The Home Service Expert Podcast - Q&A with Tommy - Dialing in on Proper Systems and Delegation to Double your Efficiency

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

Tommy Mello is the author of Home Service Millionaire and the founder of A1 Garage Doors, a $150 million-plus home service business with over 400 employees in 16 states. Through HomeServiceMillionaire.com and the Home Service Expert podcast, Tommy shares his experience and insights to help fellow entrepreneurs scale their businesses. In this special episode of the Home Service Expert podcast, Tommy answers your biggest questions about marketing, loans, delegation, scalability, workplace systems...

So number one, you take your calendar and you look at everything you're spending your time on. And I mean everything. If you're not building relationships, recognition, motivating, passion, great meetings. But if you could delegate it, every single thing you do other than that, and work on the systems and work on making it better and better. The people is the product. The people are amazing. But the systems is what you should be working on. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello. All right. If you haven't checked out the book you can get it at homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash podcast and if you haven't checked out the course it's course.homeservicemillionaire.com

and you need to join the home service expert facebook page if you're in garage doors join garage door freedom absolutely mind-blowing some of the content we're rolling out for that. Very, very exciting stuff. I'm going to let people come in here. What's new? Well, I've been having some amazing podcasts lately, just amazing coaching lessons here for me to learn from. Really just learning so much, reading a lot. Some of you guys might have seen on the Home Service Expert page, I did this podcast and there was this Dr. Seuss book, All the Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. And it's pretty cool.

Just brings me back to my childhood of Dr. Seuss, right? But good little illustrations. You got to love Dr. Seuss. I mean, what a cool book. Listen, we're going to start the Q&A here. I wanted to tell you about another book that I just got that I bought for all my managers. It's called The New One Minute Manager. It's a quick, easy read. It's literally less than 100 pages. Real easy book. Definitely recommend this. Got this in the mail if you guys never seen send out cards they actually deliver these really big send out cards you join them it's about 100 bucks a month

unlimited small cards as long as they're custom cards and then they actually send in a nice envelope the stamp that says do not bend pretty cool they call them heartfelt cards so send out cards if you got any questions about that hit me up i could i spoke at their event i love them they're great people cody bateman um he actually wrote several books but there's a book i'll tell you to get about relationships that's a fabulous book but what's new let's talk about some things. So what accountant would you suggest? It's a loaded question. I don't think you pick a certain accountant. I don't think that's the right thing to do.

I think what I really focus on is the right bookkeeper. And then I really look at your tax bracket and figure out what are you working on? Employee retention credits, R&D credits. You should be looking at a cost segregation study, the Augusta law, tax law. I can go over a lot of things that really would add a lot of value. How do you depreciate vehicles? Lots of ways to save money. I could have a whole long day on tax credits. I did a pretty cool podcast. It's not out yet, but it was with Tony on employee retention credits and some of the other things they offer over there and huge opportunity. Getting somebody in the financial department that knows what they're

doing is probably one of my biggest downfalls in the past. I didn't know my numbers really. I knew my KPIs and my CRM. I knew the numbers. I knew my conversion rate, my average ticket. I didn't know the things. The P&L was okay. I could rely on it, but it wasn't perfect. It was hard to get a loan. Never get a loan when you need one. Get one when you don't need one. They talk a lot about this stuff, but accounting is one of those things where it's the lifeblood of the company. One of the things, I'm writing a new book and it's going to be absolutely phenomenal. It's going to be released at Vertical Track,

October 12th through the 14th. It's going to be a masterpiece. I'm telling you this book, I'm putting my life into this thing. And in the book, one of the things I talk about for business owners is when you buy an RV, when you buy a boat,

when you buy a ridiculously expensive set of golf clubs, which is fine, there's just certain things that I look at and I say, how much are you using this stuff? Is it making money for you each year? One of my buddies, Lenny Gray, he said to me, my dream is to buy a castle. I want to live in a castle somewhere in Scotland for a while. This was yesterday. And he said, but I'd also like to Airbnb it afterwards. Well, that's an investment. That's completely different. That's awesome. So now I want to buy a castle because I always wanted to live in a castle, but I want to Airbnb it. So lots of opportunities there. Let's go through

some of these questions. I got a lot of updates for you guys. Dan Antonelli sent me his book. It's just the template now. He's putting it all together. Branded Not Blanded, Kick Charger Home Service Brand. Pretty cool here. He's got Lee's hair. He's got a lot of cool stuff in here. He's got Ken Goodrich wrote the foreword for him. Very exciting times for him. I'm excited He threw me in it somehow, some way. What he does is he talks about the reason why it makes sense and just how the color schema goes. I meet people all the time that don't invest in their brand. And now I'm like, I drive down the road and I don't know what you do on your truck. If it's like champions, that's it. And you're like a gutter company. Or there's champions gutter company,

