The Home Service Expert Podcast - Running a Debt-Free Business With Strategic Planning and Execution

Episode Date: January 8, 2021

Wesley Bloeme is a ‌young‌ ‌entrepreneur‌ ‌who was‌ ‌able‌ ‌to‌ ‌graduate‌ ‌debt-free‌ ‌because‌ ‌of‌ ‌his‌ ‌business‌ ‌pursuits. He‌ ‌started‌ ‌College‌ ‌Student‌ ‌Pressure‌ ‌Washing‌ ‌as‌ ‌a‌ ‌way‌ ‌to‌ ‌earn‌ ‌extra‌ ‌money‌ ‌during‌ ‌‌his‌ ‌Freshman‌ ‌year‌.‌ After‌ ‌graduating,‌ ‌he‌ ‌grew ‌his‌ ‌company‌ ‌under‌ ‌a‌ ‌new‌ ‌brand, WiseGuys‌ ‌Pro-Wash, which is‌ ‌now‌ ‌the‌ ‌fastest‌ ‌growing‌, ‌highest‌ ‌rated‌ ‌exterior‌ ‌cleaning‌ ‌company‌ ‌in‌ ‌Atlanta‌. In this episode, we talked about pressure washing, customer service, leadership, sales...

Yeah, and I think it's not just saying no to other business opportunities. I think it's also saying no within your own business in terms of, for example, services. In my industry, it's all about roof cleaning. Roof cleaning, it generates the highest average ticket. You can have the highest man hour, but it's also a pretty complex thing if you really don't know what you're doing. So you think about a lot of the guys in my industry are doing roofs, they're washing houses, cleaning your flat work, your driveways, your walkways, things like that. They're also doing undercleaning, gutters, interior, exterior windows,

gutter brightening. That's a lot of stuff. Then they throw in Christmas lights. How are you supposed to be good at any of that when you're doing all of that? So for us, we only did flat work for the first year. Years two, three, flat work in houses. Year four, I threw in windows, exterior only. Year five, roofs. Now we're doing roofs. So it's been a one-at-a-time process to where our quality is not going to suffer. Our systems and processes for our existing services are already... We can hire someone and two weeks later, they're on the road. 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. So I've got an awesome guest. I love this guy because he actually took me up on my offer and flew out and came and visited the shop. His name is Wesley Bloom, and he's an expert in pressure washing, entrepreneurship, customer service, leadership, and sales. He's based out of Atlanta. Just a young little fella that's killing it out there. He's the president and CEO of Wise Guys Pro Wash Company from 2018 till now. He's a business owner of College Student Pressure Washing from 2014 to 2018.

He was a lumber associate at Home Depot from 2014 to 2015, and he was the instructor at Atlanta Rocks for 2010 to 2013. He started college student pressure washing LLC as a way to earn extra money during spring semester of his freshman year in 2014 and quickly saw the business as a way to pay his entire college tuition without student loans. After graduation, he moved back home to grow his company under a new brand, Wise Guys ProWash LLC. WGPW is now the fastest growing and highest rated exterior cleaning company in Atlanta with eight trucks, 13 employees, and operating out of a 5,000 square feet facility in Norcross, Georgia. It's nice to have you on, brother.

Thanks, Tommy. Thanks for the introduction there. You know, the problem is, is that you got my high school jobs on there. You know, that's the problem being so young. Yeah, I don't know. That's awesome. If I was your age, I would have had washed dishes at Rookie's clubhouse out here but you know what who's counting so you literally i mean i'm not supposed to ask this and i rarely do but how are you thinking you're going to end the year and i don't necessarily need to know revenue but profit or ebida percentage what do you think you're going to end the year at? I'm curious with COVID and everything. So, I mean, this will be the first year that we break seven figures and, you know, we should do so, you know, above a 20%, you know, margin. So we've basically doubled our margin and broken

that this year. So. So here's the ultimate question. Is that your pay, the 20% or do you pay yourself and still get 20%? So I don't pay myself, but it's still 20% as if I did pay myself. So if you were to take out, let's just say 60 grand, would that make it 14% or would it make it still 20%? It'd still be 20%. Okay, cool. All right. So you're investing the money back in? Yeah. So go ahead. Why don't you you're investing the money back in? Yeah. So go ahead. Why don't you share with the whole audience right now? Tell us a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey. And man, I saw that picture of you and all your trucks.

I mean, you're killing it out there. So tell us how you got into the business with that free college. You just decided I went to college, but I'm still going to do what got me through college. Yeah, well, first of all, Tommy time i appreciate you having me on here you know i'm a big listener of the show actually i've like gonna listen to like 15 of your last episodes and i'll listen to every single one that you put out over the last few years so it's crazy you know all the years of listening to it when i started i was actually out pressure washing so now i'm not having to do that as much these days but yeah so I started the company when I was a freshman in college, I was sitting in my college dorm room when I got the idea and I was kind of started with one of my

friends at the time, you know, under the college student pressure washing name worked over the summer and together, then we kind of decided that he just wasn't really into it. You know, for me, it was, I just saw it as a way to make some extra money at a time. And so we kind of broke apart and it's been me just since, you know, since then. So that's like the last six years basically. And so, you know, I remember my goal that first summer was I wanted to make $3,000. That was my goal. My dad owns a rock climbing gym in Atlanta. It's not open anymore, but at the time it was, that's what Atlanta Rocks was. So I was looking for a way to make some more money in addition to that. And so that's where

the pressure washing came in. And so, like I said, I wanted to do 3,000 that first summer. I did 18. And then I was like, you know, I think I could actually do something with this. I went back to college, you know, sophomore year, played football again, another season of football. And then I kind of was like, you know, I wasn't getting an athletic scholarship, it's division three. So I decided that I wanted to stop playing football. And I wanted to really try this whole pressure washing thing for real. So I legitimized the company, got the LLC, formed the insurance, did all that and went all in on it. And I remember, you know, I told my roommate at the time that I was doing it, he thought I was crazy because he's, you know, why are you not playing football? That's

what you do. So yeah, so that's kind of how it started. And I told him, I was like, he's from Germany. I was like, you know, Mario, I think if I stick with this pressure washing thing, I think I can do at least a hundred thousand dollars in revenue by the time I have to get a real job. And then here we are, I still don't have a real job. Well, it is a real job. If you do seven figures and you're still doing 20%, debt-free is pretty cool and impressive, but the fact is you're able to take a pressure washing company. And, you know, if I could go back in time, I always think roofing, air conditioning. And I think about even plumbing and big ticket items, windows.

And it takes a lot more work. But one thing you got on garage doors is repeatability. You know, seasonality, you come back and you do them. So tell me a little bit about some of the business struggles that you started with and your rise to get to that seven figures. Because I met you through Josh Latimer and Brandon Vaughn, and those guys believe in you. And they introduced me to you and they said, this is an up and comer. This guy's going to take over the industry. And you're doing it right now.

So I really think there's a huge opportunity for people to learn and listen. How old are you? 26. I just turned 26. So you're 26 years old. You just passed seven figures and you're operating at over 20% net. And you've obviously learned how to delegate. You're not out there doing the work every day anymore, are you?

I don't think I've actually pressure washed all year, to be honest with you. Which is amazing because you're not working in the business anymore. So talk to me about what you've learned over the last few years and some of the struggles you've been with and some of the good accomplishments you're proud of. Yeah, of course. So I've learned a lot. It's almost hard for me to even think about what specifically I've learned in terms of that front. But I don't know, man, it's hard for me to answer that because I just, you know, I don't really dwell too much on, you know, the past. I try to continue to move forward. But I think the biggest thing for me is these last 12 months that's made the biggest impact, you know, and I think it's kind of helped us through this weird time is really knowing my numbers. But that was

one thing like when I came and, you know, spent a few days with you and stuff like that, it was, you know, really seeing like how seriously y'all are, are looking at the numbers every day, all the numbers, not just some of them. And so I kind of went back from that and really did the same thing. You know, we started tracking all kinds of KPIs that we weren't tracking before, most of which are not tracked in our CRM. So the excuse at the time was kind of like, oh, well, our CRM can't track those. So therefore, I don't need to look at them.

