Leadership, Legacy & Letting Go: Tomas Keenan on Scaling with Integrity

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to Close it now, thepodcast that's revolutionizing the
H Vac and home improvementtrades industries.
Get ready to dive deep intothe world of heating, ventilation
and air conditioning.
We're turning up the heat onindustry standards and cooling down
misconceptions.
And we're not just talkingabout fixing vents and adjusting

(00:21):
thermostats.
It's about the transformativemovement that's reshaping the very
foundation of H Vac and home improvement.
We're the driving force,inspiring top performers who crave
excellence not only in theirprofessional endeavors, but also
in fitness, nutrition,relationships and personal growth,
proving that we can indeedhave it all.

(00:44):
This is Close it now, whereexcellence meets excitement.
Let's get to work now.
Your host, Sam Wakefield.
Welcome back to Close It Now.
Sam Wakefield here.
I am excited about the guestthat is on today.

(01:07):
You may have seen some of hisbooks in the space.
You can get them all over the place.
They are eye catching and thisgentleman knows what he is talking
about when it comes to business.
So I'm really excited to havehim on today.
I'm sure we're going to diveinto some really fun topics.
A couple of books he's writtenbook came out in 2019.

(01:28):
You may have seen Unfuck youkBusiness, which is his flagship book.
And he's also working on a newone which I'm excited about.
We're going to talk about today.
It's called the G3 method.
So we'll dive into that herein a little bit.
And as far as his historygoes, we're going to let him give
a quick little highlight reel.
But one of the things that Ireally love about this gentleman

(01:50):
is just he's so down to earth.
And you know, a lot of thetrainers and coaches that you see
in the space are those quoteunquote gurus that don't necessarily
have the background, practical experience.
But not this guy.
I've had a pleasure of gettingto know him over this last several
weeks and I know you all aregoing to enjoy this conversation

(02:12):
today as well.
And so when I was asking himhow he likes to be introduced, one
of the things he said is callhim anything but asshole.
So we'll make sure to when youshoot him a message, wink, wink,
nudge, nudge.
Don't call him that unlessit's, unless you're having fun.
So, because I know you'regoing to want to reach out to find

(02:34):
more information about his,about his program as soon as we go
through this.
But man, I'm so excited tointroduce this is Thomas Keenan.
He is business extraordinaire,master of all of the things that
goes on behind the scenes inyour organization.
So welcome to the show, man.
It's cool to have you today.
Damn, this is awesome.

(02:55):
I appreciate that warm andwelcome intro and just, just an honor
to be here on somebody else's show.
I had a podcast for five yearsmyself, almost 270something episodes.
Like, I understand the workthat goes into this and I, I'm just
truly grateful to spend, youknow, an hour or so here with you
and, and get some really goodconversation flowing.

(03:16):
And the intent always for meis to just help at least one person
who's going to listen and dialinto the show.
Love it.
Love it.
Oh man, that's beautiful.
It's fun that you mentioned that.
Actually this is, I haven'treally mentioned it much on this
episode or on the, on the showrecently, but we're recording in.
Let's see.
This is May 21, 2025 foreverybody listening.

(03:37):
This month is the six yearanniversary of the Close it now podcast
and we are not quite to 70.
We're 242 somewhere in thatrange right now and two episodes
a week is what we do.
So solo training and then alsoFridays every interview session drops.
So thanks for that.

(04:00):
It's not easy.
The power of consistency iswhat makes it.
But Leah, before we get intothis a little bit, I'd love to hear
from you, man.
Give us a history, give usyour highlight.
So there's two parts to this question.
Sure, go ahead, give us yourhighlight reel of, you know, how
you earned the right to sit inthe seat and, you know, get the knowledge
you have that you can shareand help people from, you know.

(04:23):
But also what we also love tohear on this show from our guests
is what is the drivingphilosophy behind personal business
or combined that keeps youmoving forward?
Something that, that a threadthat weaves through that everything
that you do and you can answerthose questions in whatever order
that you would like.
I'm going to answer the second question.

(04:44):
This is a model that I live by.
People who follow me on socialmedia probably have seen this 100
times.
I get eye rolls from it, frompeople who are around me because
I say it so much.
They just like, oh, not again.
Yeah, it's really simple.
And this is how I live my life.
It's small steps forward daily.
Love it.
Because it's going back towhat you said about the podcast.
It's consistency.

(05:05):
You know, you in your salestraining, your sales coaching, it's
Consistency.
It's consistency that actuallyturns that lead and that.
That person into a.
An actual sale.
So I found that beingconsistent in multiple areas of the
life is.
Is how we actually makeforward progress.
And if we show up every day,whether we want to or not, and we

(05:28):
make a little bit of forwardprogress, we're gonna win.
We can call the day a win atthat point, too.
And the.
The overall big overarchingtheme of that statement is this.
I find that most times, youknow, we.
We show up daily, we do alittle work, make a little progress,
and we're like, man, we didn'tget done today.

(05:48):
It didn't happen fast enough.
I didn't get the.
The win or the end results.
But if we show up and if westop paying attention to the little
micro wins that we get eachday, if we show up and six months
later, we say, okay, hold on,stop, pause, let me turn around and
let's see how far we've come.
And you turn around six monthslater and it's like, oh, damn, I

(06:08):
didn't realize we came 1.5miles right on those little tiny
micro steps that we, wecontributed each and every day.
And you also know that somedays, some days you.
You hit it out of the park andyou take 10 steps, and some days
you take that little microstep that you know your little baby
daughter or son is going totake next to you, because that's
all that you can muster that day.

(06:28):
Because you and I both knowthat sometimes we have the best intentions
and we show up each and everyday and we.
We give our best, but there'salways outside forces that may hinder
our progress, if that makes sense.
It does make sense.
Yeah.
So regardless, it's justsomething I've lived by.
Even the days you don't feellike it, the days that you feel crappy,
the days you don't want tohave a conversation with a client,

(06:50):
maybe there's something goingon in your life, personally, professionally,
all of the above.
We still have to show up anddo what we've basically committed
to doing.
Same as you showing upconsistently in this podcast for
six years.
I'm sure there's been daysyou're like, oh, my God, I got three
recordings this week.
I don't want any of them.
Still show up and do it.
And there's been some gaps, too.

(07:11):
You know, there's times, somesituations in life where, you know,
took some breaks from thepodcast, but, you know, get back
to it and keep going.
It's like we don't Quit.
We just rest and keep moving forward.
That's it, man.
That's it.
So back to part one of the question.
I'll give you the highlight reel.
Born and raised, Long Island, N.Y.
spent my first 40 years there.

(07:32):
In 2020, right in the smackmiddle of COVID I decided to say,
f this, I had enough of mybusiness, had enough of my business
partner, had enough of theindustry I was in, and I'll get into
that here in a second, anddecided to say, hey, you know what?
It's time to go full, fullforce into coaching, consulting.
And at the same point in time,I'm going to pick up my family and
move halfway across the country.

(07:53):
Right.
So lots of moving pieces atthe same time.
And.
And still to this day, one ofthe best decisions that I made very
happy with, with where I am,where I landed.
It's funny, you know, I'm herein North Dallas, and the reason that
we're having a conversation isbecause of someone who's extremely
local to me, you know, ourgood friend Jonathan Bannister.
He lives like three or fourblocks from me.

(08:14):
He's like, really close.
Nice.
So if I had to make a.
Trip, y' all are like three hours.
Yeah, dude, come on down.
We'll go to lunch, right?
So if I hadn't have come here,you know, it's one of those things
where proximity lead, leads tointeractions, connections, opportunities,
doors open.
If I hadn't moved here,chances are I probably wouldn't have
met him and him and I wouldn'tdo the life and the business that

(08:34):
we do together.
I wouldn't have beenintroduced to you and I'm sure several
other people that you and Iare going to introduce each other
to alone in the next sixmonths, year, six years, whatever
it turns into.
No doubt.
So, yeah, so going back tothis, I'm a trained custom car audio
installer.
Okay.
I was a dude in high schoolwho couldn't get enough of cars and
car audio and said, hey,that's really cool stuff.

(08:57):
I want to go learn more about it.
And I started reading everymagazine and trade book I could on.
On the.
The art, the skill of.
Of installation.
And I trained myself wellenough to get a job, worked a little
bit for a year or so, and thensaid, you know what?
And this is a recurring themein my life, that I'm big with patterns.
I have the ability to lookback and say, oh, wait, there's a

(09:20):
pattern.
And you have to go through itin order to actually see it.
And again, that's the wholeturn around six months later and
see how far you've come kindof thing.
The pattern here that started,and this is the first time it started
showing up in my life is Ineed to go find out who the best
is and I want to go learn from them.
Yeah, no doubt.
Success clues.
All right, so at that time,this is the late 90s, 1999 to be

(09:43):
exact, there was like twoplaces, three, maybe three places
in the country that you cango, you could pay a whole bunch of
money to.
And it was, it was a legittrade school for car audio installation,
mobile electronics,fabrication, all that stuff.
Oh, very cool.
So living in the northeast, Isort of, kind of wanted something
somewhat close to home.
And at that time there was areally awesome place up in Boston,

(10:05):
Massachusetts and I spentthree months there in the summer
of 1999.
I learned from some of thebest in the industry and came back
home to Long island.
And within a week or so Ilanded a job at a really high end
place.
We were doing, we were doingwork for some big name people and
fancy ass cars.
Like I was in my glory.
Loved it.
Sure.
Go to the Ferraris andLamborghinis and.

(10:26):
Yeah, you name thousanddollars Bentleys and crazy Ferraris
and you name it, it was in there.
And here I am, this 19, 20year old kid who's literally tearing
these things apart down tobare metal.
Right.
The owners would walk in andbe like, oh my God, what are you
doing?
You're going to put it backtogether with all the pieces, right?
Yeah.
So I, I got to learn a lot,get a lot of experience from an installer's

(10:50):
perspective in that role tothe point where it boosted my confidence
where I was like, I'm gonna godo this myself now.
So 19 years old or 20.
I'm sorry.
I was 21 years old and startedthe first business.
It's called exquisite mobile electronics.
It lasted five years and I wasa really good installer.

