Developing a Family-Oriented Business Culture to Improve Employee Retention
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My theory has always been that, you know, I want to take care of my people and then have my people have an opportunity to take care of our customers. But with us, if you're a restoration company and you receive jobs from the insurance company, that's really never going to be the case because you're going to care about the insurance company first. So what we like to say is that we work for the homeowner with the insurance company and not the other way around. But we truly enjoy

building relationships with a lot of our partners in Southern California. And I think one of the hardest things that you could do nowadays is build a relationship-based business based off of referrals. When you hear a number like that, 75% to 80% of our business is based on referrals, that means that

We constantly need to make not only their clients that they refer us happy, but also the referral partners that we have happy. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text NOTES, N-O-T-E-S, to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode.

Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview.

- All right guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. I got my good buddy, Edward in town. And I gotta tell you guys about his shop and the way he runs his business. Edward Rizzoli in here. He's an expert in sales, water damage restoration and operations management. He's based out of LA. He's a chief executive offer of Restorers. And in the past for about a decade, he was the operations manager at Dry Tech Restoration.

He's the CEO of Restores Emergency Services, the most trusted and technologically advanced emergency restoration company in Southern California. When I went out and visited Edward, he's just super organized. Everything about his shop,

everything's got a space they do the storage there obviously if you've got furniture you got to move it out he stores the furniture everything's got a spot everything's got an area i liked him so much that we uh he allowed me to invest into the company and uh he's killing it he he just takes care of his people he takes care of his family

He really treats every single person he meets like family. Every business that works with him, he treats with respect and he takes care of them. He will bend over backwards to make his customers successful. He actually has Joe Crisara come in and coach for the different plumbing companies. He works with guys like Ishmael Valdez and a lot of other successful plumbers. And the coolest thing is he's expanding into Phoenix and Vegas. So if you're a company...

that does plumbing or just has a lot of referrals for water damage or any type of damage, you need to be reaching out to Edward with Restores. So Edward, I'm glad you made it here today. Let's just talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial journey of what you're doing and where you're at today. Yeah, well, first of all, Tommy, thanks for having me in.

I mean, as you know, you probably, you came to the shop, you saw everything. But this year, I guess like starting December, you saw the home service industry kind of

took a major shift right um but what we're using this year as uh in the business is kind of like a 2.0 version of all the systems and workflows and processes that that uh we're trying to roll out uh the goal is to roll out the 2.0 version and then next year kind of double down on all of our all of our people and everything that we're doing to double our revenue and roll into vegas and phoenix

What was your question about my entrepreneur? So just talk to me a little bit. So what, why water restoration? How'd you get into the business? Where's the company at today? What are you looking forward to doing in the next five years? Yeah. So we actually stumbled into the business. What was happening? And we originally started in Las Vegas. So we were flipping houses with my father and I, and we were running into mold damaged houses, just dirty sewage filled houses because of the

foreclosures and stuff like that back in the day. So we decided to kind of learn more about what we're doing and become professionals and differentiate between the flipped houses and take a professional stance at it. So during that journey, we came across a good family friend that actually owns a plumbing company and he was one of the biggest home warranty vendors in Las Vegas at that time.

So we just decided to kind of partner up with them at that time and do all of his water damage leads. So the first day that we opened up,

My dad actually opened up that business. So the first day he opened up that business, he just had like four whiteboards and they started filling up in one day. Right. But he knew nothing about property restoration just in general. But, you know, we've been in like construction and remodeling and stuff like that for a very long time as a family. So as he started getting to know the business and figuring out the ins and outs, he started he came across some health problems. So he had like a sciatic problem, which kind of

put him in bed for a very long time. And then at one point, I was doing like tech work and stuff like that. I was very young. I'm 29 years old, by the way. So at that time I was in my teens, right? So he basically gave me the keys one day at home and he's like, "Do whatever you want. Close it down or let it drown. I don't care." Because he was sick, right?

So I there was one other guy left. He had fired almost everybody because it was just a shit show there. There was there's work coming in, but there was no one that could possibly do the work. Right.

So I decided to just kind of lock the office door and go to the calls with one of the technicians and me. So we would go to the calls, you know, I would sell the job and then we would do the job right after. And then slowly, you know, I started creating a system behind the tech stuff, finding the best way to go about doing the work. And then I was able to take that hat off and give it to this guy. And he was a lead tech now. And then I would focus on just selling.

So then after I figured out kind of like the project manager role, which is the sales role in our business, I created systems and workflows for that position also. So then I took that hat off and decided to stay in the office and start negotiating with insurance companies.

to create a system for our accounts receivable because in the restoration industry, you could go sell $10 million worth of work. If you can't have that money come in, you're broke, right? And that's the biggest problem in the restoration industry is cash flow for businesses of all sizes.

So fast forward, you know, my dad got better and my brother was actually part of the business, but he had decided to go to California for design school. So he's trying to design cars and do all of that. So he came back and then at some point I felt like there was like too many lions in the den, right? Too many people with too many opinions.

But everything was set up like workflows, technology, everything. We were running as well as we could be with what we had going on there. So I decided to tell my parents, you know what, I'm gonna go back to school. So I said, I'm gonna go back to school in California to go to law school. And that was the only way they were gonna kind of let me go without getting upset.

So I came to California, but I knew in the back of my head I was gonna actually open up a restoration company in California. So it was like 2019, March 13. I packed my stuff in like a little sedan and everything fit in there. And that's everything that I actually owned in life. And I was like, you know, like, I don't have shit. So I got to California and it was like,

Turned out it was one year before the pandemic. So I fake enrolled into this law school, but I never like went. But I partnered with a plumbing company. I rented out a like four by six room in their little office with no windows, no AC, no nothing. And I just did exactly what I did back at Dry Tech. You know, I started doing the jobs, doing business development, doing the management. And then I was hiring people.

and paying them a full 80 hours without them working 80 hours because I knew in like a month or two or three, like I was going to need those. Yeah, exactly. So I basically doubled down on myself. Then the freaking pandemic hit.

And honestly, that was probably the worst and best thing that could ever happen to me. Because what happened during the pandemic was actually the day the real estate market closed in California, I'd already said bye to those people that I was renting from.

So I'd already said bye to them and I was like stuck in my friend's ADU that I was renting and all of my like, there's three people relying on me, the world shutting down. But I was like, I'm just going to look at some offices near me on LoopNet.

So I found this office, I went there, it's the last day the real estate market's closing. So I got a killer deal on that space. The guy's like, even know what the hell you're doing? Right? I'm like, yeah, sure. So I just took the keys. And then from that point on, like I said, it was the worst and best thing that ever happened because it leveled out the playing field. So...

What I noticed was everyone was, no one knew what the hell was going on. Even the people that were supposed to know what was going on didn't know what was going on. So I said to myself, like, what do I know? What do I know how to do, right? I know how to do restoration. I know how to lead people. I know how to manage. I know how to create systems. And I know what I truly need to do now.

So I just kind of focused on my internal voice instead of everybody else talking bullshit around me. And month after month, year after year, and now we're at three locations in Southern California. And we have a beautiful headquarters and we're in Orange County and we're in Gardena. So we cover LA County, Ventura County, Orange County.

And we're trying to grow next year and this year to Las Vegas and Phoenix. So when did you get on a service Titan? What was that? How did that go? So I think this story is pretty similar to your story. When I met Tom Howard for the first time, I think it was on vertical track. We're sitting on a bus and I'm like, Tom, could I ask you some questions? Blah, blah, blah. He's like, yeah, sure. You know how Tom is. So, yeah.

He asked me something similar. He's like, are you on Service Titan? I'm like, finally, I'm on Service Titan. But when I was still in Vegas, so about like six years ago, I tried getting on Service Titan and Service Titan said, oh, we don't do restoration companies. I'm like, hey, you guys are Armenian. I'm Armenian. I wrote him like this.

Huge email. I'm like, you guys are missing out here. Like this, this could really help businesses. And I think this is exactly what I'm looking for. Right. And they still replied back. Like I sent the email to Tom and I think he saved it. It's like a huge email. They replied back. No, we're not going to, we still don't want to do it. Sorry.

