The Home Service Expert Podcast - Q&A With Tommy - Stacking the Deck with A-Plus Leaders and Top Talent

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Tommy Mello is the author of Home Service Millionaire and Elevate, and the founder of A1 Garage Doors, a $200 million-plus home service business with over 700 employees in 19 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 digital marketing, task delegation, smart networking…

The biggest thing is put yourself in uncomfortable situations, and that means networking all the time. I'd always wear my shirt. I wear this A1 shirt on stages. I wear this on when I'm golfing. Let everybody know loud and proud where you work. And I would do things a little bit differently. Every customer I meet, I'd make an experience because that's the hardest part in the beginning is getting new clients. I'd make sure I try to get three reviews instead of one.

I'd make sure to talk to the neighbors. I'd talk to the HOA president. I'd stop in and I'd pick up whatever you want to give bagels or fresh fruit. I'd find on my way to jobs, I'd hit a network with realtors or whoever your best referral clients would be. And I'd go in and just talk to random people as much as possible. And genuinely just say hi, come in with a smile, find out more about their business, find out what they're looking for.

And I'll tell you, if you network correctly, you'll do very, very well. 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 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 company

in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome to today's Q&A and the Home Service Expert podcast. Sorry I was late. I was doing another podcast with Keith Mercurio, and man, we were so deep. We were an hour into it. Those of you that know Keith Mercurio, he's just a humble, honest man. We don't talk about business. It's deep, man. And this guy lost two parents and is going through a divorce and moved to a whole new city that he shares.

So I don't feel bad sharing this stuff. But I'll tell you, oh, man, just like, wow, to go through what he's been through. And I don't think any, one of the things you wouldn't appreciate is sympathy, but the word that we talked about was surrender. And we create these ultra egos for ourself of, we're the provider, we've got to grind and we've got to make it. And to lose everybody and everything that he looked up to, that he was part of, that he was trying to build himself up to be. The people that were proud of him, he's lost all of them. I mean, there's still a lot of people proud of Keith, but to lose that,

you know, you can't put it into words, but you can listen. And I think that's what a lot of people need. We need to be better listeners and you never know what somebody's going through. And to say, you're strong, you're a fighter, you're going to make it through this. He's like, I miss the, man, your life is easy. You got it all. He said, I miss that piece of it. And one of the things he said at this end of this podcast was, we're going to do two parts. We did one hour. I'm going to turn it into a two-hour podcast. I haven't done one of those in a year or two or longer. But one of the things that he said is you seem so much more at peace. When you talk to Keith, he's got a deep voice and I'm pretty much on my toes grinding a

lot, but it made so much more sense than just this idea of surrender, surrendering. But let's get back. I literally, you know, right now in the business, things are great. I'll tell you what recently has gone on is Dan Martell's book, Buy Back Your Time. As some of you guys know, I'm working directly with Dan Martell. And I've been working on all these things to get back time. And this is by no means, and I see this the humblest way, but we've got a driver and a chef. And I kind of look at all these things and I say, life is really, I'm making the most of it. Like I don't worry as much. And it's easy for me to say, I know that, but things are just, I think it's all happening. I'm living in the present. I'm enjoying every minute of it. I was with my father all weekend in a golf tournament.

What an amazing day, amazing week, 24 guys in a scramble. It was just super incredible. And I really, really, really can't explain. One of the things I advise everybody doing, way in the right, dude, is there, oh, there's 23 people. I'm sorry. Is start to figure out, picture yourself 75, 80 years old. And really sit down in a dark room. And just breathe in the air. And just be by yourself. No telephones, cell phones, whatever. And just visualize what your life looks like back upon where you're at today.

You can't change the past. What you could do is control today and the future and really start to visualize and manifest who did you become? Did you become some rich guy? Is that what you want to be known for? Or did you help people? And when you go on vacation, who did you go with and who did you spend time with? And what stories did you share? And I think it's just, it's an amazing idea because everybody that I meet is like, I want to do what you did, Tommy. I want to make a lot of money. I want to be successful. I want to be in the hierarchy of success. I want to be that guy that grinded his way to the top. And what I could tell you after talking to Keith and Gino Wickman

and these guys that some people consider arrived is there's so much more about being in the present and living in the now and just enjoying this moment. And I'm not trying to get super philosophical, but I'll tell you, it makes a lot of sense. We've got, it just seems like, you know, as far as A1 garage doors is concerned, we're renegotiating on most of our garage door parts other than garage doors. And that's going to add millions and millions and millions to the bottom line. Went to my buddy, Lee Downings. Luke just went there with Amy. We've got some work to do in our call center that we think we can be more efficient and more empathy. Also working with Power Selling Pros and Bringham. We're also making a lot of strides on Dispatch Pro. We also have two

deals closing in the next month. It seems like everywhere I look, as big as this company is, there's nothing but opportunities. And by the way, this isn't only a record year, record week, record day yesterday, record month. And I say this, but there's so much opportunity, so many holes. And people are like, man, it must get easier. And it is easier, because I don't have to worry about people showing up sober, but it's like, it's really fun, because like, I'm not like, man, just keep doing what we're doing, I'm like, this, this, this, this, this, and as you guys know, I literally talk to myself in the shower on walks and I do math in my mind all day like there's math

running through my mind most of the day and I write numbers down and I scribble things and I take my calculator out and I'm figuring things out and I just I kind of will things to like I just it's like it's. I can't explain it. But the goals I've set are like, it's not could I hit 50 or 60 million of you, but now it's this crazy number. But really what it comes down to is how many people could we go on this journey with? When I'm on stages, when I'm writing books, when I'm doing podcasts, there was, I must get a text message every other day of somebody that was at the Freedom event who's lost 50

to 80 pounds, who's walking proudly with a smile that their energy levels never have been better. Their family's lives are changing because everyone's eating better. And they feel this euphoria, this dopamine rush, because they're doing hard things that they never wanted to do. I'm excited for September 25th. As you guys know, I'm on this journey to become, it's not about the body fat. That's a challenge. And I made it into a SMART goal specific, meaningful, all the stuff that SMART goals mean, and I'm going to be under 10%. But, man, I feel great. And it's just I'm having a lot of fun. And people are like, well, why do you still go to work?

