← The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Home Service Expert Podcast
E439 The Truth About Success: Scott Clary on Building Brands and Taking Ownership
01:08:55
Scott Clary is a serial entrepreneur, brand strategist, and the creator and host of the top-ranked Success Story podcast, where he’s interviewed some of the world’s most influential entrepreneurs, leaders, and visionaries. With an impressive...
Loading summary
Transcript254 lines
- [00:00]
Scott Clary
The beauty of content is it compounds over time. So you're not going to get a short win, which means you got to stick with it. And you're only going to stick with it if you enjoy it.
- [00:08]
Tommy Mello
Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like.
- [00:16]
Scott Clary
Marketing, sales, hiring and leadership to find.
- [00:19]
Tommy Mello
Out what's really behind their success in business. Now your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Melo.
- [00:28]
Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes. But I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes N O t e s to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299 and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. Today I got Scott Clary. Got to catch up with him last night for dinner. Cool, dude. Our guest today is the host of a global top ranked podcast called Success Story where he interviewed some of the world's most influential entrepreneurs, executives and media personalities. Scott is also an entrepreneur and inventor who built and scaled multiple businesses, advised Fortune 500 companies, and now shares his own business, insights on Instagram and YouTube to millions worldwide. Tell the audience a little bit about you, brother.
- [01:45]
Scott Clary
Well, you got a good, you got a good little introduction going. So my background's in tech. That's where I started. I've always loved it. I've always loved working on stuff that was sort of bleeding edge. And at one point in my career, this is sort of what's led to what I do right now. With the podcast I realized that I have to future proof myself as an entrepreneur and I started a podcast. Really? Because at the time I was building a company. It was acquired at the end of COVID and I didn't know what I wanted to do after. So I was a student of the Gary Vees of the world and I realized that if I want to do anything, it's easier when you have an audience already. So I started building that audience and that's one of the most valuable assets I think anybody could ever build. I mean, this is what you're doing, what you're doing with your show. But I've started that now and built the audience. The podcast, the media brand, the newsletter, the Instagram socials for about six and a half years. And that's opened doors, led, led to opportunities, led to me speaking on stage, working on a book right now, led to, you know, great relationships like, like yourself and you know, about a thousand other guests. So that's really been my life.
- [02:50]
Tommy Mello
Building media, building brand I want to dive into. A lot of people don't understand the power of building a personal brand and building followers and the right followers. We talked about this last night at dinner. You know what were someone getting started? Where would you start?
- [03:05]
Scott Clary
I would say the easiest place to start for most people is to teach their younger self what they found useful in their career. So if you want to start creating content, say you have a business, your content should be what your younger self was trying to figure out when they got into that business. Also if they have a customer, they should figure out what the customer is trying to solve for as well. But it doesn't have to be much more complicated than that. Good content is educational. It's, it's again teaching what you are trying to figure out or what your younger version of yourself is trying to figure out, or what your customer is trying to figure out. And then once you understand what your content is meant to accomplish, then you have to find a way to make it relevant for the platform that you want to create content on. I also think that for an early creator, somebody who's just starting out, uh, don't just jump on the platform that is the most relevant right now. Don't just jump on TikTok, cause you see somebody on TikTok. Don't just jump on a podcast cuz you love podcasts or you don't just jump on a newsletter because you found somebody who has a huge substack or newsletter audience or email list. To be successful as a creator, you have to stay in the game for a long period of time. Like this is an, this is an.
- [04:20]
Tommy Mello
Idea that you're right.
- [04:21]
Scott Clary
Like you, you know this because it's, this is not just a creator idea, this is an entrepreneur idea. If you're going to build anything meaningful, there's no such thing as overnight success. You gotta stay in the game for an unreasonable amount of time to win. Being a creator is no different. What that means is when you start as a creator, you should pick a platform that you actually enjoy creating content on. Because whatever platform you pick at one point, you can make it successful. You can build an email list that drives leads to your business, or if you don't have a business and you just wanna be a creator, you, you can build an email list and you can monetize it through ads with advertisers. If you love creating short video, you do TikTok. You do Reels. Great. If you love chatting with somebody for an hour and a half, do a long form podcast. But whatever you do, enjoy it because the beauty of content is it compounds over time. You build an audience over time, so you're not gonna get a short win, which means you gotta stick with it. And you're only gonna stick with it if you enjoy it. So every creator that's just starting right there, every business owner that want get into content, if you don't know where to start, start with what you actually enjoy because that's going to let you stick with it for the long term and that's what's going to lead to you actually being successful on that platform. And that's why I started with podcasts. Cause I enjoyed it. Yeah. So it's easy to do it for 10 years when you enjoy it, right?
- [05:41]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. You know what's interesting is most people don't make it past three months with a podcast. They, they get busy, it gets. And, and so you're right, you got to pick the right.
- [05:52]
Scott Clary
But that's not what people do. Right. They jump on the oh, I'm going to create content. Let me figure out how to dance on TikTok. Let me figure out bad followers anyway, that's even besides. Yes. So there's like a whole bunch of different nuances between platforms and which ones have high trust and low trust. That's a whole other conversation. I agree with you. TikTok is actually not a great platform because the people that follow you on TikTok for some reason they're, they're not as loyal as if, well, not for some reason. There's very specific reasons. But on TikTok, your follower base, you can grow a big follower base in a follower count, but they're not going to be as loyal as somebody that listens to an hour and a half podcast. Right. So also eventually you're going to have to understand what kind of audience you're building on what platform once you expand past that first thing that you do. But that's for like not beginner creators. When you are a more advanced creator or your business owner that has resources, that wants to show up everywhere and have podcast, newsletter, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, all of it. Yes. Then you have to understand what platform attracts, what kind of follower and what that means for your business. But you just mentioned, like, how to start off as a creator. Just pick one platform you love and just run with it.
- [07:02]
Tommy Mello
What about this idea? This was about seven years ago when I just started out in podcasting and I interviewed a guy that helps people start podcasts. Then he said, what do you do for a living? And it's all of them. Home service, you know, specifically garage doors. He said, who's your avatar? Who's one client that could give you $10 million a year? How do you get them on? How do you learn about them? How do you ask them questions, Find out what they look for? Be genuinely interested in them? Because if you could get clients like that and learn about their brains and how they think and continue to get people on all the time, you could actually use that to build your business.
- [07:37]
Scott Clary
Correct. So that's a great point. When you first asked me, how do you start as a creator? And I said, create content for your younger self, that's a slightly different strategy than if you are a business owner and you're starting to create content. So I guess the actual answer is, figure out why you're creating content in the first place. If you are just creating content and you want to turn yourself into a personal brand, then creating content for your younger self is a great way to start. If you are a business owner and you know your avatar or your ideal customer profile, and you can bring them on to interview them, and not only do you get a chance to build rapport with them, which could then lead to them becoming an actual customer. You ask them questions that your top customers are asking, and then that conversation turns into great content that's going to be for all your marketing material, your socials. And of course, if you're talking to your main customer avatar, then all the content that you pull out of that is going to attract similar avatars, which means your content's aligned with your. Your customer. But it depends. Again, not everybody starts a podcast or content just to build a personal brand. Some people want to build, use it for a business. It depends what your objectives are, Right?
- [08:44]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. Dan Martell said to me, actually, Brennan Kane too, he that everybody's like, you're really lucky because most people grow this massive following and they try to figure out what they want to do with It.
- [08:56]
Scott Clary
After they've grown.
- [08:57]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, yeah. So now they got all these followers and, like. And you and I spoke about that last night. I. I know who my clients are. And actually, it's not just one business. It's business owners. You know, we're. We're probably going to start rolling companies up. So there, There's a bunch of different audience. What's weird about what I do now is I could go to, like, the Dairy Queen and learn a little lesson there for some type of business, because I'm involved with a lot of things, but A1's still my main business. But I think that the main thing is, is you got to stick to it. That's the best advice is if you're going to do it, don't quit. Don't expect in a year. I told you last night, this gal, I read about her, or I might have seen Instagram about her, she's like, I only have 990 followers and she makes 150 grand a year just selling to that loyal audience. And we both get trapped in the idea of how many likes, how many shares, how did it grow? And quantity is. Definitely doesn't always mean quality 1000%.
