1:59

If you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate,

2:02

please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted

2:05

and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200

2:07

million company in 22 states. Just

2:10

go to elevateandwin.com forward

2:12

slash podcast to get your copy. Now

2:14

let's go back into the interview.

2:16

Hey guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert.

2:19

Today I got Cristiano in the building.

2:21

If you guys haven't heard of Rhino,

2:23

one of the top marketing agencies in the

2:25

country for home service. And

2:28

he also runs one of the best

2:30

events of the century.

2:33

Three years now, Rhino X. And

2:36

just legends of the space come and tell

2:38

us their wisdom. And I've been there every year. Crist

2:40

is an expert of digital marketing, advertising

2:43

business. He's based here with

2:45

me in Phoenix on the North side. He's

2:48

the CEO from 2008 to now. I've

2:51

got a lot of other stuff here to go back in time. The

2:53

t-shirt shop. Really?

2:56

Yano Motorcycles. Motorsports.

2:59

Geez, you're going way back. Motorsports, Sequoia Technologies,

3:01

IMS and AT&T Advertising

3:04

Solutions, which is an interesting story about

3:06

Bill Russell and Lance Bosworth.

3:08

Chris is the CEO of Rhino

3:10

Strategic Solutions and has been leading the company

3:12

since 2008. He is an experienced business owner,

3:15

investor and philanthropist with a heart for

3:17

the trades, as well as successful history working

3:19

in home service, digital marketing and advertising

3:22

industry. Chris is the host of the popular

3:24

podcast, To The Point Home

3:26

Services Podcast, which offers solutions

3:28

to help companies grow. And

3:31

me and Chris are good buddies. He showed up to my

3:33

40th and I think we drank about

3:35

a bottle of...

3:38

Rump? Rumpelmann.

3:40

Rump. I kind of cast it out of my

3:42

memory. And that was fun. So,

3:45

Chris, you've been through a lot here in the last few

3:47

months. Yeah. You know, tell us a little bit about

3:49

you. I think most people know who you are, but there's

3:51

a lot of listeners. Just tell us what

3:54

got you into the home service trades, where

3:57

you're at today, what's new and

3:59

where you're going.

3:59

Yeah, man, good to be in here in the new

4:02

studio, not in Tommy Melo's office. Yeah,

4:04

we go way back. I love that you read that like we don't know each other.

4:07

But and you brought up some old stuff like

4:09

you were digging in the crates. We dig in the crates.

4:12

Yeah, so I'll give you a quick 30,000 foot view

4:14

for those who don't know who I am or don't know

4:17

who Rhino is. From 2008 till

4:19

today, well, I guess a couple months ago,

4:22

built and owned Bootstrap Together Rhino Strategic

4:24

Solutions, which is a digital marketing company specifically

4:26

for home services, which is how ultimately

4:29

you and I met. Grew

4:31

it from Anna and myself really, you know,

4:33

like is the we know she's my

4:35

wife, she's the CEO of the company today. And

4:38

our strengths compliment one another, which is how we were

4:40

able to grow this thing. I was good at sales and marketing. She was good

4:42

at finance operations, things like that.

4:45

And so it worked. And we knew we really wanted to do a

4:47

good job for contractors. And in early

4:50

like 2010, we had

4:52

an opportunity with Carrier Corporation based out of Indianapolis.

4:55

And that led us down the path of focusing on HVAC

4:58

and mainly because HVAC requires so much

5:00

attention. We decided, you know,

5:03

let's just focus on HVAC. We had a lot of opportunity

5:05

there with the manufacturer, bringing us to their different

5:07

distributor or just dealer meetings and things like

5:09

that. Fast forward all the way

5:11

to this day. And now we've got about 180 rhinos. We

5:15

did bring on a private equity partner. So I've actually

5:17

you missed in one of my new roles. I know. So

5:19

now I'm the CMO of our of

5:22

our new private equity partner. I did that for a

5:24

couple reasons. One is I

5:27

didn't want to give up the leadership over

5:29

what I can and can't do with Rhino. And

5:32

so I thought, well, as long as I can, if

5:34

I can secure the CMO role for my private equity

5:36

company, then I don't have to tell myself what to

5:38

ask my permission to keep doing the things I want

5:40

to do that's been working. But it's been

5:43

fun. So today still, I mean, I still am running right

5:45

on the CEO of Rhino. We did

5:47

bring on the private equity partner. You know, I didn't I

5:50

didn't I retained 30 percent of the business.

5:52

So I'm still still in it. Still going strong. And

5:55

really, it was a big growth play for us. And I know you and I had this

5:57

conversation is I was trying to do acquisition.

6:00

on my own, one that you got done that I didn't. I'm

6:02

still bitter about. But I've

6:04

tried to do them on my own with our finance team and our attorneys

6:07

and it was like really just being disruptive to us running the

6:09

business. And I realized, you know what? Like this is why

6:11

you bring on, you can bring on some

6:13

private equity partners that can do some of these things for

6:16

you. And that's what we're

6:18

doing. So we brought on the private equity partner in

6:20

end of April. And so now I

6:23

have a boss. I just had my first board meeting. That

6:25

was interesting to go through, to be on the

6:27

opposite side of the table for a board meeting. But

6:29

so far post transaction, like they're doing everything

6:31

they said they would do. They're supporting us in every way they want

6:33

to support us. And we're still growing

6:36

and kicking ass. So today it is a,

6:39

even though we're so heavily focused on HVAC,

6:42

plumbing and electrical, which we call the holy trinity

6:44

in my world. We started focusing

6:47

on roofing the last three years because of all the private equity

6:49

partners getting in our customers that are private equity

6:51

partners getting involved in roofing. And

6:54

then after a few years of testing with

6:56

some of the garage door guys, just started dipping more into the

6:58

garage door business. And then finally,

7:00

after a couple of VT's, I

7:03

was able to come to vertical track and

7:05

then give a good presentation, which was a pretty

7:07

cool event. So thanks for having me again for that. So

7:10

that's where we sit today, man. Are you guys picking up

7:12

in the garage door space? Yeah, like slowly

7:14

but surely, still trying to feel out who's

7:16

a good fit for us and who's not. Those

7:19

who will actually make the calls and commit to the calls

7:21

and actually hold themselves accountable internally too. But

7:23

like we onboarded the

7:25

first three that we kind of onboard in the beginning

7:28

we're still customers today, all of them that you know.

7:30

Yeah, Jeff is amazing. Yeah, Jeff Sanford is

7:32

one of them. We have Josh Yeager, smaller company

7:35

in Chicago. I love him. Yeah. Like

7:37

growing that thing a little bit and then Vince down in

7:40

absolute. So those three guys have been great. He

7:42

does HVAC plumbing, garage doors because

7:44

he was absolute garage doors for a minute

7:47

down there. So he's in all of them, which is cool. You

7:49

know what's interesting about that is he said

7:52

to me, I've been talking to him for years and he goes,

7:54

dude, he goes, I spent the last

7:57

decade figuring out garage doors to get to 10 million.

8:00

because my second year in HVAC, I did more.

8:02

And he goes, you hear all these people saying,

8:04

oh yeah,

8:06

I know HVAC, so I can make it in the garage drawer space.

8:08

But he goes, I make way more money in these other trades

8:10

than I was making in garage drawers. So I

8:12

don't know if the myth is true. I think what I'm

8:15

starting to learn, and I've heard this from a lot of people, is

8:17

big tickets is easier.

8:19

It really is, if you build

8:21

a system right,

8:22

I gotta go through 17,000 customers a month. I'm

8:26

in a good spot and I'm not complaining. But

8:28

I've got guys that do a 10th of the customers

8:31

and they make way more money. So I don't know

8:33

if there's a silver bullet when it comes

8:35

to picking industries. I think you can

8:37

make it in anything. And HVAC's getting tough because

8:39

there's really not a lot of acquisitions. A lot of them got

8:41

eaten up already. I just had a meeting this morning

8:43

too with, I don't know how I feel about it. So let me

8:45

just say, I just had this conversation because

8:48

I had a franchise from a pest control

8:50

meeting this morning. And I've kind of avoided pest

8:52

control because it's such a low, like

8:54

the lifetime value is not big. And

8:57

you're talking residential $80 a month or

9:00

commercial 350 a month, give or take.

9:03

And a lot of their big wins and pest control

9:06

space are like rodent stuff or

9:08

termites and they're like scorpion, like one-off

9:10

scorpion stuff or whatever. I just think

9:12

about that path. Cause I would rather have had the bigger

9:14

average ticket. It's easier to be successful in

9:17

our world and show a good return on investment. But

9:19

I still believe that even with like, with Vintas

9:21

doesn't, we'll use that as a him as an example. I

9:24

still believe you can raise it all. Even if you

9:26

are trying to do quality over quantity like type

9:28

of methodology, I'm still

9:30

a fan of doing both and trying to,

9:33

maybe you focus more on the bigger ticket items but

9:35

you don't forget like

9:38

the other stuff, the stuff that's kind of gotten you there.

9:40

And I think that's kind of a little bit what happened. You

9:43

know what we realized in the garage here industry is I've

9:45

studied whether it's Ken Goodrich, Ken Haines,

9:49

I can keep going, going, going. There's

9:51

so many people that have helped from the HVAC industry

9:53

to learn what a turnover is

9:55

and learn that new equipment is where it's

9:57

at because that's not how it's been in the garage industry. It

10:00

was service, get in and out, go to the next job. And

10:03

it's a lot harder to install a garage door because

10:05

you got to measure it right. You got to get it from the manufacturer.

10:07

And it's not like I've got a bunch of five ton units sitting

10:09

in my warehouse. I've

10:11

got to order the right door with the right size, with

10:14

the right insulation. So, you

10:16

know what, I want to talk to you a little bit more about this acquisition,

10:18

because

10:18

a lot of people, I've been on like 10 podcasts

10:21

in the last week. And everybody's

10:23

asking me, what's it like? Is

10:25

it different than you thought it would be? And from

10:27

my personal view, I have no regrets. I'll

10:29

tell you what, I thought I knew what living

10:31

was. I was like, I've always had houses.

