Interview episode of "Off The Record" in which host Paul Giannamore interviews Tommy Mello, founder of A1 Garage Door Service and host of "The Home Service Expert" podcast. Topics include scaling a home service business, using technology and AI, standard operating procedures, ServiceTitan, team building and company culture, marketing and sales, acquisition strategies, private equity, financial planning (including a Profit First approach), and balancing personal goals with business. Note: the title cites a $250M business while the description says $200 million; both are promotional figures from the creator. # Video Identity Observations ## Video Overview - **Format:** Long-form interview/podcast conversation recorded on-location in Phoenix (Paradise Valley), AZ, with host **Paul Giannamore** interviewing **Tommy Mello**, founder of A1 Garage Door Service. - **Title claim:** "How Tommy Mello Built a $250M Home Service Business Empire! | A1 Garage Door" — the transcript itself does not state a $250M valuation; the guest discusses north-of-$100M EBITDA ambitions post-acquisition ("north of 100 million of e but I still think we'll get one of the highest multiples in the industry"). ## Intended Audience - **Home-service business owners and operators** — evidenced by detailed discussion of KPIs ("booking rate... conversion rate... job average or average ticket and [cost per] acquisition"), ServiceTitan, real-voice AI coaching, and dispatch software. - **Aspiring/acquiring entrepreneurs and M&A observers** — evidenced by discussion of multiples, EBITDA, roll-ups, PE involvement, and the host's framing: "Financial sponsors private Equity firms... making Investments." - **Self-improvement/business-growth listeners** — evidenced by book recommendations (*The E-Myth Revisited*, *The Ultimate Sales Machine*, *The Richest Man in Babylon*), goal-setting, and coaching advice segments. ## Claimed Scope (Creator/Channel Self-Description Evidence) - The host is presented as a well-traveled, internationally based interviewer: Tommy says, "you're like the international Man of business you understand tax structures... you're in Singapore" and Paul describes himself: "I'm rarely ever in the United States for more than 30 days a year" (Puerto Rico tax residency discussion). - The host demonstrates scope as an M&A/valuation expert within home services: referencing prior conversations, garage-door industry fragmentation, pest control ("I don't know about pest control but..."), and multiple industry contacts (Lenny Gray, ServiceTitan executives). - Tommy references his own adjacent channel presence: "I started my podcast" and "we let 80 companies a month come in... tommymello.com" — evidence this video sits within a home-services podcast ecosystem. ## Observable Presentation Patterns - **Guest-centered interview format:** nearly the entire transcript is the guest's story; the host asks structured questions ("when did you leave Michigan," "how many co-workers you have now," "what's some other advice"). - **Expert-to-expert register:** both parties discuss PE, tax structures, EBITDA multiples, and software vendors fluently; not beginner-oriented. - **Business-motivational tone:** recurring themes of self-education ("readers are leaders"), competition, and wealth-building. - **Industry-network signaling:** mutual acquaintances and cross-references (Chamberlain/Blackstone, Courtech, Moxy, Green Mango) present the show as embedded in the home-services dealmaking community. ## Claims vs. Demonstrated Distinction - **Explicit claims:** guest's stated figures (e.g., "we're at 24.7% bottom line," "10" deals closed, "$17 million" revenue at consultant onboarding) are guest self-reports, not independently verified in the material. - **Demonstrated:** the format demonstrates deep-dive founder interviews with tactical operational detail (marketing channels, SOPs, branding via KickCharge, RealVoice AI tooling). # Delivery Observation: "How Tommy Mello Built a $250M Home Service Business Empire!" ## Format & Speakers - **Conversational two-person interview** with frequent interruptions, overlapping turns, and casual interjections ("yeah," "mhm," "nope"). - The **primary talker (Tommy Mello, the guest)** dominates airtime with long, rapid-fire narrative runs; the interviewer (Paul) mainly steers with short prompts. --- ## Tone & Register - **Highly casual, colloquial register**: profanity appears ("this guy's just money hungry ass," "they're going to be bankrupt"), slang ("murdered it," "spanked," "Off to the Races"). - **Enthusiastic and self-assured**, especially on business topics: - > "I'm bringing an atomic bomb to a knife fight" - > "our competitors don't stand a chance" - **Frequently shifts into motivational/sermon-like mode**: - > "my dream's so big that all their dreams could come true" - > "you are who you hang around with you are what you read" --- ## Vocabulary & Recurring Phrases ### Repeated slogans and aphorisms (a stable habit) - **"Success leaves clues"** — used at least twice ("success leaves Clues so networking having conversations" and again near the end: "read the right books hang out with the right people and you you success leaves Clues"). - **Money framing aphorisms**: - > "you don't really have a business you have a job" - > "wealth is created when you sleep" - > "revenue is for vanity profits for sanity" - **"Dream" vocabulary cluster**: "dream manager," "how big is your dream," "dream a little bigger," "let's manifest these things." ### Habitual numbered/structured lists A consistent teaching move — compressing ideas into tight enumerations: - > "four kpis that I could fix any company on the planet… booking rate… conversion rate… job average or average ticket and cost per acquisition" - > "there's three ways to make money only new customers charge your current customers more keep them coming back more frequently" - > "Sleep Number One… number two is diet and water number three is supplements and the last thing is working out" - > "two ways to grow own the audience or own the industry" ### Quantify-everything habit Nearly every claim comes with a dollar figure or metric: "$2,500 a weekend," "17 million," "24.7% bottom line," "500 ads a day," "a million dollar investment a year," "10,000 Baby Boomers a day retiring." This is one of the most consistent delivery features across the whole conversation. --- ## Teaching / Storytelling Habits - **Narrative arc pattern**: humble origin → hustle → lesson. Repeats structurally across multiple stories (car flipping, Craigslist posting, painting garage doors). - **Named-source name-dropping**: constantly cites specific people and tools as evidence — Al Levi, Dan Antonelli, Service Titan, Ara the CEO, Dan Martell, Chirp, Real Voice, Power BI, ServiceTitan's Pantheon. - **Dialogue re-enactment**: frequently replays conversations with quoted voices: - > "he goes dude I've been meaning to tell you this but your trucks look like crap" - > "he's like show me your manuals show me your standard operating procedures" - > "I'm like dude I think it is the software" The "he goes / I'm like / he's like" construction recurs throughout — a signature verbal tic. - **Rhetorical questions to the listener**: "why are they allowed to have a private jet?", "when's enough enough?" --- ## Interviewer's Delivery (Paul) - Short, redirecting questions; often restates the guest's terms back ("the smile of your home is that what you said"). - Uses gentle framing: "I mean realistically Tommy," "let me ask you." - Occasionally mirrors the guest's enthusiasm ("dude you are all over every software that's in Prototype somewhere"). --- ## Stability vs. Isolated Moments - **Stable patterns** (strong repetition): dollar-figure quantification, "he goes / I'm like" dialogue re-enactment, aphorisms about business/money, numbered lists, name-dropping of experts and tools. - **Isolated moments** (insufficient repetition to call a pattern): the extended fitness/diet tangent (protein grams, cold showers), the Tiger Woods analogy, the Ring-camera privacy aside. These are one-off digressions rather than recurring structures. - **Uncertainty note**: filler transcription ("mhm," "yeah") is dense and attributed ambiguously between speakers, so precise turn-taking counts cannot be verified from this transcript alone. # Position Record: Tommy Mello on Building A1 Garage Door **Source:** Video interview — "How Tommy Mello Built a $250M Home Service Business Empire!" with Paul Giannamore, recorded at Mello's Paradise Valley, AZ home. **Speakers:** Tommy Mello (guest, founder of A1 Garage Door) and Paul Giannamore (host). --- ## Background & Origins - Mello moved from Michigan to Phoenix at 16 (1999) after his parents' divorce, citing residency requirements for ASU, closeness to his father, and distancing himself from friends "selling weed." - Early hustles: landscaping company, Cheesecake Factory busboy, bartending, flipping cars ("over a thousand"), painting garage doors at **$100/door** using $12/gallon paint — roughly **$2,500 per weekend** at age 22 (2005). - A1 Garage Door founded ~2006 with a roommate partly because the name "A1 Falls first in the phone book." - Early marketing: automated Craigslist posting (500 ads/day using IP-changing dial-up system), feeding "15–20 jobs a day." - Mello built reputation during the housing crisis by working with distressed homeowners (single moms returning homes to banks). ## Key Inflection Points (per Mello) - **2014:** Hired integrator Adam; revenue ~$6 million. - **2017–2018:** Met Al Levi (~$17M revenue, keeping only **3%**). Levi demanded manuals, SOPs, org charts — Mello "had nothing." Levi engagement cost "several hundred thousand dollars" over three years and produced SOPs for every job. - **Service Titan:** Mello says he was the only garage door company on the platform early; begged CEO Ara on LinkedIn, promised "a thousand technicians," and was accepted as a bet. - **2020, at $40M revenue:** Rebranded trucks via Dan Antonelli (KickCharge), who "didn't negotiate." Mello claims average ticket rose dramatically and "everything started gaining this crazy momentum" through **omnichannel, uniform branding**. - **~2.5 years ago:** Hired president Dan Miller and then a CFO via recruiter; added three FP&A analysts and Power BI. ## Business Philosophy & Claims - **"You don't have a business, you have a job"** if revenue stops when you leave; "wealth is created when you sleep." - **Four KPIs** Mello claims can "fix any company": booking rate, conversion rate, average ticket, cost per acquisition. - **Profit stance:** A healthy business should bring home 15–20%; he believes Blue Collar owners undercharge out of guilt — "why are plumbers allowed to have a private jet" but garage door guys aren't. Critics on Facebook call him a price gouger; Mello disputes this, framing fair pricing as enabling good wages and benefits. - **Positioning vs. PE:** Mello claims he is "a bridge" who can speak technicians' language, while Ivy League PE people "don't know how to care for these people." He states PE entrants treat garage doors as "the next HVAC" and he partly wants them "to see how hard this industry is." - **Confrontational posture:** "You don't want to sell — I'm going to only ask you three times and then we're going to smash you." Believes non-adopting competitors "are going to be bankrupt very soon" with "three to five years to catch on." ## Current Scale & Deal Structure - ~800 co-workers, expecting ~1,200 by year-end; operating in 23 states. - **Bottom line: 24.7%**, aiming "north of 30." - Sold to Cortek (Giannamore notes Mello "rolled half" and remains a significant shareholder). Mello: minimum goal is to triple, he thinks 4X is achievable in 3 years; would roll another 30%; doesn't want to be CEO — prefers a "Chief Visionary Officer" role focused on marketing, motivation, sales. - ~10 acquisitions completed since closing, from under $1M EBITDA up to $3.5M; buy box accepts anything over $500K EBITDA; prefers older companies (owners in late 50s–70s) with decades of goodwill. - Greenfielding vs. acquisition: studies competition, Google opportunity, average income; claims greenfield skills let him "take over" a market. ## Technology Positions - **Real Voice:** ~$1M/year investment; records technician calls on iPad, analyzes speech rate, filler words, open-ended questions; bought 350 licenses after a 40-tech pilot. Legality note: 12 states require two-party consent; Mello is "not in any of those states." - Claims software only works as a **coaching platform** — useless without managers listening and