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Man, I got a dude in the studio today that is an expert at getting where he wants to be. This is a guy that is taking or has taken in his life like the most benign home services businesses, stuff that you would never think in your wildest dreams would generate this kind of revenue and turn them into like hundreds of millions of dollars and done this in a short, short, short time.
Oh, dude, he's just the foremost expert when it comes to home services. He is the host of his own podcast. He's got an awesome event coming up in San Diego in like a month. This is a guy you need to learn from. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Tom Mello. Tom, what's up, dude? How are you? Dude, thanks for coming in, man. I appreciate it. I always appreciate when the hitters come rolling in, man. It makes my life so much easier doing this. I love doing this stuff, too. Yeah.
I think I've done 700 podcasts. 700 of these. Yeah. And that is a serious, like, that's a serious investment of time. Well, you know, for me, I enjoy it. I get a lot out of them. I learn just as much as I, you know, that's kind of my secret sauce. One of the catalysts in 2017, I started before podcasting was podcasting. Yeah. And I'm like, wait a minute, I can get the best podcast.
call center trainer on the planet. I can learn about how HR works. I can learn about how financing works. I can get the number one mentor of...
manuals and standard operating procedures and checklists. I can figure out how to systematize the business. I can understand what, I remember when I learned what arbitrage was, I was like, how is that even legal? I buy it here. The day I buy it, it's worth this. I'm like, my life is going to be so good. Yeah, dude, I do the same thing, man. I use this as my little educational platform too, for things, which is awesome. It's so cool. And then it brings relationships too. Yeah, I know. I couldn't agree more, but let's talk about, you are a guy that is super successful. Talk about
Early Tom, let's get backstory, the villain or the hero backstory, if you will, to everywhere you want to go. You know, I pride myself on probably making the most mistakes out of anybody. You know, I'm a big failure if you really look at my life. I fall down, I get back up, though, and I don't make the same mistake twice. I mean, if it could go wrong, it did go wrong. I've lost technicians, six have died, not on the job.
Several trucks have flipped over. I bought an apartment complex for the technicians. Lived there for four years to be close to my trainees to get to know the training process more, see what they were going through. 1,000 square foot. I bought...
I never owned a new vehicle until every single one of my people had new vehicles. My technicians were driving new trucks and new Pro Masters. But I'm a guy from Michigan. Learned after my mom and dad got a divorce when I was seven. What part of Michigan? Sterling Heights. All right. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Very familiar. My dad grew up in Royal Oak. I lived there. I lived there. I did. I actually, how long ago was this?
uh well it was from 1983 to 2000 okay i had the distinct honor in the mid to late 90s of opening all those hooters in michigan oh yeah that's awesome i did i opened all of them so open that store in sterling heights yeah will taylor uh muskegon grand rapids and i'm am i missing one
I don't know. That's great. I don't know. But yeah, I opened up. I think I want to say the one in Sterling Heights was on big beaver road. Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Big beaver. Yeah. I always thought it was funny. Cause you say, thanks for calling the biggest Hooters in Michigan. Yeah. Which was how they would answer the phone. I always thought that was funny. That's yeah. Very aware. So let me ask you this, man, growing up Michigan, what did your parents do?
uh my dad owned a transmission shop and then he didn't pay the irs so he got screwed uh well anybody does it doesn't pay the irs and my mom my mom helped my dad out a lot and then she became a realtor okay good for mom my mom's her best year was 53 houses okay there's no joke i mean she's the type of woman that would get out of the car
after church go walk up in hills to for sale by owner she had no she'd hand out literally she'd walk around for hours handing out her magnets all my buddies had my mom's magnet you
you know what everything she touches turns to gold and they would always make fun of me her pictures on there like was it turns to sold it turns to sold or gold whatever it was and uh but i mowed lawn shovel snow and i wanted to help mama she worked three jobs when my mom and dad got a divorce she she bartended she served tables and she did real estate she's like we're not moving uh the church helped us out a couple years so at a young age i was like i gotta i
I didn't need to like donate to the mortgage, but if I wanted stuff, I just felt guilty. So I'd like kick in like, Hey, I want a new golf club. Will you pick up half of it? Like whatever. And when I was 12, I started washing dishes at a place called rookies clubhouse and learn what life was all about because there was some chicks there. And that was like, I learned what an animal was like in fifth grade. And like, that was cool. And I didn't feel like I ever went to work. I just,
wash dishes and then i'd bust tables and then uh i moved to phoenix wanted to be closer to dad let me stop for a second i want to ask a question about that yeah right because detroit was such a unique place when i lived there around that same time you were there and from what i saw right like me being an outsider moving to detroit yeah it was very difficult for me to make friends there and this is why
Because it seems to me like the people that grow up there, it's like you grow up there, you marry your high school sweetheart, you buy a house four blocks from your parents' house, dad gets you onto the plant, and it's wash, rinse, repeat of this never-ending cycle. Did you ever feel like that was dragging you, and how did you get out of that? Because so many people live in those cycles, man. You know, my buddies still live in the same neighborhoods. A lot of them are still mowing lawns, and I love these guys. I don't talk to them as much. I don't feel like I'm a bad friend. I just knew...
A lot of them started selling weed, which was, you know, I'm 15, 16 years old. Yeah. They're selling like a little Ziploc bag, like a Coke bag, but it's weed in it. I mean, that's what they did. And I was just like, dude, this is going the wrong direction. So I had a chance to move to Phoenix when I was 16. Did that. Wanted to be closer to dad. And, you know, I always knew how to work and get a job. I got a job. I was busting tables. Then I became a bartender.
And I could serve tables and, uh, started a landscaping business instead of just your typical landscaping. I used to do water conservation analysis, show people by putting a drip system, how much money I'll save them. Got big accounts, got that up to 30 grand a month. At what age? At what age? I was in my early twenties. Um,
But I was flipping cars. I flipped over 1,200 cars. Okay, so that's something we've got to talk about. Yeah, so I'd buy the cars. Typically, I'd buy G20 Infinities or I'd buy Honda Civics. I bought anything that I could that I knew I could easily flip. My dad knew how to fix them.
So we'd be, he'd come with me and he'd be like, Oh Tommy, they want four grand. He's like the tires, CV joints, this, this, this. He's like, you're looking at like two grand. I'd be like, well, I'll give you 1800 cash right now. Yeah. And we just did this all day, every day. I buy from private people, not all private. And you know, back then, I hope this is like way later than the legal jurisdiction, but I just, I saw, I said, I'm selling it for a buddy. I never put my name on the title.
I didn't know that was illegal, actually. And by the way, I started watching TV and found Bowflexes. And I'm like, I want one of these Bowflex, but I'm not paying $2,400. So I go on Arizona Republic in Phoenix, open the newspaper. There's a Bowflex. I call up. Guy's like, dude, you're the 10th person that called that. It's already been picked up and sold. And my buddy's walking by as I'm making the phone call. He goes, have you ever heard of the Craigslist?
What the hell is the Craigslist? So I go on craigslist.com. It's a rather new site. And I found seven Bowflexes. I went and bought all of them. And so every single day I had an alert when there would be a Bowflex. I bought them all. And I continued that ad for three years in the Arizona Republic.
