$200M Service Business with 700 Employees || Game-Changing Mindset Tips || Tommy Mello A1

A successful business requires a business mentality. If you want to succeed in your business, you need to think like one. Learn how to lead, not just how to work. This is how Tommy Mello made his career soar. The focus of his leadership development was not on how to solve problems but on how to improve his leadership abilities. Your mindset should be focused on cultivating your team. For him, he can hire a subject matter expert to solve problems he cannot solve. Rather than being ashamed, he encourages us to ask for help and find the best people for the job. The end goal should be to manage these people and grow your business by managing them, not to do everything yourself.

In today's episode, we discuss leadership, culture, marketing systems, and recruiting the right people for your business. Be inspired by Tommy Mello's story and learn how he elevated his business. This episode provides you with an inside look at his secrets and strategy.

Tommy Mello owns A1 garage door service. Six years ago, he began his podcast to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses. He is a note-taker, and every time something comes up in his head, he writes about it. His success inspired him to write the first book Home Service Millionaire, and he then wrote Elevate, a book about attracting and developing a winning team. You can buy his book using this link: www.elevateandwin.com/keith

“I never call people my employees. I like to call them internal customers. I like to call them my coworkers. I like to call them my team.”

- Tommy Mello.

Topics Covered:

0:33 - “Tommy Mello built a home service business specifically in the garage door industry from scratch up to 30 million 50 million, and now they're doing 200 million this year. He has over 700 employees.”

Introduction to Tommy Mello.

2:04 - “I love what I do, man, and I'm opening up doors. The first thing I start with every speech I do is I'm in the garage for business. I'm in 23 states. If you like what we do, use our company, and see how we do things, but also have a graduate company looking to partner up with a great company that's going to take care of your internal customers, that's us. So at building little marketers out there. It's amazing what happens when you give. It's the byproduct of giving just good things happen.”

Tommy shares how he got started in the business. He never refers to his employees as employees; he calls them his team. It's that kind of approach that builds a great leadership team.

7:27 - |You guys are welcome to see my price book. And they never knew what he was doing so much better. While he was marketing to the right customers at the right time. He was branded correctly, and he didn't have turnover. And so you got to pay your people the right amount. Otherwise, your guy quits who's running the warranty call for the customer. They're not there who's running on weekends and nights To the holidays, oh, they're not there because they didn't treat my employees right. They didn't pay them appropriately to a living wage, they weren't able to be homeowners. So they had to move farther out away from the city. And now they can't work for me because they didn't make enough money. So I think the byproduct of taking care of people is your customers get handled in the same day service, they got the right parts, they got a trained technician that cares.”

Paying your employees appropriately was Tommy's main point. A good salary won't make them leave you. It is the byproduct of paying people what they are worth that they provide good customer service. Therefore, you must set your price high enough to cover the cost.

12:35 - “A lot of times when I was smaller and business, I thought I was saving money by buying used trucks and not hiring the best and not getting the best trainers. And I thought I'd just help. But then I realized that I was actually losing money because things weren't hitting the finish line, and things weren't getting done. And it was kind of a hodgepodge put together. And all these ideas without hiring the best consultants, without reading books, without listening to great podcasts, without getting learning at great speaking events. I realized I was actually kind of shooting myself in the foot. I was actually making my life harder. And I thought I was going to be an expert at everything, but I became a jack of all trades, a master of none. Then I started investing in myself and everybody around me. And that conclusion has been very positive.”

Tommy admits that he can't do everything by himself. His secret to success is hiring the best of the best. Having a jack-of-all-trades approach won't help you succeed. It's important to stay on track with your schedule. Leadership skills can be improved by recognizing your weaknesses.

20:10 - “ I never want to be the bad guy. I'm not a good, bad guy. I'm not good at firing people. In fact, I'm probably too lenient on second or third chances. But I've really empowered my team. And I think that that's something that most business owners fail out.”

Don't be afraid to make big decisions and praise those around you. Encourage your team to make their own decisions and recognize their achievements.

38:06 - “I learned the simple formula without a budget without numbers. How much are you spending as a percentage of revenue on marketing? And if it balloons for one month, why? what's working and what's not, when you can reinvest the things that are working all the time, and the evidence is clear, because you've got data integrity to make sure the numbers are right, then it's basically a compass. And you just got to follow TrueNorth to get where you want to go. And the CRM and the accounting tools allow you to do this, but a lot of people go accounting or smiling. I don't want to budget. It's too much work. And it is a lot of work. It's a lot of work to get it right. But when it is right, you'll find the Holy Grail.”

Tommy loves numbers, he's always calculating and computing. When it comes to business, numbers are very important to him. He ensures they meet their monthly KPIs. Every department maintains a scorecard to track performance.

46:12 - “I want to see their six-month plan, their one-year plan, their three-year plan, their five-year plan, and then I want to show them how it could help them hit their goals. Same thing with vendors, the same thing with anybody. And that's the whole meaning of the word Elevate. You get to win when they win. And it doesn't need to be losers.”

Tommy explains why he wrote Elevate and what the book title means to him.

Key Takeaways:

“People used to talk about me on Facebook before the podcast and say he's our villain. He is such a prick. He comes into our market. He takes our employees. He raises prices, and he charges too much. And others like, well, Tommy's a pretty good guy. I'm making a lot more money now. The employees are happier. My clients are happier, and my vendors are happier because our product mix is better. So they all won. And that's the hard part for people to comprehend. And it just doesn't make sense. But it works.” - Tommy Mello

“I really believe these things, and I just have you got an opportunity to grow to be whatever you want. I'm here to help you get to where you want to be. I want to know your dreams, your goals, and what you want out of life. And if we could work on these together, what do I get out of it? Number one, I love homeowners. We had two new homeowners last week. We got a new kid that came into the Awan family two weeks ago. It's amazing. Right now, yesterday, my guy rest of the hospital's wife's pregnant. I don't know if she has had the baby yet. But I love this stuff. So that's amazing. But what's also amazing about it is when they're winning, I'm winning. I tell them if their dreams are coming true, I know mine are. My dream has to be big enough for all your guys' dreams to fit inside. So when I watch every one of your dreams start to come true. The byproduct is I know, I know, I'm successful when you guys are hitting your goals because the way I designed the pay structures is it's inevitably that outcome.” - Tommy Mello

Connect with Tommy
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thomasmello/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1341478446?ign-itscg=30200&ign-itsct=lt_p
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialtommymello/
Tiktok:https://www.tiktok.com/@officialtommymello
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCC95oOLvDda4V6LdyRoHb3w
LindkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommymello/