← To The Point - Home Services VIP Room Podcast
To The Point - Home Services VIP Room Podcast
Tommy Mello at RYNOx: The Playbook Behind a $1B Vision
00:43:37
Loading summary
Transcript20 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, what's up to the Point, listeners, it's your boy, Lord Christopher. And today I am in Scotland at the top of the William Wallace Monument. So even though our next guest likes to think he's a lord, he's not a lord like your boy, Lord Christopher. But this is another great episode with my boy, who's got a good chance of being a lord, probably sooner than later. Mr. Thomas Mello.
- [00:32]
B
This is to the Point a Rhino experience bulleted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the and getting to the Point. You got a click.
- [00:48]
A
There we go.
- [00:49]
B
There you go. All right. Well, honored to be in here with a lot of legends. Probably been mentored by most of you. Ken Goodrich. First time I went to Leland's Place, I thought I was cool with the 29 tune up. And then I watched his. His two hour tune up 267 point tune up. Something like that. Kidding. But learned a lot from everybody in here, so it's an honor to be up here. You know, one of the biggest things I realized today is I'm here and my team's kicking ass at the office, and I have this rule, and it's a pretty simple phrase. I eliminate, I automate, or I delegate. And you guys might want to write that down because that's a really simple process to make things happen. And I'm very fortunate because my team does most of the heavy lifting. So you guys got your cell phones handy? Just want to do something here. And most people in the room won't do what I'm asking, but I'm asking you to take out your cell phone. Everybody got your cell phone, and there's probably somebody at home. Whether it's your husband or wife or your COO or your general manager, they're running the place. Just send this real quick. Just think about who that is and say, I don't tell you enough. But I really appreciate everything you do. I think that's really. I'm living in this phase of just gratitude and feel so fortunate and blessed. And I think that I'm a big Jesus believer. And I think God is, like, looking out. My mom's healthy, my dad's healthy, and I'm just. I'm excited about life, man. I really am. Like, you hear a lot of people say, man, I'm doing great. I'm really doing great. I got a beautiful fiance. My biggest dream in life is to have kids. I don't want on my casket the best garage door guy ever. I want. He was a good Son and the best dad ever. And he was a curious little monkey. And then when you're on your cell phones, just some of you guys didn't do this and I'm asking you to do it. And just watch the way when you start out the day with appreciation and thanking somebody and telling them you appreciate it, it's going to change a lot what happens in your life. And then when you get a chance, just do me a favor and search your business real quick. So just put H Vac, whatever your name of the company is and then look for your Google my business page. You guys know what Google my business is? It says the reviews and the hours of operation. One little tip, Chris said try to deliver value, which I rarely do. Just make sure it says 24 7. Even if you're like Ishmael and not open Sundays, you can still book calls on Sundays. You could book calls at night. If you're not open, you can still book the call. Most people will wait. When I did that, I increased leads by 30%. Another thing about the Google my business or GVP is I used to pick locations that were good for us. Near a highway, near the distribution center. Now I have a team of a full time team that looks for new locations and we pick in the best, most affluent neighborhoods without any commercial buildings. So we'll buy, you know for example out here, Fountain Hills, there's really not a lot of commercial buildings. So we found that a building with no competition, a good Google. My number one lead source is Google GVP. A good Google location should get 7 to 10 leads per day if it's optimized properly. No competition in the right neighborhoods. So that's the whole tactic we use. I got to start my PowerPoint here. We learned from Peterman onboarding is important and we learned from Aaron to lower your prices. I just I supposed to be a joke. So I think the main thing today is I realized we run 23 different softwares. You got so many good companies here. I think there's a lot of great CRMs, there's a lot of great automation tools, call center tools. I'm gonna go over some that I run. I think that every company here deserves to be here and I'm not advocating for anybody. I think if you use software you should maximize this potential and go all in. And software is not something you just set and forget it. It's something that's constantly being ab tested, been being fully utilized. I always say we're a, we're a software company that does garage Doors. Yeah. I'm going to give you guys my best garage door pitch. Some of you guys are looking to get in the garage door industry. Don't, because I'll kill you. No, I'm kidding. The garage door is the smile of your home. We trademarked that. The garage door is 40% of your curb appeal. It's a better investment than kitchens, bathrooms, pools. At 268% return on investment. And it is an investment, and I love that I fell into the garage door industry. I'm jealous of the $18,000 tickets. Our blended average ticket is about 1150, so we run 25,000 calls per month. I love marketing, I love sales, and I love culture. Pretty much in that order, unfortunately. I