And so we figured out ways to do that, got a lot more reps in Google Sheets and just kind of started tracking. And by tracking, stuff starts going up when you track it, you know, in terms of man hours and reviews and upsells and all those kind of metrics. So, so yeah, I know that doesn't really answer your question, but I hope that helps somehow. You know what, now that you're talking about that, I met with my, one of my top clients yesterday. He spent a million dollars with us. He's happened

to be here visiting from Toronto, Canada. Does a lot of development out here. One client, $1 million. Think about that. I'm not bragging about it, but I've got some good stuff to share. So last night we're out to dinner. Very, very nice dinner. I got him a really nice gift. I got him a $200 gift card to Houston's. I mean, whatever I got him was a tiny, tiny sliver of a fraction of what he's done for me. But he used to work at Hewlett Packard under the real guy before I think the guy passed away. But this is in the 90s. Ninety six is when the Internet was born and they were building all the infrastructure of expanding and growing the internet, the intranet. So one of the things that I got in my notes here is he said to me, Tommy, every single thing you do is measurable.

Therefore, everything should be measured. Everything. The problem is most of your employees, Tommy, and most of the businesses I see are measuring the wrong stuff. And also, what I've learned in a long time is a lot of people have systems that are not being followed correctly and there's no accountability. And he said the thing, you know, Tommy, you're never going to find anybody like you that cares as much.

And the thing is, is we always expect people to do the right thing. What is the right thing? I always tell the stories when I left, I told them I picked out the right paint color, but I didn't tell them to paint it in a gloss. They painted it in a flat. So the thing is, is so many people, especially my managers, they say, why can't these people just figure it out? It's common sense. I could do what they could do in a day in less than an hour. And I said, yes, that's why you're their boss and a manager manages people that's hence the word manage manager so i just feel like when we're talking about the numbers we really inspect what we expect we hold people super accountable you know today i bought have you ever been to church

and you got an offering they hand out yeah i bought one of those offering things today okay i said to my guys this morning i said are you sick of me talking about sales all the time i was like because every sunday when i go to church what's the first thing they talk about it's called tithing the preacher or the minister or the priest literally talks to us for 10 minutes about giving to god and selling us on how we should give so i'm like if the church could do it, I'm allowed to talk about it, guys. So I bought that as a prop for next time. I'm going to walk up and say, now's my turn to get an offering.

You know, this meant a lot to me. I'm going to share more through the podcast with what this guy shared with me, because he told me a few mistakes that we made during the year. And he said, it's not a big deal. And he also told me, Tommy, I know inflation's happening. I want you to raise my prices. My biggest customer said, I want you to raise my prices. He said, because I want you to stay in business, Tommy. He said, I don't only want you to stay in business, but I want you to keep answering your phone like you do. I want you

to be there. I need to be on schedule. And the value that you deliver with being on schedule, getting my stuff in and putting me as a priority is more important than the price because I can't have holdups. So he's a very smart client. Actually, I said, Hey, it'd be really cool to have our biggest client come in and teach us about sales. But I wanted to share this story because he was talking about Hewlett Packard and he goes, they gave us this task. So there was two dozen people. They split them into six, so four groups. They said, I want you to receive a PO, process the PO, and send out the PO, something like that. And so they all got together, introduced one another.

They were all strangers, and they got the whole thing done in 45 minutes. The instructor said, guys, guys, guys, guys, we can do better than that. So they went back, and they got it done in 15 minutes. Now they all had assigned jobs. They went back again and they said, there's another group that's way, way, way faster. They went back again and got it done in four minutes. 45, like 15 and then four.

And he said, guys, this is kind of embarrassing, but you're way too slow. They got it done in under two minutes. They ended up getting the whole task done eventually under 10 seconds. It took 45 minutes the first time. He said, Tommy, always have your control group A and be able to compare the two and always be improving. Every single thing in your company, every single thing should be improving. Cut out the waste, make it efficient, make it lean, you know, the two secondsecond lean make your processes lean you know the guy that wrote the two-second lean says the first thing he did is put salt and pepper

together because he didn't like to have a salt and pepper shaker so he put them together and he likes a little bit more pepper than salt so he put a little bit it's crazy when you think about the stupidest things but it makes a huge difference i I agree. That's one of the things that I'm working on right now is trying to do that in terms of in the morning and in the evening. One of the things that we do is we do a morning report. So all of our technicians go and they go through our entire truck, make sure everything is there. Because our technicians, unlike you, our technicians are not in the same truck every single day. It's not like their truck. You know, so I know for you, you know, your guys have a van that they use pretty much every day.

And so as long as they keep everything where, you know, they know what's there. So for us, we have to make sure that, you know, that that's the case. So two days ago, I was going through the warehouse, trying to figure out how we can better organize it. And four hours later, I got a great idea. Figure I'm gonna take the passenger seat out, build some cubbies. It's gonna look just like your van, how you have everything separated for the different stuff. So, and my thought process behind it is I think we can shave our morning report down tremendously,

you know, save 15 minutes of our assistant's time every morning. They don't have to come in anymore. I think we can do the morning reports and what was, you know, 15 minutes and two minutes that's in the morning and that's in the evening. So yeah, I agree a hundred percent. Paul Lakers, love, love the guy, concept. Yeah. He's two second leans legit. They're the same thing with our inventory this year. So yeah, I agree a hundred percent. You know, he's got a trip coming up this next summer,

and one of my buddies from pest control wants to go, and I might go to Japan to actually watch. There's a good book called The Toyota Way. Yeah, you told me about that. I read that. So think about this. He took a whole thing from 45 minutes down to under 10 seconds. And Adam is,

you know, my COO and does a lot. And he's telling me that we should take a half an hour to do inventory in the trucks. And I say, we should be able to do it every other week and do it in under five minutes. And it's great.

It's literally, I think we could get it to under three minutes, but we're going to have to demand more out of our technicians. We're going to have to demand more. I want to demand more out of everybody. If I'm going to go be a billion dollar company, everybody's going to have to pull their weight. You're only as strong as the weakest link. And I don't think people understand that. Well, you've seen how Paul Akers has it with his warehouse where he has these slips of paper. So in their warehouse, yeah, the the different, yeah, the common bonds. I've kind of tried to incorporate that with our inventory room to where we have a bin.

It has an item number and it has a reorder number. As soon as we're taking an item out and when the point comes where there's the minimum number that's on the bin, we have to reorder. And all you do is pick up your phone and type in the device magic, which you taught me about that too. And it shoots it out. So instead of us taking time to do inventory, we're doing it all the time, basically. So as long as that process is followed, you never have to take time to do it. You can do a similar thing, I think, with your trucks. You know, there's 25 guys that messed up inventory out of over 150. Now they all got written up.

And the second time they get three days off. So there's a will and there's a way problem. If they have the will, I'll find the way, but a lot of these people, they, they won't do it. They won't drive good unless you got a dual camera,

which I've got Linux now in every single one of my trucks. So I kind of inspect what I expect a lot more, but it could only get better. One of the questions was, what's the single biggest reason for your success so far? I think the single biggest reason for my success is probably the single biggest reason for your success, Tommy. And that is singularly focused. It's kind of like, this is all I've done for the last six years. I haven't done anything else. I haven't started other businesses. I haven't worried about real estate. I haven't even worried about paying myself. It's just focusing on the company and

growing the company right now. People ask me all the time for other business opportunities. I think early on, it's really easy because it's really, really hard early on to start to think about what else you could be doing. All of those things. So one of the things that I did, 2018 was hard. 2018 was my first full year in business. I graduated college in 2017. So 2018 was the first full year.

