The Home Service Expert Podcast - Unlocking the Millionaire Mindset with Brian Kaskavalciyan

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

In this conversation, Tommy Mello and Brian Kaskavalciyan discuss the mindset and strategies necessary for achieving success in business. Brian emphasizes the importance of building a supportive network, understanding market dynamics, and the necessity of creating a profitable business model. Additionally, Brian highlights the value of mentorship and mastermind groups in personal and professional growth, the significance of investing in oneself, and the process of building a profitable business through structured financial management. The discussion culminates in a practical exercise for listeners to reverse engineer their financial goals, ensuring they understand the lifestyle and wealth they aspire to achieve.   Don’t forget to register for Tommy’s event, Freedom 2025! This is the event where Tommy’s billion-dollar network will break down exactly how to accelerate your business and dominate your market in 2025. For more details visit freedomevent.com   For more information about Brian, visit https://www.thewealthycontractor.com/  

If you want to be a millionaire, a millionaire, go learn how to be a millionaire, become a millionaire, become a millionaire here in your thoughts and your beliefs and your actions and your habits. Become a millionaire there first and then you'll start to see the money come. 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, N-O-T-E-S to 888-526-1299.

That's 888-526-1299, and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. Welcome back to the home service expert.

Today I got a good friend of mine. Haven't talked to you in a while, Brian, but Brian Kay, it's Cascafe-la-la-la-la-pul-cha-da-da-la. He's gonna pronounce his last name, but he's an expert in marketing strategy, lead generation advertising. He's based out of Miami, Florida, co-founder of The Profit Masters. And he just started that in 2024 in the beginning.

He's the co-founder of The Wealthy Contractor and the host of the Wealthy Contractor podcast, the co-founder of For Marketing Group. He's also an entrepreneur speaker, bestselling author of The 7th Secrets in Becoming a Wealthy Contractor. For years, he's been helping home service improvement companies achieve more success, wealth, and freedom. Brian, it's so good to see you, my man. Good to see you too, Tommy. That was quite the introduction there.

I tried. I didn't realize I had all that stuff. You know, I'm dying to spend time in Miami. I'd love to come visit next year. Doors are open, man. Whenever you come, you have to let me know. I will. I love to hang out. There's so many cool places, so many fun places to go. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot to do here.

So talk to me a little bit. What's been going on this year? Where's the future headed? What's been going on in your life? Well, look, you know, business wise, we're always looking for, you know, how do we help? How do we help our clients? You know, I was, I was in the home improvement business, you know, like you, I didn't do it as well as you did. I wish I had met you. Well, you were a baby when I had my home improvement company. But these are not easy businesses, as you know. And so whatever we can do to shortcut people's way to success, to wealth, to freedom. It's incredible to me how much more help there is out there today than even 10 years ago. These podcasts even, like your podcast, my podcast, somebody can go and listen

to all of that. You're getting a master's degree in business just by listening to people like you, to people like the guests that I have that have built amazing businesses. That's what I've been working on. Trying to navigate this year, I don't know what you have heard from your clients, but it's a funky year this year. You know, a lot of uncertainty, lead costs are nuts for a lot of people. And you know, there's a lot of uncertainty, I think, going into 2025. Yeah, you know, I feel really good about 2025. Goldman Sachs have really, really tied it up with them right now. And Interest Rate are coming down. You you know whoever's president's not going to determine the

outcome of my business or the people I work with there's nothing external that's going to determine my luck I determine within our four walls what this company is going to be and I can't blame a lot of people they point their two fingers outward I use my two thumbs to point inward. Yeah. And, you know, and I talk about that in the seven secrets book. That's actually secret number two is taking responsibility. It doesn't matter what you can't control that stuff. And if you let it control you, you're, you know, you're, you're, you're, I hate to say

that, but you're dead before you even get started, you know You know this this I came up with an analogy that I'm quick to to fail. I You heard ready aim fire. I'm fire it fire ready aim. I already am Yeah, I literally by the time you are trying to load the gun I've taken ten shots missed the target twice hit the target six times and then hit the bullseye And I just feel like everybody's just on the fence. What should I do?

Not really sure should I hire? I'm wondering if I should put more money into marketing and try to take market share and you know it's time for me And I'm like dude What do you think you should do? Like, why are you sitting on the fence your whole life? Like take a decision, own it and run. And if you fall down, get back up and keep running. I can't stand that.

There's a lot of that out there. People are unsure, they don't know what to do. They're looking for some magic to happen. But I think the magic is in what you just said. How can I, quote unquote, fail? But you're not failing. You're learning. You're learning about this works, that works.

This didn't work. Let me try this. And the faster you do that, and I think that's part of the reason why you've been so successful is you are willing to fail 10 times, learn from it, but then that 11th time, it's like, boom, you got it, and now you're on to the next thing. And I think you're right. The faster you can do that, the faster you build an extraordinary business. Yeah. And the other thing about it is I used to do—we're in 43 markets. I used to do these global decisions and I'm like, let's just take this little market,

this little piggy, and let's try something, and once we nail it, we can scale it. I don't need to do global decisions. We've got opportunities that I could try big metros, small metros, I could do a lot of different things now. And I like to try things, and I'm at a point where we can. You ever heard of Robert Csidini, the book Influence? Oh yeah.

And Pre-Swayze and getting the yes. What's very interesting is 20 years ago, he just celebrated 40 years of influence of his book when it came out. And I learned about it in my master's program at U of A from 2010 to 2012. At University of Arizona, they taught an ASU professor's curriculum. And you know, it's world renowned. And 20 years ago, Charlie Munger, who was a partner with Warren Buffett, he passed away

recently. But they, he got a letter from Charlie Munger and it was a certificate for one stock in Bereshire Hathaway. And it was worth $75,000. This is 20 years ago. Right now it's worth $692,000. And Chodini said every year he reads the shareholders letter from them. And right on the front, you know, there's a welcoming kind of how the company's doing and the money they're making. But the next page is every single year

where they failed. And it's like a statement, we tried this, but we learned from it. And this idea, and when I'm talking to these marketing companies, I'm like, and everybody that works around me, is embrace your failure. But I want to know what you learned about it. Listen, I fail all the time. And the reason I wanted to say this is because, listen, I do fall. And it's okay if the people around me are falling. Get back up. Let's keep going.

We're allowed to fail. God knows. I've made a lot of really big mistakes. You're allowed to make mistakes. This is a mistake. This is not a mistake-free zone here. Feel free to make mistakes, but let's not bet the farm on every mistake and make sure I'm involved in really critical decisions because I might have already had a mistake that applied to that. You know what's funny is this year at our big event, Accelerate, I had my buddy Scott Berman, who runs the largest replacement window company in Florida, present on just this. He went, he did even better than I asked him to do. He did year by year, here's all the stuff that we tried. Here's all the stuff that we tried. Here's all the ways we failed.

