The Home Service Expert Podcast - How to Harness Staffing Power to Deliver Top-Quality Service and Win Life-long Customers

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Al Levi has been rated as one of the 25 most influential contractors in the United States by Plumbing and Mechanical Magazine, where he has also been a longtime columnist. After starting and growing his own business, he was able to sell the business to then retire before reaching 50. He is the author of The 7-Power Contractor, and helped in co-authoring the book The Home Service Millionaire. In this episode, we talked about entrepreneurship, contracting, leadership, staffing...

without processes and procedures that are objective, what are you judging my performance on? And here's how what we used to do is it was our opinion. Worse than that, it was Al's opinion, Richie's opinion, Marty's opinion, service managers, everybody had a different opinion. It's a miserable day to be an employee anywhere and have to live by what other people are making up as subjective things. Now, either my uniform is on right or my truck is right and I have a photo. It's objective. I love that. And I have yet to meet employees that work for me for any period of time and now any of the companies that I work for who don't come to love that. And if they don't come to love that, I'm going to question why are

they still there with you? Because they got to go. And Tommy and I both know we're talking about staffing power. You know, once I do the four steps of discipline, once I've done all this, that's the end of the road here. You got to go. I don't care how great a salesperson you are. I don't care how much money you're bringing to me. You got to hit the bricks. Because what I always share to my people is I'm not going to let a cancer take over this company.

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 mellow welcome back to the home service expert as you guys probably know my name is tommy mellow and today i have a special guest who's very near and dear to my heart he's been on a couple times he's also been my consultant coach we still work together and he's the king of manuals, the king of processes. His name is L. Levy. L., I'm going to go over some of your credentials real quick.

You're an expert at business systems, operations, staffing, sales and marketing, plumbing, HVAC, electrical, and now garage doors. You're based here with me in Scottsdale. You wrote the 7 Power Contractor. You helped me develop my manuals, a lot of stuff. OSI and comfort services owner from 75 to 2001. And you broke out and did your own thing. You lived the business with your family for 25 years. You've been rated one of the 25 most influential contractors in the United States by plumbing and mechanical magazine. You were able to sell the business to then retire before reaching 50. And you've been a long time

columnist. You're always putting out amazing articles. And you also helped me co-author this bad boy, the home service millionaire. And I've had you on Al. And I think there's probably been a lot of people that have heard about you through me and got involved in your program with just the manuals. And it's not fair because they paid a fraction of what I paid. But the problem with them is they didn't have you in person. And I needed you in person because not only am I ADHD, but it's a difficult industry to get going on. So I'm glad we were able to build dozens of manuals together. I think I'm up to 32 now.

Anyway, welcome back to the podcast. We've talked a lot in the past. Tell me what's been going on in your world and tell the listeners a little bit about what you've been up to. You know, Tommy, I appreciate everything you said. And, you know, I actually worked with roofing, commercial roofers. I've worked with cabinetry guys, you know, I actually worked with roofing, commercial roofers. I've worked with cabinetry guys, production of cabinetry even. I worked with a condo builder.

Oh, it's really kind of the same thing I always talk about. You know, contractors, the whole thing is, can you answer the phone the right way? Can you dispatch and manage the schedule? And can whatever they do, get out there and, you know, do the work the right way communication-wise, even before they pick up the tools, which are the trade chapters that come afterwards. So that's really it. And the good news about my end of the story is that I still stay in touch with my brother, Richie. He's the middle brother because my older brother retired just last year. And you know him because he's a garage door customer.

And so the reality is it's on to my nephew is there with my middle so fourth generation and what i always say is it's really hard to go generation to generation unless you have a systematic approach which we did not have for many many a company started in 36 and so you know until it was like the 90s we didn't have any of this and fortunately for me you know i just it was like the 90s, we didn't have any of this. And fortunately for me, you know, I just kind of had enough wherewithal to look up and realize this was just craziness every day. And I, like you, Tommy, we've known each other for so long. You know I'm passionate, but the thing I'm most passionate about is sales and marketing.

So why am I the operations guy? Why am I the operations guy why am I the staffing guy because my team continually blew up my sales and so I had to stop what I was doing and fix that or you know I never could get back so you know my making sales the way I describe it was like pouring gasoline on a fire that was out of control of it you know what I mean And I bet that people listening and watching this today feel the same way that I'm talking about. So what I did with Tommy, you know, it was something I had done for 18 years after I left my own business, but I don't do one-to-one consulting anymore. I do an online program, but the good news is it's like Tommy mentioned, it's a fraction of what he paid. And the idea is that it's, you know,

virtual. I'm really your tour guide, a virtual tour guide, taking you up that mountain. And so far, I'm very pleased to say a great success. You know, Al, you got me thinking here because the one thing I know is I've always been successful in sales and marketing. But what I realized is until you develop a process in which the sales work and you know my, what is my process? Remember it? Eight steps. The eight step process.

That always works. That always works. So it always works. The eight step process. And so I had to develop the checklist and the process. And I will tell you this with staffing power, we're going to jump into staffing power, but I've been a lot better than I've ever been.

And we're starting to really realize, but you know, there's nothing that beats role play and just checklists and knowing that the person could do it in front of you and demonstrate it in front of a camera and study those tapes. And it's easy for me to talk about. It's harder to implement out there in the training center with what 27 doors, but I'm telling you right now, I train guys now for almost three months and I'm a five out of 10. I'm one out of two. It's literally, there's so much more work to go, but your staffing power is what everybody's calling me now because we got lucky with COVID. The home service business did. We got lucky because we're deemed essential for the most part. And you know, with

the movie industry, the hotel industry, restaurant bars, you name it, they're all coming to us. And I'm very fortunate right now because I just hired five guys that own restaurants, a bunch of servers, a bunch. And they're amazing. They're so good with customers. So I really wanted to jump into you've got seven powers and you focus on your staffing power. Let's just talk about staffing because I really want to jump deep in here. Yeah, I really wanted to come to staffing power today because I hear it so much. It's just, you know, nauseating to me. People just complain again.

Oh, I can't find good people. There are nobody who wants to work out there. You know, if I only had good staff, well, you think it was ever different for me? I mean, even my dad's the same way. You know, it was always an issue. And this whole idea about, you know, remember I told this story before, but my brother Richie, you know, one day, Tom, he started laying into me about, why don't they do this? Why don't they do this? Why don't they do this?

And I just, when he got out of breath, I go, Richie, if they could do all of those things, why would they be working for you? Wouldn't they go down the road and start their own company? So, you know, you get the employee that you want. But the problem for us, Tommy, was we were always desperate. We were never proactive at hiring. And so we used to, Marty, the inside guy who you know, like he nicknamed our hiring process as the mirror test m-i-r-r-o-r which means if you fog the mirror you're hired and we would literally throw the keys at them to the truck because we were so desperate to get them on the road and of course it was a disaster you know and we were punishing our customers and i'm going to tell you out there listening and watching is you are punishing your customers by making them have staff that isn't trained and isn't willing and isn't doing. And I know what you're going to do because I did it for years.

You're just going to continue to lower your standard. I'll give you a very small for instance. My guys proved that they couldn't dress right. Right. The uniforms were a mess. They were a mess. They were a mess. So we kept on making the bar lower and lower, like darker uniforms, you know, whatever we could do, right?

And finally, one day we just said, well, that's not working. How about if we raise the bar and, you know, tell them how to get dressed and what exactly they have to wear and how they button their shirt and make it a point that we're not compromising on this. And I will tell you, from the very little thing, things got better, as weird as that sounds, because we finally came down to the thing. But staffing is so important. And I'm going to give a tip off to something else, Tommy. We didn't have operating manuals first.

We did the classic mistake. We finally said, we're tired of hiring everybody who's a retread in the industry and hoping that they'll be good. Because Richie and I had that conversation at one in the morning, like most guys, the owners, last people standing. And Richie says, can you believe Tommy? Tommy was the guy we overpaid to come to our shop. He's supposed to be the great guy. He's not even adequate here. And now we've overpaid all the money and ticked off everybody that's here. And so we finally said, you know what?

