Roofing Success

Building a High-Performance Team and Efficient Business Systems with Tommy Mello

• Jim Ahlin • Episode 222

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Unlock the secrets to scaling your business without losing your sanity with insights from Tommy Mello, the founder of A1 Garage Door Service and the author of "Home Service Millionaire" and "Elevate." Discover how Tommy transformed his life from being in debt to achieving remarkable success by mastering leadership, creating efficient systems, and embracing personal growth. This episode is packed with actionable strategies for time management, team growth, and staying grounded amidst entrepreneurial challenges, making it a must-listen for any business owner aiming to scale effectively.

Dive into the critical role of key performance indicators (KPIs) in optimizing your business strategy and growth. Tommy shares his expertise on tracking service areas, marketing effectiveness, and understanding financial reports with tools like Power BI. Learn how a strong brand, effective training, and structured operational procedures can drive your business forward. Tommy also emphasizes the importance of meticulous scheduling and delegating tasks, revealing how these practices can enhance productivity and overall business efficiency.

Lastly, explore the importance of self-improvement and personal growth as a business leader. Tommy discusses the benefits of delayed gratification, building a solid team, and the role of emotional intelligence in leadership. Gain insights on how to incorporate self-love and well-being into your daily routine to ensure long-term success. With practical steps and inspiring quotes, Tommy shows how discipline, sacrifice, and genuine care for your team can lead to sustainable growth and fulfillment both personally and professionally.

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Speaker 1:

Are you struggling to scale your business while keeping your sanity intact? Do you wonder how the most successful entrepreneurs manage their time, grow their teams and stay grounded? In today's episode, we will explore the critical systems that business owners need to scale their businesses efficiently, along with the powerful role of self-improvement in long-term success. So how do you know if you set the right benchmarks for growth? How can you reclaim your time without sacrificing results and, most importantly, what are the personal habits that you can have that will help you lead to a more fulfilling life while running a profitable and successful roofing business? So tune in here to hear actionable strategies to elevate your life and your business. You'll learn today from real world examples of success and challenges faced along the way.

Speaker 1:

Today, I'm excited to bring back Tommy Mello, the founder of A1 Garage Door Service and the author of the Home Service Millionaire and Elevate. Tommy's insights on leadership, personal growth and building systems are invaluable, so let's dive in. Welcome to the Roofing Success Podcast. I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here to bring you insights from top leaders in the roofing industry to help you grow and scale your roofing business. Hey, back again is Tommy Mello. How are you, brother?

Speaker 2:

I'm great Just getting over a cold, but, like I said earlier, I'm working through it. I tend to show up unless I feel like I'm going to get everybody sick.

Speaker 1:

It's crazy, man, you can't avoid it, right? No matter what you do, there's always the bumps in the road, from a health perspective, from every perspective. Right, you never. Every day isn't perfect. Never, you know, every day isn't perfect.

Speaker 1:

I was, I had another guy on the podcast recently and he was saying you know, if I don't have a problem in my business today, it's an anomaly, right, like if something's not wrong. That's the anomaly where a lot of times, we look for you know, we look for those. We want the anomaly to be every day, right, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're. But it's solving problems is what we do as business owners, right, and? And so just a little, give that. If for people who haven't heard about you, or heard you or seen you around, or haven't listened to the other episode that we did, if I, if you, haven't, go back and listen to that one it was a great episode, a little bit about yourself and A back and listen to that one. It was a great episode, a little bit about yourself and A1 and where you are today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, my name is Tommy Mello. I wrote a book called the Home Service Millionaire. I thought it was a great title how I was in debt and ended up turning it around. And then I wrote a book Elevate Build a Business when Everybody Wins. I've got a podcast as well, called the Home Service Expert, which I'm very proud to say it's top 10 in business in North America. That podcast has been like a personal consultant for me, because if I need to learn about HR or LSA or PPC or onboarding or manuals or whatever it is, I just find the number one person in the world and I get to ask questions. So it's, like, selfishly, been amazing for me. I've been doing that since 2017, when podcasts weren't really a thing.

Speaker 2:

And you know A1, garage Door Service. I didn't know what it was going to be. I knew it was going to be successful. But you know Garage Doors it just came out 193.9% return on investment. It's we've trademarked. It's a smile of your home.

Speaker 2:

Uh, 17 years going on 18. Uh, I'm an overnight success of two decades. And uh, if there's anything someone could tell you about me, it's that I've made every mistake in the book. I've lost money, I've had family. I fired best friends. I've had girls broke up countless amount of times. I've had four trucks flip over. Six technicians have died not on the job, thank God, but I was close to them. I've had the cops show up for a countless amount of reasons. You know if it could go wrong, it did go wrong, but I'm glad those things happen because it shaped who I am today and I won't make the same mistake twice. I think that's the one thing I see. I implement quickly, I fall forward and I just don't do it again, and I think a lot of people they don't. My favorite three letters in the English dictionary are A-S-K in that order Just ask. And so I've become very humble.

Speaker 2:

A1, we took on a private equity partner at the right time, at the end of 2022. We got to $27.5 million of EBITDA, got a record-breaking multiple. 25 millionaires came out of that deal. I had an equity incentive program. Some of them walked with well over 10 million. The team is still pretty intact. A couple of people decided they had enough money and they wanted to fade off into the sunset and we're still best of friends. My best mentor ever was Al Levy. The seven power contractor taught me that I was the best firefighter that he's ever met.

Speaker 2:

And when we build systems, processes, checklists, that it does get kind of boring because not a lot of things go wrong and that's when I would go through my growth spurts and then a new challenge would come up and new problems. But you know, no regrets. I'm not married. I don't have kids, because if I was married and had kids there's no way I could have worked the hours. It wouldn't have been fair to my family. You're shortly probably going to be engaged and I do want kids. I'm just going to be an old ass dad. Luckily Bree is 25 years old. But yeah, you know I've invested in a lot of things.

Speaker 2:

I'm a technology company now that does garage doors. I'm a man of my word. I do shop tours. I help out a lot of companies because they helped me out. You know, in the past people would open their doors. So now I open my doors and you know my purpose.

Speaker 2:

Now people are like, why do you show up to work? You've done so well. The interest alone is a million bucks a month and I'm like I love what I do. I mean, throw me on a beach for two weeks. I go insane Like I like to build. I'm an entrepreneur but I realized I need integrators. I need smart people around me. I hire people way smarter than me, which is a rarity Like I want to be the dumbest guy in the room and people say that, but I actually am. I do it and I hire people that can take my job. And now I'm an employee. And what happens? When the team keeps losing, the coach gets fired. So I got a little bit more to lose here, because this is my baby. I'm the founder, but I really do.

