The Home Service Expert Podcast - The Right People, Processes, and Leadership Styles For Success

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Brian Davenport is the Senior Vice President of Operations at A1 Garage Door Services and former Regional VP of Operations. Part of his role at the company is to find new talent and lead people to their full potential. His other specialties include executive leadership, customer service excellence, and personal development. In this episode, we talked about effective meetings, employee behavior patterns, operations…

Leadership is not a destination. You're never going to reach that final point in leadership. It's always moving. That finish line's constantly moving. You're constantly growing. If you ever feel complacent with where you're at, you ever feel like I've reached it, I've reached the pinnacle of my leadership career,

somebody's gonna pass you up very quickly. So you have to stay on your toes. You have to find that book or that series of books that really reaches you. Everyone is different. Everyone thinks differently. Everyone acts differently. You have to find that series of books. You have to find that podcast, the motivational, the positive motivational things that are really going to drive you to success. Whether it's focusing on positivity every single day, it's focusing on how you can serve your employees better,

you can serve your community better, you can serve your teams better. Whatever it is, you have to find that one thing that is going to drive you every single day and drive you to making the right decisions for the better of yourself, the better of your employees, the better of your communities. Welcome to the Home Service Expert,

where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES to 888-526-1299. That to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299.

And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states.

Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. All right, guys, a quick disclaimer before we get into this episode. I've recorded this interview in 2022 and never released it anywhere before. The guest is one of my top performers, and our goal with this conversation is to give you a glance at how we operated A1. Just so you know, some of the numbers that we talk about might be a little bit outdated, but the insights you'll gain in this episode are what truly matters. So let's jump into it. Podcast, I got the VP of Regional Operations, Brian Davenport, joining us today. You're going to learn all about how to have effective meetings

every single day, what it looks like to get your employees to behave in the patterns that you want, which are our internal customers and our coworkers, and basically how to run operations at a whole new level. I can't wait for you guys to see this. All right, guys, today I have Brian Davenport with us. He is the VP of Regional Operations, a very fancy title. Brian, thank you for being here today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. So what it's all about here is really learning the innards of what makes our company. What's our budget this year? Our goal is $151 million. $151 million. How many people know what our goal is this year? I'd say probably a good 90% should know by now, at least up to 100. I don't know if the landscapers know, but they should know. We should have this kind of, we should have a tattoo of this, like a fake tattoo. So let's just dive

right into it. You've been here about five years now. Yep. And go over some of your work history. You were at a company that we'll not discuss at this moment. It was another garage tour company. Why don't we dive into some of the differences between the other company and what we've done here at A1? Absolutely. The biggest difference is we've invested a lot into our people and our culture here. The previous company that I worked for, they were obviously all about sales, all about making money, but they didn't do it morally or ethically.

And that was really the biggest deciding factor for me to leave. You know, sales is not a bad word. Profit's not a bad word as long as you're doing it morally and ethically. And I felt that they weren't. So I started looking and that's when I met you and realized that you're trying to change the garage door industry and aligned a lot more with my core beliefs, my morals and my values. You know, why don't I just come out and say it? What are we doing here in about two weeks? Going to Cabo. Cabo. Tell me a little bit about what we decided to do as a team. Absolutely. So, you know, we obviously want to recognize our top performers.

We want to celebrate the successes and the wins. So about a year and a half ago, we decided to introduce the Pinnacle Club, which is the best of the best in the field as far as garage door technicians. Also, recognizing some of our managers and leaders that have really stepped up over the year. But we put the Pinnacle Club together to celebrate their successes. And this year, our destination is Cabo, where we're taking them on an all expense paid vacation. The employee plus their plus one, their significant other for four days, four nights, I believe it is. And in Cabo, all expenses paid. And I won't be taking on my shirt very much because I have not been dieting like I need to do. But soon, soon it's coming. The summer's

coming quickly. Yes, it is. So we did some really cool things here and you're at the heart of it all and some of the things I want to talk about. Tell me what Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday look like around 730 to 8 our time. Every single morning, we don't miss one. You don't miss one. There are times that either I'm sick or I just don't feel like going. And you make it happen every single time. Consistency is the key. Yes, consistency is the key. And that is celebrating the successes from the day before. We have daily mojos, last about 15 minutes. Each call lasts about 15 minutes. And it's really diving more into the specifics for each market. So here in Phoenix, obviously, we have our daily mojo where we go over the wins from the day before, celebrate the successes, talk about what went well.

We share those as a team. We talk about them as a team. Anyone that is on the mojo has a great opportunity to learn from others that are having successes. Hey, this is what I used yesterday. This is what I told the customer yesterday. This is what really worked for me to be able to get that lead turnover or to be able to get that lead turnover or to be able to get that five-star review out of that customer. And then we can then use that to help others grow in their positions, learn new tips or tricks or learn new processes or things that they have. But ultimately, it's really to get them amped up, get them fired up to start their day on a positive note. Positivity is a huge thing for them fired up to start their day on a positive note.

Positivity is a huge thing for me. You start your day off on a positive note. You start your day off with wins and successes. And then it will just spread like wildfire from there. And ideally, you'd have a fantastic day because of it. You know, we do a lot. So you start out, you go over the numbers from the day before. Sometimes we'll bring up a few main things.

Conversion rate. We talk about some turnover stuff. We talk about reviews. One of the things that I've realized that probably took us a few years is you and Mike Bailey, Dan Farr, you guys have realized if we bring the same things up for the whole month, it starts to change behavior. But it doesn't happen. We can't make one video. We can't say it once and say, we told you so. Exactly. Tell me a little bit about how

much we have to do and how consistent we have to become at preaching the same message over and over and success story after success story. Sometimes it takes a year. It does. We've gotten that feedback from quite a few people. God, you guys really say the same thing over and over again. And yes, we have to because we want to reach everyone. We want everyone to see the value behind it. We have to have everybody pretty much saying the same thing across the board. No matter where you go in the country, you're going to get the same level of amazing customer experience. So in order to do that, we have to say the same things over and over. So it just becomes very natural for that person to say or do. The more that we share examples, share success stories of how a particular process worked or a particular approach worked or whatever the case may be. If it's a brand new process that we're introducing,

it's a brand new product or service that we're introducing as well. If we say it just once and just assume everyone's going to do it because we said it, it's going to fail miserably. But the more we bring it up, the more we create excitement around it, the more we get people engaged around it, the better it will become, the more successful it will become. I love that. You know, I had an opportunity to be at an event a couple of weeks ago, and Mike Tyson was there. And Mike Tyson is like the knockout king.