- [09:51]
Scott Clary
But this is why people chase vanity metrics, because they, they. Their ego is driving their decision when it comes to their personal brand and their content. For most business owners, you're right. They have the luxury of having a product that they can actually sell. So why would you be building the biggest possible audience with the content that goes the most viral when that's not actually content? That's gonna attract the audience, it's gonna convert into leads, convert into customers. But, I mean, humans are humans.
- [10:18]
Tommy Mello
Yeah.
- [10:18]
Scott Clary
And they want the biggest audience. They want the most following. But. And this is actually a trap that sometimes creators fall into, too, myself included. You. You create content that goes viral, but it attracts the wrong audience, but you get that dopamine hit, which is why you really have to have an understanding of why you're creating content in the first place. Yeah, I can put. I can put out motivational content. I can put out. I can put out stuff that just, like, speaks to the human condition and, like, gets people riled up and arguing and having opinions on it. And that stuff will go viral, but. And that'll get me a lot of followers, but that doesn't mean that that's the kind of content and the type of audience that I want to attract. If it is, great. But a lot of people fall into that trap.
- [11:03]
Tommy Mello
Have you ever been with maybe someone you wanted to be a guest and their media team reaches out and says they, we only work with people with this many followers. Like, doesn't it seem contrary to, like, wouldn't you, if you were an influencer, Gary Vee, say, this is my audience. These are the people that I want. Wouldn't you want to take a deep dive into their audience and say, this might be not as big, but it seems like a trap even for people trying to get on podcasts that only look at the audience. Does that make sense?
- [11:34]
Scott Clary
It makes a lot of sense, I think because there's so many creators and so many podcasts out there that it becomes very difficult to audit them properly.
- [11:43]
Tommy Mello
Right.
- [11:44]
Scott Clary
So I agree with you. I think that if you're trying to, you know, guest on podcasts and get some more exposure, just because you go on the biggest possible show, it doesn't really actually mean anything. If you're trying to get the right audience for your business, I agree with you. I think that people should do a deep dive and look at, like, how aligned is that audience with the actual product that I'm selling. But I think that most people, they don't put that much energy or effort into it, and they just go for the biggest following and they say, well, if this podcast has a huge following, I want to get on his or her show? I think that's wrong. I think that's a mistake. But, you know, not everybody's doing social right? Not every. Not everybody knows this world. But that's a really smart. That's a really smart move because you can get into some niche shows and get on in front of some niche audiences that if you, if you speak to that audience and you're in, like, any particular industry, my goodness, you could have 10% of that audience convert into customers. Oh, yeah, that's way more useful than going on some huge motivation mindset podcast that has a million listeners, a Tony Robbins, but nobody really gives a shit. Nobody's your customer.
- [12:49]
Tommy Mello
Right?
- [12:50]
Scott Clary
So you're right. I don't think people do that research, but you're right. But this is also a trap that business owners fall into when they. When they start paying influencers. So they start paying the biggest possible influencer with the biggest possible audience. And influencers are asking for tens or sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars to run these campaigns. And it's just like a spray and pray approach. Hopefully, if somebody in the audience is my customer, they're going to convert into a follower, convert it to a lead, convert into revenue. But really, at least from what I found When I've been on the other side and I've been like, when I've been launching products and paying influencers, I found that niche and smaller micro influencers do much better with targeted audiences. I think that most business owners, they learn the hard way by blowing a lot of money, than realizing that, like, the biggest name is not the most effective name.
- [13:45]
Tommy Mello
You know, Brandon Cain talks about finding, and you know him, he talks about, like, the guy that, you know.
- [13:55]
Scott Clary
I.
- [13:55]
Tommy Mello
Told you I was like. He walks up to the car and.
- [13:59]
Scott Clary
Asks, oh, School of Hard Knocks.
- [14:01]
Tommy Mello
School of Hard Knocks, yeah. Brain fart. He literally walks up and he does that every time. It's the same thing, different people. And he says, once you find that, that hook, use the same one every time. Yeah, like, the audience knows it, it expects it, it likes it. What are your thoughts on making content find? He calls it the right format. Once you find your format, you stick to it. If you're walking, you're on a walk every time. Selfie. Yeah, that one works too. If you find something that's, you know, you have a dish of food and that. That, like, it's an inspiration. It's kind of the hook and the picture and the thumbnail that Mr. Beast talks about that gets people to come in.
- [14:37]
Scott Clary
So Brendan Kane. Brendan Kane's a very smart marketer, and I've had him on the show twice now, and he speaks about all the different formats that just work. School of Hard Knocks, like you mentioned, is one of them. There's a million other formats that sort of predictably work. Now, I'm not. I'm not an expert. I'm not. His company has a company called Hook Point. They research tons of data points. But from what I've learned from him, and probably spoke about this on your show as well, you can find a type of content that works like interview style or. I mean, right now, there's a lot of podcast content where you see Talking Head that works really, really well. And then you find a way to, you know, you find a way to interpret your message through that style of content, and then you just triple down on it. So, yes, to your point. Yes, that's exactly what you should do. I think the trap that people fall into when it comes to content is two traps. One, they are, again, their content is ego driven, and they don't want to learn from anybody else. And they just think because they're smart, people should give a shit about what they're saying. Which never works out. No, it never works out. Or two, they find a style of content that works once and then they never change it. And then five years later they're doing the same kind of content.
- [15:54]
Tommy Mello
Right.
- [15:55]
Scott Clary
If you look at even my content and my socials, you'll see over the past six years, the content has evolved and it's changed styles. And it used to be like I used to do content that looked a little bit more like a Gary Vee style, which had like the, the white header and the colorful text. And then for a while my captions were like funky and multicolored because that's what like the Grant Cardone's and the Alex Hormozis of the world were doing. And then I started doing more motivational quotes. Those were super shareable. And I found that those really hit. They were shareable, they weren't too complex. People could read it, be like, yes, I want to share it to my stories on Instagram. And it did really well. And now I do a mix of like podcast clipping. So I do a long form podcast clip out a cool guest, one of their, you know, most prolific points of view. So I'll do a podcast clip, but I'll also do a lot of solo content as well. So me talking head, having a point of view on whatever it is I care about, that works for me now. But my content has gone through five or six or seven evolutions over the past six years. I see. Because I'm a podcaster, so I study a lot of podcasters, but I study people on every platform. And I actually have somebody that I. We were talking about this last night. I have somebody that I study.
- [17:08]
Tommy Mello
Yep.
- [17:08]
Scott Clary
So like when I just list them off, Justin Welsh kills it on LinkedIn. Sahil Bloom, he kills it on Twitter. Dan Ko, I love his writing style. Her Mosey always kills it on, on Instagram. For long form podcasts. I study Diary of a CEO with Stephen Bartlett, Modern Wisdom with Chris Williamson. Like I have a person that I study per platform and I study people that are always learning, always evolving, growing the fastest right now. Not people that grew fast 10, 15 years ago or even three years ago or even three years ago. People that are growing now because I know that whatever it is they're figuring out, it's like hitting the algorithm. Right. It's hitting whatever the audience's expectations are right now. There are people that have massive audiences, that are big names and you would know the names and they built an audience a certain way 10 years ago, five years ago, and they haven't change things up. And I know for a fact that if they tried to build an audience from scratch using the same style of content as what they're still doing now, five years later. They would not grow the same way they did.
- [18:14]
Tommy Mello
Yep.
- [18:15]
Scott Clary
So they had some success, they had some luck. Right time, right place, but they haven't evolved ever since. So you gotta. You gotta keep evolving. You gotta keep studying. It's like, I don't know why people treat content any different than their business. Right. Your business. When you start a business, you don't start it, and 10 years later, it's the same business as when you started. Like, that's insane. Any business owner would be like, no, I'd be out of business. You didn't change your product, you didn't change your pitch or positioning, didn't update your website, didn't understand how your customers needs. Evolved. Yeah, there's some similarities, for sure, but things evolve over time. If you don't take the same approach to your content, it's a marketing channel. The marketing channel becomes less effective over time. So you always have to be studying. And if you don't want to do it, somebody on your team should be. If you're hiring a marketer, you should have somebody that can list off the influencers that influence them and their content style. They should have somebody. If you're like, listen, I want to grow my Instagram. Who's your favorite? Who's your favorite Instagram?