and then you put scaffolding, gutters, molding, everything you do. I'd say go to somebody that knows what they're doing. Let's go through some of these questions. Moses asked, my name is Moses, and I own Eco Grizzly Chimney Sweeping Company. My question is, how would you recommend us marketing for B2B? You know, that's a great question. B2B is a different game. I just hit Bree up earlier, and I'm going to have Jim Dubois. He owns a company called Squeegee Pros,

and I did a podcast with him. One of the things I'd recommend is go listening to the podcast I had with him, but I'm going to have him speaking at Vertical Track. He's a genius. What I can tell you is with B2B is it's really about relationships and send out cards is a great tool. I'm wondering a little bit, marketing for B2B in a chimney company, I'm not understanding how many businesses need chimney cleaning. I guess I'm missing it, but let's go back to B2B. Send out cards. I'm trying to partner with different companies, and I recently just ordered this in the mail. I ordered a sample, and so this literally is a card. It's a brochure that plays.

Watch this. So it's playing a video. It's a video postcard. And it's cool. So when you open it, it starts up. You can play the success story here. You can put a testimonial. It's got volume buttons.

It's actually got a place you can charge it on the back. But you can put your own graphics on it. This says it's actually got a place you can charge it on the back but you can put your own graphics on it this says it's a statement and if you get this to where the business owners have to open it because you could send it the verified mail and then show them that you care about them so show them that you've researched them and why they'd be a great client for you so what i would say moses is nobody cares about you they care about what's in it for them. But people, there's a law of reciprocation and it's in the book Influence. And basically it says that if you go out of your way to do stuff for people and show them how they could win by using your services and you don't need to tell them how long you've been in business, no one gives two shits

and how amazing you are in your culture, your open nights and weekends, and you'll be there when you need them most. Who cares? How do I win today? How do I win long-term? The way that you win is you show them that you care and you want to take them to lunch and you want to go over what are the things that are important to you. And trust me, that your open nights and weekends,

they don't give two shits. Let's see here. Good evening, Tommy. I got one of those. It's so awesome. Cool. Nilsen Silva, I assume you use service time for your CRM, but with your franchise, did you invest in building your own system? So I don't have a franchise. It's not a franchise. It's owned by me. What I would tell you is I don't believe in people unless you're a multi-billion dollar

company creating your own software company i'm not a software guy that's like saying did you start your own trash service because you have so much trash and your metal service because you have so much metal dumping you might think you could go out there and create your own system have i developed my own code in the past. I like going after little things that can attach to separate me from ServiceTitan in my own industry. So right now, we've got Simulator Pro. We've got a recognition app we're launching. We've got a special checklist app that we're building on top of ServiceTitan. So basically, they're our ecosystem, and then we're adding on all these added value that no one else has that makes our company more profitable, a better customer experience. It makes our employees more accountable and have a better

time doing it. So I wouldn't think so much, how could I reinvent the wheel? I'd say, how do I make the wheel better? Those are some of the things I'd be telling myself, Nilsen, but there's no way in hell I'm going to go head to head with ServiceTitan or Salesforce or even house call pro they've got over 200 developers each of them so salesforce has a thousand by the time you get something workable they've already they're talking to google they've built an accounting system they're greater in inventory you can have advanced payroll systems they've already built an api that can integrate into anything so the three years that'll take you to build it,

they're already going to have things that are so far advanced. So I don't think it's the right play. I'm not saying, now, if you're a software company and you want to do a CRM for home service, that's different. It's a completely different animal. Let's see here. A couple of different questions, I think. I study other home service industries, such as HVAC, plumbing, and electrical,

and try to model their business practices. What are other home service industries you have modeled in your business? Well, they're all different, but I love looking at high-ticket sales. I'm always B2C because I love B2C. B2B businesses do absolutely fantastic. If I'm going to be an expert at B2C, let's stay in B2C. I'm really good on service today, so let's try to use that to continue to grow. I've learned a lot from Lenny Gray when it comes to pest control, but I don't think I want to go into that industry.

I'll tell you, I've learned a lot. I've been to a lot of the speaking events. They've asked me to speak at a lot of different things for power washing. I think it's a cool industry. I've gone out on some sales calls with Pat Clark. Super interesting. I've looked at fireplace, looked at front door sales. I love window sales. I study Anderson's renewal like crazy. They're marketing geniuses. They're recruiting geniuses. They kind of cover every facet. They're a great franchise model. Leaf, there's a Leaf company. So I open my mail all the time. I look at what's new. I'm always looking at the newspaper. I'm looking at every billboard. I'm studying different things.