You know, I've always wondered, Muhammad Ali was before our time. But I got to tell you, as we get deeper and deeper in time, it seems like you look at the Olympics 50 years ago versus now. It's like the people are doing like crazy twirls and crazy stuff. And Mike Tyson, I don't know who could have beat Mike Tyson in his prime. But he's up there on stage and I'm looking at him and we're basically having a conversation. And there's probably a hundred people in this room. And he said, you know what? Consistency beats determination. He said, consistency is the number one thing that built who I am today. And he looked at us all and he said, if you can't stay consistent in your life, if you can't get up and practice every day, if you can't show up, there's someone out there that's going to take you off your

pedestal or someone out there that's going to beat you. And what does that mean to you? What does that word consistency mean to you? We talk about it a lot. We do. And it's something that I practice every day, whether it's professional or personal life. I have to have the same routines. My wife and I joke all the time that I'm almost OCD with it because if my routine gets out of whack or if I'm not doing the same thing every single day, it does feel like my entire world flips upside down. You look at our sales process, you look at our technical processes or our operational processes. And when you are focused on doing the same thing or accomplishing the same task every single day,

starting off your day by making your bed, right? That's one of the things that I started implementing into my daily life. I get up and I at least make my half of the bed. If my wife's still in bed, I'll still make my half of the bed. If my wife's still in bed, I'll still make my half of the bed. But it's just it's accomplishing those little wins. And I guess instilling that that those positive behaviors and all of that into instilling those positive behaviors into your daily routines and doing it every single day. You start start accomplishing little wins and those become bigger wins. Consistency is absolutely the key. I've had situations in my life recently where my day just got completely out of whack. My calendar was out of whack.

My emails were out of control and I felt like I was drowning and I would just have to stop, take a half hour, an hour, whatever I needed, get everything back in line and make sure everything was organized to where I knew exactly what I was doing every single minute of the day. And then I could get caught back up. I could get everything accomplished and knocked out. And then I was back on track and was feeling more successful at that point. And the more successful we feel, the more successful we become, because then we can continue to climb those mountains. You know, there are days that you've heard me and it's either hot or cold usually, because I don't have this. I think Jim Leslie, the guy that we work with now is most like, I don't know, his highs or lows. He's like just even killed. It's

like he's driving right on one plane. I am like, I'm scared 10 feet from the bottom or I'm in outer space. I mean, but the days that I show up and the days that you show up, I mean, we've got times, how important is it to show up when we're at a meeting to be everything, to be all we can be? And that Thursdays are my most important day. We're going to talk about Thursdays, but I feel like some people, I listened to their mojo calls and other markets. And usually it's the lead tech and the market manager that are doing those. And I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to be here. This kind of sucks. Like you listen to the calls and I'm not, maybe it's managers that used to work for us. Who knows? Maybe it's managers that work for us in the future, but it's like, this doesn't really make me want to be here.

And this doesn't really get me excited. How important is it to show up, have tonality, be aggressively happy, and just have a little bit of a voice behind it? That is a very critical step to getting your technicians, uh, your, your technicians, your employees engaged and, and really focused on it. You absolutely have to be positive. You are setting the tone. So yes, there are days where I'm not in it. I, you know, I'm, I'm beat down from the day before, you know, I have, uh, I have things going on outside of work that are, you know, mentally blocking, but when it comes to showing up, it comes to being on time. First and foremost, you're showing respect for the

other people that you have asked to be there. Punctuality is one of my biggest things. If I have a meeting set with someone at two o'clock, I'm ready to go by like 155, 156, just because I want to show the same respect to them. Same thing on the mojos, like, you know, we've asked them to take 15 minutes out of their morning to start their day to be on that mojo. And, you know, being on time, being prepared, being ready to go is really the first step to showing those people the same respect that you've asked them to show you. In addition to that, you that, your point of the tonality and what you're saying in those mojos, if you're going in not believing the process, not believing

what we're asking everyone to do, and you're just kind of monotone and you're kind of dragging, well, you just set the entire mood for the day for everyone that's on that call. You go in regardless of what's going on, regardless of what happened the day before, and you just focus on the positives, focus on the wins and the successes, and make it a very positive, upbeat mojo or meeting, then that is going to carry on for the rest of the day for everyone that they come in contact with. I sometimes, and you do too, sometimes we're brutally honest,

even when the people don't necessarily. Sometimes we had 87 calls on Phoenix and only one, what we call exchange to turn into an opportunity for a sale. About three weeks ago, I was getting a burrito right around the corner and I got on the phone and I remember walking was getting a burrito right around the corner. And I got on the phone and I remember walking away from the burrito stand

and I said, listen, guys, I love each and every one of you. You know that. Some of you guys have been here for 10 years and I believe in you, but I'm not sure anymore if you believe in me. I'm not sure if you believe in the new way that we're changing.

This company is radically changing every day, every week, every month, every year. And to show you my appreciation is I'm willing to write you a recommendation to go to another company. If you can't keep up, if you feel lost, if you don't want to re-engage, if you don't like the changes, if you don't like all of the checklists, the accountability, the videos we need you to make, the expectation of the scorecard, I get it. And I'm sorry, because maybe I let you down. So here's what I'm willing to do. I'm willing to let you go. I'm willing to let you fly. I'm willing to give up, not give up on you, but give up this relationship so that you could go and feel appreciated because

maybe you didn't know this was coming. Maybe I sidewinded you. Maybe you had no idea. So here's what I'm willing to do. Give me the opportunity to write you a recommendation if you feel like this is too much and I'll allow you to go work for my biggest competitor if that's what we need to do. That took a lot. That was like letting your dog go and hoping that he comes back and says, I want more. What did you feel like when I did that? Because that was aggressive and maybe I shouldn't have done that.