It's because this is my superpower. This is why Tiger Woods still golfs after he won all those majors. It's I really do love what I do. And I love hanging out with my peeps. And this is my family, everyone here. And I hope that people could enjoy their life when they go into work and when they go home. I had 40 guys in orientation yesterday and I'm screaming. I'm like so happy. And I mean, I've never got a standing applause and yelling and screaming and hoorah.

I went for three and a half hours and I was just on fire, but I was just trying to affect their lives in a positive way and tell them the life you always wanted lies right in front of you if you're ready to commit and do something hard and give it all you've got. This is your opportunity.

And if you bring your family with you, everything's about to change. Everything in your life. Oh, anyways, I got to snap out of it. Brandon said, can you explain in more detail about how your financing options are structured and presented. Example, do you have certain options that are low charge to A1 that are always available than certain promotional options at other times of the year? No, we don't have really seasonal options. We just categorize it in a one through five star at our A1 signature package.

And you basically go like this. I'm here to give you options. It sounds like you need this. Based on what you told me, you've literally diagnosed the person before the problem. I'm going to go through. So first you wanted to say yes. Sounds like you need that. Yeah, sounds like I do. Well, listen, I'll go over the options and you can pick when you like. That's the goal. You can pick when you like. That's the goal. You can pick when you like. Whatever you want to do. I mean, Joe Corsaro says it the best.

What should we do? But, you know, the reason why I love financing is they just came out with a new staff at garage stores. You get 193% return on investment. Did you take a mortgage out on this house? If you're like me, you probably did. Yeah, I did. Wouldn't it make sense to protect your investment to use our promotional offers? The reason it's a promotion is because A1 Garage Door Service pays to make this available. They actually pay a large fee to bring this option available.

So you could save a lot of money over time because of the time value of money. 40% of all the currency was printed in the last year. I'm allowing you to not only get a great investment, but use our money and keep your money. I just feel like it's a great option to have. And we got a lot of work to do to get better at it. But Antina, thank you. Eric said, how would you deal with growing your team in a licensed trade? We are in the electrical industry. We have always tried to grow our team by hiring apprentices and training them.

But it takes 40 years of school and work to become a licensed electrician and work unsupervised. Well, this is the great dilemma. Because if you were in an unlicensed, easy industry, guess what would happen? It'd be a free-for-all because anybody could do it. You'd have guys on the street starting a business. So there's a lot of advantages. There's pros and cons. But if it were me and it was a four-year thing, I would find young, willing, and able, happy, optimistic people, and I'd pay them well. And I'd have two apprentices on every job. And I'd lure in all the best electricians to say,

you're going to have an impact on these people's lives. Number one. Number two is you're going to have the easiest job ever because you're going to have the guys doing the work you could handle larger jobs you can have more complicated jobs it's kind of planning for the future yes that's a big investment you might lose some of these apprentices but you got to think i'm able to sell more at that job i'm able to offer more i could offer and I don't know everything about the electrical industry, but I could offer way more. And as long as I'm marketing to affluent people that want their, protect their investment, which is their home, they want the

options. So if it were me, I would lure the number one salespeople that do the job that give options by saying, you're going to get two people helping you do everything. So you don't have to do a bunch of manual labor. And then I would have these apprentices doing most of the work. So I'd get the top performer in the industry saying, you got a really, really amazing job, but you're going to train these young as how to build a career. This is the next generation. I'd find people that are super excited about the next generation. They'll literally pour their heart and soul into these people. And because they're so great at what they do, there's more than enough money to go around because the customer's taking advantage of every option that you give them. And you could do it efficiently. That's what I would do, Eric.

Brooke said, I love your content, passion, and knowledge. I am part of a single product company. Would it make sense for me to attend one of your service business conferences? You know, some of you guys that have been to my conferences, I don't just talk about business. I talk a lot about like more in mindset these days, but I love marketing. I love recruiting. I love sales. I love culture. I love M&A. I love Greenfield. I love organic growth. We try to make it a little combination of a few things. Business, growth and development, mindset, and I'm really into becoming your best self and walking in with a big smile and being a great leader. So, you know, change is necessary

for all of us. And I think if you asked around to the people that have been to our events, you'll get everything you want and more. And most of all, you'll get to network with people that are like-minded that want to win. So humbly speaking, I would try to come to one of my events. What is a good steakhouse? Of course, steak 44, if you're in Phoenix is one of the best. If you could give advice to a company in month number one, what would that be? Well, the biggest thing is put yourself in uncomfortable situations, and that means networking all the time. I'd always wear my shirt. I wear this A1 shirt on stages. I wear this on when I'm golfing. Let everybody know loud and proud where you work.