So I was like, I really need to see what this like service type and hype is about. But I but I understood like service type and wasn't going to solve my all my problems. But I was going to integrate it with like a field specific software that was going to give me like the ultimate stack to make sure that all my bases are covered. So I decided to get like a fake plumbing company situation set up where we were going to start plumbing or whatever so that I could

pitch it to service titan and get on service titan but use it for restoration so that's what i ended up doing just to test my theory of of uh if if uh service titan will work for resto

And it ended up working beautifully. So it's been about actually three years that we've been on service Titan. And we're kind of combining it with like HubSpot and Circle, which is a field service software for the restoration industry. And a few other things to really make an automated experience for the office and our customer. What do you think? So explain to me really quickly. So

insurance versus plumbing leads versus someone just searching on Google, what usually happens? So a pipe bursts, explain to me exactly in the audience, like how, what are the different lead sources? How do you bill it? What do you like? What don't you like about the industry? Yeah. Yeah. So in regards to the restoration industry, like our business is heavily reliant on

relationships and referrals right so about like 75 80 percent of our business comes from plumbing companies referring us insurance agents referring us brokerages property management companies which we try to stay away from but there are a select few that we like working with but really any anyone in any company or individual that could possibly refer us so

The main difference between our business model and most restoration companies is that most restoration companies are vendors for insurance companies. So what that means is like you're a slave to the compliances and the tasks and the things that the insurance company wants you to do.

So with that being said, like their customer is truly the insurance carrier. It's never the it's never the homeowner that was referred to them because if they if they do everything that's right for the homeowner, they're going to upset the carrier. So I've never really enjoyed that.

And about 90%, 95% of restoration companies operate in that way. So my theory has always been that, you know, I want to take care of my people and then have my people have an opportunity to take care of our customers.

But with us, if you're a restoration company and you receive jobs from the insurance company, that's really never going to be the case because you're going to care about the insurance company first. So what we like to say is that we work for the homeowner with the insurance company and not the other way around. But we truly enjoy building relationships with a lot of our partners in Southern California. And I think one of the hardest things that you could do nowadays is

build a relationship based business based off of referrals. You know, when you hear a number like that, 75 to 80% of our business is based on referrals. That means that we constantly need to make not only their clients that they refer us happy, but also the part, the referral partners that we have happy. So, you know, we,

We're constantly going above and beyond and I think that's like a huge cultural thing that I'm happy about. What is it? So you're giving them a finer C?

Yeah. Yeah. So we, uh, we, we give them a, uh, consulting fee, right? So, uh, a lot of times what happens is, uh, it's very competitive first of all in LA. Um, but we do have a consulting fee and we have promotions that go on every single month for all different counties and everywhere that go, that we go to. But, uh, besides the consulting fee, which, which, uh, a lot of, a lot of

restoration companies do give in LA. We are really competitive with that. But besides that, we try to build value into the relationship. So you got Uncle Joe and his team coming out to some of the partners that we have, the plumbing companies and stuff like that. And

giving them the one hour crash course on sales, customer service, and how to really be a true champion. Then we feed our plumbing partners. So we're constantly bringing them lunch, breakfast. We've taken them out to dinners. We're throwing together networking events in our areas and stuff like that. So

Where really our goal is for our partners to also reduce liabilities in their business because there are a lot of liabilities with asbestos and lead and stuff like that when you're a plumbing company and you're just trying to get in there and cut walls and fix a leak.

We've saved a lot of our partners a lot of money from a lot of liabilities. And then our second goal is for them to increase their profits. So if we could help your bottom line at the end of the day and reduce the liabilities and create a safer environment for your company and your people to work in, that's our goal. Because when our partners win, we receive more leads. That's our mentality. What's the hardest part when you're reaching out to a referral client?

Who are you dealing with? I know there's different decision makers. And some of these guys, the problem is I think some of the technicians are getting the cash. Yeah. And sometimes the owner wants the cash. And how do you, what are some of the issues? Yeah. Our goal is always to build a, our goal is to be very, first of all, very transparent. I know, you know, just like how you said, a lot of plumbing, independent plumbers like to deviate from the vendor of choice that the plumbing company has already set up.

But that's because most restoration companies in Southern California suck, right? And with that being said, like our goal is always to get approval from the plumbing company and have the management and the leadership buy in. But we also understand, you know, the...

we also understand one of the most important parts of this is the plumber that actually goes out to the property. So we usually leave the split up to management, but we always give our best recommendation. And then we also have a course that we do during our lunch and learns where we're able to educate the plumber on how to approach getting us getting restores to the client, right? Getting our foot in the door. Because at the end of the day,

There's a lot of things that are just outside of the referral fee that have to do with the relationship. And one of them is like making sure the home is safe. So in California, I don't know about Phoenix, but in California at least there's a lot of asbestos and lead. And then there's a lot of times where, you know, a lot of these houses have old dinghy roofs. And then we just went through a rain season and there's mold everywhere.

you know one thing that i believe in is if you're a true professional and if you're a true plumber and you truly care about your client you walk in a fixa you walk in a fix a leak right here but if you see that there's mold there you know it's up to you to educate your client and let them know like hey i'm here for this people get sick people die oh yeah yeah yeah we've had very serious we've had so many situations where you know we've had to do jobs for free for people because

the you know the stories and situations that my project managers come across there was an individual that was actually like in a coma for three months because they had somehow from from from I don't know where swallowed mold like they had mold developing in their system so they were hallucinating constantly randomly at night and having seizures and stuff like that so you

Their insurance didn't cover it because they look at that as like customer negligence. So we felt really bad and the individual was older. So we decided to do a free mold job for them and make their house mold free. - Oh, geez, that's serious stuff.

You know, one of the things I remember you telling me was at first you guys used to take on the whole project. Yeah. And the guys I've talked to, it's a whole different thing to be a contractor to rebuild it and just remove the mold and get the place dried up. Yeah. When did you guys make that? Because I think it's really good to be a specialist. Talk to me about how that really improved the business and have you focus instead of being a jack of all trades, you got to be a master of just handling that one thing.

Yeah, I mean, that was, you know, back in Vegas when we had dry tech restoration, that was, you know, most restoration companies want to do it all. You call it a full service restoration company. But what I noticed was if I truly wanted to enjoy what I was doing and I wanted my

team to feel like they were actually making a difference and not just dealing with people, you know, whining and crying all day. You know, I had to figure out what we were really good at and which part of the workflow and customer journey through the claims process we wanted to be a part of. So initially when you're having a problem, you know, you're at an all time low, right? I

emergencies aren't scheduled. You know, people aren't expecting it. It's not a remodel where you're looking forward to something. So like you come home and, you know, now you got shit everywhere in your house and you, we come, we come across your, uh, across your desk and now, now we're in front of you. And now our goal is to,

you know, provide you with options, solve the problem in the most efficient way and create really a, still a customer experience and journey through these shitty times. So when we meet you, you're at your all time low. And then by the time we cut clean, dry, sanitize your house, if we need to pack out your stuff and storage so we could return it back when your house is fully restored. By the time we're done with that process, now we've brought you back to at least normal, if not better, right? You were,

We have white glove service where we're holding your hand every single day. We got many departments involved in making sure that you're getting the handwritten thank you cards. We're taking out your trash. We're doing all the things that I've learned from other industries and verticals in the home service industry.

And we've just created an amazing journey. So once that whole process is done, you're now, I think, at the peak of the claims, insurance claims experience you're going to have.

Because at that end, at that part, the insurance company steps in. So now they want to come to your house and do their measurements and send their vendors and calculate how much they owe you for different types of building materials to rebuild your house and restore it back. So from that point on, it's a straight downhill in the customer experience.

Sure, some people say, you know, I'm leaving money on the table, but, you know, I...