When I go into Whole Foods, I'm trying to figure out how they do inventory. Are they using the camera systems? Are they using some type of RFID chips? When I walk into Quick Trip, I talk to the general manager probably every three times I go in there, and I'm learning from him different ideas on how to recruit. I don't look at every other industry. I look at restaurants and I say, what's their menu look like? Why do I always order a picture on the menu? Well, maybe we should have a menu for garage doors. Always be learning on everything you're doing. When you walk into the movie theater, find out when they offer you, would you like popcorn and Twizzlers with that?

Why people say yes, watch and look at them and listen to them. I think there's a lot of opportunities to learn a lot from everywhere you go. So David Santa, my dad owns a driveway ceiling and masonry company and has been going over seven years, but has done masonry landscaping for over 40 years. His business has never taken office. He does not know how to market the company. I recently started working for him by improving our website and using some of my own money to do Google ads and SEO. I'm wondering if you could give me any advice on other things I should be looking for. We have company t-shirts and have logos for our company, companies on our cars. I would truly appreciate any advice. All right, David Santa, listen to this. Number one,

I say this a lot, but Google's where the money's at. So make sure your reviews are amazing. Go out there, friends, family, anybody you've touched their lawn or masonry or concrete, you get every single person to leave a review. You call them by name. You post on your social media. You call customers back. You smile. You got to get the reviews out there. You got to get them on every avenue. I'm talking Google, Angie's List, Yelp, Facebook, Nextdoor. I want you to get them on Houzz if you could. H-O-U-Z-Z. I want you to get them if you do anything on Living Social. There's so many places you should be attacking reviews. And when you get a good client that's like a raving fan, get a recording of them. What you should be doing is recording

stuff, putting it on fast mode on TikTok, posting on Instagram, posting on Facebook. The stuff on the cards, like I talked about, make sure it's a great brand, then it's still trust, not cheap. It says their quality. It says it's going to be around a long time. It says they're the industry leader. That's what you want to portray. Fake it till you make it if you have to. I'd say some of the things we're doing is we're building the whole website right now in Spanish. 40% of Arizona speak Spanish. You look at Florida, you look at California, you look at Nevada, you look at Albuquerque, New Mexico. Spanish, I think, is a great market to attack because you can get jobs a lot cheaper, but

you need to have a bilingual crew. You need a bilingual dispatch team and a bilingual call center reps. I could go on and on about things that I'd be doing if I were you. I like direct response. I think mailers work out well. My favorite three mailers, Mike Davis, he's the CEO of Valpak. I have really good buddies with him. I love Valpak. I would hit a few zones. I'd make sure I hit the affluent homes that I want. I'd make sure where I'm getting customers are ready. I'm attacking those areas first. Clipper Magazine works well.

HomeMag works well. I work performance deals out with the newspaper. I think going to BNI, Business Network International, going to Chambers of Commerce meetings, go meet the people, get to know the manufacturers, the vendors very well. When I'm younger in a business, I'm meeting all the vendors. I'm trying to get to know them. I'm talking to them about what the biggest players are. Find out the biggest two players in the five surrounding monster markets around you. They might even be at a different state. Start looking at their website, what they're doing for advertising. Are they selling financing? What kind of coupons are they doing? If they're already a $20, $30, $50 million company, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. So that's one of the things I always go after is find out the biggest and best players in the industry and then recreate what they've done and help.

They'll probably let you come visit them. Don't use T-shirts. Use a colored shirt like this. They're by Sport Tech. They're made in Madagascar. These shirts, they don't fade. They don't rip. They don't show dirt. They don't shrink. They're the best shirts I've ever found. We're working on getting specials on that through Home Service Freedom. So those are some things I'd work on to get going.

Other questions. I've received 75 five-star reviews on Google. Now what do I do? Well, like I said, you get reviews everywhere. You don't just get reviews on Google. You get them on Nextdoor. Everybody kind of finds something that they love. They'll use Nextdoor. Some of them use HomeAdvisor. Some people use Angie's List. Some people use Groupon. There's not one place I recommend getting reviews, but Google is a great place to start. It's the most important. So you keep getting reviews. One of the things that I'd recommend is just listening to some really, really smart people when it comes to ranking your Google My Business page. Today, I found out one of our locations

didn't have the right hours. We fixed it like that. You got 75 five-star reviews. I find out if they have Google local services, local service ads, Google guarantee. Those are all the same thing. Those will make you pop. You pay for that, but it's less than pay-per-click. Here's something I'm working on, and I'll fill you guys in. It's complicated, but I'm going to be launching a program for internal promoters. And my plan is to get them each a virtual assistant, have them make public accounts for Facebook and Instagram and TikTok. And then I'm going to have the VA always grabbing content from them where they're uploading it. They're going to speed things up. They're going to smile. They're going to do certain things. And the VAs are going to work on their accounts, always adding, adding, adding, adding, adding

