Psychology Tricks That Got My Business to $500M (David Royce)

There's certain jobs you've got to be able to read body language and sales in my mind. It's absolute necessity. Welcome to the Home Service Expert. Built for blue collar entrepreneurs who are ready for more. When your customer says yes, stop talking. You find that the pursuit of a goal, at least for me, is a source of my happiness. You're never in a success hole doing what everyone else does. New episodes every Monday. Before we get started, I wanted to share two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes, but I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes, N-O-T-E-S, to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299. And you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to Elevate and win.com/podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys. Today's going to be an awesome episode. I got David Royce here. He's an expert in pest solutions, entrepreneur, and sabbatical. Based on LA, founder and chairman of Aptiv. He's a serial entrepreneur founder and chairman of Aptiv Environment, one of the fastest growing residential pest control companies in North America. And under eight years, Aptiv scaled from a start-up to the third largest player in the industry, serving more than 5,000 cities across 34 states with over 500 million in annual revenue. 6500 employees, a proven operator. David has built and led multiple top-performing service businesses, earning recognition from Wall Street Journal Forbes, Fortune, Inc., and Entrepreneur, and receiving Ernst & Young National Art for Nora of the Year Award. Beyond business, David is licensed, marriage and family therapist. Amazing. Blending deep, operational expertise with rare understanding of psychology, leadership, and human behavior. Today, he focuses on teaching founders out of scale companies and lives with intention. Today's episode, Thesis, is how Adorted Door Rookie, scaled a service business into 500 million national leader, with building systems, upgrading leadership, and understanding human psychology to teach founders about sustainable growth, burnout, and designing a life beyond the scoreboard. Ah, so good. So good you came in today. Thanks for making time. Yeah, thanks. Technically not licensed in it, but I do know a little bit about psychology. You know, I just, one of my dear friends, I got to know him really well, Robert Chettini, he wrote Influence and Presuasion. It's more about influencing people, but he's like, don't use it for bad, but I love psychology. Yeah, I should be careful not to manipulate, right? Yeah, and I'm gonna be like, use it for good. It's like the force. Yeah, the force is Jedi. I love this, you know. That's crazy. I've been doing this 20 years, and I'm still not to that level. What do you think? Well, first tell us your story. Tell us what got you in the business, what you're excited about. Obviously you had an amazing exit. Yeah, so let's get to know you a little bit. Yeah, sure. So I was a broke college student, Charlie figured out how to make money, you know, go to school at the same time, paying my way. And I had a friend who said, I made a 25 grand last summer. Why do you, do you want to come out with me? You know, we surf on the weekends, and then we do this thing where we sell pest control door to door. I had no idea what pest control even was at the time, which is said, hey, if you made that much, I'm gonna go do that. So I drive 10 hours out to Sacramento and show up. And for five days, I sell zero and it's a commission only job. Yeah. And the other guys around me are selling one to four a day, and I just look like a total loser and start questioning. Like, am I gonna be able to pull this off or do I need to drive 10 hours back to, you know, college? Yeah. And that weekend, I went out and got a bunch of sales books. And then I just said, look, this is the best thing I can possibly do to make money. I'm going to dig in, just keep reading 90 minutes a day, all summer long, and see what happens, even if I suck. And I picked it up, like I realized, like I wasn't closing, you know, I was, I was explaining features instead of benefits, you know, a lot of the classic mistakes when you start out. And then I was the top rookie by the end of the summer. And so I had really, really turned a bad thing into a good thing. The second you went out as a sales manager, brought some friends and the smaller company I got to is actually Moxie. We talked a little bit about before. This is back in the early days. It's the second year they'd ever started. And I didn't realize it, but it came from Clark, which is like a hundred million dollar regional business to like a locate company with just two locations and it was a startup. It was year two. Yeah. And so there's no training manual, that sort of thing. Jason was very, he was very into training and he was a great guy, very helpful, but there's no training manual. So I asked him, like, hey, can I write a training manual? I want my friends to do well. He's like, oh, yeah, that'd be awesome. So do that. The team sold twice as much as the other locations that year and then he pulls me aside and goes, hey, would you like to recruit and train for next year? And I'll give you a cut off everybody. Do what you just did here for the other location. If you recruit a lot of people, I'll open up more locations for you. So that's kind of how I originally got into business in a recruiting about a hundred people. I really took advantage of it and I was making 225 grand. How old were you? I was in my junior year of college. Because you just hit kid. Yeah, just a kid. You were bringing in 225 guy. In the summer. Just like in the summer. And then maybe working an hour a day, recruiting friends or talking to you. Are you out of the S? I was raised LDS. Okay. You know, that's kind of come like the best-orted door or come from Utah or Visa. Yeah. Well, yeah, if you think about it, like the other, the vast majority of submissions and the resiliency you gain from trying to sell religions essentially to people. You get a lot of doors slammed on your face. And so pest control is really easy. Yeah. Relative to a mission. So you go out. You're successful with Moxie. What's the next chapter? So next chapter is I'm in finance at school trying to figure out, okay, I got to go, you know, apply at investment banks in New York. And I asked Jason for a letter of recommendation. I bought it Moxie and he just looks at me and goes, what are you doing? Like, you're so good at this. You're like top 1% of 1%. You should go start your own business. This is crazy. Like why would you work 800 weeks for somebody else? And so that was the first time I really thought, maybe I should look at it. And then he also told me, by the way, I'm selling this business. I'm going to take a little time off. And I was like, well, how much do you sell it for? He's like, probably $10 million. I was like, wait, we've only even doing this for four years total. And you're making $10 million. And I understood like how much you'd invest in it. I