Scaling Your Contracting Business w/ Tommy Mello

Tommy Mello
You got to get started somewhere. But if you’re finding yourself, five years ago, you told yourself something and you’re still there. Look in the mirror. You lie to yourself. You say, I’m going to get in shape. You say, I’m going to become a better father, a better husband, more faithful. Quit drinking, and then you don’t do it. You lie to yourself and you expect people to take you seriously. Your job is to make sure you’re keeping your own promises.

Aaron Horner
On today’s episode, you’ll be listening to the exclusive presentation and Q and A that we have with Tommy Mello at our New Era of Contracting Summit. We had a ton of speakers at this, but continuously heard from people that this was the most impactful talk. If you don’t already know who Tommy Mello is, he founded A1 Garage Doors, A Garage door company that is now at over $120 million per year, taking home a gross profit of over $20 million per year. And he is an open book about how he did it. In this presentation, he walks through how he scaled his business, and at the end, we have an open Q and A with him with some of the people that were at the event. And as always, this will be posted on our YouTube channel as well.

Aaron Horner
If you want to go through and see the slides that he’s talking about in this podcast,.

Tommy Mello
I got 30 minutes to condense a lot of information. I want you guys to take notes and actually apply some of the stuff. The problem with these seminars, virtually or in person, is very few people act. They go to the seminars, they get good ideas, and then they go back into their Monday and they get attacked with a million problems and they don’t make any changes. So comment as much as possible. Ask questions. I’ll have questions at the end. We’re going to fly, so you’re going to be drinking out of a fire hose. Comments are good. Faces are good. So I guess I’ll share the screen here and jump into. So it’s a one garage door service. We passed the $200 million mark last year. And one of the things I always talk about is revenue is for vanity, and profit is for sanity.

Tommy Mello
You get guys into a room and they talk all about how they made a lot of money, they’re doing a lot of revenue. No one talks about profit. And what I would tell you guys is next time you’re around somebody, talk about how you’re at 23% bottom line. That’s where we’re at. I’m headed to 30% bottom line. That’s the plan. If you haven’t heard of my podcast, the Home Service Expert, today I have Jeremy Miner coming on. I just, I try to give back. I learned from the podcast just as much as I’m telling what I do here. Day one garage door service. One of the things I’ve learned about the service industry is you got to build a dream so big that everybody else’s dream could fit inside. That means the employees are winning every single day, which I call my co workers.

Tommy Mello
You got to make sure the customers are winning, that you’re winning. You got to make sure the vendors are winning. And if you start with the dream in mind, what are your goals? What are your dreams? That’s the first question I’m going to ask. You better be very specific when answering this. I want a house to three bedrooms on this street. I want to have a basement, I want to be on a half acre. Like literally manifest the dreams. And then I’m going to show you with my calculator how to accomplish those dreams. There’s KPIs that if we deliver these, we could get this done by March, we could get this done by August, we get this done in 2025, dream a little bit bigger. And my dream has to be able to fit their dreams inside every one of their dreams.

Tommy Mello
So dream big, have big goals. We’ve heard write your goals down. But I don’t just want to write them down. I want to manifest them. I want to use that as a guide for life. And when I’m sitting down with somebody, a co worker of mine, and I’m going through their dreams, I’m telling them, if you do this, ride along and master this one KPI, maybe it’s selling service agreements. We have 40,000 service agreements. Maybe it’s average ticket, maybe it’s customer satisfaction, maybe it’s lower your recall rate. What ends up happening is I make it about them and their dreams, their goals. If you just talk about if you don’t do this, you’ll be on a performance improvement plan. You’re not winning, they’re not winning. So understanding what’s going to move the needle is what’s in it for them so important.

Tommy Mello
And I write about this and this isn’t self promotion, you guys, you don’t have to get the book. I did it on Audible, but I write all about performance pay, what’s in it for them, how to win in this book, elevate. So let’s keep going here I have an eight step sales process and it doesn’t apply to every industry. So I wanted to make the eight step the main focus here when it comes to sales. When you finish the job, if you’re in power washing, gutter cleaning, front doors, windows, whatever it might be, the main thing is the eight step. Sell it. Right after I collect the money, I ran the credit card. I’ve. I’ve done with the work, I’ve cleaned up. What am I doing with the customer?

