← The Home Service Expert Podcast
The Home Service Expert Podcast
Why the Wealthiest Investors, Nobody Talks About, Are All in This Industry
01:33:57
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- [00:00]
A
You might be the man 99% of the time, but inside your home, you're not the king, you're the joker. You're going to be like me, crying in your underwear in your theater room at 3 in the morning because you have $700,000 in bills and 400 grand
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B
in your bank account.
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A
Like. And you're like, none of this shit makes me happy. The cars, the houses, the money, the brand. But inside I felt dead, empty and scared to master the mundane. The millions are in the boring work, the repetitive work. It's all about discipline. I'm not the smartest guy. I'm just disciplined.
- [00:34]
B
Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today I got a special guest in the house. His name's Cody Sperber. Great buddy of mine, we invested in a company called Floor Daddy. Cody, AKA the Clever Investor, is one of the most recognized names in real estate education. A Navy veteran. Thank you. And an ASU finance grad, W.P. carey Baby. He went from zero to flipping 2,000 properties worth over 500 million. He found a clever investor in 2010, scaled it to an Inc. 5000 company with over a hundred thousand plus students and success, successfully exited in 2023. He's also a founder of six Eight Figure Businesses, a best selling author, and was the number one most followed real estate account on Instagram. Cody, welcome to the Mellow Millionaire.
- [01:14]
A
Thanks for having me on.
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B
So let's just start with a little bit of the origin story. You went from Navy vet to ASU finance student to flipping deals from your girlfriend's kitchen table with zero cash. That's a heck of a story. Let's dive in.
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A
Yeah, I mean, the short version of it is I got lucky. You know, I was, I was going, I came out of the nav. I really wasn't 100% positive what I wanted to do. I went back to my favorite human on planet Earth, my dad. I said, what should I do, dad? And he said, go to asu, use the MGI bill and get a degree in finance. And I'm like, dude, I'm horrible at math. Like, what are you talking about? He goes, that's the language of business. It's the biggest regret of my life. I should have majored in finance, maybe accounting, something like that so you could figure out business. I said, okay. And as I was going to school, I got lucky. A friend of mine flipped a house, made $80,000 and bought a cool car. I didn't care about the house or the money. I cared about the. And so we were, we were Hanging out. I said, how'd you get the car? And he literally pulled out a napkin and penciled out. It was the first time I ever was exposed to creative real estate investing. Right. I always thought you needed a license, deep pockets, you know, a fancy watch, a suit, the whole thing, connections. And here he is. The guy was doing it as like a little side hustle. And he could explain it on a napkin. And anything that's simple enough to explain on a fricking napkin, my brain can wrap its head around. And so I took that napkin with me and it was the concept of wholesaling, AKA no money down, house flipping, where you're not really buying the real estate, you're just controlling the real estate and flipping it. You're very familiar with this world because you've done a lot of real estate stuff, a lot of lead generation. And so anyways, yeah, I just, I got turned on by it back then. You got to go way, you know, 23 plus years ago, no social media, no Tommy Mello podcast to get mentoring from. Like, I was just figuring it out, flying around. I would look in the back of newspapers and see little classified ads for a real estate seminar. Reno, Nevada, Sheridan Airport Inn, 500 bucks and I'd get my butt on a plane and I'd go. And I was scared to death and I looked like I was 12 and I had no money. And here I am believing that I could flip houses and buy a Mercedes or something, you know, and took me 14 months, man. Took me 14 months to do my first deal. I don't know very many. I look back now and I'm like, dude, you're just crazy enough and hard headed enough and relentless enough to believe that you can do it. But I didn't have much of a choice. What was my alternatives? We had no money. I was broke, I was going to school. I really didn't even want to do finance. I wasn't enthusiastic about that. I was just kind of going through the motions of life because that's what my dad told me to do. And this real estate thing was the first thing I ever lit up over, like where it was like, I'm running towards the seminar room, I'm figuring out how to pay for the ticket. I'm, you know, staring at all these people up on stage going, I want to be that. I want to be that. I want to get celebrated like that, like for all my wins and stuff. And. And so I just stayed the course. I quit and unquit a thousand times. And then finally one Day it fricking happened. I was able to do my first deal. It was a very complicated deal. Thank God I had a mentor. His name was Lyle Wall, and he helped me through that first deal. And at the time, I had run out of money. I went and got a job as a bookkeeper while still going to school. And I had about 30,000 in credit card debt from flying myself all over the country for 14 months. And I had this deal. And I was just praying that this thing went through and Lyle helped me through it. It was a bankruptcy, a foreclosure, and a divorce all in one deal. Very complicated. I didn't know what to do. Lyle coached me through it. It was my first time ever really being truly mentored by. And thank God I listened. Thank God I did it, because that first deal paid me $40,000. I was making 34 grand at the time as a bookkeeper. Shifted my belief. Kind of like Roger Bannister running the four minute mile. All of a sudden it was like this thing happened and I was like, oh, I could do this, and maybe I could do it again and again for the rest of my life. And one deal, I started to collapse. Time. One deal took 14 months. My second deal only took two months. My third deal only took three weeks. And boom, boom, boom, boom. Next thing you know, I looked up and 10 years had gone by. I've done 2,500 deals, became one of the biggest wholesalers in the country. Eventually started cherry picking out deals and rehabbing and taking.
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B
Having the courage, doing the full process,
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A
doing the full renovation. Because a wholesaler's only job is to find deals for guys like you.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like somebody who has more money than time, that doesn't want to go hunt for deals, that just wants me to serve them up on a silver platter. I make a little fee. 40 grand was. By the way, 40 grand was a big wholesale fee. Back then. My normal fees were like five grand, seven grand, eight grand. And so, you know, once I had the courage to take them down, I started, you know, renovating. And then that renovating turned into, okay, this is kind of a pain in the butt. Let's start building from the ground up because there's less unknowns. And then I started. My mentor kept yelling at me. He's like, dude, you're not an actual real estate investor. Sperber. My first year after I did that first deal, I made $1.3 million. Within 12 months. It was first millionaire in my family, first multimillionaire in my family. First person to Graduate college in my family. And so it's like I was like working this, but I had no freedom. I just kept working. I was young and I had a lot of energy and I got good at something and it was a great skill to have. And what I tell everybody is real estate and real estate investing is such a great business to be in because you're going to learn how to be an entrepreneur real quick. You're going to learn how to set up systems, how to do marketing, how to negotiate and talk to people, how to influence and persuade, how to build relationships, how to raise capital. There's so many elements to that, that world that now helped me in Floridady and my OSNAP business and my other companies. But, you know, I was just, I was just kind of working my way up the food chain. And eventually I started spec building luxury homes. And I got pretty good at building. And my mentor was yelling at me, he's like, you got to keep more of these. And so I started taking them down and I built a rental portfolio. And that's when I was really in the game. That's when the game started to change where I was able to take longer and longer vacations, I was able to see a path to retirement where, you know, I had mailbox money coming in. And, and yeah, that, that was the, that was the origin story. That kind of. Everything else that I've ever done in my career, all the, the education business, all the masterminds and, and things that I've ran, the flooring business, everything else was all real estate money that I had coming in that I was able to start other things with. But I didn't do that. I, I stayed consistent for over a decade, just doing one thing over and over, living below my means. Yeah, I mastered it.
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B
I got so many freaking questions, I don't even know where to start. But let's just start with, you know, a guy named Doug Hopkins, one of
- [08:06]
A
the best humans on planet Earth.
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B
Yeah. I was at his house recently in Mesa. He recently built it. And what's interesting is he's like the guy that'll buy your house all over 1-800-sell-FAST or whatever it is. And I watch him all the time because we use the same, same company. Larry John Wright.
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A
Right?
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B
And he's like, yeah, I don't take any of those down. He goes, I got like three buyers. I sell them all to. And it's interesting because you think of real estate and really it's the best marketer. I mean, it is. Almost every industry is the best marketer, of course, home service. And I got a lot of questions about this, but Doug Hopkins, he's a really wholesome guy, really, really cool. But then I realized, man, he doesn't even take him down. He's got his own radio, he was on T. He's at his own TV show. And just what's your thought? Because I think really what it comes down to, especially in real estate, is like, Carlos Reyes. I used to get mailers all the time when I was, like, in Arcadia of him and his family and handwritten letters and, I mean, Jared, you know, Jared Vidal is. And you know Danny, like, this is the game, but it's gotten hard now.
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A
Game's changed for sure, but it's just changed. It's still the game.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
- [09:19]
A
It's just, can you play the game with the new set of rules? But I don't think it's ever going to go away. You know, creative real estate investing is beautiful because in real estate, you're never going to have a money problem. You have a creativity problem. And if they move the puck on you, okay, you just gotta shift your views and your skills and capabilities and get out in front of it, you know? So right now, they're trying to make things illegal and changing legal rules and stuff. It's like, okay, get your real estate license. Do things better, do things cleaner. It's not that difficult. It's just, are you nimble enough and have enough grit to figure it out?
- [09:58]
B
You know, I have a really smart guy in town that's like a master of AI for service titan. And he goes, you see these guys create these things, like, overnight, and they say, I've created a $5 million app, and they never really get it working right. To commercialize it. And my point is, I see a lot of these real estate gurus, and I see them in every industry, and all of a sudden, they switch a hundred percent towards teaching versus doing. And my question for you is, like, at least Carlos is still taking down properties. You know what I mean? I'm wondering from your perspective, because it seems like real estate, like we, We. We used to talk a lot about Tom Hopkins and land contracts and these different things. And then they. What happened in 2008, 9. Does not necessarily work in today's market. So my question is, does it kind of stall out, but it works. So they got the history that they could still sell courses or what's in your perspective? These gurus that made a lot of money, that have a track record, that switch a hundred percent towards teaching. Yeah. What's the purpose of that?
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A
Well, here's my thing.
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B
The.
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A
The good thing about real estate and real estate investing is you can't fudge the numbers. I could give you my LLCs, you can go to the county recorder's website. You can see every property I've ever taken down in my life, every property I've ever touched and been associated with. My track record is there.
- [11:12]
B
Yeah, you've got the real.
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A
You know, and so.
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B
But you were a better marketer. Like you got with your son in front of the Lambo.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And you were like, you put the check of the commission. You got.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And you're like, we just picked this up from the dealership. I remember those clever investor commercials like yesterday. And you'd have like the green Ferrari and then a Lambo and the different things that was. You were a better marketer than everybody.