thought, I have quite a bit saved up, like about 300 grand saved for over the years. It's very thrifty in college because I kept taking, I'm going to go to MBA school. And then he's like, yeah, I'll invest in two, two. If you want to go, just, I'll be a silent partner. And so that's how I got started. And it said seven years. Was it seven? So I sold four summers and then I did a Moxie. I actually licensed the name from Jason. Did that for four years. Sold that business. Did an asset deal. And then instead of 300 grand, I had the $30 million plus to invest into the business into the next one. And so what's nice is the asset deals, you could just sell a customer list with the corresponding technicians. And they would let you keep your sales force and your brand, well, not your brand. They wanted the brand so that you couldn't go steal your old customers. So really all we did is we just we slapped the new logo on the business. We could keep all our training manuals and you got to keep ourselves worse and got to keep going. So it was like cash to be able to build a business. You know, man. So did that another four or another four years with eco first sold. Now I've got tens of millions to invest. Did it again with Altera. Now I've got hundreds of months to invest. So just kind of same thing, but it's really all the same organization over time. And then with app did I, you know, became chairman. Took a lesser, lesser role. You know, this sounds really bad and this is a compliment. But kind of like Gavin Newsom. Oh, thank you. You ever get that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. You know, it's crazy because you're the American dream. I mean, you are like, you persevered. You did door to door. You got humbled a few times. You persisted. And I don't think most people, less than 5% of the people are cut out for that type of failure and that type of work environment. And it's just going to when you can't make payroll. I mean, you are very different because you could go out and make your own money if you would need it to you going to act or is again. Right. That's the one thing you learn when you're out there is like, I will never starve in my life. Like I know how to sell. And if four months I can make X amount. And if I had to work all year, I could. It's a really great feeling. Let me ask you, I've got so many questions, but I feel like the happiest time is in the pursuit. And I talked to Gina Wickman about this. The money comes and he's sitting there. He sold 87% of the OS. And the day the transaction had been he felt empty. And he goes, I've accomplished the pinnacle. I've got so much money. But he lost a little bit of purpose. They just read this book of Mancerage for Meeting for the third time. Like a third time. Yeah. And I kind of feel that that's why I rolled equity and that's why I'll roll again. It's like, this is my baby, but I don't want it to be tied up into my identity. You've talked in psychology here. Sure. So when the money came, it's a, but you had this happen several times. So you moved up, then moved up the ladder. And at certain point with about 250 million is when it's like nothing matters because it's like there's no other move That's what Edm I let told me 250 you can fly private you go wherever you want whenever you want you can pay for everybody The compound interest. So what was that journey like? Yeah, so I I agree I think it's all about the journey Because once you make it you know the most life-changing moment was the first the first time you sell right? It's like self-refer to million bucks like you realize you're set if you just If you put it into the some market or whatever else, you know, you could live for a really really long time Maybe your whole life if you live really thrifty But that wasn't fun enough for me, right? It's like I remember I did by is or told me like you don't have to do anything for the rest of your life And I'm like I'm not using this guy doesn't understand like I'm I'm all about going to the next level and so It's I just earned 6% be safe 6% of 13 million you're good to go and it's like you don't owe me I build stuff totally It's yeah, it's it to me like we're happiest when we're striving for our true potential Right, it's this idea that like you're never gonna regret giving your best and like going for it And I was very young. It's like why would I quit like what else would I do? I've heard that 70% of athletes who win the gold medal are depressed Because it's like they've lost their north star Right, it's like what are you gonna do get a second gold medal is that kind of feeling like what it's like? It's like But he kept going but I heard that even the best golfers I'm big in the golf is like they don't get excited as much as they used to yeah It's interesting because like everyone out there listening is like all I want to do is be wealthy and some people want to be famous Yeah, and Jim Carrey said I hope you get both to realize that's not the answer look Jim. I love the idea of just I will say people do change around you and somebody asked me this morning They said what happens when people treat you differently? I said try being a hot chick Everywhere you go you can't she can't be mad because she's good looking I'm like I'm not mad at people are curious about coming up and the failures that it took you can't be annoyed with that I'm not like but you got to see what their true intentions are Are they looking for a free rider? They look in a learn and accomplish what is your take on that? Yeah, I mean It happens sometimes I yeah, and I think a lot of the time I just I'm not really thinking about it as much I think most people have pretty good intentions when they've come to me, but I think nobody has sympathy for This situation right if you've made it all and now your life well, what do I do with my life? They're like oh, it's hard to be you right yeah, there's very few people who can understand that and so I like at white p.o It's been a good thing for me to be in just to be able to talk to other people who you know are executives and have achieved some of that success and they can tell you okay Well It's really about the journey right and like here's here's what we're doing now to still be fulfilled I think that's the most important part What's it Tony Robbins? It said like success without fulfillment is like true failure. Yeah, something like that You know, I met a lot of billionaires I don't see a lot of happy billionaires. I mean, I don't know why But like I can't imagine myself on a beach Like I could go for two weeks. I just did yeah, and I was like you don't want to get back I want to get back in the moment. There's a guy. I know that That's three billion dollars for his company And told me two years later. I'd give it all back to my company back well I'm like dude. I've started a family office. I've invested in a lot of cool stuff like I'm having fun outside of work I've taken my health really seriously now. Yeah, I'm living the best moments But still I need to have that purpose and you kind of went on a sabbatical Yeah, just