(11:11):
I knew what I was doing.
Was I great?
No, because I still neededyears to, to get better.
But I was, I was good enoughto go out there and to serve the,
the public at a very highlevel, deliver a to them.
However, where I was lacking,sir, was the business side of the
house.
I didn't know a damn thingabout it.

(11:32):
You know, that sounds pretty familiar.
We get this entrepreneurialseizure and decide to hang out our
shingle and, and then, oh, butI do good work.
Yep, yep.
And I, I had the mentality of,hey, I'm just going to start the
Business people in the areaknow who I am and magically the work's
going to come in the door.
And to some extent it did.
Until it didn't.

(11:52):
Right.
And I would have these.
It was like a massive roller coaster.
I didn't know anything aboutsales or marketing or, or systems
in a business.
It was like, hey man, I'm justgoing to build this shop and invest
a bunch of money into it andget this whole thing set up so I
can fabricate and work on carsand get all the tools I need, buy
some inventory, get thesupplies I need to do the work the

(12:14):
right way.
Oh, by the way, let me signthis lease that's you know, taking
four or $5,000 a month and ofmy profit out.
And I needed it, I needed the facility.
Learning to deal with that,leasing negotiations, dealing with.
I was in a building that hadlike five or six different businesses
and tenants and dealing withmy neighbors, my tenants next to

(12:38):
us that had no interest inhaving a 20 year old kid who was
a car audio installer next to them.
Yeah.
And three o' clock in theafternoon I'm testing a $10,000 audio
system that we just installed.
Blasting the base.
Ye.
Yeah.
In their walls.
At the time I, I didn't givea, like, hey, it is what it is.
This is my business, I'm doingwhat I'm doing.

(13:00):
And a part of me there, yeah,cool, I get it.
You were right.
But at the same point in timenow as a 45 year old, you know, grown
man with a lot more experienceand empathy for people, like, could
you imagine a 21 year old kidmoving in next to your business that
you've had in place forseveral years?
You run a clean business, youdon't make noise, you don't bother

(13:20):
anybody and then three or fourtimes a day the entire building is
rattling because of all thecrap he's doing.
Right.
That's a shock to the systemto say the least.
Yeah, yeah.
Literally.
So long story short there fiveyears into it and like I, I just,
I couldn't make the businesswork anymore.
And it got to the point whereit started impacting me mentally,

(13:42):
physically, emotionally.
Like all the areas, businesswas the only thing that I focused
on.
So my relationships outside ofwork pretty much fizzled and went
to shit.
And that was with familymembers, that was with friends.
Like I was at the business, inthe business, I was the business.
Sure.
So 17 to 20 hour days was thenorm and I didn't understand that.

(14:04):
People didn't understand orcouldn't understand My drive and
want for this thing to succeed.
And it was one of those thingswhere no matter how many hours I
put into it, I couldn'toutwork the problems that I had created
for myself.
So I had to make that toughdecision five years into it and be
like, all right, well, I gotto throw the towel in here.
I'm $85,000 in personal debt.

(14:24):
It's not a good feeling.
I'm getting notices over hereto turn a damn electric off, and
they're giving me notices toturn the gas off.
And if you guys know anythingabout the northeast in January, February,
it is not warm, sir.
So it's like, you know, it'sfunny how life, and we'll call it,
I don't know, the universe,God, whatever term people want to

(14:45):
use here gives youopportunities oftentimes when you
need them the most.
So I'm going through thisstruggle period here.
I'm really good at what I do,but I just.
I can't put the pieces together.
The puzzle.
Buddy of mine comes in, and Idone work for this guy for years.
He owned a limo company, andhe says, hey, I got a buddy of mine

(15:06):
who has a store like this, buton a much larger scale.
He.
He just opened up another oneall the way out on the east end of
Long Island.
So people.
People don't realize how.
How big Long island is.
It's 100 miles from New YorkCity to Montauk.
Oh, wow.
It's big.
It's not like I'm going to getmy car in 15 minutes, drive across
the other side.
Sure.

(15:26):
So this.
This shop is an hour or anhour and 10 minutes from my front
door.
I'm talking to the guy.
Long story short, we make a deal.
I wind up going to work forthis guy for a couple of years, and
it was one of the best thingsthat I could have done for myself.
Learned a lot.
He was great to me.
Still a dear friend to this day.
Matter of fact, I sent him amessage over the weekend just to

(15:46):
check in and see how he's doing.
Just one of those.
One of those people that have.
Have been that figure, mentor,father figure, leader.
Someone who just cares aboutyou at a really deep core level and
wants you to win and succeed.
Like, that's been him sincethe day I met him.
So he.
He kind of took me under hiswing and said, hey, like, you're

(16:08):
really good at what you do,but you need to fix.
Fix yourself in a couple areas.
And here's where.
So cool.
Thanks.
Appreciate it.
And.
And he Gave me basically thekeys to his kingdom and said, hey,
we do everything automotive in here.
Your Specialty is the 12 voltand the audio and the electrical.
I want you to run thatdepartment over here for me.

(16:28):
Like, we got everything elsecovered and we'll, we'll, we'll train
you up and help you out asmuch as possible.
Exactly what he did.
So three years or so intothat, I started getting that itch
again, that entrepreneurial itch.
I was like, man, this isn't,this isn't cool.
This is.
Terrified me.
I'm like, man, the last time Idid this, I put everything into it

(16:49):
and I walked away with lessthan nothing.
So, like, why, why am I beingcalled down this road, down this
path again?
And I don't know, couldn'tanswer that question.
But the opportunities and thedoors and the things were stacking
in the right order.
It was like I couldn't deny itany longer.
You can't avoid it at that point.
Yeah.
So September 2009, started thesecond company and it was, we called

(17:12):
it Top Class Installations andthat, that puppy started growing
some legs and became real business.
It took took some time.
Had a business partner thereand we, we started installing stereos
and a couple of GPS trackingdevices here and there.
And our, our claim to fame waswe were a mobile installation company.

(17:34):
So even, let's say, you know,you call me up and you're like, hey,
I want a remote start in mywife's car.
Cool.
We'll, I'll take your money, right?
You pay me, we'll set theappointment and I'm going to show
up to your house or her officeand do the install and not inconvenience
anybody.
O love it.
It was great.
It was a great model and itenabled us to charge a premium for
that extra service.

(17:55):
We did the convenience fee.
Love it.
Bingo.
Yeah.
So we did well with that.
And then the GPS trackingindustry started really blowing up.
And it started giving us somany opportunities that at some point
in time, we had to make thedecision to basically shut down the
ret side of what we were doing.
We were, we were steppingover, over dollars to pick up dimes

(18:16):
is essentially what, what was happening.
You know, we, we startedmissing opportunities with these
big fleet installs because wewanted to go out and do a 500 remote
starter, put a head unit insomeone's car for a couple hundred
bucks.
Sure.
It was like, hey, that's great.
And usually they're paying uscash and there's something to say
about that, but we just lost a$40,000 fleet install because we

(18:37):
were too busy doing that stuffover there.
Yeah, that, that doesn't makeany business sense.
No.
And you do that once or twiceand then you say, oh, that was painful.
Yeah.
I hate the lessons that havedollars attached, but those are mistakes
you only make once.
Yeah.
Bingo.
So, you know, we got realheavily involved and transitioned
fully to GPS tracking.

(18:58):
And we were subcontractors forsome of the big boys.
The Verizon's, the Tele track,Navmans AT&T& a whole bunch of other
companies that are in thetelematics space.
And we were basically their wrench.
So we didn't have to have thesales team, we didn't have to have
the people going out knockingdoors, cold calling like they, the
big companies with the giantmarketing budgets and the, the dozens

(19:19):
of sales reps, they handledthat all we had to do and you know,
our sales.
And I started learning alittle bit about sales in this company.
What we had to do wasbasically knock on Verizon's door
long enough till they said,hey, what do you guys want?
And then convince them intoletting us provide our services at
a high level and prove to themthat we were better than the last

(19:40):
guy who was doing work for them.
And once we did that, it was,oh, okay, here, here's a bunch of
work.
Oh, and by the way, we'regoing to send you work every day.
You just have to set up thesystem and the team that is going
to receive this work from us.
That's what we did.
We built a team of, ofinstallation coordinators, we called
them and their responsibilitywas to answer phones, answer emails,

(20:03):
answer sms, any way that thatwas that people were going to communicate
with us inbound.
And these GPS companies, theyall had a different platform and
different system and differentway that they sent work to us.
Some of them were runningfancy portals on tools like Netsuite
or Salesforce and we would,our responsibility was to log in
or stay logged into thatportal all day.

(20:24):
And the second one of thosenew tickets comes over, which by
the way, that's a sale it justhanded to you.
Sure.
Right.
Is to.
Okay.
At that point I think wouldprobably be the correct term.
Yes.
100%.
100%.
We wound up becoming thepreferred vendor for most telematics
and camera companies in the northeast.
Wow.
And a lot of that about fiveyears into it, I said, you know,

(20:48):
first off, my, my now ex wifewas pregnant with our first kid five
years into that business andthat was an eye opener for me.
I call them life altering events.
It's like, hey, you want tolight a fire under your ass?
Become a dad.
No joke.
That is, that is very, very true.
I can 100% resonate with that one.
Yeah.
So here we go.

(21:09):
I get the notice, you know,hey, you're going to come, dad.
Cool.
And all of a sudden it's like,whoa, I got this business, we're
five or so years deep into it.
Like it's doing well, I makegood money, but have I given it my
all?
Have I taken it 100% seriously?
And the answer was no.
So it kind of made me pauseand say, well, that's not cool.

