An Electrifying Culture

That, that's. That's pretty cool and pretty smart. I think a lot of people do that. I think a lot of people that are going to go out on their own, look at what they've been doing before, copy a lot of it, try to improve on some of it, where they see some deficiencies. Did you, did you see anything like that? Like, hey, we could do this better.

I mean, you start talking about processes and it's, you know, I start fumbling my words right away. It's not my forte. I. I love sales. The process has always been kind of my weak spot.

Where'd you get to help you with that?

So my mom. Yeah, my mom is who I put it on. She's very much like, she'll get it done. She might not be the best with, like, putting it all together and the whole strategy behind it, but if you tell her what to do, she'll do it. And I'm very much. I'm good at, like, knowing what the result is that we need. So I, you know, I was very good at saying, hey, here's the result that we need. And then the team, because we had an amazing team, like, everyone cared so much, everyone wanted to win, they would figure it out. So we empowered people to figure it out. And we had all the processes from before, and I encouraged them, hey, now, make it better, make it better. So I come a lot of, like, the encouraging and telling them, hey, here's the result we need. And the team really puts those things together behind the scenes. So a lot of credit to all the team.

So, okay, $5 million, first year. What has it looked like since then? What have you gone through of those seven or so years that you've been in business?

Yeah, it was very similar to how now I'm seeing a correlation. I've never actually drew this correlation before, but it's very similar to how it was when I started knocking. Like, we didn't do a ton more every year. It was like very much like a little bit of growth. A little bit of growth. A little bit of growth. As far as my understanding, we've grown every single year a little bit. And last year, so we went 5 million, probably 5 million again, 6 million, you know, 7 million, 7 million again. Then we hit 8 million, and then last year we hit 13 million.

Ah.

Ah.

Something changed.

Something changed.

So what changed?

I'm not sure. Think, think. I really. No, I. I do know. I do know.

I think it really was.

Be honest, I. I believe that it was a commitment to holding people to higher Standards.

That's pretty awesome.

Yeah, that's been a struggle for me.

Why?

It's been a struggle for me because I care too much about what other people think and I don't want them to not like me. Yeah, I have always struggled with that. I actually think that's why I struggled my, like, first several years even doing this, because, like, I didn't do my job of even asking for help because I thought that would make me, like, not as worthy like, I should. Just everyone else was. I just always have had this thing where I think other people are better, and if all these other people are out doing it, what's wrong with me? Right, right. It's like, I didn't want to ask for help.

Ah, it's. It's funny because when we first met, you asked for help, like, right away. It was really cool. So go from 8 to 13. That's pretty impressive. Number one, accountability was a big key of it. You were always like. You wanted people to like you. What do you want them to do now?

Right now I want to drag them to success. I want to drag them to greatness. I want to make them great. Like, I don't want. I don't even care if they like me anymore. I still absolutely have it internally. It's a battle I fight every day, but it's a battle that I'm committed to fighting and winning.

Ah, and so, so what does that mean to you? Like, I get the part of, you know, dragging them to the bank and probably dragging them to some success, too. Right.

You got that from.

And so what does that look like?

It looks like saying, hey, here's the standards. Like, let's go over your goals. Where is it that you want to go? And let's have an action plan. Every week I meet with the team. I actually have a tool for the team where every single week they put, hey, what are the action items that you're committed to that are in line with your goals? And my job is to make sure that at the end of the year, they took the correct actions every week to where they are achieving that goal.

And then what happens when they don't?

What happens when they don't? If they, if they're talking versus walking, then they're going to walk out the door. Oh, I like it because I can't have the culture be just words on a wall. And you've told me this many times and I've. I've heard the words and I, you know, had the knowledge, but I didn't apply it. And when someone comes in our building, they're watching as you. You've told me this before, too. I've got an amazing coaching. People come in the building and they know if what we're saying is they're. And they're trying to test us. So if they see that we're just saying something, but we're not following through, then they're just gonna live based off of whatever they want to do, not the standard that we set here. So it takes. I have to be true to my words that, hey, if you say you're going to do this, I'm holding you to it, or I'm going to push you out or I'm going to have to. I'm going to have to let you go if you're just talking and not doing what needs to be done.

