What I Learned Building a $300M/Year Blue-Collar Business

- January 27, 2026 (about 2 months ago) • 01:12:59

Transcript

Start Time	Speaker	Text
00:00	Tommy Mello	We're going to spend $4,300,000 ($4.3 million) this month on marketing, and here's what I've learned.
00:04	Shaan Puri	Tommy Mello
00:04	Tommy Mello	"Tommy Mello. Tommy Mello."
00:06	Shaan Puri	"The founder of a one-garage-door—you're doing this blue-collar thing but at a really big scale, and I love that combination."
00:13	Tommy Mello	A One Garage Doors. We fix, we repair, we maintain, and we replace garage doors. A One—from day one—the original valuation was... now the business is north of $80,000,000. No shit. I've read hundreds of books on sales and even more on marketing.
00:29	Shaan Puri	So, ring ring. I pick up. "What are you telling them?" </FormattedResponse>
00:32	Tommy Mello	You never say "the cost"; you say "the investment." You never say "the most expensive"; you say "top of the line." You never say "the cheapest"; you say "builder grade." These words matter.
00:41	Shaan Puri	"Tommy is giving us the sauce."
00:43	Sam Parr	What other businesses have you seen in the services industry that you are shocked at how big they are?
00:48	Tommy Mello	Most of what I've done is repeatable. It's not like this crazy thing that only works in garage doors. Don't overcomplicate it.
00:55	Shaan Puri	"Dude, I've known you for 27 minutes, and I love this guy."
00:57	Sam Parr	"Tommy, what do you suck at? Where's your weakness right now?"
01:00	Tommy Mello	I was going to go broke. There was a stripper living in our Dallas warehouse with my manager. </FormattedResponse>
01:05	Shaan Puri	We were doing so well, and then Tommy went to jail.
01:09	Sam Parr	"There it is. There's the weakness, Tommy. Have you ever listened to MFM (My First Million)—this podcast? Yeah."
01:20	Tommy Mello	We list. I listened to a dozen.
01:22	Sam Parr	What do you think?
01:23	Tommy Mello	I love the come-up stories, but I hate how every single guy is pushing entrepreneurship. It's not cut out for 45% of the population. You won't be able to handle the rejection, the failure, the five years of taking a loan against your house — the people who quit, cheat, and lie; the canceled appointments; the long drives; the hard nights; walking out of the movie theater to go run a job. I just... I don't feel like everybody's cut out for it. And some people who invested in Bitcoin early don't know what it's like.
01:53	Shaan Puri	So, who do you think is headed out for it? How do you know?
01:56	Tommy Mello	Well, there's this thing called Driven — it's a book my buddy Gary wrote. Actually, if you're a hunter, it's in your DNA; it's literally a different chromosome. There's so much more. Usually it's ADHD; often you're dyslexic. But it just means you have a high tolerance for failure. You're okay working a lot. You don't even mention the words "work‑life balance" — you're off balance on purpose. There are seasons of life, and you actually have a bigger "why." By the way, you can't quit — the goalpost always moves. There's no finish line; there's no end zone. So if you're going to start from nothing, the chance of success is less than 10%.
02:40	Sam Parr	So, for the audience: you started this thing called One Garage, which, I think, does north of $300 million in revenue. You took some chips off the table — you sold about half, or a little bit less than half, of the business recently for, I think, north of a $1 billion valuation. Is that right?
02:55	Tommy Mello	The original valuation was about $540 million. We were at $27 million of EBITDA. Now the business is north of $80 million of EBITDA, so it's worth close to $1.7 billion. </FormattedResponse>
03:09	Sam Parr	Wow. How long ago did you start the company?</FormattedResponse>
03:12	Tommy Mello	2007. So, the first ten years were practice.
03:16	Shaan Puri	"And explain what the company does so people understand who you are and what you do."
03:20	Tommy Mello	A One Garage Doors. We fix, we repair, we maintain, and we replace garage doors. We do this now in 23 states and 37 markets. We run, on average, 25,000 jobs a month. </FormattedResponse>
03:33	Shaan Puri	"And give us the origin story. We don't usually like origin stories because you can get those elsewhere, but I gotta ask — I gotta know. Well, this is... I mean, the end is so interesting; I gotta know the beginning."
03:46	Tommy Mello	You know, when I was a kid my mom was a real estate agent. My dad had a transmission shop; he didn't pay the IRS, so that got taken. They got a divorce. I learned to shovel snow and mow lawns in Michigan. I got a job when I was 12 washing dishes at $4.05 an hour. I always had the entrepreneurial gene. I started a landscaping business when I moved to Arizona. I was living at this house; rent was $700 for three guys. I paid $200, my other roommate paid $200, and the guy in the master bedroom paid $300. One of the roommates was a manager at a garage door company. He said, "Dude, I cannot find a good painter to save my life. If you guys know anything about painters..." and he asked if I could paint garage doors. At the same time I was bussing tables, serving, bartending, and flipping Bowflexes. I bought them on Craigslist and sold them on The Arizona Republic. I've sold over 300 Bowflexes. Then I did Total Gyms, and I sold over a thousand cars—buy them, fix them, clean them, sell them. So I was doing all these things. I mean, I am hustling; I am like the epitome of a hustler at this.
04:51	Tommy Mello	"And I was like, 'Sure — how much you gonna pay me?' He said, 'I could pay you $100 to paint per garage door, but you gotta pay for the paint and the tape and the paper.' So I said... I had a G20 Infiniti in '96. It had 120,000 miles on it and it was cheap on gas. By the way, [unclear: "$20,062,005"] — this is when the real estate market was booming. I hired a painter, this old man, and I paid him $300 per door to teach me. He taught me on three doors. I went to Home Depot, bought a Magnum 5 paint gun, and I was off to the races. I got good — I could paint 10 doors a day. I went through the Yellow Pages and called every garage-door company. I'd say seven out of ten, I became their primary painter.
05:33	Sam Parr	And does "garage door company" mean I install a new garage door, or that your garage door needs service and I fix it? </FormattedResponse>
05:41	Tommy Mello	The garage door company did both: they fixed doors and they replaced them. So every time they replaced one—if it was an HOA property or a house that needed a paint match—I was the guy. They'd grind out a little section and give it to me. Usually the owner would meet up. I'd get 10 from one guy, 3 from another, and I would go knock them out. I'd literally use MapQuest to build my routes. I mean, it was back in the day before GPS.
06:05	Shaan Puri	You mentioned that you called all the garage companies and you became the primary for—what, seven out of ten? So, what was the pitch? So: "ring, ring — I pick up." What are you telling them and what works there? Because it sounds like just being a reliable guy who's going to do what he says he's going to do was a differentiator here. What did you say on the phone?
06:23	Tommy Mello	Yeah, so I mentioned the company that my roommate worked for. I said I'd been painting garage doors for several months. I show up on time. I work the warranties, if there's any—which is rare because I spend time with the clients. I'll pick up the samples myself, I'll pay for the paint. I'm only charging $100; that includes drive time, and all I ask is that I get paid when I finish the work. I clean up after myself. I'm very reliable, and most of these guys didn't have that service to offer. I said, "It's just one more thing. You could charge $300—give me $100 out of it." You know, this is another way to make money, another way to go into HOAs. They're like, "You sound hungry, kid. Yeah, let's meet up. I'll give you a couple. We'll see how you do." In Arizona it was easier in the summer because it dries real quick. In the winter, when it's kind of wet outside and it's cool, you've gotta go real slow. It takes a little longer and you have to tape the windows if there are windows—it can be a pain in the butt. But I got really, really fast and efficient. So I'm meeting up with these technicians, and half the time I met up with the technicians to get the sample. They're like, "I just made $3 this week," and I'm like, "You made $3,000 as a technician." By the—like I said, the real estate market was booming. People's real estate values were going up so fast they were just like, "Fix it." I went out with a guy—he charged $150 per remote—and I'm like, who would pay that? Go to Home Depot, pick them up for $10 at the time. My other roommate got a job working for him as a technician. His name's Gabe, and he goes, "We should start our own business." I was like, "Well, dude, I'll form the LLC. I'll get the EIN number. I'll get us going. I know enough; I can handle the marketing, but you're gonna have to teach me how to be a technician." He didn't know much because their training was crap, so I went to all the manufacturers and got trained. I had the business with Gabe for three years. He also smoked about a pound of weed per month at the time, so he'd be... he'd be eating. By the way, he's still my best friend. But he'd be like, "Listen, after I finish lunch I'll give you a callback," and I'm like—I watched him answer the phone. So every time he went out of town I took the phones. Man, we made a lot of money when I took the phones, but I also ran all the calls. This is when I quit the busboy job; all I kept was a bartending job. In 2010 I gave him an ultimatum. I said, "You're my best friend, you're my roommate, and my business partner. You take the business and the debt and I'll start my own. Or you can give me the business, I'll take on all the debt, and you're in the clear." He goes, "I wanna move to Montana. I wanna be closer to my brother." I said, "Great," and at this...
