The Home Service Expert Podcast - Hustle vs. Leadership: The Right Moves that Change Everything for Your Business

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

DJ Carroll is the CEO of Carroll Media. He is an expert on sales psychology and advertising strategy, focused on helping others achieve their business goals. As an author and speaker, he travels the country motivating and training entrepreneurs in social media strategies and how to make the most of their advertising budget. In this episode, we talked about employee support, AI integration in business, profitability strategies...

What I don't see people doing is engaging with their team. A lot of times the blue collar business has PMS. It's pale, male and stale, right? And so you got this old crikey white guy that runs the business and he's like, I don't want to fucking do social media. I ain't got time for that shit. And I'm not camera oriented anyway, right? Cool.

Let your techs that are in their 20s and their 30s get added to your business profile and let them make content. Let them make content while they're in the field. You don't need a camera crew. You don't need a media team. Tommy, this thing right here, bro, is everything they need. And every single one of your technicians has got one in their pocket. They're carrying a studio with them on every job site, but they're not

using it. It's crazy. Yeah. I don't understand it. And little your technician could after every job could pull the phone out. 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. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully

concentrate on the interview, so I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S, to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299, and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book elevate, please go check it out I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a 200 million dollar company in 22 states Just go to elevate and win comm for slash podcast to get your copy. Now. Let's go back into the interview So you you're an expert in advertising, marketing, entrepreneurship, CEO of Carol Media. He's an expert in sales psychology and advertising strategy focused on helping others achieve

their business goals. As an author, a speaker and travels the country motivating and training entrepreneurs and social media strategies and how to make the most of their advertising budget. Yeah, man. Well, let's talk about it, man. Tell everybody who you are. Yeah, I mean, before that, I'm a blue collar guy, just like most of the people that are listening to the podcast. I started my first business, my senior year of high school.

Started mowing grass and AP chemistry, chemistry one, chemistry two, was on the fast track to go to college to be a chemical engineer and turned down eight football scholarships in my senior year of high school because much like you, my parents didn't have a whole lot, you know? And I knew that with my dad never making more than 20 bucks an hour and my mom raising me and my brother, if I went off to college, I was going to be broke again. I was making about $4,000 a month mowing grass

my senior year of high school. I actually co-op for myself. I was the first kid to ever do that in school history. So I was signed on the left side of the book as the student and the right side of the book is the employee to go out and mow grass the second half of each day of my senior year high school. Oh wow. And so grew that to about 3 million in revenue and sold it. Don't like think that's awesome because lawn care companies don't make a ton of money.

So it was, yeah, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was cool. It was my first little exit and, you know, my first business. And I've just parlayed that I still own EZ Pro, which is the brand I kept it. I actually sold the accounts to a national franchise and still own my power washing the window cleaning service business because it's a great business, great margins. And so, yeah, man, I was excited to come on and talk about that. I'm headed to a farmer's convention to speak all about advertising technology, but I was like, dude, if we can stop in and talk, you know, home service, yeah, small business stuff. I love it, man. We've known each other for a while. So yeah, it's great to see you. Yeah. Well, what do you think's going on this next year in marketing?

Because there's a pendulum. I need more people. I need more leads. And this year has swung to more leads. Yeah. Yeah. And Goldman Sachs, pretty darn good. They've been spot on with me for the last couple of years. And they think next year is gonna be gangbusters.

Gangbusters how? In a good way. The interest rate is gonna come down. It's gonna be really, really good in the market. S&P 500, as well as people are buying. I think house are gonna be selling more rapidly. I think the economy is going to be turning leads over. I think people are going to be investing in their homes, their garage doors.

Yeah. I mean, really, Tommy, none of that shit matters. If people don't run the business the way they should be. I recently was trying to get some remodeling done in my house. And I went through five different companies, called them two of them never showed up to give me an estimate. Two of them showed up to gave me the estimate I gave them both the green light, they never like gave me a start date. The other guy just left me hanging on the end of a text message. I think the number one

challenge most small businesses have is they don't run their small business like a small business. They run it like a contractor, which is why they have the up and the down, right? They go general, they don't have a problem generating leads, they generate a lot a contractor, which is why they have the up and the down, right? They go general. They don't have problems generating leads. They generate a lot of leads. They sell a lot of leads and then they have to work and then they write it down. And then it's like a cycle. It's a job for them. Yeah, it's they, they've never, you know, the E myth,

they've never gone from an employee to an owner. Yeah. And this owner mentality, this futuristic thinking is working on the business and they want to do the work still because they say if I don't do it, it won't get done right. I'm well beyond that, but I still have a lot of issues. Like I look at A1 and I'm like, this is so many opportunities, so many holes in the business. I know everybody's like, man, it doesn't get easier, but the problems are more fun. It's not like, are you going to come to work sober today? We know, I had a guy lose a thumb today.

Literally broke my heart. Today? Today lost a thumb. Business ain't easy. I don't like, he was off in the ambulance. They're probably going to reattach it, but I'm literally walking with Ashley and I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight.

Like I don't care about workers comp and that I'm more worried about this guy. Like thumbs a big deal. So yeah, it's just messed up, but there's things that go wrong. I have the point of what I'm saying is a lot of people listen to this podcast. And I wish I, nobody wants my life. It's a great life and I enjoy my life. And I worked hard to get to this point. It doesn't just go from here to here.

There's a lot. I get it was little notches and now it's in a really good spot, but it took a lot of work. But not, I just know this because I've known you for a while. Not even the business. You, you took a lot of work too. You're a completely different person now than when you were at 5 billion or a million, right? Like talk like the personal development that you've had to do. I can only imagine, dude.

But the law of the lid, you know, the, you can only go as far as your lid goes. So I've had to really pour into me, you know, my goal for my company is that I work harder on me than I do with the company because I'm growing very, very fast and I'm the best I've ever been, but the worst I'll ever be. Yeah. Jim Rohn used to say that you got to work on yourself more than Jim Rohn. I play that video almost in every speech I do. It's cool. Man is like, let me love me to love you. Got to put your own oxygen mask on first.

Yeah. I think a lot of people don't realize in the like social media did so much to put exposure on guys like you. And I come from the exterior cleaning world, like Brandon Vaughn's a big guy. It's, you know, got a ton of exposure. Josh, what people don't realize though, it's like building that business is one thing, but building that person to run that business is different. And I'm going to hurt some feelings, but

not everybody's cut out for that, dude. Like not everybody can handle the load that you guys put yourself under to build a business with that many employees, with the work, the hours it takes, and quite frankly, the EQ that it takes. That's the big one. To be able to handle that. And I think that gets glazed over

because it's so easy to go into like, well, you gotta have systems, you gotta have operations, and then you gotta train your people. And it's like, yes, true, but you also have to be the guy that shows up and doesn't have bad days or is an emotionally stable person. Like nobody talks about that, man.

And that's, that's why I try to always give the flowers. I know it's like build a big business is cool and it's sexy and everybody wants, you know, 28 inch arms, like Tommy Mello and big bank accounts. But really at the end of the day, I think we, we got to, we got to, we got to do a better job of giving flowers to the guys that take six figures home that are solo or have a couple of helpers and let those guys know that if they're watching this, it's okay to be that guy too. Like not everybody has to build a $200 million company.

