Welcome back to another episode of freedom blueprint podcast. I am your host Justin Deese. And today we have got Chris Michelle coming and hanging out with us from service nation. And this is your second time hanging out with us. So appreciate you coming and hanging out again.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate you guys having me because obviously we've had a lot of conversations and we get to hang out at different events. yeah, I enjoy hanging out with you any chance I get.

Well, and it's a, it's about to be trade show season and event season. we're, we're going to, you're going to see so much of me. We are ready. So if you didn't check out the episode that Chris was on before it was episode 50. And I want to say it's been right at a year ago. So, um, a lot's changed, uh, with you guys with service nation, there's some really cool stuff going on. Uh, I know we want to talk about.

That's right.

Saddle up, here we go.

service world a little bit, but before we get into that, cause that's also some pretty cool and exciting stuff going on there. Tell us about service nation. Like there's all these cool changes and shifts that are going on.

Yeah, so I'm in charge of the training department as we probably just talked about before, but I'm the training director in charge of delivery. So I'm in charge of everything that we put out in front of everybody. And I get the opportunity to do some training, do some coaching, and myself and Jeremy, who's my counterpart in the training department, he's in charge of all the content.

And so we kind of go back and forth on the content that we create and curate for Service Nation and the training department. Well, we've redone a number of things, not the least of which is Boot Camp. And Boot Camp is for our Alliance members who are the top tier and they get the most because they pay the most, right? So this is kind of like if you want the best of the best, you come and check out the Alliance. Well, we just redid the Boot Camp.

actually getting ready to put it on for the very first time this season and it is all about the seven pillars. Now the seven pillars is really where we backed up and we said, man, we've got all of this stuff, all of this information from 20 plus years of being in the business. We've got hundreds and hundreds of hours of video and content that's been curated over the years.

different people from Matt to you guys, Justin and Kristen, to Vicki and John LaPlante, to all these titans in the industry. And we are able to take that information now and we're repurposing some of it under the seven pillars umbrella, if you will. And the seven pillars are the best practices for running your business. It's business design, human resources, financials.

operations, sales, marketing, and leadership. And you take those seven things and you say, okay, everything that we have and do can be put underneath that umbrella. so we're saying, here are the best practices. We're going probably 20, 30 classes deep on each one of those topics. And it's everything from the basics of, all right, well, how do you put together a business plan? How do you read financials to, let's talk about a cash business.

let's talk about day-to-day operational excellence, right? Let's talk about leadership where you're developing leaders who develop leaders who develop leaders. And so Jeremy and myself and a couple of other individuals here are not only are we DISC certified, but we're also John Maxwell leadership certified. And so we've taken this and kind of put things on top of things on top of things, right? So now it's really kind of cool. Like you and I were talking about earlier.

we're taking all this stuff in its infancy stage and now we're just taking it and we're going, okay, now you're a teenager, now you're a 20, 30 something, right? And it's like, you're injecting all of this stuff that we've heard and seen and we haven't got it all figured out, but man, it's pretty cool seeing the development of all of this stuff come together. And that of course gets pushed out into all the classes that we teach and that we offer.

Right.

Well, and that's, that's such a chat. Like when you think about the seven pillars, a lot of times when business owners, especially when they start out, or even if they're in the infancy stage, it's hard for them to think in departments like that. And that I think that's really cool that you guys had to develop that in order to help them think of their business in different segments. And I mean, your departments are different, you know, how you think about things in your accounting versus your operation. a, you know, it's a little bit of a different mindset. So it's pretty cool. had somebody texting me earlier today.

asking about, know, they're, they're working for a company wanting to venture out on their own. And they're like, what, do have to do? And I didn't even know at the time you guys had revamped the bootcamp, but I was like, you have to join service nation. You've got to go to the bootcamp. and until you have that amount of money, then don't start your business. Like just keep doing what you're doing for now. Keep saving.