- [19:18]
Tommy Mello
Really good. I love that.
- [19:19]
Scott Clary
And if they don't have an answer, then they don't study it.
- [19:21]
Tommy Mello
Right.
- [19:22]
Scott Clary
Every person who's good at social studies is not a me thing. Ask any of those people on that. Or they've got a team.
- [19:28]
Tommy Mello
They've got a team. Like Martel.
- [19:29]
Scott Clary
Exactly.
- [19:29]
Tommy Mello
I mean, he's got a whole team. That does it.
- [19:31]
Scott Clary
I would say that Martel grew very quickly, and he's so obsessed with content, then, yes, he has a team for sure. And he has Sam. I don't know if you met Sam.
- [19:40]
Tommy Mello
He works out with him every day.
- [19:41]
Scott Clary
Exactly.
- [19:41]
Tommy Mello
And they get along. It took years for that to come together. It didn't happen overnight.
- [19:45]
Scott Clary
Dan would still know which content creators he looks up to, even though his team's doing the research.
- [19:50]
Tommy Mello
100%. You know what's interesting is PayPal just hired a guy to be the CEO of content.
- [19:58]
Scott Clary
I saw that.
- [19:59]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. So, yeah, $200,000 a year. And basically they say the founder is just as important as the business. And here's the worst comp. It wasn't even a compliment. It was a advice for me. I've had so many People that are like, who's bigger? A1 or Tommy Mello, Because I see you all over the place on social. Yeah, I don't see A one. So now I'm really taking A one built me. And I'm going to try to build the same thing for A one now because maybe it was vanity, but to be completely transparent is. I never really realized a garage door company, but I didn't realize I could be a. It could be a recruiting mechanism. Clients see me and like, highlight the company doing the charity and all the things we do, we give. We do so much with the community. And so I'm gonna start. Every other post will probably be about A one.
- [20:46]
Scott Clary
I think it should be. But it's also good that you're putting yourself out there. Every, every CEO should build a brand, be the celebrity CEO, put themselves front and center. Because as much as we like to say, like, I want to market the business, all business at the end of the day is it's not like you're doing business with a person. It's human to human. It's always human to human. That's all business ever even. It doesn't. I don't care if you're selling enterprise, you're selling, you know, lawn care service. It's all human to human. And the consumer, the customer has a really hard time building any kind of real connection with a brand.
- [21:21]
Tommy Mello
Right.
- [21:22]
Scott Clary
Doesn't matter how great you are and how much you give the chair. It's very hard for them to look at A1 as anything more than just. Just a company that does the work. Now if they know Tommy and they see all his content and they see who he is and what he stands for, well, now all of a sudden, if I'm picking between five different competitors in your industry, I'm going to pick the one where I know the CEO and I like who he is or I like who she is.
- [21:45]
Tommy Mello
Oh, 100%.
- [21:46]
Scott Clary
It's such a. But if you look at. Even at such a large scale, Richard Branson has a bigger following than Virgin. Elon Musk has a bigger following than any of his companies. Mark Cuban has a bigger following than any of his investment portfolio companies. They're all personalities.
- [22:07]
Tommy Mello
What are your thoughts? There's a lot of buddies of mine that they show the lifestyle mostly. And one of my buddies, well, one of my buddies lives in Miami and shows the cars, shows the boats, shows the house. Not very good content, but has an unbelievable amount of followers. And I think a lot of people want that lifestyle and they listen because he's successful. So what are your thoughts on that? Because I've stayed away from that. But I just did a tour of the house, like a quick one, and it murdered it.
- [22:43]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [22:43]
Tommy Mello
And the question is, like, I never really want. I always wanted to be humble and not like, be like this vanity, like, look what I have. Because I want to be careful about what people view me, view me as a success for a business. I was at Daymond John and he's like, I don't care. When people come up to me like a singer, they don't tell me to sing a song. They tell me their entrepreneurial dream. Yeah, but what are your thoughts on that? That kind of play of like the planes I get on and the stuff, the private stuff, you know, the people.
- [23:07]
Scott Clary
That I see doing that the most, they're usually fake. Yeah, so they're usually fake. They're usually selling something. Right. They're usually selling the lifestyle. And they usually have a product that sort of alludes to the fact that if you take their course, follow these steps, you're going to get the same outcome. Right. So if somebody is genuinely successful, do you. If you want to post your house and all that stuff, but the. The richest and most successful and wealthiest and smartest people I know, they don't post content like that. Yep, they really don't.
- [23:43]
Tommy Mello
They, they.
- [23:44]
Scott Clary
Because what they've accomplished speaks for itself. Right. You can go Google the company they sold. They don't have to prove anything anymore.
- [23:53]
Tommy Mello
Well, you know, I was with Perry Belcher, Ryan Dice, Frank Kern. This is years ago.
- [23:57]
Scott Clary
These are old school marketers, by the way.
- [23:59]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, we were in Vegas and I said, I want to be like, you guys talk on stages, do that. And they said, why? They said, we got to come with new gimmick products to sell. I mean, this is a long time ago. I'm not trying to say. But they're like, now we sell like ties, suit ties. And we do these studies and the audience loves it and we are good marketers. But back then I was still doing a lot in garage doors. They said, who's the CEO of Home Depot? I don't know, because who's the CEO of Lowe's? And they were just bringing. Who's the CEO of Ace Hardware? Yeah, they were trying to be home service kind of. I don't know. They're like, exactly. And now you. Now it's different. Like you said, you got to evolve. They need to know who you are. But these guys kind of fade into the sunset and they live their best Life. And some people. Some people want to get known. And then when you get known, like Tom Cruise, that dude can't go anywhere for privacy.
- [24:45]
Scott Clary
Yeah, I think. I can't remember who. Who said this quote, but it was like. It was something along the lines of, I wish everybody would be rich and famous at one point just to realize that you don't really need the. The fame, you just need the money. It's some famous actor. It's like a. I can't remember who it is exactly, but I think. I think that, listen, if you. If you. If you're just building an audience again just for your ego, you're in the wrong game. I think. I think building an audience should be a means to an end. I think it should be to build a business, sell a product. Like, there should be some commercial activity attached to it. I don't. I love podcasting, but, you know, if you're going to ask me, like, hey, would I be marketing the shit out of my podcast until I'm 90 years old, if I could retire on a beach somewhere, maybe not. Maybe I just do it for fun. Maybe I just do it for fun now. As opposed to doing it as a business. Right. There's a difference, right? When you're building a business, you have to be obsessed with the thing. You have to do it nonstop. You have to build systems and processes around it. Great. Don't mind it. I love playing entrepreneur. This is what I've been doing my whole life. This is what you do your whole life is what a lot of people listen to this do. But it's not relaxing. It's not like. It's not like. It's not chill. It's still a business at the end of the day. So if you have a viable business that's making money, that's doing well, look at content. And this is why I'm so trying to get people just to understand, like, create the content that drives revenue for the business, not just create content to become famous. Being famous doesn't benefit anybody. It just is serving your own ego. That's all it is. But if you create content and you build an audience, it drives revenue. Great. That's how you use content. That's how you use social media. So I think people have to get over themselves.
- [26:43]
Tommy Mello
You know what I just thought of? I'm gonna go to. There's tools out there. I'm gonna go to the biggest home service, whether they're plumbers or whatever, and then I'm gonna say, I'm gonna call them and they will pick up my call because somehow now I've got that ability. And I'm going to say forget about your top liked and shared posts or your favorite most comments. Which one drove the most business and why? And have you guys analyzed it?
- [27:06]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [27:07]
Tommy Mello
And then just I call it R and D. Rip off and duplicate.
- [27:09]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [27:10]
Tommy Mello
And them telling me will not make them any less successful. That's what's so cool about it. Doesn't mean I'm going to beat them at something that I'm glad to share.