And I make an extra grand. And I showed a lot of times guys would bring their sons in football and I show them what I do. And I really did work out on it. And then I saw an ad for Total Gym with Chuck Norris. And I'm like, man, I can buy him here, sell him there. That's what arbitrage is. You buy on one marketplace and sell on another. And then one day my roommate was like, he was managing this big garage door company. And he's like, dude, I can't find a reliable painter.
He's like, would you be interested, dude? You're always staying busy doing stuff, fixing stuff around here. And I'm like, yeah, I can do it. I'm like, but how much does it pay? He's like, a hundred bucks a door. He's like, you'll probably paint two or three doors on like Saturday. So I hired this old man. He taught me how to paint. I go to Home Depot, buy a Magnum 5 painter, paint.
And I bought speed coat glidden, bought the paper, everything. I figured out I can make 88 bucks. I loaded up one of the G20, 96 G20, called every garage door company in that city, became their painter. I knocked out 10 doors a day. I'd paint. And I'm in my early 20s, but then I'm meeting with these garage door guys who are like, dude, I made 200 bucks, but I made 400 bucks today. And I start to learn the business. Me and my roommate were like, we could do this. My other roommate.
So we started a business, got into the yellow pages, hence A1 Garage Doors. And it was A1 Garage Door Specialist. The problem was my roommate at the time smoked more weed than anybody I've ever met. And every time he'd go out of town, we'd double the numbers because he was booking the calls. I'd go run the job. Sometimes he'd run with me. Hell of a sales guy.
I learned the business. We're in debt now. Google's becoming a thing. And I became obsessed with Google. Like I knew how to edit videos. I knew how to build backlinks. I knew how to get PR 2010. I'm like, listen, Gabe, you could have the business and take on the debt. Yep. And he's like, dude, you, you take it.
i was like yes that's exactly what i wanted did you guys have a buy-sell agreement like that before or no no we just worked out we were roommates best friends he moved to montana to be closer to family we were in debt i took on the debt and i i only called the only person i knew in this world that you could trust i called mom no money didn't ask her for money i said i need you to move out here leave your life in michigan might bring my stepdad bill and she goes
Give me a week. Let me think about it. She's like, we're coming. She's like, I want to be closer to you. So I said, I can only give you $16 an hour. I can only give Bill $65,000. They were used to living better than that. They still had working years in them.
but they had a lot of equity. They had a pretty nice savings. He had a 401k that he just took out. And they're living in Michigan. Yeah. You know, they, they didn't mind the idea real quick. For those of you that have never been to Michigan, I tell people, but I described living in Michigan. This is how I describe it. Being a Floridian that had moved to Michigan. Yeah.
It's so fucking cold there. When you walk outside, you don't think, man, it's cold. Wow, it's cold. You just think, get inside. That's like the first thought. Well, yeah, in the winter. I mean, it's cool summers. It's a great place to raise kids. There's four seasons. There's a lot of lakes. Great golf. Plus, it was the richest zip codes in the country because of the Motor City, Ford, Chrysler, GM. Yeah.
And my grandpa retired from GM in 1974 to Lake Havasu, and a lot of them migrated to Phoenix, 12 kids, and it's my dad's family. So...
What's the interesting thing was is they just needed people I could trust in 2010. Yeah. Because people were lying, cheating, and I couldn't get people to show up to work. And I was a one-man army, man. I got to six million through brute force. Six million. I just had mom answering phones. She walked out on it a couple times, couldn't handle it. She'd walk back in the next day. I'm like, Mom, don't. Just finish the night because, dude, I'm working seven jobs a day. Yeah. When the real sweet spot's three.
And I didn't care. I walk out of movie theaters, break up with girls, be like, I'm running this call. I don't care. Like it just, and 2014, I met an integrator and he was smart. I gave him 65 grand. I said, you'll come up in this business. I said, what's your number? He said, 5 million. I said, I'll make sure you get 5 million. And I said, I'll even give you inflation on it.
So real quick, you use the word integrator. Had you gone into EOS prior to that? No. So you didn't know he was an integrator at the time. I didn't know I was an integrator at the time. And I've never done EOS. I know Gino would have been well, but I still don't practice the big rocks and take it off a month. Got it. All right. I just heard the integrator part. Yeah, but it was. He was the guy I said, you're going to be the bad cop because I'm not a good bad cop. I don't like to fire.
I said, I'll do all the training. I'll do all the marketing. I'll set the culture. I'll do all the sales training. You are going to deal with the lawyers. You're going to deal with payroll. You're going to deal with all the shit. I can't stand. He was good at pivot tables. He could do stuff. Problem was we didn't have a good CFO. So years went on. Adam and I, we called it the TNA show, Tommy and Adam.
And my mom was still there. Like my mom answered the phones in 2010 and she go, thank you for calling a one garage door service. My name is Gina. How may I help you today? She go, Oh my gosh, honey, I am so sorry. Like every time I go out on one of the jobs, my mom booked, they give me a hug, but she never said I'm Tommy's mom. She just said, I'm going to send out the best technician we got, which was me. And I learned a lot about,
A high level of empathy. I'm like, mom, book the damn phone call. She'd be like, but they were putting, they do whatever I asked when I showed up. Yeah. So I learned a lot about that. And then 2017 came around and I told Adam, we need to switch CRMs. And he's like, absolutely not. I'm going to quit if you do that. And I'm like, then you could quit because I want the latest, greatest. So I go to service tight and they say, sure, we'll let you on. And then they switch your email. I said, team mellow at a one garage.com. And they're like, oh, we don't do garage doors.
Like no, no luck. So I called back, got a different sales rep, got a different sales rep. I tried nine times, always led to a dead end. So I got ahold of the CEO on LinkedIn. He called me and said, dude, we're just focused on HVAC plumbing electrical. And I said, Ara,
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company on the planet. This is one bet you need to take. And I'm relentless. What would you need from me to just take a chance? What was so magic about the CRM that you wanted it so bad? What was the perceived value you had? The coolest thing about it was they gave free call numbers for call tracking, so I had attribution for every marketing source. Remember, I'm a marketing guy thick and thin. I can make the phone ring off the hook. We run 20,000 jobs a month. Yeah.
Okay. So like people are like, oh my God, garage stores. I want to go into the garage or business. Like there's no second. There's nobody even close to us. There's a couple, there's a few guys rolling companies up, but there's nobody that's grown organically like us. They don't like, and I don't just say it's just Google, even though there's four algorithms on Google, but yeah,
I got really good at making the phone ring. And then I had a consultant come in when I started my podcast, I got on a service Titan or I took a chance, set up 10 success managers, me and Adam made it work. We molded it, had some workarounds and we helped grow service tight. Now they're very large company. Like if you're not on service Titan in the home service industry, you're devalued. Yeah. Well, let me, I'm going to throw this out cause you glanced over it. Yeah. And I think it's such a key lesson and where a lot of people screw up, whether you're,
trying to sell houses or whatever you're trying to do is they splash all this marketing all over the place. Right. And then they have no clue what's actually working or no ROI because they don't do something as simple as assign a different phone number to every single piece that goes out. I have a 7,000 call tracking numbers. Yeah, dude, that's amazing. I mean, I don't brag about it at the end of the day. It's a lot because every phone number I do, I get 10,
A new phone number gets all the solicitors. So we've got this whole thing of blocking that. But I'm a technology company now that does garage doors. That's how I tell people. I'm not a garage door company. It's so sophisticated the way I even recruit and train. But 2017, Al Levy, I met this guy, the seven power contractor. And he goes, I could have stole your whole warehouse with your own forklift. You wouldn't even known about it. It was open.