2018 was hard. That was the first time I ever had full-time employees. First time I had an office space, all that stuff. I remember what's funny is that I remember in April thinking to myself, how in the world do people ever do this? It makes no sense to me. How do you hire someone and train them and discipline them? And then you don't have to actually be at the job. And I used to struggle, man. I used to struggle. Is this even worth it? Because I could literally go to school, grad school right used to struggle. Is this even worth it? Because I could literally go to school, grad school right now, get an MBA, live it up, pay for it all with the money that I

generated from pressure washing. Is it even worth it? And I told myself, you know what? I told myself that until I was 25, so that was three years at the time, that I wasn't going to even think about anything else. And here we are. And I set it now to 30. Until I'm 30, I'm not doing anything else. So for me, I think that's what it is. When my football coach in college, I really liked him a lot. I mean, I had a lot of respect for him, the head football coach at my school. I thought he was a great guy, just a lot of respect for him. I remember there was a team meeting that we all had and it was a small college, man. There was 1200 students, Maryville college. Like I said, division three program, not glamorous. You know, everyone, all the guys on the team,

not all of them, but a lot of the guys on the team think they're going straight to the NFL the next year. I don't know about you, Tommy, but it doesn't seem very logical to me. He got up in front of our team and he talked about how, you know, all the guys would always talk about transferring. Yep, I'm going to transfer me too. I'm going to transfer all the stuff, right? He got in front of the team and I'll never forget this. He was talking about how the grass is not greener

on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it, cut it, fertilize it, and where you care for it. And so I think that there's a lot of business owners that, you know, they're not focused on their main thing. They're getting distracted when if they've focused on their main thing, they'd be able to have a healthy, successful company. It doesn't have to be sexy. And I think a lot of people think the idea of entrepreneurship is sexy. You know, I look at Elon Musk and, you know, all these guys and it's great. He fell into solar. You know, I always thought,

what would my life be like? Because I'm going to tell you, I didn't get lucky with garage doors. Everybody and their brother has a garage door company. There's 700 of them here in Phoenix. People are like, geez, garage doors, that's where it's at. I'm like, dude, throw me in the middle of an article. I have a business that kills it. But the big thing is, you're right. It is ultimate focus. It's the fact that you say no. Steve Jobs got interviewed in the second interview before he died. And he said, I'm most proud of my team and what we've accomplished on what we decided to say no to.

They said no to so many things. And he said we would have never had the apple watch and the the ipad and the ipods and they would have never had itunes if they said yes to everything he's most proud of what they said no to i've got quite a few books here oh i know this is a good one the art of saying no and uh essentialism and the one thing that I always talk about, but learn how to say no. How to stand your ground, reclaim your time and energy and refuse to be taken for granted. So I'll tell you this real quick, Wesley, is I don't really say I'm not good at saying no. I'm an entrepreneur. So I say, sure, just not right now.

Because it's hard in my brain to say no to we're like, shit, that seems easy. You know, yes, that's fine. I like it, but just not right now. Yeah. And I think it's not just saying no to other business opportunities. I think it's also saying no within your own business in terms of like, for example, services, you know, in my industry, it's all about roof cleaning, right? Roof cleaning, it generates the highest average ticket. You can have the highest man hour, but it's also like a pretty complex thing if you really don't know what you're doing. So you think about a lot of the guys in my industry are doing roofs, they're washing houses,

cleaning your flat work, your driveways, your walkways, things like that. They're also doing under cleaning, gutters, interior, exterior windows, gutter brightening. That's a lot of stuff. Then they throw in Christmas lights. How are you supposed to be good at any of that when you're doing all of that? So for us, we only did flat work for the first year. Years two, three, flat work in houses. Year four, I threw in windows, exterior only. Year five, roofs. Now we're doing roofs. So it's kind of one-at-a-time process to where our quality is not going to suffer. Our systems and processes for existing services are already... We can hire someone and two weeks later, they're on the ground. Now, can we improve on it? Absolutely. But I think part of it, not just that either. I think also you got to say no to... We have a

really small service area. We're in Atlanta. Atlanta is pretty big. It's easy to say yes to all the leads that come in. For us, one of the biggest focuses that I've done is I've focused on density. We have a 10-mile radius almost that we service, and that's it. So it's kind of like we can have the people that live in the neighborhoods, they see us every day. They see our yard signs every day. And so, you know, it's one of those things where it's not just saying no outside of your business, but you don't have to add all those services. You don't have to have this massive service area. You can still be successful and not do all those things. So that's one of the things too, I think that has contributed as well

is that. I love this because you can work half as hard to make twice as much realistically you know there's a good buddy of mine josh campbell in dallas fort worth area and he he's like i specialize in these areas why because they're 4 000 square feet meaning they have more than just a 5 10 unit meaning i could get double the amount of money because there's twice as much work part of my training so the apprentice for four to six weeks they come here for four to six weeks and they're on a field supervisor program for three months but they're still out there running jobs they do friends and family for the first month hopefully with our new program but the reason they come to phoenix is people say what wow you you put them up you put them in a plane

if they don't meet me if they don't get to know me if they don't get to know our management team if they don't get to meet their dispatchers there's such a missing piece that i don't get to know me, if they don't get to know our management team, if they don't get to meet their dispatchers, there's such a missing piece that I don't think a lot of people understand and care about that. You know, most owners are like, yes, Joe Schmoe. You know, I feel bad. I've got a list right here of all the phone numbers because I'm actually text messaging every employee happy holidays and also seeing if they'll check us out on Glassdoor. I think in all seriousness, though, I think that's one of the things that I admire

most about you, Tommy, is that you have a huge company with hundreds of employees, and yet you have a relationship with all of them to some extent. Even the guys- Big Buck Hunter with three of the dispatchers, three of the gals. I still reside on the highest score on Big Buck Hunter. But we were just playing and they're like, this guy's pretty cool. They're like, he's just playing Big Buck Hunter on our break. So I have fun. The biggest thing for me is have fun.

If you don't like what you're doing, enjoy the ride. It's not all about the destination. I agree 100%. I mean, when they know you, Tommy, they're willing to work for you. One of the biggest takeaways I got from one of your previous podcasts is how you have things set up with how you don't do any of the disciplining. All you do is the appreciation, the good stuff. And one of the things that I really caught on was you said, that way, when they get fired, they're not going to go and slash my tires and key my trucks because they wouldn't want to do that to Tommy they're not going to talk about about a1 they're going to say man my manager was awful but it's a great company you know what it's a cool company I like the owner

but this guy is such an asshole I like I make it right yeah bad guy when I hired Adam I said could you be a bad cop and he goes yeah I could be a good bad cop. I've got a lot of managers that are really good at it. It's kind of funny because I had Kenny Chapman in here, Blue Collar Success. He's very, very successful in the home service space. I mean, these guys were teaching schools before the schools were really out. And I said, Kenny, before you leave,

we were kind of rushed because I had to get to that big client. I said, give me one thing for my meeting tomorrow, Thursday morning. I said to tell the guys, and he said, Tommy, the one thing is right now we're going through a lot of trials. Right now people are losing their confidence. You need to make sure that you're confident and your message is simple and transfer that confidence when people buy. Don't confuse them. Do not confuse them. Make your message simple. You are the authority.

You are the confident one. And if you can transfer that confidence to the client to believe in you and your company, you'll be successful. So I talk a lot about this, but eye contact, buying language, and tonality. And then obviously the words we use. I've got all the words right here. Instead of contract, we call it an agreement and there's all these all these cool words that joe chrysara told me in maximum influence and i'll just mention a few right here because i got a bookmark is instead of contract

say agreement instead of sign here say can you okay the paperwork instead of cancellation you say the right of rescission instead of of salesperson, you say business consultant. Instead of commission, you say fees for services. Instead of cost, you say investment. Instead of credit card, you say form of payment. Instead of objection, you say area of concern. Instead of expensive, you say top of the line. Cheaper, you say more economical.

Service charge, you say processing fee. Problem is a challenge. Appointment is time to visit. And there's more but i love learning about this stuff and the words matter but like three percent the biggest things matter is the way we say it you know mr wesley your door it needs new cape let me tell you something this door is not safe and i want to get it fixed. You want to make it safe, don't you? Absolutely. Yeah, well, listen, let's get this done.