And I'm not saying like, if you want to do that, if that's your mission, that's your, I truly believe dude, that's your fucking mission. We were just talking before, we went on camera, like tell me your next couple of moves with even more zeros behind them, which I'm fucking stoked about for you. But I think we got to give some flowers to the dad that starts a blue collar home service business that makes six figures in the bank at the end of the year, but never misses a ball game, never misses a dance recital and like and takes two vacations to Disney world a

year. Like there's something to be said about that too, man. Well, that's what I ask. I'm like, I was talking to a young guy the other day is like 27 and he goes, I'm going to do what a year. Like there's something to be said about that too, man. Well, that's what I ask. I'm like, I was talking to a young guy the other day, he's like 27. And he goes, I'm going to do what you did. I'm just, my goal is 100 million. And then I'll make a big exit. I'm like, why? Why? Why? He said, well, you proved this possible. I'm like, sure. As long as you're not married and don't have kids, you can make it. So I told him, because I have three young kids under five. I go, why would you ever want to do that to your family? So they could get to know you in 15 years when they're moving out. And he goes, you're right. No, he, I've talked,

I talked to him for about an hour. He goes, you're absolutely right. Like, dude, it makes a lot of sense. I'm like, let's just see what you want. Start with the end in mind. You want this vacation house on the lake. You want a beautiful house. You want to help out your parents. You want to be able to go to Europe twice a year. You don't, it doesn't take a hundred million. It doesn't. And, and plus when you learn how to sell a business, it's like, it's the greatest thing on earth because now you're learning like this financial IQ that very few

people know and understand. Yeah. That's what Ken Gooder is. Did he call me? He's like, what you're going to learn. You're a bad-ass dude. He's like, you know so much about home service, but, and now I'm getting into home improvement.

See home improvements way different than home service. And now I'm getting into home improvement. See, home improvement is way different than home service. They go out and they get the leads. Home service, they come to me. I'm spoiled. Our phone rings off the hook. We run 20,000 jobs a month. When we get good at home improvement by creating demand where it didn't exist like Anderson Renewal and roofing companies and windows, doors, front doors. I love the idea of a non-demand,

although demand gets the bigger multiples. So if I got a demand driven business that can make it through a recession, I'm still going to fix my garage if I'm trapped. Right. I'm still going to get my AC fixed no matter what. If I have a pipe burst, but when you learn home improvement, it's not as sexy. Bathroom modelers and stuff. There's so much fricking money. And it's fun. The margins are fat too.

And they're bigger tickets. Yeah. I mean it's 20, 30 grand. Yeah. Like that's what we're doing. That's how we're going to morph into doing a lot more on the home. Yeah. When I was, when I was calling those contracting companies, one of them, I call it, I don't give them a shout out on your podcast, but I called them and they were like a bathroom remodeling. I was like, Hey, I want to add a bathroom. They're like, you don't have one in place were like a bathroom remodeling. I was like, hey, I want to add a bathroom.

They're like, you don't have one in place already? I'm like, nope. They're like, we can't help you. Like they're so niched down. They're like, if the pipes aren't already coming out of the wall, we're not doing it. And I was like, interesting. Like they know who their customer is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Most importantly, who their customer is. So that was pretty smart. That's smart. Yeah, I was going to tell you my plan is, and I was just telling Blake this, when I walk into a room with my C-suite, I hope they punk me. I hope they're way smarter than me. I hope I just can't even keep up and

I'm the dumbest guy because if that's the case, then I could truly take a vacation and know that I'm in better hands. I see the majority of the people in this company are far better than me in their niche, whether that's CFO or operations or warehouse or the fleet, but they don't know how to dream like I do. And that's my one asset. It's my vision. Yeah. That's it. And I got to live the vision. And I got to make sure they're following the vision. But there's a vision for them within my vision. And just like I always say in the book, elevate my dreams have to be big enough

so all their dreams fit in inside. Vision's got to be big enough. So their vision's. I was one of my favorite quotes from the book. That's a, they have that and the other ones, the profit for the top lines for vanity and for sanity. That one's a, that one's cool too. So what do you see going on with marketing? What do you see most people put in their budgets? What do you think, by the way, let me just make one caveat.

I think marketing should include recruiting. And you should have a big budget for great people. I think that it should be 50% of your brain should be, how am I going to top grade? And what consultants am I going to get? How am I going to train better? Yeah. It's not just, how do I get this A plus talent? Because then you don't need as many leads. Then you get more five-star reviews. Then your customers turn into raving fans and you grow organically. So I'll give you one that a lot of my customers don't do. They're really, really bad at is if the best, in my opinion, Tommy, the best marketing plan is to do really good stuff in your community.

Use that as your marketing. And on the end of it, say, Oh, by the way, if you want to come work for a bad ass company that helps out your local community, we're here. Right? So then you do all of that in one. You're letting people know who you are and what you do. You're putting it in a light that is impossible to be looked at in a bad way. And then you're throwing that recruiting piece on the end. Now, do I have any clients that do that? No.

A lot of times what we're doing is working with business owners that are under $5 million in revenue. They don't have outside help and they don't have a full-time person inside their operation. What we've done is I've built an AI platform to automate social media. So we're working with insurance agents, real estate agents, home service businesses to help them automate this. One of the features on Ali, which is our platform that's going to come out early next year is actually what I call the cold call of social media. So right now,

everybody can run ads, they can post content, right, they can get engagement. What they don't do is they don't play the offensive game, which is going out to your local businesses in your market and leaving a comment showing that love, right. So we're working on his Ali's AI feature being able to go out, say you're a garage door business, right, in Sacramento, you would take your business page and you would go follow the local bakery, the local tire shop, the local real estate agent, all the other

people that are in your area. And then Ali would switch into your profile and she would watch those profiles, those other profiles that you're following. And when they make a post that's like, Hey, I just listed this house or new bakeries, you know, the bakery says we got oatmeal cookies on special this week. Ali then takes your profile and leaves a comment underneath that post.

It's the hand to hand combat side. So that's gonna be a game changer because nobody's doing that. That's kind of come probably early part of next year, but you asked your original question was like, where do you see, what do you see with social media? What do you see with advertising? I still think Facebook and Instagram

is prime for B2C brands. If you're B2C, that's where it's at. If you're B2B, I think LinkedIn is this place, but your CPM, which is a term very few small business owners know, but they should know, cost per thousand impressions. That's how you measure how many sets of eyeballs you get in front of for your money. The CPMs on LinkedIn are a lot more expensive than Facebook and Instagram, but Meta, I still think reigns supreme, man, when it comes to building a brand. Now, obviously Google, if you want high intent traffic,

people, they're like, my garage door's broke, fuck what do I do? Like they're gonna go there and find it. To me, what I think good advertising, good strategy around advertising, meaning pay to play, is if you can be in front of your audience over and over and over and over again, what they do is when that garage door breaks,

instead of them going to Google and typing in garage door repair near me, they type in a one garage door. You got it, dude. Absolutely. And that's what TV radio go. I'm not teaching you anything. You've got $200 million comedy, bro. Well, I'll tell you, there's this gal named Mary Tracy.