I've proven that concept that I'm not leaving money on the table and we actually have amazing margins. We have amazing culture because people truly are not listening to people whine to them and how the claims process sucks and the insurance company is shorting us and my paint doesn't match on the walls. So we decided to be the heroes and not the guy in company that everything gets blamed on at the end because...

the insurance company ends up brainwashing the client and we don't want to be part of the uh you know reconstruction process because truly that's another business inside a business to be completely honest yeah so do you guys have a say in who gets the work to do the restoration side the uh the rebuild side of it yeah we we do we have a uh and and you know that's always open as we're growing there's not one single company that could handle it all so

And then we're very, very careful on who we associate our name with. So for anybody listening, if you do reconstruction or you're going to contract or anything like that, always give us a call. In any county, Ventura County, Orange County, L.A. County, even San Bernardino County, we're open to referrals, to give out referrals. California.

I've stayed out of California for a reason. I think it's a tough place to operate. I think it's not a question of if you're going to get sued, it's when you get sued. There's nobody I've talked to. Tom Howard, Megan Lykes, I know some of the best operators in the country that are in California. But it's just a matter of time. There's more litigators in Southern California than the rest of the country combined because if they sue you...

and the employee wins a dollar, you pay their lawyer fees. And it could be crazy. Yeah. You know, and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole here too much, but what would you do to protect yourself? Yeah, that's a crazy thing is I've been there, done that. And what I mean by that is I've been sued already, and it was like super young,

in my career and journey in California. I was like, right when the pandemic started. So it was like the pandemic and then a bunch of other issues. And then a huge lawsuit that I was set up for, it turns out at the end, like someone came in and it was a lawyer that was looking at the business. Kind of like the people that come and slip in your business and the lawyer wins. Yeah. So it was like something very similar to that. But

When it all unraveled, you know, it turned out to be a setup. So one, it was like very scary and it gave me PTSD. But, you know, you learn from your mistakes. I didn't I didn't I didn't think that I made a mistake, but you become very cautious. What do I do to protect myself from situations like that?

Pray? No, it's hard. It's very hard in California. And like you said, if you're a great operator and you're a great businessman, you got to be super focused and super clean and transparent to be able to grow in California because you got that pressure of the public and all other liabilities that you could come across. But OSHA, EPA and lawyers and this and that. So

That's a tough one. If you could do it over again, would you have chosen California? Minus the family, take the family, take the relationships out of it. Crazy thing is my family moved from Vegas to California to be with me. So I'm the one that dragged them there. Would I do it all over again? Yeah, I mean, I don't think I regret anything. I think the opportunity exists.

The opportunity that exists in California, I don't think can be duplicated really anywhere else. It supersedes some of the windfalls. Yeah, but you definitely got to be careful. You got to be a superstar, I think, to grow in that kind of state and that kind of city, especially LA, because...

You just don't know what you don't know is around the corner, right? - Feels like there's a lot of opportunities for people to come after you when you start making a name for yourself. - Oh yeah. - Especially in California. - Oh yeah, yeah. - And the bigger the company, here's the problem is, you know, we're in 20 states and when you go into California,

even if you got a separate LLC, you got these layers of protection. Yeah. They can come after the mothership. And so is it useful to squeeze from almost everybody I've heard? Now, it's interesting because in HVAC...

You know, they're doing this man-made weather where they're, I don't know how they're doing it, but you've heard about it. The cloud seeding. The cloud seeding. Yeah. And, you know, Ishmael's calling me and a lot of people are like, holy shit, the season's just shortened up. And it's worse. Oh, yeah. Like there was a drought. Now it's raining all the time. Now the water's filled up everywhere. Like, so it's working. Yeah. But now it's shorting the season for HAC guys. It's kind of crazy because I was sitting there talking to Adam Coffey and he's like,

Totally bought a $300 million deal for a movie theater. COVID hit, deal got torn up, guy went bankrupt. But this kind of stuff, like cloud seeding, you just never know what's going to come in and change your business. Literally before I flew here, it was raining in Burbank. It's still raining in California.

Yeah, no, it's this last year has been ridiculous in weather. I mean, it's a good thing for us. I don't know about HVAC. Well, yeah, think about that. The rain that's cloud seeding is helping your business dramatically. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Wow, that's interesting. I never thought about the other effect of that in restoration. Yeah. So you've been through quite a journey here. How do you, you know, I want to talk a little bit about leadership because, you know, I went to your Christmas party.

And these people would die for you. You'd die for them. I mean, it's such a family-oriented company. I think your mom does your books. And, you know, dad's involved, brother's involved, the whole family's involved, your wife's involved. It just seems like, how did you build that? What were some of the steps you took? Because I think a lot of people say we have a family-oriented business, but yours feels different.

Yeah, I think one of the most important things that kind of set that off is just my family in general, like how we are together. We have a very, you know, we're very close.

tight-knit but at the same time we understand business right so we understand like when we could be a family and when we should be you know operators and professional and businessmen um so i think just having that understanding and um you know when it clicks in family it clicks usually it doesn't but you know in our in our family it does and it works

And that got kind of passed on to every other person that came into the business because when these people get, and when I say these people are team, when they feel that, hey, his mom's here, his brother's here, dad's here, wife's here, stuff like that, and they get close to your family, once you have a friend in the business,

it's really hard not to love the business. But once that friend becomes family, you know, you're there for life, right? And whatever I do for my immediate family, I do for my business family, my work family, and everybody feels that and they enjoy it and

really, there are some times where I'm like, guys, you guys need to go home. You know what I mean? Like, I got to go home. I got a family too. You guys got a family. Like, we got to go home. We got work-life balance, guys. And those are the things that really make me happy though because, you know, everybody asks like,

And I'm sure in your business too, like how'd you do it? Or like, how'd you get here? And the answer is always, you know, it's always easier when you have a really good team and people that care. Yeah. That's at the end of the day, it's about caring. Like the people in our business truly care about what the hell is going on in the business. And you put out, you get, if you put out the carrot comes back full circle. 100%.

What's the best top techniques you use to recruit good people? Surprisingly, I haven't had a...

recruitment problem or people problems because I think the best technique is when you take care of your people and if they're good people and you want to keep them around, they always end up referring better people or as good of people as they are. And I think I've used that throughout even COVID. Right now though, since we're trying to hire more C-suite and trying to hire higher and bigger executives,

the number one thing that I'm still figuring out is like, you know, as I had like three interviews with some higher level executive people this week and you still need to go back to the basics. Like they could do all of those charts and KPIs and this and that. But I've always figured that if they don't fit our culture,

then it's a no-go because it always ends up in a bad way. That's the number one thing. You need to be able to be cool with them. You need to be able to sit at a dinner table and talk to them. You want to be able to hang out with them, right? And honestly, I keep it simple. I want to be as transparent, as humane as possible with these people. So...

I don't think there is a secret. A lot of the things that we do in our business, like how you're saying that's made us successful, is making sure the culture is there and the family atmosphere, the relationships are the most important thing to us. I know that you hired a high-level marketing person recently. Yeah.

was, that's a big deal. One of the things that Levi always taught me is know your financials and keep marketing as close to you as possible as the leader, as the founder, as the CEO. That's a big, big, it's always been so hard for me because I'm like,

I mean, marketing is the only thing that reports right up to me. It skips everybody else. So tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, and I think I'm exactly the same way. And, you know, I truly believe in what, you know, you just said Al says, because like financials, my mom was the CPA of the state of Nevada. So she really helps me out there when, you know, on spending, budgeting, stuff like that. So that's one of the things that I like to keep clear.

close to me too and fully understand the second thing like how you said is marketing I truly love marketing because that's that's what the business is about that's what the that's what the public this is going to understand about our business that's how we showcase our values and culture and everything that's happening inside the business but

We're trying to take it to the next level now. I've been screwed so many times with pay-per-click companies and agencies and this and that. I feel like we're at a point where a lot of shit's coming up and it's floating now and people are seeing what's going on. But I'm also happy that I made those mistakes and I spent that money and had those experiences because now I know truly what to look for and what I need for the business.

But yeah, we hired an in-house pay-per-click guy. He's a genius. We're building out something very detailed and things that you would truly want that for your business. But the reason why you didn't get it is because you yourself didn't know

You know when you were being taken advantage of what you actually needed and how things need to be they just slapped on a dollar amount monthly and then they said here's one one or two or three campaigns hopefully it works, you know and you see a little bit of Movement you're like oh my god. This is the best agency ever and then they're on autopilot three miles violet So tell me so how are the results?