- [27:18]
Scott Clary
Exactly.
- [27:19]
Tommy Mello
What do you think about sponsored ads? I mean if you're trying to grow a following and you're going to do spot not giveaway stuff, but do you think using the sponsored stuff makes sense if you're trying to grow fast?
- [27:31]
Scott Clary
So you're saying look alike audience and.
- [27:33]
Tommy Mello
You could pay for the ad to pop up in front of the right people.
- [27:36]
Scott Clary
So.
- [27:36]
Tommy Mello
But it's not for selling a product to get them to follow you, trust you?
- [27:42]
Scott Clary
No.
- [27:43]
Tommy Mello
So it's got to be organic.
- [27:45]
Scott Clary
It has to be organic. This is why it's very important to understand how to drive organic growth on every single platform. A couple thoughts on there's sort of three ways to grow anything, any business. But again, content is a business, right? So if you grow a business, you can use ads like you just mentioned, you can use collaborations with other creators or in business it'd be like a jv. Or you can grow organically. So if you are building a podcast, a newsletter, an Instagram, organic growth just looks like content that hits with an audience. That's all it is. If the content resonates, if it's shareable. If people subscribe to you on YouTube without you spending a dollar, if people subscribe to your email list without spending a dollar just because they love the way you think and the way you write, that's organic growth. This is also why honestly, if you were gonna ever run any paid ads, you should only use the content that resonates organically.
- [28:39]
Tommy Mello
That's stuff that went organic.
- [28:40]
Scott Clary
That's just you can use that for paid if you want to do that. Now the other way to grow, especially with a podcast, is to do collaborations with other creators. So my I would say the the best growth that I've had that is not just organic is when there's something called a feed drop. So what that means you take a full episode from your show and I put it on your podcast and I take a full episode of your show and I put it on my podcast and we record a little intro. Say hey, if you like this show, here's a full episode. If the content hits with you, go subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and then listen to, you know, Tommy's show. So what I'm doing there is I'm not just collaborating with another creator. I'm collaborating with another podcaster, right? Which is huge. Sometimes people try and do collaborations and they say, like, well, you know, I have this podcast. Can you share it on your Instagram story after I bring you on the show? Yeah, it can work. But you also have to understand that if I'm sharing a podcast on someone else's Instagram, it's a different kind of audience, right?
- [29:40]
Tommy Mello
That's true.
- [29:41]
Scott Clary
So I'm trying to get somebody who, who's scrolling on Instagram to listen to an hour, hour and a half long piece of content.
- [29:48]
Tommy Mello
Well, that's tough.
- [29:49]
Scott Clary
A percentage will, but not a hundred percent. But if I want to grow a podcast, I say, let's do a feed swap like I just described. That means that everybody who's listening to your podcast loves podcasts. Everyone who's listening to my podcast love loves podcasts. All I'm saying is like, hey, here's another option. Go check it out. So the best collaborations are not just with like another creator that's in your niche. That is sort of like in the same category. Entrepreneurship, mindset, relationship. You got to pick somebody in your niche for sure. But the medium meaning like podcast to podcast, newsletter to newsletter, Instagram to Instagram. That's why Instagram Lives or collab posts are good on Instagram. If you want to grow an Instagram audience, find a creator, similar niche and similar platform, similar medium. That's how you do these collaborations the best. And like, the last thing is, like I mentioned, for, for any type of audience building doesn't matter if it's YouTube or podcasts or social media, organic growth is huge. Now, all social platforms have organic built in, like Instagram. If you post something, some people can discover it. Twitter, you post something, some people can discover it, or X whatever. Podcast has to be video. Now, because if you just have an audio podcast, there's no organic reach, right? You have to show up on YouTube, second largest search engine in the world. People are going to discover you if you want to write a newsletter too. I mean, there's a lot of newsletter platforms. If you are a newsletter writer. I've gone through all of them. Right now I use substack. I use substack because it has organic reach built in. So not only can I build an email list. But if I write about whatever topic substack the platform where I host it is going to recommend it to people that care about that topic. So you're tapping into the organic reach and that's how you build and grow anything really.
- [31:36]
Tommy Mello
Hey, hope you're enjoying today's episode. Let me ask you something real quick. Are you planning to 2x, 3x or even 4x your business in 2026? Most contractors hear that and think I'm crazy. But listen, I doubled a one year after year for years and I've watched a bunch of contractors in my network do the same thing. One guy just had his first million dollar month, another doubled his trucks in a year. So as you're closing out 2025, here's.
- [32:02]
What I want you to think about.
- [32:03]
What's your plan for next year? Are you going to play it safe and aim for 10 to 20% growth.
- [32:09]
Scott Clary
Or are you going to go all.
- [32:10]
Tommy Mello
In and shoot for a 100% growth?
- [32:13]
Here's the deal.
- [32:14]
2026 is going to be absolutely massive for home services. AI is changing the game. Baby boomers are retiring and selling their shops. PE firms are creating opportunities everywhere. But if you don't have the right systems in place, you're going to watch all these opportunities pass you by. That's why my right hand man, Jim Leslie is doing a one day boot camp in Hollywood, Florida next Thursday, November 6th. He's going to walk you through the exact six systems we used to scale a one to $250 million. Grab one of the few tickets left at homeservicexpert.com Boot Camp Boo Tcamp. That's home Service Expert Forward Slash Bootcamp. If the checkout isn't working, it most likely means we're sold out. All right, back to the episode.
- [32:59]
Last question. On social media here, most people start with YouTube because they get paid the most. And if you get good at YouTube, that gives you the funding to get the right stuff. Plus you can make the shorts out of it. You can make it kind of work. What are your thoughts on that?
- [33:15]
Scott Clary
I still don't think that you should start on a Like a lot of people have stress about putting themselves on.
- [33:20]
Tommy Mello
Video, which is crazy.
- [33:22]
Scott Clary
It is, but it's because we've been doing it for so long so you don't even think about it anymore. But it's the same as when somebody has stress about jumping on stage and speaking in front of an audience. It's the number one fear in the world. But you do it a hundred times. You don't get stressed out anymore.
- [33:33]
Tommy Mello
Not at all. Yeah.
- [33:34]
Scott Clary
So I would ra. I would rather somebody stick with it for the long term. Like if somebody's like an introverted writer, that's all they do.
- [33:45]
Tommy Mello
They just write LinkedIn.
- [33:46]
Scott Clary
LinkedIn. Write an email newsletter.
- [33:48]
Tommy Mello
X. Yeah, newsletter.
- [33:49]
Scott Clary
Like if you're going to, if you're going to force yourself to go on YouTube and you hate it and you, and you stop after a year, what's the point of YouTube? So yeah, if you, if listen, if you have a personality, you don't mind being in front of a camera, go on the platform that's going to pay you the most. And I think YouTube is huge and there's a lot of trust built into YouTube. I mentioned before, like at the beginning of this, this, this podcast, like different platforms have different levels of trust. YouTube is like the highest level of trust. Meaning if I create a video on YouTube and somebody watches me, that is the most amount of trust I can build with somebody in the audience without literally sitting across the table from them or being in front of them at a conference on stage. So YouTube is super high trust. But two things can be true at the same time. Even though YouTube is great, if you are not going to continue it because you're stressed out about it, that's not where you start as a creator. Even if the money opportunity is there. I know people. Lenny, he's a, he's a product manager. He does a whole bunch of. He does podcasts and YouTube now, but he started with a newsletter and now he makes like a million dollars a year just on writing a newsletter. Yep. So, I mean, maybe, maybe he's evolved into a creator that can go on video. But when he started, he was just a guy who wanted to write a newsletter. So start there because you can still make a decent amount of money as a creator wherever you, wherever you can stick with it.
- [35:10]
Tommy Mello
The longest with the newsletters. Is it because I like, still I write a newsletter and only 800 people get it, but it's a real envelope and it comes the old school like. And people like, remember I blue collar like, I got a mailed newsletter all colorful.
- [35:25]
Scott Clary
Oh, you have a man.
