The Home Service Expert Podcast - The Mindset Of A Successful Business Owner

Episode Date: January 29, 2018

Despite coming from a tough background, Kenny scaled his own successful plumbing company from scratch. Now, he focuses on changing the average blue collar’s mindset through coaching. In this episode, we talked about business systems, growth mindset…

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. Thank you for tuning into the Home Service Expert. Today, we're going to be speaking with

Kenny Chapman. Kenny's an entrepreneur at heart, and he successfully built a highly profitable plumbing and HVAC company, which created personal freedom, which allowed him to travel and pursue other endeavors. His goal is to help others achieve success and fulfillment in their own lives. And he's also the founder of the Blue Color Success Group, which provides training, coaching, and resources focused on sales and marketing for the home contractors. And if all that's not enough, he literally grew his HVAC and plumbing business from $12,000 a month to over $3 million a year. And then he came out with a book called The Six Dimensions of Change. Listen, Kenny's going to be so much fun today because he's been through it.

He knows everything about the blue collar business. He's worked with business owners like yourselves. And I'm so excited he decided to come on the show today. Let's go ahead and get the ball rolling. Kenny, tell me, I'm really excited to have you on the show. You sold your air conditioning business. Tell me, first of all, how's your day going? Tommy, my day is awesome.

Thank you for having me on, man. Great to be here. Yeah, I'm excited about this because it sounds like you got a lot to offer the listeners here. Tommy, let's go through your story. You started in 1994 and you went through the hard knocks of paying with credit cards. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, you know, like many of us, I started as a dead broke drain cleaner in my space. It could be windows, it could be carpets, it could be garage doors, it could be whatever.

But that was where I started and, you know, had a goal of creating freedom and building a business and all the things that we all start out to and quickly realized I had no idea doing what I was doing. I had no business being in business, but fortunately I was able to quickly learn and understand that really what sets you free in your career as an entrepreneur or anything else is when you really find your lane and you get clear about that. And I knew early on that I was a great communicator. I could inspire team, but I wasn't the best as a technician. So I was quickly able to recognize that. And I got out of the truck faster than most. I mean, all my mentors said, no, I only had two additional team members. And I got out of the truck and began floating. And many of you listening know what I'm meant to do in this business, and here's where I'm going to go. Because if you're in business or thinking about going into business,

the single solitary point is for it to serve your life. Then we get on to serving team, and all that stuff has to come as a vision. But we're taught kind of this whole thing of, oh, the owner gets compensated last. Oh, we're taking all the risk the you know the challenge but we might not get compensated until that's absolutely wrong and get it out of your head if you're in business it's all about serving you and your family first and then going from there i like that yeah a lot of times some of the people i have on the podcast there's nothing wrong with it but they've just changed as people because as you start to make a lot of money you start to become more philosophical and start to become a philanthropist and giving back to your people and start to give to charities and you know a lot of people say it's

and i agree with it it's about the culture that you create but when you don't have any money the first thing is and listen you've studied the e-myth you've instructed on it and it's a great book it starts to work it on your business instead of in your business so it's uh it's a great notion and what is your thoughts on that well not you know that's the thing yeah i love i mean i'm a huge fan of e-myth concept obviously uh and my partner justin's uh still certified in the concept but you know you know, the whole thing is, yeah, when you when you start working on it, rather than in it, your mind, you know, your mind changes. So wherever you are, as you're listening, one of the things that Michael Gerber did when he

when I got certified way back in 2000, now the company's changed, he got divorced, whatever, I don't even know what the current company looks like. But what I do know is when I was there getting certified, Gerber, the author of the E-Myth, and if you haven't read it, E-Myth revisited one of the best business books you'll ever read. I should have got some rights to it as much as many copies as I sell. But nonetheless, Gerber said two things that changed my life forever. Number one was, show me a small business owner and give me a mirror and I'll show you what their company looks like. And I want you all to think about that that are listening to this today. When you think about what does my company look like?

Tommy and I could come into your store, your shop, whatever you want to call it, and we could just hold up a mirror and go, look, you're the primary owner. This is what your culture looks like. This is what the feeling of the organization. And I got really clear and went, wow, cool. That's why we have clients that crush it in the exact same business in very different ways because they're different people and they create different cultures, and that's okay. That's number one. Your company is going to be a reflection of you, so get clear with who you are and allow that to happen.

Number two is he sent us home and he said, okay, because I was growing my company. I'd been in business for six years. I was doing maybe $800,000, $900,000 a year, something like that. I thought, I'm going to go help people. I don't have children. It's always been a drive of mine to consult and help and train and coach. And I went, wow, I've got this business that I've got to consult it first and fix it first. So he said this, go home. And he gave us these hats. And on the front of the

hat, it said in it. And on the back of the hat, it said on it. And he said, I want you to take these tasks. And if you're answering the phone, if you're doing a customer service rep task, nothing wrong with it. But knowing your own organization, if you're the owner or the top manager, that whatever that compensation of that position on the organizational chart or whatever your position agreement says at $12, $14, $15 an hour, for that hour, for that two hours you're answering the phone, you are doing the CSR job, meaning that as the owner, you're actually making $15 an hour. So that really begins to help you understand. And many of you, we all know the time constraints and challenge and all that. So you begin to start carving small windows of time,

maybe an hour a day. We call it, you know, we call it burn the house down, burn the shop down, like lock the door. We've got our clients, we put up strategic time or open time. If the door says strategic time, don't knock. You don't come in my office unless the thing's burning to the ground and it's only 60 minutes or maybe it's 30 for you, but you've got to get clear and start carving that time or your company's never going to change. Yep. Well, believe it or not, I'm locked in my office right now. I got a clear door, but I've had a couple of people address it and it says not to come in genius at work which is probably not the case but uh they all know i'm uh i'm busy and you need that time listen yes so many guys they go they get the hell out of the office and they go i just need to get out of

here and i go why do you need to get out of there they go because i keep getting interrupted i go that's what you've done like you said look in the mirror um you know my girlfriend asked me a question about six months ago she said why the heck did you go into the garage door industry and i had a really good long explanation and it served me well um so let me ask you why did you create training and coaching program to help in the blue collar niche? What possessed you to do that? Like many of us online, perhaps, I was raised with less than mentality. I talk about it in my first book about how, you know, we were the people that were broke. I wore secondhand clothes to school.

We couldn't go on vacation. Literally back then, Taco Bell was a treat. And it's not an oh, poor me or anything like that. But as I began to break out, which is very hard to break out of your own socioeconomic condition. And, you know, it's very challenging. And so as I went through all the self-worth issues, all the challenges, my father was an outlaw biker with a rival gang in the Hells Angels in San Diego. And, you know, all kinds of different things that go into all and all of us are online have to have these stories and thoughts. But for me, once I began to understand that we do have the self-worth, I was taught in school, I was a dumb kid that I didn't know how to learn. I barely made it out of high school and yet employ people and create jobs and have over a quarter million

dollars invested in my own adult education. But I don't have a degree per se. So my point is that I went, you know what? There's people just like me that were taught we're dumb. We're not dumb. They just didn't know how to teach us. And so now I've put a lot of time, energy, and effort into really understanding adult education, understanding how people learn, understanding the power of transparency as a coach and a consultant to go, you know what?

If you want to change your life, let's do it. And we can help you do that. That's what drove me. And I mentioned earlier, I don't have children. The lovely Christy and I, our passion is living life. We're not, you know, yeah, we teach business concepts. Sure, we're going to help you make more money, all that kind of stuff. But let's be honest, Tommy, I'm into this to change people's lives.

And one of the best ways to do it is to create freedom around income because all it does is give you choices. And you said it earlier about, you know, we're raised on this thing of, oh, you know, it's bad to make money. It's bad to be rich. And all the things that we hear about, oh, you know, like, you know, it's just kind of such a, such a negative connotation. And I'm here to help interrupt that within the blue collar mindset. Yeah. You know, I get this question all the time. They go, you know, I have well over a dozen LLCs. I've got a lot of businesses going, but I focus on one and get the processes oriented so they could run themselves now do i like to be part of it do i have checks and balances absolutely but they go when is enough what the hell are you doing are you lost like do you know where you're going and i said

there was a time where i put a lot of eggs in different baskets none of them got full now i put eggs in one basket till it fills up and then I go under the next basket. But I said, all I want is if I want to go visit my niece in Milwaukee tonight, I could fly out. I could take her to a ball game. I could be back here tomorrow if I had to be. And I could get up and do it. And that's what I call financial freedom. And if I want to take my girlfriend on a cruise and charter the boat, I can do that. If I want to go out to Mexico with all my

family and fly them out there, that's what I want. That's my goal. Now that's a big goal. But at the end of the day, I need money to get there. And I'm not greedy. I'm not selfish. I try to give back everything I can. But at the same time, you know, you're you're damn right about it. We got to come first. We didn't go into business to be a slave to the business but that's what happens to most people you know you say serve your life not not your business and you know i've i've worked 14 16 hour days you know i i lost a girlfriend at the time because she's like this is ridiculous you know many of us face the same problems. We're working every day. And right when we think we get ahead, we lose an employer, a CSR, or something happens.