took a whole year off just said I'm gonna do anything just think about like what made me happy You know, what did I like about what I did and you know, what would I do differently moving forward? I'm at a different stage in my life. Yeah, give me some of those. I think that's really valuable for the audience What would you have done differently and what didn't keep you going? What was the fire that let you up? It's really people. Yeah, you know, you get to a certain point where it's like okay, you've got a lot of money So what else isn't it to me? It was always about developing people and I think it came from that first experience where I did horrible and I didn't want anybody else to feel that way and so I started creating a training manual for my friends And then as I started to you know build that first business and add on to it It was okay. Well How do we make it better so that everybody has a really great experience? And so we like creating training manuals developing people. It wasn't something that I initially was good at It's just I knew the effect it had on people's lives and that's what was really exciting So yeah over time. It was just There's the same by Gandhi The sign of a good leader is not how many followers one has but how many leaders one creates yeah And like that's probably the most fulfilling thing to me Especially watching so many people who came into organization many of them early on like first employees and rose up into Manager regional manager COO all these different types of positions and yeah, no it's fine. I need to route them on it's It's difficult to create leaders. It takes time It takes good listening skills and you need to give way more positive feedback than negative Right, and it's a lot as the company starts growing because you need to train leaders to do what you do because you're only one person Yeah, so what did you find the easiest way to do that? I mean, it's not I know it's not easy But what kind of leadership did you guys? How did you instill that in people really try to have a great culture? I read this book by Tony Shade delivering happiness. Yeah It's a great book. It's just this whole focus as we were scaling. It was really hard to Kind of control everything right like you can't be in a relocation You can't just be a manager you have to be an operator and you have to hire really great people who are going to Kind of follow out the culture that you wanted to create and so Coming up lots of different ways everything from like hero stories to having like certain core values that you really actually focus on They're not just posted on a wall somewhere, but they're You're rewarding people you're giving performance bonuses or whatever else based on those core values To me that was the most exciting thing It's a thing I think that helps a business continue on and be really really large and Have people still feel good about attaching themselves to it. I got a good book for you. I'll give you when we finish I'll give you my book too. It's not as good as the book I'm going to give you the book. I'm going to give you is called the 5xc Oh, I think you'll dig it You know Todd Peterson by chance. I know I've taught It's funny. It says building was located right across from us and apt to just Least the building that they used to have Because he built close we were but I never actually yeah, yeah, I talked to him the other day and he just he kind of built out door to door to yeah Absolutely. It's just amazing to hear you know, he actually started in pest control back at early I'm back in the early 90s It makes sense, you know, that was really the door to door model Then it got into windows then selling cable versus dish and then like exactly I got door to door guys now, but it's it's different I just knock on the door and say we're not here to sell anything We just want to put a sticker in your garage and lubricate it for free So it's just so you can take the seat players that couldn't sell anything But I love to get the sales side of it. I mean, I'm really jealous of home improvement Because they go out and they fight for leads they build yeah demand where it doesn't it's I get 34,000 inbound leads a month Wow, so I'm spoiled like we I spent a lot of time as why these pest control companies come and do a shot or like How do you build that kind of demand? Yeah, but our stuff Grudge is break you can't get out air conditioning's go out the plumbing starts leaking Yeah, no very rarely to get like this mass I mean unless there's scorpions everywhere or mice and you like you're gonna get those demand calls But you guys go create the demand I mean I started studying home improvement and I like man. I'm an amateur Like I got so much work to still do there so much to still But I tell you I get a lot of I get a lot of like It gets me going to come into work because I don't do anything that I don't want to do anymore. Yeah What would you not that it's what's that if you be awful if you were a slave do the business right? It's like oh, I don't I just over the over the years. I kept shaving off. It's like don't want to do this I mean hire the people to do that. It's really where you can't find something You know that you can be replaced by for a lot of big part people they think although I can never replace this about me or whatever You can't like you only to pay for it. Only thing I can't replace and I think a lot about this is I've got an amazing assistant probably renowned world class. I mean she's amazing Ashley. Yeah Is I can't have her call somebody and say Tommy said you did a good job. I mean I could yeah, that's fair But I want to be able to say dude. I'm so proud of you and what you've accomplished and how hard you work So I do have this thing where I'll say I have to do or I can Delegate or delegate to elevate yeah, and almost everything I do the orientation still Because I know somebody can do a great job, but I like to tell like the come-up story of like that's great So those are like the thing that go to the graduations. I like to be the culture guy. Yeah, and I love sales and marketing Um, they set the tone. Yeah, well, I'm like look guys And they're like you think you could outsell me. I'm like will you work here? So what do you think? But I always love that guy. I love the competitiveness like I look. It's a very competitive environment here. This says This one right here says aspire to be number one I don't like people that just play the game to play to have fun. It's like I know not everybody could be number one But if it's tried to be number one you can show up at every way you could read you could do right along you could ask questions What do you do now? So now you've you're kind of been offer a year Yeah, I mean reflecting back And kind of looking forward based on the review mirror What does get you excited? It's a dang good question. I'm still trying to figure that out I think that the dream phase is probably the most exciting thing in any business. Yeah Yeah, so the first year was like tick time off and try to decide like what really did it for you. What