Speaker 2:

I look at every day. My buddy, john Rulon, just passed away, 47 years old, had four kids under the age of 15, all girls. Most healthy guy, stayed in Whenever he came to town, wrote the book giftology. I'm not. I'm very healthy, but every day is a gift and I don't know when the time is going to come. I don't know when my mom or dad's time is going to come.

Speaker 2:

I got a sister and niece, two nephews, a beautiful, amazing woman in my life and all I can tell you is I'm very thankful I've got baptized. I'm pretty, I'm working on my relationship with Jesus. I was always grown up with Jesus in my life, but it's been seasons of life and I really am trying to be. I don't think well-rounded is a good word, because I think I'm off balance on purpose. But uh, you know, like I said, I'm thankful I'm. I think when you know me, people are like dude. You're so humble, but when they see me on my Instagram or Facebook, they're like dude. Is that guy like that all the time? I'm not. I'm actually an introvert at home. I'm like I'm in my mind, thinking and whiteboarding and you know. So that's. That's a little nutshell, longer than I wanted to go, but if people don't know me, that's a little bit about me.

Speaker 1:

No, that's awesome, man. That's from the introvert perspective. That's I like to say. I'm an introvert who plays an extrovert on TV. That's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1:

I'm, you know, like, when we're, when the cameras are on, when I'm on stage, when I'm, you know, do it like the thing, but, but you get such a you know, I think you do too, and I've seen it in you from the way that you share and writing your books and doing your conferences and all of these things, speaking at events, it's that there's. There's a specific energy that comes from that sharing right, specific energy that comes from that sharing right. It really is not an ego-based energy, but there's a fulfillment that comes from other people, seeing other people and helping other people succeed, whether that's the team members in your business, which you've created a great opportunity for them. But also in the people that you're coaching and consulting a great opportunity for them. But also in the people that you're coaching and consulting. So let's start.

Speaker 1:

Let's start like, let's start with like. If you know, done it for a long time, done it at higher levels than most people will would ever think to even get to, just to, you know it's, it's you have, you, you've climbed mountains that people are like wow, that maybe, like I don't know if I could get up that one and I don't. From our other conversations I know it wasn't that like, oh, that's where I'm going the whole time, like you didn't know that this was, would you know from the day one. But let's say, if you were to, you know, consult someone that was just starting out what would your first kind of advice be to them?

Speaker 2:

starting out, what would your first kind of advice be to them? Yeah, so the day I walk into a company, I really am a big fan of understanding your numbers and we always say know your numbers. But most people say they do, they've got a CRM, but they really don't know their numbers. They don't really know their booking rate, their conversion rate, their average ticket and their cost per lead. And those are my four KPIs that are going to fix any company in the world. There always seems to be this gray area of like oh, that was out of our service area and oh, that one that was a manufactured defect, and that one doesn't count because we don't work that day. And it's like why should we penalize the call center when we're not open Sundays? Whatever it might be, if we're getting out of service area bookings, I need those to count against them. So I could actually it sticks out and I say why am I advertising in this area with pay-per-click when we don't service the area? They're not going to get in trouble, but I got to fix it. And then I can give it back to them and say, because everyone's got a scorecard in my company, my scorecard happens to be the EBITDA each month. So I think, knowing your numbers, and then I find all these things that people aren't good at. I'm a marketing guy Like literally the VP of marketing reports directly to me, not the COO, and so I'm obsessed with marketing, sales and culture. So those are the things. I understand the financials I got my eye on the financials. I understand the financials, but I've got three FP&A, financial planning and analysis specialists to really give me the reports. We use Power BI to actually assimilate all these things.

Speaker 2:

The next thing I would say is that I'm going to look at the owner's time. I'm going to look at the owner's time. I'm going to look at the manager's time and I'm going to say what are you doing all day? Like just the next week? I want you to go to an old-fashioned schedule. Just write down what you got done each day. Write down. I want to look at your calendar. I want to understand when you look at email. I want to understand how many meetings you're in. Do you have an executive assistant? What is their role? How much time are we actually doing working on the business versus in the business? And then I'm going to look at their tech stack. This is where I get the super ability to grow businesses, because there's so many tools that I use that are the unfair advantage, and they take A-B testing. They take getting set up right API, webhooks, different things but when they're mastered I'm going to make more money. And then I look at the brand and I'm like is this a brand we're very proud of? We bet our family's future, we're betting the generational curse of breaking free, and your brand has side lettering with a Yelp sticker and an A plus BBB on there.

Speaker 2:

No one knows what you do. You picked a horrible name Robinson Mechanical. What does that even mean? And so there's a lot to it. But when I go through and it is a big investment, like if I came in, I'd say we're going to use kick charge, we're going to rebrand. I'd say we're going to buy new trucks. We're going to depreciate them, we're going to turn them in when the warranty is gone after either 100,000 miles or five years. We're going to own them after that, at least to own.

Speaker 2:

I'd say we're going to put the right systems in place. We're going to put manual, standard operative procedures all of what Al Levy taught me. We're going to get this technology enabled. And then we're going to look at your org chart. We're going to see what you're missing. We're going to see who we're going to need to top grade.

Speaker 2:

How great is your onboarding and training? And is training a thing you do or is it a thing you are? Because for us, we eat, breathe and everything's about training, powerful meetings and encouragement. We praise in public and then we have powerful one-on-ones where we're going to have them chase their dreams. You wanted to buy a house. We need to increase. This is for you. We're going to have them chase their dreams. You wanted to buy a house. We need to increase. This is for you. We're going to get you to your goals faster rather than putting on a performance improvement plan. So it's a convoluted question, but we go through and we check off the boxes. Good reporting you can make decisions. You're actually able to make decisions based on this reporting.

Speaker 2:

There's always a big hole in the boat. I got to find the biggest holes first. Patch those holes. And people are like well, I'm not making enough money to invest in kick charge. Well, let's patch the boat first. So you're kicking off profit. Let's fix the marketing. We need to book every call. Every call. That's a good client. If you're booking 90%, you're doing great. We need to convert it at a high level and then we need that opportunity job average. And we do this by giving options instead of giving ultimatums, because when I give you a price and say, look, you can either say yes or no. Okay, leave us an estimate. But if I give you five options, say, look, let's just do a different option that works for you, and your conversion rate goes through the roof. The book I got to tell you about is what Should we Do by Joe Crisara. It's one of the best books I've ever read on sales and and he's a he's been a coach of ours for a long time.