08:58	Tommy Mello	Just to top it off, I had six full-time employees and two 1099s. By the way, people were still [unclear: "in toilet paper"]. I didn't have a real office, so I rented my first real office. We had been working out of our house, and I was kind of like—just at night—holding my hands over my face, thinking, "What am I doing? I can't... I don't trust anybody." So what do you do when you don't trust anybody? You call Mom. I called my mom in Michigan and said, "Mom, I don't know what to do. I could really use your help, but I don't have enough money to pay you well. I can afford to pay you $15 an hour. I can pay my stepdad $65." By the way, my mom's best year in real estate she sold 55 houses, so she's done well. She was like, "Tommy, I don't know." I said, "Listen, Mom, I'm your only son. I need your help. You think about it. I love you." She called back in two weeks and said, "We're gonna sell our house. We're gonna move our lives to Arizona."
09:55	Sam Parr	Oh my gosh. Big move — baller mom! Hey everyone, really quick: if you're enjoying this episode on CEO stuff — delegating, having hard conversations with your team, hiring — I've got something for you. The team at HubSpot actually went and put together a bunch of best practices that Sean and I use in our own companies. They packaged it into something that's really easy to read and understand. If you want to save yourself 10 years of headache and heartache, you should check it out. I wish we had this a long time ago; it would've helped me a lot. There should be a QR code on your screen that you can scan, or a link in the description. Check it out — it's totally free and totally awesome.
10:34	Shaan Puri	"At the time, the business is doing what, roughly? So, you know... because that's a big leap of faith."
10:39	Tommy Mello	It's $1.5 million a year. By the way, a lot of people have a tough time hitting a million, but I was the highest-ticket writer for seven years. Then I finally started to delegate. Anytime we weren't going to have payroll, my mom would call and say, "Hey," because I'm working on marketing and hiring and training. She's like, "I need you to go run two jobs today." In 2014 I found a good integrator. The dude was super smart. He's not here anymore — he's kind of retired now and he's younger than me. He still tells me the stories. He goes, "You would pay me $2 in one week, and then not pay me for two weeks, and then give me like $1,200 the next time." He said, "We didn't even have any payroll worked out the first year." I was like, "Yeah, dude." But in 2017 we got on the right software, and man — all of a sudden we were doing $17,000,000 but keeping hardly any of it. The next year we did $30,000,000. The following year we did $50,000,000. We'd never lost money in profit or revenue since the beginning, but 2017 we were just on a rocket ship.
11:40	Sam Parr	You made a joke that "the first ten years were practice." On your tenth year of business, what was your revenue and profit? </FormattedResponse>
11:48	Tommy Mello	Revenue was 17,000,000, and that was out of grit — that was just like working nights, weekends, and holidays, overworking. I remember Al came in and said, "Let me tell you something, buddy. I'm looking at your P&L, I'm looking at your balance sheet, your income statement. Revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity. You're not making any money; you're just a squirrel running around in circles." He said, "We need to figure out how to make serious profit." So I was 17,000,000 — everybody's like, and I'd pop my chest out everywhere and I'd say, "How much revenue we're making?" Revenue means nothing. I don't even talk to anybody about revenue anymore. The name of the game is you gotta make profit.
12:26	Sam Parr	Well, do you remember your profit in 2017?
12:29	Tommy Mello	I was, maybe, you know, paying myself $150 and taking a couple of $100s out. There was not a lot of money left. By the way, we didn't have a great CFO or controller at the time — it wasn't super lined up. That's one thing that changed my life: getting control of the money.
12:43	Shaan Puri	When you said "as you were growing"—sorry—how many markets are you in to do that? You know, that type of scale to do $17,000,000 in revenue.
12:51	Tommy Mello	I started in Phoenix, then I went to Tucson. In 2012 and 2014 we were in Wisconsin and Las Vegas, Milwaukee, and Vegas. By 2017 I was probably in seven or eight markets, but Phoenix was just massive. By the way, I had to close down four markets a year later. I had to close down Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Tampa. If you want to talk about somebody having to swallow their pride and basically say, "you're a failure" — I was going to go broke. There was a stripper living in our Dallas warehouse with my manager. I mean, I just didn't have the systems in place to scale as quickly as I thought we could, right? And what I tell people now — they're like, "What had to change?" I said, "The hustler had to die for the leader to be born." I truly mean that. Now I'm a systems guy. I sit down and work on systems and processes. If the system's broken, either there's no system, it's the wrong system, or the system's not being followed. And that's... I mean, I'm a student for life. I'm the most curious guy. I walk in, I take notes, I try to stay super humble, and I'm always learning. I've always got three to five coaches at one time. I need help all the time, and I extract and then I implement.
14:03	Sam Parr	So I have a ton of questions on the courses and the seminars and stuff, because you've talked about them a bunch. I'll get to that in a second. But first, you mentioned four stories: the technician who you used to cold call, your integrator, your Mom, and ServiceTitan—where you convinced them to do something special. Were you always convincing, or did you have to read to get good with words? I mean, the way you're telling these stories... it seems like a no-brainer. It also seems like this person is incredibly persuasive.
14:33	Tommy Mello	I don't necessarily know if I learned that from my dad. When I'm five years old, I remember this day vividly. I was in Royal Oak, Michigan, and this is the longest driveway I've ever seen in my life. There was a yard sale—a garage sale—my dad always stopped at those. I found this CB radio and I was picking it up, playing with the antenna. I got the little mic and I was just talking into it. I put it back and we walked back to the car. My dad looks at me and goes, "Hey, Tommy, you really wanted that, didn't you?" I looked at him and I said, "Yeah, Dad." He goes, "Here's $5. Go get it." I said, "Dad, there's a scotch tape on it that says $20." He goes, "I know. Go get it for $5." It didn't make sense to me. He said, "Just go up to her. I want you to smile at me and say, 'My dad and I were wondering if you take $5 for this radio.'" I was nervous. I kept looking back at my dad and he's like, "Keep going," waving me on. Every five steps I looked back. I walked up, anxious as hell, and said, "Ma'am, I was just curious, would you take $5 for this radio? That's my dad over there," and he was waving and smiling. She gets down on one knee, pulls off the scotch tape, takes the five, and presents it to me. The radio was awesome. But I walked back and I learned a lesson you'll never lose in life: don't be afraid of rejection. You go up there, you ask—you just go for no. I think he taught me at a young age. I watched him negotiate things I never thought possible. He used to say, "I wish I knew then what I know now," and what he told me was: don't be afraid to ask the girl out—worst case scenario, her loss. Don't be afraid of what people think about you; you're living in your own world. A lot of people are going to have contempt; they're not going to like you. You might be more successful, but don't worry—this is the world we live in. Continue to run. He also said, "Hang out with people you have a common future with instead of a common past." Figure out how to get in the right circles. My mom, I would say, gave me more love. She said, "You could do anything. I'm going to get behind you." If I went to prison she'd move next to the prison to see me every day—my mom loves me. If I said, "Mom, I got in a really bad wreck and the person's not okay," she'd grab a shovel—"How do we get rid of this mess?" My dad, on the other hand, was like, "I'm going to teach you sales. I'm going to teach you persuasion." The combination turned me into the belief system that I have. No matter what... That's why my mom and stepdad moved out, and then my dad was just like, "You're going to have the skills because you're going to be around me," and he was good at...
