Transcript
January 2025 Live Q&A with Tommy Mello
From Home Service Expert · Episode page · Watch on YouTube
· 58 min · 11,519 words · 64 timestamped sections
This is the full, timestamped transcript of "January 2025 Live Q&A with Tommy Mello", an episode of Home Service Expert published January 22, 2025 (58 min, about 11,519 words). It mentions 16 people, works and ideas, including A1 Garage Service, Google LLC, Home Service Expert, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Jim Leslie.
What this episode is about
In January 2025's live Q&A, Tommy Mello discusses the importance of accountability in achieving personal fitness and career goals, emphasizing the value of having an accountability partner to stay motivated. He also shares financial advice for young people, particularly the significance of starting a Roth IRA and understanding compound interest as a foundation for building wealth.
Key takeaways
- Accountability: your gym buddy's a better motivator than a motivational poster—choose wisely!
- Delayed gratification beats instant spending; wealthy folks invest principles, not purchase lists.
- Measure your time like money; if cleaning dirt bikes isn’t worth your hourly rate, rethink your hustle.
- Focus on company growth over personal salary; equity is the ultimate paycheck for future visionaries.
- Delegation is not a weakness; even Elon knows he can’t do it all, and neither should you.
Who speaks in this episode?
What is discussed, and when
- – 5:00: Facebook Marketplace, Power Selling Pros, David Goa
- – 10:00: Home Service Expert, Google LLC, Bora Bora, Wounded Warriors
- – 15:00: Google LLC, Home Service Expert, Bora Bora
- – 20:00: Amazon
- – 30:00: Google LLC, Living Social
- – 40:00: Google LLC, Dale Carnegie
- – 45:00: Google LLC
- – 50:00: Google LLC
- – 55:00: Google LLC, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Meetings Suck, One Minute Manager
- – 58:05: Home Service Expert, Jim Leslie, Freedom of Vet
Notable quotes from "January 2025 Live Q&A with Tommy Mello"
Work we're gonna work hard you know it's such a big deal another big thing is I had my buddy Barry over from Power selling pros and his son came with him and his son's 16 and…
about Power Selling Pros · atGreat so understanding what money is and then I had this Revelation this morning that I wanted to share of just I don't pay myself a ton of money at A1 grer service it's enough…
about A1 Garage Service · atGot engaged which I'm very excited about me and Brie she's on Cloud9 I'm on Cloud9 that happened about two weeks ago in Bora you know it's a big step I've never been engaged…
about Bora Bora · atA swad analysis there's only a few things that could stop us from doing it you know if Google completely shut down or changed their algorithm I mean we do everything by the…
about Google LLC · atClasses learning how to build relationships I'd be reading all the time like Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People I don't think I'd go to a formal institution…
about Dale Carnegie · atGoogle what book would you recommend for the leadership team to read you know one of the books I first started out with was five dysfunctions of a team I think that's a great…
about Five Dysfunctions of a Team · atA huge webinar look go on home service expert it's going to be amazing last thing is oh the here it is it's the free webinar double your growth in 2025 critical moves it's me…
about Jim Leslie · atMean look I want everybody to make out I want your whole team to make out too freedom of vet is gonna blow your freaking Minds I got Mr Wonderful I got a couple names I can't…
about Freedom of Vet · at
Who and what is mentioned in this episode?
People
- Jim Leslie — Person · Collaborator (webinar co-presenter) · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as Tommy’s partner for an upcoming webinar focused on growth strategies for 2025. - David Goa — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Cited as the source of the framing 'It’s you versus you' in a discussion about accountability and self-discipline.Overused and the word is accountability it's kind of you versus you David Goa talks about this is It's You versus you but accountability is when you get an accountability partner you can be accountable to yourself but why not find.
Books & papers
- Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Book · Primary recommendation · 1 mention · first at
Recommended as a key book for leadership teams. - Dale Carnegie — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a recommended read for building relationships. - Meetings Suck — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a recommended read for improving meetings.With anything from Patrick leion the ideal team players is a great book meetings suck by Cameron Herold is a great book the one minute manager is a great book those are great…
- One Minute Manager — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a recommended read for leadership.Ideal team players is a great book meetings suck by Cameron Herold is a great book the one minute manager is a great book those are great books to start out with to read as a…
Companies & orgs
- A1 Garage Service — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions
The speaker's company, discussed in terms of growth strategies and delegation. - Google LLC — Company · Referenced expert · 10 mentions · first at
Discussed in the context of SEO and algorithm changes affecting business. - Home Service Expert — Company · Business focus · 5 mentions · first at
The speaker's platform for home service professionals.Time and the whole company but let's dive into it you know we've got a you guys go to HS home service expert keep a lookout we got a pretty big webinar coming live me and Jim…
- Power Selling Pros — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned in the context of a visit from the speaker's buddy. - Wounded Warriors — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a nonprofit the speaker's company supports.Million over the next two years and not to mention the time effort you know get involved donate doors use the company for Wounded Warriors and all these other things not just…
- Amazon — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned in the context of delivery services.How the manual release works we so we go in teaching them safety teaching them Amazon could deliver into the garage and that way there's no people stealing off your porch we…
- Living Social — Company · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a past marketing platform.PBC you know when I was small I'd run Angie's List ads I'd run deal of the day ads you know Living Social like you know all these things matter like when you're small you got…
Places & events
- Freedom of Vet — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as an upcoming event with notable speakers. - Bora Bora — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
Mentioned as the location where the speaker got engaged.