Well, right, it's difficult sometimes because we as technicians, as salespeople, as whatever, operators in the business of somebody else's business, we get tired of building somebody else's dream and we want to build our own. And so the cool thing about Service Nation and what we're doing and what we've been doing for years is we give you the opportunity to not just turn a wrench but then turn a profit, right?

and really expand on the things that, again, this is not Chris's wisdom or Jeremy's wisdom or who met right, this is years and years and years of stuff that now we just get to curate it. We get to put it all together and say, hey, look at this, isn't this cool? Look at what these guys did and look at Matt Michelle and David Hymer and look at what these guys did over time and they developed these things and then.

you start talking about the Ron Strelkes of the world and the Joe Stripmatters of the world and into Justin Deesus of the world and you start pulling all these these people with all this wisdom and knowledge and you start piecing it all together and then it becomes this incredible toolbox. But again, people have to utilize it right? They have to know what tools to use when to use it. And like you were just talking about, if you don't have the money, you really can't do all that you need to do. You're going to be

piecemeal on this thing living paycheck to paycheck hoping that you can figure it all out.

Yeah. Being the, self-employed, know a lot of times guys are like, I just want to be my own boss. And I always tell them like, that's a terrible place to be. because then you're basically, answer to everybody, everybody all the time.

Well, yeah, the I want to be my own boss translates into I want to report to everybody else 24 7 and it really is it's and I think we we forget that sometimes right when we're sitting in that truck with somebody else's logo on it and we're going man this is just hard hey guys follow the process learn while you're there guys and gals learn while you're there learn that the process is learn the tip the tricks right

Yep. Yep.

gather all this information, repurpose it. By the way, Service Nation, it's not like we've created all this wonderful stuff because we have this knowledge. It's called Rob and Duplicate for a reason, right? You R &D this stuff because there were people who came way before us. There were the Jackie Rainwaters and the Ron Smiths. right, I mean, you want to start getting into, you get into Ken Goodrich and all these other folks who.

Chris Hunter, all these folks who've done all these things for a number of years and it's we're just borrowing from the people that are our predecessors right and okay maybe I've got a little bit better way to do this maybe mine's not as good right and so we just learn and we tweak and we learn things along the way and that's the other cool thing that I get to do is I get to learn you know continuously learn how to do things just a little bit better.

Yeah. think a lot of times contractors get jammed up on techno. I'm to say technology and it's, and it's sometimes easy to forget like the name, like Ron Smith legend, right? When he started out in this industry, there was no cell phones. There was no GPS. There was no, you know, super fancy technology. was pen and paper and, and they were able to do it before. So technology really, the point of is it is to enhance.

the business and what you're doing. Don't, don't let it get you jammed up. And those that, that came before us, it's so crazy that the beautiful thing about this industry is I've never met anybody that we've said, Hey, can you help me with this problem? And they've said, no, figured out on your own. And man, if you don't have that network service nation was that network for me for a lot. mean, it's still the, my network now, but it's just, it's so impactful when you get around a, a group of people.

especially when you talk about like the boot camps or service world, somebody in that room has either solved that problem or gone through what you're going through and can give you either a tip how to do it or how not to do it, which both could be very valuable.

Right. Well, and all of that's super critical, right? When you're trying to do a business and you're trying to put your best foot forward, and we've all heard this, but you want to go fast? Sure, go by yourself. Absolutely. Figure it out. You want to go further, you better go with other people. And when you do that, it takes coaches, it takes trainers, takes, right? It takes other people to help us just shave an inch off here, shave an inch off there. Next thing you know, you're a lean, mean, machine, right? You can do all these things and...

You can become this stealth piece of machinery that just is killing it. Justin, I know you and I've talked about this too, where if you want to be a $1 million, one man, two man, two person, whatever, operation, good for you. Be the most profitable operation that you can be. Get the tools, get the knowledge, get the wisdom, figure these things out or get somebody to help you.

And when you do that, if you want to be a $1 million person or a $50 million company, we can help you with every step along the way, right? And that's the cool thing. I get to love what I do every single day because I get to help people get better at what they do. And I just really thrive on that. And so I love what I do on a consistent basis.