different associates, building their LinkedIn pages. So now they're going to have this huge public profile of all these things, but it's going to be all A1. And then I'm going to pay them a lot of money to do it, by the way, because they're providing leads and recruiting people. So I'm calling this my micro-influencer ambassador program. There's a lot of different terms for it, but teach them how to go to a B&I meeting but teach them how to go to a BNI meeting, teach them how to go to chambers of commerce meeting, teach them how to post on social media, paying for some of their kids. One of the plans is donate to their kids' soccer team, get a huge logo to kind of like a mini billboard, but just on a canvas and put a QR code to say anything we booked through here, I'm paying you guys 5% and they make money on it too. How can you get each

and every employee of yours to represent the brand, be out there recruiting and be out there trying to get jobs? The problem is number one, you never took the time to teach them. So we're building a course. Number two is they don't believe that you're paying them when they get the lead. So we're having complete transparency. I think this program is going to be bigger than Google. I mean, it's going to be amazing. How should I go about optimizing SEO? I'm a small company. Should I be doing it myself or hiring an agency? The hard part about SEO is there's a few things you're trying to do. Number one is you got to have a clean website with clean links with a good site map. Number two, it needs to flow. It needs to look good. It needs to have a good structure.

Number three, you need great content. You need videos, infographics, all kinds of great articles. Number four is you got to get links. The more links you get to your site, the better. Join Young Entrepreneur Council and write articles for them. And you'll start to get links from Forbes and Huffington Post and Inc. That's how I built a lot of the SEO up is I published articles. Now I'm a contributor for Inc.com. If you look up Tommy Mello, Inc.co, Tommy Mello Forbes, Tommy Mello, Huffington Post, you can find a lot of my articles because now I'm a regular contributor for some of those things. But also, a lot of times what you could do is it's called pay to play. You say, listen, I got a great article. So you find your industry

and you say, listen, this is what some people do. I've never experienced this or messed with it, but I know it works. You find something, let's say you're a gutter company and you say, listen, you find the number one ranking gutter company and you say, listen, you find the number one ranking gutter company. I know there's a tool that goes out there and finds the best links. I'm going to have to look that up. But Matthew Woodward, we did a podcast and he talks about this. You look up Matthew Woodward, but basically you go in and you say, listen, I want to write an article for your website. All I want is the credit for it. There's a little, I basically put a backlink to your website, but it'll have videos and cool infographics. And you got to be really good at

writing these articles because if you're really good, the person will say you added a lot of value. I'll put it on my site, but then you could offer to pay it. Say, listen, I want to give you 50 bucks to any nonprofit you want. I'm just going to send you a gift card. Use it as you see fit, or maybe a hundred or maybe 200. And you start getting a few of those a week within a year. People underestimate what they could do in a few years. They always overthink what they could do in a few months. As the domain gets authority, it gets older, it gets trust as well. You build value. When Google looks at things, when you land on them, it's a customer finding what they want. So we're adding all kinds of content. We're putting it in Spanish. We're putting all these infographics, how installation

works, what's a wood door, what's this, what's that. You read the book, they ask, you answer, and you'll learn a lot. Just by putting out a good article a day will really help. The more articles you put out, the more you submit them. You go to Haro, you do press releases. All those things matter. So the more you get yourself out there, the better you're going to be on your SEO. At what point does my business need a CRM? I mean, from day one, are you going to hand calculate conversion rates and when the busy time is on the phone? How can you pre-plan without knowing the facts i think the earlier you start the better i have to say that for me i think to not be on a crm in 2022 would be a sin it would be a disaster it'd be a mistake

even if i was just a couple employees i still want to be able to say hey we got started using a crm we're on systems we're able to see the weak spots i can look right now i got a dashboard right here i can see everything I need. See here. Thinking of starting a bathroom remodeling company, what are your thoughts on scalability? You know, bathrooms and kitchens, people spend a lot of money on. If I were to start a bathroom or kitchen, I want to first identify what's my perfect clientele. Is it a 18 square foot house? Is it a 3000 square foot house? Is it high end? One of the things I do is I'd work with designers and I'd say, listen, I'd go to the, join the ASID. That's the Arizona designer something. And I get with all the top

designers. And I say, listen, here's the five things I specialize in. And I pick the five most important things to the designers. And I buy it in bulk. I'd say I could do it. I got it in stock. And I'd say, I'd make it all a cart so you can design it quick. And it's very sexy. It's very popular. The designers love it. Because if you're just a jack of all trades and then you're willing to do anything and everything and you, hey, I want my shower to be like this and I want the special toilet to do this. I say, listen, I got all the cart. I got your flooring. I got your walls.

I got your shower. This is high end stuff. I got it in stock. It's not your super high, high, high end. It's not your $10 million houses, but it definitely fits into the $400,000 all the way up to $1.2 million and higher, depending on your bathrooms. But if you're all of a sudden, I just like having stuff stocked. I like being able to beat people on my costs.