10:34

I've had a really healthy retirement fund. I've

10:36

always had a lot of money in the bank relative to

10:39

what I thought. And I've always

10:41

considered myself like, I don't have stress, I don't have anxiety,

10:44

but now I'm like, man, I'm living.

10:46

I'm having fun with my parents. I'm having fun with my niece

10:48

and nephews. Me and Bullier going to Hawaii in two weeks.

10:50

It's like, I wouldn't change it for the world

10:53

of everything that's taken place. And I know you just bought a new

10:55

house. And I saw a picture, I think yesterday

10:57

or maybe Sunday. Of the beautiful

11:00

house and just gorgeous. What

11:02

do you think, a lot of people

11:04

say they lose their identity, they wonder what their purpose.

11:06

You're still the CMO now, but what do you think? Explain

11:09

to me the process and

11:12

how you felt going through it and how you feel today.

11:14

Yeah, it is still a big misunderstanding

11:17

of, like you don't just have

11:19

to sell your business and move on. Like

11:22

there's a lot of different options. And I'm gonna say, I

11:24

didn't know that either. Again, I was

11:26

looking at this for, how can

11:28

I continue to stay the course, but

11:30

with more intellectual capital and take some chips

11:32

off the table from the 15 year business that Anna and I

11:34

have built? And what are the options for

11:37

me? Can I keep going? Can I still run my business?

11:39

Like I just said, I had to report to a board for the first

11:41

time. So like beyond that, like everything else has been

11:43

really, really good. But

11:46

to me, it was, I still stand

11:48

by it. Like, and Anna and I were having this conversation last

11:50

night and this was, we made

11:52

the right decision. We feel great about it still. Because

11:55

all it did was allow me to,

11:59

focus more on what's most important

12:02

to the business and growing it and scaling it.

12:04

And the part of that is acquiring

12:07

other companies and bringing them into the fold. And

12:09

that requires a ton of attention. You've

12:11

been down this road and it takes

12:13

a lot of bandwidth and which then takes me away from

12:16

growing and scaling Rhino because that is my job. I

12:18

am still the CEO of Rhino. I've

12:20

just accepted the CMO role at Ever

12:22

Service, which is the parent company that now owns

12:25

Rhino. And it

12:27

was to, they really thought, hey, the Rhino

12:30

marketing playbook works well. Let's implement

12:32

that across all the other business units. So

12:35

I took on that role. Listen,

12:37

like we still travel a time when we

12:39

had bought the new place, we'd already been thinking,

12:41

we were talking about this when you started, like

12:43

maybe a couple of years ago, when

12:46

we were trying to get you guys to come to the North side up by us.

12:49

And we were looking on this mountain forever trying to buy land

12:51

and build. We had paid off our

12:53

house before we got our deal done. So we've been

12:56

really financially responsible. But

12:59

it's just, it like springboarded us

13:02

into what was already

13:04

a good life into like a really great life.

13:07

Like we, it's

13:10

different in a, it's

13:12

different in a challenging way, which to me is

13:14

like, I need to be challenged because I've been doing the same

13:16

thing for 15 years. It's making

13:19

me smarter. I've got

13:21

more of a pool of people to pick from. You

13:23

know what I didn't realize is when

13:26

people would say like the rich

13:28

get richer, you cut, it

13:30

can be seem, it comes across like negative.

13:33

But I understand what

13:35

that means. And it's not so much a

13:37

negative thing. It's that once you start to get

13:39

in this like mindset and with this in the right

13:41

circle of people who like are also bringing

13:44

you up and you can learn from them and you're able to be

13:46

vulnerable enough to know like getting involved

13:48

with private equity. Didn't even know that was something I could

13:50

realistically do. We've got a great

13:52

friend group between us and our circles and some of the text

13:55

message groups that we're in. Everybody's challenging each other

13:57

all the time and supporting each other. But you also

13:59

learn like I did. even know that was an option or you might

14:01

give yourself more opportunities by going down

14:03

this path to get involved in more investments along

14:05

with you didn't even know. So like

14:08

I didn't even know what ultra high net worth was

14:10

until a few into about a year and a

14:12

half or so ago. It's pretty interesting.

14:14

We're in a thread with Ishmael,

14:16

Chad Peterman, Aaron Gaynor, Tom

14:19

Howard Hoffman, Chris Hoffman.

14:21

Yeah.

14:22

Yep. Aaron Gaynor. Great. Great. We're

14:24

all great friends

14:26

and we all challenge each other. And I'd

14:28

say 80% of its nonsense

14:31

and 20% of it's really good stuff. But

14:34

if I'm on a plane or if I'm on a long drive and not

14:36

the driver, I'll get really into it. And you guys

14:38

probably see that. But I mean, these guys go all

14:40

day and there's a lot of value given there. But

14:42

one of the things is, uh,

14:44

you know, Travis Ringy,

14:46

he's in there and he started working out a long time

14:48

ago and he's always been pushing me when I go to

14:50

Idaho and visit

14:52

and,

14:53

and then Ishmael started working out and I've

14:55

had a lot of other things

14:57

kind of come into my way that I'm like, I gotta

14:59

get myself in shape and you just started

15:01

working out pretty hard the last couple of weeks. Yeah,

15:03

I'm feeling it right now. Um, still, we were

15:05

just talking about that. I spent so much

15:08

of my time the last year and a half just

15:10

prepping the business for this next phase.

15:13

And, um, like I wasn't

15:15

doing any working out, no cardio, nothing

15:17

now because I'm not like a big guy. You

15:20

look in shape. I mean, you're not overweight

15:23

enough. That's actually the negative part of it is because

15:25

I never felt like, Oh man, I'm out of shape

15:27

or, you know, I was like, I joke and say I look

15:29

like the Grinch cause like the Grinch is like a little skinny dude

15:31

with the belly starting to be that at 44 years old. But

15:34

I'm like relatively

15:36

appears to be in good shape. So I don't like have anything

15:38

that would trigger me to do it, you know, like to be like, Oh

15:40

God, I'm, you know, I'm turning into a fat ass. I need to go and go

15:42

to the gym and I can eat like crap

15:45

and I can drink beer and I could do whatever. And just

15:47

doesn't impact me until I went

15:49

to day one last week. And

15:51

then I almost died that day cause I'm going home and

15:53

like laying on the floor. Like when the dog comes in from

15:55

the heat and lays flat on the tile, like that was me. Yeah.

15:58

And that was like, so But

16:00

today was week two and I feel better, man. And

16:06

it makes you sharper in the morning.

16:08

I love to get up in the morning and just kind of sit for

16:11

a minute and be by myself before the kids get up

16:13

and chaos starts. And then after that,

16:15

I go to the gym and then I went to the office.

16:17

So going in, I've been feeling sharper. Did

16:19

you just feel better about yourself, man? And that does

16:21

make it, it sounds like cliche, but it totally

16:24

makes you feel better and it makes me feel

16:26

sharper going into meetings.

16:28

You know, that group,

16:30

it's just a guy's text messaging. And

16:33

I love it. We post our numbers every month.

16:35

We talk great. We give advice.

16:38

We talk shit. And it's just, it's

16:40

great to have groups like that. I

16:42

lean on Al Eavy. I was just in

16:45

Lake Tahoe, Ken Goodrich went fishing.

16:48

He has been a great mentor to me and you both.

16:51

And it's true, the rich get richer because,

16:53

you know, part of what I realized is, there's

16:56

a good book by John Warlow called Built to Sell. And

16:59

I don't think I've ever understood the meaning of that till

17:01

I actually took on a partner. And

17:05

it's mind blowing. Like I

17:07

feel like just this insurance policy of

17:09

if everything fails, I'm still good. My

17:12

family's still good. My life is still

17:14

not going to change much. And I don't plan

17:16

on ever failing. Nobody does.

17:18

But Tom Howard flew out here eight,

17:20

you know, now a year ago and said, you

17:23

know, the IPO market's in ruins. It's half

17:25

of what it was. And you know, what do

17:27

they say? Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And

17:30

I didn't really know what that expression was until I saw

17:32

a lot of people just, there's deals

17:34

that have happened that haven't gone through. And there's people,

17:37

I don't know when this is going to end, but we happen to be, I tell

17:40

people I'm very lucky. I happen

17:42

to be in the right place at the right time. The multiples went

17:44

through the roof with COVID. Same. And

17:46

like it worked out for me too. All my customers are

17:49

essential businesses and home services. It's

17:51

crazy PPP, the employee retention credits.

17:54

And it just was like a catalyst. Yeah,

17:57

I will say that When

18:00

you get into this process, you

18:02

just got to remember that once you take a dollar,

18:05

things change. Once you take a dollar from

18:07

someone, things change. So finding the right

18:10

person, find the right team makes such a

18:12

massive difference. There's

18:15

horror stories. There's

18:17

horror stories of guys that do a deal and they're like, I

18:19

mean, I hear quite a few buddies we

18:21

know that are just like, this is horrible.

18:26

Late summers, whatever. But at the end of the day, it's

18:29

finding the right partners and making sure you it's

18:31

like a marriage understanding. You don't tell somebody

18:34

after you get married that, you

18:36

know, by the way, I don't want kids if the other person

18:38

wants kids, you can't just say you got to know what you're

18:40

doing before you go into it.

18:42

And I think that you got to treat

18:44

the investor like that. But you're right, if they've

18:46

got a board, they report to as well. They've

18:49

got their investors.

18:50

And if they don't give an ROI, the whole fund

18:53

and raising capital turns into

18:55

they got to pick winners. And I didn't understand

18:57

that till I sat down with these guys. And they're like, we've

19:00

got to just we got to have a plan to be able

19:03

to tell our investors because they meet weekly

19:05

with their board.

19:06

And if they don't report back, if we're losing

19:08

money right now, it's okay, because we're

19:11

investing in infrastructure, we're getting the right people

19:13

on the bus, we're going ahead and spending the money

19:15

on the brand, whatever that is. But they want to

19:17

know the report down to the decimal, they want

19:19

to understand the plan, they want to know your thinking,

19:22

what's your strategy of doing this? Yeah,

19:24

for that to change, but I was up for it. Yeah, forecasting

19:27

isn't a guess forecasting is like closest to the cup,

19:29

like you need to be as close as possible.