So will you tell us a little bit about bootcamp? I know you guys have done some revisions, you've shifted up a little bit. What is that gonna look? And I have been to a lot of bootcamps, but it's obviously haven't been to the new one. But what's, what does it look like now?

So, Bootcamp is a three-day intensive, but it's not a deep dive on really anything except your business. And what I mean by that is, in the past, we would deep dive on sales, or we'd deep dive on marketing, or culture, or, right, we'd try and deep dive and you'd walk away and your head just be like about to explode if it hadn't exploded by the end of day one. Forget day three or four, or however many days it was. We've narrowed it down to three days.

First two days are going to be all about the seven pillars and it's going to be a high level, 30,000 foot view. Here's what you need to know. I don't care if you're a $1 million company or a $100 million company. Here are the basics that you need to know. Now you go, wait a minute, Chris, the 10 or plus million dollar companies are going to get bored out of their mind because they already know this stuff. We've got stuff for every company no matter where you are along the line. And what I mean by that is we have developed and will continue to

develop these seven pillars into where you at along the journey. Are you just getting started? Are you trying to build a foundation? Are you in are you starting to get through this initial growth period? Are you mid growth? Are you in this man we're just killing it we're going to start nailing things down or are you in this hey we just need to maintain we just need to keep everything moving and moving along the way that it is and so we've broken it down for these seven pillars to be in these these five areas of growth.

And we said, hey, everywhere along the way, you need to work on this, work on that. And of the seven pillars, there's usually one or two things that we're just not as good at, and that's okay. But do you have a person or a process that can help you to do those things? One of which is disc, and disc really just permeates throughout most of what we do because it's so important to learn how to communicate not only with ourself, but with other people. And you go, well, Chris, I already know how to communicate with myself. Well.

Some, unfortunately, we don't sometimes. And we don't know how to listen, and we don't know how to really work in what's called our genius. And what I mean by that is stick with the things that you do know and you do well. I'm no good at financials. I'm just gonna say that. I'm not very good at financials. It doesn't mean that I can't read a P &L. It doesn't mean that I can't make some adjustments here or there. But the reality is I'm not a financial person. So you don't want me teaching financials.

Hmm. Yeah.

You don't want me doing financials. What you want me doing is you want me in sales, you want me in leadership, you want me doing different things that can help move the company in different positions. I know that that's not my area of strength and so I'm going to stay away from that and not to the point where I don't know what's going on. Hey Justin, need you to or Kristen, I need you to do the financials. Why? Because Kristen is amazing at financials and so she gets to work in her genius and I get to work in my genius, right?

some of us it's operational, some of us it's just leadership and big ideas and all these other... it's finding that thing that works well with you that you know within yourself, man this is what I really know and love and I'm good at this and you take those other things that you're not really strong at and instead of working on those weaknesses like we've done for so many years we go wait a minute Justin you're really good at this can you do this for me and I'll take this that you're not really good at and I'll take that and I'll do that and you do this and

We'll just have a great time doing what we love to do. And that's part of the disk and understanding who are we, what do we do? And now I'm speaking a language that everybody can understand because now I know what drives you, what motivates you, what wakes you up in the morning, right? And where your strengths lie. And now I can work with that. And by doing that, it makes things operationally, leadership, right? I mean, all of these things, financials.

All of this stuff can go a whole lot smoother if I'm just doing this one thing, or two or three things that I really know how to do well and working in that genius area of mine. Absolutely.

Well, and that keeps you in your happy place, man. I mean, I think that's the big difference between, uh, businesses and owners that love what they do and don't love what they do. Typically it comes down to. They're like, can remember when I was at a point in my business where I just, didn't like it. Uh, and you know, I was in that, I was in that mindset of, uh, it wasn't me, it was everybody else. And I spent 95 % of my time doing the things that quite frankly, I shouldn't have been doing.

And then once I got to where I was like, okay, there's people that actually like spreadsheet. you talk about, well, Kristen, there's so funny because we'll look at stuff and she's like, Ooh, let me look over that spreadsheet. I'm like, who, who says that? She's like, I do. I'm out. I don't ever look at a spreadsheet. I need these certain numbers. And if you give me a spreadsheet, please have percentages on it. Cause I can't read it.

