The Home Service Expert Podcast - Taking Control of Your Business Finances with Effective Tax Planning

Episode Date: May 3, 2019

Nellie Akalp is the CEO and founder of CorpNet. She specializes in engaging with small business owners, entrepreneurs, accountants, and other professionals and sharing advice and tips for business success. She has authored several books, and is a regular contributor for prominent publications in the industry. In this episode, we talked about tax auditing, bookkeeping, leadership...

Before we get the podcast going, I wanted to let you guys know that the Home Service Millionaire book is available now at homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash success. And it's for free. All you got to do is pay for shipping. It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash success. And it's a hardcover copy. And I put a lot of extra things in this book. So please be sure to order your book. And I also made it available on audio. Go to homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash audio and download your own audio book. Thanks. This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business.

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. Hey there, Home Service Experts. Tom Mello here back with the home service expert. I got Nellie Akelp here, and she's got a ton of experience when it comes to the legal aspect of running your business. Nellie, how's your day going today? Hey, Tommy. I'm great. How are you? I'm having a great day. I'm glad we got to catch up before the podcast started.

You have a great story. I really like to let the listeners know all about where you came from and what you've done. You had a huge success with selling your last company for multi-million dollars. And I just wanted you to catch them up like you did with me on everything that made you who you are today and about your success? Absolutely. So I'm an entrepreneur, business expert, and I speak a lot. I also have published several books and authored several books. I'm also a mother of four and partners with my husband, Phil Acab, who currently is my partner in our current business, corpnet.com. And truly, I've dedicated my entrepreneurial career to helping other entrepreneurs and business professionals in helping them succeed at business ownership and also the legal aspects of starting a business and also managing and running a business.

Currently, as CEO and founder of CorpNet. I've helped probably over half a million small business owners and licensed professionals get their business off the ground. I'm a very active, prominent business expert on most social media platforms. And really, my forte is engaging with small business owners and entrepreneurs, accountants, CPAs, home Insightful Accountants, Small Business Trends, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Mashable. And really, really what this stems from is my over 25 years of experience in having started multiple businesses and having sold one to a publicly traded company. So my passion is entrepreneurship. My passion is helping other small business owners and getting them to know the benefits of making sure their business is

legal and making sure they have all their T's crossed and I's dotted when it comes to business ownership and making sure that all the legal aspects of their business, including topics such as should I get incorporated? Should I set up an LLC? Passive protection, liability protection is all covered and they're covered from that basis. Yeah, that's really interesting because there's some new tax laws that just passed that I'm really excited for the listeners to hear more about.

And it sounds like you're an expert in that area. So I'm really excited to dig in. You know, the first question I always ask is when I started the business, the biggest thing is I was working so hard in my business. I was working 12 hours a day. I was literally destroying relationships. And I really took a step back and started working on the processes. I wanted to see for you, what was your biggest challenge? Obviously, being a mother of four, you're an author, you're a contributor everywhere, all business masterful. I mean, you named a ton of them. Tell me a little bit about your challenges for your career and how you overcame them.

So initially, when I first started my first business back in 1997, really, there was no challenges. It was a very, very, very unsaturated market for us when we launched our first company. And it was a perfect level playing field for us to get our foot in the door and start competing in the marketplace. And frankly, it was so fast. The business grew so fast that we had a hard time keeping up with it. And before we knew it, we were approached with somebody wanting to purchase us for a large sum of cash. So I would say most of my challenge has been with starting my current business at CorpNet. And I think the biggest challenge I have is we started CorpNet in the digital marketing age, which was back in 2009.

And we started a business in a very saturated market with tons and tons of other competitors offering the same services as we do today. But that didn't stop us because that's the beauty of entrepreneurship. You can't fail. And even if you do fail, you get up and you find another opportunity that presents itself. And for us, the biggest challenge was obviously gaining market share the second time around. And then balancing, for me personally, balancing what was required and running the business and growing the business versus what I was passionate about doing. And I had to balance that because any new business, it's like having a child and it's giving birth to a child. So you have to nourish it and you have to water it and you have to feed it so that it grows.

