especially being brand new entrepreneurs. And I'd love to hear your take

on that. Yeah. So I'm a believer in hire for personality and train for the job because, you know, I believe if you hire the right personality, you can really teach them anything because if you can do it, so can somebody else if you actually teach them instead of, hey, go figure it out. So, you know, what I find a lot in any business, not just home services, is we don't really have the systems and processes set up. So we try and hire someone with a lot of experience. The problem is, is they have experience doing it their way and you want them to do it your way. So within a couple of weeks, you guys are already clashing, you're already button heads and you're blaming them. do it your way. So within a couple of weeks, you guys are already clashing. You're already button heads and you're blaming them.

He's blaming you. And eventually they quit. And it's kind of this vicious cycle. You hire someone, they leave, you fire them, they quit, whatever it is, because we don't have the standard operating procedures. You don't have, hey, when you go into someone's garage, these are the 10 things you have to check.

You know, hey, do you need a new opener? Hey, did you know that you could upgrade to this? Or hey, whatever it is, like that's just our standard operating procedure. But if we don't have those, we're forced to not only hire for experience, but then we also have to pay a premium for that. Because they're in higher demand, you know, at least in the market, because oh, this guy's got 10 years experience installing garage doors. I need that guy because I don't have time to teach them and I don't have the means to teach them and I'm too busy. Whereas if you take the time to create those standard operating procedures, you can hire somebody and teach them everything you

need to know. And they're a clean slate. They don't have past experiences. We've hired way too many people in any business say, well, at Tommy's business, we did it that way. It's like, I don't care. That's not how we do it there. If you want to do it there, go back to Tommy's business. But if you don't have your way and you can't teach them your way, it doesn't really matter. So, I mean, our best hires, you know, usually 99% of the time are people with little experience, but a willingness to learn, willingness to work hard, you know, and they don't know any difference. So however you tell them, this is how

we do it. That's how they're going to do it. Now take some patience because they don't have any experience and you can't assume anything. You know, you can't just say, Hey, go, go to the truck and grab a screwdriver. Well, you know what you mean, but they're like, well, what kind of screwdriver is it? Phillips? You know, is it a flat one? Is it a square one? Is it a star and what size and all that other stuff. So we assume too many things. And then we're like, ah, that person doesn't know anything. They don't even know that. It's like, well, if you taught them that, then they would do it. So we usually just assume too many things. So I'm a huge fan of hire for personality, train for the job with the caveat of you need those standard operating procedures. You need the systems and processes in place. And you need

to have the patience, the empathy to understand what they're going through and understand what's the potential if you build that team. And usually if you take care of somebody, they're kind of ground level and they grow with you. They will be so loyal as long as you are loyal to them. Yeah, I'm a big fan. Like, it's very rare. There are people I'll hire from other companies. If they come to me, they heard about us. They tell me why they want to come here. You got to understand from the beginning, look, you got to leave everything at the door that you've ever learned.

I'm not going to criticize you because you learn a certain way. But overall, I want to hire 90% of the people brand new for attitude. We do this thing called PI. It's predictive index. And a lot of people use disk. There's probably 20 of them that I've done. There's this color one. There's a million of them out there, but they actually work well. There's no right or wrong answer, but it's good to know how to manage these people and know how there's another one we give to know how quick they're going to pick up things. And it's amazing because I feel like if I work long enough with anybody, they're going to get it. I have a certain guy who's amazing. It took me four years to make him amazing. Now, then again, I didn't have the tools I have now,

but I'm looking for people that can pick it up quick. Really what I hire for now is, do you have a goal? Are you punctual? Can you make eye contact? What's your tonality like? Are you confident when you talk? And what's your eye contact, your body posture? All these things matter. But if you have that, I don't care where you worked. If you worked at a restaurant as a busboy, awesome. Plus, you're probably at an age that you're very, very impressionable, that I could literally give you the tools you're going to need And just that humbleness. I really look for people that could have a conversation

