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

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Are you struggling to scale your business while
keeping your sanity intact?
Do you wonder how the mostsuccessful entrepreneurs manage
their time, grow their teams andstay grounded?
In today's episode, we willexplore the critical systems
that business owners need toscale their businesses

(00:21):
efficiently, along with thepowerful role of
self-improvement in long-termsuccess.
So how do you know if you setthe right benchmarks for growth?
How can you reclaim your timewithout sacrificing results and,
most importantly, what are thepersonal habits that you can

(00:43):
have that will help you lead toa more fulfilling life while
running a profitable andsuccessful roofing business?
So tune in here to hearactionable strategies to elevate
your life and your business.
You'll learn today from realworld examples of success and
challenges faced along the way.

(01:04):
Today, I'm excited to bring backTommy Mello, the founder of A1
Garage Door Service and theauthor of the Home Service
Millionaire and Elevate.
Tommy's insights on leadership,personal growth and building
systems are invaluable, so let'sdive in.
Welcome to the Roofing SuccessPodcast.

(01:25):
I'm Jim Alleyne and I'm here tobring you insights from top
leaders in the roofing industryto help you grow and scale your
roofing business.
Hey, back again is Tommy Mello.
How are you, brother?

Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'm great Just getting over a cold, but, like I
said earlier, I'm workingthrough it.
I tend to show up unless I feellike I'm going to get everybody
sick.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's crazy, man, you can't avoid it, right?
No matter what you do, there'salways the bumps in the road,
from a health perspective, fromevery perspective.
Right, you never.
Every day isn't perfect.
Never, you know, every dayisn't perfect.
I was, I had another guy on thepodcast recently and he was
saying you know, if I don't havea problem in my business today,

(02:11):
it's an anomaly, right, like ifsomething's not wrong.
That's the anomaly where a lotof times, we look for you know,
we look for those.
We want the anomaly to be everyday, right, we're, we're, we're
, we're, we're, we're.

(02:31):
But it's solving problems iswhat we do as business owners,
right, and?
And so just a little, give that.
If for people who haven't heardabout you, or heard you or seen
you around, or haven't listenedto the other episode that we
did, if I, if you, haven't, goback and listen to that one it
was a great episode, a littlebit about yourself and A back
and listen to that one.
It was a great episode, alittle bit about yourself and A1
and where you are today.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yeah, well, my name is Tommy Mello.
I wrote a book called the HomeService Millionaire.
I thought it was a great titlehow I was in debt and ended up
turning it around.
And then I wrote a book ElevateBuild a Business when Everybody
Wins.
I've got a podcast as well,called the Home Service Expert,

(03:16):
which I'm very proud to say it'stop 10 in business in North
America.
That podcast has been like apersonal consultant for me,
because if I need to learn aboutHR or LSA or PPC or onboarding
or manuals or whatever it is, Ijust find the number one person
in the world and I get to askquestions.
So it's, like, selfishly, beenamazing for me.
I've been doing that since 2017, when podcasts weren't really a
thing.
And you know A1, garage DoorService.

(03:37):
I didn't know what it was goingto be.
I knew it was going to besuccessful.
But you know Garage Doors itjust came out 193.9% return on
investment.
It's we've trademarked.
It's a smile of your home.
Uh, 17 years going on 18.
Uh, I'm an overnight success oftwo decades.
And uh, if there's anythingsomeone could tell you about me,

(04:00):
it's that I've made everymistake in the book.
I've lost money, I've hadfamily.
I fired best friends.
I've had girls broke upcountless amount of times.
I've had four trucks flip over.
Six technicians have died noton the job, thank God, but I was
close to them.
I've had the cops show up for acountless amount of reasons.

(04:23):
You know if it could go wrong,it did go wrong, but I'm glad
those things happen because itshaped who I am today and I
won't make the same mistaketwice.
I think that's the one thing Isee.
I implement quickly, I fallforward and I just don't do it
again, and I think a lot ofpeople they don't.
My favorite three letters inthe English dictionary are A-S-K

(04:45):
in that order Just ask.
And so I've become very humble.
A1, we took on a private equitypartner at the right time, at
the end of 2022.
We got to $27.5 million ofEBITDA, got a record-breaking
multiple.
25 millionaires came out ofthat deal.

(05:05):
I had an equity incentiveprogram.
Some of them walked with wellover 10 million.
The team is still pretty intact.
A couple of people decided theyhad enough money and they
wanted to fade off into thesunset and we're still best of
friends.
My best mentor ever was Al Levy.
The seven power contractortaught me that I was the best
firefighter that he's ever met.

(05:27):
And when we build systems,processes, checklists, that it
does get kind of boring becausenot a lot of things go wrong and
that's when I would go throughmy growth spurts and then a new
challenge would come up and newproblems.
But you know, no regrets.
I'm not married.
I don't have kids, because if Iwas married and had kids
there's no way I could haveworked the hours.
It wouldn't have been fair tomy family.

(05:49):
You're shortly probably goingto be engaged and I do want kids
.
I'm just going to be an old assdad.
Luckily Bree is 25 years old.
But yeah, you know I'veinvested in a lot of things.
I'm a technology company nowthat does garage doors.
I'm a man of my word.
I do shop tours.
I help out a lot of companiesbecause they helped me out.
You know, in the past peoplewould open their doors.

(06:10):
So now I open my doors and youknow my purpose.
Now people are like, why do youshow up to work?
You've done so well.
The interest alone is a millionbucks a month and I'm like I
love what I do.
I mean, throw me on a beach fortwo weeks.
I go insane Like I like tobuild.
I'm an entrepreneur but Irealized I need integrators.

(06:32):
I need smart people around me.
I hire people way smarter thanme, which is a rarity Like I
want to be the dumbest guy inthe room and people say that,
but I actually am.
I do it and I hire people thatcan take my job.
And now I'm an employee.
And what happens?
When the team keeps losing, thecoach gets fired.
So I got a little bit more tolose here, because this is my
baby.
I'm the founder, but I reallydo.

(06:55):
I look at every day.
My buddy, john Rulon, justpassed away, 47 years old, had
four kids under the age of 15,all girls.
Most healthy guy, stayed inWhenever he came to town, wrote
the book giftology.
I'm not.
I'm very healthy, but every dayis a gift and I don't know when
the time is going to come.
I don't know when my mom ordad's time is going to come.

(07:16):
I got a sister and niece, twonephews, a beautiful, amazing
woman in my life and all I cantell you is I'm very thankful
I've got baptized.
I'm pretty, I'm working on myrelationship with Jesus.
I was always grown up withJesus in my life, but it's been

(07:36):
seasons of life and I really amtrying to be.
I don't think well-rounded is agood 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 theysee me on my Instagram or
Facebook, they're like dude.