He goes, your refrigerator, there's a bunch of counters on the wall. He's like, show me your manuals. I go, well, I got this one book. Yeah. And he's like, everything's locked up in your head, Tommy. And he goes, I'm not cheap. And by the way, I was bringing in a lot of revenue, but not a lot of profit. And he goes, you're one of the best firefighters I've ever met.
And he goes, you can fix anything. You know everything. You are this company. He goes, when I get done with you, this company is going to run like clockwork without you here. He goes, because I've done this with my own family business. And I trusted him. And I always trust my elders, especially guys that have a proven track record.
And what he taught me was to shut the hell up and listen to him and don't listen to anybody else. Cause in this world of knowledge and books, he said, I just need you to do exactly what I say. I don't want to work with you. And he almost fired me a couple of times. Cause I come up with an idea, you know, shiny object. And he goes, we're going to build three manuals to start out with CSR dispatcher technician. I'm going to do a ride along with eight of your technicians. Then we're going to find out we're going to build a heavy installation technician manual on the right way to do things safely and efficiently.
And he goes, another thing you don't do is, he goes, you don't have standardized trucks because I was buying all used trucks. He's like, do you know what accelerated depreciation is? So I got all brand new trucks over the years. And I work with this guy. He's 72 now. And then he goes, dude, your wraps. He's like, I know you got a lot of pride in them. Your picture's on the side of it.
He's like, look at it in black and white. Tell me what pops out. I'm like, yeah, nothing. He's like, you got to go to this company called Kick Charge. His name's Dan Antonelli.
do well this at this point we're 40 million dollars and i rebranded well that's that's interesting so he so he ran your branding through a black and white lens to see if anything popped yeah printed out black and white color is the only thing that makes it pop it doesn't work no you got like i had phone numbers angie's list bbb yelp on it it was all you had all this shit on it now i don't have any of that stuff yeah and i just got the small um
a contractor, which I legally got to have. But other than that, it's literally like, I don't even have, you don't even have to have a phone number. It's a billboard. And people think that like, you're going to read the whole billboard. You could read at max five words on a billboard. Dude. Okay. Another, there's no gym man, because, uh,
I, it cracks me up. Billboards are one of my pet peeves when I'm driving around and you see people with these super fucking detailed messages on billboards with phone numbers on billboards. Yeah. Who's like, who's going to remember that? They don't understand the psychology of this stuff. And by the way, I've devoured books my whole life. I've had mentors. I've always had coaches. I've invested in me a lot. Yeah. Because literally like,
I ended up getting a master's degree when my mom moved out, which taught me nothing except I learned how to public speak. I learned the speed of implementation. I learned influence from Robert Chitty and he'd learned about that. And then I also learned, I sat at this table that all these guys talked about with search engine optimization. And so that's when I learned how to do a lot of cool stuff on Google. And I became obsessed. Like I ran this program the first year my mom moved out called Clad Genius, where I'd post 180 ads on Craigslist a day.
And as I built the business, that's like one of the things I did. But every marketing source I'd master, I mean, literally like until I dominated, whether it was Yelp or Angie's List or the four algorithms on Google or Bing or ValPak, I started A-B testing like crazy. I never left this dead. Like I'd have Santa Claus coming in with a Chamberlain lift master on the back of his sleigh. And I learned a lot about what people like.
Like when they flip through, you got to have, they hold it with their left hand and they flip through with the right hand. And that's where you have the coupons. If you're going to do coupons and I'm not a huge coupon, but I want some type of offer and we test offers all the time. Now it's building way more analytical way into like different things like HubSpot.
And there's some cool stuff we run. And now I'm using AI on like, if we were having a conversation, I could tell how many words you were saying per minute that the technician follow the process that we mentioned. We never say financing. We say promotions. We never say the highest price. We say top of the line. We never say the cheapest. We say builder grade. We never say price. We say investment, you know, these little things, but it's, it's really, you dial in the leads and then here's the biggest mistake is
A lot of people spend a lot of money on marketing. I spend half of my marketing brain figuring out how to get the right people in the door. Because if you had all eight players, eight players run circles around three to five B players. Yeah. And I've got economies of scale. See, your CSR, your smaller company, can only book 15, 20 calls a day.
mine could book 50 so if you were paying them 20 i could pay them 30 even though i'm getting 65 dollars of what you'd have to pay out of it yeah so the economy scale that's why i got to 25 percent of the bottom line and i will get to 33 percent and not to mention i'll get this company in 2026 to 112 5 million of ebita 112 5 of ebita
And then it's going to sell for another record multiple. And then I'm going to go into other trades under my brand and run it to 400 million of EBITDA. And that's because I could go after windows, front doors, and different things. And that's going to happen within four years. And we're going to IPO. Then I'm going to get a 30X when I get to four to 500 of EBITDA.
And that's how you build a $15 billion company. Are you going to try to do that for the roll-ups or are you going to just expand into new markets? You have to roll up if you're going to get there. Yeah, you got to roll up a couple of things, but you got to understand there's three ways to make money. You get more customers, you charge your customers more, you keep them back more frequently. So if I offer my customers right now, guess what's in your garage right now?
There's a floor, which we could do stained concrete and, you know, epoxy or polysparous. You need storage. Your hot water heater is there. Your water purifier is salt.
Like what goes with your garage, your front door. So there alone is enough that the market cap goes over a hundred billion. So not to mention we're changing the market cap because one of the things we don't ever do is give you ultimatums. Yes or no, sir. That's for losers. I say, here are your options. It sounds like you need a new garage door. I'm going to go over some options. You can pick when you like, how does that sound? The science is five options.
And we just describe them. We're not forcey people. I don't hire salespeople. I hire people that make eye contact that actually care, that have a little bit of fun. What happens if you want to kiss somebody on the first night on a date? Want to make them feel safe? Want to make them laugh a little bit, have a little bit of fun?
and make sure that you show interest in their best bro i've been married so long i have to laugh about this if i wanted a date i'd be like ricky bobby like i don't know completely clueless what i would do anymore i know i i but but it's it's so funny man because because you know my buddy can't clothe you i don't know if you know yeah i don't care yeah i can't always you know the whole
Moving from hustler to being CEO, that's Kent's whole deal. He lives by that. I always talk about the hustler had to die in me. Yeah, exactly. You know, the Bowflex, Total Gyms, car flipping, doing everything. Like, do you ever see that racehorses in Kentucky Derby? You see the stuff, the gear around their eyes. Yeah, the blinders. They wear blinders because there's so much going on. They're focused on winning the race. And when you learn to get focused and you learn a little bit of discipline, there's money everywhere. I work with a guy named Dan Martell.