19:31

It's not like your best guess at what you think

19:34

numbers are going to be, you got to get close. I've learned

19:36

some of these things too. I was always nervous because you always

19:38

hear the horror stories about all you got to report

19:40

to a board now. It was different,

19:43

but honestly, I enjoyed it. If

19:45

the business was failing, maybe it wouldn't

19:47

be so enjoyable. But the business isn't failing

19:50

because our customers are doing great. So

19:52

it's easy to go and talk about it's just getting in the cadence

19:54

of it, right? They're doing something different. And

19:56

once you can kind of get okay with it, really the business

19:59

is. I don't have majority anymore.

20:02

So, but the reason I

20:04

chose our partner was

20:06

because I believed that they could take me further

20:09

and make us better for our customers

20:11

and our employees faster. I mean, listen,

20:14

every day the, you know, the company got

20:16

bigger was a size business I'd never run before. And

20:19

at a certain point, we weren't

20:21

the right fit to lead it to the next

20:24

phase. And I had to like, swallow

20:26

my pride and recognize that and then make

20:29

the decision. And same as you like, this

20:31

is what's kind of cool about our circle of friends is

20:33

that we all kind of did these things similar timing

20:35

so we all could relate to one another.

20:37

But I was

20:39

probably one of the later ones to the, you

20:41

know, to give my deal took 14 months to

20:43

get done from start to start. They're racking

20:45

too. And because

20:48

it's interesting when you go to a private

20:50

equity and we are a people first business, you

20:52

know, so at Rhino, we are reputation

20:55

over revenue mentality, you know,

20:57

it does flip when you get into the PE game

20:59

to, you know, like, I should say

21:01

our mentality doesn't flip. But

21:04

when you go to a board, all they really care about is

21:06

well, how healthy is the business?

21:08

I say,

21:09

let me run it the way that we've always run it. Just

21:11

give me the intellectual capital, help me with the leadership I

21:13

need to put in place, which by the way, has been critical

21:15

to keep running and scaling these businesses

21:18

the way that we do it, just support us. And that's

21:20

what they're doing. But we took our time to negotiate

21:23

that, you know, into the deal. So

21:25

Everservices, what are the companies

21:27

that they're kind of rolling up marketing companies, right?

21:31

Well, I mean, the reason we chose them is because one

21:33

of my good friends that runs Blue Corona, Ben Landers,

21:35

who we, you know, he he's

21:38

been the business the same amount of time as I have. So

21:40

over the last decade or so we would, you

21:42

know, we would talk like we were respectful competitors

21:45

and we both been we're like, oh, geez, in the digital

21:47

marketing space for home services.

21:49

So

21:50

whenever I was considering it, I

21:52

saw that they had went the Everservice

21:55

route, they chose Everservice, by the way, didn't exist

21:57

prior. It's just the name they came up with that the private

21:59

equity. behind it, the Sunstone Capital.

22:02

So,

22:02

but they were the first ones. So they were the guinea pig into

22:05

it. And I said, hey, a year later, man, is

22:07

it what they said it was? And they said, yeah, like it's what

22:09

it was. It's what they said it was. And it's scaling

22:11

and growing. And I was like, cool. But we had 84 people

22:14

in the beginning throw their hat and their

22:17

name in the hat that wanted to come to

22:19

the table. So that's sort of process, you guys did a sip.

22:21

Yep. And basically an outline. It's like 30,

22:24

40 slides of what's your business is, market size,

22:27

strengths, opportunities, threats, all of that weakness,

22:29

stress. Yeah, it was the same. Yeah,

22:32

it's where you're talking about. So they throw that. And then by

22:34

the way, like, that sounds great. And obviously

22:36

we were floored, but then once you whittle that thing

22:38

down, we ended up like 22 still,

22:40

which was a big number, which is much larger than we thought.

22:43

But that's when we knew we had all

22:45

the negotiating power, much like a lot of the contractors

22:47

had so much negotiating power going through

22:49

this whole process, because there's so many people at play

22:51

that want them. Even today, it's still there. But

22:54

it allowed us to have all the leverage going

22:56

into it and get what we want. And the

22:59

CMO role, what is that, if

23:01

you had to just give us a snapshot of your

23:03

daily functions and what you're responsible for quarterly,

23:06

to the board monthly, quarterly, yearly, obviously

23:09

chief marketing officer. Is

23:11

it about getting new clients? Is it about acquisitions?

23:14

What is all encompassing in that role? Yeah, man,

23:17

really MQL is a game I'm in, marketing qualified

23:19

leads. Like I'm really all things top of

23:21

funnel. So I have a team of people at Ever

23:23

Service that report to me. But

23:25

the whole job is for the other business units and Ever

23:27

Service has the home services business

23:29

unit, legal. Yeah, that's right.

23:32

And then also healthcare, which is the newer

23:34

one. So by the

23:37

time this thing rolls out, they will have finished an acquisition

23:39

with another legal marketing company. So

23:41

basically I'm the one that's running the playbook, calling

23:44

the place for all things marketing. But

23:46

everybody has their own teams and they execute, just like Rhino

23:49

does. Like I don't do all the things at Rhino.

23:52

We have our marketing manager and our marketing team in

23:54

place, just like Ever Service has in place. So

23:56

is this different because this role sounds

23:59

more B2B you used to do in B2C? Correct,

24:01

yeah. But I do a pretty significant

24:04

amount of B2B because I manage all private

24:06

equity partnerships, majority

24:08

today, not all today, but the majority of them, all

24:11

the manufacturer relationships to this day, I've take

24:13

lead on it still. But there's still

24:15

plenty of people like, even though I'm in these

24:17

roles now, like at Ever Service there's 750

24:20

employees as a whole, my

24:23

job really hasn't changed a lot. I mean,

24:26

I'm working more hours than I was. I was already

24:28

working a lot of hours because I'm trying to learn all the

24:30

things. Right. But really

24:32

to like tighten a little bow to make this thing as easy

24:34

as possible. My whole job is

24:37

lead gen. Like what am I doing to

24:39

get top of leads into the top of the funnel for

24:41

all the different business units, including still doing

24:43

that for Rhino?

24:46

You know, a long time ago, it's your first

24:48

event,

24:49

Rhino X, you had Gary V

24:51

and I know you did some work with him in the past. And

24:53

I know to a lot of people, that's like their

24:55

legend. I'm not going to go

24:57

too deep in the details of how you guys work

25:00

together, but what was your biggest takeaway?

25:03

Was there one? I know you started a podcast. You

25:05

said that was a huge deal. And then you had

25:07

Rhino X was a huge deal. Both of them came from

25:09

Gary. What

25:11

has that done? Well I mean, you've been

25:13

a part of them. Like the podcast blew

25:15

up and I will give credit to a few

25:17

different people. One Goodrich was super influential

25:20

on that. Come on. He was like our first real

25:22

guest. I took all these

25:24

relationships I'd had because I've been in the

25:26

space for 15 years. I knew all the players.

25:29

A lot of my customers have been acquired by

25:31

different private equity companies. So I had

25:34

really good guests to bring on to the podcast.

25:37

But these were his ideas. And

25:41

historically how it would work is we

25:43

have a voting process if we're going to do something like add

25:45

a podcast to Rhino or to have Rhino

25:47

X. And typically I would get shut down

25:50

on these things because it would be myself

25:52

and then our chief experience officer

25:54

Mike. I think you've met Mike. Tattoos everything.

25:57

And it's like which one wins. And

25:59

we would like committed. to do a vote unless I really,

26:01

really wanted to fight for something. But we were in

26:03

New York and at Gary's office

26:05

and we had a meeting and he was talking about you

26:07

should do a private event. And I was like, Oh yeah, because

26:10

I was talking about wanting to do a private

26:12

event didn't know it was gonna be called Rhino X. But

26:15

that's how we landed on that one. And then Anna

26:17

never agreed to wanting to do the podcast.

26:19

Like I slipped that one in when she was out of town. Like

26:22

I bought all the stuff, slipped it in,

26:24

got it set up and had recorded the first

26:26

one while she was gone that week. Like, and

26:28

she was unhappy today. We still

26:31

joke about it. Like she didn't want me to do it.

26:34

And that thing's a monster today. But Gary came on twice

26:36

and that certainly helped when he came on and helped

26:38

push it all the guests. So

26:40

today it's been crazy to see

26:43

like what it's become, you know, and it

26:45

is another full time job. You know how it goes, but

26:47

you just work it into your day. Like you were

26:50

for me, the events. This

26:52

is what's weird. And I don't know if you're like this, because I

26:54

know a lot of people with a lot of stress and work. I've

26:56

got a great team. But speaking at

26:58

events, having our own event, the podcast, that's

27:01

what I look forward to. I'd rather be doing this. I love

27:04

our meetings. I love coaching people. I

27:06

love a one. But I really this is

27:08

my like therapy. Yeah, this is where I come

27:10

to just have a discussion, learn new ideas.

27:13

You get educated on these things too. Like I learned so

27:15

much by having these episodes on

27:18

there. Jeff

27:20

Sanford, Stanford, Sanford.

27:23

Yep. He

27:24

he's like, dude, I listened to one through 30. And

27:26

I realized how you got to 15 million. I listened

27:29

to 36. I realized how you got to 25. He's

27:31

like, all that stuff is in your and

27:33

I was really bad. But I would

27:35

like a

27:36

horrible mic. I was typing in the background.

27:38

I didn't know what I was doing. I just I did it

27:40

because I said I want to learn. I want to share and it

27:43

got better. I don't think it's great by any means. But

27:45

I always discuss my problems. I

27:47

posted yesterday in the Home Service Expert

27:50

Group. I just was curious how people

27:52

are getting leads. There was a lot. I've

27:54

never posted anything in that group with

27:56

so many responses. And it was all gold. Yes,

27:58

I actually told you posted on there. I had my

28:01

EA Allison, who's amazing. I

28:03

told her to put every one of those comments into an Excel

28:05

sheet. And I want to do some R&D

28:07

on that stuff. And I'm just curious,

28:10

when I talk to people, I say you got to start with a brand. And

28:13

then you want to own the search engines, Google in particular,

28:16

the four algorithms on Google, LSA,

28:18

PPC, GMB, and organic.