And I would do things a little bit differently. Every customer I meet, I make an experience because that's the hardest part in the beginning is getting new clients. I make sure I try to get three reviews instead of one. I make sure to talk to the neighbors. I talk to the HOA president. I'd stop in and I'd pick up whatever you want to give bagels or fresh fruit. I'd find on my way to jobs, I'd hit a network with realtors or whoever your best referral clients would be. And I'd go in and just talk to random people as much as possible.

And genuinely just say hi. Come in with a smile. Find out more about their business. Find out what they're looking for. And I'll tell you, if you network correctly, you'll do very, very well. And the other thing I would do is find the number one success story in my industry. And hopefully they live in another state. I'd read their books, I'd listen to their podcasts, I'd study their business, and I would humbly fly out there

and see if they'd allow me to come into their business for a half a day and ask questions, but not be a nuisance. Because a lot of people like Leland Smith and Ken Goodrich and Keegan, they let me in and they gave me every answer I was looking for. And then I just went and implemented. I wouldn't go about this trying to figure out on my own. I wouldn't reinvent the wheel. I love you too, Robin. How are you digitally marketing to customers five miles away from your GDP outside of social media? Well, there's a lot of ways to digital market. I don't love social media. I don't think that's the best. Ranking your Google My Business page is the first thing. And you guys have heard me talk about it before. I'm still not onboarded 100% with PinParrot, but there's tools that auto-post the jobs through your CRM.

So if they auto-post and it's unique content, what's your... You're actually... Your Google rankings, if you've ever seen the pins where they're green, yellow, red, they start to expand. And Kellen's been working on this because we have so many locations and so many markets. And he hasn't onboarded all of them, but we continue to see way more calls coming in than ever thought possible. And I think that's the first thing is if you're not taking advantage of free marketing, which is your Google My Business GVP, getting reviews on there consistently, long reviews with pictures in them, and then using some auto-posting tool to let Google know you service that, it's real. And that's pin, P-I-N, parrot.com. I mean, that's where I start. I use a guy named Lorne at Search Kings for LSA.

LSA is getting more competitive. There's not as many leads as there were in the beginning because there were early adopters. You made a lot of money on that. We've recently signed up to see how Service Titans pay-per-click where it actually tracks the keywords and tells you. And they guaranteed me that, you know, I'm a big client of Service Titans. I don't own any piece of the company, but they said, if we can't get you 30% less, then you don't have to pay us because they truly believe that we'll save a bunch of money. Now that was, it was not a long term thing. I told them, you know, I got to pay for this stuff, but they're so confident. So, you know, we recently asked one of our

distribution centers and I won't go into details to cover half of all of our mailers. And they said, yes, which we were at a 22% cost of revenue. So now that cuts it to 11. And then we renegotiated the contract, paid 10 cents under that for the mailers. So now we're going to be under 9%. There's a lot of opportunities. A lot of people are looking for leads right now, but here's my question for you. What if you didn't look for leads as hard? Everybody's so content with the people they have. What if you focused on the people and figured out a way to get the best out of them and go attract A-plus phenomenal players? You know, Robin's on here. When Robin started, I completely shifted my mindset about what was possible in a garage.

And he literally, he did things I've never seen before. Way larger tickets offer way more and still got five-star reviews. Crazy, isn't it? You charge way more, you give the customer more options, you sell more things, and they actually feel like they're taken care of. Instead of everybody saying they need more leads, why not focus on the people you've got

and maximize every single lead and have a lot of empathy on the phone call and earn every client's business and get a review from every customer and ask them who their HOA president is and ask them who their neighbors are and send emails that are really beautifully and well-written and actually get opened up and market to your current list. There's so much opportunities there.

Lee said, but green, you won't regret it. Thank you. Edry said, Brooke Green, you won't regret it. Thank you. Edri said, I'm looking to hire a remote employee to handle our marketing and advertising, but I'm looking to fill a full-time position. What are some good tasks, ideas to ensure a full-time position? CSR dispatch and bookkeeping is already taken care of in-house. I'm looking to hire a remote employee to handle marketing and advertising. I probably work with a dozen agencies. I figure, especially when somebody only does one thing in

marketing, I love them because they're mastering it. I'll tell you a quick story. In one week, I got five recommendations of the same landscape company. And these guys, they make the house look like it's a billion dollars. They're the best, I believe, in the country, probably in the world. And me and Bree were on the phone with the guy, the owner of the company, and Bree goes, oh my gosh, I went on Pinterest, and all I'm finding is only things about your company. And I was like, how many Pinterest are their company, Bree? And she said, all of them. And I said, I don't do Pinterest. Who's your Pinterest person?

He gives me her cell phone. I call her up and she says, we're getting that company 22,000 unique visits from Pinterest to their webpage. I look for a specialist. You find a jack of all trades. They do nothing well. You hire somebody that knows how to do a little bit of social media. They don't do it well. It's different than paid social media. And then organic Google is different than LSA is different than GMB is different than PBC. And then when you go and buy media, that's a completely different thing. So when you say, I media, that's a completely different thing. So when you say, I want to find a marketing person, I want to know what they're going to be an expert at, the best in the world at. And I've always had this mentality because success leaves clues. If I want to find out who's the best at Thumbtack, who's the best at Home

Depot, I will find the biggest contact I could find at Home Depot for the vendor relations. And I'll say, who's the most successful person you know at the Home Depot program? And they'll say, I need the right, I got to ask them if I can give you their name. And they'll probably say, yes, because I come humbly and I want to return the favor. And then I'll call them up and I'll say, show me everything. Can I come visit you for a day? Can you show me everything you're doing to make this program successful? I'm not a competitor. I'm not going into your space.