How do you overcome this problem to manage and create a balanced work life and still be successful and still keep your personal life in check so one of the things is i don't believe in balance which is probably catches a lot of people off guard when i say that out loud because we're taught to seek balance and we're taught to be in balance in our lives and be financially balanced and have balance in our relationships and spend an equal you know quality period of time with the family and with the team and with ourselves and with our own different – you know what? Let's be honest. I've been an entrepreneur for 25 years since somebody has written me a check with a payroll on it other than one of my own companies. And here's what I know. Balance is a fallacy.

But here's what I also know. Harmony will set you free so the key is in my opinion is that you need to seek harmony meaning that you've got to get to suzy's soccer game you can't miss all of them i don't care what you're building you've got to find that time now that means that okay you might work 12 hours and try to figure out how to get there sometimes you might need to go in at four or five in the morning so you can get off at four and be able to go do that. Now, here's the difference though. Why? That's the question that we forget to ask sometimes. So, you know, Tommy just asked me, why did we start it? Right? Well, here's what happened. I just sold a plumbing, heating, air conditioning company that I owned for 24 years, Closed on it at the time we're having this interview is less

than four months ago now. And I sold that business because I had an epiphany and I was completely exited. It was self-managed. It's been a self-managing company since what, two, let's see, about 2005. I had a 19-year general manager. I had a 15-year operations manager that I actually sold the business to her and her family. And which means, you know, that's part of why I do what I do because I graduated then. Yeah, we could have rolled up. Yeah, there's consolidation money everywhere. I could have done what, you know, we're helping clients with that. I wanted to sell it to her. If she chooses to do that and set her free, that's fine. But that's part of why we do what we do.

Now for you, see, I got the crucification from, you know, parents and whatever mom going, well, God, you're getting up and leaving Thanksgiving dinner to go clean a drain line. Come on. What are you doing? Here's the thing. In my mind, I knew I wasn't going to do it forever. In my mind, I knew it was short term. I know when I was bootcamping the army, I know when I was in the first Gulf war, it's not going to last forever. But too many of us get in and we get stuck because then we're working in it. And the next thing you know, you've done it 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, and you're still getting up and leaving the Thanksgiving table. And that's when it's not OK. So I think that early on, if you're building, laugh in the face of people that

tell you to seek balance. It's impossible to scale within categorically, I'm going to spend two hours on this, I'm going to spend two hours on this. But what sets you free as a driven person, a driven individual is when you go, you know what, I'm wired different. Statistics say that entrepreneurs are genetically and mentally wired, like about 5% of the population. So most of us on this line are, even if you're itching and scratching and thinking about it, you've got a little bit of an entrepreneur mindset, meaning that you're wired different than most people, meaning that your family's not going to understand. Some of your closest friends aren't going to understand. You become on an island. That's why it's so

important to hang with podcasts like this, talk to like-minded people, which is only 5%. But the key is, why are you doing it? Because when you really get clear, you're not doing it to make more money. You're doing it for what Tommy just said. And it might not be time for you to take the cruises and grab a plane at, you know, what, I'm sitting here in Scottsdale, Arizona. I could be at Sky Harbor and be anywhere in the U.S. or overseas by the end of the day today. That might not be your choice, but what about the soccer game what about next week when you want to or next next season you want to be the assistant coach on

johnny's little league team what does that look like what do you have to structure what do you have to have for an outside salesperson a you know a project manager somebody taking little things see if you don't get clarity about what you want you're never going to get it yeah that's salesperson, a project manager, somebody taking little things. See, if you don't get clarity about what you want, you're never going to get it. Yeah, that's absolutely, I agree. And you're 100% accurate. People talk about balance. There's a book by Dan Thurman called Off Balance on Purpose.

And basically it says you're not going to be balanced ever listen whether you if you're you're if you're a church go or sometimes work hits in the way i mean never will it be perfect and you know i had a good discussion with my my general manager yesterday night and i said he goes tommy he goes you're so aggressive on growing he goes do you really think it's the right time and i go there's never a right time. I go, if I waited for all the stars to align, we would be sitting here in one city, and that's Phoenix. And I would have never grown to the eight other states. And next year, I'm going to grow to 12 more.

And I said, he goes, but what if there's problems? I go, then we fix it. And there's never going to be a perfect time for you to get married or have kids or this or the other stuff you know and i just it's a great book i seen the guy live in person he goes around in a unicycle and goes through the crowd it's really interesting but you know he's funny as hell and he's great entertainment but there's so many things that i had to do and most of it is learn how to delegate and i learned how to delegate through processes and systems to put in place and i would consider myself now a master delegator it's an art form it's people that are great at delegating sometimes we delegate too much, but what processing systems do you need to put in place before you can have that freedom that you talked about in 2005 to say, hey, listen, I got it to where it was running itself.

Hell, it took you 11 years. And trust me, I've been doing this for just as long. So tell me exactly what you went through and what people need to start thinking about. So here's the thing right like the processes and and procedures if you know if you're not in a franchise situation or a or a very strict licensing agreement situation where you know you have to run exact processes here and there one of the things that happens is we want, you know, I want to call Tommy and go, Hey dude, I've got this, you know, garage door business over here. Send me all your

stuff. He sends me all his stuff. And then I look at it and go, okay, well, what does this mean to me? Because I might have a process that says we have a 7am technician meeting. And if you're late, then, you know, you get written up. If you're late three times, then you miss a day of work or whatever that is. That might be how I want to enforce. Tommy might have in his that if you're late to the meeting, the door locks and you miss the meeting, you miss the hour of pay, you might miss the day, whatever. I've seen it all kinds of different ways of culture. I've got clients that are very, very lax with culture and kill it. I've got other clients that literally I got a client

in Denver that they refer to the business as DIA, the airport in Denver, because there's so much security and you can't get past this room to that room, depending on, you know, they got 150 employees and whatever. Right. So point is process and procedure has to happen, has to be in place, and it has to be a reflection of who you are. It goes back to the mirror. So where do you start? 2000, really, 2001, 2000, I got EMIS certified. 2001, I started really implementing best practices. But really, it's the mindset of understanding that what

you're doing, you need to document it, my friends. Get it into your head. It's, I don't know who said it originally and how it's been, you know, butchered and changed, but the fact is, if it's not in writing, it doesn't exist. So when you get clear, if you're a one truck operator, all the better, my friend, because you can start now capturing documenting what you do you know there's all kinds of templates and ways to build simple systems and processes we hear those things and it freaks us out right tommy you hear oh tommy's got eight locations and all these different things going or whatever and scaling and i'm going jesus i can't even figure out how to get the guys in uniform every day.

And so you go, okay, wait a minute. Well, let's start with a uniform policy and really let's, you know, whether it's the old school, put a mannequin in the corner or whatever it is, we've all been through all these different types of things, but here's the deal. We struggle as owners and leaders so much because we wear a heart on our sleeves. We think it's about managing people. And I, And let me just share with you how I switch, right? So I love and care about people. I was raised in a very interesting environment, how I came up. When I got an E-Myth and I went, what? The system is the heavy. So I can just manage a system and people are kind of commodities. And this is 2000 and I'm what 29 years old at the time I

guess so I'm going cool I can build systems people can come and go whatever so I shifted way over my pendulum if you picture a pendulum swinging I went oh wow I can just systematize and I went too far that way and I lost some really good people over that. Then I got clear of, you know, what is that quote unquote balance or harmony of those two. And I went, okay, now, as we, you know, we created a system and size company that ran itself in the service industry. Now we're doing the same thing in the consulting and training space. Now we go, okay, cool. We got to have system process and procedure because that sets everyone free. and then we manage really wicked awesome people that run those systems. And when there's a breakdown, I don't have to get with Tommy and go, come on, dude.