She follows me pretty religiously. Okay. And it's impossible not to know her because she leaves a comment on everything that I do. And I really like her a lot. Shout out Mary. I was trying to help me and introduce me to people. So this idea of commenting is a really good approach. I mean, we're in the midst right now getting VA's, VA's just to do outreach. Yeah. I mean, listen to people building, you just moved. I mean,

there's a million ways to do this and go on to where they check their social media. It's better, I like mail still, especially handwritten mail. I like social media because you're hitting them like, I'm usually on Facebook. I've never checked an Instagram. I haven't been on LinkedIn in years.

I've got a team that does Instagram and LinkedIn. I'm gonna get rid of my Facebook because unfortunately I say yes too much. Somebody is like, can I just borrow 20 minutes? Well, that 20 minutes is borrowing from my mom's time. It's borrowing from these times. It's borrowing from something I could be doing at day one. So, you know, I bought back a lot of my time and I fill it in to help people. But I should be helping that same 20 minutes I spent. I could have probably answered thousand people have the same question.

So I need to do it on this forum. Yeah. Make more time for like the broadcast out when we're answering tough questions. Literally when people message me now and they're like, Hey DJ, like I'm thinking about starting a business. Like, what's the first thing I should do? My head does a great question.

You want to come on a podcast and talk about it? Cause it's like, I want to answer it one time and then help thousands of people not like have to answer the same question over and over and over and over again. By the way, shout out Dan Martell. We're in SaaS Academy. And dude, I read that book earlier this year when it dropped, I was on my way back from my honeymoon. Thankfully, my wife's very supportive. So she's like, sure, we can listen to a business audio book on the way back from our honeymoon. And I was like, Holy shit. So full time EA, I haven't looked at email, I took it off my phone,

like, don't touch my calendar. Like, when I asked, hey, Tommy, I'll be in town. Can we do the podcast thing? You're like, yeah, reach out to my assistant. I took that screenshot, send it to my phone, like don't touch my calendar. Like when I asked, hey, Tommy, I'll be in town. Can we do the podcast thing? You're like, yeah, reach out to my assistant. I took that screenshot, sent it to my assistant. Boom. And it's like, Peter, a lot of screenshots. Yeah, dude. People don't realize the power of being able to hire people

to do things. And like Dan says, like people are better at it. And like they can find purpose in that work. So tell me about domination over mediocrity. Yeah, man. So I think that you don't really hear the word dominate anymore. I think it's almost too offensive for the world that we live in. And you know, no matter which side you're on, whether the blue team or the red team,

I think, I think we've lost our way a little bit in this country from personal responsibility and achievement. And I think that I've got water bottles that say dominate, nothing else matters. Cause that's, I'm just like an all out guy, man. I feel like if you're going to do something, my dad taught us that, like you shouldn't do it half ass. Aspire to be number one.

Yeah. What's the point? I don't do second place. I don't get excited. My dad taught us that too. Like, dude, what do you mean? Yeah. You didn't win.

I think that's why you and I get along so well, dude. I feel like our parents are very much similar. Like it's- I hate losing, man. I hate losing at anything. And it doesn't mean I want my competitors to fail because I think we can all drive each other up. We all get to win. Help me with that because I still am like, I don't know. I'm like if I'm like, we can be friends like cool. I'll give you a great example. But as soon as you want to get in my space, I'm like, I want to fucking kill you and put you out of business. Oh, let me give you a good example It's been so many years. This was uh Eight years ago. I'm out with the biggest

Competitor in town who by the way two three years ago I bought him but six years ago eight years ago, whatever we met up. We're at Topgolf And by the way, there's 500 garage for our companies in Phoenix. So this isn't like collusion, but he's like, look, me and you are in the Val Pak, there's another competitor. Why don't we both raise our prices? And I'm like, where, where do you want to start? And he's like, let's raise our cost of openers.

I'll raise it a hundred. You raise it a hundred. I'm like done next month. That comes out. You'll see, I raised it. I trust you. He, he raised his, I raised mine. I said, let's go back to top call. Let's raise everything. Another hundred. And we did.

We didn't skip a beat. We just raised our price. And by the way, yes, there was other companies still charging less. Like we were really, really known. And yes, there was hundreds of other guys, but we were the ones doing most of the marketing. He was the king of yellow book back in the day. He was yellow, blue, orange. And so that's what we did. And he goes, dude, I'll always make my more expensive than you just so you know. He goes, I'm always going to add a trip charge.

We'll be almost the same price, but I'm adding a trip charge. It's great. It's better for me. And that's how long it's taken to change. We just did another price increase. We're sitting in the room next door and we're going over next year's budgets. What's the easiest way to exceed budget? What do you think the easiest way would be?

The easiest thing is that more leads is a better text is a better performance, higher conversion rate, higher booking rate. Raise your prices, raise your prices, simply raise your, but there's always that point of like diminishing returns where it's like, yeah, you can't raise certain things like Tom Howard and I talk a lot. He was raising his price once 1% every month. And he goes to just certain things that Home Depot sells that I couldn't, like at some point in my disposal were like three grand for a garbage disposal. You know they cost 200 bucks.

So like there's certain things that are more skilled that you could charge more for. And I think a lot of people, if you're going to raise your prices, raise your value, show up the same day, have nice trucks. I think a lot of people miss that they still pay the least. You pay more, you coach more, you buy flowers for your people more, you cook for them more. When you raise your prices, now you got to give more to your people. That's the thing people miss. Like everybody's like, oh, I want to leave here, raise my price. I'm like, don't raise your price unless you raise the way you treat everybody. Yeah. Especially your clients and your internal clients.

It's not just putting more in the owner's pocket. No, a lot of people think, hey, that'll be great. I'm like, no, now you need to have a better recruiting, better training or one on ones. Like to actually build out your dev chart and build out your org chart in a new way. And now you got more money to bring more specialists in and then more money will come in. Yeah. And you got to put it back into the business. A lot of people, the minute you start making money, they start extracting, you know, they, they call it a draw. They think a lot of owner draws.

Yeah. And they don't, they don't see it on the P and L cause I hit the balance sheet and they're like, Hey, look, we're so profitable. And then the tax man shows up with his bill and they go, where am I supposed to find all that money from? Oh, you went out and bought a second house and I'm okay with a second house. If you make it an Airbnb and use it a couple of times a month or a year, I'm okay with one nice thing. If you've got to take the kids out on the boat, great, but you got two Harleys

that never get, you got two snowmobiles. You guys are keeping up with the Joneses like a little delayed gratification, a little bit for five years. Let the business compound a little bit. It's your number one asset and build the cell, build a business to sell. We were talking about that before we came on. You also had to be careful. I had a guy, I'm a local member of the Pindanus club in Louisville and he's a, owns a big dry cleaning outfit like in the region.

