Greg Wilkes (00:01):
The construction industry can be a tough business to crack from cashflow problems, struggling to find skilled labor and not making enough money for your efforts leaves many business owners feeling frustrated and burnt out. But when you get the business strategy right, it’s an industry that can be highly satisfying and financially rewarding. I’m here to give you the resources to be able to create a construction business that gives you more time, more freedom, and more money. This is the Develop Your Construction Business podcast, and I’m your host, Greg Wilkes.
Greg Wikes (00:39):
We’ve got a special guest, Mike Agugliaro. I’ve connected with Mike a while back. I’ve been following him for a while and really been impressed by what Mike’s been able to achieve over the years. It’s one thing scaling a business. We know if you’re in construction, it’s a tough thing trying to scale a business, but to scale a business and then be able to sell it successfully is a completely different thing, isn’t it? Because if you’re going to be able to sell a business, you need to be able to prove the concept and the profitability that it can run without you. So to be able to do all of that is something really successful. And I know Mike has done that, not just with his electrical contracting empire, but he’s done it with multiple companies. So Mike is someone really special that we’re going to be able to learn a hell of a lot from because we’re all in construction.
(01:30)
So Mike, what I’m going to do, I’m just going to carry on letting loads of people in. They’re all coming in now, and I’m going to hand the stage over to you. But just before I do that, one thing I’m quickly going to say is that if I know we’ve got a lot of people in here, a few of whom are my clients already, so great to have some of my clients in here with me. But if you’ve not spoken to me before and you’ve not had a chance of getting a copy of my book, if you stay to the end, I’ll post you out a hard copy of the book. If you’re in the UK, if you’re in the US, you’ll have to pay for shipping. But just remind me of that at the end and I’ll send you a copy of my book.
(02:05)
So I’ll give you the details of that right at the end. But Mike, the stage is yours, my man. Really appreciate you being here. And just want to say to everyone that I mentioned to Mike in a group that we are in that I was coaching construction companies, and Mike jumped up straight away and said, look, I can offer a lot of value to your group, and I’m really prepared to give that value away for free. So Mike’s been really generous with his time tonight, and I really appreciate that. So Mike, over to you.
Mike Agugliaro (02:32):
Appreciate it.
Mike Agugliaro (02:33):
Hey everybody, super excited to be with all of you. Some of you don’t have your cameras on, so unless you’re kind of naked or in the bathroom, I don’t care if you’re busy doing pulling wires or soldering pipes or yelling at your men or something, that’s cool. Turn on your cameras for me because it’d be so weird if I was talking to you in the dark. If you’re so uncomfortable with being on camera, I get it. Maybe I’ll help you by the end of this, get over it. I want to make sure I’m talking with you and not at you because a lot of talks that you attend, it feel like it’s just delivering. I want to make sure I create a whole bunch of engagement. I just got done talking to a whole nother group, but I will tell you, this is my favorite type of people in the world.
(03:17)
It looks like from the chat bar. I’m an electrician by trade, so if any of you want to know what it’s like to crawl and crawl spaces or in attics, and I’m sure you got insulation wherever you’re at in the world, and I could tell you I’ve crawled in so many crawl spaces, I could almost tell you the species of cat by how the cat shit smells down there. Can anybody relate? Type in “relate” to the chat bar where you guys don’t have cats where you’re at. And the other thing is, I’m an Italian. Do I have to watch my language for you guys? Can you type in? Do I have to worry if I say a curse word here? I don’t know if I could go without saying one. If you’re okay with it, I’d rather bring you. Okay, there we go. Brad said, @&#$?&! no.
(04:02)
I’d rather bring you my very best self, and I promise if I do curse and it bothers you, you just pray for me tonight. Is that cool? I’ll be perfectly fine with myself then you’ll be fine for you. I’m going to make sure that this information, I’m going to give you a little background about me. Just so you know, I’m here because Greg is helping the industry, okay? I’m not here to sell you anything. I’m here to deliver massive value. I’m going to share some of my stories, and some of my background. I’m going to share action items, and I’m going to tell you what I’ve been able to do in my life so that you can apply it to your life. And then if I could get through this as a nice rate of time and we still have some time, I’ll open it up for Q and A.
