The Russell Brunson Show - Building a Business That Doesn’t Need You: Lessons from Tommy Mello | #Success - Ep. 54

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

In this episode of The Russell Brunson Show, I sit down with Tommy Mello, the owner of A1 Garage Door Service, and we unpack how he built one of the most successful service businesses in the country. We get into the nuts and bolts of how Tommy went from $50K in debt to running a company that does over $200 million a year and has 850+ employees. And more importantly, how he replaced himself, built a real leadership team, and trained technicians to deliver a great customer experience without needing him involved in every step. If you’re running a business and feel stuck doing everything yourself, this episode will show you what needs to shift so your company can grow. It will help you make the classic shift from “working IN your business” to “working ON your business”. Key Highlights: Why most entrepreneurs stay stuck: they never replace themselves How Tommy uses a clear org chart and defined roles to scale with structure The leadership traits he looks for when hiring managers and technicians How he built a training center to onboard new employees the right way The importance of weekly one-on-ones for accountability and long-term performance Tommy is a super relatable and down-to-earth guy that has so much wisdom and experience to share. His knowledge will help anyone from an online solopreneur, to a Fortune 500 CEO.  His story is packed with practical strategies for growing a service-based business, and leading like an actual CEO. Listen in and take notes! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://sellingonline.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clickfunnels.com/podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Special thanks to our sponsors: NordVPN: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nordvpn.com/secrets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Northwest Registered Agent: Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠northwestregisteredagent.com/russell⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: Get a $100 credit on your next campaign at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn.com/CLICKS⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rocket Money: Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠RocketMoney.com/RUSSELL⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job’s visibility at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Indeed.com/clicks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. This is the Russell Brunson Show. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the show. Today, I'm excited.

One of my friends who I just met the first time like a month ago out at his studios, his offices. We did a podcast over there. And today he's flying past Boise and just dropped his plane really quick to come hang out with us for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. He's heading back out. But he's named Tommy Mello and he's someone who I'm really excited to interview because you have a different type of business than most of the people in my world. But you're doing amazing stuff and growing faster than I've seen. And it's really exciting. So excited to have you here, man.

How are you feeling so far? I feel great. You know, I got this boot on because I had to get some foot stuff done. But it's not too painful. I'm having a good time with it. Yeah. I want to make up like a much better story. Like, dude, this guy.

wanted to fight me and he didn't know what was coming so I hooked him with a left kick that happened to me because I don't remember I got both my biceps tore out yeah 90 days ago so I got a good story on might at least well okay so I want to tell people about your business have you tell a little bit so most of my world are digital marketers who are growing their businesses online and obviously we have a co-friend jeremy minor and jeremy's like you got to meet tom you got to go out there and hang out with them and so went out and had a chance to see your facility and all the stuff you're doing and um and so your business is garage doors garage doors which is something if someone came like hey i want to start a business doing garage doors i'm like why would you do that that's there's so many easier

businesses and you built this into like a multi hundred million dollar year enterprise so tell us a little about the business and how the whole thing got started yeah 2005 i was uh i wasn't doing much i was bartending going to school and i had a roommate the house it was 700 dollars rent it was a tiny tiny house and i was just hustling man anything i could do to make a buck and my roommate it was like, do you know how to paint garage doors? He was working as a manager at a garage store company. I'm like, no, but I could figure out how much you're going to pay me. He's like, a hundred bucks a door.

You can pay two or three a day. So, yeah, I'll learn how to do it. So I ended up being able to paint 10 a day because I called everybody in the yellow book and became their primary painter. And so it was a cool little thing on the weekends. I paint 10 doors Saturday, 10 to a Sunday, knock out about $1,700 profit after gas, paint, tape, you know, everything. And I meet with these technicians.

They give me a little sample to get the color of the old door. So, you know, Home Depot's got a thing. They laser it and match the color. And I meeting with these guys, and they're like, dude, we're killing it. We're making six figures. Back then it was like six figures. You? And the dude would be like missing his front tooth or something.

And so I was like, listen, I got to start a business. So me and my other roommate started a business. And I thought, like, I knew how to do an EIN. And I got, I formed LLC. And I'm like, I got this. Got an ad on the fourth book of yellow pages, which was crap. Didn't get one phone call. And then we did Val Pact, the little blue mailers.

And I learned in 2009, there was this product on Craigslist called Clad Genius. And you could work them, like, you have to have a dial-up modem. I had two of them. And you'd have to buy these verified accounts. And I posted a thousand ads a day on Craigslist. And I had five different ads, five different phone numbers, five different people. But they all worked for me or my stepdad or my mom. And I would book about 20 calls a day from this.

Spam and Craigslist. Yeah, spam and Craigslist. And so I had a season of my life spamming Craigslist. So this was a good old days. Well, listen, I did what, that's the foundation of what worked in Valpack and then this thing called Super Coupes. So mailers, a little bit of Craigslist. This is before Google was really a thing.

And then 2010, me and my partner, still one of my best friends, decided that I would take on the business and I take all the debt. And who do you call when you could trust nobody in life? Like everybody was stealing from me. No one would show up. My parts were disappearing. Tools were going. I called Mom.

And she lived in Michigan, and I convinced her to move out to Phoenix. So at this point, we're doing about a million a year. 2014 comes around. I met this awesome dude, friend of a friend. He's like, I'll come work for you. I took the buyout from American Airlines. And he didn't need a ton of money. He's like, I just want to grow with you.

And so we were doing $6 million at the time. 2017, I got on the right CRM, which was service site, and started a podcast and met my number one mentor. Extracted this information, went and hung out at HVAC company. companies. I started studying A-Jack because I said, who has the most private jets? It was A-Trac. All these guys had private jets. And I'm like, they've been studying since the 80s. And they started working together in the 80s. Garage doors and all these other industries never worked together. They were like, screw you, I'm not going to teach you anything. So I opened up

my doors, learn from a lot of people. At the end of 2020, got involved with private equity. And the company will do north of 300 million this year, right around 850 employees. which I consider coworkers because literally I've had every job in the company, including cleaning the toilets and mopping the hallways, do an inventory, payroll, which I hate. So now I just, I go on and do the stuff I love, sales, marketing, and culture. And it doesn't feel like a job. And I don't have imposter syndrome.