But then, here's what we learned from it." He went year by year, and it was fascinating because people think that they see you, or they see a Scott, or they see whoever. Big business people have built these big businesses, and they think, oh, God, how did they do that? They thought it was easy. Oh, yeah, it just happened for him. It was lucky. You know very, very well, you make your own luck. Part of the way you make your own luck is by learning, by not being afraid, like you're saying, not being afraid to fail, and then implementing fast, executing quick, learn from it, move on, learn from it, move on. It's really interesting when

you look at it that way and realize it's not easy. It wasn't easy for anybody. It looks easy, it looks easy, but that's more, I think, the person's attitude than anything else. But that arguably was that attitude that helped them be so successful. A hundred percent. It is. It's a compilation of mistakes that really kind of, I say metaphorically, I got a lot of bruises and scars all over because oops, I remember when I tried that. I remember when I hired that guy. I remember when I hired when I needed to instead of when I should have. And you start lowering the standard when you need people. There's all these things that I've been through.

And I could reflect back at the last... People always ask me, man, I wish I had your life. I wish I built a business like you. I go... Yeah. Well, listen, I lived... We own the apartment complex, but I lived there for four years Thousand square foot place I drove the oldest truck in the fleet 280,000 miles salvage title before everybody had a new truck Countless relationships were destroyed girls did not want to date me. I walked out of a movie theater to go work

Countly, you know bowling everything I'm like I'm an overnight success of two decades and if you're willing to give it two decades, the first thing I say is, are you married and do you have kids? And they say yes. And I'm like, you don't, you couldn't do this then. Because you wouldn't be able to see your kids grow up. You just, this takes full commitment. And unfortunately, my mom and dad got a divorce when I was a kid. And I vowed at seven years old,

I'm never going to let this happen to my family. Not till money's out of the way. One of the hardest things I do with people is I ask them, what do you want? I want to be like Tommy. Well, why do you want to be like Tommy? What does Tommy have that you don't have? Well, he's got a business that works. Okay. Well, you could create a business that works. Well, Tommy's rich. Well, you could create a business that makes you rich. Well, Tommy's whatever, you know, go down the list. There's a way that you can go and you can make that happen. But it all starts with, well, what do you want? And it's like, most people don't stop to think about

what does my ideal life look like? Where do I want to live? What kind of cars do I want to drive? How often do I want to be away from work? And when I'm away from work, what do I want to do away from work? Do I want to travel? Do I want to go play golf? Do I want to go play whatever? But I would say to people, like figure out what you want first. Instead of like dreaming for a while, dreaming for, well, I want a $10 million visit. This happened the other day in one of our coaching groups. One of the guys says, I want to do $5 million next year. We were talking about next year because I want to do $5 million next year. Okay, great. What did you do this year? $2 million. All right. Well, why do you want to do

$5? Well, because we've been doing $ two million for such a long time, for years. I'm ready now. I want to do five. Great. Why do you want to do five million? Well, because I'm like, okay, great. Why do you want to do five? And I kept asking him because none of the answers were good answers.

Finally, the guy says, I want to make a million dollars. I'm like, ah, okay, there, there's an answer we can finally work with. I go, well, how are you going to spend it? How is that going to make a difference in your life? And what happens is people aren't connected to any sort of outcome. There's no why attached to it. It's just like, I want a $5 million of this. What? You know, do you know what it it's gonna take for you to make a five or 10 or 20 million, whatever the number is. It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. What do you want out of it? And so I just find that so interesting. And I could say that now because I'm older and more mature because I was guilty of this 20 years ago when I was in my 30s also. What I could tell people out there listening is listen, I started at a bunny hill, that was about 5 million. I went to

the next small mountain. Every time I get to the top of the mountain and make the hike, there's always another mountain like you said. And unfortunately, just like Tiger Woods hit a grand slam, four majors in a row, he didn't stop golfing. My golf is business. But the money is just a scorecard. I mean, I'm living the best life, but ultimately, I think if you could, you should. And I enjoy what I do. I really love what I do. But the difference that I have between every single person I know, and this is true, is when I get down to base camp of the next mountain,

I find the people that have already been at the top of that mountain. And I immediately make friends and I get them in a circle. And I don't get rid of my old circles, but I'm able to kind of pop into a new one. And for some reason, if you're humble, if you're honest, if you really treat them with respect and say, what's in it for them to help me get to the top of this mountain, you pay them the credit, you talk about them on podcasts, you write books about them, you introduce them to who they want to be introduced to. They'll give you the shortcut. It takes five days to get to the top. They'll teach you how to get there in six hours.

And I look over and I look, the views are great. Man, there's another mountain right there. And I don't think I'll ever find Mount Everest, but I'm starting to realize that there's a mountain for family. There's a mountain for fitness and there's a mountain for family. There's a mountain for fitness, and there's a mountain for faith. So I got baptized. I'm going to church all the time. I'm trying to be a better Christian. I'm trying to be a better son and a better brother and a better boyfriend, hopefully soon husband. There's more than just money.

Yeah. There is more than money, but money buys a lot. It does. You know, it helps along the way. But it's interesting because when you, when you start to really make money, like you said, it's hard to trust people. People show up and they, you know, it's hard to trust people. People show up and they are weird and they try and get you for your money, family included. When I say they get you for your money, it may not even be asking you for money necessarily,

but it's like they want to bring you back to where you used to be because they were comfortable with you when you were struggling and when you were broken when you lived in the thousand square foot apartment and you drove the oldest truck people were comfortable with you, you know, and then now, you know, you're at a whole nother level and those people are still back where they were and they look at you like, oh man, look at him. Now.

He's a big shot. He's changed. That's true, it's true, you're still stuck where you were, not growing. You know, that's the problem is misery loves misery. Like why do you gotta work out every day? Come on, just go out tonight. Why aren't you drinking?

Come on, just one. Why do you want me just to have one? Like they don't know they're even trying to do it. They don't. It's like, why are you passing on dessert? Come on, just have a little bit. Why? Why do you want me to have dessert so bad?

Like, what's the point? Because you feel- Because you're like me. So I don't feel so bad about myself anymore. Because I don't feel so bad about myself. Because you ate three desserts and you look like shit and you're wondering why I'm not having it because there's no self-control No discipline and no consistency I'm really about this idea of the four F's. I've been really on this kick. I love this conversation, by the way

What's so good about you? You are such a professional your podcast is one of the top podcasts out there and Home service I you are such a professional. Your podcast is one of the top podcasts out there. And Home Service, I think this podcast has been for founders, owners, CEOs, and leadership of Home Service. My next big goal is to break in and not like, you know, be your opponent. But I want to break into home improvement because I think garage doors, I focused on home service with garage doors, but I think it could swing right over to home improvement. And if I could master garage doors for home improvement and what they've learned and you know, you know Sean McGraw? I've heard the name.

For Energy, smart dude. He's coming to work with me and he's like, dude, you got to learn home improvement for nothing else that they've learned to sell when there's no demand. Yeah. Like bath refitter and windows. So like, dude, there's a whole new, I feel like I'm okay. I like where I'm in at home service. And, you know, here's what I've learned how to do.