17:17	Shaan Puri	"You said he used to negotiate things you didn't think possible. What do you mean by that?" </FormattedResponse>
17:20	Tommy Mello	We went to Mexico and there was a jacket for $250. Lesler—he walked out of it for $20. He's like, "Watch this." They're like, "No, no, no." "Meet me in the middle—$100." He's like, "Tommy, we're out of here," and he meant it. He's like, "I don't need the jacket. You don't." One day we rebuilt a C-10 truck. I mean, I spent the whole summer sanding this down. We got it painted. Me and my dad rebuilt the engine; we put the transmission in, and it was sitting in my front yard. I said, "Dad, a guy came by and offered me $10." He's like, "Take it. You haven't driven it in two years." I go, "Dad, me and you did this together." He goes, "Take a picture of it—you'll remember it. We could do another one." He goes, "You're not driving it—sell it." I love that because I was all sentimental about it, and he's like, "Tommy, it's just material things, dude. You could buy another one. We'll do another one. Take a picture if you want to remember it." But that's just always how he is, you know.
18:22	Shaan Puri	"That's awesome. You were telling the story, and I feel like it had humble origins — figuring things out — and then it was like zoom: we're doing $17,000,000 here, $13,000,000. It sped up real quick. I want to go back to that because you seem to me like a guy who, if you don't have the answers upfront, you'll find a blueprint. You find the guy to train you how to do the garages, how to paint the garage — you find a coach. You're... I like the word blueprint a lot because I think people underuse blueprints. They exist. You can follow them. You can build your own thing, but it's very helpful to start with a blueprint. What were the blueprints you saw? Because it didn't sound like any of the people around you initially were doing $100,000,000 garage repair. But at some point you got that idea. You started to figure out, 'Oh, I need to scale this thing — I need to do this and that.' What were the blueprints that made you think that?"
19:19	Tommy Mello	Oh — I'll give you a real quick example. We're getting ready to expand into St. Louis. My good buddy Chris Hoffman has been in St. Louis for a long time; in fact, his parents started in the eighties [clarifying context]. So I said, "Chris, can you jump on a call for about an hour and give me the good, the bad, and the ugly about the marketing? What's important in St. Louis?" By the way, worst-case scenario he says no. But he was like, "Tommy, absolutely." He goes, "I'll even give you my heat map. I'll tell you what zip codes to stay out of. I'll show you — stay out of the east part, this north area," and he literally gave me the keys to the city. He saved me a year of mistakes. What I've always said is "success leaves clues." If you want to find out how to be number one on Yelp, go find an HVAC or roofing company, pick up the phone and call them. Say, "My name is Tommy Mello. I want to let you know I'm super impressed by your company. I read your book. I've used your business. I wanted to buy your whole company. Lunch today might cost $400, right? You bet — buy them Chipotle. If I could get an hour of your time, I promise I'm not going into your industry. I've got a lot to share with you as well, seen a couple opportunities, but I want to understand how you dominate Yelp." Then you do that with Angie's List, Thumbtack, Google LSA, PPC — success leaves clues. They're right in front of you; it's right around the corner. All you gotta do is ask. So my favorite three letters in the world are "ask." I did this and I learned how to sell memberships. See, when I had the podcast, I could get the best of the best. I started it early 2017 — this was before podcasts were a real thing. I'd be like, "Man, I'm having problems with payroll," so I find the top person who wrote the book on payroll. My podcast was simply selfish: "I got a question for you. If you got a W-2 versus a 1099..." They would show up and they'd be like, bam bam bam bam bam, and then I get, "Okay, what happens cash versus accrual?" I get a CPA on, and then I go, "Okay, what happens when you want a greenfield versus buy a company? What's your integration checklist?" I don't know why, but almost everybody was excited to just give me everything. They're like, "You're just in the garage door industry" — they're like, "Sure, take it. You could have it." I've always just been super humble, especially with the people that have been where I want to go. I walk in and I'm like, "Man, I am so impressed. I will do whatever it takes. You really are — you're not like most guys that come up; you don't think your shit doesn't stink." I'm like, "Man, I come from very humble beginnings. I'm just trying to get ahead. I care a lot about my family. I'll literally do whatever it takes. If you need money, if you need me to introduce you to somebody, if you want me to come mow your lawn — whatever you need, I want to learn from you."
22:05	Sam Parr	So I told Sean a story about a buddy of mine from high school who bought his parents' HVAC company and has since blown it up. Sean made fun of me, saying, "You're not even the most successful person from your high school." Well, that person is Chris Hoffman—the person you just referred to, Sean. He's done the same thing: he blew this up, these service businesses. What I've noticed about Chris as well—actually, Chris has this trait, and I'm more inspired that you have this trait, Tommy—because our listeners of MFM [podcast] are like Sean and me. We have this attitude where we're really good at starting stuff, but sometimes we stay scrappy and keep hustling. Unfortunately, after some revenue mark—whether $5,000,000, $10,000,000, or $15,000,000—that hustle, that scrappiness, that "just go and get shit done" actually kind of holds you back. I'm going through that right now with my company, shifting to being systems-focused. You have done a really good job of showing how a person goes from being a hustler to building systems, scaling, hiring a good team, and being an executive, I would say. And you actually have this really good quote; I think you said, "In order to scale, I had to kill the hustler inside of me," or something like that.
23:14	Tommy Mello	[Discussing leadership, hiring, and business growth] Yeah, yeah. The hustler of the day — for the leader — is to be bored. And I'll tell you: I delegate to elevate. People are always like, “Dude, I'll outwork you.” I remember I could work three days in one day. My day starts in six-hour increments and I work three of them in eighteen hours. I'm like, I don't respect anybody just because they work harder. I know there are people shoveling poop somewhere in a field who are working way harder than me. I look at skill differently. There are certain people I hire who can handle the task of three people — a forty-hour workweek compressed into ten hours. So I came up with paying for performance and paying for outcomes. I'll be very transparent: I am the dumbest guy on my team when it comes to the C-suite, VPs, directors. I'm just a visionary. I dream really, really big. I love sales. I love marketing. I love relationships and culture. I'm not going to be a specialist — I live on a different planet. I don't live within the walls of this company. I'm creating a personal brand. By the way, there's 62 guys training next door; 50 of them found me on social media and said, “I want to work for that guy.” So building a personal brand for your business really matters. The thing I ask now is: if I worked for you or bought from you, would my grandma buy from you? And if I went to have a beer with you, do you tell great stories? Do you not shake my hand like a limp fish? Do you make eye contact, smile a lot, and seem interesting? I'm going to ask you tough questions to see how you figure things out. There's no right answer. About five years ago I started thinking, who, not how. Who is the right hire, not what's my strategy or what system. Systems are super important, but what's the next hire I bring on the bus that will take me to the promised land? When you start thinking like that and you stack the deck with A+ players, your job gets easier. It's gotten so easy that whenever it gets easy, the business explodes. You go through peaks and valleys. I'll tell you guys: we did $315,000,000, and I'm like, there's no reason we can't be at a billion in two and a half years. So I have to set that vision. People say, “Dude, you're crazy.” Then I map it out and show them what would need to happen. The average technician is at $700,000 now. So what would need to happen for us to do this? We would need to have this department, this department, this department. We need to make sure we've got trucks on command. We need to make sure we've got a good greenfield strategy. You start reverse-engineering your goals, create accountability and consistency, and all of a sudden you wake up and it's there.
25:45	Sam Parr	"Dude, that's awesome. I just love hearing you talk."
25:47	Tommy Mello	I get excited, guys. I—I love entrepreneurship, and I run towards failure. I don't really care what people think. I'm not gonna lie to you guys and say I really do care what a lot of people think. I care what my parents think. I care what the people I work with [think]. I'm not the guy that just says, "I don't care at all what anybody thinks." I'd love to pretend that's the truth, but I guess now I think I'd rather be respected than loved. But by a lot of people, I choose love first.