Yeah, I don't get this.

But, but I think that is the big difference. And I think a lot of times business owners, whether it be because of, ego or because they don't know, or they don't trust. that, that obviously happens a lot, but they tend to just try to be all things to all people. And that's just such a unhealthy and this is not judging anybody. This is, that was me for a long time. I, I, did that. So,

Well, we've all been there, right? I mean, we've all been at that junction where we have to decide, am I going to do this alone or am going to go with other people? Are they going to help me out or is this something I'm just going to continue to fight the rest of my life? And you just can't, right? You have to know where your strengths are and where they're not.

So let's talk a little bit about, as we talk about networking, as we talk about groups, it seems like a really good segue to talk about the upcoming event at ServiceWorld, which not only is this every year, I can remember the very first one, which by the way, this is the 10 year anniversary of the event. And I can remember the very first one. And I think the very first one was in the Tropicana, but that may have been the second one. I don't remember.

Yep. Yeah.

That's a great question. I've only been here a little over two, two and a half years. So I don't know the answer to that and I should and I feel bad and Sarah's going to kill me for not knowing this.

I just put you on the spot, Sarah, it's my fault, I apologize. But you know, they just tore down the Tropicana.

Well, and there you go. That's why we're not meeting there. No, I think it was in Vegas and that's why we're headed back. I know the first one was in Vegas. And so, yeah, we're going back to these opportunities and really trying to not live on the laurels of the past, but to really celebrate the things and accomplishments that have happened over the past 10 years.

That's why it's not there.

and we've got some great things planned. There's, if I understand right, there is a costume party and I'm just gonna leave it at that. I'm just gonna drop it out there and just walk away. But there's, there might be a costume party and it might have something to do with past events. So we're really kind of doing it up for this one. And if you've never been to one or if it's been a couple years since you've been to one, the training that we do,

The classes that we do are really focused around the seven pillars and it is about helping you get better at your business. We're not trying to overwhelm you. We're trying to give you some good solid information that you can walk away with and put into plan, right? We can start implementing right away. In fact, the last day we actually have time with coaches that you can spend and it's an opportunity.

to come and speak with some people that have been around the industry for a long time and they know what they're talking about. And they're offering free opportunities to sit down with them one-on-one and get some, basically some information and some feedback and some coaching.

And so in an action plan, cause a lot of times that's the hardest part, right? go to events and you get firehosed and you're like, I got all these ideas and have a whole notebook. And so for you guys to offer the coaching, to be able to sit down with somebody and say, here's my plan. Because sometimes you might leave the event and your focus is on this AI widget that you just saw that you have to have. But really the, maybe the focus should be.

Yeah? Yeah.

wrong thing.

something around the financials or something around the operational side, not necessarily shifting in that gear. that's pretty awesome. You guys are doing that.

Yeah, well, and to your point, right? Sometimes we forget that we have to do the operational or the pricing thing, the financial thing. And when we do that, it takes care of the other things, which allows us to do the AI thing or the sales or the marketing thing, right? It allows us to do those other things, but we have to do that one thing first. And sometimes we can miss that. But with a coach or with

somebody who is as a, if you will, an outside perspective. And again, been there, done that, right? Where, Hey, I've been to 10 of these, or I've been to, you know, a hundred of these different types of events, just like this, where I know what it's like to walk away with a hundred things to do on your to-do list. Let's pair it back. Let's put down two items. This is going to be my focus for the next 30, 60 days. And it's really cool to see what people do when they do that and just

the trajectory that they take when they decide, hey, here's my focus, one, two things.

Well, and as the saying goes, focus, follow one course until success. So if you go through and you've got 100 things on your list, that's fantastic, but you can't do all 100, so just do one. And then when you nail it, go to number two.