I let the demand come to me. I've never made an outbound phone call. I don't need to. I don't need to knock on doors. Like, that's what's crazy. If I learn what they know and what you know, and I got both, it's like the crazy, because here's what I've learned is the financial engineering that the PE companies, Ken Goodrich with Kettle called me up and he said, dude, when you learn what they know, they understand the corporate structure. They understand how to raise debt. They understand arbitrage. And I started learning that piece and I'm like, oh my gosh, dude, I used to think I was pretty cool understanding KPIs within a home service CRM. Now I understand

the bigger picture and I'm like, oh man, the world's on my feet. 10,000 baby boomers a day retiring, 12% of them own a business. It's the next five years are going to be generational wealth transfer, they're transferring it. It's going to all these, the baby boomers are sending it to all these, the kids that are not interested in the business and they're sending it to Gen Z, Gen X and a little bit of millennials and I'm like, this is great because I'm just going to take it all because they don't know what they're doing and they have no idea how to run a company. That's why very rarely, Brian, does the money go to the third generation. Almost every time

they lose it right there in the second generation, that's where I come in and take it from them. And it's a hell of a way to grow. I mean, if I was younger, if I was younger, Tommy, and I, you know, had the energy and the desire, I think I would take advantage of that like you are. I would go and I would put companies together that are, you know, they've got a good base, but horrible management, terrible pricing, terrible profit models, buy them cheap, fix them, put them together, and then flip them in five years. I think it's an amazing strategy. I think there's a lot of money to be made there. And I think you're right. I mean, next five to 10 years, so much opportunity.

And I have more than enough energy. I just, what I'm trying to do is I got two, I basically got two and a half EAs. And one thing I've learned is I've allowed too many meetings to happen. And everybody's in meetings all day, but you can't work on the business in a meeting So we're starting to get super efficient with meetings and we got to be reborn every three months at this company They know everybody that works by my side my co-workers

They know this company's getting reborn all the time and they're like, dude you change all the time and I'm like, yeah It doesn't feel like the same company that it was in the summer does it. And they're like, the evolution of AI and machine learning and the CRMs and the way we gather data, and it's like, look guys, I'm never gonna get comfortable. I'm just not. And they're like, when is good enough for you? And I'm like, my dad was very tough on me. He didn't like me to lose like that's this core value says aspire to be number one and we wear these and I'm a guy that needs to be first and I won't I'm relentless Like the reason I wrestled and played golf

I played a lot of sports and I got sick of blaming other people for losing So I said in wrestling and, I could only blame myself. And man, that even hurts more. And I'm tough on my, if I'm tough on someone, they don't know how tough I am on myself. But that's what drives you. You have to find whatever it is that drives you. And then you gotta figure out why.

Why do I wanna do what what I want to do? It's tough at times, but nothing ever came easy that was worthwhile. That's right, of course not. No, man, I mean, look, it took me 50 years to become a millionaire. I was supposed to be a millionaire at 30. I was broke and bankrupt at 40.

But look, I didn't figure it out until I was 50 years old. And then it took me another few years to get financial freedom, quote unquote. Then another mountain came. So just like you, it's like, damn it, now there's something else. But it's about growing. And it's about learning who you are, learning what you want, and then building a business around that that's going to deliver. To me, the business, to me, is just a tool.

People look at these businesses, and again, I did this when I was younger too, and they get emotional about it. This is my baby. They talk about it like it's a thing, like it's this real thing. It's a flipping tool. That's all that it is. It's a tool and a vehicle for getting you whatever you want in your life. People make it so much more.

I think that's part of the reason going back to why do people sit on the fence? Why don't they make decisions? Why are they afraid to make a bad decision and have something not go right? Well, go, learn, and move move on don't make it about emotions don't make it into something that it's not is not a child, you know, it's a business. It's numbers. It's people it's processes. You know what stress and I'm sorry you're 100% what what is the people that are listening right now that are feeling stress and anxiety?

That is a hundred percent form from indecision. What you were just saying is interesting if you tie it back to sports I mean one of the things that every elite athlete has in common is a short memory Because if you dwelt on a last golf, take golf for example, Tiger Woods, if he's dwelling on the shot that he just took that sucked, that he shanked off to the right, if he's dwelling on that shot while he's standing over the next shot, that's it. He's done. He's out. He's finished.

So you got to have a short memory and you got to be able to keep moving forward. And I think that that's something that's a muscle that you have to build. It's one of those things. I know you are a big believer in working on yourself. Jim Rohn said, work harder on yourself than you do on your job or on your business because working hard on your business will make you a living, working hard on yourself will make you a fortune. I think a lot of what you talk about is just that. Just in general, on the podcast, every time I've heard you speak, you're talking more about how much you've improved and the

changes that you've made to who you are as a leader, as a business leader, as a boyfriend, as a son, it's interesting how you talk. But it doesn't surprise me that you have accomplished what you've accomplished because if you look at other successful people, it's the same way. They work more on themselves than they do on the business. I was with Ken Goodrich in a board meeting and he was with my entire staff and he goes, Tommy's growing exponentially.

This dude's listening to 10 podcasts, reading two books a week. He's going on stages, he's talking to people on stages, he's going out to visit shops. He's literally self-reflecting, identifying things and correcting it faster than I've seen anybody. And he goes, Tommy, if these people aren't willing to put 15 hours into themselves beyond

working, I need you to fire them. He goes, because they're going to be your anchor. And everybody in that room all of a sudden came in and started asking me for books. They started listening to podcasts. They started working on themselves. And I said, one thing is I left this meeting, I said, promise me you'll work harder on yourself than A1. Because if you do not understand time management and you don't get more efficient and you don't learn

how to get the right habits, you're not doing us any favors. Whatever you need, you want consulting, I'll get you consulting. You want to go do a training, I'll get you the training. You let me know what you guys need. That's simple. We do the same thing with our people too. It's surprising though how you know not enough of them take us up on it. Now your organization might be a little bit different but most organizations that even offer that stuff I'm not sure how many people are actually taking them up on it. I meet people, Brian, and they go, I'm happy if there's a roof over my head. I'm happy if I'm able to put food on my family's plate. When I meet somebody, one of the characteristics I look for is

they say, we're out to dinner. They look at the menu and they go, yep, filet mignon, give me the big one. I want all the sides. They want more, but they're willing to work for it too. Like there's a happy medium of people that pray and hope and dream. But then I ask people, dream bigger, but understand how do we reverse engineer that dream? What are you gonna buy and why are you gonna buy it? What trips are you gonna go on?

Like if you tell me your dad is at an age where he could go anytime and you say I want to take my dad on this camping trip it's two weeks long, I know that's a really big why. That's going to push you every day. I know when you really want and sometimes you got to peel back the onion but like you said is why if we can build a strong enough why we'll show you what you got to do to get there and instead of giving you a performance improvement plan, I'm just going to remind you, remember you wanted this. I don't want you to get better for me. I'm doing great. And by the way, the better you do, the better I'm doing. So the more you accomplish, I mean, we've spent years

structuring the performance pay in a way that I could celebrate there are certain people in my company specifically management that goes How does this guy make it 300 grand and I don't make that much and I'm like, well the top sales guys in any company should make more than the CEO, you know There's there's equity and other things but I'm like You're more than welcome to take that job They got to go earn their fricking future every day. They don't get salary and it's not all commission. There's a couple of things we look at.