Speaker 1:

That's a lot.

Speaker 1:

There is a lot there, but that's the, that's the, that's the framework, right Once you, it's. It's amazing, as you have, as you have, the more success you find in business, the easier it is to see the road that that needs to be laid Right, like. It's like when you're, when you're, when you're dry, when you're building a business, you're you don't know what's around the next corner, right so. But but now when you look back, you're like, oh yeah, we just took a left there and we took a right there, and you know, it makes it. It's so much clearer.

Speaker 1:

I want to start with the numbers a little bit. I get this from contractors often where they're like well, what should my be Right? So what should my conversion rate be on a Facebook lead? What should my, what should my sales reps closing rates be? And what I tell them is, if you've never done this before, you're going to have to make a guesstimate right, and you could give me your opinion on this. This is what I tell you know, you're going to have to kind of hey, this is kind of. This is what the industry standard is. Maybe.

Speaker 1:

Talk to some people in the industry. Talk to, you know, listen to some podcasts, read some books, do some things. What is this? You know, but then from there you need to determine. You can then determine what yours is after you have data right, and then determine what, what levers you need to pull, to improve or do better with. I guess, what are your thoughts on numbers and how do you get started with the numbers? I know you mentioned well, I think it was four key metrics, right? So starting with those, was it four key metrics? Four key metrics? You're starting with these four key metrics and how do you know? This is my starting point. These are the benchmarks that my team should hit with these numbers.

Speaker 2:

Springham's really good, we've gotten away from him. Then we always go back to him because we always like we think we got it figured out and the call center is like look, are you listening to the calls? Are you smiling on the calls? But here's what I told you. My favorite three letters ASK. We're with ServiceTite and all the guys at Housecall, pro and Jobber and some of these, servicefusion and Sarah.

Speaker 2:

All I do is call the owners, call the founders or call the managers. It's called someone high up there and I say, look, I'm looking at this industry. I know a guy that needs help. Can you contact? You got all the data. Can you contact the number one company and see if they'd be willing to talk to us? We're not going to be in their market. They're on the opposite side of the United States. We'll help them out. We'll buy them dinner, we'll buy them lunch, we'll buy their whole company, what's in it for them, type thing, and I'll get the data and I'll talk to all the financial bankers I know that have done deals and say this is the sweet spot, this is what the financial should look like. They got the most like.

Speaker 2:

I'm not going to go out and reinvent the wheel, but I'm going to have checks and balances, so so I've got kind of the schematic to go off of and then I'm going to say, are we fighting for every call? And if I'm looking at it and I'm like, wait a minute, why do we keep getting these loser customers? Well, I go back to the marketing. We're marketing cheapest, best prices guaranteed. You know, I want to fight for two things quality and timeliness. And I'm not going to fight for best prices, but I'm going to have a price option that competes with everybody that I quote over the phone. And then I'm going to look at conversion rate and there's a difference between demand services and non-demand, like home improvement versus home service.

Speaker 2:

You call with a leaky pipe. I better be closing those. I'm knocking on the door. They got a massive problem. I've got the solution.

Speaker 2:

What is it going to take to earn your business Versus home improvements? Like, yeah, we'd like to read you got a leaky roof versus look, this roof is just not something we like right now, and I think roofing can be both home improvement and home service because of the repair side. But I don't think there's a one sizesize-fits-all except your booking rate. If you're doing the right marketing and you understand who your avatar is. You should be able to get north of 85% Conversion rate. You know, I think in roofing they say 40%. I wouldn't be happy with that, because the best roofers they follow up until they're blue in the face and they spend an hour and a half with a presentation.

Speaker 2:

They your biggest thing in roofing is start the job. I got you locked into using me. Then I'm going to give you options along the way. Did you want to just do this? Uh, we got to recoat the wood on the roof. I've got three options.

Speaker 2:

Did you want I don't know much about roofing Did you want the 10, 20 or 30 year shingle? What if I told you this is going to add value when you sell the home? What if I told you it's going to lower your electricity bill? What if I told you some of this falls into the Inflation Reduction Act and I'm going to get you a massive rebate from the government. All these things, but, but I want to lock down the work and then I want to give options.

Speaker 2:

Like a mechanic, I'm going to do your oil change. If I see something that looks off, do you want me to let you know? This is your serpentine belt. This is a good one. This thing's falling apart. This is what's going to happen if this thing falls apart while you're driving All your heads are going to be cracked and all this stuff. So I don't think it's misleading, because until I take something apart, it's hard to know. Like a mechanic, I could give you a pretty good idea. Let's go ahead and get started. And, by the way, why don't we just use my money? You know, do you want to use my money or your money today? Because we've got a great promotion going. You don't have to pay for two years, and it's a great promotion. And with inflation, the way it is, gas prices are up Ukraine, and it's a great promotion. With inflation, the way it is Gas prices are up Ukraine is real. There's just like let's just use our money, pay it off whenever you want, and so all these things help with conversion rate and then cost per lead.

Speaker 2:

Most people on their GMB do not even have their hours 24-7 in an after hours call center. They're not getting reviews with pictures in them. They're not using a company a buddy of mine, pin Parrot. Pin Parrot alone has made all of my Google my Business. I gave him six GMBs to try out. A year ago we ranked number one within two months Everybody.

Speaker 2:

I've told the pinparrotcom what it does. It's a software and it actually pulls out a service type and tells Google we were there and it attaches to that GVP or Google my Business profile and all of a sudden we start to rank further and further. So we went from five calls to 15 calls on the Google my Business pages, lsa are we optimizing it? Ppc are we doing negative keywords? And all this stuff seems like it's crazy, but I've been doing this for 20 years so I've been pretty tuned into what's going on. I mean, reddit is something new for lead gen that no one's really talking about. Next door how do you dominate Yelp? I worked out a deal with this chief revenue officer at Angie's List. Facebook leads are good, but it's a different customer journey so you've got to master it. But they all work. The best leads are. My shit's broken. Can you come out right now and you got to be available to get a guy out there right then and there.

Speaker 1:

That's what I love about marketing. It really does all work, right, but you have to have those, those metrics in place. You have to understand is this a short term marketing play? Is it a long term marketing play? What am I doing? Is this a brand play? That you know, maybe I'm not going to see the results of that, you know, in the next couple of weeks, but if I change, if I make some adjustments to my Google ads account, I might be able to see some, some of that fruit come quicker, right? So you have, I look at that like short-term, mid-term and long-term marketing.