No more. We're just going to hire young, willing people and provide the skills. So we said, well, let's build a hands-on training center. It was built all the wrong way because we didn't know what tasks we needed them to do. And here's worse, Tommy, you know, Richie would be out in the field and he would call me up and go, didn't you show Tommy how to check the rotation on a motor? And I go, I did. That was two years ago, but I don't know what Tommy's doing now. There was nothing to go back to. So that's when

the manuals came in. And then when we had the manuals, Tommy, we finally, for the first time, knew this is how we build the training center. Where will we make this person show us this task? And the thing here is all of you who are listening and watching today, you are penalizing your customers because if you do training at all, it's on the job training, OTJT. That's what you're doing, on the job training. So you're coming to my house to fix my garage door and you're here training this guy how to do it and you're charging it. How wrong is that? And you're thinking that you're going to catch the holes that I have. It's completely wrong. It's just not going to happen.

So what Tommy does these days, just like I did, is we had the manuals. We go through the manuals. We're out at the training center. We've got a training curriculum that goes with those manuals. And then we have the right training center and we run them through the tasks. Now we play nice at first. You know, we do the actual repair and then we don't stop. They have to come to the house and the better you build your training

center that looks like a house or a commercial thing, which we did as well, is the better the chances that they're going to learn how to do your sales process, communicate better, be dressed up neat and clean. Because if you come to my training center and you don't talk to me right, and you're not dressed right, and you're not standing on a mat, call's over. Follow what I'm saying? You're not going to even touch that stuff. And then the same way about finishing the job the right way. Because you can do all of this great stuff. I will share, because, you know, I'm a customer as well.

So I had an appliance guy come to my house. I had one of those big, you know, fancy SubZero, right? Of course, it was a problem. Appliance guy comes to the door and goes, I need a minute to put on my shoe covers. And he's standing on a mat and going, all right, pretty nice. Puts down the carpeting thing, you know, to go to the floor stuff, protect my floors. Thinking this is great. He gets to the Sub-Zero.

I am not kidding. He puts his metal toolbox right down on my granite countertops. Oh, man. So how easy, Tommy, and you know it, how easy is it to blow it with just one thing like that? Well, the deal is, you know, I was talking to some of my staff yesterday. And I was just thinking, it was been raining the last week here. And why am I the only one that sees the holes in the gutters?

Why am I the only one that sees a little bit of leaks in the roof? And you walked in and you saw a lot. But I now I take pride of ownership. I read a book not that long ago with this guy that owns a bunch of restaurants. And he looks for the 1%. Maybe a fan's not going as fast. Is there a cigarette butt? How do the bathrooms look?

What's the temperature of the food? I think what manuals, standard operating procedures, the org chart, the depth chart, the stuff that you teach teaches me and us is that no one's going to care as much as the owner. So you've got to have a system. And Michael Gerber talks about it too, where you get the lowest common denominator, minimum wage almost, that the lowest amount of labor, because it's easy to find low amounts of labor.

If the process is strong enough and the manuals are strong enough and it's repeatable, then you're going to get an expected outcome. And I'm just afraid that we all wait for that magic person like you talk about. Yeah, I know. Look, I'm not preaching from on high. I used to do a thing, what I used to call hiring lightning in a bottle, which you can do maybe once.

Maybe that one person will walk in the door and they're already pre-trained, good communicators, good sales, neat and clean, all the things you want. Can you replicate that? Can you build your company on that? I really doubt that. It's really near impossible. And I say that not just because of me, but my experience with so many companies over the years. And it's exhausting, frankly. It's much more exhausting. And I have to tell you, Tommy, because I know this is a recording, but there was a time that I hated my employees. Hated them.

And I'll tell you why I hated them. Because every day I felt they made me feel like a hostage. They could pick up any day. They could decide if they were going to clean their truck. They could decide if they were going to put the stuff in my trash, you know, my big 40-foot trailer. We always laugh, of course. If you have a 40-foot trailer and they're supposed to put debris in there, where is it going to go in the first three feet, right? And now you've got 37 feet that you haven't been able to fill.

It's just human nature. So I know people think this is crazy, but when you come on board, Tommy, that was one of the first things. We showed you every single place where the recyclables go, the cardboard, the waste content, and how to fill up that waste thing the right way. And if I came out and I found you in the wrong place, not filling that in, step one of the

four steps of corrective action. I'm not kidding. Including, by the way, starting with young apprentices. You know, I ran five install crews a day. That was just one of my jobs. And you guys know what I mean by one of your jobs, right? You got a million jobs. But one of the things I really was, I bought into this hiring young, willing people and providing skills. So they started as an apprentice. They worked on install. They built themselves up. I'm a strong believer that if you can't install it, how do you know how to service it? That's

just me. Now, I've worked with pure service companies and they do a similar thing. It's okay. Either way that you go. But the point of it is, is I stress to them is that you're not coming here for a job. You're coming here for a career. Now, here's what you have an apprentice manual, go home, look it over, but we're going to read it out loud. So you know how you're being judged. It's not like what I think, what Richie thinks, what Marty thinks, or your service manager thinks. This is how we're going to judge you. And one of the things right in there says, you got to be here every day and you have to show up on time and you have to be dressed right.

So I just wait, Tommy hired five apprentices at a time because I had five crews. I was always rotating. They were moving up the service track or the install track. And sure enough, somebody would walk in five to 10 minutes late. And I would just say, you know what? Wait a minute. When I get done with the crews, I'll talk to you. Pull them in my office. And I go, what time is it?

And they go, yeah, you know, late. I didn't set my alarm today or there was traffic. And I go, great. Open up the apprentice manual and read what it says about being on time. And I would make them read it out loud time. Because I have to fix these habits. And ultimately, I got to value my training, my staffing powers so much that I was really particular. I was looking to break you in those first 90 days of what I call orientation. And some guys have shortened it to 60. I do advocate that you don't

go to 30 days on your orientation process because we're looking for habits. And my feeling is I can fool you for 30 days. I sincerely doubt, and I feel pretty confident that I've rarely ever been fooled about who you really are if you're here with me for 60 days. And now I rolled them around, five different guys, just so I would get five of these guys to give me some feedback about. We used to call them a leader. Is that a term you've heard, Tommy, a leader? A few times, yeah. Oh, yeah. So on the job, what this means is I'm working and you're leaning against the wall.

That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for somebody who's willing to get, you know, instructed, dig in, grab a shovel as instructed and get to work. So you're demonstrating to me that you're worthy of these first 90 days, because if you are, I'm going to take you to apprentice to junior tech. Now, some people just call it apprentice tech. And I think that's a really good term as well. And then if you prove to me you're out on the road for a year and do all the things and hit all the metrics, KPIs, you know, known performance indicators, you will have earned the opportunity to come back to me to go to junior tech to senior tech or tech to senior tech, where I will teach you the rest of the trades so that you can sell everything that's in the manual

and begin setting yourself up for an even greater career. You know, it works. Those of you that are listening, I've got my apprentice program and now I have them. I've got a ride along form. We do personality index, predictive index. You know, I'll explain it like this. Now I make them initial everything. When they read it out loud and more importantly, some of the guys that I don't feel bad, you know i'll explain it like this now i make them initial everything when they read it out loud and more importantly some of the guys that i don't feel bad you know these guys are blue collar some of them didn't go through 10th grade so they read a little slow so when i get done and they they really are struggling to read and we do have them still read as i said now let's go over what that means to you and we go through little blocks because

some people don't comprehend when they're reading and i get it. I didn't used to when I was a kid, but you know, it makes me think of this sale is I've got a trainer that comes into my office. He actually shows up to me and there's certain trainers where you could work out. Have you ever been to the gym and you see all these people, they're there two hours long, they're sweating, they're on the treadmill, they're running at eight and they're just not in shape. And the trainers, the more you give them guidance on their diet, on their drinking habits, on their sleep, on their water intake, on their vitamin, you know, all these things other than working out, the better that person gets into shape. And when I look at it like this, you take a good person with a will, you do your predictive index, you do the background drug test, the easier you could make it for them to have the exact process, the win and lose.