And he's like, dude, he's like, you're going to miss billions of opportunities, like billions of dollars of opportunities. The focus and mental clarity I have now, like I would not ever want to go against myself because I'm relentless and I will lose money for a year to take market share. And I don't think people understand the whole strategy behind what I do because I
And I say this in the humblest way, but there's nobody in the world that's better integrated in home service than we are. I could send a guy to any market with the same price, with the same truck, the exact same tools, the same scorecards, and it won't matter. They could get right in the truck and know exactly what to do. And there's so many SOPs. They take 50 pictures on every garage they go to. Customer satisfaction is the main goal. I want to do what's right because here's the deal. My mom worked three jobs when I was a kid when I was seven.
Here's what you need to do. Here's what you should do. And if you are my mother who worked three jobs, that's my everything that left her hometown to just be with me. This is what I do for mom. You're selling the house in two weeks. We want to make sure you pass inspection. Close up on your next house. We're going to do what's right.
And it's not about how much can you sell this person because it's the LTV lifetime value. And I want to make a friend and I want to treat them right. And I want to treat them how I'd want to be treated. And that's by giving options. And I feel like we can't label somebody because they got really nice house or horrible landscape and they look broke. We've got to give the options. I've seen people that are, I used to pride myself that I'd go out to the brokest jobs, like give me the cheapest customers. And I go, and that's how I train guys. Yeah.
And I say, this is how you turn. I'm the best at turning something into nothing, nothing into something. And I got guys now they're like, who would win your top guy? Are you? I'm like, well, I know when I go into the job, I'm getting both neighbors. First names. I know I'm getting the HOA president's name and number. I know I'm getting four reviews instead of one. I'm not just getting a Google review. I'm getting a Yelp review and next door review. I'm also getting a video testimonial on Facebook. I know I'm going to sign them up for a membership. So they'd win probably against me in the short term.
in the short term. But you'll win the long run. But I'll win because literally I'm making business. And I give my technicians and installers tech-generated leads where they make much higher because they give them the marketing fee and that. Like they got all tracking numbers too. And they got a schedule engine that goes through them too. So what they generate? They make a ton of money. They don't even need to run the job. You know, their wife's a great at marketing, got a huge Facebook channel. Keep posting our stuff. Any job that comes in, it's a second income. That's great. Basically, they become affiliates.
Well, you know, it's funny you bring up affiliates because let me ask about that because one of the, one of the things that we do here, right. Obviously with all the big changes in real estate, with the commission deal. Yeah. Well, you know, we as the owners of the company have to do everything we can to build an incredible amount of value for clients, especially now on the buyer side where we have to, we have to justify that commission. And what we've done here is build an internal concierge team. And essentially it's like, look,
You know, any realtor can point at the fireplace and go this and then write a contract in order inspection, negotiate, get it done. We are handling your whole life, like the moving of your whole life. Like we're like, as soon as you get handed over to the concierge department, it's like, what do you need? You need movers, packers, garage doors, painters, cabinets, water softeners. What do you need? Do you need to know what the best baseball team your kids should play on? What do you need to know? We're going to handle all of it. And it,
internally you know again we are just we're adding our stuff now so we like i said we do 4 000 transactions a year yeah we should be well what's the one thing you need to do when you move in a house you need to change your locks right but you also got to change your openers and you got a whole you know you got what's called the the home link where you press the button you got the myq to open the garage around your phone we'll do the storage racking because we're really getting big into that
And you go in there, and I'll tell you this, within the next six months, we're going to be very passionate about water. I'm very passionate. I can tell you right now, I'll just, you're going to be shocked at this, but I'll need your zip code in a second. But there's a government website that kind of, so check this out. Okay. What is your zip code? 89012. All right. Let's just go here and see.
And you are city of Henderson. Yes.
And they found 16 contaminants that exceed the health guidelines, 32 total contaminants. Let me just look real quick here. Arsenic, 361 times the healthcare guideline. Affectus cancer. Bromo dichloric methane, 298 times cancer. Cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer. Like, I'm very passionate. So those are the things. And listen, with relationships...
If I become your affiliate, you need to know no matter what that I'm going to take care of that client or I'll give them all the money back. See, I got to protect your, I've got to respect and make sure your integrity stays with that client. That means I'm willing to sign a contract, which we never call it a contract. We call it an agreement. I'll sign the agreement with you that says I'll
I'll give them all their money back if they're not happy. Do we sign the agreement or do we okay the agreement? We okay the agreement. You have the right of rescission, not cancellation. Okay, that's it. Tom Hopkins, baby. Yeah, you know, this isn't a prepayment penalty. Whether you're scouring business financial sites or listening to economics podcasts like this one, you'll find there's no secret to successfully managing your company's finances for the future.
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And I had a guy, Saeed, that owns Ali Sean Rugs, teach me this, that the main thing is
that if I was your partner or anybody else's, I pay affiliates the same day. Like you never have to wait for your money. Right. And I call it a marketing fee. We're going to spend that in marketing. And by the way, your clients will get a better deal because you've negotiated for them. Yeah. And that's only fair. You're selling 4,000 people, maybe 10% of those buy. It's a couple hundred jobs. But if I do such a great job and I give them options,
And we never call it financing. Have you heard about our promotions? I pay a dealer's fee to make that possible, which means it's a promotion. And did you want to use your money today or did you want to use ours? Whose money do you want to use, Tom? I'll tell you. I'd rather you use ours because inflation, gas price, the way we're looking, what's going on in Israel and this crazy world. Use our money. Pay it off whenever you want. This is the best investment you'll probably ever make into your home and your family.
And this is not, you don't need a lie cheater still. If that happens in my company, they're gone. Yeah. But I hire great people that make eye contact, that smile, that tell a great story, that listen. And if those are the people, my one thing is I apply everything to sports, dude. I like to win, but I hate to lose more. I aspire to be number one. That's what it says. It's one of our core values. Aspire to be number one.
And the guys that don't care about winning, they probably don't have a seat on my bus because I'm a competitive SOB. I'm a fierce competitor. I've got a ping pong coach. I've got a golf coach. I've got bags, like literally, you know, cornhole. Yeah. I've got...
Like I've got four other personal coaches. I've got a health coach. Well, dude, I want to talk about that real quick because that is something that I was going to bring up even before you said that, which was for me, or you see people that reach a certain level of success and the ego starts to get pumping and they get in this place where they're like, I know it all. Yeah. And obviously just from the names that we've just, in the short amount of time we've been talking about this, all of the people you're learning from,
Oh, I'm a student for life. Is that something that you had to develop? Is that something that you have to check the ego constantly to do that? Or is that just innate within you that you're a seeker of information always? Yeah, you know what? I'm a seeker of information, but here's what I've learned. Here's the golden ticket. This is the best piece of advice I could ever give that I don't give out very often. If I want to know how to sell the highest quality of garage drawers, there's a lot of people that respect me because they know I'll help them. I call up the largest manufacturer I was just in Nashville with.