Because here, I do not want to come out here in three weeks. We had a spring break two weeks ago. We were there the week before. We did a tune-up. But guess what? In service time, we offered springs, and we said, based on the math, these are 10,000 cycle springs. You live in the house eight years.

You use the door this many times. They're due. Guess what? The spring broke the next week. We ended up with a one star on Yelp. And they think we don't adjust springs. So the people think the people didn't need it. That's why I didn't sell it. And they're so full of shit.

The people don't need, you don't need an office. You don't need a computer screen. You don't need a house. You need food, water, and some shelter. That's all that people need. So it's your job not to tell people what they need. Your job is to give them options. The CEO of Service Center, I talk about this a lot.

He called out one of his top clients, repairman for the air conditioning. He said, I want this XJ11 11 47 the best air conditioner in the business it's self-lubricating blah blah blah blah and the guy says oh you don't want that it's too expensive he goes no no i just told you i wanted it and it reminds me because yesterday with my client and i was pissed he called someone else he called another guy from the same company and he said, give me my freaking unit. You know, it's our job to identify where you're at in the buyer's ladder. So have you pictured this book, a ladder? There's different prongs here that you're climbing up.

The customer, if you're on the bottom ladder of the buying, you're not going to get them all the way up all those legs. A lot of times people are here. We talk ourselves out of the cell. They're right at the top. You shut the hell up and take their order. But if they're in the middle, we can get them up the few prongs in the buyer's decision. And it's our job to identify and train and work with people on how to get to that top of the ladder. That's the buying decision.

That's when I'm in. I'm committed. And you buy with emotion and backing up with logic and we train our guys i mean we go through this profiling there's nothing wrong and like i said earlier with the church we sell i'm sorry everybody sells you have a girlfriend i did what you sold her on you didn't you i did yeah there's a good book by daniel pink called the seller's human and it just bugs me because people say, Ooh, all they do is talk about sales. How the hell do you want me to pay the bills with my good looks? Wells Fargo doesn't take good looks as a payment. So I tried

it. It didn't work. Yeah. I'm a big seller be sold fan. Big Grant Cardone seller be sold. That book, I think for me, I read that in college. For me, that was the book that made me really realize all those things. So we have all of our guys read that book. For us, we talk about the customer calls us because of what they notice, not because of what they need. And it's our job to figure that out. Now, I don't mean need in the same way that you mean need. I mean it more like someone walks outside to grill, they slip a little bit on their patio, hey, I need to clean my patio. No, no, no, you don't need to clean your patio, you need to clean everything because you've lived here for 10 years and you've never cleaned it. Why would you have a

million dollar house if you don't want to enjoy it? And so that's for us. And here's a perfect example for you, Tommy. Our average ticket is $1,000. We're doing a $8,800 residential job right now. It's the largest residential job that we've ever done. It is $400. No, it is $600 higher than the previous largest residential job. So it's a big deal, right? My technician gets there today, upsells $3,500 more. So even though for us, we're thinking, man, this is big. This is it. If one of our technicians can

go in there and upsell $3,500 of additional work on the same property, why aren't we doing that more? Why weren't we getting that the first time? I'm telling you, it's because of the fact that we were probably of the mentality of what you were saying. It's like, there's a wall in the front of their property. It's not that bad. Why bring it up? It's not your job to decide what's right for that customer. And idiot guys in my industry and most of other industries think it's better off. Ooh, I would never do that. That's a rip off. You know what I i would never do i never decide for the customer they might want financing because they're smart like i am and i love samus cash because the dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow but they go oh they're financing is for idiots and poor people

dude i could write i'm gonna write another book i'll tell you about it you should man your first book was good i read it uh first you came out with the hard copy you made me actually read a physical book which i hadn't done all year but but I had no option. So I read that physical book. Then you came out with the audio books. Then I had both. And yeah, I think it's time for you to bring out another one. It's been a couple of years now. Dude, let me tell you who I came up with it this morning. So I'm going to have about 10 subjects in business, everything from hiring, recruiting, orienting to structuring the depth chart and the org chart to building culture, you name it. And then I'm going to get 40 of the smartest badasses that I know. And I've not even started this.

I just got the idea. It might be 50, might be 30. And I'm going to have them tell two funny, awesome, amazing stories that taught them the most in their life about business in each of these sectors. And I'm going to pick the best, the best, and there's my book. And I'm going to comment in between. And guess what? All these people have 10,000 fans. And guess what? 10,000 fans times 40 is 40,000 to start. It's kind of cheating. I stack the deck whenever I can, but it's going to be a fun book. You reminded me of a story. There's this guy and he's in sales.

OK, he works at a department store. We'll just call it Dillard's. I used to sell women's shoes at Dillard's. You know the story that I know? Yeah, I know the book because you told me to read it. I did. Oh, for now, baby. So go for now. And I've already mentioned this, but if you missed the podcast i'll mention it again because it's right on topic and the other one i talked about it wasn't live like this so this guy freaking goes to town leather jacket belt nice suit i mean the guy spends a couple grand whatever it was lots and lots of money and uh the guy feels good the sales guy goes dude that's a record he's

pretty confident he's just like dude killed it and the boss walks over to him and he goes that's good man good job but what happened he goes i think i just set a record is what happened he goes no no no no when did the customer say no because what do you mean he said yes to everything i put it in front of him he goes well i still see merchandise on the floor with his eyes he goes why did you stop well he spent two grand well he might have spent 20 000 he might have got everything sent back to his yacht you don't know and it's not your job to judge. So our job is to go for no. Now, there's a difference between lying, cheating, and stealing. Kicking safety eyes off and doing bad stuff or throwing stuff on a wall to make it look dirty so you could power wash it. I don't

know how you cheat in your business. I know there's a lot of cheaters that don't diagnose stuff right, but I go to a brand new opener and it's a genie. I'll say, sir, let me show you something. It's called the MyQ technology. Amazon can deliver packages into your garage. It's so cool. Do you ever leave the house and wonder if your garage was left open? Do you ever travel? Do you have kids? Do you have anybody that would need to gain access to the house when you're not home? Why not offer it? People go, oh my God, that's so cool. I want that. Even though it's a brand new opener, but a lot of people feel bad. They go, ooh, they're naughty. They should have never did that. They're evil. I absolutely disagree with any company that doesn't give options. A hundred percent. That's one of the big things, Tommy, we did this year for the first time

was we actually started giving them every option, whether they asked for it or not. And our average ticket doubled. I love doing this with you, man, because we could just jive all day. Mitch Wood, one of my homies, he's been out here several times. He wants to know what review collection software you like the most for power washing.

So we use Broadly. That's who we've always used. We've never used anyone else. So I don't know if it's good or bad, but it works for us and we like it. And that's what we've been sticking with. Broadly works well. Service site, most people don't know this,

but Marketing Pro is a new one. They came out for reputation management. What I like, the biggest thing for me is I can't reward people if it doesn't have the right attribution. So people say you got to put your name in it. Then you got someone trying to read reviews looking for their name. So the service said what I like about their software that we haven't integrated yet is

100% attribution. Now I could gamify it, right? When I start gamifying it, you're going to watch it quadruple. And one thing I could give tips to everybody out there listening is the customers don't give a shit about Joe Schmoe A1 or the company. They care about the technician. So if they say, look, I'm in this competition. The boss is going to take me out to a dinner for me and my wife.

He's also going to pay for the babysitter. So I really need this, Wesley. So if you leave me two reviews, did I do five out of five service fee? Because that's what we're committed to. First, that's the first question. Yes did I do five out of five service fee? Because that's what we're committed to. First, that's the first question. Yes, you did five out of five. I already know they were happy. You could just tell if a customer's happy.

So you're not doing anything, asking them, I'm adamant about doing this the right way. But then you say, look, we're in a contest. And if you mentioned my name, because I like to get mentioned because then people call me and they ask for me on Yelp and Google. If you'll mention me, I can win this steak dinner with the boss.