Media & podcasts
- Facebook Marketplace — Media · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
Mentioned as a platform for selling items.That dirt bike how long did it take you to clean it up sell it when you went online posted it on you know Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace how long do you spent cleaning it…
Full transcript with timestamps
all right we are live welcome to January's Q&A uh 2025 it's G to be a good one today I got a lot of energy worked out this morning feeling good um started up my diet again going hard in the paint I weighed 246.ad 8% body fat here going hard in the paint and I started thinking a lot about this like you know some of you guys I've been getting a lot of messages lots of social media messages of how do you work so much and still motivate yourself to do these things work out and go on vacations with your family and do these things and I know this word gets overused and the word is accountability uh it's kind of you versus you David Goa talks about this is It's You versus you but uh accountability is when you get an accountability partner uh you can be accountable to yourself but why not find somebody you know if you got a really good person in your life they don't allow you to kind of miss you know when
they say hey dude let's just miss the gym today hopefully the other person's like no we said we were going to do this let's leave early no no we're not gonna leave early hey dude you might be having a bad day take some pre-workout let's let's get through this we go to the gym we're gonna work hard we're going to work we're gonna work hard you know it's such a big deal another big thing is I had my buddy Barry over from Power selling pros and his son came with him and um his son's 16 and we talked about a lot of things and he said what's a few tips you know if you were 16 I said number one go open a Roth IRA and I kind of explained to him compound interest and I said rich people re very wealthy people they focus on the principle they leave that there and they focus like a lot of people when they make money they can't wait to spend it like if I told you I'm gonna give you a $100 million do you'd be like oh my
gosh let's make a list of everything we're gonna buy wealthy people don't do that they say what are we going to invest in to we could spend the compound interest so 100 million to 10% is 10 million a year I'd say we could spend five of it we want that principle to grow therefore the compound interest grows I said always bring a notebook with you when you're talking to mentors take notes smile a lot ask great questions and always be curious um I said this idea of delayed gratification you know one of the things that I found out you know when I was young when I was his age is I thought I was making money but I didn't put an hourly rate on what I was doing um I think a lot of us we go around and we talk about money money money but he's right now he's rebuilding trailers I'll buy dirt bikes and rebuild them the problem with that is do you measure your time how much did it take you to find that dirt bike how long did it take you
to clean it up sell it when you went online posted it on uh you know Craigslist or or Facebook Marketplace uh how long do you spent cleaning it see if if the hourly rate is not you know a hundred bucks or more why are you doing it most people don't they don't figure out their time into the equation um you know I've been thinking a lot what life looks like in the future and one of the goals is to start refining my calendar over and over and over like once a week go through everything I did and like I'm GNA take a sheet of paper old school and I'm gonna say listen I'm gonna put a check mark everywhere I feel like I could be delegate more the plan is to only get to three hours of really extreme work a day look Oprah Winfrey uh Jeff basos Elon Musk runs what four companies as a CEO he's working out on helping the uh the government here in the United States uh with Doge or doj or whatever it is like like trust me he
delegates most of his stuff and he hires great um so understanding what money is and then I had this Revelation this morning that I wanted to share of just I don't pay myself a ton of money at A1 grer service um it's enough that the government could sniff test me as a w to employee say this CEO makes it outright you know I I actually am one of the only people here that don't have a bonus because I didn't care about the bonus I have so much equity in the company it wasn't important for me to negotiate that what's important to me is I don't care about my W2 I care about the company's growth I mean that's everything um how do you build a company that's worth a ton of money that's all you guys should be thinking about not how do I make more money this year it should be how do I make the company worth more money that's how learning how to sell a business is the most important thing you should be
thinking about and when people tell me they want to get a $100 million it just it still baffles me at times um if you're in the right industry and you're growing fast enough you know I just got off the phone with one of my marketing guys I said look um we got to double the leads by the end of the year how do we the only thing I care about hire great people and train them make sure the culture is where I needed to be and increase the lead flow of quality lead that's it that's my job more leads more great leads more great guys and GS running the business especially technicians and installers that are trained trained trained trained trained and people know that I appreciate them and it's a great culture those are the three things that's all only three three things I want to deal with in fact I'm not going to be evolved in anything else I'm gonna make sure I exit myself from this business I don't want to be the
micromanager I don't want to be everything's got to run through me I don't want to be the guy that's got to look at every decision say Yes or No in fact I don't know how to log in payroll I don't know how to get certain things out of service Titan I don't know even I never logged into intact ever I don't want to know how to do inventory I don't want to know how the Gas Works on the trucks I don't even want like look I I know the numbers I get these reports but some of you guys got to let go man and some of you guys been betrayed some of you guys been used some of you guys can't trust anymore and you got to have checks and balances but if you are the everything for your business the first first thing you need to do is hire an EA and a good one and your life will change forever but that involves a lot of trust you know other than the business I got engaged which I'm very excited about me and Brie she's on Cloud9 I'm on
Cloud9 that happened about two weeks ago in Bora Bora um you know it's a big step I've never been engaged never been married no kids so it's the next step but this chapter I'm going in I'm ready like you know I feel like I'm going to be an amazing dad I feel like I've been put on this Earth to be a dad uh yeah I want to change people's lives I want to continue to be the best home service expert I can but uh the next trial you know I'm not no one's ever prepared to be a mother or a father but um I'm getting ready for that that's that's going to be a big chapter of my life also I want to travel more and I'm coming to this this sense that I don't want to stop working but I don't want to work all the time so what does what what really makes me happy I'll tell you what makes me happy is I've got several cousins that I just love being around I just love it I've got a lot of family that I just
love to be around I got a lot of friends that I just can't get enough of so how can I travel the world play a lot of golf do a lot of fishing do some hunting play some Golden Tee do some bowling have some watch some fun movies go on the lake do some snow Sports hot chocolate on a cold day enjoy my life but still do a lot of business to keep me sharp but not a ton just a few hours a day take Mondays off so I'm I'm I've got to refine refine refine you know JD one of my managers wrote this book nothing changes if nothing changes so for me it's it's literally like you keep doing the same thing you're going into 2025 doing what you did in 2024 oh was a great year keep going well D refine your work on your calendar the most delegate a lot if you can I can't explain that enough like the delegation and getting the calendar I'm making a note for Ashley my one of my e um headed to Atlanta tomorrow we just