This is your playbook. I'm going to teach you the playbook. This is your manual. And then your scorecard is how you win. I'm going to keep track of this stuff. We're going to have a lot of one-on-ones. Kobe and Michael Jordan, they always were working with different people to get better. And we're going to get you better. And if you're the best, we're going to better your best. But I think that a lot of us, we don't realize that we don't have the right trainer. He's teaching us how to work out, but he's not teaching us anything else. And that's why you taught us three things, operational, technical, and sales. And I feel like most industries teach you the technical, but they forget the operational and the sales. And without those two things,

you have a program that's, yeah, you could do the those two things, you have a program that's, yeah, you could do the work, but you're driving a truck that's, there's no standards of how you drive the truck. There's no CRM system. They don't understand the price book. Inventory's messed up. There's no yard signs.

The reputation is down the tubes. But this is how companies used to operate. And now we just, the people demanded more, and hence you created a system. Yeah, there's no question about all of that. You know, I know some people are sales phobic and whatever they read. I am not. I don't ever sell. And I've said this a number of times. I don't ever sell anybody anything that's not in their best interest because I've asked good questions. I've listened to them. I've looked

at the whole job. I am an expert. And I teach people that my job is to be a total solution provider. Based on your feedback, I'm going to make really good recommendations. And Tommy and I talk about this all the time. I don't want Tommy driving off and he didn't tell me about that I could have had that safety protector at the bottom of my door that would be really good to protect my kids, my little kids, my pets, any of that stuff. I have an insect problem coming into my garage. I expect Tommy to tell me about the bumper.

This is what I expect. And if I went to Tommy's house, I'm going to look at the whole bathroom, not just a piece of the bathroom. I'm going to look at the piping and everything else because on my watch, my job is to look out for you. That's it. That's really what it is. Now, we all encounter, you know, the person, the customer that's been on Google or YouTube

and watched a five-minute video and now all of a sudden they're an expert in our trade. And, you know, you can never say that they're wrong. So I always say, you know, there's a lot of great information out on the internet. Problem is you don't know if it's an expert or an idiot. And so here's what I can tell you. Here's my training. And I'm not coming to your house today to learn my job. I've been fully trained in our own facility, at our own company, and I'm always in training. We're always getting better, no matter who goes. By the way, we have a manual that no matter who shows up, we pretty much do it the same way.

That is powerful stuff. It's powerful in separating you. It's why you're worth the money. It's why your sales go up. It's why more calls will happen. It's why more great testimonials happen. It all comes from this stuff. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I just wanted to let you know that we have a special offer from LDB for you today. So stick to the end, and I'll reveal how you can take advantage of it. But if you're in a rush, just go to 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSM. That's 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSM. The HSM stands for Home Service Millionaire.

And check out our exclusive offer we put together for our listeners. Okay, now let's get back and continue our chat with Al. When we talk about sales, and I've seen Darius Levers talks about financing, and for some reason in our head, we decide what we think is right instead of what is really right. And what I mean by really right is it's my job, Al, to give you the options. It's my job to tell you what I would do if this were my circumstances and why. And one of the things I've always said is diagnose the person before you diagnose the problem. And I'm going to tell somebody, if you're selling the house next month, basically, you just want something that looks good.

So these panels are messed up. Let me just replace the panels. It gets you out for $800. Whereas if you're going to live in this house, it's your forever home. You've got your family. You've got everything. I'm going to tell you to invest in a better product. That's going to last a lot longer and be a lot safer. So I don't have any problem. It's just certain technicians. The biggest thing I try to do is indoctrinate them when they come to my training.

That's why I bring them to Phoenix. And I try to indoctrinate them with doing the right thing for the customer. And that means giving them options. And I say, I want them to get to know me and I want them to see me and know I'm in here. You know, I've had several people come up to me in the last month and they said, dude, I've worked for companies a fifth of the size and we see the owner once every two months. And you're in here longer than anybody. You come in, they came in on the weekends, I'm here, but I'm kind of a workaholic. I enjoy working, but you know, I try to have that leadership and that culture of I'm in here trying to do the best I can. I'm learning out methodologies to do better. It's not hard for me to ask that of you. So I think it's important that a leader and a lot of the guys that you

walked into my office and you said, dude, what's up with this place? You got calendars all over the walls. I tripped on a court. I could have robbed your shop with your own forklift where are the systems where are the cameras where is this and it's true now we have two trucks we've got a van and a truck they look the exact same we've got the nicest set of i think you know i'm being no i i would defy anybody because you know you followed what i was saying about the necessary to set up the right model trucks so you can hop in from truck 99 to 100 tomorrow and be back up and running and that's what's nice and then i said i challenged my team and my inventory team i said guys we've got all these buckets they fit specifically here there's labels on them show me you know i was out with a customer the other night al and he spends a million dollars with me. And he said, Tommy, when I worked for Hewlett Packard, very, very wealthy, wealthy, wealth, wealth.

They said, we want you to figure out this inventory tracking system. And I want you to take the inventory, get it over to, you know, Hewlett Packard printer stuff and just the whole gamut. And he said, so we got introduced to this group by people. And it took us, believe it or or not 47 minutes to do it from soup to nuts and they go back to the instructor like we finished and he goes that's not fast enough go again well this time they went back in and they knew each other had a role they've already been through the process they got it down to 15 minutes he said that's not fast enough go back so now they went back and now they had a process behind the role so they they built the org chart. They had a process behind it.

And they said, we got it down to five minutes. He said, I'm sorry, the other group's meeting you. He said, Tommy, we went back two more times. We got the process to under 12 seconds. And he goes, that's what I've learned is there's always improving. And what I challenged my guys in the inventory program was, you guys say it takes an hour to take inventory i want to get it down to 40 minutes and by the end of this year i want to go into that truck and be able to do

inventory on every single part with under five minutes and they said how in the hell is that possible and i said if you look at an opener if this only holds four and you taught me you don't have to count the nuts and bolts you count the the loves, not the pieces of bread. You count the love. So I literally told them how we could do it, but they said, but the guys aren't compliant. I said, here's the deal. Where's the scorecard? How do we keep track? And you know what I've learned is the more the trainers on my butt about staying in the gym, working out, holding me accountable, asking how my diet's going, checking my weight, building a scorecard for my protection to give myself the best I can be. The more I live and breathe it, I'm eating

better. I'm drinking less. I've got my plans, my meals I bring into work every day. And the fact is he holds me accountable and I'm disciplined and I've got a checklist through him and it's easy to follow. And I think a lot of us fail. I think a lot of us fail. We don't build these systems that you preach. We don't build a checklist, the standard operating procedures. We don't have the methodology. And how the hell can I look at somebody and say, you're a failure when I didn't even give them the way to win the game, when I didn't even tell them what to do. And I said, act like more, more like me. I just don't think that that's fair. And I think that's what you've taught us is i remember you told me a lot of stories but you've worked you've had partners in the past that hated their employees yeah i was not alone

absolutely you said you'd say they don't care they don't respect me they don't care about me and then you realize maybe it's you. And maybe you're not giving them what they need. You always say, we're the dads, right? Me and you, we're dads. And you know, Adam's mommy. I'm just kidding. No, it's true though. It's got nothing to do with your gender. It's just how they see you, mom and dad. And that's why they're so good at splitting you up. They don't like the answer from dad, go ask mom. Who listening today has not did that. That's exactly what they'll do if you don't have any systematic way of doing stuff. And when I say systematic, by the way, I'm not just talking about tech. I'm talking about your accounts receivable person, your

accounts payable person, your apprentice, your field supervisors, your installers, you know, all the way down the company. There's a reason that Tommy has 30 plus manuals. You know, your marketing manager, financial manager, warehouse manager, all these people need it. And so we say, well, you know what? If we could only hire the right person, the magic person, they don't need a manual. Yeah. What happens to them when they walk across the street and get hit by the bus? Bad for them, but bad for you because you can't replicate your process now i don't want anything

to happen to my accounts payable or accounts receivable but god forbid they did i got a depth chart people are already cross-trained i could bring somebody new in tomorrow and they could handle it with my training so it isn't just about a training center you know tommy was talking about it there's ride along with text and and there's side by side training. I don't just hand you a manual and say, have a good day because you don't know what I wrote and what I meant. So actually in the process, and if I got a second, I'm going to rattle it off. Yeah.