And I'm trying to get a promotion. I'm trying to become a field supervisor. If you can make this happen for me, it'd mean a lot. Did you like me? You did? Well, listen, you're going to get a text message in about five minutes. If you go do it right away, I'll love you forever. Here's a business card.

We just went over your warranty information. I gave you your serial number. I ran the door three times for you so you know if anything you heard out there you're uncomfortable with. I taught you how everything works and you seem happy to me. So go ahead and hook me up. And guess what? They will.

They will actually do it if you ask them. It's a crazy thing what happens when you ask people stuff and they actually do it. Now, I agree. One of the things that we started doing on the review front, we've used Broadly the whole time. So we used Broadly last year. We got a good amount of reviews. We definitely do. One of the things that we did this year, which was new, I got a new air conditioning unit and the technicians, when they came out, they gave a piece of... I wasn't even there. I never met him. My dad was at my house when I got the new unit installed and they handed him a piece of... I wasn't even there. I never met him. My dad was at my house when I got the new Unix installed and they handed him a piece of paper. It's a piece of paper, it has the screenshots on Google and it has the people's names. That's it. That's all of it. Super simple. Well, they

gave it to him. Well, my dad set it on the counter and I walked past it probably 30 times. And eventually I was like, you know what? I'm going to write these guys a review. Never met him, wrote him a review. I got a review last week on Yelp. The first line of the review is my review is for Michael Goss, an employee of Wiseguy's Pro Wash. The whole review is about Michael, even because that we as a company did not provide him with adequate warmth, like clothing to keep warm.

Yeah. They thought how awesome he is and unfortunately you know he works for me so therefore it's a it's good for us so but the perfect example that's what we talk about too is that it's yeah they don't care about wise guys they care about those technicians i think that's so yeah what i would do is whichever review software you're using for regeneration just i'm telling you try the paper thing just hand a piece of paper because that you know there's people that know, they're not checking their email as much as others. They'll set that paper down. They'll do what I did. I could pick you up some more reviews. I like it. I like stacking the deck and doing whatever we can. And I'm the type

of guy that if, if you like me, I'm not going to ask you to leave a review. I'm going to ask you to leave me 10. I'm going to ask you to leave a review on everything. I'm going gonna ask you to leave me 10 i'm gonna ask you to leave a review on everything i'm gonna i'm gonna ask you for facebook next door google yelp engine home advisor bbb thumbtack i'm gonna have you go on everything take a picture of me take a quick video post this because my boss loves it this guy eric products that works for me amazing guy good at sales great with customers he gets five videos a week and he has them all say A1 from day one. And it's super cool. And then the stuff goes viral. I love talking about this stuff. So you've had some, I'm sure, some self-limiting beliefs in the past.

Do you want to share with me some things that maybe you were able to get out of your own head and just move beyond? I mean, yeah, man. I had some self-limiting beliefs this year. You know, I mean, We did about 650 last year. Right when COVID hit and all that stuff, no one knows what's going on. I remember putting our budget together for 2020 and seeing that we were going to have to have multiple $100,000 months, 100,000 plus months, and just being overwhelmed of how are we going to do that

when we've never even done it once? So what I did was I just spent a lot of time looking at the budget, man. I wrote the goals up. I've got this calendar next to me, one of the dry erase calendars that I write, and I have got our monthly goals on there. And so I see it every single day. So the numbers originally, when you look at it, they're scary. You're like, how are we possibly going to do that? But then when you look at them more and more, they start to become normal. And then you're not even, you know, then it's not even. So that's one of the things for me this year was that.

Another example of it was with people, you know, in terms of, you know, in the beginning, for a lot of people, it's hard in the beginning to hire people and to keep them. And I remember thinking to myself, I had a lot of turnover the first couple of years. And it was like, man, some people have worked at companies for 10, 15 years, two years. I'm like, I can't even get a person to last more than a couple of months. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to do that. And so now I've got a technician that's been with me since the beginning, which is multiple years now. And that was a big fear of mine as well.

I don't think that goes away, Tommy. I mean, you tell me, man, you're at a much different place than I am. You're far, you know, further along the journey than I am. The way I like to see it is that you're 12 years ahead of me. I'm chasing you now, just so you know. 11. Let's do the math. I'm 37. Let me explain something to you

my my self-disbelief my self thoughts are i wake every day and i say i'm gonna do a billion everybody around me says dude you're a freaking lunatic my self-belief is i'm better than i am i'm the most cocky you know i call it call it confidence. But I think, F you. I'm going to freaking take this world and make it my bitch. I mean, literally, I feel like I'm going to take over the world. I feel like I have a vision, a vision that's so unstoppable that you couldn't even touch me if I gave you my playbook. Because you can't fulfill it. You're not accountable.

You're not disciplined. You're not going to wake up and do what I do. I get more sleep. I've got my trainer coming in today at five 30. Then I'm going to get a haircut. Then I'm going out to dinner. That's what's going on tonight. But literally I am literally, you know what our budget next year, 70 million, I'm going to squash that. I'm going to open up 40 new markets next year. That's zero. At what point, how far into this did you start to gain that? Because I know that part of it is that you've done it, right? Like you had a goal.

I'm sure you remember back before you hit a million. A million was like it just kind of was like five million was there without any help, without Adam. But what happened, I say 2014 was very pivotal because it wasn't the Tommy show. It was the Tommy and Adam show. We called the TNA show. And then two years later, we started to get a lot more great managers. And I got to say, my mom and stepdad were the most amazing pivotal thing when they moved out in 2010 and helped me. But me and Adam were just, we were every weekend getting together, having beers, coming up with processes, doing equations. And then finally, we've got the most amazing team

that have a stake in the outcome now. So it's just been a blast. And the biggest thing is I got to tell you is if my job was getting harder, I'd probably want to quit at this point, but it just gets easier. I get more and more and more focused. My job becomes this, this, this, this, to where it's a small little rifle shot. Now I believe my job is to control the finances in a certain regards, even though we've got a huge team that does that, but keep an eye on it. I love marketing and I love being the guy that's up there pumping everybody up, the culture maker. And I think I figure stuff out. I look at something and I go, we need another person in this. We need to get this smaller, more focused.

And a lot of employees doing a lot of things. Why not have one employee that's focused on one thing and that's their accountability? And so many people say, well, they're not busy the whole time. So we're going to have them do all three of these things. Well, guess what? They drop all the balls. They get nothing done. There's a lot of people that replace productivity with activity. There's that same word that comes in the back, but they don't get shit done. They work 80 hours a week. I used to have people that worked for me. They'd be there earlier than I came in and they were there after. And then I go, what'd you get done today? You seem to be working. You know, some people in their minds, they go, they're always working and they really are.

It's kind of like the person you see at the gym that works out two hours a day and they're still fricking fat. You know what I mean? They work out all the time. And I'm like, how in the hell is this person? And you know what? There's genetics.

And I'm not trying to come down on that because literally that's the last thing I'm trying to do is. You're not trying to fat shame Tommy. It sounds bad, but you know, it's the same thing. You see these people, they're just work, fat shame tommy it sounds bad but you know it's the same thing you see these people they're just work work work work work work i've got a technician that works his balls off man i mean the guy works all the time and he's got a really good ticket average but i'm like dude just offer more doors my number one guy in the company right now guess

what he does at every job unless it's a new door sir let me ask you this we did a lot of repairs on this have you ever thought about replacing it ask you this we did a lot of repairs on this have you ever thought about replacing it because i could probably get a lot of this stuff just pushed over to your bill on the new door and now we're talking about a brand new door and there's a lot of pride of ownership it's a good investment in fact it's a 102 return on investment it's the number one thing on your home it's better than your kitchen or your bathroom and it's the number one thing on your home. It's better than your kitchen or your bathroom. And it's the only thing in the history of homes that'll give you more than 100% return on investment. It came out three years in a row on Room Model Magazine.

