In episode 73 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden interviews Tommy Mello as he shares valuable insights on building a successful business, the importance of mentorship, leveraging technology for growth, and the significance of branding. He also emphasizes the role of accountability, knowing your numbers, and setting clear goals for long-term success.
Tune in to a wide range of topics related to business, entrepreneurship, and personal growth.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:01:23] Tommy Mello Ventures and TMV.
[00:03:58] Scaling personal brand and business.
[00:09:30] Hire for your weaknesses.
[00:13:51] Self-improvement and fitness journey.
[00:15:41] TRT and Peptides for Health.
[00:20:31] Prioritizing as an entrepreneur.
[00:23:29] Finding the right mentor.
[00:27:46] Technology recommendations for business.
[00:33:02] Importance of branding in business.
[00:36:26] The CFO's role in business.
[00:40:21] Building a business to sell.
[00:43:51] Influencer entrepreneur brand evolution.
[00:47:40] Scaling a business with partners.
[00:52:21] Overcoming homelessness and addiction.
[00:55:34] Overcoming challenges and finding success.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialkenbaden
Tommy Mello
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomasmello/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommymello/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
A1 Garage Door Service: https://a1garage.com/
Home Service Expert: https://homeserviceexpert.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
All right, welcome back to another episode of the Kitchen Table podcast. I'm your host, Ken Baden. And today I am here with one of my industry heroes, Tommy Mello, somebody that I've listened to for a long time. Tommy, how are you, my friend? I am great.
Ken Baden
Just got to Milwaukee. It is amazing out here. It's nice, nice and refreshing to get out of Arizona for the week.
Tommy Mello
How hot is it in Arizona? I didn't think about that.
Ken Baden
Well, today was a little. I was doing my walk at 5 AM. You know it's it's in 110 in the heat of the day.
In Milwaukee, it looks I mean you're inside, but you can kind of see like the sunshine coming through. I mean Milwaukee. What by contrast is 75. I mean, what is Milwaukee? That's 75.
Yeah. I mean, I drove by Lake Michigan and it was like packed full of people in bathing suits. I'm like, dude, I need to like get a summer house. But you know, I come here, they got plenty of room for us.
So it's my sister here. So my niece and two nephews.
So it's nice to get away and hang out with them.
Just doing a little family vacay for a little bit or.
Yeah, well, I started Tommy Mello Ventures and TMV, that's my family office. And Brian, my brother-in-law, works with me. He was a CIO at GE, managed $7 billion a year.
Really, really smart guy.
So we've got meetings in Chicago, just going over a bunch of stuff. And TMV works directly with A1 as well on the technology maybe even next year.
This is what I love about Tommy, man. I started listening to your podcast a few years ago. One of my mentors over here put me on to, he gave me a few to listen to and randomly he was like, Hey, listen to this guy. And so I think you'll, you'll relate to him. And, you know, I heard that you had done the garage door, A1 garage doors, Tommy's company. And obviously we just didn't hear he's got several companies. He's written books, a home service, Expert is your podcast, Home Service Millionaire is your first book, and then the most recent book is Elevate?
Elevate. Build a business where everybody wins.
Right, man. See, look, I know my Tommy content, man. They're great books, dude. Elevate is a phenomenal book. and all of the stuff that you touch, man, I'm just a huge fan of. And you're kind of like that poster boy for us blue collar folks. I cut my teeth in the model that you have for A1. I was blessed to get to see your whole company and training center. And it's just, it reminds me so much of the company that I started at, which is arguably one of the best companies that I've ever seen. It's a company called Power Home Remodeling Group in the retail roofing side. They're damn near a billion-dollar enterprise themselves. They do it right, man. That's a compliment that I saw just mirroring that, man. I mean, everything that you do down to the psychiatry, the psychology, the psychology of your sales methods. I've just been so impressed with a lot of the stuff that you've done, man. And if you guys have been following Tommy, and if you haven't, the guy built, scaled and exited, he's done the entrepreneurial dream. So he's someone to listen to if you don't already know what you probably do. But Tommy, tell me about, if you would please, more about which you just mentioned, which it sounds like a venture capital group or like what exactly is that?
Yeah, you know, we look at investments and we've got a big development crew, so a lot of technology. When I learned a lot about arbitrage and this fancy word, even earnings before interest tax depreciation and amortization, really cool. I was like, wow, you can basically take your profit, continue to buy companies, emanate greenfield, grow organically. And then as you continue to grow, the multiple goes up. And then I was like, how does software work? Especially SaaS, software as a service. And then you get a multiple of revenue. So, you know, there's a lot of opportunities we're looking at. We're developing able to keep up. And in the process growing my personal brand, and I'll 20x that, I just got a guy that was pretty high up in this work for Mr. Beast, and we're hiring 50 more people for my personal brand. And A1 built my personal brand, and now my personal brand will help scale A1, because I'm still the largest investor in A1. Although I'm under 50%, I'm still the single largest. It's fun, man. We're doing some really cool stuff. These guys, I think they're some of the best developers in the world. You would think at GE, my brother-in-law managed 3,500 developers and he picked the best few to come run teams. And we're just taking on some cool stuff, man, that is exponential growth. And what I love about it all is it all helps scale A1. So everything kind of ties back to home service. I think it's the blue collar. This next five years is gonna be where the largest transfer of wealth we've ever seen. 10,000 baby boomers retiring a day, 12% of them on a business that don't have a plan on what to do with their business, because it's not sellable.