(07:56):
Is that guy like that all thetime?
I'm not.
I'm actually an introvert athome.
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'sa little bit about me.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
No, that's awesome, man.
That's from the introvertperspective.
That's I like to say.
I'm an introvert who plays anextrovert on TV.
That's what I'm doing.
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, Ithink you do too, and I've seen
it in you from the way that youshare and writing your books and

(08:34):
doing your conferences and allof these things, speaking at
events, it's that there's.
There's a specific energy thatcomes from that sharing right,
specific energy that comes fromthat sharing right.
It really is not an ego-basedenergy, but there's a
fulfillment that comes fromother people, seeing other
people and helping other peoplesucceed, whether that's the team

(08:56):
members in your business, whichyou've created a great
opportunity for them.
But also in the people thatyou're coaching and consulting a
great opportunity for them.
But also in the people thatyou're coaching and consulting.
So let's start.
Let's start like, let's startwith like.
If you know, done it for a longtime, done it at higher levels
than most people will would everthink to even get to, just to,

(09:18):
you know it's, it's you have,you, you've climbed mountains
that people are like wow, thatmaybe, like I don't know if I
could get up that one and Idon't.
From our other conversations Iknow it wasn't that like, oh,
that's where I'm going the wholetime, like you didn't know that
this was, would you know fromthe day one.
But let's say, if you were to,you know, consult someone that

(09:39):
was just starting out what wouldyour first kind of advice be to
them?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
starting out, what would your first kind of advice
be to them?
Yeah, so the day I walk into acompany, I really am a big fan
of understanding your numbersand 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 theirbooking rate, their conversion
rate, their average ticket andtheir cost per lead.
And those are my four KPIs thatare going to fix any company in
the world.
There always seems to be thisgray area of like oh, that was

(10:10):
out of our service area and oh,that one that was a manufactured
defect, and that one doesn'tcount because we don't work that
day.
And it's like why should wepenalize the call center when
we're not open Sundays?
Whatever it might be, if we'regetting out of service area
bookings, I need those to countagainst them.
So I could actually it sticksout and I say why am I

(10:32):
advertising in this area withpay-per-click when we don't
service the area?
They're not going to get introuble, but I got to fix it.
And then I can give it back tothem and say, because everyone's
got a scorecard in my company,my scorecard happens to be the
EBITDA each month.
So I think, knowing yournumbers, and then I find all
these things that people aren'tgood at.

(10:54):
I'm a marketing guy Likeliterally the VP of marketing
reports directly to me, not theCOO, and so I'm obsessed with
marketing, sales and culture.
So those are the things.
I understand the financials Igot my eye on the financials.
I understand the financials,but I've got three FP&A,
financial planning and analysisspecialists to really give me

(11:15):
the reports.
We use Power BI to actuallyassimilate all these things.
The next thing I would say isthat I'm going to look at the
owner's time.
I'm going to look at theowner's time.
I'm going to look at themanager'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 anold-fashioned schedule.
Just write down what you gotdone each day.
Write down.
I want to look at your calendar.

(11:35):
I want to understand when youlook at email.
I want to understand how manymeetings you're in.
Do you have an executiveassistant?
What is their role?
How much time are we actuallydoing working on the business
versus in the business?
And then I'm going to look attheir tech stack.
This is where I get the superability to grow businesses,
because there's so many toolsthat I use that are the unfair

(11:59):
advantage, and they take A-Btesting.
They take getting set up rightAPI, webhooks, different things
but when they're mastered I'mgoing to make more money.
And then I look at the brandand 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 yourbrand has side lettering with a

(12:23):
Yelp sticker and an A plus BBBon there.
No one knows what you do.
You picked a horrible nameRobinson Mechanical.
What does that even mean?
And so there's a lot to it.
But when I go through and it isa big investment, like if I
came in, I'd say we're going touse kick charge, we're going to
rebrand.
I'd say we're going to buy newtrucks.

(12:43):
We're going to depreciate them,we're going to turn them in
when the warranty is gone aftereither 100,000 miles or five
years.
We're going to own them afterthat, at least to own.
I'd say we're going to put theright systems in place.
We're going to put manual,standard operative procedures
all of what Al Levy taught me.
We're going to get thistechnology enabled.
And then we're going to look atyour org chart.
We're going to see what you'remissing.
We're going to see who we'regoing to need to top grade.

(13:06):
How great is your onboarding andtraining?
And is training a thing you door is it a thing you are?
Because for us, we eat, breatheand everything's about training
, powerful meetings andencouragement.
We praise in public and then wehave powerful one-on-ones where
we're going to have them chasetheir dreams.
You wanted to buy a house.
We need to increase.
This is for you.
We're going to have them chasetheir dreams.
You wanted to buy a house.
We need to increase.
This is for you.
We're going to get you to yourgoals faster rather than putting

(13:28):
on a performance improvementplan.
So it's a convoluted question,but we go through and we check
off the boxes.
Good reporting you can makedecisions.
You're actually able to makedecisions based on this
reporting.
There's always a big hole in theboat.
I got to find the biggest holesfirst.
Patch those holes.
And people are like well, I'mnot making enough money to
invest in kick charge.

(13:49):
Well, let's patch the boatfirst.
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'redoing great.
We need to convert it at a highlevel and then we need that
opportunity job average.
And we do this by givingoptions instead of giving
ultimatums, because when I giveyou a price and say, look, you
can either say yes or no.

(14:09):
Okay, leave us an estimate.
But if I give you five options,say, look, let's just do a
different option that works foryou, and your conversion rate
goes through the roof.
The book I got to tell youabout is what Should we Do by
Joe Crisara.
It's one of the best books I'veever read on sales and and he's
a he's been a coach of ours fora long time.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
That's a lot.
There is a lot there, but that'sthe, that's the, that's the
framework, right Once you, it's.
It's amazing, as you have, asyou have, the more success you
find in business, the easier itis to see the road that that
needs to be laid Right, like.
It's like when you're, whenyou're, when you're dry, when

(14:52):
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 aright there, and you know, it
makes it.
It's so much clearer.
I want to start with the numbersa little bit.
I get this from contractorsoften where they're like well,

(15:15):
what should my be Right?
So what should my conversionrate be on a Facebook lead?
What should my, what should mysales reps closing rates be?
And what I tell them is, ifyou've never done this before,
you're going to have to make aguesstimate right, and you could
give me your opinion on this.