Speaker 1:

I think that a lot of people go in. You know term, midterm and long term marketing. I think that a lot of people go in. You know direct mail. I know you guys do a lot of direct mail. I get your stuff at my house, you know, like it's like you're not going to go into that, going, oh, I'm going to start direct mail and if I don't, if I send some direct mail and nothing happens on the first send, I'm done with this. Right, like, yeah, I think there has to be that understanding of of what you're, what marketing channel you're in also right, like in that, and that understanding a lot of times, unfortunately, comes from experience. Right like you know how many I would want. I would assume that you burned a couple of bucks on AdWords over the years.

Speaker 2:

AdWords, by the way, is probably the worst ROI ROAS. Like, look at the end of the day, I look at pay-per-click as the best teeter-totter. I can lower it or higher it. I can have that be my capacity planning. If Valpak and Clipper are hitting and I got a bunch of postcards hitting, or there's a lot of different things we do, or we got a great special going on, whatever it might be, I can lower PPC.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people just they spend it to spend it and they're like one of the things we've noticed many years ago is if our schedules are booked out, two days in a market don't have PPC on. I mean, you're looking at spending 26% of marketing. If you get to be in the 15th percentile it's because you got a big average ticket. I run 20,000 to 22,000 jobs a month and PPC everybody goes to PPC. They go. It's immediate gratification because you could get the leads. Today you just bid the most. But here's the problem with PPC. What's your quality score Like? Imagine Coca-Cola is number one and somebody searches Pepsi. Coca-cola might bid $10 to be above Pepsi but Pepsi is only paying two cents because their quality score is so much higher for that keyword and people don't understand.

Speaker 2:

UTM parameters. They don't understand call rail to make sure different numbers coming up for the search query. They don't understand long tail. They don't understand ranking organically with backlinks and load speed and H1 tags and metadata and schema data and how that does to affect their local rankings and reviews, like I said, with pictures.

Speaker 1:

And then these things matter and I get this all the time, tommy. I get this one all the time. On the tracking Call tracking is like the foundation of it, right, like that's the. If you're not tracking your calls, that how many I get pushed? I've had pushback and had conversations with lots of contractors over the years. Yeah, but that's not my number and I got my number. This is my number. It's a special number number. What do you think of that? How many call tracking numbers do you think you guys have across? You know all of your locations 6 000 tracking numbers.

Speaker 1:

How many times are like? Are people like oh my goodness, I can't believe you have a different number than the one that's in the you know phone book or whatever. You know what I mean. Like yeah, no, no, we don't get that ever.

Speaker 2:

And the deal is is like don't have too much pride in your company. You would think A1 Garage Rooms is on every billboard, every TV, every radio commercial we are. We've got 80 trucks in Phoenix. Everybody knows who we are. That's what I like to tell myself. But if you go to them you're like yeah, I think I've heard of a authentic one, a yeah, like look, don't give. I love to say, man, every single kid, grandma, everybody knows who we are. It's like you're, no one really cares.

Speaker 2:

Ok, read the book by Janie Smith, the Competitive Advantage, and you might think you're great. I got a thousand five star reviews. We're open nights and weekends, we do background checks, we drive new trucks, the best equipment All that stuff is irrelevant. I could say the same things. You know what I could say that no one else has. Out of the last 2,200 jobs, 2,197 started on time. The other three were rectified within 72 hours. I could say out of this, I could say historical things that no one else could claim. Janie Smith talks about this and she's got another book called Relevant Selling. Those will blow your mind. Readers are leaders.

Speaker 2:

I read a lot of books. I podcast a lot. I go get the answers I need. Right now we're working on greenfield growth, which is organic growth to new markets. I'm calling a special meeting with all my buddies who dominate this and I'm going to take the best of all worlds, even though I think I got a pretty good idea. I've done a lot of greenfielding, but now it's time to make sure we are black belt. We're Navy SEALs, seal Team 6. We are going to do it better, faster, stronger. I'm not going to sit down on my four walls and figure everything out. I'm going to go ask for help.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a good idea You're taking, you're, you're being strategic about it, right, a lot of times we get in the weeds and we're just going and it and we don't take the time to, to plan, to plan the mission. Right, you know like and and and and and, taking that time, you know what, what's the? The old, sharpen your ax before you cut the tree, right, like, take, spend an hour sharpening your axe, then you know. I want to talk to move on to time, because I think that you know numbers, time, tech, stack, brand. My goodness, do people, man, your time just gets away from you. Right, like, very, very quickly in the day.

Speaker 1:

I just heard Dan Martell on a I think it was on a podcast. He was talking about that quote, the old quote if you want something done right, do it yourself. And I think that, as home service and contractors, that's kind of ingrained in us Right Like, that's like if you want something done right, go do it yourself. But that's the exact opposite of what you need to be doing as a business owner. And so let's talk about time. How should a contractor, a business owner, be thinking about their time?

Speaker 2:

Well, first and foremost little side note Dan Martell is a coach. I pay him $300,000 a year for one hour a month. So you do the math. I'm paying him $300,000 a year for one hour a month. So you do the math, I'm paying him 25 grand an hour. So I spent a lot of money to go visit him in Kelowna and would I spend it again, absolutely. Is there other coaches I spent a fortune with, absolutely. Michael Jordan had four coaches on top of Phil Jackson.

Speaker 2:

The best people in the world get coaching. They're part of groups, they go to groups, they belong to something, they get the answers they need and there's no right perfect coach, for every individual has a certain prescription. But there's 168 hours in a week. If I spend 50 working 50 sleeping, 10 working out 10's a lot to work out I've still got 60 hours left. If I want to work on myself for 10 hours, I still have a lot of time. If I want to take my wife on two dates a week, have Sundays with the kids, there's no excuse, you don't have the time. The problem is you get distracted too easily. You don't manage your calendar. I just counted. That's why I was looking away. I've got 22 things on my calendar today, including call mom. That's how detailed I am. I've got two executive assistants. Most people can't have one because they don't trust anybody to do it.