(21:29):
What do I do?
Like, I got this opportunity here.
Our business is doing somecool things, but it's nowhere near
maxing out its potential.
Sure.
And now at this point in time,I have enough emotional intelligence
and experience to say I don'tknow how to get to the next step.
So at that point in time, Istarted, you know, and dude, this

(21:50):
is 2009, this is 2014, 2015.
Like, the Internet isn't whatthe Internet is today.
No, I mean Google and we're not.
That long ago of all thesehelp, you know, best practices and
all these things, at thatpoint that stuff didn't exist.
Didn't exist.
So, you know, I hit theGoogles back in the day looking for

(22:11):
a local business coach to helpus out and wound up searching through
and going through a couple of them.
Finally landed on this dude.
I wound up working with himfor like three years or so.
And he's the one who, whoreally started to drive and push
me.
He saw potential in me, he sawpotential in the business and he
really helped us dial in andput some real systems in place.

(22:31):
And it took a really long slowperiod of time for these things to
go in place and start to work.
But what they did was reallyset us up for success, which was
coming in a couple years whenthe bigger work started coming in.
Sure.
So, you know, for instance,you know, at this point in time we
were doing, we get called upto do a fleet of 3, 4, 500 installs,

(22:53):
150 installs here, and wecould do it, but the processes that
we had in place were inefficient.
By the time we were doneworking with this guy, we got a call
from the New York City Boardof Education that said, hey, we got
5,000 school buses.
You got 90 days to do it.
Can you do it?
And like, of course the answeris yes.
We're just going to figure it out.

(23:13):
Forces you to reimagine howyou do things.
Yeah.
But by that time, we haddialed in the process, we had dialed
in the systems and it waslike, yeah, okay, send them over.
We got this.
And because we had built somany systems at that point in time,
we had made things so muchmore efficient.
We were able to get thatworkload done for them and actually

(23:35):
make a ton of money in areally short period of time.
So if we hadn't done thatwork, you know, two, three years
prior when that opportunitycame knocking, it would have been
like, well, we can take 10% ofwhat you're offering us.
Whoever wants to say that,like someone, someone knocks on your
door, says, hey, I got a$400,000 project, do you want it?
Oh, I'm sorry, I, I only havethe bandwidth to take 10 of that

(23:55):
project from you.
God, that makes you feel grossinside even thinking about it.
Yeah, of course it does.
Of course it does.
So it's.
These are the things, theseare the real world experiences that
I've had in crashing andburning a business and building one
that was successful, exitingthat business.
And then, you know, now Imoved down to Texas, I get full time

(24:15):
into coaching and consultingand that just lights me up internally.
That fires me up as a human being.
I love doing it and, andhelping other small business owners,
mostly into service based companies.
Really say, hey, what, whatprocesses do you need?
What system do you need?
Like, what does this look likeon the back end of your business?
Because I'm going to, I'mgoing to talk smack on, on sales

(24:36):
trainers here for a minute.
Go for it in the best way.
I love it.
I, I don't like sales trainers either.
So sales trainers,motivational speakers, they all have
a place.
And I'm grateful for, for allof the people who wear that title
because I think it's truly needed.
But most put so much focus andemphasis onto the front end of the

(24:59):
business, the marketing andthe sales, which is, they're the
sexier sides of business.
They really are.
And I'm 100 on board, you need them.
Without marketing, there is no sales.
Without sales, there is no business.
True.
Okay.
It's the mantra that I live bywith my clients.
It's the classic expression.
I think this is a zig ziglar.
Nothing happens till somethinggets sold.
Yep.
Bingo.
Bingo.

(25:20):
So the problem that I saw andkept seeing over and over again,
and I experienced this in myown business too, is like, hey, we
just outsold our ability to fulfill.
Yep.
That's a painful Problem to have.
I have been there.
I.
I'm almost there right now, in fact.
Yeah.
So then the question comes in.
All right, well, if you lookat business as a series of pipes,

(25:42):
like, so you start yourbusiness today and you have marketing.
You put a 1 inch diameter pipein there.
Sales.
You put a 1 inch diameter pipein There.
Fulfillment.
You put a 1 inch diameter Pipein there.
Cool.
Well, at some point in time,if you have enough leads coming through
your pipeline, that 1 inchdiameter pipe is not going to be
a diameter large enough tofunnel all your leads to.
Well, I got to upgrade that toa 2.5.

(26:03):
Cool.
You upgrade it.
So that means you.
You're investing in your marketing.
You're hiring someone like ourbuddy Jonathan to really dial in
and do some awesome things onthe back end for your marketing purposes.
Now you got this leadgeneration machine.
Cool.
Well, do you have the sales process?
Do you have the sales pipeline?
Do you have the sales training?
Do you have the sales scriptsand the team in place to support
that 2.5 inch diameter that'scoming in?

(26:25):
So cool.
This is.
This is a flow.
So we upgraded the leadsbecause now we got more leads coming
in.
Now we have to upgrade thesales team and the sales system to
handle the leads.
And now eventually what'sgoing to happen?
The sales team is going tooutsell the fulfillment pipe, which
is still one inch in diameter.
So now we got to crank thatsucker up too.
Yeah, it's this constraints theory.
What's our next constraint?

(26:47):
Bingo.
Love it.
Yeah.
So that's the short version ofthe story, sir.
I know we covered a lot ofinformation there too.
No, that's beautiful, man.
And I love it.
It makes sense.
It makes me.
There's so much I want tounpack out of this.
We don't have time for.
We don't have 12 hours in this podcast.
Let's circle back real quick.

(27:08):
I want to park on somethingfor just a second, then we'll get
back into this.
I love how you started all ofthis with the micro steps and measuring
backwards.
I just relaunched the Close itnow book club, which of course, everybody's
invited to.
But a book we did last year isthe Gap in the Gain, which is.
Was really, reallyinstrumental for me because.

(27:30):
And I want to park on thisbecause so many people in this community
are those performers andachievers, and we're so constantly
focused on, you know, if mygoal is, you know, 10 million and
I've only sold 9.5 million,oh, I suck.
I'm awful.
But where Everybody else is,oh, my God, I'd kill to be exactly

(27:51):
where you are.
And so remembering to have thegratitude and measure backwards is
so important in that along theway, even when we don't feel like
we made progress.
Well, that's just our own bad,negative self talk.
And so there's truly.
This is important to emphasizethat for a sec before we kind of
get back into the systems thatwere where we're headed.

(28:13):
Yeah, for sure.
I agree with you 100%.
It's kind of like, you know,anybody here has done 75 hard and
knows what it is.
You know, one of the thingsthey have you do in that, in that
program is you got to take aprogress picture each of the 75 days
you're going through it.
And it's so you can look backand you can actually see the progress
step by step, day in and day out.
Yeah.
So I get it.

(28:34):
Well, so let's get into thesystems because I know this is huge
and so many people in there intheir different journeys, you know,
and I've worked with.
And you're exactly right, I work.
That's part of why I've openedup a portion of my, you know, closing
now where we start to reallyanalyze and look at this type of
thing.
But, you know, we can.

(28:54):
There's so many teams thatI've gone in and got the sales team
going, and it's like, wait aminute, you.
You guys were not prepared for this.
So when I, in my first part ofmy journey here, you know, several
years ago, working withcompanies, you know, I didn't, I
didn't know what I didn't knowas far as that goes.
I lived it.
I've grown companies, but itjust worked.

(29:15):
Yeah.
And so now I'm coming in andit's like, wait a minute.
Let's have a discussion of howmany, how many crews do you have?
Let's have a productionconversation before we ever talk
about the sales.
Because the last thing I wantto do is come in and, you know, we'll
book you guys out a month, butthen everybody's angry at the company.
Yeah.
So getting into that a littlebit, what are some of the things

(29:35):
that you really look for firstwhen you're, you know, service level,
doing a discovery, what.
And I guess weave into this,you know, maybe a couple of, you
know, some red flags thatpeople can analyze, self analyze
and say, hey, maybe I needhelp here that maybe they don't even
realize.
Yeah, I know when a lot ofpeople are growing companies, they

(29:56):
don't Know what they don't know.
Like your first experiencewith your company, you just didn't,
just didn't even know that I'dneed to know this stuff.
Yep.
Two things.
Oh, my clients who listen tothis, they're all going to roll their
eyes and say, oh, I knew he'sgoing to say this because I hate
it.
Okay.
It's one of those things wherelike, you just got to get real.
Sandwich.
Yeah.
Yeah.
First thing is a time studyfor the, for the founder or the owner

(30:18):
of the company.
Second thing is we run a fullblown SWOT analysis on the company,
top to bottom.
So we cover everything.
So the, we always start withthe time study.
Anybody who works with me, whohas worked with me in the past, they
know the second they sign thatcontract and come in and start working,
the first thing Tom's gonnaask me to do is this two week long
time study.
That's just awful.
But we, we gotta do it.

(30:38):
That's what tells us a.
We're figuring out what yourWPH is, what your worth per hour
is as the owner of the companyand every.
I don't care if you're abusiness owner, if you're an employee,
a technician, everybody shouldknow that KPI for themselves.
Worth per hour.
Yes.
The fastest, easiest way tocalculate it without doing all crazy
fancy crap in Excel is to takethe amount of money that you made

(31:01):
last year and divide it by 2080.
2080.
That'll give you a reallyrough idea of what your worth per
hour is.
So we take that as thebaseline KPI and say, okay, well
you know, you did X amount ofmoney last year.
Your, your cape, your worthper hour is 130 bucks an hour.
Cool.
So that tells me out of thegate that anything, any task, whether

(31:27):
it's at home, whether it's atwork, if it, if it's below $130 an
hour and you're doing itpersonally, you're costing yourself
and your company money.
See this a lot with the trades.
I'll give you a real world example.
I do a lot of work in the carstereo industry still, as you can
imagine, since I spent so manyyears there.

(31:49):
I have a client, a husband andwife client, they're out of Lawton,
Oklahoma.
They got a really successfullike small town, local car stereo
store.
Been in business 30 years.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
I walk in there a couplemonths ago and it's like, Nick, the
hell's your washing machinedoing in the shop?

(32:12):
He's like, wow, man.
Yes.
Started taking it.
He goes it stopped working.
So I brought it to the shopand I started taking it apart because
I'm gonna fix it.
This guy's got more work comein the door and his phone's ringing
off the hook because we, webuilt systems that are working.
Okay.
He just bought the buildingnext door.