It's a customer satisfaction. There's, you know, recall rates and other things, but you know, you're kind of screwed if you do, you're screwed if you don't. Everybody's like, I wanna get out of the field. I'm like, well, there's an opportunity for equity. And there's still an opportunity for equity. Like I've got 48 guys right now with equity that are still in the field. And that next year, it'll be 100. And, you know, it's life changing. And that, you know, now

it's easier to recruit these guys. They see the vivid vision of where we're running and they're running at it with me. They can tell clients that they've earned their way to an ownership. Clients love that. And it's not an ESAP because I don't believe that everybody should just get a piece. I don't like that mentality.

The winners should. And I think it's great. They're not going anywhere. Yeah. How do you how do you do that? Do you take a do you have like a set percentage that you will use to put people into the equity pool? Yeah so we ended up taking 10% but and the first before I did the first deal it was called an equity incentive program The next one that we do and every private equity company does this they do 10% or 15%

we do 10% but I broke them into smaller units and Right now there's about 60% and we kind of looked at who do we need in the orange chart? Who could we need? Because these guys that have done a lot of this P stuff. They understand who we're missing possibly in the orange chart? Who could we need? Because these guys that have done a lot of this PE stuff, they understand who we're missing possibly in the future. They kind of know you're going to need a couple FP&A people. You're going to need another guy on your acquisition team and your integrations team. So there's still quite a bit there. And they go, Tommy, why would we do this for technicians? And we kind of got into a little bit of an argument.

And I said, well, you guys know I have a good portion of these profit units, so if you're worried about it, just take mine. And they're like, well, what about you? And I'm like, I own half the company, I'll do fine. And they're like, well, we don't want to do that. We want to keep you and I go There's one of two things gonna happen. Either you're gonna figure this out or just take mine and They looked at each other and

They never seen anybody say that I don't think they were like kind of like what the F like say that I don't think. They were like kind of like what the F like he really is ready to give away his and I'm like I need these guys rowing as hard as they can in my direction. Yeah well because you know that you're that that 10 percent become ultimately becomes more because you're a multiplier guy. You're not a you're not a zero sum game guy and I'm not either. So it's you know that, okay, fine, screw it. I'll give them my 10%, I'll give them 10% out of my take. But now whatever you're left with, you know is gonna be worth so much more

than if you kept that 10%. And not only will it be worth more for you, but now all of a sudden, now you've got a tool that you can use. That's why I was so curious about that. Because it's not a tool that a lot of a sudden, now you've got a tool that you can use. That's why I was so curious about that. Because it's not a tool that a lot of people use, but it could be very, very powerful to keep the right people in the organization that you need.

And it's a good strategy. It's a good strategy. I don't know if it's for everybody, because there's ways of doing, quote unquote, equity without real equity. Well, this isn't real. It gets vested. Phantom equity, equity incentive program, profit units. There's a lot of conditions. They don't have voting rights. There's, unless there's a change of control,

there's vesting periods that could be based on time or certain KPIs. And it's very complicated. And my problem with unsophisticated smaller companies is not that they're dumb. If you've got a really high level CFO, but the problem is you could give too much or too little to the wrong people. And I luckily got the right person involved with the company. I already had built the program in like 2019. He started in 2021, but I didn't. And there's people I probably paid out too much

that I probably shouldn't have because on this next turn, they won't get as much. But how many millionaires could I make? And what's super cool about it is, like dude, it sucks when you're winning big and you got to celebrate on your own. It's so good to be there with a team. Like you got a magna bottle of champagne

and you're just toasting yourself. That's no fun. Have you read this book? Never enough. No, I haven't. You'll love this book. I'm not going to tell you what happens at the end. The guy becomes a billionaire, a really interesting guy. Great story. You will love this book. Read it out. So never enough from Barista billionaire. Who's that? To billionaire. Yeah. This is a Tommy book. I'm not sure the whole audience will like this one as much. Okay. I think you will love it. I was going to tell you that there's a lot of people, Morgan Friedman, the KFC guy, there's a lot of people that were very late in their careers that just decided they wanted to go be an entrepreneur.

So I want people to understand that you don't need to be in your 20s. I was fortunate enough to start out in my really early 20s. I had a landscaping company, then I switched to garage doors. The cool thing about being young is it didn't take a lot for me to live on. I didn't mind eating Campbell's soup. I always joke around when I was a kid, I had a chef, his name was Chef Boyardee. But I can make these mistakes at an age where there wasn't a whole lot of repercussions.

So it's hard to gamble, but as you grow older and you got family and people needing you, but I'd say there's no really too late of age to start. And another thing is, your business, you made a great point. You build a company to sell the company. It's your best asset and you should treat it like an asset. You should treat it like it's for sale every three months and you should cut the people. A lot of people are like, yeah, if I was going to sell I completely change things. I get rid of this guy and this guy and my uncle still works here

that and they're all afraid to make decisions and have those fierce conversations and they know like literally everybody listening should pretend you have to sell in three months. Write down everything that you would do right now and then do it. Yeah. Well, I'd probably change CRMs because I know this one's going to give me less valuation. I'd probably do this. And you know, if I was really going to sell, I'd probably maximize this the next year and focus on profit more. What the hell are you focusing on? Well, I'm reinvesting everything back in the company. No, you're not. That's what losers say. I'm reinvesting everything back in the... If I look at your financials, you're just losing your ass.

Oh my God. So this is another huge conversation that we have. And I just did something on this and said, I didn't say it quite as eloquently as you did there, but that whole... You look at a P&L, you get to the bottom line and you say, you ask them, well, what happened? What happened? Why are you at five points? And well, we reinvested in the business. What the hell does that mean?

You reinvested in the business. What does that mean? And they don't know. They can't tell you. It's an excuse for we just didn't operate properly. We didn't have a good profit model that we were running to. And we just, you know, at the end of the year, we were at 5%. Well, okay, next year, what do you want to do? Well, next year, if we sell more, I mean, we're bound to make more, aren't we? No, not necessarily. What's your profit model? You can't make

money at 2 million. What makes you think you'll make money at five? Can't make money at five? What makes you think you'll make money at 20? The scary thing about being my competition is I'm willing to go into a market and lose money for the first year because I'm taking brand awareness. And I could point to exactly

on the balance sheet income statement in P&L that it went into marketing. It went to live in people's brains. And I could show that our marketing spend went from 10% to 30%. That's 20% I'm doing. I'm willing to lose the first year, especially on a green field, because the opportunity cost is I go buy a company and I pay six or seven X. And if it's at a million, I'm putting $7 million. If I put $3 million into marketing, I could build the same thing, and now I get to call my own shots and don't have to reintegrate this whole different culture.