coaching. - AI/machine learning: working with Service Titan on dispatch features; internal ML to route sales transfers and match technicians/parts from customer photos; using Chirp automations. - **Prediction:** OEM manufacturers will partner with/buy consolidated operators within ~5–6 years, knowing about problems before customers do; raises but dismisses antitrust/privacy concerns ("your cell phone's recording all this"). - "Next five years [is] the Golden Era" — 10,000 baby boomers retiring daily, massive generational wealth transfer. ## People & Culture Approach - "Dream Manager" program, morning "Mojo" calls, monthly all-company meeting; profit units down to technician level (25 technicians with ownership); Pinnacle trips (61 people to Puerto Vallarta); help with credit repair and home ownership. - Personal-goal planning tied to pay: "Revenue minus profit equals expenses" budgeting with separate bank accounts per goal (tuition fund, safari trip, etc.); involves spouses and kids over 12. - Mello on tradeoffs: "nobody ever says when they die 'I wish I worked more,' but they also don't say 'I wish I lived in poverty more.'" - Health emphasis: office gym, planned diet/accountability program; sensitive to genetic/hormonal causes of weight; personal hierarchy — **sleep #1, diet #2, supplements #3, workout #4**; heavy weights over cardio; competitive bets (~$75K body-fat contest via DEXA scans). - "I like human beings, but I like processes more than humans — processes pick the people" (drug tests, DMV, background checks). - On charity: skeptical of performative giving — take care of your own people first ("reliable vehicle... kids have a decent Christmas"). ## Self-Education & Networking Method - 2008 CPA referral led to *The E-Myth Revisited*, then *The Ultimate Sales Machine*, *The Richest Man in Babylon* — "readers are leaders." - Strategy: find the #1 operator in a market, call them, get through the gatekeeper (flowers for the front desk, Dave Matthews tickets), buy lunch, apply lessons. Flew to hundred-million-dollar HVAC/plumbing shops after Service Titan's Pantheon event, realizing "these guys are light years ahead" — "same widget, different industry." - Hired consultants extensively: Al Levi, Joe Crisara, Jonathan Whiseman, Dan Martell ("several hundreds of thousands a year for one hour a month"), two speaking coaches, even a ping-pong coach. - **Mello's caution to young owners:** only ~1 in 10 influencers/coaches are "the real deal" — most "couldn't make it in the real world"; ask for balance sheets before hiring them. - Free shop tours (80 companies/month) at tomnymello.com — framed as giving back, team validation, and networking. - Dan Martell exercise: visualize yourself at 75 in detail (relationships, plane, trips, golf schedule), then work backward with dates — ~20 pages of notes; Mello writing a book about A1 for employees (not for sale). ## Host Positions (Paul Giannamore) - Notes Mello "rolled half" in the Cortek deal and is "all in," not sold out. - Recalls referring Mello to Lenny Gray for door-to-door; observes Mello is testing "every software in prototype somewhere." - Asks whether diversification into HVAC tempted Mello (it didn't — Mello: "own the audience or own the industry"; Parker & Sons chose to own Phoenix at $260M). - Giannamore shares his own Puerto Rico tax situation (4% income tax, 0% capital gains, rarely in US >30 days/year) and residency rules; Mello mentions a pending Turkish citizenship application. ## Preserved Contradictions & Qualifications - Mello admits past failures: Yellow Pages money wasted, "stupid mistakes," over-hiring, "getting spanked" when diversifying too fast (e.g., epoxy flooring). - Acknowledges luck: "I got lucky that it happened during COVID... my timing was impeccable, that was divine." - Expresses insecurity about scale: "I don't know if I'm cut out to be CEO of a several hundred million dollar company." - Admits constant worry about "Catch a Contractor" sting operations despite ethics training — "I can't be the guy in every single garage." - Sore-loser competitiveness attributed to his father; self-describes as ADHD, "a dream guy, a vision guy" who must "stay out of my operator way." # Speaker Attribution & Provenance Record ## Video Overview - **Title:** How Tommy Mello Built a $250M Home Service Business Empire! | A1 Garage Door | Paul Giannamore - **Video ID:** `01a168c8-988a-73ab-b195-c48aaf3a860f` ## Speakers & Roles ### Primary Speaker — **Tommy Mello** (Guest / Interviewee) - Founder of **A1 Garage Door Service**; also identified as podcast host ("the next year I started my podcast"). - Roles stated in transcript: founder, significant shareholder post-transaction ("I rolled half of it"), aspiring **Chief Visionary Officer** rather than CEO. ### Secondary Speaker — **Paul Giannamore** (Host / Interviewer) - Referenced in title; drives questions throughout. Notes his own background: lives in Puerto Rico, US national with Irish/Italian citizenship at birth, rarely in the US more than 30 days/year. ## Referenced Third Parties (Claims Are Speaker-Attributed, Not Verified) ### Business & Software Ecosystem - **Ara (CEO of ServiceTitan)** — said to have taken a "flyer" on Mello; Mello claims early adopter status. - **Al Levi** — consultant who built SOPs/manuals; several hundred thousand dollars paid. - **Dan Antonelli / KickCharge** — branding; "take it or leave it" pricing anecdote. - **Dan Miller** — recruiter who helped place president/CFO. - **Aaron Gainer, Eco Plumbers** — introduced RealVoice AI tool. - **Lenny Gray** — door-to-door expert Paul recommended. - **Dan Martell** — consultant ("Buy Back Your Time"); visualization exercise described. - **Michael Michalowicz (implied "Michael MTZ")** — Profit First budgeting method. - **Michael Gerber** — *The E-Myth Revisited*; co-author endorsement anecdote re: Austin (Moxy). - **Chet Holmes** — *The Ultimate Sales Machine* ("red Bible"). - **Morris Jenkins** — internal company book precedent. - **Cam / Green Mango** — pest control acquaintance. - **Paul Kelly / Parker & Suns** — claimed ~$260M Phoenix HVAC revenue. - **Cortech** — Mello's financial sponsor/PE backer ("they don't pay me to say that either" — explicit non-paid endorsement disclaimer). ### Companies & Products Mentioned - ServiceTitan (incl. Pantheon event, Dispatch Pro, Marketing Pro, rumored IPO), RealVoice, Power BI, Chirp, Housecall Pro, Service Fusion, Chamberlain (Blackstone-owned), Costco/Home Depot, Google (LSA, GMB, PPC), Yellow Pages, Valpak, Angie's List, Goldman Sachs. ## Promotional Segments ⚠️ - **A1 shop tours:** "tommy mello.com/shop" — free tours, ~80 companies/month, books given away, meals provided — framed as networking/giving back but functions as promotion. - **kpi.a1garagedoortools.com** (phonetic) — tool referenced as resource for technicians. - **Mello's podcast, speaking engagements, and upcoming book** (internal A1 culture book) discussed. - Mello describes himself as "a decent influencer" and cites his own following growth plans. ## Provenance & Source Notes - Transcript is an unedited conversational interview; **no timestamps available**. - Financial figures ($250M title claim, 17M/40M revenue milestones, 24.7% bottom line, multiples, deal counts) are **self-reported by Mello** and uncorroborated within the source. - **No curated metadata was supplied** beyond title and transcript. - **Comment availability: not indicated** in the provided material. - Quote example (Mello, on business building): > "You don't really have a business you have a job... wealth is created when you sleep." I don't either I mean it's great to finally be here you know we I don't know if you remember this but we planned we had me booked on your show in 2020 and my mom passed away and I had to cancel and so it's been what almost 4 years now in the making but here I am out in Phoenix Metro finally finally dude I I I I threaten to come out here many times over the years but never made it but you know it was always so far for me I was either in Europe or in Puerto Rico dude I might as well to Europe to get out here from PR like literally is an all day Affair but it's good to be out here and it's good to be here in this weather like this March cool crisp weather you know my lips and hands are drying out out here I'm used to The Dewy sweet moist air PR I come out here for a couple days it's rough but I can't do that man you know a lot of people prefer Florida over Arizona and California I I like low humidity yeah you know I'm from Detroit originally are you I didn't know that jilling Heights when did you so when did you leave Michigan in 99 I was 16 and you came out here yeah okay it's a much better place I think it is and this this area is blowing up like Phoenix is Amazon's putting a mega Center here there's the the new Taiwan chip plants going in taian semiconductor yeah it's it's everywhere like Google GoDaddy uh everything's here next door like there's all these massive plants opening up so I feel good about this Market even though they say there's water and stuff issues I think they they'll work it out this place is growing what like 10% per year out here I don't know exactly the growth but it it's it's weird you could go to like certain areas you can get a taste of everything here yeah and you go to Flagstaff if you want to winner go to Sedona if you want to get in touch with Mother Nature yep so so you're relatively new here and this is a beautiful house I haven't taken the tour yet but looking for to it yeah but what area of Phoenix were you in prior to moving out here so my I still have the other house in Scottdale it's about 10 minutes away my dad lives there now okay so that was um you know that's where I had like really close neighbors the house are stacked and I love my neighbors over there we still go over there a lot but uh I like this because every lot in Paradise Valley is on one acre at least yeah so you got a lot of privacy here and the rate the like the per square foot the average is about 800 but houses are selling for 15 to 1700 per square foot here in par Paradise Valley yeah that's beautiful it's a beautiful area so you came out here when you were 16 I know you've told the story many times before but we're going to do it again and we're going to try to do it a little bit differently so when you get out here you were 16 years old why well my mom and dad got a divorce when I was about eight and in 1996 my sister and Dad moved to Phoenix because my grandpa retired in 74 to Lake havu okay six of the kids weren't old enough there was 12 kids six of them went with my grandpa and they migrated over the Phoenix over the years we were always coming out here and 16 years old my buddies great guys but you know selling weed stupid stuff and I knew I was going to go to ASU so I needed to get two years of residency mhm um needed a dad needed you know puberty so wanted to be closer to Dad love my mom like there's no one better than Mom but uh just made sense so I moved out here my dad took me to every High School I think in Phoenix and uh he's like wherever you want to go we'll just get an apartment till you graduate and I had enough credits when I was 17 to graduate took government and economics in summer school graduated okay and uh yeah I was uh it was interesting cuz the school was um mostly Mormon and best people ever by the way so cool these guys are great uh and they're cheap dates too they don't drink so it's always taking them out right yeah latterday Saints learned a lot about that religion and uh still friends with a lot of people that I went to high school with for that last year but uh I started up a landscape company so then I got a job at Che Cheesecake Factory as a bus boy okay and um then I started the landscape company I mean I was always doing something I was I was hustling I was mowing lawns doing water conservation analysis just figured out a way to make a lot of money my whole life did you go to a was this after high school did you go to ASU yeah so I went to Community College then I went to ASU for some courses graduated from University of Phoenix then I got a MERS from University of Arizona but you didn't like do typical recruiting in college you just got done and started something yeah yeah no I I was bartending all the time I was I I had I was flipping cars flipping bow flexes I flipped over a thousand cars me and my dad used to just find broken down G20 Infinities or Honda Civics I had like three or four cars I did MH and we fix them and a lot of times I drove them off of who we bought from got them