I don't know. I know. I absolutely think you should have. And it definitely caught me off guard. I never expected you to say something like that. But I think it was very powerful and impactful for them, you know, to hear the owner of the company or to hear someone of, you know, of such high regard and respect. You know, our employees highly respect you. They highly regard everything that you say to, like, your word is

gold to them when it comes to work. And for them to actually be able to hear it directly from you of, hey, sometimes this isn't, you know, this particular position or where we're going or the direction we're going isn't for everyone. And I think it was a wake up call for the ones that kind of have that self-seating doubt in their head. You know, maybe they don't verbalize it, but their actions state it. You know, when we're in those tech meetings on Thursdays and we start talking about, you know, the scorecard or a particular KPI on the scorecard and, you know, they slouch down in their chair and they start just kind of pouting and looking down to the ground and they, you know, they start really just having a negative physical outward attitude,

even though they're not verbally saying anything. What they're saying is really carrying a lot of weight with other people that are watching how that person is reacting. So to have that very direct, blunt feedback of this is the direction we're going, either get on board or we're going to leave you behind. But hey, I'm not going to leave you high and dry. I will support you if you want to go somewhere else and find somewhere else to do it, I think was a very powerful wake up call and message. And sometimes employees have to hear that. They have to know that, you know, even though you've been with me for since the beginning,

you've been with me for as long as I've been doing this. Sometimes we have to make a decision when we come to that fork in the road, and I might go left and you might go right. You know, I'm not very good at having tough conversations. The hard part is if I love you a lot, like my mom and dad got to see the worst of me. I feel bad for my mom, dad, and sister because I have very, very tough conversations all the time. And sometimes they hear from my tone of voice, but this is a passionate voice. This isn't like screw you voice, but they hear this voice and they go, don't talk to me like

that. And I go, but I need to have this conversation. And sometimes I communicate best with those I love the most. When you stop getting eye contact from me, when I pass you in the hall and it's like nothing, it's just dead. Maybe that's when you should be the worried the most. But here's the deal is I don't need to necessarily be there because now I might not have the relationship with you. You know, it's tough, 400 people. I'll tell you this, tough love is who I am.

I remember, this is kind of a funny story. A couple of years ago, we decided to invest in a personality profile called the Predictive Index. And all of our leadership took the test. There was only like seven of us at the time that took the test. And we took it. And the guy said, oh my gosh, Tommy, me and you are the exact same. He put his personality profile, predictive index right over mine. And it was almost identical to the T and he goes, oh man, he goes, Brian, I'm sorry. He goes, I can only imagine how you feel. And Brian's like this kind of looking like, what the hell, what do you mean? And he's like, Tommy barges in your office. Tom, you you'll work on something for two weeks and Tommy will give you three minutes to explain it.

And Brian's going, uh-huh, uh-huh. And the guy must have said 10 things about how you must have felt. And he goes, I'm sorry. He goes, Tommy, you owe a big apology. And I said, I'm sorry. I didn't know. And so, and so he explained to me what Brian's feeling. And then he explained to Brian what I'm like. And all of a sudden Brian goes, wow, I didn't realize that this is who Tommy is completely. Now I know. And now, and we learned how to kind of cope with one another and what you needed. And I'm not perfect. I can't change who I am, but what it did is at least give us some signals about what we're feeling like, what did with one another and what you needed. And I'm not perfect. I can't change who I am. But what it did is at least give us some signals about what we're feeling like. What did that mean to you?

And really, one of the things is you fit in a different, there was four quadrants and you were kind of out there on your own. And one of the things I respect the most about what he said, and I'll let you answer the question, but he said, you guys need Brian more than you know, because we need that quadrant filled. And he goes, with private equity companies, the question. But he said, you guys need Brian more than you know, because we need that quadrant filled.

And he goes, with private equity companies, the biggest organizations I work with, when there's an empty quadrant, that's when companies fail. You need those people. You need that opposite opposition. So go ahead and tell me a little bit about that day and that predictive index and everything that you felt. It was, yeah, it was very eye-opening. I've always known that there was obviously a difference. And in any strong organizational structure, you're going to have differences. You need to have those differences. And that's

what balances each other out. But actually seeing it on the graph and then the rest of the leadership team up over here, and then I'm almost completely opposite of everyone else. And the initial reaction was, oh, shit, I'm probably about to get replaced. But, you know, he did. He brought up very valuable points on there, you know, as far as having someone there to offset and help kind of think outside the box. As much as I don't like that phrase, it was very true. And it actually applied very much so here. It did help us become much closer. It helped

us learn how to communicate with each other more effectively. We both had to make changes in how we communicate, but we're not changing who we are. We're not changing our personalities or what our strong suits are. We're recognizing what the other has, the strengths that they have that I don't. So I recognize, obviously, a lot of your strengths that I don't have. And I think that it helped open up your eyes the same. And it allowed us to communicate a lot more effectively, get straight to the point. And then, you know, like you said, I will go into a long explanation of it and you just want a high level overview cut to the chase three minutes. I was able to

change that, present something in a short amount of time. And then if you had further questions or wanted to know more about it, but what ended up happening with it is I would be able to touch on the key points that you were wanting to hear. And then you just fully trusted me after that said, sounds great, go for it or run with it or whatever the case may be. It really did. It really did open up our eyes and you know, yeah, we don't have to change. And we have all of the offsetting strengths throughout the entire senior leadership team that will allow us to continue to grow as a company and not miss key important gaps that need to be filled in. I've got so many questions. I'm just going to start shooting out some big ones here. You worked at PetSmart. It was really corporate

environment. You got to learn how to open stores. There was a lot of key elements there. There was things like inventory. There was key performance indicators. Running a store is a big deal. For us, it's running a market. And I hate the word when somebody says it's so corporate over there. You know what corporate means to me? Corporate means to me something very simple. They have checklists, they have systems, they have tactical things they do to grow. Corporate though, it also means layers. It also means different manager levels. It also means people kissing asses. So there are some negative things, but tell me a little bit about PetSmart, the differences and maybe what we're becoming. And I don't know if it aligns with PetSmart, but I think now we have a vision, a mission.

We have core values. So let's talk about that for a minute. From an organizational structure where it absolutely is very similar. Yes, the titles are going to be different or the processes are going to be different. The people are going to be different. But ultimately, from an organizational structure, it absolutely is the same. I learned very early on in my leadership career at PetSmart, I learned very early on that there are three reasons to a particular department or store or program success, and it comes down to people, process, or leadership. You have to have the right people in place in order to execute the processes. You have to have

the right people in place that believe the mission, the vision, the core values, fully understand it, can live them every single day of their lives that they come in. They live and breathe it, just becomes natural to them. And then you have to have the right processes in place in order for those people to know what they're doing. You mentioned key performance indicators. We've talked about scorecards. We've talked about knowing the score of the game. You can't win the game if you don't know the score of the game. And you can't change the score of the game if you don't know the plays to change the score of the game, right? So you have to have the right processes in place. And then you have to have the right leadership in place as well. You know, I've learned a lot about various leadership types. There is no one perfect style of leadership.