do love culture. But let's. Let's see what we got here. So, going to be talking a lot about leadership and culture. I got a quick video. Like I said, this is just what I do every morning when I get to the office. I'm obsessed. I've already logged into Service Titan today. I saw my KPIs. We set a record day yesterday. And I just said, I'm super proud of you guys and I feel very blessed today. To the team. 1.4. That was a good day. Yeah. You know what? I want to say one thing about that. I've been known to see on stage this little phrase, revenues for vanity and profits for sanity. And I had a lot of comments, and a lot of the comments said, well, what about a growth year and all this other shit? And I spent 15% of revenue on marketing and still delivered 26% of the bottom line, don't get in garage doors. And a lot of people, they make these excuses and they believe them. They say, well, I had a growth year and labor is tough. And I hear this from every technician, too. But I hate it when owners and founders say the same thing. Well, it just depends. And EBITDA could be misconstrued and all these different things. The best CFOs. Mike's a great CFO. When you ask a CFO, what's one plus one, you know what their answer is? Whatever you want it to be. Great cfo. So these are just some softwares. I. I live on a vibe board. If you guys don't have a vibe board, it's basically a smart whiteboard that you can log into different software. So here's. So I'm going to show you the software that I go over every day. When I'm at work, I'm at the house. So this is my scorecards Every technician. I can filter it like anything I want. I can go month to day. I can go average ticket conversion rate, all my major KPIs. Then I can just click on the technician. I can see how they're rate their gross, close opportunity, job average. I live in this. This is one of the softwares we run. Let me show you some other things. So this is how my technicians are doing. I got 500 technicians. Next thing I look at is my call center. I live in this last seven days we booked 91%. But I'm getting cancellations. Why am I getting cancellations? I study this. I know through capacity planning, I can actually book more calls, get way less cancellations. We're averaging around 9% cancellation. I can get that down to 5%. If I want to see what CSRs aren't doing so well, I'll click on performance. Then I can go and look at every single CSR I can look at. Why is, for example, William at 10% cancellation rate, 89% booking rate, but minus the 10, he's really at 79%. So I'm working in these tools all day to know what the score is. And then the last tool you guys are probably familiar with is Power Bi. Bunch of reports in here. I can see most of my leads are coming from my Google, my business profile. I'm gonna explain how I do that. Pay per click, print, collateral, LSA, co mailers, just a bunch. These are all my campaigns. I got to go to, my weekly, my daily, my performance dashboards. But this is how I get things done. These are just a few softwares that we run. We run a lot of other softwares, but knowing the data, asking great questions, talking to the managers, asking on what their plan is to improve is how this business continues to grow at the pace it's growing and continue to win. Oh, that was so good. Can I get an applause? No, I'm kidding. Knowing the score. How many of you guys have ever been on a diet or tried to lose a few pounds? Don't lie to me. There's a difference between saying, hey, you talk to your wife, you talk to your husband. You're like, I want to lose some weight. Some people say I need to eat 2,200 calories and I'll burn 2,600 calories. I'm going to lose one pound every eight days. I need a gram of protein per body pound. I need to make sure I'm keeping track of my carbs. I'm going to take advantage of the peptides and they've got a plan. And I hear a lot of people, not in this room, but when, when I go to a lot of events, they tell me what they're going to do and they say, we're, they're at like $8 million. They're like, we're going to do 20 next year. I go, fuck it, you know, hell yeah. How? And they go, well, we're going to invest in marketing and try to hire great people and I'm going to talk a lot about the lead conversion cycle and the math that goes behind it and how it's predictable. And when I buy a company, people ask me the same question. Greenfield or
- [10:52]
A
in home services, speed to lead is everything. Chirp stands out. By transforming your communication strategy with Chirp, accelerate your lead response time with instant sms, text messaging, email and ringless voicemail automation. Chirp's cutting edge technology ensures you're the first and the most persistent, helping you close more deals than ever. But that's not all. Say goodbye to missed opportunities with Chirp's incredible follow up system. Keep your leads engaged and moving smoothly through your sales funnel without lifting a finger. And with Chirp, deep integrations with top CRMs like Service Titan, Housecall Pro and Jobber, you can launch laser targeted campaigns to connect with the exact right leads at the exact right time. Automation creates efficiency. Efficiency unlocks scalability. With Chirp, you can automate speed to lead, estimate follow ups, rehash abandoned call follow ups, cancel job follow ups, review requests, outbounding to your list, annual reminders, membership experts, follow ups, and so much more. So stop chasing leads, capture them, connect faster and close more deals. With Chirp, contact Chirp today and elevate your communication game.