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A
Well, you know what it is right now, there's an epidemic going on with social media. Every ding dong with a ring light and ChatGPT thinks that they're a guru, you know, and that's really what you're trying to say is like, where's that line? And I think it's up to the consumer, the person to vet a savvy entrepreneur always does their research in its entirety before making a sound business decision. And when you have. When you're broke and you have a lot of hope, it's easy get preyed on. It's easy for somebody who's a slick talker that can, you know, say a couple magic words to think you're going to push a button and money's going to rain from the sky from some new AI super tool that's going to do all your deals for you. And that's not how real estate works. It's a people business. You have to learn how to talk to people, write offers, negotiate, build relationships like it is what it is. Yes. Can we go faster using technology? Absolutely. Our students have a competitive advantage, an unfair advantage, because we have spent the last 10 years building out data and tech for our students that's cost us millions of dollars. They can spend 97 bucks a month and get access to it. They don't have to invest. So, like, even in the home services space, I call you all the time saying, where's it going? What? You're, you're like, to me, Tommy, you're the. You're like, all roads lead to Tommy Mellow. You know, it's like you're in the know because you've been in the game for so long. Everybody brings you their stuff first to vet and try and see and you get to pick and choose which ones work and, and play around a little bit.
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B
A lot of software, I mean we're running 25 different softwares at a 1, which is sounds like a lot, but there's just Samcera is for the trucks, just to keep track of the geolocation, see if they're rolling through stop signs, see if they're getting on their cell phone. Like that's important because a couple guys flip a truck, all of a sudden you start taking that shit really seriously. That's just one software. We're running for the fleet. That's one fleet software. Then we've got another one to tell when we trade in the vehicles at the right time to get the maximum value. There's all these. We got one for a proposal tool, we've got one for a follow up campaigns. We're created a new one just to show the health of the garage. We've got like it's out of this world but we've got 1200 people now.
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A
But I know you and I don't have to go through what you're going through. You are my mentor and by the
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B
way, I wouldn't have anybody get on all these until your call center is dialed in and your training is set it up. Like that's the main thing is like training, training, training. And the businesses ran on systems and I got a lot of questions about that because a lot of people think home service is like this new. It's great, but coming from real estate, I'm just curious your perspective. I got so many fricking qu. I don't even know if we're going to have time in this podcast. I got, I haven't even started my. I got so many like just so real estate. You are like the guy, the clever investor. You've had thousands, hundreds of thousands of students, whatever. And you're like, dude, home service. And when I talk to you, you're like, I don't want 30 million, I want 300 million. You're like, let's build something great. And I said, well look, I'll tell you, I want you to fall a lot for the first couple of years. And because you're, you're the type of guy like me, like you're going to have to experience it and that's how a lot of people are. But you're going to fall fast and you're going to get back up and then you're going to Say, like, I needed to be on my last dollar to give al levy in 2017, even though I was doing 17 million, I needed. And I listened to him and I listened to every single thing he said. But coming from real estate to home service and you're still involved with real estate and you're still working a little bit in that, but what did you expect versus what you kind of experienced these first 18 months?
- [15:06]
A
Yeah. And I mean, like right now I have over $200 million worth of commercial development going up. I have three funds. I'm opening up my fourth fund. I'm never going to go away from real estate. I love. I just graduated to the next level and playing a bigger, tougher game with home services. What was funny about it is, you know, in the real estate space, I get fired every time I complete a project. I have to start over, like every Monday. Like that's how it feels. It's like, yeah, my real estate portfolio eventually got big enough to where I have enough mailbox money. I'm not worried about my bills, but I'm not where I want to be. I feel like, you know, like I've always had this vision, like I want to be a certain place by a certain age and I have these financials, financial goals. Real estate's a very long, slow game. It's not a fast game no matter what you think or see on social media. But on my real estate journey, I started running masterminds and I would have these huge masterminds. I had a mastermind where people paid me $100,000 and there was 100 spots available and we filled it up instantly. And these were high level entrepreneurs and I'm like meeting these people. What do you do? I sold my plumbing company for 40 million.
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B
Oh, cool.
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A
What do you do? I sold my roofing business for 110 million. And I'm like, oh, that's. I just kept hearing it over and over and over. All of these. I'm like, blue collar is the new rich. Like, what is going on here? Like, my brain was like frying. I thought it was all tech and AI and software. And just over half of our members were hard working, blue collar guys that understood systems, understood marketing, and figured out how to scale and get out of the day to day grind of just doing the business, being the technician. And I learned a tremendous amount from that. I learned a couple things. Number one, with this AI thing coming, you want to be in an industry that AI is not going to easily disrupt, but it's going to complement. You want to be in an industry that's scalable. Like my competitors at floor Daddy is, you know, besides a couple big ones, there's like two or three big ones. And my research was this easy. Can you tell me a flooring business? What's the one with the jingle? Jingle one, 800, express. Okay, yeah, it's Express or maybe floor and decor or Home Depot or Empire.
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B
Empire.
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A
They couldn't name most people couldn't name two or three. Most can name one. And I'm like, oh, most of my competitors are Bob's Flooring. You know, it's like nobody knows them. Nobody knows any of their story. So as a marketer, I sold over $160 million worth of online education starting in 2010 until today. It took me a tremendous amount of self taught direct response marketing skills that I had to learn in order to get on a camera and sell that volume of courses and mentorship. So I had this unbelievable skillset in real estate for lead generation, in education for lead generation. And I'm like, okay, AI's on my side. It's scalable, it's, I can outmarket all the competitors and private equity loves it. It's a very buyable, sellable business. And when I sold my education business, I realized for the first time in my entrepreneur journey that I was playing the wrong game. The real game is can you start,
- [18:20]
B
scale and flip a business, Build an enterprise value? That's what it's all about. And this is where a lot of business owners fail because they live a pretty extravagant life. They're part of the yacht club, they've got their golf membership, they've got all the vehicles, their kids are all on payroll and it's a lifestyle business. But if you knew that asset within five years could be take care of everybody. You live below your means for a while, not extract cash out of it because that cash turns into investment, which turned into ebitda, which turns into enterprise value.
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A
Church. Take me to church.
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B
That's a big one. I just, I just think a lot of people out there, like you got to live below your means.
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A
Yes.
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B
Now with what I did is I half exited the business. Now that money went into other buckets and I started living a little bit and taking care of mom and dad. That was my number one priority. I got into a debate at Titan Pantheon's event, which is service Titan, and it's a good buddy of mine, Chris, and I debated private equity or not. And I was standing up there at the podium and I got really teary eyed and tears Just started rolling down my eyes. I said, my parents are in their early 70s. When I got the money, they were in their late 60s. I said, I, I have an opportunity. I had money, but I didn't have fu money. I didn't have enough money to just go buy them a house and send them on the best vacations and spend quality time with them. I don't have kids yet, but quality time with them. My kids life hopefully gonna be a long. Hopefully they bury me and hopefully I bury my parents. So I, I just said look, I wanted to have enough money that they're taken care of and my niece and nephews and it's form of trust and do some cool stuff with, with my sister and my brother in law. But really what it's about is my parents.
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A
Yes.
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B
And so I'm up there and I'm kind of crying and I look at Chris and he's like, dude, I don't even have a response to that. He's like, I, I might change my view on what I'm gonna do because my parents are really important to me too. And we live this grind where we're building and then at what point, you know, in business, most of the time like real estate for you was probably 90 something percent of your net worth. I mean, but you had them a different. But you have this one asset which is for me a one garage door service. And I wasn't diversified. I didn't have much money in the S and P. I had some Roth IRA money, some different stuff all around. I had some real estate. But overall for me I just said, man, how much time does my. The average lifetime is 80. Right. And it's younger for a man. So my dad's like 76, he's 73. So I'm, I'm praying that I get another 15 years. But you never know, tomorrow's not promised. So for me it was like, how do I make sure they're living their best life? So my dad's a mild house in Scottsdale. I shot pool with him yesterday and that's important to me, you know, and if you really start to prioritize things, you, you, you can't get that time back. So like for me it was like more about them and which is phenomenal. It's tough. It's tough because as much as I say that it's like I'm still trying to, I want mom to move closer, especially because next year I want to have a kid. And like it's important that if I get a few, five Maybe seven more years of quality like their life. They could still walk and go on, you know, go on trips and not have to worry about them. Because once you hit 80, it's like, you know, you start slowing down a little bit. Even 70.
- [21:30]
A
Think about it, Tommy. I've never seen a U haul behind a hearse. We can't take this stuff with us. This is legacy you built. You're the one. You know, like my good friend Ed Mylett wrote about power one, and you're the one man you broke out. You had the right timing, the right gift, the right circumstances. Everything was you took advantage of how many people squander that opportunity, you know, and that's why it's like, I love watching immigrants come to this country and light up and break through American dream. It's the American dream and I really believe it's still there. I see people that come here with English as their second or third language. It's very difficult. They don't have any resources, a few bucks in their pocket and they make something out of themselves. They don't make excuses. They have discipline. They grind through it. They're resourceful. They're all the things. And yet here we are, some fat ass American that's sitting around squandering their opportunity, being negative, glued to the news, all toxic, and it's just like, dude, I don't have time for none of that. I'm the one. I believe I'm the one. And it's like, I'm the first millionaire in my family. I retired my parents that year. I made 1.3 million. My first move was retire my parents. So I love your mission and I don't blame you at all for taking some chips off the table. And you still built something that's a legacy. It is so great what you've done and so respectable and unique and you haven't even scratched the surface of your potential. Dude, you're so young. Like, A1 is not your story. It's part of your story. It's not the whole story.