Everyone is going to have different strengths in their leadership, being able to, you know, have one-on-ones or coach people, mentor people, guide people, whatever the case may be. But I did learn very early on the different styles of leadership and how to apply those, how to work with your people directly, hold them accountable to their processes. Once you have all three of those lock and step and all three are working towards the same goals and the same objectives. And then it just becomes almost easier because it's second nature to everyone at that point. Well, yeah, that goes back to consistency. And I will tell you, it reminds me of the days when I went out, I had a guy on my podcast who wrote a seven power contractor,

his name's Al Levy. And he invited me out to lunch. I showed him my book and he said, this is crap. You need to rewrite it. So then he said, would you mind if I did a shop tour? And I said, I don't know if I want you to. And he walked in and he tripped on a cord. He saw calendars on everybody's wall.

And he said, have you guys ever heard of Google Calendar? And he literally was like, I could have stole your whole warehouse with your own forklift and you wouldn't have known about it because there was no one out in the back. And from that day forward, he came into our lives and he taught us a lot of things, but most importantly, he gave us some structure. We sat in a room for weeks, probably months. Me, you, Adam L.

So the four of us. And for me, it was like, we've got to go over a tattoo policy, rings. We've got to go over like what happens if your truck breaks down. I mean, this is boring stuff. And you were better at it. Adam and you, you guys were taking notes and really engaged. And I'm like, this was like torture for me because it was too much structure. I was like, I didn't know how much people needed it.

And also just the hierarchy of an org chart and learning how to set up a perfect truck. So many things we learned in the triangle of communication, which are CSR dispatcher technician, or the three things we teach technicians, which are the three things were sales. Oh, sales, technical and operational. So we just shoot these things off like they're second nature now. And how important was the structure and the manuals and LED coming into the time, which was probably 2018?

It was vitally important. I would say it was a pivotal moment of our change and growth at that time. It absolutely had to happen. A hundred people, I think we had at that time, or somewhere around 100 people, everybody's kind of doing their own thing, going their own direction. Trucks were completely inconsistent. You know, you never, you had to guess if a technician had a particular part on their truck, because it wasn't set up exactly the same. You know, the story that you tell all the time that I love are the multicolored shirts. If somebody would walk in and one person's wearing a purple shirt,

one person's wearing a white shirt, another one's wearing a green shirt. Taste the rainbow. Yeah, it was. It was like a Skittle factory when you walked into A1. But having that consistency, and again, you know, going back to having those processes and people knowing exactly what is expected of them and then being able to hold them accountable to it. I can't go and hold one technician accountable for the cleanliness of his truck and go to another truck and say, oh, well, yours is okay because it's not set up the same way. Also having the flow of communication. You talked about the triangle of communication

being very important between those three areas, CSR, dispatch, and technicians, but the flow of communication as well. Who do I call when I'm stuck? Who do I call when I don't know what I'm supposed to do or what to say here or what to say there? At that time, I've been with the company for about a year at that point. And that first year of me being with A1, our technicians or dispatchers or anybody that was stuck on a call or stuck needing help, they would just sit there and they would just start robo-dialing anyone that worked at A1 until they finally got somebody to answer the phone. And whether they got the right direction, the right answer or good guidance. We don't really know because there was no consistency behind it. There was no structure behind it. And then finally narrowing it down to say, here's who you call when you're stuck.

If you're a CSR, here's who you call. If you're a dispatcher, here's who you call. If you're a technician in the field, here's who you call. And then if you can't get a person or get a hold of that person, then you call this person. And having that really allowed everyone to focus more, again, on their strengths, focus on their daily tasks, their responsibilities, what they were supposed to be doing while being able to develop their teams and develop their, again, CSRs, dispatchers, technicians to become stronger, better leaders for the company. It was torture, but it paid off.

Yeah, and I remember thinking one day, probably two years after we met Al, and I said, this is boring. This is so vanilla. This is so easy. And that's when I decided we needed to grow and put on the gas heavier than we ever have. And I will say, there's not been a time.

I think that, that a manager hasn't come to me and say, we have to slow down. But I think you guys talked behind closed doors and you say, don't go to Tommy with that kind of crap, because my mentality is of course, everyone wants to slow down. Everybody needs more people on their team.

Everybody. And we met Dan Miller. And what did Dan tell you instead of coming to Tommy and say, this can't be done, what did we kind of decide on what's going to be the resolution? Well, you know, discuss it as an operations team, but ultimately, like, what resources do you need? I love what Dan brought to the table of, you know, if I wrote you a, if I gave you a blank check, would you be able to get it done?

If I gave you a check for a million dollars, would you be able to get it done? So you can't say it's unlimited resources. Exactly. You can't say it's impossible. You know, it's just, these are the resources that I need. Here's how much I need to do this. Here's who I need to be able to accomplish this. You come to the table, you come to the meeting with a solid plan, a solid understanding of what you need to succeed and to be able to implement it. And really, again, open up the collaboration amongst the entire team. And now you have people bringing solutions to the table instead of problems to the table. And that is a huge win in my mind, is when you have an entire team of people that are bringing solutions instead of problems.

And then that prevents us from having to say this is impossible or we can't do this or we have to slow down. No, we don't have to slow down. We have to reshift our thinking to figure out what we need to do to make it happen and make it happen right now. It's been so valuable these last few months. I will say Jim and Dan are newer guys in the company. And I remember telling Jim, here's what I want. Here's the reporting I've always dreamed of. And he goes, and I start going and I'm like,

this, this, this, this. And he goes, stop. That's more what Al says, stop. But Jim goes, stop. He goes, listen, you tell me what you wanted. I'll figure out how to get you there. He's like, I'm pretty competent overall. And I will say there have been people in our lives

over the last five years that you've been here that literally needed handholding. They needed to be told what to do. And the people that are coming on, and you're one of those people that have been here, but you'll figure it out and you'll come with a solution, you'll come with a plan.