Can I put you down for two? No, I'm just kidding. I don't. I get so into this stuff because so many people, they have these self-limiting doubts and they get their plans together and they're working on their org charts. And when do I get started? There's no time better than today.

Let me just tell you that. There's no time better than now. They're waiting for their new years. Like in January 1st is when I'm going to start. I'm like, dude, start right now. And my next year's plan, we had to take our whole budget of $80 million and pivot backwards. And I'm like, $80 million is a fart in the wind. I look at $80 million.

Shit, that's a lot of money. This year alone, I put over $7 million in the bottom line. But I don't feel like it. I mean, you got the old truck. I don't know if you can see it, but the old Titan's still there kicking. What's up with that, Tommy? why don't you tell the listeners about how you almost got rid of that titan and you brought it back well i told yeah i told wesley i said uh i had a brand new truck they said hey dude we got a really smoking deal on this and i

man this thing had like this huge ipad thing in the middle and it was like inspector gadget and I was like you know it was like it had the thing that came down and you walk up and I was like I almost felt like guilty driving it it was like what in the hell I mean all eyes and then I had 20 employees pile around this thing and they're all like dude hell yeah I'm not this guy first of all I don't mind picking up drinks or anything and I'm not the guy that walks in all. I don't mind picking up drinks or anything. And I'm not the guy that walks in in a brand new tuxedo. Maybe one day. But I just felt too flashy.

All the employees, it was almost like a kick in the face to them. And I said, you know what? Every single person in my company, at least my technicians and installers and my product specialists are going to have a new vehicle. Anybody that depends on a new vehicle to drive around, they need a new vehicle before I get one. And we're almost there. And I got my eye out. It's cheap to buy a brand new vehicle.

So I'm going to get it with like 15,000 to 20,000 miles. I don't know why. I mean, this is not cocky, but I could buy 100 new vehicles today. And I'm not being facetious. Why is vehicles just not important to you in terms of, I know you could get you a nice car now. It's number one, it's flashy. Number two is point A to point B. Number three is I bought a 19-plex. I bought a five-plex. I bought this building. I bought the automotive shop. I got a house in Michigan. I bought another house in Paradise Valley. All those are assets that have returned

on my investment. They are actually, you know what? This house I bought, I'm 500,000 up in a year. Today in Bitcoin, between yesterday and today, I'm up 140,000. Not a bad day, but it's kind of like the casino. You don't make the money until you sell it, right? You don't make the money. Everybody talks about when they're up at the casino until they lose it all. So it sounds great.

And Bitcoin is not where all my money's at. I just have enough that if it goes up, I'm happy. If it goes down, oh, well, it's not the end of my life. Do you invest? What are your goals? This is what you need to talk about. You need to talk about what you're going to invest in and what your plan is. And do you have a plan? You're at 30 right now. You said what your plan is to get to 30 and then reevaluate. But I mean, you got to really think what kind of lifestyle do you want to live? Do you want to have kids? What is in the mind?

So my whole plan, Tommy is to, you know, work really hard now and get a really good base put together to the point where I'm in my thirties. I can have a family and do so in a manner where I can spend time with them and I'm not necessarily needed anymore. Not that I'm not going to work, you know, not that I'm not going to work probably more than most. I'm not trying to do the four hour work week or anything like that, but it's just more of, I think it's that level of freedom. You know, I want to be a great father one day. That's part of the reason why I haven't had kids yet. I'm not the guy that I want to be a great father one day. That's part of the reason why I haven't had kids yet.

I'm not the guy that I want to be yet. I'm not the business owner that I want to be. I'm not the boyfriend that I want to be. The boyfriend? No. Yeah, so for me, that's kind of how I look at it is that the way I see it, Tommy, is I'm not even really worried about losing at all. I don't even really care. I just want to continue to get better and continue to learn. And the way I see it is that if I continue to do that,

that at some point, that point of no return is going to take place for me. So that's my plan is just continuing to keep money in the company, continuing to stack cash there. I'm going to start buying competitors. We're going to start opening up other locations. And we're going to have an unbelievable amount of cash ready to go in terms of the discipline of keeping it there. For me, I live in a townhome. I have four roommates that pay my rent and that's the money that I live off of essentially. And I drive a company vehicle and I wear a uniform pretty much every day. It's hard to spend money when you're working a ton and by a ton, you know, like get here at 5 45, I leave here at 7 PM every day. And, um, that's kind of my plan, man, is just to focus on getting better every single day in terms of personally, but also as a company and for the next

five years. And, um, you know, I'm looking at potentially next year buying a building and renewing our lease. So, yeah, so that's kind of my plan there is be in a position to where I could continue with this company where I could sell it and do something else. But until then, it doesn't really matter what I do. We've got to tighten up the systems and processes. And that's where it all starts. It's kind of like, do I want to franchise? Do I want to do what you're doing right now from a corporate standpoint? Either way, it doesn't really matter. You got to have the systems and processes in place and the training and all that good stuff and the culture and stuff like that.

So that's what I'm fully focused on right now. So one of the things I want you to start thinking about is relocating your corporation in Delaware. I want you to think about a trademark. I want you to be protected. If you want a good trademark attorney, mine would be good, but it charges a hell of a lot of money. But you want to pay. You don't want to go to one of these fake little things online when it comes to this shit. And you should start thinking about a trust and then understand that taxes,

smart people are not paying. Amazon doesn't pay taxes. The laws that are out there, you got to use them to your benefit. I still pay a lot of taxes, but we did a cost segregation study in my buildings. You know, I did accelerated depreciation of the vans because I'm buying more next year. So you got to play by the book, but also understand there's no one at the IRS that says, man, I can't wait to pay more money. I can't wait to pay more money. You know what?

If I wanted to pay more money, Salvation Army, two days ago, we committed the whole day to them. We're doing a toy drive. Last week, two days in a row, we did shop with a cop. We went out and we were shopping for kids. We donated $10,000. I put my money straight to the bottom line to a good cause. I don't need the IRS and the Congress taking it. I pay a lot of taxes, by the way.

But I wanted to say a few things. There's a guy named Darren Hardy. And if you get this pretty cool living your best life ever i'm probably gonna get him on the podcast because now my goal is to just get amazing guys like you on the podcast and he wrote this little piece and he also wrote it in his book called the compound effect but he said you know he goes i always pictured a wife blonde hair blue eyes 127 eyes, 127 pounds, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know what I'm going to say? He wrote down the 100 things he wanted in his wife. And he said, wait a second.

Who do I need to become? And I got to tell you this. I think I'm a good friend, but I definitely don't keep in touch with my buddies as much. I think I'm good at a lot of things, but I'm not the best. I'm not the best I could be. And I like what you said there, becoming the best version of yourself and living it every single day. And then bringing a child into this world and being a role model.

And that's the day that your life becomes less valuable than anyone else's. I can remember, Tommy, specifically when I read the compound effect. I can remember where I was. I was literally pressure washing in a business parking lot. I was cleaning the curbs. And I remember specifically when he said that. For me, that was the turning point when my mentality changed. I think it's the same thing with employees, too.

You have to be someone to be worth working for and i'm a millennial tommy i don't know if you know that man i'm a man believe it or not 83 was still a millennial and so you got you're the oldest millennial you can be the oldest of the millennial tree you know i'm outside when i was a kid believe it or not i'm like one of the younger millennials like kind of on the bottom of the spectrum. You know, I shouldn't have the bottom of the spectrum. The more we talk to each other. Yeah.