Tommy Mello
I’m showing them how everything works, running through the top three warranty calls that might happen if it comes unplugged. Manual release, maybe there’s a circuit board out. The safety eyes aren’t lined up. And then I’m cleaning up with them. I’m showing them. I’m cleaning everything up. I’m showing them where I put the stickers. I’m showing them how the door works. I’m going through and programming different stuff, telling them why maintenance is important. And then I’m talking about the service agreement or what we call the protection plan. When we started calling a protection plan, we started selling them like crazy. 40,000 Service agreements for a garage door company. So sell it right. Explain to the customer what they got. Show them their issues are resolved. Explain the warranty information. And then we say this. We’ve got a frames built out.

Tommy Mello
I took a picture of the technician’s family and I say something as simple as, you want to know why I try so hard? You want to know what the most important thing for me in my life is? You’re looking at it. This is my wife. This is my daughter. This is my son. This is my dog, Max. This is my everything. My job is to make sure they get a good Thanksgiving, to make sure I become a father they always dreamed of. Maybe one I didn’t have. When you leave a review for me and you put my picture in the review, I pray on everything that I gave you 5 out of 5 service. When you leave me a review, there’s a QR code there. People call and ask for me by name. It literally loads up my schedule.

Tommy Mello
They literally see the review of. I hope I did amazing work by you. The door is safe now. It’s worked. Works perfectly. This is my everything. Would you do me that honor of leaving a review? I’m going to go ahead and get cleaned up. There’s a qr. You show me you did it. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’ve got a decorative hardware kit I can throw out there. You just show me. I don’t Care if it’s a five star, Hopefully I gave you show me this. I got permission by the owner to give you this for your time. I’m not paying the customer for a five star review. I’m giving them something for taking the time. If they leave a three star, they’re still getting it.

Tommy Mello
So you want to get say what’s in it for them and explain to them why me as a tech people don’t leave reviews for companies. The leave reviews for the people that serve them. So eight step is very important. These four KPIs, average ticket conversion rate, booking rate, cost prerequisites. Let me explain this average ticket is pretty simple. I close the deal, including the zeros. That’s my average ticket opportunity, job, average conversion rate. When I’m face to face with a customer, how do I get the customer to spend money or am I getting their work? Number three is booking rate. When you call the call center, are we booking the call if there’s an opportunity? And number four is how much does it cost me to get a lead? This is how you build your budget. This is how you buy companies.

Tommy Mello
This is how you fix companies. This is how I could go to any home service company on the planet and fix them. Normally, the number one thing I find is the booking rate. They are failing in the call center. They are struggling. They’re not booking the calls, are not responding to Angie’s list, They’re not responding to the LSA ads, they’re not open nights, they’re not open weekends, they’re not open holidays. They answer the ring on the seventh ring instead of the first. There’s also what’s called the abandonment rate, meaning you didn’t even get to answer the phone call. These four things are how we build our budget. This is how we figure out how many trucks, how many people we need to hire. This formula, and I don’t have enough time to go through it in detail, but it’s everything.

Tommy Mello
My favorite three letters in the English dictionary are a S, K. I ask for help on the podcast, I asked for help. The technicians that are winning in the company are asking for help. The CSRs are saying, hey, could I go ahead and listen to these calls with this person? They got a higher booking rate than me. Success leaves clues. You want to figure out how to be number one in home advisor or Angie or next door or Yelp. Go on Yelp and find out who’s number one and just ask that person. It’s not hard to ask. You got to have humility you got to be humble. You got to ask for help. You’re not any less of a person for asking for help. Please do not be afraid to ask. Every single one of your co workers should be asking.

Tommy Mello
You got to create an environment and a culture that begs people to want more, to aspire to be number one, to be always self improving, to better their best every day. And we get that by asking for help. Success leaves clues. All you got to do is ask. Are you keeping score? I played a lot of sports. I’m £240. I’m 6 3. Not quite benching 450, but close. I like to keep track. You want to get in shape, keep track of your calories. Make sure you’re working out harder the next time. Monitor your water intake and your sleep. Are you keeping track? Does everybody know where they sit at any given moment? You could look at anybody scorecard in the company. When you’re a technician, installer, maintenance tech, any position, you can see where you’re at.