Yeah, well, and this is a Maxwellism, know, John Maxwell talks about this, but there's the 80-20 rule, right? We all know the 80-20 rule in several different scenarios, but 20 % of the people do 80 % of the work or 20 % of the things are going to get you 80 % of the results. Same thing here. If you've got 10 things on your list, pick two, right? And those two things are probably going to give you 80 % of a return. And 80%, not on what you put into those two things.

it's going to give you 80 % on if you're a $3 million company, maybe it makes you a $4 or $5 million company. All of a sudden you're going, wait a minute, I just needed this to do that. And you see really quickly what 20%, 80 % really means because of the way that it works itself out.

It's, it's, it's pretty incredible how much that role, when you start really looking at it. And I know you're a huge reader, and just devour books, but so when you pick up principles like that you, and you hear it you go, that's just simple principle. And then you start looking at it. can remember going through our business and doing that exercise with the texts, and with the people answering the phone and with the clients that we were working with and the zip codes they were in, it was really kind of really cool. Of course now a lot of that stuff you can get from.

Mm-hmm.

different softwares but back then you couldn't so we kind of had to pen to paper it and it's pretty awesome how all that stuff works.

Yeah, it's good stuff.

So service world, October 20, no, yeah, October 26th through the 30th in beautiful Las Vegas. And here's the deal. If you haven't already gotten your ticket, which you should have already gotten it, but if you haven't good news, we got a discount code for you. And this will be in the show notes as well. But when you go on the website and you go to get a ticket for the show, use the, use the promo code freedom 100.

Yes.

And that's just the number. So freedom number 100 for a discount code. I won't tell you what it is. You have to go to the site to figure it out, but you might know from the code. I don't know. Maybe you don't.

Go check it out. Yeah. Well, and we've got some really cool things planned. not only do we have the post coaches, we've got four workshops that are available on the front end. And those are a pay to play. But on the front end, you've got these four incredible speakers doing workshops. I'm not going to give it all away because come check it out. I'm telling you, there are some folks that are going to be giving you some

really really good insights on how to run your business, how to do sales, how to do financials maybe, know something like that. Anyways, but there's really good stuff that's on the front end and on the back end so it's not just come for three days, come for two days. I come and check out the experience, spend the time, it'll be well worth it and what Justin talked about earlier, I love what you said Justin when you were talking about the relationships. That's the one thing I don't think people really understand enough about service.

nation and what we provide. Yeah, we've got rebates. Yeah, we've got training. But man, one of the biggest things we do is we connect you with other like minded individuals that are not your competition that you can pick up the phone and say, Hey, Justin, you got a minute? Because I have some, I got some questions. I don't know what to do here, there or here. Right. And when you start to see that and you start to build those relationships, it's amazing what you can do. And again, the growth that you're going to encounter as a result, but

It's got to start with you saying, hey, I don't know everything and I just want to get some information and some help. And there's plenty of people, like you said, that will do that.

Yeah, I, I bet. So last time I want to say Jim was on, or maybe Tom was on and we were talking about this. And, a little bit later I went through my phone because I'd said on the recording on the podcast, said, I bet I have a hundred numbers that are in my phone and either Jim or Tom said, are you sure about that? And I was like, I don't know. It was 120. Like people that I communicate with that are my service nation family that, mean, sometimes there's, may not see each other until events.

But man, if there's ever an issue, there's always somebody to help. And it's pretty spectacular.

Yeah.

Well, you and I, yeah, you and I had a conversation a couple of months ago and I said, man, I got this guy in Florida. He wants to, he wants to come and see a shop. And you're like, bring it, let's go. And then you and I were talking and you're like, Hey, yeah, yeah. he, yep. Yep. And, and then he went and saw somebody else too in Florida. And so he, he's literally is making the rounds and good on him. He initiated and said, Hey,

Come on. Which by the way, he just came and he was awesome. And then he went and saw another member in mobile and that was awesome.

Can somebody help me? And I know I made a phone call to you and you just started, well, what about this guy? What about this guy? Well, he's not in Florida, but what about this guy? And it was just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, And I know Billy has gotten to see probably three or four people, whether it's in his immediate area or like you, right? You're just far enough away that he can go check you out, check out what you guys are doing and the practices that you're doing.