detailed changed the oil them for a couple Grand and uh like I said money was easy to make until I'd go on vacation and then it stopped I stopped making money yeah even the little businesses I had it was like I was the business and I always tell people you don't really have a business you have a job yeah the business is something that works when you're not there wealth is created when you sleep yep and uh I got a job painting garage stores my my old roommate was a manager of the garage door company and he goes man I can't find any good painters he's like they always flake out he's like would you be interested he's like you you do anything for money you got like 15 jobs you got all sorts of stuff yeah yeah so I said well how much will you give me he goes a 100 bucks a door you cover the paint I went to Home Depot I found this gliten speed coat 12 bucks a gallon I'm like done so I hir this old man to teach me how to paint the first three doors go to Home Depot buy a Magnum 5 painter mhm had a G20 Infinity 96 G20 and um I got so good at painting I could paint 10 doors a day on Saturdays and Sundays okay and now this is 2005 so I'm 22 years old knocking out 1,700 profit on the weekend plus I was bartending that night so you know I was making 2500 a weekend mhm and then the week I'd still work and do stuff yeah so they didn't include the pool hall when I go hustle nineball eight ball there you go yeah so was the birth of A1 related to your experience painting garage doors I'd go meet up with these technicians all the time to get the color samples and one guy was like dude this is 2006 he goes I think I'm going to make 90 grand this year and I go oh my gosh really mhm and I had the landscape company but I'm allergic to grass and it was like I'd go to Home Depot and just pick up guys and I had a couple full-time guys but not a very lucrative business I was billing back then about 30 grand a month and it was profitable but it wasn't a game changer and so we started up me and my other roommate started a garage their business and and they called up his cousin and we're he's like dude you know A1 Falls first in the phone book and I looked it up and I'm like that's great we'll get a yellow book ad yeah so we did the Yellow Pages it was really cool for about three months until Google died and then we ended up paying all this money to to Yellow Book got into valp Pac I mean we learned the hard way like I did all the work like my my partner he liked to answer the phones I ran all the jobs and uh we had this used truck that was so crappy I mean we just made ends meet we barely got by mhm and in 2010 I was like dude I can't do this like you could either have the business take the debt didn't it make more sense for you to be paint and garage stores back then instead of doing this uh well it was way more lucrative you know considering we didn't have I knew how to do a form an LLC I knew you know to get a business license I understood I went and took the test to get the uh contractor's license which was really simple back then it was just a business license I knew how to get our employee identification number I knew enough to get going I knew what marketing was he was good at sales so we had something yeah I was good at booking calls he was good at booking calls we showed up to the jobs but mind you this is going into the the biggest housing crisis of all time in Phoenix and Vegas got hit the hardest remember so I'd go out there and I'd meet a single mom and she'd be like I'm giving this house back to the bank I just need to get my kids clothes and furniture out and I'm like so I was just willing and dealing just like taking care of people that's how I built a really good reputation mhm is I was on Craigslist that's how I start I I posted 500 ads a day on Craigslist I had a system that would take the modem the dialup system and it was it would change the IP address and it would move the mouse around and post for me and it would have different email addresses I mean this is back you know a long time ago but I figured a way that used to feed me 15 20 jobs a day and that was really cool because by the time Google really started being the algorithm of choice I was on top of that stuff I was putting stuff on YouTube when I went in my master's program I sat next to Five Guys that all they did was search engine optimization they did video editing this is when it was really easy to win on Google yeah and I mean it was like the top ads were like super dark yellow it was like you knew that was an ad and it didn't even make sense stuff would pop up there that didn't even belong so organic won all day so that's really when I started to take market share and um 2014 I got a great right-hand person Adam my integrator 2017 I got on a service Titan which you were one of the I was the only one outside yeah and uh that was a whole story within itself I mean I worked directly with the CEO ARA and he said no everyone said no and I begged on LinkedIn and he called me and he said we're super focused you got to understand that and I said you bet on me I'll have a thousand technicians on this mhm and we talked for an hour and he goes dude I don't know why I'm going to take a flyer on you I'm sending out 10 success managers yeah and if I and Adam worked with these guys and made it all work and then the next year I started my podcast and I had aliv on we met at for dinner in Scottsdale or lunch for in Scottdale and he comes into my office and he just tears me apart he's like show me your manuals show me your standard operating procedures show me the structure how do you delegate where's your or chart where's your depth chart uh and I had nothing how big were you at the time when he came out 17 million I mean but we were serious fire firefighters yeah and I wasn't making a lot of money revenue is for vanity profits for sanity so this was like I thought I would walk in a room I'm like 17 million MH and and uh he's like how much are you keeping I'm like 3% you know and uh it was good though I mean we had better months a lot of it was reinvesting into the company and just we were over hired a lot of the time we were burning through jobs just a lot of stupid mistakes service Titan was not meant for for a garage dra company so that took a couple years of dialing in MH and uh I've always been an early adopter I've always bet on things before people do I think that's part of the success is I try to find the industry leader and I beg and plead my way into it MH and uh so he hooked us up I mean three years with L several hundred of thousands of dollars paid to him manuals for every single job how to win standard operative procedures tattoo policies how to get PTO what happens if my truck breaks down facial hair like you name it like if you want new shirts how what's the process process systems checklists and that was really where the company started getting legs and then 2020 L takes a picture of my old truck and he goes dude I I've been meaning to tell you this but your trucks look like crap he goes by the way I want you to have one install van install truck and one van nothing else with the same models and I go he showed me the picture and I goes yeah you're right and I go what should I do he goes there's a company called Kick charge the guy's name is Dan Antonelli so let him do his thing yep and I called Dan he gives me his price and I'm like you know I'm pretty pretty big influencer like I could probably get you a lot of business tried to will him and deal him he didn't really negotiate yeah I pulled the it's not his style you're right no no it's he's just like take it or leave it and he knew who I was we knew of each other and um I did it and that was a game changer cuz I did that at 40 million MH I changed my brand at $40 million so Alivia hooked me up with all the structure the Sops the manuals and then Dan hooked me up with the right brand I was already on the right software and then it was we didn't have a great CFO and that was the LA that's the last thing I think most home service get is the right CFO mhm and under two years ago I got the right probably two and a half years ago right CFO went to a recruiter got a guy named Dan Miller and then he helped me get the right CFO so he's the president then I got the CFO and all of a sudden now we got three fpna people just digesting numbers we're using powerbi we're using some crazy technology that's just our competitors don't stand a chance I mean like real voice have you ever heard real voice no so our conversation I put on my iPad is recorded us talking and it follows our sales process it tells me how many times you said um like you know it tells me how fast I spoke versus how fast you spoke oh really it tells me how many open-ended questions I asked it tells me how great I told the company's story and it's all a feedback loop so it's the end of ride alongs is what it's called and now you're literally working on your one-on ones each day with the technicians and our sales just when did imp that we got heavy into it about four months ago did a test test of 40 Tech murdered it and now it's um we bought 350 licenses and the newest technology I'm on a yacht party next week in Miami MH for real voice and you're going to be able to ask it what would I need to make Paul just as good as Jimmy and it'll tell you everything that kind of training I need to do to bring you up to the level if I want to take a market it's it's going to take all of service tit's data what am I doing wrong in Denver versus Colorado Springs and it'll go through all the data Ai and machine learning to do it and a lot of people just like they don't have the money for service Titan they're like oh my gosh that's expensive Dan anali is expensive why would I pay for manuals like real voice is not cheap it's it's a million dollar investment a year for us but we'll probably double we're at 24.7% bottom line right now I don't even know where we could go I didn't think you could do better than that but I think we can get you know North the 30 is this thing for for phone or for live in person like so it's made for it's made for the person when you're in thear literally on the iPad like it's it's it's recording the job on the iPad there's 12 states that require two person of consent mhm the other 38 don't so the 38 you're just good to go one consent the other 12 you got to just say just so you know our call may be recorded and the experience when our technicians out there may be recorded like they've got scripts I'm not in any of those States but uh it's a game changer because it'll go right in the call of what went wrong how' you get into that to begin with Aaron Gainer with Eco plumbers M he he's over to this his son's going to ASU so he comes and kicks it once a month out here for like three days and he go we're always helping each other like me and a lot of the big HVAC Plumbing guys and I'm the only garage through guy yeah and he goes dude have you ever heard a real voice we just implemented it like a month ago and our top three guys have doubled their sales he's like they're eating it up they hated it at first like like somebody's watching them but they're getting better they're they're actually listening and they're listening to each other's calls and they're working with each other and I go yeah I'll you know I'll call them yeah and then I got into it and I'm like man roofers are getting into it door too guy like it's crazy how effective it is when you spend now here's the deal with the software it won't do anything if you're not paying attention if you don't make the guys record it if you're not listening to the calls if you're not coaching them it's a coaching platform I I would imagine you would have to feed the machine um whether information such as did you actually get the sale so it talks to service time okay so it knows so it knows what's working it studies conversion raides it yeah so it works with house call Pro it works with you know service Fusion it works with a lot of the other crms mhm but I like you know as well as I do I don't know about pest control but if you're not on service Ty H Plumbing electrical garage doors like your multiple will be affected significantly well you know I mean look even service Titan has made inroads into lawn and pest now right so they they started buying them they bought Sur week and I think they bought pest routes too Y and they're I think they're going to integrate it all into that one same platform trying to figure out how to do that but we'll see I mean they're about to go public in the next