26:11	Sam Parr	"Yeah, but do any of your employees actually think that you're a dick? I mean, you don't seem — you come off as a pretty caring, empathetic person."
26:19	Shaan Puri	"I've known you for 27 minutes, and I love this guy."
26:21	Sam Parr	Yeah. Like, who—who thinks that you're disrespectful or rude? You might be a guy who says, "Look, it's working out, unfortunately," but I think they would still have love and respect for... no.
26:30	Tommy Mello	You don't fire anymore. I had to fire five people who were direct reports to me this past year. But when Adam started in 2014, I said, "You're gonna be the bad cop because I'm not good at it." I do have to have these fierce, hard conversations with people. It's not easy, but it's for their best. Think about who changed your life. I had a coach that literally coached me. He made sure I got a warm meal. I respected him. He literally told me, "I'm not gonna play you" — like, if my grades weren't good, if I didn't show up and give it 110%, so he didn't play me for two games. But he also made sure, three nights a week, he would buy me dinner because he knew my mom was working three jobs. I found I respected him more than I loved him, but that respect turned into love. That was a lesson for me: I gotta be straight up. I'm gonna tell you what you're doing great, but I'm also gonna tell you you're not living up to your potential. I see something better in you, and it's my job to pull that out of you. I'm either gonna pull that out of you, or I'm gonna force you to quit, or you're not gonna have a job here. I'm gonna give you the invitation to go work for one of my competitors.
27:34	Sam Parr	Sean and I were talking about these inspirational leaders and stuff last episode. I told the story about how I had a cross-country coach who said, "This year you're gonna learn how to be better men, and we're gonna do it via running." That's kind of the same energy that you have, which is: "You, young technician, you're gonna learn how to be a better man this year, and I'm gonna do it by teaching you how to smile when you meet a customer, how to say 'yes ma'am,' 'no sir,' how to..." More so, we're going to learn how to live great lives and be great, high-class people, but we're going to do it via serving the customers wonderfully.
28:06	Tommy Mello	It's 100% right. I used to find fours and try to make them sevens. Now I hire sevens and try to make them tens. So now it's much harder to get into the company. At orientation yesterday, with 62 people, I said, "You should feel proud, because it takes 50 interviews to even get one of you into this room." But now the hard part starts. We have a bell you can ring if you tap out. We get about two people a class that just say, "This is..." We don't — they have to clean after they're done, they have to show up. If you're late one day, there's a good chance we'll send you home. </FormattedResponse>
28:37	Shaan Puri	There's a bell. So, during training, anybody can just go ring the bell and quit.
28:42	Tommy Mello	It's the same as the Navy SEALs.
28:44	Shaan Puri	Are you ex-military? You have that vibe.
28:47	Tommy Mello	No, I'm not in the... I never was in the military.
28:50	Shaan Puri	Okay, you mentioned this guy, Al, in passing. You said "my mentor Al," and I'm always curious about mentors because I think everybody wants a mentor. I think few people ever end up with that special kind of relationship with a great mentor. One of the great things is when somebody has one, they can share a story and it kind of becomes our mentor too. So, can you tell me a great Al story? What did...
29:12	Tommy Mello	What did this guy make you realize or teach you about? He was the second guest on my podcast. He wrote a book—it's on my shelf—called The Seven Power Contractor, which explains the different stages of the home service industry. He had gone through every master class and studied how to build a business. He ran a business with his brothers and his father, and one day they just got fed up. He had his camcorder on the back of the room recording his daughter at a play, and his wife came up to him and said, “Al, your daughter said at school today she wishes her dad was around more.” He told Natalie—this gives me goosebumps—“I'm gonna disappear for about a year. I'm not gonna be around as much, but I need to systematize this business. I need to get SOPs. I need to make sure I can spend time with my two daughters and you. We're gonna go on a vacation for two weeks and one year, and I'm not even gonna look at my pager.” (This was back in the day.) Al met me for lunch. I handed him the book I was working on, Home Service Millionaire. He flipped through it and said, “This is garbage. You need to rewrite it.” He told me the reason he wanted to work with me originally, Tommy, was because I brought a notebook and wrote down everything he said. He said that was the only reason he thought about working with me. When he walked into my shop that day he said, “Can we go to a shop tour?” I said sure. He asked, “Why do you have all the calendars on the wall? Haven't you ever heard of Outlook or Google Calendar?” (This was around 2017, early stages of Google Calendar.) He tripped on a cord where I had a microwave plugged in. He said, “Dude, this is not organized. I could have stolen your whole warehouse. The garage was open—no cameras—your forklift was sitting there.” He asked, “Show me your manuals.” All I had was an onboarding manual. He asked, “How does anybody know how to win? How do they know: are you allowed to get tattoos on your face? What happens if your truck breaks down—who do you call? What happens if you lose your gas card? What happens if you need PTO for Christmas?” He said, “It's all in your head.” He told me, “I'm gonna ask you to pay me $150,000.” By the way, I didn't have $150k, so I had to take an equity line out of my house. That’s why I had to pay attention. When I walked in there, if I started talking about a book he said, “Stop. You're gonna listen to what I'm gonna teach you or I'm gonna quit. You're gonna figure out exactly what I'm gonna teach you and you're gonna do this perfectly. You're gonna stop reading books. You're not gonna do stuff any other way than what I teach you. You're gonna turn yourself on and off when I'm in this room, and you're gonna get your two top guys. We're gonna sit here and work through each and every scenario, every manual. Then you're gonna read these manuals out loud with every employee and have them initial every single one. You're gonna read a page out of the manual every week in your meetings.” I was ADHD—I still am—and he said, “You are gonna focus. You're gonna be all here, and we're gonna sit in this room for eight hours, three days a week.” The dude drove a Mercedes and would pull back in the same spot really slow. He was always detailed. Every time he left I got a bill for gas—$43.38 was how much he paid in gas. He was just high-energy, personality dialed in: it was my way or the highway. That's what I needed. He was tough and he brought in a consultant to get our financing figured out—someone he trusted. The consultant said she didn't know if she wanted to work with me. I said, “Listen, I'll be quiet. I'll do whatever you say.” Al said, “Trust me. He'll do whatever you say. I'll make sure of it.” That's what I needed. It was tough love, but he set me up for a lot of success.
33:05	Sam Parr	"Was he—are you now? I've never heard 'Type C' personality, but are you—whatever that personality type is—just someone who pays attention to the details? Are you? It sounds like maybe you're a three out of ten. What are you now: are you, like, really high, or have you just improved?"
33:20	Tommy Mello	Well, I was pre-dental, so I love math. I took advanced calculus and I got obsessed with geometry, calculus, and algebra. I'm a numbers guy—I've always been. But I'm still a macro guy; I look at the big picture. I'll dive into certain areas. I always say I live on Mars: I look at Earth for volcanoes and earthquakes, but I'm not the details guy. I love my CFO and my controller and I love my HR team, but I don't really interact with them very often. I'm working on operations, marketing, culture, and always driving sales. Quite frankly, I don't want to be good at these other things. I want to continue to be the best at what I'm great at, continue to hone those skills, and delegate the rest. I don't want to be well rounded—I never want to be good at that stuff because it tortures me to have to do it. For me to do payroll, which I had to do for a long time, was like pulling teeth. So the first thing I got rid of... If you set up your org chart and you wear a lot of the hats, the first thing you do is circle what you hate. Now when I come into work, I love coming to work. I'm like, "Man, I'm on a podcast right now with you guys—everything's getting handled." I just got back from Costa Rica for ten days. Do you think we lost money? Do you think when the owner/founder/CEO left the things didn't go right? We set records the whole time I was gone. I don't need to be here, and that's what we've set up. We go on the pinnacle trip: my whole C-suite, all my directors, my area managers, my top 40 technicians and installers go on this trip. Do you think we lose revenue that week when we leave? We've never lost revenue.