Tommy Mello
And if you want to get better at One of these KPIs, this is our scorecard. You want to get better, just go to the number one guy at that KPI. Ask, what are you doing? And I’ll show you. If you go to calc.a1garagetools.com we can figure out exactly how much you’re going to make. I could say, if you move this KPI to this, you make an extra $32,500 a year. We move this one, I make it fun. I make it exciting. I don’t say, if you don’t do this, we’re going to have to talk about where you’re going to be at this company. I don’t, I’m not. I don’t condemn them. I support them. I say, listen, man. Listen, woman. You got goals, you got dreams. I’m helping you get there quicker. Do you want it bad enough?

Tommy Mello
And we’re gonna come to the next subject here in a little bit. But people always ask me, you go back in time, Tommy, you go back to when you were 22, when you started the company. What would you tell yourself? I’m gonna show you guys. 2009. You could see my trucks. It looks like I’m an ice cream delivery man selling kids ice cream. It’s really bad. It looks like I’m a cheap company. 2019. I can’t even tell what the hell what company is that. It’s funky as. I’m literally embarrassed. I used to Be so proud of this brand. I used to say, man, look at that. People say they see my trucks everywhere. If I go back to my younger self, I’ll be like, get your brand correct.

Tommy Mello
Every single mailer, my website, my vehicles, my yard signs, the commercials, the tv, the radio, they all need to look and feel the same. The brand needs to be correct. When the branding’s dialed in, guys, this is what happens. Brand after brand. I use Dan Antonella. I worked with a guy named Al Levy, the seven power contractor. I went through a year working with him. Gave him over $350,000 to get my manuals dialed in. Read the book the Seven Power Contractor if you want to change your life. Seven Power Contractor Al Levy. He does not work in person anymore. He just turned 70. Without meeting him, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Give him the credit. He just turned 70. And he said, hey, take a picture of your vehicle in black and white. So I did.

Tommy Mello
I took a picture of this one in 2019. And he said, does it pop out at you, what you do? I said, no. He said, you need to call this guy, Dan Antonelli with kick charge. I called Dan. He said, we’re going to need to do a rebrand. It was the scariest thing in my life because I was already at 40 million. So I got the rebrand done. What happened? I raised my prices. I looked the part. When I showed up, people were lining up at my door to work for me because they said, I see you guys everywhere. The brand pops. It’s different when it’s on the road. Everybody sees my vehicles. I’m not saying I got the best brand. I’m saying it’s light years ahead of where it was. All of a sudden, my cost of market.

Tommy Mello
People recognize my brand on Google for pay per click and LSA and GMB and organic. And they saw me on Yelp and they picked me over the others because they recognized me. So it cut my marketing in half. It made it easier for me to hire, and it allowed me to raise my prices. I think people are crazy. If you got a funky ass brand that you got done on fiverr or upwork and you think it’s special and you’ve got pride in it, your pride will ruin you, literally. If you don’t think about getting the right brand and if your name is something crazy and you named your company Eskimo, you know, gutters, the name counts. A1 from day one, we are A1 top. We’re. We’re a class act. A1, garage door service. Now I didn’t name it that in the beginning.

Tommy Mello
I named it A one because it fell first in the phone book. So don’t let me for you. Now I’m going to talk about something that most people don’t understand. Before you go to the call, you’ve got three things you should be looking at. You should be listening to the phone call. But now here’s the things that people don’t understand. Facebook tells me, hey, this guy went to U of A. If I went to books, I could see the books, I could see pictures of his kids. Type in the guy’s name and then Facebook and you’ll find out everything about him you already know. He’s a dog lover. That’s a good thing to know. Before you get to the house number two, you go on their LinkedIn, type in their email and LinkedIn it tells you what they do for work.

Tommy Mello
You might have something in common. Your brother in law might do what they do. Great way to know, like you’re prepared, you’re set up for success. Third one is Zillow. Here’s a house, it got sold. This is my house in Scottsdale that my dad lives at now. It got sold in 2012. So, okay, so the guys lived there for 12 years or they just moved in. I know more about the customer than any other home service guy because I just looked at three different things. Zillow, Facebook and LinkedIn. It’s right there. All you got to do is grab it next. Everybody’s saying their marketing companies suck. But if you didn’t make a shit ton of money in the last four years, that’s on you. Let’s face the facts, it was easy. Covid happened. We were deemed essential. Demand was up.