- [35:27]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, no, that's.
- [35:28]
Scott Clary
What.
- [35:28]
Tommy Mello
Well, well, it's all colorful. It's got QR codes and videos. But do you think just going, we've got a digital newsletter too with a much higher subscription. But what are your thoughts on that?
- [35:39]
Scott Clary
Like mail versus digital?
- [35:40]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, well, I, I know, I probably know your thoughts.
- [35:43]
Scott Clary
No, I don't think that. Analog and old school hurts it's just not the most effective way.
- [35:52]
Tommy Mello
Like, I mean, it's not the most efficient way or not the most scalable way.
- [35:55]
Scott Clary
So I have a friend who's a CEO of a large real estate company. He still sends to his top performers. He sends written mail. Yeah, because it stands out. I think that. I think that the answer is. Depends on what you're trying to accomplish, right? If you are just trying to reach 3, 4, 500, you know, a million people, and you're trying to reach them every single week, and you have advertisers that want to get in front of those people. And the. And for every, you know, for every newsletter subscriber that you add on, you get a dollar or two dollars of revenue, and you've done the math. And yeah, then you're going to want to just focus on scale and you're going to want to focus on getting people to subscribe to your newsletter from your Instagram and your YouTube. And that's a business decision. Now, if I was trying to use a newsletter to close a deal or to get somebody's attention or to show that I actually care about them, then the physical thing still stands out. I mean, in enterprise sales, like, you can do outreach when you're reaching out to decision makers, you're trying to sell an expensive product, right? You can reach out on LinkedIn, you can reach out via email, you can cold email people, you can cold call them. But if you really want to get somebody's attention, you send them physical mail, or you send them a gift basket, or you send them a present, something that you know is going to be put on their desk because just going the extra mile, honestly, not many people do it. So, like, your. Your physical mail that's delivered, you know, that stands out. People remember your name because of it.
- [37:34]
Tommy Mello
You know, you. Does this ring a bell? John Rulan or Steve Sims? John Rulin, Giftology. And Steve Sims wrote Blue Fishing.
- [37:42]
Scott Clary
I don't know these guys.
- [37:43]
Tommy Mello
They both passed away in the last year and a half. But John's rule was you never send a gift with your company name on it. No one wants that shit.
- [37:54]
Scott Clary
If it's a bad gift.
- [37:55]
Tommy Mello
Well, here's the thing. He sent me a massive set of Cutco knives. I'm talking, and it's in this treasure box, and you open it up, there's a video of him gifting it every. And he goes, here's the deal. Every time you look at those knives, who you thinking about?
- [38:08]
Scott Clary
Yeah, obviously, yeah.
- [38:10]
Tommy Mello
And he sent me this massive welcome mat that you saw last night at the house, it says Tommy and Brie. I think about him every time I see that. That picture of me and Finnegan was from him. Same thing as Steve was. Like I was in Italy one day. I've got about 100 close associates that spend a fortune with me.
- [38:27]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [38:27]
Tommy Mello
He goes to the bartender center. Do you have a coaster that we could handwrite the recipe of that margarita? And he said, why would I give you 100 coasters? And he goes, I'm gonna get 100 rich people to come in here, including Richard Branson and all my, my people I work with. So they hand wrote this recipe on it. And then he sent a piece of mail just with a coaster in it and said, next time you're in Italy, check this place out. Make this come here for the real thing. But try this margarita stands out. It's just those little things. And if you could automate and it's got to be genuine. But I'm trying to figure out ways to more automate the idea to do it to more than just 100. I mean, we got a thousand people here at A1 well. But you need to read those books. I'm going to send you those books.
- [39:06]
Scott Clary
Please. I'll tell you one thing now, it won't automate the gifts, but there is a company called Handwritten.
- [39:14]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. I invested in a company called Simply Noted.
- [39:17]
Scott Clary
Same thing, same difference. Yeah. So they. That's one way to scale Handwritten notes.
- [39:22]
Tommy Mello
And it's my handwriting and it's awesome.
- [39:24]
Scott Clary
And it's. Yeah, it's crazy what technology can do.
- [39:26]
Tommy Mello
But let me ask you this. So you've had a lot of people on success stories. Guy, Kiyosaki, Kawasaki, Patrick with David and more. What have you learned about success and how would you define it? What are some of the biggest takeaways?
- [39:41]
Scott Clary
That success is freedom. Success is freedom. Success is not just making more money. All the people on my show have made some amount of money. I've had billionaires on. I've had people that have exited for eight, nine figures. Like some really, really incredible entrepreneurs. I've had. You just mentioned some. I've had the co founder of Netflix.
- [40:02]
Tommy Mello
Yeah.
- [40:02]
Scott Clary
Founder of Reeboks Household name brands. Right. There's multiple areas that you have to excel in to feel successful. So relationships, physical, mental health, some version of spirituality. Yes. Money matters as well. But if you just make money and you're deficient in everything else, and I see people that exit have more money than they know what to do. They're like, you know. Yeah. Whether or not they're like physically ill, morbidly obese, you know, two ex wives, kids hate them. Like that's no one's version of success. But for some reason, probably because that's just the way they, they figured it out, they've been so focused on money that all the rest of their life has kind of gone to shit. And then they wake up one day and they realize that all they have is money.
- [40:56]
Tommy Mello
Well, that's what I was. Steve Jobs, I mean, he goes, I got more money than anybody would ever want, but yet I'm sitting here in a hospital with no one here next to me. And he said, if you don't take your food as medicine, you'll be taking medicine as food.
- [41:09]
Scott Clary
I love that. So I think that, I think that true success, it doesn't mean that your whole life will always be balanced. Because if you are going to build anything meaningful, you have to be obsessed. And there will be seasons of your life that are not balanced. That's fine. But just understand that there are seasons, meaning that season comes to an end at some point and you have to make sure that you don't let all the other parts of your life fall by the wayside before it's too late. And this is, I mean, one of my favorite stories is Mark Randolph. So he was a co founder of Netflix. And just to show you how important sort of balance is in life, every Tuesday when he was building Netflix, he, at five o' clock he would shut off from work completely and go on date night with his wife. And that was something that was like he was religious about it. It doesn't matter what fires were going on in Netflix, he shut off Tuesday at 5 o', clock, went on date night with his wife. And it just goes to show you, like a lot of people say, well, I'm in entrepreneur mode. I'm building right now. I don't have time for my family, I don't have time for the gym, I don't have time to eat healthy. I don't have time for any. I'm like the people that built some of the biggest companies in the world found time for was a choice. It's always a choice.
- [42:25]
Tommy Mello
And here's what I always say is like, look, every time I took a three day vacation, man, it was like a reset. I came back, I looked at the business different, I got out of my own way. Like one of the things I demand of each and every coworker I have at this company is you take your pto, you need the reset, and you'll come back stronger, faster, clear. And a lot of people just say, man, I need to work. I'm trying to get ahead.
- [42:48]
Scott Clary
I'll tell you something too. We waste a lot of time working on things that don't matter.
- [42:52]
Tommy Mello
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [42:53]
Scott Clary
Everybody does it again. We were talking about Leo, my friend, last night. He's CEO of Exp. And he said that having kids was the best, the best thing that ever happened to him. And you know, because we were talking, I don't have kids yet, I want to have kids. And I was saying, like, how stressed I am. I have no time. Like, if I have kids, where am I going to find time for my kids? And he's like, no, no, Scott, you don't get it. Like, when you have kids, you're forced to make time for your kids because you don't want to be an asshole, absent father. So you, you, you only can focus on the things that are actually important in your business. Because if you focus on as much bullshit as you focused on right now, you wouldn't make time for your family. When you have kids all of a sudden, like, you don't have time after 5 o'. Clock, you don't have time on the weekends. So what, what does that make you do? It makes you prioritize more efficient. Makes you way more efficient. He's like, and I became a better entrepreneur and a more successful entrepreneur when I had kids because I stopped doing the things that felt good to do but didn't really move the needle 100%.
- [43:54]
Tommy Mello
You know, you brought up a word earlier that I could say, every person I know that's done well financially and it's almost a sickness at times, but it's obsessed. You said you got to be obsessed.