So for me, the biggest challenge was balancing the have to's versus the things that I wanted to do that really inspired my creativity as an entrepreneur. Yeah, I love that. That really inspired my creativity as an entrepreneur. Yeah, I love that. That's so important is to really be something, do something you're passionate about. Most of the people are home service owners or at least involved in a home service company that are our listeners. And I think a lot of us have really learned from trial and error and making mistakes. What's the biggest mistake that you see entrepreneurs making when it comes to legal issues when they're first getting going? I think the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make is starting a business without doing their research and doing proper research, such as checking to make sure the business name is clear before printing up the name of the business

on a business card or a letterhead and really, really preventing themselves and protecting themselves from ending up on the long side of a trademark infringement suit. The second biggest mistake, in my opinion, is not setting themselves in a business structure or business entity, such as incorporating their business or setting themselves up as an LLC. And then the third, in my opinion, is not having a business plan. I think a business plan is crucial and critical for any business, no matter how small you are. And even if it's a one-page document, as a business owner, it would behoove you not to have one. Yeah, you need a roadmap. And I interviewed a guy from my Houston market today.

And I said, what's the number one attribute you look for? And he said, I ask people during an interview what their goals are. And a business plan is basically your goals on paper. You wrote something down to look forward to. It's a path, a strategic path or a blueprint for success. So I 100% agree with that. You brought up a limited liability company.

And I've got a few questions because I'm an LLC. A lot of people elect to do their LLCs in Nevada or I think another one is like somewhere in the east. Tell me why that is. Why would somebody set up an LLC? I know that there's tax loops around it, but some of them you're not able to look up who the owner is. So tell me a little bit about that. So an LLC, also referred to as a limited liability company, is a newer type of entity that most states now often recognize. And the way I characterize this

entity is you get the best of both worlds. You get to have your cake and eat it too. And for those business owners who really want to be protected and want to have the liability protection, the asset protection, but really don't want to deal with all the paperwork and all the formalities, the LLC is the best route to go. Anyone can be a member of an LLC. Again, it will provide you with liability protection. It will protect your personal assets. And truly, if the business is properly formed and maintained as a properly ran limited liability company in the state that they're conducting their business in, then God forbid, if the business gets sued, only the business would be liable to the extent of the assets within the LLC. The other big benefit of, again, having an LLC versus a corporation is with an LLC, anyone can be a member of an LLC. There are no requirements as to who can be a member of an LLC.

And furthermore, you have that pass-through tax entity feature with an LLC where all the taxes flow through and are reported on the individual members' income tax of the LLC members. So you don't get taxed twice, whereas you would with a C corporation. So there's that whole idea of the pass-through deduction, which is a huge hype and a huge benefit of the LLC. There's also the limited formality feature, which the one piece of document that controls the LLC is the operating agreement. And all the members jointly sign the operating agreement and it stays at the principal place of business. So for a business owner who really doesn't like too many formalities, too much paperwork, and wants to have a business entity that will protect them and will protect their personal assets, the LLC is the best way to go. on being an employee of your business, then you may want to consider the S-corporation route instead of the LLC because as an LLC, you cannot be an employee of your LLC. You can only take draws as a member, which may subject you to higher self-employment taxes. Whereas with an

S-corporation, which again has all the benefits that an LLC will provide to you plus that pass-through deduction except for the fact that there's a little bit more formalities involved and you have to qualify to become an S-corp but if you do again you as a business owner of your business can also be an employee of your business so that you can build retirement and get all the benefits of being an employee of your own corporation. Isn't there a form out there? It's like 8832 that allows you to be an LLC and do your taxes as an S Corp. I believe that's what we do. Great, great question. Absolutely. And that was exactly what I was going to go towards. So as an LLC, you do have the option of being taxed several ways. If you are a single man LLC,