But so many people, and this isn't their fault, they need to be told exactly step one through seven. This is what you need to whiteboard it. You need to brainstorm it. You need to come up with a solution for them. And I'm getting so excited in this company now, you know, we did 74 million with our acquisition. We basically did a low or 80 with their income. We're looking to almost double that. And now to somebody to come in and say, here's how we're going to get there. Here's what I came up with. Here's three choices. I've done a lot of investigative work. I did a SWOT analysis. Here's what needs to be done. It feels so good for me. I almost am like excited to sit and watch and just be that cheerleader in

the background going, I love you guys. I'm here for you guys. Great job. Let's talk about this. But I love being able to pull up, pull away. And I think people think, well, Tommy needs to be involved. That's who he is. No, no, no. I want to be away. Believe it or not. I love to read. I love to be in my own world. I love to visit shops. I don't mind getting involved, but I don't like to be, I won't come in. I won't, I will never be involved with something that's working well. You notice that with me? I do. Absolutely. You're, you're absolutely correct. I won't come in. I will never be involved with something that's working well. You notice that with me? I do. Absolutely. You're absolutely correct. I mean, we've joked around over the years as well. We have some record setting days when you're not here, you're out doing something else.

We were all at that user conference for Service Titan a few years ago, and we had like three record days and none of us were here. And that, you know, it's funny, we can joke around about it, but it is absolutely true. And we're going to start seeing a lot more of that when you're doing what you excel in, what you are wired to do, how your brain works, which is, you know, looking at the vision of the company, figuring out where we're going to be a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, and pointing us in that direction. And the rest of us are down here in the day to day, you know, changing the direction of that ship, which, you know, that's something that Dan brought to us and made a lot of sense. We now have that ship that we're, you know, we're changing that direction to head that way and adding whatever we need to to that ship to get it to move faster and to get it to go where it needs to go.

You're doing what you excel in, which ultimately is going to make you happier. And then we empower our teams. We delegate the right tasks down to them. We make sure they have a clear understanding of what our goals and objectives are and how that particular task or project that they're now in charge of is going to help us get there. They now feel a sense of accomplishment. They now feel prouder and happier to work here. And yes, there are going to be people that they don't have that thought process to be able to come up with ideas or initiatives or direction to be able to build something stronger. They are those people, like you said, that here are the seven steps that you need to do. Here's how you need to do it. Here's how you're going to live every single day. And those people are

also very valuable because they're in there that you know they can follow a process. You know that they're going to do whatever is asked of them, accomplish those particular tasks. And then that allows you to or allows any leader really to now fly at a higher level and say, okay, I know that this is being done over here. So now I can build this up over here. Now I'm going to find someone like that that can also build this project up and then run with that project and allows people to really excel in the areas that they have strengths in. Well, I think what it is, is this one quick comment on that is they build consistency. And what happens is, you know, the outcome and, you know, at least is within 98% or whatever it might be that it's going to get done this way.

And the workers enjoy that over time. You know, they hate change. They fear equals change. Fear is change until it's implemented. Then you can't live without it. I will say that, uh, why a one, why a one now, why a one in the beginning, obviously you were looking for a career change in the same, you have some skills you learned, but why A1? Um, you know, I, I kind of touched on this earlier. I was, I, uh, you know, when I, uh, when I left a previous, uh, employer, when I left PetSmart, um, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be a part of something big. I knew I wanted to not just be kind of, you know, gifted something. I'm one of those people that I love to, you know, bust my ass to build what I have and then look back and see what I've accomplished,

celebrate those wins and successes, but then push myself to do more. So, you know, the previous garage door company that I was with, you know, like I said, they, the way that they were doing things, the way that they were running their operations was not moral and ethical and did not align with my personal core values. You know, I ran into a technician that's still here today, and he had left that company to come to A1. And I just happened to say, was it, is the grass really greener on the other side? Because you hear all the hey, is the grass really greener on the other side? Because you hear all the time, the grass is always greener on the other side. But he said, no, it absolutely is. Tommy is an amazing person and he's an amazing leader and his visions and what

he's trying to accomplish is going to be absolutely amazing. And he goes, why are you looking for a job? And I said, I am. I said, well, actually, no, I'm not looking for a job. I'm looking for a career. I'm looking for somewhere I can call home and continue to grow. So then next thing I know, phone's ringing and it's Tommy Mello calling me. So I talked with you for a few minutes and then, you know, went down to the office, met with you and Adam. And I remember very vividly, we talked, talked through a lot of kind of different processes, who I was. You talked about who you were and what you were trying to do and your visions for the industry and trying to change the perception of the garage door industry.

Should be just like every other home service company or home service industry out there to where they're respected, they're not a bunch of liars, cheats, and steals, or thieves, I should say, that they are going to do things morally and ethically. And I remember telling you, my wife or fiance at the time, we were talking about moving to Jacksonville, Florida, or I was going to get this job and stay here. And you looked me dead in the eye and said, well, it's my goal to get you to stay here in Arizona. And five years me dead in the eye and said, well, it's my goal to get you to stay here in Arizona. And five years later, here I am. So it's been one hell of a ride and has lived up to and exceeded all of my expectations as far as my own personal growth, but also building a career with

a family that I get to go to work every day. I don't have to go to work. And a brand new BMW. Almost brand new BMW, yes. Thinking back on where we were, I got to tell you, the vision has kind of changed because I realized what we can do. I just want to say one thing here. An HVAC unit truly costs $2,000 to $2,200. The cheapest person I know sells it for $7,500. Now, the garage doors are the same price now of an HVAC unit. And if someone sells it for seven grand,

it's highway robbery. And yet these people talk. They don't have billboards. They don't have brand new trucks. They don't have a great CRM like ServiceTite. They don't have a training center. They don't have the management flow. They own what I call a job.

They own a job. Most garage door companies are not companies. They own what I call a job. They own a job. Most garage door companies are not companies. They're job owners. 24-7, nightmares, divorce is coming, father and son broken up, bullcrap. And I'll tell that to them. Guys out there that have, you think you're great because you're cheap? Shame on you. Shame on you for not taking care of your employees. Shame on you for not doing the right things for the people that matter most. That's what I say. Hey, I hope you're enjoying today's podcast. I just wanted to let you know that the super early bird tickets for the Freedom event are now available. This means 800 bucks off the elite or VIP tickets and 20% discount on general

admission tickets. Listen, if you enjoyed Freedom 2023, this year we're taking the event to a whole new level. Jocko Willick, the Navy SEAL who wrote the book Extreme Ownership, is already confirmed as one of our keynote speakers. And there's still a lot more to come. So go to freedomevent.com forward slash podcast and get your super early bird tickets now. That's freedomevent.com forward slash podcast. Just make sure you do it before the prices go up on June 3rd. Now let's get back to today's episode. What do you say to somebody that says

