Transcript

The Power of Mindset in Entrepreneurship with Ryan Lee

From Home Service Expert · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 11 min · 15,495 words · 143 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Power of Mindset in Entrepreneurship with Ryan Lee", an episode of Home Service Expert published September 2, 2025 (1 h 11 min, about 15,495 words). It mentions 36 people, works and ideas, including Landscape Lighting, Johnny, Landscape Lighting Secrets, Traction, Nextdoor.

What this episode is about

Ryan Lee, a successful entrepreneur and business coach from Utah, emphasizes the critical role of mindset in entrepreneurship, particularly for contractors who often struggle with pricing and sales rather than technical skills. He shares insights from his extensive experience in building multi-million dollar businesses, underscoring that a positive mindset can help entrepreneurs overcome obstacles and achieve growth.

Key takeaways

  • Ryan Lee, a landscape lighting guru, thrives in Utah, scaling secrets to enlighten entrepreneurs.
  • In the game of business, Ryan plays coach, mentor, and master dealmaker with $15M in sales foresight.
  • Work-life balance? It's a mythological creature; Lee's agenda is the canvas for dreams and deadlines.
  • Lighting up profits, Lee juggles coaching and creativity, proving businesses can illuminize success.
  • Future gazer Ryan foresees $400M highlight reel, yet keeps grassroots passion for entrepreneurial flair.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Landscape Lighting, Chamberlain, Island Park, Idaho, Landscape Lighting Secrets
  2. – 20:00: definite chief aim, Landscape Lighting, Landscape Lighting Secrets
  3. – 30:00: A1 Garage Door Service, Aaron Jones, ABC Garage Doors, Dan Plata
  4. – 40:00: Landscape Lighting, Interior Designer magazine, Traction
  5. – 50:00: FPNA team, Jaguar, Landscape Lighting, Landscape Lighting Secrets
  6. – 1:00:00: Landscape Lighting, Aaron Jones, stake 44, Vincent
  7. – 1:10:00: Johnny, Buy Back Your Time, Be Your Future Self, Dodge Dakota
  8. – 1:11:29: Landscape Lighting, lighting academy, Lighting for Profits

Notable quotes from "The Power of Mindset in Entrepreneurship with Ryan Lee"

  • He is the founder of Landscape Lighting Secrets, a coaching company dedicated to helping outdoor lighting professionals scale profitable businesses with confidence. He was also the president of.
    about Landscape Lighting · at
  • We rented a boat, went up to Island Park, Idaho. Had a blast. and then that's when you start kind of missing work again, do I feel guilty? Do I need to go do I need to be somewhere?
    about Island Park, Idaho · at
  • Our first formal business. And there came a time I actually a friend of mine gave me the book Traction. He must have seen how chaotic my life was. He came over and he handd…
    about Traction · at
  • He's like MacGyver. He's like street smart. He can figure anything out from a technical standpoint, but he's not the business guy. So actually he ended up buying me out because like I couldn't.
    about MacGyver · at
  • Then they call in front of the customer on speaker phone and they go, Hey, Miss Jones. How are you today? My name's Dean. I'm sitting here at the office and we're here trying to earn your business and I want to tell you.
    about Aaron Jones · at
  • Follow-up systems. And so I think that's the biggest mistake that I had is once I got the FPNA team, the right controller, the right CFO, all of a sudden, and here's the deal…
    about FPNA team · at
  • Day? And everyone's capacity is different. I've got clients that, you Johnny can do like 25 30 grand in a day. I've got other clients that struggle to do $10,000 in revenue a day.
    about Johnny · at
  • Well, buy back your time was huge for me, and that's been, I guess, 18 months or something like that since I've read that. But, I review a lot of.
    about Buy Back Your Time · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Johnny — Person · 5 mentions · first at
  • Aaron Jones — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Ryan Lee — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Today I got my man Ryan Lee in the house. He's an expert at sales and business. He's based out of Lehi, Utah.
  • MacGyver — Person · 1 mention · first at
  • Dan Plata — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Intentional on, like your people are your people. I learned this from Dan Plata. He's one of our coaches. He's got his he's got his own business as well, but Dan taught me this…
  • Vincent — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Tell me, No, I feel like I spent way too much money. It's going to go over to Vincent's team. Vincent's going to figure out how to make that client happy. Even if it means giving a discount, adding parts, whatever it is.
  • Brian Dean — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Traction — Book · 3 mentions · first at
  • Buy Back Your Time — Book · 2 mentions · first at
  • Interior Designer magazine — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Introduced. Your living room looks like it deserves to be on the cover of Interior Designer magazine. who does your interior design? It's phenomenal. Who did your pool? we want…
  • E-Myth — Book · 1 mention · first at
    What I was doing. And it felt I felt bad, right? But he goes, Hey, have you done E-Myth? And he hands me these CDs. They were on CD. There's like f I think I have them right here in my desk.
  • Be Your Future Self — Book · 1 mention · first at
    Delivered the book traction to me. And then buy back your time is good. be your future self by Benjamin Hardy.

Companies & orgs

  • Landscape Lighting Secrets — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    He is the founder of Landscape Lighting Secrets, a coaching company dedicated to helping outdoor lighting professionals scale profitable businesses with confidence. He was also the president of.
  • Nextdoor — Company · 3 mentions
  • Majestic Outdoor Lighting — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Scale profitable businesses with confidence. He was also the president of Majestic Outdoor Lighting. After selling his landscaping lighting business in 2019 when he was doing…
  • Chamberlain — Company · 1 mention · first at
  • A1 Garage Door Service — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Fee. So I call the lady back and I go, Hey, it's Tommy Melo. I'm the founder of A1 Garage Door Service. I just want to let you know we could be at your house in less than an hour. She's Oh Tommy.
  • ABC Garage Doors — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Go, Completely understand. Do you mind me if I ask you the name of the company? It was like ABC Garage Doors, whatever. And I go, Great company. They do great work. Do you mind if I ask you what they're charging to come out?
  • lace.ai — Company · 1 mention · first at
    I'm in lace.ai, I'm in service titb. And I call two technicians and I dare them to try something new. And I work with them and I ask them what's going on out there. Try this, do this, let's work on.
  • stake 44 — Company · 1 mention · first at
    That just didn't really offer the client everything? And he said to me two nights ago, I took him to stake 44. He goes, I will run only those jobs. Just give me only those…
  • Harbor Freight — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Dakota. And now we come and I couldn't hold the parts correctly. And I go to Harbor Freight to buy the roof rack thinking I'm getting the best deal. I used to wait for those…
  • Guard Light — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Had huge impact. The very first one that had the biggest impact was a mentor of mine. He's he's the owner of Guard Light, a manufacturing lighting manufacturing company. And he…
  • Lighting for Profits — Company · 1 mention · first at
    No. Check out the podcast, Lighting for Profits. If you guys do want to bolt on a high ticket awesome industry, check out Landscape Lighting. I've got lighting academy that can help you get.
  • lighting academy — Company · 1 mention · first at
    A high ticket awesome industry, check out Landscape Lighting. I've got lighting academy that can help you get started with design and install all that. But, more than anything…
  • Service Titan — Company · 1 mention

Products & tech

  • Jaguar — Product · 1 mention · first at
    I have an option that's way better. Just like if you buy tires on your car, get a roof or decide you want a Jaguar instead of a Honda, you know. But there's a lot of stuff on…
  • Dodge Dakota — Product · 1 mention · first at
    Transmissions and engines. My guys are breaking down. I'm missing capacity. The client sees that it's a 2002 Dodge Dakota. And now we come and I couldn't hold the parts…
  • Honda — Product · 1 mention

Concepts & topics

Places & events

  • Lehi, Utah — Place · 1 mention · first at
    Today I got my man Ryan Lee in the house. He's an expert at sales and business. He's based out of Lehi, Utah.
  • Salt Lake City, Utah — Place · 1 mention · first at
    He's a business coach. Ryan Lee is an entrepreneur from Salt Lake City, Utah, and has started and grown several multi-million dollar businesses. He has personally sold over $15 million of products and services over his career.
  • Island Park, Idaho — Place · 1 mention · first at

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome back to the home service expert. Today I got my man Ryan Lee in the house. He's an expert at sales and business. He's based out of Lehi, Utah. He's a business coach. Ryan Lee is an entrepreneur from Salt Lake City, Utah, and has started and grown several multi-million dollar businesses. He has personally sold over $15 million of products and services over his career. He is the founder of Landscape Lighting Secrets, a coaching company dedicated to helping outdoor lighting professionals scale profitable businesses with confidence. He was also the president of Majestic Outdoor Lighting. After selling his landscaping lighting business in 2019 when he was doing 200K plus a month, Ryan founded the world's first coaching program dedicated to the landscape lighting industry. He's discovered that most contractors struggle not with their technical skills, but with pricing, sales, and mindset required to grow. Ryan, it's

great to have you on, brother. Looking forward to the conversation, man. You know, I was telling you, I don't know what it's like to not have a packed schedule. And I'm talking some 6:00 in the morning. My parents came over for dinner after a marketing meeting last night. I got my mom to stay an extra two hours. But it's not always business. Sometimes it's a fun I got to go to Chicago Sunday. Lots of meetings. Meeting with Chamberlain. Um, a lot some of it's church stuff. Some of it's call your buddy. I mean, it it's got to make it on my schedule. So when I say I'm burning the candle, I just got a lot going on and a lot of it's fun stuff. It's still you got to get on a plane, show up, and I'm not a planner. I don't go to these trips and like have an agenda from soup to nuts.