- [44:05]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [44:05]
Tommy Mello
Is that what you would consider a common denominator when it comes to some of the interviews and some of the people you've met?
- [44:10]
Scott Clary
Yes, you can tell. You can tell. You can really tell who's real or not because of the level of obsession that they have with the thing that they do. So if you ask anybody about their business, it's like their eyes light up and they can talk about it for days. Like they can just talk about it non stop. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what business it is. You go speak to Joe Foster, he's the founder of Reebok. You speak to him about shoes and, and basically how him and his brother built Reebok from the ground up and all the things they had to figure out with you know, athletes didn't want this and didn't want that. I don't know anything about shoes, but he would just talk about them non stop. Another good friend of mine is Yosef Martin. He was the founder of Boxycharm. He sold it for 500 million to Ipsy. Like, he can talk about makeup because that's what the product was like. He's like, you know, he's never been involved in makeup before, but after he built boxycharm, it was basically a product where you put all these different makeups, samples in the box. Like, my girlfriend knows this product very well. I think a lot of women do. They work the Kardashians.
- [45:19]
Tommy Mello
The same thing with my dogs. It comes every month.
- [45:21]
Scott Clary
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So he put all these make. The guy can talk about every single makeup influencer, every single piece of makeup, every single shade, every single. Like, he could just talk about it for days. Yeah, for days. For days. For days. So this is what. This is what obsession means. It doesn't mean that you ruin the rest of your life building your business, but it means that you are so in it that all you want to do is just learn more and just research and just dive into it. Like, you still have to have other parts of your life. And this is also why I think that if you have the right friends and the right partner or spouse who are also kind of in the same zone as you, they're entrepreneurs, they're building.
- [46:03]
Tommy Mello
They.
- [46:03]
Scott Clary
I mean, like, I think it's very hard when you can be obsessed about something and your partner isn't. I think it's very difficult.
- [46:09]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. You were talking about Gina.
- [46:11]
Scott Clary
She's. She's obsessed with what she does. So she has a big account, she has a big audience. Obviously different type of content than me, but she studies her content 24, 7, 365. And then we can bounce ideas off each other. So it's not like, again, you know, they say, like, there's no such thing as work life balance. There's work life integration.
- [46:28]
Tommy Mello
Yeah.
- [46:28]
Scott Clary
When you have the right friends and the right spouse, the right partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, like your. Your life becomes about building and you're building together and you're bouncing ideas off each other and you're making each other better entrepreneurs and just better people. And it's just, you don't have to, like, hide a part of who you are for the people that are around you. Right. Because again, if you're gonna build anything meaningful, you gotta be a little bit obsessed about it. Which means that, like, it's fun to talk about the shit that you do.
- [46:55]
Tommy Mello
Oh yeah.
- [46:56]
Scott Clary
Because you love it.
- [46:57]
Tommy Mello
You know, it's funny, a 21 year old asked me recently, what's the number one thing you would do if you were me at 21? I'd say be careful who you pick as a partner.
- [47:06]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [47:06]
Tommy Mello
And probably go to the bars list than I did at 21.
- [47:10]
Scott Clary
I think partner is huge.
- [47:12]
Tommy Mello
What's one piece of game changing advice you wish you knew in your early 20s?
- [47:17]
Scott Clary
Game changing advice when I was early 20s, one idea that always comes up that I think is very, I don't know, it's very comforting is that building anything, being an entrepreneur, it's not complicated. It's just a lot of hard work. Meaning that if you stick with something long enough, you'll figure it out. I spoke about staying in the content game for a long enough period of time where you start to become successful. The same idea applies to building any business. And I think that this is a beautiful idea because we didn't really get into this. But I think that a lot of people are stressed out right now and there's more people that are interested in entrepreneurship than ever before because they felt their nine to five let them down or whatever. There's a reason why they want to build something themselves. And I think that's a beautiful thing. I think that people just are, they just have anxiety about, well, if I dive in and build my own business and take my life into my own hands, what if I fail? Right? That's always the question. What if I fail? That's scary. I think that what I've learned from literally everybody I've spoken to is if you find a way to stay in the game long enough, if you learn, if you improve, if you iterate, it's almost impossible to fail. Failure is just when you can't afford to keep going, quit too soon, whatever it is. But if you find a way to stay in the game long enough, meaning if you want to be an entrepreneur, okay. It doesn't mean you quit your job when you have six months left of cash in the bank. It means that, well, you know what, I'm going to work my 9 to 5. Yeah. Or on the weekends I'm going to start building my business, maybe monetizing the skill that I do in my nine to five because I know that no company is going to pay me as much for my skill as the market will. And then that's a very safe way to build an additional side income. So I love that idea because it just Sort of de. Stresses entrepreneurship.
- [49:26]
Tommy Mello
Well, I, I tell people all the time that it's, I don't think it's the best advice to always start a business because you see, you know when you see that picture of a, an ice.
- [49:37]
Scott Clary
Iceberg.
- [49:38]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, iceberg. And then underneath is like all the, you got to go through. So a lot of people want, they see the glory side of it. But man, I'm like, somebody said, I want to build like you did a hundred million dollar plus business. And I say, well, just tell me you don't have any kids. Yeah, that's the first thing. And they're like, well, I have three. I'm like, well, you're never going to see them grow up. I said, number two, why, why do you want that? Like if you don't have, like, what do you want to do with it? If there's a really big old. You want to retire your parents, you want to help out your sister? And how about grandma? Like if there's not a big. Well, you proved this possible. But I had a lot of whys.
- [50:11]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [50:12]
Tommy Mello
And plus it was really hard for me to have a personal relationship with anybody because I decided at 7 years old I wasn't going to let money tear my family apart like it did for me. So.
- [50:22]
Scott Clary
But I'll tell you something though. So I would tell people that that's not a smart thing to do. You don't have to build a hundred million dollar business. But that's not what entrepreneurship has to be either. Why can't entrepreneurship be I want to make an extra $500,000 a year?
- [50:38]
Tommy Mello
Well, why can't you do it as an entrepreneur? Why can't you say, I don't want the stress, the anxiety. And listen, if you could get equity in a company and be able to put your work jacket up at home.
- [50:48]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [50:48]
Tommy Mello
And be able to be a part of the equity pool, which is a profit units, equity incentive programs, phantom shares. There's a lot of ways to do this, but you know what it means is you're relentless. You don't. When you have a business, there are no weekends, there are no holidays, there are no real, like there, there are no real vacations. And I don't think people know that.
- [51:07]
Scott Clary
No, I agree.
- [51:07]
Tommy Mello
Eventually you hit that point where there are, but that's when you're delegating to elevate, you know.
- [51:11]
Scott Clary
But that's also a good point. So there's many ways to make money in this world. Right? There's a lot of different ways to make money. I think that people, we could have a whole other conversation about how to be strategic with your career. So you work for companies that give you those opportunities. Right. I know there's a lot of people that work for companies that treat them like shit and don't give them any equity and no shares and no opportunities and no rev upside and nothing. And they just feel stuck.
- [51:38]
Tommy Mello
I get that.
- [51:39]
Scott Clary
So there's a million different ways. I fully agree. I think that that's a beautiful. When more companies act like a one does and like how you treat like the people you work with.
- [51:47]
Tommy Mello
Yep.
- [51:48]
Scott Clary
Then they wouldn't have to be worried. But there's people that are making 70, $80,000 a year and they have no retirement, no pension, and they're just trying to figure out what the hell do I do when I'm 60 years old or like there's a medical emergency. So the advice about not building a hundred million dollar company but not stressing so much about you taking your life into your own hands.
- [52:09]
Tommy Mello
Right.
- [52:09]
Scott Clary
Is for somebody that is working for that company that treats them like shit.
- [52:13]
Tommy Mello
I agree. You know, one of the things I thought about real quick is three feet from gold and if you stick in it long enough, you're right near the end zone and most people spike the ball. If you just stayed in the game a little bit longer, you're one higher away. So I love that, that idea of just stick it out. If you had $10 million tomorrow, what would you do with it?