The five steps of staffing power, always recruiting, always hiring, always orienting, always training and and always retaining. Now, I will share with you, like I said, I was desperate. Do you think I ever spent a moment in orienting anybody? No. But once I had manuals and once I realized what I needed to do, now in the hiring process, I will share there are three types of employees. There's your existing staff who are filled with holes in their knowledge and are desperately trying to hide it from you because they oversold themselves. And they're afraid someday that you'll find out what they really don't know and what they're doing out there, wherever they are. And it's costing you and your customer and your company big time. So your obligation is to find their home,

make it safe for them to share that with you, and then fix it. And the best way I know is through staffing power and leveraging operating magnets for every position on your work chart. The next one is you hire this great person. Tommy's coming to make life better. Well, I will interview him. I will do the motivational mapping, which is a nice way of saying profiling

to know what I'm dealing with. And I take all different types, but if Tommy comes to me and he has no tech in his thing and he's going to be a tech, that's going to be an uphill battle. If Tommy is going to be my CSR on the phone being what I call the happy hostess and he doesn't have any personality or people skills, this is an uphill battle. Does that make sense to everybody? So that's really kind of the thing. My hiring process got better. Plus at the end of it,

if Tommy came to me and says, I saw him say, Tommy, so can you fix any garage door, Tommy? What about if there's a busted spring? Have you ever done that? Oh, yeah. I've done it a thousand times. Now, I'm not saying that they're lying. They may have watched their cousin do it, right? But what is the chances that they know how to do it the A1 garage way? Zero. And now that Tommy has a way, the chances are even less than zero. So I would say, great, because we have a training center outside with a busted spring. Let's go outside and see how you do. I'd like to just know that you can pick up the wrenches, right? Are you assuming that I really know?

Because originally, Tommy, I used to just do a written test. And what I found out now, written test in the absence of no testing in the hiring process is better than no testing. But here's what I found out. Some people are really good at writing and answering tests, and they don't have anything when it comes to real skill. And this, again, applies to, let's say you have an accounts payable, accounts receivable person.

I asked Tommy, he's coming to fill that position. Tommy, so do you understand QuickBooks? What's the only answer Tommy will ever give me in that interview? Yes. Yeah. I know it all. Are you kidding? I've been doing it. Yeah. In my sleep. And I know. Yeah. And it's not that it isn't. So I said, great. Cause we've got a demo set up and we'd like you to add this invoice. So you have to make it real in that way. And then once they're on board, the orientation process, once you have manuals, the first thing on this five- or ten-day orientation, which is a scripted five to ten days, I'm going to make sure that I get you up to speed as best I can. And it was actually one of my clients years ago, the great Joe

Haney at the Lowry services, a monster company in Pennsylvania said to me, Alex says the way I orient them in the first two weeks, they're here sets up their success or failure for the rest of the time they're with me. And I was like, what? He said, do you remember when you went from junior high school to high school? Or you guys, some people know middle school to high school. You felt like a fish out of water, right? Wouldn't it have been nice to have a big brother, big sister coaching you and, you know, introducing you, showing you the ropes, getting you set up. That's my job. And the better I do that in this orientation process, it just seems to go way better.

And now that we have manuals in the orientation process, we read it out loud, we talk about it, and I make them read. And the reason that Joe understood to make them read is because the only words I listen to, as you do, everybody listening, are the words that fall out of your own mouth. So when Tommy's in meetings, I guarantee you, he's making them talk. Now, Tommy and I both like to talk, but we know that that's great, and you're absolutely there to add color, to blend the value of your meeting. But I'm going to make you stand up and read, because that's what you've got to listen to. So in the bagels, Tommy and I always talk, you know, you've got to do a page or two once they're in the culture to keep it there,

because otherwise they're going to hope that you got over your entrepreneurial seizure and let it go. But if you bring a page or two, here's what I promise you, your company will get good and stay good. And for every company that stops that meeting, and this is what I talk about in the program, their company begins to slide down the hill. So I hate to say it, but it's kind of like pushing a rock up a hill. You know, you can rest on a plateau, but you can never stop because that rock's coming back down as fast as it went up. You know, this is gold because there's one thing. When people go through your program, they go, orientation. And here's what I do now.

This is music to my ears because my orientation. And here's what I do now. This is music to my ears because my orientation, I bought one of those things when you pass out to church for tithing. So I pass this out when the guys walk in, I said, pass this out and make a donation. And the first thing, that's what I start with. And they've got a little thing that says tithing on it. I said, just so you know, we're a sales organization. And if the church can sell you and you pay into the church every, for the first 15 minutes of church, I get to talk talk about sales so don't get mad when i bring up sales first of all and then i go through two and a half hours i show them around they've got gatorade candy soda beer their favorite beer it's all in the apartment waiting for them we've already found out what they're allergic to where we're going to take them they've got a schedule and now

i'm implementing a secret shopper program again And now the secret shopper program is simply to see if they follow the process. I don't care about, you know, I want them to smile. I want them to do certain things, but you know, we've automated service time and sends a text on the way we've used technology. But I want to know, this is going to be huge because I had a program, but now I'm like, I don't care what it costs. If I spend 20,000 a month, but there's one thing that I can't stand out. And this is something I've said for the last year. Everybody wants to care it. They want to know what's in it for me with them. And I say, I'll give everybody such a big carry. You guys will have thousands of carrots, but where's the whip? Where's it when you don't do it? Where's the write-ups? Where's the steps of corrective action as you call

it? And you can't have one without the other. You can't ask me for the carrot all day long for every single person. I want to know about every single guy you've written up. I want to know where's their performance improvement plan. I want to see a scorecard. Let me listen to the last one on one and show me the checklist you used to go over it. I want to see their initials. I want to see a scorecard. Let me listen to the last one-on-one and show me the checklist you used to go over it. I want to see their initials. I want to see their John Hancock. And now that I'm learning and you've given me the playbook, the difference is, is sometimes I'm sure you've given now hundreds of thousands of people the playbook. Some people are better at realizing when they're doing the orientation, how important it is. And I love that analogy of middle school to high school, because for me, it's just, I'm showing you the ropes and people

have said, the more you work on that first impression, when they see, I was just in my Vegas shop, it looked like not good. And I said, we're going to redo it. We're going to get you guys a nicer facility. This is my fault. I'm the owner. I'm the head of the company. I'm going to reflect on myself and say, I set you up for failure, but this can't happen again. So I'm building a whole checklist that's monitored with a walkthrough every single week of all my spoke shops. And I was embarrassed. And I said, I would not want to work here. And that's the first impression somebody gets. So the orientation, the whole system, you know how we made a list and you were the one that got me to do this and I can keep going on the things you've done, but I've got a

list with 40 items on it. The A1 flag, the computers, the exact plunger, the exact fantastic and Windex. We get the exact eight, nine by seven. We call it the Frankenstein door. We built an A1 flag. Like I said, we've got the exact tables. When I walk in every new location, it looks, smells, and feels the same. And it's exactly what the McDonald's brothers did.

And that, to me, means a lot because people decide, and I've heard some crazy statistics, that they'll decide within two days if they're going to build a career around you. I so believe that. I believe also, Tommy, that they're now with technology. They're checking you out way before they get to come in. They're on Glassdoor. They're looking around. And the best thing that you do, I think, is you have happy people that work at your shop

in videos talking about what a great place this is. As a matter of fact, Tommy was nice enough to let me come in and have people so I could shoot this video. And nobody was, there was no gun to their head. They were happy to share how this training and manuals are really making their life better. And they feel there's a career they feel. I think another thing that Tommy and I both share is without processes and procedures that are objective, what are you judging my performance on? And here's how, what we used to do is it was our opinion.