Actually, when I went to Idaho for nine days, part of me is like I love lake life. Part of me is like I got to get back into my habits and back into the grind. But what's been going on with you, man? What what's where have you been for the audience? What do you love doing today and where are you going? Yeah, I mean I I hear what you're saying. I I I look at like my last month, for example, and the m the last month was busy, you know, like super busy. I had uh I went to uh an event to speak and help train some people. Then I went on a week-long uh family vacation.

We we rented a boat, went up to Island Park, Idaho. Had a blast. Uh and then that's when you start kind of missing work again, like, do I feel guilty? Do I need to go do I need to be somewhere? Then I went and spoke at another event. Uh, and then now I got like my to-do list which is like starting to take over. So, I I'm busy as well. But the thing that I' I've done in the last I'd say the last 12 to 18 months is I've gotten a lot more intentional.

I'm learning to say no. I'm learning to just do like like I'm making the rules to my game. I used to try to like fit everyone in, fit everything and like, okay, well, I can do that, I can do that. But

I don't know. I'm I think I'm carving my own my own path now. I'm finding my own things that make me happy and what works for my family and what works for my businesses.

I um I'm engaged. We're getting married January 1st of 2027. And I said, "Hey, can I work a lot till that date because we're going to be pushing for kids." And by the way, when I'm not

You proposed, "Hey, uh real quick, can I work a lot before I propose? Can I work a lot until January 2027?" She knows there's uh a lot of things in motion that that should have a a date before then and a lot of different business affairs and um that doesn't mean we're not doing a bunch of fun stuff and you know when you're building places and and building a teams it's just it's frontloaded and I do need to learn to say no more that's a really good skill but uh you a lot of people are like man he works a lot but I'm like dude here's the deal we're going to do 325 million this year and I spend spent a full day last weekend, literally from morning to night, whiteboarding on how to get to 30% of the bottom line. We're 26 1.5%.

And I came up with 10 ways to do it. And in my mind, there's no way we're not going to hit 30%. And there's no way we cannot hit 400 million next year. So, you do the math, it's u it's a pretty good outcome. And I feel like we're just getting started. Like, this is a brand new business. Like I feel like people are like, "Man, what does it feel like?" I'm like, "It feels like we got a lot of work to do because we're just getting started." Even though it's been two decades, we've created a new business every quarter. And that's what makes it fun for me. And uh but now I can say that if I leave for a year, nothing falls apart. They don't need me anymore, which is exactly where I want to be. So now I'm just the gas pedal.

Now I'm going, okay, how do we do this? How do we do this? How do we get more efficient? How we how do we lower the turnover rate? How do we do that? Then what are the other industries? So I'm going to come in the last 10 years of my life is going to be initiated by the end of next year of when we start adding garage flooring, front doors, garage storage, mini splits, water treatment, windows. And so a lot of the work I've been doing hasn't even paid off yet of being on these stages and this podcast and everything else. But it's all about to come to fruition and I've already manifested everything. So people say, "Why do you keep going?"

I love it. I'm like, "Why does Tiger Woods keep golfing? It's because of what I It's what I love." Some people like watching others play football like the NFL. Some people love And by the way, when you have a family, I completely get that. Uh spending time with kids. But for me, my superpower is, man, I love business. If a kid comes up to me 9 years old and says, "I'm thinking about pot a hot dog stand." I'm like, "Dude, let's talk." You know what I mean? That's fun for me.

Yeah. Well, I I gotta tell you this. So when I when I started my lighting business, I was partners with my brother and we didn't have a plan. We didn't have a vision. We didn't know what EOS was. We didn't know about entrepreneurship, anything. It was our first business. I mean, we had done small things before, but this was like our first formal business. And there came a time I actually a friend of mine gave me the book Traction. He must have seen how chaotic my life was. He came over and he handd delivered the book Traction. He's like, "I think you'd really like this." And I didn't know. It was kind of an insult at the time. you know, I think you should really read this. And uh I read the book and I it it literally transformed me overnight and I and I actually got sad because during one of the chapters, he talks about how it's going to change everything. In fact, you might lose people along the

way. You might even lose partners. And I knew when I read that line that I was going to have to break up with my brother because we we were at this point where we had grown. We were making some money, but we didn't have organization. We didn't have cohesiveness. And we were both visionaries. He wanted to go left to the lake and we were wake surfing every week and I wanted to go right and I'm like I wake surfing is fun. I could do it once a month but like I want to go build an empire. Yeah. Like I I have these bigger dreams. And he's going dude you work too much. Like this is insane.

Like we could be done working by noon and wake surfing. And I'm like dude you don't work enough. Like are you kidding me? Like and so I learned that like he's not wrong. Like that's what he wants and I'm not wrong. This is what I want. So we literally we I wouldn't say we decided I decided that we were going to break up cuz he he was like this is great. Ryan knows how to run a business. He's like MacGyver. He's like street smart. He can figure anything out from a technical standpoint, but he's not the business guy. So actually he ended up buying me out because like I couldn't live my dream. I couldn't I couldn't go work as many hours as I wanted to.

couldn't do this because again like he's going left, I'm going right, which means actually we go straight down the middle and no one's happy,

right? And so now that's the hardest thing, man. I'm in charge. Well, partner, we we literally were just

we're just arguing over about who's right and and what's right and I'm like, no, no one's right. Like, I can't prove him wrong. He he wants to do what he wants to do. And uh that was tough. What I tell people, if you're going to engage family or friends, you got to have a prenuptual agreement. And you got to have every best friend and person that's worked for me never worked directly for me. They were never my direct report. And we we now I'm going to make people make a video when I partner with them. Why do you want to get get in business with me? What are your responsibilities? I'm gonna make a video back and we're going to use that as the north star and I'm gonna have a way to unrandle it

if if hey if ever there's animosity and we want to maintain this relationship which we should do uh this is what you're responsible for this is what I'm responsible for we agree this is the plan and these things take time they might take six months they might take three months to put together but understanding what KPIs there is someone responsible it's not two people there must only be one revenue growth, eBay of growth, KPIs, call center, booking rate, conversion rate, average ticket, and maybe there's a lot of things, negotiation with vendors. Are we going to lease the vehicles, the fleet?

There's all these things, but we we're going to agree that you're the decision maker here. Uh, and so now I'm invested in a lot of businesses. And the coolest thing is there's not a business that I've invested in that hasn't 5xed. And it's just simple. The game of business is not that. But here's the deal. I'm not doing car washes and and out of my scope anymore. Like I have the obviously the Christmas light business, but I'm staying in my own lane. Now that I know home service so well, it's the perfect industry to be in. I understand arbitrage. I understand how to do the deals. I I've got great relationship with the vendors. Where is the best use of my time? And just like you said, where's the best use of my time? You started saying no. And that's very hard for entrepreneurs to do. Why did you decide 18 months ago? Cuz Dan Martell coaches me and he's like, I got to fire you as a client. He goes, you're my last

client. And he goes, this is a $500,000 watch and if I work a full week, that's a billion dollars a year. He goes, are you going to pay me $500,000 an hour? And I just smiled. He goes, I didn't think so. He goes, so you're my last client. He goes, now everything's going to be dedicated to these two things. And by four months from now, it's going to be this one thing. And I, he goes, I'm just at a phase in my life where, you know, I I'm not going to say yes to anything. And me, for me, that's tough. People call me all the time like, dude, can you speak at this event? Don't care what it costs to get you. And I'm like, that's I don't make my money speaking, but if it's near me, if it's convenient, I I enjoy it. But, you know, how how did you learn to say no?