Speaker 2:

And did we fail a bunch? Hell yeah, we did. There was a lot of mistakes until we built SOPs around it checklists. I don't pack my own bags, I don't drive anymore, I don't make my own food and this is not to be cocky. It's because when I started to work with Dan Martell, he's like let's reverse engineer how much you make an hour and let's look at everything you do. And do you love doing it? No, I don't love doing that, unless you've got a deep, deep passion. Some people like to mow the lawn, listen to Audible, get away for a little bit. They like the fresh smell of fresh cut grass. That's cool. Keep doing that. You know Bree likes me to fix some stuff around the house. She's impressed. She takes out her camera Great, I still do a little bit.

Speaker 2:

But ultimately to say I don't have time. It's because so much of your time is wasted. You time is wasted. You don't have time to work out. Let me ask you something you think a six-pack's made in the gym or do you think it's made in the kitchen. So you're drinking your calories, your 12-pack of beer.

Speaker 2:

You're literally like you don't have any self-discipline, you don't cherish yourself enough and you'd say it's easy for you to say you think it's easy. When people look at successful people they say, oh yeah, well, it's easy for you to say I could go again. You only heard a little bit of how much shit I went through and not a lot of people could take the pain. Because if you think business is a, you know I want to get rid of my nine to five to have more freedom. You're going to put 10 years of sweat equity and especially, people start a business with no money. The first two years you can't get a loan. If you're lucky you get SBA, but you're not lucky because you blow that money. Now you're in debt to the government. You never built business credit with the Duns and Bradstreet.

Speaker 2:

There's so many things and you know my super sport is business. I mean Tiger Woods is golf and what I would say is with time management, powerful meetings, an agenda each day I go home. Do you think I want? I've got a briefing I do with one of my EAs for a half an hour each night. You think I want to go home and do that and go through? I don't look at emails. They break it all down. We've got a system for it. But do you think that's like, man, I can't wait, it needs to be done. People say, well, you don't have a family, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, that's one of the sacrifices I made. I don't like like. Success is never easy. Everybody wants the views, but nobody wants to take the hike.

Speaker 1:

Those are facts that's what people don't understand. Right, and and it's being being self-aware is a big thing, right are you really, alec, really using your time, the in the efficient manner? You have someone that took over your emails. You're not driving anymore. I would assume that you're having some meals prepared. There's things that you could take off the table, and when there is a higher dollar amount to that half hour, to that hour, what advice would you give someone? If someone that's in the weeds right now, like, what would be the first step to getting their time back or to becoming more efficient with their time, what would be the first thing? What's?

Speaker 2:

the first thing you do, and I've you know and I've never been through this process, but there's what's called a 12 step process and it's alcohol, drugs or really any problem. The first step is admitting you got a problem. And most people don't want to admit they have a problem. They like to say, if they would only do their job, I wouldn't have to pick up the slack. If only they. What if I told you the leader is everything. If your desk is messy, everyone's desk is messy. You show up late to meetings. You park in a certain spot, take the handicapped spot. They think it's okay. So you lead by example. I started getting in really good shape. I was 27% body fat. It's kind of embarrassing. They said at the DEXA scan you're obese. That was a shock. That was bad. No-transcript like I want people to come up to me and say man, what it? I had my cousin come up to me and he goes what the hell's gotten into you? Something's different, what's driving you? He goes I want what you have. I don't want to convince people to believe in Jesus. I wanted them to ask me what I believe in. I don't want to get in debates. I I want to lead by example, and I think the first step is admitting you got a problem and then you got to track it and this is takes reflection, this takes time and it's like I did it for three days. Oh man, there's so many things you don't understand. My, you know, my door keeps getting knocked on and no one else, jim, could put out these problems than me when Al Evey started. He goes dude, you know how to do everything he goes. Can you show me where that's documented? He goes. Some of the things that you do could be documented. Show me your manuals. And I said I only have one and it's dusty. And he said dude, you know how to firefight like nobody. I've ever seen Any problem that comes up. You know exactly what to do. He did a ride along with five of my technicians for two days each. He said, tommy, what if I told you every single guy does it completely differently, from the sales process to the way they do the technician side of it, the fixing? He goes. One guy does springs with the door up, the other guy does it this way, the other guy does it this way. Rollers are different, the guys bring it up at different times. And I said so what do we do? He goes. Here's the deal, tommy he goes. I want to work with you, but I'm going to hold your feet to the fire. No cell phones when we're in the tank. When we build these manuals, I want to know do you allow beards, do you allow tattoos? What happens if your truck breaks down? What's the systems in place for every problem? And it's a living, breathing document and things are going to come up and it's got to be in the manual. You've got to read the manual every day, every week, and as you start to build these systems, there's either three things go wrong no system, the wrong system, or the third one, which is very common the system's not being followed, checks and balances.

Speaker 2:

So Al came in and we were about 17 million. We jumped to 30, jumped to 50. The one thing that I didn't have when Al was with me is I didn't have anybody that knew how to keep the money. Didn't have anybody that knew how to keep the money. I'm a great revenue generator. I used to say, man, I'd walk in a room with my chest out and I'd go. How much revenue did you guys do today, this week, this month, this year? And I was so proud. And then I heard this phrase revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity. I'm proud to say we'll do $270 million this year at 24.8% profit. And those are ridiculous numbers because every single hole in the boat we're fixing.

Speaker 2:

That's my job. I am the cheerleader. I'm the guy supposed to keep an eye on the vision. I'm not supposed to be doing the work. I'm supposed to hire competent people, give them a plan, make sure they're following the vision, make sure they know what to do.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people say I need to hire somebody and then I say what are they going to be in charge of? He goes, they're basically a Swiss army knife. You know they're going to be. I need them helping here. I need them helping here. They're going to do the manuals. They're going to work on the marketing. They're going to do this. And I'm like I told you you hate doing payroll, you hate taking phone calls. Those are very easy hires. Get the things you hate the most. That are the low-hanging fruit. Get your time back. Go build a business. There's nobody going to do it better than you about going and meeting people, building relationships, going out and recruiting and doing the interviews and training. But make sure you've got somebody recording you doing the training. That becomes the learning management system, the LMS, and no one's going to pour the love into the people and the clients like you.

Speaker 2:

So I was in the field for a long time. I spent the first let's see seven years in the field and I don't regret a minute of it. I loved being in the field. People would always ask before my face was on the side of the truck. They'd look at me every single job. They'd say are you the owner?

