The Home Service Expert Podcast
00:59:21 · Tommy Mello, Becca Erdmann
[00:59:21] S0: Yeah. Yeah. That that was a good one. Well, let me ask you guys this. For somebody listening that's kind of stuck at five to 10,000,000 wants to double, what are the first things they need to have in place to get that done? [00:59:31] S1: They need to read who not how and get out of their own way because I think people who are operating around 5,000,000 typically are in their own way. They want to be involved in every single decision. They're scared to hire people. They're scared to fail. Scared Scared fail. Scared of everything. So, that's the bottleneck, and that's what stops anybody from growing. I think the other thing is, for us and for a lot of companies, when you have too many products, it's really difficult to scale. You can't have a salesperson be expert on a 100 different things that you offer. No. And then, you can't have your production team be an expert on installing it or the project manager who's managing it. It's impossible. So, I'd say reducing products, I mean, that's what we did. We went from, I don't know, 50 down to basically three. [01:00:17] S0: They gotta be run as a separate company within the company if you're gonna have a different product and then other person has to show up there. Yeah. Like even going into garage flooring, so many guys try to do this or they go to front doors or they go, we're gonna do commercial and residential. We're gonna do new construction. Those are free. And then they start wholesaling out of their... I'm like, those are four different companies. [01:00:35] S1: Yep.
01:00:35 · Becca Erdmann, Tommy Mello
[01:00:35] S1: Yep. [01:00:36] S0: And they're small. They're $5,000,000. And they're like, we take whatever we can get. And I know what that feels like to take what you could get because you gotta you gotta put food on the table. Yep. Yep. And it's like you take on things that you probably shouldn't have. [01:00:47] S1: Yep. You're like...... Money. [01:00:48] S0: Oh my gosh. And then it just... It's like... It's it's a nightmare. [01:00:52] S1: There's no system. There's no process. It's something you've never done but kinda done similar but haven't done exactly. You can of course, anybody could figure anything out. And just because we can do something doesn't mean you should. Also doesn't mean you're going to make any money. [01:01:04] S0: You know, it's so important. I've only... Probably the last three years, I've talked so much about profit. As the company grows, everybody's excited, it's fun to come into work. Yeah. When you're not making profit, it's like you're doing, you're making bad decisions. [01:01:19] S1: What's the And
01:01:19 · Becca Erdmann, Tommy Mello, Kyle Erdmann
[01:01:19] S1: What's the And [01:01:20] S0: what's the point of starting a business? And there's a lot of people out there, but I have to say that a lot of people, they don't know the difference between paying yourself a salary and a good company, you should pay yourself a couple $100 a year. And then the profit's what comes after what you pay yourself. Now there's also draws, but your CPA should be saying pay yourself a healthy salary and pay FICA and Medicare and all the other stuff we pay. And then the profit should be what's left over. Yep. And in small businesses they say, yeah, I paid myself $300 last year. I'm like, what did the business make? And they're like, what do you mean? I just told you $300. I'm like, no, That's not [01:01:56] S1: out of This is salary for your job. [01:01:58] S0: Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, you only taking a draw? Yeah. Isn't that how businesses rent? [01:02:03] S2: No. No. Audit, you're gonna be
01:02:03 · Kyle Erdmann, Tommy Mello, Becca Erdmann
[01:02:03] S2: No. No. Audit, you're gonna be [01:02:05] S0: Yeah. No. It's not a good thing. But most of these companies don't get audited. When they do, the IRS's job is not to shut you down. It's just to get enough payments to get what they could out of you to keep you still going. And they're not... I'm sure one day the IRS started auditing and they're like, we're gonna have to shut you down. And then they realize, we're not gonna get this money back from this person. So they're just gonna get you enough that they could come pull a little bit out at a time. I love these conversations. Is there a moment in your guys' relationship where you guys thought, this might break us? Just being around all day or working together or you just stay in your own lanes. It sounds like you guys communicate that that's for sure. [01:02:42] S2: So so two things. One, we stay in our own lanes really well. So I'm visionary of the business. She's the integrator. We... We've we've read Rocket Fuel. She's read Traction. We know how that that dynamic is supposed to work. Once I Integrator. Yeah. Once mostly I learned how to stay in my own lane and stop being the the tornado of the company that blew everything up and tell everyone my ideas [01:03:06] S1: Uh-huh.
01:03:06 · Becca Erdmann, Kyle Erdmann, Tommy Mello
[01:03:06] S1: Uh-huh. [01:03:07] S2: Things went a lot better. And to be... It's funny because the only thing that, like, for me was getting close to breaking me was... It was the time away. So we had the two locations. We were splitting up. We were coming between Chicago and Arizona, and the time away actually was the thing that started getting me the most. So it was the complete opposite because usually people would think like, we share an office in Chicago. And people are like, how do you share an office with your wife? It's like, I freaking love working with her. I love spending time with her. So, yeah, the type [01:03:38] S0: of It could be a lot, though. I mean, look, it's it's... It could be a lot. I I find... My fiance works here, I'm like, I don't see her at work. I mean, she used to be my EA. That's how we met. But it's very healthy. I mean, she handles so much more. She's a better person than I have in like 90% of the aspects. I'm just a big dreamer. Like, I'm the visionary guy that's like, dude, it's like what they talk about in Rocket Fuel is one day, Walt Disney, he's flying over Orlando and he looks down and he's like, Roy, look at that. And Roy's like, yeah, it's a swamp. And he's like, no, no, no. That's the future Disney. And Roy goes, well, that takes permitting and we're like... Well, it's like, yeah, but he saw it. [01:04:19] S1: Yeah. Yep.
01:04:19 · Becca Erdmann, Tommy Mello
[01:04:19] S1: Yeah. Yep. [01:04:20] S0: He saw what it could be. But Roy didn't needed the stage time. He... So Walt's this guy, this vision that he saw and there's somebody else doing the work in the background. And by the way, Roy never wanted that. Roy's like, I'll do all the stuff cause I like getting things done. Mhmm. And Walt... He let Walt be Walt and Walt let Roy be Roy. And Roy's sitting there going, okay. I'm gonna deal with all the caterpillars we're gonna need to get, deal with the government, municipalities, make the permits happen and all this stuff, but Walt saw what it could be when it's done. And it's very important to let each other have that empowerment and know where they're going to thrive, and I think you guys do a great job through that DISC assessment. Becca, you're really big into empower her mastermind and win her network. Talk to me a little bit about women coming in. Obviously, I think women... Look, I don't want to be political. I just think men are good at great at things. Women are great at things. They can be both great at things. But I definitely think they're different. So women are coming up now getting in the trades a lot more. What does it take? You got to be really strong because it's been a male dominated sport for a long time.