Well, I wouldn't say I've learned. I'm learning. Um, for me it it it's it's this whole process of life. I mean,

dude, k kids will change kids change everything for me. And to be honest, so I grew up single mother and I wanted my goal in life was just to be the dad I didn't have, right? And so I I have kids and I'm I'm starting this business and everything. This was, you know, years ago. And my wife actually called me out one day. Go, she, you always talk about how you do this for us and you want to be this dad you didn't have. Where the hell are you? like I'm drowning over here. You we have four kids now. You don't make enough money to provide a nanny. You don't like we I don't have help here and you're out doing nighttime demos at night doing lighting. Yeah, we have a house. We have money. We can go on vacation, but like I need you. That was a huge wakeup call. So, we went to therapy. We went to everything. I learned a lot through that process. Then what happened when I sold my business, we moved from Texas back to Utah. I

launched Landscape Lighting Secrets and I was very intentional on what I was doing, but also I was like, well, no one knows who I am. I have to get my name out there. So, here I am going to events, speaking, meeting new people, getting uncomfortable. And it started I I started to feel exactly how I did like six, seven, eight years prior where I was like, uhoh, I I know what this feels like. Like, this is me. I'm addicted to business. It's a full-on addiction. And I feel like I'm I'm back I fell off the wagon. like I'm I'm not a good dad anymore. I'm not a husband anymore. Like I knew it. I I'd felt those feelings before. And to be honest, like you mean, you know, you watch what you're doing and that's like for me I'm like, "Yeah, I want to do that." Like Tommy can do it. Like I can do it. I want to do that.

And I started to realize like, wait a minute, like Tommy's dream is not my dream,

right? At least it doesn't shouldn't be, right? And so I'm like, "Well, well, he's doing that. Like why why am I not doing that?" And and that's when I realized like, wait, that's not my dream. like, "Yeah, I don't think I want to become a billionaire." Like, there there's a lot of stuff that comes with that that I'm not prepared today, right now, in my situation to handle. So, I just changed my goals. I stopped kind of living off other people's dreams and I came up with my own the the book um uh Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He talks about your definite chief aim. I wrote down my definite chief aim and my billionaire status because I right now I don't like I don't want to become a billionaire but I thought how could I become a billionaire but have other people involved. So my goal now is all I want to do I just want to help a thousand lighting business owners. I want to help a thousand people

earn a million dollars or more with their lighting business. And it just so happens that a thousand times a million is a billion. So I can become a billionaire but I by just helping other people become millionaires.

No, it's it's good that you I changed I just changed my perspective. You've coached a lot of people and how much is mindset, how much is strategy, how much is just I think it's mostly the owner the bottleneck and they don't have the ability to focus and they when you're small you say yes all the time and you should say yes because you don't have enough money and it's sweat equity but you've coached. Tell me the some of the smaller ones to the bigger ones and the challenges with each level up.

Yeah, I mean to answer your question, it's a 100% mindset. Most of us know what like most of us have been to a conference, we've listened to a podcast, like we have enough information. We have more information now than we're taking advantage of. I'm not going to say we all know everything. We're always learning, but like most people have already they already know they need to raise their price. They already know. They They know they should like follow up with their sales appointments. They know they should work on their closing rate. Like they know the information, but they make excuses. They they oh well, not in this economy. You know, how many times we hear that? Well, no, you can't charge those prices in my market.

And what's ironic about this whole thing is I used to say the exact same stuff. So when they say those things, I'm like, dude, I know exactly how you feel. That's not just a line. Like I literally know exactly how they feel because I used to make up the same excuses and I know how to wiggle my my way out of accountability. None of us really want accountability. We hire a coach because we say we want it, but accountability sucks. Like it hurts. I know you're big into fitness now. Like it hurts to to to to build muscle. It hurts to get up early. It hurts to stay consistent. Like after a while, yeah, it feels good, but not at first. And that's the hardest part. So the it doesn't matter if they're doing, you know, 200 grand a year or they're already doing a million or $2 million a year. The hardest part is changing from the circumstance you're currently at because we're we're humans and by nature, humans are we seek

comfort. I mean, you think about why we've survived and why we're the the the the best on the earth of all the species and everything. Like when it's hot outside, we just find shade. Like we we'll we'll build an air conditioning system, right? When it's cold, we figure out how to get heat. When when we're hungry, we just go kill something and eat it. Like, we're go we're always trying to become average. And an entrepreneur, a business owner has to fight against that. Like, if if you're just going to stay comfortable, you can't become the Tommy Mellow of your industry. Like, that those are two different things. And so, it's by human nature. We want to be comfortable. Yet, then we set this goal to say, "Okay, I want to grow by a million dollars or $5 million." Well, something's going to have to change. Your decision process pro process is going to change. You're going to have to like invest in

marketing that might not work. You're going to have to start hanging around different friends. You're going to have to maybe break up with someone. You might maybe have to h fire your operations manager or hire your first one. Like that's scary. That's uncomfortable. And most human beings, all human beings don't want to do that naturally. Like you have to get out of your own way.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, I'll tell you the pivotal things for me is is the ability to attract talent that's been where you want to go and and make them sprint at the same speed. My my COO, every time he's in front of somebody, they go, "What what is your main goal, Luke?" He goes, "To make Tommy's dreams come true." And it's funny that he says that. And one day, we were in Denver two weeks ago. I go, "It's always interesting, Luke, when you say that." and he goes, "Well, here's a little secret. We have the same dream."

And I love that. I love that. And you know, here's the deal that I've started to realize is a lot of my team doesn't care who gets the credit. They're very happy being part of this this ecosystem that's just we're building our own road as we go. And uh you know, it's really easy to look over at the bathroom refitter companies and the leaf fitter companies doing over a billion that I know. And I always got to pinch myself and say, "Look, that's not us. We're not a home improvement company. There is like the the things that I'm working on are going to open the door to so much revenue and unlock so much wealth for the people I work with, my co-workers.

But the the real deal is I'm having a lot of fun doing it. And I don't think a lot of people are having fun in their business anymore. I come in here, I do orientation, I'm on a podcast with you right now. I've got some leadership meetings. I don't do inventory. I don't log into payroll. I don't do, you know, example is accounts receivable. I don't talk to lawyers. I do, you know, I talk to my suppliers all the time. I talk I'm I'm right now I'm the CMO of the company, but that's where I live. So, I built this nest in my business. It's all what I love to do. So, coming into work is easy. And obviously, there's some things I had to do early on that I hated. And that's the first person I hired. And I was smart about it. And I got really lucky with the right people.

And I've had a top grade. I've had five five CFOs and now this one's absolutely phenomenal. But do you know what I mean? Like when you see people at business, I watch them go through emails for two hours and I watch them not live by their schedule and I watch them dreaming and then they invest in real estate. They take all the money out of their account and they go after they're like, "You got to always have a side hustle, bro." And I'm like, "No, the hustler had to die for the leader to be born." in my case.

I love that. I love it. You know, like learning to replace yourself is so hard because right now Yeah. Of course. Like like I want to come work for Tommy Melo. Like you've done such a good job building your brand, building your movement, right? You have you you you don't even have a business. I feel like you have a movement. Like people want to be part of it. Like you you've you've sold the dream. Like you you've done that. So it's like you probably can't even screw it up at this point. you've done such a good job doing that. Whereas you take a smaller company, it's like, you know, I'm the owner and I got like two installers.

It's hard to build a dream at that point. You know, it's hard to be like, "Guys, we're going to do something special here." Like, and it's harder to recruit because you're you might not even have a brand. You might not a lot of these guys start out of storage units, you know? They might not even have a a facility. And so, it's hard. I remember one time I I learned this the hard way because I used to think, well, I can't afford how am I going to I can't afford an admin. I can't afford a shop space. Like I there's no money. How do these companies do it? I would see big companies. I'm like, how do they do it?

And I and this this one experience changed my my thought process. So I don't ask how much something costs anymore. Instead of saying, "Oh, how much is it?" I'm like, "How much is it costing me to not have this?"

Yeah. And so the reason I learned this, I was I was literally we had two installers. I became the maintenance guy. And at first there was no maintenance. You put in lights, they work. Well, then someone calls and says, "Hey, I got a light out." So I'm like, "Well, who's going to do that?" We I sold enough jobs where our guys are busy doing installs. So now I'm the office manager and now I'm our head service tech, right? Minry changing a light bulb. Miss a call. This was totally normal. Call the lady back about an hour later. Super nice lady in Dallas. And uh she's like, "Oh, hey, thanks for calling back. We're good.

We've got a lighting company coming out tomorrow. I think we'll just go with them." And I'm like, "What do you mean you'll just go with them? like I'll come out and meet with you and give you a proposal. It's a free quote. It's not going to cost you anything. No, we're good. You know, they answered their phone and I couldn't even get mad at her because she was so nice. She was the nicest lady ever. At the time, this was early on in our business. Our average job was $5,000. So, I got to go home and I told my wife I just lost $5 freaking,000 because I couldn't answer a phone call. And then I started doing the math. What about that other person I called? Like, she answered her phone.