We actually, what we're doing is building out, we're having a, we're building out a campaign for every single city. Yep. And we're setting up, we're setting a budget for every single city. So we're not, we're not,

The amount of campaigns we have, and this is a different technique. I'm not a professional marketer, and I don't claim to be. But the amount of detail that's going into this is ridiculous. We're just starting out. So with the in-house pay-per-click stuff.

So it's been about two weeks. And honestly, like the results are night and day. And now it's like verified that we were getting screwed over all this time. So you're seeing the phone calls. Oh, yeah. The money's coming in. Just two weeks. Yeah. And I think it comes down to, you know, the way Google wants things done is in an organized fashion. Right. So if you're able to set up a solid foundation and set up,

You have a room and you have a bunch of shit in it, but you're able to set up buckets.

and organize them nicely, right? So that you could say, okay, this goes in this bucket, this goes in that bucket and really set up your foundation in a very organized way. Then you're gonna, you're also able to, when you start wanna spend more money, you're able to either create more buckets or you know where you wanna put that money, right? And when I say buckets, we're talking about certain cities and campaigns and ad groups and stuff like that that go into there.

But I think it's doing the hard work in the beginning and then seeing exactly what's working and what's not and spending their money correctly. And instead of just like, you know, we even cut our CPA. Yeah, cost per acquisition. CPA down by 50% from the last agency, 50%. And that's not the end goal. We're going to go even deeper. Yeah.

So I've always said, and it's true at A1, we drive 25,000 leads a month. The PPC is usually the most expensive because it's the one thing that you could throttle on and off. It's the one thing you say, I need more leads. Within a drop of a bucket, you can get more leads. You can't just...

do anything else with that type of precision is quick. So a lot of people rely on that. That's why when we were talking, I said, we got to make sure we're getting lots of great reviews. Got to optimize the Google My Business page. It's got to get the LSA dialed in. And we got to make sure that there's other avenues. But if you guys could get, what do you think, what's acceptable tolerance to pay for a lead that's a good lead?

I mean, it's going to differ in the area. Yeah. I mean, are you talking about when it comes to digital marketing? Yeah. So what would you say for pay-per-click? What would be... So our CPA right now is at $145. Is that cost per lead or cost per acquisition? Cost per acquisition. So you're actually booking the call. Yeah. And you're doing the work. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Which is...

It's pretty darn good. Really good. I mean, considering the average ticket, it's pretty high. Yeah, and we're not going after the things that just generate volume, like mold and stuff like that, because mold's not necessarily, like I said, covered by insurance companies and stuff. So especially with California, you know...

houses, house prices rising, cost of living rising, inflation. Most people don't have money to just throw out 30, 40, $50,000, $100,000 to restore their homes. So we want to get in front of people that have a problem, need a solution,

Provide them with options and or have intent behind their search, right? And that's one of the most important things for us and we're last two weeks. We've been we've been doing well I would say, you know, there's an interesting book that I talk a lot about They ask you answer by Marcus Sheridan. Hmm, and he just explains how much money he made and

on the organic side of things, about answering people's questions and sending a buyer's guide. And just one of the biggest focuses we have for A1 is we're the highest domain authority in the home service industry. So I'm going, I don't want to compete on pay-per-click LSA and GMB.

I want to be more of that discovery search. Yeah. Like a lot of people do research before they buy. Yeah. I want to be the number one on all those Q&A drop downs. I want to own that. Yeah. I talked to a lady yesterday. So I got this company called Fox Terra. It's doing my landscaping at the PV house. And I got referred to them by like five people. Yeah. And I'm talking to the guy that owns the company. He's like, I'm taking this property on myself. He's like, we're going to make a statement. And I'm like, hell yeah. He's a big company too.

And I'm talking to him, and Bree's on the phone with me. She goes, oh, my God. She goes, I'm on Pinterest, and every single one of these are Foxterra. And I go, dude, you got to tell me who does your Pinterest. She's like, the girl's awesome. She lives in Miami. She's from Milwaukee. So I talked to her yesterday, and I'm like, you're hired. She's like, well, I haven't given you a price. I'm like, I know what your price is. Like, you're going to do my stuff. She's like, well, I drive $22,000.

people a month to Fox Terra through Pinterest and it's so funny because like you were a vertical track here we are today I think a lot of people they stay in this closed bubble and the clue was right there like I just took advantage of it and this is what happens with guys like me and you like you talk to Tom Howard you talk to me like we just go ask for help you you push service type and no like we just don't accept no for an answer

and we figure out a way yeah the problem is with you i think and i've dealt with this too is you're a one-man army you've got a lot on your shoulders if you didn't show up for a couple months i mean don't get me wrong you got a great team but you're the smart i say that you're the most knowledgeable of the subject matter because i know you don't want to disrespect your co-workers yeah but you're the guy that kind of knows how it all runs and how it all comes together so how do you deal with because i think a lot of people listening are probably like man

I'm the guy that kind of knows too. So what are... Number one, I think what you're learning is I got to build a C-suite. I got to have pros. And I'm going to have to spend a little bit. So take two steps back and take 10 steps forward. Yeah. So what are you going through right now? Yeah, I think that's something that I've always known. But just I think last year is when I...

truly realized and then you know I heard you say it too I was like you know what that that is true I've always liked the pressure I've always liked you know I have under pressure leading and that's you know

to be honest i'm a procrastinator right right so like but but when you turn up the pressure i'll get so many things done in last second at a such a high quality like that's just how i operate but so right now i'm trying to i'm trying to think a little bit differently and uh i've never been afraid to ask for help that's not a that's not a problem that i've ever had and i've never uh had like a listening problem so that's so

So those are and I've never had an ego problem. So it's none of it's none of those because usually when people want to lead and do everything, you know, it's they have one of those problems. But I've never had any of those problems. I think I just had to be in the situation that I've been in these last four years. But now I don't. And I have people in place, you know, that we could

gives me some time to alleviate some pressure so that I could start thinking in a different way. Being a visionary. Exactly. To set up and go on the search for

good and better people to add to the team to take us to the 2.0 version that we're trying to build. And I think by the end of this year, you know, that's definitely going to be a thing. Everything's going to be documented and we're going to have, you know, different opinions that I definitely want to listen to and my team wants to listen to. And there's going to be a lot of people that actually get promoted too, because these people have been with me from day one. And

They're also there for a reason and they're able to think in a different way and adapt. And they're people that are able to adapt. As long as they're growing. As long as they're growing. You know, nothing in my life, and just remember this word, there's no tenure. It's earned. Yeah. And that means you're a leadership is a whole different role. The ability to build a team around you. Yeah. And I don't want to let somebody, hey, you've worked your ass off. You're here now. No.

You're going to continue to accelerate your personal growth because a lot of people, it's not anointed. It's literally earned and you're going to have to, Al always says like, this is what you've earned. Now you got to keep it. Hey guys, I hope you're really enjoying this podcast. I wanted to let you know if you're thinking about joining us in September at the Freedom Event, I've got some good news and some bad news for you. First, I'll start with the bad news. The super early bird tickets are gone.

This means that the $800 off the elite and VIP tickets are not available anymore. And the general admission price has gone up a little bit too. The good news is you can still get $400 off the elite or VIP tickets or a 10% discount on your general admission ticket. Plus we're still giving away a few special bonuses, but this is only going to be available till August 5th. So listen, if freedom 23 was amazing this year, we're going to be taking this event and I mean, taking it to the next level. Just,

Jocko Willick, the Navy SEAL who wrote the book Extreme Ownership, is already confirmed as one of our keynote speakers, and there's still a lot more to come. So go to freedomevent.com and get your tickets today. We will not disappoint. This is going to be an event of the lifetime. That's freedomevent.com. Take a pen or put it in your phone. Freedomevent.com. Just make sure you do it before prices go up on August 5th.

Now let's get back to today's episode. Like I love the teachers that say, I'm giving you an A for your first test. It's up to you to blow your A. I'm giving you guys your first test as an A. Now you just got to keep it. And I think there's a lot of people that don't step up to that challenge. And you got to be willing to be the asshole and that's going to, an asshole and that's going to be tough for you.