That's me. Although I am a specialist in garage doors, so I tend to take on what people want, but what they care a lot about is what can I get sooner than later. Hey, I hope you're enjoying this conversation. I just want to take a five-second break to let you know that the tickets for my next Vertical Track event are now on sale. Just go to verticaltrack.com to learn more and get a guaranteed seat before the prices go up. Now back to our interview. Here's another question. I'm starting up a business from scratch in a new city. What should I do first? First and foremost, decide where your location is going to be because you want to be in an affluent area without a lot of competition or an area that you can rank well. Number two, you want to spend some money on your brand because you don't want to get a whole truck wrapped and get signs made and business cards with a shitty-ass logo and a crappy brand that doesn't represent you.

So branding is huge. Number three, you should really start to think about what your org chart is going to look like. I know that sounds crazy, but the reason that they said in the 90s to start a business plan is it still works. And today, have a business plan. Go into this thing with a plan. Know where your customers are hanging out. Know where you're going to recruit from. Understand the market to the 10th degree. If I were you, I'd go find the biggest and best guy in the country and ask him if I could go visit.

Say, I don't even have a brick and mortar. I'm not nothing yet. I'd love to come visit you. I think that's a huge advantage is going to visit these shops. I can't even tell you how much you'll get out of that. And then I would definitely read the seven power contractor. I read the e-myth. I might read the home service millionaire. I'd listen to some of these podcasts. There's a great thing I just put on the home service expert about Jeff Gablesberg. He got

out of the truck. One of the problems I have with people starting a new industry is they can never seem to get out of the truck. Hey, I was in the truck for a long time. I mean, shoot, seven years I spent every day in the truck. But getting out of there, it allowed me to build a business. Readers are leaders. So be reading all the time if you're starting a new company in a new industry. First thing I would try to do is go to everybody. Go to every B&I group. You could go to one to visit.

I'd go to every single meeting. You got to get out there and meet the people. Go to every home show. Offer things at a severely discounted price. Start to get your feet wet. Learn the good, the bad. Get to know vendors. Get reviews everywhere you go. Start building. Get a videographer to work with you one day a week. Get the good videos. Always glamour shot. Pictures, good pictures that really make your brand look good. I'd work on the things that I hate. If you don't love the call center. I'd work on the things that I hate. If you don't love the call center, I'd work with Free to Grow or PowerSign Pros or one of these companies to answer your phone so you can work on the business.

I'd make sure you're set up in a really good foundation on your chart of accounts. So make sure your QuickBooks set up correctly. These are all really fundamental things, but I don't think some people think of these things. I make sure I know how I'm going to get vehicles. I meet with a CPA. I talk about what the future looks like. As a startup, would you look for a small business loan to get it going or present a personal loan from personal savings to the company? So basically the question is, go out there and get an SBA or go out there and loan the company. So basically the question is go out there and get an SBA or go out there and loan the company money. Me personally, it just depends on how good you feel you are in the company. If you know the industry and you feel like, dude, whatever money I'm going

to put in here, I'm going to 10 times. I would tend to want to loan myself the money, depending on if it's going to handicap the way I live with my family. I'd write myself a check as a loan. But if I knew, like, look, this is foolproof. I got the right team. I'm going to go into this thing and make bank. I'm just replicating what I've already done. Then I might use the SBA.

But you don't want to have to loan the government money. But they have very favorable terms. But the thing that I would say is if you get the money, take it. Doesn't mean you got to spend it. It's great to have there. You know, when you don't have the money and something great comes along, like somebody might come up to you a year of business and say, hey, man, I'm a lot bigger than you. But me and the wife are having issues and my kids. Listen, why don't you take the business? I want to save 80 percent of it and I'll give you payment terms. I just need a hundred grand up front. It'd be great to have that money. So

don't get it when you need it, get it when you don't. Okay, Matt, what percentage of employee pay should come from pay for performance program? So there's a million different roles that you're doing, but what I think that you need to do is think about how do you get the person comfortable enough on some type of pay structure where they're not like dying if they don't get paid. So they want to make sure you cover their normal bills. With my technicians, they're all performance pay. But there's a lot more that goes into performance than you guys think. It's not just sales. It's callback ratios. It's when they call in, it's driving. There's a lot of things that

we look at for, it's making sure inventory's tracked correctly. We've got all data integrity team. But the more you can put on performance pay, the less you care what they make. The more they want a salary, the more you get a little agitated. You're like, man, these people want an $80,000 base. So anytime you're able to do 30 or $40,000 base and say, sky's the limit, as long as you're playing, the founder could never be mad if someone makes 500 grand because you better have won big time. Because if you didn't build it in a way that you win, you screwed yourself. I actually asked my buddy earlier for some advice. Darius Livers, I like to get videos made each week to motivate the technicians. So tomorrow morning, we're going to play the video in every market. And it went really, really well. I was

really happy with it. Actually, I need to send one of the videos to Xavier, the second one I did. But I said, if you give these guys one piece of advice, what is it? At the end of it, Darius goes, here's the deal, dude. If you guys walk out of a job and you didn't collect any money because the husband wasn't home, they didn't need the money. They got to call the bank. They got to make some decisions. They got to get with their painter, whatever it is.