you would be taxed as a disregarded entity because you're a one man show. As a two or more member LLC, you can be taxed as a partnership or you can be taxed as an S corporation. However, again, you have to pass the requirements of meeting the S we worry about is nobody really loves to get audited by the IRS. And I know that a single member LLC has a much higher probability. And what my CPA and I elected to do was make my sister a very, very, very, very tiny member. Not that I'm afraid to get audited, but that's the whole process in itself. And I don't think any business owner

loves the process of that because it's a lot of work and it's time consuming and it's expensive. Do you have any recommendations for that for some of the listeners out there as far as when they form it to really think about, I'm not going to say audit proof, but being a little bit less of a consideration to get audited.

Absolutely. So in my experience, whether you're a one man corporation or an LLC, really, it's not that that kind of flags you for the IRS to audit you unless you're running your business for any other type of purpose other than lawful business purpose as to what the LLC was intended to be set up for. So things that can really, really flag the IRS for an audit would be where you're commingling personal, taking a deduction for something that is for personal use and making it appear as if it's for business use. So in my experience and having ran a business for over 25 years, I've only been audited once. And even when I was audited, we were completely in the clear. But my suggestion is keep a paper trail of everything you do and

keep it separate. Keep your personal assets separate from your business assets. Keep your personal expenses separate from your business expenses. If you're running a home-based business, make sure that you delineate a certain aspect of your home for business so that it doesn't flag the IRS like, oh, they're trying to take a deduction for something that's not of business use. So I think the best tip that I can offer here is just keep your side of the street clear and run a clean business and keep track of all your paper and have a paper trail. Because when you have a paper trail, when they audit you,

if you come up with all the explanation backed by the evidence, you're in the clear. Okay, well, that's great advice. I think that as a small business owner, a lot of us just get so tied up from day to day. I know that I use tools now, like there's one called NeatDesk. There's an app that allows you to take pictures of your receipts if you're out at a restaurant.

And what it does, it uploads the QuickBooks or whatever CRM or tax accounting service you're using to basically keep track of that stuff in a paper trail, even though it's a digital paper trail. Is there any tools that you recommend or are fonder of? So we have a business tool with our business called Business Information Zone. It's kind of like a business tracker for your business. And typically, it's free of charge. We don't charge anything for it, but it's basically a CRM for the business owner to come and register their business free of charge. And then we monitor their business for them and provide them with monthly notifications if something comes up with their business. Also, it's a place where they can store all their documents as it relates to their business within the cloud and have access to it at their fingertips. As far as like a accounting software,

I would definitely recommend Shoebox or Mint.com. Shoebox is great. That's a great app that I've recommended to many small business owners when it comes to keeping track of their expenses and saving records of their expenses. Okay, well, that's perfect. So we've got Shoebox or Mint.com. You know, a lot of business owners right now are really starting to think about succession planning. And that's kind of around the fact that they don't really know. A lot of people are ready to retire. And the baby boomers, I heard an interesting stat the other day that seven out of 10 are planning on retiring in the next 10 years.

So there's a lot of succession planning. Tell me a little bit about preparation for succession planning and how that applies to not only the formation of an LLC, but really any tips you could give to get that strategy going for them? Okay. So in my opinion, as I've been at both ends of the game, I've started a business and I've already sold a business. When it comes to succession planning, again, in my opinion, you need to have your legal ducks in a row. Because part of what happens as you're considering, and while we're talking here, I'm strictly going to be talking as far as succession planning goes

with respect to selling a business, for example. When you're trying to sell a business, one of the things that the purchaser is going to look for is obviously one, is the business profitable or is there an opportunity for me to take it, turn it around and make it profitable? And then also what has the business been doing? And they want to do some due diligence on the business to make sure you're not in any lawsuits, you're not in any current lawsuits, et cetera, et cetera. So they're going to be doing a ton of due diligence on you. And one of the things that typically they look for is, is the business established? And is it an established legal entity? Because that will actually give the seller more credibility and more likely that the buyer is going to want to purchase you because they look