Tommy Mello
We were hiring anybody that walked. Now it’s, it’s survival of the fittest. It’s sink or swim. 50 Of the marketing I do is for great people. I’m more worried about getting great techs, great installers, great maintenance Techs, the right CSRs in this company that I am about getting clients. You look at your top guy versus your bottom guy. Imagine if you stack the deck with all top people. Imagine the success of your company. The profit, the growth, the investment into brand, the investment into marketing. Life would change. So you’re settling for second best. Guess what? A players hate B players. The worst employee in the world is a good employee. Bad employees get fired. Good employees just barely get by. Great employees take you straight up. They make you profit. They recruit for you. They get great reviews.

Tommy Mello
They talk to people at gas stations and are in their business. Good employees are not good for the company. They do not coexist well with great players. It’s your fault if you’re not hiring great. And I do not hire for any skill. I hire busboys, Amazon deliveries, warehouse workers. I hire people that look me in the eye. They tell a great story and they smile a lot and they’re talkative, they communicate well. I will train them the skill. So many people look for the skill and then the attitude and mindset comes second. Attitude and mindset is who we hire and then train the skill and it works out 10 times better. And I can’t do that without manuals. Thank God for Al Levy. So just think when you’re marketing, how much are you applying into making people feel great the day they start?

Tommy Mello
So many people I know, they say, it’s your first day, congratulations, shake my hand. You’re going to be following this guy for two days, two weeks. Then you’re on your own forever. You should have a champagne toast. The wife should be getting flowers. You should say, your family made a great decision. Welcome to our home. Come on in. We’re going to do a tour. We’re going to. We’re going to. I’ve got a red carpet. When they graduate, we roll out. We try to make them feel like this is a life decision, this is a career. We make them understand that training is a great thing and it’s never over. And you can come back to Phoenix. You’re going to be doing ride alongs and we’re going to be telling you, we keep score. We going to tell you.

Tommy Mello
Getting testimonials from current employees, checking out your. I’m going to go look at your company on Indeed and Glassdoor. Do me a favor. Write this down. Search right now your company on Indeed and Glassdoor and search to see what people are saying about you. Because even if I got a referral to come work for you, I’m still going to look just like customers our clients. Look at Yelp and Google and Nextdoor. Are you looking at Indeed and Glassdoor? Yes, your future internal customers are looking there. So make sure your great employees are taking the time to leave you great reviews and everything’s filled out in the pictures and the about me and why I should work for you. Don’t make it look like a prison sentence. Make it look like a fun place to work. Al Levy taught me this.

Tommy Mello
When you guys want to be successful, you need to use the eight steps of Delegation. Here’s what needs to get done. Here’s why it needs to get done. Here’s what you have available to get it done. Here’s when it needs to get done by. Here’s the meeting, here’s the consequences and is there an opportunity for feedback? Now here’s the key thing on this. The manager and the employee signs off. Do you know how many times I’ve used this? And they. They go to sign it and they go, what am I signing? Signing. The old John Hancock creates accountability. People have to sign off. People want to win. They need to know what needs to be done. They need to understand why this task needs to be done. People always say to me, I could outwork anybody.

Tommy Mello
I say, you could outwork me all you want. I’m not going to work 24 7. I’m going to out delegate you. I’m going to find great people to delegate to. I’m going to find the worst things I hate the most and I’m going to delegate them. There’s a great book, 10x is better than 2x. Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy. Focus on your strength and take them to the top and then delegate the rest. Are you guys. Is there a project management tool you could use Trello. You could use Basecamp. You could use a lot of things. We use Monday at A one garage door service. And for all my other companies, I use the Monday board. There’s a great book. People get siloed 5 dishonest because of a team. They don’t talk so many people. One Guy’s using Slack. One guy’s using Outlook.

Tommy Mello
One guy’s using Google Docs. One guy’s using Zoom. One guy’s using GroupMe. You need before your company gets too big to get on the same systems across the board, read this book. Come up for Eric explains people. They spend all day in an email box. I don’t look at my email at all. I have people that do that and we got it very clean. It’s called zero Inbox. Get control of your technology. In this day and age, if you want to win, you better be doing technology. And I got a slide that I’m going to go over everything I use. Oh, here it is. I use a seven power contractor. He gave me all the manuals. Sage intact that took over quickbook Rapid Hire Pro for hiring these guys. Thank God they get me. I’m hiring a lot of new technicians.