If you look at those jobs and don't take it personally, meaning that, oh, yeah, well, I couldn't have closed that one. No one could have. He said, if you don't internalize those zeros and say, I could get better, what could I have done? What could I have sold financing and promotions? Could I have said it differently? Could I have been a little bit better at setting the next appointment for when the husband does get home? You'll never get better. You'll always be content.

So the best advice I could ever give to your people is when something doesn't go right and a sale doesn't happen, can you look at yourself in the eye, in the mirror and say, I need to do better? Can you reflect, work on your tonality, your eye contact, the way you say things? And I thought it was really powerful. I wanted to share that with you guys today because I think it makes a big difference. Let's see here. I'm 24 years old, I'm on track to do 1.8 million in the home remodeling in Los Angeles, thinking of focusing on one niche to try to get to a hundred million one day. What would you do if you were in my position? Well, you know, I think focusing on one trade is easier because you got to look at something here real quick. You look at a company like

Parker and Sons is going to do 220 million this year in Phoenix because they're doing everything. They own the client. See, you could either own the client and be the jack of all trades, or you could own the custom. So me, I own the trade. I own garage doors right now in 18 states, soon to be 30, soon to be 50. We'll see about Alaska, but Hawaii is looking good. So if I'm in every single state and I own the industry and it's just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, I've always preferred to be the best, have custom parts, be the best at my trade, have the best vendor relationships. But a lot of people have this mentality. If I own the client and I'm good at marketing to them, it's a lot easier because now I can do HVAC plumbing, electrical. Now I can do roofing and gutters and solar.

And you can start building these things. I'm not saying one or the other is right or wrong. I've had more success owning an industry, but there's, well, we'll see, but I don't think I'm going to do 220 million this year. But I'll tell you this, I haven't been around as long. I'm going to be attacking the industry. And hopefully there's a lot of people that want to come with me because for me to win doesn't mean you need to lose. But I would say there's a couple of mentalities. I would say, take the most profitable thing that you do, that you can scale the fastest, that you feel the best about, that you enjoy doing. And I'd go for that and specialize.

What are your thoughts on keeping your company service heavy? What's your service to install ratio? We're a little less on install. Service heavy is great. You got to have a huge infrastructure for door sales but i don't think i'm doing the right thing for the client like if you need an engine and a transmission and you're still driving a pinto i'm gonna say you probably buy a new car so i don't think it's right to look at a non-insulated garage door and see cracks and see it oxidized, paint the trim failed and a 20 year old genie screwdriver and say,

yeah, I can fix this. I diagnosed the person before the problem and I got to feel like I'm doing the right thing. And by not giving them the right options of saying, do you really want this piece of shit? I want to say like that. I said, look at, I got all the parts here. I guess we can repaint the door. You've got some nicks in it, but it is what it is. But by not giving them an option to replace, it would be pretty ridiculous in my book. But you got to make sure you got a process for measuring, a process for calling the client, a process for checking in with the vendor.

The reason why people love service is you collect the money today, you're up and done. You can make a lot more money by offering service to sales, but you're going to get way more service calls. So to be 50-50 on revenue, I'm pretty happy with that. I never want to be 80-20 install. If you look at the biggest HVAC companies, they're 70% of their profit comes from new installation. But as much as our industries are like other industries, you got to look at your specific industry. Some of the biggest companies, Precision's probably 75, 25, depending on the franchisee. But I just think you put it all out there. Here's what you should do. Here's what you need to do. Here's what I would do if you're my mom. And my mom's getting a new door if it's an old door that's not insulated

with an older opener. No matter what, you do that for yourself. Why wouldn't you do it for your client? How do I record some of these things to send to my guys? Well, you know, here's what I use. I use Loom. You can take a Loom video. And actually what you could do is if you look at this, this is streaming. If you like some of the stuff that I'm saying, you build a Loom and you just send the loom to them. You just take the part of the video that you like, or you record yourself. Loom is very cheap.

You can pick any video you want. You can pick a YouTube. You can create a loom and just text it out to them. You can get a really cheap texting tool. I used to use this one called Scipio. You load up all your staff in there. It's got all their phone numbers. You put the Loom videos.