I don't ever get burnout. I don't even know what that's like because people are like, man, don't you ever feel. I'm like, I don't, maybe one day, but I'm still having fun. But it's not about the money anymore, but it used to be about the money because I came from a family that we didn't have a ton of money. which is fine and I'm glad I wouldn't have changed the thing but you know I watched my parents relationship fall apart do mostly because of money and I vowed that money would never get in the way of my future family which I'm still working on yeah that'd be next

year's next podcast episode yeah when I'm 45 it's time for kids I'm 42 that's about time okay so so a couple things one is most a lot of people have like home service businesses right and they have one and they kind of run it and they they have a good business but it's rare to see people like scale like you have and like you said you got people here in boise iado doing doing this you know running your you know part of your business and stuff so i mean i just want to like understand like moving from like you doing it yourself to like all of a sudden you're in like every city around the country like what does that that scaling process look like i look at how artists for people in my world to scale from like one employee to 10 employees and you're going

from, you know, you to whatever, 800 people across the entire country running different locations, areas. Like, how did you scale that way? Well, first, I used to say, let me look at your systems and processes and study your KPIs. Now I, literally in the last two years, they say, let me look at your technology. Let me make sure your numbers are accurate. I look at the way most business owners don't get out of their own way. They don't know how to delegate. They're control freaks. They say, if I won't do it, it won't be done right. And I don't know, maybe four years ago, I realized, I'm going to all these events. I'm going podcasting all the time. I'm reading all these books. It was always okay when I made a mistake.

Yeah, I'd be mad at myself, but I'm like, hey, chalk it up for a learning experience. Then I said, wait a minute. Maybe everyone else wants that too. Maybe they want to stake in the outcome. So I started an equity incentive program, made a lot of people owners, 25 people. Certain people got a million. Certain people got 14 million when we did our first deal. So lots of millionaires came out of it, but I wanted them to start thinking like an owner. And I didn't get mad when they make a mistake. I got mad when they make the same mistake. twice but the people I work around are smarter than me and a lot of like I'm a dreamer I'm a visionary I will do the work but I hate like it's hard for me to hit the finish line because I'm doing so many

things but I'm an idea guy and I try to create a path to get there and I've got great people now project managers people that know how to integrate and implement quickly and you got to have a lot of trust and trust is something that's built over time it's a chemistry and people can make mistakes and actually I'm like awesome somebody will call me up they're like dude we didn't pay rent for three months and uh whatever market like and I'm like did you create a system around it they're like this will never happen again I'm like good I'm like somebody will be like dude you're not going to believe this we've been paying this for so long and it's a big error and like we lost 200 grand doing it I'm like so we found 200 grand going forward good you know I'm like jaco good you found you found

something broken so that's that's all we do is look at stuff and we're scaling so quick You've got to expect some mistakes. And I'm not a perfectionist. I think perfection is the enemy of progress. But the training, you came to our training center, you spoke to the trainees, the people that were graduating, is we make it, we're passionate, we make it fun. We think about what's in it for them.

We've got a dream manager that focuses on their goals winning. I want to explain that actually, people understand, because that was something that was not expecting. So we did the podcast in the studio, and then I was about take off here. Hey, come check out our space. Yeah, so I walk in. And so I'm going to tell you what I saw. I want you explain because I don't know everything.

But I walked in and there was like four or five like garage setups, like someone's garage here and here, here. And then there was like, I don't know, 50 dudes sitting in a room and some guy was preaching at him and you grabbed me and I had chance to talk. I was like, I don't know what you can talk to these people about. But my understanding is these are your employees who were moved out for a while. Walk me through just the whole set because it was really fascinating. I think what you're doing is applicable to anybody because most people in my world,

they have sales teams, but they are not doing what you're doing. the way you're training people and getting them on board and culture. And it was so fascinating. I only understand probably 10% of what you're actually doing. So I love to kind of walk through what that whole training center looks like and the people and everything. Well, you're familiar with who, not how? Yep.

I'll tell you, if I asked you, Russell, how are you going to 20x or 100 X next year? And you really thought about it. You closed your eyes and you prayed and you figured it out. You'd go, I would have to become the number one recruiter and interviewer. I need to get the right people. because I can only do so much. Yes, system scale, funnel scale. So you're in a different industry,

but it still would take the right people. It's the who, not how. And so we figured out our avatar. And we started focusing on great personality, smile, very good with clients. Some people call it sales. I call it just being a great human eye contact tonality, a good firm handshake,

asking for the business, saying I genuinely care, I want to be your garageer guy for life. I will take care of you. I'm here to ask you for your business. And by the way, I'm going to ask you, if you're happy when I finish because I want you to tell your friends your neighbors and your

family so understanding who the person is getting them and then orientation orient them is everything we throw out a red carpet we do a champagne it's an apple juice toast uh and this is for the client for the for the people that come in to train they all come to phoenix for a month okay so these are these are actually employees though they're employees that are technicians installers are maintenance sticks okay so we've bought an apartment complex they stay there we give them their tools we give them a brand new vehicles and they just leave their family for a month they leave their family for a month. And this is the, that's a really good thought because you got to tell the wife, like you got to send her flowers. You got to do nice things. You got to buy in with the

family. You got to make them understand what dad's working on. And it's, before it used to be like, people think they had a hall pass when they came to Phoenix and just go to the bar. Now it's very like, you got to learn a ton. And, you know, when I played football, we did two a days. We practiced 10 times to play one game. Ten practices a week to play one game. And a lot of businesses, you say, you're going to train for two weeks and you're in the game forever. Training isn't what we do. It's who we are. I think when people close their eyes,

they say, who's Tommy Melo be like, they'd be like, that guy's a trainer for life. He trains and he trains and he trains and he trains and it never is over. So everybody comes in. We train them on technical, operational,

and sales. And we help people understand sales is a good thing. Sales is not evil. It's not, you're not taking advantage of people. First question I ask in orientation is who sells things people don't need. and everybody goes no no no i don't never and i'm like that's all look that's all i do i just bought a new cell phone the old one will work great bought a rolex didn't need one i wanted one the cell phone

has an app on it to open and close my garage door i don't need that to get into my garage i think it's convenient i bought brand new garage doors they're the most expensive garage drawers you could buy literally i paid a ton of money i thought i was getting him for free i got screwed for my manufacturer You can't get a good deal in garage doors rolling trouble. Yeah, no, it's so, so I wanted them. So, so we focused on that and that we really try to just, the biggest thing I say is, listen, the hardest part about all this training is believing that you're worth it. It's believing that you deserve more. You're here.