And I, you know, and my entire company, you know, I hired my first employee that is over. I have one employee. That's an outlier. Everyone else. The average is 25. We're literally a group of millennials who, if you listen to these older guys that have been in business for a while, they don't exist. No one wants to work hard. No one wants to get dirty. And yet here we are. And I think the compound effect is perfect, not only for marriage, but also for that is like, Tommy, you have a great team,

but if you weren't a great leader, you wouldn't have that great team. If you didn't create an environment for A1 for where people want to work, you wouldn't have great people working there. Adam would work with me if you weren't nice to him well Adam's got a big stake in the outcome you know the big thing is all these guys are performance pay everybody that works for me and we did the same thing as you did after after that so they think one of the takeaways Tommy is executing you know I don't know if you notice this time I've read every single book that you told me to read every single one you said you can come out and visit i said are you are you i don't know if

you remember i said are you sure because you realize like you didn't invite me actually i'm coming out in the summer as soon as this damn coven's done but i'm not getting my ass in that cold weather in atlanta i moved away from michigan for a reason it's not that cold you know i mean right now it's 37 so i guess but but yeah i think that's the biggest thing tom is actually doing that you know actually taking the action start taking you know everybody says they're gonna do this and they're so afraid you know i told all my guys yesterday yesterday was wednesday we get we jump on a meeting all my um area managers and i said if you guys i said imagine this i want you to feel this way about every employee that when you interview them and you check their credentials and you take them out to lunch and you drive in their car.

And I want you to picture this in your mind. Pretend we had two guys, too many in your market, in any of the markets you're managing. Pretend we didn't have enough jobs. But I want you to feel so confident about this person, guy or gal, that you're going to tell me, Tommy, you need to figure out a way to get more leads because this person has to be a part of our team. I love this person. And I'll put everything I have behind this person because they are not an A player, but they're an A plus, plus 100%, kick ass, 200%. I love this person. And you won't even understand.

It's going to make the company a better place. Because I said the problem is we hire too much out of desperateness. I love this person. And you won't even understand, it's gonna make the company a better place. Because I said, the problem is we hire too much out of desperateness. I got more calls and I'm talking to my guy for marketing and we're looking at all these different KPIs and different things. We're looking at density. We're looking at what's our average ticket.

We're looking at what's our cancellation rate. We've got all these KPIs. And I said, the way I built my budget is opposite of most people. I said, you know, the way I built my budget is opposite of most people. I said, how many great technicians could I hire? Because I can make the phone ring off the hook. So if I get a guy that's going to show up, he's going to smile. He's going to get great reviews, good conversion rate, good average ticket,

give people options and sell. I'll make the phone ring off the hook. I know for a fact that. So I'm the opposite when I built my budget. And people think, man, so you're just doing it based on how many guys you get. And I'm like, yeah. So I'm the opposite when I built my budget and people think, man, so you're just doing it based on how many guys you get. And I'm like, yeah, so guess what? Now I got four recruiters. Now I do personality profiling. Now I check every reference and referral they have. I'm literally going through, we're going to start taking every guy out to lunch. We're going to drive in their

car. We're reading a good book right now. And this is a secret weapon. So I shouldn't even be giving this out. It's called The Sales Boss by Jonathan Wissman. So actually, believe it or not, my book club was supposed to start at two o'clock. My two managers are going to walk in. They always say they're going to read and guess what happens? They don't read. So now we listen to it together. So this is the third time i'm listening to it and guess what after i get done listening to it with them the next one is my field supervisors then i'm doing my area managers so i will have listened to this book five times and i'm actually making cliff notes of it and everything else and the goal is i'm going to get him on the podcast and i'm like dude there's no one that read your book as much as me in the last period that's why

you gotta come on because that's why that's why you got me on your podcast, isn't it? Yeah. Because I just read your book so many times. You're like, you know, he's not as successful as your other guests, but let's get this guy on there. You're young and you went for it and you're hitting seven figures and you're definitely a guy that people should look up to. And not only people that are 30, 40, 50 years old, but you give a good thing for people. You went to college, you know, I got a master's degree sitting over there and I'm, I'm the garage door repair man. So I don't think you should feel bad about anything unless you're giving people

hope. I think everybody's seen one thing. We are essential. We are bad-ass dudes that work our butts off. And I don't care that I'm a garage door guy. I was pre-dental. I was going to go work at people's mouths. Then I went and interned with a dentist and he's like, don't do it. I love one of the Facebook posts that you made when COVID was really starting. And it was like comparing an attorney. It was basically in the post, it was about how a lot of your attorneys and all these fancy jobs are getting closed down but yet garages is still like it's like how about now like who's laughing now basically yeah well you know what right now movie theaters and look look i feel for the people this is not

you know this is once again i'm trying to reference just well there's like two economies right now tommy there is there's or you're seeking and i feel bad for a lot of people look you know what's so great is people go there's no good people out there and i say are you okay right now everybody i've got four guys training out of the 30 that ran their own restaurants okay these are the top diehards you're ever going to get there's no time in history that's been better than now to hire. We take people from all over the world, but most of the United States to answer phones. We set them up and we've got a great system now. So I've got 34 agents now taking calls from home. It's amazing. I can't wait. I mean, 2020 has been a shithole when you

think about everything. But for me, life gives us lemons. We make lemonade, right? And I'm sorry, but look, you can make excuses. And some people literally, I don't know what would happen if they closed our doors. If there was a tank out there that said, you can't leave this place. I mean, it'd be tough to turn those lemons into lemonade. And I understand if you got a restaurant and you can't open it. I mean, that sucks. Like I started making tough decisions. We had a whole Excel table. We had every employee, we rated them one out of 10. We said, who could we afford to lose if we have to? We've got to keep this company running for the rest of the people. So if we took our account from 250 down to 200, we still were feeding a thousand families. And thank God,

you know, we did very well through the whole process, but I want to go through my three favorite questions, and I'm guessing you know what they are. So number one, Wesley, somebody wants to reach out to you. They want to get a hold of you. They want to just chat with you. What's the best way to do that? Send me an email. My email address is wb at wgprowash.com. And I'm curious.

I got a quick question I'm going to throw in here and watch this. You ready? Yeah. Boom. Check that out. How do you, how do you all set up your performance pay? It's gotta be someone in the South. So for us, you know, we pay a percentage of the job that the technician does. So it's based off of that. If there were, we pay a percentage of the job that the technician does. So it's based off of that. If they're what we run, single man crews and two man crews. So if they're by themselves, they're not able to generate as much revenue. So therefore they get a higher percentage. If they're with two people, you know, two man crew, then, you know, they're going to get a lower percentage.

That's how we set that up. And then they get, you know, a higher percentage on upsells, things like that. Good. People say upsells. And for some reason, I just, I don't like the word upsells. I like, and I know you didn't do anything wrong, but I tell my guys, look, they are upsells. It's literally, we're selling more things and it's going up. Your cost is going up. But for me, I'm like, look, you gave them what they needed. I mean, they don't need it, but you gave them what's going to keep them from out. We are not going back. I don't like warranty calls and warranty calls.

The stem of warranty calls and anything that's mechanical is by non-replacement. It's by using old parts and thinking they're going to last. They go, Ooh, these look good. I look at fricking drums and I can find the marks that it's eating up and I inspect it and I show the customer show and tell. And I always saw anyways, three great books that you love. So I really like, you know, you said,

I really like double, double. Yeah. I think that's a really good book. I really like Double Double. Yeah, Double Double. I think that's a really good book. I'm a big fan of Brian Scudamore and 1-800-GOT-JOG, which is funny because now they're in our space. But it's okay, Brian. We'll be there too.

But it wasn't written by Brian. It was written by his COO at the time. But it talks about them. So I'm a big fan of that book. I should be more prepared timely because i i do listen to all your shows i like the five second rule i thought that was a good book by mel robbins i think you might have actually told me about that if i remember correctly it's not it's not five seconds to eat something off the ground you You got five seconds. Five, four, three, two, one.

You got five seconds to make a pivotal change. Get out of bed. Put that stuff in your grocery cart away. Whatever it is, you got five seconds and you count down backwards from five and watch. I am going to sprint for ten minutes.