Tommy Mello
They do all the work for me, the background checks, you name it. Perception Predict. Jonathan Wisman, the sales boss, personality profiling the people to see if they’re going to be good for my company. He’ll tell me within $10 what they’re going to produce, what their average ticket’s going to be, and more importantly, Jonathan figured out a way to say, see if they’re going to last. Rilla voice Sign up for that. It was expensive. It listens to every call when we’re in the garage. Tells you how many words per minute the tech talks. Tell you who talked more. How much did the customer talk? What happens with questions? I could search for keywords. Do they offer a service agreement? Rilla voice changed the game for us. Great company Chirp. Chirp saved us $450,000 so far in January.

Tommy Mello
When a customer does not commit to doing the job, to buying the garage door, it automatically sends out a text message to get them to my rehash team. If we don’t book the phone call, Chirp actually sends a message text message to the customer saying three things to look out for before you book. From me. It’s a message from me. And I say, give us a chance. We’d offer a price beat guarantee. Call us up. If you didn’t get on the schedule, tell me. Tell them that Tommy said to override the system and book it on the schedule. Literally book more phone calls. People were not literally. We had 700 warranty calls like two months ago and they were customer courtesy calls. Simple things. I sent a text message after we finished the job.

Tommy Mello
Of the top three reasons why customers are calling in that you could simply fix you manually. The door, it could be a surge protector, whatever. It might be the three biggest things. So you. It cost me $185 to run a truck courtesy call. I just charge them a lot of money. It’s a week later. I’m not going to charge the money. So chirp helps me do that. Chirp is automated everything. I got eight campaigns that save me $450,000 this month. Service titan. Service titan. Hands down. There’s jobber. There’s housecall pro. There’s service fusion. Service titan. Act like the company you want to become. If you know you’re going to have to get a better CRM, Start looking at it today, figuring out the price book the automations. It’s got automatic reconciliation. Like, I just don’t understand. We’re not big enough now.

Tommy Mello
Act like the company you want to be. Three things I noticed about people, and this is for technicians, CSRs, dispatchers, owners, management leaders. Do you focus on what you have versus what you don’t have. You know what, I’ve got all my fingers. I wake up with energy. I’m not sick. There are billions of people that would trade to be in my spot and most of your workers spots. So be happy on what you have, not what you don’t have. So many people turn into materialistic. I don’t have this. Focus on what you do have. You’ve got a great family, you’ve got people backing you’ve got a car to get where you need to be. Number two, do people live in the past? You guys know your aunts and uncles and the crazy grandparents.

Tommy Mello
Just think about 10 years ago and if this didn’t happen and they’re always looking in the past. Focus on today. You can’t change yesterday, you could change today and you could change the future. And number three, what’s in your control versus what’s not. These are mislabeled, but they’re all important so maybe re put all. Number one, what’s in your control? I can’t control the traffic, I can’t control what’s going on in Israel or all the other countries. I can’t control Biden versus Trump. People worry so much about what’s out of their control. That’s bullshit. Focus on what you can control. Comment here if you agree. Next thing, start with their dreams, like I said, and make sure everything is a smart goal, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. Like everybody says. Write down your goals. Write down your goals.

Tommy Mello
I know I’m supposed to write down my goals, but they never do it. And the owners don’t do it, but the managers don’t do it. But the technicians and the CSRs, the dispatchers, they need to do it too. Every single person in the company needs to be doing this. Writing them down, manifesting. Put it in their shower, put it in their car, put it in their office. Everywhere they go they should see what their goals are they should be tracking. Not just this year, not just this quarter, not just this month, but this weekend, today. Did you figure out your goals? Down to what needs to get done today. That’s how we got to 30 million last year, 40 million EBITDA is because we focused on the numbers and we look for the holes and we fix them.