- [23:03]
B
Yeah, you know what's interesting about this whole thing is Ken Goodrice with Ghetto called me up and he goes, tommy, he goes, you're one of the most elite of the elite in home service. He goes, I know that, but you know what? You know nothing about the other half. You don't know how to raise capital. You don't understand how debt works. You don't understand how P goes out and actually functions and cash on cash returns. You really don't know how to hold up the right monthly meeting or the quarterly meetings for your stockholders. And he goes, what I want you to do is when you learn that other half, you're going to be deadly, because you're going to learn exactly how to form a board. You're going to learn exactly what HR looks like at this next level. And he goes, tommy, when I learned how to do that, it changed everything. And that's that. So every time the PE guys come out, they stay in my house. They're like, dude, why? A hundred questions. Why do you have a notebook out? Why are you. And I'm like, I'm just curious. And that's the most important trait is I'm curious. I'm taking notes and I'm asking them. So I'm like, wait, you went to the Middle East? And like, well, we didn't want to take too much money from. And I'm just asking a million questions. And I'm like, so what's a good return for private equity? Like, two and a half is a home run. Anything more than that, and they're going after this. But as the deals get bigger, it's harder to compound. And the flywheel's got to be on. And then you got to look at the tam, the total addressable market. And I'm like, tam. And I'm like, cool. And I'm, like, writing all this stuff down. And I'm like, this is amazing. And I got obsessed. There's a good book by Adam Coffee called the Private Equity Playbook. I'm on a plane and I'm reading the book, and I took a selfie of reading the book on the plane. And he called me immediately. He goes, dude, I don't know who you are, but my goal was to be next to somebody on a plane reading my book. This is the closest thing because it just came out. He's like, I'll do anything you want. You want me on a podcast, whatever. And then I got close with him, and now he's telling me all this stuff about cool system. I asked him originally. I go, so they're all commercial H vac, right?
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A
Okay.
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B
And he's the CEO. But I said, what CRM are you on? Because I don't know. Because I don't know what CRM we're on. Because I'm a hired gun to just go roll up companies. And that, to me, was like, holy. And then he wrote Empire Builder and these other books that I got obsessed with, and I still talk to him regularly. And that's the deal is like, I'M still, I still believe I'm in the first inning because I'm like learning this game and I'm like, man, it's crazy, but the one thing I know is every time I get sidetracked and every time with a one specifically, and I like, don't. I don't focus like racehorses wear blinders. Every time I was like, I'm going to try a commercial. I'm going to go into some new construction. I'm going to go to this box store. I'm going to go into this home warranty. Like, we're a different company now. We can probably handle more of that. But like, it's always been to my detriment is like, stay focused. We own less than 2% of the entire market. It's pretty easy, pretty easy to get to 10. And I mean, with just what we're doing today, don't change it. Yeah, like, you could try things and experiment. Like that's one thing private equity taught me is like, hey, try it on market and prove to us mathematically that it's a possibility. Then you got to prove it in three, then five, because we're in 43 markets, 23, 24 states now. I want to go back to real estate for a minute and then I want to talk about your life because it's a crazy, like you've got a lot of ups and downs. And so I want, I'm just going to throw out a few people that I wrote down. So Grant Cardone, look, you could be controversial, you could say whatever in your heart of hearts. What do you feel about him? He's obviously known for real estate, more multifamily type stuff.
- [26:26]
A
Yeah. As far as marketing, I think Grant is world class, best of the best, you know, gold standard. He, he knows how to carry a conversation. He knows how to take the oxygen, the marketing oxygen out of the room and focus it on him and whatever he wants it to focus on. I think that's a tremendous skill set that's very difficult to do. He stays consistent. He surrounds himself with killers. He keeps the sales energy out front always and always. So there's a lot I don't know. And he does a lot of big, huge real estate things. He was the first of us to break through. You know, we all kind of started. I was lucky enough to be at the beginning of the social media world. You know, we. I was the first real estate influencer back then. He was doing sales training. He wasn't doing the real estate stuff. So I hit a million followers back in, like, 2013, 14 on Instagram. First real estate, true real estate guy to do it. You know, when Periscope first came out and like, like, you know, live streaming and all that, I was on. On day one, I'm the one who handed it out to all these guys. I was texting all of them saying, get on this, get on this, get on this, get on this. So it was like we were kind of all starting at the same time. And it was like a small group of us. It was me, Grant, Andy Frisella, eventually Tai Lopez. Like, there was just like, this. This batch of, like, Internet guys that came on, and we all were making noise, and some of us just went further than others. And I can't believe he set a standard so high that it kind of broke my brain. I was like, oh, that's possible. I wasn't thinking big enough, you know, and it. I. So from that standpoint, I've always been grateful to him. He's. He's been kind to me. I don't have. But I have never invested with him. Yeah, I don't have. I never bought a course from him. So there is that side to his reputation. But from my perspective, you know, I like his team, I like him. Things are okay.
- [28:20]
B
So I love that. And I. Yeah, I like that thing that you said about sales energy, because that's super important. So what about, you know, I had, I don't know, probably six months ago, Pace Morbi. I don't really know him very well. Yeah, Seems like a really bright guy. I had my event for vertical track, small garage door event, and then his event was going on right next to mine at. I think it was talking stick.
- [28:39]
A
Yeah.
- [28:39]
B
And, like, he's got students that go out and find him deals. Like, what do you think about his strategy and overall.
- [28:48]
A
Yeah, so. So, you know, I've been lucky enough to have been mentoring Pace for a very long time. Not just from the real estate side, more from the education side. I put Pace on his first big stages and stuff like that. And I've always saw something in him that was very special and unique compared to everybody else. First off, I love his family, I love his wife. He's a solid human being, just to his core. He's loyal, he's hardworking, and he's willing to do things that nobody else is willing to do. Pace, when he first came, he wanted me to publish him, and I said no. And I was like, no, I'm not really doing that anymore. I published Josh Altman, and I did stuff with Barbara Corcoran and all these reality show stars. And so I had a publishing thing at Clever Investor, and he wanted me to publish him. I said no. He ended up going with my old team members. All of Pace's world is my old team. Everybody birthed through Clever Investor. And so I've architected his entire universe from that standpoint. But Pace, what his unique skillset. He came to me very early on and said, like, what's going to set me apart? And I was like, dude, you're the one, bro. You're going to take this industry further than anybody else. You're going to build the biggest, baddest community. None of us are willing to do what you're willing to do. He's willing to go live and just build relationships. He's willing to just get in a car with one person and bring them along with him wherever he goes. He'll go live for 48 hours straight, peeing under the table like he's crazy. He's obsessed with building community. And that was his one unique thing that set him apart. It was like he knew he's not going to be a better educator than me. That was my thing. I broke the Internet by being the best marketer and the best educator. I prided myself on tactics, strategies, data, getting results, action. I invented labs where people were actually doing deal making workshops. His whole model is my model. Amplified times a thousand bigger and better than I ever could imagine. Because Pace is that guy. He could see something and magnify it. And he's willing to do things. He just went on a tour where he rented an RV and traveled the country and stopped at like 75 spots building community. He would. He would go live and say, this is where we're meeting next. A thousand people would instantly show up. Nobody else in our industry can do what he's doing. He's the biggest, the best, and he's the gold standard right now.
- [31:16]
B
Yeah. That's interesting. You know, as an entrepreneur, I'm like, I'm thinking about, like, your influence matters. That's why everybody comes to me when they got a new, like, tool and they're like. And then I got a whole team that vets that we test out, like. And half the time they don't work, Half the time they do. It's a home run. It just literally pours on EBITDA and revenue. Robert Kiyosaki. Yeah. And I know it's controversial. He's getting older now.
- [31:42]
A
It's crazy. You know, I've met Robert a bunch of times. He spoke on my stages. We've done a bunch of stuff together as far as, you know, book giveaways and fun things. I respect him for what he's done. That was the first book I read. My dad bought that for me when I was in the Navy. It planted the seed of assets versus liabilities. I had a bajillion questions after that book. I think he's such a crazy character. Anybody who does life his own way like that is interesting to me. I don't necessarily agree with a lot of the stuff he says, but it's always very interesting what he said. Yeah. First time I was hanging out with him, we were talking about real estate for maybe 20 seconds, and he was like, I'm really proud of what you've accomplished. I've been watching your career. And we're just kind of talking and getting to know each other. And in the middle of it, he goes, and you know what? Fuck these communists. And he goes on a 20 minute rant about communism. And I'm just standing there staring at him like, what in the fuck is going on? Like, this is.
- [32:47]
B
So I heard he could go.
- [32:48]
A
He just went, went, went. And then, you know, God love him. The second a pretty woman came in the room, he pivoted away from me, all laser focused on her, and I was like, okay, we're. I'm obviously not important anymore.
- [33:01]
B
No, I've never got the opportunity to meet him. Joe Polish introduced me and, like, I've seen him just walk on a podcast. Just. I'm done with this. Yes. He's his own person. You know, Carlos is working really close with Ishmael. What I appreciate about Carlos is 40% of Arizona speak Spanish as a first language. You go to Texas, go to Florida, go to Nevada. Like, you start realizing California if you really like. What I love about them is they became, like, the champion of the Latino community.
- [33:29]
A
Yep.
- [33:29]
B
And there's a massive following out there. And I think, you know, Andy Frisell went political. Yeah. Carlos is starting to go way political, I think. I was talking to Pat, but David yesterday, super political. That's not where I want to go. Honestly, it's. It's so divisive. And like, for me, I think it's a great subject and I'm entertained by those. But I really want to be known as, like, home service. I figure, what do you think about with home service? Maybe Bob Vila, maybe Mike Rowe, maybe Tim the Tool Man Taylor from Home Improvement. I want to take that and just be like, look, look, this is what's Possible. I'm a giver. I'm curious and I'm still a work in progress that. But I don't need to be the political, the bitcoin, the AI, you know, Dan Martell decided to pivot straight to AI like you look at these guys and great. And they're doing wonderful. I just want to stay in my lane and own it. So what do you think about Carlos?
- [34:20]
A
Very proud of him. Him and Sal have done a great deal. Yeah, they're the dynamic pivot to focusing in on building their community, which is the Hispanic Latino community. And he saw an opportunity to build because they're great marketers, great operators of businesses. They do a lot of real estate stuff, but they're more than just that. They're just good operators, very system driven people. And once they kind of found their niche and Carlos got his voice of, okay, I'm going to help companies scale with better systems and better marketing. And then if I see an opportunity to partner with them or get involved in their business, it's like an investment tank that he's kind of like a little shark tank thing he's got going on. He can pick and choose who he wants to get involved with. And so I think they're great. Carlos used to watch me when he was bagging groceries on Periscope, whiteboarding how to flip houses. I've been part of his journey. I put him on his first stages. He's been a very loyal friend. There's nothing bad I gotta say about them other than I'm proud of them. And I think that they also haven't scratched the surface of their potential. They're just starting to figure it out how far they can go with it. And I think they're gonna do big things in the home services, home improvement business. Because let's be real, a heavy part of our labor workforce is Latino community, Hispanic community. I mean, you speak Spanish, especially in the Southwest. It's gonna help you out a tremendous amount.