28:21

But there's so many other things. There's TikTok,

28:24

there's YouTube, there's Twitter, there's yard

28:26

signs, there's TV, radio, billboards, there's

28:29

all these things. There's mailers, there's direct,

28:31

there's Valpad Clipper, there's you and your home welcome

28:33

home. There's a vet marketing, there's

28:36

referral business. And they

28:38

all seem to work. You got next door,

28:40

there's so many things, but I think it's overwhelming for

28:42

people that are just getting in their first five

28:44

years of business to say, okay,

28:47

what do I do? And since

28:49

you've been doing this so long, you've worked with more companies

28:51

than I ever have in marketing. What do you think

28:53

is the core? Where do you think you need to own?

28:55

And then when do you get into the TikTok

28:59

and the Facebook ads and maybe

29:01

Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor? There's

29:04

so many. Well, I mean, this is probably

29:06

the question I get asked the most. And because

29:09

I do so many keynotes and

29:11

breakouts, and speaking

29:14

at so many meetings over the years, this is probably the

29:16

most common question that I get. And

29:19

I still stand by this. There

29:21

is no one size fits all, but

29:23

there are some things that you have to do. And because

29:27

I live in the digital marketing space, I'm not going to speak to things

29:29

that I don't do like traditional like TV,

29:31

radio, things like that.

29:32

But

29:33

you mentioned it just a second ago. And I've

29:36

been saying this like right now

29:38

in the digital marketing space, it's an absolute

29:40

dogfight. It is a dog fight.

29:43

It is getting more expensive. More

29:45

people have money that are spending money that didn't

29:48

before on marketing and some that have

29:51

private equity money backing them or even spending more

29:53

than normal. So it's driving up all the costs.

29:55

So you got to be really, really

29:57

good at digital marketing for that.

30:00

specific industry to know what ads are converting at

30:02

what rate to save money and things like that. It's a bunch

30:04

of like nerdy jargon, but the other day I'm just saying,

30:06

this is where we excelled by being hyper focused

30:08

on these industries for so long as we don't have to guess on

30:10

what to do to go and get a service lead or to get an

30:12

install lead for an HVC company or a drinkling lead for a plumbing

30:15

company.

30:16

So,

30:16

but you have to have a frigging good

30:19

brand, man. Like that brand is so incredibly

30:21

important. I've been saying it, brand

30:24

equity has never ever been more important

30:26

than it is today, right now. So

30:29

during the pandemic, when that hit, I said the same

30:31

thing. I was like, man, if you had a good brand, because people

30:34

already like, don't know what's going on. And

30:36

I was like, man, it was so important to have a good brand. If you haven't

30:38

start focusing on it, then clearly

30:40

you understand the importance of it for a couple of different

30:42

reasons. So did I. And

30:45

but it is the foundation of everything. So

30:47

okay, if you're listening to this podcast, and

30:50

you're newer, and you don't have maybe

30:52

the money to show out on a brand, or maybe you do, but it's still

30:54

new, like you start to build brand equity, and that

30:56

just takes time. There's no like silver bullet for it.

30:59

Own your backyard, man, like get involved, get

31:01

involved a little bit. I'm huge into community

31:03

service. I do a ton of community service, though. And

31:06

I don't do it for the recognition of Rhino,

31:08

but it's a byproduct of what happens from it. We

31:10

do so much like still every one day a month,

31:13

every Rhino customer, every Rhino employee goes

31:15

and does community service, because that's

31:17

part of our core values. But again, the byproduct

31:19

of that is, you know, you're

31:21

doing good things. It shows people what kind of business that

31:23

you are like the DNA of your business. So if

31:26

you post it on social, and people are considering

31:28

using you and they see that you do these things, it certainly helps

31:30

like with the conversions. But making

31:32

sure like your Google My Business listing, your

31:34

GMB, your GBP, Google

31:36

Maps, whatever the heck you want to call it, that

31:38

doesn't cost anything, just go in there, make sure it's filled

31:41

out correctly. And if you're in garage

31:43

doors, make sure you have your category, right? If you're in homes,

31:45

or if you're in HVAC, make

31:47

sure that when you're going into winter, you change your

31:50

major category to heating versus air conditioning.

31:52

When you're going into winter or summer,

31:54

make sure you change it back to air conditioning versus

31:56

heating, because that's the season that you're in. That's what people are searching

31:58

for.

32:00

Make sure that thing is filled out correctly. And by

32:02

the way, there's a lot of marketing agencies that

32:05

will come and give you an analysis and give you these things.

32:07

Like just give it to you. That way you kind of got a roadmap and you

32:09

know what to do. And they won't, you know, they might try and pitch you,

32:11

but hopefully most just give it to you.

32:14

But on your backyard, like do the little things that matter.

32:16

Get involved in parades. Use your trucks to tow, you know,

32:18

to tow floats while you're in parades, like simple

32:21

little things. Word of mouth is huge. Do

32:23

I don't know when the last time you went to like a B&I thing

32:25

is or those networking things? It's been a lot

32:28

of years since I've done that. I am

32:30

not going to them today. Like those,

32:32

I go to bigger ones, but it works,

32:34

but get involved with them and they work really, really

32:36

well, especially if when you're local, like

32:38

you mentioned Ringy, I live

32:41

up an anthem. Like that's

32:43

how we built this. Yeah, you get involved. There's I'll

32:45

bet you no matter who's listening right now,

32:47

whatever neighborhood or area that you live in, no matter

32:49

how small it is, probably has some sort of like a Facebook

32:52

group for that community. Oh yeah. Get

32:54

involved in it and just don't sell on it. Just go and give a bunch

32:56

of free information, educational stuff. So one

32:58

of those like two major things that Gary V

33:00

taught me in our like three years together, like

33:03

was you either need to educate

33:06

someone or you entertain them.

33:08

And if you could do both, you can entertain and educate

33:10

them both. And it's like the perfect storm. So

33:13

because we are in businesses that people don't necessarily

33:15

want to have to reach out to us. I

33:17

don't have like nobody like my hit my garage

33:19

door and had to have you guys come out. I was like, damn

33:21

it. Is that a yes. Not

33:24

because I hit the garage doors listeners. Okay. One

33:26

time it wasn't my fault, but and

33:29

then I got up sold and I loved it. And that's all my

33:31

life. The next thing you know, I could open my gates and

33:33

all my garage doors from my phone is beautiful. But

33:36

you can just own your backyard, own your little communities,

33:38

get involved in your groups, get involved in the schools, but

33:40

you can't just like throw some money to sponsorship

33:43

and then just let them let it sit there and then do nothing with

33:45

it and think it's going to bring in a bunch of business with you. You got to

33:47

get involved, like find the boosters and things like that at

33:49

your school. We're talking like grassroots shit right now.

33:52

Well, that's what most people need to hear. I think the biggest

33:54

thing that the owners do is

33:56

they

33:57

don't have a marketing background.

33:59

And that's one of the things, there's two things I think

34:02

you need to keep your eye on is marketing

34:04

and your financials. Because if you don't really

34:06

know when to hit the gas and when they hit the brakes, you

34:08

don't stand a chance. And marketing

34:11

is, if it's not top down, then

34:13

it's really hard to just get a, well,

34:15

let's just say you hire a good marketing strategist.

34:18

There's so many different things like, you

34:20

know, I do a lot of TV radio billboards, and it's kind of

34:22

the Ken Goodrich or Wizard of Azroy

34:24

Williams approach. I think that works because

34:26

it also helps, like I just hear

34:29

your, I just heard your jingle, then I saw your truck,

34:31

and then I seen a yard sign. And it helps.

34:33

But the community piece is a piece that's missing

34:35

from most companies. And it's hard to make the time

34:38

to do that. But it's just you got to

34:40

set it up to where it's systematic. And it's an easy

34:42

one to win. And it's sweat equity, you know, like

34:44

maybe you have to invest like a couple hundred bucks or something

34:46

into like a sponsorship or whatever. But it's sweat

34:48

equity. And we all can afford to do that just if

34:50

you want to do it. But listen, if you want to

34:53

build something, you know, how the money to do it, like you're doing radio

34:55

and TV and billboards everywhere. Like obviously, see

34:57

you all over the place. And I

34:59

would say the majority, not that they

35:02

can't do it, they just can't do it right

35:04

now. Like you have to be able to have

35:06

the cash or the money to be able to do those

35:08

things. So, you know, part

35:10

of how what made internet marketing so

35:12

successful is it's demand, man, it's like

35:15

people are actively searching for somebody

35:17

looking for garage door repair. If

35:19

they were looking for a one, they would have typed in a one,

35:22

you know, in this market or whatever. And most do

35:24

put that out there. But if

35:27

somebody is actively searching for garage door repair, garage

35:29

door installation, whatever it is, that

35:31

means they're looking for somebody. So why not you? But

35:34

the problem is, is that there's so like, even in

35:36

my industry, there's so many people that give us a bad name,

35:38

you know, because you've had shitty internet

35:40

marketing companies who don't, you know, over promise

35:43

under deliver. And even as big

35:45

as we are 800, you know, contractor or 800

35:47

contractors as customers, like we get

35:50

things wrong, you know, you know, things are involved

35:52

in it. But finding someone

35:55

who one knows your industry is

35:58

incredibly important that you trust. And

36:00

then number two, you always got to make sure that you're

36:02

asking about reporting. Because

36:04

to me, especially when you're going to business, if

36:07

you're listening to this, you most likely want to provide

36:09

for yourself and your family and then your employees,

36:11

you want to provide for them and their

36:13

families and you're the one that accepts the role

36:16

of either leading the business or being a leader in the business.

36:18

Or if you're just working for a company, no big deal. If

36:21

you're an owner or a leader in a company

36:23

and you're trying to do marketing, you've got to

36:25

know what the marketing is actually doing for

36:27

you to be able to make any sound decisions,

36:30

meaning was it really new? You

36:32

need attribution. You got to

36:35

know what levers to pull with real

36:37

numbers.