was really exciting? The second phase to me that you're trying to claim that second mountain. For me, it's probably something we're creative or philanthropic. It doesn't just have to be about scaling a business. In fact, at this stage of my life, it's probably not what I want to do to go scale into 34 states again or whatever. And if it can make money, that's great too. But this last few months, I've really been going down rabbit holes just studying different businesses, thinking what's exciting to me, what's the size of the market? Does it make, would it make sense if I wanted to go get into that and just do kind of have a different game to play? To me, it was never really about the widget, previously with pest control. Pest control is the last thing I thought I would ever do. But it was about the people, it was about training me out, it was about creating a model and then trying to be the very, very best, competing at it and turning a sales force of 3,000 people into this game of who can be the very, very best at what they do. - Oh, I love that. - Well, one something that you guys probably didn't catch there is looking at the total addressable market of what you're gonna look at. And, Roger's happens to be a big one. You know what I really got obsessed with pest control? Is when I heard about Terminex in the IPO and what they're willing to pay. These multiples. And it's weird, pest control does like, weird shit on like three times revenue. But if you do that, ebada, it's like they're paying 22, 23 extra the right businesses. And that was so fascinating because look, we get in the 20s too. But we're like, we're having demand. I mean, we're recession proof. We're like, it's a little bit different. But so it's kind of, I guess pest control could fit into both of those. - Yeah, it's recession resilient. We always joke that the bugs don't read the Wall Street Journal. - Yeah. It's pretty consistent. - Yeah, we're creating revenue model. What he did this really fast. I mean, what was, I think about all the things that money buys and the vast majority of the things for me is free. Like spending time with my fiance. I don't know if kids you had never been married. Hanging out with my parents are very healthy still. My sister, my nephews, my dogs are amazing. They were just here. But I think there's a lot of things that money has been able to be like my health. I got really good doctors. I take all these peptides. I'm like, I've got really great coaches now. I mean, what did money open or unlock for you? - Yeah, I think the longevity is actually a big one for me as well. I got into it probably in 2016. Just started focusing on, as I got older, I started to notice my energy wasn't there. Like it used to be. So I started searching out ways. And it's like, oh, if you work 14 hour days all the time, you better be doing other things as you get older, like sleep and nutrition and working out and all that kind of thing. Simplements say how that. I think it just makes life a little easier, right? It's like I can hire people to clean my house or do things I don't want to do for myself. - By the back of your time. - Yes, right. That's probably mainly. You can have a nicer vacation. However, but I agree with you. I think there's three things you need in life. First is a dog. Second is a partner. And third is kids, if you really want to be happy. Although they'll bring you extremes. They'll bring your happiest moments and also your very toughest moments. - Everyone that knows me or listens to my podcast, they're like, dude, when you can have kids and I'm like, I'm getting married in January. It's on the top of the list. I know it's not predictable. The days are long, the years are short. How many kids do you have? - Two daughters, yeah. - Awesome. All I want is health for myself and them and just experience the world. But they're not getting any free rides. I came up with my mom work three jobs. It's like, I just don't know that balance. And I'm gonna ask you this question because we fly private a lot. I still fly regular too. I actually enjoy it because I will say some of these private jets that don't have internet. And first class isn't bad. And I need internet, especially with cross country. But when raising kids, 'cause you've done therapy and you've discussed these things in YPO and how do you set those boundaries to not give them the golden spoon? - That's tough. But one, I'm giving all my money away to charity when I die. So that they have the incentive to go work hard in school, and do something with their lives. I think that's really, really important. - You're not gonna switch. It's ironclad. - Yeah, okay. Yeah, my whole life, I felt that way. And maybe it's like the American dream concept. It's like, I don't feel it's fair. If people are just giving that. I know how I felt when I saw other people who had had that in their life. It's one thing to be like smart as a parent and help pay for school. - Great. - Totally understand that. - Or have other first car or something. - Yeah, but it keeps going on. Then it's like, I'm gonna buy you a house. I'm gonna buy you vacations each year. And then it becomes, you're a stream of income to them. And it's like you're supplementing, but I don't know. Just never really felt- - How old are your daughters? - They are 13 and 11. - They don't have a tough road. (laughing) They got a lot of love that's all they need. My dad was competitive. My mom gave me love. They both did both, but. - Yeah. - So I never was really diagnosed with ADHD, but my dad was, so they gave me rid of it in first grade. - Really? - And then they gave me ran off. 'Cause he realized I turned into like this quiet kid and no energy wasn't hungry. He just turned into like a zombie. But I know you were diagnosed with ADHD. - I was diagnosed, yeah, I was an opposite. - From like bouncing up walls and like hating school. - Yeah, and you know what? Either it's ADHD or this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, I can't even say that we're even though I'm not nice. - Yeah, dyslexia. - But I got into reading a lot of it. But ADHD, like if you get the right people around you, it's a superpower. - Absolutely. Tell me about it. - Well, it's a double edged sword, right? So if you are, like if you love business, then you can do it for 14, 16 hours straight because you're super passionate about it. Whereas if it's, I don't know, doing fractions or you're trying to go back, I'm, yeah. My daughter, I think she just, we've had a diagnosis for ADHD for her and she just came home and asked me the question last night actually. She said, or two nights ago, she said, "Dad, do you take pills for ADHD?" And I said, "I do." And she was like a little nervous about the idea of doing it. Like would it be embarrassing to do that? And I'm like, babe, you're gonna love this when you get older. It's like a superpower. It can be a double edged sword for certain. If you look at entrepreneurs, I think 30% of entrepreneurs have ADHD specifically, whereas only maybe 5% of adults have it. And then I've heard that between