- [12:14]
B
Or buy. And here's the answer to that question. If I could buy a 35 year old business who's running 12 technicians and spending 2% of revenue on marketing, they're running eight calls per day per tech and they're not open Saturdays and Sundays. I'm buying that company. It's way better than green fielding, but it's very lucky to find those. And when you think about the effective multiple. So let's say you pay 10x for simple numbers. They're doing $3 million, you pay 30 million. Well, if I've got a higher booking rate, less cancellations, I, I could run more capacity. I've got a much higher face to face conversion rate and a higher average ticket than that. Effective multiple went down to three most of the time. So if you could buy Ken Goodrich years ago sent Me, an onboarding checklist. Basically it's an integration checklist. And done properly with some discipline, it's a no brainer. But those don't happen. It's not predictable. So if I'm a buyer and I'm a sponsor and I'm a private equity or hedge fund or vc and I'm going to buy you the most, the biggest thing I care about is you know how to greenfield. And I know it's predictable of how long it'll take to get profitable. I know Aaron Gaynor, I don't know where he went, but he spends a lot of money to go into a greenfield. Right Now I'll spend 300,000amonth knowing that 18 months is when I start making money. Now I could get profitable in 90 days, but I don't want popsicle stands. I need to build a 3 to $5 million EBITDA company within two years. And it's kind of scary when you got competition like a lot of us in the room because I'll spend the money all top of the funnel. I'll do some major PR, we'll go donate 20 doors. Wounded warriors. We'll get involved with veterans. We'll get involved with. Make a wish. We'll spend the money and eventually, you know, Aaron went into Cincinnati and Dayton, I believe, and, and Mike. And within two years they look like they've been there in 20 years. And that's important. You want to become a household name. I got another software I'm going to show you guys real quick. Aaron called me. Me and Aaron are great friends. He, he lives in my house and I'm kidding. He's great. His son, his son's getting a master's degree. Really proud of Chase. He's, he's a legend. And hopefully he's going to intern with us this summer. But Aaron called me up and he's like, dude, we're pretty much the best of friends. You know, we share a lot. And he said, I got this software, I'm going to show you and I think it'll work. And I wasn't. He didn't make a big deal about it, but he goes, just a few things. We're up 40%. Our conversion rate went up 15%. Just crazy shit. I was like, that's a big deal. And so Zach from Mantle flew out. And it's not Mantle M A N T L E. It's T E L. And all I did was the introduction. That's what I'm good for. Relationships. That's one of the things that my life when I was a kid, I didn't have a lot of friends. My mom and dad divorced. And I just realized as a kid, relationships is all I got. So that's kind of what I'm about, is relationships and trust. I didn't have a lot of trust growing up either, but Aaron, somebody I could trust. So he. He gave me this. Zach flew out, met with Luke. We got Mantle to work for the company. And, you know, we raised our average ticket dramatically on turnovers, about 1500 bucks. Our conversion rate went from 54% to 69%. I said it 69. And. And it's a massive, massive lift. And I'm not here to promote any software. I'm really not. I'm just telling you guys what I use. Some of them might not be the right ones. Literally. I'm just going to show you because this was a big breakthrough and this is a small enough room that I want to share everything I got. And I want you to, I call it R and D, rip off and duplicate the shit out of everybody in this room. So let's go ahead and watch this quick one. All right, guys, I'm in front of my vibe board again, and I want to show you what Zach and I got together with Luke on our CEO of the company, and it's called Mantle.
- [16:31]
A
Attention to the point listeners. Branding has never been more important. Is your brand in serious need of an upgrade? Do you have a new company and need a new brand but don't want to wait six months or pay a ridiculous amount to get it done? If your brand looks like everyone else's, well, guess what? You are everyone else. But Prolific, they build brands that dominate from the first Google search to the driveway. Prolific Brand Design can help you be more of you because you are the unique difference that sets you apart from all your competitors. So let's be real for a second. Your brand is either winning you customers or costing you money. Just ask some of our clients like Ken Goodrich, Ishmael Valdez, my boy Chad Peterman, and even myself. Prolific Brand Design is the creative pros behind some of the best home services, logos, truck wraps, websites, and now email marketing campaigns. Wouldn't you love it if your email marketing open rates were 30, 40, 50%? And don't go into the spam folder. Hell, that's how we roll at Prolific. So check them out at prolific brand design.com and ask for the to the Point promo. Prolific Brand Design Be more of you
- [17:45]
B