And I'll tell you guys what, I will return the favor tenfold. And I got to find out what they need. But I always return the favors. So that's my best advice for that. Let's answer a few more of these questions. David Maester said, what do you do when your best guy is not performing as well as he used to, and you've tried to talk to him and find out what's going on personally, mentally,

financially, spiritually? I'm literally trying everything I can to get this guy back on track, and I feel like nothing is helping. I think sometimes your top people that have been through this a lot, a lot of times they need a week off, maybe two weeks. Maybe they don't want to talk about what's going on with them. Maybe there's something really deep going on that they don't even understand. And you never know what it is. But what I always try to go back to is what are your goals and dreams? What do you, what is this job? What do you want to get out of this? Are you trying to take your dad on a vacation and buy a second house

and spend more time with your kids? And sometimes they really don't know their why. You know, they say the things, yeah, I want, I love my, I love my wife. I love my family. I want to take care of them. But sometimes there's a different form of recognition they need. I don't know. There's a lot of things, but sometimes they need time to figure it out. And they haven't had a vacation in a long time. Maybe just say, listen, I want to take you out of the field for 10 days, paid vacation. You go do what you want to do. You go enjoy yourself. I think you just need time to figure things out. You are a valuable asset. You've done so much for us and you're worth it. And this is the best

gesture I could do because maybe you say I can't afford to give them up, but you can't afford that old guy to return either. So I really think about that. I know you aren't a huge fan of small ticket businesses like window cleaning, but if you had to do it, how would you grow it fast? We are currently doing 1.5 with 15 million employees. Well, I'm a big fan of all business. You know, if I was going to go into that industry, there's a lot of ways to get a lot of business.

But I don't see why it needs to be a small ticket. And let me explain. If your aluminum siding costs you 12 grand and your roof costs you 20 grand and the deck you have out back costs you, my cousin just told me he got a quote for 25 grand on his deck. And you figured out every way to protect that investment. And you had a coating that you were going to coat the deck with a clear coat. Doesn't take much work. It's not much different than you're doing. And you marketed to the affluent. I would take my small ticket and make it a much larger ticket to cover the manufacturer's warranty.

There's three ways to make money. You get new customers, you charge your customers more money, or you keep them coming back more frequently. I would be doing all three. Going after new clients, getting referrals, putting yard signs, doing door knocking around the neighborhood, number one. And I'd get the name of the client. And I'd say, hey, we just did Marsha's.

She left us a growing review. Here's the testimonial. We'd love to earn your business. Then I would say, what else could we offer? Martha, because I think that's what I said her name was. And I try to offer more things. And I find out every manufacturer's warranty on the house, everything from the gutters to the roof, to the aluminum siding, to the decks, to the cement. And then I would try to get that ticket to give more options to keep them under the manufacturer's

warranty because a lot of these things say you need to be treated with this type of stuff to be under you'll save them money in the long time I believe that third one is how do you keep them coming back more frequently and sell service agreements when you could sell service agreements that you come back every six months you pick your dates let me ask you something Martha when do you have your big do you have something, Martha. Do you have a big Halloween party? Do you have a big Christmas party? Do you have people coming into town for Thanksgiving? Also try to do something for spring cleaning. And I try to get on a two, twice a year commitment and get them on a plan to where I've got future business no matter what. Those businesses are

worth more money. And my demand issues of getting more clients kind of goes away because now I built a book of business that keeps coming back and I know when it's coming. So that's what I would do. Hey, I hope you're enjoying this podcast today. I just wanted to take a few seconds to remind you that the early bird tickets for the Freedom Event are going away soon. This means the $400 off on the Elite and VIP tickets will not be available anymore and the general admission price is going up too. Plus, you're going to miss out on a bunch of bonuses that are almost worth the ticket themselves. Listen, this year, we put together the best leadership panel that I've ever seen at any home service industry event. Combined, their annual revenue is over a billion dollars.

I'm talking about Aaron Gaynor, the owner of Eco Plumbers, a great friend of mine, who's doing like $70 million a year. Paul Reed, the owner of the Northwest Roofing, $30 million business. Paul Kelly, the president of Parker & Sons, doing $280 million a year. Ken Goodrich, the chairman of Gettle Air Conditioning and Plumbing, a great

friend of mine, doing several hundreds of millions. And Leland Smith, the founder of Service Champions, a $500 million business. If you want to stop struggling for leads, struggling to find great people and working crazy hours every week, it's time to make a decision. Get your tickets for the Freedom Event at freedomevent.com. That's freedomevent.com. Early Bird ends on August 5th. Now let's get back to today's podcast episode. Andy said, Brooke, you will get so much out of it. I've been to several events and I get something out of everyone that I can use in not just in business, but life. Thank you for that. I appreciate that, Andrew. Tommy, great stuff, bro. Thanks, Max. Kyle said,

why is it there are so many large PE-backed plumbing HVAC electric businesses, but not as many handyman businesses of scale? Well, HVAC Electrical has $180 billion cap. $180 billion. So if you were going to get into the home service space and you were a PE company and you looked at the trends, by the way, this is the hottest week since 2012. It might surpass the hottest week since like the 70s. You look at what's going on, you look at the future, you would figure out, if I'm going to go into any home service industry, where do I make the best bang for my buck? HVAC's been tried and true. I mean, Frank Blau, these guys figured this out in the early 90s. There's blueprints everywhere.