(32:32):
It's under full blownrenovation, and he's, he's expanding
and he's now doing vinyl wrapand tint and truck accessories on
top of the car audio he's doing.
To say he's got a couple ofthings going on is an understatement,
right?
So they're trying to work onhis washing machine.
And like I said to him, andhis wife's there too, and you know,
at this point in time, we'regood friends.

(32:52):
I'm sure that happens with you too.
Like someone comes in as aclient and it expands into friendship
and Absolutely.
I said, hey, Jessica, it'slike, how long has that washing machine
been here?
She's like, two weeks.
So I was like, let me ask youa question.
How's laundry getting done athome now?
It's funny, before we startedthis call, you and I were talking
about washing machine issues.
I had just gotten done with mywashing machine issue like a week

(33:15):
prior, so.
And I got seven kids.
I got a whole army over here.
So I understand what missingone or two days of laundry does to
a household.
Oh, no joke.
Right now, two weeks and he'sgot three kids at home and a wife.
Right?
Like, dude, you guys arebacked up where your poor wife, who
also works full time and ownsthe business with you, is out doing
laundry at a laundromat orgoing to her mom's house or something.

(33:37):
Like, no one's got time for that.
So I, I, and he's a numbers guy.
Like he, he's a dude who knowsnumbers in his head and just can
do the calculations.
I said, nick, do you rememberwhat your worth per hour is last
time we did the exercise?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cool.
Do you know that I just calledin a repair guy to fix my washing
machine last week and it costme $153 and change?
He was like, no way.

(33:58):
I'm like, probably done in a day.
It was done the next day.
So he's like, no way.
I'm like, dude, get on Google,go find a local repair guy and call
him.
Bring him here to the shopping.
I don't care if it comes tothe house or not.
Like, get somebody over herewho's a professional, fix this shit
for you so you can get back todoing what you're the best at.
Yeah, he did come here and goreinstall it for you.

(34:20):
You don't need to mess with this.
Shouldn't be doing it.
So long story short, he did.
That guy came in, fixed it.
It was under 200 bucks.
And he was all said and done.
But these are the kind ofthings that we need to look out for.
And this is, this is anexample that crossed, you know, personal
into business.
But what does it look like inthe business that you're doing?
So if you're $130 an houremployee, what are you sending invoices

(34:43):
for?
You know what, what are you doing?
Scheduling appointments with.
With people.
What are you doing?
Doing data entry.
Like you should have peopledoing that for you.
So this exercise gives us aglimpse into where the owner is actually
spending their time.
And when we have the data,we're making data driven decisions
based upon this time study.
This is where the G3 methodcomes into and why I'm so adamant

(35:05):
about this darn book.
It's like what systems do weneed to build to get you out of your
own way?
Yeah.
And the data that you give meis going to give me the answers into
what needs to get addressed first.
I like that.
And that rolls right into G3.
And I'll explain what G3 is here.
I got 12 chapters worth of G3.
Okay.
So we can go super deep into it.

(35:27):
But I'm going to give, I'mgoing to give you the high level
overview.
Good.
And it's simple.
Everybody that's listening bythe book.
It's coming out.
Yeah, it's coming out here.
In a minute of July we'll havethis sucker ready to rock and roll.
Roll.
And I'm super excited for this one.
The G3 method at its core isreal simple.
It's G1 is you got to get it done.
So you have to go do the task yourself.

(35:49):
Get it done.
Good enough.
You don't have to be the expert.
You don't to be the best inthe world.
You have to have a good deeplike intrinsic understanding of what's
required to take it from startto finish.
Okay.
You have to understand it wellenough to get to G2, which is get
it documented.
So get it done.
Get the sucker documented.

(36:10):
And again, I'm not asking youto make it a perfect documentation.
I'm not asking you to pop openyour damn keyboard and type it in,
record a loom video, Open upzoom like this and record the video.
Store it someplace, Send itto, to Transcription, throw it into
chat GBT and say, create an sop.
Like, dude, there's theexcuses today.
I have zero tolerance forthem, especially with today's technology

(36:32):
and the free technology that's out.
No doubt.
Yeah.
It costs anything to do that.
No, it doesn't cost you anything.
Like, stop with the.
That you can't document andyou can't put SOPs in place in your
business.
Like, you can spend five to 10minutes on chat GBT and upload a
transcript, and that sucker isgoing to kick out Something that
is 1000% better than nothing.
No, no joke.
No joke.
So that's G1, which is get it done.

(36:53):
G2 is get it documented.
And G3 is.
This is the big one.
This is the pain point formost people who like to do everything
themselves.
And I understand it wellbecause I was that guy for so many
years.
It's get it delegated, get itdone, get it documented, get it delegated.
The delegated piece candefinitely zip off into a couple
directions.
Right.
So the first question is,okay, do I have somebody on my team

(37:16):
who I can effectively delegatethis to?
And if the answer is yes, cool.
Have a conversation with themand put it on their plate.
Yeah.
Here's the system, here's the approach.
Let me know when it's done.
Yeah.
Let me train you on thisadditional task I need you to do
for me.
Here's the expectation of whatdone looks like and how long it should
take.
Yeah.
Obviously there's a coupleother routes this can go if you don't

(37:37):
have a person on the team.
The question is, well, do Ineed to hire somebody for this?
And that brings us into awhole other conversation about what
it looks like to hire andonboard somebody.
Yeah.
And I do a ton of that.
Etc.
Yeah.
Like, what does the role look like?
What.
What is the actual task?
The descriptions, all of that stuff.
What does the salary look like?
You know, where are we pullingthese people from?
Do we have a hiring process?
Do we have a system in place?

(37:57):
Do we have an interviewprocess in place?
And then the one that's missedthe most, the most of all small business
owners, because they can sortof kind of figure out hiring.
Not great.
But usually they do.
The one that they miss themost and they drop the ball on the
hardest is an onboarding process.
Oh, yeah, you hired the guy.
Cool.
And now he shows up, and forthe first two weeks, he sits there

(38:17):
in a corner and stares at youbecause he's got nothing to do.
Yep.
It's just amazing.
It is.
It Is so, so coming up andhelping clients develop what that,
that documentation is for onboarding.
But going back into G3, I wantto on that some more.
There's some other avenuesthat you can go down too.
You know, we're, we're talkingtechnology here.

(38:38):
Oftentimes you got to startasking yourself the question where
it's like, well, before I, I,I try to delegate this, is there
a way where I can do something else?
Can I automate it?
And one of the other goodquestions, and this one rocks a lot
of boats because people, I geta lot of pushback in this one.
Instead of automate it,instead of delegate it, can you eliminate

(39:00):
it?
Like, do you even need to do this?
Yes.
Yes.
It's one of my favorites.
Yep.
And you've heard this before.
It's like, well, we've alwaysdone it that way.
I don't give a.
We're here to change thingsand, and make you better.
Just because you did that forthe past five years doesn't mean
the new version of you andyour company needs to continue doing
it.
No.
Oh, man.
I have this conversation withcompanies and with owners a lot.

(39:21):
If it's like, if I hear thosewords come out of your mouth, we're
going to have a hardconversation about it because there's,
there's no what got you herewon't get you there.
There you go.
Yeah.
Yep.
So those are some other, youknow, contributing factors you got
to consider before you just,you know, blindly delegate it to
somebody.
And it's, it's stuff that Idive into heavily in the book as

(39:42):
well.
But these are real worldscenarios that I myself have lived
more times than I want to even admit.
And, you know, now I have thehonor of helping dozens of business
owners on a weekly basisnavigate these tr.
These troubles and thesechoppy waters and build the right
systems and processes theyneed to basically make their companies

(40:02):
more efficient.
So the ultimate goal here is,I want you to, to using a Dan Martell
word here, you know, buy backyour time.
I want you to figure out howwe can buy back your time and you
can get other people to helpyou in your company.
Because the, the end goal hereis not for you to work inside of
your business 20 hours a dayuntil you have no life and no relationship
with your family and your kids.

(40:22):
Yeah, no joke.
I did a series recently.
It was called Roots and Wingsabout raising family and, and how
to create antifragile children.
And the biggest term that I,one of the biggest ones I took out
of that is this mindsetaround, are you a businessman with
a family or are you a familyman with a business?

(40:43):
Because those are two verydifferent things when it comes to
priority.
Yeah, yeah, I understand thatat a really deep level.
It took me getting divorcedfrom a woman I was together with
for 20, 20 plus years, married14, had three kids with her, and
then getting into arelationship with another high performing
entrepreneur and it was like,hey, you got three businesses, I

(41:08):
got two.
How do we make all this workand still be present?
Are we ever gonna have timefor each other ever?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it was, it was usintentionally putting boundaries
in place and saying us first,then the kids than the business.
And it's, it's asked backwardsbecause if you go with the call it

(41:30):
the hustle culture that's, youknow, preached by the gurus here
in America, like, you know,you work harder kind of, kind of
mindset.
Yeah, work your face off.
Yeah.
You mean you got excuses.
Nobody cares.
Work harder.
Yeah, I get it.
And I'm not saying you don'tneed hard work to succeed.
You do.
But at what, what's the costthat you're giving up at the same
point in time too?

(41:51):
So all about this.
I'm all about work in yourinspired flow, within your zone of
genius.
And you can accomplish so muchmore in a shorter amount of time.
We work more efficiently byestablishing systems and doing all
these things.
So, man, I love this conversation.
We're on the same page verymuch with this.

(42:13):
So G1, G2, G3, get it done,get it documented, get it delegated.
Yes, sir.
That's a huge band.
It seems like at first glance,such an easy roadmap.
Where's the stumbling blockswhere people run into when they take
this and like, okay, this iswhat I'm going to do because you
mentioned it earlier, it'sthat prioritization.