Be Prolific proposal tool. It's interactive. It's an Online shopping allows the customer to be in more control even if the significant other isn't there. So when we started Mantle, we look at the average strength of jobs run, we could filter it any way we want, look at the average ticket. And what's so awesome is we've realized every door we sell on a turnover, fifteen hundred dollars more on average. And our conversion rate went from 56% to 68%. This tool works. So I live in Mantle. It's one of the other tools. I got my VI board here at work, I got the VI board at the house. And I love this because Matt Fink next door is my sales manager. The other day I went through two virtual product specialists and I saw their conversion rate. I simply took out a sticky note and I said, hey, get back to me later today and explain to me what's going on with these two guys. They're pulling down our conversion rate. They need more coaching. I got the data, have the data. So this is she. My EA is the most amazing gal on the planet. And Bree, that's my fiance back there, I love her. So my fiance is way more important than my EA. So there's four KPIs. It's the booking rate minus the cancellation. So do this, do this real quick. On a piece of paper or your phone, write down booking rate minus cancellation rate. And then face to face conversion rate means I'm knocking on your door, average ticket. I think we got enough smart people in here to figure that one out. And then cost per lead, cost per lead is not cost per acquisition, it's just the lead cost. And I do this for every marketing Source I got. 7 call track, 7000 call tracking numbers, UTM parameters, landing pages specified. I use programmatic pop ups to be able to track everything. Now, me and my coo, who's absolutely world class phenomenal, he told me, he goes, dude, we need more leads. And I'm going to tell you, I got pretty upset because yours truly is in charge of marketing. I'm obsessed with marketing. And I said, well, wait a minute here. We're at a 91% booking rate, so what does that mean? We're missing 9%. Right. So I figured out based on the cancellations that 3% of that is because of capacity planning. So there's 3% right there. So I said, all right, there's 9%. Our cancellation rate at the time was 24%. I'm sorry, 14%. So what's 9 plus 14? Michael Jordan, 23, 23%. And. And then I said, our conversion rate is 73.6%. So we're losing 26%. What's 23 plus 26? Wake the hell up 49. So I said, do we have a marketing problem? Half of the leads are going out the window to our competition. I said, so here's what we're going to do. You're going to get 3% on the booking rate. You're going to get our cancellation rate down to 7%. There we found 10%. And then I want the conversion rate to go up 6%. That's 16%. That gets us down to 35%. We're losing now, I'm guessing in this room, maybe one of you is better than losing half. And we say we need more leads. And that's why marketing companies suffer, because they get blamed when it's an operational catastrophe. You need to get a hold of your cancellation rate. You've got to have capacity planning. You need to struggle and strive to book every call. I don't know why I was punching my mom in this picture. What the hell that pose was. But that's my mom. Her name's Gina. She was born in 1954. March 4th.
- [21:33]
C
If you've been listening to this show, you'll know that I only talk about tools that actually help our team. And Blue Bluon is definitely one of those. At Peterman Brothers, our techs are using Bluon every single day. It's become their go to resource. It really is like having a senior tech in your pocket. They can scan a unit, get all the model data, wiring diagrams, parts, and even troubleshoot. With Bluon's AI, we've seen fewer callbacks, faster fixes, and happier techs. And that's why I'm such a big believer in Bluon, because it actually works. So do yourself a favor, click on the link in the description and book a quick demo with the Blu on team to see it in action.
- [22:18]
B
And then she had me on her birthday. Not the best birthday gift. She was 29 and she always taught me, I'm going to love you no matter what. I was in jazz class, karate, taekwondo, wrestling. I played the piano, the violin, the trumpet, and drums. She got me into every single sport. And she just said, honey, just try it all out. You can do whatever you want. She worked three jobs when I was a kid to keep me in the same schools after mom and dad got a divorce. And one day I called mom in 2010 and I said, mom, everybody's lying to me. People are stealing toilet paper. The cops just showed up about a Felon that works for us. I said, I don't have anybody I could trust. I said, I need you. And she said, honey, I love you so much, but I was born and raised. This is where my family, my friends. I said, I know, but I'm your only son. And she said, I'll talk to your stepdad. She moved out to Phoenix in two weeks. Moved up her life. And I used to watch her. Some of you guys know this story. But she'd be sitting down and she'd answer the phone and put her hair in a ponytail and she's like, thank you for. It was like a sex line almost. Thank you for calling A1 garage door service. My name is Gina. How may I make your day better? And she'd smile and I'd be kind of hovering over her like, what the hell? And she'd go, oh my gosh, honey. Oh my gosh, honey, I am so sorry to hear that you called the right company and here's why. She tell a company story and she say, I've got a technician from Michigan. He's a Midwest boy, he's a good looking kid and he knows garage doors. He's the best technician we've got. Puberty is hitting here and. And I was like, mom, are you going to book the effing phone call? And I mean she just went on and on and she go, of course we will be out there and we are going to call you on the way. And we just really appreciate. And I'm like, okay, 2012 minutes has gone by and moral of the story is I didn't realize it at the time, but I'd show up, I'd never say she's my mom, she never said I was her son. And I'd show up to the call and I'd have my tools and I'd walk up and the people would come out and I'm not kidding, this happened. Didn't happen once or twice. It happened almost every time. The people would come out and give me a hug and they'd say, we made you lunch. Who's that lady at the office? I was like, ah, that's Gina. She's the office manager. She's wonderful. And they say, no, it's not wonderful, it's absolutely phenomenal. We went with you because the way she treated us.