There's no blueprint for handyman services. There was no blueprint for garage doors. So I had to follow the HVAC blueprint. And I followed it to a T. And I still got to run 20,000 jobs. If I was in HVAC plumbing, electrical, roofing, flooring, this company wouldn't be $250 million. It would be $2 billion. For 20,000 calls, look at the average ticket. Look at the need. One of the things with PE, they say, no matter discretionary income, right? Is this discretionary or non-discretionary?

When my AC breaks, I got to get it fixed. When my hot water heater breaks, I got to get it fixed. I never say, man, I need to call a handyman today. I need his help. You say, listen, there's a lot of stuff around the house I need. I need to get that new fan. I need to get this door looked at, but it's not like this need. I do not have the urgency to call a handyman.

Garage doors is, you know, if I'm stuck in my garage, great. But if it means me losing my house, I'd probably forego the garage. I'm not foregoing the HVAC or my hot water or if a pipe breaks or if my electric turns out. So it's very demand driven and PE loves that. Question from Max, what makes landscape companies the greatest? What makes your landscape company? Well, you look at the design. These are landscape designers. They're not doing tree trimming and grass mowing. It's their designers. So you spend a lot of money. They don't do the work either. They design it. They got references they like to use. But when you see the blend, they understand the colors. They understand everything from the, and this is going to sound stupid, but we're going a little extreme with lazy rivers and we're putting a swim up bar and

some cool shit. And what these guys did is they designed, they took the look at it. And I wasn't, I was very happy with our design. And then the owner said, I want to work with you personally. And he showed me some of his stuff. And then I started seeing it everywhere. And I looked at it and it felt like you get a huge ROI. This doesn't feel like a house anymore. It feels like an oasis. It feels like you're somewhere in the middle of paradise.

And I wanted that. And they just designed it. So, and they're working on it. And, you know, Brie told him what she wanted and I told him what I wanted and they're working on something pretty special, but they do a great job on everything that they do. Mailer company recommend.

Mail Shark does a great job. They're a vendor of ours and I really like what they do. They does a great job. They're a vendor of ours and I really like what they do. They do a great job. Chris said, if you're considering an exit strategy, what are some books, resources, et cetera, that you would recommend other than the private equity playbook, the exit book strategy and empire building by Adam Coffey? Yeah. I don't know necessarily. There's a lot of books out there and I read about a dozen books on exits. I'll give you as much as I can give you in a nutshell. As everybody says,

when I hit this number, I'm going to exit. Question is, what are you going to do after you exit? Are you rolling equity? What's your pay going to be? Is it the first roll or the second roll? There's all these questions to think about. And how do you prepare your business to get the supreme valuation? And you do this by doing your own quality of earnings. You do this by doing audited financials. And you're the buyer, even when you're selling your company. You're buying a company that's going to help this business grow because hopefully you're rolling equity. But I can go into so many details,

but you asked a secondary question. Say you're just starting out in exit planning with a trajectory of three to five years. Who are you consulting with and if necessary, hiring in early stages to guide you and the team through the process? At what stage do you bring in an accountant experience with P transactions,

a tax professional, a lawyer, an investment banker? Well, I was very fortunate. I had a guy, Eric Van Dam, join my board three years before my exit. And he knew all the right plays. He knew what we were missing from a distance because he knew what a great transaction looked like. He knew the valuation we had to get to, the thresholds we needed to get to. He knew we needed a well-rounded machine. We needed M&A under our belt. We needed this and that. And so I formed a board and I got lucky enough to have a very experienced banker. And not only that, but he knew the lawyers. He knew who we needed to hire. He understood our weak points. So a great investment banker will understand these. And I got with guys that wanted to play the long game. They saw potential in me. I don't know why.

I think I was at 5 million of EBITDA, but they said, you're going to get to over 20, and they just give me a lot of pointers, and I would say these guys know every single transaction, if they're experienced in your industry, they're going to know who to talk to. They're going to know the guys that had a huge exit. They're going to have these guys on beck and call.

They're going to say, I did a deal for a company 10 times your size. I could get you on the phone with this guy. He's got a lot of great advice. And I'd make a three-day weekend out of visiting them. And more than likely, if they had a great exit, they want to pay it forward and help you. When transitioning from slow and steady growth to scaling quickly with explosive exit or partial rollover as a goal. What levels are you pulling and what changes are you making to achieve that goal? So CoreTech, the company that partnered with us, they always tell me it's going to happen within your four walls. It's who, not how. It's who you hire. It's finding specialists. And I would be thinking about an equity incentive program to get the right people on board.

Because I'll tell you this, you can work your ass off and do all these things, but the right people already have been where you want to go. It's all about the team. It's bringing on these, like when the team grows, your company grows. Let me ask you guys a question. Your business today, you leave for two months. How does it look when you get back? Does it still run? And some of you guys say, yeah, it would still go. The second question is, would it grow as fast when you're not there? And I know the answer to my own question for myself, but it's a problem. So everybody's, you're probably the smartest guy in your company, the smartest gal in your company. And that's a big issue. So I'd be thinking, how does it function when I'm not there? I would need great people and processes and systems and a standard operating procedures and checklists.