(42:33):
So talk to us a little bitabout that.
How do we know where to start?
Because, yeah, I'm literally.
I could look at my to do listand like, God, there's 85 things
in there and I just added fivemore from my brain right now while
we're talking.
Yeah.
Where do we even get going on it?
Yeah, most, most smallbusiness owners get stuck in the
get it done face and they,they get so good and so efficient

(42:55):
at the get it done portion ofit where it's like, you know, I hire
you to come work with me andit's like, dude, it's gonna take
me 35 minutes to explain toyou how to do this.
And it's going to take me sixminutes to do it myself.
So I know I hired you.
I know I'm paying for you.
I don't want to deal with the.
I don't want to deal with youasking me 45 questions about how

(43:16):
to do this.
And if I do it right now,quickly, in six minutes, I know for
a fact it's going to get done.
Right.
According.
Right.
According to me.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
And, and they just, it's thecurse of a small business owner.
They just do it all themselves.
That's, that's a pain pointright there.
Right.
So it's, it's the next.
And that, that all comes withthe time study.

(43:36):
We're figuring out what thoseareas are.
The next big thing that wedidn't dive into yet is the SWOT
analysis.
Strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats.
Yeah, actually, before we goto that, I've really been actually
just doing.
I'm in the middle of a timestudy for, for myself.
I know a lot of people outthere that are listening have maybe

(43:56):
heard that term, maybe not.
And most people don't evenknow what it is.
Can you give a super quickexplanation of what a time study
actually is and how they wouldgo through that before we get into
the SWOT analysis?
Yeah, for sure.
And I appreciate you asking meon details because, you know, my
brain sometimes just thinkslike, oh, everyone knows what that
is.

(44:17):
I cover this real heavy in myfirst book, unfuck your business.
And it was one of those thingswhere I was put through a version
of it through the coaches thatI had hired.
And then like most people, Itook it, adapted it to fit my style,
my methodology, and then boom,I've got my version of it that you
can find in the book.

(44:38):
Two weeks, right?
Minimum three days.
But ideally it's two weeks andit's writing down and documenting
every single thing you do in15 minute increments for two weeks.
That's why it sucks.
Okay?
It's very granular.
But ultimately we're trying toestablish patterns in seeing where

(44:59):
you, the human being and thebusiness owner are spending the majority
of your time.
I can tell you right off thebat, most business owners, they're
going to spend a lot more timein the bathroom than they think they
are.
Right.
And when you document this,like, whoa, I didn't realize I was
in a toilet for that long.
Okay.
We spend a lot more timescrolling and doom scrolling social
media than we think.
And we spend a lot more timedoing business than we do business.

(45:23):
And the time study is going toTell us specifically what or where
we're spending those times.
And now it's like, oh cool,here's the study.
So let me give you, let medive in a bit further here, give
you some more explanation.
I come up with this time studyand I have, I have buckets that I
have my.
So you do the whole timestudy, you write everything down
and then you start takingthose, those blocks of time and dropping

(45:46):
them into the appropriatebuckets to quantify what that time
should have brought into you,the return.
So I go with $10 an hourbuckets, 100 $1,010,000 an hour buckets.
Okay, right.
The $10,000 an hour buckets,that's you working on you, that's
you hosting events andspeaking on stage and podcasting

(46:06):
and, and going to the gym andspending family things that you can't
make enough money to repay you for.
That.
Sure.
The thousand dollar an hourtask that, you know, you closing
big deals, building systemsfor your team, hiring for your team,
working with a coach or aconsultant to make your business
or yourself better.
Those fall into the thousanddollar an hour buckets.

(46:27):
The hundred dollar an hour bucket.
That's, you know, that's yoursales, that's your market, a lot
of your, your operations thatkeep the overall system of your business
functional.
Right.
A lot of managerial stuffwould fall into there.
And then your, your lowbucket, your $10 an hour bucket,
that's all your, your dataentry, your basic things, the things
that you must do to keep yourbusiness operational, but they don't

(46:50):
necessarily need to be done byyou, the leader, the founder, the
owner of the company.
Got it?
Yeah.
So, yeah, that's, that's the,the biggest breakdown.
So what I find, what I found.
And this is going back to likeI wrote the book.
And I wrote the book.
2018, it was launched 2019,two years ago.
So we're in 2020.
So 2023, I finally had enoughpeople come to me and say, hey, how

(47:15):
do I do the time study?
And meanwhile I'm thinking,like, I give you this fancy ass PDF
that I had a graphic designermake and build and it looks great.
It can't be more clear.
And what people wanted wasmore of an actual system.
Okay, Makes sense for everything.
Yeah.
So like I, I know enough to bedangerous in tools like Excel or

(47:35):
Google sheets, but I'm not theexpert there.
So I went on to Fiverr,searched up a dude and had him build
this really cool trackingspreadsheet for the time study.
So now it's, it's just a drop down.
You went to what you did.
And, and depending upon whatyou did, it automatically associates
the right dol to.

(47:57):
To your time.
Yeah.
So just leave this tab openand go in and so.
Yep.
So it's okay.
I'm going to restate back towhat I think you're, what I'm hearing
to, to help some people, someclarity here.
Sure.
We literally start the daywhenever the our day starts.
If it's 8am or whatever it is.
Set a timer that will go offevery 15 minutes to remind us, stop,

(48:20):
track what you did the last 15 minutes.
Stop track what you did thelast 15 minutes for the entire day.
Yeah.
And then with, with this tool,just go to the drop down, pick the
right one.
Boom.
And just keep going throughthat process.
Keep going through the process.
Yeah.
And I tell people too, it'slike, hey, I don't, I don't expect
you to stop.
Like, for instance, you and Iare here, we're here for an hour,
hour and change to record this podcast.

(48:41):
I'm not stopping every 15minutes to go fill out my tracker.
Right.
Be a reasonable human being.
Get through the task, whateveryou're doing, and then throughout
the day, mark it down.
Don't wait until the end ofthe day because you're going to forget
you're human.
Right.
But get, get this filled outas on time or as close to on time
as possible so you can reallytrack what you're doing and where
your time was spent.

(49:01):
I can imagine.
Last kind of thought I havebefore we kind of move into this.
I've been really working oneliminating kind of.
It's creeped into my languageand I just, I use it.
I hate filler words and weak words.
I can imagine that.
And the way that we treat thistime study is very similar to the
way that we do a lot of otherthings in our life where we don't

(49:23):
think that we're doing exactlywhat we're doing and we give ourselves
all of this grace, but wewouldn't give it to someone else.
And so it helps us to facereality in a way that you don't measure
it.
You can't manage it.
We're really smackingourselves in the face with this crystal
clear reality of, of where ismy time actually going.

(49:45):
Yeah, the, the harsh realityis this.
Usually two to three days intothe time study people have had enough
and they're so sickened bythe, the data that they're recording
that it's a blaringly obviousproblem of what they need to fix
and what they need to fix fast.
So oftentimes I'll havesomeone reach out to me like, dude,

(50:05):
I'm three days into this.
I.
I gotta stop.
Okay, cool.
I'm not pushing you to do twofull weeks.
If you've learned the lesson,if it's this painful three days in,
that's enough for you to startmaking new choices and changing your
actions.
We're ready to move forward.
That was the other thoughtthat came to mind.
I could imagine that the twoweeks would vary based on either

(50:27):
that or also the more thatpeople start.
I can also imagine thisscenario where the more people start
measuring it, they coursecorrect along the way.
So.
Or you've got two weeks,ideally to give, you know, maybe
a handful of days a week toget into the, the process of truly

(50:48):
understanding what your lifeas a system looks like.
Yeah.
So I'll give you the, thereasoning behind the two weeks.
Okay.
You're a married guy, right?
100%.
Yeah.
You have in laws that I'm sureyou've met.
Yes, I used to.
Okay, got it.
So the first time I met my inlaws, I was on my best behavior.

(51:12):
Okay.
And that lasted for a little while.
And then after a while, andthis is with any relationship, this
is with someone that you hire,someone you work for, someone, whoever.
Your guard drops after a whileand your, your actual self shows.
It's like if you've taken likea disc assessment, they have your,
your actual personality versusyour projected personality when you

(51:36):
first meet people.
And they vary.
So this, the first week isbecause you know you're going to
be on your best behavior withthe time study.
Oh, I'm going to record my time.
I got to make sure this datalooks perfect.
And you go in there and youhave it as perfect as possible.
And by week two, you're sodamn exhausted.
Like this is, this is crazy.
Ridiculous.
And then you get back to yournormal patterns.

(51:57):
Yeah.
So if you can get through thetwo weeks, cool.
It'll give you more accurate data.
But you know, at this point intime, like I don't harp on anyone
to do two weeks because Iunderstand the amount of effort and
energy that goes intorecording this information even for
a two or three day period.
I, you know, I can see wherethat would tell you Someone's drive
and determination to improvealso is like how, where is their

(52:20):
tenacity and where's their,their grit in any assignment?
So you know what type ofclient they're going to be as well.
So kind of from the coaching perspective.
Yeah.
For Sure, I love it.
Well, let's move into, let'smove into swat.
But, and so you have to definethis for people because, yeah, I've
studied marketing for a lot ofyears and in order to be great at
sales, you have to think likea marketer a lot of times.

(52:42):
But this is a new term for alot of people.
Yeah, it is.
I learned this, you know,years ago going through a bunch of
trainings and stuff.
And above and beyond just coaching.
I know you've done this stufftoo, where I had opportunities to
go in and work with somecompany where I was like, hey, you
pay us a whole bunch of moneyand you come in and we're going to
train you for a week.
All right, cool.

(53:03):
And it's like, hey, well, youknow, if it's a company that I trust,
that I respect and there'sleadership there that I can learn
from, I'm all for it.
So, you know, I, over theyears, I don't even know how much
money I've, I've invested intomy own education.
I'm not a college educatedperson, but I've invested it in other
avenues, other ways.
So I got trained on, on swat.