It takes one out of 100 people to get this job. So you're one out of 100 to even be here today. You've got a chance to change your family's tree forever. Everything will change if you do this correctly. You got to be bought in. you've got to be passionate, you've got to go for no. And if you get the right people, not only will they change their generational wealth and break the curse of the, a lot of people, they weren't taught how to get ahead.

They weren't taught how to personal finance. They weren't taught how to believe themselves. Someone told them they were no good. So I got to build them up and say, listen, you deserve everything that's coming. And I tell them, listen, if you don't look up to the people in your circle, it's a cage. and you've got to change if you hang around. So nobody's really,

there's a lot of great people doing stuff for the blue collar, but I love to help them figure out their personal lives, their goals, their dreams, their vacations, if they want to buy a house,

reverse engineer, how their life's going to look. And so training for me is a lot more than just creating a good garageer guy. I just messaged, I think 20 people this Saturday with Ashley, my EA over there.

She's amazing. And we've got a score card for every single technician. And I messaged them. I said, hey, dude, I'm praying for you. Let's go over your scorecard. I don't care if you get better for me.

I mean, you've got a job here. If you find it well, I'll find a way. You've got to ask me for help. But you're losing out on $40,000 a year just by doing this one thing. All you got to do is ask. I'm like, so you got to figure out this weekend if it's worth your time to get more training because I'm not going to make you because if you're not invested in the outcome, then we're never going to get there.

But to me, this isn't a garage or a company. I can apply this stuff to anything. But I just love the people. I was thinking about like a lot of guys in our world run sales teams, right, phone sales. And same thing, they train for a week, give them calls, and then that's kind of it. I was like, man, imagine if they did what you do, where you brought their team in for a month of, like, hardcore training and practice. And then when that month is done, they go back home. They still get a lot more training.

Oh, yeah. If they log in each week or each month, how does that, how does that work? So right now we trained for, we do role playing one day a week, and they're on a morning mojo call 15 minutes. five days a week. By the end of the year, it'll be five days an hour of training each morning. And then a lot of guys come back to Phoenix for a three-day refresher. Then we've got 10, we call it the Matt team, the market acceleration technical trainers. They'll fly out to markets and work with people. Then I got three other trainers that fly around that aren't part of the Matt team. You know, we've probably got more trainers than any company I know of. And then I hire

consultants all the time to come in just because I can tell them until I'm blue in the face. but when they hear it from a third party that's been successful it can't always be me you know it's just like your dad can tell you something but your favorite uncle tells you and you're like oh he's a genius listen to that yeah

so fascinating and then in your in the office you had like you had like these fake it looked like sets that were set up right yeah different types of garage doors but the real deal is like the Harley I think if you're fast you gotta love Harleys if you're a technician

to talk about Harleys I don't want you to pretend but like have you ever been to Sturges well tell me me about it. You got to find passion. You've got to be a good human being. So I think the best people that work for us are genuinely curious about other people. Like I met this guy in his garage and this was a long time ago, Russell. But he was like, yeah, he had a Bernie Sanders shirt on. And I'm like, tell me about Bernie. What do you love about him? Like, and I was just like super curious because everything I've learned has come through people that are smart that have opinions that make me think,

wow, that makes sense. So when you're with a client, if you look at it like a learning experience, I say there's three things that need to happen. They need to love you. They need to trust you. So you need to smile. You need to be courteous. When they offer water, take the water. Pet the dog, know the dog's name.

Number two, they got to love the company. You got to tell a great story of why you work here. And number three, the client needs to feel loved. So how do you do that? You say, really? You got to be kidding me. Tell me more. And you got to be serious.

It can't be an act. Like, I tell people, like, if you can't genuinely do this, just, I say, become an installer. There's a, yeah, if you can't do it. stall or otherwise you hear and so it's gonna be very quiet so when you guys have it so those are sets where when they're doing the train they're coming up and they're your role playing in the different garages of the different role play and it's not necessarily objection handling like the first thing i just do is like look start why they called you out there for and they called out for a keypad you start the keypad then we say russell while i'm here if i notice anything that doesn't look

safe do you want me to let you know and if the garage door you open it on manual and it's slamming the springs aren't doing their job if a cable's frayed if a roller's popping out like there's a hearing sprocket on the motor if that's wore out there's all kinds of like it looks like black powder on top it means it's failing so we do show and tell and you know the best people like it's a little bit intimidating because somebody's like yeah i'm not sure if i want to do that well may ask you why you know what's holding you back from doing this and really going down to the root of the problem and it's our job i don't care how old you are what color your skin is uh what your sexual preferences are I don't care anything we're offering the same thing to everybody you cannot be going

a home and say they got bad landscaping they look cheap and not offer that not offer them like I don't care if they're super wealthy they got 10 garage stores it should look the same because if you're making every situation different based on the client you'll never have a pattern for success you'll never have stability and consistency and I love sales but you know grant cardona was on his podcast he goes what's more important, marketing or sales? And I was like marketing. Because, but they both are like it's ying and yang. You can't have one without the other.

And the best are the ones who know marketing and sells together and weave it all, weave it all in the one. Build a good funnel. If you've been following me for any amount of time, you know, I always talk about as you're growing and scaling your company, the most important thing is finding the who, not the how. Who is the person that can help you drive more traffic? Who is the person that could be your CEO?