you can't charge four times what it costs? You know, you touched on the obviously the materials costs and everything that's going on with supply chain and labor shortages and logistics. Everything that's happening has obviously caused all of our materials parts, our materials costs to rise tremendously. But the other aspects of it, are you taking care of your internal customers, which are your employees? You're offering the right benefits. You're giving them the best of the best to be able to go and do their jobs effectively and efficiently. You're providing a certain level of customer service to your own employees by giving them benefits that no other company out there offers. To talk about other garage door companies, a lot of them, they 1099 their own employees to where

they're not even a full-time employee. They don't get medical, they don't get dental, they don't get PTO. To your point as well, if you have an owner or a general manager of any company out there that they say, oh, it must be nice to be able to take a vacation, must be nice to be able to take a weekend off and go spend time with your family on the lake or go to the beach or whatever the case may be, that means that you're not charging enough to be able to hire the right people to run those particular areas for you that will allow you to spend time with your family. That work-life balance is absolutely imperative to your own personal success, your own personal growth. If you're not charging enough, it's not about what you're charging to customers,

it's about covering your actual cost and being able to provide amazing benefits for your employees. Another process that I've always lived by is if I treat my employees right, my employees are going to treat my customers right. And my customers are going to treat us right by turning around and recommending us to their friends, families, and neighbors, giving us those five-star reviews and bringing us more business because the value that we have created starting with our employees. I wholeheartedly agree. I would say that you should be able to pay yourself well as an owner and the company should be able to make

a healthy profit. What's the biggest thing you're working on today? What's the most important thing you're currently working on? She's like, how much time you got, buddy? Yeah, this is supposed to be how long? No, involved in the day to day with like the Phoenix technicians doing the one on ones, the coaching, the hiring, the, you know, holding up holding people accountable. I've found, I think, a great leader and a great manager that is going to take that over is in the process of taking that over now that's going to be able to continue to carry that torch on and then being able to not jump in and fix someone's problems for them. I think that's something that we've done a lot of here because we were in a spot of need or desperation to be able to do that. So somebody calls up and says, hey, here's my problem, you know, instead of empowering them or leading them to be able to come up with the solutions themselves or to drive themselves to figure out, hey, here's the solution, what we talked about earlier with Dan of coming to the

table and saying, here's the problem, here's the solution, here are the resources I need, and really being able to shift that cultural thinking in the field, not just here in Phoenix. I think we've done a fantastic job of it here in Phoenix, but now being able to spread that wealth and that knowledge to other areas. And I also have to shift my thinking. I have to shift my train of thought and how I'm doing that now instead of just jumping in and doing it for those managers. How do I empower them? How do I delegate to them? How do I give them that sense of empowerment to be able

to make those decisions themselves? You know, I was sitting here with Elisa not that long ago, and we had a conversation about something really interesting. I said, you know, we got to use their name 15 times in the garage. We want to make them feel special, all these things. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. We've got to make our managers and leadership. We've got to use their first names as much as possible. We need to communicate with them. We need to be what you're going to be. We need to take Phoenix to every market. Phoenix is going to do somewhere around 40 million this year. One market in garage doors. And don't think garage doors are easy, air conditioning guys listening, because it's not. But the fact is, it's crazy. So what we need you to do as a leader is develop other leaders. And that means leadership, training, coaching, investing.

And I think some of the people who are going to get on the bus here very soon are going to want an investment in them. They're going to say, how much are you willing to invest in me as a person? You know, I read something to you guys yesterday, that Thursday morning meeting. I said, people in sales think it's going to get easier, but I got to tell you, it's going to be five times harder because you got to work five times harder on yourself, your vocabulary. You got to read books. You've got to work on you. You got to become the best version of yourself. What do we say to our top guys? Be better your best. Better your best. BYB, better your best. So that's something we're trying to do. Let's go into some questions here. We're going to have a speed round here. Cody asked a question here. How do you maintain morale and culture with your people, specifically when the people don't see you every day? You know, one of the things that I've really developed over the

last year, having those one-on-ones with all of my technicians, having a structured monthly one-on-one that is scheduled, they know it's coming. We have a form that we use that has the key topics that we have to follow every single month when we're having those one-on-ones. The most important portion of those one-on-ones is it is that employee's hour with me completely uninterrupted. My door is closed. I don't have my email up on my computer. My phone is face down on silent over away from the conversation. And I am solely direct or excuse me, I am strictly directing all of my attention to that employee, to what they need, to what they are talking about. Some of the most powerful one-on-ones

that I've had have absolutely nothing to do with numbers, have nothing to do with KPIs, has everything to do with what that particular employee is going through at that point in time, helping them find a way to overcome that and helping them find that they now have a voice and they can bring to the table things that they want to see or things they want to change or things they want to do. And again, just makes them feel more valued as an employee. You know, earlier you were talking about my vision and I read a book called The Dream Manager and we hired a dream manager. And I want to give you guys a quick snapshot of my goals. My dream is to help others accomplish their dreams. Literally, when I'm able to work on a one-on-one with somebody, and I understand that their life's dream is to take their dad to Alaska to go on a fishing trip for two weeks, is

to put their kids in a private school, is to own a home where maybe their brother could live in another house on the property. Use those goals to motivate them and remind them back to, a lot of times I don't take the time to reflect. I do. But a lot of times our employees, our internal customers, our coworkers, they need to reflect and figure out what they want. They go through life's living instead of knowing, instead of learning how to enjoy the journey, but work as a destination for the goals. I think it's so important.

You know, Cody asked another question. This is the second time he's asked this question. I think it's really important to him. When a tech gets chewed out by a customer, probably because of price, probably because they were late, whatever it might be, it ruins the technician's mentality.

I mean, it could ruin their whole week. They could be pissed off. We had a guy who's on a virtual product specialist team. And he didn't get paid on a door he sold about four weeks, four months ago. And there was some payroll. There was different people involved. And he's on a guaranteed for the first three months. And I just knew that that could have ruined his whole day.

That could have lost us 20 grand just because of his mentality. What do you do in those situations? First and foremost, you have to let the employee really vent. You have to let them get it off of their chest. If that employee comes to you and you already know what they're going to say, you already know where they're headed with that particular conversation, and you cut them off at the pass and don't listen to them, again, it goes back to them not feeling like they have a voice, not feeling like they can bring certain issues or problems to your attention. Sometimes that might mean you're just going to sit there and listen and just say, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, oh, I totally understand. Sometimes 10, 15, 20 minutes, it really depends on the employee, but they have to

get it off of their chest because they don't know what else to do at that point. Dealing with or working with an upset employee or someone that has an issue is very similar to working with an upset customer. You have to listen to what they're saying. One of the things that I do is, especially when they're just rapid fire going through all of the issues that they have, I will write it down. I will take notes of the key points that they're talking about.