at you having taken the time to establish yourself as a legal entity and have ran the corporation or LLC in conducive to the laws of running a corporation or LLC. So in my opinion, again, the topic of incorporation and setting yourself up as a legal entity and making sure that all your legal nuts and bolts are in place is super important. Also, keep in mind that when the actual transaction takes place, one of the requirements to selling a business is while you're an escort, they're going to require you, if you're not a corporation, to become a corporation. And that's just based out of our experience in working with a ton of commercial business brokers. So again, for succession planning, it wouldn't behoove you to look into the S-corporation or the LLC because it's very advantageous in many situations. And in my opinion, it'll really, really speed up the process of a purchase process if you're planning to sell your business.

Awesome. So one of the things I wanted to add as a business owner is making sure if you're looking to do some succession planning is have a good NDA for your employees and have a good non-compete clause. And I'll have some of that stuff on the website. But definitely really important after you get incorporated to start having these documents and preparing your company for this stuff. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is I'm always learning about

becoming a leader within my business and motivating and supporting the employees. And a lot of people have a different angle on that about business leadership. I wanted to hear, you're obviously the CEO and the founder of your company along with your husband. Can you tell me a little bit about what you found is for recruiting and actually becoming this amazing leader that you are today on some advice?

Because I think it's so important for a business to have that. I think the key to being a great leader is consistency. That's on the top of my list. Great leaders, you'll often find that they're very consistent in how they run their lives, both personal and business. So the key, in my opinion, is consistency and also having this mentality of leaders eat last. You know, for me, I do everything by leading by example. If I want to have a great big company, I need to not only say the part, but also act the part. So for me, it's about being consistent with my actions and my words and also having this mentality that leaders eat last.

I'm always the first one to come into the office, the last one to leave, and always, always helping my employees succeed and be the best at whatever it is that they want to set their minds to or whatever they want to achieve. Because when you have that mentality and mantra of helping people succeed in whatever they're doing, then you're ultimately going to succeed. Yeah, that's great advice. I talked to a couple business owners that are really all about figuring out what they can do to make their people successful. One of the things I just did recently was ask my managers of each market. We asked them, what's your biggest goal this year? One of my market managers in Michigan is he's got a newborn on the way. And he obviously said that's the biggest thing he's

saving for in his biggest goal this year, which obviously, you know, I don't have any kids yet, but it's kids are expensive and it's good to have a plan for them. Exactly. You know, a lot of it comes down to hiring the right people. And listen, this is the biggest problem I get all the time. Now, I always get the question is, how do you find them? How do you get the right people and how do you put the stuff out there so they'll come to you and get that shiny object out there? And obviously, the leadership is a big part of it. But what's a hiring philosophy or strategy that's worked for you in the past?

It's funny you ask because I've had some challenges in hiring good talent. But I think when it comes to hiring talent, you got to take your time. In the past, mistakes I've made is really jumping the gun too fast and not really taking my time doing their necessary research as to finding the best fit for our company. And truly it comes to sitting down,

first of all, screening them over a phone call and making sure that first impression is pretty much done deal. And if they make a great impression on you, then I would probably say invite them into the office. And the thing that I look for is personality, genuineness, authenticity. I want to just make sure I can have a conversation with this potential candidate and how are they going to do going into the workplace? Are they going to fit my culture? Are they going to fit the mission? Are they going to fit the corporate culture and the mission and our mantra? And all of that these days has to be checked into because we're dealing with a lot of millennials and it's not about just the paycheck anymore. It's about work-life balance. It's about them

coming in and making sure not only they're getting paid, but how's the company treating them, their benefits, package, et cetera. So for me, when I look at a candidate and when I look at hiring a candidate, I need to make sure not only they have the right skill set and talent for the job that they're being hired for, but in addition to that, they have to match my value system and the corporate mission and the culture we have for the company. Yeah, absolutely. That's awesome. That's some of the things I try to do as well as definitely background check for home services. We do drug tests and background checks, and that's because we want someone coming in your home that's been checked out for you and your family. Listen, you've been with your husband for working with him for 14 years. I got my mom,