Tommy Mello
We find out what we needed to do at work to accomplish our dreams. The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his Religion, he hardly know which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence and whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he’s always doing both. I read this every day. It’s right out in my hallway. No one know. I’m literally working all the time. But I’m having fun. I’m playing, I’m excited, I’m passionate. I enjoy Mondays. When people are around me, they get excited. We reinvigorate, invigorate their passion. Are you guys leaders? Are you always nagging and annoyed and depressed and yelling? I. I’m yelling with energy.

Tommy Mello
By the way, is your desk just a mess? I mean, leaders got to lead by example. Leaders eat last. Leaders got to make their bed in the morning. You got to live the way you want to be. Here’s another thing. I was with a guy named Dan Martell. He goes, man, I have a lot of people that hire me for coaching. And I tell them it’s going to be whatever. And they say, I need to get a better price. I don’t have that kind of money. And he. His philosophy is, you want to charge the most for your service, but you’re not willing to buy the best. And what happens is, there’s a big problem there, right? Like, until you buy how you want to be bought from, you’ll never have success. People are like, I don’t want to invest in my brand.

Tommy Mello
I don’t have the money. And then you wonder why. Customers say you attract, that you. You get what you put out. So you need to become a buyer of nice things if you’re going to sell nice things. People say, I only sell things people need. Bullshit. I sell things people want. A guy told me that last week. I sell things. I go, is that a new iPhone? Yeah. You bought a new iPhone? Cause you wanted one. I say, did you buy a new truck? You didn’t need it. You bought it. I sell things people want. There’s a big difference. People want nice things. My customers want nice things. You don’t like cheap stuff, do you? The cheap pair of shoes fell apart after two days. I like nice things. I like good quality. I like high value.

Tommy Mello
If the value is more than the price, you’re winning. Let me see here. My pay structures are designed for winning. When somebody makes a lot of money, like 300 grand, we’ve got a lot of technicians that make 300 grand. I jump for joy. It means we both won. What’s in it for them? If you’re paying hourly, you’re attracting losers get hourly losers. Want to make 60 or 70 grand a year. Winners say, I want uncapped potential. Teach me. Put me out there. I’d rather be on a performance pay. And performance pay takes time to master. But when it’s done correctly, you will make more money. I have a company in Garage Door Freedom that literally switched to performance pay. Lost every technician in his company one month later went from $30,000 profit a month to $90,000 by implementing this one thing. Attracting leaders.

Tommy Mello
And guess what happened? And winners. Less warranty calls like you. You get the checklists, the SOPs, you dial in these systems and you give performance pay. What’s in it for them? And then what’s in it for me from the technicians viewpoint? Game over. Watch overnight your company double. I’ll just show you guys. Listen, man, every eyeball is paying attention. Happy, happy people in and out of work. Do you know how many people come and they say, I met one of your technicians and I just wanted to work here? They’re accomplishing their dreams. They just seem so happy. The look in their eyes, the confidence level. Like, it’s my job to instill that in people. Have them be proud to look in the mirror and smile and enjoy who they become. That’s my job. Are you setting your culture?

Tommy Mello
If you don’t set your culture, it’ll set it for itself. Showing up on time. If you’re a leader, leading by example. Listen, if you’re not cooking for your team, people say, I don’t have the money to buy all the stuff you do. You could afford hash browns and eggs. You could afford. The bonding that happens when people break bread together. Changes the game. Pick up a grill and start grilling each week. You could afford hot dogs and hamburgers. You could afford Bisquick to make pancakes. Cook for your team all the time. They deserve it. They need to know you care. You get out there with a spatula and do the work. Change the culture of your company. I’m going to show you guys. Take a screenshot of this if you can. I have a newsletter I write myself.

Tommy Mello
This isn’t a big sales gimmick in a funnel and all that shit. This newsletter, it cost me $7 per newsletter, per delivery. Because we put it together, we got to print it out, we’ve got to mail it. I’m going to give you guys three of them. The best three I’ve got. And they’re all stuff that literally will change your company. It’s no payments. If you like it after three Months. I get enough to cover the cost of it. So I don’t literally have a thousand people that. This would be $70,000 in the hole. So I’m giving the first three out. If you don’t like them, just don’t order them. I don’t care. This isn’t. I make my money by the way. Not by speaking, not by writing books, not by podcasting. I make all my money with my garage door business.