Who is the person that could build your funnels? Understanding the who will dramatically speed up the growing and the scale. of your company. Now, the best place to find the who's who can help you with your vision is indeed. When it comes to hiring the right who's, indeed is all do you need. Indeed gives you the ability to stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites because Indeed's got a sponsored job listing where you can stand out in front of your dream hires. With these sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates. That means your funnel builder is going to see it. That means the person driving traffic your

funnels is going to see. It means your new CEO or CMO or whatever you're looking for is going to see the exact ad for your business as soon as they open up Indeed. And that makes a huge difference. In fact, according to Indeed, data-sponsored jobs posted directly on Indeed have 45% more applications than non-sponsor jobs. One of the things I love about Indeed is it makes hiring so fast. You can post the job and within minutes you're getting applications who are coming in looking to become the who inside of your business.

Prior to that, I was often posting my help wanted ads on Facebook and Instagram and getting tons and tons of responses from unqualified people who had no idea what they were doing. Whereas indeed, again, they're only being seen. by the exact person I'm looking to hire. Now, with Indeed sponsored jobs, there's no monthly subscriptions, there's no long-term contracts, you only pay for results. They may be wondering how fast is Indeed? Well, in the minute I've been talking to you so far, 23 hires were made on Indeed

across the Indeed network. So there's no longer need to wait any longer. You can speed up your hiring right now by going to Indeed. And listeners of the show get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your job more visible by going to Indeed.com slash clicks. Just go to Indeed.com slash C-L-I-C-S right now and support. our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash clicks.

Terms and conditions apply. Are you hiring? Indeed is all you need. So cool. So with your local, so I'm thinking about the Boise guys here. So when you set up like the company here in Boise, do you have one person managing it or is it?

Yeah, we have a manager. So we have a manager. We have a warehouse kind of like a assistant. Manager's jobs are tough, man, because they got a lot of paperwork. They got to look at their driving. They got to look at their zeros. They got to make sure inventory is correct. I mean, there's like this massive amount of things that need to be done.

And the management usually asks me, how do you manage your time? Like, how do you get more done? And I will say Ashley helps out a lot. She prioritizes things. But you've got 168 hours in a week. Most people don't understand that you spend 50 working, 50 sleeping, 10 working out. You still got 60 hours left. So I think the opportunity, have you ever met somebody that's there like working all the time?

And you're like, what did you get done this week, dude? you you know dude work hit you hey you know just putting out fires no no no but what'd you get done you know a lot of stuff if you really think of no but what give me what they're like we're just managing the flow and putting out fires all the time well if there was systems in place the proper delegation uh standard operating procedures checklist every time there's a problem it should be kind of uh should be you take a deep dive and study and study you take a deep dive and study that problem and say what in the system allow this to happen because

insanity is keep doing the same thing and just putting out fires all the time. There always is going to be problems, but how good are you at creating systems to overcome those problems, especially if it's a problem that comes up every day? I mean, I'll tell you, the hardest part was we'd always mismeasure doors until we made it mandatory that you

had to measure the door and take pictures and there's still some mistakes, but that simple little thing, save the company, hundreds of thousand dollars a month and uh you know that i will say that boise it takes a couple strong people that believe in everybody else in a market and this market has some great people so it's just a great market so the manager they hiring the people and then after they get hired they get shipped out to you guys to go training for a month is that the manager's involved in the hiring but we've got her own recruiters okay we've got this gal sophie she's a badass she's

She's a recruiter. She's got three people under her. And then several people are involved in the interview. And then our job is to never let that person make it into a customer's home if they don't got what it takes. So it's kind of like still team six. We're going to kick you out if we don't think. Like we send guys home every month. We're like he just don't got it. You're not. I can't imagine like all your competitors like must seem so bad compared to what you guys. You know what I mean? Like no one's doing what you're doing. I can't imagine at the level you guys are doing it. Well, the part part is we got 60 guys coming in in August, 60 guys in September, brand new. So there's not even including the CSR's dispatchers warehouse guys that we need to hire for that. Imagine, so I was on this thing called The American Dream. And I was like, who were you guys out filming before me? And they're like, Kentucky Friday, KFC. And I was like, so what's so special about KFC? They're like, they open a new store every 17 hours.

And in my mind, I went home and I'm like, 17 hours, new store, location, 17, 17, 17. And I started writing down what would need to happen for me to scale like that of the system. Like they got to pick the location. They got to redo the whole place. They got to do the marketing. Every 17, they got to hire all the staff. Like, it's a big enterprise. But I had to think like that. I had to think bigger. I had to dream bigger. Most people, the problem I see is they dream so small. They're like, I want to do $10 million one day. And they never write it down. They never have a plan. They don't reverse this year. What would have to happen today? So for us to be a billion dollar company. And at the time I wrote this down

was six or seven years ago, I said, what would need to happen to be a billion? I would need 2,000 technicians doing 500,000. Well, how do I scale that up at like a hockey stick? And I kind of put in the pieces, and here's the biggest difference is all my managers came in, my C-suite and VPs, and they said, dude, what are you smoking? You're nuts. And then I showed them how it would work, what we would need, how it would happen. And they said, dude, you're serious, aren't you?

I go, yeah, we're going to do this. they walked out believers and because i had them running in the same direction believing that i wasn't crazy and they saw a way to get there they all knew we were going to run towards that number we were going to get there i just think a lot of people they don't live my dreams people are like man if i had what you have i'm like you want what i have live in a small apartment for a decade drive a used truck with uh 350 000 miles on it work nights weekends and holidays you know i i wouldn't say i was ready for kids because I didn't meet the perfect somebody. But there's no way I could have kids in a great relationship. It's like you said, when you show up at your house, you sit in the

garage, you're like, time to go back to dad and husband. Like done with work. Leaving the work identity behind. And I never had to do that. I never had to take out my work at. It's on all the time. So I'm going to, you know, I've got two puppies, but they don't know if I'm in work mode or not. They're fine. They love you no matter what. Yeah. Okay. Next question is the marketing behind us. So you get, like say, Boise, Idaho. Like, are you, do an external marking what's that look like what's the what's that process or is it just are people knocking door like what's that that part you know we do have some door knockers not voice you right now um but ultimately it's it's a combination of tv radio billboards that's for

the brand recognition and then we've got driving billboards which are the massive vans that are wrapped your head on the side of yeah car too when i left your office i took pictures of me next to your van i sent to my team they're like are we wrapping all of our cars in your head i'm like yes we need to it's amazing yeah no i did that because it's timeless. But, and then we do, so we do that, then we've got the online, which is Google, Bing. We love search engines,

and now we're getting really into AI, Chetchabit. So you guys, do you guys run that corporate or is each individual city on the own? Nobody does marketing except, like, right now I'm acting as the CMO. There's about eight people on the team. And then we've got about 10 agencies, give or take. And so we find specialists. We don't find a jack of all trades.