You let me down again. You let me down again. Why are you doing this to me? And it becomes this confrontation between me as Tommy's manager and him as my team member and it gets ugly and it gets this and that word then i get to go dude here man here's your uh team member communication form is what we call them but here i've got it filled out it's the third time this week you don't have a belt on come on dude you wrote it you thought you agreed to it let's not have this conversation and all of a sudden the system becomes the heavy there's no emotion tied to it it's objective and that's how you start scaling yeah yeah you just need systems that you talk

about writing it down and people go what do i start with and here's what i recommend you start with your top 15 impactors of your company you and then you get on there and you whiteboard the shit out of it you get with all your teammates or your wife or whoever how big you are and you say what does a process need to be and then there's different kinds right now i actually have a consultant that teaches visual management they teach us systems around just being able to look and know where you're at on a moment's notice and i always spend just as much time creating a process to check the work as I do on the process itself. But because here's the deal, I don't want to spend a half an hour checking to make sure the process was done.

I'd rather make the process longer for the people doing it so that I could check it in one minute. So we talk about CRMs and those are customer relationship management tools and just all these checks and balances. But, geez, you these checks and balances. But, geez, you talk about scalability. Look at the Hilton. Look at how you walk in the hotel, and it's perfect every time. You talk about a restaurant that's just the best it can be, and you watch the scalability. I mean, all they do is they figure out systems. I was at my cousin's in Michigan, actually, two days ago, and he said every four years, what is that?

Speedy Fast Submarine Sandwiches. They're speedy fast. What is that place called? Johns, something Johns? Oh, yeah, Jimmy Johns. Jimmy Johns. He's like every four years they replace all the sinks, all this, all that, because he had a four-year-old set of sinks there to fillet fish.

But I said, holy crap, I've been in that place. They're the fastest place. They do this, this, this. They all have a process behind everything, and it's replicable. And that's what you're talking about. It's just, Kenny said it the best. You've got to write it down, and you've got to really dissect it. You pick the 15 areas, and you can dive in and make 100 areas out of those, but don't make it too complicated. But I agree wholeheartedly. Write it down. Well, and you nailed it with, you know, I love your 15 key areas because, right, what happens? We go into overwhelm, right?

And, I mean, we teach a lot of sales and in-home sales stuff. So as we know, a confused mind doesn't buy. And so what does that mean? Well, me as the owner of the company, what we're doing is trying to sell ourselves on why we should commit the effort to build some process. So I'm selling myself. And if I'm confused or overwhelmed, I'm not going to buy that concept. And I'm going to go, Tommy, Kenny, thanks, but that's too much work. I'm working 15 hours a day day just running calls and leads as it is. And that's fine, but let's be clear, that's a conscious choice. Because neither Tommy and I didn't build it in a day.

I didn't build it in a day. And you don't want to sit here. And here's the cool thing. When he and I were building these things, this type of information, podcasts didn't exist. I mean, my gosh. I remember, you you know i'll date myself i had the brick phone and a ashtray full of change when i started in this business trying

to pay phones and getting paged and all that you know and so point is you can build it so much faster now i mean you know warby parker the glasses company they started from scratch in 2011 and they were worth a billion dollars in 16. And you go, yeah, but we're in the in-home service space, whatever. Well, I mean, I got a buddy that's building a half a billion dollar plumbing heating air company. And he's only 250 million right now, but I met him when he was 7 million. So what's my point? My point is, it's however fast you want to go, my friends, the tools are there, but be very cautious. As Tommy's talking about, you get these key areas. Now, if you do have team, if you do have a CSR, if you do have a field manager,

if you do have any tech or whatever, have your team start capturing, especially in the office, have your CSR just jot down what they do. They'll resist it perhaps, but when you sell them on the why behind it, it really helps them free, and then they get behind it. They're like, well, this is what I do, and this is how good I am at it, and they'll start building the system for you. Now, once you start getting systems and processes, if you're going to allow them to manage, you've got to get out of the way, meaning that back in 2007, the lovely Christy and I,

I've made a few good sales in my life, and I sold her. We met. We were dating. Sold her on quite a job and taking a six-and-a-half-month motorhome trip with me. I had a self-managing company. I wanted to test my leadership team. Everybody, all my mentors said, you can't do it. You can't be gone six months.

You're going to lose it all, blah, blah. And I come from a mindset, well, if I lose it all, then I'll figure it out because I'm not in this business to be in the office every day. So I'm going to test it. We did it. We left. And I was only doing a gig about once a month back then. And so we would motor home from consulting gig or speaking engagement to the next. And I would meet business owners on this trip and they'd go, man, Kenny, I want to run your company. I want to run my business like you are. I want to have a management like you. And I would just look at them and go, no, you don't. And they're like, well, no, yeah, I do. Man, six months off. I'd love to just take 30 days. Right. That's what I heard. Many of you online would love that. But here's the thing.

I challenge it because, no, you don't really want to run it like me, because as soon as a manager makes a decision a little differently, if they find a little path to get to the goal that's different than you would do it you might jump in and get all up in there and oh well wait a minute tommy i've been doing this longer than you you've got to do it my way that will not allow you to create freedom Build the systems and then set amazing people free. And to Tommy's point, have checks, have balances, have reporting mechanisms. You got to hold systems accountable as well. But be clear, many of us are doing it because we could do it better than anybody else because you're the best technician at insert the blank of what you do. And that's where your identity lies. I want you to shift your identity into creating a self-managing company.

What would that look like? How would you need to think differently than being the best tech, the best salesperson, the best whatever? Right. And you talk, you know, I get all these people, Kenny, that say, you don't think the people are important. And I say, no, the people are everything, but the systems dictate how I get the people and how I background check and I drug test them. And that's what's so important. And it's not like the background and the drug tests are the most important. It's the interview process.

It's where do I find them? What bait do I have out there? What better can I offer them to come to me versus my competitor? But, you know, you talked about the unfair advantage of before when we were the pagers and the brick phones and we didn't have GPS. We had a big book to find our way. We also had no way of gaining market share. It was the yellow book.

If we don't have the double or the triple truck, there was no Google. There was no Bing. There was no Craigslist. There was no we have a million ways whether you like yelp angelus porch whether you do groupon there's a million ways there's a million ways at the top of the mountain we just got to figure out which way is ours before it was the yellow book and that was it so we we've got a lot of opportunity these days and the people out there still swear i'm not going to start a website i'm not going to do this i'm not going to start a website. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, good luck because you just sell to me. Come find

me in five years. I'll buy your company for 10,000 because that's what the phone number might be worth for your 25 year business. But I don't want to go on a negative note, but that's just how I feel. If these people don't want to adapt and I understand where they're coming from and change is tough, but you're gonna have to embrace it and it's easier to embrace it today than it is in three years from now because they don't stand a chance you know what i mean well oh man do i brother and i've been doing a lot of keynoting a lot of speaking and a lot of training on millennials because in our you know in the blue collar industries and many of you on the line just rolled your eyes when I said the word millennial

because you're going, oh, my God, what? They don't want to work. They're lazy. And so I agree 100% with what Tommy's saying is here's the deal, my friend. We don't exactly control the bus of the industry. We control the bus that we drive within that industry, meaning that I'm not a fan of online reviews. I think there can be staged. I think they can be garbage.

I think they can be all these different types of things. now for Google, for all of the reputation management sites, when clients are what the newest statistic, 87% of people believe an online review from a stranger as much as they do a personal referral from a friend. So to Tommy's point, like it or not, it is what it is. I hated the yellow pages and paid them millions and millions of dollars. And guess what? We had an agreement. I paid them stupid money and they made my and millions of dollars. And guess what? We had an agreement. I paid them stupid money and they made my phone ring and I figured out how to make it work. The same is true now. If you're not on a website, I'll go with Tommy.

It's like him and I will throw five grand together. We'll both buy it. We'll just see what we can do. We'll show you when we put a website and Facebook page and some social media and some community behind it, what you can actually do. So if you're resisting social media, if you're resisting websites, if you're resisting the way that consumers are going to buy and behave in the future, then just get out and let people that want to run it. You're going to be happier anyway. The reality is, you know, people say, oh, there's no good help out there. Here's my reality. And I'm not going negative here. I'm very positive about it. But there's actually an overabundance of bad owners. There's a lot of people running companies that

compete with us that don't do the math, that don't know how to price, that don't know how to take care of people, that don't stand behind warranty and all these types of things. So here's the deal. There's a couple of different ways you can go to market but resisting the internet resisting reviews resisting millennials which you know i travel all the time and i split time between colorado and and arizona and i get picked up at 3 30 in the morning by a millennial driving an uber car and everybody goes oh they're lazy and i say so like we all do how long you been uber what do you have i'll run the airport rush hour morning and then i'll go get a nap, play some video games. Maybe I'll come back on for a little lunch rush or whatever.