Speaker 2:

Because they knew I had pride, passion. They knew I'd asked for three reviews. They know I would ask for a picture in the review. They knew I'd get a testimonial. I'd ask for a yard sign. I'd ask for the HOA president. I'd ask for the first name of both neighbors. And I did the work. And then I would never leave. I'd make sure to say is there anything else I could help you with? Let me show you how the door works. Let me show you how these safety eyes work. Can I program your car for you? Did you want a keypad? With this, I'm already here. I'm not going to charge you any extra labor. I offered every customer, rich or poor, older, young, male or female, everything. There was no prejudice involved. And everybody that I know sells out of their own pocket and they go. Yeah, this customer's got overgrown landscaping. They're slobs. I'm not even going to offer them that. We make everybody read a book here. Go for no.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the customer experience is amazing. What I think about, though, in that is when you were out there in the field doing everything, and this kind of puts it together, I think, and what I was kind of brought to you is, like, how do you replicate yourself? Because you're doing all of this, but they're not doing all of this, right, like everyone's doing something a little bit different. This rep over here is not taking care of people in the same way that you do, so you're bringing that all back just to tie it in, kind of. You're bringing this back into. This is the manual, right, like, these are our standards. This is what we're doing. This is the checklist for every, every homeowner, right? If you do a garage install, part of their checklist is hey, did you offer to program their cars? I don't know. You know what I mean. Like there, you can, you, and that holds your team to the standards that you would have as an owner.

Speaker 1:

And I hear a lot of times as, like owners that can't get out of that sales seat. They're like, yeah, but people like buying from the owner, and I'm like, yeah, but that just means that you're, what are you giving them or doing that your other reps aren't right, like there's a gap there. And what standards are you holding those other, those other team members too? Because if they can create the same experience that you can, then it doesn't matter if they're buying from the owner, right? Did you hit that resistance as you were, as your business was growing that? Hey, no, you know, I can sell better than everyone they let. They'd rather deal with the owner than with you. You know, I think that's a big thing with people's time and how they get sucked in to the day-to-day.

Speaker 2:

For the first five years, I was the best salesman in the company. I still think I'm the best salesman because two things. Number one, I got to sell you on working at this company. Number two I'm going to get on working at this company. Number two, I'm going to get the most reviews. I'm going to get the HOA president's number. I'm going to go talk to the neighbors, but so my way will work in the long run.

Speaker 2:

But in 2012, I got this guy that actually was better than me, because he was trained by a really great company and he knew Sandler sales. I mean, this guy was an ace. His name was Matt Vallejos and when I watched him I said can I come ride with you for the next two weeks? And I took everything he had and I made it my own. And I made it even better. And when I went back, I was even stronger. I used to fix things that I didn't offer new ones for because I was like MacGyver, I'm going to fix it. If a rail was damaged, I'd go bend it back. When he's like dude, it's still mangled, you bend it back, it'll work, but why not just replace it? And he did this thing called a structural integrity package that I've never heard of, that we sold like hotcakes after I learned it. So it took me five years until I found somebody and, going back now, I wish I didn't.

Speaker 2:

Any other industry I go into I'm never going to learn the technical side of it because I don't need to. You know Dan Martell talks a lot about Richard Branson and how he hires now the right CEO, the right COO, the right CFO, and then they build the team. The problem is when business is we got to start from the bottom up. It's sweat equity and there's this thing that I'll talk to you about that really few people have. That I had. It's called delayed gratification.

Speaker 2:

I lived in the apartments for four years. I bought the apartment complex. I lived in a thousand square foot three bedroom close to my technicians that were training Everybody would come to Phoenix. I had a 2012 Nissan Titan with 280,000 miles salvage title. I said I'm going to keep this truck till everyone has a new truck. Never owned a Harley, never owned a boat, never bought a new car. I said I had more money. I had a lot of houses. I could have moved into my beautiful big house in Scottsdale. I chose to be at the apartment.

Speaker 2:

I think, a husband and wife. They work their ass off and they go. We deserve this house in Sedona, we deserve the camper, we deserve the Harley. So they started extracting money and they started saying, well, hey, paul, started flipping houses, we can make a lot of money with that. They start pulling money out of the one thing that's. Finally you put a dollar in, take a buck 20 out, it's finally paying you. What if you put the money back in? It would start compounding.

Speaker 2:

And I think a lot of people they say, well, we deserve, we've worked our butts off. We got to do something nice for the kids. Sure, do something nice for the kids. But what if I told you I've never been a father, but I've been a son? You know what meant the world to me? Not not when my dad bought me stuff. You know what meant the world to me is when he'd go out and play catch with me, when he'd say, tommy, I'm going to make an hour for you. That meant a lot more than a great Christmas. My dad being home on Christmas, being all there where his feet are, being present, asking me how my day is, asking me what I'm doing at school, that meant a hell of a lot more.

Speaker 2:

If you think that your kids and your wife just need a new wedding ring and they need that second house, then maybe you're not the right parent. Maybe you're and I don't mean to criticize people. If you think this hits home, it probably does. I don't know if you think I'm talking to you, but if you think I am, it's probably that's the case. So listen, I love constructive criticism. I don't mind when people don't sugarcoat it. Let me know how I'm doing and if I've got a problem, let me know.

Speaker 2:

Like the one thing is I don't know how my IQ is. I never took a test, but I know where my EQ is. I always look at how is this person looking at me? If they were to do a 360 review anonymously, what would they say about me? And a lot of times I've concluded that it's not very good. He doesn't take enough time. He tends to not tell me if I'm doing good or bad, and with 800 people it's really hard to do that and I can make every excuse in the world.

Speaker 2:

But I'm doing something about it. I'm actually building software right now that I could hit everybody on their birthday, their anniversary, their number one day they had in sales. I needed a system, a process and some technology because I grew out of knowing everybody's family and kids. In fact, I walked into the room the other day, there was five people that said hello, mr Mello. I've never seen them before and I'm like, oh my gosh, mr Mello, who the hell is? Mr Mello, that's like my grandpa and he's passed away.

Speaker 2:

So, and I know I can't be everything to everyone, and this is part of delegate to elevate. This is what Al Levy taught me eight steps of delegation and that I need to have close relationships with my direct reports. And then they need to. They need to stand down and have great relationships because, listen, if you think it's all about pushing people past their comfortability zone, comfort zone, if you think it's all about you need to grind and grit and do the best. People have lives, they have emotions, they have things going on at home.

Speaker 2:

A lot of kids didn't pass 10th grade. A lot of the guys can't read. A lot of the people have a bad smile. My number one thing is let's fix your smile. I don't tell them you got bad teeth, I just say listen, I want you to be comfortable looking in the mirror, and I told you this earlier you need to love you before you can love my customers, before you can love working here. And I don't think you think you're worth it. And if you can't save money at $40,000 a year, a hundred thousand dollars is not the answer. That's like saying the government needs to tax more. They got a spending problem. They don't have delayed gratification.