- [24:57]
A
To the point. Listeners, listen up. What if the biggest thing holding back your business isn't marketing or hiring, but your bennies? The benefits for home service companies. A better 401k can be the difference between great techs and losing them to the shop right down the street. Basic Capital, our newest sponsor, is the only 401k built to actually put your team on a real path to retirement. Companies that switch over see higher participation, happier teams, and dramatically low turnover. Because your crew finally gets a plan that's a true benefit, not just a checkbox. Don't wait until your best people walk. Make the move and click the link below to get 12 months with 0 employer fees when you join Basic Capital.
- [25:36]
B
Here's the garage door. Do whatever it takes. We trust you. And what I realized is it's not just about booking phone calls. It's the way in which we book phone calls. The contact center is how I fix every company known to man other than Russia, because it's communist. But, you know, I fix the contact center and I say, hey, thank you for calling so much. We really appreciate it. We know you have a choice. Let me tell you why. I work for this company. And we were gonna make your door safe. You could trust us. We're gonna show up and we care and mistakes happen, but we make it right. And so booking the phone call is important, but the way in which we book it, if you're looking at a KPI to try to get it under five minutes, that's not the KPI to go after. Spend a little bit more time, build trust, and give them an experience, a great experience. It's the first contact they had other than the marketing number two conversion rate. Did you want to use your money today or did you want to use our money? Have you heard about our promotions? You know, we use Good Leap, Go Good Leap. And we deliver the message by showing them the monthly options. And what I love about Mantle, by the way, is now I don't pay any dealer fees because it rolls it into the price programmatically. Saved me four and a half million dollars this year. We send a technician profile. We offer coffee on the way. Hi, Mr. Jones, how are you? Tommy Amelo here. You probably got my profile. A1 garage door service. Alrighty then. I'm on my way to your house. I'm stopping off at Starbucks. Can I grab you anything? No, I'm good. Listen, you come to my house, my fiance is going to cook for you. Don't make me guess. Caramel Frappuccino or green tea. And I want to assume that. And I want to give them something. And I just. Every technician puts it on the job. They get expense to the job, they get paid the next week, including taxes. And when we bring coffee and we Bring tea, we bring donuts. Sometimes we bring bagel sandwiches. I've got so many messages. The law of reciprocity. If you read one of my favorite books of all time, Influence by Robert Ciardini, and you use those seven forms of influence, it'll change your life. Offer coffee on the way. What does your technician say in his profile? Does he got a picture of his family? Does he say why he loves the company? Does he say why he loves garage doors? Does he say any pastime? Things programmatically use AI to build the profiles. And this is not a mug shot, this is smiling. Building trust. And then be prepared. When you walk up to the job, we do a lot of stuff to improve the average ticket. Apples to apples. I sell oranges. We trademarked our parts. You know, it's a very fragmented industry. So my competitive advantages, you know, now everybody's got a max lifespring, but it's the process and it's the people, it's the way we recruit. You look at the variance. I want you guys to think about the variance between a top tech and a bottom tech. I had a guy two days ago ask me, hey, I'm doing 12 and a half million and I'm losing money, I'm barely making payroll. And I said this is going to sound very contrarian, but I want you to make your company smaller. What if we just use the best CSRs, the best warehouse guys, the dispatchers that were dispatching for dollars, and your top technicians and installers. You'd go to 8 million, but you'd be printing money because you're never going to be happy if you're worried about payroll. If you're not giving options, as Joe Krasaro would say, you're giving ultimatums. So one of my favorite things is, you know, Tommy, that just sounds like a lot more than I wanted to spend. No problem. Let's just pick another option. You know, I want you guys, you guys look so frickin tired and annoyed and you drank too much last night. I want you to do what's free. You can smile. And I talk to my technicians and I say we're gonna practice talking and smiling because it's free. And guess what? My voice sounds a lot different when we smile. So we smile. When I walk into work, I smile because everybody says what's wrong with me if I'm not smiling? Cost per lead. I mean, this is what I love the most is marketing. And what I learned about marketing is now I market for great people because one, a player this year for Me. One technician in Flagstaff will do $2.9 million. That's one he's going to make. He called me up last Sunday, said, I'm going to make 395,000, plus the bonus you're going to give me. 75,000, which is garage doors. I know some of you H Vac guys, you could pay a million dollars, but it's a bigger average ticket. So that's a lot of money in the garage door