And being able to call your own shots in Greenfield, everybody now, because of private equity, is like, I want to go buy companies. I'm like, well, how much market share do you own? If anything, do an add-on to the, like, get good in your own market at doing it. Buy phone like, well, how much market share do you own? If anything, do an add-on to the, like, get good at the, in your own market at doing it. Buy phone numbers, buy people.

But I think what happens with this podcast sometimes, Brian, is people listen, and they're not ready for the information because of where I'm at. And what the best thing people do is they tell me I started at one, which I was really bad at the first one. I've listened to the first one, but it was when I was $15 million. And By the way, I wasn't making much money. And they kind of seen it. They're like the one through 40, I learned how to get to 25 million, 40 through 80, I learned how to get to 40 million. And they're like, dude, when we start now, it's very tough because you got equity incentive programs and the scorecards and the way you buy vehicles. And I realize how I can confuse people, but just know I'm not trying to confuse you

and I'm never trying to discourage you. And I think some of you, unfortunately, should be an entrepreneur and go work for other companies. And just I'm very to the point on this podcast. Well, but hold on. I will say this though. And I use this line all the time. I don't know who said it originally, but success leaves clues Yes, so yeah, you're talking about this and that and the big things and we do that too on our podcast

I was trying to bring it back to well when you were a smaller company What did you do? But if but with this even with these conversations? But with this, even with these conversations, there's so much in between the lines to read, to learn from, like the whole working on yourself thing. I mean, from this podcast, nobody gets anything else out of it. I think you get out of it is, who are you being? If you want to be a millionaire, a millionaire, go learn how to be a millionaire. Become a millionaire. Become a millionaire here in your thoughts, in your beliefs, in your actions, in your

habits. Become a millionaire there first, and then you'll start to see the money come. And then if you want to go from a million to 10 million, that's now a whole other world. And if you want to go from 10 to 30 million or 50 million, now it's a whole another person you have to become. So I still think, I mean, there's a ton to learn from this, but going back to what we were just talking about, the money thing, and this is the thing

that we're working on the most right now. I mean, I kind of reluctantly got into a business where now we're helping people engineer profitability and understand their finances. And it's just absolutely shocking how people do not start with a profit plan. They start with a revenue plan. And profit is an afterthought. And if I, I mean, if I ask you, you know, what was the number one thing you do? Well, you didn't ask me. You asked me before we got on the podcast.

Did you hear me talking about revenue at all? No, no. This is what I'm saying though is that what was the number one thing you needed in order to grow A1? Cash. Well, where did the cash come from? You didn't have any cash. You were living in a thousand square foot apartment

with Chef Boyardee as your private chef. So your business had to make a crap load of money in order for you to be able to go and invest in the things that you needed to invest in. And that's also something that people don't understand is that, hey, you have to run a profitable business, very profitable, very profitable, so that you can now take that money and you can go invest in the things that you need for your business.

Whether that's people, more marketing, more trucks, more training, more coaching, whatever, you've got to make money. But in order to make money, you've got to plan for it. You have to be focused on it. And a lot of people are not focused on the bottom line. They're more concerned about, well, if we sell, if we just keep selling more, someday we're going to make money. Well, that's a load of crap. That hardly ever works.

Hey guys, hope you're enjoying today's episode. Question for all you business owners out there. That's a load of crap get kicked in the teeth. They tell their techs, no more discounts. Then the phones go silent and they have to slash prices just to stay busy. They make their techs stock every truck so jobs run smoother, but then the inventory bill skyrockets. They go on a hiring spree, then realize half their new hires don't have the experience to do the best job. All these attempts to tighten up the business, yet somehow every decision feels like the wrong one. I sat down with three owners recently who overcame this exact struggle,

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Grab your Freedom 2025 early bird ticket now at freedomevent.com and get over $5,246 in exclusive bonuses plus 20% off VIP tickets. That's freedomevent.com. Now back to the episode. I, um, there's a couple of things you said. Number one is I wrote this quote, the hustler had to die for the leader to be born. The hustler had to die for the leader to be born. So I used to hustle. I used to flip houses. I used to have all these side hustles.

So I used to hustle. I used to flip houses. I used to have all these side hustles. And I realized, I read the one thing by Gary Keller in Essentialism, and I'm like, man, I always thought I gotta put my eggs in a lot of baskets, be very wide at all these side hustles. And you see all this Instagram, always have a side hustle. Dude, put all your focus and attention

into the number one thing and realize, what are activities that have huge ROI and paid dividends. And we go into rooms and I've been doing this for the last decade and I've been in business going on 18 years. And Brian, we walk in a room and we stick our chest out and we talk about revenue. Nobody talks about profit. Now when you come in a room with me, we only talk about profit. Me too. Same thing. Same thing. And only about profit. I'll tell you how much you say. And a lot of people think revenue is like this

beat your trust. I remember at the end of 2022, I had saved a lot of money. I owned a lot of houses. I got a couple of apartments, two commercial buildings. You know, I had a lot of debt on these buildings. Yeah, like I use SBA and everything else to buy this stuff.

At the end of 2022, I had 12 million on my account. By Christmas of 2022, there was 200 million. And so it was like, first it was a shock, then I had to learn. I had to really learn, what do I do first? Will I buy back as much time as possible? So I got a driver, I got a chef, I've got two housekeepers, and I say this in the most humble way. Look, I don't want anybody to ever think I'm the same dude that you met five years ago, exactly the same. I flipped the page, but I needed to figure out how to get time and grow

exponentially and make the time for the most important things, which is family, faith, fitness, and finance. And I'm buying back as much time as possible. And I had to go work. I had to go with people, all that had $100 million in their account. And I literally walked in with an empty notebook, walked out with a full notebook. You have to learn how to be rich. You have to learn how to be rich. You do. Learn how to be rich. So when I started to become wealthy, now all of a sudden you got to get lawyers involved. You need a really good tax accountant.

You need a very good advisor, tax advisor. You need a great financial management team. Like when you start to have assets, and just say a million dollars, let's say, even a million bucks, you want to make sure you're working with good people. You want to make sure you're protected. You want to make sure people can't come after you. You got to get involved with trusts and wills and all of this stuff. I'm like you. I didn't grow up with money.

I didn't have money. I didn't know what that was like. My parents were, you know, they were middle-class immigrants and rich people were very different than us. We didn't even know rich people when I was growing up. And all of a sudden like I had this desire from the time I was a teenager. I want to be rich. I want to be rich.

You got to learn how to be rich. You learn how to make the money, but very rarely do you learn how to keep it. Yeah. Yeah. I did, when I was a kid, I could make a lot of money, man. I knew how to pick weeds, shovel snow, mow lawns. I was washing dishes by the age I was 12 under the table before you're legally able to work. I was out there, man, I knew how to make money. I was painting garage by the age I was 12 under the table before you're legally able to work. I was out there man

I knew how to make money. I was painting garage doors man. I could make a thousand bucks a day I was bartending making five hundred bucks and tips. I know how to make it I just didn't know how to keep it and that's a that's a completely different skill Totally different skill set totally different skill set and as entrepreneurs, it's interesting We are good at making money. There aren't a lot of us that understand investments. A lot of my clients have real estate. That's something that seems to be kind of natural.

