Home based service business how you can make millions with Tommy Mello - Part 2

Transcript

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Hey guys James Rest here from Marketing Secrets for Electricians and today we're continuing on from the last episode with Tommy Mello and he's sharing with us his story. So hopefully you're able to learn and grow and use some of these things we're talking about in your business, get some ideas that you can take away and start growing your business. If you have any further questions that you might want to ask Tommy or something that I may have missed or something that you didn't understand, please feel free to reach out in the Facebook group. Without further ado, here we go. So here's what I hear a lot.

How do normal electricians like us who are properly trained and licensed, who are not willing to cheat and take shortcuts and who are wanting to own a successful electrical business. How do we compete against the big guys who own the market share or the guys that charge peanuts for an electrical job? On top of that, we want to employ the best electricians so we can get off the tools and have plenty of time for other areas of life. That's the question. Join me and follow along as we search for the answers.

My name is James Rest and welcome to Marketing Secrets for Electricians. Yeah, in 2018, I think we hit 30. You know, we're flying fast right now because one of the things that you got to do is I hired a consultant. His name is Al Levy. He wrote the book, The Seven Power Contractors.

So question number seven is about Al. Who should you have on here? I've had a lot of consultants, but Al came in and he said, Tommy, you're so good at generating revenue and marketing. He goes, but your internal systems, your operations, you don't know how to delegate properly. You don't know how to your manuals.

And a lot of people like frown when they hear manual, like manuals, manual. But the manual is actually the playbook. The manual, if I applied this to football, which is American football, I would say, here's your list of plays for your offense and defense. Those are your those are your manuals. And it's how to play the game and how to win the game.

And if you don't have them, someone said, what's my job? You say, well, just go shadow this guy for a month. Pick up all of his shitty habits, pick up his good habits. No, you got to teach him. Here's how you get paid.

Here's why you get paid. Here's here's what happens if the truck breaks down. Here's what happens if you get a crack in your windshield. Here's how you take a day off. Here's you got to have an operational guide for them.

And it's got to be full of the 80 percent. It can't be. You know, a lot of people make these really huge manuals and they're full of like, well, what if this happens? Well, don't worry about that. And then put together a really, really good job posting.

to where, you know, my name is Tommy Mello. I own a garage drawer company. Usually what I started out to say, do you want a job that you can make as much as you want? That's that's it gives you benefits. You can work nights, you can work weekends, you can work mornings.

You could be your own boss. And I talk about the culture and going to baseball games, going to football games, going to soccer games and what we do for fun and how you could earn your potential and earn your goals. And this could be the last place you ever work. By the way, we do garage drawers. Come apply today, figure out a way.

I see all these job postings and they say only eligible must be must do this, have to be this. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, of course you got to do a drug test on a background check. And if you're not doing that today to your employees, I'm sorry, but you're making a mistake. I don't care about marijuana because people are licensed here in the state to smoke. And I'm in about 12 other states.

But, you know, don't go don't go to my customer's houses, my client's houses. You're on any type of mind altering substances. It's not it's not professional. It's like you do it if you want to do it, do it in your own time, not in your time. Yeah, exactly.

And that's that's fine with me. I just can't have it shown up to my workers. But I've learned from Al. I learned from Al to just get everything in a manual processes, standard operating procedures, organization. And then I I learned a lot more about marketing.

I got brand new trucks with brand new raps and got them super organized. One type of truck for service, one type of truck for install. I don't have all these different things. It's all the same. It's repeat, rinse and do it again.

Rinse, repeat, do it again. Boom, boom, boom. And it's the same thing. And now people say, how could you get 2000 technicians? I'm like, well, we've got a training with six weeks.

We recruit them. Then we train them. And then we follow up with them. And then within three months, we've got it. So you can move up.

So you started as an apprentice. You're a junior tech in your tech. Then you're a senior tech in your field supervisor. So you got a ladder to move up in the company. I mean, I would work for myself.

That's one of the questions you got to ask yourself. Is it organized? And it's not because of me. It's like I told you earlier before we started is it's it's my team. I'm the visionary.

I'm the guy that's hungry every day. I'm the one saying, how do we grow faster? How do we do this better? I'm not the guy in there doing it every day. I'm more I'm the coach.

I'm like I'm the coach and the cheerleader at the same time when we could do this. So I think that's that's probably one of the most important things is just have a goal and work your butt off to get to that goal. And with these systems or manuals, what if you don't have them now? What would you suggest? Like I know I know a lot of electricians who would not have a manual in place or anything really other than their rule book.

Well, you got to take a step back and you got to say. Let me give you a good example that we do garage or springs, you know, so we change out garage or springs on your house. So I found out when a guy came back from training that I had each trainee trainer taught him four different ways how to do it. So us as a company, we didn't choose a specific way. You've got a certain type of wire cutters and wire strippers and certain things.