He's sent us his only one that's bigger than him. And he had two King Air airplanes. He had a boat in Michigan, a boat in the Keys. And he told me, he said, DJ, what you own, owns you. And I was like, whoa. And he said, eventually it gets to a point where you literally are just like paying to keep up with all this shit and you're using it a couple times a year and it does nothing but own you and so I think you have to be careful more money more problems especially when you don't

come from much dude if you've never had the Harley in the boat in the airplane and stuff like yeah you're gonna want that but there's something to be said about delayed gratification well the problem is no one ever taught us how to keep money. And a lot of people want to make money to spend it. So luckily I got a really good tax guy, I got really good lawyers, I got really good financial management. And there's this book called Die With Nothing. Because I'm building a really big house now in Paradise Valley.

And people are like, why are you building such a big house? I'm like, because that's my special time. That's where I live. That's where I'm gonna have my family. That's where people come in and visit and we can do anything. That's my fun time. That's like buying fun.

I'm like, I'm buying experiences. I'm buying time. We don't have to leave. They're in bowling alley. There's a shooting range. There's everything I want. And I'm like, you work hard for these special moments and I'm going to have a lot more special moments. Yeah. But I had to learn.

And plus the more money I spend, the harder I work. It's crazy how that works. It's like motivating, right? It is. I'm like, let's go spend more money. And then let's do some nice things. I'm sending, you know, my mom, my stepdad and my uncle to Italy. That was an expensive ass trip. But I'm like, sweet. We go make some more money so we can keep doing stuff. What's one of the coolest things you've ever done for one of your team members?

Well, 25 millionaires came out of the deal. I've got a lot of big plans. On your first out. On my first turn. And you know, I do a lot of little things. Like one guy wanted to do the water drive. He's like, dude, I've walked up to a homeless guy, a woman, she was missing prosthetic leg. He helped her get on the bus, bought her water, bought

her gateway. One of those small coolers. It's like, it's not a real cooler. It's like, do you buy it for a few bucks? It's like a throwaway. Styrofoam? Styrofoam. Yeah. So he took care of her and he's like, so we decided, we, I don't know how much, tons, literally like the weight was tons of what we're adding a garage to their center. We got them so much food, so much water. And today we're gambling for charity and golf. And me and Chase and my marketing team went out one $7,500 are going to donate to the justice center. We do a lot of stuff, man.

Like I went to the masters on like a Tuesday. I didn't get the best tickets, but my lawyers bought them for me. So the masters, I got two shirts and I'm giving them to the top two guys, the golf and the company. Like I just always thinking of little things. Yeah, man.

But there will be a time where I'm doing like, I started this thing called Tommy cares.org. .org, yeah, I think it's.org. And I was giving 20 people a month, just anything under a thousand dollars, help them pay their rent, help them buy something for the kids. And then my CFO had a shit fit because they're supposed to pay taxes on that. And by the way, I never use it to get my top guys. My top guys make great money. It was always somebody in need. Yeah. Like a single mom that needs tires. It was always something I did a lot of the little things.

And I was just like, look, I'm going to do 20 grand. I think it was 22,500 a month is what I wanted to spend. And, uh, he kind of nixed it. So I'm trying to come up with a way to do it because I can they do like a go fund me that I like sponsor. I'm just trying to figure out for tags. But dirty capitalists are bad, Tommy, you know, like you guys that are turning these PE deals and making all this money man Like you just go out on your yachts and smoke your cigars and drink your scotch, right?

Like you don't help anybody now crazy the perspective that that gets put on People that achieve sometimes man. It's bad. Well, it's it's like look. Here's the deal when the rich get really really wealthy They become philanthropists. And it doesn't have to go through bureaucracy. The governor and the mayor, they're all getting rich. So we donate 80 cents out of every dollar. Yeah, we go right to the source. And by the way, I employ 800 some odd people and it'll be 2000 here very soon.

They're all kicking into the system. The day you start taxing me enough where there's no benefit. I love what I do, but if there's no economic gain, I can move to Singapore. I can move to Brazil. I can move anywhere. I could do something else where they don't like what, who would want to work harder and pay less if there's another option. My brother and I were just talking on the airplane here. We were talking like, hey, if we did this much, we'd get this multiple, you know, SAS gets this, blah, blah, blah.

And he's like, what's the taxes on that exit? And it's like, we figure it's like, ugh. He's like, yeah, and the government says, hey, thank you for all your hard work and labor. I appreciate that. You know, capital gains. It's like. Well, capital gains is decent, but now they want to do, you know,

bump it up to around 30%. And that's OK. I mean, it's better than ordinary income. But you look at it and I'm like, the government wastes a lot. Like it's not true capitalism a lot of the times, cause they'll have like, the military will have contracts

where they can only buy from one. And what they buy band-aids for like six bucks, they'll pay 50 for. Yeah. People get that confused a lot, like consumerism versus capitalism, because capitalism is using the least amount of input for the maximum output, which means that like you buy a pair

of jeans that you can wear for 10 years versus consumerism is upgrading your iPhone every 12 months. That's different. And so I think a lot of people get that skewed sometimes. But I do want to tell, we got off on a tangent there. I do want to give the listener something because I think this is something they could do with their social media that would really help them out. I ran my first Facebook ad in 2013 for my power washing company.

And I was like out power washing a condo, still in the field. And I like did a selfie video. I was like, yo, check this out. It's green. Shhh sprayed it. Did another clip. I'm like, ta-da, it's clean. Click the button below if you want it.

I was like, boom. I was like printing money, dude. It was like put a thousand in, 6, ta-da, it's clean. Click the button below if you want it. I was like, boom. I was like, print money, dude. I was like, put a thousand in, six thousand comes out. It was awesome. What I don't see people doing is engaging with their team. A lot of times the blue collar business has PMS. It's pale, male and stale, right? And so you got this old crikey white guy that runs the business and he's like, I don't want to fucking do social media. I ain't got time for that shit.

And I'm not camera oriented anyway. Right. Cool. Let your texts that are in their 20s and their 30s get added to your business profile and let them make content. Let them make content while they're in the field. You don't need a camera crew. You don't need a media team.

Tommy, this thing right here, bro, is everything they need. And every single one of your technicians has got one in their pocket. They're carrying a studio with them on every job site, but they're not using it. It's crazy. Yeah, I don't understand it. And literally, your technician could after every job could pull phone out, Mr. customer, did you enjoy me working with you today? To Billy, you are the best man. Cool. Hey, it would mean so much to me if I could grab

a quick video and just talk about your experience, right? Because what happens is the business owners like, hey, let me send the media team out to go get a testimonial. That's super time intensive. And when the media crew shows up, the homeowner is like, no, I'm good. I won't be in front of all that. But the technician could literally pull it out,

take a selfie video and go, Tommy, did you enjoy your service? Hey, it's Billy here with A1 Garage Doors. I'm with Monica. I serviced her today. Monica, do you mind just telling the people real quick what your experience was like? Monica's like, oh my gosh, they're great. Billy's awesome.

Highly recommend them. Cool. Dude's like, thanks so much. Boop. Posted to your Facebook. Boom. And now, dude, with a guy like your force, Tommy, is insane. Dude, you guys could be pumping out videos

that nobody could keep up with. And I just, I don't see anybody doing it. And what happens is fear locks them down. Well, what if my technician says something he's not supposed to? What if the customer says something they're not supposed to? It's like roll the dice. Because if you worry about that 0.5%,

you're missing out on the 99.5% that can make it work. They could have their wife just screen it and say, this is a great video. It's not hard. I mean, you go on Upwork or Fiverr. You don't even have to edit them. You don't have to do anything. Just let them publish it. Let it go.