(15:36):
This is what I tell you know,you're going to have to kind of
hey, this is kind of.
This is what the industrystandard is.
Maybe.
Talk to some people in theindustry.
Talk to, you know, listen tosome podcasts, read some books,
do some things.
What is this?
You know, but then from thereyou need to determine.
You can then determine whatyours is after you have data

(16:00):
right, and then determine what,what levers you need to pull, to
improve or do better with.
I guess, what are your thoughtson numbers and how do you get
started with the numbers?
I know you mentioned well, Ithink it was four key metrics,
right?
So starting with those, was itfour key metrics?
Four key metrics?
You're starting with these fourkey metrics and how do you know

(16:25):
?
This is my starting point.
These are the benchmarks thatmy team should hit with these
numbers.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Springham's really good, we've gotten away from him
.
Then we always go back to himbecause we always like we think
we got it figured out and thecall 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.

(16:55):
We're with ServiceTite and allthe guys at Housecall, pro and
Jobber and some of these,servicefusion and Sarah.
All I do is call the owners,call the founders or call the
managers.
It's called someone high upthere 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 onecompany and see if they'd be

(17:16):
willing to talk to us?
We're not going to be in theirmarket.
They're on the opposite side ofthe United States.
We'll help them out.
We'll buy them dinner, we'llbuy them lunch, we'll buy their
whole company, what's in it forthem, type thing, and I'll get
the data and I'll talk to allthe financial bankers I know
that have done deals and saythis is the sweet spot, this is
what the financial should looklike.
They got the most like.

(17:37):
I'm not going to go out andreinvent the wheel, but I'm
going to have checks andbalances, so so I've got kind of
the schematic to go off of andthen I'm going to say, are we
fighting for every call?
And if I'm looking at it andI'm like, wait a minute, why do
we keep getting these losercustomers?
Well, I go back to themarketing.
We're marketing cheapest, bestprices guaranteed.

(17:58):
You know, I want to fight fortwo things quality and
timeliness.
And I'm not going to fight forbest prices, but I'm going to
have a price option thatcompetes with everybody that I
quote over the phone.
And then I'm going to look atconversion rate and there's a
difference between demandservices and non-demand, like
home improvement versus homeservice.
You call with a leaky pipe.

(18:19):
I better be closing those.
I'm knocking on the door.
They got a massive problem.
I've got the solution.
What is it going to take to earnyour business Versus home
improvements?
Like, yeah, we'd like to readyou got a leaky roof versus look
, this roof is just notsomething we like right now, and
I think roofing can be bothhome improvement and home

(18:41):
service because of the repairside.
But I don't think there's a onesizesize-fits-all except your
booking rate.
If you're doing the rightmarketing and you understand who
your avatar is.
You should be able to get northof 85% Conversion rate.
You know, I think in roofingthey say 40%.
I wouldn't be happy with that,because the best roofers they

(19:05):
follow up until they're blue inthe face and they spend an hour
and a half with a presentation.
They your biggest thing inroofing is start the job.
I got you locked into using me.
Then I'm going to give youoptions along the way.
Did you want to just do this?
Uh, we got to recoat the woodon the roof.
I've got three options.
Did you want I don't know muchabout roofing Did you want the

(19:26):
10, 20 or 30 year shingle?
What if I told you this isgoing to add value when you sell
the home?
What if I told you it's goingto lower your electricity bill?
What if I told you some of thisfalls into the Inflation
Reduction Act and I'm going toget you a massive rebate from
the government.
All these things, but, but Iwant to lock down the work and
then I want to give options.
Like a mechanic, I'm going to doyour oil change.
If I see something that looksoff, do you want me to let you

(19:47):
know?
This is your serpentine belt.
This is a good one.
This thing's falling apart.
This is what's going to happenif this thing falls apart while
you're driving All your headsare going to be cracked and all
this stuff.
So I don't think it'smisleading, because until I take
something apart, it's hard toknow.
Like a mechanic, I could giveyou a pretty good idea.
Let's go ahead and get started.

(20:10):
And, by the way, why don't wejust use my money?
You know, do you want to use mymoney or your money today?
Because we've got a greatpromotion going.
You don't have to pay for twoyears, and it's a great
promotion.
And with inflation, the way itis, gas prices are up Ukraine,
and it's a great promotion.
With inflation, the way it isGas prices are up Ukraine is
real.
There's just like let's justuse our money, pay it off
whenever you want, and so allthese things help with

(20:30):
conversion rate and then costper lead.
Most people on their GMB do noteven have their hours 24-7 in an
after hours call center.
They're not getting reviewswith pictures in them.
They're not using a company abuddy of mine, pin Parrot.
Pin Parrot alone has made allof my Google my Business.

(20:51):
I gave him six GMBs to try out.
A year ago we ranked number onewithin two months Everybody.
I've told the pinparrotcom whatit does.
It's a software and it actuallypulls out a service type and
tells Google we were there andit attaches to that GVP or
Google my Business profile andall of a sudden we start to rank
further and further.
So we went from five calls to15 calls on the Google my

(21:13):
Business pages, lsa are weoptimizing it?
Ppc are we doing negativekeywords?
And all this stuff seems likeit's crazy, but I've been doing
this for 20 years so I've beenpretty tuned into what's going
on.
I mean, reddit is something newfor lead gen that no one's
really talking about.
Next door how do you dominateYelp?
I worked out a deal with thischief revenue officer at Angie's

(21:34):
List.
Facebook leads are good, butit's a different customer
journey so you've got to masterit.
But they all work.
The best leads are.
My shit's broken.
Can you come out right now andyou got to be available to get a
guy out there right then andthere.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
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 thisa short term marketing play?
Is it a long term marketingplay?
What am I doing?
Is this a brand play?
That you know, maybe I'm notgoing to see the results of that
, you know, in the next coupleof weeks, but if I change, if I

(22:11):
make some adjustments to myGoogle ads account, I might be
able to see some, some of thatfruit come quicker, right?
So you have, I look at thatlike short-term, mid-term and
long-term marketing.
I think that a lot of people goin.
You know term, midterm and longterm marketing.
I think that a lot of people goin.
You know direct mail.
I know you guys do a lot ofdirect mail.
I get your stuff at my house,you know, like it's like you're

(22:36):
not going to go into that, going, oh, I'm going to start direct
mail and if I don't, if I sendsome direct mail and nothing
happens on the first send, I'mdone with this.
Right, like, yeah, I thinkthere has to be that
understanding of of what you're,what marketing channel you're
in also right, like in that, andthat understanding a lot of
times, unfortunately, comes fromexperience.
Right like you know how many Iwould want.