And there's some ways that you'll get an electrician that's done this that's forever. And he's got every trick in the book that are dangerous to some people that never did it before. So I would make sure that you're teaching them the safest and best way and document the way that you're going to have everybody do it. You want this is what I talk about when I go to McDonald's. I've been to South America.

I've been to China. I've been to Canada. I've been to Mexico. I go to McDonald's because I know how the burger is going to taste. It's consistency.

I look for consistency. So I'd rather have all be players than half A players and half D players because you want a consistency. You want to know what to expect. Of course, you're going to have some A and B players, but it's your job to organize your company in a way to inspect what you expect. And I think that's what I learned is as I wrote the book, I realized you got to inspect what you expect.

You got to hold people accountable. And you should let them you should let them win when they win. You know, I got a guy that made almost two hundred thousand dollars last year as a technician. It was amazing. And he followed up with all of his customers and he impressed everybody and he got great reviews.

The funny thing is the guys that make the most money for me, they get the most reviews and the most testimonials. The guys that do stuff, the cheapest and they don't, you know, they're very short with the customers. They don't make a ton of money for me. Usually they make sixty seventy thousand, which is still a lot of money. But they're like minimum maximum.

If you put in the minimal effort, the cheapest thing and just, you know, quick and cheap versus like putting the time and effort to develop a relationship, especially with the customer, you can charge more for starters because you've got that relationship and you don't have to find the next customer. You've got one there is going to hire you for that or even share it with your friend if he's getting good reviews and all that. That's that's awesome and sweet money for the blokes doing that and that you give them the opportunity. Like I don't think I've I've worked for a lot of electrical companies and there's never been one that's like, hey, you can earn as much as you want. It's like a strict hourly rate.

Essentially, you know, it's interesting about that as I go on these Facebook groups and the first thing they do is say I could run seven service calls a day because I'm that good and all these guys. And I say the first hour is just building a relationship. You know, you want to build a relationship with trust. I always tell the story. I'm like, you know, I went to my mom's house.

She moved into a brand new house about a year and a half ago. And the first thing I did is look at the garage door parts. And I went to my shop the next day. I took back all these parts. I rebuilt the whole brand new garage door, put another opener and I said, Mom, you're not going to have any problems now for 30 years.

I said, I don't feel comfortable. There's a brand new strut. I put an operator bracket, high cycle rollers, high cycle springs and a better opener. And my point is, I believe in everything I do and I'm going to take the time with the customer to make them feel like this is what I would do for my family. This is what I would do if this was my mom or dad's house or my grandma's house.

This is I want to fix it. Right. Because I own this store now. There's any problems I want you to call me unless, you know, a hurricane or an earthquake or something. This store is going to last.

Just don't let your 16 year old daughter bump into it. But but we have fun. We laugh at the customers. I play with their dogs. I get to know them.

I'm genuinely interested in them. And when you find that you build trust, you build rapport, you could ask for referrals and references. You get testimonials. You can post those online. I'm really good at social proof.

I don't just get a five star on Yelp and Google. I asked for one on Facebook. I get a testimonial. I'll take a before and after. I have them go on next door.

I have everything you can think of that counts in your area. Why not have them do all of it? Yeah. So as you build trust, your marketing party or marketing isn't in the referral or the like getting the customer say, hey, you're good. So they're like confirming, like, you know, you're giving good quality.

And they're like, yes, you are a good serviceman, electrician, whatever the whatever the thing is. But they're confirming and you're getting the social proof from not one person, but multiple people in multiple areas. That's definitely got to help get that trust before you even meet the next customer. Yeah. Well, ask him, you know, you guys have any like a neighborhood blog or do you have a homeowner's association or is there any type of memberships that you belong to that we could get involved in?

And you ask for contacts, but you do it in a way that's not rude. You do it in a jokingly way and say, I wish I could do this for all your neighbors. They're probably going to be having the same problems you're having. And you smile, smile. And then you ask.

Most technicians fail to ask the customer. It's like they're afraid. And I don't you know, they're the first ones to give a discount, be cheap and be the cheapest on the block. People want it done. Here's what they want.

They want three things. Your clients want to do it on your timeline. They want you to come out when they want you out there. They want it done right with a really good warranty and they want it done cheap. Pick two out of three.

And here's what you get because you're never going to get all three. So I chose a long time ago. I'm not going to be the cheapest. I'm going to be the best. And I'm going to do it 24/7.

I'll come out on a Sunday at midnight if you need me to. Yeah, sure. That you charge accordingly. Like and that's it. Also, if you're making more money, like it's it's kind of less stress if crisis happens because you can save, you know, put away and have reserves.