my stepdad, my cousins, And it's not easy sometimes working with family, especially your personal relationships. Well, I've been with my husband for 25 years and I've been working with him for probably 22 years. Amazing. Okay. So tell me a little bit about that. I mean, I don't want to get into your personal life, but a lot of people, especially in the home service industry, we work with our loved ones. And do you have any good tips for that? It's hard. It's not easy. And it can get really challenging, especially if the business is not profitable. My tip to you is keep the business stuff at the business

or try as hard as you can to not bring it into your personal home and keep it within the business stuff at the business or try as hard as you can to not bring it into your personal home and keep it within the business. And when it's time to shut off and go home, just try to focus on family and your family life. In addition to that, you're not always going to agree to everything. So you got to make sure you put the ego aside and make decisions based on what's in the best interest of the company. Because if you put the ego above, then you're sure to see that your business is going to fail. So for us, why it works is we have a good dynamic.

We come from two different aspects when it comes to running a business. He's more technical. I'm more operation. He's more the idea I'm more operation. He's more the idea man behind the whole gig. I'm more the executor and getting things in action. So it's a good mix. Plus, for us, we don't know how to do it any other way. We pretty much got out of law school and decided to start a business together. And that's all we know. So there's a certain magic that happens with the two of us. But also, we have those days whereby

we want to kill each other and we just put our egos aside and try to do what's best for the company. Yeah, yeah. That's very interesting because it's hard to leave that stuff at home. I have such a hard time because when I get together with my family, it's like work comes up. So that's great advice. It's something that I'm really, really focused on right now. One of the things that we talked about before we jumped on is the new tax laws that passed. And I think there's huge opportunities to take advantage of for business owners. Can we talk about that for a little bit and some of your advice and how to take advantage of for business owners. Can we talk about that for a

little bit and some of your advice and how to take advantage of what's out there and kind of explain to us what this new tax law is going to do for our companies? So again, you know, I'm not a tax expert and my tips are just generalized. Simply stated, for those of you who are a small business owner, the new tax law suggests that as a small business owner, you want to consider looking into possibly becoming a corporation by getting yourself incorporated or set up as an LLC because you may be eligible to hire tax breaks. So I'm going to leave it at that. But for any of you who'd like a free complimentary consultation with one of my business startup experts, you can always call into CorpNet. I'm sure Tommy will have links on the podcast as well so that you guys know that we're very

open to providing you with guidance, resources, tools, and providing you with a consultation as to why this new tax law really benefits small business owners, especially if they decide to become a corporation or LLC. Yeah, my CPA told me I'm going to save upwards in the 10 to 15 percentile range, which is amazing. And I'm very excited about that because I pay a lot of money in taxes. Yeah. We're going against these days in market. You know, I'm marketing against some mammoth companies. And if you're in the air conditioning industry or roofing or

anything, we're going against these national companies a lot of the time. And you call it like the 800 pound gorilla like Amazon and you compete against these people. Tell me a little bit, it's a David and Goliath story. Tell me a little bit about the advantages of being an underdog and how we could compete with the monsters out there. I think it's a benefit. I think it's truly a benefit to be the underdog

because you get to see what these 800-pound gorillas do and learn from their mistakes. And for us, it's a big benefit because I get to work much more closer with my clients. And it's all about really carving out a niche for yourself. So my whole mantra with the whole idea of coming out with a business idea in a saturated company is they need to remember you. And if the client remembers you, if the client remembers your brand, if the client remembers who you are and how you made them feel, it doesn't matter who you are and who you're