Speaker 2:

I never went out to eat. If a girl ordered a filet mignon that I took on a date, I was ordering the soup, telling her I already ate because I didn't even have the money to do that and I kept a very tight budget. I had money, but that was my future selves money. My Roth IRA is worth over a million dollars because I've been putting into it when I was 16. I haven't been able to put into it the last 12 years because I made too much money.

Speaker 2:

I was guaranteed to be a millionaire. I'm 41. I was guaranteed because I knew there's no guarantees in life. Things are going to go down sometimes a rabbit hole, but if this money compounds, it's tax free because I pay taxes going in and that's one thing is like. I just wish people understood that. Reinvest into the best asset of your life and that's your core business. Gamble on you because you've got direct control. S&p 500 is great. For me. There's a great investment. The real estate's done great. The largest investment I have is this company. Today I still own half of it and we're going to 5X this business in three years and I get to help out everybody and I mean everybody.

Speaker 2:

So I just these are hard lessons learned into my self-improvement a year because I think I'm worth it. I do. I walk in a room and I say I've done the hard work. I got the haircut every two weeks. I take care of myself, I drink the best water you could get and it's always out of this tin. Like I started saying, I'm worth it.

Speaker 2:

The alcohol sure it's fun. I can still drink once a month. I don't need to give up everything, but it got out of control. I'll admit I was drinking too much. It was embarrassing.

Speaker 2:

Ara, the founder of ServiceTank, called me up and said dude, you're the brightest guy. I know he goes, but I think you might have like, I've seen you at some of these events and he's like that's one thing as a friend of of friend that I just keep an eye on. It took a man to call up me and say that anybody could have called me, but he called me man. It was like that was a wake up call. And man, sometimes we're in this mess. My cousin called me and said I'm sorry, I keep talking. But she said she was like Tommy, you read more books than anybody in our family combined.

Speaker 2:

She goes. You're talking on stages. You live in a beautiful house. She goes. You seem like the perfect life. She goes, but why don't you love yourself? And I go Rachel, what do you mean? And she goes, walk in the bathroom real quick and take off your shirt and, by the way, she's got a PhD in physical therapy. And she goes look at your face, it's flush. Look at your ankles. She goes go get a DEXA scan. You could do better than this.

Speaker 2:

And I looked at myself for the first time in a long time and the excuses of I don't have enough time to eat healthy, I don't have enough time to make good decisions, like all these things added up to that moment. Then I said you're a real asshole. But you're right. I mean, it kind of brings tears because I needed to work on me and I gave everybody else so much time except for myself. And the rude awakening was I can't love anybody till you. Self-love is a thing and I think a lot of people. They want to put everybody else first. What happens when you go into a plane and the oxygen masks drops down? Do they say put it on your kids, or you got to be able to breathe to help anybody else. You need to get the oxygen or you're going to pass out and you're no help to your kids or your family or anybody. So help yourself first. Let me love me, so I can love you.

Speaker 1:

How can people what advice? You've been on this journey, it sounds like. What advice can you give people in that journey? How can they begin to? What things can they do what? What paths can they take to to begin that process of loving themselves more and, and, in doing so, creating a better example for the people around you, including your team?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll tell you what I hate doing. I don't do Ironman. I'm not a good swimmer. I'm a decent swimmer, but I don't go. I made it so easy. You know what I like to do.

Speaker 2:

I like to walk at a pretty brisk walk around Paradise Valley and I walk at a fast speed. I reflect, I listen to music. I think I do an hour walk every morning and every night. The weight started shedding off. But that reflection time, that's my time. It's amazing time.

Speaker 2:

Just walk, just park further away when you go to Costco, like everybody spends an hour finding a spot when you could find a spot within two minutes and just walk a little bit, like you don't need to go to the gym if you don't want to. And, by the way, I enjoy going to the gym because, like, I don't love it. Like some people, I'm not obsessed with it and some days I don't feel like getting up Like dude. These last three days I've been sick. I didn't want to go, but I'm like, when I saw how much it affects other people, I'm down to 10% body fat. I walk in a room now and I feel I don't want to be the richest, I want to be well-rounded, I want to be like man, that guy I'm a walking billboard. I can tell you this babies, you know what they love the most they love smiles. When you smile at a baby, they smile back. They stop crying. If you practice your smiles and you feel great about yourself and your energy level, here's what's so great. Look, forget about the six-pack, forget about the body fat. Just imagine waking up without an alarm and being ready to go. Imagine coming home from a long day at work and still being able to play with your kids. Imagine just, you go to bed and you actually fall asleep and you're not on watching a million programs and Netflix specials because you don't even want to anymore.

Speaker 2:

I was a night owl. I'm like dude, I love being up at night. I do my best. Thinking that was a lie to myself because I said what productivity did I have? I've never been a morning person. Now I was up at 5 am.

Speaker 2:

I went to bed early, earlier than I normally do, but I'm really focused on getting seven hours of sleep. People say seven hours of sleep. Tommy Mello, I want to get to eight, because I know that's the foundation of everything. That's the most important thing. It's more if I get my sleep, I eat right. If I get my sleep, I want to work out. If I get my sleep, my meetings are better. If I get my sleep, my memory's better Like. If I get my sleep, I'm healthier. And these are the fundamentals. You're not getting good sleep, you're not drinking enough water, you're eating garbage.

Speaker 2:

You know, I'm on testosterone therapy. I've been on it for seven years, so people say, no wonder he's in shape. The six years didn't do a thing. You still got to work out. You still got.

Speaker 2:

I'm on all the right peptides. I get my blood checked once a month. I literally had a leaky gut. I had all these issues and, by the way, guys like us hate to go to the doctor. So I found a really good doctor I really like and now I'm going to know if I have anything underlying issues that are coming. I got a prostate check for the first time. That wasn't very fun, but I said, hey, I'm 41. Let's do everything. I told you I just got baptized. Because faith, family, finance and fitness have become important, I bought a big ass counter by Jesse Itzler and I'm putting down the most important things I need, and a lot of them have to do with family and faith, the finance. That's my business. I'm here every day. The fitness is part of my routine. Now it's part of I want to read to you. Just I'll pull it up real quick and then you can ask him questions. I do these run on sentences when I, and then you can ask him questions.

Speaker 1:

I do these run-on sentences when I have these thoughts.