I don't think so because I've actually been that guy from the gate. The reason why I say that I truly believe in exactly what you're saying. And I also believe time doesn't mean shit. Whether it's a little bit of time or a lot of time. Well, so...

meritocracy is what i was thinking yeah so merit yeah so what i believe is if you're putting in the work and you're able to adapt and you're able to grow and you're willing to learn and you're hungry for knowledge i don't care if you've been in the company for one month right we don't pay based off of the amount of time you've spent with us or around us or the company we pay based off of performance

So there's been a lot of people that I've interviewed and I already knew like in a month or two, this guy is going to be at a completely different place. But he didn't, right? Or she didn't. But I'm not like a firm believer. I don't believe in it at all in regards to like, hey, you've been with the company for five years and it's time for a raise or a different position. No. And I'm super vocal about that. Yeah. My people know. Yeah.

But in regards to the C-suite, it's a different mentality. It's going to be a different journey and I'm truly enjoying it. It is going to be fun when you can look at stuff and you're going to be like, hey, give me this role, FP&A. That role, I think for you, is going to blow your mind. Financial planning and analysis.

When you meet this person, if you get the right one, you'll be like, explain to me what's going on here. And they'll just go into all the trends. They'll break it all out. And we've got three full-time FP&A people. That's how. And every time we get these reports to where they're automated, we're like, dig into this. Look at this. Like right now, we just figured out. Right now, service Titan will send a confirmation text 48 hours in advance. Mm-hmm.

Out of the 40% that are confirming it out of the calendar, 7% of those are canceling. Okay. Which means somebody got here quicker. You know, going through the reasons. That's a pretty big win. Because if the other 60%, you'd be probably 15% to 17% of cancellation rate. Yeah. Wow. Wow.

that's that's kind of alarming and a lot a lot of that has to do with capacity planning which most companies hardest part about home service is capacity planning do we need guys do i need leads do i need both what's going on with this you know what are the hours why is monday more busy you're looking at all these things what do we do with memorial day what do we do with this what do we do with that and so capacity planning is difficult but when you can look into an issue and say there's a pile of money sitting here when we figure i love finding those things it's kind of heartbreaking to most people like dude you're not going to believe this

We're losing 7%. I'm like, I go, hell yeah.

I go, so you mean when we solve this, we're going to get, you know, hopefully 5% of that back? Yeah. People are like, why are you excited whenever we find a problem? Like, why do you, like, get excited? I'm like, because we just found a pot of gold. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, if there was no problems, we'd be kind of capped out. Let's keep finding issues. Yeah. And my mentality has always been, good job. Yeah. Thank you for finding this. Because I don't want to be that guy that's, like, devastated with somebody. Oh, my gosh, how could we let this happen? How come nobody knew about it? Yeah. Like...

Or the other guy that's like, oh, no, there's no problem. And my business is perfect and this and that, right? Oh, there's a lot of people out there. And then they end up probably firing the high-level person or whatever because they're just bringing up shit. And now there's chaos in their business. All the time. And they go, but one day, Adam, this is years ago. I kept telling him, and we weren't ready for this yet. He goes, there's home warranty companies aren't working out. I go, that's bullshit, dude.

I ran those calls for eight years. My average ticket on a home warranty call was home warranty 200. The client paid 500. And he's like, yeah, but Tommy, here's the report. He hands it to me. He goes, that's 40% of our problems is 3% of our revenue. And I'm like, all right, turn it off. No more home warranties at the time. So when you come to me with empirical evidence and proof and like you've done the work,

It's very easy for me to make a decision, but when you say I feel or I think or this might be what's going on, it's like, no, I don't believe you. So people have learned to deal with facts with me, and they bring me the data, and then I make the decision. That's the best way to go about it. Well, getting the right CFO. I mean, you've got your mom helping, but I never had a strong person behind me. And now that we're in 40 markets...

I compare markets and go, what the heck is going on here? Why is there a cost of goods up here? Why is our parts up? Well, we ordered from here instead because they could get the doors faster. Well, we're paying 80% more. You got to run that through us, but we can find that stuff so easily now. I have a question for you. Yeah. Which level of business did you enjoy most or do you enjoy most? I got to tell you,

Let me go through the phases. At first I was the worker. And if I didn't have to run eight calls a day, I think I would have enjoyed it more. I just hated letting people down and I couldn't give people the customer service I wanted to fix the door 100% complete. So if you would have gave me four calls a day steady, that would have been a little more enjoyable. Although I love making friends. I loved hugging grandmas and them offering me dinner.

And just building relationships and talking to the guy that owns the Harley plant in Phoenix. And all the different situations. You know, back when I was younger than you, they'd say, you should date my daughter. So that was fun. But it was really stressful because I was a one-man army.

It was really cool when I met at my mom and stepdad moved out. That was drama, but it was super cool because I trusted them. The one thing that I don't think people understand is the trust. I think the most important thing, I don't care what your experience is, how much knowledge you have, how great you are. If I don't trust you, that's no go. Yeah. So I needed somebody I could trust and mom and Bill worked their ass off. When I met Adam, he's a different breed. I told him you're going to be the bad cop.

I'm going to be, I'm never going to fire anybody again. You're going to fire everybody. And he was a good backup and he accepted that challenge. He was my integrator. Yeah.

And then, you know, I met Al Levy. He taught me structure. Then I got kickcharged and that taught me to get the brand right. But my one really good thing is I've been obsessed with marketing and learning new things. I'd say right now, you know, because we took some chips off the table and because we're working at this whole new level, I'm learning how money works, how they raise capital from limited partners. I went and spoke in New York to 130 of the LPs.

And I got to tell you, now I would say everybody's kind of really sensitive about selling their business. And from now on, everything will be built to sell. And I will sell. And I want a five-year target for everything I touch.

I really enjoyed Dan Miller because Dan Miller came in and he had to move a lot of chips around. He moved a queen and a bishop on the chess table and he said, "This person needs to go and we're missing HR, we're missing VP of corporate development." He kind of put that structure in. The biggest thing is we found the right CFO and then we got Leanne, which was the financial planning analysis. And then you got these PE guys that are the brains saying,

We think you can do better on purchasing. Well, there's another $6 million to be. And this doesn't look good because we've had 100 companies in our portfolio, and this is unacceptable. Go talk to this company. And so I'm really enjoying this because it feels like – I mean, I've always made great money, but now it feels like we've got, like, ATM machines in every single room printing money, like money printers. And it's like I used to think about, man, what if we got to, like –

million bucks a month of profit and we're gonna do over five million bucks a profit this month That's great. And then I'm like, wait a minute. I'm learning all these things I'm like I think I get to 15 million by this time next year of profit a month when you but your brain starts to morph Yeah, and now what I like is I don't even though I don't have the same fight-or-flight I used to I'm working because I want to mmm, you know before it used to be

it used to be reactive versus proactive and now i've become proactive i just got a driver is the is the pressure the same well they they they are good at putting pressure on me they say like doug told me the other day we didn't buy a one we bought tommy mellow and you know and i call him at least every other day if not every day and i say hey this is what's going on this and this and he'll be like tommy here's what to do i'll be like

are we allowed to fire somebody if they're bad performance because our hr team's telling us we need to get five performance improvement plans he's like fire them today and then i'm like if our guy gets in an accident or somebody hits him do they gotta go get a drug test he's like hell no so like i kind of use them as like like my moral compass of like what needs to happen because i'm like yeah they didn't do anything wrong why are we getting rid of a good guy that took a gummy the night before you know what i mean like who cares

But I'm learning so much. And now with this new skill set, it doesn't matter about the money anymore. It's who I had to become. In these last few years, I've grown the most. So you take away all the money. It's who I had to become as a man, as a leader, as an entrepreneur. And so I could go in and I feel like I could re-

I'm not going to say rebuild it, but what I would say is I've got the metaphorical scars and bruises. So I'm going to be like, oh, I remember when I did that in 2014. Not going to do that again. And this experience trumps everything. So now is the time. I loved a lot of it, but there are times I really sat back and said, man, I'm not having fun anymore. I'm just going to let things kind of go, and I'm going to go out and learn more. I'm going to travel, go see shops, whatever.