He went over to Mobile, again, a couple hours away, but he's willing to learn from other people. And when you open yourself up to that, it's amazing the things that you can.

Mm-hmm.

And Billy is a, he, he applies. that's the other big part of the secret sauce is he took the things and are actually, infusing it into his business. And I actually just texted with him a couple of days ago. He he'll be at service world too. So, yeah, I think that's part of the beautiful thing about the network is just ask. And I'll tell you for me, I know sometimes guys are worried about people in their backyard as being competitions. truth is.

Yeah, there's that. Yeah, there's that.

Of course.

Uh, one of my other businesses that I sold, sold to one of my local competitors because I was doing training for him, for his team. And when he first asked me about it, he's like, are you sure you're willing to do it? I was like, here's a deal. I would rather everybody elevate their game. And then we all have good texts. Customers have great experience. Our area is popping and it might maybe put a guard rail up around, know, uh, maybe people that don't have the most ethical businesses coming in. no, I'm.

Nice.

Yeah.

Sure, well and you've got those people, yeah, and you've got those people that are willing to make shortcuts and they may not have the best ethics or morality, but you know that if you're working with and talking with other folks, you're infusing that within them, right? And to your point, man, there's nothing like working with the locals and these folks who know you and they go, hey, I don't have a problem recommending Justin.

I never have a problem with that.

If someday Justin's going to beat me some days, I'm going to beat him some days, right? I mean, it's just, it is what it is because your personality works with this person and mine doesn't or vice versa. And that's okay. I'd much rather come down to the personality. If it comes down to man, we did the work, we've got all the same things, we're doing all this, that and the other. I just like Justin more than I like you. That's okay. I'm not hurt by that, right? I'm really not. He's got way more hair than I do. You know.

And look how red I am. I just got back from vacation. That is not the lighting. That is, I have been in St. Lucia for however long, week. It was terrible, terrible, so awful. We almost didn't make it there. That's because we flew American. That's a totally different story.

that sounds horrible.

no, that sounds horrible. Yeah, it sounds like it. I'm glad you're back. So glad you made it back.

that's another podcast, I think.

I won't get on that soap box for anybody who's also not a fan. here's the deal. I blame my wife. So she's the one who booked it.

I have no idea. I'm Kristen. I do not support this. My computer is about ready to just knock me off. So I'm good with that. Kristen, I said nothing.

you

We're usually Delta people, but, um, whatever. So, uh, again, if you're not part of service nation or you want to learn more about it, I would just, I would highly recommend you go to the event, man. Go, I don't know, kind like try before you buy it's coming up in October. Um, it is definitely worth it. Vegas is usually is a really easy place to get into. Um, rooms aren't very expensive. Like it's a very economical. know a lot of.

If you've never been to Vegas, people think about Vegas and everything is very expensive. That's not the case. They're making their money on their gambling.

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

But yeah, we're, excited to be there. Um, I'm actually going to be doing a, uh, something on the podcast stage, which we got to do last year, uh, which is awesome. had John and Vicky on, uh, on the show. It was so much fun. And do you know if they're going this year?

I don't know the answer to that because as you know, John and Vicki usually like to drive when they go. so because of that, it's not that they don't drive out there, they do.

Yes.

computer's telling me it's gonna shut down here in a minute. Sorry I didn't grab my charger. I'm not sure that John and Vicki are gonna be there. I think they might but they usually make a trip of it right? They're gonna take a couple days. They're gonna drive out. They're gonna see a bunch of friends and yeah. So yes.

fingers crossed, hope they're going to be out there. Chris, thank you so much for coming and hanging out again. And man, it's just a couple of weeks away. We'll be hanging out in Vegas together.

Yes, yes. So come and see us. Come and hang out with us and we'll have a great time. Learn a lot of stuff. I'm looking forward to it because I know I'm going to learn a ton of stuff.

All this information will be in the show notes as well, but serviceworldexpo.com go register and get your free discount code FREEDOM100 for a special surprise of what you might say. So we appreciate it, Chris. Thanks, man.