It's there. The other cool thing too, we were talking about Ali, our AI platform. She has a feature already that allows them, and I'd love to give this to you for free, man, she lives on your website and she can identify anonymous website visitors. I don't know if you guys are using a partner that does anything like that. Yeah. But so you guys probably spent a ton of money on advertising, driving a ton of traffic. There's a lot of people that you guys have.

Sure. You got the service, the demand, right? But you also got people that's probably like, man, I wonder what an all glass garage door does cost. Right? So they're just out searching around around and then also for the recruiting piece Right if you guys are driving traffic to try to recruit boom you can actually see the people we can identify them by name Their home address and their email address the email addresses are 99.9 percent deliverable. It's tied back to the credit bureau We're allowed to email them. Yes based on your mobile device, and then you just put it in your terms of service It's a cookie

It's no different than saying hey if you were here We have a Facebook tracking pixel and that Facebook tracking pixels gonna show you an ad when you go back to Facebook based on your mobile device and then you just put it in your terms of service. It's a cookie. It's no different than saying, Hey, if you were here, we have a Facebook tracking pixel and that Facebook tracking pixel is going to show you an ad when you go back to Facebook. So that's pretty cool too. I think that's going to be a big play for us in the future, but just the technology man that's changing for small businesses. It's nuts. Like cause the shit like this wasn't available 20 years ago. You had to use the yellow pages, which is why you're probably called a one garage door. I was like, you want to be top top top. So that was it was my biggest mistake

Is being a one crossers? What would have you called it? Anything that's different that no one I could have called the mellows drives anything but a one Anything that's common or quality or you know what I mean or triple a or whatever Anything that I could have got an irrevocable trademark and no one would have had it like that would have been, and I would have probably rather done hindsight. Like I just bought a one home services just because I want to go into other industries down the road. Yeah. But a one is just a common name. Yeah.

I'm a son. I was a genius when I did it. Yeah. My phone number in high school was three two seven nine, which spelled out easy. So that's where I came up with easy pro and it's make life easy. Call a pro. I like it. So yeah, my original number was eight nine eight three six six seven, which is store. See, it's beautiful, man. It's beautiful. I almost bought garage.com recently. What would that cost? A little over a mil.

Surprise. I wasn't like a done deal for you. Yeah. But I mean, I have a one garage.com and it's got the domain authority. So I was like There's not that much of a difference a one garage.com. I don't know I would have had to like three or one redirect that I did do all this stuff. So it just wasn't the value Yeah, but it's it would have been cool He sold it but another guy that bought it Let me ask you if you don't mind because I I know we only got a little bit of time. Yeah, let's do it What do you because I mean you're tapped into P

You know and like when I went through our accelerator all the guys that I talked to and told me there it was in 2021 They're like well, this would have been the year to do it like you're a little late to the dance Especially a software. Yeah, I know, dude. It was like 23 times multiple top line. Like you're lucky. You know the rule of 40. Uh, no, I don't know that one. The rule of 40 is your growth of EBITDA. So they look at your growth of EBITDA plus your growth that year. So if you're at 15% EBITDA and you grew your MRR ARR over 25% is

MRR is EBITDA percentage, monthly recurring revenue, annual recurring revenue. So if you had both those up and it's over 40, you're at a higher multiple. The other one is you got to break through the $10 million market. Yeah. Breakthrough. And then I'm going to look at your churn. I'm going to look at how often are you losing clients? Yeah. It's one of the big things that service time looks at is this churn. Yeah. And then I'm going to look at your churn. I'm going to look at how often are you losing clients? Yeah. It's one of the big things that service time looks at is this churn. And then I'm looking at, are all your clients from one source? Yeah. Because if they're only from, like,

let's just say you got everything from service time, you didn't have a lot of clients on how it's called pro or Sarah or service fusion or jobber. That kind of limits you because service can change something. Yeah. So check this out. We don't have any customers that are more than 1% of our gross revenue. Good. Low customer concentration where our churn rate is less than 6% uncontracted. Everything's on a month to month basis.

So anybody can leave us at any time. We're still below 6%. Well, you should be able to like that model. I think you got to do one of your contracts eventually. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I've had some mentors tell me that. And then with our AI piece, you know, putting that in there like AI is supposed to deliver 25, 30. You hear some people talking about 40.

It's kind of the dot com era. I think it's going to keep going though. Yeah. I mean, next year they say AI is what's going to cause the market to go over 65, 7000. Yeah. Cause like, like they had the internet bubble of 2000, but like everybody forgets, like they didn't had the internet bubble of 2000, but like everybody forgets, like they didn't turn the internet off in 2001. Like there was a bubble, but then the internet kept going. Like sure, there may be an AI bubble eventually. I don't think so because I think it came along after the market already cooled down from

COVID. I don't know if we can say that word now or not, but I think it cooled down enough to that. It's just going to rally into that. But yeah, man, it's that's cool. I didn't know that 40% rule. So thank you for sharing that with the rule 40 and software rule 40. Hey there. I hope you're loving today's episode. I want to share something with you real quick. Lately. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to win and what it means to keep winning in 2025. Then my team sent me this quote from Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank.

Here's what Kevin said, you need leaders who can pivot because the world changes so quickly. No matter what your business plan is, things are never going to happen exactly how you expect. I love that because here's what I know, there's going to be some massive changes in 2025. Just look at all the P money pouring into some home services and other industries. So my question for you is, are you ready to pivot, adapt, and win this year? If you are, come to this year's Freedom Event. Kevin's hitting the stage to share some real stories behind his success.

You will be in the same room with people like Mr. Wonderful and myself, plus other home service owners and other industry leaders worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They're going to be talking about exactly what's working right now to dominate your market. To learn more about the event and grab an early bird offer, check out freedomevent.com. It's freedomevent.com. Now back to the episode. Taking a partner on like at what point and for what reason?

You know, when you're building a company, the main reason you want to partner is not for the capital. It's for the, it's for the resources, right? Resources, it's who you know, not what you know. So you bring on somebody that's got a proven track record. That's done it. That literally, like anything they invest in, they're an incubator.

They got the relationships, they understand how to bring in. Really what it is about is, it's about who you bring on. So they'll help you with your leadership team. As the company grows, unfortunately, the leaders don't grow as fast. So you got to pull in talent. Yeah, so your org chart They're gonna help with and then who they know and how to forward develop the code if you're doing software So they got to be it's strategic. I would never get a partner on that wasn't able to grow the business Exponentially faster and so. And so finding the right partner. Remember when you bring out a partner, unless you're doing a big deal, you're selling 70%, 80%, probably the highest

bidder, but they're going to bid a lot. They probably have a plan. And I would spend as much time with the people that they've had success with and get the good, bad and ugly and fly out and actually see those people, spend time with them and say, are these people like me? Because you got to understand this is PE group going to be successful with us. They'll all tell you the right story. They'll tell you the right things. You're going to stay in control. You're going to do this. There's nightmare stories too. Yeah. It'd be very careful, man. Yeah. I mean, Dan talks about that. Like when he sold one of his companies, right? He like left like millions on the table and he was like out. He was like, I'm done. He like left before one of his, his exes, like, you know, whatever his contract was afterwards. And you hear horror stories like that all the time. And that's, I'm trying to figure out like, do you sell a big piece earlier? Like, do I go find somebody 10% get them in bed to get us like to our next iteration to hold it back? That's why I haven't taken on any money yet. It's because I'm like, we're profitable. I'm making money out of that, that accelerator that we went through. I'm actually the only company that's left.