smile tell me the last funny story that happened with you because I'm looking for somebody that people are going to like because you buy from people you like and trust I called on a brand new guy who's absolutely just phenomenal conversion rates A lot of service calls turned into door sales. Great with customers, five-star reviews, great average ticket. And I said, what is it? And he goes, you know what, Tommy? He goes, and very young guy, super strong initiative. He said, I just feel like with the six weeks of training and hearing your morning calls every day, going to the sales calls on Thursday, learning the technical and

operational side. We have an obligation to do the right thing for the customer and give them the options, tell them what we would do if it was our door, our mother's door, our grandmother's door. And I'm not going to leave there until I give them the options to make the door the most indestructible door out there and make sure they never have to call us again. And I said, man, that's one of the best answers I've ever gotten. This was last week. You know, and I'd say 80% of it is him, the way he feels, the way he'd use it. And we gave him the right value system. You know, our core values are always improving, aspire to be number one, growth, attitude, respect, accountability, gratitude, and ethics. And we really try to really beat that in along with our mission and vision. And he's

just living his best life as well as the company's best life. And it's amazing to see that. My general manager, I call him the CTO because he's so good at technology, even though he's a COO. He said, we finally got a guy in Kansas. And what happens when you get that number one, just the conversion, the door sales, the time on job, which more time on job is good for me. We finally got the guy, the all-star, and he goes, I can't wait. He starts laughing. He goes, watch what's going to happen to that market. It's going to explode. And it's so true. One great hire, literally, and one bad hire, if you keep them, it's six times their yearly salary by keeping that bad guy. And it's true because I got guys that

can produce 300,000. I got guys that can produce 1.5 million. They're selling a lot of doors. We're selling a lot of condo complexes, huge builders, custom wood overlay doors. People that are listening in the garage or business go 1.5, how is that possible? That's more than we do with five guys in revenue. Well, when you got your average sale of three wood overlay doors for 35,000 and we custom build them in-house and they're 18 by 8, you could understand that we're charging about $45 a square foot on those wood overlays. So I don't want to tell people, hey, we're ripping people off, but we charge a good price

for stuff. But tell me about the good producer versus the bottom producer and why it's so important. I've had bad producers and it's my fault. So literally we take them. If they got an attitude, I'll find the way. But once again, I want to hear your take and some gold nuggets on this. Yeah. In any business, I think the hardest part is getting rid of anybody because there's that emotional thing. You don't like the confrontation, but like what you said, the longer you keep them, the more it's costing you. And you're just doing them a disservice too, because they could be doing something better with their lives instead of just kind of languishing at your business as well. So,

and to all the points that you look for, I think that's huge because that shows them a willingness to learn, to do what's right. And they have to buy into your vision and their personal vision has to align with your business's vision because if the business exceeds, so will they and vice versa. So, you know, I think hiring, it's like, I talked to way too many business owners. Like I'm just waiting for him to quit. I'm just waiting for him to quit. Just do everybody a favor. The biggest problem with that is then your high producers start getting really frustrated. It's like, man, we could really achieve some awesome goals if these, you know, a couple of deadweights at the bottom weren't here. I'm kind of losing confidence in my leader because he's not doing what he says and what he's doing or not doing doesn't line up with the

mission, vision, and values. So, you know, I think that's such a hard thing for business owners to do until you do it enough times and learn to have those conversations. And every time that we've gotten rid of anybody, you know, whether it's for performance or just not a good fit or being late or whatever, usually it ends really well because, and usually they're like, yeah, I know it just wasn't a good fit. I've been looking for another job. And a lot of times that's what they need is they need that kick in the pants too to like, hey, now you really need to go get another job and find a better fit. So not only does it hurt your business, hurt your numbers, your customers, but I think the biggest thing that a lot of people kind of overlook, because we have those employees that we don't even have to worry about. They'll just go do 1.5 million regardless. And all of a sudden that person leaves. It's like, why did they leave? Like, they were the best employee. I never had to talk to them. It's like, because you were spending 90% of your time trying to get these knuckleheads in line, when really, if you spend 90% of your time with the all-stars, you'll have a lot more all-stars

because those people, they will flourish and everybody will see that, hey, let's be more like that person. Let's go be like that all-star. How do we learn how to be like that all-star? So I think that's one of the biggest mistakes I see business owners make is ignoring their top producers