- [35:49]
B
We're getting ready to break into that market. And it's not, we're going into the Spanish market. Like there's a lot of things that go into that. And I know the guys that have successfully executed that. And it's a massive, massive, massive impact. And that's what Ishmael did so well. And you take care of those people that, you know what, in Southern California, where it's the home of lawsuits and the home of class action lawsuits and the home of those litigator attorneys, like there's 101 litigators in Southern Cal, like, you're going to win. Like, I just had a guy over, he's like, dude, I'm just paying $20,000 every week for these frivolous lawsuits. But these Latino, like, the Hispanic community, they don't really sue. They're like, they're putting food on our plate. Like, no one's going to ruin that. They're taking care of us. They're feeding us. They're feeding our families. You take great care of them. You give cash out here and there. And they're like, no one sues them and no lawyers are going. It's just so cool because Ishmael never got sued. And that's what I love about it, is you take care of these people. They're very loyal people. Ryan Panetta, he's doing this golf, Golf thing.
- [36:53]
A
Yeah, I've had nothing, but.
- [36:56]
B
Have you bumped into him much?
- [36:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I spoke on his stages. He spoke on a few of mine. I've helped him out with some of his funnels and some of his offers and stuff like that. I don't have anything bad to say or really great to say, to be honest. He's cool. He's been kind to me. We've always just kind of when we bump into each other, it's just like seeing a buddy in the, in the industry.
- [37:22]
B
So what about.
- [37:24]
A
I know he had. Look, if I'm being real, I've always just kept my head down and done my thing. I, I, I never ventured out into other.
- [37:32]
B
Well, a lot of these guys started with you, which is interesting.
- [37:34]
A
Well, they all came through me because I was, I'm the older guy in the group. You know, I just been doing it longer. But the reality is, you know, they fell victim to their marketing capabilities. They went off and tried to do E comm and sell fucking Amazon stores and all this dumb shit. And I kept screaming at everybody, this is not the path, guys. We're real estate guys that are great marketers. Stay focused. This fad is going to come and go. It's going to get ripped out, and you're going to get fucked when it happens, because it doesn't work. It's a shiny object.
- [38:05]
B
Other than Josh. No, Josh Leachy that I was partners with a long, long time ago.
- [38:09]
A
No, there's, there's some.
- [38:10]
B
But that's all he does. Okay. That's what he focuses on.
- [38:13]
A
And, and, and, and that's where Pineda got hurt.
- [38:17]
B
Yeah.
- [38:17]
A
Carlos. Everybody ventured off into these other little things, come back, and they realized very quickly that is not it. And they got their bruises, got their ass kicked and they came right back to the center. And now, now they're locked in.
- [38:28]
B
And that happens. Last, last guy, then I want to go to. Your story is. And I'm impressed by him. I've never met him in person. I've texted him a bunch of Alex Hermosi, and you know, he just put out an ad. I want to help garage door guys. He's like. And I'm like. And I think as much as I put out there, everyone's getting into the garage door industry. And I'll be honest with you, Cody, I hate that I just said that because I'm always honest and I always tell people, never say to be honest or truthfully. Like, but. But I want people to jump into this industry. It's only going to make it better. But if you think that HC plumbing, flooring, roofing is not 10 times easier. Because my average blended ticket, I run 25,000 houses a month. I generate 34,000 leads. There's no one else. There's no number two. There's no, there's not even anybody close that's integrated. Not. There's a couple franchises. But I'm like, you think this has taken 20 years? If you gave me $500 million to restart today, it would take me 10 years, literally. By that, the marketing's changed. Everything's changed. Like, I got the stickers. I got. Been doing this 20 years. So Alex Hermosi, the thing I gotta say is he's a genius. He's smart. He outworks most people. I just think with this idea of just going after everything. Hair dryers, like, like every single thing. Kind of like Cody Sanchez. Yeah, but, but Alex has like, been doing this a long time. He's got best sellers. Like, he's a. He's definitely a household name. But what's your take on him? Because he's, he's really into real estate now. Like Grant Cardone had convinced him, like, all the money he makes goes into real estate. I don't know if people know that.
- [40:05]
A
Yeah, I'm super close with Alex. We've talked a couple handful of times, bumped into each other. He came backstage at one of my events and hung out with his wife. Look, man, I'm not an entrepreneur supremacist. I really don't give a fuck about your hustle. You know, everybody's got their own path and their own thing. I think he's a great marketer. I don't like, you know, I could take any one of these books and put a new fucking cover on it and sell it. Yeah, but it's not my. I didn't create that. That's not my inter. I'm just repackaging it in a better way. When I see his books and shit come out, I'm like, dude, Dan Kennedy, Russell Brunson, all these other people said the exact same shit long before him. He just did it in a better way. You know, I don't agree with the I don't sell courses thing for four years, and then you get go live and you sell $100 million worth of courses. It's just like, dude, you. You just did a different Strategy. I sold $160 million worth of courses. We both landed at the exact same place. Yeah, you just did it different. I'm not comparing it. I don't know how far he's gone. He's probably way more successful than I am. But, like, to me, it's just like, be. Be authentic. Be real. Don't do the I don't sell courses thing and then sell fucking course. That bothers me.
- [41:18]
B
Yeah.
- [41:19]
A
You know, just be real. I don't sell courses daily. I don't sell courses on my content. I'm not, you know, but at some point, I'm going to enroll you into all of my shit. Because that's all he's doing is selling, like, to me right now. Authenticity wins. Enthusiasm and authenticity. And I think people are smart enough to see through all the noise and the bullshit. And eventually, if you watch somebody long enough, you're gonna realize who's playing the long game and who's just trying to do money grabs and all this shit. When I see somebody who's selling flashlights one day and garage doors the next and teddy bears the next, I'm just like, whatever, bro. That's you. That's your hustle. It's not my thing. I lock in, get laser. I want to be the best in the world at the thing that I'm focused on, and it's always for me. And right now, it's real estate and floor daddy, and that's it.
- [42:02]
B
You think about, like, Cardone, probably one of the best course combined with Dawson as I think they're worth their training's worth about 800 million. And they've done some cool stuff. But for me, the reason home service freedom exists is like, we truly help companies. But here's the deal. I know who shows up. I know who does the work. We've got access to all of their systems, and we pioneered most of those systems. And the fact is, like, you see the guys that show up every week, they don't miss a webinar, they don't miss an event, and they're doing the work and they're not coming up three years later and they're, hey, man, still in one of those growth years, you know, we're gonna get there eventually. Like, you know, those same people, I watch the guys growing, and I'm like, this person is easy to get along with. And potentially it's somebody I'd wanna do business with. Because, look, it's hard to do business. You've done real estate deals with people you didn't want to, and you're like, was that really worth it to not sleep at night and to worry and get screwed at the end and have a guy sandbag you and get the lawyers involved? And so, like, doing business with people is like, I think the education side of it is who's going to show up and do the work. So for me, it's kind of a. It's kind of just who's going to show up and do the work and who do I like to hang out with? Because if you could do business with your friend, with good people that, you know it's going to be a great outcome for everybody, then it's like. But that's kind of like the prerequisite of, like, did they do the work? And there's a lot of people we kick out of that program. Like, they pay us a ton of money and we're like, no. Yeah. But just like, this is not working. You're 90% of our problems and like a fraction of a percent of the revenue. And it's just not worth it to have a hard time sleeping at night because you bitch so much and complain.
- [43:39]
A
Yeah, education's a funny business to be in. Mentoring, running, masterminds, live events and stuff. I've learned to realize that. I don't judge a book by its cover. You never know who's going to show up and just light the world on fire.
- [43:53]
B
Yeah.
- [43:53]
A
You know, I let everybody in and. And I give them everything I got. And at the end of the day, it's up to them. I'm not dragging your ass up a mountain, you know, I'm just showing you. I'm like the Sherpa. I'll show you the path, I'll give you all the tools. I'll make sure you're. You're supported on the way up there. But you got to do it at the end of the day. You got to do It. And I don't know, it's like Justin Waller said something on a viral clip that, you know, he really doesn't have friends. If. If we're. Something along the lines of, you know, I only have friends that I make money with. And there is some element of that at this stage in my game. It's like, I want to be around people that are gunning just like me, that I can connect with, that I can lock arms with, that we could do big things, create experiences and money together. You know, I'm not really looking for new friends. I'm not looking to hang out and just veg. I don't watch fucking sports. I'm not wasting time. I gym entrepreneur and family. Like, that's my life. And I've been able to create a world where all my favorite humans work with me. My best friends are my business partners. Yeah, what a great. I float into work because I've been able to collect amazing humans and figure out a way to make money together with them.
- [45:09]
B
So I want to go back. You know, you had kids, you got married, but you also, like, my mom asked me, when's enough enough? And I go, I'm not. I don't work as hard as I used to work. Like, it's still fun. Like, what would you have me do? It's like talking to Tiger woods and say, hey, you've won every major tournament. Why are you still golfing? And I don't think it's. It's 4% of the population. Dr. Brack. Douglas Brackman wrote a book about it. He came on the podcast and he goes, you realize that your chromosomes, like, you're a hunter. Like, there's very few out there, and you could change the world, but you could also be into addiction. You could also be whatever that addiction. You could go down, spiral down faster than you've ever known, but you could go straight up, too. It's depending on how the habits and what you form. But my question for you is, you obviously wanted a family, and this is kind of a selfish question, because I think life is getting easier and I actually make more time for my family. But how do you continue to run at your dreams and they become part of your dream? Don't get me wrong, but you still want your kids to see. Dad's still hustling. He's still working hard. So how do you find that? I don't like the word balance, but how do you kind of strike that?
- [46:26]
A
Yeah, well, it's. It's a lot different now that I'm Older and more established. I have a brand and like, you know, I feel like in the beginning it was, I didn't want a family. In the beginning I wanted a billion dollars. Yeah, like the kid got in the way. But once that happened, I disconnected from myself. It was the first time in my life that I was responsible for another human being at that level. And believe it or not, kids, if you are already a hunter and already on the path and you have a kid, you're going to double your income, maybe even triple it because you're just going to gun so much harder from a place that there's no excuse. Go back to that immigrant mindset. There is nothing you're going to throw at me that's going to get in the way of me building a legacy for my kid. Nothing. I'll die. You know, that's that energy of you stop making small things into big things. And then, you know, then having a great partner is the other half of that. I had to have a very serious heart to heart upfront contract sit down conversation where it was like, listen, my goals and my dreams are non negotiable. So how do we do this? It's just, I need your buy in. I need to learn your love languages, I need to learn how to give you what you need so you support me in this thing. And once we figured that out, we were able to go and build together for a while. Though we struggled for about the first year, year and a half, it wasn't easy because I basically told my, and now my ex wife, but my girl at the time we were together 18 years. We built a great set of businesses together and had actually a great relationship the whole time. You know, I just told her, listen, you're gonna feel like you're second or third or fourth or fifth place in importance.