Mike Agugliaro (04:46):
Now, as I share something and you go, “Oh, that’s it. That solves it. This is the thing I needed to hear that.” Just type in a big “BOOM” in the chat bar, and can we test it out? Can you type in, “BOOM”? If you’re real cool, you’ll type in B with dollar signs and a capital M. If you’re semi-cool, just type in, “BOOM”, that works too. Let me bring up some slides here for you guys. This is going to be a whole lot of fun, and I know you’ll stay to the end because it’s going to be very rare that you’ll ever get somebody like me to speak with you with my level of experience, and I promise I’m not just going to share all the cool @&#$?&! I did. If there are problems I have, I’ll share them with you too. I call this the land of possibility, a case study, of how the mind of a monster created a new reality and proved the world wrong. I like to consider myself a monster because I think in this construction service industry, and just so you know, my service company, and you’ll see it come up, we did 32 million a year. I did plumbing, heating, pooling, electric drain cleaning, one-day bathroom solution, indoor air quality, water filtration, and restoration, and we did millions and millions of all of it. Now, how many of you have work trucks or vehicles type in “trucks” in the chat bar. Do you have trucks or something?
(06:12)
Okay, you got trucks, okay, I had 165. That’s a fair amount of trucks, everybody. 165 trucks, 200 employees, double-digit profit, 32 million a year. Let’s dig in and tell you what I’m going to go through, tell you who I am. I’m going to give you a case study. I’m going to tell you what I learned, and I talked New Jersey fast, which means the one thing that you can’t ask me to do to slow down because I’ll die. If anything, I’m going to ask you to speed up, and this is being recorded, so if you can’t keep up, it’s cool. You make notes. I’m sure you’ll get a recording. You could slow that stuff down, and then I’ll sound like the rest of the world if that’s fair. Type in “fair” in the chat bar. Now, this picture is just to make you think I’m a really intense human.
(06:58)
That’s it. They call me Hachi. Any martial artist here type in “martial arts.” Hachi is a term in martial arts when you hit eighth degree and above, but you can just call me Mike for this sense, okay? I’m not offended by whatever you call me. And I started a company this year called FuDog Group, and you’re probably like “FuDog”? What the hell is that? Well, you see those two guardian lion dogs, maybe? I don’t know if you have them where you live. Do you guys have these types of things outside of maybe restaurants or different things? Well, this is just a powerful image that we built a company off of. I’ll tell you a little bit more about that later. Now, martial arts is something that’s giving me a whole lot of discipline and focus. Do we have anybody else who’s a martial artist here?
(07:51)
I guess if you watch MMA or boxing, it counts a little bit, but if you did it when you were like five, it probably doesn’t count at all. That one on the bottom left there, that all counts. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, that all count as training. If you watch that as a kid, the young man on the bottom left in the beard on that picture, that’s my incredible son. He’s 22 right now. Here are just some pictures. Just write down discipline and focus. Discipline and focus. Discipline and focus will carry you a very long way. I promise you. I’ll tie some of those loops together for you, but here you go. Maybe you guys can relate to this right here. And that’s me, and that’s my van. And I was so happy to have that used van, right? Because when you start your own business, you can’t wait to have a van, and I know what it’s like to bid jobs.
(08:53)
Do you guys bid jobs at all? So I’ve bid jobs from a million dollars to $500, and that was the world I was in, industrial, commercial, residential. So you could see this one picture on the bottom’s like 1997 there, and you can see on the wall I became pretty good at Reed and blueprints. I am probably in that there in my early twenties, so maybe 24 years old there. So I’ve been in business a very long time trying to figure out the game, but let me be clear on something. This up here is a struggle. I know what it’s like to struggle in a business, and I struggled for about 10 to 12 years. It was hard. I didn’t know how to hire. I thought everybody, it’s probably different where you live, but everybody I was hiring, I felt like they either broke my @&#$?&!, stole my @&#$?&!, or didn’t show up to do any @&#$?&!.
(09:53)
Can you relate? Type in “relate” if you could relate to that at all, or is it just in New Jersey? You experienced that stuff? Probably just New Jersey, right? I mean, I get it. And over time of learning how to really grow a business, I’ve been able to become a speaker and an author. I’ve written 17 books. Now that’s not to impress you. I’ve hung around with some really cool people like Jay Abraham, highest paid consultant on earth, and I’ve spoken in front of thousands of people. I’m only saying that not to impress you, just to tell you why the hell should you listen to this tattooed guy? And by the way, if you have a tattoo, can you type in “tattoo” in the chat bar so I don’t feel weird? I’m the only one here. Do you have tattoos? Anybody? Nobody. Well, I guess if you don’t, you still have a chance.