35:05	Shaan Puri	We've talked a lot about systems. I think, if we're playing a drinking game and somebody said, "If you're taking a shot every time we said 'systems,'" they're dead now. But it strikes me that you really harp on this because that's what was hard and broken for you, and you really had to put in work to get great at that. You feel the benefits of not having everything on your shoulders. I gotta believe that in order for your company to succeed, you don't grow because you have a great operations manual per se, right? You grow because you're great at sales and marketing. You sort of survive and thrive if the operations can back that up. I'm guessing that sales and marketing were more in your core competency. You did a good job early on and you haven't been as demand-constrained. I want to know more about that. So, what did you do to kick ass in sales and marketing that was different than the average service company? What were the things you did that made you guys rock and roll in terms of demand?
36:08	Sam Parr	Well, step one was naming your company "A One," so you show up first in the White Pages, right?
36:12	Tommy Mello	Yeah, well, that was stupid because there's 93 other A-ones, even though it got an irrevocable and contestable trademark. So that's my biggest mistake: being a one, honestly. You know, sales cure everything, and to get sales you need good leads. I'll tell you this: I'm not afraid — we're gonna spend $4,300,000 this month in marketing. Not afraid to spend a lot of money. And here's what I've learned: I was $30,000,000. I met a guy named Dan Antonelli that Al Levy, my coach, referred me to. He goes, "Tommy, I think your wraps are garbage."
36:48	Sam Parr	Wraps, as in car wraps and truck wraps.
36:51	Tommy Mello	The vehicle wraps—yeah. He goes, "The best way to do it is I took a picture of your truck, I made it black and white, and tell me what pops out to you." He goes, "That's the best way to see what pops out." You had Angie's List, Yelp, your phone number... springs, rollers, cables, bearings—all this crap. He goes, "I want you to go to this company called Kick Charge and I want you to use Dan Antonelli to redo your brand." I called Dan Antonelli and he gave me an estimate. Guess how much it cost me to get a new logo and new brand on the trucks? $35,000. At this time I was doing $30 million and I'm like, "It's working—why would I switch?" I trusted Al, bit the bullet, and did it. Dan called me, this guy, and we got a caricature and the logo's awesome. He studied every one of our markets. We didn't want to look like any other company—we wanted to pop. We didn't want our phone numbers or website on it. You don't even need any of that, or Angie's List, or what we do—it's just garage door service. He goes, "I want you to change all your email signatures to this, every one of your yard signs, every one of your coupons—every single thing needs to be this brand." I remember three weeks later there was a line of people that wanted to work for us. I was like, "Man, I'm putting everything on the line—my time, energy, effort—but I had such a crappy brand, and now I spent a fortune on TV, radio..."
38:19	Shaan Puri	So, this is the before. </FormattedResponse>
38:21	Tommy Mello	That's—that's what it was.</FormattedResponse>
38:23	Sam Parr	Oh, yeah.
38:24	Tommy Mello	Look at how crappy that is.
38:26	Sam Parr	"What is that? I can't even see it. What is that above you—above the red wall? It's like... what is it?"
38:34	Shaan Puri	The of a garage—it's like the front outline.</FormattedResponse>
38:37	Tommy Mello	Yeah, that's two garages that are carriage-style, with brick.
38:42	Shaan Puri	"And then you have white-on-white text — that's horrible... and then you..."
38:47	Tommy Mello	Go to this—yeah. So I said, "Dan, I want that old-fashioned feeling, like the Maytag in the seventies, when you trust the guy to come out." It's like, "yeah, it just... it pops," and it's trustworthy. So if you walk into my place Dan designed, we've brought the brand inside. We've got all the brand inside the building too—we live and breathe the brand. People don't talk about this stuff, but like, Nike is a brand; that's why they pay Tiger Woods and Roger Federer. You could buy a T‑shirt the same as Nike for $20, but you're willing to pay $120 because of the brand.
39:24	Shaan Puri	Right.
39:24	Tommy Mello	So what does our brand mean? My dad taught me you could do three things in business: you could be the best — best warranty, best technicians, best quality. You could be best timing — if it happens today, you bring your car in, we can fix it today. Or you could be the cheapest. He said, "pick two out of the three." You'll never be all three. You can't be the cheapest, the best, and on their timeline. I got this guy in Milwaukee — best mechanic I've ever met. He's the cheapest and he does me right. Right now he's four months out; I can't use him. I called him up and said, "Hey, why don't you triple your prices? I'll pay triple because you're honest and you do great work." But this is the hardest thing for people to learn. You want to start out and be the cheapest, but then you realize you don't have enough to hire people, pay for the right software, buy new trucks, or invest in great inventory. One thing I learned a long time ago in sales is I don't give yes-or-no choices. If I walked up to you, I'd say, "Listen, these are the three options of what we have for springs: we got the one-year, the five-year, and the lifetime." You might say, "Hey, that's too much." I say, "Let's just pick another option. Let's make something that works for you and your family. I'm here to earn your business," and then I shut up. I have other options for everything we do. I don't ask yes-or-no questions because that's stupid — either you're going to say yes or no. I say, "Listen, let's just pick something that makes sense for you and your family." I've probably read hundreds of books on sales and even more on marketing. That's why I go to Google events, show up at different offices, and speak a lot. I live and breathe marketing and sales. And honestly, I hate that word — I shouldn't have said that. I always say that's a no-no. I hate a lot of words, but the words you choose matter. For example, you never say "the cost"; say "the investment." Never say "the most expensive"; say "top of the line." Never say "the cheapest"; say "builder grade." Never say "you could cancel at any time"; say "you have the right of rescission." These words matter, but what matters more is the way I say it when I'm making eye contact. Would you go to a doctor if the doctor walked in and just looked at you and said, "Here's your medication"? No. The doctor walks in, smiles, and says, "Let me ask you a few questions: how's the alcohol? What's the stress level? Any recreational drugs? How much are you working out?" They'll run some tests: "We're going to look in your eyes, your nose, your ears. I'm going to have you cough. We're going to run a few tests." Then the doctor says, "Listen, what's better for you, CVS or Walgreens? Alright, here's your prescription. Here's what's going to make you better." You don't say, "I'm going to need a few estimates, doc." No — they're the authority. They diagnose the person before the problem, they spend the time, ask the right questions, and nurture you along the way. You believe them because they didn't hedge — they said exactly what they're going to do to fix you up. We're the doctor the minute we step into that garage. That's what I train the guys on, over and over: be authoritative and confident. If I hear, "I don't believe you," I respond that you don't seem confident. You either don't believe in yourself, you don't believe in the products, or you don't believe in me and the company. Which one is it? Let's work on it. I could do this all day. I love training guys because it's simple: smile more, offer coffee on the way, play with the dog, get to know the clients. If they love Bernie Sanders, talk about Bernie Sanders. If they love fishing, ask them what kind of fish they like and what kind of pole they have. But you have to be genuinely interested — don't fake it. If you hate babies, don't talk about babies. Find something you love and that correlates well with them, and you'll enjoy every minute of your life. </FormattedResponse>
43:23	Shaan Puri	Dude, "play with the dog" is so true. I've had a couple of guys come over to do some work, and the ones who play with the dog—I'm instantly in on them because they're in on me. It's the most important thing they've seen in the house so far. I had a guy come in to do a repair, and as soon as he walked in—my dog is tiny, like an eight-pound dog—he goes, "Whoah, Killer," and then, "I don't want no problems." I just immediately loved the guy. He could have sold me anything. He was there for the year—could have sold me a washer and dryer if he wanted to.
43:52	Tommy Mello	Now that's great. I always say: listen — we don't ring the doorbell, because strangers ring the doorbell; friends knock. These are simple little things. Listen, I'm stopping off at 7‑Eleven [convenience store]. Could I grab you something? Get you a coffee? No? No, no, no, thanks. Listen: you come to my house, my fiancé is gonna cook for you. Don't make me guess you like green monsters. Should I get you a coffee? I want to bring you something, because no one that ever fixed your house brought you something.
44:18	Sam Parr	Wait — so you guys order coffee... or do you have a system for ordering drinks or whatever?