year so IP around the corner what were you using before before you using service Titan I mean I I literally remember having conversations with you years ago you had been on service Titan for a while but not that long and it was a game changer for you but what were you doing before that so we used to use 2007 2010 we were on a notebook a calendar that we'd write every literally yeah yeah yeah like a book okay like where do we got where's the where's the book where's the book um this is before you even had phones the pictures or anything and then we got onto Excel and we started using Excel MH and then we went to another one then I ended up on this one called the Torah which was from like the 90s but it was cool because he figured out how to had like GPS on the trucks it had an integrated finance department but it was still you have to have your own servers and then I found service Titan and I remember my rightand my coo or general manager back then it was General Manager he said it's not the software and I'm like dude I think it is the software like software is a game changer like I understand softare wasn't a big deal in the 90s really the two early 2000s but now more than ever with AI and machine learning like dispatch Pro is going to change the game with Serv Titan mhm I mean we are helping them build it and we're giving it data you know we're loading it in with credit scores we're loading it with pre-approvals we're giving it uh anything you could do with regression testing to make the machine learn as long as it gets the the secret sauce is you like for Pest Control you'd want to have like 25 different types of jobs even if it's let's just say it's mosquitoes you want to have what type of mosquito job because it'll learn what guys do the best highest verion rate it might be that it recognizes these people it could pull their age and you want to send someone of the close age to them it might be it recognizes eventually it'll say they're from we could recognize they're from Canada yeah lessen not a canadi one of our Canadian somebody talks funny let's s yeah they can match that stuff up it's insane and it's people are like yeah that's that's that's not going to happen I'm like dude it's here so if we if we take a stroll down memory lane for a second it's circa 2014 and is you're doing around 17 million in Revenue no 2017 2018 I was doing when I met Al eevy it was 2017 2018 so that's when Al came in to help you with all that I mean so he came in I was doing six million in 2014 okay he helped you standardize all this you know what were some of the other big you know outside of him coming in checklist and all that standardization what what were some other big takeaways back in that era for you where you were like holy I've been doing this wrong or maybe there's too many to recount well here's the biggest starting the podcast talking to smart people mhm and then getting on a service time they have their annual event called Pantheon MH and that's when everything changed when I went to Pantheon and I met all the HVAC Plumbing guys and I'm one of the only guys in there in garage doors they're talking about service agreements financing which we call promotions they're talking about things like I'm like these guys are light years ahead of us like light years mhm and after that I just started flying to their shops hundred million shops and I just go in very humbly and I'd ask questions and I'd smile I'd buy everybody to lunch and I just go apply the stuff and I'm like I'm like I want more so I'd go fly fly fly fly and I just go implem MH and we'd be working on service time together taking you know I I helped develop marketing Pro I mean I signed ndas and basically I just gave them feedback I didn't develop anything but um that was something that changed everything walking into a business watching the people work cuz they started in the early '90s to build best practices what we started a few years ago in garage doour so they were 30 years ahead I said wait a minute that guy's got a private jet that guy's got a private jet that guy's got a private jet this is the industry I need to start following yep and it's the exact same thing it's just a different widget and then I figured this out if I don't start training and start a best practices group and start posting everywhere there's no way that I'll build a company that's worth anything people are going to think I'm price couging so I stood in front of 40 garage door companies I said can you guys do you guys not drive brand new trucks can you afford 50 Billboards do you guys pay six figures to your people they got insurance PTO all that good stuff no hell no how can you afford service tday no I'm like well why does every plumber and HVAC guy like why are they allowed to have a private jet you see that guy's got a Bugatti why is it why are we worth less mhm and they go oh that's price gouging I'm like you're paying your guy 45,000 a year he gets no benefits his kids are stuck living in an apartment why is that price G you right like you're not even making enough to get by you're still in the truck running jobs this is not a you you have a career you don't have a business and so people start listening to me like either you hated me or you love me you were like this guy's right or this guy is this just money hungry ass and I'm like no I'm like I want to pay people really good and I believe a good business should bring home 15 20% MH cuz that's a healthy company and that was just unheard of no Blue Collar guys you're not allowed to make that we you know we got to hold you down and I just was like I'm going to follow the HVAC guys I don't really care so before people would find out you know we we trademarked their own Parts added the psych of life that's eight times longer than anybody else and people there's still people on Facebook that are like oh that Tommy melow guy yeah don't be like him Y and I'm like they don't believe in rap trucks they like I got enough business just to keep my truck white with lettering and I'm like I'm proud of you you know we'll call you mcgyver you could fix anything and you'll always be you'll never be able to help anybody out you'll never my goal is to help enough people in my business my dream's so big that all their dreams could come true you talked about WRA trucks so I remember what your old trucks used to look like and I of course know what your new brand your most recent branding looks like I mean how big of an impact does that really have on your business particularly like in garage doors so here's what I learned the trucks and the vehicles are the number one they driving Billboards the trucks need to look like the Billboards they need to look like the yard signs they need to look like the website they need to look like the stickers they need to look like the valve pack they need to look like your email signature MH when I got it all symmetrical when I really start everything looked the same mhm my average ticket went up dramatically we looked like a premium brand we showed up there differently we had uniforms we had the exact same tools our trucks looked Immaculate and I got two layers on my trucks I've got lettering on top so it reflects at night and then what I noticed is the customer clientele got way better and then I noticed that people started applying way more they said said I see you guys everywhere mhm and we started to become a brand name my cost per click went down my conversion rate on vpac went up like everything started gaining this crazy momentum because mind you I wasn't just a few Vans driving around I was doing TV radio Billboards yard signs like it was like the machine it was Omni Channel marketing it wasn't just this one thing and it all looked the same they're like we see you everywhere we see you at the fair we see you at the home shows we see your trucks you know I I call it parting I'd park at a busy corner and leave it there overnight or leave it at a a Costco instead of marketing I'd Park stuff everywhere around the city and yeah this stuff works it it gains momentum how often does somebody need garage door services you know it's an interesting question because you've got your opener and you've got your garage door right A lot of people hit them a lot of times they come down on a rake a lot of times kids you know they they're playing hockey on them um and then if you were to look at the wear and tear of a non-insulated builder grade door you know 8 to 12 years Springs break if it's 10,000 Cycles you're using your door 20 let's just say 10 times a day 300 days out of the Year 3,000 times 300 \* 10 3,000 you'll get three years out of that before your Spring Breaks if that's a standard cycle so you got rollers cables bearings you got hinges You' got a lot of things there's hurricane rated wind load rated and then there's also the 40% of your curb a pill we trademark that's a smile of your home mhm remodel magazine 7 years in a row said it's the number one investment into the home more than your kitchens or bathrooms so there's a lot to be said about the garage that's when you drive up like you know just people ask did you redo your landscape did you paint the house no I got a new garage door so I'm pretty passionate about garage I can see that the smile of your home is that what you said the smile of your home so so basically these things might last three years on average a grer usually last about 10 years but the deal is now the openers but you you got spring issues and pulley and all sorts of other stuff so you're saying that I mean I I guess the reason why I asked that question is you know I think about garage door versus other resid resi services it's the same thing you know out of the garbage disposal hot water heater air conditioning they're rated you know 7 to 15 years depending on how how efficient you buy it m and then you know are you keeping up with the upkeep lubricating adjust and tightening everything on the door just it's like a an eight unit needs to change filters and needs to check things on it and clean out the uh condenser like grar need work too when you started this business I mean did you think about I mean you're painting garage doors now you're doing Garage Door Replacement Service I mean did you ever really think it was going to turn into what it's turned into today I mean realistically Tommy so or would you were you the guy that was like man I'm going to blow this up you know I was actually kind of disappointed pointed my first six years because my dad said 2% of every mailer you do will get answered and he took like he used to do vpac and different things he ran a thing called American Transmissions and then he worked for Amco so I started doing the math on valp Pac and I'm like I'm going to blow it you should have I I found a file I sent 100,000 pieces that's $2,000 oh dude I did all a math and I'm like you so I've always been a dreamer y I never had an idea that I could potentially before 45 become a billionaire hopefully multi-billionaire um but I'll tell you this the money comes it's not about the money uh you think it is it's about who I've become be getting the the information because if you took the money away I'd be right back mhm it's it's who I had to become to be worthy of that and it's not even worthy of money it's what the money this house is going to build so many memories each and every one of my co-workers are invited over here MH my parents come here all the time my dad had a 70th birthday here my mom came over here for 70th um that's what this is about this is a great investment it's not going to ever depreciate it's just going to go up up up up so but with money the reason why PE people get their hands on money and by the way money is not the root of all evil and the Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil it says the love of money is the root of all evil and I think we got a fiduciary responsibility to make as much profit as possible while still doing good by the client and staying ethical and having high moral morals to stand on but um it was a lot of money got I remember it was uh Christmas Eve 2022 and I was like I guess I'm done and that last said about 3 hours and uh you know that and then luckily I had a great team I got with Goldman Sachs I got the lawyers I formed the trust I did all the hard work and then I formed a family office just dialing things in making sure um we're doing things tax efficient and uh I don't know I'm not done yet but you you know you partnered up with quk but you're still an ex a very significant shareholder in A1 