I need great reporting tools and I'd have to have a hell of a lot of people at the top that know how to lead, manage, recruit, and continue to build. So the number one goal for the company that's worth a ton of money is when the owner the founder could remove themselves and it still it still could grow very very quickly maybe not at the same pace but hopefully you don't have as much pride to say i built a business that will make it beyond me. And those are the best of the best of the best businesses. What metrics change and how much? Well, the most important key person that really helped our business is the CFO. They learn how to capture EBITDA and expenses and renegotiate rebates and how to actually forward think about

the business at a whole new level. And I think most businesses I see, and I've looked at a lot of them, they're missing an amazing CFO and they can't afford a good, great CFO. And they really don't even know what they're looking for in a great CFO. And we could do a whole podcast with Adrian about this, but a great CFO could change the outlook. You know your numbers. Then he hired, we got three FP&A people, financial planning and analysis. If your goal is to sell as many times within three to seven years after exit, what is your goal to get your books in order and EBITDA up before making that initial sell? In this example, let's say you're looking for a four to eight X on your EBITDA.

Depends on the industry. There's a lot of things that go into the factor of the multiple. One of the biggest things is, is it demand driven? A second one, did you get anything reoccurring? Is it pest control, landscaping, pool service? I think a threshold to get a really, there's a few thresholds. I think one is 5 million of EBITDA, one is 10 million, and one is 20 million. If you're 20 million of EBITDA, you're a platform company. They know you can handle a lot more. And the owner is not as critical at 20 million because their systems, this is EBITDA, but their systems in place where you know that guy's not running by himself or that gal to get the 20 million robert said what

what voip software does a1 use well we use the one provided by service time called dial pad but they're actually we're in the middle of building a new voip system with service titan that's going to have the deepest integration the best ai and the, deep, deep integrations that allows us to scale very, very quickly. And I have the word of the top of the top of the people there, this will be better than any VoIP service that's out there. What are your top key KPIs you track for you or in your call center? Let me think out loud real quick. So I want to know calls taken per agent. I want to know the average call time. I want them to hopefully be able to

book. This is the new stat I'm working on, 80 to 100 booked opportunities a day because half the time they're doing outbound calls as well to fill in the gaps. I'm looking at how many rings did it take to get the call answered. I'm looking if there was any abandonment calls that we didn't answer. And then I'm looking at empathy. So we'll check one out of 10 calls and see, did we really talk to the customer? Like, if you were trying to make the best friend, imagine you had a friend call you.

Picture just in your mind. Let's call it an acquaintance. Let's say John calls you. And you wanted this guy to know how much you like him, that he's a great person. But you guys are not best friends. You probably answer the phone a little bit differently. You go, hey, John, dude, so good to hear from you. How are things going?

How's the family? You'd be very,ive, like just attentive. And that's something I look for in the call center is, oh my goodness, you got to be kidding me. Oh, and you're just making, uh-huh, uh-huh, really? And you're listening attentively and your voice inflections and you're going out of your way to make the customer feel heard and feel liked. And that they're not in a good spot right now. They called you because they have a concern. If you can do that, you're winning. Kyle said, what are your thoughts on scalability of a handyman company?

There are so many large HVAC plumbing electrical. I think you scale. This question was in here, Kyle, but the problem with handyman, is they're a jack of all trades. They're a master of none. I think you should specialize in 10 things where you work out a better price for manufacturers and you go in and you offer off a menu and anything not on that menu you charge a higher hourly rate so you make a ton of money and you become very very good at these 10 things now the most common calls everything

else is a much higher rate but i'd lock in with the 10 things and then say listen there's the 10 things that we specialize in and instead of saying we could do anything and everything and make a lot more money specializing i've always thought that's the best key joshua said love joining this you are the best and have helped me grow just from these video live streams thanks j, Josh. That's the goal. What would you have a remote employee handle or take care of for plumbing HVAC home service companies? CSR dispatch accounting. A remote employee. Well, I think CSRS could be remote. A remote employee. If I had to think about, it's not as easy, but an executive assistant could be remote. Somebody managed my calendar, somebody to book trips, it's not as easy, but an executive assistant could be remote. Somebody managed my calendar, somebody to book trips, somebody to make sure my life. Here's the deal.

You're trying to buy back your time as much as possible. If you find yourself, I'd really highly recommend you guys write down everything you do in a day for a week. And you highlight everything that you could do somebody for $15 an hour. And you start to build guidelines and manuals and standard operating procedures for this stuff. And you talk out loud, you videotape yourself doing it for the next month, and you hire somebody to handle that. There's so much wasted unproductive time. There's something that no one else could do that you could do. Calling somebody and checking in on them and tell them you're proud of them. Just having a conversation with people, leading a meeting, showing up and doing an orientation. Showing up is half the battle. I think a lot of people, they're too busy to even

spend time with their team. That's a dirty shame. But I'm not sure, I'm trying to handle this question, but what would you have a remote employee handle or take care of? There's a lot of things. So rehash, rehash is a big one, right? So all the non-closed opportunities you went on to have them, they don't need to be in the office. They could call, check in, what's going on. We'd love to earn your business. I know you've got our bid. We want to earn your business. What is it going to take? Was it a time thing? Was it an HOA problem? Was it a price thing? Find out what their dilemma is and work on figuring out how to earn their business because you've already paid for that lead. You've already been out there. Rehash is a good one for that.