Speaker 2:

You're fine man, it's like it's crazy. So I got this graduation. We do right. We've got 43 techs graduating this month and I read him this quote I am your constant companion.

Speaker 2:

I'm your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I'm completely at your command. Half of the things you do, you might as well turn over to me and I will do them quickly and correctly. I'm easily managed. You must be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after just a few lessons, I will do them automatically.

Speaker 2:

I am the servant of great people and the Alice of all the failures as well. Those who are great I have made great. Those who are failures I have made failures. I'm not a machine, though I work with the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a person. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

Speaker 2:

Who am I? I am habit. I got goosebumps because I've read that a million times and I'll tell you this. I started giving stuff up but I needed to plug them with some good things. And you might look at me and say, man, this guy he sounds great, but I'm sure he's. There's something dying inside. No, not anymore. There was a time where there was. I worked so much to I had inner demons. I've let all that stuff go. And you want to come watch me? I mean, it would be hard to do to like have people follow me around, but like I'm living my best life, I get up and I'm like man, this is cool, this. I look back and I go. Your younger self couldn't even it, couldn't even imagine what you've got.

Speaker 2:

Do you know the gratitude? Look, I am very lucky. People say it was hard work, it was discipline, it was consistency. Everything goes right. I don't know why. I don't know why I'm so fortunate, but COVID was a bad thing, but I was deemed essential. Ppp money came in. I put $1.8 million into marketing. The multiples went up. Like I'm always at the right place at the right time. I am lucky and I'll take luck, because if I stay this lucky, who knows where I'm going to go.

Speaker 1:

But luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparation, right, and so so, being prepared, being prepared no matter if the opportunity is there, you won't be able to take advantage of it unless you prepare for it. I think you've been on a journey of self-awareness, I, I I've heard that that that is like that. That is one of the great traits of successful people is self-awareness. And I think that you know, I tell people when you're looking at your business, right, like if you continue to make small incremental changes in your business five years from now, 10 years from now, you look back and it's like, why would some I can't believe someone even bought from me. I can't believe it, you know. Believe that someone would work for me? I can't believe someone even bought from me. I can't believe that someone would work for me. I can't believe. If you continuously make those changes, which is what you seem to be doing through your life, right, how do you determine what to work on next? And we'll just kind of close it off with that.

Speaker 2:

Well, like I said, I'm pretty data-driven. Not everything could be into a formula or equation. The most common app I opened on this phone is my calculator. I live on this calculator. I mean, if I had a whiteboard in the shower it'd be filled every day. I'm just a numbers guy. Like I took advanced calculus, like I'm obsessed.

Speaker 2:

I used to carry a ti-83 in my back pocket and you know, without data I don't know really what to do. It's like it's pin the tail of the donkey blindfolded, like dude. I know my macros, I know everything about my body. Like, look, it's really hard to have this, this number, data on faith. But you know, you could say how much time that I spent with mom, you could say how much time I spent with dad and put up, put up if it makes it on the calendar. You don't cancel, you don't move that you. There's certain things you don't move, you can't move and they need to understand you're not going to move and they're not going to move. And I love Jesse, I sort of came with that. It's a stupid thing that sits on the wall, but you put it. Let me tell you this real quick Dan Martell, the first meeting he said Tommy, here's what we're going to do.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to give you guys a $50,000 lesson I paid for. He said. I want you to pretend like you're 75 years old. You're 41 right now. He goes. I really, really need you to sit in a dark room and just meditate and I want you to tell me what did you do when you were 41? What trips did you go on? We're going to really focus on manifestation. Did you buy a plane? What year did you buy? What color was the plane? I want you to go find the plane you want. I want you to find who you spent the most time with and why you spent the most time with when you went to Italy. I want you to pick the places you're going to go. I want you to know who you're going to go with. He goes. I want you. There's a secret that I don't even know. If Dan knows this, there's been study after study after study.

Speaker 2:

Positive thoughts are great. They help you manifest, but negative thoughts like I'm the only one that could do sales because my customers like that's not necessarily a negative, negative thought, but negative thoughts got 10x the ability to pull you down. When you start going this direction, you're letting the bad guy win it's excuses. It's things out of your control. You can't control the traffic. You can't control Ukraine. You can't control a lot, but you know what you can control.

Speaker 2:

People always say if your dad wouldn't have done this 10 years ago and divorced me and cheated like they live in the past. Let's focus on today. In the future, let's focus on what we can control. Let's look at the people around us. Do they inspire us or do they pull us down? Because that's called a cage? You're never my ability.

Speaker 2:

I feel like I'm in a DeLorean an 85 DeLorean traveling through time, accomplishing more than most because I'm changing my circle. I still got the best friends I grew up with, but the people I'm spending the most time with actually make me better. Just like, if you want to be better at golf, hang out with somebody that's better than you. If not, you're going to drink 20 beers and you're going to goof off, and who cares what the score was? I'm always finding the best of the best and making a way into their life. And, by the way, I pay. I pay to play and I'm in a fortunate spot because right now I'd rather have the best.

Speaker 2:

You know, some people say I'm going to start off with this. Dan Martell told me he goes, so many people he goes. What I figured out, tommy, is I buy how I want to be bought from. I don't try to negotiate, because when I negotiated everything, every one of my clients negotiated with me when I started buying. It's a weird karma, god, whatever you want to call it energy thing. When you just go in and you say you're worth it, I'm going to pay the full thing and then it's weird. All of a sudden, no one asks you for discounts. You're selling out of your own pocketbook and you are getting the nice things. My guys that go out and buy a new car. When we go out to eat, they my technicians order filet mignon. I know they're a winner. I know they're a winner. They want nice things.

Speaker 2:

So I don't know if I gave you perfect answers here, but, as you could tell, I'm an open book. I just I don't have secrets. Man, like I, like I drank too much. I you know it's tough for me to say I would drink occasionally, but I drink enough to where it would be enough for the week and that's a big issue. And I've had a lot of big issues. I've not been on drugs and but, dude, just opening up my heart and talking about things that's been hard for me, like, hey, let's talk about stuff, my feelings when we get home, what, just what do you need to talk about? Like I'm not, I don't do that, uh. So I'm trying to open up and just be the best version of myself. I'm the best I've ever been, but the worst I'll ever be, because tomorrow I'll be a little bit better that's awesome, man.

Speaker 1:

This has been another episode of the Roofing Success Podcast.

Speaker 3:

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Jim Ahlin

Host