because they feel like they don't need attention. And then when we don't get rid of the people we know we need to get rid of, the top producers start to look at you like, man, why is that guy still around here? Like, why isn't my leader? Why isn't my boss? Why isn't my advocate doing what he says he's supposed to be doing? So when you do make that happen, I think it's like everything. Once we do it, it's like, man, that wasn't that bad. I should have done that a long time ago. So you fire the guys. And one of the things that it goes back to standard operating procedures, policies, manuals is literally

documenting everything. And I got to tell you, people ask me like they want to come see my business and I love it. I love it when they come out, but there's no way at their size they could afford the infrastructure I have. So I want to talk a little bit about the guys with maybe eight to 10 trucks. This is a pet peeve of mine. There's no jack of all trades in any position here. A lot of times what Adam or some of my managers say is, hey, let's just, they're not busy 100% of the time. Let's just give it to them. And I say, well, we're going to have key performance indicators for what, four roles in one person. So they're going to have 20 KPIs because they're supposed to pick up the, like, it just doesn't work. So you want to get a specialist in every single role eventually, and have those very

targeted, maybe three to five key performance indicators at the top. But realistically, I mean, it's tough for it to be a small business at eight to 10 trucks. It's tough because you're still running estimates. You're still kind of a firefighter, which we've all been firefighters. How do you get out of that firefighter mode? Yeah. So I think one of its, you know, its mindset and having the ability to make an investment, knowing that, hey, I might have to take home a little bit less short term to go invest into that sales guy or that estimator or the account manager or whatever it is, crew leader, whoever you need to invest in. You know, my rule of thumb is if you can afford their 12 month salary, you know, if you can afford at least

half of that, so six months, that basically buys you more or less six months to get them up to speed. And knowing that if I don't do this, I'm never going to get to where I want to go. And also understanding that, hey, it might, I'm looking for a sales guy, it might take a couple, you know, swings and misses, or hey, that one wasn't a great fit. But why wasn't it a great fit? What do we need to look for next time we hire somebody? So, you know, really, when you do bring on that person to help you, whether it's the estimator or the account manager, you know, or the office manager, whoever it might be, one, like you said, they need to know what does success look like? So what are your key performance indicators that they can measure so that they know, hey, I am meeting my expectations. But then really being able to kind of, you know,

take that leap and saying, okay, I know I need a sales guy. I'm going to pay them X amount, you know, and I know I can afford that for at least six months. So that really gives them six months to at least just pay for themselves, which if you have standard operating procedures and you have expectations and KPIs and you're a decent trainer, teacher, leader, whatever you want to call it, then you should be able to at least get them to the point where you might be breaking even after six months. So if you're paying them, say their salary,

say there's no commission just to make it really super simple and say, okay, their salary is 40 grand a year, so I need to be able to afford 20. Okay, so in order to make $20,000 profit to pay for them, okay, I need to do, you know, 115,000 in revenue. Can we do that if I didn't have to be the sales guy anymore and I could focus on other things? Yeah, we could do that. Okay. Let's start the process. So I think a lot

of business owners never take that leap because, you know, maybe they don't know their numbers or they haven't been tracking things certainly, or they just don't have the standard operating procedures and they keep hiring sales guys and the sales guys fail because they don't really know what success looks like. So, you know, anybody out there listening, who's looking to make that leap, like you said, if they're running too many estimates or they're running too much things in the office or they're out, you know, kind of babysitting the crews all day, whatever it is, how much money do you actually need to pay that person? And then what would you do with that time that it frees up? So you could then go work on your business to make sure that you get that return on that investment back.

So it's really being able to take that leap and trusting the process, understanding, yeah, I can't afford it right now, but I need to be able to do this in order to take that leap. So maybe I can take a little bit less home, make some sacrifices, see where you can make it work, and then go make it happen. I love that. There's so much here. And it's one of the things is always be learning and really being able to identify the weaknesses is a huge strength in an owner or a manager is what's going to make the biggest effect. And you got to do a lot of reflection. You know, most of my days I'm looking, I'll give you a quick example. I looked at this weekend

and my booking rate's definitely down. And it's not because I have the CSRs, it's because of my availability, number one. Number two is my revenue's down because we don't do a lot of installs because our distribution center is not open. I sent out a lot of messages via email and text messages this week.