dyslexia, OCD, being on the spectrum for autism, up to maybe 60% of entrepreneurs have one of those four. - At least. I would think, I mean, look at Elon. I mean, let's look. And I'd say if you pass that $10 million mark, I think that's gonna, the percentages go up, up, up, up, because you gotta have them, like I'm obsessed. - Yeah. - I mean, I told the team today, like, I'm a psychopath. - Yeah. - And I'm like, I wanna pull out the psychopath in you. And I don't look at it as a bad thing, like be obsessed. - Right. - Like dive in and be where your feet are. When you're at home, be at home, turn your phone off, like be all in. - Such a good point. - Yeah, wherever you are, be there. - Yeah. - For sure. - I love this stuff. This great book by Gary Brackman called Driven. Then it's very few and far between its 4%, it's actually in our DNA at a Chromebook's Sons. And you got the power to change the world. The other people, like we could destroy the world too. The other people don't need us. We need gatherers, we need the farmers. We can't survive without them. But we could change the world and we could make it a great place. And he described it, he was sitting in this room and he's like, there's like, most people have a monkey and they're telling them what to do. We have 12 monkeys. - Yeah. - And he's got an automata. - It's your own. - Listen. - So I've got to put it worship so great, right? There's so many different things going on that it just keeps you busy and you can have one monkey focus on each thing. - What's one system, obviously 500 million plus and under a decade? What's one system that mattered more than anything else in making that scale repeatable? - Yeah, it started on the sales side for me. And still like 80% of our business was brought through door to door, the other 20% was digital. And so figuring out, I didn't invent the door to door model. You know, in fact, even in past control, it had been around for about a decade by the time I got into it. And so when I got into it, I just said, I want to be the very best of this because I can see other companies, they're not great at training it. They're good, but they're not great. And if I can help everybody do better, if I can, my friends do better, I'm gonna feel better. And we were all incentivized because we would all make more money and that makes more sense. I hate the wet rag mentality where companies to bring someone in, throw the wet rag into the wall, see who sticks and then, yeah, so what, the other ones didn't make it. It's just bad for your company's reputation as a horrible experience for them. And I almost, you know, was that wet rag that fell? So creating sales training, learning psychology, learning body language, parable communication, all types of different closing vocabulary. That's where, I mean, that would definitely be my greatest skill set. - Well, I mean, it's real a question. I think this is really important. - I lose 35% of my technicians the first year, then I don't lose, it's a single digits, really small percentage. But I realize when it gets to be 140 degrees or 20 below in Minnesota, 'cause we're in a lot of 23 states, that's where I live. - Yep. - But, and then it's your alone all day. And so I bring everybody in that was never in the industry. - Yeah, and for them. - It's almost like you're an entrepreneur, because you're kind of out there. Yes, we support the leads. We book the call. We give you the inventory, but you're out there kind of, it's almost like a business within a business. - Right. - And I think what you probably, and tell me if I'm wrong, you probably were really good at seeing talent and people and good at recruiting, rather than, hiring somebody that never made eye contact, that didn't believe in themselves at all. Like they couldn't even have a conversation. I don't know, because could you make anybody great at Dordidord, do you believe? Anybody? - No, not anybody. I mean, they have to have the initial skill set to be able to do it. They don't have to be, they have to have some of that skill set. It's hard to teach drive. That's impossible, right? And so if you have that ambition, that drive, you're willing to learn and just focus, go, go, go. And constantly be relentless. Like that's what I'm looking for. And if I can see that when we would hire people, it's like tell me something you've done where it was hard for you and you just kept going and you figured it out. And if people can transfer that crazy obsession from maybe it's sometimes it's even just school, but if it's a sport, if it's debate, whatever it might be, just transfer that same skill set into sales. - I think sports works great. Farmers make great songs, 'cause they work so long. - Farmers are incredible at it actually. What other questions do you ask in an interview? - Anything to just get them to talk. Like, you know, here's a pen, tell me on it, what do you think? - Yeah. - It just watched them at least, right? They're really trying, if they sit there and they stumble, it's like, come on. You gotta be able to do a little bit of spin here and figure something out quickly to, you gotta be on your toes when you're on the doors, 'cause door to doors is so tough. Like first 10 seconds, they're making an impression of you. And they're, where are we gonna shut the door or are they gonna listen to you the further you go? And if you're really great at sales, you could read that person and decide almost within 10 seconds. Are we in harmony? Like, we synchronizing? Yeah, are they listening? Are they into it? Or, oh, I'm just gonna go to the next door, 'cause it's so easy. You can just go to the right and to the next door. It's not about a warm lead. - This is the numbers game. - Yeah. - Once you get you good, you're probably like, one out of 20 is gonna listen to my page. I'm gonna close one out of 40 or whatever. - Sales reps, like you're probably gonna knock 120 doors in a day. 60 of those doors, someone will-- - Our home. - Yeah. And then of those, you know, maybe, you're gonna talk to 20 people probably. I'm sorry, you're talking to about 40 people and then you're trying to close maybe two of those. - Yeah, just numbers. And we would actually, we had, so we had a whole system like a Google Maps, and you could look at every home, it would pull up and you would click a pen on the home, and you could see the customer, you could leave notes for each one. We could also-- - Is it some rab, rabbit sales revenue? - No, we invented it, we came up with it ourselves, but we knew we could get data to tell us, because in door to door right, that the key is to the retention. You're trying to figure out how to have better retention. And so there are about 10 different data points that we would collect, you know, from different data providers, that would tell us about each home. The salesor doesn't know what all those things are. They just know, is there a green pen on top? Is it okay to knock or if it's red, they're not allowed to knock it? - Oh yeah. - 'Cause you're trying to make sure they're going to retain really well, but we know who's paying