The other three are out of business already. And that was in 2021. So it's like, and they had, I mean, one of the dudes, they had raised like two and a half million bucks. I'm just like, how do you burn through that much cash? You know, it's like, that's the problem too is you got to be very careful. You guys know, I don't like get these seed rounds. Yeah. There's just when it's other people's money, it's just not treated the same way. They burn, they burn, the burn rates really.

I almost feel like I've got like too much integrity to like, like, it's like some of these founders that I've talked to, like, it's like one of the dudes that was in our accelerator, that business crashed and burned, he's out, he raised another seed round, crashed and burned. He's on his third fucking venture, dude, since 21. And I'm like, like one how the hell does this guy keep raising money from people? right It's like having an STD and still getting partners and then the other one is like how in the hell does he like? Have the balls to still think like oh, yeah, but my next business side deal will be the the billion dollar unicorn That's what I just I don't understand it man. I don't know. Maybe it's a well not everything does well I mean when you look at even Goldman Sachs and some of Morgan Stanley, some of the best investments in the world,

you look at these deals flow, especially with software, you only need one out of 20 to go well. Right. And you get a hundred X on it. Yeah. So capital ventures, that kind of money, they know they're not gonna hit everyone. My portfolio, the stuff I've invested in,

I'm kind of pretty damn good track record. 90% are growing. I made some mistakes. I still think I'll get more than my money back. Some of the things were out of my wheelhouse like restaurants, but I invested in a really good club bar. That one will probably Forex. You do anything with Ish? I put a little bit of money in New Bay. Okay. I really like it's a lot. Yeah. And, uh, he's sharp guy. I met him in Dallas, Jamie weights, AC hero. He had like a house party years ago and, uh,

it was him and several other guys. But I remember him talking about he, back then, dude, he was talking about the Google, like the Google LSAs and like it was brand new on the scene and his big thing was like they're recording us so they got all this data to like know what people are asking for and stuff so they can train their algorithms. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. He's a sharp guy man. Look I think he's gonna make new vein into something. He texts me pretty much every day. Yeah. And he's just giving me updates and I always give him ideas like you got to figure out how to get

the equipment free of the house. and then just they pay to for the monitoring. Mm-hmm. He listens to me a lot and you know It smells got a very Strong personality not a lot of people he doesn't take a lot of advice from he's a bull. He's a bull and he'll do well I mean, he's got the taste of money another guy though and a lot of my buddies that have made a lot of money They go out and they just buy a lot of stuff, you know, stuff being for liabilities, not assets. Yeah. Well, the three F's they wrote it down. Anything that flies or flows. Yeah. Where you get the STDs. Yes. And it's true, man. Look,

you can spend a lot of money on boats and planes. Yeah. I see, I don't see a lot of people buy, when you buy real estate, you typically do well. Yeah. I've got 73 units in Louisville. Really? That I syndicated with some guys out of Chicago. And I did that when I was in my mid twenties, probably one of the best things I ever did, man.

Got in early. We owe less than, I made a post on Instagram about it the other day. We owe less than a million bucks on it. Portfolio is worth over three and a half million dollars. We returned all the capital back to the partners. Like it's a beautiful dude. It's, it's, unless you just really don't know what you're doing and like just buy something at the top of the market,

it's almost impossible to not make money with real estate. Like it goes up. You know, it does. It goes up real estate's great. I mean, I'm having a hell of a streak in the S and B 500 and I think it's going to stay alive next year. Like it's great. I mean, I'm having a hell of a streak in the S&P 500. And I think it's going to stay alive next year. Like it's up since I put all the money in the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, it's up like 45%. Isn't that a beautiful thing? It's crazy because I keep buying businesses and investing in businesses and I don't really, I'm not active in those businesses. There's a team I have, the TMB team. But you know, I always like a couple million dollars to go out with $3 million or $5 million

dollars and my account comes right back up. Yeah. I'm like, how is this? This is crazy. I love it. Yeah, man. So, but we're having a lot of fun, man. I'll tell you, A1 I just believe is going to be, there's just, I have a clear path and

a clear vision of what comes next. And I'm still trying to figure out what my life's going to look like. Cause I like to golf, I like to fish, but I still like to work. So there's a happy medium and I haven't figured it all out yet, but next year is going to be super hard work. Very little vacations, a lot, the very little stages I'm going to speak on. Not writing any books. I'm just going to be focused.

Seasons, dude, seasons. It says, uh, stay focused and run ruthlessly prioritized. That's what this other one says. Ruthlessly prioritize. Yeah. Ooh. And then I got my goal here of where I want to get a one, two, and then I got a goal. I'm setting up what the next five years look like after the next turn, which very few people I'm building the org chart of what it will need to look like for the scale I want. And I'm the only one working on this. There's nobody else.

Cause you're the only one who sees it though. Yeah. Well, that's the problem too is, and if I tell other people, they won't get to the next goal. I don't think it's a problem, Tommy. I think it's a gift, bro. Well, it's there's a lot of work that goes into the fostering of the relationships, like the people I'm flying out and the massive funds I'm hanging out with, the people I'm around, like I said, home improvement. I'm hanging out with a lot of billion dollar home improvement companies, over a billion of revenue.

And there's some of them at two to three billion. So what I had to do, and I've been saying this a lot as I hike to the top of this mountain, I enjoy the hike, I look around, I see the next mountain, I go back down to the base camp. These guys have been to the top of that one. You know how to get there quickly. So I'm hanging out with these people and the next miles big. What's the next mountain? 10 million? 20 billion? And I don't dislike it. It doesn't feel like work. That's why I'm very fortunate too. It's like if this is work, I mean we sit down in a lot of meetings, but they're not hard meetings. Yeah, and you know, there's a lot of people on our pressure cooker.

Cause my timelines are pretty aggressive. I think that's the hard part for people. So like, what happens when you don't hit those timelines? How do you handle that? Well, we always have a budget. We'll hit. We've never missed a budget, but the Tommy goals are way bigger. So the Tommy goals, Tommy goals.

There's like your B hag, then you got Tommy way above. So my goals are so crazy. I let myself down. They don't let me down. We hit our budget. We have a realistic budget that the bank and the private equity can say, you guys are consistent.

You always hit your budget. You beat your budget. But it's like, now I'm just refining processes. I'm like, let's do this. Let's study this. How can we scale this? And it's always reverse engineering. How big can we get?