And I said, I want to make Sunday, our worst day, one of our best days. There's a couple of ways to do that. Number one is we've got a lot of installs. We only count them as revenue once it actually goes in and the customer paid their final payment. So I said, how do we get Sundays to be a huge install day? Number one. Number two is how do we get Sundays? People don't generally get service

because they don't think we're open maybe, and it's not as convenient, but I want to give a special deal. So I want my marketing message to say, by the way, we got a special deal on Sundays. And then number three is I need availability. I need more technicians to work the weekends, which I understand that that could be a bad thing. But if you got like someone that's married to a nurse, you know, they do three, three, 12 typically so that they can have a weekend wherever they want in the week. So understanding someone's personal life. Well, that's just something I said, let's make our weakness, our strength. And there's a million things I could tell you, but it's identifying them. And I feel like a lot of owners, they say they walk in and they literally sit at their computer and they go, how do you figure out what's the most impactful things to make a company, your company, whatever it might be, whatever you're doing.

I know the numbers should lead you to it, but what's an exercise to really say, this is what needs to be done today. And I'm not going to be a one minute manager. I'm going to see this through. So Mike McAuliffe, going back to him again, he's got a kind of the business hierarchy of needs and the very bottom one is sales. And I would say most business owners, they still need more sales, but if you don't have a sales process, it's kind of like what works and what doesn't work. You can kind of throw spaghetti at the wall all day. And yes, sometimes it sticks, sometimes it doesn't. So figuring out where do you really want to go and, okay, maybe your sales is just churning it out. You got to figure it out, but we're not making as much money as we need,

you know, as we should be making. Okay, well, sales are good. Production's good. Well, then maybe it's profit. So let's start looking at our numbers and figuring out what do we actually need to charge to hit our goals to make our vision come reality. So Mike Michalowicz is just kind of the business hierarchy of needs. So after sales, and then it's profit, then it's like systems and processes, and then it's kind of the top ones are about the impact you're making. And most business owners get stuck between, you know, sales, profit, and systems and processes. But if you don't know how to fix it, that's really the biggest problem. So, hey, we need more sales. We need more leads.

But we don't really know how to get them in the first place. Like where I usually go back to that because usually it is when things are good, everyone's busy. Like you can be a really bad home service contractor and be busy from like, you know, 2012 to 2020. But, you know, what happens when the market goes down? Have you built a loyal following? Do you have your unpaid sales force out there in your customers? Are you taking advantage of every single touch point with your customers, potential customers, and showing them how much you care and, you know, building that know, like, and trust factor. So going back to what we talked about earlier, if you understand that the first time your customer pays you, that's the beginning

of a relationship, you'll start doing business totally differently. And then you will build a loyal following because you're always focused on serving the customer, being of value, building that trust factor, and really over-delivering because at the end of the day, whatever services you provide, and home service especially, is a commodity. There's a hundred other guys running around in a truck right now selling the exact same thing that you are. But what's going to set you apart is how do you actually deliver? Do you show up on time? How are you dressed? Do you call people back? Do you show up for the job when you say you're going to show up? Do you get it done when you said you're going to get done? Is the pricing consistent from what you said, from what you actually delivered to what

you charged? And then do you follow up after the fact? Like, hey, just wanted to check in. It's been a month. How's your garage door doing? Anything else we can help with? Just always staying top of mind and being your customer's number one advocate. I would say that's really the biggest opportunity when people are wondering, I don't really know what I should do. I know I need more sales. Take advantage of the customers you've already worked so hard to get and just serve them like ridiculously. So that way you can leverage that for future growth. And really what happens when the market goes down and people start looking at their budget, who are we going to pay? Who are we going to cut out? It's going to be the people that they haven't heard from in a while or the people that,

you know, they don't really care about. But if you're always calling, always checking in on them, maybe you drop off a nice gift just to say thanks. And your guys are so nice and prompt and they're dressed well and they got clean trucks and all these other things that have nothing to do with the actual service. That's what's going to set you apart. And that's what's going to move you up to the top too when they're determining who should I cut? Who should I pay? So when trying to figure out what do we really need to be focusing on and how do we actually grow our business? I think that's one of the biggest missed opportunities, no matter what industry you're in, any business owner has that we're not taking advantage of. You know, one of the things you mentioned, I got a couple more