You can motivate them. You can say, hey, guys, we had the best week ever. I think using a text messaging tool is much better than email. Or you can just do it one by one out of your phone. But, yeah, recording is important, sending videos. I've got a whole guy that edits all mine. We do a Zoom call. The East Coast guys just start

theirs at 7.30 and then we start ours at 7.30. So when I used to do the whole meeting at 7.30, we'd waste half the day and the numbers would be low and we weren't able to help clients out on the East Coast. So that wasn't working well. This is gold. Why am I fixing leaks in a 20-year-old pool equipment? I don't know. All I know is this. What's my opportunity cost? These owners are educated. I mean, they're smart buyers. And you tell me what's my opportunity cost, I will replace it. It's an investment. I use my pool. I don't want it broken. I don't want this happening. I don't want to throw money at this. I don't want to have to call you over and over and over again. Because after the third time I'm not calling you, I'm going to go, I called these guys a few times. I'd like to know what

do you think is going to happen to it? How long is it going to last? What's the good part of me buying a new one? What kind of warranty does it come with? Am I going to see you less? Is my pool going to work better? Is it going to be cleaner? Is it protected? Is there new technology? Could I have it do stuff when I'm not here? Like maybe turn on an hour if I hit it on my phone. So there's a warmer or bubbles or something. I try to make sure there's advantages to educating the client. Have you ever tried using YouTube ads? You know, we haven't tried using a lot of stuff because quite frankly, at this point'm so busy i can't even keep up i think oh let me look at something real quick you know i believe in youtube ads my buddy sean spends 40 000 a month on youtube ads and he's in the solar industry and says he absolutely murders it just fantastic kills it right now today we've taken 515 leads today we booked over 415 that's so far today we're gonna

add up at least another 150 today so think about that we're gonna do about damn near 700 leads today so there's certain things i mean we can't even keep up as it is, but yeah, I think everything works to a certain degree. And I do think YouTube definitely works. What are some ways to be getting out of the business to start working on the business? Well, number one, you take your calendar and you look at everything you're spending your time on. And I mean, everything, if you're not building relationships, if you're not motivating people, if you're not coming up with processes, if you're not coming up with standard operating procedures,

if you're not coming up with a checklist or a manuals, then what are you doing? You should have your time dedicated to relationships, recognition, motivating, passion, great meetings. But if you could delegate it, every single thing you do other than that, and work on the systems and work on making it better and better, the people is the product. The people are amazing, but the systems is what you should be working on. Now, there's only three reasons why a system fails. Either there's no system in place, it's the wrong system in place, or the current system is not being followed. So if you don't spend the time on the systems, see, I've got an eight-step sales process that works every single time. And when I get my guys to the front and they start speaking about it,

they go, without the system, I trusted the system. The trainers trained me and they role-played with me and they made sure I could do it. They made sure I was able to portray it like the system made to be done because I can't tell you how to shoot pool. I can't tell you how to golf. I need to show you, you keep your arms straight. What you're going to do, keep your head down, bend your knees. But I need you to show me you could do it. We're going to have to work on you a little bit.

I want to make sure you could execute this shot. Because until we get this shot down, there's no point going on to the next one. But in training, sometimes we say, hey, listen, keep your arms straight. Keep your eye on the ball you're gonna hit it 300 yards no problem let's move on when did you see them even swing so it's crazy to me you get a lot of owners a lot of founders a lot of managers a lot of coaches they don't understand show me now that you can do it prove to me you can do it imagine if i decided to send you hey listen i'm gonna show you how i can bowl a 300 game once you get that video you'll bowl 300 every time you just watch the video you can bowl 300 it's not how it works show me that you can even throw the ball let's find a ball

that works for you let's make sure you left your right hand and let's talk about it you're gonna spin it make it my way but that's some of the biggest problems I see. Every mistake is due to no system. Absolutely. So working again on the business is just, you got to learn how to delegate. Delegation is the key to anything. If you're not using the steps of delegation that I'll leave, he talks about, if you're dumping on people, if you're literally expect people just to know what to do when they come in and you're not making a plan, if you're letting your day plan you instead of you planning your day, you're going to be up a creek without a paddle. So best advice I could give you, own your day, find out what the wasteful things are. I make a lot of time to make phone calls. And man, I'm learning about the business and I'm executing.

I'm implementing. I'm calling guys. I'm implementing things. I'm wondering what's going on. Different divisions, checking in with vendors. Could I be more efficient? Yes. I got so much to learn. I got so much more exploring to do, so much more people to visit, so many more books to read. But I know what I need to work on. And my goal over this next year is to literally double my efficiency. And that means having people that can sit in on meetings and give me executive summaries. That means people that can come up with systems without me there. That means creating a process to create a system and being able to check it. That means giving people the power to become leaders. And you look at a guy like Jack Welch with General Electric, he walked out

and looked at the different assembly lines that he had for different things and spent a long time there just becoming a leader, just pat people on the back and just maintaining relationships, investor relationships. You know, he used to greet people by their name. He used to study that stuff. And just, he was the culture. He was there for the investors, there for the people. He had a plan. And really what he was doing is just kind of making sure that everything was okay. Did I put the right leaders in the right spots? Do they have the right chain of command? Do they have the right processes? Am I giving them the resources they need? And when you hit a certain height in the business, it feels really good. You're like, wow, they're doing it. If you look at Jim Collins' book, From Built to Last,