(53:24):
Right?
Strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats.
And now, I mean, there's not apoint in time in any company that
I own that I consult for thatI don't do a SWOT analysis every
90 days.
Nice.
Okay.
Yeah, it is.
And it's, it's necessarybecause the way the human psyche
works too is after 90 days, westart to kind of fall off if we don't

(53:44):
have a nuclear plan or, ortarget in place.
And the SWOT analysis, if donecorrectly on the back side of the
SWOT analysis, we're going tochoose action items for the next
90 days.
Those action items have toalign with the big goal that we're
after for the year.
So, you know, backtrack here.
End of the year, we like to doa year end assessment, say, hey,

(54:06):
what do we end with?
And this is a.
SWAT's involved in that too.
And it's like, hey, what arewe going to accomplish for the year?
So imagine this is nowNovember, December 2024.
What are we trying toaccomplish by the close of the, the
year in 2025?
We set those targets and goals.
Right?
The SWOT analysis now tellsus, all right, well, what, what actions

(54:28):
do we need to take in order tostay on track to hit those targets
and goals in Q1, and then wedo it in Q2 and Q3 and Q4, so on
and so forth.
So this is something I like todo with the whole team if possible.
If it's a small enough team.
If it's, if it's a largerteam, a larger company, you're going
to say, hey, executive team,we're going to work on this, or yeah,

(54:49):
the principal salesdepartment's going to work on this.
Yeah.
So it's strengths, weaknesses,opportunities and threats.
The best way that I like to do it.
You ever see those giant postit notes that look, the yellow ones
like this, they're really bigones, like 3ft.
I like to go buy one of thoseand you know, they stick on the wall,
big old black marker.
Right.
And have someone assignsomeone on your team to be the scribe.

(55:12):
It was never me because I havethe worst handwriting in the world.
I have like doctor's handwriting.
So it's like, hey, strengths.
And it's a brain dump.
We go around the whole room,everyone is willing and open to give
us as much information as possible.
There's no right or wronganswer that's coming out anyone's
mouth.
What are the strengths we haveas a company?
It's.
It's harder than we thinkbecause, you know, oftentimes, and

(55:34):
I know this from a personalexperience, the.
My first book writing theAbout Me on the back cover was the
most challenging piece thatI've ever written in my entire life.
I was like, you know, youdon't want to sound like, like, like
a cocky talking about thethings that you're good at, but we
have to figure out what do weexcel at as a company.

(55:54):
And it's a really goodexercise to kind of start breaking
the ice as well.
And that's why I like to startwith the strength portion of it.
What are we great at?
What are we strong at as acompany, as a unit, as a squad, as
a whatever, and brain dump ituntil you have nothing left to talk
about.
Okay, cool.
Next is weaknesses.
What do we suck at?
And this is one whereeveryone's like, oh, that's easy.

(56:16):
We're terrible at.
We need help with marketing.
Our fulfillment's terrible.
We don't.
We have poor customercommunication and this starts bringing
forward conversation.
Okay, cool.
Poor customer communication,but what about it?
And now we're diving layersinto this thing.
Then we go over to opportunities.
What are the opportunitiesthat are in front of us as a company

(56:37):
that we have not capitalizedon fully yet?
We'll write down the wholelist and then the final one.
Threats.
What are the threats thatcould potentially derail us as a
company from achieving theGoal that we're after this year.
Right.
So now you got these foursections internally and externally.
Yeah, I like to do internal, external.

(56:58):
A lot of people will takestrengths and weaknesses as internal
and then opportunities andthreats as external.
I look at them all as hey,internal, external, bring them all
in kind of deal.
I'm glad that you do becauseI've found that when I've seen people
do the SWOT analysis and sortit like that, then they miss a lot
of obvious things and obvious,the holes, they just have gaps in

(57:20):
their perception which willinevitably lead to a collapse of
a system or something down the road.
I agree 100%.
So cool.
Now we've got these long notesfilled out with all this information.
What do we do with it?
Because yeah, these are great ideas.
Great list.
Yeah, great ideas.

(57:41):
Like we need three years to,to attack all of these.
Yeah.
So now that prioritizationcomes in, it sounds.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Now we got to figure out whatare the action Items.
We have 90 days.
Okay, so now this isn't go andpick and choose the quickest, easiest
task that you can get done inan hour.
That's not an action item.
That's a no brainer.
Assign it to somebody, letsomeone knock it out.

(58:02):
Yeah, Action items.
I'm talking about projects here.
Right.
A common one.
We don't have a CRM.
Well, it's time for us to gofind one and implement that sucker.
Folks, I hate to break it toyou, if you don't have a CRM in place,
a number one, you need onelike now, you need one like yesterday
actually.
And number two, don't thinkyou're going to be operational in
24 hours with that thing.

(58:22):
True.
Ain't gonna happen.
You're gonna have to go in there.
People to use it.
Yeah, exactly.
So that right there is a, is agreat action item.
We want a new website.
Cool.
That's an action item becauseit's not happening in a week.
No.
Right.
We're not building one on WIXand expecting it to perform.
Yes, I agree.

(58:43):
So you know what, what arethese bigger long term action items
that we have and that we, wechoose three to a maximum of five
action items per quarter toattack as a team.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
You, what I find is this, ifyou go anything over five, you're
setting yourself up fordisappointment because like realistically
you're not taking on that manybig projects and still running the

(59:06):
company and still fulfillingand still giving your clients a great
experience.
Yeah, no joke.
Because then you're just onlyWorking in the business and there's
nothing going to.
Yeah.
To take care of people.
Yeah.
And.
And we also know some, somesort of service business and we're
here to serve.
Yeah, yeah.

(59:26):
And when that phone call comesin because someone wants something
or they want that big job thatyou've been praying for for the past
year, you're not saying no toit, right?
Yeah.
Oh, sorry, I can't do thatbecause we have an action item that's
open still.
Imagine that.
You know, I can, because I'veseen it happen.
I've absolutely seen it happen.
With companies that get sowrapped up in implementing, bringing

(59:49):
on a new.
In fact, the CRM, especiallyin the trades, that's juggernauts
of, you know, takes a year andthree people on staff just to manage
these things.
I think it's absurd.
This is, it doesn't need to belike that.
I agree, I agree.
So that, that's, that's thewhole scoop of the SWOT analysis
is, you know, figuring outwhat those action items need to be.

(01:00:10):
And then we take the actionitems and we start saying, okay,
well, what has to happen?
What is a task?
Because, you know, if you lookat an action item, implement a CRM.
Cool.
Like, okay, we can startthinking of a hundred different things
that need to get done in orderto make that happen.
Right.
So start listing out whatthose individual tasks are and who

(01:00:31):
it's going to be assigned toon the team, who's going to own that
task, what's the due date,it's due by, and how are we keeping.
This is project management, bythe way.
Right.
Like, how are we going tomanage this project until it's completed
and we can officially checkthat sucker off the list?
Nice.
I love this.
This is super powerful.

(01:00:51):
It's so interesting because atfirst glance it sounds so simple
and so common sense, but onceyou actually start doing gets so
crazy and chaotic.
That's why I love havingsomebody like you to help manage
the process along the way.
You're basically the projectmanager of the project managers,

(01:01:12):
in a way is maybe one way tolook at it.
Yeah, but man, so, so talk usthrough that.
So you've got, so you'reworking with somebody, you've done
the time study, you've got theSWOT analysis done, you've got these
lists, you've got the prioritization.
Then what's it look likehelping them.
And giving them some guidanceon what needs to happen and get done.

(01:01:33):
So, you know, oftentimes it'slike, hey, well, I'm not the guy
who's going to go implementthese things for you.
And occasionally I am.
Occasionally I'll hop in thedriver's seat and help them do some
of that stuff.
Stuff.
Because I have a good, goodenough understanding of what needs
to happen that sometimes it'slike, hey, you know, you're paying
me five grand a month on retainer.
Like, yeah, I'm going to giveyou some of my time to go help out
when I can.

(01:01:54):
So, you know, what does thatlook like?
How do we, how do we put thesesystems in place if it's something
that I'm not experienced with?
Okay, let me go ping mynetwork and go find the person who's
a pro and then I will help youinterview these people and then we
will decide on the right onewho's going to take this project
and see it through to thefinish line for us.
Specialist in.
Yeah, yeah.
Love it.

(01:02:15):
Oh, this is so good.
And I feel like we just gotstarted and we're running up against
time here, so we'll pause heresuper quick for everybody listening.
Have you gotten some valuefrom this today?
And if you have and you'verecognized some places in your organization
where this is, it's a.

(01:02:36):
Because I know a lot of youout there.
The second we start talkingabout this, you're like, oh, I've
got to do this immediately.
That's where, that's whereThomas comes in.
Yep.
So let everybody know how to alittle bit, actually unpack a little
bit of how you work withcompanies and how they can get a
hold of you, how they canreach out.

(01:02:56):
Yeah, sure.
I'm pretty flexible on theways that I help people.
And of course I've got somestructure and some programs in place
for it.
And I think anyone who doesn'tis just asking for trouble.
Yeah, no doubt.
I can imagine you have yourown systems.
Yep.
Imagine that.
Right?
Yeah.
So I've, I've got, I've gotgroup, group options where people
come in and we, we have aweekly call and we dive into what

(01:03:18):
systems look like and, andwhat needs to get implemented and
we do it in a group setting.
I do a lot of one on onecoaching where it's like, hey, we're
going to do a weekly call,hour long call via Zoom, just like
what we're doing here now andwe're diving into this.
If we got a screen share, ifwe've got to craft documents, if
we have to just haveconversation on a, a struggle or
a problem you're having.
Cool.
We're gonna have that conversation.

(01:03:38):
My higher ticket stuff is moreof my fractional COO stuff.
So I was like, cool, you hiredme, we're on retainer.
And yes, not only does thecoaching come along with it, but
I'm also going to hop intoyour stuff and push buttons and pull
levers with you.
I'm going to sit down and I'mgoing to, to run meetings with, with
your team and your executive team.
I'm going to help you make the decisions.
I'm going to point you in theright direction and that, that goes

(01:04:01):
into a whole other bunch of stuff.
Right?
My, my passion and myexpertise and my natural abilities
that I crafted as a car audioinstaller 20 something years ago
are directly correlated andaligned with operations.
I didn't know 20 years agothat I was studying installation.