Worse than that, it was Al's opinion, Richie's opinion, Marty's opinion, service managers, everybody had a different opinion. It's a miserable day to be an employee anywhere and have to live by what other people are making up as subjective things. Now, either my uniform is on right or my truck is right and I have a photo. It's objective. I love that. And I have yet to meet employees that work for me for any period of time. And now any of the companies that I work for who don't come to love that. And if they don't come to love that, I'm going to question why are they still there with you? Because they got to go. And Tom and I both know we're talking about staffing power. You know, once I do the four steps of discipline, once I've done all this, that's the end of the road. You got to go. I don't care how great a salesperson you are. I don't care how much

money you're bringing to me. You got to hit the bricks because what I always share to my people is I'm not going to let a cancer take over this company. It's not just about yourself. It's all of the right things. Good communication, great ethics. And so what I call ethical selling. Again, I don't sell anybody anything that's not in their best interest. My job is to make good recommendations. Like a waiter in a restaurant, my job is to make sure you have a wonderful experience. But you get to choose what you want off that menu. Now, I'm going to give you a great choice. And if it gets really bad, Tommy, I've taught my guys, and I still to this day at Sail Power go, there's a time to get up and walk out. If somebody wants you to do something that you know is wrong or dangerous, you have to

share that with them and go, listen, we totally understand what you want. We don't want to be difficult. But making me do a bad repair for you is something that my company and I will not endorse. So if we can't come to something that we both feel is good, I'm just going to say, thanks for the opportunity. And I will tell you, I would say 99% of the time, my guys never made it to the door. Never because they believed it. It wasn't a lie. You know what I'm saying? My guys even were not like, they had been trained on good communications,

good questions to ask. It wasn't like they made them up, Tommy. We gave it to them. We trained on it. Operations, technical. When they got to the door, they weren't selling machines. They went to the door with their shoulders back, their head up, smile on their face.

Here's what I had trained them to think. Because this was true at my shop in Long Island, New York, which is, you know what? I never said it out loud. You, the customer, are lucky that I'm here because there are 2,000 other companies out here and none of them can serve you as well as I can today because I am the total solution provider. And so they were not these sales robots. They were really great at what they did. And they really fervently wanted to do the

best thing for our customers. And that's exactly what I say. And I, you know, I explained to these people, some people have their own perspective. I hired my dad's, he's a stepbrother, but we didn't grow up together. so he married later a second marriage and the guy came and worked for me for a while and he truly believed he looked up the prices of the parts which was his first mistake and he used to get 100 tips but he'd sell it for franks and beans i couldn't make any money with him but he goes tommy your prices are way too high and i go dude you know alan r Alan Ross explains it the best how to price right in their book. And you go to the pricing too. But, you know, these people, they decide what they feel is right. Like, because

no one, you know, here's the deal. Pizza costs about 30 cents. Is it right for dominoes to charge $25? What in the hell that's, but do people call dominoes and say, that's not right. Just understand your cost to make a profit, throw in 15% for yourself. I just can't, you know, one of the things that you talked about is I've gotten so dedicated to your system of letting people know how they're doing that, you know, Adam years ago, before you came on, he said, it's time for another annual review. And I remember saying, pounding my desk and I said, damn it. Why am I going to give these employees anything for tenure? So that's the day that I looked at my top guy's pay and his performance pay. And I jumped up and I think I started doing jumping jacks because he made so much money.

And I said, holy crap, Al. I said, this guy made a ton of money and I'm jumping for joy. This person just wants a buck raised and I'm pissed. And then I realized one thing, they got to have skin in the game. I should create a scorecard to give them performance pay. Performance might be on their driving. It might be on the reviews online. If you look at my new technician performance pay, I'll get the reviews. I look at the size they put in the front yard. I'm looking at six or seven different things that count for me. Yeah. Even good reviews.

I mean, if I'm not getting great reviews from you, I'm already getting suspicious. You know what I mean? That's why I love that. You know, what I call a mystery shopper, the mystery shopper, the mystery shopper was,

I was watching, you know, these catch a contractor and all these other shows that they have out there. You know, it makes my skin crawl that who do they show? The one guy with the hoodie over his head running away. How about the five companies that came there and did the right thing?

Do they ever get any TV time? No, they don't. And I've been out there and we've done the right thing every time. And they just say, they list them like going down the companies they call. That's it. They don't get good publicity. Yes. But what kept me up at night is all it takes is one rogue guy out there right doing the wrong thing and i have said that

to your crew as well it just takes one of you i'm doing everything right and you can put this company under and kill my job so i'm going to tell you right now we have mystery shoppers out there you'll never know don't ever give it away And they're checking to make sure you do the right thing. I've got the Linux cameras that I get to see every time you reach for your cell phone. I get to see every time you reach for a cigarette. You're not allowed to smoke in my trucks. I inspect what I expect now because I said this, we kind of expect people to do the right thing, like do what's safe. But the deal is the reason that I think the home service space has had a tough time scaling compared to a McDonald's is because a McDonald's is confined into one square foot building, garage door repair. Right now we just

passed a hundred or 304 employees. Wow. You know, and here's a good thing, Al, is the systems are tightening up. It's going to be really easy to go from 300 to 1,000. It'll be easier to go from 300 to 1,000 than it was to go from 5 to 20. Oh, I don't doubt it. I really, I don't doubt it at all. Because I've seen it for myself, you know, utilizing the systems as a platform. And the way I like to think about it is, you know, I've only worked with two types of companies. A small company where they're stuck

they can't replicate themselves there are no clones coming right you're running out of hours in the day days in a week and so without systems they can't leverage this so they don't have a foundation for the home or the company you're trying to build or a great company like you that was already great but you had no foundation right you couldn't leverage it. It just took massive effort. And again, I'll talk to Steve Lowry, the owner. When he first told me, you got to come to my shop, I go, well, you're 25 techs. What do you need me for? He goes, because I'm like a swan that looks pretty on the water. But underneath, my feet are going crazy.

That's really what it's like. I wanted to come to one quick thing. I know we've got to watch the time. I thought what you did was when you talk about the checklist and them initialing off is so good because that was a lesson I learned a long time ago, the power of signing. We used to hand out memos. We felt good about it. And it changed nothing. And one day after I had been to a class about the power of signing, I put in a line and I told these guys, you have to initial what I'm handing out.

And it was the first time ever somebody said to me, so what is it that I'm signing? What am I signing? What is the contract? What am I supposed to be? The other day I said, and Bree already put them away, but I wrote down all my obligations as an owner of, I'm going to do the best I can for the company. And I wrote down and I initialed each one for every new employee. And then I said, here's what I expect from you.

And I had them initial each one and I made a copy of it and I put it in a sleeve or whatever it's called. And I had them paste it right there on their truck where they walk in every time who I'm accountable to you. You're accountable to me. And I remember when you sign something and I love Adam because he's a smart guy. And I always think he's got, he's always looking out for the best and he goes, pay loss city gets an online signature and you ever do an online signature.