(22:58):
I would assume that you burneda couple of bucks on AdWords
over the years.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
AdWords, by the way, is probably the worst ROI ROAS.
Like, look at the end of theday, I look at pay-per-click as
the best teeter-totter.
I can lower it or higher it.
I can have that be my capacityplanning.
If Valpak and Clipper arehitting and I got a bunch of
postcards hitting, or there's alot of different things we do,
or we got a great special goingon, whatever it might be, I can

(23:25):
lower PPC.
A lot of people just they spendit to spend it and they're like
one of the things we've noticedmany years ago is if our
schedules are booked out, twodays in a market don't have PPC
on.
I mean, you're looking atspending 26% of marketing.
If you get to be in the 15thpercentile it's because you got

(23:45):
a big average ticket.
I run 20,000 to 22,000 jobs amonth and PPC everybody goes to
PPC.
They go.
It's immediate gratificationbecause 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 oneand somebody searches Pepsi.
Coca-cola might bid $10 to beabove Pepsi but Pepsi is only

(24:10):
paying two cents because theirquality score is so much higher
for that keyword and peopledon't understand.
UTM parameters.
They don't understand call railto make sure different numbers
coming up for the search query.
They don't understand long tail.
They don't understand rankingorganically with backlinks and
load speed and H1 tags andmetadata and schema data and how

(24:32):
that does to affect their localrankings and reviews, like I
said, with pictures.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
And then these things matter and I get this all the
time, tommy.
I get this one all the time.
On the tracking Call trackingis like the foundation of it,
right, like that's the.
If you're not tracking yourcalls, that how many I get
pushed?
I've had pushback and hadconversations with lots of
contractors over the years.
Yeah, but that's not my numberand I got my number.

(25:00):
This is my number.
It's a special number number.
What do you think of that?
How many call tracking numbersdo you think you guys have
across?
You know all of your locations6 000 tracking numbers.
How many times are like?
Are people like oh my goodness,I can't believe you have a
different number than the onethat's in the you know phone
book or whatever.
You know what I mean.
Like yeah, no, no, we don't getthat ever.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
And the deal is is like don't have too much pride
in your company.
You would think A1 Garage Roomsis 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 tellmyself.
But if you go to them you'relike yeah, I think I've heard of
a authentic one, a yeah, likelook, don't give.

(25:45):
I love to say, man, everysingle kid, grandma, everybody
knows who we are.
It's like you're, no one reallycares.
Ok, read the book by Janie Smith, the Competitive Advantage, and
you might think you're great.
I got a thousand five starreviews.
We're open nights and weekends,we do background checks, we
drive new trucks, the bestequipment All that stuff is

(26:07):
irrelevant.
I could say the same things.
You know what I could say thatno one else has.
Out of the last 2,200 jobs,2,197 started on time.
The other three were rectifiedwithin 72 hours.
I could say out of this, Icould say historical things that
no one else could claim.
Janie Smith talks about thisand she's got another book
called Relevant Selling.
Those will blow your mind.

(26:30):
Readers are leaders.
I read a lot of books.
I podcast a lot.
I go get the answers I need.
Right now we're working ongreenfield growth, which is
organic growth to new markets.
I'm calling a special meetingwith all my buddies who dominate
this and I'm going to take thebest of all worlds, even though
I think I got a pretty good idea.
I've done a lot ofgreenfielding, but now it's time

(26:51):
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 myfour walls and figure
everything out.
I'm going to go ask for help.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
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 goingand it and we don't take the
time to, to plan, to plan themission.
Right, you know like and andand and and, taking that time,
you know what, what's the?
The old, sharpen your ax beforeyou cut the tree, right, like,

(27:29):
take, spend an hour sharpeningyour axe, then you know.
I want to talk to move on totime, 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 quicklyin the day.
I just heard Dan Martell on a Ithink it was on a podcast.

(27:50):
He was talking about that quote, the old quote if you want
something done right, do ityourself.
And I think that, as homeservice and contractors, that's
kind of ingrained in us RightLike, that's like if you want
something done right, go do ityourself.
But that's the exact oppositeof what you need to be doing as

(28:10):
a business owner.
And so let's talk about time.
How should a contractor, abusiness owner, be thinking
about their time?

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Well, first and foremost little side note Dan
Martell is a coach.
I pay him $300,000 a year forone hour a month.
So you do the math.
I'm paying him $300,000 a yearfor one hour a month.
So you do the math, I'm payinghim 25 grand an hour.
So I spent a lot of money to govisit him in Kelowna and would
I spend it again, absolutely.
Is there other coaches I spenta fortune with, absolutely.

(28:42):
Michael Jordan had four coacheson top of Phil Jackson.
The best people in the world getcoaching.
They're part of groups, they goto groups, they belong to
something, they get the answersthey need and there's no right
perfect coach, for everyindividual has a certain
prescription.
But there's 168 hours in a week.
If I spend 50 working 50sleeping, 10 working out 10's a

(29:07):
lot to work out I've still got60 hours left.
If I want to work on myself for10 hours, I still have a lot of
time.
If I want to take my wife ontwo dates a week, have Sundays
with the kids, there's no excuse, you don't have the time.
The problem is you getdistracted too easily.
You don't manage your calendar.

(29:29):
I just counted.
That's why I was looking away.
I've got 22 things on mycalendar today, including call
mom.
That's how detailed I am.
I've got two executiveassistants.
Most people can't have onebecause they don't trust anybody
to do it.
And did we fail a bunch?
Hell yeah, we did.
There was a lot of mistakesuntil we built SOPs around it
checklists.
I don't pack my own bags, Idon't drive anymore, I don't

(29:52):
make my own food and this is notto be cocky.
It's because when I started towork with Dan Martell, he's like
let's reverse engineer how muchyou 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 thelawn, listen to Audible, get
away for a little bit.
They like the fresh smell offresh cut grass.
That's cool.
Keep doing that.

(30:12):
You know Bree likes me to fixsome stuff around the house.
She's impressed.
She takes out her camera Great,I still do a little bit.
But ultimately to say I don'thave time.
It's because so much of yourtime is wasted.
You time is wasted.
You don't have time to work out.
Let me ask you something youthink a six-pack's made in the
gym or do you think it's made inthe kitchen.
So you're drinking yourcalories, your 12-pack of beer.