Tommy Mello
That’s how I kill it. That’s why I have hundreds of millions of dollars. And I’m not being. I’m not being cocky. I literally have done very well. The newsletter is a way for me to give back, change lives. I had a guy text me yesterday, said, I spent 15 minutes with you three years ago. If you’re part of the Home Service Expert Facebook group, you can see it. He said, it changed my life forever. If I could change one person’s life, if I could get to one person and they could spend time with their family, become a better father or mother, take care of the community a little more, that’s how I win. My satisfaction now comes from other people winning. This is free. You’d be crazy. I do free shot tours. I show you how to performance pay.

Tommy Mello
You go through my training center. You. You come to Phoenix. We’ll have books for you. I’ll take you. I’ll feed you. I don’t charge a dime. This isn’t a gimmick. You learn one thing and apply it to your business. This is game over. I enjoy showing off what my team’s built. My team is my everything. I like to brag about them. You come out here, you’ll be with other business owners. You could ask any questions you want. There’s no fees. I’m not. This isn’t some type of sales pitch. You just come here, ask questions and leave and hopefully apply some of the stuff. And I promise you’ll get a lot out of this. But how many people are willing to do it? People are like, I know I need to do that. And then they never have the time. They’re broke.

Tommy Mello
The reason they’re broke is because they don’t do these things. Like, they don’t take action. They’ve got a lot of great ideas, but they don’t. They’re not willing to come to a person that’s opening up their doors. We are going to be a billion dollar revenue company and you can see it all. But do you want it bad enough? Tommy Mello dot com. That’s this QR Code. All my social media is on there. I got a lot of resources. There’s nothing to buy there. I mean, there’s probably a couple of books that are 10 bucks a piece or whatever, but this isn’t. Like I said, I hate these people that just get on. I’m not selling you a course. I’m not selling you to some multilevel bullshit. You want to know more about me?

Tommy Mello
I’m on Instagram, I’m on tik tok, I’m on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Insta, YouTube, you know, X all that stuff. So you want to know more about me? Tommy Mello dot com. No W Pretty simple. A lobster, when left high and dry among the rock, does not have a sense enough to work his way back to the sea. Let me read that again. A lobster, when left high and dry among the rocks, does not have the sense to work his way back to the sea, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it does not come, he remains where he is and he dies. Although the slightest effort would enable him to reach the waves which are perhaps within a yard of him.

Tommy Mello
The world is full of human lobsters, people stranded on rocks of indecision and procrastination, who, instead of putting forth their own energies, are waiting for some grand billow of good fortune to set them afloat. How many people do you know that are waiting for their time? When I do my orientation, I say, today is the day. People say, one day. One day. One day. I say today is day one. Now is the time. Get your shit together, figure out your why. Push harder and stay consistent and stay disciplined. You want it bad enough, you make your own luck. If I told you need to make $2 million this year, you might say, dude, that’s impossible. I said, every person in your family will pass away if you don’t do it. You’d figure out a way because your why is strong enough.

Tommy Mello
You need to figure out what’s pushing you to go to that next level. Everybody dreams. They write down their stuff and they go, oh, I’m going to be like, why? What’s in it? What are you going to do? How strong is it to get up and want it so bad that you want to breathe? You want to succeed more than you want to breathe. And last thing I’m going to leave you with is the magic you’re looking for is in the work you’re avoiding. You come in on Mondays. You got plans. You know, you need to get this Stuff done. And you’re busy all day. But no productivity, no efficiencies. You’re busy with emails. Hey, somebody got in a car accident. I know. I got to work on the price book. These manuals are important. I called Dan Antonelli.

Tommy Mello
You know, I know I got to do this thing. I just. I don’t have the time, Tommy. I don’t have the time to work out. I feel like all the time, but I’m not eating. Correct. The magic you’re looking for is in the work you’re avoiding. Remember that today’s the day. Get started. Guys have already gone over. I appreciate you guys. I try to bring the fire. I’m giving every opportunity I can. You know, people ask me, what are the top books? If you haven’t read the E. Myth, Michael Gerber signed this. This is a book I’ve been studying. I’ve been working with this guy. I’m spending a million dollars on personal growth this year. Buy back your time. Dan Martell and Alex Hermosi, this big purple book. He wrote 100 million offers. These guys are true legends. They wrote great books.