questions and we'll start wrapping it up is you mentioned stopping off and seeing your, your bigger clients. And I think the biggest mistake that people do is they don't spend enough time networking. You know, one of the things that we're going to be doing is sending out a $5 gift card with a handwritten letter to our top 20 potential clients in each city. And I'm talking about clients that pay a million dollars a year because they're doing so many projects. They want a few things. They want a good deal. They don't expect it. They'd rather pay for a great company that shows up on time, that does a quality product job, that could work around other contractors in some cases. So we're going to be going after those

because there's no marketing cost once you land them. The marketing cost is sending them a gift, telling them you're thinking about them, checking in on them, maybe taking them to an event, a happy hour, a game. So we're going to be sending them a $5 gift card for Starbucks and saying, when's a good time I could buy you lunch via Uber Eats and we'll get it on a 10 minute Zoom call.

And a lot of people, garage doors aren't the first thing they think about when they're contractors, realtors, designers, property managers, they could go on and on. And there's investors that literally flip condos and apartment complexes. So getting in front of these people, learning how to do that's one thing, getting in front of them, sending them a letter, an email, voicemail blast, a text message is huge. Text message, you got to be careful, even a phone call. So you get in front of them and literally you keep following up. You put it in a campaign and I'm a big technology guy.

I love the automation that just says, okay, this is going to go out here, here. The minute they get back to me, I stopped that campaign. So now they're like, fine, I'll listen to you. And then it's a quick deck. More importantly, you get to find out, you do a needs analysis. You say, I just want to tell you a little bit about us. I want to hear a little bit about you. More importantly, let's talk about you. I always say, get them talking about them 80% of the time or more. And then you say, all I want to do is have a crack at the next opportunity. Now, here's the cool thing. Imagine if you just got 10 of those people that are spending, let's just say half a million a year. That's $5 million you added in the course of a month by sending out a few gifts and just top of mind awareness. I've got a hundred of these. I've probably got 60 now of these small Rubik's

cubes. And it's like, I'm still puzzled why we haven't met for lunch. I think you're making a mistake by not giving us a shot or a tape measure. Are you measuring the results you're getting with the other company? But that's the out of the box thinking, you know, there's a lot to be said about getting a huge client versus your small mom and pop, but you're not going to make as much money per se as much on that wham, bam, thank you, ma'am. But it's consistent. It's recession proof. It's a relationship. It's the gift that keeps giving. What's your take on that? Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. So how do you set yourself apart and at least be memorable, stay top of mind? Every client that I get, even from a coaching standpoint, once they sign up,

I send them a handwritten thank you note and just say, hey, thanks so much. You know, really excited to work with you. Let's go do this, whatever it says in there. But they get something in the mail that like I literally took the time to handwrite, hand address, put the stamp on, put it in the mail. You know, setting yourself apart from everybody else is huge. And then how do you continue to build that relationship? So, you know, even with my coaching practice, if we're having a Zoom call and someone's struggling with something in the mastermind and they say, yeah, I just don't know how to overcome this problem. If I know there's a good resource out there for them, usually it's a book that I've read. I'll just order the book from Amazon, send it to them and say, hey, you know,

I think this might help you. I don't tell them I sent it and then they get it. And I just got a message yesterday from one of my clients actually in Arizona. He builds websites and he said, wow, this book is so timely. I really appreciate you thinking of me and sending it to me. And it's doing those things to like actually care about the people you're taking care of and not just looking at it as another transaction and really focused on building that relationship. So like you said, you can be a part of the conversation and people do start to talk to you more. And when they start hearing, wait, your garage door guy, like sent you like Uber Eats meal and had a Zoom chat, like that never happens. Like that's something that people are going to talk about,

you know, and you're going to stay in the conversation. They're going to give you the shot because at first, like you said, you got to sell yourself first. You got to build that know, like, and trust factor because in their mind, they can kind of get that garage door from anywhere. They can kind of get their grass cut from anywhere.