(30:35):
You're literally like you don'thave any self-discipline, you
don't cherish yourself enoughand you'd say it's easy for you
to say you think it's easy.
When people look at successfulpeople they say, oh yeah, well,
it's easy for you to say I couldgo again.
You only heard a little bit ofhow much shit I went through and
not a lot of people could takethe pain.
Because if you think businessis a, you know I want to get rid

(30:58):
of my nine to five to have morefreedom.
You're going to put 10 years ofsweat equity and especially,
people start a business with nomoney.
The first two years you can'tget 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 thegovernment.
You never built business creditwith the Duns and Bradstreet.
There's so many things and youknow my super sport is business.
I mean Tiger Woods is golf andwhat I would say is with time

(31:22):
management, powerful meetings,an agenda each day I go home.
Do you think I want?
I've got a briefing I do withone of my EAs for a half an hour
each night.
You think I want to go home anddo 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'thave a family, blah, blah, blah.

(31:44):
Yeah, that's one of thesacrifices I made.
I don't like like.
Success is never easy.
Everybody wants the views, butnobody wants to take the hike.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Those are facts that's what people don't
understand.
Right, and and it's being beingself-aware is a big thing,
right are you really, alec,really using your time, the in
the efficient manner?
You have someone that took overyour emails.
You're not driving anymore.
I would assume that you'rehaving some meals prepared.

(32:16):
There's things that you couldtake off the table, and when
there is a higher dollar amountto that half hour, to that hour,
what advice would you givesomeone?
If someone that's in the weedsright now, like, what would be
the first step to getting theirtime back or to becoming more

(32:42):
efficient with their time, whatwould be the first thing?
What's?

Speaker 2 (32:46):
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 yougot a problem.
And most people don't want toadmit they have a problem.
They like to say, if they wouldonly do their job, I wouldn't
have to pick up the slack.
If only they.
What if I told you the leaderis everything.

(33:07):
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 reallygood shape.
I was 27% body fat.
It's kind of embarrassing.
They said at the DEXA scanyou're obese.
That was a shock.
That was bad.
No-transcript like I wantpeople to come up to me and say

(33:51):
man, what it?
I had my cousin come up to meand he goes what the hell's
gotten into you?
Something's different, what'sdriving you?
He goes I want what you have.
I don't want to convince peopleto believe in Jesus.
I wanted them to ask me what Ibelieve in.
I don't want to get in debates.
I I want to lead by example,and I think the first step is

(34:12):
admitting you got a problem andthen you got to track it and
this is takes reflection, thistakes time and it's like I did
it for three days.
Oh man, there's so many thingsyou don't understand.
My, you know, my door keepsgetting knocked on and no one
else, jim, could put out theseproblems than me when Al Evey
started.

(34:33):
He goes dude, you know how todo everything he goes.
Can you show me where that'sdocumented?
He goes.
Some of the things that you docould be documented.
Show me your manuals.
And I said I only have one andit's dusty.
And he said dude, you know howto firefight like nobody.
I've ever seen Any problem thatcomes up.
You know exactly what to do.

(34:53):
He did a ride along with fiveof my technicians for two days
each.
He said, tommy, what if I toldyou every single guy does it
completely differently, from thesales process to the way they
do the technician side of it,the fixing?
He goes.
One guy does springs with thedoor up, the other guy does it
this way, the other guy does itthis way.
Rollers are different, the guysbring it up at different times.

(35:15):
And I said so what do we do?
He goes.
Here's the deal, tommy he goes.
I want to work with you, butI'm going to hold your feet to
the fire.
No cell phones when we're inthe tank.
When we build these manuals, Iwant to know do you allow beards
, do you allow tattoos?
What happens if your truckbreaks down?
What's the systems in place forevery problem?

(35:35):
And it's a living, breathingdocument and things are going to
come up and it's got to be inthe manual.
You've got to read the manualevery day, every week, and as
you start to build these systems, there's either three things go
wrong no system, the wrongsystem, or the third one, which
is very common the system's notbeing followed, checks and
balances.
So Al came in and we were about17 million.

(35:58):
We jumped to 30, jumped to 50.
The one thing that I didn'thave when Al was with me is I
didn't have anybody that knewhow to keep the money.
Didn't have anybody that knewhow to keep the money.
I'm a great revenue generator.
I used to say, man, I'd walk ina room with my chest out and
I'd go.
How much revenue did you guysdo today, this week, this month,
this year?
And I was so proud.

(36:19):
And then I heard this phraserevenue is for vanity and profit
is for sanity.
I'm proud to say we'll do $270million this year at 24.8%
profit.
And those are ridiculousnumbers because every single
hole in the boat we're fixing.
That's my job.
I am the cheerleader.
I'm the guy supposed to keep aneye on the vision.
I'm not supposed to be doingthe work.

(36:41):
I'm supposed to hire competentpeople, give them a plan, make
sure they're following thevision, make sure they know what
to do.
A lot of people say I need tohire somebody and then I say
what are they going to be incharge of?
He goes, they're basically aSwiss 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 themarketing.
They're going to do this.
And I'm like I told you youhate doing payroll, you hate

(37:03):
taking phone calls.
Those are very easy hires.
Get the things you hate themost.
That are the low-hanging fruit.
Get your time back.
Go build a business.
There's nobody going to do itbetter than you about going and
meeting people, buildingrelationships, going out and

(37:23):
recruiting and doing theinterviews and training.
But make sure you've gotsomebody recording you doing the
training.
That becomes the learningmanagement system, the LMS, and
no one's going to pour the loveinto the people and the clients
like you.
So I was in the field for a longtime.
I spent the first let's seeseven years in the field and I
don't regret a minute of it.

(37:44):
I loved being in the field.
People would always ask beforemy face was on the side of the
truck.
They'd look at me every singlejob.
They'd say are you the owner?
Because they knew I had pride,passion.
They knew I'd asked for threereviews.
They know I would ask for apicture 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 ofboth neighbors.

(38:05):
And I did the work.
And then I would never leave.
I'd make sure to say is thereanything else I could help you
with?
Let me show you how the doorworks.
Let me show you how thesesafety 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 anyextra labor.
I offered every customer, richor poor, older, young, male or
female, everything.

(38:25):
There was no prejudice involved.
And everybody that I know sellsout of their own pocket and
they go.
Yeah, this customer's gotovergrown landscaping.
They're slobs.
I'm not even going to offerthem that.
We make everybody read a bookhere.
Go for no.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, the customer experience is amazing.
What I think about, though, inthat is when you were out there
in the field doing everything,and this kind of puts it
together, I think, and what Iwas kind of brought to you is,
like, how do you replicateyourself?
Because you're doing all ofthis, but they're not doing all

(39:08):
of this, right, like everyone'sdoing something a little bit
different.
This rep over here is nottaking care of people in the
same way that you do, so you'rebringing 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?