What about the other people I called back that never even answered? took me a day or two or three to get a hold of them, whatever. And I started doing the math. Five, 10, 15, 20, easily 60, $70,000 in the just the past few months that I missed out on opportunity. And it was that day I literally I was, "Okay, we're doing this." We we started looking for a shop space and we put out an ad for an admin. And I found out real quickly how much money we were losing not having an admin, not having a shop space because now someone was actually running the business. Someone was present, someone was doing follow-ups.

There's everyone thinks they can't afford an admin and it's like there's so many tasks that they can do that they want to do and they're better at than you and and you think no one wants to do this stuff. They're out there and that buys back your time so that you can go out and do more sales so you can actually spend time working on your business. That I learned that the hard way and I I hope people will learn from my mistake. And most most don't. Most people follow the exact same trajectory that I did and they put it off. They put it off and then when they finally listen to me, they they always, man, I wish I would have listened to you a year ago, two years ago. Like, well, yeah, I know.

That's why I was telling you. Well, the problem is is an admin takes coaching and they're going to make mistakes and they're going to screw up and you kind of got to move two steps back to take 10 steps forward. You know, Dan Martell convinced me to hire a chef and a driver and a house manager and I was like, I'm super humble. I don't want people to look at me like that. He's like, dude, you're an idiot. He's like, "How much can you get done in that 10 hours a week and you could be super healthy and like you're looking out of the wrong lens?" And so I what I've learned is you've really got to be working on the systems. Like my EA, phenomenal, she's hiring an EA next week. Her EA is going to be sending I built a top 100 list of vendors, of clients, of people I want to get to know that we're going to f just a top 100 list. And if I unlock the potential of these hundred individuals, my my my life, the fun in my life, the

wealth, the body grows 20 times. And so I I I highly advise building a top 100 listers. Just start with the top 10 of who you want to get to know. And it's not like you're reaching out and calling them all the time. It's just top of- mind awareness, building a relationship, liking their stuff on social media,

and really giving, being a great friend, being a great listener. You know, you you reminded me of a one day I was in the call center and this was about eight years ago and it was an Oklahoma call and the call center girl goes, "Uh, who was it?" Oh, man. Anna, she goes, "Man, I wish you were in here, Tommy." She goes, "I heard you're the best at booking calls." She goes, "I just lost one in Oklahoma because the guy couldn't get out there right away." I go, "Let me call the technician." He goes, "Dude, I could be out there in 45 minutes. I'll finish up here. I'll do you the favor. It's a little bit later at night. we could quot her an emergency fee. So I call the lady back and I go, "Hey, it's Tommy Melo. I'm the founder of A1 Garage Door Service. I just want to let you know we could be at your house in less than an hour." She's like, "Oh Tommy."

She's nicest lady just like you had. She goes, "I'm so sorry." She goes, "I've already called another company." And I go, "Completely understand. Do you mind me if I ask you the name of the company?" It was like ABC Garage Doors, whatever. And I go, "Great company. They do great work. Do you mind if I ask you what they're charging to come out?" She's like, "They they they they were only charging 99 bucks." And I said, "Well, listen. If I could wave that $99 and I get my guy there in less than an hour, would you do business with us?"

She goes, "Tommy, I love your energy and you're just you're you're trying to earn my business, but she goes, "Unfortunately, I just I've already booked with them. I'm going to keep it." I go, "Well, you just gave me the name, so I'm just going to call them and cancel for you." And my guy will be there in 45 minutes. And she starts laughing and she goes, "Damn, you're persistent." And she goes, "Let me call you right back." And I'm sitting there, the whole call center staring at me. I pick up the phone. I go, "Hey there, Miss Smith." She goes, "I canceled them.

You got the job." And I got to tell you, I felt like a billion bucks. That moment I was like I was like, I backed myself up. But you reminded me of that because

I'm gonna call them. What was that? Cancel the appointment for you. cuz I got the name and I'm like I'll just I understand that there's like people don't want to do that. So I was like let me remove the obstacle in your way. Let me handle that for you. This is a I'm going to white glove red carpet service for this. I we're going to take care of you. Technician calls me up and goes this lady's happy as hell, man. This is going to be a home run. And he he did a great job. I, by the way, one thing I I'll tell you is I started focusing on the top 20% of my people and building them instead of the bottom 20%. I started to see how far can I take these guys. So, every night I make two phone calls. I'm in three different things.

I'm in lace.ai, I'm in service titb. And I call two technicians and I dare them to try something new. And I work with them and I ask them what's going on out there. Try this, do this, let's work on this together. And man, what I realized is the ceiling expands dramatically and shows everyone else that it's possible. And plus, it's it's feeding me. Like, I'm talking to people that are optimistic dreamers that want to go further. Most people are like, "Man, they're winning. Leave them alone." I'm like, "Let's see how far we could bring these guys." I don't know if you've ever experienced most companies are like, "How do I bring the bottom up?" I'm like, "How do I bring the top up?"

Well, I love it that you even said that because I don't think most companies are even worried about the the bottom 20%. Most companies are so busy just trying to keep the wheels from falling off. Like, are they actually calling anyone on a nightly basis? Are they actually training anyone on a weekly basis? Like, most aren't even doing that. So, I think number one, it starts with being intentional on, you know, like your people are your people. Um, I learned this from Dan Plata. He's one of our coaches. He's got his he's got his own business as well, but Dan taught me this because I'm so focused on sales. I'm so focused on the client and helping, you know, like let's make sure we're charging a premium price and getting high quality leads and closing deals.

Like that's that's my expertise. And and so I'm like lifetime value of the client, all this stuff. Well, he he goes, "How much is a how much is a lifetime value of a team member?" And I was like, "Wow, that's huge." Because like let's say you have like a million dollar revenue business and you got, you know, five team members. Well, you're for for that year, just just that 12 months, they're worth $200,000 in revenue to you. $200,000 over 12 month period. That's how how much they're worth, right? Well, an average landscape lighting client, like an average job's like 10 $15,000. And then, you know, they might do their like backyard later and maybe their lakehouse and they might refer someone to you. So, like the average lifetime value, let's just say on a high-end for landscape lighting is $100,000. That's the lifetime value.

Whereas the the annual value of a team member is $200,000. So, why are we not giving more attention? Why are we not training? Why are we not doing those check-ins? And most people aren't. Most people are just worried about the client and they forget about the team. They forget about the team that's actually making this dream possible. So, I love I love it. And I actually have never focused on the top like you said. I think I'm I probably fall to the bottom where I'm like, man, what can we do to get these guys more motivated, right? But I love the fact that you're taking the time to one-on-one like, "Hey, I'm going to call these guys and spend a few minutes with them and you can rotate that through.

So, you can actually talk to everybody over a period of a month or a quarter." And the deal is it it fills up my tank, man. It fills up my tank. They talk about the big wins. I started, interestingly enough, well, I was just going to mention the law of the lid. As you grow your top people, the lid grows and the company grows. Especially when you're doing it to yourself, self-love. But, um, I started a zero line. I called my COO up. I'm like, "Dude, I used to be the zero line guy. Everyone had to call me. This is like 2012."

And I'm like, "I think we need to do it again." He goes, "I like the idea. Give me a month. I'm going to put systems around it. You check off everything." thing and I made a lot of changes but he systematized it and we started this thing up about a month ago and uh 52% conversion average ticket of 843 and even my top guys are like do I have to call this line? I'm like you especially have to call because everyone's going to follow your lead. And they didn't believe in it at first and I trained them exactly how to close.

And there's something about the psychology of calling. Hey, listen. let me call my boss and see what I could do for you. And so we call the the guy Dean's the best closer. He's worked for me for 14 years. He goes, "Hey, how are you?" And we know what's going on in the garage. We have a little debrief called. Then they call in front of the customer on speaker phone and they go, "Hey, Miss Jones. How are you today? My name's Dean. I I'm sitting here at the office and uh we're here trying to earn your business and I want to tell you something about the individual in your garage. His name's Tommy. Tommy's one of the best dads I know. And we know they know all these things, right? A great dad, great husband, great player, like he's he's the MVP of this company. You you should be feel lucky to have him in your garage. So, we brag about the technician. Then we brag about the company, why we work here, why this

investment makes sense. And then I always add things to the ticket. You know, the bottom rubber's failing. That's why all the bugs are coming in. Let us fix everything, right? Instead of discounting it, cuz usually it's a money thing. I mean, 99% of the time they're just like, well, I'm not sure. So, what if we were able to do this, this, this, this? Normally, that would be 1,200. If I got you down to 900, would that make sense? I'm giving you $300 off. But actually, I added to the ticket. And for the first time in the last two years,

our budgeted conversion rate is overbudget. And we're saving hundreds of thousand dollars a week

and we're just this is a pilot program that's only going to get better. Yeah. Now you can raise the lid. I know when I one of the positions I was scared to to I mean I started building my business now we had an admin then it was like okay I was the sales guy and most most entrepreneurs when they start their business they they do the sales and then I was like well man no one's going to be able to sell as good as me like I'm the owner and and people and what's what's crazy is I used to believe the lie the lie is the homeowners would be like well we just we like why'd you go with us well we like you you're the owner it's cool that you're hands on and so you start to believe that like because you're the owner that's what got you the deal right and the strategy that you just mentioned works worked out was was genius because that's what we did. So I would tell them like if someone wants a deal, you can't you don't have the

authority to give a deal. Like you gave them your best price and you can tell them that because that is your best price. Now if they want to work something out, you can tell them you got to call me. I got to call the big boss man. Let me see what we can do for you. We want her in your business. And they appreciate that cuz I've had people at my house where I need a repair. I need something done. And I'm like, I'll tell you what, you know, if you can knock off 500 bucks, knock off a thousand, I'll do it. And I'm not doing it because I don't have the money. I'm not asking for a deal because I'm like, well, if not, my kids got to eat ramen and we got to wash the diapers out in the sink. Like, I'm just asking for a deal because I like to negotiate, right? And I actually get turned off when they're like, "Yeah, we could do that for you." I'm like, "What?