(01:04:25):
Let me, let me reframe thatfor you.
Okay?
In the car audio 12 voltworld, we do something called integration.
And that's what you're doing.
In most of today's newer cars,you have to integrate aftermarket
electronics into a factoryelectrical system.
There are certain tools,certain components that you cannot

(01:04:45):
pull out of the car becausethey're part of the system.
I do the same thing from anoperations perspective now 20 something
years later, where it's like,hey, I'm going to help you guys implement
the correct solution into youralready existing company.
So a lot of the criticalthinking, a lot of the troubleshooting,
a lot of the overall thoughtprocess that I developed so many

(01:05:08):
years ago directly carriesover into this new line of work that
I do.
And it amazes me every day ofhow aligned they are are while being
two completely separate things.
Oh, no doubt.
That's.
It makes so much sense the wayyou just explained it as well.
Because you can't just come inand, you know, wipe the slate clean
and be like, okay, we'restarting over with a brand new business.

(01:05:28):
When somebody's been in placefor, you know, two, five, 20 years.
Yep.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
If that's the case, I juststart them all myself.
Yeah, let's just start, let'sstart some companies.
If it's easy, everybody woulddo it.
That's the truth.
I love it, man.
Quick side note, I definitelywant you to give everybody how to

(01:05:49):
get in touch with you.
I love where this conversationstarted and I saved it so we got
through a lot of the content.
You know, I resonate so muchwith the high end car audio because
my high school vehicle is a 67Chevelle Malibu and we took it down
to the first alarm place and they.

(01:06:10):
They drilled a hole through mymetal dashboard and lost my ever
loving mind.
The second I rolled up in themiddle of their install and saw them
doing this, I was like, do youhave any idea what you just did to
the value of this vehicle?
And so we immediately got itaway from them and took it down to
the high end place.
And you'll know what theseterms mean.

(01:06:30):
Anybody that's into car audio.
In 1996 I had the Alpine Dashwith a Phoenix gold sub.
Oh yeah.
Custom built for the.
That lived in the trunk andAlpine all around.
And it was like the coolest thing.
I had the baddest system inall of my high school.
Oh yeah.
Love it, man.
And so yeah, it was good times.

(01:06:50):
So totally resonate with you.
You know, we.
I spent.
I saved for all summer.
Yep.
Spent cash for this thing andyou know, counted out.
I remember the moment I wascounting out these, you know, $2,500
at the time.
You know, I think it's totallike $3200 in 1996 for this big money
save money on and was like, ohmy God.

(01:07:13):
So the six disc changer under the.
Oh yeah, I love it.
Nobody.
All these young bucks nowadaysdon't even know what that.
What's a CD changer?
What's a CD changer?
Or you'd have to get out andgo into the trunk to change it.
Yep.
Because you got tired oflistening to the same six CDs for
the last six months.
I got to get in the truckagain anyway know, man.

(01:07:34):
Well, how does everybody get ahold of you, man?
So you've got step up, stepit, step it up.
Academy.com.
that's the website.
That's the best place.
Go to the website.
You can also find me on.
On Connectwith Thomas.com.
there's no H in my name.
So it's actually my name isformally Tomas.
Oh nice.
That's the Puerto Rican sideof me coming out.

(01:07:56):
Yep.
So connectwith thomas.com.
that's just a landing pagethat links out to all my social media
accounts as well as a website.
Website as well.
But yeah, those, those are thetwo best places you can go there.
I'm easy to find on the Internet.
Search my name and.
And you know, I'll give you aquick story here, make you laugh.
I was so mad at my parents asa kid.
Like you gave me this boringname Tom.

(01:08:18):
Right.
And like you spelled it weird.
And now I go my whole life andnobody can spell my name properly
because there's no h.
In it.
And I didn't realize theblessing that they were giving me
in my later years of mycareer, especially as a marketer.
I don't have an H in my name.
So when you type in ThomasKeenan or Tomas Keenan, like, dude,

(01:08:40):
I'm, I'm right there.
Yeah, it's like, oh, thank youmom and dad.
So I was, you know, theungrateful kid my whole childhood
growing up like you gave methis dumb name and here I am.
Thank you.
Oh, that's beautiful.
And for everybody listening, Iwill have both of these.
So stepitupacademy.com andconnect with Tomas.

(01:09:01):
I will make sure to have thosein the show notes.
So if you're in drive timeuniversity like most of you are right
now, don't, don't try to, youknow, wreck your vehicle trying to
make a note of that.
Open the show notes when youget parked and be safe and connect
with, connect with Tomasbecause he definitely knows what
the hell he's doing when itcomes to building and scaling businesses.

(01:09:24):
Real quick, give us a coollike story or two from companies
when you've, you know, wherethey were before you worked with
them and then like a 12 monthout, 12, 24 month out type of, you
know, a couple cool success stories.
Yeah, I'm going to go back toNick and Jessica because that was
pretty fresh start.

(01:09:45):
So I've, I've known, this is acool story.
I've known Nick and again, heowns place called High Volume Car
Audio, High Volume Car Stereoin Lawton, Oklahoma.
Family business.
Been in business 30 years.
He's, he's owned it the last10 years after his uncle passed away
and he grew up in that shopworking for his uncle.

(01:10:06):
Sure.
2019, my book releases.
A couple weeks later I get a,I got a call from the president of
the mea, the MobileElectronics association, who's a
dear friend.
Now he calls me up and hegoes, hey.
And you got to keep in mindlike for two years I'm pounding on
this guy's door saying, hey, Iwant to go, I want to go teach at
your events.

(01:10:26):
I want to speak.
I want to speak.
And he gave me no time.
So my book goes live.
And there's lots of lessonsthere, folks.
If you have the inclination togo write a book, do it because it's
going to open more doors thanyou'll ever even possibly recognize
or realize.
So I write this book.
It goes out weekend later Iget a phone call from this dude,
come speak at my next event.
It's in.

(01:10:46):
I was Living in New York atthe time.
He goes, it's in Dallas at theOmni Hotel in, in.
In like the heart of Dallas.
Cool.
So fly down there, speak atthis event.
The day that I speak, I.
I go up to the hotel pool bar.
I'm hanging out.
Like this hotel is filled withpeople from this event.
It's a big old event.

(01:11:07):
There's like 4, 000 peoplethere and there's this dude in the
pool, it's Nick.
So I wind up having this likereal long heart to heart conversation
with him.
He just lost his mom.
Cool.
Not cool, but, you know, justdeveloped cells.
No like and trust.
Started developing the rapportthat builds upon the know like and

(01:11:28):
trust.
We need built a relationship first.
Right.
We need those three componentsto equal a sale.
So fast forward I'm now on thespeaking circuit for MEA Every year
I do three or four events for them.
So fast forward I like everyyear I'm speaking at these events
and he shows up to two orthree of them depending upon where
they are in the country.

(01:11:49):
This past September, we're inDallas again and he's sitting in
the front row.
He always sits in the frontrow of any of my sessions.
He's sitting in the front row.
His wife is there after the class.
He comes over and he's like,I'm finally ready.
Goes, I'm.
I'm done with the bs, I'm donewith the struggling.
I know where capable of moreand I'm finally in a position where

(01:12:12):
I don't think I'm going towaste your time.
Cool.
I respect that.
Yeah.
Great self awareness.
Bingo.
And like I've grown a lotsince I first met him and so is he,
so is his business.
So his relationship a wholenine yards.
Right.
This is just becoming a betterhuman each and every day.
So start working with him inSeptember this past year.

(01:12:33):
And he goes, the piece of thestory that I cut out is he goes,
I only want to work with youif your wife comes to and like cool.
Like my woman, she's, she's.
I met her, she edited my firstbook and she's a high performance
mindset and leadership coach.
Like she.
And she's also studiedpsychology to the nth degree.

(01:12:54):
She knows more about the humanpsyche than most people even forget.
So.
All right, cool.
We'll put together a deal andwe'll get this thing where we both
come up and do some work with you.
So put together a deal.
They agree to it, thetransaction goes smoothly and he
says, would you be willing tocome to my store.

(01:13:15):
Now, I typically only go onsite to a client if a, they're local,
like within a 20 or 30 minutedrive or they're paying me 10 grand
for an on site assessment.
Sure.
Okay.
So he paid me in full for asix month term.
So that was one of the reasonsI decided, yeah, I'm gonna go.

(01:13:37):
And second, it wasn't that farof a drive from us to get to Oklahoma
from where we are in Dallas.
I'll go there, almost throw arock and cross the line from where
you're at.
Yeah.
So we go up there, we spendthe day and I got a really good feel
about his facility.
He owns the building already,which is, he's in a great position.
He owns a lot behind his building.

(01:13:58):
He owns the home that he's infree and clear, by the way.
And he also has a rentalhouse, which is the first house he
bought.
So he's got a real estateportfolio that's dialed in already.
And he knows that he needs toexpand his shop because he has limited
bays where he can actually dothe work.
He bought the lot behind hisbuilding with the intentions to build

(01:14:19):
a brand new facility.
But after he did all thearchitectural drawings and all that
stuff, it was like an $850,000 investment.
Yeah, no doubt.
He's like, I love it.
He goes, but I'm just notthere yet.
I can't, I can't.
He's.
I'm not willing to take onthat amount of debt because it just
makes me too nervous.
Cool.
I get it.
Within an hour, we startrunning through the numbers and the

(01:14:41):
sales and the processes thathe has in place.
And we uncover this is 2025now because, I'm sorry, September
2024.
We uncover that he hasn'traised his labor rates since 2020.
In the middle of COVID it.
So Mike, Nick, you got toraise your labor rates, dude.

(01:15:03):
And like this, this is what Isuggest it is.
And, and the way that we do itin the, in the 12VT car stereo industry
is it's pretty simple.
What's your local car mechanic?
I'm sorry, what's your localcar dealer charging their hourly
rate?
And if you go to Hyundai, ifyou go to Honda, if you go to Toyota,
you'll see their hourly ratesare typically like 110 to $150 an
hour.

(01:15:24):
Hour.
Like, bro, you're, you'rebilling like 75, 85 bucks an hour
still.
Yeah.
So we did some, some researchand we basically figured out, hey,
you need to increase the rateI don't expect you to increase it
to what it should be rightaway, but let's at least get a 10
bump in effective immediately.
So that 10 and then put a.
Plan in place to increase itover to keep increasing.