36:38

So the reason that a Jeff

36:41

Sanford or events or a Josh

36:43

Yeager, even a small company like him, he was sub 2 million

36:45

whenever he came on board with us, which is not typically

36:47

in our wheelhouse, is

36:50

they knew I spent X. Here's

36:53

how many leads I got. I closed that I booked,

36:55

you know, I booked at X percent

36:58

of those. I closed this many and

37:00

here's the revenue attached to it. So we didn't have to guess

37:02

on what worked. And now here we are three years later and

37:04

we're scaling all of them. And that's why we even

37:07

chose to go down this path is I was like, cool, we can

37:09

do it in any market, but we got to have the

37:11

right people who are engaged.

37:13

Before we continue the interview, I wanted to let

37:15

you know about something crazy. We're putting together

37:17

for the Freedom Event. We're calling it the Freedom $81,000

37:19

giveaway. And

37:22

this is real. During the event, you'll have an opportunity

37:24

to enter an amazing promotional drawing

37:27

and win one of the following five amazing

37:29

prizes. Price one, we're going to do a full

37:32

rebranding package with Dan Ansonelli's

37:34

agency kick charge over a $20,000 value price.

37:39

You were going to give away L. Levy's operational

37:41

manual systems. That's

37:44

over $9,000 that you would pay price three. We're going

37:46

to do a one day sales trading with the

37:49

famous Joe Chrisara. That's $12,000

37:51

of value. Price four

37:53

is a two hour consulting call

37:55

with my right hand guy. One of the smartest

37:57

people I know, Jim Leslie. That's over.

38:00

10 grand and price five, I'm gonna come

38:02

to you. I'm gonna fly out and spend a half

38:04

day in your office meeting you, looking

38:06

at your operations and showing you

38:09

the path to elevate your business. That's

38:11

a $30,000 value. So listen,

38:13

this is gonna be the event of the

38:15

year, the Freedom event. And if you're still

38:17

planning to go to the Freedom event, but haven't got your

38:20

tickets yet, you can go to TommyMellow.com

38:23

forward slash freedom and get your ticket.

38:25

Now let's get back to the interview.

38:28

I got a question. So when it comes

38:30

to SEO, I did look at Rhino,

38:33

I don't know about six months ago, and you guys have

38:36

some of the strongest

38:39

backlinks, you know, Scorpions up

38:41

there, but there's not

38:42

for a brand of what you guys do in just home

38:44

service, it's pretty high. What do

38:46

you guys, do

38:48

you got a whole strategy behind out there

38:50

getting links and putting out, you know,

38:52

blog posts and is that something you're

38:54

still involved in? I mean, I'm not

38:56

involved in it like myself anymore, but in the

38:58

beginning I was, cause SEO is where my core

39:00

competency was, like me personally. I learned

39:02

that back in 2004, forever ago. I

39:05

don't remember if you ever knew this or not, but my sister went to go work

39:07

at Google in 2001. I didn't

39:09

know that. Yeah, like right at the end of 2000, she

39:12

was Tony Stewart's PR girl, Tony Stewart,

39:14

NASCAR guy. Cause we're all Indiana guys,

39:16

we all raced together, you know, and then, but

39:19

she went to go work for Google early on. And

39:21

that's how I kind of got interested in

39:23

even the Google route and learning the things. But

39:26

a backlink plan

39:28

is a hundred percent something that we do

39:30

every single month for every single customer, but it's

39:32

not like you go and buy them. Like that was an old school

39:35

thing, buy as many as you can. It certainly

39:37

is a quality over quantity, like, but it takes a lot

39:39

of man hours of reaching out to different publications

39:41

or ed.edu and things

39:43

that have value to build them. SEO

39:45

is straight man hours, man. It is a ton

39:48

of hours and people don't get it. To get really good

39:50

rankings, you gotta be able to do the work. In

39:52

order to do the work, you gotta have the people. You know, I was

39:54

talking to a buddy of mine who's like, you

39:57

have no idea if you could do a sponsorship

39:59

for,

39:59

just say

40:01

Arizona Diamondbacks. And if you looked at their homepage

40:03

and they were just gonna have one link out,

40:05

but it's super expensive, but he

40:08

was telling me because they're like 94, 97 on

40:11

the rankings, he's like that one link,

40:13

if they've only got one external link from

40:15

that,

40:16

it could literally

40:18

put you on the map big time. Cause it's just their

40:20

best outbound link that the whole league

40:23

has. I think you can buy some, but you're

40:25

not out there buying links. This is more buying

40:27

a sponsorship and then put you on there. But

40:30

there's a lot of small ones you could get that you need to have

40:32

too. You can buy some of these things.

40:35

We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't beta test, but

40:38

they're so damn expensive. It is. I

40:41

wanna say one we spent was like, we

40:43

dropped 15 grand on this link. And

40:48

that was a big chunk, but I started

40:50

looking at it like, if this thing produces

40:54

four new customers, new installs

40:56

for this client, it's worth it. Because

40:59

that one, I'm trying to look at it from their perspective. They're

41:01

not going anywhere. At the end of the day, I have to produce lead

41:03

volume for everybody, no matter what. So that means

41:06

it cuts into my profitability

41:08

until a year or two. That's fine. Like people aren't

41:10

leaving after year one. So I

41:13

can defer that until next year because I'm providing

41:15

value to them and I'm providing leads. And now I got the ranking.

41:17

And then you know how it is. Once you get the ranking, whether

41:20

it be in maps, the three pack of

41:22

maps or organic ranking, then

41:25

your cost per lead starts going down and revenue's going

41:27

up and lead volume's going up. So like it

41:29

pays off. But if you don't have the money to

41:31

do that, you got to old school, grind

41:33

it out, pick up the phone, starting to dial in the people.

41:36

And you can't just launch press releases by

41:38

the way and hope you're gonna get a bunch of valuable links because you

41:40

don't. Yeah, it's a tough game. And

41:42

I think a lot of people don't realize how critical

41:44

SEO is. And just having a website that explains,

41:48

it's a good book by, what is it? They asked

41:50

you answer Marcus Sheridan,

41:52

where

41:53

he just,

41:54

he blows me away with what he did. He started

41:56

writing an article a night and it was really, and

41:58

he has a company called Revver Pool.

41:59

highest rankings I've ever seen for just a

42:02

service company and he's two years out.

42:04

He can't take any more leads and

42:07

I think a lot of people they're like, I don't need to learn

42:09

SEO. And a lot of people especially small

42:11

companies they say I've already got enough business. They don't wrap their

42:13

truck and I'm like, yeah, but you

42:16

do all the work. Of course, you're gonna make 150 grand,

42:18

but your business is still worth zero. And

42:21

when you say the rich get richer, hear the fact. I

42:23

will always now build a company with an

42:25

exit. If I can't, what's

42:27

crazy is a lot of

42:29

companies are coming to me

42:32

for investments or to just give me equity.

42:35

And I'm like, show me your five-year plan when you plan

42:37

on an exit or at least you could roll.

42:39

But if it's not under five years, I just, what

42:42

do you got? A 20-year plan? Build

42:44

a company and if you don't want to sell it, you

42:46

can make that choice, but make

42:48

something worth a lot of value. Where else are you going

42:51

to get a multiple of profit? And if you

42:53

get it

42:54

to $3 million, six assets, $18 million,

42:58

and people can't even fathom

43:00

that, they're like, yeah, but then what do I do?

43:02

And I'm like, you keep doing, what

43:04

do you want to do? Well, that's the thing is I tell people,

43:06

what do you want to do after this? Who do you want to spend time

43:08

with? Who do you want to, do you want to take care

43:10

of any employees that helped you get here? Do you want to do anything for

43:12

your parents or your siblings or your kids? Do

43:15

you want to set up trust? What is your life, design

43:17

the life you want? What do you love to do? What do you pass

43:19

them about? And the hard

43:21

part is a lot of people can't dream anymore.

43:24

They can't envision their life without

43:26

showing up their nine to five and coming

43:29

in there and asking the phone on the weekends. They've almost become

43:31

addicted to it.

43:32

And for me, I'm like, I

43:35

love it. I'm happy. I love the guys I

43:37

work with. I think when Ken sat me down

43:39

and he said,

43:40

Tommy, you're a pretty smart guy at home service, but

43:42

you're probably like a kindergarten when it comes to financial,

43:45

when you guys learn the modeling that they could provide, learn

43:47

how they raise capital. And when you

43:50

see this, he goes, you're at the time

43:52

of us turn 40. And I'm 40 still,

43:54

it was just not that long ago. And he goes, you're

43:57

going to become somebody so great

43:59

because He goes, I would give away all my money

44:02

to sit in your seat today. I would take away everything

44:05

I've had, all everything to just be

44:07

able to go where you're at because you still got,

44:10

I don't think we, a lot of us don't realize 40 used

44:12

to be old for me. I was like 40, they're

44:14

over the hill. But now I'm like,

44:17

you know, Ken was right.

44:19

And I am learning a lot. And I'm like,

44:21

I have so much more clarity.

44:23

And I don't know what you would tell somebody that's thinking about

44:25

possibly selling if you got any

44:27

advice. I mean, again, I think

44:30

that one, you probably have

44:32

more options than you're even thinking and you might think, you know,

44:34

a lot, or you've read up a lot, but there's a lot of

44:36

different ways to make something great happen.