(39:31):
If you do a garage install,part of their checklist is hey,
did you offer to program theircars?
I don't know.
You know what I mean.
Like there, you can, you, andthat holds your team to the
standards that you would have asan owner.
And I hear a lot of times as,like owners that can't get out
of that sales seat.
They're like, yeah, but peoplelike buying from the owner, and

(39:53):
I'm like, yeah, but that justmeans that you're, what are you
giving them or doing that yourother reps aren't right, like
there's a gap there.
And what standards are youholding those other, those other
team members too?
Because if they can create thesame experience that you can,
then it doesn't matter ifthey're buying from the owner,

(40:13):
right?
Did you hit that resistance asyou were, as your business was
growing that?
Hey, no, you know, I can sellbetter than everyone they let.
They'd rather deal with theowner than with you.
You know, I think that's a bigthing with people's time and how
they get sucked in to theday-to-day.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
For the first five years, I was the best salesman
in the company.
I still think I'm the bestsalesman because two things.
Number one, I got to sell youon working at this company.
Number two I'm going to get onworking at this company.
Number two, I'm going to getthe most reviews.
I'm going to get the HOApresident's number.
I'm going to go talk to theneighbors, but so my way will
work in the long run.

(40:55):
But in 2012, I got this guy thatactually was better than me,
because he was trained by areally great company and he knew
Sandler sales.
I mean, this guy was an ace.
His name was Matt Vallejos andwhen I watched him I said can I
come ride with you for the nexttwo weeks?
And I took everything he hadand I made it my own.
And I made it even better.

(41:16):
And when I went back, I waseven stronger.
I used to fix things that Ididn't offer new ones for
because I was like MacGyver, I'mgoing to fix it.
If a rail was damaged, I'd gobend it back.
When he's like dude, it's stillmangled, you bend it back,
it'll work, but why not justreplace it?
And he did this thing called astructural integrity package

(41:36):
that I've never heard of, thatwe sold like hotcakes after I
learned it.
So it took me five years untilI found somebody and, going back
now, I wish I didn't.
Any other industry I go into I'mnever going to learn the
technical side of it because Idon't need to.
You know Dan Martell talks alot about Richard Branson and

(41:57):
how he hires now the right CEO,the right COO, the right CFO,
and then they build the team.
The problem is when business iswe got to start from the bottom
up.
It's sweat equity and there'sthis thing that I'll talk to you
about that really few peoplehave.
That I had.
It's called delayedgratification.
I lived in the apartments forfour years.

(42:19):
I bought the apartment complex.
I lived in a thousand squarefoot three bedroom close to my
technicians that were trainingEverybody would come to Phoenix.
I had a 2012 Nissan Titan with280,000 miles salvage title.
I said I'm going to keep thistruck till everyone has a new
truck.
Never owned a Harley, neverowned a boat, never bought a new
car.
I said I had more money.
I had a lot of houses.
I could have moved into mybeautiful big house in

(42:41):
Scottsdale.
I chose to be at the apartment.
I think, a husband and wife.
They work their ass off andthey go.
We deserve this house in Sedona, we deserve the camper, we
deserve the Harley.
So they started extractingmoney and they started saying,
well, hey, paul, startedflipping houses, we can make a
lot of money with that.
They start pulling money out ofthe one thing that's.
Finally you put a dollar in,take a buck 20 out, it's finally

(43:04):
paying you.
What if you put the money backin?
It would start compounding.
And I think a lot of people theysay, well, we deserve, we've
worked our butts off.
We got to do something nice forthe kids.
Sure, do something nice for thekids.
But what if I told you I'venever been a father, but I've
been a son?
You know what meant the worldto me?
Not not when my dad bought mestuff.
You know what meant the worldto me is when he'd go out and

(43:25):
play catch with me, when he'dsay, tommy, I'm going to make an
hour for you.
That meant a lot more than agreat Christmas.
My dad being home on Christmas,being all there where his feet
are, being present, asking mehow my day is, asking me what
I'm doing at school, that meanta hell of a lot more.
If you think that your kids andyour wife just need a new

(43:48):
wedding ring and they need thatsecond house, then maybe you're
not the right parent.
Maybe you're and I don't meanto criticize people.
If you think this hits home, itprobably does.
I don't know if you think I'mtalking to you, but if you think
I am, it's probably that's thecase.
So listen, I love constructivecriticism.
I don't mind when people don'tsugarcoat it.
Let me know how I'm doing andif I've got a problem, let me

(44:11):
know.
Like the one thing is I don'tknow how my IQ is.
I never took a test, but I knowwhere my EQ is.
I always look at how is thisperson looking at me?
If they were to do a 360 reviewanonymously, what would they
say about me?
And a lot of times I'veconcluded that it's not very
good.
He doesn't take enough time.
He tends to not tell me if I'mdoing good or bad, and with 800

(44:34):
people it's really hard to dothat and I can make every excuse
in the world.
But I'm doing something about it.
I'm actually building softwareright now that I could hit
everybody on their birthday,their anniversary, their number
one day they had in sales.
I needed a system, a processand some technology because I
grew out of knowing everybody'sfamily and kids.
In fact, I walked into the roomthe other day, there was five

(44:55):
people that said hello, mr Mello.
I've never seen them before andI'm like, oh my gosh, mr Mello,
who the hell is?
Mr Mello, that's like mygrandpa and he's passed away.
So, and I know I can't beeverything to everyone, and this
is part of delegate to elevate.
This is what Al Levy taught meeight steps of delegation and

(45:16):
that I need to have closerelationships with my direct
reports.
And then they need to.
They need to stand down andhave great relationships because
, listen, if you think it's allabout pushing people past their
comfortability zone, comfortzone, if you think it's all
about you need to grind and gritand do the best.
People have lives, they haveemotions, they have things going
on at home.
A lot of kids didn't pass 10thgrade.

(45:37):
A lot of the guys can't read.
A lot of the people have a badsmile.
My number one thing is let'sfix your smile.
I don't tell them you got badteeth, I just say listen, I want
you to be comfortable lookingin the mirror, and I told you
this earlier you need to loveyou before you can love my
customers, before you can loveworking here.
And I don't think you thinkyou're worth it.
And if you can't save money at$40,000 a year, a hundred

(45:57):
thousand dollars is not theanswer.
That's like saying thegovernment needs to tax more.
They got a spending problem.
They don't have delayedgratification.
I never went out to eat.
If a girl ordered a filetmignon that I took on a date, I
was ordering the soup, tellingher I already ate because I
didn't even have the money to dothat and I kept a very tight
budget.
I had money, but that was myfuture selves money.