it's yes I rolled half of it it's not like you turned around and sold out and went off I mean you are all in on this thing you're big shareholder um what's the plans for it now so the bare minimum they want to do is triple I think I can get it to 4X after 3 years you know this north of 100 million of e but I still think we'll get one of the highest multiples in the industry I'll have to roll 30% more I don't want to be the CEO of that company um I want to be involved every day but uh maybe like a chief Visionary officer just really close with my technicians involved in the operations heavily involved in marketing more involved in motivation than anything just helping people figure out their why dream a little bigger I want to talk a little bit about that it it it appears to me that your team members here at A1 are actually super excited to be a part of this organization and you put a lot of resources behind education and growth so I want to talk about you know how you've dealt with team members from in ception to today what are some of the things that you've done to really create this team so we have a dream manager it's great book you get certified as a dream manager to help people come up with their dreams you've got daily morning Mojo calls you got a Thursday morning meeting one meeting once a month bring the fire with the entire company we've got uh we helped fix their credit help them with figure out home ownership um we've got a pinnacle trip we just took 61 people to P of viarta mhm um recognition we we've got profit units that are available all the way down to the technician level down there's 25 technicians with ownership um really where you start with is what do you want how big is your dream how many houses do you want to own don't tell me you want to go to Disney World tell me you want to go first class what rides are you going to go on let's manifest these things and then let's build a detailed plan of personal budget and then let's figure out rather than me saying I'm going to put you on a uh a write up or a performance Improvement plan my goal would be Paul these were your dreams mhm right we do these few things you do a ride along we get someone in the mat team the market acceleration technician training we get you to these numbers you not only make clients happier MH you know only have more job security but you accomplish these dreams faster you told me you wanted that I heard ultra competitive people that like to win mhm and they got to write their goals down because it'll never happen if they don't write them down we know that and it's not month to month quarter to quarter it's day to day let me ask you you're saying I'm a technician I come on board with you you're asking me Paul what are my goals what do you want to buy what sort of house you want to live in what yeah not only that what do you want to do do you want to become a better father how's the relationship with your wife going like do you need to be home for Sundays where do you want to go for a family trip each year are you close to your dad you want to take him on a fishing trip or a golf trip okay like Let's Line everything up let's try to give you everything are you happy being uh 27% body fat or do you want to get down to 15 let's do everything I'm at 15 now Tommy you look great yeah um but okay not you this a bad example so I write you write these things down I I want to delve into this a little bit because it's a really interesting concept so I've I've literally got personal financial I've got all these you're really getting into who I want to be as a personal what I'm aspiring to do how are you tying these goals to what I'm doing at the organization like what sort of conversations have a conversation with me you've gone through my goals I want to buy this house I want to go on this so the profit first you Michael MTZ Revenue minus expenses equals profit typically in this case Revenue minus profit equals expenses it's kind of like a different way of looking at it so we say okay here's your child's tuition fund MH your kids are six and eight we do some math here's how much you need this accounts for your you want to take them to an African safari it's going to cost you 30 grand let's call that 14 months how much do we need to pull out of each check here's what you need to cover your bills here's how much we have to put into these buckets these are all separate bank accounts and this is what we're working on with Michael melawi it's they so yeah and so that's the budget side of it where we always got to carry good credit so you're literally helping each team member with their various different buckets this is what we're working on I mean we got a lot of work to do okay uh so that's where it starts and there's there's a lot of uh discipline that's built in that um so that's the beginning of it and then I would tell you to go to kk. a1ar tools.com MH and we'll put in all the kpis and show you how much money you can make as a junior tech tech senior Tech and then we're going to go through and help build a plan and guess what I want to get to and it's not always me but let's get to know your wife if your kids are over 12 years old we get talk to them as well that dad's got a big dream let's make sure the whole family knows let's make sure if you got to pick up a Friday you want to work a little bit later you got to pick up a sh pick up a Saturday work on easing they know why they understand because this is helping them what's in it for me what's in it for the family why is Dad always working because you can't have it both ways you want to spend time with family you want to work I know nobody ever says that when they die do I wish I worked more but they also say they don't say I wish I lived in poverty more you know what I mean yeah so I think that the people that say man I wish I could have made it to my kids games it's like there is sacrifice and we talk about these things and it's something that nobody Els to talk about when's enough enough I don't know I always say this people always ask me when's enough enough at what point is enough enough I go if Tiger Woods won four majors in a year did should he quit golfing yeah is he done or is does he love it so much said it's just part of his life the golf is part of his life forever business is my golf for Tiger Woods so yeah we start with these people and I don't call them employees I call them my co-workers and I try to lead from upfront and like I said I'm going work in progress you're hearing this is thinking man it must be amazing it is good and we try and everybody's putting best forth their best effort but I truly believe we could always be better 1% each day I've been talking a lot about until you feel good I'm on peptides I was putting up 245 for 10 on the incline yesterday like I feel great they see that I feel great I took a cold shower and I'm like guys cold showers is cold plch cardio like eat right like and I say this like you look in the mirror if you're not proud of yourself your kids aren't proud of you like imagine when you're your best self when you walk in a room and you say every guy and girl that I'm the baddest ass that walks in like I believe in me and it helps the company it helps them it helps their relationships it helps their energy levels it helps their health it helps their longevity of life it helps all these things and the same thing for like religion I mean listen if they want to be closer like we we'll do the you know I don't care what religion it is but Family Faith all the whole the whole the whole Onslaught you've been super into physical fitness for a long time what sort of things do you do at the organization to help these guys with that almost everybody Ops in the insurance right and they've got the uh what is that called FHA or AHF or money Savings Plan yeah Heth so they got that left over so I'm working on a program that is really builds accountability and helps you with dieting uh we've got a gym at the office I'm very sensitive because some people just some people have genetic and and a lot of women hormonal men do too with their uh thyroid you know I I don't judge people but I cuz I see people literally try so hard but here's the problem they don't eat you need to eat more protein you need to eat more often you need to get your system and I want to just have somebody inform them because I think a lot of people would change if they knew how let me ask you speaking of protein how many grams of protein you EA in a day I'm trying to get a gram to two grams you know I'm folling somewhere around 260 to 300 but I got a guy coming out here next month that is called and this sounds so bad but he's a modern Butler he's a driver a michelon chef he'll run the house and work out for an hour a day okay and what does that mean to me everything he works out for you no we're he's he calls it the Power Hour the dude's in shape he bikes 40 m a day he does try athlons the biggest thing look you get it done in the kitchen that's where you get it done period the supplements I'm on if if and sleep if you're not getting s half to eight hours sleep and I think a lot of people fail there as well MH I think if I had to go with the order of importance Sleep Number One some people need help with sleep there people just so sleep is number one number two is diet and water number three is supplements and the last thing is working out but I'm like you don't need to work out that hard Park as far away when you go to Costco walk your dogs like don't use the elevator yeah like you don't have to do much more like walk and talk it the working out I know people at 10% body fat that don't work out their body's just a machine like I think it's it's helpful to have if I had to tell you is it is hit better no heavy weights are better because you're breaking down your muscles more and that's your muscle rebuilding itself last 24 hours versus cardio so how often are you hitting the weights right now 3 to four days a week I try to hit 100 push-ups a day um when I'm all in and I've got to bet I've got to have a contest I've got to be accountability like I need accountability just like everybody else I probably need it more so I've come up with these pretty outlandish bets and we go to get the dexa scan and we'll find out where our body fat is and I'll probably get Five Guys in evolved probably about 15 grand a pop so whoever wins 75 grand it's not going to change my life but winning will yeah bragging rights will yeah and I my dad is a very very sore loser so my whole life I've been a sore loser and I will fight to win but I got to say I hate losing more than I like winning mhm because my dad was so antagonistic just he antagonized the crap out of me like even still he's like we'll go golf and he'll be like give me a stroke a hole and I'm like stroke a hole you're getting 18 Strokes I'm like so if I shoot an 82 you could beat me with 100 and and he's like yeah and then like he'll beat like I'll get 17 Strokes or whatever and he'll beat me by one and he'll like go on Facebook and like call everybody a brag that he want I'm like yeah you didn't mention the 17th stroke you know but but that's what makes me I look for competitive people I look for people that want more I'm going to I ask people all the time what's your favorite sport who's your favorite athlete why work ethic tenacity just wants to win willing to practice had four personal coaches those are the people I want how many co-workers you have now oh we have 42 coming in next month I think we'll be just over 800 but we should be about 1,200 by the end of this year just the Acquisitions isn't a big play cuz those are like you can't say I'm going to do two companies a month like it's whoever you can get you're opportunistic yeah yeah so just we're getting very good at Green Fielding we're getting very good at going into a market starting out with four or five taxs getting it to 20 within a year and Greenfield is more of a strategic it's it's harder to do but when you get good at it it you could kind of the world's your oyster you could kind of like build a plan to take over what's your what considerations do you make when you think about green Fielding versus going out and doing a deal so we study a market we look at the competition we look at the opportunities in Google we look at the average income we got all this grage door data um and then we look as there a player we want here purely residential retrofit garage doors and my main things that I love buying the most is when they're older companies in their late 50s early 60s