opened that market um going to be opening up other markets this year and what we're working on is documenting everything that's that you know making sure there's a checklist and I I don't think people have documented they don't have enough information when they're just going through just to make sure everything's right um some new technology you were bringing on you know I feel like you I was talking to a buddy of mine and he was talking to a buddy of his in California and he said do you know how many thousands of contractors are praying that you pull this off and get get a three two and a you know two to three billion dollar valuation and I was like no I don't really know anybody that's really hoping that that happens other than me and the team of people that have equity in the business and he's like no he's like if you pull that off it changes the whole industry for everyone and I'm like yeah
I never really thought about that he's like you got to do this dude you got the world on your shoulders you got to pull it off I'm like well you know if you do a swad analysis there's only a few things that could stop us from doing it you know if Google completely shut down or changed their algorithm I mean we do everything by the book uh we were investing a lot of money in SEO lots and lots of money Lots in the nonprofit and 5013 C's and getting back Lings from those like investing you know putting money into churches high schools colleges um lots of stuff this year in fact my goal is to donate at least $5 million over the next two years um and not to mention the time effort you know get involved donate doors use the company for Wounded Warriors and all these other things not just money but time and the whole company but let's dive into it you know we've got a uh you guys go to HS home service expert keep a
lookout uh we got a pretty big webinar coming live me and Jim are going to do it and I'm going to be talking about a lot of cool things we're working on um if you guys know and you guys really follow what I say and you understand how important marketing and hiring right and training your guys and culture are and you could live in those seats and really just get rid of all the obstacles and stay focused and go to seminars and have accountability partners and understand how important having discipline is you're going to be successful this year I mean I get hundreds of people reaching out a month saying thank you and I really appreciate the feedback but they're the people that actually do the work it's very rare I get a thank you for somebody that listens to these but they don't do the work and then there's other people that that they'll just kind of bounce into these and listen to the Q&A here and there then the last stupid
question is like how do you rank on Google that's like saying you know how do you become a billionaire how do you rank a go like like everybody wants these simple answers like oh you just do this it's not that simple it takes like Focus how do I hire good well what kind of question is how do I hire good like like you got to be specific and you gotta like watch all my content like go on Instagram go on Tik Tok go on LinkedIn like follow me on X like watch all the content I put out on YouTube and then then ask really good questions but the questions I get are rinse and repeat sometimes and it's it's like the questions don't have any like they just like how do how do I run my business and I'm like well like I can't even fit one guy asked me to be the CEO of his company for three months I'm like dude what like I'm the CEO of A1 anyways uh um you guys got to join if you're not in the home service expert group just join
right now go on Facebook and join uh hopefully you are there's 15,000 people in there we're going to 10x that uh if you know anybody invite them to the home service expert group we're really trying to put a lot of effort into that so um let's go ahead and get some questions going James said I know you hired your mom to answer phones yes in 2010 I did that I just put my mom on the phone for me part-time how did you set up her pay in the very beginning what was fair to her and you how did you transition over time so you know you got to think that was 2010 so that's 15 years ago I paid her 15 bucks an hour I mean if I were you I payer you know like everybody else um I'd be more of a performance pay I'd say look I'll give you 12 bucks an hour plus 10 bucks per booked call or you know call bucks per booked call she could book three calls an hour you know that's 18 bucks like I would still pay for performance
pay I didn't know about that in 2010 um staking the outcome and like look I had my stepdad working for me too so my mom was good my mom just was like how do I help you honey I want to get involved she wasn't looking they had enough money that they could live on they stole their house for a lot of money in Michigan they weren't like trying to make a living working for me they were just like let's assist you and in the end it worked out for them you know they made you know they got a big chunk of money um and they deserve more than that I I do think they they helped me out at a big time of my life and I'm one of those guys that no debt goes unpaid so there's there's more you know I try to do as much as I could for my Mom and Bill picked up a trip for them and my uncle to go on a this cruise and uh they went for Bora Bora and well you know they're not going to pay taxes for the next 10 years I'm covering that but it's still
not enough it's not even close to enough so for what they've done they sacrificed a lot all their friends all the family we have they just picked up and moved to help me run the business so um I don't have the best advice it worked out well for me but you hear like nightmares about family working for you animosity is we helped grow this thing that you know my family they were great they they didn't they didn't make me feel bad for making money they didn't get mad at me that I was always at work they understood what it was like to build a business and they're my biggest fan so I'm probably not the best because working with Mom and Dad working with you know your your sister your brother it's hard and you got to document everything I just alivie always taught me you got to be able to have Thanksgiving dinner and not talk about work together and make sure that it's productive and that it's healthy and
that the relationship is still strong if not you got to separate very quickly uh Gabe said what's your sop for abandoned calls and service Titans so very interesting you say this Gabe I had Ryan and Taylor from chirp out here last week we did 700 and 700 something thousand doll from abandoned calls from chirp and interestingly enough there's what's called bit.ly it's a short code um it's a way to kind of like tiny URL onethird of the messages weren't getting through because the Sprint and Verizon AT&T were blocking it because it looked like spam so we fixed that so we're expecting over a million dollars from chirp this month based on that's one campaign from abandoned calls so um very easy thing to set up very easy thing to do for an extra million dollars a month for a company my size which it might be 20,000 30,000 for you I don't know what size company you are but it's set it and forget it it's literally that
easy and we've got four or five other campaigns should have been live already um see like I just get things done very very quickly my team sometimes I feel like they just they wanted to go per Perfection is the enemy of just getting started like everybody wants to do things perfect I'm like let me just make a video so like I'll give you a uh I'll just play something for you like on an abandon because I remember we we we have different brands um we have you know Don and garage door doctor and different things like that so here's just a quick video of like this one might not be perfect but hey there is Tommy melow owner at Garage Door Doctor listen we were at your house recently to give you a garage door estimate and I wanted to let you know I'm here to do whatever it takes to earn your business we've got a lot of different options for you uh give me an opportunity text me back on this number