Yeah, you might be a little bit better, but I really want to do business with people that I know that I like and that I trust. And when you can stay top of mind, stay in the conversation, build those relationships by just sending them things or picking up the phone and calling them like, hey, I know your wife was sick last week. Just want to see how things are going. They're like, oh, yeah, that's really nice.

Thanks so much for checking in. She's doing great. Whatever it is, what are you going to do to set yourself apart from everyone else out there selling the same thing you are? I love it. And I'm going to ask one question before I get into the closing questions and then we'll get you finished up. So people ask me how I knew that I made it. And I told them I knew when I left for three weeks, I barely picked up the phone. I paid attention to the CRM, but I wasn't micromanaged. I wasn't getting call managers. I just, basically, I say, if you were to go on a trip to Hawaii and

I'm paying for your dogs, I'm paying for your kids. It's all inclusive. I'm paying for the liquor, the food, the volcano tours, the swimming with the dolphins, the helicopter ride. If you left for two, three, four weeks, you couldn't call back home. What does your business look like when you get back? And if it's as good or better, you've got a really great business. If it's fell apart, then you've got some work to do. What's the point? You know, business is going to survive without you. Yeah. I mean, I would say that vacation thing is huge. And I think it really depends on what everyone's goal is too, right? So some people

don't want to build a business that big. They don't want to have that many employees. So it really comes down to what type of business they want to build. But, you know, to be able to step away from your business, really just for the peace of mind, you had mentioned at the very beginning, you know, build a business that is sellable. And I tell everybody, even if you don't want to sell it, a business that is sellable means it can thrive without you, which means, hey, whether someone else is running it or you sold it, or you give it to your next generation, you know, to your kids or grandkids or whoever. To your other question of, you know, the other point of how do you sleep at night? It's a lot easier to sleep at night when you know, if something does happen, hey, my wife could

take this business over. Or if something did happen and we had to move across country and I could put somebody in place to run this or I could sell it, it just gives you so many more options. When you have those options, you have control. And when you have that control, you have the peace of mind. Even though it's hard to get there because we kind of have to give up, quote unquote, control, we have to trust other people. We have to trust the systems and processes. But when your business can truly thrive without you, if you get hit by a bus or you want to go on vacation or you want to go visit your kids or your grandkids or whatever it is, you have so many more options, more opportunity. And then it really starts getting fun because there's not as much risk at that point. You can try other things because you know, at this point, like I am not an integral

part to the day-to-day success. So let's get creative. Let's try new things. Let's ramp it up because we know we've already built a solid foundation. It's a lot easier to go try other things and let's, Hey, let's add a fourth floor to our house. When you know, there's a solid foundation, you haven't just built the house of cards. I love that. I love that. That's so true. So the question that I kind of always kind of end with, there's a few of them. Someone wants to get ahold of you. They want to tune into the podcast. They want help. What's the best way to go about all that? Yeah. So I really appreciate it, Tommy. Thanks so much for having me on. So two ways, like you said, the podcast. So if you just search for

Business Owners Freedom Formula Show, you go there. it's been going as time of recording i think we got like 395 episodes so it's been out there for quite a while a lot of good actual advice for any business owner and then if you do want to chat more i run a mastermind so i'm a huge fan of masterminds it's for all you know small business owners so if you just go to paulmaskill.com slash mastermind go there basically fill out application. We'll set up a time to chat, make sure it's a good fit and then get you off and running. And really what we focus at is, you know, automating and scaling your business. So you can kind of go from business operator to business owner and you don't have to be isolated all the time. It's, I think the bigger your

business gets, there's less people that know what you're going through. So when you can get rid of that isolation, surround yourself with other people who want to do big things, you know, and you got a mentor, you got a plan and you got accountability. If you have those three things, in my opinion, no matter what you're doing, whether it's you want to lose weight or you want to go on a trip or you want to build a business, if you have a mentor, if you have a plan and you have accountability, you can really do anything that you want in this life. Usually we are our own worst enemy. We don't hold ourselves accountable because we are our own boss. We don't want to learn from somebody else. We don't really have a plan. We just kind of wing it. So we really focus on those three things to make sure everyone