44:38

And you know what people used to tell

44:40

me, some people used to tell me early on was when

44:43

you think about, you don't come up

44:45

with an exit plan when you're trying to build your business,

44:47

because now you're all you're trying to do and thinking

44:49

about how am I going to get out instead of how do I continue to work

44:51

on it? Well, that was total bullshit, by the way. Like, at

44:54

least for me, because I'm like, well, I

44:56

do want to exit at some point. Like, I don't want to do this

44:58

always. But now that I know

45:01

what I know, and I've asked this question at Rhino

45:03

X a few times, when we will ask

45:05

like some of the guys like Geiger, Goodrich, or,

45:08

uh, Lee Leonard, any of those guys, like they'll say

45:11

they all would have done it faster, they all would have brought

45:13

on private equity faster had they known them,

45:16

what they know now, because they realize what

45:18

you could do with it. Here's the reality of

45:20

private equity that I didn't know, even say, and say

45:22

five years ago, if you want

45:24

to stay in your business and you want to continue

45:26

to grow it, and you need help,

45:29

it's okay

45:31

to

45:32

find the right private equity partner that matches

45:34

your core values that matches whatever it is that

45:36

you need to match that you like that you enjoy doing

45:38

business with, by the way, that's important, and

45:41

who supports your vision of the business

45:44

and can come behind it and add

45:47

intellectual capital to help make you

45:49

better, smarter, faster, and take off some

45:52

of the things that you're not good at off

45:54

of your plate and allows you to focus on the things that you

45:56

are great at. Yep. And all

45:58

those options are available to you. You know

46:00

if you're in the home services space what you talked

46:03

about hitting three million you hit three million you got all kinds of options

46:05

and even a even a Even

46:09

da gosh, I got so sick

46:11

of hearing that like can't you just say even a

46:14

I say even Eber

46:20

But it is by the way You will hear that

46:22

if you're getting known this process and then you're gonna laugh when you hear

46:24

that because of this podcast episode

46:27

But you have a lot of options whether

46:29

you want to exit the business or not, but it comes down

46:31

to for me It was this where

46:33

in and I got really good at over the last part

46:35

of our business was you know, I've got four kids So

46:38

they weren't getting younger and I didn't want to miss anything So

46:41

I tried to make I mean I miss some things you

46:43

miss some things when you're in business Like you can't

46:45

help it when you're growing and traveling everywhere But

46:47

I made the majority of their stuff that they meant took

46:49

and read eyes back or whatever But

46:51

I realized I

46:52

don't want to miss things I want to keep growing

46:54

this business and If

46:57

I could get to a spot where I could find a private equity

46:59

partner It makes me smarter and more efficient

47:02

and can get help getting me good leadership having

47:05

recruiting has been fantastic It

47:07

does actually free up time for me not

47:09

in the sense of like oh great between my nine

47:11

to five Like I've got days off. It's not quite

47:13

like that. It's just I can do things at different parts

47:16

of the day That's still allow me to make everything make

47:18

it to Mason's football game or Berkeley soccer game or

47:20

whatever so and it allows me

47:22

to grow my business because much like

47:24

you or you and I also relate a lot

47:26

is we pour into Our

47:29

employees like our team members and

47:31

I get to do that more now like more I know I

47:33

saw like I was saying I love your dream manager position by

47:36

bringing on a private equity partner I

47:38

did my due diligence. I found those that would

47:40

can that would follow what I want

47:42

to do I worked that into the LOI and then

47:46

by the way, you want to go shit everything into that LOI

47:48

and Then I promise

47:51

you if you find the right partner, they'll help you

47:53

become more efficient They'll get you some time

47:55

back where you're only focusing not saying you

47:57

get more time back like you get you just get

47:59

more to spend it on more important things that allowed to free

48:01

you know that can free you up you wouldn't know

48:04

Idaho and played what golf or something or you're

48:06

playing or you're in Utah playing golf with

48:08

your dad

48:09

you were like I

48:11

didn't know like you're one place you know

48:13

one day the next day or some place else good

48:15

for you you did that for yourself like those are called

48:17

memory dividends yeah those are the kind of dividends

48:20

I want to run with no 100 and

48:22

I'll tell you what I feel like life is just

48:24

getting so much better I don't have

48:26

any I really don't I'd love

48:28

to tell you hey watch out for this make sure you do

48:30

this but luckily we recruited

48:32

Dan Miller the president of the company who

48:35

has been through this rodeo a dozen times and just

48:38

his wife is a partner at the law

48:40

firm we use and he's just like let me handle this

48:43

let me handle this I'll take care of that I'll do this and

48:45

he went in and then he's like dude he's like I'll

48:47

set you up after this too he goes we'll

48:49

set up your family office we'll get you with Goldman Sachs we'll

48:51

make sure this is happening what's important to you here and

48:54

now it's like

48:55

it's still like getting the right people is almost like a cheat

48:57

code you know one of the

48:59

things

49:01

Gary Vaynerchuk said that

49:03

was very controversial especially to Ishmael

49:05

during the first Rhino

49:08

X was

49:10

he said

49:11

some of you guys are crazy

49:13

spending the kind of money twelve hundred fourteen

49:15

hundred dollars a month for a billboard and he

49:17

goes some of you guys have a hundred billboards he goes

49:20

it might take me 500 Facebook

49:23

posts to find the right one but I'll kill

49:26

any of your billboards I could outbrand you guys

49:29

all day long using Facebook

49:31

and then he said TikTok and Instagram and growing

49:33

or LinkedIn at the time but what

49:36

are your thoughts on that I'm just curious because

49:38

I felt like Ishmael stood up and he's like what

49:41

do you mean you know but it

49:43

was a that was an interesting moment

49:45

I got to go back and find that I turned that into a podcast

49:47

too I remember

49:49

that and thinking like damn he is pissing straight

49:52

in his Cheerios uh here's

49:54

my two cents I don't do everything

49:57

Gary told me to do like you

49:59

know just I do I've done quite

50:01

a bit, but if it were up to him, I'd have been

50:03

post and maybe I should have maybe I would have grown faster Who

50:05

knows? I Don't

50:08

see that it didn't work out for Ishmael.

50:11

He built the brand real quick. It's

50:13

a very successful business real

50:15

quick. So Gary's good.

50:17

But do I think that he

50:19

says one thing and it means Something

50:22

you know, whatever that it's that you know that

50:24

it's that it's only way you could go There's

50:26

ten ways at the top of the mountain. Yeah,

50:29

didn't he didn't ask him his market. He didn't ask him anything,

50:31

right? He just was like, you know, so Listen,

50:35

you can't deny that the dude built the

50:37

brand quickly and then made a phenomenal

50:40

Fortune. Yeah, it's a fortune. So it

50:42

would be hard to say. Yep. Gary was right. You

50:44

know what I mean? I mean you have

50:47

your Billboards still all

50:49

over the place too. And when I wake up in the morning and see you on

50:51

streaming is like damn it Tommy I'm

50:54

changing the damn channel But

50:56

it does help build a brand quickly But you

50:58

have to be able to have the money

51:00

to do it, you know And and you got to

51:02

be okay with it's not like it's got some quick turnaround

51:05

for you out You just got to be cool with like

51:07

this one year waiting And what

51:09

I can tell you that a lot of people don't understand is

51:12

I live below my means for a decade I

51:15

didn't move into a nice house. I didn't drive a new car.

51:18

I didn't go out to these expensive

51:20

vacations. I literally reinvested

51:23

into the company and put it back in and hired

51:26

better people and Brought

51:28

on another benefit like a 401k then

51:30

I brought on you know Obviously PTO behind

51:32

the tools sending the guys to Phoenix Binder

51:34

department complex for them when they stay

51:36

here all that stuff costs money but that's a business

51:39

expense that I needed to put back into it and

51:42

You know, I don't have any regrets. I just you

51:45

know, I'm 40 now

51:47

The the old expression is so

51:49

true I wish I knew then what I know now and

51:52

I used to hate that when my dad and my

51:54

uncle was ever I wish I knew then what I do now, but

51:57

there's no way I could put this into a book. I

51:59

could

51:59

I mean, I put a lot in the Home Service and the Internet Elevator, it was

52:02

a fun book, but

52:03

you got to kind of experience this stuff to

52:05

know what it's like to be in this situation. You

52:08

can't write a book of the feelings that you go through

52:10

when you hire somebody bad or when you get stolen

52:12

from or when somebody totals a truck. Or

52:14

somebody, you know, two guys, we had to

52:16

go separate directions because they both got a car accident,

52:18

so they got to go get tested. And they both

52:20

came back with THC and they're

52:23

great installers, but they're uninsurable.

52:26

And so some of the stuff you just got to

52:28

experience, and the faster you could be around

52:30

people that have been through it, that could

52:32

talk to you about it, and you could build like

52:34

our group that we text message with, and

52:37

their trusted confidants that we'll take. And

52:40

it feels like we're always trying to help each

52:42

other. And that's the difference is very few people get an

52:44

opportunity to hang around with groups like that.

52:47

I think I want to add just one

52:49

simple thing. And I wish I've

52:52

said this a few different times, and I still can't remember who

52:54

gave me this advice. And it's so simple.

52:57

In Houston, when you and me flew down, and

52:59

we're speaking at that event, American Dream event,

53:02

was the first time I ever shared the story of like,

53:04

Rhino, and not only Ronald, but like my life

53:06

leading up to all the failures

53:09

I made. Yes, thank you. And it was

53:11

the first time I actually shared that whole

53:13

story, because all the way up to like a certain point, like

53:15

I was ashamed of those things that happened to me.

53:18

Like as I was building the business, you know, I went through foreclosures,

53:21

repossessions, things

53:23

you don't want to talk about because you're ashamed of it. Would

53:26

I go back and do it all over again the same? Hmm. I

53:29

mean, those are pretty sucky times. But

53:31

a lot of it set the stage for that was my

53:33

rock bottom. I heard you talking about hitting rock bottom from like a physical

53:35

perspective. And one of the things that you had posted,

53:37

but my rock bottom was in that moment when I

53:40

couldn't hide from it. But

53:42

somebody told me early on then, you know, Chris,

53:45

whatever you do, just remember this,

53:47

like doing good is

53:50

good business. So you're

53:52

a good guy, Chris, let all

53:54

the stuff go. Like you made

53:57

mistakes, you know, but

53:59

you aren't out of business. business, like still run the business.

54:01

And part of it is, I thought,

54:03

that's when I said reputation over revenue is, and

54:06

I made the decision at that point in time that we're always going

54:08

to continue to give back no matter how bad of a

54:10

situation we're in. We never

54:12

had to, in the last decade of this

54:15

business have to make a decision based off of financial

54:17

fear ever. So we always

54:19

made the right decision for the customer. And then as

54:21

the business got bigger, we shifted into

54:23

making sure that we focus so much on our employees

54:26

because without them and giving them all the tools they need

54:28

and all the benefits and taking care of them and caring about

54:30

them. If we didn't do those things and they wouldn't service

54:32

the customer at the elite level,

54:35

we needed them to do. So the

54:37

thing I kind of hung my hat on was, I

54:40

believe I'm a good guy. I have a good

54:43

heart. I genuinely care about people. I

54:45

genuinely care about my employees, my customers.