And then I'll go hang for a while, go to the park and then I'll come on and run the bar evening. They're working all the time, but they work when they want. See, they want control. They want choice. And the leaders that get that and understand that who are scaling like Tommy going, hey, we got to have something that these people want to be a part of. The game changes. So if you want to keep thinking that, no problem. We'll keep adding the people that want to grow. That's what it's all about.

Your mindset is everything when it comes to your market or your business. If you have an industry right now, if you're in a market anywhere in the US, Canada, Australia, whoever all is listening to this, if there is somebody that is winning in your market, you don't have a market issue. You've got a leadership issue. And it's probably you. Yeah, look in the mirror. That's 100%. You know, I'll tell you what I just did.

I have thousands of websites. I do search engine optimization. It's my passion. When I got my master's degree, I learned everything. I didn't learn in my master's degree. I learned from the guys in there that were managing hotels. Literally, a guy was managing, one of five guys managing the SEO for Marriott. So just, I'll give you an example.

On October 5th, I told my guy I want 200 more websites with locals. He said, by when? I said, October 24th. I got an update. We're on target. We're on target to get those. So I've got the unfair advantage. And if you guys expect to keep up with me, you better get into this stuff.

Because I'm telling you, I've got ways. I get real reviews from customers. But I design software that I give them a survey. If it's negative, I get in front of that bullet. I take it right in the chest. And I get in front of it. If it's positive, I get in front of that bullet. I take it right in the chest and I get in front of it. If it's positive, I say share the gospel. And these are the tricks.

Yeah, you guys hate Yelp. You hate the BBB. You hate Cut2, Merchant Circle. You hate all this stuff. And I understand why you hate it. But I'm just telling you guys right now, everybody out there, I know it's not fun to embrace it. But just today alone, I've already booked eight calls on Yelp. I know because I get a report live. I just looked at it. Literally, good luck is all I got

to say because these people, they don't like me. I know they don't like me in my markets. They go, this guy cheats. And I go, listen, there's nothing illegal about what I do. It's just that I'm better at it than you. And I'm sorry. I just, I tell it like it is because this is the stuff it's the hard cold truth, but you know, we talk about a lot of stuff and we've all made a lot of mistakes. You know, there's, you went from $12,000 to 3 million a year pretty quickly. What's, what's tell me about the challenges that you faced. If you remember what it was like to be like most of the people on this on this podcast well so here's the thing and it's not about numbers either like you know one of the things like when i got in the business heck i mean a four or five million dollar business was huge and and i'm proud of the market share we we generated that three million a year in a town of 80 000

people so i mean if you dropped us in den, we would have had 120 trucks on the road. So market share wise, we crushed. Now here's the challenge, right? When you're, you know, we have in the, in the, in the plumbing, heating, air conditioning, electrical service spaces, you got like a, we call it a four truck comp. Then there's a, there's a 10 truck and then there's about an 18. And once you're over that, you've got enough systems and places and layers of management that you just scale point out leads i got calls and then johnny gets a dui or wrecks a truck or does something stupid or doesn't show up we've all had i mean i've started more businesses than just about anybody i know from early on and losing team and then they go and whatever

point is that that like when you get clear when when you build, one of the things that set me free was I built a $3 million organizational chart and said, here's the boxes that I'm going to need. I might've been 800,000 in revenue at the time, but I said, okay, well I'm going to need this and put your name in all those boxes. And Kenny was in a lot of boxes. I was in the, the owner box. I was in the GM box. I was in the, the owner box. I was in the GM box. I was in the sales management box. I was in the service manager box. I was in the, the floating salesperson box, whatever that is. But what it did is it gave me a little blueprint and go, okay,

cool. Now I have that truck. I'm frustrated because somebody drops, but I have my vision. See, that's where we get stuck. Tommy, is when we get kicked in the teeth. It still happens to you. It still happens to me. There's no getting beyond that. We all have challenges, right? But here's the thing, is that when you have that vision of that you are going to do something, you will get past the four-truck hump. But as long as you're going, oh, here we go again, I knew this was going to happen. Every time I get to four trucks, somebody quits. Guess what? You're going to keep on manifesting that, and you're going to keep telling yourself the truth until you go, gosh dang it, I'm frustrated with this.

What am I missing? Why am I – when you start asking, Tony Robbins says it best, you want a different result in your life, ask a better question. That's where we fail a lot, or I shouldn't say fail, but get challenged as leaders as we start asking ourselves crappy questions. Oh, why doesn't anybody want to work? Why is there no people that, you know, I had a client that grew $10 million organically last year without an acquisition. They added enough team and trucks to grow by 10 million. Now think about that. For the average plumbing, heating, air conditioning, electrical electrical company about 800,003 trucks right now in the united states canada australia so point is don't tell me there's nobody because he grew 10 million guess what

with other competitors in his market going nobody wants to work here nobody wants to play anymore challenge how you're thinking about these things because guess what? You're going to create whatever it is, however you think about it. Yeah, you manifest it. I mean, Kenny just basically said you design an organizational chart and you start thinking about what you're going to need and then you define that role and you put literally, you've got to sign it. You've got to explain the role that if you were to post that ad on Craigslist, that's how it looks. And then you sign it and you acknowledge that that's what you're doing today. But then you know one thing, you put a big red X on it and you say,

I don't want to be doing this forever. If you love, see, I love marketing and I love sales. And that's something I don't want to let go of right now, but eventually I will. It's going to be tough for me. I'm always going to be involved because I got a passion for it. But you write an org chart and I'll give you guys a clue. I got a gal in my office right now who handles all of my home advisors. She gets an extra $5 bonus when she books a call. Let me tell you what, we book eight out of 10 of those calls. People say they hate home advisor. I got a guy at the front of my office. His name's Bruce, one of the best guys you'll ever meet. He deals with every single customer satisfaction problem. At the end of the week on Friday morning, I'm going to get a big thing of checks, probably 30 of them,

maybe even 40 of them. And I'm going to sign each one. They're refunds. Maybe it's for a gas charge. Maybe it's for this. Maybe it's for that. But it's customer satisfaction. That's all he does full time. so think about that when you're putting your org chart together and i'm not saying trust me i don't believe the customer is always right because we know customers are liars too but i know one thing i know how much that one star on yelp cost me because i know i booked eight calls already today and i know sometimes it's hard to do it you hate reviews i love reviews i love reviews one reason because you hate them and i'm damn good at it.

And I hate it for a reason, though. I mean, there's times that I hate it. But guess what? I know that most people listening to this call are too stubborn to give money back because they really don't know how much it's going to cost them in the long run. When you see I have 400 Yelp reviews and I've got 300 Google reviews, they go, this guy is cheating. And I go, trust me, look at how many of those were one stars that switched to five stars. You know, that's the problem. But, you know, we could talk to her blue in the face. This stuff is simple for us. But I love the passion

behind our conversation, because at the end of the day, me and you get it. And we're just we're out here trying to show people that it doesn't need to be that way. And it's more of a paradigm shift. It's a mental shift in your head saying, I'm not a victim. I need to look in the mirror and I chose this and I'm an entrepreneur and I'm going to succeed. And if you truly believe that, I have written a hundred million by 2020 on my mirror. I look in the mirror, I get out of the shower and it's, it's about eye level. It's, it's hard to see because it's right in front of me, you know, in the mirror, but a hundred million by 2020. And I look at that every damn day.

I used to have it written down on my hand, but it started to look disgusting that I had it written on my hand. But the point is, you know, we actually believe this stuff and we've done it. And I'm not trying to ever talk down anybody. But the fact that I even have this podcast and I got a guy like Kenny Chapman on the phone right now is because I believe that everybody could do this. And if you can't do it, I believe in moving people in places that they can. Some people are a better salesman than they would be a manager. They're a better worker than they would be an owner. And it's not a bad thing.