You guys hear that? I mean, and I've seen, being in roofing too, by the way, just the crazy moves that have happened with private equity or joint ventures, any of those mergers and acquisition, I mean, I've seen all of it actually, but you're no stranger to that because you've gone through that process yourself. In fact, you're like the first, I think, the first home service business that I really paid attention to that went through that process. Then of course, I got to see guys like Kurt and Tom and some of the guys I know personally that went through that and roofing. But can you take us through kind of, you know, That all sounds like too good to be true now. If someone's listening to you, all the crazy shit you're saying now sounds like even to me, I'm like, dude, this guy's living the life, dude. You know what I mean? Like my wife and I were talking before your podcast and I said, yeah, you know, Tommy's coming on and I was telling her who you were and I said, you know, basically. He's doing literally everything that I want to be doing. You know what I mean? Like in the future, I mean, quite literally, like from selling a company to, you know, your brand and stages and all that stuff. And I've made plenty of mistakes over the last couple of years of kind of jumping on this stage or focusing on this thing. And I've just completely revamped and sole focus on just doing this. I mean, the best I can do is still crank some of these out because, you know, I think these are important and it does help my connection with good people and learn. And I enjoy doing this, but. You know, someone like you doing it right and having come up and focused only on the company know what would be your biggest piece of advice for someone who sees you know from a blue collar or home service business owner that sees someone like you. Who is someone like me that wants to then just do all of it all at once? You know, how do you kind of take that and compartmentalize that and say, OK, cool, man, that's great. But I started here and I focused on this and then I got to do this, this and this. If that makes any sense at all. You know how some of us are, you know what I mean? Like we want it all.
All entrepreneurs are ADHD. We focus on what we're easily Empower a contractor. Al Levy was my best mentor. He taught me about manual standard operating procedures checklist. He taught me the eight steps of delegation. He showed me what a real org chart and depth chart should look like. He literally helped us structure the building in a way that it was hard to get to me. Without meeting Al, I wouldn't be here today. Al Levy was a systems man. And basically there's three reasons Usually, companies fail. There's no system, the wrong system, and the system's not being followed. Some other things, I found the right technology. They didn't let me in, so I had to beg and plead with the CEO. First guy on service saying outside of Asia, I'm throwing electrical, which, by the way, is $180 billion margin cap. If you've ever been to the Kentucky Derby, you watch a racehorse, they're wearing blinders.
They're focused on winning.
You know, I think a lot of people are juggling everything. They got to have a side hustle.
They were taught to be a hustler.
And I was the best hustler you've ever seen. And then that hustler had to die. I needed to not be the answer for everything. I needed to start stacking the deck. There's a great book called Who Not How. Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And when you understand getting the right people on the bus, as Jim Collins would say, changes everything.
Hire for your weaknesses.
Don't try to be well rounded. focus on your strengths and become the elite of the elite, the best, and then get the right people on with you. And listen, I know my number is like literally better than anybody. I mean, I go through 200 pages a month. I just went through 50 pages for the week. We're murdering our objections. We got two deals closing this month. I got 20 in the pipeline. I'll be glad to close on 10 of those. Every expectation the private equity company put forth were murdering, murdering. And they don't even know. They had me speak, the only founder that spoke to all of their limited partners, which are their partners, 130 of them in New York and Manhattan. And I'm just a networker, man. I go to the best. I find the best. Success leaves clues. You want to be the top of Google? Search for the nearest HVAC company. If I find out who's number one, call them up, buy a watch, make it worth but not for losers. They don't want cockiness. They don't want somebody that walks in that brags about where they're at and what they're going to do. They want somebody that just is a sponge that'll listen, that'll implement. And a lot of people are like, dude, you should see my dreams. Everyone has dreams, and it's great to have dreams and dream bigger. But when you meet somebody that's been where you want to go, just go in and ask questions. You know, people love to talk about their success. And the more you listen, the more you're a sponge, the more they'll tell you. But if you walk in and you're just I want to do this, this and this. Oh, yeah. Great idea. You're not taking notes. Everybody's always impressed that I take notes. It means I'm respecting them. I'm not trying to think of what I want to say next. I'm actually listening.
And I'm like, oh, really? Tell me more about that.
That's awesome. Oh, can I see that? Can I talk to that person? And it's a different mentality. And I always listen to And I think that's a rare quality because people let this go to their head. And if I thought I arrived, that wouldn't be this way. But I'm in the fetal stages. I mean, I feel like I've been you know, I just did get baptized. So maybe this is my new life. But, you know, for me, is I'm just I'm going I'm having so much fun. You meet people like me and they say these things and you go behind the curtains and they're really not happy. They're doing drugs and alcohol all the time. They just live in this split life. What people see and what's real, their relationships are in shambles. And it's just not the case. I mean, I'm as real as you come. What you see is what you get. I'm a work in progress. I'm the best I've ever been, but the worst I'll ever be. And I'm having a lot of fun. I really am. I'm really, really enjoying each day that I get to live is like a fun token. It's like, you know, I can't, I know tomorrow's not promised, but I'm going to make the most of it. And, you know, I came from nothing. So it's very scary when you get a guy like me, because I could live with nothing. I've done it my whole life. So I'm not afraid to lose. I take calculated risks. And, you know, the real deal is I'm out here to help other people because I know it comes back tenfold. When I, when I started giving out all the things I've learned, my, my And I say, you know, the dumbest guy you'll ever meet for sharing our secrets, or, uh, it's going to come back to bless us. And the latter happened. And, uh, when I shake your hand, I mean, I don't fail. Like I will, I will lose, but I, I hate losing more than I like winning. So, you know, yesterday I had a cornhole lessons because I knew I was going to be in a barbecue this week and I hate losing.