their bills, who's hot time with their mortgage, who has a dog, who has kids, just all these different factors that play into it. So it's really interesting. The data's key. - Yeah. - So do you think, and obviously this would never happen, but do you think if you had to go back out and sell pass control, you could do it? - Sure. - Yeah, I'll be. - I think I'd be actually a lot better. I think it'd be rough the first couple of weeks, but having wrote the training manual on it and then revised it every year for years and years 'cause they're so passionate about it. Yeah, I think it'd be great. - I met a guy named Alivie in 2017, he wrote a book called The Seven Power Contractor, and the first thing he said is, "Show me your manuals, show me your SOP, show me your checklist." And I didn't really have one, and he said, "How do people know how to win?" He goes, "What happens if your car breaks down? What happens if you need inventory? What happens? Are you a lot of grow up beard?" He goes, "What if you need a PTO? Like how do you even apply?" "How do you move up in the company? How do you spend your wife how you get paid?" Like, "Where's all this information?" And I don't like the word manuals. I call it a success guide, because a lot of people, but when you build the system, it's almost like follow, I came up with an eight step sales system that works every single time without failure. If you follow the steps you slow down, you don't miss one, you will succeed. It's impossible not to. I wrote it because I was living it. I was out at salendors doing the work, and I'm like, "Man, this is it. If we do this right, the eight steps that work every time." And people still get cocky, and then you see their numbers start to go, 'cause they start skipping steps. - Right. - That's how, do you know who the most likely die of the pilots? They're 41 years old. And the reason why is because they're cocky, they just learn how, and they start skipping the steps of tire pressure, is there a fuel? - Right. - Check the gauges before you take off, check the propeller, 'cause usually they're smaller says in us, and that little lesson I learned, they die young, 'cause they just start coming into money, you know, an employee and he'll later in life, not that late, I mean, I'm 42. But they buy the plane, and then they get cocky, they start skipping steps. And if you could get the steps, and you could make it simple, I read some stuff, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is so complicated, but you're right, personality profiling, smiling more." - Yeah, smiling tree. - Yeah. - Oh yeah, you know what I'm talking about. - Exactly. - Yeah. I love this, I like, but when you said you read an hour and a half your first summer, what did you find the most useful, the books? - What books were they, and why? - So books by Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, all those guys, I think Jeffrey Gettmer, or something like that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - The Red Bible. - Yeah, and then the second year got really awesome. Like we're sort of reading books on body language, like Alan P's, and then there was another one that came out later, Joan Navarro. I don't know if you've heard them, but you should definitely read his book, it's incredible. He's a former FBI agent that focused some body language, and it goes through every little detail. 'Cause for a long time, I wondered if a lot of these things I was teaching was, how real it was, like how much truth that there is there to, smiling, head nodding, you know, having certain postures and talking about that. - Yeah, I talk about the posture all the time. I play with the dog every time. I knock the door because strangers bring the doorbell. - Yeah, there's some simple little things like that. I have a coffee on the way. Hey, listen, David, I'm stopping off at Starbucks. Can I grab you something? No, I'm good. You're coming to my house, my fan's just gonna cook for you. Don't make me guess. And I'll make a little joke. They've already got my profile. It sees why I love the company, why I love Grazdorz. It's got a picture of my dogs and my fiancee. Why I'm here working. And just these little elements, like I said, it's influenced not trying to manipulate. And then I learn this thing that changed my life, give options instead of ultimatums. Instead of them being able to see us or no, you might say, that just sounds like it's a little over my head, a little too expensive. - You're wrong, David. I was just picking another solution for you. - Yeah. And then you gotta understand. - I can tell you've done this before. - This is an investment into your home and your family and your safety. I mean, I think you should be good at sales if you're an entrepreneur. - Absolutely. - You're always selling your vision, right? - You gotta sell people all day. And then I realized, like my next time you three point all is straight up recruiting. - I think a lot of people feel like they're the smartest guy in their building. And that's a mistake. Like what if you hired people, what if you had phantom equity or equity incentive programs or profit units or whatever you wanna call it? - Yeah. - What if you got them invested into the business? - Oh, we did that. I give 25% of the company away. - That's amazing. - Straight to L-Tip, a long-term incentive plan for everybody. - And what kind of money did you give out? - It was over nine digits, like. - Oh my god. - Yeah. - So we have people make six and seven digits. It's hundreds of people. - Hundreds. - Yeah, no, I love that. The first deal I did 100 million. This next deal will be more. And then I wanna make one more ride, but I'm just being really serious when I say, I'm Tommy 3.0, I'm shaking hands, kissin' babies. I'm work with endorsers, I'm making commercials. I'm here doing what I love to do. A lot of CEOs take so much pride that they're still in the business. - Yeah. - I'm like, dude, I wanna be able to leave for two months. I wanna build to last as Jim Collins would say. - Yeah. - I don't wanna say Tommy's the key to this business. - No. - I wanna say take him away. The business will thrive. 