competing against. It all boils down to who you are and your brand. And if you've created a lasting impression in your client's mind, they're going to come back to you. Also, for me, I always am of the school of thought that there's plenty of business to go around for everybody, no matter what type of a market you're in, especially for me who does compete against not only my old company, but thousands of other companies in doing similar things that we do. Again, I'm constantly on my competitors. So in my opinion, it's a big plus to have a hundred pound gorilla out there. Yeah, that's great advice. That's one of the things that all of you guys should be doing in the home service industry is calling the top 10 competitors, finding out their discounts, and offering a price beat guarantee if it's apples to apples and putting thatuffington Post, Mashable. I mean,

it goes on and on. Tell me a little bit about the people out there that are looking to become a contributor to some of these sources and how to go about the process of doing that. I don't know. Becoming an expert in your industry is something that everybody should strive for. So can you give us a pointer on how to do that? I think it's about non-self promotion. If you want to get yourself out there as an influencer in your craft and in your trade, I think it's about just sharing content that's completely non-self promotional. And it's really tip-based and it's giving tips and good advice to other people in your industry out there. And the way I started is having so much experience in the business startup compliance world.

And after having sold my first company, I decided to put up a blog and start sharing content on my blog and then taking my blog and sharing it all over social media. And then slowly but surely, when you start having so much content underneath your belt and having shared it on your social media, other people, other influencers get to take a look at you. And then oftentimes you'll just get approached. Hey, do you want to write for us? And it's truly, in my opinion, about being authentic,

being genuine, and being completely non-self-promotional. Because people don't want you to sell them stuff. The sale will happen as long as there's that zero moment of truth, which is established trust and credibility. So what you want to do out there is establish yourself as a credible source and as an influencer. And then oftentimes what will happen is you can start going out and pitching yourself to these outlets or these outlets will come to you

and start asking if you'll share content with them. So what does that process look like? Let's just say entrepreneur or Forbes, and I've done it myself. I'm a contributor to several of these places. I got started in the Young Entrepreneur Council, and they helped me become a contributor. They got me into a lot of those places. I use that to get myself into them as a contributor. Is there any insight on the process? Like, where would I get started after I shared on social media? What's the best way? You know, for me, I have a social media manager who constantly pitches me out. But one of the great places to start is there is a site called helpareporter.com. Haro, yeah. Haro, exactly. And that has helped me immensely because that's really where I started is I would go there or my social media manager would go there and she would look at what reporters are looking for.

And oftentimes, if it was something that was related to a topic of small business, work-life balance, anything that I was comfortable in talking about, she would pitch me out. And then I would start getting published in these other people's articles. And then slowly but surely, I would get a ton of links back to me. And then from there, we started a marketing plan to go, okay, let's go. Now that we have so much content under our belt, let's go ahead and start pitching ourselves to these bigger outlets. And to be completely transparent with you, I didn't land Forbes until recently. So it really takes just one major publication for you to get yourself in and then everything else is, it comes a lot more easier. But for me, like my first publication that I got into was Mashable,

and that was a big home run for us because the audience is very much similar to the audience that I'm going after. So I started writing for them. And then from there, you know, I started writing for Business Insider and Small Business Trends. And then when people see you in these outlets, they start coming after you and going, hey, I saw your article here. Would you be interested in writing or sharing a piece of content from us? And the trick is that when they do ask you, you don't want to repurpose your content. You don't want to share the same content you've shared with another source. You want to write content from scratch. That's very, very key to what their audience is looking for and what the topic is. And the topic should be timely, something that's very credible and also that their audience will

read. And, you know, if their audience likes it and you see a ton of shares from it, then they're surely going to come back to you and ask you for more content. Okay. That's great advice. One of the things that people are probably listening out there, they're probably saying, why would I want to become a contributor? Why would I want to have to write all these articles? Can you tell me what it's done for your business? I know you got to run here pretty soon. So I just got one question after this too. So if you could just go into becoming an influencer and a contributor, what that does. Well, I think when you become an influencer

and really an expert in your field, in your craft, then the credibility is there. And when people come to your company, they're not just looking at an advertisement on Google where they've seen your company. They're looking at, wow, she's the CEO of CorpNet and look at her and everywhere she writes about and look at her content. So the credibility is immediately established. And then they surely come to you because you're the expert who wrote about what they're looking for. And they're going to more often than not purchase from you. Okay.