You have real estate, I have real estate. When it comes to total financial management, looking at a whole portfolio of stuff, that's wealth diversification. So you got all these different buckets you got to learn about. We're in venture capital, we're invested in a couple of companies, we're going to start doing some debt You know Yeah, hard money lending different things like that. Yeah hard money loans, you know We're in like 10 or 12 real estate fields, but you gotta like keep all this shit straight in your head So so money people chase and then there's another thing that I think people chase

the status of influence and Everybody wants to be an influencer, especially the younger people listening. They say, listen, I want that. I was with Jeremy Miner last night. He gets 70,000 inquiries for sales coaching, 15,000 buyers. If you're in sales, typically you recognize the guy. He's got millions of followers. And he said, you know, Tommy, and I'm feeling it too when I'm at events, you know, I'm on stage and I have my event and it's good like I Appreciate the fact that people listen to 400 hours of me and they know my family and they know my dogs and like look

It's an honor and I love it and I give them a hug and I appreciate it. Even though I've never met them. They've know me But I think about Tom Cruise He could never go anywhere. Like literally Jeremy said, we went to this lady's house that we met and I brought six people because if you're in a room with them, now you got a target on your back. They could accuse you of anything. And now you got to be very careful who you let into your house. NDAs like, look, everybody wants this life till they don't. And everybody thinks it's this, you know, we live on social media,

and I'm telling you, a lot of people that will destroy you, it will destroy you. And it took years, I had to go from mountain to mountain to mountain, I climbed a big one, and I had to get used to being on the top of the mountain. And now I'm kind of like, okay, I need I need two full time assistants, we need to be very deliberate with our time and it's getting harder. I'm learning how to say no more. And that's a skill within itself as well. Oh yeah, yeah.

But it's still hard to say no. It's still hard to say no. It's so hard. It's so hard. I paid Dan Martell, the guy that wrote Buy Back Your Time, a lot of money. And- I mean, I just, I haven it on my pile of books to read.

It's a great book. And he came home one day, he forgot dinner for the 10th time in a row with his fiance. There was a ring placed on the table with a note. And she was out forever, done. It was, he said, I knew there was no coming back. There was no more excuses. And he said, this whole time,

I kept telling myself, I'm doing this for us. But what she ended up telling him years later, you were doing it for you. And you used us as an excuse. People tell me all the time, Brian, I do this for my family. And I say, show me your calendar and show me your credit card bills

and I'll tell you what's the most important for you. And it's a lot easier when you're single with no kids. And I'm not making an excuse. I'm just saying, I didn't let anybody down but myself when I worked too much and I left not making an excuse I'm just saying I Didn't let anybody down But myself when I work too much and I left the movie theater and people would break up and whatever I was like Yeah, so I can't I can't look down at people like oh my god. Why are you calling me? It's like but I got to be what I figured out is it selfish of me to answer their questions in a non-public forum that I could help other people as well.

When somebody reaches out to me because they've heard something on the podcast or they reach out to a guest and they start to ask them questions, I love that because it's like, hey, this person had the guts to pick up the phone or to somehow find you, your email address or whatever, get a message to you that said, hey, I'd really like to ask you about this, this and this. I love when people do that because it shows that, hey, I'm in this. I want to win. I'm willing to reach out to somebody that's uncomfortable for me to do and I'm willing to reach out to somebody that might be able to answer these questions for me or introduce me to somebody that can help me with wherever I'm at right now. And I don't think people take advantage of that enough.

It's the whole mentoring thing. There's nothing like being surrounded by like-minded people. And, and having mentors and having other people in the business that you can talk to, cause you all learn and grow together. Oh, it's the quickest way to scale quickly is if you're, if you're not selfish and you're willing to contribute and you're willing to share and you're in a like-minded room, you will scale exponentially quicker. Period. And the thing too is, and I think people have to be careful too, it's like you can't go and look at, I'm gonna use you again as an example or my buddy Scott,

you can't look at where, you know, Tommy is now and say, and say, oh, look at how big his company is and that. He's a thousand steps ahead of you. What you, where you need to be is you need to be in a room of people that are five to seven steps. 100%, yes. Yeah, and you don't want to be the smartest person in the room. If you're the smartest person in the room,

you're in the wrong room. Even today, if I'm even close to being the smartest person in the room. If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. Even today, if I'm even close to being the smartest person in the room, I want out fast. I've left mastermind groups because I became the smartest person in the room, which tells you that's the wrong room for you. And I'm not trying to be arrogant by saying that. It's just you have to be,

you can't be the one that knows all the answers. You've got to be able to get stuff out of it. And so I want to be like the dumbest guy in the room. Yeah. There's so much to learn, you know, from being the dumb one in the room, but willing to learn and open and ask questions. If you look at your circle and you don't feel inspired, Brian, you look at your circle and you don't feel inspired, Brian, it's a cage. So when I'm the one making the circle ticket, I'm so far ahead. I like to contribute and help, but all of a sudden I realized there's that, and I was in this podcast in Vegas and this guy interviews Grant Cardone and some of Frank Kern and these crazy, crazy big influencers and successful

people and billionaires. And he goes, dude, I feel like you're in a time machine. He goes, how are you moving so quickly? And I go, number one, I ask for access. And what I started doing this year is paying for access. Someone says a ridiculous number. I just pay it. I don't try to negotiate. And I'm like, I just pay for access. And the best people don't give access unless you pay. You know why?

Let me explain something. I think it's very good to be a philanthropist and give. And I do that in speeches and podcasts and everything else. But I've got to have a team. And why would I rob from A1 and what I've done to have all these people that I've got to hire to support this? The more money I get for HSF, Home Service Freedom, the more times I could bring on fractional

CFOs, I'm not going to just, I funded it a long way and didn't ask for a paycheck. I don't make any money from this, but I need to hire great people. People are like, why is this guy, if he made so much money still doing Instagram and Facebook ads? Because if this thing grows, I get to help you more because all the money goes back in and I still gotta pay people. We still gotta do nice things.

We still gotta get you more help and continue to build this. And I'm not gonna just self-fund and rob Peter to pay Paul. I will get this thing to a master. We're worth changing millions of lives, but it still takes people coming in and paying. And what I've noticed, Brian,

is that people that don't want to pay never make changes. Like, they want the free advice, and I don't mind giving free advice. I really don't. But they're not willing to spend the money because they don't think they're worth it. And if they don't think they're worth it, they'll never grow.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. The thing that I found early on related to this is that if somebody is not willing to pay, the big reason why, so like, I'm gonna, for example, our event, our annual event that we've been doing now, this will be our ninth year that we're doing it.