'Cause my ego's not my amigo when it comes to this stuff. - No, not at all. Yeah, Dave 4.0 is chairman of the founder, that was it. - That's great. And it's working your way you said, you shed a little bit off every year. - Mm-hmm. - And I've noticed, like, I think it's important for me to have a personal brand because a lot of people come to work here, they're like, dude, I see their stuff, I follow you. I wanted to come work somewhere that's gonna be fair, the harder I work, the more I succeed. - Yeah. - I won't say it's hard work, I'll just say intentional work because I've told everybody two years ago, you could work from home if you want. I mean, all my C-suite, I'm with you. I don't keep track of your BTO. Like, they just get your stuff done. If you don't, we know it's gonna happen. - Yeah. - Hard like a mentality. Like, hard work to me is working and I'm a wage job and-- - Yeah, it's not that my attitude. - How to get better right now. - What, you know, there's certain people in this company that you ever heard of raising the lid. Now, I gotta get you out of here, pretty soon. - Raising the lid? - So, the law of the lid. So, what that means is the more I'm able to grow, the more the company will grow, the more the C-suite, the more the leadership grows. - It's also working for the bottom up. Like, I gotta pyramid, I'm at the bottom, then I'll say down pyramid and like, I work for all the people out there serving the clients. - Yeah. But yeah, the law of the lid says, like, I start putting books on my guys' desks. I walked into my COO's office and I'm like, I took off my shirt like a weirdo. And I said, "What's your excuse?" I know I work as much as you. And now the dude's ripped up. He's like 10% body fat. That was like, I knew what he needed. And my job as a leader is find out where the chip on your shoulder is, how I can get you. - Yeah. - And then tell that to. - And then tell that to, yeah. - Yeah, you know, like, 'cause you believe in me, trust you to use. So, yeah. - You can say that, so. - I'm allowed to. And, you know, I gotta work on, here's one question I have for you is, I'm very confrontational with like five people in my life. But no one else. I don't like to do the bad deeds. I don't like to fire people. I don't like to give them negative credit. and it says, "I will." Oh, I say, I call people out, not out. I call them up, not out. - Yeah. - My question for you is, how do you get great at feedback? Like what, and how many people can you give real feedback to before your band with has gone? - So, I think it being direct and having people understand that direct feedback is a good thing. I read Ray Daly's book, Principles. - Yeah. - You read that one? - Yeah, and they talk about radical transparency. I think it's a really hard one to achieve. I actually graded each other based on who was right. You know, they would get score cards, kind of like baseball players with their stats. - Yeah, we do the same thing. - Nice. - Everyone's a score. I mean, we score everything. It's almost annoying to people, but I'm like, I want to study successives clues. - Yeah. - Input, but have a little tack when you give it. - Right. - But they do. You gotta start shaving because you look like shit. - Right. - So you want to be kind, not nice. You know, like, you gotta be able to deliver it. You're not being kind to somebody. If you're not telling them how they could actually improve. - Yeah, like, like my coaches, I respected them before I loved them because they're like, if you're not getting grades, and a lot of my coaches were like, I just want to make sure you get a warm meal tonight. 'Cause they care about you. And we're gonna do good in the game, but I know mom's still working. And they changed my life. 'Cause I respected the hell out of them. And that's the deal is they could tell me whatever they want 'cause they knew that they cared. And it takes a while. I mean, we're at 1,300 and I'm like, we just handed out flowers for Valentine's Day and I'm like, I don't know, I have to people I just met, especially in accounting. I don't hang out in accounting. - I got it. - I know everybody in the marketing department, but I don't know how to be a better leader. And I'm working on it. By the way, I've never arrived. It's continuous improvement all the time. Read the books, get out of your comfort zone. - Yeah. - What did you find was your biggest limitations when you were the CEO with the main guy? - In some ways, getting out of other people's way. - Yeah, the right people for the position that they can be even better than me. For a long time, I'd say, you know, up to 100 million or revenue, it's like I had to be the smartest person in the room. And you get up there and you're like, okay, like I'm not gonna go learn digital marketing. There's no way I'd ever catch up to somebody else at this stage in my life. I gotta go hire an expert to bring the expertise and let them, let them roll. And you know, grade them based on what they're saying they can do versus what they're actually doing. - I love this stuff, man. I gotta get you out here to the airport. Let me just ask you a few more questions. - Sure. - You know, one other thing I'd say too about being direct with people, so the sales reps that we would have, it was a team mentality. So if somebody had a bad day or somebody was new, every day we would do a training session for about a half an hour. And we'd say, okay, who wants to go up? We called it putting on your armor. So they'd come up to the front, we'd record them on in on iPhone. Then we would put it up on the big screen TV in front of the office. And we'd say, okay, anybody, if you see something great you see something bad tell us. And then we'd just go through, we'd click pause. And we'd say, okay, what's wrong? And they'd say, they go, we'll see how he's, he's kind of frowning right there. Let's get rid of that frown. All right, press pause. Oh, see how he dropped the pitch of his voice there. It was perfect, it sounded confident. You know, that sort of thing. Every single day, we're constantly working. - How many did you do in their heads? - You need to be a couple. - A couple, so it was like three minutes each. - It was just more like you get everybody in, like kind of get them pumped up, you know, have some incentives for the week or the day or whatever, and then do a couple of these, you know, a couple of role plays. A lot of people don't like role plays. But man, when you see yourself on camera and you see how bad you suck or how great you are, you know if you're great, you know if you're bad. I've had people come in where someone was used to selling six or seven a day, and for two days, so zero or one accounts. And they're like, dude, get up here. Like, you're not too good for this. They get up, we're like, oh right here, so you're like doing this weird thing with your forehead where you're like squinting. - Yeah, squinting, like your frustrated something, like let's get rid of that and goes out so seven the next day. - It's crazy. I think it's, I think 82% of language is nonverbal. - Yeah. - That's some stuff like that. And a lot of it, believe it or not, and you know this, but it's 95% of our brains are subconscious. So how do you feed yourself conscious brain with Tony Robbins type stuff? - Yeah. - How much of that did you get into? - A lot. - So, yeah, I would write up my goals, or I'd figure out what my goals were for the summer. This is my last summer. - Reverse Engineer. - Yeah, reverse engineer. So, okay, I want to, I sold 500, the previous year, 529. I want to try a sell 1000 this year, something crazy. 