I just take my head out of the business, let them do what they do. And those years we kind of just kind of very, not a lot of growth. When I'm all in and now I'm all in and I'm reaching out for the answers. Like Brian Bailey, you know Brian and you know Eric Viney, is I kind of built a team over here that I can lean on them for things that A1 doesn't know and we'll get the answers. So it's just interesting because money is a good KPI. Profitability is a great one to be focused on. Some people are like,

You know, you're so greedy. Why do you want to make all that money? I'm like, well, if every person, if the average person makes six, you know, a hundred grand in my company, we're actually doing a lot for like big businesses do a lot for the community. Oh yeah. And the way you train them and that clean up their credit and to buy things that are nice that they want. I tell everybody now, I don't want you to buy a house.

I want you to buy 10 houses. I don't want you to go to Disney World. I want you to go to Disney World, first class, cut all the lines, and rent the penthouse. Like, do more, want more, get more. Yeah, 100%. The early days were fun figuring it all out and feeling like there were also days where I was taking my personal checkbook out. I remember I would write the check and I'd hand it to Barry because we didn't have enough money in the bank for payroll.

And those days were not fun. Those days I do not miss. Yeah. And like, I mean, that's what built this. It did. And I'm glad it happened. Patience and not tenacity. Yeah. Not falling down and get back up. I always stay on stage on the biggest failure in the room. Yeah. But people got to understand, like this took two decades, right?

I'm not like, "Dad didn't wake up." And I'm like, "Ooh, look at me. It all happened." It's like, if everybody knew when a guy died in Denver, 4th of July, he texted me, "I'm gonna be your top guy." He was working for me for a year, three beautiful daughters. Fireworks went off, fell down, bumped his head, died. Went straight into a coma, died. Keegan came into town in 2019 and he looks at all my markets. I got every single balance sheet and income statement put out and he starts circling

and he looks at me and he goes tommy you got to close four markets today and i go no no just bad leadership give me like all i need is a little bit of time because tommy you're drowning he goes you need to close these today and he goes offer a relocation package for your guys and no more cancel all your marketing in these markets that was a that was a piece of humble pie like that was a taste like i had to close dallas houston atlanta and tampa in one day

So, like, I mean, and I've got warehouse leases. I've got forklifts at every location. I mean, you talk about, like, dude, I've been through the ringer. And everybody's like, man, I wish I was like Tommy. I lived in an apartment that I owned, 1,000 square foot for four years. I drive the oldest truck. I had a 2012 Nissan Titan with a salvage title. I'm like, I'm not going to get a new truck until every single one of my technicians and installers own a new truck. So I think leaders eat last.

And this mentality of servant leadership, and I've made my mistakes. Listen, I'm a work in progress. I haven't arrived yet. Any day that I tell you I got it all figured out will be the day that I should probably retire because I don't, I never will. But this idea of getting 1% better every week, every month, every year, and just continuing to progress, I'm the best I've ever been, but the worst I'll ever be. Great quote. So what about you?

What has been your... I mean, you're still early. You just had so much success so quickly. Still early. I constantly think about sometimes how...

When things are good, you got to expect the worst, right? When things are bad, you got to expect that, you know, things are going to get better. So with that, you know, I take things very lightly. I'm not too reactive. I try to plan and predict and expect things, right? Especially with how the insurance industry is going, like in California and stuff like that. Is it bad?

You know, I feel like it was just a huge marketing technique, a huge, huge way. They put out a, I think they put out a plan. They're like, hey, State Farm is going to pull out of California. This insurance carrier is going to pull out of California. And you know what that did? That made homeowners not want to file claims more. So what does that mean?

The insurance company model is they're going to collect your money, promise you that they're going to be there for you when shit hits the fan. And then when you do file a claim, they're going to delay, deny, deny and defend on the claim. Right. And try to pay you the least amount of money as possible. So what they did is like, hey, our claims are getting ridiculous in California. How do we how do we reduce? How do we lower it? Well, we can't go out there and flat out say don't file claims because

Like, why the hell do you have insurance for, right? So we're just going to pull out and we're going to say we're not writing for California anymore. What do the insurance agents and the brokerages start saying? Don't file claims. Your premium is going to go up. You're going to lose your policy. Then, you know, there's inflation and policies, premiums and stuff like that go up. Obviously not like Florida where it's ridiculous there. But

It becomes like a movement kind of where it's like homeowners are a little bit more cautious in filing claims. So but when you think about it at a large scale, State Farm, even if they reduced their claims by 2%,

That's a fucking gigantic number. 3%, 5%, you know, 5%. Those are ridiculous numbers. Oh, man, insurance companies make so much money. Yeah. So, you know, as I'm talking to some brokers, some agents and stuff like that, like State Farm and all of these carriers are going to come back at the end of the day. But when they do reenter, you know, I feel like their strategy and their plan is,

is going to be fully executed. They're going to have higher premiums and they're going to have less claims because especially in LA, especially in California, dude, it, it rains and you see just cars flooded out underneath a bridge, you know, like all sorts of cars. So it's a, it's a claim heavy claim, heavy state and city. So, yeah, no, you know, it's interesting is, you know, Warren Buffett used to work way before it was called Geico.

He worked for the insurance company. Yeah. And what he figured out was there's what's called a float. You know what a float is? No. The float is when they take your money and then they don't pay out for a long time. So the insurance carrier will take the money. Yeah. And they'll hold on to it for a lot of time. Well, he said, what are we doing with this money? They don't have that money. It's invested.

They invested the money, though. The float is where this is why payroll companies make so much money, because they'll collect your money on Monday and pay it out on Friday. That's a five day float. Crazy. And they make so much money on that float. It's just especially with money trading and it's safe. He figured out the most safest bets you could make that just made a lot of money on that money. It's other people's money. Yeah. And you've got this money five days every week.

So you can make money. Think about that. If there's two days you don't have the money, you're making money 300 days out of the year on that money. And right now, Goldman Sachs is paying 5.5% in the savings account alone. So it's like checking and savings. It's crazy. I'm actually loving what I'm learning, hanging out with the people, the lawyers I'm talking to, the accounts I'm talking to, the tax advisors I'm talking to. It's like never again am I using my own money.

Because Goldman Sachs gave me this huge money line that I can write off all the interest. It's pretty freaking sweet because it's a low interest. Then I write off. It's a low interest, like 4%. Then I can write off that interest as long as it's an investment. It's just cool what happens when I'm learning these things. Because like I told you, I started working with Dan Martell. Buy Back Your Time. Somewhere here on the shelf right there. And he's like, Tommy, he's like, wait two minutes.

He's like, let's just talk here for two minutes. And he's like, watch what ends up on my desk in two minutes. And then there was this green, his assistant slides this green blended vegetable drink. And he's like, I just bought a house I've never seen. He goes, Tommy, when you learn to buy back your time in this new way, so...

I can't wait to talk to him next because now I got the driver, the chef, the freaking second mate. And I'm not bragging about that stuff because now I'm getting an extra hour a day of work and focus time. And now I'm getting really healthy because my chef, I'm like low carb, 210 grams of protein a day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here's a funny thing what I've heard is a lot of my buddies have said, I'll give away all my cars. I'll move that back to a normal house. You're never going to take away my chef.

That's how crazy it is. Cause you can eat healthy. It's delicious. I mean, he makes these brownies that he made me and Brie. This was before we really started dieting like big time, but he's like, it's healthy for you. And it was, it was good. And so I I'm just learning a lot right now. And I'm learning, like when I meet somebody, I'm like, this is how they kept their wealth. This is the things they've done.

and you get to focus so much more on the things that matter. And that's what I love is like, I paid Dan a lot of money, but he's got me back tenfold. And I'm the first one to buy like I want to be bought from. You know what I mean? And so many people, even this house remodel, I'm like, I want you to be the interior designer. And she makes 20% on all the furniture.