It's not like you're giving up. It's saying, I want to take my work jacket off at 5 p.m. And I want to get back to my family because my family is what makes me happy. There's nothing wrong with that. But you got to ask yourself, tell me a little bit about the shit you've been through, Kenny. And looking back, if I'm sure you'd say absolutely it was worth it because it made me stronger. But I'm sure, you know, that some people that maybe you say, hey, you're going to die at a young age. Your anxiety, your stress levels, this is not for you.

I mean, tell me a little bit. So, you know, one of the things that I think, like to your point, it's about – and that's why I think it's important to have community and be on podcasts like this where we can all share openly and honestly. Because you're going to get kicked in the teeth. And clients are – they are liars, and they do these different things. And so one of the things that I want you to embrace on the, on the call though, is that when we talk about different vehicles or avenues, I want, you know, whatever, whether it's reviews or whether it was yellow pages or it's the new, you know, uh, going holographic technology that's going to, we're going to sit down at the table, whatever it is. What you want to do is understand no different than why the, you know, why the railroads got killed by air travel.

You've got to get clear that you're in the transportation business, not the railroad business. And so when you understand that, you know, I don't even know the technology that we're going to be using for in-home sales. And some of you get fear going, oh, well, Google Home Services and all the, rather than going, okay, this is the platform. How do I win at that platform? Because it's hard and it takes a lot. So yeah, I've had the, I mean, it wasn't just maybe four months ago, my team hired somebody, you know, I wasn't involved maybe four months ago. My team hired somebody. No, I wasn't involved in the whole process. And we get a thing and the cops are calling and one of our service trucks out front of Walmart on a Saturday.

Dudes like take it, stealing stuff from Walmart, putting it in the back of our truck and then denying it. I mean, really? Like, are you really going to go to the largest retailer in the world and think you're going to steal there? I mean, come on, go to the stupid convenience store and leave. Right. It's just like it's just unbelievable. Like what you have to deal with the people's lenses. I personally believe that everybody's doing the best they can with the information they have and whatever the experience, whatever. And that was a long time for me to understand that belief.

But I do believe that what that does is it sets me free. When I lost a labor lawsuit, you know, several years back, and I had to write a check for, I wrote a check for 25 grand for a guy that worked one day as an apprentice at $11 an hour. And ended up coming to find him these loopholes. And he wanted $250,000 out of us. And, and when I sat across the, by the time it all went down and everybody was so mad, my wife included,

and as it happened, here's what'll set you free as you go. I was sitting across that table, Tommy, and you've been here, I'm sure it had these different things. And, and I'm like, I just cannot even fathom what is making this, this kid think like this. I mean, he brought his mom and a hot rod magazine to the court thing and all this, and you know, the judge awards him this check. So I wrote the check and I went home and I told my wife, I have to find gratitude everywhere all the time when I'm in a jam. And I said, I'm so grateful that I'm sitting on the side of the table writing a check to somebody that really doesn't deserve it. But I'm so glad I don't have the mindset that I'm sitting there trying to get something that's not due to me.

And when you deal with clients and when you give money back, I mean, to Tommy's point, budget a half percent of your sales. Just budget a half percent of your total sales every year, and that's going to cover it. And then when people come back, it's like, oh, it's already built in. It doesn't matter. If you're not giving money back, you're not doing enough work because, I mean, let's be clear. Right. So Tommy's building 100 million. Some of you might go, oh, my God it 120 grand a year and call it good. Awesome. Still do what we're talking about. Still. What, what E-Myth we talk about the franchise prototype, build your little Ford truck company as though you're going to have it franchised. And guess what? By the time, what two things will happen?

Either it'll be so easy to run at four trucks. You'll go, well, let's go to six or eight. This is not that for trucks, you'll go, well, let's go to six or eight. This is not that bad. Or you'll go, cool, this is fine. You'll make a great living and you'll have a saleable asset because it's built like a franchise prototype. And somebody like me or Tommy comes along who's growing in Scanlon going, what? That's already systematized? Cool, we'll tuck it in.

There you go. There's a little dough. Off we go, right? So it's not about Tommy's goals. It's not about my goals or my vision or anybody else that's out there talking about it. We're out there putting ourselves out there to give you some mirrors and share some hope and some, some belief that, you know, yeah, I mean, you can, I got kicked out of college six months into it, spent some time in jail,

not a long time, but i went in the military to clean my life up and you know so i i share a lot of this stuff in transparency and it's why we're blue collar because if you're going to judge me over some of my past then we're probably not a good fit anyway yeah i mean we've all been through a lot of stuff and you know i think what we're doing is we're taking white collar approaches actually actually. I mean, it's blue collar, but listen, my guys all have iPads. They show up in a colored shirt. They tuck it in. They come with wrap trucks.

You know, two weeks ago, Service Titan came and interviewed me as the fastest growing home service company in their business. They haven't seen this fast of growth. And they said, what do you say to people that can't afford it? What do you say to people that are not willing to change? And it might not fit there. It's too much of an enterprise solution. I said to all the grocery guys out there, I said, please get on service Titan because I will buy you out.

I said, I don't want to have to take over your business. Exactly. And then have to teach these guys how to carry an iPad because I know it's going to be the hardest three months of my life to get them to change. And I'll probably lose them as employees. So go through the change know it's going to be the hardest three months of my life to get them to change and I'll probably lose them as employees so go through the change and it's going to be harder on you than it probably will be your employees but you get the changes and here's what's sexy for me to buy a company out is if you're already using my CRM and you're already have it set up and these guys already know how to build three estimates for

everything and they know the right processes and it might not be the exact same way because they might be good at the system i'm gonna make them the freaking experts i'm gonna make them top run and that's why i say i'm like get them on there listen if you're not you're gonna lose but i have and that's a go ahead just let me just piggyback that because service i mean you know bahi and Vahe and Ara, I mean, they really are building something special. And we all, we've seen different softwares come and go. But what I would say, I'm a huge fan of Service Titan, and we coach and train on it a lot. We've got an expert on our team that she just rocks it.

But be mindful of what Tommy just said is, you know, when you get on a software like Service Titan, it will make you better simply because it's going to put stuff in front of you you're not looking at right now. And so when somebody like Tommy says, well, I need – because it's a tool for the business. You know, we go back to – we're taught about expenses and we're – you know, as business people, we look at assets and liabilities. And we look at a software CRM as a liability rather than one of the largest assets we have if it's used effectively. That's why guys like Tommy can go, oh, if I got the platform, I know what the score is and I know how to improve the score. But I've got to know what it is in order to improve it.

So embrace those platforms that help you run your company, period. Well said. I mean, I could isolate the biggest problems on a minute's notice. If I want to see what's going on right now, I could find the best guy in my company today, the number one sales guy, and I could text him through the system and say, you're killing it today. He hears exactly from the owner. I could take the worst guy and say, hey, can we talk for five minutes in the morning? Not the worst. Maybe I didn't give him the right training.

Maybe I didn't give him the right leadership. But the point is, let's talk tomorrow and figure out what I could do to bring you up I talked to a guy a couple weeks ago he said I don't hire A players sometimes not even B players I hire C players and I train them and lead them to be A players and I love that because A players are hard to come by and they're expensive but you know I have this concept that I'm going to share with you Kenny and I don't think you're going to agree with it, but I think that we're both on the same page if you hear it. So I know when I go into a city, I'm planting a seed. So whether that's Lansing, Michigan, Madison, Wisconsin, Reno, Nevada, I'm planting a seed there. I know what's going to happen the first year. I'm going to have some

guys quit on me. I'm going to have guys that need more sales training. I'm going to have guys that need more tech training. The customers aren't going to hear of me, so I'm going to have some guys quit, quit on me. I'm going to have guys that need more sales training. I'm going to have guys that need more tech training. The customers aren't going to hear of me. So I'm going to need to figure out the marketing campaigns. But as that second year approaches, I'm going to see some light at the end of the tunnel. And as a third year approaches, I'm going to start making a shit ton of money. So you say, you know, dominate your own market.

But here's what I look at. I look at my cost per acquisition because as you know, dominate your own market. But here's what I look at. I look at my cost per acquisition because as, you know, one of my clients is direct energy that I sell leads to. And they say, Tommy, unless you could get me a ton of leads, I'll pay more for them. Because we have four different ways to monetize that lead. We're going to sell them a home warranty plan. We're going to sell them air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, everything. And I said, okay, so you can pay more, but you want quantity. The more I get you, the more it's going to cost.