(46:19):
My Roth IRA is worth over amillion dollars because I've
been putting into it when I was16.
I haven't been able to put intoit the last 12 years because I
made too much money.
I was guaranteed to be amillionaire.
I'm 41.
I was guaranteed because I knewthere's no guarantees in life.
Things are going to go downsometimes a rabbit hole, but if

(46:42):
this money compounds, it's taxfree because I pay taxes going
in and that's one thing is like.
I just wish people understoodthat.
Reinvest into the best asset ofyour life and that's your core
business.
Gamble on you because you'vegot direct control.
S&p 500 is great.
For me.
There's a great investment.
The real estate's done great.
The largest investment I haveis this company.
Today I still own half of itand we're going to 5X this

(47:04):
business in three years and Iget to help out everybody and I
mean everybody.
So I just these are hard lessonslearned into my
self-improvement a year becauseI think I'm worth it.

(47:24):
I do.
I walk in a room and I say I'vedone the hard work.
I got the haircut every twoweeks.
I take care of myself, I drinkthe best water you could get and
it's always out of this tin.
Like I started saying, I'mworth it.
The alcohol sure it's fun.
I can still drink once a month.
I don't need to give upeverything, but it got out of

(47:46):
control.
I'll admit I was drinking toomuch.
It was embarrassing.
Ara, the founder of ServiceTank,called me up and said dude,
you're the brightest guy.
I know he goes, but I think youmight have like, I've seen you
at some of these events and he'slike that's one thing as a
friend of of friend that I justkeep an eye on.
It took a man to call up me andsay that anybody could have

(48:07):
called me, but he called me man.
It was like that was a wake upcall.
And man, sometimes we're inthis mess.
My cousin called me and saidI'm sorry, I keep talking.
But she said she was like Tommy, you read more books than
anybody in our family combined.
She goes.
You're talking on stages.

(48:27):
You live in a beautiful house.
She goes.
You seem like the perfect life.
She goes, but why don't youlove yourself?
And I go Rachel, what do youmean?
And she goes, walk in thebathroom real quick and take off
your shirt and, by the way,she's got a PhD in physical

(48:51):
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.
And I looked at myself for thefirst time in a long time and
the excuses of I don't haveenough time to eat healthy, I
don't have enough time to makegood decisions, like all these

(49:14):
things added up to that moment.
Then I said you're a realasshole.
But you're right.
I mean, it kind of brings tearsbecause I needed to work on me
and I gave everybody else somuch time except for myself.
And the rude awakening was Ican't love anybody till you.

(49:36):
Self-love is a thing and Ithink a lot of people.
They want to put everybody elsefirst.
What happens when you go into aplane 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 oryou're going to pass out and
you're no help to your kids oryour family or anybody.
So help yourself first.
Let me love me, so I can loveyou.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
How can people what advice?
You've been on this journey, itsounds like.
What advice can you give peoplein that journey?
How can they begin to?
What things can they do what?
What paths can they take to tobegin that process of loving
themselves more and, and, indoing so, creating a better

(50:21):
example for the people aroundyou, including your team?

Speaker 2 (50:28):
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 Idon't go.
I made it so easy.
You know what I like to do.
I like to walk at a pretty briskwalk around Paradise Valley and
I walk at a fast speed.
I reflect, I listen to music.
I think I do an hour walk everymorning and every night.
The weight started shedding off.

(50:49):
But that reflection time,that's my time.
It's amazing time.
Just walk, just park furtheraway when you go to Costco, like
everybody spends an hourfinding a spot when you could
find a spot within two minutesand just walk a little bit, like
you don't need to go to the gymif you don't want to.
And, by the way, I enjoy goingto the gym because, like, I

(51:09):
don't love it.
Like some people, I'm notobsessed with it and some days I
don't feel like getting up Likedude.
These last three days I've beensick.
I didn't want to go, but I'mlike, when I saw how much it

(51:30):
affects other people, I'm downto 10% body fat.
I walk in a room now and I feelI don't want to be the richest,
I want to be well-rounded, Iwant to be like man, that guy
I'm a walking billboard.
I can tell you this babies, youknow what they love the most
they love smiles.
When you smile at a baby, theysmile back.
They stop crying.
If you practice your smiles andyou feel great about yourself
and your energy level, here'swhat's so great.

(51:50):
Look, forget about the six-pack, forget about the body fat.
Just imagine waking up withoutan alarm and being ready to go.
Imagine coming home from a longday at work and still being
able to play with your kids.
Imagine just, you go to bed andyou actually fall asleep and
you're not on watching a millionprograms and Netflix specials
because you don't even want toanymore.

(52:12):
I was a night owl.
I'm like dude, I love being upat night.
I do my best.
Thinking that was a lie tomyself because I said what
productivity did I have?
I've never been a morningperson.
Now I was up at 5 am.
I went to bed early, earlierthan I normally do, but I'm
really focused on getting sevenhours of sleep.
People say seven hours of sleep.

(52:33):
Tommy Mello, I want to get toeight, because I know that's the
foundation of everything.
That's the most important thing.
It's more if I get my sleep, Ieat right.
If I get my sleep, I want towork out.
If I get my sleep, my meetingsare better.
If I get my sleep, my memory'sbetter Like.
If I get my sleep, I'mhealthier.
And these are the fundamentals.

(52:53):
You're not getting good sleep,you're not drinking enough water
, you're eating garbage.
You know, I'm on testosteronetherapy.
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.
I'm on all the right peptides.
I get my blood checked once amonth.
I literally had a leaky gut.

(53:14):
I had all these issues and, bythe way, guys like us hate to go
to the doctor.
So I found a really good doctorI really like and now I'm going
to know if I have anythingunderlying issues that are
coming.
I got a prostate check for thefirst time.
That wasn't very fun, but Isaid, hey, I'm 41.
Let's do everything.
I told you I just got baptized.

(53:36):
Because faith, family, financeand fitness have become
important, I bought a big asscounter by Jesse Itzler and I'm
putting down the most importantthings I need, and a lot of them
have to do with family andfaith, the finance.
That's my business.
I'm here every day.
The fitness is part of myroutine.

(53:58):
Now it's part of I want to readto you.
Just I'll pull it up real quickand then you can ask him
questions.
I do these run on sentenceswhen I, and then you can ask him
questions.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
I do these run-on sentences when I have these
thoughts.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
You're fine man, it's like it's crazy.
So I got this graduation.
We do right.
We've got 43 techs graduatingthis month and I read him this
quote I am your constantcompanion.
I'm your greatest helper or yourheaviest burden.
I will push you onward or dragyou down to failure.
I'm completely at your command.