- [48:17]
B
And you told, you had these conversations.
- [48:19]
A
I had these conversations up front and it was a very tough conversation. A lot of people don't like having this. No girl wants to like look up and dream about her marriage as like, I'm in fourth place. But she understood the mission and she was able to support it in a really cool way. And then what happened is that I just, I brought them with me everywhere that I could. I tried to integrate them as much as I could. And I also did one power move that really helped is I, I hired my wife a personal assistant almost immediately, which was the I don't want to get a phone call because what do we do all day, Tommy? We go to fucking war all day. And when I come home, I want to take my armor off, and I want to relax for just a minute and fricking breathe. Because I have a thousand people wanting something from me, and I'm the ultimate firefighter, and I just need a fricking minute. That's how I feel. That's not fair to my family. And so I used to have this practice where I would park in my garage and I would sit there for about five minutes, and I would decompress my day. So I would have to mentally get present and say, when I walk in this door, the cooking's amazing, the house is amazing, the kids are amazing, my wife is amazing. Everything's amazing. Great. And I'm not bringing this baggage from work into my home. And so I really had to fight and work with myself to get there. But also, at the same time, I don't want a phone call saying, will you stop on the store at the way home and get some milk? No, motherfucker, I'm not getting milk. I'm tired. Like, that's how I felt. And so I had to figure out the system, the family system, to make it work. And I found that if I just give her the yoga instructor to show up at our house, and all her girlfriends showed up in our Fourier and did yoga in the middle of the day, she was a lot nicer to me at night. So I just found her wins throughout the day, and we were able to make it work.
- [50:03]
B
So I saw you at a 100 million. What is that? Dan Fleshman, 100 million.
- [50:09]
A
Mastermind.
- [50:10]
B
Mastermind. Yeah. And I just noticed. I think this is right before you guys probably got divorced. And I just noticed you guys, you walked in together holding hands. But then it was like. It was like you guys weren't really trying. It was like. I don't think I saw you guys together that night at all after that. And I kind of felt it. It wasn't like I was, like, spying on. I just kind of. I'm an observer. So I was just. Yeah. And. And, you know, I don't know if you want to talk about it, but I'm just curious. 18 years. You guys built a lot of stuff together. The kids get older, and, you know, every guru that's, like, made their life, they're like, the most important thing is picking that partner. Yeah. And it doesn't always work out. Tony Robbins. There's story after story after story. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. You know, everybody plans on it working out. I don't think anybody says, I do. And Says, but, but what if, but what happened?
- [51:04]
A
We friend zoned each other. That's what happened. We stopped doing the things that make a relationship successful and we, I made the big mistake of putting her in her masculine. You know, I've done a lot of therapy in church and stuff since then. You know, it was one of the biggest challenges and failures of my life. I'm the one who wanted the divorce. Yeah, I started to feel towards the last like five years that I was sticking around for the kids. I was sticking around, you know, and I just felt I'm not loving her the way she deserves. I'm stealing her minutes. That's how I felt inside. And I also, you said something earlier about the author that was talking about or I don't know if it's a psychologist or author that wrote the book. There is nothing in this world more dangerous than a wealthy, bored entrepreneur. Because if you have that hunter skill set in you, you can get yourself into a fucking lot of trouble when you're bored. And I was bored. Some people hide their pain in different vices. I did it in overworking and pussy. You know, I just, I, I just wanted that hit, that fix, I wanted that excitement. Dopamine, that dopamine. And I was still in her minutes. And even though I was communicating with her, saying, I, I feel like I'm out and this, we were going to therapy and stuff, it just never, we never reconnected and, and I started to break character and I don't like that. I, I pride myself on being a stand up guy, pride myself on being an honest person. I, I really try to do the right thing all the time, even when nobody else is looking. And towards the end I wasn't. And I just made a decision that enough was enough. And I just bared my soul to her and I just said, look, this is where we're at. I'm a human being. I'm making fucking dumb choices. I need to get out of this feeling. My mom had just died. I was in my arms from leukemia, My dad's a disaster. I'm looking, I have this everything on social media, everything I had, everything, you know, the cars, the houses, the money, the clout, the brand. But inside I felt dead, empty and scared.
- [53:16]
B
Yeah.
- [53:17]
A
And I just said, because when you lose somebody close to you like your mom. And my mom knew what I was going through and she kind of just gave me permission to go for it. Before she stopped talking, she just kind of looked at me and said, it's time. It's time for you To. To do this. I know in your heart what you want to do, and I know you're scared, but you have permission, and I know you're going to come out the other end of this bigger and stronger and better for it. And so I just did some very hard things. And then I did something that was really important for everybody listening to this. Because we all know red light behavior is bad. We all know green light behavior is good. It's the yellow light that fucks you up. It's the answering the DMs. My DMs are nasty. I got bad chicks in there all day long, lots of them. It's very easy for me to come off stage feeling like I'm the man. But none of that shit's real. None of that's. It's not healthy. It's not real. And I started doing this yellow light stuff that led to the red light stuff. And I knew I was out of character, out of alignment, and I hated myself for it. And the shame that I built, affected, and infected did every other area of my life. So when I made the call to fix this, it took about a year and a half of intense therapy, going to church, going back to the gym, getting my life back together, living my words. You know, integrity isn't doing what you say you're going to do to other people. It's keeping the promises you made to yourself. And that's where I got. I had to fight to get back to. And I made a decision when I was getting a divorce. I said, number one, I'm gonna be the world's greatest ex husband no matter what. If there's a fucking poster award that I can earn, I'm doing it. And I'm gonna be the world's greatest father. And I'm gonna set a standard for my kids who are watching of how to treat their mother through this process. And I'm very proud to say that we were able to come out the other end. Now she's remarried, she's very happy. I'm extremely happy for them. I'm very close to them. We're like the weird, odd Brady Bunch. We could vacation together.
- [55:32]
B
It's like those. Those flippers or whatever. Yeah, yeah, divorce. I don't remember their names, but yeah.
- [55:38]
A
And I was able to make that work. And I went off and I was able to build my future in my life. And it kind of all worked out, but very tough time. And if anybody's listening to this and you're going through some of that, do the right thing and just protect your character. Just be honest. It's easier to be honest than live the lies.
- [55:58]
B
Yeah, well, the lies lead to other lies. I mean, yeah, there's, you know, in 2010, I just felt. So I owned the business and I got me my partner, Gabe. He was my roommate, my best friend and my business partner. And this, you know, we went separate directions. The only thing I felt was like, man, I don't know what to do because I can't trust anybody. People were stealing left and right. And so I called mom. I mean, my mom's the type of woman, like, never have to worry about anything. Like, she's gonna provide, she's gonna be there. And so I called her and I said, would you move out to Arizona? I need you. And she's like, you want me to leave my life that I've lived in Michigan my whole life? I'm like, well, I'm your only son. And I kind of guilted her in and she's here still. But you know that when you don't have trust, you don't have anything. That's like the core.
- [56:46]
A
Yes.
- [56:47]
B
And when you start to lose trust. And so I was on this podcast and this, this book called the 5X CEO and they've interviewed 75 people that did five times their investment MOIC. And what they talked about was the integrator role with the visionary. And there's Walt Disney or Roy Disney, Wozniak and Steve Jobs. And it goes on and on and on and on. And these are the power teams. And I said, when does that start to fall apart? And they said, when you start blaming each other, saying this is your fault instead of just working through it. When there's this blame of this finger pointing is when you see it all unraveling. And I think that happens in marriages too. I think you start pointing the finger when the pointing the finger happens and this victim mentality comes in or this I'm trying more than you instead of, let's work this out together. We're a unit. We're together. We're going to go through good and bad. I think that happens. Yeah.
- [57:35]
A
I mean, that's great advice because that's real. That's real.
- [57:39]
B
I've got a few questions I ask on every podcast. So what's one piece of game changing advice you wish you knew in your 20s?
- [57:50]
A
To master the mundane. The millions are in, the boring work, the repetitive work. It's all about discipline. I'm not the smartest guy. I'm just disciplined. It's really that Simple. I repeat the mundane things over and over and over and I master them. Where everybody else gets bored and disconnected and they want those dopamine hits and they want the results yesterday. And they look around on social media
- [58:18]
B
and they're not for answers when they're right in front of them and they know what to do. It's like, it's like buying a diet online. Yeah. Like, oh, my gosh, there's this new fruit diet. It detoxes. And you go after. You're going. But it's like, what if you just. What if you got 15,000 steps a day and watched your calorie intake and hit your macros and at least got one decent workout in within six months, but you're not going to see the results next month? It's like, you can't brush your teeth all day. Simon Sinek talks about this. You can't have great teeth by brushing your teeth 85 times a day. Brush your teeth twice a day, you'll have great teeth. And I think that's what people are looking for. How do I get there now? And I would say, and this is the lesson that I could tell you is people overestimate what they do in one or two years and underestimate what they do to five to 10. And it's amazing if you stick to it, you keep your head down. You, you. One of the things we've done today, one is like, I love failure. When somebody walks up to me, they're like, dude, I just blew 100 grand on this. We tried it out and it sucked. Dude, I'm so sorry. I'm like, not going to make that mistake again. Because you're smart.
- [59:14]
A
Yeah.
- [59:14]
B
Like, we learned a lesson. And here's what I've allowed is I've been through all those. So I'm like, don't even ask me on some of this stuff. Just go through it. Make the same mistakes. Because if you got to come to me, that's going to make my life a living hell.
- [59:25]
A
Yeah.
- [59:26]
B
If I'm going to be the dictator, yes, I've been through it. I've been doing this 20 years. But if you could learn and you could make those same mistakes. Because I could tell you all the mistakes, just like dad told me, hey, listen, don't make these same mistakes. But he's like, I know you're going to make them anyway. You're going to try them out. I'd like to be there when you shoot your first gun. I like to be you when you get on your first 200cc motorcycle. I want to just watch you and you're going to fall a couple of times, but it's going to be okay. Okay, Shoot the gun, right, Put it against your shoulder. Don't get too close to the scope or you poke your eye out like I'm going to teach you. But at the same time, you're going to go out and you're going to, you're going to venture, you're going to fail a lot. You're going to make a lot of your own mistakes. That's how you got to treat your co workers and say, look, you're going to make mistakes, but let's, let's make small mistakes. Now, $100,000 mistake for us is somewhat small in comparison to what back in the day. $100,000 mistake would have put me out of business. And so, you know when we're spending four and a half million dollars a month, if you spend an extra 100 grand and the campaign didn't work, I'm not like, man, we know how to do that. Then the next month they put granted and it does a 20x. Yeah. I'm like, dude, you just found this out? This is freaking awesome. So you got to be willing to take those.