- [52:31]
Scott Clary
$10 million?
- [52:32]
Tommy Mello
$10 million showed up in your account. You got nothing else. You got no real estate, you got nothing. Where are you putting the money?
- [52:39]
Scott Clary
I put a lot of it into. I put it into people that can teach me what I don't know to compress time. I, I would work with somebody that's built a podcast like I'd work with. I'd work with a Steven Bartlett who just built a very big podcast very quickly. So I'd hire the right people that could teach me how to get from where I am to where they are in, you know, a year or two, if possible. I'd put the money right back into my team and find the talent that could execute on that vision. Yeah, I mean, 10 million, 10 million is more than you need to do. 10 million is more than you would need to do that right away. But I would just rinse and repeat. I mean, yeah, you can put money into passive assets. I've put money into real estate before, but I would say that most of my money goes right into like my education or getting access to people that I can't get access to or talent that knows more than me. That's really where all my money goes right now.
- [53:36]
Tommy Mello
Smart. You know, you asked me yesterday how much I spend. I don't know if it was a question at dinner, how much I spent on personal development, but kind of how many coaches, who's coaching me? And I'm like, all I do is learn and extract. But the difference is you could learn a million things, but how much do you implement? And so many people, they take notes, they go to every single show. I mean, I go to a lot of home service shows. I'm a speaker. A lot of them. I see the same people. There's. Yeah, guess what? I'm like, how much has your business grown the last three years? Remember what you told me you're gonna do three years ago? Did you get it done? And it's like, they're constant learners, but they never integrate or implement.
- [54:11]
Scott Clary
Well, this is the thing. So, yes, there's a lot of free information. You can go on YouTube and you can learn a lot.
- [54:17]
Tommy Mello
Paying for it.
- [54:18]
Scott Clary
The reason why it's good to pay is because it's an obligation. It's an obligation. And. And you will start to find that people that operate at the highest level, the highest performers, they hold people that they respect accountable. So if you enter, not just watching them on YouTube, but if you enter their circle, they know who you are. You're texting back and forth with them like, they're not going to give this kind of access to everybody. But if you are at that level with them, like, they don't want to see you fail.
- [54:46]
Tommy Mello
Well, yeah, you. You know, the last thing they want is four years down the road, you've been coaching them, and there's not a really successful story. And I've even told people I work with, I don't know if I want you as a client until you could get this done. And, I mean, you know, I work with a couple different mentors. One mentor said, I used to give people. I used to meet with them weekly, now meet with them monthly because I realized I gave them enough work that takes a month.
- [55:09]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [55:10]
Tommy Mello
And then we want to revisit that, because most people, if I give them too much, it was too much to bite off, and it sunk them to the bottom of the ocean.
- [55:16]
Scott Clary
Yeah. And that's why. But they'll also hold you accountable for getting that done.
- [55:20]
Tommy Mello
Yeah. You said you were going to do this.
- [55:21]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [55:21]
Tommy Mello
I mean, you're a man of your word, aren't you? Yeah, that's the best question. You made a commitment to me that you said you were going to come in and work.
- [55:27]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [55:27]
Tommy Mello
And that's why I like a good trainer, too. Somebody that's allowed to have those hard conversations.
- [55:31]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [55:31]
Tommy Mello
Like, you wanted this. You told me you wanted this. And yet here we are today. You're not at the body fat we discussed. You're not proud of yourself, and you've got an excuse. You got 168 hours in a week. What's going on? And most people don't like to have those conversations. But a great coach that's successful. I love the teachers. When I got my master's degree, there was two of them that came back to teach that were filthy wealthy.
- [55:52]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [55:52]
Tommy Mello
The rest of them tied out of a notebook or, you know, a workbook.
- [55:55]
Scott Clary
Yeah. Yeah.
- [55:56]
Tommy Mello
And those guys didn't give a. They were like, I'm going to teach you guys how to make real money in life and real relationships. The other ones that had tenure, I was like, this sucks. Or looking at a case study, you.
- [56:08]
Scott Clary
See the real ones, I fully agree.
- [56:10]
Tommy Mello
And how many coaches out there are fake and wannabes and don't really know what they're doing and don't have a pot to piss in?
- [56:17]
Scott Clary
Which I think. I think the majority. The majority of people that are posting lifestyle content and mansions and rented Lambos on Instagram. Yeah. Like, the people that. The people that I want to learn from are the people where I can Google their business and see how, you know, they. They built this, they exited for X amount of dollars. That's who I want to learn from.
- [56:36]
Tommy Mello
I like that word exit. Because somebody. Some people build a business that they never plan on selling. The first thing I say is, how many of you plan on exiting in the next five years? And I'm like, why? And they're like, well, we're taking enough out of the business to live. I'm like, what about the person that's been with you for 15 years? What about the. How do they win? And if you don't have a. If you're not building a business to sell, there's a great book by John Warlow built to sell. If you're not building it to sell, it's never run perfectly. If I said you got to sell your business in six months, you'd be like, well, I know I'd have to do this. I know I'd have to get rid of. Like, my uncle still works here, but he's just, I want to be able to sit down at Thanksgiving all of a sudden you start making all these great changes.
- [57:16]
Scott Clary
It's true. I mean, that's. That's. I like the angle that you took on that, because most of the time you talk about exit or not exit, it's only focused on the founder. It's only focused on what they want to do. And I would. I would say that if you don't want to exit, it's a personal choice. You should know whether or not you want to exit when you start a business. But it's a very personal choice. Some people want to, you know, pass it over to their kids, but it doesn't.
- [57:42]
Tommy Mello
Here's why it's. I had a buddy tell me that this morning. I go, yeah, how old are your kids? I know how old they are, 5 and 8. I said, you really think they want this business? I said, let them go where their heart wants. I was with a plumber with five kids from Australia.
- [57:54]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [57:54]
Tommy Mello
He said, I'm passing the business on to my sons. They're all going to run it. I said, would you rather have mom and dad have $20 million and give you each three and go do your own thing or possibly team up with a few of your brothers and watch mom and dad just live their best life ever?
- [58:07]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [58:08]
Tommy Mello
Or would you rather take on the business together? And I said, dad, you can't get mad. Each son said, I want mom and dad to. To have that. And we would split off and do our own thing. So what mom and dad want or grandparents want usually aren't what the kids want anyway.
- [58:21]
Scott Clary
I mean, but that's life. That is life. That is always life. Like, parents always try and impose and live vicariously through their kids. It's. Yeah, you're not wrong. I also think that, listen, if you're a great entrepreneur and. And I've seen this with several of my friends, if you're a great entrepreneur and you can build it once, you should be able to build it again.
- [58:45]
Tommy Mello
Every time very easily. Well, now you got a stack of cash usually. So you hire top down versus bottom up. I mean, that's what Richard Branson would say.
- [58:53]
Scott Clary
You asked me what would I do with 10 million. It was talent after. After education and talent.
- [58:58]
Tommy Mello
Yeah, education is. I agree with that. Education than talent. And the talent will pick the talent underneath them. When I was starting out, I didn't have a pot to piss in. I just needed. The first thing I needed is somebody to answer phones because I couldn't get to them. The next person I had is somebody to do payroll and then the smartest hire I've ever done was an executive assistant that could do $25 an hour stuff.
- [59:18]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [59:18]
Tommy Mello
Because my time. But every time I bought back time and Dan said, here's what I'm worried about with you and most of the guys I work with. Martell, he goes, I will get you back so much time, but you're going to fill it back up. And you got to be careful what you fill it back up with. It's got to be million dollar things. Million dollar an hour things. If not. And there's some things that don't look like a million dollars. Like calling a technician that's doing good. You, you know what, how did that make you a million dollars to tell somebody they're doing great and you love them? But that to me is. I'm looking at other things. Like people focus so much on getting people in the front door, but they lose them. The great people out the back door.