You were just going to rip me off? Like, are you serious? Like, you can't just knock off $500, $1,000. like you need to help people work for it. Like that when you when they call the guy at the office and they do all that like they're working for it so they feel like they they've earned it, right? So the number one answer should be like, "I'm sorry. I can't do that for you." Right? We we want to earn your business, but I've led with my best price. I personally can't do anything for you. Now, maybe there's something that we can do. But yeah, when people just immediately drop their price like that, that's disingenuous. And here's one thing I say.

I'll say, "Listen, if we're really going to do this for this, this is not something we typically do, but in return, I need something from you. I need you to go on, are you a part of Yelp? Do you have a Gmail account? And are you on Next Door?" So, if we do this, do we agree that you'll do this for me? Because your time is worth money. So, if you're willing to do this for me and take the time, I I will then in return be able to do this at this investment for you.

I love it. We do the same thing. If if we do this, we need a fivestar review. We need a video testimonial. We need you to post on your next door or local Facebook group how awesome we are. We'll get you a picture of before and after pictures. If you can post those, let us put out a yard sign. Then I think we can we can put this toward our marketing budget. I like

you get a lot of money from the local Facebook groups. Does that has that worked out well? It probably does great in lighting.

Uh it's uh for me there there's there's no such thing as a home run or a grand slam with landscape lighting. I call it the marketing mix and you got to be everywhere. You got to you got to you got to have your branding out there. You got to do all the you do all these small things like put the yard sign out, put the door hanger out, get everyone to post on next door, then yes, it does very well. But if someone just does one next door post or a Facebook group post, then no, you're just you're just not going to get much traction out of it.

But when you're constantly the go-to name coming up in these groups and you're con constantly seeing your brand, then yes, it all works very very well together.

Let me let me run an idea by you that I just came up with in my head for landscape lighting. So, what if you had somebody during Christmas and you went through affluent neighborhoods and you just looked at top-of-the-line lighting and you wrote down the address and their whole job was four hours a night. They just looked for knockout lighting and then you ran that again against a list and I could buy this data that I could see that they donated $10,000. I know how much of their house they paid off. I know their credit card rating. So, you filter that list. Wouldn't you have one of the most affluent avatars possible?

Especially if you gave it to them and said, "This permanent lighting is going to save you this much over time and this is how much it costs per month." And now you could have Fourth of July, you could have Valentine's Day, you could do some cool stuff for thanksgiving and obviously Christmas. Like I'm just try I I like to have a a rifle rather than a shotgun. And I don't know, I agree with you. You got to be everywhere. Omni approach, but have you learned anything that allows you to be more of a of a rifle with a scope approach or not?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I I've never done that what you're talking about. Um, I think it's I I think it would work. It's just a matter of like where where does that fit in the in terms of priority? Like, do you want to do that or something else or can you do both? Like, can can you be can you do all these things? So my rifle versus shotgun approach is actually through our referral partner system. So like to what you talked about like not only just going to the nice neighborhood like where hey these are all $2 million homes but which ones actually paid for professional holiday lighting that obviously you know is a sub uh subm market of that nice neighborhood. Well, what we do with the referral partner network is similar to like your, you know, dream 100 list you're talking about is like who's the ideal client?

Like who is actually going to pay for professionally designed and installed landscape lighting? Well, when you think about it, it's typically people who have a custom home. It's usually someone who lives in a million or$2 million home and up. It's typically someone who invests in a home audio system like AV, right? Home automation. someone who hires an interior designer. Like, poor people don't hire interior designers. Poor people don't hire AV companies. They don't even know what they are, right? Um, artificial turf in certain areas.

Artificial turf in some areas is not is not as good. But those trades alone, high-end realtors, they already have a relationship with your ideal client. And so, what we do is we approach them and we say, "Hey, listen." We get asked from time to time, in fact, well, we we actually go back even one step. We go to our existing clients. Let's say I just finished up a job. Nice homeowner. We have a good relationship. They're loving what we do because we just turned on the lights. We changed their life. They're like, "Man, this is amazing. We love you guys. Hey, would you mind helping us grow our business?" No, absolutely. What is it? All we want to do is get introduced. Your your living room looks like it deserves to be on the cover of Interior Designer magazine. Like, who does your interior design? It's phenomenal. Who did your pool? Like, we want to connect with these people. Then we call those people. Hey, Mrs. Smith

referred us. She thought it would be a good idea if we connected. I'd love to be able to refer you. In fact, we get asked from time to time if we know a good pool builder. If we know a good AV company, we'd love to be able to refer you. When can we meet? I'd love to come over next Tuesday, Thursday, at your office, lunch, wherever, job site. I want to get to know you and see how best to be able to refer you. That right there is a a a rifle strategy that brings in high ticket jobs. You're not giving quotes. These people don't want three, four people coming over to in their in their property. They just want trusted people. So, you're going right to the front of the line. Um they they really they don't care how much it is.

They just want to know when you can do it. You know, this is something where it's exactly like you said is I've made this note now a dozen times. I know exactly who to call. I know exactly how to run these. And the problem is this is one that I need to own and do myself. And and it's a ruthlessly prioritizes where I'm living in life right now. And I'm like, man, I'm like and we've got I think there's 263 projects on the board. And it's my project managers knows the north star. What's going to get us to where we want to go the fastest? And what I've learned is saying no. and I see money everywhere and instead of just launching it, I develop a system that's scalable because I can make this work in Phoenix like this, but how do I make a system and be able to train somebody and have checks and balances in place where the ROI is massive? And I'll give you an example.

Like, we don't do mini splits in the garage, but I bought a pool table for 10 grand for my dad and his happens to be in the house, but a lot of people use their garage just like the exercise equipment. Like if I had those and we could do a mini split, I could negotiate that in every market. Mini split and an insulated door and we redo your flooring. Now I don't do two out of those three, but I could I could get this wholesale price because they don't have to market or do sales commission or anything. I'm selling it for you.

And man, I could bang out hundreds of those a month per market. It's just systematizing it. Now I got to rely on their work though. Now, I need to know that you're going to show up and before we collect and there's a lot of coordination and these things sound so easy for a visionary. The problem is the integrator is going, "Well, what about this, this, this, and this? What happens if they screw up? What happens if the floor pills? They're calling us.

There's a lot of things that go on, right?" So, I start whiteboarding and thinking about all the different things that could go wrong and uh there's obviously a lot of things that could go wrong, but it's getting great partners that do what they say they're going to do that fulfill the project and they care about the client and uh that there's a whole unlock there. There's a massive opportunity and it's interesting that you made that work. Yeah, it it takes a the hardest part is getting started because you have to prioritize it. Like you could go and drive around and get the addresses and do all that and build a list. You could go do this. You could I mean we have we have so many things to you know captivate our attention. So, it just it's a matter of like there was a time where I learned how to time block and I was like I would go from like technician to now I'm the salesperson to now I'm

the whatever maintenance and I just let let everyone dictate my schedule. But then then there came a time where I'm only going to run sales appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm only going to do these activities at this day and time. And so I think if you want to launch an initiative like that, it literally is getting intentional to say, "All right, the next six Tuesdays from like 1 to 4, the only thing I'm doing is locking myself in this room. I'm telling my girlfriend, my spouse, my whoever, like I'm not available. I'm literally putting my phone on do not disturb."