44:24	Tommy Mello	So they could order. I got guys that order donuts and apple cider in Michigan and Wisconsin. And all you do is expense it: you take a picture of the receipt and it comes back on your check [paycheck] the next week, including the taxes. So you could buy... I mean, we try to say keep it under $30, but literally I don't — we don't really check. My goal is that every single person gets offered something on the way.
44:48	Sam Parr	Have you seen the average customer value or a customer order go up because of... So what you're saying, by the way, is like a world-famous principle: it's the rule of reciprocity. It's Robert Cialdini's book Influence, which is basically—if I do a favor for you... For example, if Tommy and I are next-door neighbors, I go, "Hey, Tommy, can I borrow a cup of sugar?" You give me a cup of sugar. The next day Tommy comes to me and says, "Hey, Sam, can I borrow your car for a day?" Because of the rule of reciprocity, I feel in debt to you and I will do something, even if those two favors are not equal. I will do something to get back to even, because we want to feel even. So the idea here is: if you bring a customer a coffee—even if it's a $2 coffee—they're more likely to spend an additional $500 on garage doors. My question is: have you seen the average order value go up just because of that simple trick?
45:30	Tommy Mello	It goes up dramatically, and it's not a question of whether you're going to use this — it's how much you're going to spend. Robert Chittini became a good buddy of mine — him and Bob. </FormattedResponse>
45:38	Sam Parr	No shit.
45:39	Tommy Mello	There's seven rules of influence. I studied him at U of A in my master's program. He's an ASU professor — they're our arch-nemesis. I got to meet him; he comes to the house now. My COO and head of sales just went to his conference here in Tempe, Arizona. The more we could apply those seven principles, the more we were always looking to apply them. It's not to manipulate people. By the way, he says, "You've got to use these for good." I ask him questions all the time. He needed a garage, and I'm like, "Dude, this one's on the house." You know, it's going to be the Taj Mahal too. He's just one of the smartest guys I've ever met.
46:24	Sam Parr	One of the many interesting things about you is that a lot of times courses get criticized. People make fun of courses and seminars; books fall into that category too. But it seems like you are prolific when it comes to hiring coaches, hiring consultants, taking courses, and attending seminars—things that people would question even at $17,000,000 in revenue. They'd say, "Tommy, why are you paying money to come to this course?" What courses and books have really moved the needle for you in your life? It sounds like you've consumed a lot of them.
46:56	Tommy Mello	Well, I'll tell you—the latest one was Buy Back Your Time, and Dan Martell goes, "Let's just do this." He asked, "When do you think you're gonna sell?" So we wrote it down. He asked, "How much do you think you'll make?" I wrote the number down. He asked, "How many hours do you work a week?" I said probably 50. We did the math. He asked, "Do you know how much you make per hour?" It was like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. He said, "You got a great business mind." He asked, "Tell me, you got a good chef?" and I was like, "A chef? I don't need a chef—what do you normally eat?" I said, "Uber Eats." He said, "Tommy, you don't understand. If you want to become the best for your people..." He said, "You have a driver, right?" I said, "What? Why would I need a driver?" He asked, "How often do you drive a week?" I said about 11 hours. He said, "What if we could buy back 11 hours for you to be productive?" He got me to look through a whole different lens. He convinced me. Now I have a house manager, we've got a chef, we've got a driver. Our dogs are walked twice a day and they go to doggy daycare. Huckleberry and Finner are dogs. You know, these mentors—Dan Martell was a big one. I go to all the home service ones, but most people sit in this procrastination and indecision. There are softwares I've used that were crap, but we just got on one that increased our conversion rate on door sales by 18% and our average ticket by 3%. It picked up an extra $5,000,000 of EBITDA because it eased the dealer fees. I heard about it from a buddy of mine and we were on it within six weeks. But to not do these things—so many people are like, "Man, one day I'm gonna get started right after the wedding," or, "I'll be on the diet right after the golf tournament." They live in this world of we're just not ready for that yet. I'm like, "Let's just fail—who cares? Let's fall down a bunch of times." We're gonna fail a lot, but we're gonna figure it out before anybody. </FormattedResponse>
48:58	Shaan Puri	You said you guys sold a piece of the business, and you were at, like, $20‑something million in EBITDA. Now it's $80 million. What was that big jump? Did you guys start rolling up other businesses, or what happened? What went so well? </FormattedResponse>
49:11	Tommy Mello	So it's been three years. We bought 12 companies. We've grown — I think 70% organically and the other 22% was by buying companies. What I do is kind of funny: I call my vendors and ask, "Tell me how you win. How do you meet your bonuses? What are your objectives this year?" For the vendors, I'm like, "I'm gonna spend $80,000,000 in garage doors this year. What product mix do you need us to be at?" I say, "If I do this for you, when do I get a bigger rebate? My growth — like, if I sell 100 orders to somebody, they're paying a different price than if they buy one door." I work out these things. So now we've got economies of scale, we've got efficiency. The crazy thing is, what a great home-service business does is 15% of the bottom; we're almost double that. Because of our efficiency, a call-center rep that could book 20 calls a day for someone else, mine could book 60. Let's say you're paying yours $20; I'm paying mine $35. They're doing three times the work. You get these economies of scale. People don't like when I say this, but if you work at a one, most people will hire you in their garage-door business because we've got — we buy six thousand hours of tools. We train, we train, we train. When I played football, I did "two-a-days" — I practiced twice a day for six days to play one game. In home service, you say you're going to go with our best guy for two weeks and then you're on your own forever. Training is not something we do — it's who we are. We continue to train. It's not just in sales; it's smiling, it's making sure you're efficient, it's showing up to your first job within fifteen minutes. These new one-on-one forms I'm working on — I'm more excited about that than anything this month. One-on-ones with the technicians and installers are very complex to get the data I'm looking at, but what I'm building is: if this is where you're at, it's a series of things to get good at. If you're not great at this, we gotta get you good at this before we go on to the next one. There's a recipe for each one, so now it's standardized. Now, in any market, this is the one-on-one form you're going to use and you're given the exact same thing across the board. You're going to do ride-alongs for two days. You're going to go back to Phoenix for a refresher for five days. You're going to do role-play for one day in the training center — whatever that looks like. We're building all that right now, and my expectation is it'll increase revenue by 40%.
51:39	Shaan Puri	"Wow. Has AI changed your business at all yet? Have you seen any impact with AI?"
51:47	Tommy Mello	Call center and dispatch, and quite a few things in marketing. But the call center is obviously coming to the forefront. Right now — as of yesterday — my AI agents had an 87% booking rate. My real agents were at 92%, so it's a 5% variance. The AI continues to get better. The goal isn't to get rid of people; the goal is to go on a hiring freeze and keep the best. So, right now I have 68 agents. Let's say I go down to 40 — they last forever and I never need to hire another agent because now you're just blocking and tackling. Dispatching: what our dispatch software does is regression testing. You can feed it data — credit card score, how much they paid off in the home, how many garages they have — and then it looks for outliers. It knows which technicians do well on this type of job. The most important thing is customer satisfaction — Net Promoter Score and my internal Net Promoter Score. I'm not just looking to sell. I'm trying to create a relationship, build — get you on a membership (which we call the protection plan) — and be your garage door company for life. I'm not trying to go, "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" — write a big ticket and get out of here. I'm trying to do what's right for you. If you're selling the home, Miss Jones, let me make sure you pass inspection. We want to work on your new home. That's what's important. We need to build relationships, and that's very rare in the home service industry.
53:09	Sam Parr	I never would have thought — and it’s obvious in hindsight — that a garage door business could be as big as you are. You seem to have a ton of growth ahead of you; you haven't even scratched the surface. What other businesses have you seen in the services industry that you were shocked to see become so big, or that you think most of our audience — a largely internet- or tech-based audience — would be surprised about?
53:33	Tommy Mello	"I'll tell you—my favorite one is pest control."
53:37	Sam Parr	"Tell me. Tell us about it."