- [60:24]
A
I call that marketing stamina. Yeah, that's stamina right there, you know, let's go.
- [60:31]
B
If you had to start over with $10 million only tomorrow, but you still got your same network, what would you do with it?
- [60:40]
A
If I had to start over, same
- [60:42]
B
network, $10 million is in your account. That's it. None of the businesses are around anymore. None of your investments. There's nothing in the S and P or real estate or your funds. You don't have any businesses, just $10 million.
- [60:55]
A
I'd probably end up rebuilding the exact same shit I'm building right now.
- [60:59]
B
Yeah, yeah. That's what most people say.
- [61:01]
A
Yeah. Because it's just like I love what I do so freaking much. It's not about the money for me. The money. I don't give a shit about money. I never have. It's a scorecard and a tool that accomplish the cool things that I want to do, you know? I brought my best friends into Floor Daddy not because I needed them. Yes, they add a tremendous amount of value. I knew that they would be great partners. I knew that we would divide and conquer in the way we are. I did it because when. The day we exit this business. I was there when their kids were born. I watched them grow up. We vacationed together. We love each other unconditionally I want to be there that day where I was the catalyst to empower them to have life changing event in their life that to me is more valuable than 10 million bucks, 50 million bucks, $500 million. It's going to be that moment where we're raising a toast saying, we did this now.
- [61:55]
B
It's a good feeling. Yes, I got that. It's one of those things where it's crazy because. And, and I'll tell you, there's a book called Rocket Fuel. Gino Wickman, he created eos. Great business system. The best business system in the world. He sold buckets of cash. I mean, just insane amount of money. And he woke up, but the money in his account said, why do I feel so empty? And there's another guy I Met sold for $3 billion. He goes, I'd give the $3 billion back to get what I had. And so this idea, I'll just tell you this. Enjoy the journey because enjoy the process, enjoy the mistakes, enjoy those tough days and journal about it and celebrate the wins along the way. Because you get to the destination and you're like, awesome. Now what? Yeah, because we're hunters. We're not like, oh man, we made it. Like, I never wake up. Like, God's been so great and I'm thankful so much. And I do write down, like, how great God is and how much my life is, but I'm like, okay. And people are like, what are you most excited about? I'm like, like time. Like spending time with the people I love. Like, I. I haven't started the fatherhood chapter yet, but I'm excited to be out on the boat and go fishing and just entertain people and build memories. Yeah. Because memories are all we got. And mom and dad and my sister and my niece and nephews and that's all we've got. So that's like, like that's what it's about. And people are like, why don't you make the time today? And I'm like, because I've already signed, I've already made a commitment. And I don't. Like, I will break a commitment. Like, if I promise my old neighbor that's 90 years old that I'll mow her lawn for the next 40 years. Sorry, Grandma, I'm gonna have to break that commitment. But I'm gonna make sure your lawn's mowed.
- [63:33]
A
Yeah.
- [63:34]
B
And it's some people what Dan Martell goes. You know what's so dangerous about you, Tommy, that I'm worried about you, is your word is Your bond. And he goes, there are times that you're gonna want to help somebody out, but, Bri, your fiance is more important. Your kids are gonna be more important, Your parents are gonna be more important. And you're a giver. And you're gonna trap yourself by making commitments because you wanna help people that have been years, 15 years ago, but you're going to be cheating out the people you care most about. And so that's a tough. That was like. He goes, I want you to practice breaking promises, but don't screw people over in the process.
- [64:08]
A
I mean, that's a definite psychological question.
- [64:14]
B
It's like, you want me to practice breaking promises? He's like, just don't think because you obligated yourself. He goes, so you invested in a landscape company, right? That's literally. They're mowing lawns, and now it's doing $200,000 a year. And by the way, I want to do this with my buddies in Michigan, and I will, but. But the fact is, that's more of a passion project, and I'd give them the money anyway, but I'd rather see them compound it and say they won, rather than say, hey, I'll give you some money to go on this trip. Say, you made your own money. I invested in your dream. But, like, there's other things out there that, like, you say, you know, what's hard for me is, like, the guys that used to. I used to go bowling every week with some of the guys that work here. And, like, I used to go do baseball games and stuff. They're like, what happened to my buddy? I'm like, dude, that was when we were at 50 people. We're at 1200. And like, dude, like, you're gonna do well. But, like, I've got Bri. I've got, like, a lot of other things. It's hard for me because I didn't make an obligation, but it's very tough. And Dan's a real guy. I mean, he told me what I needed to hear.
- [65:13]
A
The way I feel about that, especially when it comes to business, you know? Like, you know, right now, floor Daddy's at 37 internal team members, and we probably have another two or three dozen installers. And the way I think about it is I'm driving a bus. We're going down the street, and I'm picking people up, and sometimes I'm dropping people off, and I'm moving people around in the seats of the bus. But at the end of the day, as long as I leave them, better off than I found them, then we're good. And it's up to them how long they stay on the bus, by the way.
- [65:43]
B
Yeah, those people are better off getting off the bus. And they can be extraordinarily well and respected and actually get further in their career in other companies some of the time. And loyalties earn both ways. I show up, I do the work I need to do and I expect it. And it's earned every day. I don't look back. There's no such thing as tenure. It's meritocracy that's earned every day, every week, every month, every quarter. So to come in and say, dude, look what I've done for the last 20 years. I deserve this. No, no, no. It's what do I do next week? So I can't come in here. And I'm gonna expect the same from you. And I you 60%. But you're going to meet me 40. That, that's, that's my rule. Like, I'm not going to go super further than you and meet you every single time when you're not. What. Whatever you've done, you've got paid for. You've got bonus for, some of you earned equity for. But at the end of the day, it's vested to a certain amount. You're going to get paid on that. But you might not make it. Because here's the deal, I might not make it. And guess what? If somebody comes in, I'm an employee now. Somebody comes in and does the job better than me, maybe I'll be on the board, maybe I won't be, but. But it'd be very tough because I've got the vision, I'm the visionary. And if I wanna go ride with a guy in the truck each day and get to know my customers more, I'm allowed to do that. I don't have a bunch of meetings going about KPIs. Like, I know every major meeting. I'm in the weekly, I'm in the monthly. But my job now is how do we get to 500 million of EBITDA? And I've got a clear path in my mind, written down exactly how to get there. And I tell people, all the investors, what comes first is my people, then the next thing is my customers. First my people, then my customers, then my community, then my vendors, then the investors. And I tell them that. And I'm like, you listen to me, we will do this. You sidetracked this business. You want to get me in Manhattan or San Francisco all the time? And distract me. We're screwed. A couple more questions to close us out because we've gotten plenty of time. And by the way, this is one of my favorite podcasts. You're just a realist, emotional, you tell it real. And it's a pleasure to have you on. Like, I really, I really love this. You know, one of the things you, you get introduced to a lot of people. I mean, you probably know Tony Robbins and all these guys. And I think sometimes people want the fame more than they want anything. And I think Jim Carrey said it the best. You know, I hope everybody's rich and famous so they could understand that's not the answer. And all of a sudden you worry about all the fake stuff and you're worried about perception and how you view viewed online and. But, but networking. I've always said your network is your net worth and you can't take these relationships away. I got Al Levy, not probably the, he's not a billionaire, but I could call him up. He'll give me honest advice and he treats me like I'm his son and he doesn't bullshit. And I got these people that I know want to see me win. How important is building the right network?
- [68:23]
A
Everything. It really is everything. You know, like I'm not here because I'm so great. I'm here because great people locked army with me and helped me at certain stages of the journey. Yes, I put in the work. Yes, at the end of the day, I had to make the final call. But I was really scared the first time I spent $7,000 to join a entrepreneur group, a mastermind. I was even more scared when I spent $100,000 to join a group. Both of those moments I got massive, massive ROIs on my investment because when I showed up, I was in
- [69:05]
B
a
- [69:05]
A
room full of other like minded individuals all gunning and playing the game to win. In our real lives, sometimes your friends, your family, they don't get it. They're not connected. Your high school friends, they don't understand. The Cody Sperber that just got turned on to creative real estate that's changing his language from let's go party and chase bitches to I'm locked in. I want to get rich. I want to do these things. I want to be better, I want to have better skills. I want to this. And they're like, what happened to party Cody? You know, and so it's just, you have to find new friends and hire new friends and get around the right people. Proximity is power. You guys know this Stuff, you know, it's a formula. This is not very complicated, right? It's like, pick a vehicle that actually is scalable, sellable and valuable, right? It's like, I could sell t shirts for 20 cents a t shirt, you know, Or I can be in a better vehicle.
- [70:04]
B
Like, you know, I tell people all the time, I'm like, they're like, what would you do if you were me? And I go, I have a two year plan to sell that business. Because quite frankly, the best you're gonna get is a 7x and you're gonna work 10 times harder. And there's no real multiple in that industry. And it's kind of cool that you started out when you were 19 to build a business, but you're a grown up now. And I'm like, I look at enterprise value and I say, if you're gonna go after customer acquisitions, where's the largest tickets? Where's the least competition? How can you differentiate yourself the fastest? I think flooring's great. I think roofing's great right now. And I love H Vac still. They're all similar, but very complicated and different.
- [70:42]
A
I think about that. Your passion has nothing to do with being in the right vehicle. I don't really care. I don't love floors. Yeah, who loves floors? You know, it's like. But everybody is my customer. So therefore I like the vehicle. It's a high ticket item. I like.
- [70:57]
B
It's mundane. Like you said, get good at the mundane and the boring things. I never loved Garage I didn't know I was gonna love. Now I do. I'm like infatuated with them because I
- [71:06]
A
think it's sexy I feel that way about real estate. You know, it's like I obsess over real estate and architecture and stuff, but. But yeah, so it, you know, it is a formula. And being in the right room is a large part of that because, you know, like, I used to throw these events and I would make like a million dollars event, sometimes a million and a half. I'd have a thousand people there may. And then I went to one Tony Robbins event where I saw him make like $22 million in three days. And it broke my brain. And then I got to know Joseph McLennan and Tony, and I was able to go backstage and I was able to get on a whiteboard and they showed me influence theory. And I was like, this is how you do it. My next event I did $8 million. Big difference. Just knowing the right people. And I'm only bringing that up because you mentioned Tony. I was his number one affiliate for some of his launches and stuff. And I. I've got flown around, and we've had lots of quality time together. And it's just like. You can't unsee certain things.