I'm gonna get my rightand guy on it I look forward to hear from it's just these messages that goes out when we don't close the door get them on the phone text them back that's all chirp it's pretty simple stuff and then you AB test that run a different message and then if they're shopping you sayl before you buy a door I want you to go with the best possible company to satisfy your needs here's 10 things you need to know about before you buy a garage door because some people say we got to get three prices you know that's just the way we do business you should have the guy putting in there in the checklist and that fires The Campaign on chirp I mean this stuff is so easy but nobody does it like I say it till I'm blue in the face get pictures in your reviews make sure there's a way to get every single job with a a review um it's just very few like you get the idea it gets written down and then it goes
somewhere to die does that sound familiar like yeah but there's so many things what should I for like what do I do right away well I would focus on the things that take zero effort from me except a few videos and a little bit of copyrighting which is chirp I mean when you hire Al leevy it's a lot of work I mean I'm looking at his book like you got to put the manuals together you got to read them out loud that stuff takes your time effort and energy and it'll have the most incredible impact of the business but when I give you guys things very simply to do and you don't do them and you wonder why things don't change why things don't get better um it's crazy to me but um I would like our csrs to call back every Miss call yeah see I just I just Implement chirp on that one Gabe Ronnie said you mentioned developing relationships with H OAS can you explain that are they marketing your business
for referrals and what do they get out of it well an HOA think about an HOA is usually the people that are like the president and the controller you know everybody within an HOA they just want to uphold their property value they want to make sure there's no cars parked in the street there's no overgrown Landscaping the roofs aren't leaking the Landscaping looks good some some of them pay for Christmas lights there's certain things they want everything to kind of stay looking good and that means someone can't have a completely different grage than everybody else so it's just crazy like the outlier it means there's color codes so if they find a vendor like me and I could go talk to them about safety neighborhood watch you know you could take a hanger and actually manually release the garage door and break in HOAs are very careful about safety safety in the community they want to make sure there's nobody breaking in um
so we talk a lot about safety making sure your garage is working make sure if there's a fire or any type of natural disaster you could get out or emergency how the manual release works we so we go in teaching them safety teaching them Amazon could deliver into the garage and that way there's no people stealing off your porch we talk about that stuff then we say also you know we have we can install an opener that's super quiet um that you can actually get in through my qu and we talk about we get the color codes for the garage doors so we find out what's acceptable what would you guys allow the HOA votes on all the doors they allow that we when a client and then they they they send out mailers every month and they say this is our vendor of choice you could call them up and they'll give you every single thing we voted on because otherwise you got to wait for HOA approval sometimes that takes 90 days when I get to say these
have already been approved and advertise to the clients that your HOA picked us as the preferred vendor for the entire HOA there's preferred pricing we got the color codes and we got the different examples of what you're allowed to carry uh especially if there's a store we had a bad Windstorm there was like every other door at this time um this was 2012 and I just door knocked and said hey we can fix this door for you and it's HOA approved so there's a lot of advantages of working with HOAs because you're trusted and true um I've worked with apartment complexes now listen we're growing so big that I don't Focus as much because they're smaller tickets HOAs are still decent size uh but when I was hustling man I was stopping off at every apartment I'd give them I talk about cuz most of Apartments don't have a side exit door they just have the one that goes in the house so there's this thing you could drill into the door and
it's a key that you can pull the manual lease and I install those on every door like I was just hustling man I figure out a way to earn everybody's business and that's what you got to do early in business a lot of people are like what do I got to do to get leads get your ass up and go get the business I'm going to a bnii meeting on Thursday in Atlanta Tommy Melo you know is going to a BNI meeting how many of you guys have said oh we outgrew bnii it's crazy to me you're too good to go to a BNI meeting or a chamber of commerce crazy uh Matt said um I own a junk removal business we do cleanouts junk removal and light demolition based in Philadelphia any tips for growth in a competitive landscape on a tight budget I mean listen look where where can you mark it it's marketing right I I mean look end of the day junk removal I I study everything I could by like waste management and how they grew um but tip
budgets um you know you got to go out and meet the people I I'd go with like simply like little things dude like you know what I noticed is the guys that flip houses have the biggest mouse they're the best networkers on the planet you go give them a deal and say listen if you keep getting me clients they've got a whole network of people everyone calls them because they're like you're the one that specializes in houses who do I use for this who do I use for this like think outside of the box where does my clients the gift that keeps giving where do they need me and go build relationships with these people you know there's this thing called construction monitor it tells you everybody that's pulled a permit for anything in most counties and if they pull the permit to remodel the house there's going to be some junk removal like think outside of the box find tools like this ask more people I could give
you if you gave me a day just to work on things I can give you so much you wouldn't even know where to start but you got to test different things to see that was easy that works well let's continue to do that let's put more resources over here you know I try a lot of things a lot of them don't work but some of them do if one out of 10 work well and I can test a thousand things I just got a 100 things that work well in a year and that's the difference is a lot of people are like oh man I wish we had leads today looks like we're not going to work much I'm like dude I gotta go out and me some Realtors and some Brokers and some insurance agents and some people that deal with escrow accounts and like I I I never sat at home waiting for leads even when the phone was slow I'd go talk to the Yellow Pages I'd talk to vpack I'd go study other people's Val pack because I could look at last month and say is my offer
the best you know um you said what are your thoughts on junk removal clean out light demolition industry any insights or ideas on performing rollups I mean listen um I think you could roll up any industry I think it's yesterday Trump got in I think it's going to be there's I text my guy from Goldman Sachs you know how much money is on the sidelines according to them eight trillion dollars sitting in part of that because interest rates are up if just a part of that gets deployed plus you got the repay you know that this money comes back in from other countries for free I'm not saying Trump's the the you know perfect for everything I'm not saying that at all what I am saying I think it's going to be good to stimulate the economy and I'm saying now is going to be like you better start growing and get an idea on how to scale your business a lot of people just want a lifestyle business that never made sense to me