'Cause I wanted something that would keep me on the doors working every single hour outside of the box. Then I put it on my mirror. I read it every morning and every night to keep it to get it to sink in. That gets your reticular activating system working right? Now it's on your radar. That's what that is that system. It looks for ways to achieve what that goal is. And then if you're constantly thinking about your constantly like look, I got a console beyond the door, if you keep working, if I want to hit this goal. And then, you know, it's just that action that carries you through to be able to achieve it. - You know, it's manifest today. - Yeah, manifestation. It's setting a target. It's constantly obsessing over it. And that's that action or the achievement you want. - Breathe, my fiancee is always like, why do you talk to yourself so much? She's like, I hear you in the shower doing math. My most common, it used to be, my calculator was open all day. Now it's jetchipity because it does the math for me. It's kind of made me lazy probably. It used to carry around a TI-83 in my back pocket. - What a great mentor, right? - Jetchipity is the best. - Yeah, I talk about it from a return and all these crazy things. Well, let me ask you a few more. What are you scared about as far as AI? And I can give you some examples like the human meaning. Like what happens? Like yeah, we go golf every day. We're gonna look through utopia. But like I still like to do stuff to accomplish things. - I don't know. I think yes, there's probably certain industries where it'll wipe stuff out. But I think for the most part, in a lot of industries, it just means you need less people to do things. And it makes life work easier. I've always like, it's cool. The concept and economics of creativity construction. It's like some jobs go away for hopefully even better jobs. And typically our society has continually moved in that direction. So with AI, man, I think our industries are in good shape. - I love it, man, everybody. - We're just gonna get robots to do what we do. And maybe someday that happens. I think it's a ways away though. - I will see. Next year Elon's working on the humanoid. And he says in 10 years, there'll be 10 to 1 robots. - Yeah. - Maybe, I remember 10 years ago, he said, "Oh, we're gonna have autonomous cars," or whatever. - You know, I just think-- - He's just barely getting going in Austin, right? - It's true. The thing that gets in the way is the government. That's why China moves quicker. - Because it could just say, "We're gonna go do this." But then you've got, there's gonna be casualties with autonomous cars, but not near as many. - Right. - As with regular people. By the way, the autonomous car, insurance is first year ever. This year, it's cheaper. Autonomous car insurance is cheaper than regular. So the regulations got to switch and humans can't keep up. Once the machine starts working, I can download everything you need to know that you will learn through a master's PhD on surgery. And the robot will do it better with precision. - Makes sense? - So, look, I'm consciously optimistic. I'll say that. What do you hope people remember about your leadership beyond revenue rankings and awards? - They tried my very best to develop people. Like, I really cared. It wasn't just about the money that I was constantly focused on trying to develop something so that they could do better. And this might sound silly, but I really do believe I created the best summer job for college students ever. To go to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, we have a few guys that will make a million dollars a year at it. They'll work longer. Some of these guys are, you know, after college, they've stuck with it. And they're just so good at it. They might do maybe six months. And then they take their rest of the year off and they serve for do whatever they want to do. - I feel like I got so much to learn after getting off this podcast. - Is there any book that, you know, I could lean to the emith or the richest man of battle on it? I mean, there's so many good books. Was there a book that changed your life? - It was definitely the Tony Shae book, Delivery and Happiness. The one today that's really like Delivery and Happiness 2.0 is Will Gdara's book, Unreasonable Hospitality. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I read that. I'm gonna read it again. - Yeah. But one for you, Dread, what everybody's saying by Joe Navarro, if you love sales, you'll love this book 'cause you can read people even better. - It's a whole nother level to sales that, nobody's written a sales book on buy your age. It's crazy to me, like they should. - That's what retails to Joe and be like, "Hey, do it." You know, you should do it specifically for this industry because politicians know about it, right? Lawyers are trained in FBI, CIA. There's certain jobs you've got to be able to read, body language and sales in my mind. - Do you know Chris Voss? - Oh yeah. - Yeah, I never split the difference. He's a buddy. - Yeah. - He just came and spoke to our white theater chapter. - Ah, he's so good. - He's great. - I was with him, we were just bullshit and I go, "So, look, I'm happily engaged, but what do I tell my buddies out there that are single?" He goes, "You walk up to the girl, the good-looking girl." And he's got his like New York accent. - Right. - And he goes, "Have you given up "a meeting the man of your dreams yet?" You wanted to say no. He's always like, "Get them to say no." Would you ever problem with me making sure your door's safe? No, I don't have a problem with that. Yeah, I want you, like, you can get the nose out of the way. - Yep. - Love that guy. So I'm gonna get into this. How do people get ahold of you, David? - He just reshows me on LinkedIn. - LinkedIn. - Yeah. - And easy. - And then finally, I'd like to give you a chance to close us out. Anything that we didn't talk about, or that I should have asked, just give us a little, some. final for the audience. Great question. I think it goes back to obsession. Like for me, usually I get asked like what's the one key skill an entrepreneur has to have? You do have to be able to focus on it. And maybe that's why ADHD is such a superpower. But it doesn't have to be something even you're passionate about. I think passion is dangerous for a lot of people because then they're like, oh, I want to go be an actor. I want to get to music. I want to have my own restaurant. And it's like, well, those, you have to be in the top 1% of 1% to even make decent money in those industries. Like why not garage doors or pest control or plumbing or storage units, whatever it might be. There's not a lot of people that are as focused on you know, or obsessed about those industries. But it's very mom pop per se. So if you've got a little bit of education right behind you and you're willing to constantly be learning, lots, lots of money in it. I love that. It's been a pleasure having you. It's nice for making the time for me. Yeah, I appreciate the invite. All right. That was great. Listen, you guys got to meet David. He's a genius. A lot of you gave me a lot of work to do. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at A1 Grasder service. So if you want to learn the secrets, it helped me transform my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees, growing in the same direction, head over to elevate and win.com, for slash podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.