Did you hear that? Cornhole lessons. I believe you. You really did do that too, didn't you? Hell yeah, I did it. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. Hell yes, you did.
And here's the deal, Mike.
You guys can't, but you will see him, but he look, you look great, dude. You look great. I saw you over last summer and you look two, two times as big and a lot more lean.
So my face is my face. Like I have like a double chin looking back and listen, I don't have the Rico suave hair, but I was looking at something because I don't have the Rico suave hair.
I'm looking back. What are you talking about? Why did it get like you, brother? I'm trying to get like you, man.
I got, I got all the best help, man. I'm on the peptides. Uh, you know, people think TRT is like steroids. Oh, it literally is built to bring your testosterone level. This did not bring me any muscles. Cause I've been on it for six years. What it's supposed to do is bring you from a two, 300 up to 800, 900, where you were when you were 22. It's not anabolic until you start taking the real, like, And people are like, oh, TRT. You got to do the work. You still I'm I'm doing two hours of cardio a day. I'm working out, busting my ass, lifting as hard as I freaking could, getting spot a time of retention, eating perfectly, not drinking one single thing right now. I mean, I'm not done drinking forever. I'd like to do it once a month after I get to my goal. But, you know, I love when people see somebody successful and they just, instead of looking at them and saying, wow, that's awesome, I want that. It's almost like, you know the victims out there that are just, oh yeah, it's easy for you to say, oh yeah, you must be doing stuff. And I see this with a lot of losers out there. Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners. And they're just haters, but you know what? I've never seen a hater doing better than me. Never.
Never seen somebody hate on me. Yeah, never seen a hater doing better than you. They always hate up, not down. But the TRT thing is interesting, man. I actually did a couple of podcasts on that with business owners or entrepreneurs that focus on, including mine. I've been going for years. But to your point, I felt a little guilty until I understood like, what I'm doing is such a, you know, what, 40 twice a week. And in comparison, I have buddies that do it. solely for what you're talking about. But first of all, it's a base before they do everything else. And they're doing like 600 a week, like so many more times to the point where it's just like, and I think it's just an ignorance thing that people don't understand. I would say half of my office is probably doing it and that's over 35. And half of them look like they're doing it, if that makes any sense. Because the other half doesn't really work out like that. They're doing it for energy, for the sexual benefits, to basically get us to where our hormones and our bodies are supposed to be, or rather would have been at a certain age. And that's the same premise with the peptides. It's all, hey, it's gonna work with what's already here and rebuild it and bring it up to what either should be or could be if you were at optimal health when you were younger. It's anti-aging. I mean, it's just not, And to that point that you got to work, you're not going to get swole if you do 40, whatever it is, MLs of TRT a week, you're going to be very disappointed.
Very disappointed. Well, this Oro Ring, I track my steps, my calories. I've got this other app that my chef uses because I bought back my time. Yeah, I have a driver. I have a chef. I have two people made. People are like, dude, but I realized it's selfish of me not to. You know, my time, I can help a lot of people. I've been very fortunate. So there's a book by Dan Martell, Buy Back Your Time. I mean, I'm literally like every single thing is trapped. My sleep, I'm making sure I'm shooting for seven. I'll get there. And I'm going right to sleep. I'm falling asleep. The TV, I mean, I'm getting 20 minutes a day.
I just watch a little bit.
And I know you're not supposed to before you go to bed, but I'm still out like a light. So I just are having a lot of fun and I'm becoming the best version of myself. And that's all anybody can do. I have no excuses. The excuses are gone. I'm not too busy. I'll make time for my family. I'll make time for A1, which is my family. I'll be successful.
I'll be healthy.
There's no reason you can't have it all. You're an absolute inspiration, man. I look at you having done what you did with a one and you some people would look at the exit as a starting as a as a finish line. Whereas it seems like for you, it was a starting point. And it's like, I don't know, it's almost like hearing you talk now it feels like you're kind of like you're full of energy. It's like you're just kind of coming into your prime. I mean, does it feel that way?
It does. I mean, dude, I love my house because I have my dad's town. niece's three-year-old birthday there, third birthday. You know, I'm building my dream life. Like it's by design, it's written down. Like what I'm going to do for the next 25 years, it's not perfectly, but the next three, like down to my body fat, down to where I'm gonna travel to, like who I'm going with, like I'm manifesting everything.
You're writing, physically writing that down, right?
Oh no, it's on a Google file. Luckily, I could afford a guy like Dan Martell, who really helped me.
I heard Dan Martell. You didn't just read the book.
No, no. I worked with him personally. Yeah.
I love it, man. See? Tommy, you can do that, but I gotta read the book. So if you're listening to this show, you just gotta read the book, but it is a great book. So I've heard, actually, I haven't read, by the back of your time, you told me about it when we talked, and I still haven't read it, but.