53:39	Tommy Mello	Well, the fact is: pest control is the only company that went public, and right now they're paying 22–25× EBITDA. So if you could get your business to make $2,000,000, you're going to get $50,000,000. The best guys that do it started out as Mormon guys out of Utah who would knock on doors—door to door. They're very good at it if you "sell religion," and they'd all tell you this. So you start out with door-to-door sales. Then you get good at advertising on Google and radio, and you optimize for routes. But anybody can do it. I mean, you're literally out there spraying; you're looking in Arizona for scorpions and spiders, making sure there are no pigeons—stuff like that.
54:20	Sam Parr	What pest control company is public?
54:23	Tommy Mello	"What's the big one that went public? They bought so many companies, but Terminix went public."
54:28	Sam Parr	Alright — I'm looking up Terminix. They have, it looks like, nearly a $5 billion market cap, which is pretty shockingly big.
54:36	Tommy Mello	Yeah, well, that's the deal. They have subsidiaries on top of that. When you go public it's like: how many companies can you buy? You're raising capital from the investment pool. It's almost like you've got to eat — when you go public you gotta eat; you gotta buy. I mean, that's one of the prerequisites. If you do an IPO there are a lot of advantages, but then you've got Sarbanes–Oxley and all these other things. This is the kind of stuff I get really excited about. But here's something to understand about home services / home improvement: is it demand-generated? If your pipe breaks, you're calling me today — you need it fixed. Windows: you might want new windows; if a window breaks, you'll get the glass fixed. So windows are a demand-driven industry where I need it done. Pest control is one of those that's not necessarily needed, but because that company went public they're paying a lot more and it raised the market cap. A window company might get 8x to 12x, whereas HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and garage doors — those must-dos are getting, you know, 15x to 20x when you get past $20,000,000 of EBITDA.
55:42	Sam Parr	I remember during COVID those multiples were going up. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears there was a pre- and post‑COVID number. The post‑COVID period—yeah—emerged, and those multiples exploded.
55:55	Tommy Mello	Here's exactly what happened: think about it — you're a venture capitalist. You're like, "Man, all of our hotels are failing. No one's going to Airbnbs. The nail salons just shut down because people aren't leaving their houses. The movie theaters went bankrupt. Where can we put our money?" They looked at this simple blue-collar sector. We were, like, second-class citizens. Then they went, "Wait a minute — these guys have predictable income. They're needed. They've shown month after month, year after year, that they can continue to grow. They're sophisticated — they use things like Power BI, they use advanced analytics." When they realized that, the money started shooting in like crazy. There are miracle stories and the multiples are still really, really high. What they did learn is you gotta keep the founder involved because the founder is kind of the glue. If you pay the founder a lot of money, are they going to stay on and be happy and keep the culture? Imagine giving a guy that worked his ass off $100,000,000 and saying, "Hey dude, I want you to stick around and be the same. I want you to work harder than you worked before." It's few and far between. They're getting pretty sophisticated now, but there's a lot of home-service industries, man. I'm telling you: the future of a [unclear phrase: "one many splits"] — garage flooring, EV chargers, pest control, front doors and windows. If I could get into those, I'm running 25,000 jobs a month. Seventeen percent is financed, so it'll be 35% this year of our revenue — which is low; it needs to continue to improve. "Hey, you qualified for $20,000. Do you want me to make this garage livable? You can set up a gym. We'll do the floors and we'll make it warm in the winter, cool in the summer. By the way, we noticed all these spider webs in your garage — you want us to take care of that? And by the way, you probably wanted to match the front door and you qualified for it. We can make it a low payment." I got really lucky because Remodel Magazine eight years in a row said garages are the number one investment. The Wall Street Journal came out with two articles last year: 268% return on investment. You put a buck in, you take $2.68 out. Then we trademarked the garage door — "the smile of your home." So I'm going into the garage, and the plan is to create other opportunities in the garage.
58:06	Shaan Puri	Dude, this is fascinating. This is not at all what I thought this episode was going to be. You're this mix of a bunch of things that I really love. You're one‑third pure hustle and common sense. You're one‑third self‑development — a learning machine: "How can I learn, grow, and be better?" And then one‑third is basically, "I'm going to play big." So you're doing this blue‑collar thing, but at a really big scale. I love that combination. That is a lot of fun for me to have this conversation. I'm glad you came on.
58:44	Sam Parr	Check this out, Sean. So, I've been following you, Tommy, for about two years now and you get me amped up. I'm not in your space at all, but I feel like I'm learning so much. I also feel like I'm getting amped up. Sean, Google "Tommy Mello conference." He has this conference called the Freedom Event. If you—and whoever's listening—Google that and go to the page, the video shows him with his arms out and fireworks shooting up on stage. It's pretty awesome. Tommy obviously has a behemoth of a business. It looks like you have a side hustle as a sort of home-services influencer. If I had to guess, your conference—and I think you have a course or a community, something like that—is doing alright too.
59:26	Tommy Mello	Yeah, we had 1,500 home service contractors at our last one. This year we'll have 3,500. The average person who works with us increases by 70% in their first year — and that's profitability, because that's what we shoot for. Basically, most of what I've done is repeatable. It's not like this crazy thing that only works in garage doors: it's knowing the numbers and paying attention to the important things. You don't need to be good at 50 things or 500 things. You need to be good at five things a thousand times over. Don't overcomplicate it — it's pretty simple.
01:00:00	Shaan Puri	Wait, wait — can you explain how the media side of your business works? Forget the actual nuts and bolts of what you're doing. You have the podcast, you have media, so explain why you do it and how it works from a business perspective. What is the goal of what you're doing? For example: - Are you throwing this event because you want to be the largest event or trade show in your industry — and that's a good business to be in? - Is it because you want to build relationships and buy the top 1% of these companies, and it's lead gen for that? - Why are you doing all this, and how does it work?
01:00:37	Tommy Mello	Well, first and foremost, I used to just have a garage door show. We realized the industry is so crappy the industry would have to improve. People would need to raise their prices and show their worth. So we figured out that we would have to train other garage door companies. We invited hundreds of garage door companies. Then I looked down the audience and it was all plumbers and roofers and pest control and even mechanics. I'm like, this is supposed to be a garage door show and we didn't really filter who was coming in. So I was like, look — I want to keep garage doors kind of in our realm. Then I started this other thing called Home Service Freedom. The real reason is people opened the door to me. People gave me the time of day. People let me come into their home, their business, and they gave me the answers. People call me up and they're like, "I'm getting a divorce, my kids are leaving me, my dad took over his business, he just died — I don't know what to do." And quite frankly, Al Levy and all my other — you know, Dan Antonelli with branding — we've got this formula, like a step-by-step. It's not for everybody. Like I said at the beginning, not everybody's meant to be an entrepreneur. Some of them are meant to be entrepreneurs, but the other thing — a selfish byproduct — is if I love a company and they show up and they do the work, I could "date" them before we get married, because I know if I invest with them I'll give them an endless amount of money. I could personally give them what's worked in, like, really one-on-one, because I can't coach anybody one-on-one. I've got 1,250 people depending on me here. But the idea being, I gave you guys a bunch of other industries that anyone wants to get involved in. I like knowing and trusting these people. They know they're gonna win with me, so it helps grow the core business too. If we ended up doing a deal — I have no expectations of doing deals and I don't know if anybody wants to do a deal — but I know this: if it came down to it and we loved each other and we worked well together and there was a win-win for both of us in one and this other business, and it just made sense — you know me, I know you — so yeah, there is a byproduct. The fact is now I know everybody, and guess what happens? I'll show them everything I know. Who do you think they call when they figure something out — when they figure out Google's new algorithm, or they figure out a certain thing on Meta, or they figure out a new mailer technique that I've never heard of? Who's the first person they want to call? They go, "Tommy, you've taught me so much. I feel indebted. I haven't come to you for three years, but I finally got something I think you're gonna love. You gotta try this." I get those phone calls ten times a week.
01:03:03	Sam Parr	I'm on HomeServiceFreedom.com. It looks like a community—like you gave a playbook. The headline is really good. It says, "Accelerate 5 years of growth in 12 months." How much does this cost?