could be late 60s could be 70s year old um I'm willing to pay up here's what's weird Paul is everybody say says I'm worried about my employees I'm just worried this is my life it's got to you got to treat my people right then they get all the money and guess how much did people get often times nothing zero zil nothing all that talk they didn't even give him $1,000 didn't even send him a thank you card yeah well they're expecting you to care for them that's the issue and that's okay and I do the the thing is is that we've got a whole amazing integration team anybody that thinks buying companies and Integrations and doing the work you do and shifting cultures for the F it's not easy Greenfield is not easy either but think about this if you're doing a million dollars of evida M and I'm paying you 6 and a 12x 6.5 million if I could figure out a way to put three million into marketing and become just as big and and get a good Market either way I mean they going to pay the debt the 6 and half million off but what's nice about Acquisitions is You' got an existing list you got a database of customers You' got some technicians you get turned you've got your phone's ringing you've got Goodwill on that market you've got stickers you've got old invoices the phone's ringing so they've got 40 Years of Goodwill is it'd be easier to buy an existing company that's been around a long time like I would rather buy a company that's been around but if somebody said hey I popped up in 2017 I've been spending a million dollars a year in advertising and I don't think I'd really it wouldn't be as good as a company that's been around for long time this industry is extremely fragmented I would imagine most of those players are super tiny now yeah so we're we're willing to BU anything over 500,000 now of iida um there's a lot of companies getting in they all 93 companies sell our deal and they think this is the next HVAC and MH you know part of me wants the whole industry to do better but PE is different I kind of want these guys to to bed I want them to see how hard this industry is is M cuz they look at me and they say that Tommy Melo that A1 we're going to build something bigger and better and uh I don't I I I've never wish this is a general it's not like I'm hoping this one company does bad but when somebody says it's easy and then he got lucky MH listen I got lucky that it happened during covid and everybody you know nail salons were failing multiples went up we were considered essential no doubt my timing was impeccable and that was lock that was divine that was Jesus yeah but it's just like the all these rich PE guys coming in raising you know family offices whatever Venture capitalists they go in with these black ties and they go we're smarter we're ivy league and they get in their they are very smart they understand how to raise debt they understand how to eida works and how to make the financials look good but they don't know how to speak the same language they don't know how to care for for these people they don't know how to be a mentor they it's so much different communicating it's like no these guys are on a truck 12 hours a day they're not going to look at the note you sent them via email NOP they need calls all day they need text messages they need check-ins a guy needs you to help him pay his rent oh we're not a bank okay good you lost them done mhm replace them now you just lost 50 Grand they don't understand what these guys are going through they've never lived that life there's the separation I think I'm a bridge cuz I can speak that language you know I got a master blah blah blah blah blah but I'm one of these guys I'm one of them yeah so and I'll never forget where I came from so obviously other Financial sponsors are sniffing around this industry um but I remember talking to you maybe we were chatting about this last year you guys were I remember you were on the road you were looking at acquisition targets you were going around meeting with folks how many deals have you gotten done since you closed on your transaction I'm going to say 10 okay that's more than I thought yeah some of these were very very you know few under Grand of e but uh all the way up to three and a half million of EV yeah you know what's interesting is every garage your guy happens to do Home Depot Lowe's new construction and Commercial and Gates sometimes fireplaces sometimes Windows yeah and I'm not you know we've got a very disciplined buy box now I'm willing to flex a little bit on the multiple depending on the company and but I'm not going to go try to take on something we're not the best of the best at I'm interested in your thoughts on what you just raised now is you guys are very focused you're not Jackall trades doing all all sorts of different Services was there any desire ever for you to get into other lines of business as you were growing this you're doing garage doors did you not look around you you're hanging out with all these HVAC and plumbing dudes did you never just say I got all these relationship with customers why don't I do HVAC too why don't I become a Diversified Home Services business you you remain disciplined and there's a reason for that cuz you could have done that like you understood those businesses yeah you know there there's two ways to grow own the audience or own the industry and you got Paul Kelly with Parker and Suns that decided to own Phoenix he's going to do 260 million this year Parker and Suns I wanted to own the market across the whole land and I figured I could build Specialists and anytime I've tried to go in and just tiptoe into epoxy flooring or whatever we're not built for that yet it requires a new layer we always say okay we're just going to give that to that manager we'll launch it it requires a specialist a jack a master of one thing yep a different department completely run different on a different set of books a different Call Center you know you can blend the call center eventually but it just I got so good at garage rooms that we just across the board and you must have been tempted though yeah you know I've tried some stuff and I still think there's a real opportunity like just insulation with the inflation reduction act I mean we're looking at a lot of good stuff but every time I try to grow too fast or go into something I shouldn't I kind of got spanked and I'll tell you the one big thing we're working on now is is like how do we get more from the customer there's three ways to make money only new customers Char your current customers more keep them coming back more frequently I want to sell insulation I want to sell some storage stuff and I say you got to nail it and scale it right you got to get this going and I think we're at a different position now you know before I say you know why race horses wear blinders because there's so much going on in that race MH the Kentucky Derby wherever the race hor is like wear blinders stay focused because these distractions man I'm ADHD yeah I know I'm a dream guy I'm a vision guy so I think we could do the world so I gotta stay out of my operator way I got to and I know I need to do that but also I've got a lot more resources now MH and I built a decent reputation I'm a decent influencer so now people want to work with us so I see there's a lot of opportunities and you know cortex's pretty disciplined too they don't want me going to an HVAC they've been buying HVAC companies across the country um but many splits in the garage I'm working on that especially in Phoenix V and Tucson yeah Tommy when you think back to the things that made A1 successful back from the very beginning I mean I know that you're a sales marketing guy you're not a finance guy you're certainly not an engineer but you know really what are the key ingredients that you can trace back to the success of this business for kpis that I could fix any company on the planet any company booking rate your call center every single form fill every single Angie Lead every single phone call form fill no matter what call center booking rate conversion rate face to face with the customer how much are you converting that to a customer opportunity job average or average ticket and C per acquisition those four I can change a company I'm obsessed with those four people always call me up they're like my marketing's not working I'm like what's your booking right they're like probably 70% probably mhm probably you don't have attribute you don't know what your booking rate is well that every company I get involved in I need to know down to the decimal point what their numbers are and I'll find massive amounts of money and then the marketing I'm I say if I had to tell you what I am I'm 10 times better at marketing than I at sales and I'm not a no slots when it comes to sales so I'm if I gave you an order I'm right here in sale or uh marketing MH I'm here in sales and I'm here in Finance like I cannot speak to my CFO at the same level okay so how did you how did you educate yourself in marketing how'd you get your marketing jobs you know what I've always found is I find the number one person like on Angie's List or next door or Facebook and I just do this crazy thing call them up tell them I'm impressed by them tell them I read their book whatever it might be I get a hold of anybody Marcus shared it like I'll get a hold of them and now as I've grown like I'm like they're like how do you become number one on Google go in your Market search HVAC repair in your city name find that top company call them up show up with flowers for the front Des girl got to get through the gatekeeper M do something spontaneous find out go on the guy's Facebook page what does he love he loves um you know Dave Matthews get him tickets say Hey man can I take you to dinner give me one hour trying to learn more about this success leaves Clues so networking having conversations uh getting really close with service Titan they know who's winning mhm so I'm very close to a lot of people at service Titan they know they've got all the data it's not like they're advertising the data but they kind usually they'll have someone going you they'll bring them into Pantheon or whatever I'm just good at connecting with those people and listen I I watch a lot of videos I do a lot of self-help I got a lot of coaches I've hired a lot of Consultants I hire a lot of Consultants a lot what kind of Consultants have you hired like I just hired Dan Martell recently buy back your time MH right he's several hundreds of thousands of year for one hour a month but he opened up everything to me his kingdom and you know don't tell him this but I probably got 10 next Roi already um you know L Le Joe crisara Jonathan wisman I mean I've got two speaking coaches I've got a trainer I'm bringing in this guy that you know to help me around here just it's all the time I got a pingpong coach cuz I used to get beat at pingpong and I got mad about it so I found the number one guy west of the Mississippi to trade me I I'm the first one to ask for help like I don't think I've like I want help someone's better than me just teach me I'm not going to learn in the hard way y That's probably my number one attribute is I ask for help when I find the best like I'm just I'm not like super smart at all I'm just a guy from Michigan like I just learned how to ask for help ask are my favorite three letters and I I I tell everybody day one my co-workers just ask just ask we'll get you anything you want no I I I remember years ago you calling me up saying Paul who's the best door Todo guy you know like if you could think of one dude who would have been I said probably Lenny gray and like next thing I know you called him up you flew him down here he had dinner and you guys were Off to the Races yeah Lenny's great guy by the way I'm unbelievable humble I really just I love Lenny I he's like I don't know I guess a brother now you guys attempted to do some door Todo which is weird because you never think about like I remember first talking to you about this years ago thinking to myself I don't know if that's going to work but Tommy's going to figure it out we we've done so the the idea was people call us from stickers so the idea was knock on the door M we're not here to sell anything mhm uh you might open up the garage door with lubricator no charge will leave you sticker cuz your neighbor just used us down the road those stickers become money it takes us about 6 months and the latest thing we're working on is what can we sell them to just break even on the door to door guy so we can pay them