if you still feel like you're the best at everything in your business, you failed on hiring. Let me repeat that. If you feel like you're still the best at many things in your business, then you're a shitty owner, founder, visionary. You should have found somebody better than you. And you didn't because you're glorified on your high horse to be able to find people that are better than you and give them the keys to the city to be able to go run it without you. And if you're worried, if you're not trustworthy, you're not a good leader because you can't trust people because you're afraid. You're afraid that trustworthy, you're not a good leader because you can't trust people because you're afraid. You're afraid that they're going to take what you have because you don't want to share. So when you look in the mirror and you can say, listen, I'm an egotistical maniac, that I'm the only one that can do stuff.

Everybody without me is a failure. If you really believe that you don't deserve a business, you should go work for somebody else or you should do your own thing and only be the one that does everything. But my big thing is who could I get that's better than me in everything? How could I find someone that's going to excel at a role and just drive with it and run with it and kill it? That's what you need. And I don't come on these to make you feel good. I come on here to tell you what the facts are. And the fact is, if you're not getting better every day at finding people that are better than you, then you're the problem. And most of the time you talk to investors, most of the time you talk to bigger companies, they say the owner's got to get the hell out of the way. He's stuck wanting to know everything.

He wants to be in the know. He wants to be part of everything. You don't need to be. If you let the people run without you, you want to be involved to a certain sense, check but verify, trust but verify. It's a great topic. I think one of my biggest attributes is that I trust people. I've been burned a lot. My mom used to call me and cry and say, why do you trust people still? And I say, because they've done so much more good than they could ever do bad.

I say there's 1% of the time I got burned, something happened. But 99% of the time, they continued to excel past beyond my wildest dreams. So trusting is a big thing. Looking in the mirror and taking responsibility for your mistakes and your hiring. And saying, I'm the problem. Why did a guy get in a car accident? Well, do I have any checks and balances? Did he get trained? Have I checked the, do I have any checks and balances? Did he

get trained? Have I checked the DMV record in the last three months? Had he had a record of doing this last three months? You're responsible for everything. Therefore, you get to partake in the profits, but you also got to be the one that partakes in the bankruptcy. And so if you ever find a union worker that tells you, I want to own a percentage of everything I do, say, then I want you to take the liability too. This works both ways. When you win, you win a lot. But when you lose, you take full responsibility, which you should.

You can't have it both ways. So, guys, I got to go meet some people for dinner tonight. We're going to State 44. You guys know it's my favorite. Hopefully you guys took something out of this. I really appreciate you guys listening to this. I want to do this stuff more. If you get a chance, I got these lessons here on my desk. I'm going to be posting some stuff here about the five rules of influence. Number one is reciprocation. Number two is commitment and consistency. Number three is social proof. Number four is liking. Number five is authority. Number six is scarcity. If you look at the summary of the book Influence by Robert Cialdini, just this little four or five pages, you'll really

appreciate it. I'm going to be talking about it if you pay attention to Home Service Expert. If you're not paying attention, you really should. I'm not on there to make money. I'm going to be talking about it if you pay attention to Home Service Expert. If you're not paying attention, you really should. I'm not on there to make money. I'm on there to help. I always get gold nuggets from you guys. So every time someone posts us something awesome and everybody contributes, we can all help each other. It's a great community.

Lots of great communities out there. Ishmael, Landon Brewer. There's a lot of Joker stars always doing stuff out there. Al's contributing to ours. It's what it's all about, man, is join a lot of Joker stars Always doing stuff out there Al's contributing to ours It's what it's all about man, is join a lot of these different groups Find out what you like and don't like Victor Raincore, there's a lot of amazing people I'm just trying to give you guys the best I have

You might agree with some of it Not, tell me what you don't agree with We can get in a little debate But overall, things are going really really good I'm excited, never had more fire under my belly Than I do today We're moving fast and. So hopefully you guys come to Vertical Track on the next one. And if not, maybe just come visit. Love to see you. We'll see you guys next time. Hey, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast. Before you go, I wanted to invite you to my next Vertical

Track event. We've opened it up to all home service companies just like our last event and people across all industries have been messaging me all the time saying this last event brought them as much as a 10 times return on their investment you need to go there check it out and sign up today now the great news is is that we're doing it again in october and we want it to be the best event of the year in the home service space if you're ready to build systems to scale and get out of the truck once and for all, get your tickets right now at VerticalTrack.com. We're about to go through some tough times in the economy

and I want to give you some tools and some tips to get through it and start making more money than you ever realized. So go to VerticalTrack.com and get your tickets now.