I mean, you have those customers that are looking for the best deal or whatever, and you're going to get those customers. But at the end of the day, when you establish yourself as an influencer and as an expert in your field, you're going to ultimately get much more customers because you're doing it in a non-self promotional way. And you're putting yourself out there as an established expert in your field. So, again, more people are going to want to conduct business with you, looking at you with those types of accreditations. Awesome. So one last thing. This is the last question, and then I want to give you an opportunity to leave us with some final thoughts. But, you know, CorpNet launched its partner program recently, and I'm just curious to hear a little bit more about how that works.

Absolutely. So our partner program is for any business professional, business owner who like to make revenue and would like to create a little added revenue in their pocket and expand their advisory services. If you're looking into offering business formation, entity formations, or any type of corporate compliance services to your clients or to whoever else needs it, you can join the CorpNet Partner Program as either a referral partner or a reseller and start making some added extra commissions. As a referral partner, you basically refer people to us and we send you a commission of 20% on each referral. As a reseller partner, you basically receive wholesale pricing and you can sell our services to your clients

at a marked up rate. And we can offer white label services, private label services. So all the information about our CorpNet Partner Program is at www.corpnet.com or simply pick up the phone and contact us at 1-888-449-2638. You can also email us to info at corpnet.com. Perfect. So I'm also going to put a link to have all your information on homeserviceexpert.com and I'm just going to do forward slash Nellie so you can get a lot about her.

I'm going to put some different publications she's done, some different books on there that she's written. So Nellie is spelled N-E-L-L-I-E. So homeserviceexpert.com forward slash Nellie. Nellie, what I like to do at the end of the podcast is just kind of hear some final thoughts from you. If there's anything we may have left out

that you feel like it's important for the listeners, I definitely like to give you an opportunity to express those thoughts. So for those of you thinking about going into the home service industry and haven't started yet, I would say be passionate about what you do. It's all about doing what you love and loving what you do daily and being consistent and showing up is the key. definitely recommend you to check us out and check out our services and check out how we can benefit

you as far as thinking about taking the next step, protecting your assets, protecting yourself from any sort of liability by considering incorporating or setting up as an LLC. Perfect. Well, Nellie, I really, really appreciate you jumping on today. I learned a bunch of stuff. And I definitely would recommend making sure that all the listeners out there are, it doesn't make sense to be a proprietor now and not set up an LLC or an S-Corp. So get with Nellie. She'll get you set up. And like I said, thank you so much for taking the time today. And I look forward to doing this again in the near future.

I look forward to it too. Thank you for having me. Okay, great. Well, have a great day and a great weekend and we'll talk to you soon. Absolutely. Take care. Bye-bye. Hey guys, I really appreciate you tuning into the podcast. I wanted to let you know that my book is available right now on Amazon. It's called The Home Service Millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com. Just go to the website.

It'll show you exactly where and how to buy the book. I poured two years of knowledge into this book, and I had 12 contributors. Everybody from the COO at HomeAdvisor to the CEO of Valpak, and of course, Ara, the CEO of Service Titan. It tells you how to have the right mindset and become a millionaire and think like a millionaire. It goes into exactly how to turn on lead generation, have those phones ringing off the hook for the customers that you want to be calling, where you can make money and get great reviews. It also goes into simple things like how to attract a players. Listen, if you want a great apple pie, you need to buy good apples and you need to know where to buy

those apples. And it also talks about simple need to know where to buy those apples. And it also talks about simple things like knowing how to keep the score. You should have your financial check every week. You should know exactly what's coming in and out of your account. You should know when to cut advertising that's not working. And more than anything, you should know how to cut employees that aren't making it for you. Listen, you might have a big heart, but this book is going to show you how to make decisions built on numbers. I hope you pick up the book and I really appreciate everything. I hope you're having a great day. Tune in next week. Thank you.