industry. And it's Tommy 3.0 is thinking, who are the who's I need on the bus to take me into outer space? Who's going to ignite this engine? And I started working on my new org chart. So now the new goal is a billion of ebitda. And people have always laughed at me and say, this guy's a dreamer. Who does he think he is? And I'm like, I'm the Scatman Attribution 7000 call tracking numbers. You know, understand where the data's leading you. You know, we use chirp. There's a lot of tools out there. Pick your poison. Ryan's gonna be chatting. But when Aaron got on chirp, he did $200,000 his first week of missed opportunities. And CHIRP is an automation tool, just automates anything you want. If you don't book the phone call, here's a note. You guys should write this down. Every time someone books new equipment, you should send them a link to Good Leap or whatever you use for finance. Because if you get the pre approval and you know how much they qualified for now, you could dispatch for dollars. I know George is working on this with Pro Book, so a lot of cool things you could do with these tools. Get the family involved, man. I'll tell you, 82% of people and Peterman talked about this, but they say they won't leave a company because they got a best friend there. Where do they make best friends? Not out in their truck. They make best friends at breakfast, going to company events. People are like, I can't afford to do what you do. Take people to Mexico. You could afford Bisquick from Costco, and you can make freaking pancakes. If you're like Travis Ringy, you'll make protein pancakes. Take off your shirt. No, I'm kidding. Bring the family in. Send flowers to the wife when they come to Phoenix to get trained and say, we really appreciate you. We know your husband's leaving for a month. If you get the families, buy in. Everything else works. I'm telling you, everybody that makes Pinnacle, they get A grant to the company. They get equity in the business. And their wives, when I meet them, they go, well, Tommy, what do you think about his conversion rate? I'm like, you know what conversion rate is? And they go, well, what do you think about his gross? Close. It's turnover rate. I got a guy's wife that sits outside of her door and says, how many turnovers did you do today? Get back out there. And when they're bought in, everything changes. So the family's involvement is super crucial. I do a three and a half hour orientation. Never missed one of them. If you orient right, there's some crazy stats, man. But if you're not taking the time. Going to show you guys some other stuff here about orientation, but it's my favorite thing in the world. And I say, listen, I love you guys. Welcome to the first day of your last job. It took 100 interviews to find you and you and you. And I'm going to pour everything I got into you guys. But all I ask for return is that you say this, I love me. You're not doing this for your wife. You're not doing this for your kids. You're doing this for you. And I want you to be selfish. Let's get those teeth fixed. Let's get out of credit card debt. Let's dream a little bit bigger. Because if you're not dreaming big, this is gonna fail. And my job as the leader of this company, money's out of the way. I could retire. My parents are retired. And I'm not being cocky. I tell them, but if your dreams aren't happening, then I'm losing my job. Is have a dream so big that your dream fits inside. We do a champagne toast of apple cider. At the end, I do a little toast. It's called the honors toast. No, I'm kidding. But we roll out a real red carpet and we make it special. The whole families, we sign a certificate. It's framed. The whole family's on a Facebook live. We've got a special announcement for each guy and how great he is. And welcome to your new opportunity and career. And you're going to do amazing letter to the his significant other. This is a quick, quick pinnacle trip that this doesn't cost much. We got all of our vendors to cover this trip this year. And just you'll see how much fun we have. It's my birthday. Happy birthday and my mom's birthday. Happy birthday. Trip is really. It's important to me. It's important to the leadership team. Everybody should have an opportunity to come here and it's going to take a lot of hard work. It's going to take tenacity. It's going to take planning. It's going to take a lot of intention, accountability. We know that. The significance, another makes a massive difference. We know you guys got families and you're able to break away. So thank you. We've got a. A volleyball team to pick and win. For those of you that don't know, I'm undefeated and. And I plan on keeping it that way.
- [35:09]
A
I've paid my dues.
- [35:13]
B
Time after time,
- [35:17]
A
I've done my sentence.
- [35:44]
B
Anyway. Best day of my life. I just tell you guys I'm a competitive SOB and man, I was like, my mom is watching and I. I really do love my mom. And we were down 15 to 24 and I'm about to lose and the whole company's watching all the MVPs and I felt like such a piece POS. And then all of a sudden daddy rolls up with the old ball and starts serving it and we got. We won. So anyways, that's not what this is about. So we are not. Training is not something we do. It's something we are. We train. We train. We train, Chris. I promise I'm finishing up here shortly, but we train now.
- [36:23]
A
We do.