54:48

And so I make decisions based off of that feeling.

54:52

Now I know how to pay attention to my financials, but

54:54

I believed, you know what? I do good

54:56

and that is good business. And

54:58

it worked out well for me. Be a good

55:00

guy, don't be an asshole.

55:02

There's a lot going on in

55:04

home service about, I don't know if I should

55:07

go down this road. Then don't. But

55:09

I'll just say, you know, the last person,

55:12

and I'm not talking about an individual right now. I'm talking

55:14

about just in general. There's a lot of advice

55:17

out there of people that don't actually do this stuff

55:19

in their own business. They don't live it. They preach

55:21

it, but they don't live it. They don't enjoy their business.

55:23

And all I would say is, I don't

55:26

make money. My events are not meant to

55:28

make money. My books are not made to make money.

55:30

My podcast isn't meant to make money. It's

55:32

for me. And I

55:35

wanna help a lot of people out with it, but I really, when

55:38

I train somebody and I'm coaching them, it makes

55:40

me a better person and better

55:42

at what I do. And I make

55:44

my money from A1 Groszler service. That's where my

55:47

main nut comes from. And I

55:49

don't need to coach anybody for money. I

55:51

don't need them to get in a group. I think there's

55:53

an opportunity for a lot of people to make a lot

55:55

of money and have freedom and elevate their mindset. And

55:58

that's why I'm doing this stuff. And it helps me. I

56:00

look forward to that, like I look forward to church. Like

56:03

I need that in my life because

56:05

without it, I'm a little bit lost. Without

56:07

out there figuring out my

56:09

ideas, I work through them in podcasts and I

56:12

talk about things and I learn things and then I

56:14

apply things. So, you know,

56:16

I want to get back to one thing here because

56:18

you've been doing marketing so long

56:21

and you've seen so many different industries and

56:23

businesses. You know, there's certain

56:25

metrics that you need to focus on. And

56:28

I'm just curious if you had a breakdown, three of them, but

56:30

I want to talk about the elephant

56:32

in the room with most businesses that are encouraging

56:35

enough because a lot of people get mad

56:37

at me about this and especially on

56:39

TikTok, these little hooters that live in their parents'

56:41

basements. They say, I would never pay that

56:43

for anything, but yet they're wearing Jordans and they got

56:45

a brand new iPhone and they're going out to $300 dinners and

56:48

they're renting Alexis. You know,

56:50

you hear all these people that say, well,

56:52

I would never pay that much for home service, but what's

56:55

your biggest asset for most people? What's

56:58

the number one ROI in the home? The garage door. So

57:00

I don't want to hear their bullshit, but anyways. Hey,

57:02

how do you really feel? It annoys me.

57:05

I can see that.

57:06

But so the question is,

57:09

if you had to break down the metrics of

57:12

when you're like, I'm sure you fired

57:14

commands, and I'm

57:16

sure the biggest complainers are the ones that aren't

57:18

focused on the numbers, that just expect you to pull

57:20

magic. So what would you say someone needs to

57:22

pay attention to? Regardless of the marketing

57:25

company, then we'll talk a little bit about Rhino. Yeah, man,

57:27

I've talked about this forever. And the

57:29

facts, they will set

57:31

you free.

57:32

So yeah,

57:33

we've had to fire our customers before because

57:36

I'm also trying

57:38

to grow my business and I grow my business by my

57:40

customers growing. But in order for them to grow, they actually

57:42

have to make the meetings and go over the actual

57:44

real numbers and then take accountability for

57:46

their piece of the action

57:48

too. But the

57:51

things that I like to measure are,

57:54

if someone's paying Rhino, they're

57:56

paying me to bring in new customers for them by

57:58

way of digital marketing.

58:00

So

58:02

perfect because I can track everything from it.

58:04

So from that I should be able to see exactly what

58:06

is my true cost per lead on net

58:09

new leads like a brand new

58:11

legit bookable customer that was not

58:13

a past customer

58:16

that was not a past client or referral like a

58:18

legit brand new customer.

58:20

Some still I would say most still

58:22

don't track to that depth when they're when

58:25

they're reporting a cost per lead. That's what I

58:27

battled forever by the way. So

58:29

it's getting better but battled

58:31

it forever. So you have to know exactly what

58:34

your cost per lead is for a

58:36

new cost like what did it cost to get me new customer?

58:39

Lead

58:40

not acquisition. Then you got

58:42

to track your booking rate even though I don't do

58:45

see it what I do now actually CSR coaching and development.

58:47

By the way that's not open to the masses yet

58:49

so scratch that from the record but soon.

58:52

But it's because you know I have a team

58:54

at Rhino everybody's in the United States of America so not

58:56

outsource anything nothing's overseas or near shore that

58:59

listen to every single phone call for our customers

59:01

so that way they could determine one how was the call handled

59:03

but also what was the lead

59:06

quality and did and did the new contractor

59:08

book it. That way it holds

59:10

us all accountable like with the facts. So I

59:12

can track booking rate on net new business.

59:15

So you know if you have your CRM like your

59:17

service titans or house call pros or whatever you're using

59:20

it can track your booking rate you know as a whole

59:22

but I'm tracking it on new business.

59:25

I wonder how you're performing a new business because that's

59:27

what you're paying me to do. So I

59:29

like to be able to see you know what

59:31

was the average cost per lead and what was the booking rate

59:34

and then if you have like a service titan

59:36

we can pull the revenue out and you can attach revenue

59:39

straight to that lead so I know what my return on ad spin

59:42

was.

59:43

So

59:44

from a pay-per-click perspective you're looking at like cost

59:46

per conversion like you need to make sure like am

59:48

I getting the most out of my

59:51

budget? Well what does that mean sometimes

59:53

you have to launch ads at different times of day and

59:55

but this is where being in the same industry for so

59:57

long is helpful because I can book

1:00:00

a budget. So you figure out what ads

1:00:02

to run at what time to have the lowest cost per

1:00:04

conversion, but the highest booking rates

1:00:06

and like you, that's how you get scrappy,

1:00:09

you know, when it's in a market like it is now.

1:00:11

But the end of the day, if you track nothing else,

1:00:13

and every marketing company can do this for you,

1:00:15

by the way, they say they can't, they're lying to you. All

1:00:18

it takes is a call tracking number for them and for someone

1:00:21

to listen to your phone calls

1:00:22

to figure out

1:00:24

where the lead come from, one cost for you. If

1:00:26

you're doing social, use a tracking number. If

1:00:28

you don't pay to add, use a tracking number. If you're using direct

1:00:30

mail, use a tracking number, like in this listen to see

1:00:33

what actually came from it. That was a new customer. Did

1:00:36

you book it?

1:00:37

Did you close it? What was the revenue average ticket?

1:00:39

Thank you. Do you think you've had this conversation

1:00:42

on four metrics that you're always using to go in the only

1:00:44

thing I talked to for Dennis that I talked to

1:00:46

is what's your average ticket? What's your conversion

1:00:49

rate? What's your booking rate and what does it cost

1:00:51

you to acquire a customer? Yeah. So that CAC

1:00:53

is like a mean so you have those things and

1:00:55

you can know how to scale it from a marketing perspective.

1:00:59

And I think that's like wonky with it is when you start factoring

1:01:01

in branding with it. That's tough. You

1:01:03

need really good like call rail and you really

1:01:05

need to set up a lot of things that we've finally

1:01:07

figured that out. Just July.

1:01:09

We use car and they're fantastic. By the way, you can also

1:01:12

use car if you're listening to like you can get in there like we've

1:01:14

that we've played with the different, I mean, we have thousands

1:01:17

upon thousands of call tracking numbers. So

1:01:20

the car has been fantastic for us.

1:01:23

So question

1:01:26

balancing the demands.

1:01:28

This is running through the last couple of questions

1:01:31

here, but balancing

1:01:33

the demands of being a CEO, CMO,

1:01:36

podcast host, philanthropist, husband,

1:01:39

father, son. What advice

1:01:42

can you share to our listeners that are struggling with their

1:01:44

work life balance?

1:01:47

That's going to sound so cliche. I'm going to say

1:01:49

it anyway. You need to figure out what like

1:01:51

realistically makes you happy.

1:01:53

And

1:01:56

you might say, well, you know, making money makes me happy.

1:01:58

Well, me too, but giving

1:02:01

up time with the kids would

1:02:04

make me less happy. So

1:02:07

they're getting old fast. And we asked

1:02:09

Goodrich one time and he's like, did I give it all up? Like

1:02:11

I miss so much stuff and he's making up for

1:02:13

it now, which is great. I love that he's

1:02:15

doing that. But, you know, I just chose

1:02:19

my non-negotiables. We're like, I'm not

1:02:21

going to miss this thing. If that meant I missed that on the big

1:02:23

opportunity, then I missed it. And by the way,

1:02:25

that's very, very hard to do. But more

1:02:27

often than not, it panned out. But

1:02:30

you can't get the time back. No.

1:02:33

You know, we just, you know, like a perfect example is, Bill

1:02:36

had that scare with the stage three cancer. And it's like,

1:02:38

those are nice reminders of like, you

1:02:40

just don't know, man. And you don't

1:02:43

want to

1:02:44

have regret

1:02:45

and leave it to your family, your kids,

1:02:47

your wife, your mom, whoever like that you didn't

1:02:49

take the time with them. And so I

1:02:52

just chose to have non-negotiables. And I said,

1:02:54

you know what? And that was hard. These are my non-negotiables.

1:02:56

And I'm going to continue to scale this business and pour into

1:02:58

it and to all of our customers and to our employees, but

1:03:01

not at the expense of losing relationship with

1:03:03

my family. And that's what I did.

1:03:05

One of my technicians in

1:03:07

Sedona sent me a text message to this country

1:03:10

song. And it's called until

1:03:12

you can't. And he goes, this made me think

1:03:14

of you. I was like, it's like, you can put

1:03:16

a ring on her finger until you can't, you can hang

1:03:18

out with dad until you can't. And I'm like, what the hell?