- [59:51]
Scott Clary
I agree. Well, that's why you. Yeah. So I think that like a talent attracts other A players as well. And if you make the mistake of like hiring, you know, B talent and they just kind of coast, it sets this expectation in the company that that's okay. And then other A players are turned off because they see that this, this B player that's kind of just half assing it is allowed to exist. So if you have. It's like hiring. Hiring is very difficult. Hiring is exceptionally difficult. You know, they say like, you know, hire slow fire, fast. Like I fully agree with that. You make like, obviously you don't want to make the wrong choice, but if you do, it's not just that person that it costs. It's like the, it can impact and influence the whole company. It's a virus. So you got to be very careful who you hire. Which is why if you can. Listen, if you're starting a company and you have no money, I don't think it's bad if you can give a little bit of equity vested to people that can really like, change, change your company. True A talent. If you have the cash, then just don't be cheap.
- [60:53]
Tommy Mello
Right.
- [60:54]
Scott Clary
But not everybody has the cash.
- [60:56]
Tommy Mello
It's tough. Yeah. That's what I did. I did equity incentive programs and I got the right people on the bus and they changed everything. A few good hires completely changed a few dials and all of a sudden we started printing money, of course. And that's the deal. Like people ask me what I would do for a cfo. I said I'd go to find the million Dollar cfo, like a million dollars. He costs a million dollars a year, but he's fractional. He's only coming into the business three hours. So that million dollars you're paying him three hours a week, he's putting in millionaire systems like those expensive systems that'll automate itself. There's reconciliation going on.
- [61:29]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [61:30]
Tommy Mello
And you can find fractional people that will come in and say this is a piece of cake, this isn't even a challenge. Instead of getting like a good bookkeeper, now you're understanding tax and write offs and how to do advanced depreciation. And that's the deal is get pay for the talent. Even if it's fractional. They'll come in and put the systems in that are enterprise level.
- [61:48]
Scott Clary
Yeah, I agree fully. But that's like if you don't have the money then you don't, you don't think that way. You're just thinking how do I find the cheapest possible person? And this person's going to cost you.
- [61:57]
Tommy Mello
10X oh, it costs you, you get. And then the IRS is coming after you. Like CFO for me was the perfect combo for me because I understand marketing, sales and culture. But the right cfo, the right CFO understands the forward looking of the business. CPAs and bookkeepers don't. They're thinking about how to save taxes and cash versus accrual and audited. Like the right CFO is like how do we build this business for a transaction? And it's amazing.
- [62:24]
Scott Clary
And then you, then you, you, you build to sell at that point.
- [62:27]
Tommy Mello
And by the way, do you know how much Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos owns of their companies?
- [62:33]
Scott Clary
Not a lot anymore.
- [62:35]
Tommy Mello
Elon owns like 12%. Jeff Bezos owns about 8% of Amazon. Like so they take money off, off, off and then bigger people come in and you get these entrepreneurs in there and they're all working hard. And I think people are so selfish. They never want to sell but they don't understand the long term vision.
- [62:53]
Scott Clary
Well, I was going to say like when you're first starting out, depends on what you're building. But if you know your skill set and you know what you're really good at, like say you're sales, marketing, product, whatever that is. I mean I don't always like, I've had bad experiences with co founders but sometimes if you can, if you can set up a proper vesting schedule, you can get a, like a co founder that complements your skill set perfectly. So if you're trying to build a technical product I would rather you go get a technical co founder, full stack developer, then go raise money and be stressed out because now you have investors right out of the gate and go pay a dev shop like $500,000 to put together. Yeah, I do like when people have a stake and you know, they're vested in the success of the business, but that's the only way you're going to get A plus talent. So I can tell if it's a good hire, if I feel like I'm the idiot when I speak to them. Like, I don't want to know more than the person I hired to do the job.
- [63:57]
Tommy Mello
Yeah.
- [63:58]
Scott Clary
So when I feel, like, uncomfortable because they know so much and I'm trying to keep up with them, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's a really good thing. But again, what? This, this. This idea of ego. I've been thinking about it a lot. Ego kills everything.
- [64:12]
Tommy Mello
Ego kills, amigo.
- [64:13]
Scott Clary
Yeah, ego kills a business. Because if you want to be the smartest per. And don't get me wrong, like, I'm the. I'm the guy. When I'm starting a business, I like to learn all the stuff, right? I do like to learn it. Like, when I started my podcast, that's the most recent business I figured out to some level of, you know, competency. Audio editing, video editing, coding up a website I already kind of knew marketing. So, like, writing good subject lines that get high open rates for emails, writing good copy, like, graphic. Like, I've done. I've messed around with it, right? But when I hire the first person, I don't want to be better than them at what they do. No, I want them to say, like, hey, Scott, okay, you put this together. You edited this podcast. It sucks. Let me show you what you should actually be doing. Yes, please, like, teach me. Like, that's really what you pay somebody for. But I know it's obvious to us because we. I think we think the same way around a lot of stuff, but a lot of. A lot of founders, like, they want to be the last word in the meeting. They want to know more than the people that work for them.
- [65:16]
Tommy Mello
I. I let my whole C suite VP level, I say this to them. I'm like, I want you to fail more. I used to. A few years ago. I'd be like, you got to come to me. I've already been through it. And that gives them no freedom. They don't learn anything. We learn from our failures, not our successes. We can't even reflect.
- [65:32]
Scott Clary
Yeah.
- [65:32]
Tommy Mello
Let me ask you a closing out couple questions.
- [65:35]
Scott Clary
Go for it.
- [65:36]
Tommy Mello
Give me one book that just changed your life.
- [65:42]
Scott Clary
Play Bigger. Play. I mean I've read like all the go tos, the atomic habits of the world, but Play Bigger is one of my favorites because it speaks about creating something where nothing has existed before. It speaks about Marc Benioff creating Salesforce.com when the idea of cloud didn't exist. It speaks about the founders of Ikea creating a brand new sort of shopping experience. So all these great entrepreneurs that didn't just copy what already existed, but found a way to create a category and it just forces you to think differently. So a lot of what we fall into and nothing wrong with this, like, I mean like podcasts existed before, yeah, it all kind of existed. But you can build a business that way. But to 30x you have to do something a little bit different. So I think that, you know, I. Even if you're not doing it today, fine, but always be thinking, how do I do something that's never been done before, that's outside of my comfort zone, that's outside of most people's comfort zones. If you want a really 30 exit, I think that's a really smart way to think. And that's a book that sort of lays out the framework for all these famous entrepreneurs, how they did it.
- [66:52]
Tommy Mello
Love it. How do people get a hold of you? Scott?
- [66:55]
Scott Clary
Very easy. Podcast is called Success Story. Do very similar stuff to what we're doing today. All the socials, Scott Declary and close us out.
- [67:03]
Tommy Mello
Maybe something we didn't talk about, something you want the audience to hear.
- [67:07]
Scott Clary
We spoke about, we spoke about the things that are required to be successful. We spoke about obsession. I think two other things that I love to talk about. You know, if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to have a little bit of delusion too. You have to have, you know, just a little bit of delusion and just agency. Just trust that you can figure it out. Everyone who I spoke to, another thing that they all believe is that they can figure it out. Whatever it is, doesn't matter what they have to learn, doesn't matter who they have to speak to, it's all on them. Jaco Willing speaks about ownership all the time. Ownership, agency, same thing. You're owning the outcome. And when you sort of drift through life and you just assume that whatever happens to you, oh, you know, bad luck or what, it didn't work out because, you know, I got dealt this bad hand, at the end of the day, nobody gives a you have one life, it's on you to figure it out. Doesn't matter if it's in your career, your relationship, your business. Like have agency, have ownership over your life and you will be surprised at how fast things change.
- [68:11]
Tommy Mello
I love it. Scott. Well done my friend. Thanks for being here.
- [68:16]
Scott Clary
My pleasure. Hey there.
- [68:17]
Tommy Mello
Thanks for tuning into the podcast today.
- [68:18]
Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is.
- [68:22]
Is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I.
- [68:24]
Attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states.
- [68:28]
The insights in this book are powerful.
- [68:30]
And can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 garage door service. So if you want to learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com.
- [68:48]
Forward/Podcast and grab a copy of the book.
- [68:51]
Thanks again for listening and we'll catch.
- [68:53]
Up with you next time on the podcast.