And then when they're done, I acknowledge that I heard them. I acknowledge that I hear what you're talking about. I understand how this can be very painful or frustrating for you, whatever the case may be. Now, I've been taking notes of the things that you've talked to me about today. Let me start back up at the top, and I want to address every single one of these concerns one at a time. That shows that you are actually listening to them. It

shows that you do truly care. You're not always going to be able to go back and give them the answer that they want. I want to be making a 25% commission on this, and I think it's BS that I don't. And okay, I can't give you the 25%, but here's what I can do. Here's where I can help you out. I understand your frustration. I understand how this would cause a huge issue for you and for your family or whatever the case may be. And then you go back and you address every single one of those concerns one after another.

They know that you care. They know that you are listening. You're going to find that happy medium. You're going to find that spot in the middle to be able to come to a resolution. And they are going to feel a lot more grateful and a lot more attentive next time that they actually talk to you

because they know that you are listening to them. I can't tell you guys, know that you are listening to them. I can't tell you guys, I'll repeat, he lets them vent. He lets them exchange everything and he asks questions. Tell me that made you feel. And when a technician gets done doing that to me, I tell them to give themselves a big hug. Sometimes I tell them, go in the mirror and I tell them, oh no, I can't believe that happened.

That's BS. I'll try my best to make sure that doesn't happen to you again. Maybe it's a CSR. Let them, they put streets instead of Avenue and they drove an hour out of the way, but they need to know that we're working to actively not let that happen again. That we actually listened to them. We heard what they were saying. And I think that that's important. So I said, you gotta be kidding me. Oh my gosh. I would be so angry if I were you. I get it. Oh, it pisses me off too. And when you do that kind of stuff, they're like, yeah, you get it. Yes. And they feel like they're talking to the right person. Now,

one of the things I've had to do that's very, very important in this is respect the chain of command is I can't let people jump to me unless they've gotten to every single person above them. It's so important to respect the chain of command, because how would you feel if you're a manager? And every time the owner said, nah, he came to me and listen, I've been there before and I've done those things. And I have relations with people that go beyond Brian's relationship. So it's important for me to have feedback. But I always say now, did you discuss this with them? Did you discuss it? People call me for a day off. I'm like, I don't even know how to do that. I don't even know what to do. Like I, I literally make sure

I don't know how to do a lot of things on purpose. It's kind of a benefit of like, I don't want to learn the pay loss of these systems. I don't want to know service type perfectly simply for the fact that if I didn't know how to do it, I might do it. And I don't want to know. So literally I just tell myself, don't learn that stuff. And when they, when they jump the chain of command, they don't want to know. So literally, I just tell myself, don't learn that stuff. And when they jump the chain of command, they don't go to their market lead or to their area manager. They come straight to me. My favorite question to ask is, what did your market lead say? What did your area manager say? Oh, well, I haven't called them yet. Okay, well, why wouldn't you call them? And by doing that, you are, again, you're reinforcing the communication amongst all of the all of their direct reports.

But you're also allowing either that market lead or that area manager or whomever that might not know the correct answer. You're allowing them to find out that they don't know. So, you know, it's teach a man to fish versus give a man a fish. We've all heard that that particular saying, yeah, I can sit here and give you the answer, but now I've not helped your direct manager or supervisor learn that answer so they can grow and become better. And then when someone else has that same exact question, they're going to know the answer or where to go to get that answer for future reference.

If everyone just came to me and I knew the answer and I gave them the answer, they're going with the path of least resistance and they're not learning anything that they need to be learning for themselves. I think that's so important. I think that it's aggravating when you start delegating and things take longer. It's aggravating when you could do things better, faster, stronger, better. It's so annoying when I say I could have done that way better. And you lose a little bit. Like if I ran every job, I guarantee you I'd be getting 10 testimonials. I'd be getting a video. I'd be getting a Yelp.

I'd be getting a Nextdoor. I'd be getting a Google. I'd be getting a BBB. I'd be getting so much more. And I say, oh, you didn't do it like me. So I plan on nobody being exactly like me because they don't care if we do 100 million or 10, 100 million, but whatever. They care about them. And W-I-I-F-M, what's in it for me? And if you could learn to really tell

people what's in it for me, what's in it for them. When I spoke at a big event, I said, I completely flipped this on its butt. Then I said, W-I-I, what's in it for them? And if you can figure out what's in it for them and really spell that out in the beginning, every time that we do something negative upstairs, like, hey guys, it's negative. It's frowned upon among them because we add a checklist. It's more work for them.

I try to always have a good. Whenever we're like, we're going to give them, we're going to pay for, so we pay a percentage of their AFLAC. I'm like, we got a good thing. Let's make sure if we got a bad thing, let's make sure we have a good thing. If we got a good thing, let's make sure we add that checklist in. I think it's so important to do that. I want to ask one more thing, and this is interesting. And then we're going to close out here. I specifically decided in the budget meeting to not be involved because I know how I am.

I'm going to push for probably some, we call them Tommy goals, and I'm going to push things because my mind, I figure out a way to make it possible. But unless everybody has the same directive, if they got the same goals and they got the same, they figure out the way by themselves, I can't do it. You know, I'm living on the shoulder of giants and that's my management team. You guys are just amazing. So I'm curious what that room was like, because you guys came up with 151 million. I didn't have anything to do with that at all. I just said, I told Dan, don't come up with some bullshit. Don't come back to me with some crap of 20% growth.

That's not who I am. That's not what we do here. 20% growth would have been 96 million. You guys came back with 151 with the addition of the big company we bought. That's without any acquisitions too. So what was that meeting like? How did it go? What were you guys talking about?

How did you come up with that number? I'd like to think we all have a little bit of Tommy in us in that particular meeting. We, you know, first, I think the first crack that we took out of first goals we took at, or first crack we took at the goals for 2022, I believe someone stepped up and said, yeah, well, we all know Tommy is not going to be okay with that. So, you know, we had to kind of shift our thinking and, you know, we all, obviously we have great lines of communication and we all know each other very well amongst the leadership team to where we all pretty much had an idea of where you wanted to be. And it wasn't, there was never

the conversation of, oh my God, Tommy's out of his mind. What the hell is he thinking? There's no way we're going to be able to do that. It was here's what we all know. This is what Tommy wants to accomplish next year. How do we do it? And then we put that as the as the target, as the as the goal. And then we branch it out from there. And, you know, again, back to what Dan brought to the table is what resources are you going to need to get to that point?