I don't want somebody that does all our media buys. they do our pay-per-click, they do our LSA local services, they do our Google My Business optimization. Then you've got SEO conventional, which is backlinks, content, H-1 tags, metadata, schema data. And then you have Bing's pretty similar. Then you have things like Angie's list, and I can go on and on about the lead aggregators, and then you've got online directories.

There's so many things online, but you've got to get, you know, me and Aaron, we're talking about just going back to the conventional like TV radio, boards, tell stories, have people fall in love with who you are as a brand, people that want to do business with you because they like, no, and trust you. And you could do that through TV, radio billboards. I don't want people searching garage or repair Boisey. I want them searching A1 garage or service. And so online's very important that you show up with great reviews because everybody's going to check you out. That's another thing with employees, too. They might love you. They might hear great things, but they're still going to go to Indeed

and Glass Store and see what people are saying about you. So that's another thing. If somebody's listening and they say, look, why am I not getting great people? Look at your Indeed and Glass store. Look what the people that have worked for you are saying. All the people that quitter got fired are going to say bad things. Why not get the good people that are the lifers to say something great about you? And a long time ago, I read this book by Darren Hardy, Compound Effect, and he said, I wanted to meet the perfect woman. He goes, so I wrote down 100 things that I wanted. Like, I really wanted to identify this chick. Like, no, no, her when I seen her.

So I really went to work. And I read this list out loud. I started thinking about it. And I go, I can never get a woman like this. I could never. They wouldn't even date me. I'm not worthy of a woman like this. So he wrote down 100 of things he would need to become to be worthy of a woman like that.

And then he, you know, I read that part and I said, what would I have to become for people that would want to work with me to get like the perfect people that would be like easy, fun? easy lucrative fun and just like really really cool people and i was none of them like a good collaborator give great advice recognition uh you know i wrote down all these things and i needed to work on me and once the right people came on it's to jim collins the right people came on the bus everything got easier but you know i'm very experimental with my marketing i'll try everything but i'll try it in a small i'll try it in bagus i'll try it in boise i'll try it in lans I'll try it in one market. And if I strike gold, then I'll scale it to every market.

So I used to be like, I'm going to just try everything in every market. Now I'm very disciplined on how we try to do things. I mean, we're still doing a ton of mailers. We do so much stuff. I mean, I've read every day on Kennedy, Rook, No BS about direct marketing. And it's changed my mind on the way I looked at a lot of things as I study these books. I think leaders are readers. And if somebody took a lifetime to write a book, you should read it and implement it.

But marketing is, we've got these, you know, an amazing staff that once we turn them on, I mean, even influencer marketing, everything I've learned from your stuff and the stuff online, it still works in home service. My buddy, Josh Snow, a good buddy mine lives down the street. We had a business together. He was telling me about how to change the algorithm for chat EBT and how he uses crowdfunding to hire and basically influence the algorithms. And I'm like, dude, this is like, it's way beyond me.

but I'm going to go ask for help and I'm going to learn. And if I got to throw somebody a bunch of money to learn, like $100,000 for a potential $10 million pay off each year, I'll take that any day of the week. So I've learned a pay to play too. Like even though he's a buddy, I've replaced his garage doors. I'm like, this is on the house.

I'm like, you owe me at least a couple meetings for this. But he wants the new, nice ones like you got. Yeah. He's a Paradise Valley. It's a great area. Yeah. So awesome. Next time you've got to stay with me.

Yeah, for sure. So now I understand, because you have two podcasts, right? I want to understand how the podcasts fit into the strategy of A1 or is it complete separate? How does that part of the game fit in? You know, 2017 podcasts weren't really as big as they are today. And I felt like I think my number one quality is that I'm very curious. I'm genuinely curious. I definitely want to seek out answers.

I definitely love learning and hearing different perspectives. So I learned really quickly that if I started a podcast, podcast. People were interested in my questions of where I was going through. So whether it was marketing, HR, understanding leases, like your vehicle leases, how you could depreciate 100% of them and how it made sense to lease versus own. And, you know, working on different things like getting Milwaukee tools on and learning how to get a better tool program or better inventory systems or building culture and all these different things. Lots of marketing. I learned that I could get anybody on the podcast. And normally I'd have to pay 10 grand.

for this consulting session they were glad to come on for free and then they followed up for me with me and what i learned very quickly is i wanted to hire one out of 40 podcasts that's kind of where i'm at one out of 40 like i'm working with dan martel he told me by the way i'm fired because he's not going to do any more coaching one-on-one he said he pulled out his watch he's got a five hundred thousand dollar watch right um what the hell's the name of the watch it's not a paddock is it richard uh yeah richard mill yeah and he goes Tommy let me show you something And this is a $500,000 watch. He goes, you know why I bought a $500,000 watch?

Not a $200,000 or not a million dollar watch. He goes, because $500,000 is how much I need to make an hour to be a billionaire. He goes, so you're not going to pay me $500,000. He goes, so therefore, we got a few more sessions. And then, by the way, I'll take your phone calls. I'll come to Idaho. I'll come to your PV house. We'll get to hang out.

But I've learned that my time. I'm in a phase of my life. He said that I'm saying no. A hundred more times than I'm saying. Not nine or ten times more, but a hundred more times. And he goes, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's something that I'm trying to build to, is that skill to say no without, like so many people said yes to me,

so I kind of want to pay it forward. So I'm cropping that part out of the video. And me and Ashley are going to send that point of the video to say, look, it's not necessarily, but I'm robbing time for my mom and dad. I'm robbing time from my sister, my niece and my nephews. I'm robin time for my company. So unless it's absolutely like a mom, must do, like I say, hell yes, then it's a no.