Do you understand that? They said yes. But I understand that the acquisition cost goes through the roof if you want to be a huge big player. Now, I will be the biggest player in every city I go to, but if I had to wait to be the biggest in every city, it's going to take a few years. So tell me a little bit about your thoughts on dominating before you go to the next one. Okay. So,

well, here's, here's the only difference we see it the same way. I think we're, I think we're talking about it differently. I say dominate your space first because I've seen way too many companies that try to add a line extension, try to do something different, get away from their core business

or their core model, go, well, I got five trucks running in Denver, so I'm going to go to Phoenix because Phoenix is a sister market or whatever. And so my point is go deep with where you're going first and foremost. Now, the difference, Tommy, is you're doing that nationally. So your mindset, you are dominating, but you're dominating it from a national perspective. So if we take Phoenix, I might have a pretty good presence in Chandler, and I'm kind of growing Gilbert, but, God, up north,

I don't really have much presence in Scottsdale. You're doing that with the U.S. And so the point is like your vision includes all of the United States probably for many of the listeners on the line they're going okay I got a couple they don't know lead cost they don't know acquisition cost there's nothing wrong if you don't know that the point is don't try to play the game the way Tommy's playing it until you got the t's crossed and the I's dotted in order to have that. That's all I'm saying is I watch a lot of people go, hey, we're having a little success here.

All right. Maybe I'm running a carpet cleaning company. So I want to go do restoration. And yet it's a totally different lead source, communication, relationship based, all those different things. Oh, I'm successful in plumbing yeah i agree oh it's a total you know so that's where you're going one core offer nationally i love it because you're very clear about it so i think we're speaking the same way in different language in a way yeah and when it comes to it most entrepreneurs have what i call the shiny object syndrome where oh yeah they're going oh i could do this i could be in real estate. I could do this. And I always say, and I tell this a lot on the podcast, but one guy met me 15, 10, 15 years ago. And I say, I like to put my eggs in a lot of baskets. He goes, Tommy, slow the hell down,

put all your eggs in one basket and that basket will give you more eggs than you've ever seen. And, uh, you know, I talked to my buddy, Joshua Parker and sons, and he goes, do not grow out of state. He goes, I seen it happen in Georgia, Brazil. They went to Nevada. They closed that place back down. And I said, I get it. But the thing is, people are like, how do you grow into all these states? And I'm going to tell you, it's not easy. And there's people, you know, my mom works for me and she goes, I just hate it when I find out these people are stealing from you. And I go, Mom, I know they're stealing from me. I know.

Listen, my mom is in her mid 60s. She's going to retire soon. She's a fabulous woman and she cares so much. And I say, listen, don't pull your hair out. You know, she's like this person is dating so and so. I go, I know. I found out. I go, I'm just not ready to make a move on

it because I don't like to tolerate bad behavior. But I'd also, you get the bad apples out, first of all. You got to get the bad apples. But if somebody's dating somebody, if they're stealing from you, you fire them. You sue the shit out of them. You make them sign an NDA. I don't put up with that kind of stuff but there's certain things that I I told you nothing's ever going to be perfect nothing is ever going to be this beautiful majestic place that you walk in and everybody's just skipping along and loving each other it's just you got to know how to cope with stress and anxiety this is not meant for you I love it and you're absolutely. And so here's the thing. Man, we've got to do some more of this.

I mean, so here's the deal, too, is you're right. It's never going to be perfect. And so the sooner you get clear about, like, perfect imperfection and stop striving for perfection, right? Perfection is one of the number one productivity killers on the planet. Just desire progress. All I want is progress. I just want to get a little bit better. I want to learn a little more.

Okay, well, what do we need to do to make sure we don't hire somebody two weeks later they're stealing out of Walmart? Guess what? We have a freaking tight dial. Like, we look at it. I don't know. Guess what? It's going to happen once in a while. Guess what? All of us have to pay a little more for that shirt at Walmart because some Yahoo goes in there and steals. It's part of business. It's part of life. And if you're going to have team members, you're going to get disappointed. You're not going to be, you know, and so that's the thing.

As driven entrepreneurs, we seek this, you know, this perfection, and there's always going to be a gap, right? One of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, from Strategic Coach, talks about the gap. There's a gap that many of us on the line want to have a company like what Tommy's running. And what's Tommy got? Tommy's got the company he's running. He's going 100 by 2020. He's created another gap. So as entrepreneurs, we need to realize there's always going to be this gap and you got to get okay playing with it and it still goes back to your truth right so love josh josh is awesome right and and so at park they're they're running one location here and they kill it they're one of the best in town but if they had a location here a location in colorado and and one in nevada they were running his perspective might be a little different when he's saying hey

man be careful going three states. So my point to you, whether Tommy's giving you advice, whether I'm giving you advice, we're giving it to you from our perspective of the way we see the world right now. Take that for what it means to you. Take that for what it's worth. All my mentors said, don't go on that motorhome trip. Don't you dare leave it for six and a half months. And literally my sister got married during home trip. Don't you dare leave it for six and a half months. And literally my sister got married during that trip. She called me and said, when are you coming back? I said, February.

She said, Oh, I said, what? She said I'm getting married in August at your house. And I'm like, what? My backyard, whatever. So I literally flew home and I have to drive by my building, like down the road. You could look, I told my wife, I said, don't even look at it because if it burned down, I made an agreement with my management team. I'm coming back for Lynette's wedding. I'm not coming to the shop because my goal was six months. So I did something in the face of all my mentors and I learned something and it made me better. And I have a

different perspective than anybody that's never taken six and a half months away from their business. So you got to honor your own truth too. Yeah. You know, I used to hate that line, Kenny, that people used to tell me. And I was always around older people my whole life. And I'd hear this line, man, if I knew now what I knew then, and that's why I've been always on this quest for knowledge. Cause I want to learn what you know now. And I go, teach me. I want to know. But you don't know how to really vocalize some of the experiences because it's hard to go back and tell people. And really, when you experience them for yourself and it's the mistakes that shape us, you know, I tell people when you meet a good gal or a good guy in your life,

you know, it's not about the good times because I've had good times and great times with a lot of people. It's about how well do you do during the bad times? And as a leader, we got to look at how do we handle the bad times? You know, you wrote that $25,000 check and you said, I get it. This is a valuable lesson that I don't want to have to pay. I've written so many $30,000 checks and 25 and 50 and 80. And I've written all these checks and I go, this sucks. But if I dwell on this, I'm done. I'm done as a leader. I'm done.

If I walk in that office tomorrow with this pessimistic attitude, if I walk in tomorrow and say, guys, we need to have a monster day. So here's what I'm going to do. Here's our huddle. Here's the plan. Here's our morning mojo call. And they go, wow, you're optimistic. I go, today's going to be the best day i'm manifesting it but you know we talked about going into a market and this is such a i don't think it's a great question because it's tough to pick three i mean it depends on the person that's running it but if you had to pick

three things in a new market or just somebody's going into a market or somebody's maybe in a market, but they don't know the three to focus on. What would you say the factors are that any home business should consider that they need to know about? I think, you know, you've got to be very clear about your avatar. So, I mean, mean in marketing we talk about avatars and whatever so so you should be able to picture a client like literally um from from my company her name was linda and she was if i could have 10 000 lendas in my database that's exactly who i want so if you're going to a market make sure you're going for lenda and not because you like hunting season or it's a place that oh I want to

be in California because I want to have a tax write-off and have a little come now if you're doing that and that's just one of your plans cool but if you're doing it to scale let's get really clear that the market does support your target demo, that avatar, the income basis, age of home based on what you're doing, you know, all those, all those different types of things. I think it's also important to understand that the sales and buying process is, is going to be the same because, you know, so we operate at Blue Collar. We coach and train in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. We don't work in Europe because it's all, you know, the utilities do most of the service and maintenance and whatever.

But there's little different shifts between the markets in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, but not very big. So don't go into a market blind. Different thing, you know, I mean, case in point, Roto-Rooter. They went to australia they lasted about two years that was back when they dominated the i mean back in the one of the greatest jingles in marketing ever away goes troubles down the drain they were so dominant they went to australia they didn't do their research and they didn't know that root is the same as screw in the kind of sex way, except more of an F word here in the United States.

And they went in with a name of a business that had complete slang written all over it. And Aussies were going, what on earth? So know enough about that market. Hopefully you're staying in your same. You know, if you're taking garage doors and you're going to another state or another city, then make sure that you can mimic what you want to do is replicate as much as you possibly can. You know, so you take a franchise prototype, right? They don't, when they drop a subway on a corner, they know darn well that subway is dropping.