- [72:04]
B
I'm in a room. This had to be a decade ago. And I'm Frank Kern, Ryan Deiss, Perry Belcher, and Roland Frazier.
- [72:14]
A
Oh, geez.
- [72:15]
B
And I'm talking to them in Vegas, right? We're having a drink, and I'm talking about the garage door industry. And they go, don't be an idiot. We don't. Do not care about stages. Do not let your pride and your ego. They're like, you've got a winner. Have you? Who's the guy that is the founder of Home Depot? I go, I don't know. They go, exactly. They go, no one knows. And by the way, these guys, you stick to this. He goes, I think it was Perry. Belcher goes, we gotta come up with, like, now we're selling fucking handkerchiefs and, like, buttons on the. He goes, we gotta come up with a new hustle every year. We gotta, like. He's like, stick to this focus. He's like, if you let your pride cometh before the. Like, it's just like, you've got to stick with this and go all in. That was the best advice.
- [73:03]
A
Starve the ponies, feed the stallion.
- [73:06]
B
That's it. That's it. I. And I wanted to tell you one. One phrase I've heard is, hang out with the people. You got a common future instead of a common past. And I think most people. During orientation, I play a little excerpt of, like, people act like a victim in a problem they cause. And a lot of the people that you came up with, by the way, very loyal. Still, the guys I grew up with, we know everything about each other. We were so innocent back then. But now I'm like, and by the way, I'll take their calls. I'll help them anytime. But I like to hang out with people I got a common future with. And not the people that are like, what happened to my old friend? And my buddy Jimmy's over. Great friend of mine, man. I do anything for this guy. And I just talked to them the other day, and he goes, dude, I showed him my schedule. He's like, dude, that's so stupid. He's like, why would you want to work like that? I'm like, what if I told you I enjoyed it, number one? Number two, do you like this place that you're at? Do you like the chef. And I said, I'm not trying to sound like an egotistical maniac, but I go, there's a reason you'll never work this hard. And by the way, it's not your DNA. And you love your life and you're happy. This is what I love is I love building, I love growing, I love getting myself educated and being around the right people. And I'll tell you this, it's going to hit a lot harder at 50 for a lot of them to go, man, I still got, man, I got to figure out how to pay my mortgage. And I'm going to be like, guys, let's go to. Let's go to Europe. Like, I'll pick up the trip, but they're going to be like, I can't leave. I got too many, too much obligations. What was the best day that you were, other than your kids being born? Like, what's the best day that you were like? Man, that day was like, if I could recreate that day over and over, that'd be epic.
- [74:43]
A
You know, it's probably one of two things. It's either the day I came clean to my ex wife and went to therapy and let go of all that shame and guilt because it was the only time in my life I ever put myself in that position. And it felt amazing knowing that I'm taking back ownership and control of my future. Or if I really think back, it was the simple times. When I was in the Navy, in one of the hardest scenarios of my life, I thought it was so difficult. I look back now, some of my best memories are traveling the world, seeing new things, being with my brothers and just so young and hopeful for a future that you just knew that the world was anything you wanted it to be at that moment. Now it's pressure and bills and kids and everybody. I feel like I'm the sun. Everybody's orbiting around me, you know. And the reality is it was just so fun and simple back then.
- [75:47]
B
The simplicity. There's a movie in like 1939 and I just watched it for the first time and it's about this guy who it's going, this guy's got the biggest mansions and the monuments built after him, and it shows him as a kid with a sled. I'm trying to think of the name of the movie, but at the end it shows his last words were rosebud and it was his sled bird.
- [76:06]
A
Oh, yeah, I do remember this. What movie was that?
- [76:09]
B
I'll think of it in a little bit. But the Thing was, is it was his innocence. It was the world is yours. It was. There was no worries. Like, I remember just mom worked three jobs, but I just didn't really feel like I got a job. I'd mow lawns and I just was like, I don't want to be a nuisance for mom, but I'm like, man, I really. I don't have anything. I don't have really a whole lot of responsibilities. And I think that's what you're talking about.
- [76:34]
A
Well, I mean, look, Tommy, we work really hard. You're, you know, sometimes, especially when you're in a relationship. Like, my ex wife wanted a nicer house. Like, I made more money, she wanted another nicer house, better car, cooler tires, better trips, more this, more that. A chef, a guy that waters your plants, this that. And all of a sudden, I looked up one day, I'm spending about 130 grand a month on my lifestyle. And I built a luxury prison.
- [76:58]
B
Yeah.
- [76:59]
A
And I felt like I was in prison. I'm sitting in. And people don't understand. For every new level, there's a new devil. It does not matter how much money you're making, you're gonna run out of money. You're gonna have cash flow issues, you're gonna have personal issues, you're gonna be sued. You're gonna have all these problems and challenges, health, whatever life throws at you, that's life. And you might be the man 99% of the time, but inside your home, you're not the king, you're the joker. And you're gonna be like me, crying in your underwear in your theater room at 3 in the morning because you have $700,000 in bills and 400 grand in your bank account. And you're like, f my life, I gotta figure out how to sell my way out of this. These things happen. And you just look around, you're like, what is all this shit? Why do I have all these cars and toys and things that I don't barely use? None of this shit makes me happy. And one of the best feelings was unwinding all that.
- [77:51]
B
Yeah, it really was simplicity. I mean, I remember the apartments. I drive a used truck with 285,000 miles on it. A Nissan Titan with a salvage title. We go to the tiny apartment, me and Bri. A thousand square feet. We didn't have a cleaner. Like, it's funny because they're like, we're gonna get you two full time, basically maids for Idaho. I'm like, no, you're not. I'm like, I know how to make sheets. I can make beds. I know how to do laundry.
- [78:15]
A
Yeah.
- [78:15]
B
I'm like, I want to go back to a little bit. Like, I love the help and I love to be able to focus, but there's a little bit about me that's just like, you know, some of it's like I buy back time and that's really, really important. But at the same time I'm like, this is a fun place. Like, everybody could pull their sheets off and throw them in. In the fricking in the washer before they leave and like, I'll help them make their bed. And I like some of that's kind of. And the simple times, but like, it's hard to. I don't necessarily want to go back to the apartments.
- [78:42]
A
No. But there, there is a healthy balance. And at the end of the day, whatever makes you happy. Dude, I still have a. I just bought a brand new Lamborghini Urus Performante. I am a kid again. I sold my Rolls Royce. You know, I had a. I had a Ghost with Tiffany blue interior. I hated it. It, you know, it's like, you know, whatever makes you happy, it is and it changes. I'm grateful for every cool thing that I have, but it's not.
- [79:05]
B
It like the boat's going to be super fun, but that's going to get old. Like for me, it's, it's, it's moments, it's. It's experiences. And you know, what I've learned is I've listened to a lot of people that have done big, big, big exits. And it's like, don't invest at all. Keep some liquidity. Keep the rainy day. Make sure there's a bunch of safe money that you just can't touch much. Because I'm literally planning out my life at 45 and then beyond of like, how much will it take to live this lifestyle if everything else crashes? And that's what's important is like, there will be a day that I'm always going to be part of A1. Everybody asks me, like, what's going to happen to you is a. Are you going to be like, till the day I die, I'm part of this company. Like, my face on the side of the truck, like, dude, like, I will be part of this company. But, you know, and I'm going to be coming into work probably till I'm 90, but just maybe just Mondays, maybe just Tuesdays, maybe just Fridays. Who knows? What's one book that changed your life? The Greatest.
- [80:01]
A
The Greatest Salesman in the World.
- [80:03]
B
Is that Gerard. Is that. Is that this car salesman?
- [80:07]
A
No, it's called the Greatest Salesman in the World. It's. I'll think of the name. I can't remember the guy's name.
- [80:13]
B
What? Tell me about it. I think I have it.
- [80:16]
A
I have it in my phone. But yeah, it's. It's one of those books that just. I read it once a year. I'm going to find it here in a second. But I read it once a year and it's a great story and lesson, just about shifting your mindset to understanding. Understanding what's actually important in life and how to get wealthy by shifting your mindset to the core foundational things that actually get you wealthy. You know, so many people chase the wrong rabbit. God, I really want to tell you the. Another great book is Never Split the Difference. That's a great negotiation book.
- [81:02]
B
Yeah, that's right. It's on this shelf there. Right there. Chris Voss became a good buddy.
- [81:07]
A
Oh, he did? Wasn't he on your podcast or something?
- [81:09]
B
Yeah, he was a couple times. Came to the house, been at my events.
- [81:13]
A
The Psychology of Money. That's great. Morgan Housel that's a great book. Book. God, why can't I find. Oh, here it is. O. OG Mandino.
- [81:21]
B
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, I read that book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a small book. It's like two bucks.
- [81:25]
A
It's easy. It's easy to get through. I read it. I listen to it once a year.
- [81:29]
B
It's kind of the pronunciation of the words. It's like the. And like.
- [81:32]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's a.
- [81:33]
B
It's a good book. He had a few books. He has several books.
- [81:36]
A
It's an old school analogy about, like, you know, it's like a young man trying to figure out his way in life and, you know, kind of getting mentored by these different lessons that you learn and each lesson unfold next.
- [81:49]
B
Yeah, that. That was a good book. Yeah. By the way, Citizen K, 1941 Rose Bud, watch that movie again. I think you'll dig it. It's it.
- [81:56]
A
That's right.
- [81:57]
B
And then here's the deal. We've had a great podcast. You were very open, and I've really enjoyed this. I think there's, like, so much people could take out of this, but I'm going to let you close this out. Anything that's on your mind, Maybe we didn't talk about, but just.
- [82:10]
A
Yeah, I mean, look, Tommy, I. I have known you for a while now. I don't know, maybe at least a decade. At least 10 years. Yeah. And we've crossed paths in different ways. I watched you build a fantastic business and reputation for yourself. You're the goat in the home services home improvement space. You've achieved exactly what I'm trying to achieve. You know, when I started Floor Daddy, I was just, I had no clue what I was doing. I just, I know how to start and scale a business. I know the how to assemble a team, get the culture going, going. We're at a point right now where April 28th was the exactly two years ago when I took on my first customer. So we're almost at the two year mark, right?