You know, there's a lot of books, man. I've read thousands, literally. I've got 1,400 on Audible. I wouldn't say I've read every book that was, you know, three years ago, I'd say almost every book on my shelf was read, One of the things I find is entrepreneurs need to find the best mentor that's been where they want to go. And they need to kind of stop reading books for a little bit and start implementing. Otherwise, there's a new idea, new idea, new idea. And very few entrepreneurs can actually understand how to prioritize because everything's important. And when everything's important, nothing becomes important. And it's hard to get things done. So even with my dietician and the chef fake doctor, it's like, you got to kind of choose and say, we're going to give this six months. I'm going to go all in. I'm going to stop listening to every Instagram reel. I'm going to stop reading way more books. And you're like, well, what about this? I want to try this. What about the deep breathing? And I've got the deep breathing, the sauna, the COPA, I do it all. But I'm like, okay, I'm going to give you guys, we're going to like, we had a heart to heart this week. And I'm like, I'm doing this through September. No, And we're going to look every two weeks at what a DEXA scan. And I know that's not very good for you because it's like an X-ray of where your body fat is. But I'm like, we're going to start turning the dials as we go, because I set a goal and I'm going to hit it. If that means I got to not eat, if that means I got to have chicken broth or beef broth, if that means I got to go straight carnivore, if that means I need to do cardio for seven hours a day, No one's gonna stop me. There's only one person that can stop me and it's in the mirror.
I love it, man. You know, you mentioned this in one of your ads and I heard you just say it and you were talking about, you said millionaires versus billionaires. And you were talking about the whole idea behind like these crazy morning routines and all these things. I think that's what you were saying. Like millionaires have routines, billionaires. Do you remember what you said exactly? Yeah, millionaires are great.
You know, they're great. They're usually good parents. They've got good motivation to get things done. Billionaires, Usually, they're in their 50s or 60s because their money's working for the compound interest. Not saying everybody, if you built a great software in Silicon Valley, you've done well, but billionaires know who to call in. They understand the art of asking. They got the right Rolodex. They're around the right people. When you hit a certain status, you're like, I know who to call for that, and I'll get the answer right away. I think a lot of times, millionaires, they're still like grinders. They're like, I'll outwork everybody. I have worked hard to get here, I could work harder to get here. And something changes when you, and it's not necessarily millionaires and billionaires, I'd say it's more sophistication. It's like, you start going, you don't mind paying for access. You start going to the top, the elite of the elite. And the difference is, is a millionaire will go, listen, I'm gonna continue to try and try and try. Like I've got one of the best golf coaches, And the level that he's brought me in just eight lessons versus going to someone that's average is like he's seen more. He coaches the ASU college team. And so it's more of access and it's knowing like I want somebody that's been where I want to go. I don't want somebody that shows a Bugatti and a big house. I want somebody that has a proven track record that I can validate. You know, this whole influencer thing, those who can't make it in the real world teach those who make it in the real world also teach. So you've got to be able to identify the difference because sometimes you want to get back. They were like, oh, yeah, you're you make so much money. Why do you put Facebook ads out there? I'm like, because a team of 15 people, why should I? Why shouldn't I make money enough to afford a team of the best YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn X? Why shouldn't I use this knowledge to be able to build my team and pay them six figures? Why should I use my wealth that I've created through A1? Why not? And then I get to help more people. Why should I pull money out of my savings account when I can just put out really good content and help change lives when everybody's like, oh, he's still doing ads on social media. Yeah, okay. So is Mark Cuban. that just put out a new course. What's your point? It's like the haters are going to hate. And you know what? All that that does is just rally me. It's like, no, nobody would. You know, I watched them and like this part of my drive, it's just like, all right, but they're living in their mom's basement somewhere. They're mad at the world. They're probably socialist, mad about capitalism, and billionaires need to give more. Well, why don't you become a billionaire? I came from nothing, zero. What's your excuse? And you know what? I get to help a lot of freaking people. And I get to give to the church. And I get to see people buy houses and bring kids into this world and not have to live in the projects and live their dreams. And I just think some people are like, well, why do you get it? Because I worked hard. I took all the risks. And you want to start taxing me more to the point that I'm not making money, then I don't need to do it. There's no incentive. I can't put the money. You want me to give it to the bureaucrats that actually are all millionaires, Nancy Pelosi, and you think they're going to do a better job than I will of becoming a philanthropist? What in the hell is wrong? McFly. McFly.
Sounds like we're on the same page there as far as what we're at, which is funny, man, because, you know, we're a very well-versed group here. And it's like anybody with some common sense, I feel like has the same thought process that you just had. Myself, Roger, he's a young kid, like we're all different ethnicities and it's all like, Dude, use your brain. You know what I mean? Like, but that's a whole nother. We'll be on this podcast from their hour. We start going into politics, but I digress.
I, I killed it at the base.
So that's a good thing. You killed something. What it was, but, uh, What would you say? I know your time is really precious, Tommy. Thank you so much, by the way.
I want to interview things real quick.
You're the big dog, dude. If you can, please do. I got some time here, man. I carved out an hour.
We can spend a little more time. So I want to just go over Some of the things that really helped me, number one, it was the technology. And we'll talk a little bit about technology. So ServiceTitan changed my life. It had attribution. I have 7,000 call tracking numbers. I know every single lead source traced back to the revenue conversion rate, booking rate, all that stuff. ServiceTitan is the real deal. CHIRP, it's C-H-I-I-R-P. Every time I miss a phone call or we don't book a phone call, Schedule Engine is another great technology. Schedule Engine is amazing. But Chirp, we did $300,000 last week of lost revenue for our rehash campaign using Chirp. Like anything automations I need to build for any, see it works with how it's called Pro Service Fusion, Chirp is legit. Arilla Voice. My buddy Sebastian built this AI software where you put your phone or your tablet out and actually listens to the whole call in the field. And it's AI that kind of tells you, did they follow the process? How many open ended questions did they say? Did you match their tone words for a minute? It's freaking nuts. And this is the technology we use.