um most people that have a lifestyle business are coaches and they like to brag about their small business that barely makes any money why they're trying to make money in coaching maybe it's an ego thing but they they they brag I know hundreds of people that they have this lifestyle business but then they I want to be a coach I want to be on stage by the way everybody in their brothers are asking me how to start a podcast and I'm like you start a podcast to meet your clients now I started a podcast to learn more about home service completely probably not the right thing to do now I got an education in home service because I was able to get the right people on but I started eight years ago so you know everybody thinks man I want to do what Tommy does there's no money in podcasting there's no money in events there's really not a lot of money in coaching uh and plus you you you know but you could help a lot of people
out there's future opportunities I do events because I love them and I'm friends with all the vendors and I win big at A1 every single thing I negotiate for these events and everything I do I'm like just give A1 a better price help A1 grow more give us it what's going on next month on the what are you guys developing to make us better you should see everything I negotiate to just help A1 everything I do with the back of my mind going how does A1 win how does my family at A1 win like I every stage I get on how I talk about A1 people reach out to me 10 people a day hey I used A1 because I saw you you're a great company you guys lived up to the expectations when you do this stuff haveen it like I'm still focused on the main thing A1 um I run a small I I run a small pool service and construction business with my father all of our service technicians are $199 Drive their own trucks and our accounting is very poor
wondering in what order should I focus on fixing these issues yeah well the first thing is uh you need to get you need somebody that understands accounting and finance you need to understand when you start switching to a 109 from a 1099 to a W2 it's going to cost you way more money but you get so much more control I would focus on making sure your books are closed out by the 5ifth not the 10th and make sure you get onto a cruel accounting and make sure your [ __ ] is accurate as can be you got to have a known financial position every day and every week understand how much is in the account what's going out are you guys making money are you priced right I get the really good my my books dialed in like next level dialed in and I didn't know what that even meant till four or five years ago like I had good books now I have excellent audited great books that like like down to the decimal when you have that you
have ultimate control especially if you're paying attention get your books right and then figure out how much this person is going to help you figure out what it's going to cost to transition and then what's GNA have to happen to increase some kpis you're gonna have to have either a higher conversion rate higher you know opportunity job average booking rate something to give you the money uh to make that okay but I I've never look look in Roofing sometimes painting and sometimes other Industries sometimes construction you get away with having 1099s but you lose all control people are like oh yeah but there's a fine line very rarely do people live up like you could get sued from the last 10 years you could owe money back all the taxes you haven't been paying the the you know the payroll taxes I've seen people literally get a $5 million they going to pay on now the government won't shut you down but they'll say you got to
make payment they'll keep you in business just enough to make enough money that you still want to run the business but not enough money and by Guess way you get sued for payroll taxes you can't you can't go bankrupt you can't get rid of that there's no way to get rid get out of that um Mason said our rankings on Google Maps as well as SEO has been gamechanging for us over the past couple of years we live in a small or semi-large Metro we rank Inc incredible on one side and non-existent on the other side would you recommend creating a new G BP for the other side I know sometimes messing with this is risky as anything can get your listing shut down we currently have over 400 reviews and rank great well listen I I think opening up another Showroom on the other side of town and actually have people working out of there now listen you want it to be more than 30 miles away you want to make sure you're getting a lot of
reviews for it you want to make sure the BBB you've got to be BBB accredited for every location that's a trust signal for Google get the citation sites done get reviews with um I told you guys about pin comp parent with Ken have Ken running his little algorithm in the background yes if I'm not existent on the other side of town it's because I don't have a location there and there's obviously SEO and U LSA ads and you could run PBC you know when I was small I'd run Angie's List ads I'd run deal of the day ads you know uh Living Social like you know all these things matter like when you're small you got to do it all and a lot of people they don't remember the Grassroots they don't remember putting yard signs like you you got to door knock you got to go socialize with people there there's it's hard if it was easy everybody would be doing it why can't I just get more business because you're lazy you don't
you're not social you don't know how to ask questions you don't know how to like genuinely look people in the eyes and say I want to take care of you I want all your business and a lot of people sell on price they don't sell on quality that's another big mistake um so yeah absolutely I would get another location and I make it a a real location that you're paying rent at that you got signs up that you're actually r running people out of there to make it completely Google compliant white hat Jose said what are your two biggest pieces of advice for myself and my cousin who started a Home Service Company at the age of 23 well I started when I was 23 um don't be afraid of mistakes just don't make big mistakes start small you know when you're smaller and you don't have a lot of money the mistakes don't cost as much still they can put you out of business but just don't keep doing the same things if it's not working don't be
afraid of change uh I say always put it back into the business but make sure you're breaking off a little piece when you're 23 years old and you could save just $7,000 a year you're going to be a millionaire no matter what start a Roth IR put the money away do not use that money you might say Seven Grand is not going to change your business a year but it'll change your life when you turn 50 25 years at 10% is two at 7,000 a year is uh two two million bucks so do yourself a favor uh I guess You' be 58 but give yourself some money another thing is don't be afraid to ask for help go in as humbly as possible be curious all the time and and don't just don't get comfortable always doing the work get comfortable finding the people to do the work and it might not be perfect every time it might not have been what you've done but then ask yourself that I give clear direction that I explain how this needs to be done
is it detailed that a that a 10th you know a fifth grader could could understand it because if you didn't give the right instruction and it's if you didn't get them to show you how to do it in front of you and then it doesn't get done correctly you need to look at yourself in the mirror and say I didn't give the right instruction I think people miss this fact all the time they go and people always make mistakes that's why I got to do it myself well you didn't provide the instruction it's like if you got a little kid and you're teaching him how to play baseball and he runs to second base instead of first basee is it his fault or did he know to run the first basee so they got to be taught the the rules of the game and how to win and how to keep score they got to understand is there two strikes and then the third strike you're out and is there two outs third out that you switch like how do you play the game and how do you
ensure it's getting played correctly that's your job you're the coach all right let's see here something just oh it's fine hopefully this doesn't die um can't wait for the shop tour next month me either I love the shop tours it's Tommy mallow.com shop if you guys ever want to do a shop tour love doing them um want to get really serious about delivering more value let's see what else we have here hi Tommy you look good proud of you brother question we have a networking meeting with different business owners once a month and we share ideas mostly Plumbing owners we have we have some that do HVAC what is your advice for us any ideas shout out from Houston Santana Bros Plumbing you know here's the deal Miguel um I've got a few buddies that really got together with in hbac and plumbing and and and they found big companies that they worked with and they share like they had a rule if you're not PE