Like no one's allowed to get a hold of me unless like someone is dying. Like do not knock on this door. Do not call me. And I'm going to do this thing. When you get serious like that, it actually is pretty easy. That's how I launched Landscape Lighting Secrets. Like I People are like, "How'd you do that?" I'm like, "It didn't take that long. It took me like three weeks, but I was locked in this room for like 14 hours a day." And then I'd come out and like get a drink and yell at my kids for being too loud because I'm like, I'm trying to record in here. Like, what's going on?

You know, but like it takes that much focus and that much that much intention. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you've seen all these P&Ls, man, and I agree, raise your prices. What I've noticed, which is really weird for me, is I'm either loved in my industry and people are like, "Man, follow that guy's lead. He'll share everything." Or I'm despised. How could somebody charge that much? Even though they don't know, I have an option for clients that's less than anybody. I have an option that's way better. Just like if you buy tires on your car, get a roof or decide you want a Jaguar instead of a a Honda, you know. But there's a lot of stuff on social media that actually charging the right price to make a profit is despised. Why everybody in there is making a living working out of their house. They say, "Man, that guy takes advantage of people, little old ladies." And I hear and they don't know me. They never met me. They don't know behind the scenes. They don't know. They It's amazing that losers just they have

so much time to complain. um and point the finger. I never once talked about any other company like internally. Yeah, we have some conversation but I don't feel any better going and

it doesn't it doesn't make you look any better. Why are those people Where do you think they're coming from to just sit there and just that being at the top has consequences? And I know people are like, "Man, that company, man, they drive their brand new trucks and their polished training and they show up and then they they wham bam. They sell stuff people don't need." I'm like, "Yeah, we sell stuff people don't need all the time because they wanted it." Nobody needs full-time lighting in their home. They wanted it.

Well, it's both. I might fight you on that one, but I I think I do know why the haters are haters. And and it and this is why it's hard for someone to elevate outside of like where where your current circumstances because as soon as you start elevating and as soon as you start doing something that's different outside of your regular circle, like your friends, your family, they'll despise you too because you're not who you used to be. You used to not be so money driven. You used to not be this. You not Yeah, I know. I used to not be like that. Right. And it's much easier, in my opinion, I think this is how they feel psychologically. It's much easier for them to reach out and pull back. If they can hold you back, that's that's less effort than them actually ascending themselves. I think it's just way easier to talk trash and try to pull you back because that's like, dude, I can just send out some texts and hopefully get in

your head and whatever. Like, if I can just hold you back, then you're not going to go as far away from me. So now I'm not as uncomfortable going, man, what's wrong with me? like why am I not why am I not doing the stuff that Tommy's talking about, right? Because that's uncomfortable. So, it's just easier for them to hold you back than them elevate themselves.

I always tell my guys, man, you're going to have to change your circle. But somebody in Vegas two years ago said, I feel like you're in a time machine, bro. How are you elevating so quickly? I'm like, well, every time I'm at the top of this mountain, I see another mountain that's higher. And I just go down to base camp and say, who could go to this mountain to the top way quicker because you've been through this mountain? Success leaves clues. And I'm like, but I just I don't care if people say no. I'm not afraid of rejection. What I always say is when your when your dad or uncle or grandpa used to tell you, I wish I knew then what I know now. All they were saying is be comfortable in your own skin and don't be afraid of rejection. If someone says no, don't hate yourself. That's just the way you feel about yourself. I stop I got rid of that a long time ago. Like look, I'm going to ask the best of the best. I'm

going to come with a point of uh being super humble and what's in it for them and how do I help them? And I always talk about these people on stages and they go, "This guy's a doer. I'm going to continue to feed him." And that's it. That's the that that's the that's the biggest secret for me is somebody's out there, either a book, a speaker, a consultant that'll just guide me quicker to the top. So, I always work with at least three to four consultants. You know, there was an activity that helped me with pricing because if I'm being honest, like I growing up, I I thought like you were, you know, I'm in Utah. This is a very religious community. And growing up, I thought that if like you bought a boat, you were kind of a bad person because why did why wouldn't you donate that money to charity? No one said that. Like, no one said that in church. But that's what I felt, right? It's just this this culture

that exists. And so, you open your business and you're like, you start feeling guilty like, well, I got some extra money, whatever. Should I charge that old lady whatever? I'll just give her a deal. Well, there became a time in my business where I was like, "Damn it, dude. I cannot figure this out. Like, I'm selling a lot of lights and I'm collecting a lot of cash, but there is none left at the end." And then and these other guys, they're so much bigger and and how do how do these companies do it? And I realized I I don't remember why I had this epiphany, but I had this epiphany that sounds so simple now, but you have to start you have to charge enough to to act like the company that you want to be instead of the business you are today. And so all I did was I start I took out a spreadsheet and started putting all my expenses down.

And someone probably asked me the question, I didn't know the answer like what's your daily overhead or something like that, right? What does it cost you? What's your burn rate? I'm like I don't know what that is. So I made a spreadsheet. I just started putting all my expenses. This one was monthly, times it by 12. This one's quarterly, times it by four. This one happens once, that's one time. But all my expenses, what's it going to cost me to wake up? And it was like I can't remember what the total number was, but then I divided by the number of working days because we don't have 365 days to work. And there was rain days and there was days where like we didn't sell a job.

There's PO days, there's drive time, there's a lot of factors. Yep. Yes. And I realized our total number of working days was like 220 two only 220 working days at the time. Like and in some markets it's actually even less than that. If you're installing outdoor lighting in like Wisconsin you don't have 220 days to work the ground freezes, right? So I did the number. The number was $2,500 a day that it cost me that time at the moment. This wasn't even about my dream business and I wasn't even paying myself that much. I mean, I think I was paying myself like 60, 80 grand a year at the time. But, of course, I wanted to make more than that. Of course, I wanted to hire more people. So, this is what changed everything. I plugged in the numbers of what it was going to cost to to hire another salesperson, what it was going to cost to hire an ops manager.

What it was going to cost to get two more trucks, to wrap them, to do all this stuff. I've got to I've got equipment replacement costs. Yeah, I own the drill today, but what's it going to cost when the guy drops it out of a tree tomorrow? You know, what what are these things? And I and I calculated what my dream business would cost. And it almost doubled. I mean, it was like not quite double, but it was like 3500, $4,000 a day to operate that business. Now, all of a sudden, I didn't feel guilty. I was like, "Yeah, I have to charge these prices because I can't I can't I'll never be able to afford to grow into the person and the company I need to be able to afford if I'm not charging these prices." And it helped me at least from a um I guess, you know, again, before I would be like, "Well, what am I going to do with all this extra money? I feel guilty. I'll just give it away, right?"

But now I realized, oh, I need this to be able to afford to grow into the business I need. It it made it made sense logically to me at that point.

That's a really impactful thing. It's a break even calculator and very few people know how to do that. A good CFO would do that in a heartbeat. But most people are going to bookkeepers, a fractional bookkeeper at best. It's just they don't have any really knowledge of pricing and conversion rates and and follow-up systems. And so I think that's the biggest mistake that I had is once I got the FPNA team, the right controller, the right CFO, all of a sudden, and here's the deal, Ryan. I used to go into rooms and say, "Dude, I'm doing 120 million." And that was my mentality. I'd literally look at people and be like, "Dude, I'm the revenue king." And when the conversation changed, when everything changed for me is when I only brought up IBIDA. When you walk in and you got pride about revenue, that's a mistake. If I ever fell below 10%, I focused on raising the bottom. And what I learned with private equity is you

could do both. You could raise revenue and raise profit. And I thought that wasn't possible. That's like getting more muscular and getting ripped at the same time. How could you do that? And then I realized,

yeah, it works. How do you How do you feel about So I'm I'm a big profit guy. That's that's really all that matters. But I've also learned that there's different phases where there's times where you want to be like, "Yeah, I'm making 30%." But there's growth phases where you're like, you know, I'm going to reinvest this back into growth. And and and how do you feel? Like, are you okay making 10%, 5%, maybe even nothing for a year because you've reinvested that back into people. You're not going to want to show that to private equity that year. But if it's part of a a bigger plan to make less money on paper so that you can invest in your growth, how do you feel about that?

Well, here's what I would tell you. Number one, let's say I wanted to take market share of a market. Let's say for example, we expanded into Atlanta and I want to take market share. What they'd want to see, what my CFO would want to see is, are we budgeting correctly? If we're going to spend 20% in this market, what does that mean after month three, month 6, month 9, month 12? I'm not going to do that in every market. I got to have some type of a a system and an expected result instead of spraying and praying and guessing. Number two,

yeah, is when you get the right CFO, they understand that when I do a green field market, the first 18 months are adbacks. So although I my my profit or IBIDA percentage went down, at the end of the year when we add it back, it's still very healthy. So understanding the financial side of things and how this mechanisms work

and and for me I'm like I mean we got 52 brand new guys here this month. 50 coming in next month, 50 coming in the month after.