What's that? Was that one last one called RILLA?
RILLA, R-I-L-L-A voice. Change your life. Sebastian is the man. When you see behind the technology, you're going to shit your pants. Rapid Hire is a buddy of mine, Jody Underhill. When I needed to recruit people, I just did a yesterday morning. No, it was Monday morning. I did a. I do a welcoming to the new class orientation, three to four hours, 40 new guys, and I'm doing that now every two weeks, we're getting And RapidHire.pro, I think is Jody's website, killed it. Oh, if you want to rank number one on Google in the GMB, where your reviews are, Pinparrot, P-I-N-P-A-R-R-O-T.com. It's a buddy of mine, I started using him. Six weeks later, on the six accounts he tested, I ranked number one. Our calls tripled. My VP of marketing was like, what in the F? I just did it. He charged me a few grand a month. I tried it out because he's a buddy. And he's like, I think I figured out some Google algorithm stuff that we're feeding the machine what it wants. And I'm like, fine. Here's a few grand, you know, and then he gave me a free one in Scottsdale, murdering it in parrot dot com. Somehow he's posting unique pictures with descriptions through the GMB in your website. I don't know exactly, but he's he's a killer. So those are a few of the technologies. The next thing is I trained for two months, 60 days in training, and then I never stopped training. When I played football, we did two a days. We'd play 10 times a week to play one game. In business, sometimes we say, go with my best guy for two weeks, no formal training, no EQ. I talk a lot about EQ. It's more important than IQ. How are you making the person feel? We spend a lot of time on that. We teach technical, operational, and sales training. And you've got to be able to fix things and feel like you've got the right tools and be able to do it efficiently to sell it. You've got to be able to find it in the price book. And actually, you need to be able to bring up your promotions, which are financing, and do it quickly and efficiently. You know what you're talking about. These things matter, man. And, you know, the whole purpose of Elevate is build a dream so big that everybody else's dream could fit inside, which means I need to people when they start to write down their goals. Hey, my dad's been sick the last year. I want to take him on a really big camping trip. I don't know how long he's going to be around. That's their why. Instead of putting them on a performance improvement plan, remind them their why. You don't need to punish people. Remind them why they're here and find competitive people. I spent a lot more time recruiting A players that are competitive, that want to win, that set big goals. Because what's the point of getting more leads? Your conversion rate sucks. Your average ticket sucks. I've seen companies with four or five players sell for $100 million, like good sales guys. But these guys are doing $14 to $15 million a year. You add up four or five of them. Look, if you're doing $15 million, you got five, that's $75 million. They're probably at 30%. That's $22 million. You get a 12x on that, that's $240, $250 million. People just don't, they don't understand. And if you don't understand, that's okay. You can criticize all you want, but it's real. I know these guys, I've been to their houses, I've seen their cars. But I also know that they also took care of everybody down the line and they changed family trees forever. And yeah, I mean, these are some of the things I just wanted to touch upon is like how important it is to recruit. Recruiting is different than hiring. We put an ad out of Indeed, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, Friends List. We expect great people to come to us. And everybody goes, there's no good people out there. The good people are already working. and you need to become a recruiter and convince people that you've got a better dream for them to believe in themselves. You do these simple things, you embrace technology, you get organized, seven-part contract, you get manual standard operating procedures, you start recruiting the C-suite the right way, and you find competitive people to go run. And one other thing, when I got branded by Pick Charge Creative, Dan Ancinelli, My ticket doubled. My average ticket, my conversion rate, people wanted to work for me. I had no idea how important a brand was until my ValPak started doubling in conversion. My click-through rate on pay-per-click lowered dramatically. My quality score went through the roof. And I thought I had a cool brand. I was $40 million before I met Dan. And Al Evie said, hey, dude, your brand sucks. And I was kind of insulted. I called Dan. He told me a pretty high price. I tried to negotiate. He wouldn't negotiate. I said, Al told me to do this. He's my number one mentor. I'm doing it. I did it kind of just with an act of faith. And it changed everything. And most people are listening to everything going, yeah, that's a lot of stuff. And you got to start somewhere. There's a lot of hanging fruit, for sure. But to not have the right brand, people won't invest in their brand, although they're investing their entire life savings in their family for an okay brand. And then you get a lot of losers that say, well, I'm getting enough business without having a good logo. And I still got white vans with a magnet on it. But yeah, what's your average ticket? If you're not bringing in multi-millions of dollars of property a year, Don't brag about how much clients you're getting, because you're not charging enough. And you go, oh yeah, I don't like to charge what you charge. Well, are your people allowed to get out of the projects and buy nice cars and put their kids in good schools and get PTO and insurance and drive a new truck? Are you allowed to be on a billboard like all the HVAC funding guys? Because if you don't have that, then shut the hell up and listen to me. Because don't brag about you're busy as hell, but you don't make any profit. Profit is not a bad thing. It's why we're in business. We're capitalists. If you don't like it, that's okay. If you want a really, really hard job that you work seven days a week, you don't, you say you go to your son's games, but you're on your cell phone. You say you're there for your daughter's recital, but you're never fully there. You're never fully present. You're the one taking all the risks. And if your business is doing more profit, you could reward people around you and you could change their life too. So anybody that comes to me is like, dude, I got it all figured out. I'm like, you must have tons of market share to be making millions. Oh, no, no. No, I'm in a franchise. Why would anybody buy your franchise? Because you can't afford to even expand. You know what I mean?
Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's Phenomenal. First of all, thank you so much for even like dropping all that on this. I'm like scrambling, trying to put all this tech stuff. Maybe we can put it in like the notes, but there was all going all the way back to like, is it Al? I'm probably going to say this wrong, but your original mentor, Al Levy?
Al Levy. Okay. He just turned seven. He's going to be 71.
What was that book? Seven power contractor. I think Anyhow, I think I might know exactly who it's all. I don't I don't obviously know him personally, but I mean, this has been an awesome episode for me personally, because I'm taking all these notes like, oh, yeah, totally for these listeners here. But no, no, the last thing. Yes.
And I can go as far as you want.
But the most important role that I was there every minute of your hour, Mr. Mello, what are you talking about, man? Come on now.
This is the key role You find not the most expensive, but it's not a cheap role. It's the CFO. When you learn, my CFO called me three weeks ago, said, hey, wax our gas cards. If you're not getting your gas through wax, you got to go to the machine, put in the odometer miles. A lot of guys were taking gas from the waste tank. They didn't see a problem with that. This is accountability. It actually tracks the gas. Well, Lex came in and said, man, you guys are a massive client. Who's doing your credit cards for all your marketing and everything else you're paying for? We said, we've got this card called Divi, and Divi's got a lot of tracking. And they said, listen, what are you getting back? We said 2.2%. They said, we'll do 235. Which meant an extra $650,000 to the bottom line a year. But that's just one find. He finds this stuff all the time. And we negotiate, we get better rebates from our vendors, like the CFO position to know your numbers. We've got three financial planning and analysis people that actually like, they're so good. Like, I love having smart people. I don't even need to understand it all because they're working their butts off. And they're giving me the data to make critical decisions based on facts, not feelings. And this is all things that I really feel like, you know, I still listen to a lot of people, but you have me on your podcast and I'm just trying to give as much value as possible. If anybody's got any ideas, I'd love to hear them. You know, I'm a marketing guy. All the marketing rolls up to me. I'm a culture guy. I love sales. I tell you, it's culture and marketing at the top sales. I'm not, I'm not as good as some people, but I'm probably a better networker. But that's my core. That's where I want to be the best at. Everything else I delegate out and hire the right people.
You mentioned in early on about mentoring and you've literally said like, hey, Google in your area who the best HVAC roofing, whatever your industry company is, and ask them out to lunch, get them a cup of coffee. That's quite literally what I did to get my first two mentors. The gentleman that had me listen to your podcast is I got my haircut by the same guy that owns the top company or one of the top two remodeling companies around here. And felt like I was asking a girl out, but I literally was just like, hey man, you know, I mean, he gave me your number, honored, whatever, probably all weird and awkward, but it was just like, hey, I'd be good to get you a cup of coffee. The next day he says, I'm sure, sure thing, meet me tomorrow morning, like 7 a.m. at one of their three offices, because they have all these different businesses. He's CEO of all of them. He did. He took me to all the different businesses, showed me around, quizzed me, schooled me, told me what EBITDA was. I had no idea at the time. All this stuff. He's like, what's your bottom line? What's your net net? What's your EBITDA? I'm like, dude, I don't know what you were talking about. He told me about a fractional CFO. Like, okay, we can't get a CFO, get a fractional CFO. Here's what mine does. It's just, how important, if somebody's overwhelmed by all the things they just heard you and so much value, thank you again, man, but a starting point, just a good, your year one through three, you're like just trying to, you know, navigate through the PPC, pay-per-clicks and not, and then wasting money on stuff and just, you know, hearing all the different voices and not knowing what direction to go. Where would you say like, hold on, here's some really good core starting points I would focus on first. marketing perhaps, building your brain?
Well, marketing is super important, but marketing doesn't really make sense. If you put a quarter in and you're not getting $2.50 back, then there's an issue. So why be putting quarters in the machine? Your booking rates, not over 90%. Your conversion rate is not over 90%. So your average ticket isn't where it needs stores, then there's no point. It's like your bags are packed, you're in the car, you got the family, but you don't have any idea where you're going. And a lot of people aren't building their business to sell in the next five years. And I think that's a mistake. So you set a reasonable goal that'll set your life up forever. Because once you have money, it opens up hundreds of doors.
I'm on stages, like 40 stages in a year.
And I ask people, who here wants to sell When do you want to sell? Well, when we reach 100 million.
Why? What are you going to do with that money?
What's the plan? Well, we just feel like we should. You're not going to start living the best life and taking care of your family, going on the dream vacation, because once you have the money, you start to not compete. You can go to any other market, you can roll equity, you can 10x that equity. People just, they're kind of confused, they don't really know what they want, and that's okay, because I was there. But I would say know your numbers. Get a great CRM and understand your numbers, because, and if you want to get to the top of Angie's list, look at who's at the top of Angie's list with the most reviews, it's getting the most business. You want to get to the top of Thumbtack or Yelp, or find out how to get big ads in a newspaper, on a paper performance plan, make the phone call. And 1% of the time, Most people are writing it down. They're gonna put all these notes under their pillow for the note fairy to come grant them. They're not gonna take action. I just told them. It's like, I can tell people how to get a six pack too. No one's gonna do it. So I'd love to give everybody everything. It's just, I love the 1% that do it because those are the people I like to work with. Those are why I come on things like this because they'll find me. And those are the people that'll go above and beyond. They're not afraid to ASK, ask. And when I meet those people, I know they're winners. And those are the people I do business with. And those are the people that I grow with. And those are the people that we help hold each other accountable, called accountability partners. So it's almost like an MLM program when you're speaking to 400 people, you only want to speak to two or three in there that are actually going to do the work. You know, I know people find me and I'm like, man, they'll fly out to Arizona and I do a free shop tour. shop for short, for a shop tour. And I don't charge anything. And the whole intention is I'm going to find that diamond in the rough and we're going to make hundreds of millions together. And hopefully someone applies one thing and builds a better relationship with their wife and becomes a better father and better mother, or calls their parents more, decides that they're going to get in shape because they deserve to. I, you know, I don't need to do business with everybody, but I'm always looking but it's hard to get, it's hard to find winners.