I could come up with a lot of things for remote people, but those are just a few. My man, Billy Klein, what are the most important things to pay attention to to prepare growth and scale from sub 10 million to 20 million a year thoughts you know billy i'll tell you this without the right team the owner is only going to do so much and to go to like, it's stacking the deck with A plus leaders. I used to think the only chance I had when I was younger was to hire the thing I hated the most next. Now, when I go into a business, if I want to grow any business, I say, what are we missing at the top? How do I stack the deck at the top? How do I build a group of leaders that'll actually tell me where to go, that have been where I want to go? So I think most people that are on

this particular Q&A session, they've got a lot of work to do within their four walls. But the systems, we've all created good systems for our business, but what if we spent double the time making sure those systems are correct, that we had checks and balances to repeat the systems perfectly and recruit people, get more leads. And everything was a playbook, a playbook of how we get leads, a playbook of how we book the leads, a playbook of how those leads get converted into big tickets. And some of that's rehash that we get five-star reviews. And then we got to figure out our cost per lead. And if I got all these playbooks and systems and there's different marketing sources, and then I'd have a Greenfield strategy and M&A strategy.

But as you put these systems together, they get refined, refined, refined, refined, because there's mistakes that happen every day. And the checks and balances and, you know, real voice is important because now I can hear the guys in the field. Me and Luke talked last night. We're like, man, we've got so much opportunity to grow in sales. I mean, some of the guys are stellar and some of the guys aren't. How do we make them all stellar? And that's a lot of leadership. And that's creating an exact system. Everybody says, make this your own. Here, read the script, make it your own. And I'll tell everybody that's bullshit. Do not make it your own. It's like saying Brad Pitt,

Tom Hanks, take this script and completely change it into your own. Have you guys ever played telephone? When you tell somebody something, they tell the next person, the next person, it never sounds the same. So don't make it your own. Pretend like you're an actor and you got to do this in front of me. The systems that get that same output or close to it every time are what's going to win. Max said, when you realized how crucial systems and processes were, did you literally document everything after extracting from your head or did you have people you dictated to for efficiency's sake? Well, I still have these brainstorming sessions where we whiteboard and we discuss things. And there's so much opportunity that most of my time is thinking about not necessarily how to improve

a KPI, but what system and how's that system going to be monitored to improve the KPI. There's a flaw in the system if the KPI is not where I want it to be. There's not enough training. There's no checks and balances. Something's wrong. So I go back to the system every time. And very few people could do this. Very few people have the ability because you're in a firefight. You're just trying to figure out how to handle living to where you've got payroll coming up. You need two trucks. The guy's missing his tools. This guy's drunk on the road. There's all this shit happening. We just got a lawsuit. And the owner's dealing with all of it. So there's no time for the systems. And

there is time for the systems. We're daydreaming. We've got our ADHD going. I wonder if we should expand. I wonder if we should... What if we just worked on the system so well that every KPI was dialed in and we grew this market to own the market share? We're the largest company in our market. And then we figured out how to buy another company or Greenfield. I think my biggest mistake was trying to grow too fast in other markets rather than own the market share where I went to school, my parents and my family and my friends. And if I can't own my market, then there's no excuse why I should expand. Brooks said, is there an HOA resource you use to market to hundreds or thousands of HOA groups? You know, Dave Carroll's a good resource.

He's got a big list of this stuff that I think no HOA, the one thing is HOA, you can buy these lists from almost anybody. You don't market the thousands of them at a time. You find out the HOA president, or sometimes it's a management center. You walk in and you meet the person. And you find out, you do a needs analysis, and you see how things are going, and you just tell them you want to earn their business. And you try to build a relationship with these people.

And you put your word on the line, and you're going to earn their business. And you try to build a relationship with these people and you put your word on the line and you got to, you're going to answer their calls or you got to back up and you just explain to them, I'm here. There will be a mistake with this company at some point. We just want a shot. Let us service your next five jobs. Instead of this mass approach of like blanket everybody, like build relationships one at a time, make sure you got the system right. And once the system's done, they get a testimonial from this HOA management company or president, and you got to nail it and scale it. And you don't blanket everybody,

you build one relationship. But if you blanket all of them and got all the work, you'd be screwed anyway. But what if you just got one and the HOA gave you 40 jobs? Then you got another and you learned as you went and you perfected the system. That's called building relationships. Everybody wants to do email blasts and I sent them flyers. HOAs is kind of like B2B. Those are relationships. Who's the decision makers involved? How do you

get them all involved? And how do you overcome their objections and earn their business? Is there a business blueprint for handyman services? There's not a blueprint, I don't think. And any blueprint out there has flaws. Handyman is a great industry to be in. I just feel like I would really pay attention to big tickets. I think I'd want to be known as the handyman that handles these things. But every business is the same to me. I don't care if you're a dentist, a gynecologist, a therapist. I don't care what you do for a living. What are some of the things I need?

Well, I know I need leads. I know I need to book those leads. I know I need to convert those leads. And I know I want to get a healthy profit from these leads, which is an average ticket. Then I need to figure out my cost per lead. So if I can figure out those things and then build a way to recruit A players and train them to have the same system every time I'm winning at any industry.

I know I dumbed that down, but it's true. If you bonus your operations manager, you bonus on gross profit or EBITDA, I think for smaller businesses, gross profit, because they can't affect the EBITDA if you go out and buy five more trucks and decide to grow into a greenfield market and decide to invest in a recruiter and a trainer and this other people, gross profit is something they can affect. You're going to screw up their bonus if you pay them off EBIT and go try to build a business. And they're going to look at you like, what in the hell, dude?