(54:31):
Half of the things you do, youmight as well turn over to me
and I will do them quickly andcorrectly.
I'm easily managed.
You must be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you wantsomething done, and after just a
few lessons, I will do themautomatically.
I am the servant of great peopleand the Alice of all the
failures as well.
Those who are great I have madegreat.
Those who are failures I havemade failures.

(54:54):
I'm not a machine, though Iwork with the precision of a
machine plus the intelligence ofa person.
You may run me for profit orrun me for ruin.
It makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm withme and I will place the world
at your feet.
Be easy with me and I willdestroy you.
Who am I?
I am habit.
I got goosebumps because I'veread that a million times and

(55:22):
I'll tell you this.
I started giving stuff up but Ineeded to plug them with some
good things.
And you might look at me andsay, 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 therewas.
I worked so much to I had innerdemons.
I've let all that stuff go.

(55:43):
And you want to come watch me?
I mean, it would be hard to doto like have people follow me
around, but like I'm living mybest life, I get up and I'm like
man, this is cool, this.
I look back and I go.
Your younger self couldn't evenit, couldn't even imagine what

(56:05):
you've got.
Do you know the gratitude?
Look, I am very lucky.
People say it was hard work, itwas discipline, it was
consistency.
Everything goes right.
I don't know why.
I don't know why I'm sofortunate, but COVID was a bad
thing, but I was deemedessential.
Ppp money came in.

(56:26):
I put $1.8 million intomarketing.
The multiples went up.
Like I'm always at the rightplace 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 (56:39):
But luck is the intersection of opportunity and
preparation, right, and so so,being prepared, being prepared
no matter if the opportunity isthere, you won't be able to take
advantage of it unless youprepare for it.
I think you've been on ajourney of self-awareness, I, I
I've heard that that that islike that.

(57:00):
That is one of the great traitsof successful people is
self-awareness.
And I think that you know, Itell people when you're looking
at your business, right, like ifyou continue to make small
incremental changes in yourbusiness five years from now, 10
years from now, you look backand it's like, why would some I

(57:21):
can't believe someone evenbought from me.
I can't believe it, you know.
Believe that someone would workfor me?
I can't believe someone evenbought from me.
I can't believe that someonewould work for me.
I can't believe.
If you continuously make thosechanges, 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 itoff with that.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
Well, like I said, I'm pretty data-driven.
Not everything could be into aformula or equation.
The most common app I opened onthis phone is my calculator.
I live on this calculator.
I mean, if I had a whiteboardin the shower it'd be filled
every day.
I'm just a numbers guy.

(58:03):
Like I took advanced calculus,like I'm obsessed.
I used to carry a ti-83 in myback pocket and you know,
without data I don't know reallywhat to do.
It's like it's pin the tail ofthe donkey blindfolded, like
dude.
I know my macros, I knoweverything about my body.
Like, look, it's really hard tohave this, this number, data on

(58:26):
faith.
But you know, you could say howmuch time that I spent with mom
, you could say how much time Ispent with dad and put up, put
up if it makes it on thecalendar.
You don't cancel, you don'tmove that you.
There's certain things youdon't move, you can't move and
they need to understand you'renot going to move and they're
not going to move.
And I love Jesse, I sort ofcame with that.
It's a stupid thing that sitson the wall, but you put it.

(58:49):
Let me tell you this real quickDan Martell, the first meeting
he said Tommy, here's what we'regoing to do.
I'm going to give you guys a$50,000 lesson I paid for.
He said.
I want you to pretend likeyou're 75 years old.
You're 41 right now.
He goes.
I really, really need you tosit in a dark room and just

(59:10):
meditate and I want you to tellme what did you do when you were
41?
What trips did you go on?
We're going to really focus onmanifestation.
Did you buy a plane?
What year did you buy?
What color was the plane?
I want you to go find the planeyou want.
I want you to find who youspent the most time with and why
you spent the most time withwhen you went to Italy.
I want you to pick the placesyou're going to go.

(59:31):
I want you to know who you'regoing to go with.
He goes.
I want you.
There's a secret that I don'teven know.
If Dan knows this, there's beenstudy after study after study.
Positive thoughts are great.
They help you manifest, butnegative thoughts like I'm the

(59:53):
only one that could do salesbecause my customers like that's
not necessarily a negative,negative thought, but negative
thoughts got 10x the ability topull you down.
When you start going thisdirection, 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, butyou know what you can control.

(01:00:16):
People always say if your dadwouldn't have done this 10 years
ago and divorced me and cheatedlike they live in the past.
Let's focus on today.
In the future, let's focus onwhat we can control.
Let's look at the people aroundus.
Do they inspire us or do theypull us down?
Because that's called a cage?
You're never my ability.
I feel like I'm in a DeLorean an85 DeLorean traveling through

(01:00:39):
time, accomplishing more thanmost because I'm changing my
circle.
I still got the best friends Igrew up with, but the people I'm
spending the most time withactually make me better.
Just like, if you want to bebetter at golf, hang out with
somebody that's better than you.
If not, you're going to drink20 beers and you're going to
goof off, and who cares what thescore was?
I'm always finding the best ofthe best and making a way into

(01:01:03):
their life.
And, by the way, I pay.
I pay to play and I'm in afortunate spot because right now
I'd rather have the best.
You know, some people say I'mgoing to start off with this.
Dan Martell told me he goes, somany people he goes.
What I figured out, tommy, is Ibuy how I want to be bought
from.
I don't try to negotiate,because when I negotiated

(01:01:24):
everything, every one of myclients 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 sayyou're worth it, I'm going to
pay the full thing and then it'sweird.
All of a sudden, no one asksyou for discounts.
You're selling out of your ownpocketbook and you are getting

(01:01:45):
the nice things.
My guys that go out and buy anew car.
When we go out to eat, they mytechnicians order filet mignon.
I know they're a winner.
I know they're a winner.
They want nice things.
So I don't know if I gave youperfect 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 toomuch.
I you know it's tough for me tosay I would drink occasionally,

(01:02:09):
but I drink enough to where itwould be enough for the week and
that's a big issue.
And I've had a lot of bigissues.
I've not been on drugs and but,dude, just opening up my heart
and talking about things that'sbeen hard for me, like, hey,
let's talk about stuff, myfeelings when we get home, what,

(01:02:30):
just what do you need to talkabout?
Like I'm not, I don't do that,uh.
So I'm trying to open up andjust 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 alittle bit better that's awesome
, man.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
This has been another episode of the Roofing Success
Podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Thank you for tuning into the Roofing Success Podcast
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(01:03:07):
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