I'm like, this lady's making a fortune. So you bought the house. Then now you bought the house. Next door. Next door. And now it's... It's in the midst of a remodel that I'm trying to buy. How long is it going to take? Until the end of this next December. So 18 months. But it's going to be more of a compound. But the reason I bought the house is not because, hey, look at this house. Yeah. It's my dad comes over all the time. My mom comes over. Bree's family's coming into town this weekend. Like my cousins, the golf trips, like...

The memories that that house will bring will far exceed any monetary thing I could ever have in my life. And I think you get that too. Yeah. It's all about experiences, right? It's all about experiences with the right people. That's one thing is what I want to be known in my life is that if I shake your hand, it's like I just never want to do something shady. Like there's an opportunity right now.

of something i could get involved in and i got a buddy that does something similar and the fact that i even know that he does it makes me not want to do it's not like there's not enough room for the both of us but it's just like now i just i never want to be able to look at myself and not say that i just yeah there's money there but i said the one thing i want people to know is like i don't take those i just i'm a man of my word you know and i think that's something to be said yeah i feel like at the

the end of the day, money isn't what drives any, really any individual that has a big heart and, you know, has built something big because you can't build anything to this scale without being a good person and being a genuine person because it would take so much effort for you to

fake things and be fake around people compared to just truly being a good person, you don't even have to do much. You just need to walk in a room and say, you know, hey, here I am myself. And it just... You don't need to fake it. People feel it. It's all about energy, right? It is. The vibrations, the energy. You know, there's a lot of people in the home service space that there's whispering going on in every room. And I just hope when there's whispers being said about me, it's like, what's he doing now?

like I wonder what he's up to it's not like oh that dude he's always trying to do something he's off to his next thing trying to get like a get rich quick hustle yeah it's like he's all in whatever he does and he always shows up and at the end of the day I don't care what a lot of the people think but the people that I know and care about I want them to say nice things because I say nice things you ever get in a room with people

And I think women do this a lot. I think it's just there's like a gene in their body that just women that just they're like, oh, yeah, he never wants to get up. It's like and I hope Breeze told me she was in these situations quite a bit.

And then she becomes a bitch fest. Like, you ever see the girl in bed with her eyes open? Like, I wonder what he's thinking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like he's thinking about, like, stupid shit. Those memes, yeah. Yeah. But it's, like, true. It's like, I get with my buddies and we're like, we don't even talk about what we don't like. We don't.

But there are people in the home service space that it gets together and it's just a constant bitch fest. You know those people? Yeah, I've heard of those people. I haven't tried to stay away from anyone that I don't like. I'm not a people person. I'm not really an extrovert. To be honest, when I even interview people or when I'm talking to people, I straight up tell them, like, I hate people. The only people that I like is my family.

my work family and some friends. Outside of that, time is way too valuable to be spent around people that you do not enjoy. Like, you know those forced relationships? Yeah. To me, it's the most disgusting thing ever. Well, what Joe Polish says, it's got to be ELF. Easy, lucrative, and fun. Yeah. Because if it's not, there's not enough time on this planet. You know why dogs are so cool?

It's so fun. I read something about this. Like, they've got their lifespan is one-eighth, one-seventh, one-eighth of ours. So they got to make the most living it up. They're smelling shit. They're out there chasing birds. They're smiling. They're running. They're licking their love. Like, you remember that old Disney movie, All Dogs Go to Heaven? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I believe, I do believe there's some bad dogs. But there's this lady I met at Joe Polish's thing.

And she got raped when she was eight years old by four guys orally. Like, crazy bad story. Her name's Marilyn Murray. And she went on in life to become this uber successful, the first art gallery in Scottsdale. But she was taking eight painkillers a day to numb the pain. She had kids, but she wasn't all aware. Then her friend came to her and said, you need help. We're going to get you a psychologist. Went there for three days, and I'm staying for six months. What she ended up doing in her life was she went to these prisons. All male rapists.

And she'd tell the security guys to leave. And by the end, they'd all, she said, so of course, what did we all ask? How could you be around these people? She said, Tommy, there's four things that I've noticed with every single person that ends up like this. Something happened in their childhood. And here's the four things. How close was the person that did this to you? Yeah. And not, it's not always physical, but how, if it was physical, how physical, like, was it like, like bad, like blood? Yeah.

Number three is how often did it happen? And the fourth one was what was your age? Because the younger, the more. And some of these people have never even been hugged by a woman. And so she'd hold them and she'd say, I view them for who they were when they were just these little innocent little kids. And I know this is really off topic, but I'm like, man, they were never loved. And it doesn't make it okay for what they did, but usually it's a cycle. Usually it's kind of like it happens. It's like a cause and effect.

And so now when I look at people, I just kind of wonder, like, something happened to them. And I had a story. I was just talking to a buddy of mine. I was telling him this story, and he opened up to me about what happened to him. He goes, no one ever told. I've never told anybody this. This is embarrassing. And it was his mom's husband did some stupid stuff. And it was like, man, you just never know. Just remember that. And everybody listening, you just never know what somebody's been through.

And me and my sister went to this place this weekend, last weekend, in Tucson called Merrillville. And we talked to a psychologist. And my sister just has a whole different, she's six years older, different interpretation of what I had when I was a kid. And he goes, so I had a one-on-one with him. He goes, so what about you? And I go, man, my life was hunky-dory compared to most people. Like, sure, mom worked three jobs. Dad wasn't around every, he's still around, but not as much.

I go, everything happened for a purpose. There were times I felt alone. But like hindsight, everything happened for a reason. I'm not holding on to any baggage. I could probably do some type of drug or

shroom out or you could probably pull some stuff out but i'm like overall i've forgiven everything and i never had that bad bad stuff happen i mean the dog died and the shit my grandma passed away overall life we all go through some type of agony and some trauma it's how we deal with it and do we release it and as he was talking he was explaining to us how to kind of release it and how to say so this is going to sound really weird

but i want you to think of your favorite color just a color and i want you to giuseppe's loving this because he's all spiritual i want you to think of this and i want you to breathe that color if you close your eyes you breathe it in let it enter through your body let it water flow in let it heal and just let the color pour in and like different colors mean different things and i'm like this is so foo-foo crap but when i did it i was like wow

And he's telling me story after story. They got all this clinical evidence, like how people like released it. They quit drinking. They all their pain went away. Yeah. And it's just nuts because a lot of the stuff, all the a lot of the pain, unless you just got hurt doing something is actually it's stress and anxiety. And it's something that happened in your past that you haven't let go of. Yeah. There's this also there's a saying that.

Everybody stood around the table, everybody in the world. It was a huge table. Everybody stood around the circle table. And you took all of your problems and you put it on a card. And then everybody at the same time put it down on the table. Guaranteed you'd pick yours back up. Because every, like, you never know, you know, what people are going through and, you know,

what problems they have in their life, but I've also figured out that you're the only person that can solve your problems. 100%. You can't control anybody else. A lot of people go into relationships thinking they're going to change people. And I just know one thing, like when I look at this and I say this with the utmost honesty, I've never been better. I've never been happier. I mean, there's more options. I've just, I've got more energy. I'm more optimistic. I've never been closer to Jesus Christ.

Everything's going well. And like you said, I think it's got room to grow, but I'm not waiting for the... I'm not waiting... Listen, people are going to die. Unfortunately. I hope my parents die before me because no one should have to bury their own kids. And I don't want them to ever die. Don't take that the wrong way. But I would never... I want kids in my future. And...

I don't have kids, so it's hard for me to imagine if you lost. Can you imagine? I have a one-year-old now, and I think that would... I can't imagine. I don't want to imagine. It's just a sick feeling. That's crazy. I'm going to be... I don't know. I really think I was put on this planet to be a dad. So we've got to make that happen here before I get too old. I think all men...