And so this next goal is pretty easy. 110 million of EBITDA. The next goal after that is how do we get, you know, between 500 and a billion, which is a pretty big spread. But I got to get a, I don't want to plan five years from now. I'm just planning the next year. But the vision, do you even think, I don't even think it's realistic to plan five years from now. I'm just planning the next year. But the vision. Do you even think, I don't even think it's realistic to plan five years

from now anymore. It's not, but you still got to know what would the company look like that's doing a billion dollars of either. What would we be selling? But that's a revenue goal. That's not a five year goal, right? Well, I know it's not going to happen in two years,

but there's got to be greater acquisitions, greater greenfield growth, greater organic growth, and going into multi-trades all those things need to happen in Michael Yeah, I just know that when we were engineering Ali so she's trained on like 50 hours worth of sales and 50 hours of service calls and The large language model that we build her on When it was like cool, we have to have it in this certain thing I had to go like hire this like computer science guy out of like Tunisia and

The two months it took him to like get all this stuff together by the time I took it back the large language models Okay, you could just give us transcripts I'm like I spent thousands of dollars and two months worth of work and I come back and the technology is caught up to like Not even needing that anymore That's why I think it's like impossible to even plan five years out do because it's like Elon you might be able to buy Elon robots bro in five years and they'll fucking put the garage doors in like you know They don't think robotics will be I think the trades have another decade. I think There's other things out there, but that's why I was pouring that cocktail man at that party. I don't know. That was pretty wild

Well, we'll see I mean look end of the day What are the first ones to adopt technology and everyone knows here? We're changing rapidly and they don't get comfortable here because they know I'm looking at software on top of software on top of software. The main thing is it's got to all talk. That's what we built our DNA project data and analysis on power of E I, a lot of AI is sophisticated, but these data fields don't make a difference in the company unless you could make decisions based on data. And so you use it, You got to use it.

There has to be change, right? A lot of people want to, hey, can I see this? What are you going to do with this? That's like reading that fucking book and then putting it down and going back and doing exactly what she was doing. Yeah. You got to be able to look at data and what is the, this is what we're actually going through this big thing Q4.

So what does this data mean? What key initiatives are we going to take from the data? Strategic plan, strategic planning and like budget. And I enjoyed this man. I, I, uh, it's a different level of business. I'm just like, I've kind of, you think after the first turn, I would have already had everything I want, but I want one more big turn. But what's important to me is I'm adding all the, I don't know if people saw you on camera. He grabbed his nuts when he did. I want one more big turn. Yeah.

I don't know if people saw you on camera. He grabbed his nuts when he did. I want one more big turn. Yeah, I grabbed the nuts. I had to grab these nuts. I, uh, one more big turn and there'll be another, there'll be a plenty of other ones. But for me, it's, I'm trying to design a life that I want that I can help the most amount of people. So I've got a whole list of people like I need to help him and he'd help her. And this, this person, a lot of them are people that work here, but it's like you start going really,

really fast and you wake up and you're like, you're still hungry. I mean, I, I, a lot of people are like, man, if I had that, I'd be good. And it's like, yeah, the goal pole fault that seems to always move. It's moves. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, man. What else you got? That's it, dude. That's it, man. I just want to come kick it with you. No, it's cool, man. I'm glad you made it. We were going to go to dinner tonight. Yeah. Talking a lot about AI call center. There's a fella in town that I'm talking to and this stuff's legit, man. We get about 10 different

softwares a week that we look at. I got a whole technology team and this one, I think will make a big, big difference in the outcome of where we go. The delays, everything that I've seen, like because of the commercials and the ads, they don't match up with the actual technology. A couple I've looked at, it's like the delay time is too much for it to process the input, calculate and then give the output for real-time phone calls. That's been my thing with like the calls and stuff. Yeah. But the text, like I could text my, like that's an alley is trained like ours now. I mean, you could text her and it's like, I'm going to start using alley. You got to set me up. I'll set you up,

dude. We'd love to love to get to you. I want to get my team on that. Try it out and give us some feedback on it. Who knows, man? Maybe you'll be my P partner in a couple of years. No, man. And if I can help any of your listeners, uh, like I said, I've, I've been there in the trenches where they've been at and you know, it's like I said, I still think we need to give our flowers to the people that are grinding that are, that don't want to be a hundred million dollar businesses. Like a Tommy Mello is a unicorn, bro. You're a one of a kind being, you know what I mean?

And I think a lot of people see it like, I want that. And I think you still have to go back and like, why, like what's the perfect, like you helped that kid out with, you know what I mean? It's, it's very hard. I'm going to tell you guys that are listening, the ability of me to handle stress and anxiety and pressure. I wouldn't want this for anybody, but I'm very good at it. And I've got a calling to do this stuff.

Yeah, it's a gift. And you think you hired all these great people. They only take you so far. Then you got to start rebuilding the whole team. There's peaks and valleys. And every time after you had a peak, you're going down into a valley again, and repositioning the whole company. And you got to do that over and over and over. And it kind of consumes you.

How many times you think you've had to do that? Oh, a dozen times. I mean, literally. And it's hard. It's hard many times you think you've had to do that? Oh, a dozen times. I mean, literally. And it's hard. It's hard because you've got to make really hard decisions and you got to fire people, you got to top grade and you got to reposition people on the bus. And that like, that's been one of the hardest things for me, man. It's like to see somebody who's been with me for a couple of years, the

company grows and the company's growing faster than they can grow. And I have to say, Hey, you can't play this position. You can't be my shortstop anymore. You're triple a level. I didn't earn for a string. Yeah. And that's tough, man. And sometimes you got to kick them off the team and you got to do

what's right for the company. Unfortunately, because there's 800 other people that are feeding three people, that's 3,200 people they're taking care of. So you got to make those hard decisions. I've had to refocus my lens into a different lens to be able to make those hard decisions. And it's very hard to do. And there's people making even bigger, harder decisions.

But I'm not money-oriented. Most of like Blackstone and Apollo and the KKR, they're just saying, how do I get my shareholders the richest? They're not asking the questions of, how do I get my shareholders the richest? They're not asking the questions of how do I help out the most people? And there's a happy meeting because you got to stay profitable.

I literally told my brother this on the plane right out here. One of my worries about raising PE money, like we give the last two weeks, because we're a tech company, it's different than home. We give the last two weeks of the year is paid vacation time because that's Christmas, man. Like go be with your family. Like that's where I want them to be at.

And I know that like we get the wrong P partner. That's the first thing they're cutting. They're like, what do you mean you're off for two weeks? You got to write a contract. You got to write a contract and everything, you know, everything going in. We spent three weeks just on my contract, my personal. No kidding. You got to get the right people when you do like, I would call you man.

I'm going to call you when we get to that stage. I wouldn't do a P deal until I get past five million. Yeah. Okay. ARR. Yeah. I wouldn't even consider it. And I would probably do a more than 10%, not more than 30. I'd probably do 30%. It's a meaningful amount of money that they'll be behind you, but they're not going to,

but they're still going to have rights to sell you unless you're raising a different type of money. If it's private equity, they're going to, they're not going to say, sure, I'll give you this money. You can sell whatever you want. When do we get our investment back? Our LPs are waiting. Typically after the fifth year, they start selling their companies in each fund. They'll raise a fund. They'll buy 10 to 12 deals. And then they need that money back pulling back to the LPs, limited partners. Yeah. So you can't just say, sure. Now there raise a fund. They'll buy 10 to 12 deals. And then they need that money back, pulling back to the LPs, the limited partners. Yeah. So you can't just say,

sure. Now there's other investment strategies you could use that raise capital. But I still, if I'm putting 10% in, let's just say through a million dollars, when do I get the money back? And what's the profit sharing look like? There's all these questions. Nobody wants to blindly invest in something they can't get an ROI on. There's a million investments out there. It's real estate. Throw a million dollars into real estate. You don't need to kill it. Get your money back in eight years, it's all paid off. And the value won't weigh down. And people pay the debt down. That's the beautiful thing about real estate.