I bought my last two houses and I'm like, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, done. And I probably got a record but when i'm sitting there like this what the hell so now i'm like this sounds archaic and i know people are like you know what print it out and have them look at it and view it and sign the piece of paper and keep a file cabinet i know i absolutely believe there's still a manual moment for some things like you know some of our scorecards with ell and I and some of our companies, we'll make them sign their scorecard. And it's not like, look, it's not printed a book. And Tommy and I are full believers in technology. And so it's not

a replacement, but there is a time when you got to... And the reason that Tommy and I both know this is because it's been so many scientific studies about the hand to brain connection. So when you do this, it goes into your head. And so not saying they have to print up, you know, let's not kill a ton of trees for this. But there are some moments where they do have to initial off or sign off because it is more powerful. That's a really good point. Let me ask you this, Dale. I want to really hit this nail home because I get all these people around me, especially around New Year's because they got these resolutions and they got every intent to do it, but something's stopping them from taking action to just move to that next level,

to learn these things. And I'm easy. I told somebody earlier, you take me shopping, I find a pair of jeans that fit, I buy five pairs of them. Like you walked in, me and you met for lunch. You walked into my shop and I said, okay, you're hired. You said, oh, you want to see the proposal? I said, well, I guess. But you know, a lot of people, they don't have this drive to go ahead and make a decision. And you know, you've had quite a few people in the last 12 months that you've probably talked to and some of them go and some of them decide to make their company better and some of them are always on the fence of when maybe next week maybe next month maybe next year yeah and i get it tommy and it goes back to the story that i may have shared before but i think

it's really important is you know my first year of being out consulting i was out consulting with a lot of really great companies i was kind of like what they call the X-Star graduate guy, you know, went through X-Star and he got a lot of great stuff, but, you know, they piled stuff around the floor and good luck figuring it out. But they knew even after all that, they still needed the systems that I had. And so I come back and so Richie and Marty, you know, want to corner me right away, took me out to lunch and go, why'd you learn? So I said, here's what I learned. There are a lot of people that are way smarter than the three of us out there as contractors. But the problem is some of them just talk about something they want to get done. And then they have another meeting with somebody else and they have 10 managers come

up with 10 other ways to do it. And they have another discussion and they table it for six months. And they have another meeting that the three of us used to fight and argue and debate about it. But we never came out of that conference room until we had one course of action, until we had one plan to do and one set of steps. And at the end of it, it's getting done because we don't know what it's going to take, but we're going to go over through, bring me some dynamite because I'm going to blow up the obstacle that's in my way. And Tommy and I are two people just like that. We're not stopping

until it's done. And so that really is what difference for my brothers and I, and some of the great contractors that I met is they're ready to get it done. What do we need to do? Why do we need to do it? I think you really need to get attached to the whip room. And we've talked before about one of the biggest obstacles is procrastination. And so I asked myself, why is that in these people? Why are they such big procrastinators? And so people go, well, they want to defend the status quo. I'll tell you right now, my firm belief is they're afraid of change and they think their people are afraid of change, even if they hate what they have, even if what they're doing now is killing them. Because what I was doing years ago was killing me. There's a reason I say in my tagline,

less stress, more success, because I had anything but a lack of stress. I didn't feel very successful on any given day until I was willing to change. And so what I say is the change is you have to make it safe for yourself and for others so you don't have fear of failure. Fear of failure is what keeps us back. But you're failing already by staying where you are. I hope that comes home screamingly clear. But what's the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing and expecting a different answer. And the one thing I've learned, and someone told me this on a podcast a few weeks ago, he said, Tommy, you know the difference between you and five years from now or five years

ago? He said, the people you meet, the books you read, and the training you invested. And the fact is, I never really looked at it like that, but it was like an aha moment of, I'm an avid reader. I go and visit shops that are 10 times bigger than me. I just talked to my CPA earlier. He goes, Tommy, I've got a lot of clients that have made over 200 million. And they're the top clients in the world. He goes, I do big have made over 200 million and they're the top clients in the world. He goes, I do big deals. He goes, but you're the most successful out of all of them. And you're not there yet,

but you're only 37. I said, why do you say that, Aaron? And he said, well, because you ask a lot of questions. You're always looking for more. You're always questioning. You're never bragging. You're just, you go and you visit a shop and once you visit a bigger shop, you go to the next bigger shop. And know i've got a guy just there's all these people that are bigger bigger bigger and so i try to be the dumbest guy in the room and he said that's a talent and don't ever lose that you know i think the other thing that it brings up for me is having worked with so many owners from small shops to big shops to Tommy, we grow up and for whatever reason,

there's a movie going on in our head and it isn't necessarily the movie we picked for ourselves. And there's somebody in your head that's saying, you're not talented enough. You'll never get ahead. You'll never be successful. You're not really worth it. You don't deserve all of it. And even those who get successful, Tommy, they'll kick over the can, if you will, or blow up what they succeeded because that deep in their heart, they don't believe they deserve it. You know, this is not meant to be a psychological class. But until I fervently believed that, yeah, I work hard, I'm doing right by people, I deserve all the success. And I tell Tommy, as I tell my clients, when they brag to me and people call me up that are not my clients anymore, just want to check in and do the rest of it.

And they tell me what's going on. And I go, remember, you have worked for this and you deserve all of this and more. It's that important. You've talked to me a lot. And it's a self-esteem thing, too, for a lot of people. And, you know, you're right. I think one of the biggest problems, and I want to talk to you real quick about a week ago. I like going 10 minutes over anyway. People know that about this podcast, but some people get so content with being

firefighters. They never learned to be fire preventers. And it usually happens with the $2 million companies and less because they haven't figured out. I'll tell you what, I've got the best employees. In fact, one of them's driving out to a house right now, fixing this problem. I got the gal on the phone with three people on hold because she can handle it. And I got this girl, she's a bookkeeper and she's my bookkeeper. She's my CSR. She's my dispatcher and she's amazing. And yeah, we train on the spot, but guess what? We always get it done. We always make payroll and we're good at it. And I go, man, that's not the life I want to live. Man, that's tough.

You make payroll that last week, everybody gets on top and they firefight their way up and they make ends meet. And that's not the way I want to live. And sometimes boring is good. We got boring is boring is good. You bring to a great point. So I'm going to have two things about for 2 million under, they don't think they need the right type of org

chart the box org chart that i showed you that i've used with so many companies it's very flat not a lot of fancy titles and people go well we know what we should all do and the answer is no you don't you don't know what the boxes it takes to run your company the box org chart that i have that tommy has access to share with you, I have used that at my own company and for 18 years. And until I put that org chart, until we put that org chart,

my brothers and I were going at it every day. We were either doing each other's job or nobody was doing the job. And I don't care if you're a small company and your name is in every one of those boxes. Congratulations. You're already occupying that box, but you didn't know what it is. Now, if you're smart enough and you put a manual to that box or cover that square on

what I call the bingo board, you are already on your way to taking control of your situation and building on the foundation that I talk about. Because staffing power can never happen right without operating power, which is the mag. And the manuals don't make any sense unless you have the right org chart. Yeah, they all work to tan together. And I was $18 million when I found you. But the problem was I made a lot of revenue, but I didn't keep any of it. Yeah, no, it's not, I'm going to say it's not easy to make that money, but it's not a new story. That's why you and I always talk about, I don't get so deep in the woods on

stuff. I really want to know your gross sales and your gross profit. Cause if I don't see the gross sales and gross profit where they are, I don't look any further. I don't care. And it tells a lot. Look, I can go into a company now and you always said you have a manual and you walk in and you dust off this big thing. It's called an employee handbook. And you go, yeah, we've got one. And it's, it's literally like, oh my God. And I always explain it and I've explained it with you before, but look, when I had my, he's my sixth grade through eighth grade gym teacher his name was Mr. Donner he was my football coach in eighth grade he said

every Friday we'd study we'd play hockey we'd study that but what was cool about it is I learned every position on the football field I learned exactly there's three periods in hockey four quarters and different games and I learned what a four was versus, you know, I learned soccer. And so we'd study, we'd study these guys and he'd quiz us on them. And so there was a pink piece of paper. He'd put it on and it was multiple choice. And then he'd have some matching and, and then he'd quiz us. And then we'd play the games and we'd learn how they played, you know, the next class, the next week we play him. So we learned sports and that's what his curriculum was. So he taught us the manual was how you play the game. And there's different people. The org chart is left tackle. You've got the center that snaps the ball. You've got the quarterback.