backed and you're big enough and you're never going to be competition we'll share the financials and we'll do a shop t or once a quarter and they went to other shops and they' critique each shop and they built this little Alliance and the problem with these groups is there's a lot of people that don't tell the truth there's a lot of people that just come there to extract knowledge and you can tell who they are they're the guys always writing stuff down listening never contributing never talking about what's working for them you know I've got a group and our group you know whether it's Aaron gain or Chad Peterman or whoever we're always giving each other great advice we're telling each other what we found we're trying to like hey I got something new to share with you guys and you know I I feel like you if you get the group of givers everybody wins but when when it's just local competition
you're going to find that you're not getting much out of that I mean if I were you guys I'd rather do a zoom call with competitors from other markets that aren't going to infringe upon your territory they get a lot more honesty um that's what I would be doing I'd also have other companies like other Industries i' probably have roofers and flooring other big ticket items come in and talk about what's working from Instagram storm Spence what's your thoughts on College and what's the best degree to study for someone that wants a business um I think professors have tenure they don't know what it's like to make it in the real world for the most part I don't think I've ever looked for a degree I think if you look at home service and Home Improvement that's what everybody's saying going into now they used to say get a get a coding degree in python or Ruby on Rails or figure out you know different type of coding now they're
like oh AI is going to replace that and then you go for graphic I know AI is going to replace that I think if I were to go back I would spend as much time learning sales and they have sales degrees Marketing sales and marketing is where I'd want to live and I take some Finance classes um learning how to build relationships I'd be reading reading all the time like Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People I don't think I'd go to a formal institution I got a master's degree in Business the coolest thing about that was I met some really cool people people there was a couple cool instructors I learned some basic stuff but I can't look back at anything I was learning and like man I really applied that to my life Advanced calculus organic chemistry economy you know economics you know accounting Advanced accounting like yeah there's I used to take apart annual reports figure out if we want to invest
in it like there were classes where they give us like these fake we could invest in companies fake money I didn't really there wasn't anything brain CH that kept my mind busy I learn how to study and get ready for test and learn knowledge but I didn't apply much of it to business so I would go through more like go to seminars and like invest in mentors and figure out ways to like generate leads and and create a culture I just don't think there's a whole lot like there is some things that college is useful for I hate to say this because I went to to my my Master's Degree and I'm doing pretty good good but hindsight Tommy melow 18 no I would take classes but I wouldn't go for the degree I wouldn't you know they a lot of people say get a degree because people look at that just to say you could finish something I don't know how important that is this day and age learning from a bunch of people that never made it in
the real world with tenure losers actually that teach um you know equity and diversity and all that [ __ ] they brainwash you and u i I know a lot of instructions that tried to brainwash me I just didn't buy into it uh Patrick said hey Tommy man commercial HVAC at 200k last year looking into marketing would like to grow at a truck and mostly find Residential marketing um Patrick here's the deal with marketing dude you know what are we doing to grow a new market well you got to get a lot of reviews you got to offer tuneups go in meet people get pictures with them you got to be willing to lose a little bit of money I mean if you want to take market share you got to put 15 20% in the marketing in fact in our new markets we're willing to put 35% so if we want to make you know $5 million we got to put 1.75 million into marketing at 35% you're not going to be profitable but someone no one's ever heard of you
so if you want to go from 200,000 to 225,000 next year to 250,000 yes I understand you got to make a living but you there's another way to do it other than money it's out there getting your ass out there doing free tuneups talking to your neighbors getting the HOAs meeting Realtors doing whatever it takes you got to start out unfortunately you can't start out as the highest price you got to get good at sales I always talk about price right but when you're nothing and nobody knows who you are and you're sub a million dollars it doesn't work you got to go out there and meet the people and it's it's constant dude I'd work 40 hours in the business and 40 hours on the business I'd be working 80 hour weeks because I used to do that and people were like d dude I can't do that I got a family well then why'd you start a business if you got no money and you got no time good luck the business will not
grow we are currently number one organically on Google for lawn care would you still do Google sponsor GLS so I can appear multiple times yes I would absolutely do it in fact if you do organic you show up in the maps you show up on LSA and you show up on PBC you show up four the times and then you might even show up on the top of Yelp you're going to get picked people are going to be like this must be a sign there's been studies you can look them up that the more times you're in the top first page the more likelihood it goes up exponentially every time what percentage of Revenue should go to labor related costs you know I think anywhere 28 to 32% depending on your company and how you guys track that but it it's it's different for every business like drains don't cost anything in Parts it's much more labor in ens so that's going to be a higher labor cost because there's no really cost of
materials cost of goods can you share more about how you Safeguard A1 being misclassified as a franchise and why you stayed away from that business model I like the franchise model but you lose control you're no longer in the garage door business when you start a franchise everybody's looking for a CH key business in fact I've talked to some of the largest franch in the country neighborly um my buddy Mike is the CEO now he used to be the CEO at vpac we talked the other day on the phone for about an hour um you know a lot of franchises you try to get these businesses to a million or two million you lose control you start having to deal with it's the 8020 rule 20% of the companies are going to grow the other 80% they never conform like you can't fire them because they bought into a franchise there's all kinds of politics that go into franchising could it be great absolutely phenomenal there's so
many good franchises out there but it's it's a struggle everybody thinks man I'm going to do a franchise I got a good business concept but they don't think about really what it takes not only do you got to sell the franchises but you got to be able to get them leads you got to be able to train their people you got to be able to get them ranked on Google you got to be able to get the call center dialed in get them to submit their financials on time got to make sure they're not out of town too much and taking too many vacations most people that want to buy a franchise are looking for a turnkey lifestyle business and there's no such thing I'm sorry every once in a while you hear about a company just everything went right they made a bunch of money it's just few and far between they're not common so I love the franchise model one of the interesting things are there's a same amount of franchises 20 years ago