And I've done this. And I say, who's selling the best product mix in the country? They call them and see if it's okay to introduce me. I fly out to them and I learn what they're doing. And I also help them in the process. If I want to learn how to get to the top of Google, I don't look for the Ferraris on Facebook. I just simply type in roofing repair, Las Vegas or Henderson.
And then I go to that roofing company and say, hey, you know, I do, you know, I got a pretty big podcast. It's top 10 in the country for business. Yeah. And people see me now. Personal brand's important, so they'll take my phone calls. And then I get access because success leaves clues. I can find out anything. You want to learn how to get to the top of Angie's list or Yelp? Search the biggest thing, HVAC plumbing, electrical, roofing.
And then go talk to those people. How did this guy get 10 times more reviews than anybody? What is he using and how is he doing it? Go take him to dinner, read his book, be genuinely interested in them. They'll give you everything. Yeah. If all you got to do is ask my favorite three letters, ASK, you know, I go to other countries. These people are relentless. They'll come up to you to sell you a piece of fruit. They don't mind. If you say no people that are not that are from here, they're like, Oh, they said they don't even know you. Who cares? Don't take it. You should see all the comments. People leave. They never even met me.
They don't know how I take care of people, how I have a dream manager, full-time person to focus on my people's dreams. They don't know that my dream is so big that everybody else's dream fits inside. They don't know that I'm helping them figure out the Dave Ramsey program and how to do profit first and have different accounts. They don't know that I literally give every technician an installer that hits pinnacle, which is the trip we go on each year. They get equity in the company. That's the difference is I got everybody that has an owner next to their name who's an A-plus player.
And then they recruit and they can make $1,500 for recruiting. If a guy in Vegas was just out, he's like, I want to meet Andy Elliott. I go, let's go cold pledge with Andy Elliott. Let's go to steak dinner. Done. Two guys went with me and my COO and I'm good buddies with them. And some people hate him. Some people like him. Same thing with a lot of these guys. I don't care. My guys wanted to meet him. They said they changed his life. So we went and met him and he goes, dude, I'm kind of pissed off because I just don't feel like I got a brotherhood like other markets have. I go,
Who would be your brothers? He's like, dude, there's a few guys I work out with. Like, it's just they eat clean. They want to win. They're very athletic. And I go, you know, I pay you to recruit, don't you? I go, you have the ability to build your own team and I'll hire him. You call me up directly. I'll interview him and I'll bring him on. I'm like, because you're a winner. And I know winners attract other winners. And winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners.
So I was like, dude, and some of the thing you got to understand with the blue collar industry, some of these guys didn't have moms growing up. Some of their dads beat the shit out of them. Some of them were raised around alcoholics and drugs. And by the way, blue collar, no AI is taking my job anytime soon. No, nothing's going to change. You're not changing anything with garage doors anytime soon. And what else is private equity is getting very serious because they see how much sophistication we have.
And it's like now we're honored. Like I'm not embarrassed to say I'm a garage or guy or a garbage man. Like now it's a different state than it was in the 80s and 90s. No, I would say your asset class to private equity is becoming better and better and better. I mean, you see you see all the time I get calls from people all the time. Don't know anybody in roofing service businesses and want to get rolled up. I mean, I get that call a lot from. Well, now they're all poaching around. The problem is, dude, they're building a Frankenstein, you
You know, these guys, the private equity, if they knew how to operate and they understand marketing and people in blue collar, I call myself the whisperer because I can listen to the white collar guys and whisper to the blue collar guys and vice versa. Because...
Like these white collar guys are financial engineers. They could build a pivot table. They could understand that if I had this, this, this, I get a higher multiple, but PE is getting sophisticated. I mean, I speak at their LP meeting, the limited partners, and these guys are saying, if it's not founder based, if the integration isn't complete, if you don't show greenfield acquisitions and organic growth in every market, the systems aren't dialed in, it's going to hurt your multiple. And people are saying,
People used to be able to just kind of crater these things, can them all up and sell it as a package. And that was great four years ago. Now they're actually like, they're like, wait a minute, you're going to buy me and then I work for you. And I don't, why would you buy me if I don't still get to beat a boss? And I'm like, well, look at the military. There's a hierarchy. We're going to take the best of you, the best of us. There's an opportunity here if you want to roll equity, but there is a hierarchy. I'm the visionary.
I'm not very, I very like, dude, we have the biggest dinner. We meet the wives. We take care of the people, but you got to check this out. Let's say you're doing a million of EBITDA and I gave you $6 million for the company. That's 6 million. I'd use that. That's how private equity works. I have the money in the bank to buy that outright, but we use debt. That's how you make the deal even better.
I could put $6 million in that market. What could I do? I know how to rank on everything. So there's always a question. I could go crush people. Like what Gray Crocs said, when your enemies are drowning, stick a fucking hose in their mouth. Thumb a brick. But I can't do it as fast. Yeah. So I love acquisitions that spend very little marketing. They've been around 40 years that have a great name.
And I can literally go, I love it when they say, oh, I've tried the Google thing. And they're not open nights, weekends. They're not open holidays. But let me ask you this back to private equity, though. I mean, name a business that's better off four years after private equity bought it. It's very rare because they're not culture guys. They start cutting things. No, they strip them down. They strip them down and hammer them off. And that's why you got to be very, very careful. I mean, yes, there are a lot of companies that did very, very well that become big businesses that IPO.
uh the difference is you got to keep the visionary there like every pe guy i know does not make as much as these founders because they built the culture they they had a lot of tlc the caring yeah uh but they think it's just a financial game and and literally like yeah there's no industry that i couldn't roll up literally do you know how many board seats i could ask to be on i'm not interested because literally like i look at that and i go i know everything to do
But you guys won't do it. Like you got to get the brand right. You got to get the culture right. You got to have a dream manager. You've got to literally pay attention. You got to have a scorecard for every position. You got to have a manual standard operating procedures checklist. You got to inspect what you expect. And if you don't do it right and they always get cocky and they say, oh, no, we got to figure it out. And then, you know, there are I feel like, you know, I said a 15 billion dollar company.
I could do, there's no industry I can't dominate, even outside of home service. There's a simple formula. I learned this in real estate. You take, how much revenue do you want to do? Pick a number. Pick a number. Revenue in a year? Just $200 million. $200 million. $200 million. Divide that by your booking rate. And that comes through forms. That comes through calls. Yeah.
divide that by your conversion rate. That means you're knocking on the door. That's a booking rate is calls or forms. Conversion rate is knocks. Divide that by your conversion rate. Then you divide that by your average ticket or average commission or whatever it might be. And then you multiply that by your cost per lead. And that's how much you spend on your marketing campaign. And all you need to be able to do is figure out when I put a dollar in, I take a buck 50 out. How do I get more dollars to put in? And there's a little bit of there's branding and then there's direct response. And I think you could do both.
But I think you've got to be great at branding. You've got to be in this area of the brain. It's above your left ear. This total recall that people start singing your jingle. And they're like, A1 from day one. And it's a name they like, trust. And when we pull up, they know it's going to be a drug tested background check person. We send you, we offer coffee on the way.