It's beautiful. People want to rent. A lot of people like to rent. What's a new book you've read that you love? Oh, exponential organizations. Exponential organizations. That was a good one. I really enjoy and always tell people the ultimate Jim Rohn library on audible. It's like a $91 audible book, but if you have the subscription, it's only one credit. It's like the biggest arbitrage there is on audible. Ultimate Jim Collins, Jim Rohn, Jim Rohn. Yeah. The ultimate Jim Rohn library.

And then if your listeners haven't read this one, outwitting the devil by the whole downhill, I think that one's better than thinking grow rich. So yeah, man, there's some nuggets and then, you know, shameless plug, phenomenal phone calls.com, you know, it's my free book. So, uh, they can go grab that one. It's how to close a big money deals over the phone. That's how I started out, man. I had no money to advertise.

So I picked up the phone and started calling people after I realized going door to door. You got to book with you. I do not have one with me. You're gonna send me a copy. I'll buy one too. I don't know. Oh, I'll send it to you. And then if anybody wants to check out, I've got tons of free trainings, dude, tons of stuff, coachcarroll.com two Rs, two L's, they go on there. All my socials and everything's on the bottom of it, but coach Carol. Yeah. Coachcarroll.com coach Carol calm coach Carol calm

Is there one final thought to close us out with that the listeners can take and uh, it's my mantra baby hustle It's worth it. I'll sell that's worth it hustle. It's worth it hustle. It's worth it Yeah, it's I mean it applies to you applies to any successful guy I've ever met they've had to hustle at some point and I now we're getting into this culture where it's like Oh the hustle in the grind. And now we're getting into this culture where it's like, oh, the hustle and the grind. It's like, oh, don't do that. It's like, listen, you're never going to find somebody that did the Timothy Ferris four hour work way and made their way to their hundred

million bucks. It's it's it's great stick to like sell a dream or to sell a book or to sell a course or to sell an idea. But hustle, dude, it's like it gets dirty, it It takes time and you got to pay your dues, man. Take your lickens. I did say this and it's not, it's kind of controversial for your saying, but the hustler had to die for the leader to be bored for me because I was doing too much of everything. Yeah.

Write a book, do a pocket. And I still do the stuff. I love it. Talk on stages and that's feeding me knowledge, energy, relationships, but I had a really good focus. But it's not, here's the thing. It's like climbing a ladder. Cause I've had other people challenge me with that too, because they're like, well, if you're stuck in the hustle, I was like, well, the saying wasn't stick in the hustle, it's worth it. It's hustle.

It's worth it because most people, their biggest problem is they're their biggest problem. And so like you have, you have to hustle first and foremost. You got to get your lazy ass off the couch and go do something with your fucking eyes. You're right. Exactly. Show up on the job on a weekend when somebody gives you the green light to do the show.

But do the fucking work. It's crazy. The fundamental building blocks of business like organic discipline. It's crazy. So yes, you do have to kill the hustler to become the leader. I do actually like that But that's wrong number seven on the ladder You don't go from standing on the ground to rung number seven Like I at least I have not found anybody if you're out there in the world like cool come holler at your boy

Like I'd love to meet you. Maybe we can write a book together, but I just have never found someone that's a man any level of success That's like I'm just this esoteric leader because I've read all these books and I can pontificate all this like warm and fuzzy shit. That is a lot of business. Like you can skip a couple steps if you're lucky with good mentors and coaches. I tell everybody you need a coach like always. And if you can't afford a one on one coach, like I saw you were recently up there with Dan Martell, which was cool. Watch that podcast. And but you like you have to find Dan Martell, which was cool. I watched that podcast. And, but you like,

you have to find a coach some way form or fashion, like you don't have to go alone. And so you either need to watch them on YouTube if you can't afford anything or buy their book or buy their course or buy their one-on-one. But the more you pay, the bigger that quantum leap is. Right. And you gotta pay. So I work with Dan Antonelli. He built our brand. Yep. I work with Dan Martell. One of his five. He works one on one with Joe Polish. I'm in his hundred K group. Joker started, came out here and paid him. Here's

a thousand dollars. Howard partridge worked with him. He comes out here. I'll leave you my best mentor I've ever had. Yeah. So the power of contractors. Yep. I mean, uh, sales boss, Jonathan Wissman hired him. He worked with me for years. So, and I didn't know, this is crazy. I didn't even look at these books, but I paid them all a lot of money. Every single, it just happens to be the books on the wall that I didn't even think about, but they've all been paid. People say, what happens if you can't pay? And I'm like, I came up with the money because I needed it that bad.

When I didn't have the money is when it meant the most is when I received it the best Yeah, I received the lessons the best when it was like my last time hurts It hurts way more if you're like, yeah, I got a hundred and here's a hundred grand. You don't do the work Yeah, you don't show it to the calls. Yeah, I'll give you this when my team says he's they call these coaches I'm sir like these little sound bites I like I say they come through me, not from me. But when you're talking about paying these coaches, a lot of people, their biggest problem is they need to stop negotiating the price of their

success. It costs what it costs, man. Just fucking pay the ticket. Well, that's what Dan Martell said. He said that when I started to buy, like I want to be bought from everything changed. Everything changed. No more negotiations. Here's the money. You're worth it. I'm worth it. You pay. Now, all of a sudden people come to you with whatever it might be you sell. Sure. When you're always negotiating with everybody, you're surprised when they negotiate back to you. That's what you're putting on. That's your demeanor. No, man. DJ, I really

appreciate you showing up today. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it. Hope the listeners got something out of it. I love these. Just have a normal conversation. Hopefully the listeners listen. Couple of big takeaways. Private equity is not for everybody. Business is not for everybody. Build something you can sell. Get your guys out there posting on social media regularly. If they got an iPhone or a Droid, just find the most spontaneous fun person and just give them some training. Like it doesn't take a whole lot, but just start having them try.

And with that people will go, well, I told my guys do it. They don't do it. Cool. Pen a hundred dollar bill to the top of the board and say, Hey, whoever's post gets The most engagement this week gets the hundo then watch what happens. Yeah, you can't give more Responsibility with no more reward like a lot of bosses like we'll mess that up. So you gotta wait them Yeah monetize it gamify it. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. No, you did great No, there's a lot of great takeaways brother. Thank you for, dude. I'm like, I'm on E. I went golfing today for the first time in a long time and it's still that sun just baked. I had a late night, early morning. Thank you for coming in.

Absolutely. Hey guys, smash the like button. If you're not subscribed to his podcast, get subscribed to help him find more people and help more people out. Appreciate you guys watching and listening. Thanks guys. Hey there. Thanks guys. are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you wanna learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction,

head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.