And Dan's taught me a lot about just the way I look at software. He says, for every dollar you spend, you've got to figure out the enterprise value. And you should be at a 1 to 10 ratio. And that's just a different way of looking at things. So lately, over the last few years, I've hired a ton of consultants that I've met on the podcast. Dan came on my podcast. So I've used that as really a learning experience, something for my curiosity. That was the core parts to get free consulting, not as like a lead job.

strategy for no no it was not and most people on their podcast if i wanted to talk to builders and designers i talk about how much the garage door and bring it back to that it could have been worth a ton of leads but i've never had a problem getting leads i mean this month this past month june 34,200 leads we ran over 25,000 some of these are form fills which by the way in home service those aren't those aren't good nobody fills out a form and says my garage is busted i can't it out. It's more like an inquiry. I like the ones that go, dude, I am screwed. I need you here now. Yeah. Those are the best calls. Yeah. It's interesting when I got started in this business, I was in college and I had similar. I was like watching all those people launching courses.

I couldn't afford to buy the courses. And this is before podcast was a thing. And so I started like this tele-seminar series where I would just interview people. And literally I was like, all the people I couldn't afford their courses. I'd email my, hey, can I have you on my tele-suminar? And they're like, oh, sure. And I have one-on-one time for an hour with them. I'm like, this is insane that I'm asking my direct questions i can't afford the and i think a lot of people understand like the power in that like how um having having some version of a show or something gives you access to people that you don't normally have access to that's a secret sauce i remember adam my general manager one of my great great friends he looked at me after the first three podcasts he listened to all three

him and he goes he looks at me we would go to dinner he goes what are you doing he's like you know how long it took us to figure this out and you just yelled to the rooftops to everybody that list of the podcast or secrets. And I go, we're going to find out real stupid, real quickly, how stupid I am or I might be a pretty good idea. Because I can tell you right now, Russell, how to get a six-pack. I mean, you are a wrestler. You know what you got to do.

You got to go on a Chloric deficit. You got to watch six-packs are made in the kitchen. It's not complicated. But nobody does it. So what I've learned is you can tell everybody, look, I'll show you exactly what I do. One of my mentors, my best mentor said, give them everything. it'll just what'll happen is when they learn about branding and direct response marketing and this and this and we go on and on he goes you're going to sing them to the bottom of the ocean he goes whether

you like it or not they're not ready they don't know so they don't understand the steps and the priority levels and what to get started with so they try to do it all and nothing works and the entrepreneur is always the one in the way believe it or not I've had to learn to step back let them fail like I said in the beginning I got to stay out of the way like there are a time I inject myself, but I used to do, you know Cameron Herald. He's a coach of ours. And he goes, Tommy, how often, he asked Luke my CEO, how often is Tommy interacting with, like, your direct reports?

He goes, Luke goes like this, shakes and said, he goes, all the time. And he goes, you're not, Tommy, you're not telling them, like, to run your projects and stuff. And I go, no. He's like, you are? He's like, that's forbidden. He goes, you're only allowed to ask questions. You're not allowed to give anything what to do.

he goes that's an insult to your management team if you're skipping down these skip meetings and so when he told me that i was like done and like you hire these mentors you listen to them they've been tried and true like they've had a lot of success so it's like when they tell me something i listen and i incorporate it and i don't a lot of people like to argue and say well you don't understand you don't know you don't know my industry you don't the economics is trump trump's got all this stuff going out with tariffs like there's always a reason why you suck when you can just say, listen, I need to get better, that's when everything will start to change.

Most people are like pointing, pointing, pointing. If I could hire better people and if I didn't have these cheap customers and interest rates would go down, they need to point these two fingers and say maybe it's me. It's so fascinating because that's true in like all, like in business, but it's the same thing in marriage. I found out with my kids. Like every time I try to fix my wife or my kids, it never works.

And then usually when I look back at myself, I'm like, how can I change myself? And then my marriage becomes better and my kids become better, business like it's so fascinating how we never want to like yeah we never want to take the extreme ownership back on ourselves but we do it's the only thing that can actually fix only any situation you can communicate tell people how you feel i think that it's important and it's very difficult for me to do is to say russell when you talk to me like this sometimes i feel like you're talking down to me and it makes me very hard to want to work with a guy like you like a better approach to a guy

like me would be to talk this way and i think our relationship would be a lot better and those are hard conversations but they're worth having as long as i'm like russell you're an egomaniac dude you've you you you can't be this way to anybody because then then you're going to be like fight or flight and be like well what about you so if you say stuff how how i feel this is how i feel when you say things like this and i'm not a pro at this is something i've been working very hard out and i'm very hard about showing my emotions and giving feedback but that's not something i could just say well i can't do it because i'm not good at it it's something i need to start doing more often and putting myself in those uncomfortable situations is I feel this way when

you react this way. But I can't come down at you too because then I know it turns into this like, well, what about this? But hey, Russell, don't take any offense to this. I'm just going to be really open with you a little bit about my feelings. And I think you're a great leader. I love the way what you're doing with the company. I bought into your vision. And but here's a few things that would I would probably react better if you said it this way. And in emails, you're very short. That's sometimes condescending. If you could just give me a one-up. I need to get that positive feedback, too. Like, imagine everyone's life would be better just for that little conversation.

Yeah. Yeah. I had a flashback. One of my friends, he's a great dad, and he said that he'd ask his son all the time. He's like, no judgment. He's like, tell me whatever you want, but he's like, you know, what do you? He had three questions. It was like, what I do good today?

What do you wish I would do better or something? But it was like, he was trying to get his son to tell him, like, if you would do this, I would feel better. And he would ask his son, like, he would ask his son. like once a week or once a month or something. And it's like what happens is like incrementally over time, I would make the little tweaks and these little tweaks. I see him and he's like, well, the best fathers I've ever seen.

Like I envy him. I'm like, man, I wish I could do that. But most of us are afraid to ask for the feedback. And then also the people are asking you're scared to give it to us because like, they're afraid that we're going to come back and, you know, fight it. And his whole thing is like, he's like, I will never fight back. I just want to know, honestly, what could I do better as your father?