We obviously can't do it with the current size and scope that we have now. So what is going to need to grow? Where do we need to invest our time, energy, and money to be able to get to that point? It allowed for some very healthy conflict. It allowed for some very healthy discussion as well. There were several points where we all agreed on a particular area or there were several points where someone didn't necessarily agree and say, no, well, you don't need to hire a full-time person for that particular position. Well, if we're going to grow to this size, we are absolutely going to need to do it.

And we need to ramp up now. These conversations happened in November of 2021. Nearing the end of that year, we couldn't change where we were going to end in 2021. So now we're focused on 2022. We need to start building now. We need to start building those teams up now to be prepared for what happens in January. So some of the changes, just real quick, we got Adams moving into a position more focused on garage door freedom, which is going to be a huge part of our growth. I say that Ross decided when he moved out here that he wanted more time with his family. And we needed somebody, and Ross is a big part of the team, but we needed somebody that could come in and actually look at 50 deals a year and help

with acquisitions and also help with the bank relationship. So we're bringing on a CFO that's kind of been where we want to go. We've got a new head of HR. We're bringing on a CMO marketing, my favorite thing. We're really putting the right people that have been where we want to go. You know, we're building a training center that can allow for 100 technicians a month. And I'm going to tell you guys, my dream to be working with every day is to build an internal machine that pushes each and every employee here to go find one or two people a month that are A players.

But they don't know how to do it. They don't know like I know. They don't know what to look for. They don't know how to post on Facebook like I do. So we're going to have courses that teach people how to be promoters. And I call them micro influencers. And I get the wives and husbands involved. I even get the kids involved

and make sure they're well compensated for their efforts. And I'm telling you the way to get there is not through necessarily things like Indeed Craigslist, ZipRecruiter. It's actually through your internal, it's posting those magic moments on Facebook. It's getting the word out there. It's letting the world know who we are,

what we're about, what our mission and vision is and that they can be part of this too. And surely when that happens, it's going to change the world. I believe it's going to change the industry. It's going to do a lot. A billion-dollar company can do a lot in the world. You know, we talked about a lot of stuff. Brian, I know you brought a couple books with you. Tell me a little bit about some of the books that have influenced you to become a better leader and just things that move you in the right direction. Absolutely. Early on in my career, I was challenged to read Leadership and the One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard. From there, I went on to Self-Leadership and the One-Minute Manager, also by Ken Blanchard. The third book that I'm working on now, actually working through right now, is The Secret and What Great Leaders

Know and Do, also by Ken Blanchard. So obviously, I like Ken Blanchard. I'm not an avid reader myself. I don't find a lot of entertainment or joy in sitting down and reading a long book or a thick book. But the way that Ken has wrote these books, you know, really tells more of a story, really ties it into every day. And I'm able to relate it to what I'm doing. But, you know, starting off with leadership and the one minute manager and the self leadership

and the one minute manager really helped me learn how to communicate with employees, be able to break down, you down. We're obviously in sales. We talk a lot about disk and being able to do personality profiling and understand how to communicate with a person. The entire One Minute Manager series from Kim Blanchard does that as well, except for ties it into leadership, being able to communicate with someone at their particular level. And then the other one, again, that I'm working through right now, you know, being able to communicate with someone at their particular level. And then the other one, again, that I'm working through right now, the secret, what great leaders know and do really is more around servant leadership and kind of where I'm going

of how can I better serve my employees or better serve the managers that I'm trying to help grow to become leaders and be very effective leaders has been an absolute joy to actually read through and even reread some of these books. I'm going to finish with one thought and then I'm going to let you close out. I'll tell you guys, there's a great book by, oh man, good to great, built to last. Good to great and built to last. Oh man, I don't know why I'm braving. You got me thinking about Ken Blanchard now. Anyway, Built to Last talks about the CEO. I've got a cold right now, so it's not coming to me as quickly. Relax. But anyway, in the book,

he explains that the best companies, they actually have this moral obligation to the company and to themselves to find somebody that's better than them as a replacement. A lot of times we feel like no one's better than me, no one will be better than me. I'm going to sabotage everything and make it worse. I'm going to try to build a company that fails when I leave so that everyone knows how important I am. And the true servant leadership talks about what can I do to find somebody and give them all the tools, all the skills and be a better leader than I am. And you might not be the same leader as the last person like Jack Welch of GE. But I'll tell you this, if you could truly want somebody that's better than you at every position, that's the time and only the time when you have true satisfaction and look back

and say, I feel like I've done it. And because if you're the type of person that needs the self-glorification to say, oh, look at me without me, you guys are screwed. You're not building anything. What's the point? And I love, I love these books that you chose. Listen, we talked about a lot of things, Brian, and you've done a great, and we're going to have you on a lot on this show. Why don't you close that? We talked about a lot of things. Why don't you give, maybe we didn't hit upon something. Maybe we didn't, maybe there's something you can tell the audience right now that they need to go do today. Maybe there's a mindset shift they need. Maybe it's just when to work, when to take private time, whatever it is,

just give us a final thought here. Yeah, we have discussed a lot of keys to success and how do you become... Leadership is not a destination. You're never going to reach that final point in leadership. It's always moving. That finish line is constantly moving. You're constantly growing. If you ever feel complacent with where you're at, you ever feel like I've reached it, I've reached the pinnacle of my leadership career, somebody is going to pass you up very quickly. So you have to stay on your toes. You have to find that book or that series of books that really reaches you. Everyone is different.

Everyone thinks differently. Everyone acts differently. You have to find that series of books. You have to find that podcast, the motivational, the positive motivational things that are really going to drive you to success. Whether it's focusing on positivity every single day, it's focusing on how you can serve your employees better, you can serve your community better,

you can serve your teams better. Whatever it is, you have to find that one thing that is going to drive you every single day and drive you to making the right decisions for the better of yourself, the better of your employees, the better of your communities. Brilliant.

Brian Davenport, everybody. Thank you for coming on today. Thanks for having me, Tom. I appreciate it. Thanks, Saturday. Boom. Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go,

I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.