Put on this planet to become a dad, but you know just becoming a dad isn't a isn't a huge accomplishment You got it

Like just like business, right? The crazy thing is, you know, how I know you'll be a great dad or a great father is because you're a great leader and you're a great businessman. Because when you have a son or when you have a child or whatever, right? The same concepts in business and leading your team and stuff like that apply. If you could apply it in that way, apply to having a family. At the end of the day,

It's all of the same things, right? Good communication, transparency, loyalty, genuine love, right? And when you go through that, you'll see what I'm talking about. The main thing for me, and this is something that I think a lot of people that know me worry about, is you love business so much. But I think the first time I see my little boy or my little girl,

Looked them in the eyes is when you kind of put this on the, you know, I said with Christiano's group. Anyway, one of the godfathers of home service was there. Yeah. And they're like, what are your biggest regrets? And Leland Smith and Ken Goodrich and all these guys are going through Paul Kelly, their regrets, their regrets. And this individual goes up and he goes, no regrets. He goes, yeah, I could have made it to some of the ballgames.

But now all of my grandchildren have a full scholarship and a house waiting for them. Yeah, I couldn't have made it to everything, but we could have not done this. I lived in a small house. I could have been there every day, but we wouldn't have had food on the table. Like you can't have both. You could have balance. But what I learned from Andy Elliott is be when you're at home, be at home. When you're at work, be at work. Go all in on everything, but don't worry about work when you're at home and don't worry about your family when you're at work.

And I think that that's hard to do. But the question is, I love work so much, but I think I could love family just as much as I love work. And I'm working hard now and I've worked hard because I've listened to my mom and dad argue about bills. I stood on the toilet with my ear and I'm just like, it tore their relationship, it shredded it.

And that'll never happen. And I said, that's never going to happen. So I dedicated my life to making sure I was financially stable enough to have kids. Otherwise, I would have already, I mean, I could have had kids several times. I mean, there were some girls that I was deeply in love with. But it was just, I decided I'm not where I need to be. And now I'm where I need to be. Yeah, and I think there's a huge difference between good and great.

So you got the money part checked off, the finances checked off. But the craziest thing is like, honestly, I don't have a money problem, but the best time that I...

spend with my family is literally like I bought my kid a tube air tube thing and throws the It's like a suction thing so he throws the ball in there and just goes flying everywhere like Laying on the floor and he's like on top of me and we're just playing and it's just literally time Yeah, I bought a bike with a trailer behind it It's an electric bike and we just go riding it in the community like it doesn't matter how tired I am when I come home from work and

I immediately just get a refresh, like a hundred percent energy. This newfound energy. And it's, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change it for anything. And I love being competitive. I love business, but I think that's what differentiates good and great fathers is when you're able to do exactly what you just said, when you're at home, do home things. When you're at work, do work things. And that's why when I,

Go back to my childhood. I'm like, my dad came to America from Armenia with a thousand bucks in his pocket when he was like 21 years old. He didn't speak English. He didn't do... And this was only 30 years ago. Right. And he still... He did...

everything and more for us in regards to financially, education, being strict. My dad was the strictest person I know in my life. But at the same time, he still showed up to all my hockey games, all my soccer games. So I'm like, what the fuck? This guy's a superhero, right? So then you realize you're like, holy shit, he did both worlds. So that kind of set a super high standard for me too. And I

And, you know, now you truly appreciate it. You do. You realize, you know, I will say this. My favorite part of the day is going home. And I only have two dogs. But, you know, dogs are like...

They're not even close to kids, but everybody says they're like your kids until you have a kid. And so I come and I give them both hugs. They're two different, they're like not even close. They're just two different personalities, but it's so much fun. And we play fetch and I can take them on a walk and they got their unique little personalities. And then I remember, so the house manager started and he's like, you're not going to have the dog sleep with you. And I'm like, yeah, I am. I'm like, that's for sure.

And like they each get under the covers and one sleeps on my head. But I'm sleeping great. But people that see me around the dogs are like, dude, you're going to be such a good dad. Yeah. But let's do this. I love what you're doing. I think Restores is an amazing company. First and foremost, guys, if you're a plumber in Southern California, Arizona, or Las Vegas,

And, you know, what I love is Edward will pour his heart and soul into you. He'll hire the people you need. He'll worry about your profit. You should call Edward. You should get a hold of him or you should email him. Edward, how do we get a hold of you? So you could get a hold of me at

my email which is eduardemmismaryatrestorers.com that's r-e-s-t-o-r-e-r-z.com or honestly just shoot me a text 702-513-5557 like treat every relationship you know if i'm gonna have a relationship with you it's not gonna be a half-assed relationship

And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that, one, you're happy. And in return, I know I will 100% be happy because it's what I feed off of every day. Keeping great people around you, brother. And what do you think? Do you have a timeline on Phoenix and Vegas? We're trying to get Vegas rolling by the end of the year. Okay. So I think Vegas is a for sure. Love to get Phoenix in by the end of the year too, but I think that's a stretch. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think you could probably be Q2 in Phoenix next year. Yeah, for sure. And listen, is there one impactful book other than the E-Myth and the Bible that have changed your life? Yeah, there's a few. But I really, really, really, really love The Ultimate Sales Machine. Chet Holmes, yep. But...

There was a book that you told me about. That was really good, too, The Blue Ocean Strategy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a good book. That was a good book. Yeah. And finally, I'll just have you close us out. Any final thoughts? No final thoughts. If you had to inspire somebody, business is a marathon. It's not a track meet. It's a lot of work.

What are some inspiring words that somebody should leave this podcast thinking? Because all of us are going through a lot. We're 5% of the population. No one knows what we go through. The good days aren't as good. The hard days are really hard. Payroll's tough. Leadership's tough. Showing up is tough. Stuff always happens out of the blue. But there's light at the end of the tunnel, I promise. Yeah. Some inspiring words is this. First of all,

you know what you need to do at the end of the day, right? It's not rocket science. What we do on a daily basis is not rocket science. First of all, I need to get healthy, but before, like I'm physically unhealthy and out of shape right now, and this is the most unhealthiest I've ever been, but I'm really strong up here, and I've built that, and I've had to sacrifice my time that I could spend to build the mental clarity and the

you know, I'm constantly motivated. Like there is not a second of the day that I'm not motivated. But one thing that I could honestly say is like, stop listening to other people and learn and seasons, right? Because a lot of people just get caught up in this like podcast book, podcast book, learning, learning, and then they don't integrate or apply.

apply any of that into their business so one thing i had to learn was how to actually learn right so what i do is like i go on like a month or two learning spree and then i just shut all of that shit off i don't listen to any podcasts i don't listen to any books and i'm just like doing doing doing then when i've applied all of those things boom i'm full force like i'm even listening to things in the shower yeah after everything anywhere any information that i could get

So that's the number one thing. Like always be learning, but always know when to stop to implement. And a lot of people don't know how to do that. Second thing is like trust yourself. You got to be confident in yourself. Like that internal voice that you have,

It's probably right, right? So just start doing the things that you know you need to do and stop listening to people because most people are fucking losers. Yeah. I'm sorry, but most people that have their own opinion are going to say something about something. You just got to look at them like, do they have what you want? Do they have the family? Do they have the money? What do they have? Why should you respect enough to listen to them? Yeah. And stop listening to people because most people don't know what they're doing.

And the third thing is build relationships, right? Because relationships is what got me here. Relationships is what has gotten me to honesty everywhere. Like relationships is what keeps my family strong. Relationships is what keeps my revenue up. Honestly, relationships is what keeps me happy. So I think at the end of the day, like I said this at our Christmas party also is like,

From now on, all I care about is relationships. And if you don't, if I can't serve you and you can't serve me, Joe Polish, he said, said something. You said, what type of relationships? Health, easy, lucrative, and fun. Easy, lucrative, and fun. And if I can't have those types of relationships, then honestly, I'm not going to spend my time, energy, or money on you. That's it. I love it. You know, the Bible, it says, it literally says, if you ignore your conscience, God will take it away from you.

Because what do we do when we know we shouldn't be doing something, but the bad guy wins? That little voice becomes quieter and quieter and quieter to where there's no more voice. And that's when things get really bad. When you're doing things and you know, you used to know you shouldn't be doing them, but now it's a norm. Yeah. But Edward, this was fun, my friend. I appreciate you doing this, brother. Thank you.

Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high

performing team like over here at A1 Garage Door Service. So if you want to learn the secrets that helped me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com forward slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.