a ton of money yeah and there's a lot of money on storage especially if there's no life time so we're going to start selling storage you know you got all these door to-door guys going out selling solar alarms P control all this other stuff couldn't you just hijack on top of them instead of having your own exclusive door Todo guys to do it maybe I mean Lenny's a pretty smart guy um we tried a lot of things we made a lot of money in the program like at one point he had 60 guys door knocking um but you know it's more of a summer program usually and if someone fails at solar or cable or Windows or pests they'll make it in the garage door s because it's like it's free you're just spraying that on the door but I need them to start selling something to get it paid or I'm going to that's the hardest part about door to door like my buddies at Moxy like the first three years Austin just been a fortune you don't you know Austin yeah yeah I know I wrote the I wrote an endorsement for his recent book the one with Michael Gerber yeah yeah that dude so Austin's great I'm I'm becoming really close with camon with Green Mango mhm they're killing it yeah I love I I love the idea of pest control in fact you know what I'm working on I sent you those videos MH and now I got the software to do it we're using the software called chirp and it's automations so every time I don't book a phone call they get a text message every between Chirp real voice powerbi dude you are all over every every software that's in Prototype somewhere you're testing it yeah you love this well you know what I love I love human beings but I like processes more than humans people say it's the people I say the processes pick the people we do drug tests DMV records background checks MH there's a process to pick the people so the processes and the automations mhm I don't want to get rid of human beings I just want to be able to get more out of the people I've got I'd rather them make a lot more money and get the A+ a players hate B players number one so I'd rather the top people I I need economies of scale and I do believe with the technology the AI the machine learning that we're working on I'm bringing an atomic bomb to a knife fight and if people don't start conforming and coming to my event I this sounds very hocky but if they don't start learning what we're doing it's not only that they don't stand a chance but they're going to be bankrupt very soon I believe they got three to five years to catch on and we're so early on this stuff M it's two years before it's a Ai call center the AI dispatch is already in motion are you guys developing your own software and AI internally we're doing a lot of stuff internally like we're doing addon the service Ty we're we're API web hooks into a lot of stuff we're building our own way so like we've got a ual product specialist when you transfer from a service call to cellador MH it's actually machine learning on who to transfer that call to that's internal we're asking the client to send us a picture of the door and opener so we get the right technician with the right parts and the right tools well it recognizes if that door needs to be replaced and sends the right technician see there's all this stuff we're building internally and I've got really really grade A high level top top top Echelon developers that we work with well so the then where do you see the Home Services sector going at large with regard to technology well regarding to technology it's going to be a lot of AI I mean there's no robots going to be doing the stuff anytime soon I could see Pest Control happening where it could go spray a yard like but but not high-end stuff um I think what's going to happen is the OEM manufacturers are going to start teaming up and buying companies like these big PE companies um I think it's going to get a little bit commoditized over the next I think we got five six years you know if I partnered with Chamberland that's owned by Blackstone I would know about the garage door problem before you could go to Google or go to a sticker mhm same thing exists for HVAC same thing exists for hot water heaters so if I knew there was a problem and I could be out there within an hour and I've got the most trucks and I've got cameras on the trucks and a service Titan software I'm in 23 States yeah if I get to 35 States same trucks same Vans same tools same software background check dual cameras this is what's going to happen I mean they be in my opinion would be foolish and have to partner with a company like us cuz they got all the technology they know that you got a problem before you do and for me it's better customer service what's going what's the customer going to win the reason Google does so good is because the customer wins it's all about giving the customer exactly what they're searching for so if a customer says sure if I can't get out of my garage and you'll ensure that I'll have somebody out here within an hour to get it working MH now you go into antitrust laws and invasion of privacy and certain things well we'll work through that I mean by the way your cell phone's recording all this yeah it knows what we're talking about all the apps do there's probably a ring in here that's listening you know the Rings when there's this gunman That Got Away the Rings are what they used to find the gunman they can literally they saw a guy going through a neighborhood from the Rings the CIA like you've got Siri and everything so I I think it's going to be the next 5 years of the Golden Era the next five years there's going to be generational wealth transferred like you've never seen before it's going to be 10,000 Baby Boomers a day retiring two or 12% on a business massive amounts of wealth are going to get transferred I plan on being heavily involved in that when you look at um Financial sponsors private Equity firms getting involved in firms just like yours you mentioned earlier in our discussion that the difference between you now and you before is you've got the same sort of idea is the same sort of drive you just have now have a lot of additional resources yeah and so you know that's happening across a variety of Industries private Equity firms are making Investments giving guys like you additional resources to go out do crazy stuff I mean what do you think the impact on private Equity investment in home services will be from a a competitive perspective from an I mean for me I look at it and think it's much more difficult to compete with A1 now than it was 5 years ago and it will continue to get more difficult because of the resources you have you think we're going to see that across the industry yeah you know here's the thing I think what's going to happen is you don't want to sell I'm going to only ask you three times and then we're going to smash you and that's where I believe we're going because the technolog is going to get that much better and they're not going to be able to afford new trucks no one's going to want to work for them they're not going to pay as much they're going to have turn over like crazy and the multiple going to go down for them but yeah I think it's going to get really hard like look at look at digital marketing right now if somebody could out bid you because your kpis are that much better yeah remember booking rate conversion rate average uh ticket and a cost per acquisition and this is where I think A1 wins bigger than anybody I know because I'm doing PR all the uh all the Charities we give to I require a backlink you give to us for at least a year the number one company in North America for LSA that built an algorithm that talks to Google M so we dominate that the gvp or Google my business page no one can keep up I look at PPC I mean PPC is a wild game and it's not really that's your most expensive marketing it's used for capacity planning mhm I'm working with the chief Revenue officer at Angie's List he's a buddy of mine he wrote In The Home Service millionaire book this is what I do I'm a better networker and I'm better at asking like I said so yeah you know the biggest nightmare that I could have is Google somehow shuts down our account cuz that just happened to a buddy of mine that's part of the corch team um and that won't happen because we just got this like new relation with Google where they'll never take us down we don't even need to do Advanced verification anymore and the second thing is is like we train our guys to be ethical do the right thing and in the last decade there's been like 25 catch a contractors we've CL what do you mean Catch a Contractor like they'll initially they'll set you up okay like they'll do the garage where they'll put the lock on they'll Mis line the safety eyes see if they sell you a new opener and we've been through these a few times and it happened to another large franchise garage door company and it it they lost 30% across the country the day that came out like dayline NBC type stuff um and I know we would pass but I can't you know with these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of texts and we've got real voice and we're doing all these things but like I can't be the guy in every single garage like we we talk about ethics and do the right thing and take care of the client and help grandma get the Christmas tree down and play with the dog learn about the family but that that's one thing that always like I'm always doing SWAT analysis math I I carry like I've got my calculator out all day every day and I'm thinking what are the threats what what could bring us down I'm not worried about competition competition is great I love capitalism I'm not worried about the employment indust you know B Millennials I'm not worried about Le gen I'm not worried about our suppliers and I just this morning I started think what can stop us really there's not a whole lot like I'm very very confident MH you know and what the one of the Buddies of mine that runs the ctech fund he goes a lot of companies after we got you 6 months after they called me and asked me what it was like to work with you mhm they said were you able to tame that guy he's wild and he's like here's what I told him Tommy is a student like he's not too proud but they came in cortex's really good they treated me like gold MH they make sure that everybody answers to me I'm in control they're there to support me um they've really done a fantastic job like I I'm so happy we picked them like they don't pay me to say that either because you hear these nightmare stories what let me ask you this speaking of cortech now that you're Financial sponsor backed you've got formal board meetings and that entire process what's that like for you now it's a different different era so cour doesn't believe in formal board meetings they they meet once a month we go over about 200 Page PowerPoint they dig in Doug and Michael spent four hours going through it before so they know exactly what page to flip to they ask great questions I think we've got the best CFO of and fpna people in the industry so we we're giving them they go you guys have given us the best deck we've ever had and I'll always add two or three slides of what I want to see and they let me you know they'll start the meeting and then I'll say what I need to say and I'll tell them what we're working on internally and then we'll go through the cfo's notes and then we'll bring in the COO for his action we'll bring in the CFO or um vpm marketing and we'll talk about our EOD score with workers company thing lawyer stuff going on and you know it took four hours in the first few now it's like 3 and it's getting down to two um and uh you know I just told those guys I want to set a record for three years you know you guys got a hold for three years I said no offense but why I still got hair and uh not totally you know Grays are coming in but I said I don't know if I'm cut out to be a CEO of several hundred million dollar company and I don't have too much pride I don't care I'm not the the guy that go to a formal board meeting and argue with lawyers and sign off on a uh quality of earnings or you know an internal audit that's not me yeah keep me in the marketing keep me in the motivation keep me in sales let me be that guy I don't care I mean the CEO could be going in his brand new car or I'll be flying in my uh you know yeah Tommy I wanted to ask you what sort of advice could you give to some of these young business owners who were once in your shoes you know as far as we talked about how you've educated yourself your crazy networking picking up the phone calling