You know that you don't go to any lineman to throw the ball. That's just not what you do. So the org chart kind of tells us what is our goal in this position? Let us live it together. And no one should come to the tight end or the running back. There's just, there's certain roles. And when you live and die and breathe by the org chart, you stop being a got a minute manager and you start delegating. And I think the biggest thing I've done since I've been involved with UL is I learned the steps of delegation and I stopped dumping on people and I stopped accepting people coming to me with stupid questions that's already in their manual. And I actually got freedom and I got freedom to work on the business as the Michael Gerber say is nobody could work on their business if they're so busy getting headaches

and chaos and agony all day long. And then they go, what is wrong with you people? If you're the answer, man, they're welcome to be the question people and they are never going to stop. But if you know it's in their manual and you give them the answer, they're going to keep on coming. So once you get a manual, you know, they need to know what you need to know what's in their manual. That's what I tell a manager. A lot of big companies hire me and, well, what should our managers, what should the managers do? First thing question. And my answer always ticks them off. I go, nothing, nothing right now. And they get upset. What do you mean by that? I said, because you're trying to build a top-down company and that doesn't work. It's a bottom-up company. The people at the bottom,

the apprentices, the people in the office, accountancy account, payable people, need to know their jobs. And the manager's job is to hold the people accountable to those manuals and training that they gave them, and then put more good people in those slots. And then, yes, I have some extra things for the managers, but not until you get that done. And you know what people are afraid of now you said this really i got a few questions but today we let go of three people we just it wasn't working out and because of the manuals that weren't being followed because they were on their cell phone when they're driving great guys guys i would take the shirt off my back for they didn't come in and steal from me that's the good news but the problem was they didn't follow protocol systems. And I think some of us have this fear of this is my guy. He's been here for 10

years. I've been to shops where the guy's drinking a six pack and they just afraid they go, what am I supposed to tell this guy when I have systems? And we're so afraid of the people that put their blood, sweat and tears 10 years ago. And now you're trying to make these changes. And so you got to start from the bottom up. That's why it reminded me of this. And here's the deal. Some of the people that took you here aren't the same people that could take you to the next level.

And it's so hard. But you've got a fiduciary and moral responsibility to the rest of the employees and the company and your family to move to that next level. So don't drink on the job. Don't let somebody smoke cigarettes in your trucks when they're driving and customers are staring. These are simple things. And letting go of these three people, it breaks my heart.

One of the guys has been here for seven years. But you know what? He chose that. Oh, I think that's so right, Tommy. You know, my shop steward was the head guy for the union. He came in one day after we had everything like you talked about. And he sat down at my desk at like 5 o'clock and he goes, we don't fire anybody anymore. Anyone anymore.

I go, what do you mean? He goes, we give them the manuals. We give them the training. We tell them anything you don't know, we'll teach you. If they're out in the field, we do ride-alongs, beat with them. We coach them. We do all this other stuff. And then we go in through the steps of corrective action.

So my feeling is they just choose not to work here anymore. And the other thing that Tommy and I both know, and unfortunately, I learned this late, Tom, my A and B players hated that I would tolerate C and D players, hated. And if you allow C and D players and you don't make them better, they have to go by a good customer. Rob medic said, my obligation is to get you good or get you gone. And he didn't say it in a way that sounds nasty, but he was right in my obligation and why you're on the team.

My job is to get you good. And if I can't, my job is to get you good and gone. And I'll tell you the biggest fear I have, and it's still something that exists, and it's sad, but it's still something there. And I guarantee you, most owners know this. There's certain guys that work for us

that maybe don't follow the perfect protocol, but damn it, they pay us all the profit. They make sure we could grow. They're very good at what they do. And we think to ourselves, and I'm guilty of it. We've taught them everything. What happens if they leave? But what happens if they get fired? You know, like we let these guys kind of control some of us, especially when you're small, when you're smaller, it's like, if I lost this guy, I'd be back in the field. And that's why the five steps of always recruiting, always hiring, always

training, retaining. And I will end with this story is Tommy. Remember I said about the apprentice showing up five minutes later and I make him read his manual. The second time he walked in late, I go, you can head home because I'm writing you up today. You're not working. So if you're going to ask yourself this, did you come here for a career or just a job? Because I'm offering careers and there's only so many spots. I made him how to compete for it if you follow now i may have had and i did by the way tommy jump into the pickup truck and play apprentice and every one of the other four apprentices that were online and every tech that was there knows alice that kid you are here on time you're here every day and you're dressed right.

And you put the stuff where you're supposed to. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was such a big thing. It was such a big thing. And it still is. And I love that. I'll finish up. I got my normal questions. But one last thing that I think is fair, because there's a lot of people that needed to hear

this under two million, but there's also guys going, okay, I'm starting to connect the dots. What happens? I'm way past $2 million. What do you got to say to those peeps out there? You know, the thing is, the smaller companies can start with the CSR, Dispatcher Tech, which is the triangle communication, and get themselves going, and then they can go a la carte in the Operation Magnum program. But in the bigger companies, if you're at $2 million

and you have plans to run this anyway, you already know there's these boxes, although you don't know the right way, which is the org chart. And you really have to fill every one of those squares to go anywhere in the way of controlling what you have today and to leverage anywhere you want to go in the future. And you have to commit a 2 million or more that you have a real on-hand training center. And you cannot do that until you have the bag you have no chance of just building a training center that will ever be right until you have manuals in place otherwise it's just a waste of time because that's really how you're going to leverage and you have to get it's again stressing accounts receivable accounts payable

field supervisor because now you're getting to the point where, you know, if you get 10, 20 guys trying to go through one person, that's a choke point in your company as a service manager, as an example, you need to begin field supervisors. And if you don't have field supervisors, then they're going to leave your company because they're going to get to 40 years old and they're going to get worn out and they're going to leave. Now field supervisors don't ride around all day. They actually work, but they're the first point of contact for a smaller team. You created this stuff and you put it all together. And I think there's,

you guys, I haven't been through, I had the real deal. And trust me, the real deal is you can't get the real deal anymore. So from what I understand is the comments I've got from the people that have listened to the podcast in the past is that's changed their businesses. I think you've got them aligned on the right way. If they embrace what you teach them, it's up to them. You got to believe in it. You got to enforce it. I can't do it for you. And that's the thing is you always told me I can't do it for you, Tommy, but you've got your triangle communication dispatch, CSR dispatchers, the technicians. I've got your whole protocol. I do it for you tommy but you've got your triangle communication dispatch csr dispatchers are the technicians i've got your whole protocol i do it as an apprentice junior tech tech senior tech supervisor i've got everything from soup to nuts my warehouse managers everything they still

get a piece of you don't they so they get to talk to you a little bit or are you talking about this being as an owner so no no you is your curriculum so if they go on you've got this whole program on how to teach people their manuals that i took i just got you live oh tell me about the program and how this yeah so the actual program the operating manual systems is the all access which is the best program because it has all of the manuals all the things you'll ever need no matter what trade you really do now if you happen to be plumbing, heating, cooling, electrical, commercial roofing, insulation, and even cabinetry, I happen to have the trade manual. But really, the trade manual, believe it or not, is not the most important manual. Now, it's helpful, but it's not the most important manual. Because the companies

that are broken in the other areas that I'm talking about. You do get these 23 video lessons because what I learned after I spent $150,000, Tommy, is that in my mind, way less than what I have today. I didn't know how to write it the right way. Everything came out like a law book. I didn't know the tone that I needed to put in. I didn't know what I needed to leave out. I didn't know how to roll it out, how to work with existing people to give them the best chance to buy in. I didn't know how to do the buy-in. I didn't know how to keep it in the culture. So these 23 video lessons is me as a virtual coach taking you through it step by step, including the workbook, which you get all of that no matter which program you buy, all access or just basic. If you're a company that's 2 million and above, in my opinion, you really need to go with all access. And that's on Tommy's specific page because Tommy created a discount for his followers and he's got a specific link that you need to use

to see that page. You can see every one of these manuals. There's a video tour of every one of them because it's that important that you kind of see what it is. You know, when I tried to write this was like a law book. It was awful. You don't know how to keep it in the culture like I was talking about. You don't know the meeting. Now, if you have all access, you do get out. You get out in the form of six 30 minute phone calls or Zoom sessions over the first six months. And you get some limited email access as well. But I will tell you, a lot of the all-access people already are finding out that, you know, it's so well put together, this program in this learning management system, that they don't have necessarily a whole

lot of things. Sometimes they just want some stuff as they get out of the gate. But, you know, again, you've got to pick up the shovel and work. And even if you go basic, I want you to understand it's never going to be a bad decision. It's just going to be more money if you decide to go. Just like if you go out to eat, right? If you get a price-fixed meal, you get it all. And if you choose to go a la carte, well, you pick what you want. But, you know, there's pieces that you left on the plate. You know, Al, I want to explain something to the listeners real quick.