as there are today meaning that every there's a lot that fail the the vast majority of franchises fail because somebody goes oh I'm just going to franchise my business it's not very profitable my website doesn't rank I don't have a national call center I've only approved it in one market I barely got market share but everyone's going to want to buy this business and nobody wants it oh we're gonna come up with our own CRM so we could even make more money see the easy way to do this for weak people is to say I've got a business that's okay but maybe I could sell it for $50,000 a piece and take eight% everybody else could do the hard work that's why people go into Consulting hey I've got a lot of stuff I've learned business is hard I'm not going to run a business anymore I'm just going to go consult and talk on stage and become uh you know an influencer and I'm going to start a podcast and that
sounds fun and I'm just going to show people how to do it even though I'm not very good at it and I'm gonna become a teacher and I'm gonna be a franchisor and everyone's gonna buy my [ __ ] I'll tell you how I really feel later but there are some really good franchises if I was to do a franchise one out of 500 would actually be picked to be allowed in my franchise you'd have to have so many credentials pass so tests you'd have to commit you'd have to like I'd have certain things to be able to rip you out of the franchise so quickly if you screw up our name like I don't look as a franchise like oh I want to sell as many as possible no protect the franchise make sure they people that are winning every single buyer is a is a soldier out to to make a lot of money but they're gonna work their butts off they gotta have a like McDonald's makes you make sure you got $2 million in the bank before you can
start a McDonald's franchise you got to be well funded see most franchise or are willing to take people's last $50,000 and wonder why they don't make it because they're greedy and yeah and these franchise salespeople that like sell franchises they're very good at what they do they'll just say give me give me the pooper scooper franchise I'll sell the hell out of it they'll sell but they don't care what happens after they got their money uh do you have someone on your team who is in charge of upselling to current customers I don't really understand that question like to our database uh our technicians we don't really upsell I don't like the word upsell we we we offer them different options and then the client can pick one they like you know like Joe Cera says what should we do it's it's that simple it's like we're not putting things down their throat yeah we've got product Specialists that are good at closing the
deal finding out what the customer needs based on how long they're going to live at the home what's important to them uh but I wouldn't call like someone specific in the company that's respons responsible for upsells how would you structure performance pay for mo mobile detailing average ticket 280 jobs per month 42 well what do I care about what are the things that really matter to me um in this case mobile detailing is all about routing right I don't want to drive an hour to this job to clean the car an hour to this car an hour to this car so it's kind of like Pool Service you want to be able to get as many clients as POS possible so what I would do with mobile detailing is I'd have my guys put out signs and I'd have them knock on a couple neighbors house especially in AFF fluent neighborhoods and pay them a lot of freaking money to close say listen we get this client on we sell him a 10 pack
of mobile cleanings I'm gonna give you half the money I'd make sure that that every single person doing the cleaning becomes they're posting on their social media they're putting out yard signs they're talking to their friends about it uh you know their their girlfriend is posting about it they're out there hustling for you getting more clients because it's all about keeping close it's all about dispatching so you want to be in the vicinity of the next jobs next thing I do is just I'd have a checklist to mark off and have the customer walk through it and if they didn't want to walk through it I'd send the whole checklist with pictures to them I actually have an app that we've created it's a checklist app if you want to know more about it but I said every little detail make sure the clients have and we exceeded their expectations I'd also pay them a little bit for reviews um a te a video
testimonial review on Google review on next door is a big one next door is in the community the BBB is a big one the uh um Yelp is a big one so you might say well they can only get one review how do I keep paying them every time hey you have me a review on Google can you do one on yel for me and every three times they clean it ask for a different review or a video testimonial get their wife in it um see if there's another car you could do Hey listen we have the two nice cars that we got our son's car listen can we do your son's car figure out if there's still profit you're at the same job figure out how to get to that other car um like I said the neighbors like I would look at a few things that I can that your people can control and pay them on that as long as you could track it well it's important that you got very good attribution that you can track it and it's going to help you grow the
business it's going to make you more money therefore they get to make more m but I don't have the perfect like I would have to sit down and whiteboard it for a minute but those are just some ideas what are the best Frameworks to get to a million starting out I do landscaping you know it's all reverse engineering like how much do you make a billable hour how much time do you put in how many clients would you need what's your gross profit what's your bottom line net and what okay so what you start to figure out is I would need this many leads this much Onre business I lose this much it's just a math equation it would take one hour to put together a pivot table with somebody even remotely smart that looks at your financials you could just go on up work find somebody that builds pivot tables and say look in financing that understands pnls and say I want you to show me how many leads how many clients
I need to close at what dollar amount based on my financials and what do I need to get to and then say okay how much do I need to spend on marketing how many can I close how long does it take to get to a million it's just it's it's an accounting exercise and there's mathematical certainty with it if you're Priced Right Now what you got to be careful is in landscaping you don't want a lot of Churn it means you got to put out you got to get the right clientele churn will kill you so just make sure you're not losing clients because a lot of times when you get to try to get to a million or five million or 10 million you're so focused on marketing you're not keeping your current clients and that'll kill you if you got a client going out the back door every time you got a new one coming in the front door you're insur is way too high and that'll destroy a company so make sure you're focused on keeping your customers
excited and happy with the service you're you're already doing how would you structure a membership program for an mobile auto repair business focused on break repair customers given that broke break repairs have a high margin and aov Below frequency additionally how can I effectively capture the LTV of customers for such low frequency service if using a membership model what resources would you recommend to learn about developing a compelling membership program so look up this guy his name is Aaron Stokes and I could probably think about this and work through it but this guy's the master of how to get break jobs and how to do Automotive repairs he's already got he's the largest Mastermind in the country of anything and he already's got all this stuff figured out Aon Stokes is great guy I spoke at his event he's just a genius um I think you'll really dig him um really love the guy so look him up and he'll probably