reaches their full potential and do what they really want to do. So that's paulmaskill.com slash mastermind. Go there, apply, we'll chat, we'll get you enrolled. And then if you do want to listen to the podcast, just search for Business Owners Freedom Formula Show, wherever you listen on podcasts. Awesome. And then if you have three books that you'd recommend, any books, doesn't matter if it's fiction, the Bible, whatever you think, what would you recommend? So I would say One is Built to Sell by John Warrillow. It's a great, quick, easy read about why your business needs to be sellable, even if you don't want to sell it. So that would be one of them. I would say The Pumpkin Plan. We

had talked about that earlier. So many contractors, many home service people say yes to everything, and then we try and figure it out later. So it's a great book just to kind of get narrowed down into who your ideal client is. And then since so many people do have financial problems as well, I would recommend Profit First just because it's a super easy, simple to implement to at least get your finances in order and really shine lights on where there might be problems. Because if there's no profit when you go through this exercise, something's broken. Whether you have too much non-billable time, you're not charging enough, your expenses are out of control, whatever it is. So that's why Mike Michalowicz as well.

So two plugs for Mike Michalowicz just because I think his stuff is so easily digestible, especially for home service business owners who might not have a lot of time, very easy systems to implement. Yeah, it really was. It's something that if you get it done, you're gonna go, where did all this money come from? If you really, simple books, simple read, simple and easy to make actionable. I agree

completely. Great books, you recommended. And finally, I want to give you the floor for a couple of minutes, however long you need to just, a couple of gold nuggets, one last final thought for the, some actionable things that the listeners could take advantage of. Yeah. So I really appreciate it, Tommy. So I would say, you know, my biggest takeaway in this whole journey is the worst case scenario is never as bad as you think it's going to be. So many times we're so afraid to hire that person or put these systems and processes in place or go for that big ask or go for that second,, whatever it is. Like we're always afraid of the worst case scenario and it's never that bad. So when I quit my job, everyone said I was crazy and they said, what are you doing? That's not safe. And to me, the worst case scenario was

my business doesn't work out and I go get another job. So that's not really that bad. And then the same thing when I started delegating and building a team was if they do it and it doesn't work out well, the work's just gonna come back to me anyway and it's already with me right now so I really don't have anything to lose. So if you were to take one thing away, I would say that the worst case scenario is never as bad as you think it's gonna be. Take action and really get clear on your vision.

So like we had talked about before, my dad ran his own business for many, many years until he physically couldn't do it any longer and he was always too stubborn. He couldn't find good help. Nobody cares as much as he did. Nobody could do it any longer. And he was always too stubborn. He couldn't find good help. Nobody cares as much as he did. Nobody could do it as good as he could. And he had a wait list like six months, usually. People would wait for him. He did awesome work, second to none. But at the end of the day, he physically couldn't do it any longer. And his

retirement was simply selling his truck, selling his tools, and calling it a day when really he could leverage that expertise to build a multi-multi-million dollar and have a guaranteed stream of income really for his entire life instead of just selling a truck and some tools. So figure out where you really want to go and then take action, surround yourself with other people, learn from other people, always be growing because, you know, momentum is a powerful thing. If you get it going the right way, you're going to make some big strides. But if you get it going the other way, you're going to end up at the bottom pretty quickly. So don't be afraid to learn from other people. There is no trophy for going alone. And, you know, at the end of the day, the only failure is quitting for good. So if something

doesn't go your way, you learn from it, you get better, you move on. And, you know, like I said at the beginning, the worst case scenario is never as bad as you think it's going to be. I love it. Well, Paul, I really appreciate you coming on. I got a lot of great stuff out of this. I'd love to get you back on. I love talking about different ideas when it comes to business initiatives, technology, marketing operations, you name it. So got a lot out of this. I definitely encourage the listeners to check everything out.

Go to the website, check out the mastermind, listen to the podcast. And thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks, Tommy. Really enjoyed the conversation. Look forward to doing it again. All right. Thank you, brother. Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me. And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe.

You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor. Leave a quick review. It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review. Make it four or five sentences, tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick,

we started a membership. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're gonna do to become a billion dollar company. And we're telling everybody our secrets basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time? And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making

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