- [82:56]
B
It's a big deal.
- [82:57]
A
It's a big deal that we've made it here.
- [82:59]
B
Two years is a really big deal.
- [83:00]
A
We're doing now back up to over a million a month. I got it up to 1.5 million a month and crashed and burned. It's probably my third crash and burn within the two years. But we keep fighting. And I'm almost at a point, around, around five months in, you called me and said, what the hell's Floor Daddy? What is this thing? And next thing you know, we're talking and I'm like, bro, if I can get you involved in this, I don't know when or how I'm gonna need you. I just know at some point I'm gonna tap in. And when that day comes, I know you're gonna catapult us to the next level. And we're almost there, brother. I'm hoping I'm making you proud. You know, it's great.
- [83:37]
B
I'll tell you, like, when you learn financial discipline and you understand this and you know exactly what's in the account, exactly. The KPIs, exactly. The budget on a daily basis, this I know exactly that. We're 9.94% above our budget this year as of yesterday. Finished. I know. That's one thing that I think that everybody listening in the blue collar space is missing is this financial discipline with a controller, a CFO and an FP and a team. And it's hard to get that team because you're like, dude, we've always, we know sales and marketing cure everything. Yeah. But when you get the finance side, it's like, it's like freedom because it's like, I thought I was making money. And then you pivot very, very quickly and you're like, we're not. And like, on a daily basis, this is what I know. And last month we did 8.1 million of EBITDA. And I'm just getting started. It gets harder and harder each year, but we never miss budget. And I got a whole plan. I got 10 levers to pull to continue to do this. And it's not hard to replicate. It's hard to build a team and get the right people on the bus and continue. And guess what? The bus, the seats, like you said, are gonna change out. And loyalty is a mistake. And if you Listen to the 5xCO podcast I did last week, they said the hardest part about founders is some of the people that took you here won't take you there. And they lose because they're loyal.
- [84:52]
A
Yeah.
- [84:53]
B
And it's the hardest thing. And it's different if it's an investor, but they gotta get out of the way.
- [84:57]
A
I've learned that in my. In my. One of my other companies. So, you know, we're locked in. You know, I believe we've made such waves in Arizona within those two years. You know, I'm obsessing over the customer experience. I'm obsessing over every communication point, every touch point, the quality of the installation. I know that's my Achilles heel. I have to dominate that. The marketing, the sales, that's easy to me, it's everything else that's really difficult. And just I'm so locked in and laser focused on execution right now. Babysitting, managing cash flow, that's really hard. When you start to scale as fast and aggressively as we are, that's probably the hardest thing. Because, man, my personality is like, I want to dominate and go. And it's so. Takes so much discipline to go step back in order to go forward.
- [85:49]
B
It's hard. But look, yesterday I was on a webinar with a hundred people, and they're like, how can you grow and make profit? And should I take a loan out to grow? And I'm like, well, my rule is if you're not making 15%, then scale back. And one of the guys was like, well, I'm only at 5 million. I'm like 15% of 5 million. 750,000. If you can't grow with 750,000 plus, you're paying yourself a salary. Hopefully that's after 15%. After you're paying, saying, like, if I ever fell below 15, now it's 27% to the bottom. And the efficiencies, I got a path to get to 35%. And you say, well, maybe you're charging, but AI is taking over. Like, I don't need as many people for payroll. I don't need, like, I don't need all these other admin jobs anymore. Like we were building. I got a whole AI arm now building all these things. So you get there through efficiency. Plus, I'm spending $70 million a year with my on product. So do you think they gave me a better price?
- [86:38]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [86:38]
B
As long as I help them win. So that's how I win. And then eventually probably I'll horizontally or vertically integrate. So now it's like I'm basically taking raw. That's when no one could win. That's when. And the bigger I get now, Home Depot's reaching on my door now. Angie, the CEO was at my house the other day. The CEO of Angie. Like, they're flying in to see me because. And they're going, how quick can you expand? Chamberlain, how quick can you expand? How quick? So now our training center is doubling. Now we can handle 110 people a month.
- [87:04]
A
Month.
- [87:05]
B
So we got 60 coming in next month, 90 coming in the month after, 90 brand new technicians coming in in one month.
- [87:10]
A
So here's my question for you. And this is, I need some mentorship on this. You know, installation is one of the hardest things because we're, we're outsourcing to, to, you know, different crews. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's, you know, different flooring crews that, you know, they run their own thing. They, they have their own insurances and licensing, and it's really hard to get them to adhere to our standards and quality. So my question is, do you think it's possible to do what you did here at A1 Garage Doors, where you have a, literally a school for your sales and installation team, but to do it in flooring, where we are creating our own standard of flooring installation specialists.
- [87:56]
B
Yeah. So what I would tell you is there's a reason I'm going into new construction in Phoenix. Because it's harder to build an install or in a training center, it's easier to build a technician that could fix. But I'm teaching them operational and technical and sales. So operational and sales could be taught in this. The, the technical side. I could do it in the training center for a technician, harder to do for an installer. So what I would say is I would possibly. And this is not a route road you should go down now. But the reason new construction, there's no money in new construction unless you're using it to train people and you're, you're keeping the quality. So you're saying once you graduate from new construction, now you're at the caliber. I've got a foreman coming out, checking the work, checking the spacing, making sure the hollow spots. Like, I just talked to Mitch, my guy in Idaho. I go, dude, I remember I was getting tiled on in my flips for a buck a foot. Yeah, it wasn't great quality. He's like, you know, we're paying here 17 bucks a foot. You know what the bathrooms cost, 30 bucks a foot. He goes, but it's. This is a different house. This house is worth $30 million.
- [88:54]
A
Yeah.
- [88:55]
B
And so those are the clients we want to attract. It's just, you got to find the marketplace. Who's the avatar? Is it? These wealthy could charge that because you can't have the same crew running at five, six bucks a foot. That's running the $20 a foot. Yeah, there's just different. There's like. Like one. One of my mentors, Oan rugs, right?
- [89:12]
A
He.
- [89:12]
B
He works with all the designers, the ASID designers. And he. White car, red carpet, white glove. Like, he sells these rugs for $30,000 a piece, right? And he works with all the designers. And he goes, now, Tommy, I let them charge whatever they want to their client, and they call it a marketing fee. And he gives them. So he's got. But he goes, if I'm late, if I show up to a customer's house with a $20 million house, he goes, if the dog pisses on it, we take it back for free and clean it. Like, they're just a different level. But if it's a dual income, $110,000 dual income in Chandler at a 400, 000 house, that's different than going into a $20 million house. And you can't serve, serve everybody. When you're the first five years, you got to pick your avatar. If you're going to be top, top, top market, you don't need as many clients, but you'd better be perfect if you want the ton of clients, if you want the bottom feeders, harder to make money there, you know what I mean? And you were one of them. I was one of them. That I just said, dude, do it for less. I'm going to give you a bunch of business. So I think knowing who your avatar is and really defining your client is where it starts and then nailing that and then you scale from there our size. Now, we could handle more things because the business has grown and we could handle more, but really we just do residential retrofit, garage doors. We don't do commercial, we don't do new construction, we don't do the box stores, we don't do home warranty. But anyways, Cody, I will answer any of your questions offline and we will sit down and I will be more involved. I think that two year mark is coming and that's what I wanted to do. And the good news is Matt and Jacob on my team are numbered ninjas. And they'll tell you exactly where it's at at, because getting the financial stability and knowing the score is everything in a business. And you know that it's different in real estate because you could, you could mathematically kind of, that's, that's your space. This is like, there's all these other things. Gotta look at your EMOD score, you gotta look at your, your safety score, you gotta look at your callback ratio. There's all these things that I'm monitoring and now I got a team that does it. But dude, it's my job to keep the motivation, continue to build the dream to keep everybody. Like, I gotta keep the people together. That's not my COO's job. That's not my integrator's job. That's me. Is to inspire.
- [91:20]
A
Like you.
- [91:21]
B
Like you said, you said. What Grant does is he creates a sales energy.
- [91:26]
A
Yeah.
- [91:27]
B
And you're great at that.
- [91:28]
A
Yeah.
- [91:28]
B
Sales will only get you so far if you don't fulfill correctly.
- [91:31]
A
1000%. I'm handling it all. I mean, look, I love, I love it. I feel like guys like us are built for this.
- [91:38]
B
So, you know, look, I'm 20 years in, so we always want to figure out, can we buy our way through five years. But the experience, it's like my dad used to tell me, and I'll close with this and then I'll let you say whatever my dad said. I wish I knew what I knew now back then. And I'm like, what does that even mean? Why don't you just tell me? And he's like, Tommy, he's like, I can't because it takes the experiences of what I went through. He's like, I can't tell you. Like when the guy freaking hit on your mom to just walk away instead of breaking a beer bottle over his head and the stupid shit I used to do. But just these things that you get wiser and you learned, you made that mistake before and you reflect and it's, it's not something you really think about. You just know it. And so, and, and I depend a lot on my team. And that's one thing is the Camaraderie of the team has taken a long time. Like, our CEO has been here seven years, you know, but you're gonna get there. It's gonna be uber successful. It'll sell for more than 300 million. I think just play take market share here before we go into Tucson or New Mexico and Vegas and everywhere else. You don't want a bunch of small. Like, it creates more chaos when you're like, man, the minute you say, I'm getting bored. Is when you expand. The minute you say, man, my phone shit's going wrong is when you tighten up. And you don't expand and you tighten up. But when you say, this is easy, we're just bringing in. It's like clockwork. I've always exploded. The business created more problems, and then it starts getting easy again. And then. Then I exploded again. That's how it's worked for me. And that's the feeling like when you feel like, man, we're putting so much money away, things are dialed. Explain expand. But when things aren't that good, and guys like you and me, the Hunters, were like, let's expand, expand, expand, expand. We'll figure that out later. Let's. But profit is the key word. Profit is what creates great recruiting. Profit is what creates great marketing. Profits what creates truck expansion, going into new markets. Focus everything. I get you that 15, 20%, and all the answers will come. And when you understand profit and you start focusing on profit, everything changes. Everything changes. And it's so hard for guys like us to realize that.
- [93:39]
A
Great advice. Thank you for having me on.
- [93:42]
B
You did so good, man. Thank you.
- [93:43]
A
Appreciate it.
- [93:44]
B
All right.