1:03:21

It was like, but he's like

1:03:23

in a good way. And I was like, I don't know what that means, but have you ever

1:03:25

heard that kind of thing? but

1:03:29

until you can't, you're going to listen to that

1:03:31

on the way home. So this will

1:03:33

be pretty much last question. So with

1:03:36

Rhino, why should

1:03:38

somebody reach out? Who's

1:03:41

your avatar and who could you help

1:03:43

grow their business enormously that should

1:03:45

be reaching out today? And if so, how do they do

1:03:47

that? Yeah, thanks for asking me that. But

1:03:51

my sales guys have it easy. Because

1:03:54

we don't outbound ever to

1:03:56

anyone and everything is

1:03:58

inbound for us. That

1:04:01

puts us in a really

1:04:03

great position to be very picky on who we partner

1:04:05

with. But you kind of heard me talk a little bit

1:04:08

about it is we really only want to work with people

1:04:10

who are engaged in working

1:04:12

on the business too. Like, you know,

1:04:14

I get under some of you might still be out there running calls

1:04:17

and things like that, but you still got to take time to actually

1:04:19

work on the business. And

1:04:21

that means if you're gonna, if

1:04:23

you legit want to scale, like I

1:04:26

want to grow too. The only way I grow is if my customers

1:04:28

grow, have a recruiting plan

1:04:30

in place. Like the simple things when we ask those questions,

1:04:32

like don't just say, I want to meet leads you can get me.

1:04:35

If I had to give like an avatar, you know, like, I

1:04:38

always hate saying this because it's like, it sounds bad,

1:04:40

but you know, I've learned a lot about the

1:04:42

size of the business and what they typically will do, you

1:04:45

know, and how their businesses will function. But like

1:04:48

I took on Josh Yeager, man, he was sub 2 million.

1:04:50

I took him on because I believed in him, you know,

1:04:53

and he was doing all the things.

1:04:56

And so I was like, cool, I want to help

1:04:58

that person. Like that's why I got into this business.

1:05:01

So at the end of the day, I would just say this like, for

1:05:04

us, whomever you talk to on

1:05:06

my team, my sales guys

1:05:07

have

1:05:08

in gals have great hearts.

1:05:11

They get nice commissions on retention. That

1:05:14

way nobody is, you know, selling. It's

1:05:16

a different model. They're

1:05:18

not, they're selling based on what was doing, what's right

1:05:20

for the actual contractor and not just getting

1:05:23

some big quick sale and moving on, you know? But

1:05:26

if you legit want to scale and grow the business

1:05:29

and you legit are willing to put in the time every

1:05:31

single month to go over all

1:05:34

the metrics and you're legit good

1:05:37

with holding yourself accountable and

1:05:39

your team accountable for your shortcomings. I'm not

1:05:41

saying we'll nail it every single month, but we'll get it right 90% of the

1:05:43

time. But you

1:05:45

also have to be along with that right. And you can

1:05:47

actually do things about it. If you're booking rates low, get some

1:05:49

CSR coaching, or if you just have an office

1:05:52

manager, like have her listen to their calls

1:05:54

and you got to actively do things to make the business

1:05:56

better. So you got to

1:05:58

really want to grow and be. Committed to that

1:06:01

and and that's how because we can't work

1:06:03

with five people in the same place We had we had

1:06:05

to pick wisely too. So thankfully

1:06:07

in garage doors We're pretty well

1:06:09

wide open right now So we only got I think

1:06:11

maybe a dozen or so garage door

1:06:13

contractors on board which by the way was

1:06:16

great from vertical track Thank you It's

1:06:18

hard in garage doors to get the kind

1:06:20

of money that roofing and each rack has but I love the

1:06:22

industry and if someone Wants to reach out

1:06:24

to you. What's the best way to do that? I mean you say you're

1:06:26

like if it's me by the way, I live my life on the record

1:06:28

So it's pretty easy to connect with me. You

1:06:30

can find me on social media personally But if you want to connect

1:06:33

with why know it's pretty easy go to our

1:06:35

Y in O s s Com

1:06:37

that's what looks looks like it says rhinos, but

1:06:39

it stands for rhinos strategic solutions So our Y

1:06:42

in O s s comm you can follow us on social

1:06:44

You can also listen to the to the point home services podcast,

1:06:46

which is Tommy's real favorite podcast He was he'll

1:06:49

say it's my podcast What do you guys

1:06:51

how many that you guys just passed a million or something

1:06:53

or a million and a half? We're made just past the main and a half,

1:06:55

you know in 2020 like

1:06:58

but again Gary was a big part of like

1:07:00

bumping that thing up and getting the subscribers and things up

1:07:03

too So it's gotten really really big but we share a lot of these

1:07:05

same tactics on that podcast and even

1:07:07

on there a few different Times. Yeah, and we

1:07:09

share a lot of these things to bring contractors on to

1:07:11

kind of share some of their stories a lot of similarities to what

1:07:13

we do But yeah So a lot of the

1:07:15

things I'm saying like little key metrics like we just

1:07:18

you know paying attention to your answering services

1:07:20

after hours answering services like paying attention to

1:07:22

your CSR is like Things even though

1:07:24

I don't do them. I see how they impact

1:07:27

people's businesses So I try to bring

1:07:29

light to it and figure out who can help them So but

1:07:31

Ryan OSS that's how you get in touch with us find me on social media

1:07:34

Good listening to the point podcast save it to your

1:07:36

favorites

1:07:37

great singer He's

1:07:40

also a great speaker Last

1:07:42

thing Chris I close out with this is that maybe

1:07:44

we talked about a lot of things your new career

1:07:46

where you're going family life

1:07:49

balance

1:07:50

Maybe there's something we didn't touch upon. Maybe there's something

1:07:53

you want to close out leave the audience with I'll

1:07:55

give you a few minutes Just to kind of close this out. Wow.

1:07:57

Okay. I thought you're gonna ask me about my book about

1:07:59

I'm not even gonna write a book. I was gonna be like,

1:08:02

damn, elevate. I skipped that, because I remember

1:08:04

you don't love to read. So wait on

1:08:06

that audio version. Soon. Soon.

1:08:09

It should be out, I

1:08:10

don't. I will say. It's an Avial figure.

1:08:13

I will, I'll say this. I

1:08:16

think most people who do know me know

1:08:18

that I am a peacekeeper, right? Like

1:08:21

I want things, I want people to do well. I

1:08:23

believe that Rhino was the platform I've

1:08:25

been given to serve the masses. And I feel like I

1:08:27

was a very good steward of that and still am a good steward

1:08:29

of it. But I would say anybody who's

1:08:31

in business, whether it's your manufacturing

1:08:34

relationships, your supplier relationships,

1:08:36

your employees, your whatever,

1:08:39

don't be an asshole. Like be nice. Like

1:08:41

be, you know, you get a lot more people what come

1:08:43

to, was it, where people

1:08:45

come to sugar than vinegar? I

1:08:48

don't know what that was. I probably fucked that all up. But

1:08:50

just be kind, you know. Lead

1:08:52

by influence, not intimidation. Let's

1:08:54

just go with that. But, you know, respect

1:08:57

people. Have fun while you're doing it. You

1:09:01

know, I have some of these different

1:09:03

private equity partners that I have that I

1:09:06

dread getting on the phones with them. And like, if

1:09:08

they weren't so large of

1:09:10

customers for me, I will probably hire

1:09:12

them.

1:09:13

Like what happens with some? I mean, just, you

1:09:15

know, the way that they talk to somebody, like

1:09:17

degrading somebody or talking to somebody or just being very

1:09:20

disrespectful and rude is something I don't want to deal

1:09:22

with. I don't think my employees deserve

1:09:24

that. You know, it's not worth it for me. So

1:09:27

I'm telling you, like, I would want to jump through

1:09:29

more hoops for that person if they

1:09:31

treated us a little bit differently. Just

1:09:33

like I do the others that actually have respectful relationships.

1:09:36

So, you know, I mean,

1:09:39

I have manufacturers as partners, you know,

1:09:41

that I'm a part of. And

1:09:43

they treat me with respect and we help one

1:09:45

another. So everything

1:09:47

is difficult and I will finish with this. So one, be

1:09:50

nice to everybody. Like things will get you much further

1:09:52

faster. Number two, do

1:09:54

not forget that being vulnerable

1:09:56

not to ask for questions is an absolute

1:09:59

superpower. We look at it as shame,

1:10:01

we look at it as we can't let our pride go. But

1:10:03

let me tell you, once I started asking

1:10:05

questions and I let that go, like I

1:10:08

let go of thinking I knew everything, even

1:10:10

when you get with your buddies in our text message groups

1:10:12

like, I'm certainly, I

1:10:14

get my chops busted like everybody else does, I don't

1:10:17

mind looking like an idiot and asking questions because

1:10:19

it gets me from point A to point B faster. So

1:10:22

be vulnerable enough to just not know and be okay

1:10:24

with people knowing that you don't know, you'll get there faster. Chris,

1:10:29

I love you, buddy. Thank you. Great work. Thanks,

1:10:31

brother. Appreciate you. Thanks

1:10:34

for having me back. Thanks for listening, guys. If you love this,

1:10:37

leave me a review. I'd really appreciate it.

1:10:43

Hey there, thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before

1:10:46

I let you go, I wanna let everybody know that Elevate

1:10:48

is out and ready to buy. I can share with

1:10:51

you how I attracted a winning team of over 700

1:10:53

employees in over 20 states. The insights

1:10:55

in this book are powerful and can be applied

1:10:57

to any business or organization. It's a real

1:11:00

game changer for anyone looking to build and develop

1:11:02

a high-performing team like over here at A1 Garage

1:11:04

Door Service. So if you wanna learn the secrets that helped me

1:11:06

transform my team from stealing the toilet paper

1:11:09

to a group of 700 plus employees

1:11:11

growing in the same direction, head over

1:11:13

to elevateandwin.com forward

1:11:15

slash podcast and grab a copy of the book.

1:11:18

Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time

1:11:20

on the podcast. Thanks

1:11:24

for listening. We'll catch up with you next time. We'll catch

1:11:26

up with you next time. We'll catch up with you next time. All right.