Look at malls, look at strip malls why they build a mcdonald's across the street from a burger king because they know that and if you're going to a market by god be clear you know what that looks like yeah and and you know kenny's talking listen i've confused some people avatar is just what does your perfect client look like and you might not know if you're if you're young in a business and you don't know what you're looking for. You know, he talks about age at home, but you got to really know your data. And I became a big data guy the last few years. I mean, I run them through these huge,

I take my customer base and I find out what my avatar looks like. And it's not always the same, but when you talk about going into a new market, you got to get the locals. You got to get the locals. You got to have the people that are from there. Nobody likes to buy from somebody that isn't like them.

They buy on emotion. They buy on emotion because they like that person. And so if I move to Australia, I'm going to have a bunch of Australians working for me, not a bunch of guys from Phoenix or Michigan or wherever. Well, bingo. And so let me share the biggest marketing mistake i ever made um back in 2002 i bought a i bought a company in a small town outside of between grand junction and montrose colorado so my primary market was grand junction i wanted to move to montrose 60 miles away smaller market the kind where the high school rivals the county, like, you know, they don't want to use service providers and all this.

Grand Junction was considered as the big bad city. Well, I bought this little company up in small town Cedar Ridge, Colorado. I moved it to Montrose and did what I did to scale companies back then, meaning I bought the biggest ad in the yellow pages. There were two plumbers running two half pages i bought a full page and here's what happened the entire year we had amazing tracking watching everything that happened on that line we booked count them two calls in a year from a full page yellow page ad so what mean? Okay, people talk about no like and trust in sales and all those things

and all the kind of clichés that are absolutely true that we kind of just roll off our tongues now. What happened? People opened the book and went, Peterson Plumbing, huh? What is that? They turned the page and went, oh, Keenan. Heck, he was the quarterback at the high school. I think he went to school.

Oh, what's the next? Oh, Mount Garfield or Montrose Plumbing and Heating oh yeah I think uh I think we go to church with their brother and boom to to Tommy's point you've got to be local and it's becoming more and more strong as the you know the the home advisors and the Google Home Services and all these partners that we want to resist but actually can drive a leads. You got to get into that community. You got to have people in the schools. You got to have people go into the, you know, supporting the cancer walks and the different things or whatever way you choose to give back to the community. You don't have to write checks to give back to the community. Or if you do, they can be very, very small.

Yeah. And, you know, getting the community, my CPA is a Mormon. And I said, Hey, I really want to break into this. And I had a guy that I know one of my competitors. I talk with him all the time. He went to Utah. He said, it's hard to break in. I said, well, Mormon is known for the Mormon. You know, there's a lot of Mormons out there. It's just a religion. There's a lot of Catholics places. There's a lot of, you know, different, there's nothing wrong with that. And I said, did you have any more? He said, no, they didn't want to work for me. I said, you didn't put the bait right. It's not always bait to get the new customers. Sometimes it's bait to get the right employees. But you talk a lot about, you mentioned it a few times,

the Google Home Services. And what that is, guys, is Google rolled out a new algorithm. Basically, it's the fourth algorithm that they have. And what that is, guys, is Google rolled out a new algorithm. Basically, it's the fourth algorithm that they have. And what that is, is they started adding the reviews to the technicians. They do background checks on all your technicians. They call it Google certified. They warranty up to, I think, $1,000 of the job if you go through those services. So Google wants to take 90% of all the home services clicks. They actually put $100 million into this.

They tried it out in San Francisco. They put it in a bunch of other areas. It just rolled out in Phoenix three months ago. So I had to get every one of my guys' background checked. Well, guess what? I already do that. But the people rolling it out took a damn long time. It took them two and a half months to do all of it when I could do it in a day.

And then I had a person from India call me and I had to do what's called a Google hangout, show them my business card, go start a car, show them the license plate, show them a utility bill. I spent an hour. I could practically speak Indian now. I mean, literally, it was a pain in the ass for me. But let me just tell you guys, my acquisition cost now for Google Home Services is under 6%, which is absolutely phenomenal from any marketer's perspective, which means I spent $6 for every $100 I make getting a customer on Google. It's amazing for us now because it's just rolling out. But that's another thing.

I'm prepared now for every one of my cities to have that. Now, do I think it's going to roll out as quick as they think? After the launch, it was a complete failure. As long as they took, because they partnered with a bunch of different companies to try to get this to go fast, well, guess what? It's kind of like Boeing. They partnered with 180 countries. They lost their ass because they couldn't get the planes out quick enough. But don't be afraid of Google Home Services. Don't be afraid of Home Advisor. Home Advisor just bought Angie's List. Listen, at the end of the day, listen, Google just teamed up with Walmart because Amazon's got more fulfillment centers. So Google said, who else could I go with? Well, so they teamed up with Walmart. So it's crazy. What are your thoughts on Google Home Services and HomeAdvisor?

I'm just curious. They're huge opportunities. That's the thing. I mean, yeah, if I could eliminate them, would I probably? Because I can out-market anybody without these assistant areas. Now, that meaning, since they exist and maximize them, the thing about Google home services and the reason I only bring it up is a lot of the market is afraid of it. And that's the problem.

Stop being afraid of it. I don't care if they want 90% of the clicks as long as I'm getting my share. Right? So that's the whole point, right? Is when we look at these platforms and everybody hates Yelp and everybody hates Angie's list and everybody hates Yelp and everybody hates Angie's List and everybody hates all these things and you're hating yourself right into a struggling company because the mindset. Google's going to win. I don't generally bet against Google. And so if they're going to find a way to make my phone ring, then I'm going to find a way to win at that. And

here's what I know. Because of execution, because of fulfillment, the lead's only one thing. So we can go head to head and you can get those clicks, but I'm going to do more with those clicks than you can. And so, you know, just speaking of general competition. So stop fearing all the change. And because guess what? As fast as we talk about pagers switching to, now we're here getting to have a podcast together the next realm of technology the things that are coming out is faster the fact that we're all mobile not all but so many progressive companies are all you know whether it's titan or successful remote or whatever it looks like all the different opportunities with ipads and all this is happening even faster so you got to embrace it and it's coming anyway so find a way to win at it.

Yeah. And a lot of people on this call aren't going to want to hear this stuff. And some of them are excited about it. Some of them are going to throw up after this. But the thing is, I just don't like to lie to people and I don't like to mislead them and tell them that if you do TV, TV is great for branding, but I'm a big fan of direct response. Actually, I'm looking at a book now by Dan Kennedy, No BS About Direct Marketing. And I've read it twice. It's an amazing book. And I'm not getting anything for endorsing people. Listen, at the end of the day, my goal is to have people learn from this and read a lot of books. Read the e-myth.

Read the ultimate sales machine. I can give you guys five books that will blow your mind, and I do this every podcast. But I want to ask you, Kenny, you wrote a book, The Six Dimensions of Change, right? Correct. Tell me a little bit about that book because when I do a podcast, the number one thing I do is I'm going to order your book. I'm going to read the crap out of it. I'd love to get you back on and talk a lot about the Blue Collar Success Group. I'd love to talk about the book, but tell me about this book

and what else I can find out about you. So The Six Dimensions of Change was the first book I wrote, and change is an acronym for clarity, habit, action, never give up, gratitude, and enthusiasm. So that is a personal development book. It's not based on business specifically. But as I say that, that change acronym is laced through our in-home sales, success, schools, all the things that we do. And so if you're in business, it's a good general read because, read because as we've talked about, it's, it's about you first and foremost. Now, caution is if you read it, one, it's an easy read because I

wrote it. And two, you're, you'll probably learn a little more about me than, than you might want to know. So yeah, we, we'd love to do that. I just have a brand new book that just came out. It's called In-Home Sales Acceleration that we can talk about another time. Tell me about it. Well, it's basically it talks about, you know, the 12 steps of running an ultimate client experience when you're in the home. So totally based on in-home service and sales. If you're face to face with a client, we have such an opportunity if you have that ability now with clients. So many, well, you just talked about Googles and Walmarts and they have to do case studies and wonder why somebody's buying Fruity Pebbles and somebody else is buying Captain Crunch.

And we are sitting at the kitchen table with the opportunity to have this conversation. So it's really about just how you, you know, how you increase average ticket, how you increase customer satisfaction, get more reviews and set the technician free in the process. The technicians are the backbone of this industry regardless of in-home service or maintenance or whatever you're doing. And I personally believe they need some systems and abilities set up free. They don't want to be robots, but they need some process and some guidance. So, listen, I'm a sales fiend. I can't get enough of it.