You know how expensive it is to train a guy, give them the tools, get in a brand new vehicle for them,

have an apartment for them. And then I learned years ago that KFC is opening a store every 11 hours.

And all of a sudden my northstar changed and I'm like, how do I open a market every 11 hours? Oh,

and all of a sudden you start dreaming way bigger and you start saying how instead of saying can I open up can I can I open up a market a year you say how do I open up one every 11 hours and it starts changing the way you think way outside of the box

but yeah there are investments into the company but I don't believe that your bottom line needs to shrink ever below 20% now I mean for me I'm going to dump a fortune into marketing in 2027 but I've already got a way to get it all back because if I sell one mini split every 20 doors I go into. That pays to get me to the 20% which obviously shrinks because revenue goes up. But I've got to find a way to continue to stay uber profitable because when you get invested with private equity, they got to report to the uh the school municipality funds of all these teachers that invested in and they want to know what the health is of their the company they invested in. So I believe I was just like what you said 5 years ago. Got to invest in growth this year. And then I realized and there's no money left over which actually lowers your taxes and a CPA would tell you that but that's a big mistake. Healthy money. I mean

right now we've got $50 million in our account which is the most we've ever had. We're buying a company paying straight out of the account. I mean literally like I feel so confident

and it's like man I didn't know there was a better way till I invited them in and they told me. So

that's so cool. Well, that that's this is actually one of the reasons why I'm such a stickler on pricing is because yeah, I I I I do think that there's times where you're going to make a little bit less, a little bit more, whatever. But like here's what's cool about pricing. You get to apply leverage. And let's just say that you spent some money on on on advertising and hadn't got quite your return yet. So now your your net's down to 10%. Well, there's a real easy way to get back up to that 20 points. And it's literally you can double your profit with just a 10% price increase. Because that 10% price increase, that's just magic. Like you don't have to hire me. You don't have to hire Tommy. You don't you don't have to spend any more money on growth.

You're not going to buy another truck. You literally are just going to do a small 10% price increase. It goes straight to the bottom line. And so you just doubled your profits in one.

As long as it doesn't hurt, people aren't going to notice. Well, that's that leads me to like that's when you need to dial in your sales process, you know, and we have a system for that to make sure that not only if it hurt your conversion rate, then obviously you you could potentially make less profit, but you can actually afford you can afford to lose up to like 20% of your clients with a 10% price increase and make the exact same amount of money,

right? Imagine that. So now you get 20% of your day back, your week back, which is Fridays. So, if you want to make the exact same amount of money and just take Fridays off, go ahead. You can do that.

We've created a line that we're testing in one market where you've got to call into the data integrity team which makes sure we're getting this massive checklist. Do they got a mini split? Do they got their floors done? How does their front door look? We're also looking for our sticker placement. We're making sure we weigh the door, the forms are all filled out correctly. And the last thing is we want to talk to the client to make sure you had a great experience with Ryan. We gave you five out of five service and we want because here's the deal. I want the client to tell me, "No, I feel like I spent way too much money." It's going to go over to Vincent's team. Vincent's going to figure out how to make that client happy. Even if it means giving a discount, adding parts, whatever it is.

Maybe we we dragged grease through their carpet. We'll get them a free carpet cleaning. We'll pay for a company to come. Whatever it is, we're going to make you a raving fan before we leave. And then we get the review and we verify the review there. and we're actually writing the review based on the experience and texting it to them and we're not going to leave until we get that review.

And so, so some of these things and there's a lot of operational things that go into this, but I it's crazy because number one, what's happening? A one-star review is prevented. Number two, conversion rates go up. Number three, the AI bots and the reputation stay flawless. I mean people are like how would you even get started with that and systematizing it and that's where we win is we take the time we test we we we break it a 100 times and by the time you're thinking about it we're already deployed in every market and that's just this huge and let's say it costs 15 I had to pay 15 full-time people 75 grand a year the deal is if I just teach these people to say one thing how about a surge protector and a deco hardware kit for an extra 80 bucks, but we'll do it for 50 because we're already there. And that makes me $30 profit per house and 90% conversion rate. $30 on 25,000 jobs is $750,000 profit.

750K. Yeah. A month. So, I always figure out a way to pay for that stuff. And it's then I guess what? I could pay a piece of that to every one of these data integrity teams. say, "Hey, Miss Jones, by the way, as a valued client, you spent more than $1,000. We'd like to do this for 30 bucks or 40 bucks. It's normally a hundred." And they might make $5 on each one. So, these things build checks and balances. The systems being inspected. And I'm just, dude, I I I could sit here on this podcast because you're really easy to talk to. You got a lot of experience. I just This stuff just gets me going, man. Like I literally look at my business and I'm like sometimes I pinch myself and say how proud I am, but most of the time I'm like there's just cash sitting in every corner.

I asked my top technician, I said, "What if I just gave you jobs of other technicians that that are no longer here that just didn't really offer the client everything?" And he said to me two nights ago, I took him to stake 44. He goes, "I will run only those jobs. Just give me only those jobs. My database has 1.7 million people in it. If we get good at isolating the jobs that have real potential,

I could keep a hundred guys busy. I've already predicted I could add $7 million a month just with my database.

That's insane. And it's just another thing where they go, "Great, Tommy's got another idea." I'm like, "Well, let me just test it myself. Why don't I just call customers?" And what I try to do is say, "Look, this has got validity. Let's work. Let's put it somewhere on the priority list." and I ask who could I hire as a 1099 project base to get this going where I don't interfere with my team because my team's already maxed out. So if I say, man, I could hire a consultant to come in here, build this program, do the heavy lifting, and now it's incorporated. And I think that that most people do not have the bandwidth.

So you got to say, can I go on Upwork? Can I go on Fiverr? Can I hire a consultant? I got a consultant coming on for 40 grand a month next month. And it's a fart in the wind for what I think they're going to be able to do. I got million questions, but I got to wrap up here, too. Um, if I gave you a 100 leads a day, could you close them? Uh, that's one of my questions is like, do you have the systems to be able to handle the booking, the conversion rate? I mean, how do you build for capacity?

I don't think most companies are going to build like most landscape lighting companies are not going to be able to handle 100, you know, 100 leads. the the the the I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but the thing I love about the landscape lighting industry, it's a it's a bunch of young hustlers. They they were trying to figure it out. They're they're artists, you know, they they they didn't get into landscape lighting because they're good at business. They're good at landscape lighting. They're good at design. They they love it. Like they truly truly love it. They have so much passion there. Um and so there's not a lot of big businesses. I mean the the the largest landscape lighting c company in the country separate from a franchise there's franchises with you know 50 70 locations whatever but the largest one is probably5$10 million you know there's not this massive company so they don't

have the infrastructure they definitely don't have the infrastructure for it so um they're they're worried less about like what am I going to do with this 100 leads they're worried more about how am I going to get 100 leads this month this quarter you know what I mean so I don't know if I'm the best person to ask that question. But for me, I would say, well, yeah, you just need to reverse engineer the problem. You need to say, well, how many how many how many how many phone calls is that going to be? How many how many CSRs are you going to need? Like, who's going to be able to handle this?

Are we going to be able to do we have enough technicians? Like, how how many can how many lights can we install in a day? And everyone's capacity is different. I've got clients that, you know, you Johnny can do like 25 30 grand in a day. I've got other clients that struggle to do $10,000 in revenue a day. So, it just depends on your market, depends on your training, it depends on your pricing. Some people are literally double the price of others. So, obviously, their capacity is going to appear higher. Um, so there's a lot lot to it, but I think it's just reverse engineer the the actual problem and figure out the solution. You know, I'll tell you something about Johnny and I'll tell you something about every business I get involved in is they're not ready for what I have to say. A lot of times I need to let them fail. And it sounds like I'm neglecting them. What I've realized is I'm invested

in a floor company and these guys, they're doing really well. They're doing over a million a month, month 10, but they don't they still haven't made enough mistakes. I want them coming to me begging me that everything I tell them. So, I let them kind of not fail, but I let them fall forward.

And yeah, I've just Johnny was one of those guys that was like, and I didn't have all the answers in that industry, but I told him we need to double prices. We did. We lost 40% of the clients. We got 120% revenue,

but Johnny was dealing with a lot. And he was building like the hiring processes and I'm like, "Record every time you go to a light." And he's So, he started doing some of the stuff. But I think now when I get into business, they're like,

"We're going to listen to you cuz I bring evidence. I bring facts. I do the FPNA team and I work through these problems." Before I just was more speculative, like, "Here's what we need to do based on what I see." Now I'm like,

"This is what needs to happen." And if they do what I tell them to do and they start hiring talent that's beyond them, the company just grows, grows, grows, grows, grows. I mean, and I'm very proud of Johnny. I know they're they're both taking home over a half a million a year. They're building enterprise value and they and I got to tell you, Johnny's the happiest he's ever been and Brit is amazing and their their relationship is never better. They love each other. They spend a lot of time going on vacations and they've got a great business, but that took years to get to and it took a lot of failure. And so I love seeing who Johnny became.