have a better answer Greg Mitchell said would you view my website and give me your honest feedback yeah leave it in here just s people take it we'll send it out we'll look at the website there's a lot of things that I look for how fast does it load is the phone number easily clickable does it have a schedule engine link to be able to schedule online uh is there good information that I want to learn about is everything there is it is it organized is there testimonials I mean there's so much that uh I'll look at it let's see have you done Colby test before and if yes what were your scores uh my team's done Kobe testing I haven't I haven't done them um we're looking into some tests but that's one that I don't think is one we're going to be focused on um Tommy with $7,000 in my window cleaning business one employee and an unwrapped truck 75% of the leads from organic Facebook post what's your first move to
scale would you prioritize ads branding Etc yeah so me personally I focus on Google I build a really fast website that's mobile friendly I make sure I'm getting more leads and then the first thing I do after I get a really good amount coming in each month and I'm getting reviews with pictures in them with great reviews uh my Google's ranking my my my business page and the hours of operation uh once that's done you know I might hire a guy named Lenny gray to do some door Todo stuff as well but I want to be a brand that people are like man this this brand looks legit this isn't just a guy that went to Home Depot and picked up a bucket like these guys are good they're safe when you're explaining what you do to build value and I'm just going through all the stuff through the book influence with a with a coach is like don't just say we're a garage or technician we're a certif IFI technician what does a certification mean is like
otherwise you're just chucking a truck coming out there to scrub my windows like show me the tools you're using show me the why should I hire you and why should I pay you more than just getting a handyman to do it those are important questions so yeah the brand is important and getting more leads and focusing on Google what book would you recommend for the leadership team to read you know one of the books I first started out with was five dysfunctions of a team I think that's a great book to start out with anything from Patrick leion the ideal team players is a great book um meetings suck by Cameron Herold is a great book the one minute manager is a great book those are great books to start out with to read as a team I mean look I could look around here um there there's just I've got so many freaking books it's hard to pick which is the most important but those are some good ones my office has a lot more and
my house even has more than the office guys do me a favor because I got my team out here saying to finish up um just sey I'd love to get all the questions where I ended um let me see where I was so I finished with uh Instagram with uh Jake so the next one was Keith mol we just got to submit those questions into uh homeservice expert.com questions plural I want to end with just this idea of this accountability again um enjoy discipline you know a lot of you guys don't have energy you don't have the burn you used to have and it might not be anything that's wrong it might not be you what it is is your body's not working you're not metabolizing correctly I gotta tell you guys if you don't call Dr J find a doctor that specializes in naturopath figure out what's wrong with you figure out why you go home and you're just depleted of energy why you don't wake up and you're energetic why you don't want
to go for that long walk maybe you're in the wrong surroundings maybe because it's 20 degrees below you need to get up and move your family you need to be bold and this is not your life anymore I'm just telling you guys dude you got to start thinking bigger I was talking we were talking about Elon Musk and Jeff basos and and and you know Zuckerberg their ability here's why they win they think bigger than us and I'm not thinking small anymore and that takes bold changes it takes people that are willing to take extreme you you know very controversial decisionmaking extreme risks most of you guys don't even you would never move you're in your comfort zone you know you don't want to change too much you know look I'm going to change everything be comfortable with change get an accountability partner get comfortable with discipline set yourself up for Success find somebody to hold you accountable another thing listen we got
a huge webinar look go on home service expert it's going to be amazing last thing is oh the here it is it's the free webinar double your growth in 2025 critical moves it's me and Jim Leslie um I'm going to put the link in here we've already got a thousand people coming to this this isn't just a sales pitch guys like dude A1 did North the seven or 60 63 million of ebaa um this company's gonna be worth two2 and a half billion dollars I don't care about your money in fact I'm setting this thing up so I can invest in lots and lots of businesses like I want to get to know you guys I want to truthfully it's probably a little bit vain of me or or just conceited or or like maybe I'm just selfish but I want to find businesses I like that are easy lucrative and fun to work with I want to make a lot of Investments I don't down the line I'm going to be investing in hundreds of businesses and I'm gonna be taking my
whole team and I've got 30 people on the team the family office this is the way I do it I find out businesses that look you get to a million dollars of EA at HCK and still get 10 million if you do it right with my connections it's not hard I had a guy in last night that's doing it right now he's got million of EV to 10 and a half million he's getting it's crazy so that's what I want to do I mean look I want everybody to make out I want your whole team to make out too freedom of vet is gonna blow your freaking Minds I got Mr Wonderful I got a couple names I can't even say yet but they're already signed up it's going to be September 3rd through the 5th it's going to be in Las Vegas it's going to be at mlay Bay I promise you there's not another event that even comes close to this not even close not even in the same hemisphere um you better be ripped up too if I see you you better be getting
ready to get in shape because that's what we're going to talk about is getting in your best shape getting close to your family getting closer to God if you're religious you know you know making sure you're trying to become the best self you don't need to be magic overnight it takes time to do these things you got to stay consistent you got to say no to certain things but the results you're just so happy you just look at life differently and if you're not feeling it right now if you're not excited if you don't feel great about this year there's something wrong with you you need to go to counseling you need to see a psychologist you gotta get your [ __ ] together dude because if you don't feel amazing and pumped after listening to this something's going on and and maybe you gotta get checked out but listen guys I hope you have a great month finish out strong hopefully it's a record uh we got the Trump pump going on
after yesterday so hopefully the economy starts sparking off I hope you guys are doing excellent I hope you continue to push yourself to the next level I'm Tommy Melo this is the home home service expert I'm signing out guys thank you
Questions about this episode
Who speaks in "January 2025 Live Q&A with Tommy Mello"?
Tommy Mello (Host), Barry (Guest), Brie (Guest), Gabe (Guest), James (Guest), Miguel (Guest), Patrick (Guest).
What is "January 2025 Live Q&A with Tommy Mello" about?
In January 2025's live Q&A, Tommy Mello discusses the importance of accountability in achieving personal fitness and career goals, emphasizing the value of having an accountability partner to stay motivated. He also shares financial advice for young people, particularly the significance of starting a Roth IRA and understanding compound interest as a foundation for building wealth.
What is mentioned in this Home Service Expert episode?
16 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including A1 Garage Service, Google LLC, Home Service Expert, Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Jim Leslie, Dale Carnegie. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.
How long is "January 2025 Live Q&A with Tommy Mello"?
The episode runs 58 min; the transcript is about 11,519 words in 64 timestamped sections.
More from Home Service Expert
About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.