I don't do that for ten minutes. You got three books. Is there any other ones you want to throw out there i mean i really like the book extreme ownership you know i'm sure that most people have read that at this point you've read that right tommy yeah yep i mean that's about the navy seal that basically that you are accountable for everything and you're a business owner you're accountable for everything. And if you're a business owner, you're accountable for everything good and bad. There's a flat tire, someone gets hurt, that's who they're calling. They're calling you. And until you accept extreme ownership, you're never going to be a better leader. That's a fact. One of the big things in the book was, you know, there's no such thing as bad teams, just poor leaders. They took a guy and it was during the Navy SEAL BUDGE training and they were

paddling, they were doing like a race, you know, they're racing. And there was one team, the Smurfs, the shorter guys, that would have been me, Tommy, you wouldn't have been in that with me. You're too tall for that. But you know, the Smurf team, Smurf guys, you know, they kept losing just over and over and over again, just over. And the thing is that if you lost, you're never going to break. So it just compounded on itself. They're more tired, therefore they're losing even more. And so they took the leader of the group that was winning and they swapped them and their results swapped immediately. The Smurfs started winning and the team that was winning before with the other leader was losing. So yeah, those were some big books for me. There's a good book called David and Goliath, I believe it is.

And he talks about these middle schoolers and it was a runt of a team. Anyways. Your middle school football story to me is fantastic. And I've used the hell out of that. So maybe you should retell that. Okay, real quick. So basically he said, the only way we we're gonna win guys is we're gonna outman him you ever heard of zone defense and he goes through and he goes what they did is you know

you pass it out of the court on one side and then you start blocking when they pass that no no they were all over the people right when they pass it from their own basket line so they just outperformed them so i'm in middle school eighth grade we're all out there i was. So I'm in middle school, eighth grade. We're all out there. I was a pretty big kid in comparison, but not the biggest. You're still a pretty big kid, Tommy. I mean, put 235 pounds of pure muscle. I guess not. So we're out there and Mr.

Dallin goes, all right, guys, this is my last year of coaching. He goes, you guys are all amazing human beings. And I didn't want to pretend, but I mean, there's some people that should have been definitely not make it. But, you know, we're in middle school. So I'm going to give you guys the option. He goes, do you want to go undefeated and win this year? Or do you want to make sure everybody gets a fair shot at playing?

And everybody's like, we want to win. We want to win, right? We want to win. And he's win, right? We want to win. And he's like, all right, there's about 10 of you guys that are going to have to play Ironman football. He goes, so you're going to be playing offense and defense, and we went undefeated that year, and it was freaking awesome. And I'll tell you this, if I could go back, hey, look, I remember one day, I almost got kicked off the bus

because my mom gave me an umbrella. We were playing football. I was like, no! But that was the story, right? Yeah, that was it. Yeah, that was it. I think basically the takeaway is that you want to put your best players in the biggest games. And as Tom Brady said on the Super Bowl, no.

Yeah, no. The thing is, is I always put, look, I want to take my best performer and give him five jobs before I give number two, one job. And then as the best job comes in, I'm going to slide them out and put that towards my number two, number three. Now there's several hundred, but you understand, did you say that all of your new employees read a book? Yeah. So seller be sold is the book that we read. And it's not just because of the sales component, but I think it's a mentality shift. Like exactly what Tommy's talking about, how even the preacher is selling. When I was playing football in college, we had to

go to a service as a team and I'm Catholic. I went to Catholic school. So they actually, I'm very accustomed to the offering whatever you said that yeah yes i'm very very familiar with that and i swear to you for 15 minutes during the service he was asking about you know he's painting the picture of the church and how great they're going to be and how they need this new facility and everyone's got to pitch in and they're going to do this together and all this stuff. And boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And for me, that was a turning point where I was like, man, this guy's like a salesman. And so seller be sold really kind of helps you think about it in other ways. You got to sell that girl to date you.

And someone's always buying and someone's always selling. In terms of picking the restaurant, where do you go out to eat? Selling is not just a financial thing. It's also an action thing and a thought process thing. And so that's part of the reason why we do it. That and Extreme Ownership. Those are the two books that we, I think it's a good combination of both. You take ownership, but you also are aware of what's going on around you.

And do you incentivize anybody to read it? No, I should. I probably should. I've read a couple of books recently on gamification, and it's you gamify within gamification. And the whole reason that might sound like I'm some oxymoron or something, but gamify within gamification means if someone's running off with the win, you're still going to get everybody else to participate.

And that could be having second, third, fourth place. But with a game within a game, you keep everybody playing. So we're going to come up with some good ideas. Wesley, the last thing I do is we talked about a ton of stuff and I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation and thoroughly enjoy you as a human being. I'm so glad you actually came out and visited and I promise you, I'm going to come out and visit you. You know, Brie loves you. You're a cool dude. And I have a lot of fun with you. So, you know, we talked about a lot. Maybe we didn't hit out a topic. Maybe you have some words of wisdom. Maybe you have some trials you went through. Maybe you don't have any business advice. Maybe it's about life or COVID or whatever it might be. But I'm going to give

you a few minutes to kind of give us and the listeners a final thoughts. Here's a total takeaway for you to think about. This is kind of give us and the listeners a final final thoughts here's a total takeaway for you to think about this is kind of what helps me stay motivated you know i i know tommy i know for you you have to wake up and watch a motivational video and all that stuff to get motivated before you come to work i know you're not you don't wake up excited enough so for me i don't do that either but one of the things that i like to think about is being extremely grateful. And it's kind of you think about all those that don't have the opportunities that you do and that are worse off than you are. And first, you know, it's kind of like think about all the people that, you know, die in horrific accidents with drunk drivers and all kinds of things that are outside of their control. I think it's your obligation to use the talents and gifts that you were given and the fact that you're still on this earth to continue to get better and to reach your potential, whatever that is. So that's really the biggest thing is to, you know, is to do that in the different areas of your life. And for those that can't, I don't know, it's not really

business related, Tommy, but I should have planned that out, but that's just what I was thinking. Yeah. I think that's important to thank God, you you know i've got my fingers and my feet and i've got my health and just that alone is more than a lot of people could say so you know i want to show you something real quick to end it i got this made and i've got a big one right behind it but can you read that it says i will be a billionaire i will be in the best mental and physical condition ever. I will be happy for what God has given me. I will feel fortunate for the team that supports me. I will possess consistency, accountability, discipline, and focus. Yes. And I get to read this all the time. So the billionaire thing is just, it's actually

an outcome of doing all the other ones. If I'm a billionaire, I'm going to change a lot of lives. So I'm not going to be skinny. Well, someone's got to be a billionaire, Tommy. Some like there's going to be a certain number of billionaires regardless. So the way I see it too is, you know, is I want to be one of those billionaires.

It's going to do good with it in terms of, you know, together, we'll stay friends. You might outlive me because you keep saying this 12 year crap, even though it's 11. But anyways, let's set up a trip and let's make sure we stay in contact, brother. We don't talk enough. And I really appreciate you coming on.

And I think this was killer. I love delivering value. And I think we did a lot of value here. Well, I appreciate that, Tommy. I think for the listeners, you know, look, I was just like you in terms of however many, you know, I used to listen to all these episodes and try to learn from it. And here we are, I'm actually on,

I never really thought that would be possible to be honest. So keep grinding out there and keep growing your businesses. All right, my man. Well, listen, have a great day. Let's catch up this weekend and stay safe out there in the slippery ice and

the 37 degrees. Well, you know, the ice doesn't form until 32. Zero degrees Celsius, actually. You know, it's 212 boiling Fahrenheit and 100 degrees Celsius. But the question is, let's talk about Kelvin. But we don't have to.

Anyways, you have an amazing day, my brother. All right, man. You too. All right. Peace out. Hey, guys. I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast. From the bottom of my heart, it means a lot to me.

And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast. Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe. You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on. And do me a quick favor. Leave a quick review.

It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review. Make it four or five sentences. Tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick, we started a membership. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company. And we're just, we're telling everybody our secrets basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time?

And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program. So check it out. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap. It's a monthly payment. I'm not making any money on it to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your lives even further. So thank you once again for listening to the podcast. I really appreciate it.