I made this business tick and you're investing all the profits, the gross profits that I helped build and make. And you literally put it all down. Now I missed my bonus. So gross profit for sure. Tommy, I just heard you on Brian's Action Academy podcast. How do you go about handling your commercial real estate portfolio that's connected to A1? Do you own all the properties that you operate out of? By the way, I love the information that you're providing to young business owners like myself. Well, I do own the two here. I met with a guy that we ended up partnering, Daryl from Aauthentic, and he said the best move I ever made

was buying the buildings I performed out of. He said I made just as much money on real estate that I made. There's a lot of advantages. There's a lot of things you could write off. This happens to be an opportunity zone. I definitely would say if you're paying somebody rent, why not pay yourself?

I would own the buildings, but I don't own every one of them because we're in like almost 40 markets. I do have a plan to own all of them and strike a 10-year lease on them and then sell them as a portfolio because when I have a 10-year lease on my buildings and anyone's willing to sign a 10-year lease, guess what? It's worth 1.6x, 160%. So it's a great way to make money.

Tommy, I've been an A-plus tradesman my whole life and a D business owner. Have you seen old dogs turning around? Yes, but I'll caveat one thing is usually I'd like a young blood to come in. I've seen fathers and sons where the son comes in a little bit more business acumen. I think some of the guys that have been in the industry don't think they're worth it. They remember just repairing stuff, not offering much. And it's really hard to change that mindset. They go, I don't like to sell stuff people don't need. And I've always said that's bullshit. I think when a guy goes into a Ferrari dealer and the guy sells him a brand new Ferrari and alloy wheels and all the add-ons, you go, that freaking Ferrari dealer got me again.

They called you out. They want to know the options from the professional. They don't want just the problem solved. They're buying future serenity and peace. They want to know that no pipe is going to burst again. And they want to know they got hot water right away. And they want pressure coming out of that. And they want a bathtub that has a massage on it, some people. They want all the options. It's not up for you to decide the options. And I'm going off here because the baby boomers are always told we just go fix it. And we're in an age now that I want all my options. I mean, we're in the Amazon age. We want it tomorrow. Give me what I want. I want a new

iPhone. I know it costs $2,000, but my other one's six months old. Nobody needs a new iPhone. They bought one. So I think the mindset has to change and getting someone in there with a different mindset is going to be crucial. How do you think LinkedIn ads could work for home service? LinkedIn ads would work for home service, Jeremy, to find A-plus players, CFOs, COOs, presidents, chief technology officers, possibly executive assistants. I use LinkedIn to build up my staff, but they're not going to be for the blue collar field workers. But that's what I would think the best call center managers, you'll find those on LinkedIn. I don't think LinkedIn ads are, they're great for B2B. But as far as B2C, I don't think that's a good play.

How do you, or do you, do you performance pay for every single employee in your company? Not every single employee. You cannot do performance pay for every single employee, but the large majority of the people, the major people that I could replicate a lot are mostly performance pay. Other people have equity. Other people have bonuses. There's all types of performance pay, but we have a gal that cleans the apartments. She's not on performance pay, but it's something

that if I had a time to do it and I could actually build the checks and balances, I would put every single person on performance pay, but certain things are not critical. I've got a lot of opportunities. I got to take the biggest, best opportunities. I only got so much time in a day, but I believe in performance pay. I believe in having a stake in the outcome. I believe in what's in it for me. There it is. And giving people a reason to try harder. Guys, I got another appointment. I'm sorry I was late. I love these. These are my favorite. I love the great questions. I know sometimes I could be harsh on these things, but I think you guys could appreciate my honest opinion because it's always the truth.

I don't hold back. There's so many resources. And just understand, I work with the best of every agency. Like I talked about Penn Parish, Cal is my buddy. He's telling me where to strategically move GMBs and get a different location to optimize more. He literally, like you guys got to realize, I work with the people that either own the company or directly involved. They're the best of the best. So sometimes you guys might use my resources, but you're not getting,

I make relationships and I treat them like gold and I get them business. And I hope they give you guys great service, but I'm a little, you know, I don't just go to a company and say, solve my problems. Come solve it, please. I say, here's, I meet with them twice a week. I hold them accountable. I work with the best of the best on their team. Think about the worst person on your team.

And if you send them out to one of your relationships, it might not go as good as your best person. That's why I only work with the top person at any team. And if you send them out to one of your relationships, it might not go as good as your best person. That's why I only work with the top person at any company I go to. And I distinctly ask for that. And I tell them, I'm going to spend a fortune with you. I'm in a good spot right now where I can pay them a lot of money because we need a lot of help in a lot of markets and a lot of marketing and different recruiting and all these things. So people, they want to put their best foot forward with me. and I try to make yourself very valuable to them. But hey, this was amazing.

I know I didn't get to every question. If you guys can, simply post your questions in homeserviceexpert.com forward slash questions and I'll make sure I get to them. Billy, I noticed you had another question. If you want, just hit me up. But I love you guys.

I hope you guys have an amazing day. And hopefully this had a little impact. Hopefully there's a little clarity. Don't forget, it's not all about work. Tell somebody you love them today. Park some time on your calendar for someone you care about. And if your kids and your wife and your husband are truly important to you, let me look at your credit card statements. Let me look at your calendar for someone you care about. And if your kids and your wife and your husband are truly important to you, let me look at your credit card statements.

Let me look at your calendar. How about that? I'll see you guys later. I appreciate you guys. Have a great one. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I wanna let everybody know that Elevate

is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book 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 want to learn the secrets that helped 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. you