(10:40)
Okay, we got some tattoos. Alright, cool. If you don’t, you still have a chance. Looks like most of you’re grownups, so you don’t have to do what your mom still tells you to do, right? You could get a tattoo and still grow a big ass company and become very wealthy. I promise you that you could do that. Here’s really an important thing you should know about me because there are a lot of people that teach things, and then you wonder if they’re really good people or not. I’ll tell you, I’m only here for Greg because I know him and he’s a really good person. I don’t just talk for anybody. I promise you that you’ll hear the companies I sold. I’m here because I believe so much in what he’s doing to help people, but I’m a family guy. If you’re a family guy, type in “family.”
(11:24)
This is my beautiful wife here. We’re together since we were 15 years old. That’s a whole long time. I’m level 51 right now. I always like to use level 51 because why the hell would you say 51 years old? That sounds like eventually you’re going to die like broke and crippled and bad knees. So I say level 51, I’m faster, I’m smarter, I’m quicker. I’m stronger than when I was 18 by design. What level are you guys? Are you okay, Sharon? If you’re not just share a fake number. Nobody probably knows you enough to know if it’s true or not.
(12:00)
Oh man. So when I was in my thirties, that’s when I really started to focus. Oh, you guys are, oh man, great ages here. Just this is you’re at a great level to literally build empires. This is my mom down on the bottom left there, we did a thing, and we painted all over our face. There’s my family on the bottom right with my son in the back with the glasses looking like he’s our bodyguard. My son’s already an author of a book called The Modern Day Warrior. If any of you want a copy of that, let Greg know. I’ll get it to him, and he can send it to you. It’s all about Warriorship, and then this is my kids when they were very young, and this is my beautiful daughter. That’s 19. Now, do any of you have kids? Type in “kids”? What kind of kids do you have? Young kids or old kids?
(12:47)
Kids, yeah. Anybody got teenage kids? Young kids? Oh yeah. Okay, we’ll have a moment of silence and pray for all of you. Okay? Everything my dad said was all true about what you’re going to experience, right? You’re probably starting to realize that. So you are here today because level one, yeah, so they’re still so nice and innocent at that age, but wait until they’re three and five. Then they’ll tell you exactly what you should do and how you should be, right? How did I go from this to this, right? This is what you want to know, Mike. How the hell did you get out of the truck? All I know how to do is use my hands. Are any of you still in the field actually physically doing the work? Tell me you’re doing the work. Yeah, you’re still in the work. Yeah, I know.
(13:35)
I got to tell you something. I used to say it was very hard to get out of the field and then I found out it was me, Steve, keeping me in the field. It was actually easy to do electrical work. Like come on, let’s be real. Pull wires, drills. No one bothers you. Your kids aren’t calling for you, your wife’s not there asking you to take out garbage, you’re just working. It’s a simple thing, but it’s got a shelf life to it, right? Anybody dealing with are their knees, anybody’s knees starting to bother them at all, or their elbows or their wrist? My biggest fear for all of you, I’ll share it with you. Maybe you’ll adopt my past fear. What if I lose my legs? How will I support my family if I don’t figure out how to run a business and work on it and I just keep working in it?
(14:28)
What happens to my family? I just lost a client. I have another company to hear about. We coach people, and we just lost a client. Level 52 company doing about 7 million, and then he was dead, didn’t pay attention to his health, a whole bunch of things and bad news, and he didn’t make enough changes and then he died. So that’s a sad day. Here’s the timeline for you guys to think about. Alright, I’m just like you. Did any of you go to a vocational? Do you have trade schools out there? You know what that is? That’s where all the kids go that aren’t built for college. Do you know that? Like there’s a conveyor belt? It’s like, “oh, you look like a smart one. You go to college and it’s like, no, you’d be a contractor. You’re definitely not built for college.” Well, I fell into that contractor bracket there.