Tommy Mello
Readers are leaders. Get started today. I’m out of time. I really appreciate the opportunity to share with you guys. I hope you take one thing and apply it today and you’ve got a list of things that you’re going to conquer. You’re going to go out there and win.

Logan Shinholser
Tommy, that was awesome, man.

Tommy Mello
Hey, a couple questions for you before.

Logan Shinholser
You run because I know you got big time meetings this afternoon. You’re talking about this idea of, like, readers are leaders. And I know yesterday were, you know, I had a quote up by Charlie Munger that was essentially all about, look, you don’t have to be the smartest person or even smart at all, but those with enough consistency that want to learn are those that thrive. How has, like, the idea of just like continuous learning factored into your journey from where you started up through now?

Tommy Mello
Well, listen, I think learning’s great, but I do things intentional. Like, if I want to know more about HR and hiring, I get the person on the podcast. I go listen to a seminar on that. I mean, so many people, they got a million books to read, and they’re all great books. But I read on what’s the biggest problem today, and then the biggest thing I do is implement. So many people read and they’re like, oh, my God, I got all this amazing ideas. Ideas go somewhere to die. We’re all ADHD in business. Whether you like it or not. There’s all these things coming at different directions. You need to know what to focus on today. Adhd, I’m writing a book about it, is a superpower of done right. So the question I always ask is, what are you reading and why?

Tommy Mello
So I think self improvement is so important. It starts with health. It starts with feeling great every day. The right sleep, the right water, the right supplements, the right food and the right exercise. The next thing is time. Are you buying back your time? Are you spending the time where you should? Quality time, putting your cell phone away, having conversations with your kids? And the third thing is money. Don’t get those three confused because they get misprioritized and you get screwed.

Logan Shinholser
Love it. And then when you’re going through all of this, I mean, you’re like, we’re doing this and performance pay and my text are making 300 grand. Where did you start? Because, like, on paper, all the stuff you’re saying, I think all the things that we want, but you had to start somewhere. Where do we start?

Tommy Mello
Yeah. Well, a little side note, be careful on who you follow. You guys could come in, I’ll show you our financials discreetly. This is all real. These aren’t fake numbers. This isn’t like, I lead by example. I see a lot of people following people that say a lot of stuff and they get in their fake Lamborghini that they rented and they go rent a mansion. Airbnb, it’s. None of it’s real. It’s a facade. So be careful who you follow. But I’ll tell you this. I started out in the truck. The first eight years, I ran service calls, I put in sweat equity. I didn’t have a loan, I didn’t have any money. So I had to have a job within the company, literally for the first eight years. And I got really lucky.

Tommy Mello
In 2014, I found there’s a book called oh, man, Rocket Fuel. I’m a visionary. I’m thinking 20 years ahead. I live in this macro space. I had to find an integrator a day to day, a Microsoft micromanager. So the people I hired, I set up an org chart. And the things I hated the most is who I started hiring for to only where I left myself in marketing, sales and vision, my superpowers. And that’s where I live. So you got to get started somewhere. But if you’re finding yourself, five years ago, you told yourself something and you’re still there. Look in the mirror. You lie to yourself. You say, I’m going to get in shape. You say, I’m going to become a better father, a better husband, more faithful, quit drinking. And then you don’t do it.

Tommy Mello
You lie to yourself and you expect people to take you seriously. Your job is to make sure you’re keeping your own promises. Your job is to be first and foremost, your. Your own best friend. Keep the word to yourself, and then you can start keeping the word to others. And a lot of that gets tied up in accountability. Making sure you got accountability at home, accountability partners. You guys, your best friends. You’re. You’re. You look at your circle, the five people you hang out with, and if you do not get super motivated and every time you talk to them, want to win more, then you live in a cage. You’re trapped. You’re never going to be able to leave because they pull you back in. So I’ll just tell you. I got started just like everybody else. I’m nothing special.

Tommy Mello
I’m from Detroit, didn’t come from any money. My mom got a divorce when I was seven. She worked three jobs. If I could do it, you could do it, Tommy.

Logan Shinholser
I love it, man. Congrats to your lions, by the way. It’s probably a long time coming as well. So everybody, Tommy Mello, if you want to learn more about him, tommymello.com.

Logan Shinholser
Tommy, that was fantastic, man. I appreciate it.

Tommy Mello
Thank you. Appreciate the time.