They're great people. Yeah, they are. I know. I do too. Um, and and to your point, like I think the I can't remember the exact phrase, but it's like the this the teacher will appear when the student's ready or something. And that's when I start licking my chops, too, because people will join our program and I'm like, I'm so excited. Like the initial phone call I'm talking to, I'm like, man, you are ready. Like the stuff you're talking about, we can help you with. And then all of a sudden, they're a little bit more resistant. They they're like, well, I don't know if I can do that. And I'm like, no, like this isn't like my opinion at this point.

This is science. Like again, I have like data like this is this is what you need to do and they're just still a little resistant and they do have to get to that point where it's like all right like I'm open. Just tell me what to do. I'll do anything. Those are always our most successful client.

I see this all the time on Facebook and I happen to know almost everybody in HVAC, plumbing, electrical. I know almost every consultant out there. I don't know the lighting industry as well, but do you ever go on social media LinkedIn Facebook Instagram and you might see a guru of your space that you know has gone bankrupt? You see somebody that they're just they're saying they're they're they're they're driving around in a nice car. You know, they're leasing their house and they might have a Rolex. Um, and everybody's kind of following them and I I kind of keep my mouth shut. I there's a like Ishmail will call out everybody, but what are your thoughts when you see that and you know that there's great people that are going to these people for advice and you know the backstory? You know, you might have looked at their deal where they said, "Yeah, we're doing 10 million a year, but they're bringing

home 40,000." I mean, is that is that prevalent in your space and do you see that?

It's Well, let me let me say this and I joke around. I tell people, "Guys, I don't know if you know this, but I'm the host of the number one landscape lighting podcast in the world." And then they're like, "Wow." I'm like, "No, I'm not that big of a douche." It's the only landscape lighting podcast in the world. So, I'm I'm number one of one. Um there's not there's not a lot of people doing this in my space. So, like I'll approach people and they're like, "What what's a coach? Like, you're a coach, you're a scam." Like they they just don't know that, right? So, where where I do see that happening, it isn't so much with people trying to be gurus or anything like that. I see it where people just in general are giving bad bad advice in these Facebook groups.

They'll go on and someone will ask a really good question and they'll say, "This is what you need to do." And I'm like, "Hold on. I think we should have something that like present your resume, present where you're coming from, because that is just terrible advice." Like if you want to stay small and do be a one-man operation the rest of your life and never make money and never have financial freedom and never have time freedom, that's probably decent advice, but like that's not the right answer. So it's sad when I see that and probably there's like 50% of of of the responses out there just bad bad advice. They have no idea. They're like, "Man, thanks so much. I appreciate that." I'm like I want to DM them and say, "Don't listen to that dude." Like that's terrible.

That's that's going to put you in a bad spot. And I don't I don't do that. I don't have time for that. But I do see people giving bad advice and it is what it is. Which it drives me to like constantly put out good content. Like I I do my podcast. I do daily stuff on social media. I'm like, "Okay, the only way I can really fight back is just make sure people do have access to really good advice." I I get in these groups and I'll be like out of the out of the top 500 companies in the world, 498 of them lease to own their vehicles. Amazon leases to own, Red Cross leases to own, largest companies lease to own. And when you really can unpack that, you understand how much depreciation, the employee morale, the image of the brand and the community. And just the fact of the the total investment into repairs is far less than owning them and driving them to the wheels fall off. And you always get people that are like, I

own all my stuff. They're paid outright. And then you look at their fleet and and they just have no idea what they're talking about. They're listening to their CPA. I just had a podcast I did last week about fleets and why it makes sense and what to ask your CFO and your controller and your your CPA about. And it just is a better thing to do this. It costs way less and you turn in the vehicle before it hits 100,000 miles or less than 5 years, but you own it at the end so you get all the depreciation. And there's so many people that just don't get it because you know what I used to do? I used to buy $2,000 Dakotas and wrap them and I had two full-time mechanics and I thought I was like, "Man, you're an idiot. You're paying 1,500 bucks a month for this lease. I'm buying a vehicle outright. It looks great because I wrapped it and detailed it. And then I realized, man, I'm doing transmissions and engines. My guys are

breaking down. I'm missing capacity. The the client sees that it's a 2002 Dodge Dakota. And now we come and I couldn't hold the parts correctly. And I go to Harbor Freight to buy the the roof rack thinking I'm getting the best deal. I used to wait for those coupons to come out, get 30% off of the cheapest price already. Now I'm like, man, I was focused on all the wrong things.

Yeah. I I had advice from a company. It was a client who owned a big leasing company. And you know, I like to I like to be reciprocal like, "Hey, you're doing business with us. Let's do business with you." And that's when I learned about leasing. I didn't know. I would try to buy the cheap stuff, too. But yeah, so many advantages from a tax standpoint, financial, but also it just feels good for like your team member to be driving around in a nice vehicle that's well kept and well wrapped and your clients So good.

What are some of the books that you've read recently that have just changed the way you look at life or business?

Well, um, you know, buy back your time was huge for me, you know, and that that's been, I guess, you know, 18 months or something like that since I've read that. But, um, I I review a lot of books. I think some of the ones that just come to my mind that have really had huge impact. The very first one that had the biggest impact was a mentor of mine. He's uh he's the owner of Guard Light, a manufacturing lighting manufacturing company. And he it was one day he was asking me about my sales process and asking me I'm like I have no idea. What do you mean? I don't have answers to your questions. And it kind of made me mad because I thought I knew what I was doing. And it and it felt I felt bad, right? But he goes, "Hey, have you done E-Myth?" And he hands me these CDs. They were on CD. There's like f I think I have them right here in my desk.

Five CDs. And I'm listening to them in my truck as I'm driving around growing my lighting business. And uh I I that was you know and I know you've talked about ETH and Michael Garber and stuff like that but um that changed my thinking. I knew at that it gave me freedom to to be okay that like I don't have to be an awesome manager. Like I can be an entrepreneur. I can hire an awesome manager. You know I thought being an entrepreneur was like you have to be a good technician. You have to be a good manager. You have to be good at everything. That gave me so much power and freedom to be who I want. So ETH then I came across traction. I already told you that my my buddy handd delivered the book traction to me. And then uh buy back your time is good. Uh be your future self by Benjamin Hardy.

Basically anything he puts out is gold. But be your future self. A huge impact.

I've got my libraries. I I buy 15 20 books a week. Two of them come in the mail from somebody. And unfortunately my shelf is full of a lot of unread books now. There was one time where I'd read most of them on my shelves, but uh I I just way too much. Um

yeah, man. Well, listen, we we had a great podcast here. I really enjoy your time. Maybe we didn't talk about something. I I'll I'll leave you the last opportunity to tell the audience maybe. Anything final thoughts on your mind?

No. Check out the podcast, Lighting for Profits. If you guys do want to bolt on a high ticket awesome industry, check out Landscape Lighting. Um, I've got lighting academy that can help you get started with design and install all that. But, you know, more than anything, my message to people is just like, uh, my my favorite quote of all time is from Henry Ford. And he says, whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right. And it is all about that, guys. If you believe that you can't, and you're like, I don't know, Tommy's just I can't do that. Then you can't. Like, you're totally right. If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't. And I did my own little variation to that is believing that you can is way more profitable than believing that you can't. So, I'll leave you with that.

I love it. Thank you so much, brother. Appreciate you, dude. That was a lot of fun. Thanks again for having me on. Really appreciate it.

All right. Now, everybody listening, go leave me your review. Thanks bud.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Power of Mindset in Entrepreneurship with Ryan Lee"?

Tommy Mello (Host), Ryan Lee (Guest), Dan Martell (Guest), Luke (Guest), Vincent (Guest), Johnny (Guest), Brit (Guest), Ishmail (Guest).

What is "The Power of Mindset in Entrepreneurship with Ryan Lee" about?

Ryan Lee, a successful entrepreneur and business coach from Utah, emphasizes the critical role of mindset in entrepreneurship, particularly for contractors who often struggle with pricing and sales rather than technical skills. He shares insights from his extensive experience in building multi-million dollar businesses, underscoring that a positive mindset can help entrepreneurs overcome…

What is mentioned in this Home Service Expert episode?

36 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Landscape Lighting, Johnny, Landscape Lighting Secrets, Traction, Nextdoor, Aaron Jones. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Power of Mindset in Entrepreneurship with Ryan Lee"?

The episode runs 1 h 11 min; the transcript is about 15,495 words in 143 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.