We send you a profile about our family and who we are as a person. Wait, you say you bring them coffee? We always offer coffee on the way. Like, do you want me to stop and get you coffee? I'm stopping off at 7-Eleven. I'm stopping off at Circle K. I'm stopping off at Starbucks. Can I grab you something? Really, don't make me guess. Do you want a double espresso or do you want a green tea? I love that. Well, I'll reciprocate these little things. Love it. And now I got these checks and balances, and I got to tell you,
I had a client the other day where like, dude, I was so impressed. Everything you said on stage happened. And sometimes it doesn't happen perfectly. And those are learning opportunities and a company, our size, um,
i'd love to tell you we got it all figured out i'd love to tell you it's all perfect but i'm here it's running yeah i'll be at morgan wall tomorrow i mean well no but but dude my thing is even just that the coffee thing does anybody else do that you're lucky if they even show up in the window they said you're lucky if they answer their phone when you got a warranty so i'm listening to this and it's almost like
It's like you built this stuff without, you didn't really look at what anybody else was doing, did you? Well, I studied HVAC for a long time. And I learned about financing. I learned about service agreements. I said, who has the most private jets? That's what I said in my head. And then I found all these hundred million dollar shops because of service Titan. And then I went in very humbly and I said, I'm just a garage tour guy. I read their book. I came in, I'm a guy early thirties at the time.
And I come in and I say, I don't want all day. I'm going to buy everybody lunch. I'll buy you guys dinner. Go in with gratitude. And I'd bring a notebook with me everywhere. I went and take right at scrupulous notes. And they were like, dude, you actually do this. Like you're going to do it. And they didn't mind giving me everything because I'm never going to be their competitor. I said, because you taught me this, I'll never do HVAC in your market because you poured into me and people that are my elders, right?
that are successful. They want someone, they want students that are actually going to do stuff and actually they want to affect people's lives positively. Agreed. And I'm just like, I'm here to learn. I'm asking.
And I'd be indebted to you forever. And I won't forget. And I'll praise you like Ken Goodrich with kettle and Ken Haynes and Leland Smith in service champions, massive company doing 500 million now. And I'll leave you that taught me everything. I bring their names up all the time. I say, here's who I learned from because I'm paying it forward. And when people want to come learn from me, I do shop tours. I do three a month.
And I give them everything I got. I don't charge them for it. And I go, you guys are the up and comers. Some of them are older than me. I answer all their questions. Just know that.
Like Zig Ziglar once said, you could have anything you want in life if you help enough people get what they want. Yeah. And if I could help people's dreams come true and guide them and never have to look over my shoulder like I screwed somebody and took advantage of them. Yeah. I give money back all the time. I'm like, if you didn't know about that, your mother didn't know about that. She's elderly. Like, we want to make sure we do the right thing. Yeah. And we do get bad reviews. We just make it right. I love that because it's like you have just the right amount of ego. What I mean by that, we use that expression around here a lot.
And you go to some real estate companies and you walk in somebody's office and they're like, oh, they start covering their computer because they don't want you to see what they're working on. Right. Because they have some magic pill that's going to change the real estate industry. Well, here at this company, I like to think that like you can walk in and everybody here will give you their playbook.
Because at the end of the day, they're just, yeah, man, I'll help you out. But they genuinely believe if they go head to head with you, they're going to win anyway. Like I'll tell you every play I'm going to run because I'm still going to win. So here's everything here. And that, I love that level of confidence and that level of giving. I invited 40. I figured out that our industry was so primitive that I invited 40 owners to come see our shop. And this is years ago. This is like 2020. And we're upstairs.
And I go, let's take HX, for example. They pay $2,200 for a 510 unit. A lot of my buddies are charging $14,000. Some of them are charging $25,000. Some of them are charging $10,000. Let's just take $6,000. $6,000. I go, because you've got to have new trucks. You've got to have billboards. You've got to have service tight. And you've got to have cold AC in the summers of Vegas and Phoenix. Let's just say $6,000. What do we pay for a garage for at the time? A nice garage for an opener costs $1,500. So who here is charging $9,000?
And out of this whole room, no one raised their hand. And I said, what about seven grand? I'm talking to Taj Mahal here, the best of the best. And I'm like, cycle parts, deco hardware, extra remote, keypad, oversized bottom rubber. You're giving the Taj Mahal. None of them even offer this. All my stuff's trademarked. And they said, how would you be able to sleep at night charging that?
And I said, well, let me ask you another question. How many of you guys got 401ks, PTO? You provide tools, 90 days of training. All your guys drive new trucks and you could afford to market against the plumbers on the billboards that are taking up the space. You're paying against their radio time, their TV time, their billboard space. How many of you guys could afford to market? Make sure everyone's not living in the projects or driving a new car. They're putting their kids into the schools they want to. You guys are taking so much pride of giving your customers a great deal. Yet you're shitting on your employees. How the hell do you sleep at night?
I want to know how you sleep at night holding somebody down at $50,000 a year with no benefits. How many of you guys can make six figures and drive a new vehicle and go on their dream vacation with their families and actually move out of the projects? You guys, how do you sleep at night knowing you're screwing over your internal customers? How can a CSR live on $16 an hour?
You guys, you're pathetic. I told all of them that they shook my hand. Each and every one of them, they raise their prices. And I said, don't raise your prices. If you're not going to raise your quality. Yeah. Cause I'll pay a lot of money to go to the nicest steakhouse in Vegas. I pay a grand all day for a couple.
And I bet you they've got a line three weeks out because they're buying the experience. They're buying the warrant. Like, I know the manager is going to call me the next day to ask me how it was. I know that my martini, they're going to shake it, make it cold. What's your favorite? Got to answer it now. Steak 44 in Phoenix. I don't know. No, what about here? Whether you're scouring business financial sites or listening to economics podcasts like this one, you'll find there's no secret to successfully managing your company's finances for the future.
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You don't know here? Okay. You tell me where to go. I mean, I've been to a lot of places, but Vegas is like the key. There's probably 20 good places. For me, it's Bavette's, man. Is it? It's Bavette's. Okay. That's where we got to go. That's my spot. But that's the deal, man. Take care of your people. Make sure they're winning. It becomes easy to recruit. And if you take care of people, they take care of you back. And it costs somewhere between 45% and 60% to replace somebody with their yearly salary. And people just going through people.
And they say they can't afford it. Well, listen, there's a great book by Alan Rohr. It's a small book called Where Did the Money Go? And I'm not all about, like, if you got to lower your commission, you're probably not the best. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I know real estate quite a bit. My sister was a loan officer. And there's people that just say, listen, if you want to, where did you want me to save you money? On the parts or the labor? I could get a felon in here for you. Do you want cheaper parts? Yes.
I can get a felon. Yeah, I said, do you want me to get better? Do you want me to get cheaper labor? Do you want it done with your daughters in the house? Do you want me to get somebody off the streets? Or do you want somebody that looks good, that's going to respect you, that's going to make sure the job's done right, that's fully trained? They train on our training center, not on your home. And do you want us to use the best parts? And by the way, I've got cheaper options than any other company. And it goes up from there depending on how long you're going to stay in the home and what you want.