- [36:23]
B
We're launching weekly one on ones for an hour a week. A feedback loop. We've got all this data. How are you getting the feedback back to the people and making changes with the data? I got this from Jack Tester at a Pantheon event years ago. But the one on one forms and what's the what? What do you think the first thing I care about other than culture and the core values from. From a technician or installer. Mostly from the technicians. The first thing I care about is conversion rate. I got to earn their business before I get a review seller membership. So I look at that. There's a lot of things I can pull out to get the conversion rate up. Then I look at the highest quality of part. You guys got different hot water heaters, air conditioning units or whatever you guys might do. If I've got a guy selling 95% max life, which is our lifetime warranty, best, profitable, most gross profit springs another guy selling 10%. I built a library of that top guy, the best top five guys. Exactly what they say and do. So that's important. Selling high quality raises average tickets. And I can go into this one on one form, but it's a game changer. I've got a full time Dream Manager. If you guys get a chance, buy the book. Dream Manager. Their job is to make people dream bigger and want more. Get financially stable, write down their goals, reverse engineer their goals, reverse engineer their goals. Your goal as a CEO is to build a team that runs your entire company better than you. Somebody asked me what would happen if you went back to your younger self at 25. I would have said, you know, don't drink and drive. But other than that, I would have said, I'm kidding. You guys gotta wake up. I would have said, hey, dude, you don't gotta be the smartest guy in the room. You gotta learn more, you gotta be more curious, and you gotta get around the right people and you gotta hire people that could run circles around you. Ken Goodrich talked to our team and said, hey, I'm a little worried about all you guys. Tommy Mello, he calls me up at midnight on a Saturday. The dude's at every event. He's reading books, he's implementing quickly. He goes, tommy, I wanna give you a good tip. See everybody in here? He looks every single one of them in the eyes and he goes, I want you to fire them if they're not growing as quick as you. And Ken calls me up after the meeting. He goes, was that a little harsh? I go, kinda. But then I remember Luke going, dude, give me a book to read. Can I come to the next pantheon? Can I go to this event? Can I get this training? And it changed everything. And he started running just as quick, if not quicker than me. I'm just going to show you. This is. I'm finishing up right now with almost 1400 people now in the company. I kind of lost a little bit of passion because I used to have relationships with everybody. And I got a little bit depressed, to be honest, that I didn't know anybody's wife or kids or birthdays or anniversaries or work anniversaries. So Jim Leslie built me some primitive software of how I could use Monday. And no birthdays and anniversaries. And one day I text a guy, hey, dude, really proud of you. Happy birthday. And he says, you fired me six months ago. And so the system was flawed. So what we did is built the software that talks to the HR software. And now when somebody onboards their off boards, we know about it. And I can't tell you how blessed I am. And everybody guards me. I'm the most guarded person. No bad news comes to me. I'm not good with bad news. I stress out, I get anxiety. So they Shield me. And now I get to be this. Tommy 3.0 just sends love bombs and gives hugs and buys little gifts and smiles at work and just his momentum and pushing people. And I don't call people out. I call them up, and I'll call somebody and I'll say, hey, I'll send them a message through this app. And by the way, if you guys want to get on it, I'm not charging for the first few months. And it's not AI. It's nothing fancy. I'm not trying to get big. ARR. I think it's a tool that's going to be a couple hundred bucks a month, and it's just to cover the cost of Twilio and the other things of onboarding, literally. Like, I'm not trying to make a profit from this. I promise you. I think this is a game changer, is going to change the home service industry. And I just want to send somebody, hey, you know, brother, I love you. You know I care about you. You know I'm looking out for you. Is everything okay? Is your family doing all right? I've noticed you're slipping a little bit. Sometimes I get a message back is my daughter's in the hospital, and that's a game changer. And then I got to be there. I got to be a big boss and a better person. I got to care and I got to love. Sometimes they say, I didn't know you noticed. I'm going to kick some ass. Sorry I let you down. So a lot of my messages are bringing the bottom up and then the appreciation of saying, your best week ever, or, this is your 12th year you've been with this company. I love you and I care about you. I've had people cry. They say, we didn't even know you knew who I was. So these are some things. Happy birthday. Congrats on seven amazing years. I sent a lot of videos. Trevor, my man, it's your work anniversary, bro. I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you. Really. You're one of my favorite people, man. Keep up the great work. Appreciate you being part of this company and just kicking ass every day. Excited to see what you do here this year and love you, buddy. I love that guy. He figured out one phrase, and this guy's a genius. He's in Minneapolis. The customer says, I'm almost done, Chris. He gets very, very antsy. The customer always says, hey. Hi. Hey, Tommy. How much is