(01:15:45):
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, that 10 bump turned intoan additional $55,000 in net revenue.
Nice.
So, okay, cool.
We're winning, we're there.
And you know, one of thereally plus, the good pluses of having
a female partner whounderstands business is they take
a different look at especiallya male driven industry and facility

(01:16:08):
shop.
They look at it and like, theymay be like, oh, well, that's kind
of gross.
I don't want to go in there.
And not necessarily in a badway, but this is the input, this
is the information that myclient needs.
So we pull him.
And like, you guys know, youprobably know this too.
Like, even our noses in ourown home, we, we kind of get immuted

(01:16:28):
to the smells of our own home.
Good or bad, because we're init so frequently.
Yeah.
There's a whole study ofaround being nose blind to stuff.
Yeah, correct.
So wear this fresh set ofeyeballs that he just paid a massive
amount of money to to come inand give him real feedback and not
hold punches.

(01:16:48):
And his place is, it's primo.
It's set up really nice.
It looks good.
But there's a couple of thingsthat can just be better my.
The way that I feel it andCatherine too.
It's our duty and obligationto tell our clients not what they
want to hear, but what theyhave to hear.
So cool.
You need to make a couple ofchanges here from the female perspective.

(01:17:11):
These areas of the shop needyour attention first.
And then we go outside andwe're looking at the front like,
hey, man, you got to put somenew, new pavement down here.
Some of your signs in thewindow can get cleaned up a little
bit.
It'll be really cool if you painted.
And we're looking for a bettercurb appeal to this retail location.
Sure.
And he's like, yeah, man, cool.

(01:17:32):
I'm all for it.
We take a step back, closer tothe street, and off to the side,
we see this dingy dive bar.
And I gotta credit Catherine today.
She goes, what is that?
And can you buy it?
It's almost like putting thewords into the universe and, and

(01:17:52):
basically surrendering andletting the rest fall into place.
So we walk out of there that day.
Nick's got a list.
Nick and Jessica have a listof stuff they need to do.
Fix this, fix that, repair this.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Within three or four weeks,they're sending us photographs.
They got the construction crewon site.
Like they did everything nice, right?
They got mil.
There's a military base rightup the road.
They started implementingspecial military discounts.

(01:18:14):
So now, like, people arecoming in their store more frequently
because they have this bettercurb appeal.
So right around December,January, Nick says, hey, I got to
get on a call with you guys.
Outside of our normal scope of calls.
Again, man, of course, like,you're probably the same way.
If my client sends up the batsignal, says, I need a call, I don't

(01:18:37):
give a shit what's going on.
I will move things and make it happen.
Oh, no doubt.
Yeah, we would do that all the time.
Correct, Correct.
So again, I was called him andhe goes, hey, you never believe what
just happened because the oldKorean lady who owned the bar next
door just came and knocked onmy door and in her broken English,
asked if I was willing to buyher building.

(01:18:57):
Love it.
I get the out of here.
He's like, no, seriously.
He goes, she wants $80,000 forthe building.
Whoa, that's all?
What, like that's it?
He's like, yeah.
He was like, I think I shoulddo it, but I want to talk to some
people who I trust and respectand get a third party opinion also.
Great idea.

(01:19:18):
So we had this conversation.
Long story short, he winds upputting the deal together.
He's a very well respected,honorable businessman in his area.
He called his bank up andwithout even submitting paperwork,
applications, none of it.
His banker's like, like, yep,we got you funded.
Don't worry about it.
Nice.
So that, that's lessons rightthere in relationship building, even

(01:19:40):
with your financial institutions.
Absolutely.
So anyway, dude, this dudewinds up increasing his business.
More net sales.
We.
We give him some fresh curb appeal.
Right now we build back endsystems and marketing and follow
up systems.
His problem is his damn phoneis ringing off the hook and he doesn't
have enough installationtechnicians to perform.

(01:20:01):
Right back to the fulfillmentproblem we started talking about
initially.
Yeah.
So now we're in this phase of.
All right, well, what doeshiring look like and what needs to
happen to bring the rightpeople onto the team?
They're just about done withthe construction at the building
next door, which.
It's gorgeous.
He's sending me photographs,like on a weekly basis of the.
The progress, but full blown.

(01:20:23):
They do a lot of custom fabrication.
So they move the customfabrication shop over to the new
building.
So it's separated from the.
From the day to Day, which asyou can imagine, cuts down all the
dust and debris going everywhere.
Oh my gosh.
That and the odors fromfiberglass and all that type of thing.
Yeah.
And that's completely sealedoff from the bay next to it, which
is where they're doing the,the window tint, the ppf, which is

(01:20:46):
paint protection, the clearpaint protection, if people are wondering,
and vehicle truck accessories.
So eventually they're going toget into lift kits and tires and
that kind of stuff when theyget some more room for the shop.
But now they're doing bolt on,you know, brush guards, running boards,
anything that you couldbasically have as a bolt on accessory
to a truck to make it, youknow, personalized.

(01:21:06):
They're doing all that stuff.
So this is one of the, thebest success stories I've had in
the last couple years.
And they're just a group ofpeople that we thoroughly enjoy working
with.
And like, dude, we mentionedit before, but now we're at a point
where this is developed intonot just a professional relationship,
but it's a friendship, youknow, and we get to spend time with

(01:21:28):
them outside of the business sense.
They come down here and spendtime with us at our house.
We go up there and, you know,hang out with them at their house
and you know, do cookouts inthe backyard.
So it's not just business allthe time, it's life and business
and it's who do I want tospend time with in both areas and
can I combine the two?
Because now it's even more powerful.
I love this so much.
You, you and I operate very,very, very similar.

(01:21:50):
There's so many people acrossthe country now that, that, you know,
it just at random, we'll texteach other, call each other, be like,
oh my gosh, how's it going, man?
What are you up to now?
I mean, I haven't been outthere in two years even or anything.
It's like, I don't care.
They don't either.
We're just like, man, you'regoing to this convention, let's run
into each other, let's dodinner, those types of things.
I love this so much.
So one, one thing I'm hearingfor anybody, if anywhere close to

(01:22:14):
Lawton, Oklahoma, if you needwork done on your vehicle, everything
from sounds like truckaccessories to the coat coat, the
clear coats and things on yourpaint, to clearly audio, go to window
tinting.
Go, go check him out.
What's the name of the shop again?
High Volume Car Stereo.
High Volume car Stereo.
I like it.

(01:22:35):
So there's a Little plug for,for him as well.
But sounds like they're doingthe things the right way.
Because the last thing I wantto do ever, ever is take my car to
somebody who's going to drillthrough my dashboard, my 67 Chevelle
again.
And so, and so the, the biggerlesson here, everybody is, you know,
I know a lot of this was, youknow, car, automotive and, and the

(01:22:58):
autos.
But you're all smart people,think of these concepts and, and
just go through your own business.
How can these ideas apply?
Because the exact same thing,it doesn't matter.
The widget business isbusiness and the, and the process
is the process and the flow isthe flow.
So apply this to your ownbusiness and go through this work

(01:23:23):
because this is the highestvalue work that you can possibly
do in your own organization.
I'm living it in the moment.
This is what I've been workingon for the last six months.
And it's not a short or easyprocess, but it's worth it.
So I love it, man.
Well, thanks for being on theshow today.
Yeah, this is a great dude.
Or reach out.

(01:23:44):
Hop on.
Pre order that book.
He's gonna, by the time thisgoes up.
Tomas said that he was gonnahave a, a way for people to sign
up.
I'm gonna hold you to this nowwith some accountability.
You have a way for you to jumpon and Pre order the G3 method, which
I am excited about.
I cannot wait to get my handson a copy of that as well.

(01:24:05):
So we'll maybe need to doanother, another episode once that
comes out and I've had achance to go through it and then
I'll have informed questionsfor you based on the book.
Sounds good, man.
But yeah, stepitupacademy.com,connectwithtomas.com that's connectwithtomas.com
and remember, everybody, don'tcall him asshole.

(01:24:29):
Man, this has been a good conversation.
I cannot wait to see.
Dude, I have a thousand ideasof, of potential things we could
possibly even do together.
I have to get you on stage atthe next event I have because this
is, this is incredible stuffand I love the way that you lay it
down for everybody.
Yeah.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, let me know.
I'm always willing to come upand help others and I like doing

(01:24:52):
it at events because.
And you know this because youhost events.
It just brings in anotherlayer and it allows a deeper connection
to other humans in that faceto face interaction with them.
Yep, no doubt, no doubt.
And the energy is different.
It is when you're in that container.
You we, it gives us permissionto actually deep dive and do the

(01:25:13):
internal work and, and laythis stuff out in those workshop
style sessions that we don'talways make the time for.
Otherwise.
Yeah.
So I love events for that.
Well, any parting words, anylast nuggets anyone drop on anybody
or what's the one thing theycan do immediately to get started
into this process if they need to.
If, if that's something that,which I'm sure everybody needs to

(01:25:35):
do this.
Yeah.
Stop overthinking and, and dowhat your gut tells you to do.
Even if other people aroundyou tell it it's the wrong thing
to do.
I like it.
That's good wisdom right there.
Trust the intuition.
Love it.
Well, thanks again, man.
And you know, it's beautiful.
This builds into the theentire philosophy of Close is work

(01:26:00):
to become someone worth buying from.
And that's also by extension,work to create a business that's
worth buying from.
So you heard it here first.
Everybody out there, go besomebody worth buying from.
We'll see you next time.
You've been listening to theClose it now podcast.
Our passion is to dive headfirst into the transformative movement

(01:26:22):
that's reshaping the veryfoundation of hvac and home improvement
and at the same time, coveringfitness, nutrition, relationships
and personal growth, provingthat we can indeed have it all.
We hope you've enjoyed the show.
If you did, make sure to like,rate and review.
We'll be back soon, but in themeantime, find the website@closeitnow.net

(01:26:47):
find us on Instagram @therealcloseitnow and on Facebook closeitnow.
See you next time.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Leadership, Legacy & Letting Go: Tomas Keenan on Scaling with Integrity