I'm a disc trainer. I do human interaction technology. I study body language. I train sales to my guys. I literally, and I don't train because I know. I train because I've hired over 500 guys. I take the best thing out of each of them. And I've developed a style that I've learned from each and every one of them.

Because here's the deal. I could say I'm the best. But when I watch the numbers and I go and ask the top guys questions all day, every day, and then I call them up. I sent my top guy to Milwaukee. They said there's no way he could do what he does in Arizona with all the retirees. I said, bullshit. Number one by far yesterday. He went to Michigan, number one by far.

He goes anywhere. I said, and guess what? All he does is get five-star reviews and referrals because he doesn't have to rip people off, which a lot of people think, oh, that's a ripoff. I think you're a ripoff if you don't fix something right the first time. Literally, if you want to go back to a job five times a year and charge a service, call on gas, whatever else you charge, then you're not the good person for the customer because there's one thing we can never get back of in this life, and that's time. And if you're going to waste a customer's life and time by not fixing it right the first time, then you might as well just get out of the business, in my opinion.

If you think we're a ripoff, I'm a big fan of fixing it right the first time what about you kenny yeah 100 i think that sales is under in fact uh my buddy joe polish recorded a great video if you google is selling evil there's a great draw shop video about where many of you on the line we're you know i'll do a seminar with 100 people in the room and go how many of you feel like you're professional salespeople? And a room of owners and two or three hands will go up. And that's a challenge and that's blocking you because what happens is guys like Tommy and I run our numbers and we know what it costs to go to market. If you could show me how to charge less and get my margins and take care of my team, I'll drop my price tomorrow. But I don't believe based on the math, you can help me do that.

So point is what happens, we have to go to market at a higher price, we have to go to market at a better value. And I agree 100%. I said it earlier, there's an overabundance of bad owners. So get the information. Now I charge $35 to clean a kitchen sink line when I started. So I get it. I didn't know what I didn't know. But as soon as I understood it, now it's time we transfer responsibility on you to execute it. And so price doesn't dictate quality, service, anything. It's just a marker.

How you bring your value proposition is everything. Well, let me ask the people on the podcast a question obviously if you're working out of your garage and you got a home office you're writing off your house and your pool care and your uh your weights in your gym you could write all that off it's a great tax advantage and it's not listen i ran out of my house too but i never will be happy at somebody that says well why do you charge you charge so much more? I go, I've got a general manager. I've got a call center manager. I've got somebody that handles all my complaints. I've got – if you knew all the people I have and I say, that costs money.

I spend way more in marketing than you because people don't know who I am unless I advertise to them. And it's not evil. It's not bad. Yeah, I charge more. But guess what? I pay all my taxes. Guess what else I do that most – a lot? I don't have a side set of books for cash. I deposit every single cash I get. I'm not even joking. I'm big enough now that I got a red X on my back and I've always had to do it

right because people don't like me because I talk like this and I tell them the facts and I say, I'm going to be bigger than you unless, unless you do, do what I'm telling you and I'll tell everybody all the secrets in the book. They can come into my office. They can watch me do everything. Guess why? Because they're not going to go home and do it. So until you look in the mirror and say, today is the day that I change and I, I'm going to get your books and then tell me a little bit about the blue collar success group. And because I don't know how many groups I'm going to be part

of at the end of this podcast in a couple of years, but I got to tell you, being a part, if I just take a tidbit and I could move my percentages a couple percent a year for a couple, you know, whatever it is, let me just tell you that that equates to millions of dollars a lot or hundreds of thousands of dollars. So tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. So the Blue Collar Success Group, we we're in the business of helping business operators become business owners. And we know that there's a big difference and my my my partner i i founded the company and i'm clear enough about unique ability roles to know that i don't want to run the company i did that for 24 years i want unique ability so i brought in a ceo um justin deese is his name and

and he's a partner of ours and he's also emiss, runs three separate self-managing home service companies himself. And so we understand that, you know, everybody wants a different play. And so we built a team of unique ability coaches that help from finance to sales to marketing to, you know, you name it. We hold three different events a year. We do two acceleration workshops and one big event called our Sales and Marketing Intensive. We did it here in Scottsdale last year. We're in Orlando this year in 18. And we have everything from dollar trials to $97 essential program with a whole lot of stuff you can do online up to our titanium group, which is more of a larger mastermind.

We meet weekly. We get things on the table, those types of things. So really we have, we have products and programs and coaching for anybody, any, any direction, but we work with people that want to do stuff. We're not in the, you know, there's a great book, a little simple short book. I forget the author, but it was called, you can't send a duck to Eagle school. And we're, we're, we're not in the fix-it business. I want to help you fix your mindset, but we want to work with people that know what they want to do

and want to know what they need to remove. Because most of the things stopping you from being successful is not what you need to do. It's more what you need to stop doing. I love it. That's important. It's not what you need to do going forward, but it's the mindset of what you need to stop to do.

Just think about that. I mean, think about when you guys wake up in the morning. And do you look at your life and say, I'm happy? I love getting up now. I mean, there was a time in my life where I used to like to sleep. Don't get me wrong. I used to like to sleep in sometimes. But I love getting up.

I love walking into the office. I was the first one here this morning. I love it. I'll probably be the last one here tonight because i have a passion for this stuff i'm going out of town to the service time conference on thursday you know but it's exciting kenny you know i got two books to buy i'm gonna get involved with your blue collar success group i want to get you back on to talk about it one of the things I love to do is follow up with people after I learn more about them and read their books. And I get on Audible. I listen to it at two and a half times the speed a lot of the times and I'll order your book and I speed read stuff and I just I get a ton out of it. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put everything about Kenny Chapman on homeserviceexpert.com forward slash blue color success. That's

homeserviceexpert.com forward slash blue color success. And we're going to have the books on there. We're going to have the blue color success group on there. We're going to have everything about Kenny, how to email him, how to get ahold of him if you have to, and how to get more from him. I think this has been absolutely amazing, Kenny. And what I'd like to do is close it out with just a final thought from you, maybe something. And then what I'll do, Kenny, just so you know, is I'll get in touch with you here.

I want to get your stuff, and then I'll go through it, and I will set up another time down the road here soon. Okay. Sounds fantastic. Excellent. Thanks for having me on. And, you know, for everybody on the line, we've covered a lot of stuff today and Tommy and I are both very passionate. And so just to make

sure this sticks and lands right, I want you all to know that where you're at is okay. I mean, regardless of one truck or two trucks, and we talk about different things. And, you know, I've had nine companies in five different industries. And I talk about a couple of the challenges that I had, but I mainly talk about the plumbing, heating, air conditioning companies that I built. And that was the, you know, so the thing is, regardless of where you're at, it's okay. And you can accomplish a lot. My buddy I talked about that's building the largest company in the U.S. doesn't have a college degree, raised with a jacked up family and different things. So, you know, you don't have Tommy and I don't have some special gene. In fact, I'm always so humbled

when I get interviewed because I, you know, I fought self-worth issues most of my life and did podcasts or actually webinars to nobody. And I launched a membership and nobody would pay attention or listen. And so to, to become an expert in the space in a short period of time and be able to share some open, humble, hard truths, and yet hope, because the reality is we, we want hope and that you're as an entrepreneur, if you don't have hope, you don't have anything. And I would say probably that Tommy and I are more driven now than when we had two or three trucks because we have more clarity and we know we can create more influence. So regardless of where you're at, it's okay. Create your vision to be exactly what it is you

want. And it's perfectly fine if you want two or what it is you want and it's perfectly fine if you want two or three trucks or you want to be a one truck operator and go out and do your thing have your company serve your life absolutely that's a great closing listen kenny i gotta tell you i learned a ton this is the stuff that i live for and i learned so much. So I really appreciate you jumping on. I'll be in touch with you. And I just wanted to thank you again. It means a lot to me that you were on today. Awesome.

Thank you, Tommy. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon, buddy. All right. Thanks, Kenny. This was the Home Service Expert Podcast. Now listen, for the first time ever, I'm going to give away a step-by-step guide that reveals the hiring process I've used to grow my company to over 200 employees in over 10 states. If you want to scale your business with the best employees,

which I know all of us want, then you need to go to homeserviceexpert.com forward slash giveaway. That's homeserviceexpert.com forward slash giveaway and get your free copy right now.