What could be better as your boss and just let them do? And like, okay, I'm going to do my best as opposed to what we want to do, which is like, you know, all of our ego and like all those kind of things. So it's just fascinating how it's tough, dude. Business is like the greatest personal involvement lesson in the world. Like it forces you like look back at yourself. It's internalized and reflect. And I didn't know how to do that.

I was so busy running forward looking five years down the road. I would never reflect. I'm like, I don't have time to reflect. When I started going on long walks with no music, no nothing, no cell phone, just really like thinking about what happened today, well, what could I have done better at? A lot of stuff started to pop and, my mind of, man, people must think, I'm super competitive like you. And like, I run over some people, especially competitors and excuse my French, but at the

same time, I invite competitors to our shop and I want to see them win because it makes the market better, it makes the industry better. But this idea of learning how to reflect and being vulnerable and, like, we do 360 reviews and I'm like, I cringe, I don't even want to read what they have to say is like, Like, because I'm not good at remembering names, it's probably like, like, and I know the one thing they say is like you got to remember people's names like, like Bill Clinton, whether you like it or hate it, that dude could remember, you know, Jim Quick, Jim remembers everything. He'll remember your name, he'll remember the conversation, like he's got these mental things that he does. And he's like, I'd rather read than eat or work out. He's like, I need to feed my brain. Everybody's feeding their body. Everybody's into this kick, you know, cold plunge sauna. They're eating all right.

Right. And we're into this kick now, this fad. And he's like, what if everybody worked on their brain? And so something I need to get better at. And like, we're working on name tags because I'm like, it's the most embarrassing thing that I met this person seven times. And it makes it seem like I don't care. But the fact is, I just, I've never learned that skill that's something I need to do because people love to hear their name. Like, wow, I'm not just a number. Yeah. I heard Dan Kennedy told me this story. He was fascinating. He was on the old success tours back in the day that they filled big stadiums. travel and each success tour they'd have like a local celebrity and they bring in like Colin Powell or George Bush senior or whatever right and uh thing that Kennedy told me he's like he's like once every six months he'd be on the same tour where George Bush senior was on or whatever and he's like it was fascinating he's like because I would see him then I seem six months later or you know 18 months later thing and he'd come up to me he's like oh Mr. Kennedy how are your horses and he was like how did he know like how do you remember my name number one they also remember the horses

and then he ended up asking around he found out that uh that George Bush like when he would meet somebody afterwards, he would tell the system, okay, his name is Dan Kennedy, he has horses. And so she had these no cards. And then when he was going to an event, she would pull the no cards. Here's the six people you're going to meet backstage. And he re-review those. And they show up like, oh, Mr. Kennedy, how's your horses. He's like, the president of the United States knew, remember that I had horses, like how special. Have a little face and have like, those are like cheat codes. Yeah. Isn't that if you learn them? And me and Ashley work on systems all the time, like just those little things. Like,

we don't have that dialed in perfectly because literally I'm the hardest guy to work for on the planet. I don't know if she does it. I got to thank like a few people every week. Like, thank you for putting up with my crap because I'm so difficult. Like I'm like, she's like, hey, uh, you want to go over emails? I'm like, fine, but we got a good relationship. Yeah, the answer that's always no, but let's do it anyway. Yeah.

There's certain things where we have to do. It's just, but she makes it so easy. It's, she's like, she'll just read them. Like, what do you want me to answer this? And we got this tool where we'll send out, like, birthday videos, anniversary, work anniversary and marriage anniversaries. And certain times, like this past week, I found the top five guys and I just said how proud I am of you guys.

Like, I love you guys. Thank you so much. You're a role model for everybody here without you. This company wouldn't run because just as much as calling people, I don't call them up. I don't call them out. I call them up. And I tell them, I'm here to help. But I think it's important that you give positive feedback just as much, if not twice as much

as you give kind of not negative feedback, but just encouragement of you could be better. It's hard, man, running a business. See, I'm kind of envious of you because you've got the ability to scale with human beings are probably the hardest. They're the anomaly in the mix is everybody's different. Everybody has different feelings.

Everybody likes to be rewarded differently. Some people like to get a trophy and talk in front of the room. Other people will quit if you do that. They'll be like, you embarrass the crap out of me. So it's understanding those things over time. and just trying to be that person. And then I can't do it all.

So then you've got to build leaders underneath that do the same and care of the same and build the same culture. And the hard truth is true leaders. If you've got a goal, sometimes it means losing great people. Sometimes it means as a company scales, this person doesn't fit a seat on the bus anymore. But you love them. They helped you so much.

But is it best for the business? Should we take a risk for everybody? because I'm loyal, or if you're not willing to learn and grow with the company, it's the law of the lid is if I'm not growing, the company kind of stops growing. And if my senior people aren't growing, the company ceases to grow. And a lot of times, Cameron Harold wrote a book Double Double. Usually your operator could only double the company twice, unless they're growing exponentially, like the visionary founder. It's a crazy concept, but if you're not growing people, your company's not going to grow. Yeah. Yeah, it's fascinating.

And then bringing people from the outside. Some people only promote from within. And that's a mistake as well. I mean, Jack Welch said 10% of the company is going to go every year. I need new blood. Some people brag about every employee with a lot of tenure. That's a mistake. There needs to be new thoughts coming into the business all the time.

And hire the best. That's one thing, too, is like, we're looking for a new CMO and like we're willing to pay top, top, top of the market. Top, top, top. And I don't need anybody today, next month, even this year. I'm going to wait for the right candidate because putting the wrong person in place could take the company back two years. Yeah. So the right one exponentially speed up the whole.

Oh my gosh. The right person is going to come in. I'll submit my application. That'd be fun. Yes, you should. It's a part-time thing. I would say it'd be fun someday when I retire to like actually get a job as a CMO somewhere and like work from the out.

Well, I love what you do. Like you obsess over the customer journey. You obsess and you make little tweaks every day. And you said, to get to the point where I can spend a million dollars a month on a campaign. And as long as I'm a little bit in the black, then it's, then it's a home run. Because I will tweak, tweak, tweak, and change, change, change. And once I get it, and Gary V said the same thing.