a new garage door? Anyway? Trevor figured this out. Well, it just depends on how much you want to improve the home value, the home's value. And so a mantle's building me is the before Zillow price. And with the new garage door, their new Zillow home value. Talk about a badass conversion tool. So I'm just. If anything you take away from this is you love on people. You celebrate the good news. You don't walk into a meeting and say, you guys suck this week. What the hell is the matter? You're slipping. You're driving like shit. You know you guys can't sell diddly. We celebrate the wins. And now I get text message after text message. Yesterday, $29 tune up, $35,000 door sale. And then I take that screenshot and I send it out to every technician with a click of a button. If Michigan has its best day, I send a text out to those technicians. I could hit the csrs, I could hit work anniversaries. I get the big milestones. You bought a house. It's coming through the software. I had a guy buy a house the other day. He got the keys. He goes, you just changed my life. And I said, you changed mine. The best day of my life is watching people win. It's not a record day. It's not anymore. I love record days. But when you change somebody's life and they. I didn't do anything. They stepped in and they did the work. We just created the opportunity. Hey, Alec. What's going on, brother? I got this pulled up for January. So far, you're out of the gate, just murdering it. Let's see here. You are continuing to spike your oja. So this kind of shows your oja. November killed in December. You're coming back up here. 3,000, 942. You got a massive gross. Close memberships, 33%. Not bad. Keeping up the great work, brother. I see you and I appreciate you. So simple. It's what we started with. I appreciate you. I see you. I value you. If you do that more often, man, I've got a gal at home. Service, freedom. Her name's Brit. And I looked at her and I would never have done this in my life. But I said, you know, you look really good. You're taking care of yourself. You're healthy. I'm proud of you. She said, I lost 40 pounds. Thank you so much. She walked a little differently after that. She had a little bit of a swag. And I said, you know, I care about you, man. You're kicking ass. And then I gave everybody hugs. And, man, that's not who I was. That's not who I am. But it's who I'm trying to become. I had to change my identity. I'm a lover, I'm a giver. I am. I'm worth it, I'm worth it. I'm the one. I'm a little selfish. I've got a little bit selfish. Cause I gotta take care of me if I'm ever gonna love you. And so I pour these love bombs. I call people up. And I'm not the best. I'm the best I've ever been. But the worst I'll ever be. Cause tomorrow I'm gonna be a little bit better. But just give a little more love. That's all I want you to do. If anything, just give a little bit more. Get. How many of you guys got a reaction from your text so far? What? What? Just read one out. See? And somebody's gonna. Some one of you guys go. Somebody just said, I didn't even know he, he or she cared. Dream stride we're building in this thing. Dream stride. So you put all your dreams. We're gonna help you get out of credit card debt. We're gonna help you buy your first house. This is my last slide. Founders should or shouldn't do. So I say, does Tommy have to do it or can I delegate it? And the deal is I can't delegate saying I love you. I can't delegate the orientation. I could, but that would be a failed failure point. So my job is to tell people how great they are and be the biggest recruiter of the company, the face of the company, and build the best talent pool. Ishmael is a good at recruiting. He's a better recruiter than me. But being the best recruiter is going to bring me to the promised land. And this is the last to finish this out. Thanks, Chris.
- [45:59]
D
I was talking with my friend earlier this week and he was like, what separated you on the football field? And I was like, I think I was. There was a degree, there was part of me that was a psychopath out there. I was extremely hyper competitive. Every day I didn't feel like, okay, let's get to Sunday. And then now it's the time. Like, every day was the time, and every day is the time to give your best. And even if it's practice, do your best in practice. I gotta treat the this game like it matters more than anything. Well, when my teammates feel that, guess who else has to raise the bar? My teammates. Because I'm bringing the juice every day, that's what Leaders do. Leaders don't have days off. They show up every day and they're like, I'm giving my best. Well, why that's for me, great. But it's also going to make them better. And then if we don't have to wait till Sunday to get better, we could get better on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, because that's the competition. And then in the circle, season ends. March, April, May, June, no one's watching. What are we doing? And if we're all getting better, 5% better or 8% better, and they're not, well, over time, who wins?
- [46:57]
B
So love a little more. I'm a psychopath. I'm obsessed. I am literally obsessed with a one garage door service. It is obsessive. I'm psycho. I want to outwork, outperform, out, delegate, out, automate every single person in this room. And I love you, but listen, there's someone out there that's going to eat your lunch waiting for you to calm down, waiting for you to take a vacation. I'm not saying spend time with family, spend time on faith, spend times on fitness, but someone's waiting to eat your lunch. Who's going to outwork them? Who's going to be obsessed? Who's going to be psycho? Love a little more and be obsessed? Thank you guys very much.