I've done very well. I've had a retirement account since I was 16 or 18. I've literally never owned a really brand new car or anything too extravagant. And, you know, I get emails and text messages and Facebooks and LinkedIn's every day of saying, thank you so much. I hear stories about better fathers now. More time with my wife to save my marriage. I make good money is my point. This podcast for me has been a way to give back and kind of share my experiences. And quite honestly, Al, you have no idea how many notes and reminders and crap I take. I mean, I took more notes on this thing and I got so much out of it. The reason I do it really

is to self-help myself and other people get to ride along with me. But my goal, especially this year, is to go in and give people access to best-selling authors and maybe get a discount on their book. And I do believe in the manual process that you created. I believe in the org chart, the depth chart.

I believe in the things you teach. And the fact is that you spent everything you knew creating this program and making it seamless. And you did a great job because I've heard hundreds of testimonials at this point of companies that have worked with you. Thank you, Tommy. I got to tell you, you did touch on a really good subject. When I became a better trainer, unbeknownst to me, I became a better father because I learned how to listen, how to care about people in a different way, my own kids, if you will. I'm going to get choked up here.

But what you just said about becoming a better dad and part of it, too, was I was so stressed out by my business that I couldn't be present. My daughter told her, you know, school teacher, I wish I saw my dad. And I'm in the back of the room with a big old heavy video camera shooting the thing. But she knew I wasn't there. I was thinking about the job I was at. I was thinking that the next job I'm going to, and so are you. So you got to change your life. Well, you know how I do this. People want to reach out to you. They want to just pick your brain. What's the best way to do that?

Best thing is to go to the number seven, powercontractor.com. There's a contact me and you're welcome to reach out, type in a comment. If you want to look about the program, Tommy has his specific link, seven power contractor.com forward slash H S M home service millionaire. And you can learn a ton about the program that way, but yeah, you know, Tommy and I have both been blessed. We both know it. I came into Tommy's life as many mentors have. And I'm not here because I found it by myself. Tommy and I both hate that

when I hear about you're a self-made person. I am not a self-made person. I have been lucky and blessed. Great people came into my life and I paid up for it. And I'm happy to have paid up for it. You know, whatever it was, time, energy, or money. I'm going to say by the time I'm 40, it'll be several millions of dollars on education. And that's the one thing I think is a differentiator of why people ask. And they said, how do you get the time? And they always say, well, who's around

you? Who's doing all the work? And I'm like, it's not that much. It's accountability. Like there's systems in place. Like it just works the system. The engine runs. That's the biggest thing. I want to give you a moment to close us out, but I'm a big book fan. People always are coming to the podcast, looking for the books at the end.

Do you have any few books you'd like to throw out there for us? You know, and I'm sorry for sounding boring, but if this appeals to you, the 7 Power Contractor, which, yeah, I know it's my book, and thank you. I don't really need your money to buy my book. But the reality is you can buy the book, you can buy the e-book, and if you're in your truck like I was and stuck, buy the Audible. The Audible is great. I love the ebook. And if you're in your truck, like I was and stuck by the audible, I don't

I love the audible. It's you talking. And the deal is it's a short book. I mean, it's not, yeah, it was purposely made short just for that reason. And Tommy's home service millionaires is pure gold, especially when it gets down to marketing. But I will tell you the other book. And yeah, she's my friend, but not because she's my friend but ellen roars book changed my life when it came to where did the money go because that question was bouncing in my head for years you know i'm working this hard there should be some money here and when i read her book and even my dad you know would like books the rest of stuff but he read that book that was one of the few books that earned space on his shelf. It's a great book. She's got a whole little series over there. How much should I charge? And Alan's just a fantastic person. And Al, I'll tell you what, we talked a lot about

staffing today. We talked a lot about the people. Well, you know, I changed my whole paradigm. I think I told you this, but I've literally became a marketing just machine when it comes to attracting talent. I want to be the guy that's scooping up the people that have a will because I'll figure out the way with the manuals and processes. And, you know, if you guys check out my Indeed or my Glassdoor, you can see I've got a 4.9 and a 4.5, hopefully still with this podcast, when you're listening to it. And well over 100 reviews on both.

Most of the biggest companies I know, they have 10 reviews, and it's all people that quit, that got fired. And I've learned how to put the lure out to get the great people. So they're all real. They're all real employees. And I just, I can't put enough into figuring out the processes and being a magnet, but more importantly, making great people, because it's my job to not let my team down, to have the best available for them. And I believe Al is. So Al, I'll give you an opportunity to give us some last words.

And maybe, maybe you can say something that'll cause somebody out there to take action. Because I tell my employees all the time, if this message gets through to one of you at work, so maybe you can take this message to just talk to one person and hopefully it hits home. You know, I would say is stop listening to what's going on in your head and ask yourself when you keep hearing it, there's no good people. Nobody's going to help me. Nobody's going to, you know, cares about whatever it is. There's no, all customers are cheap.

You know, all these messages that you constantly put out in your head. Ask yourself, is that really true? Because I'm betting that it's not. It's just a message you told. You know, if you've been a tech, you get in the door, you look to your right, you look out of the house, it looks shabby, and you already decide how much they're going to spend. Well, once I stopped that, I found out that they needed to be treated just like everybody else. My job was not to judge them. My job was to serve them. I made great suggestions,

and I did my best to work within their budget. Many times, I don't know, they could have a wheelbarrow full of cash. How would I know? So don't believe your misconceptions and you will be on a better path, my friends. I love that. I'll just tell a funny story to end this, Al. I remember 2010, it was 2010, I'm in this garage and I walk up and you could just tell the guy was just, the landscaping was overgrown, the windowsills didn't just tell the guy was just, the landscaping was overgrown. The windows seals didn't look good. This house, just the paint, the stucco was falling and it just was bad. And I looked at the door and the door was totaled. And the guy looks at me, he comes outside and he's like, tell me what's going on, buddy. We're kind of shooting the crap or whatever. I said, I don't think this is worth replacing. This is not worth fixing. It's got so many issues. And he says to me, Tommy, I am

broke. I don't have money. I need you to tell me what the rock bottom price is. And I mean, this is before I had a developed price book and I'm using paper. And I mean, I reach in and go as deep as I could. I go, I'll tell you what, you seem down on your luck. I'll get a door installed for $7.99. And he goes, he smiles, he goes, $7.99? I'll go grab the cash right now. And the funny story was, and I'm like, well, that's not including the haul-off fee or this or that. But the point was, is he literally, like, we always make these assumptions.

And we decide what we think instead of working on the process of what's right and how do we treat every customer the same. That's not fair to the next customer. It wasn't fair to the customer before him. So I got out of my own head. And every staff member deserves that, too. Exactly. The exact same process. And then let them all win and don't pick favorites. And I think we got a good program here. And you know, what's so

funny, I started the podcast and I probably get three or four people just want to come by and visit. And you taught me to try to get one or two a month to kind of bring them together. But it's kind of cool. I make it a little bit out of my day and then they come see and they're like, this guy's not full of shit. No, I don't think it's perfect, but it's definitely far from where we were. So Al, you're definitely an inspiration.

We need to do at least one of these, uh, semi-annually at the very least, but, uh, appreciate you very much. And, uh,

thanks for listening guys. You guys have a great week. Thanks guys. Hey, hope you enjoyed today's podcast with LVD. Thanks so much. And thanks for listening, guys. installer manual, you name it. And because he's so awesome at what he does, I asked him to come on the podcast several times. And we put together a special offer for you guys today. You can get all of LDV 7 Power Contractors signature operating manuals today with a 10% discount. The only way to get this discount is through our special link, 7powercontractor.com forward slash HSM. That's 7powercontractor.com forward slash H-S-M. That's 7powercontractor.com forward slash H-S-M. If you want to start building systems in your business today and completely remove

yourself from the field, just go to 7powercontractor.com forward slash H-S-M and get these SOPs today with a $1,000 discount.