Yeah. That's the damn truth, man. I feel like, I don't know. I feel like that influencer, entrepreneur, influencer brand, it's so wild how that's like turned into this like whole thing. You know what I mean?
Like, you know, I don't know a lot of guys that are influencers that are throwing on stages with podcasts that are actually making it in the real world. Like they sell their business for five, 10 million.
They don't,
to get to a billion, so they got to sell information. They couldn't hack it. They're dried up. They're literally like, look, I'm still in the fight every day. I'm still in the fight. I got a 7 a.m. I've got two meetings tomorrow with all my technicians. I have them over to my house. I know what it's like to be stolen from. I know what it's like to flip a truck. I know what it's like for people to do drugs on a job site. I know what it's like to have to shut down markets. I mean, I've been over a success of two decades. You know, so I've been where you've been, I promise you, and I've worked through it and I won't make those same mistakes again. And I think experience trumps any knowledge you'll get because you kind of got the metaphorical wounds all over you that you remember. Oh, last time I did that was 17 years ago. I got screwed and I'll never, you know, people borrow money too early because they don't know where to put it. And they go buy a bunch of trucks when they don't have the leads and they don't have good a massive truck payment because they're on cash accounting instead of accrual. Their CPA is telling them to write off as much as possible this year, when that's not the strategy of business. I've done all that stuff.
We just switched to accrual this year, but, and I begrudgingly switched to accrual, but the path to what we're being told as far as, I got my, I'm getting my, Keep it really real, man. Anybody listening to this show, you probably already heard me cry about it, but dude, we got our asses kicked the first half of this year. I started my scale this year and I was like, all right, we're going to start in this new market. Not only are we going to start in this new market, but we're going to start in this market and this market, but I wasn't going to be too crazy. I'm going to start a brick and mortar in Delaware and a satellite in VA and a satellite in PA. Well, Virginia is a motherfucker, excuse my language, to get into. seven different tests and all this stuff, and it's taken a year.
Licensing, insurance, getting your plates dialed in, you got to get Google. Listen, you've got to get the business license, the tax license, you've got to have the EIN, right? Like, dude, people don't understand that we're just going to go plant all these seeds. I've been through that. When you do good accrual accounting, and you start making a profit, and you're two to three years old, you can get what's called a delay draw term loan. And that allows you to buy businesses. And buying businesses is probably the hardest thing you'll ever do because you're trying to mix cultures.
You're trying to take something that was OK and make it great.
when you hit a point where you've taken most of the market share, you're the biggest player, which is 12 to 15%, which is massive in a market. You could actually kind of nail it, scale it, and do it in other markets. I'd recommend going into three markets and owning them greenfield before you start acquisition. But this delay, draw, term loan thing is fricking amazing. They made me season each company three months. I had too much opportunity, so I needed to get a sponsor to buy more businesses. So when I did the math on my whiteboard for eight hours, I kind of figured out that I'm better off bringing on a partner to scale way faster and live my dreams way quicker by bringing on a partner and having a smaller piece of a massive pie than taking all the risk, because I was able to deleverage some risk and put a couple hundred million in the bank. And man, that felt great. Three hours later, I go, what's next? Flip the page, go back to work tomorrow. I keep winning because I also shook their hand and told them I was going to get them a good return on investment. And I don't screw people over. I want to be known as a guy that shakes your hand and does what he says he's going to do. And that's the most important thing. That's all I have is my word. You lose that, you lose everything.
A word in my face, that's all we got. And that, unfortunately, is so rare these days, man. But I love it, man. I love everything that you have going on. I love everything you stand for, bro. Everything. I really appreciate you coming on, man, personally, sincerely. I want to come out and see you soon, man. Even though I just found out that that shop tour we went on was something you do with everybody, so I no longer feel- Well, I gave you guys a private tour. Oh, yeah, okay. Let me come out and get the shop tour, man. But I've already, we went on one with Tommy. I thought I was super special, man. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna slide in with, go see Tommy. He's like, yeah, I do it for everybody. I'm trying to find that diamond in the rough. I'm like, damn.
Well, listen, it's never once that I do a shop tour and, you know, there's so much good that comes out of it. Someone tells me about a book or a podcast or something I need to listen to or, You know, it just seems like you help people, they help you back. And you screw people, they screw you back. So I'm all about helping as many people as possible. And, you know, it might not be this year. I might be somebody that come back to me in five years and be like, dude, I did a shop tour with you in 2024. like we should work together, do something together, go on this trip and just learn together, whatever it is. It's not always confined to money for me. It's about changing my life in a better way. And it could be health, it could be religion, it could be, we do a, you know, a mushroom trip, which I've not done. I've not done the, you know, all these different trips, but I don't wanna do it, you know, we'll see. The why Oscar or whatever the hell is kind of Oscar.