From day one, from day one, I charged to get in more than what anybody else in our industry charged. Most of the events in our industry at the time, eight, nine years ago, were free. You get a free ticket. They'd have 30% of the people not show up. Then the people that did show up weren't super engaged. They would stay for half a day or a day, second day. There's nobody there. Well, yeah, cause they had no skin in the game. I'm like, screw that.

I want you to have skin in the game. If you're looking for a free ticket, I don't want you coming to my events because you have no skin in the game whatsoever. So I agree with everything you said. I would just add that to the end and and Yeah, it's a you got a house skin in the game and when you as a as the person that is paying out When you pay out now you're saying now this goes to what you just said now you're showing people. I'm serious I want to do what you're teaching

I want to learn from you so I can go and execute. I can make a better business and I can make a better life. Absolutely 100. And if people pay a lot, Brian, when people spend six figures, if they gave you $100,000 check today, Brian, someone wouldn't you feel a little bit of commitment to make like now? You're like I have to make them successful or give them everything I got or whatever the number is the more it is In a way you feel more committed because you're like I gotta make a difference if they're like here's $500 You're like I'll give you a piece of advice. I got five minutes here. You know what I mean? So, so in a way and listen, $500 is still a lot of money. I don't forget where I came from. I don't forget

that people are still trying to make rent. I don't forget these things. And I know somebody needs a helping hand. I've helped people in a way that helped them become a good soccer coach and show up for their family in different ways and save divorces. I didn't do the work. I'll never say I did, but I had an open mind. And that's what this podcast is for. It's free of charge. But I realized, you know, I don't know if you've ever figured out

how much you make an hour, but I know exactly. Going into this next transaction, it's over 500,000 an hour on a 50-hour work week. So everything I gotta be very careful because you know who needs me the most is the people here at this company. My mom called me recently and said, how do I get on your calendar? I'm embarrassed and that's effed up and I'm gonna be a better son because that was the whole goal of working this whole time these last two decades is to be a better son. And so

this morning I called mom and I do this walk every morning. I'm gonna check in with mom every day. And that's embarrassing. And I want everybody to just hear Tommy out here. I'm doing like the Donald Trump. I really wanna be close to my mom. And I don't want, as much as I wanna help you, my mom is one of the most important women

and people in my life. and my people need me a lot and I I just want to make sure that I'm not robbing from them to help you because I want to be the best leader I could be. I try I still at this at 56 years old. I'm still trying to be a good son. My mother told me the other you know what my mother said just I know we got a mother told me the other, you know what my mother said? Just, I know we got a rap, but the other day I said to my mom something about what a pain in the ass I was when I was young. Cause I remember some of the stuff that I

did. She says to me, no, you weren't, you were fine. I don't remember anything like that. I'm like, okay, I'm not going to remind you about any of that stuff. So I'm with you on that. I'm trying to be better I guess short memories they really hold us in the highest regard My mom's the type of lady that if I said I'm in trouble She go get a shovel and say let's take care of it She would give her life for mine like if I went to prison and did something wrong. She would be there every day She would move to wherever I got sent and be there every day. There's no doubt in my mind.

She's unconditional and it's really rare that I have a mother that cares like that. Are you an only child? I have a six-year older sister that lives in Wisconsin. Okay. But I felt like an only child because my mom and dad did a great job. They really made us feel at least I could say that. I don't know if my sister would say that because I was the youngest and I was the boy. So they were pretty loose with me compared to her profit Masters. So tell me a little bit about profit Masters.

How does the process work? Why did you start the business? So a few years back, so I've talked about profit at all of our events and and it tried to get people thinking in terms of profit, giving formulas and methods of how you look at the business, because it's very formulaic. The space that I'm in, it's very formulaic. approached one of my friends, industry friends, who knew this subject inside and out, up and down, left, right, and been doing it for four decades, consistently making money year after year after year. I said, hey, why don't we put on a workshop where we teach people how to actually make money in this business? We did that, the first one was in 2021.

And pretty quickly after that, we realized people were coming to us and saying, okay, this is all great, but I got home and my bookkeeper doesn't understand what you've taught us. They don't know how to do approval accounting. They don't know how to do job costing, right? They don't understand how a do approval accounting. They don't know how to do job costing. They don't understand how a balance sheet P&L work. So I went looking for somebody that I could recommend to do this for them.

I want to get into that. And we do the next year's event. Same shit happens. Can't find anything. Same thing again, the third year. Finally, me and my partner looked at each other and said, well, why don't we put something like this together? So we took all of his systems, his financial management systems, and now we are doing that

for companies. So first thing we do is we say, okay, where are you now? And then we design a profit, what we call profit blueprint. So we have five main buckets. Let's design, on your chart of accounts, on your P&L, let's design what that looks like. Let's start with the end in mind, reverse engineer success. The next thing we do now is we have a plan and a blueprint.

Now we need to do the bookkeeping the right way. And there are certain, again, formulas and methodologies for this. A lot of people say, yeah, I'm on accrual accounting. Are you really on accrual accounting or did you just hit the thing up at the top that said, oh, give me now my P&L is accrual? And it just happens to look exactly the same as cash, but I'm on accrual accounting now. We do all of their now day-to-day transactional bookkeeping. The reason we do that is for the third piece, which is now we give them essentially a fractional CFO that we've trained and now they get an accurate P&O and balance sheet every

month and then they get a profit coach that reviews that with them and says okay here's where your blueprint is here's where your actual is are we on track or off track and if we're off track what do we have to do to get back on track and then we start we have conversations with them. So it's all about maximizing profitability. And it's funny, me and my partner joke about this, but all of the bookkeeping and all of that is all of that's done, it's kind of like a necessary evil

in order for us to get to the most important part, which is how do we review accurate financials with you so you know exactly where you are in the business, how much money you're making, what decisions you need to make next, what you can afford to invest in, what you can't afford to invest in. And I think most importantly is how much money can you now take out of the business, take home and start to grow your personal wealth. Cause a lot of people are not thinking about, they're thinking like I mistakenly did, well, one day I'll make this business so

big, I'll make so much money that it doesn't matter. You know, I'll make up for it. Well, really? How has that worked for you the last 10 years? Yep. Or they'll think, well, I'm going to have an exit event. So somebody is going to come along and write me a big check. Well, you and I both know, I have at equity companies

are no joke. They need your books to be a certain way. If your books are not a certain way, they're either, A, not going to even consider you, or B, if they do consider you, they're either a, not going to even consider you or b, if they do consider you, they're going to reorganize your books into the right format and your multiple is going to take a hit because your books weren't set up properly because more than likely you're either making more money or making less money than you thought or you're just such a mess that they don't

know how to unwind it. Oh or you're just such a mess that they don't know how to unwind it. Oh, you're absolutely 100%. That's what we're doing. Yeah, that's what we're doing at ProfitMath. How many clients do you guys have? Right now we're at about 50. We just started about six months ago.