people asking questions taking people out to dinner but what are what what's some other advice that you could give younger business owners that are really trying to do similar things that you're doing 2008 changed my life okay CPA go meet him I got referred to him by a friend and he goes Tommy I only work with 10 clients they're all worth at least 10 million he goes I'm sorry but I'm just uninterested and we got the talking and he goes I don't know why I'm doing this but I kind of like you you're just you're very curious he goes here's what I'm going to do take this book it's called the emth Revisited by Michael Gerber I'm like the emth Revisited he goes when's the last book you read I said to Kill a Mocking Bird M 11th grade uh and he goes and I said before that Lord of the Flies y I said I'm not a big reader this is before audible mhm and he said would you read this I came back I devoured this book Dev I didn't know this kind of book existed mhm and he smiles he goes do you want another one MH and I'm like what do you got he goes I call this one the red Bible it's called The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chad Holmes two days later come back I go what else he goes this one's called the richest man in Babylon and this preceded for like two weeks and then I just started and at some point you wanted to go to Barnes & Noble yourself I guess right oh I became obsessed readers are leaders and so self-help going and getting having an accountability partner holding yourself accountable but making someone else put it in the world you want to quit smoking you want to first of all you bring the four people around you you become them like you'll never quit drinking if you're hanging out with four alcoholics at a bar every day you'll never become a better father if the fathers just work 12 hours 7 days a week you'll never become a better more faithful person if every one of your best friends that you hang out with cheats like these are the simple things you are who you hang around with you are what you read you you ask more questions so success leaves Clues and be careful who you let train you because here's what I would ask for you're successful I saw you all over Facebook you're all over Instagram you're all over Tik Tok can I to see you do you have any balance sheet income statement of how much did you sell for is there some because I see you rented a Porsche and you rented an Airbnb mhm because I think one out of 10 of these influencers and coaches and mentors are actually the real deal most of them went into that because they couldn't make it in the real world so be careful who you hire and confided read the right books hang out with the right people and you you success leaves Clues that's what I would tell someone younger and I get free shop tours you go to Tommy mallow.com shop we let 80 companies a month come in I don't charge you I give away a bunch of books we'll probably feed you many questions as you want I do that because people did that for me I do that because my team feels validated I do that because the place looks immaculate I do that because it's my way of giving back and by the way these 80 people and sometimes they bring their employees or their the loved ones they look out for me they call me up and they said did you hear about this you know this is coming this guy's looking for this so this is my way of networking is just come in they come to me they fly to me it's a lot easier and when they leave I hope that the best comment I ever got was somebody who messaged me and said I was getting ready to get a divorce if I hadn't come in and seen you I would have killed myself I'm closer to my wife than ever I'm my kid soccer coach and the business is thriving and you know he knows this we get messages like this all the time and the the truth is I'd rather get that from my co-workers I don't believe in charity before every single person in the company the single moms are driving good tires on their car they got a reliable vehicle everybody's got a Thanksgiving dinner the kids have a decent Christmas they to go see Santa Claus people have had a vacation for at least a week if nothing more than driving to Sedona or wherever you're at like people is Charity actually the right thing or were you trying to get in the news and trying to do something to show your neighbors what you did M if not give your people what they deserve I can't stand people that either underpay their people and brag about how they could charge less and I can't stand the people that give me charity to try to keep up with the Joneses and get in some type of article Tom this has been an awesome discussion and I think before we wrap this up I got one final question you're paying this guy Dan Martell tons of money I'm not paying Dan Martell any money so what can I learn from you that you've learned from him yeah so what he did was he said Tommy um what you write down matters he said we're going to pretend you're 75 mhm he goes we're going to go into your health we're going to look at your free time look at your work your religion your community and he named off all these things and he said I want you to feel like you're 75 I want you to go in a dark room I want you to visualize he because you're going to Blink you're going to be 75 listen that's not that long from now it's 34 years he goes I want you to write down the relationships you've built if you're buying a plane what does the plane look like I want you to write it down I want you to write down the exact plane it is he goes did you go to Italy who'd you go with where did you visit do your research he goes we're going to start manifesting and building the life we're going to start building your own reality how much are you working out a day how much are you golfing who you golfing with what time of day are you golfing everything into the most precise detail as you could possibly get and when you're done with it we're going to do it to the next Dimension when you're done with that we're going to get to the next then we're going to bring it back from 41 and start putting dates on that stuff and we're going to figure out a way to make this a reality we're going to make your future we're going to design it it's designed with a purpose MH everything that you want you will have and we're going to change the way your brain is function it's functioning we're going to wire it up for Success anything and everything you want and just know the plan is you want to be known for something you want to leave a legacy you want to do something bigger you want to change lives so make sure that's at the heart of it so that's what I'm working on that's one of the many things he's given me access you know we're building a team of about 15 people doing videography going to 20x are following because I believe we have a good message anything people could grow from uh I'm good at home service you know I'm not a jack of all trades I'm I stay in my Lane um but uh yeah that that's the best thing I think if you can manifest write things down have a plan instead of thinking year by year think day by day think hour by hour how far have you gotten into that planning with him I mean it's like 20 pages I got a lot of notes on it and uh are you going to publish that at like Tommy's plan. A1 services.com I'm publishing so I'm writing a book B only for A1 and there's a company called Morris Jenkins that said what Mr Jenkins told me and it's they give this out to their employees so I'm writing one all about A1 and I don't think I'm going to sell it but it's going to get out there and it's all about why we hire who we hire The Pinnacle Club how you to earn Equity why meeting Al leevy the timeline our company's story our core values lot of companies you know ogi and Ma did that years ago I think when the 60s or 70s after ogi passed away they kind of put together his letters and drafted a basal letters yeah there's a lot of these out there yeah I'm excited about it because I can write this book without even thinking um but no this has been great man I I you know when we had talked a couple years ago not even maybe last year I said man you're like the international Man of business you understand tax structures you understand you've been all over you live in Puerto Rico it's like I'm just learning about the United States the gusta tax roll and accelerating appreciation and cost segregation studies and cool stuff but you're like at this next level you got access to way more so I'm like man there's this like I'm here like learning about all this stuff and we we like to pay our taxes but we like to pay as little as possible that's legal yeah and I just you're everywhere you're in Singapore you're like in where have you been in the last year in in the last two weeks I was in Doha Saudi Arabia and Istanbul I'm I'm I'm going to be a Turk now too I actually just did my Turkish citizenship application so I'm going to be Turkish hopefully in the next couple of months I know why all this stuff I don't know like you know me Tommy I like I because I travel around a lot I like it and I just find it really interesting so the last thing here you could only be in the United States 6 months out of the year you could be anywhere outside you could travel it yeah like so you know for me from a tax perspective in Puerto Rico it was never really an issue because I've been out of the United States for so many years but like for somebody like you if you move to Puerto Rico you have to basically have a closer connection to Puerto Rico it has to be your tax home and you have to if you spend more than 90 days per year in the US you have to be in Puerto Rico for at least what 83 or 81 something like that days per year um for me I don't really have those requirements because I'm rarely ever in the United States for more than 30 days a year and so I just have to be in Puerto Rico more than I am any other single place so you're considered still even where's your what do they call it the origination of citizenship or where would you be like even though you got all these dual citizenships is it still the United States yeah so I am a US national yes so okay you know at Birth I was Irish Italian and US national so but that's why you know Puerto Rico has its own tax system which is part of the United States but it's separate and so you pay 4% correct 4% income tax zero capital gains tax there's a lot of dude there's a lot of guys I mean every time I turn around there's guys moving down there I mean there's well bitcoin's doing better now yeah now they're all coming back they all left for a while they're coming back no you know what I like I like about Puerto Rico is obviously the weather's awesome you know the most important thing for me is there is a tremendous ecosystem of thousands of people that have moved down there and if you're going to move for tax purposes you're probably pretty successful for the most you know we get some Bitcoin Bros or whatever but most of these guys actually have real multi-billion dollar you know there's some guys with multi-billion dollar businesses and so the ecosystem down there has been great um and everyone's an expat there so well everyone that's moved there I should say so people are very interested in meeting other folks and it's just been great I was I had lunch with uh LDS buddy uh today and he was talking we were talking about some of the mutual people we know that are down there's tons of folks from this area you were talking about cam I I saw cam down in at Green Mango yeah I had dinner with him in Puerto Rico last year he's got a brother or sister that lives down there he was down there yeah man so there's a lot of these lot of these people going down there it's a great opportunity I would I want to come visit you said we got to go to the Four Seasons right Ritz Ritz Dorado Beach yeah you were going to come down a couple of year it was in 20 I don't remember when it was 21 I can't remember what year you were going to shoot down there I was going to come down at the opportunity because my CPA uh he was begging me to like look at going there and he's running all these things and working and I'm like it wouldn't have worked for you at that point in time just because but it can't can work for you now you got come down spend some time down there we' love to have you I will yeah well do you golf not really in public although I'm a member of the D if you golf I can take you to some awesome places yeah I will well thanks for doing this man thank you for being here great brother appreciate you appreciate it do