01:03:12	Tommy Mello	So there's three different programs. We only got 12 companies in the top program, but we have a basic one—it's a few hundred dollars a month. The next one is about $50 a year; I mean, it's not crazy. I'll tell you an example: we took a roofing company that was doing $12,000,000, bringing home about $300,000. Within one year they're doing $30,000,000, bringing home $6,000,000. A lot of these things are just turning the knobs a little bit and paying attention to things you weren't looking at. The data—the KPIs—will set you free. I'll come to you guys and say, "Hey, what do you think your booking rate is?" They'll say, "Me and my wife answer the phones—we're probably at 90%." I'm like, you don't understand: it should be a decimal place; it needs to be exact. It should be by CSR. I know every single one of my CSRs' booking rates. I know exactly what we're training them on every day. I know exactly my technique. You should see my scorecards. I mean, these are world-renowned—we spent millions of dollars to build this internally—and they are the baddest-ass thing you'll ever see in your life.
01:04:19	Sam Parr	Tommy, what do you suck at? Are you... what are you bad at? What is your weakness right now?
01:04:25	Tommy Mello	You know, my fiancé might say I'm not the best communicator. I don't talk about my feelings, and I don't really practice.
01:04:33	Shaan Puri	We could be.
01:04:34	Tommy Mello	Like I said, I don't like to piss people off. Too many conversations—I'll have them because I love people, but I'm not going to have these conversations with a lot of people. With my family, I like to do stuff, but my mom wants to sit there and chat. I love my mom more than anything, but when I was a kid we'd go to a movie or go bowling—she'd get really involved. I just have a hard time because sitting there and chatting is okay to catch up on things, but it has to be something optimistic for me. I have a hard time talking about... I don't go down that road anymore. I'll mention what's going on in Minnesota or Ukraine or whatever, but I can't live in this negativity zone. So I'm trying to be the best son I can, the best fiancée I can, the best brother I can to my sister, and the best uncle I can to my niece and nephew. I know I have a long way to go—at least I can say that out loud, and I recognize it. </FormattedResponse>
01:05:30	Sam Parr	Tommy Mello is dialed in. I mean, you've got it figured out, man. You're very inspirational.
01:05:38	Tommy Mello	I'm a work in progress.
01:05:40	Shaan Puri	"What's the goal? You're wealthy—you did it. You pulled it off with this company. Are you trying to buy the Cardinals? Like, what's the goal out here?"
01:05:48	Tommy Mello	You know, I was playing with ChatGPT yesterday, and I would love to tell you there's a goal. You know, we're building a beautiful house in Idaho where we're going to be doing events, and then I build my dream home in Paradise Valley here in Arizona. I'm 42; I'll be 43 in March. I got my life at 45 on my casket — you know what I want. I don't want to be the best entrepreneur or the wealthiest. I want... I want, number one, to be the best dad ever. I don't have any kids yet; I'm a late bloomer. Luckily my fiancée is 27. She's worked with me for nine years — no, yeah, nine years — because she was definitely 18 when I met her.
01:06:26	Sam Parr	Yeah, I see what I say, dude. No public bath, be—yeah.
01:06:30	Tommy Mello	Yeah, yeah.</FormattedResponse>
01:06:30	Shaan Puri	We were doing some, and then coming with the jail.
01:06:33	Sam Parr	There it is. There's the weakness, definitely.</FormattedResponse>
01:06:36	Tommy Mello	Nine years. For me, the next journey is: I want to be a great dad and a great husband. We're getting married next January 1. I want to be where my feet are. I want to go all in. I want people to know how much I care about them. I want to communicate better. I want to make sure it's not always about money and finance, not just working out — it's about becoming better every day. I always say, "I'm the best I've ever been, but the worst I'll ever be," because tomorrow I need to be a little bit better. I can tell you guys I'm generally a happy person. Once a month I kind of get down on myself and wonder, "Why do I work this much? Why don't I do this? Why don't I do that?" You might look at people who are wealthy — I'll tell you, the most billionaires (and I meet a lot of them) are not happy. Some of them are suicidal, alcoholics, drug addicts. They've got everybody chasing them because of their money. They're not really good people, and they begin to look at themselves and say, "The only reason people like me is because I worked my ass off and I have money." That's not going to be me. I want to continue to be humble, stay the blue-collar guy I've always been. Remember that I started washing dishes and mowing lawns and just creating the best I could. I don't want a million friends; I want 20 friends whom I want to be lifelong soulmates with. Guys, it sounds really good. I do have a lot of great things going on, and I thank God and Jesus Christ every day, but I've got a lot of work to work on. To all the listeners: just know that you might think being rich, famous, Instagram-famous, or an influencer is going to solve your problems, but that's not the answer. It's looking inside and becoming your best self. </FormattedResponse>
01:08:25	Sam Parr	"Have you ever seen the Savannah Banana?"
01:08:27	Tommy Mello	Yeah, yeah — they were just at an event I was at. Those guys are awesome.
01:08:30	Sam Parr	So, Jesse Cole came on maybe eight weeks ago — six weeks ago. Sean and I... he probably is in our top five favorite people that we've talked to. Very inspirational. It's so interesting that you guys look very different and have incredibly different businesses, and yet there's this spark that you both have that Sean and I find incredibly inspiring and contagious. After a conversation with you, we probably leave feeling, "Now I know what a 10 out of 10 in terms of operating our lives is — we have to step it up." </FormattedResponse>
01:09:02	Shaan Puri	Tom, you said something earlier. You said, "I used to hire twos and try to make them sevens. Now I hire sevens and try to make them tens." Me and Sam — it's like the reason we do the podcast is you find tens to make you realize, "Oh, you're still a seven." They give you an area, you know, break your frame a little bit and say, "Oh, that's an area I could be better in." Oh, well, he really had a certain spark, or he had a certain point of view, or he had a habit that I'm going to pick up here. And so, now for me, that's the biggest thing with this podcast: to just kind of continually surround ourselves with people who are excellent in some area of their life — hopefully multiple areas of their life — so that we can realize, "Oh, you know, you're actually a seven. There are actually more levels to that thing that you're trying to do."
01:09:45	Tommy Mello	I want to finish out, if you guys allow me. I want you to think about this going into this year, and I recommend everybody write these down. The six Fs: - Family and Friends - Faith (this can be skipped if you don't believe in God) - Fitness - Finance - Future Self - Fun Set goals for all six. If you don't believe in God, skip Faith — but I highly recommend you figure out what to believe in, because I do believe we're going somewhere great. I don't want you to set a yearly goal and leave it at that. Get Jesse — it's just a big-ass calendar — and start journaling. Use a blue pen and a white piece of paper. Write your goals down and put them in four spots: your shower, your vehicle, your refrigerator, and on your desk. Sign off at the bottom. Next to each of those six, list accountability partners who are going to hold your feet to the fire. Then put your why — Simon Sinek 101 — but it better be a big-ass why. Have people who are willing to tell you you're failing, that you're letting yourself down, and that you're letting me down. Post it on social media. Come out of your comfort zone and say, "This is what I'm going to do." Don't just set a yearly goal — set weekly or monthly steps. They could be calories, body fat, going to church, or time-blocking time with your family. Those are the things you put on here first. Use these simple tools: accountability partners, and meet with those partners weekly. Have hard conversations. Don't let this last only through March and then fall off like most people do. It has to be a strong commitment. Choudini talks about this — I got this bracelet that says, "keep your commitment." You better commit, and you better yell from the rooftop that you're going to do this. It better be a huge why. The only other thing is: try to get into better circles. If you want to be a great golfer, go golf with three scratch golfers — you'll get better. Get into the right circles. If you do what I'm telling you on all six of those, your life is planned, it's reverse-engineered, it's manifested, and it will come true.
01:12:05	Sam Parr	"I'm gonna run through a wall. That's how I'm gonna do it."
01:12:08	Shaan Puri	"Sam, anything we say after this will just make the podcast worse. Just do the line and let's end the pod. This is perfect."
01:12:15	Sam Parr	That's it. That's the pod.</FormattedResponse>

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What I Learned Building a $300M/Year Blue-Collar Business

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