It's growing quick. Wow, it's beautiful. One piece of advice that I was given on this podcast is don't extract money out of the business your first five years. And there is a real idea of reinvesting in the right way because the first thing people say and couples get together that have been married, they do the hard work, they finally start making money and they go, we deserve a Harley, we deserve that second vacation house, let's move to this nice house and if you can't save money at 70,000 You're never gonna save money at 150,000 and you start buying depreciating assets if you're gonna extract money put it into a money multiplier

And don't start because people say man my buddies flipping house my buddy bought a bar My buddy's doing this and you start extracting out of the one thing giving you the money back So if you get the next Not only take this money, but make sure it goes to the right places for a rainy day Um, no, I want to talk to you about that offline We you know in 2017 I got coached from mel and roar on your known financial position And we started open book management and people are so afraid to say what if everybody knows I make a lot of money Well, I don't really care anymore. I've never cared since we started this is by the way you work for a great company that's going to be growing with new opportunities

we're going to be bringing in better things for you guys like 401ks and dental and all these things. So no Brian I love this man I'm going to buy that book. I'm going to start talking to you a lot more because I definitely want to come out to Florida anyway. And I'll reach out to you later this week. But you know, is there any other books that you'd recommend? Top top of mind? Well, you know, look, I owe my buddy, Brian Gottlieb just put out a great book. It's called Beyond the Hammer. You'll love this. It's a parable in the front,

and in the back, it's his strategies for building a great culture. Great culture. Because I know you're all about that. You'll like it. I mean, look, it's not a big book. And apparently, I don't know if you like audio books. I'm not crazy about audio books,

but the guy that he got to read the audio book is amazing. He's an actor that used to be on Tornadoes and he does a lot of voiceover or voice work for like big, big offers. I love it. You know what's the other, you know the other book that I just read? This was a good book too.

You wrote this book? What is it called? Killing. Making money is killing your business. No, I have. Yeah, I don't think you need to read it. I don't think you need to read it because basically what it says is,

don't build your business to make money because basically what it says is, don't build your business to make money, build a business that makes money. So you could write this book. So this is good for your listeners. I'm not sure you'll like it that much. The other one that I recently read, and again, this is probably because of my age, but I just read a book called Die with Zero. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. just read a book called Die with Zero.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, yeah. That's a great book. Will Berkins? Yep. It's a great book. It's such a different way to think about wealth. Well, the thing is, I was literally, I was at a restaurant with a pretty wealthy guy and I'm building another house

on top of the house in Idaho. And it's pretty extravagant. And he says, you know, Tommy, I have a son and he's not getting any of the money. He goes, if he wants me to invest in something to get him started, he goes, I meet a lot of very wealthy, wealthy, wealthy people and they never live. They never live.

They just don't live. And they're so in this conservation mode. And I'm like, dude, I find the more I spend, the more I work, but I enjoy the shit out of it. And I'm literally like, I'm enjoying every aspect of everything I have to the fullest extent. It's so much fun. And that's that concept.

Brian, how do people get a hold of you, brother? The best way is probably just go to thewealthycontractor.com. Thewealthycontractor.com. You can get a copy of my book. Need to get a copy of that book. Need to get a copy of Brian's book for sure. Yeah. Finally, I'll just close out with this, Brian.

You, we've talked, dude, like I've got a million questions. I could ask but this conversation Was so good. Like I loved it Let's continue it on my podcast. I'd love that. Let's do that. We'll set that up. I We talked about a lot and maybe there's something we didn't get to talk about and maybe there's something like hot on your mind, but you could close us out, whatever thought, whatever you want the audience to hear right now. My big message is sit down, especially now, you know, we're in the middle of October, there's a new year coming.

I have this exercise where, and this helped change my life, where I really started to have this income goal forever and ever, you know, talk about, you know, why do you want to make money? And I had this income goal for 20 years, never got there. I finally one day said, enough is enough, I'm going to make this happen. And one of the first things I did was I said, okay, if I do make that money, how am I going to spend it? What am I going to spend it on? And I came up with this exercise. It's called the four numbers exercise. And I give it to people. You can find it on my website. It's I give it away. It's free, but it's lifestyle, future wealth giving and taxes and liabilities. And

I walk people through the exercise, but here it is, it's real simple. Get a piece of paper, draw a cross on it. And on the top left is lifestyle, future wealth giving, and taxes and liabilities. And then just start thinking about lifestyle and start to go shopping. Where do you want to live? How much is that going to cost you to live in the house that you want to live in? What kind of cars do you

want to drive? You just go through your whole lifestyle. Where do you want to send your kids to school? And you come up with a number. Okay, great. 300,000. No, 100,000. Doesn't matter. Three million. Doesn't matter. Future wealth. Well, you know, if I save 200,000 a year for four or five years, I'll be a million. I'll have a million dollars. Okay, but 200,000. You know, giving. Giving is a great strategy.

So how much do you want to, you know, donate to worthy causes? Whatever, put a number. And then think about the tax implications. Okay, if I was to add all these numbers up, I'm going to have a tax liability. Or if I have a debt that I want to pay off. A lot of people are carrying on so much debt. It's crazy to me business owners that have so much debt in the businesses that we are in.

You don't need debt. You need good cash flow. Anyway, you add that up and it gives you a number to work towards. It's a number that you can now get excited about because now you've really thought through, what am I gonna do with the money? And how much more life is this gonna give me? And then once you have that number,

whatever the number is, it doesn't matter, 200,000, 500, a million, five million, now go and reverse engineer that number and figure out what your business needs to look like in order for you to hit that number. And then become the person that creates and leads a business like that. I think that's the best advice I've ever heard. It's so perfect.

Brian, when you understand without being crazy selfish, what you just need to consider yourself successful and have some pride in what you do. And it's not shoot for the fricking next galaxy. It's like, look, you got a nice house, you got a nice vacation house, you got a couple of cars, you got some money put away and you're helping the people that helped you.

Like, it's not that big of a number. People forget how much, if you make 8% on $10 million, that's $800 grand a year. And people forget about what this money is doing for you on the sidelines. And whenever anybody takes chips off the table, they forget about the money on the sidelines. But you're so right. Listen, when I talk to you, I feel like I'm talking in the mirror because just this whole accrual accounting. I'm like, guys, this has been absolutely phenomenal. We'll set one up on yours. I'm going to get ahold of you. I got some ideas and I'm going to read these. I'm definitely going to read, um, never enough from you're going to like

the rest of the billion. Let me know what you think of it. I will. You're going to like it. Hey, fantastic, brother. I appreciate your time today. And all the listeners out there, listen, this is something you guys know guys know I ask and I haven't asked this for months and months on the podcast It means the world to me is the best compliment I could ever receive If you share this podcast if you leave a review if you start whatever you guys do if you subscribe All I'm trying to do is get this out to the masses and if it helps you it'll help other people So if you get a chance, you'd be giving me a compliment and telling me I'm doing OK.

Like, share, and do that stuff. And I appreciate it. And Brian, once again, you're the man, brother. Appreciate you. You too, Tommy. Appreciate you. 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 help 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.