And whatever you want, we're going to provide for you. We want to be your garage door company for the rest of your life. We want you to know how to get a hold of us. And by the way, our warranty calls, they go before any new customers. You are important for us. What's the lifetime on a garage door? 10 years. 10 years? And the HOA, the builder with mass production, they're putting in crap. The garage door is the smile of your home. I trademark that.
Smile of your home. It's 40% of your curb appeal. It's the number one ROI more than your kitchen or bathroom. It's 194% this year that just came out. Remodel Magazine and every news station is talking about the garage doors, the best return on investment. It's an investment.
And if people understood how passionate I am about garage doors, this is why I wanted to nail it and scale it. I want to own the client, but I don't need to sell them everything under the sun. I just, we're really, we're specialists. We're not a jack of all trades. We're a master. Do you go to a general doctor when you need heart surgery? We are the best at garage doors. We're not a handyman. Right. We're going to fix it the right way. And by the way, if it's not fixed, right. How much time, how much is your time worth? Oh God.
Every time you hit that button, you want it to go up. You want it to be safe for your family. You want to lower your electric bills by putting in an insulated door. Like you could back into our doors. It'll be fine because it's double. It's called a steel back and it's polyurethane. That's, that's our signature series. And we sell those like hotcakes. We just went to a guy's house five months ago. He's working for us. He's murdering it. And the dude is the most Christian guy. He's taking care of his people. And like,
I'm getting ready to replace my mom's door. Going to the best, the best. I buy like I want to be bought from. If you're a plumber, you come into my house, offer me everything. Let me decide what I want. I had a plumber come in a couple months ago, and I'm trying to like, can you get the water? I replaced all my hot water heaters. I have seven, and I went tankless on all of them. And I said, what can we do to make the water get faster? What can we do? Should we rebuild the toilet kits? Like, I want these things power flush every time. Like, what else is going to go wrong?
offer it to me because i buy like i want to be bought from give me everything i'll take everything you offer me because that's how i want to you know if i had to like go and try to get the cheap you know i've got the cheapest i bought the cheapest in my first house within two years after i did the roof it leaked the hvac unit broke down seven times one summer that i just replaced the year before because i got a deal you bounce a golf ball on my old floors brand new tile i'm
Hollow, hollow, hollow, hollow. But I got installed for a buck a foot. I thought I was this smooth negotiator, even though I was getting what I was paying for. So I've got every option for every client. It's just I prefer the affluent client.
that want to fix the right way that have nice things and want nice things. Yeah. They don't want to have to think about it again. It's more of that. Well, let's talk about this dude. Let's talk about, talk about your event coming up, man. Let's talk about that. Steve's going to be there. Steve Sims, good friend of the show. Steve Sims is, he's an amazing guy. His story is amazing. And I love blue fishing, man. That book was amazing. I got,
I got Jocko. People need to learn more about discipline. By the time September 25th, the show comes, I'll be under 10% body fat with full mental clarity. I feel like I could freaking take a bull and twist his neck if he came against me. My energy level... What are you doing for that? What are you doing? How old are you? I'm 41. Okay. And I'm on...
Like, dude, I had 135-pound dumbbells on incline for my fist set yesterday. Jesus. Like, I've been on TRT for seven years. Yeah, sure. So, everybody's like, TRT. What's the new peptide? What's the new one? Dude, I'm on, like, CJC. I'm on NAD. Have you ever read the book Giftology? Yes. So, John Rulon just passed away two days ago. John's a great guy. What? He died. Wait, what? Yeah. From what? I was really involved, dude. He was hiking with his four daughters. His wife's sick. Oh, my God. He was on... Dude...
It broke like dude out of nowhere. He just, and John was a, he was a healthy dude. Very healthy. 46 years old. Left four kids. I,
I'm sorry. That's not the best way to come up. I pray for him every day and his family. Oh, man. It's so messed up, dude. I met John for the first time probably four years, three years ago at 100 Mill, Dan Fleischman's thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was part of that. Joel. Yeah, dude. He's a guy that would give the shirt off his back, dude. They still don't know if it was the COVID shot or whatever. I don't want to get controversial here, but...
I don't know what, but, but going back, dude, I'm sorry to bring that up, but, um, because listen, I'm on all the right stuff. I'm taking care of myself, but I know tomorrow's not promised. Like every indicators in the right spots. My blood pressure is exactly where it's supposed to be. My cholesterol levels, but just, here's what I do know. Mom's not going to live forever. Dad's not going to live forever. I'm not going to live forever. And it can be taken in the, and we were talking about the event, but man,
I'm trying to live, you know, you hear me on this show. What you don't understand is dude, I'm living 110% every day. I get some fun token. I tell people I love them more than I ever have. And I will help people. I want to make a difference. I want to have a legacy like John had. Um, but as far as the show goes, and I know that's a Debbie downer, um,
You know, the who's who of home service, the godfathers I just told you about earlier, they're all going to be there. Paul Kelly's doing $280 million just in Phoenix. He's going to be there on a panel. I got Tom Howard, who I was with earlier, just sold another company for $85 million.
My events are just as much about tactical and strategic as it is about mindset. Is it about being a good part of your family, taking care of yourself? Well, I'm going to say this dude, just in the conversation we've had here, like, I don't think that this is exclusive to people that are solar guys or HVAC guys or this. I mean, dude, just the level of service and some of the, some of the little things that you said, if you're selling anything, I think this is something you could get a lot out of. Well,
Well, I'm challenging people. You know, a lot of times guys like us like to help other people, but we kind of don't help ourselves first. I looked in the mirror one day. My cousin called me up, Rachel, and she's a trainer. And she goes, dude, you're the smartest guy I know. She goes, you devour books. She's been to my house. She's like, dude, you're so smart. You take care of everybody. She goes, why don't you love yourself? And I go, oh, what do you mean?
She goes, just don't look your best. You know, you're drinking a lot and that's okay. But she's like, you're so much better than that. And I took my shirt off after I got off the phone. I looked in the mirror and I'm like, dude, I haven't looked in the mirror. I just kind of get out of the shower, get ready. And I say, I'm busy. There's 168 hours in a week.
Spend 50 working outfit or 50 working. A lot of us do more than that. You spend 50 sleeping, which is a good amount of sleep. It's over seven hours a night. You spend 10 hours in the gym. You still got about 60 hours left. You could spend 15 hours on yourself. You could be closer to your kids and your wife or husband. You could do so much more. Everybody says there's just, it's easy for you to say you don't have enough time. I don't have an excuse in the world anymore. I got rid of it. Yeah. And it's, it's a little bit of discipline.
And it takes, it takes its consistency, man. You don't see results for the first couple of months. Then all of a sudden people like, dude, what the fuck? Like what's going on? And I'm like, well, I,
I started to realize that I can't help anybody else if I don't help myself. Yeah. One of my favorite little quips with that, instead of saying I can't, this change can't to choose not to. And watch how quickly you stop. Because now I choose not to do that. I choose not. And now all of a sudden it's like, shit, that sounds bad. I guess I could go do this. And it's tough, man. I didn't want to get out of bed yet. No, not yesterday morning. The morning before it was rainy outside. Yeah. I got up at five and I don't know, I was sore. Yeah.