Yeah, man. I lost it. Yeah. I don't, I can't do that. I'm not allowed. I won't be on these kinds of podcasts. I started doing that, dude. I'll be calling you, but it won't be for anything productive. Like, Hey Tom, I need to book. Oh man. I'm at your door. Like, nah, you can't come in, bro. You look a little too squirrely. I, uh, Wow, damn, it was something that just completely, there goes my ADHD. I had something really slick and funny to say, but I'm gonna hit you when we get off, because I actually do want to pick your brain on a few things. But thank you again so much for coming on, for taking the time.
Yeah, Ken, do me a favor, hit me up, text me, I gotta jump on another call after this. One last thing, the podcast is number one in business management, number for business in general, the home service expert. It's a cool podcast. You can join the Facebook page. And then I got an event coming up. I'd love for you to come. It's September 25th in San Diego. I got Jocko Willett gonna be there. It's called thefreedomevent.com. Home service freedom, thefreedomevent.com. I got Steve Sims. I got Alan Rohrer. I got like the who's who in this event. My goal is that it will change your life. My goal is that there's so much value and so much prioritization, so much self-reflection, so much networking that you just are like, not, I never, by the way, these events lose money. You know, I don't think people understand that, but this is not a problem.
The names you just listed is probably a whole lot of money on top of the venue.
Yeah, just the speakers are half a million or I mean, yeah, half a million bucks. And then the event, you got to get the room box. I mean, listen, you don't make money at these things, but there's so many good things that come out of them. And I got a I got a story. It's people I want to help. So I'm willing to put up the money. All you got to do is show up with an open mind, take notes, implement, meet people and change your life forever.
And that's the freedom, the home service freedom event in San Diego when? September 25th through the 27th. And to what he just said, the Home Service Expert podcast is one of my favorite podcasts. I listen to it all the time. And one of these days, maybe I'll be blessed. Maybe I'll be big. Yeah, dude. That'd be when I get. We got to get on there. And one of these days I'll make sure I, uh, I make it to the big story to tell.
I like to tell the story.
You don't have to burn my, uh, my background, dude. You know, I was homeless six years ago, right? Strung out. That's why I was joking when you said the Ayahuasca, like I meant that I can't do that. Yeah. Or it can't do that. I was homeless six years ago. My listeners know all of that, but that's. I'll tell it to you one day, man. It's interesting. I know exactly, like you said, you came from nothing, brother. I had no bank account. I had nothing. I thought I was dead and wasn't coming back. No car, no bank account. I couldn't get a bank account until four years ago. Now, I have a home that I'm blessed enough that they gave me the money to live in and by myself with my wife, who's an attorney. I'm a convicted felon. You know what I mean? That's pretty cool, right? She didn't see anything to do with me for a while. I have a story about her where we met in a coffee shop. Now we had met before and I know you got to go, but I because we had dated briefly, I hit her up when I got back on my feet this time and I was going to declare bankruptcy. My dad thought it was a good idea. Everything was repoed. Everything was gone. Couldn't get a bank account. She sat down with me. It was nice because I was a jerk to her when we were dating before. And she took pity on me because I was a total loser. I had nothing. She met me at Starbucks and she said, look, this debt, I know it seems like a whole lot to you now, but it's not that much like normal people. And it's not, you know, it's your student loans plus this. Don't do it. It'll affect you for seven years. Had she not told me not to do that, this would be the last year that it would affect me. We wouldn't have our home, wouldn't have the business. I don't know if we'd be married and all of the blessings and things that we have as a result of the business. Even though this is a difficult year, I'm confident the return on investment is going to be 50X. But it's just taken longer and it was a lot more under appreciated how difficult it was to get to these new markets and get everything going. Because I'm like, yeah, we're going to start in four markets this year, right now. I'm going to do that tomorrow. And then it's a lot of work, man. But yes, I have Andy had me on his, and that's something that I dream about, too. One of these days, I will be on stages, if nothing else, just to tell my story, because I think it's important that people hear you'd be completely on your ass and thinking there's no way you're ever going to get back from anything. But you can accomplish a whole lot when you put your mind to it. If you just give, sometimes just put one foot in front of the other, you know what I mean? Like I had no idea I was even going to ever be even happy again whatsoever. And I just kind of forced myself through it. But eventually, you know, halfway house, then car I paid cash for then, you know what I mean? Like bumming rides. And here we are, I'm talking to you. Seven years later, seven years. It's fucking wild. And I come off story, brother. It's great. I appreciate it, man. I and I'm honored to be on here with you, man, and which is wild. Anyhow, it's like I said, I was listening to you a few years ago from a mentor of mine that I did exactly what you said. And here we are, man. And so and I think it's really cool. I heard you say you just got baptized. So I thought that's pretty cool. Is that something you did recently?
Yeah, yeah. About a month ago, I mean, I've always been a man of God. I'm like, Parents don't remember baptizing me.
Thought it was going to be pretty formed. Just in case we got to cover our bases here. You never know. You know what I mean? Make sure we get, we're supposed to be going here. So I, uh, I appreciate the hell out of you, man. Is there any other, any website where can people find you? I mean, you know, man, Tommy mellow.com.
You can find all my social media and, um, this just do something, just make an effort, just go out of your way. Don't breathe. It's just one day at a time.
You put your legs down one leg at a time.
You know, people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in five. So get at it. Stay optimistic. Life's gonna throw you lemons sometimes. Make lemonade.
Make some lemonade. I love you, brother. Thank you so much for coming on, man. Appreciate it very much, Ken.
I'll talk to you soon, brother. Give me a hug.
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