So no job. I'm basically bankrupt like the next day. You do take out, take a crazy price like the maximum you want to charge. Just say, man, this is a high price and then add 20 percent to that. And that's what you should be charging.

OK. You need to drive nice trucks. You need to have a good CRM. You need to be able to afford marketing. You need to be able to afford insurance for your employees and get them paid time off and do nice things and take them to restaurants and be able to take them bowling.

And when you could do nice things for people, you'll find you don't have to spend as much on recruiting. Health travels faster and the money you charge is actually a bargain for the service you deliver. So you try and you over deliver like the service. Like irrelevant of the price, you over deliver essentially. Rice is relative prices.

Have you ever gone to a really, really nice dinner? I spent three hundred dollars. I mean, with a bottle of wine, you know, three hundred dollars. Well, I can get the same meal at McDonald's to feed two people for around 12 bucks. But people still go for the experience.

They want to know that the person coming into their home is safe. They can trust them around their family. They've got a personality that they're going to this company is going to be there if this goes wrong again. And I a lot of times when I used to walk out of garages, they say, what else do you do? And I would just smell it.

You know, this is all we do right now. But if you need a referral, I've got a lot of friends in different industries. But it was a pleasure to meet you. And then I clean everything up in front of them. I put a sticker to where they know where it is.

And I smile. I say, is there anything else I could help you with? Can I move anything around in here for you? And they go, oh, my gosh. When I call them on my way there, I say, hey, Tommy Mello here with a one garage, your service.

I'm stopping by 7-Eleven or the gas station to get something to drink. I'm going to grab a Gatorade. Can I get you anything on the way? And they go. That's cool.

That's awesome. But it builds rapport. They don't expect to hear that from anybody. And then on that, though, if you if you charge more money, you can also have time to do that because you don't have to run from job to job to job to job as quickly as possible. You can do these little extra things which mean all the difference and show you care to your customers.

You know, I've got a guy that a guy gave me from Australia and he he's in Sydney. And he basically showed me with the time you got to go to get the van and the drive time and the time you spent on the phone with the dispatchers and holidays and everything else. You got to charge three to five hundred dollars an hour in labor to be profitable. I'm sorry, but that's that's not fake. You got to pay for insurance.

You got to pay for your office. You got to pay for the owner's got to make money. You know, even if you only want to make 60 grand a year, the problem is nobody thinks about this stuff. They go, well, I'm not going to have an office. I'm not going to drive a nice car.

I don't need a CRM. You know what? I hear about service saying all the time. I've got four windows open. I've got the screen over here is I hear that it's too expensive for most people.

And I'm like, that's a bunch of crap. I'm like, it's less than one percent of my revenue. The whole thing that runs the company. So I just hate the people. A lot of people say, oh, we can't charge those prices.

How do you sleep at night? You know how I sleep in a brand new mattress? It's a temperate feeling. It's beautiful. I got brand new pillows.

I seem like a baby and the clients know I'm not the cheapest. But they still pay because they want you. They want your service. They have set that expectation and you can charge accordingly, which like some of the Facebook groups, like there's like electricians having a joke about downlights and like, oh, this the next cheapest downlight person is like thirty dollars when you when other industries are charging or other people charging hundred eighty. So there's a huge price gap between the prices.

And it's just a running joke. But if you want the service, you pay for pay higher money. And again, but then I guess also you're not after every customer. Have you got a customer in mind who is your customer? Yeah.

It's called regression testing. And you take your database and you start looking at is it male or female? How old are they? What's their average credit score? What kind of home do they live in?

Is there anything specific? I can find out how much equity they have in their house. I can find out if they get pre-approval for financing. You know, at the end of the day, you got to figure out who your avatar, your perfect customer is. You know, I can tell you this.

Who's the most expensive electric company in your area? Just what's the name of it? Just give me it. Give me a random name. Let's like we'll go with Jim's electrical.

OK, electrical. Who's. They're the most expensive. Who's the biggest? Mostly always the two are the same.

Yeah, I would actually agree. I don't know. They're the biggest. I haven't looked up that. But I would argue they're everywhere.

Like you see their vans and you see one of the largest and the most expensive because they got to pay for that billboard. They got to pay. But you know what else they pay for drivers training. You know what else they pay for? They pay to give drug tests.

They pay to give further education and to have somebody that appreciates where they work. So they're happier. You know, I buy my guys flop. I say, you guys buy your wife flowers and bring me the receipt. I do this once or twice a year.

And people are like, why would you do that? Who cares? Because if they buy a happy wife is a happy life. That means they're going to be much better to my clients. And they go, some of them get in trouble.

They go, my wife's wondering why I bought her flowers. Like, what did I do bad? But we have a joke about it. But you know, these guys feel so good when they do that. And I say it's the best twenty dollars I've ever spent on them.