And I'm like, like, I don't know, David Goggins or Jocko or somebody got it in my head. And they're like, just, I went for an hour and a half just for a little, like I speed walk. I don't like to run and I don't like to slow walk, but I just, I'm in mother nature, the mountains. And I just focused. And I just want people to have their best life. And if you come to this event, it's called freedom event.com September 25th through the 27th. I promise you, I lose money on this event. Promise you. Um,
If you don't get blown away and you're at the end of the event, you're like, this was a waste. Like this was just, you go to events and people are pitching the whole time and getting you in an email list and shit. If you get that, then just ask for your money back. Just find me, just give you your money back because I want nice food. I want the best speakers. I want to make a difference. I want you to think about things differently. I don't want you to go through what, what I had to go through to get here. Like don't reinvent the wheel.
And if you got big dreams, I'm going to dare to dream a little bit bigger. I don't want to go to Disney World unless I'm going first class, staying in the penthouse and cutting all the lines. I want to go first class through life. And I want everybody around me to say, man, knowing that Tommy Mello dude, man, my life got better. When I die, I want it to be outside. Nobody wear black. Make sure. And it's a celebration because I want to be in heaven. And I want to live my life. I don't want to convert anybody to Christianity. I want them to come to me.
I say, I want what you have. I don't need to persuade anybody. I want them to say, I want to find that inner peace. I want to feel what you feel. I want to live like you live. I don't need to tell anybody. I want them to see how I live.
And if they're inspired, then they'll come to me and they'll choose to do that. Yep. Say, what are you doing? And what the hell's up with you, dude? It's like you're never in a bad mood. You're always smiling. You seem to have fun all the time. It's got to be. Joe Paul sent me this. Anything I do now has got to be easy, lucrative and fun. If it's not, get the hell away. Like, dude, I say no a lot more than I ever have because I'm like your drama.
And if you want me, I'm there. That's a dude that, that was one of the hardest things, especially when you're coming up, man, is learning how to say no to people. It's tough, man. Cause it's a skill. I think, I think, and I think as you get older too, like you just said, you start to understand, um,
the limited amount of time that we have on this planet and how valuable that time is like you sitting here, man, I appreciate you taking an hour out of your day to sit here. I love this man. Because you're doing everybody a favor. You're, you're inviting people on, you're sharing your knowledge. This is a great way of giving back where you could have these one-on-one conversations, but you're sharing it with the world. Yeah. And when you see that, that finite amount of time,
And it's just, I think you've got to learn to say no to people. You start really valuing like, man, I can't do that. I'm not going to do that or this and that. And you start to see, and something else you said earlier that is just case in point that cracks me up, just the level of service. Let me ask you this. And I wanted to ask you this earlier and we're kind of running out of time, but I want to get to this. Do you think since COVID-19,
The level of service across every industry has gone to shit. It has. Dude, I was looking to buy a very expensive piece of software for our brokers today. Very, very expensive SAA space. The dude books an appointment with me, shows up five minutes late to a freaking Google Meet meeting.
Then he gets on and I go, bro, I just need to see the product. And then he starts trying to script me like, well, tell me about your needs and tell me about this. I'm like, dude, you're five minutes late. You missed that. Yeah. Let's get to it. And he wouldn't let it go. And I was like, you know what, dude, get me somebody else. I'll see you tomorrow. But it just seems like everywhere you go, the level of service is just gone to shit, which is one of the reasons that guys like, I think you and I that pride ourselves on that. I mean, right before I walked in here, I got a phone call from some, from one of our clients.
saying how amazed they were at the level of service they got from my agent. I fucking love that. Yeah. Like nothing that's going to happen today is better than that call. Absolutely, man. Nothing's better than that. I get these calls. The best calls I get are, I just bought my first house. I'm 42 years old.
I got a place for my family. This is the first place I ever got to call home of my own with my family. That's better than a record. We set a lot of records. And this level is I just want to treat people how I'd like to be treated. And I don't find that. If you answer your phone and you show up, you're doing better than 90%. Dude, 100%. One of my proudest accomplishments this year.
My not one of my agents, my assistant bought our first house this year. It's impressive. That's the shit. Love that. Yeah. You get to give back to people. And guess what? Like these people are warriors for you. Like in my first deal, remember I said, Adam, $5 million. Yeah. He got 14 on our first deal.
And I love this game because now I'm learning what these guys knew in the financial side of it. And now I'm learning how to raise capital and I'm learning how the debt markets work. And I'm like, oh man, Ken called me up and he goes, dude, you should do... He goes, I would give everything up to be where you are today. To my clothing? Now, this was Ken Goodrich, the ghetto. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And...
What I've learned is he goes, you're going to, you are one of the smartest guys, you know, in home service, you understand all the KPIs, but when you learn what they know and you combine them. Yeah. It's like, it's like a hurricane, dude. It's like, you're going to be able to fricking just shake up everything. And so I'm just, I feel like I'm in the fetal stages, dude. But at the same time, I'm taking time for me, my mom, my dad, I've taken him with golf trips and taking my mom to a big trip. Like I've learned a little bit more of, um,
I work and play. Like, I'll never stop working, but I don't have to grind like I used to, and the problems aren't the same. Like, I used to worry about guys showing up sober in 2010. You know, or is this guy going to quit, or is this truck going to break down, or is this customer going to be a douchebag to my CSRs, which we don't work with those people if they are. And now we've got choices. And I just love it, man. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy you invited me. I really enjoyed this. Yeah, dude, you are...
I always tell people that having mentors, seeking out knowledge, finding those things, it's not just about the information. It's a, it's a time machine. And bro, all the people we've had through this room and we have had some bangers sit here. I will say that you probably worked the time machine as good, if not better than anybody that's ever sat in that chair. Well,
Well, I do have an 85 DeLorean this time. I'd like back in the future too. As you should, as well you should, man. Well, dude, Tom, thanks so much for coming in, bro. If you are going to check out his event, which I highly recommend you do, again, September, it is freedomevent.com. Freedomevent.com, freedomevent.com. And if you're watching this on YouTube, as always, like and subscribe. But man.
Let today be a lesson. Let it be a lesson. If you don't have, if you feel like you're lacking the information that you need to start that business, to get your, to scale, to do what you want to do, to get to that next thing, it's out there. You just got to go. A S K. We'll see you next week.
What's up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of it, or at least as much as I did out of it. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the show, you can always go over to escapingthedrift.com. You can join our mailing list. But do me a favor, if you wouldn't mind, throw up that five-star review, give us a share, do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully, you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime, we will see you at the next episode. Connection is a healthy and essential aspect of our daily lives.
From a warm hug after a hard day to kind words just when we need them. These gentle moments give us an understanding of life's true meaning. But when the ability to connect is interrupted by the hustle of daily life and to-do lists pile up next to the worry of who needs school supplies, sometimes making decisions about our health and the well-being of our loved ones can take a back seat.
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