So what changed? Like, I've had the opportunity and joy of being able to coach you over the years. Right. And like you said, we've talked about these things a million times. We've talked about this leadership, being love and love sometimes being hard instead of trying to be everybody's best friend all the time. Hopefully if we do things right, they'll respect us, they'll understand us, they'll see why things need to be done the way they need to be done. Because it affects the whole, not just the individual. Yes, but what changed? Like, it was several years of, like, still wanting to be everybody's friends. So what. What changed that?

Yeah, there are two major things. One of them was, and this really did help, I went to an event recently. It was an. It was. It was Closer School Live, and one of the speakers there and his team really, really encouraged me because I saw that it was possible. I saw his team. His name is Andy Elliott. He had a team of like, 40 or 50 people with him, and he has a very specific culture. And you could feel the culture from his whole team. He had an army of like, 40 or 50 people with him. And I spoke with them all. I was, like, trying to pick him. They all work out together. Like, they're all, like. You can tell that they're just, like, on their game. They're all working hard. They have a very high positive energy. So I think one thing was, like, seeing it, and it really, really showed, showing me that it's possible from other companies. That was kind of the first time I saw such a electrifying, like, culture that really, really, like, excited me. And then the second thing was I was just laying back. I was, you know, getting ready to go to sleep. And I was thinking about my sister. I was thinking about people in my company that work for me. My sister works for me. Just for context, several other people here. And I was just thinking. And I was thinking about my age. I'm like, I'm 33 years old. In 10 years, I'll be 43. Then I'll be 53, then I'll be 63. Tom, how long are you gonna keep holding all of these people back? Because you are not doing what needs to be done. Because you're not holding people to high standards, because you're not dragging people to success. Like, dude, Tom, you're the leader. Like, you have. It's your responsibility to help these people be successful. And that really woke me up, those two things.

That's pretty awesome. Yeah. You can't imagine how excited I am. It has been like somebody turned a light switch on from the hard, like, going and crushing sales every day type person to the real leader type person. It's super awesome to watch and take understanding the responsibility of that. Everybody that works for you, you have them as somebody that you're responsible for. And sometimes we just have to gain the experience. Got to go through some of it before it finally clicks for us. You've mentioned a couple times now your mom.

Yes.

You work with family. You have actually several family members that are involved. You mentioned your sister a little bit.

Yes.

Who else? Anybody else from the family?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I can list it out real quick. I got my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister, my wife.

Oh, wow. Five people from your family and how long have they worked for you?

Man, my mom worked for me even before proliance company rise to heights. I mean, that was probably another two or three years. So 10 years. My mom, my dad was probably. Probably still about eight, nine years. My dad actually got laid off with his company. They went out of business after he had been working there so many years. My mom came to me crying, like, oh, my goodness. Like, this happened. And literally I perked up. I'm like, opportunity. Like, we need a production manager. And I was like, so pumped. And that's how I've always been. I always see the opportunities. And like, one of the opportunities is, hey, if I can work with my family, like, the thing that I do the most, I work the most. So I didn't real man. I guess I did recruit my mom and my dad. That situation happened. But my sister and brother kind of just gravitated here. And my wife, I met her at Chipotle. I went in and I just instantly, I'm like, wow. Like, this woman's beautiful. I love her accent. She's cool. We hung out, and, you know, 10 years later, here we are. And. Yeah. Oh. What happened was a storm happened in a Mexican area, so I was like, oh, my goodness. If I could have Claudia come out and translate, I'd get to spend more time with her.

Conniving thing that you are, huh?

That's how we met, and that's how we connected even more.

That's really cool.