Because man, you know, the wife just says, wow, this is pretty cool. So I've. And just from talking to you, it's like you're passionate about your customers, but not only your customers, your employees or the people that work for you. You're like, what can I do to help them serve and type of mentality? Well, you know, here's one trick I've learned, too, is it's called with him.

What's in it for me? If you think about what's in it for that other person, I flip that I say, what's in it for them? If you could give a reason for them to want to follow you, want to follow you. Alexander Great said he's not worried. He's not worried at all by a group of lions led by a sheep.

He's worried about a group of sheep led by a lion. And I know that's a tough analogy to equate to this. But if you really care about your people and you're hungry and they see you and you're pumped and you're always motivating them. And if you're not, you don't need to be on the stage like I do. I find somebody else.

If you're a CFO that wants to own a business and you're just more into the books, you're on the back end of the business instead of the front end, then just find somebody with the tenacity and, you know, the pump to do that. And I'm not saying you can be this way. You know, you have a lot of passion and still be shy and be quiet. I'm just I'm just not. But every I guess everyone leads in their own way.

You know, some are allowed than others. And that's cool. So next question, what what is your goal? I suppose you're going to a long term goal. What about a shorter term?

And what gets you fired up about it? So my goal is to get the 60 technicians recruited a month. That's what that's my goal this year. So marketing is recruiting. A lot of people tell me this.

They they hire when they absolutely freakin need somebody. They hire only when they need somebody. And now they're like they're desperate. They're looking for the first good thing that walks in. Hey, the guy's got a nice smile.

He's he's hired. And it's like you just forget about the process in which you go to do your hiring. So I say always be recruiting. People say always be closing. I say always be recruiting.

What I'm looking for is 500 applicants per day for just my technician role. That's my plan. And out of that 500 times, let's just say 20, because that's not going to happen on every single day of just giveaway weekends. So so that's what 10,000. So out of 10,000, I want to choose 60.

And I've got a lot of ways to filter that out. The 500 times 20. So do a predictive index. I'm doing this this cognitive learning capability test. I'm creating a system to where they come and apply.

It opens up something like a zoom meeting and they have a quick interview to answer five questions. So I can go through there. My recruiters say, OK, this guy sounds great. He answered the questions. Well, or hold on.

This guy's got 18 rings in his face and he's not going to look good to my customers. And you know, I'm not profiling, but there's certain things you got to go up and down the ladder. You can't be 800 pounds. I'm sorry. It's just not going to work.

I tend to hire young people. I don't like to be 100 degrees here in Phoenix, Arizona. So so that's the big thing I'm looking for is 60 really qualified technicians. Then I fly him to Phoenix. They finished about a one month apprentice.

I fly him into Phoenix. We've got apartments. I have their trucks. I have their shirts. They're pressed.

I have their iPad. Everything's sitting for them. I have their favorite beer in the fridge. If they like beer, we're going to do something fun. The first day, there's a fun activity every single week.

They get to know the management. We go pop, pop golf. We take them. It's just and we have the time of our lives. And it's 60 people a month.

That's 720 people a year. That's just technicians. So it gets me to my goal. Remember, 2000. And it's way less than that now.

But it gets me there in under three years. So that's how I came up with that number. And that's what we're working towards. But you've got a bigger goal. You've got the kind of the yearly goal that works you towards that.

Sound on top of it. Yeah, you've got it all kind of stitched out and you can I guess there's a lot of people I found don't measure to have a goal like I want to make a billion dollars, whatever. But they're not. They've got nothing in place to get there. They've got no money.

No way. They have a lot of dreams and a lot of wants. I don't even know what I would do with the money. See, everybody knows what they're going to do with the money. They've got all these houses picked out in these boats.

I don't even know. I've just figured out I get to this number. Life's got to be pretty good. And you know what? It's nice.

I'm still always going to be frugal. I think I could do a lot to help human beings, mankind in general. I think I really look up to Elon Musk and Richard Branson, you know, people that really give back to humanity. And I want to become one day a philanthropist that does really, really great things. And like I said, if I could do it, why wouldn't I do it?

Yeah, for sure. And that's that's also a bigger than the money. There's got to be something bigger in it than money. Money comes and goes, but you can only buy so much and then you're bored. There's got to be a bigger vision, a bigger purpose to why you're doing the thing that we're all doing.

That's cool. So what issues did you run into when you're running like your bill now? I know when you went from start up to where you are now. What's what's some issues or some major issues kind of that you run into? Do you have questions about your marketing?

Do you want to know how to build a sales funnel for your electrical business? Well, come join us in the Facebook group Marketing Secrets Core Electricians and you can get your question answered there and we work together to help you build an electrical sales funnel for your business that produces leads and sales on autopilot. That's the goal. Come join in and let's make it happen. (upbeat music)