He's like, it may take me a thousand tries. But once I get it, nobody stands a chance. But nobody A, B, tests like that. Nobody's willing to change just a thumbnail. I mean, Mr. B spends $40,000 designing a thumbnail. That's how important it is. And yet, you should see some of my thumbnails. It looks like I'm like just woke up and like cross-side and like my hair's messed up.

And I'm like, is this a joke? Why are my thumbnails like this? And then my lighting always sucks. I'm like, man, it looks like I got like terminal illness. So like we need to work better on that. Like this place is like perfect. But like, I'm like, man, I got so much work to do. If I was going to build and everything we do is in a way funnels, but it's not to your level.

And it's not predictable. Like, you know, when you work with private equity, they want a predictable model of how many leads you could it. And I'm like, well, organically, here's something I just heard that's kind of, it's a breakthrough. It's a different way of thinking. When you're doing paid search, every engineer on the planet for Google, meta, any of these companies, you name it, they want you to win. They want you to keep paying. You're in there, you're paying them. They want you to succeed. When you're working on organic and working, whether it's meta, whether it's Google, whether it's anything non-paid. Every engineer in the planet is working against you. So you're swimming

upstream. And they're trying to figure out a way to get you into the paid. Like if you're doing, they won't let you go viral anymore, like poopery, the guys in Utah. Like I did a podcast with them. That won't happen again or a dollar shave club. Like I studied, I've been on these guys podcasts. I've hired them as consultants. Virality won't happen as easy unless it's like a dog pooping in your backyard, which means nothing for business. So if it has to do with your business, they're going to stop it. So it's an interesting thought that if you want to learn how to really win, you've got to start mastering paid because you've got it.

That's all you can control. Yeah, you can control and you can get an expected outcome. So a lot of our stuff is organic. It's word of mouth. A lot of us, and it's really hard to predict that model. But it works, but it's getting harder. Chatsybt, Gemini, GROC, like all these, there's a hundred more. And I look at them, but I'm like, they're pulling in the BBB.

We haven't done much on the BB, but now I'm getting back that. we got to get reviews on the BBB. I feel like it's like 1989. Yeah. In fact, that's still relevant's crazy. Yeah. Well, dude,

I appreciate you stopping my voice and coming out. I love being around you and your energy just gets me more fired up. So many cool things from this like, you know, building out systems, building out teams, the way you treat your people. I think the biggest nugget for me that hopefully everyone listening,

uh, like didn't miss is like you reverse engineering the outcome you want, right? I think that's what most people miss is they get into business or life or whatever they're doing and they're just kind of like trying to get better but but what you did was okay the goal is a billion dollars what's that look like how to reverse engineer and then from there now you have a path and a plan to run towards where most people don't ever spend the time to actually reverse engineer and i think that was hopefully nobody missed that because that's the piece that's like even in my mind like there was a

time when we were building click phones we had everything reverse engineer now my head i'm like i was thinking i'm like man i don't have those defined for myself let alone my team so that was very big for me just kind of rethink through and get yeah get some clarity on so i appreciate I appreciate that. I appreciate you being here, man. I'll just say one more thing about reverse engineering. It's not only about your business. It's about your children, your relationships, the fun you have, the trips you go on.

It's about your faith. And I know you're a big man of faith. I think it's not just, we get so wrapped up in this world of how much money are we going to make. But every relationship, your body, how you treat yourself, you got to reverse engineer your goals. Like how many pushups? We were doing push-ups in the parking lot. We were wondering because you're not there. But those, it's just, it's just, I don't want people to think it's not just your business.

It's your relationship with your wife that you talked about. It's a relationship with your kids. It's a relationship with your parents. It's the, it's the fun you have in life. So if you guys just wrote down more things and said, like, I'm going to die. Let's say I'm 82. What are people going to say about me? What happened?

Dan Martel made me do this for two different sessions. He said, what happened when you were 42? Like, what were the great things? when you went to we went to Hungary what did you do in Hungary what were the great things what kind of plane did you fly out

like you got to really manifest it everything don't just manifest your business manifest everything in life and all of a sudden it starts coming true and you're like wow I'm so lucky but you're not lucky you manifested it you had a plan you you implemented quickly so

you know I appreciate being here brother this is a blast you've got a great place here and I'm still gonna like I told everybody on my team like we're gonna go through your class we're gonna learn and some people see the connection that's all i see is like you don't understand like everything we do is a funnel even in garage doors and if we can master it and a b test it we're gonna win so thank you so cool for people don't know you where's the best place for them to follow us the podcast instagram like

where's where do you want to go so tommello.com has all of my my places to follow me and then we've got a big event it's called the freedom event.com should be about 1,500 to 2,000 people there if you want to learn about home service, which AI is not going to get in the way anytime soon. It's probably the hottest industry right now. It's a great event. And look, if you want to reach out, I'm unfortunately, mostly on Facebook. That's where I answer most of my Facebook or LinkedIn. I was born in 1983. So still on Facebook. And if you need a garage door, A1Garge. A1Garge. What about the other podcast? What's that one about? Yeah, the Mellow Millionaire. That's the one you were on. It's really high profile people that have been successful.

So it's the way I did it in home service has got really successful people. But now I want to know, like, you're teaching your son how to wrestle. You're obsessed with being a great dad. So there's so much more to learn for me. And so the Mellow Millionaire, we had Jocko on, which is great people that are amazing. Jeremy Miner, top sales guy in the world. Like, you get these people on and you start to extract more knowledge than just about home service. So the Mellow Millionaire is about people that have done well for.

financially, but more importantly, well with their family, well with their relationships. They're living a dream like you. And when you can get those people on and extract that, you start to live the dream as well. So it's been really fun. That's how we met. And it's how you build relationships. So I encourage everybody, the Mellow Millionaire, and start your own podcast. Get great people like Russell on if he's got the time.

He's a busy man. But you used to go listen to my episode, though, because like Tommy's a great interviewer. You asked questions. We're super unique. We ended up going for like, I think almost like two. hours. It was so good. I got so many notes from that podcast, but yeah, I really appreciate you. Nothing else. Go listen to that and go subscribe and go plugging that podcast. Thank you. Appreciate, man. Thanks for coming. Thank you very much. And I'll see you guys all in the next episode.