(15:20)
So, in 1994 gold medal services were built. If you look at the timeline here in 2012, we start really ramping it up. We start growing my biggest year, 6.5 million additional in one year, additional, biggest month, $3.5 million month, some pretty serious numbers there. And this here, I couldn’t fit all the trucks in the pictures, okay? 165 trucks, 200 employees, 32 million a year, double-digit profit. This is when you should type in “BOOM” in the chat bar for you, not for me. I’m not even impressed with myself. Here’s something that you might want to consider is pretty good. In 2017, I sold it. Now, have any of you ever sold a company? Can you type in “sold” if you ever did?
(16:19)
Okay, let me tell you what it’s like when you sell a company. First off, I sold it, I signed my name and walked away the next day. This is Greg, as you know. Very rare. Very rare to sign your name. Adios amigos. I’m out of here pushing the button on the computer, looking for the money, put in your bank account. That part I would tell you should be a little impressed about because that was by design. We got purchased by a company called Sun Capital, a big PE firm. Okay? There’s a lesson here. I didn’t share it. And okay, how much for, so let me share this. So since it’s recorded, we don’t get in trouble in something. So let’s say that the multiple was very close to eight. Okay? This way I’m not saying it’s very close to eight multiple. And let’s talk about very close to almost the amount of sales that we were selling, which is 32 million.
(17:19)
Is that close enough for you to go, holy @&#$?&! , that’s a lot of money. I hope so. It was. It’s 2017. So here’s what I learned about that company. You should be asking me a question, Steve, right now you should be saying, why the hell did they buy you, Mike? What was so good about your yellow and black trucks? Here’s why they bought me. They wanted to come into our market, and they couldn’t. I literally built fences of marketing around it. So you only have a choice if someone wants your market. They either have to beat you, kill you, or buy you. And I told you, I’ve been trained in martial arts since I’m 15, right? So I can handle anything from a shotgun in my face to a knife, and I’ve been in a lot of situations, so they weren’t going to beat me easily.
(18:03)
They’d have to shoot me while I’m sleeping. So what did they do? They bought me. So big lesson there, is to be a thorn in your competitors’ eyes. Now next thing what happened is just like Greg, I started in 2014, I started to see people were suffering in the service industry in the predominantly in the US and I was so tired of, I still own the company. I was doing amazing. All my friends were broke and suffering. I started something called CEO Warrior. CEO Warriors is a training and implementation organization for the service industry similar to what Greg does, but we didn’t do a lot of construction. Greg’s best in the world of construction. We did a lot of plumbers, HVAC and electricians. That’s what we did. And I built that, just so you know, into a global brand. And in 2020 we sold like 40 million in services in that.
(19:01)
So we had a whole lot of people’s lives. We were changing, and I changed the whole industry in the United States for how people would treat and respect what we would call the blue-collar worker. Do they call you blue-collar worker? Where you’re at in your world? Do they use that term? There’s white collar and blue collar. I always hate it. It’s like segregation. I’m like, it’s just humans trying to make money. Jeff said, “Yeah, yeah,” I hated that term. It’s like there’s no white and blue. Don’t try to bracket me as better or worse. It’s just humans. And guess what? In 2020, I had an opportunity to partner with another PE firm for another sale, and then everybody clapped for COVID-19. Yay. And they all went away. All the buyers said, I’m out of here. We’re scared chip. And I said, okay, that’s cool.
(19:51)
But if you go away, when you come back, am I going to want more for the company or less for the company? What do you think I’m going to want when they come back? I’m going to want more. I’m not going to do worse. I’m growing this thing. I needed a partner. You got to know when you got to bring somebody in, Brad, because you want to take something to a hundred million and you want to stamp the earth with it, right? So, I partnered with a great company, Corridor Capital. They came in and this thing is growing and then that turned me now to get back to where I was in the beginning of my life, which was really serving people and transforming humanity. That’s what I do today, right now that’s my main purpose, and soul life. Right now is making sure, and I’m going to tell you why something like this is important.
(20:37)
We do a lot of cool events. None of it is, it’s not a marketing sales operation. It’s all life. So it’s how to change your identity, how to create unlimited power inside your body and your mind. How to design a life by design. Write this down, everybody. You either have a life by design or by default. You either have a life by design or by default. And then we’re finishing up training this week, which is called Unlocking the Wealth Code. And then we have a special group that’s called the Freedom Tribe, where we help people get their life so dialed in that pretty much wealth and everything. It just compounds at a rate that they couldn’t even imagine. Let’s dig in. Now, before I dig into the lessons, oh, one of you unshare your thing. You’re writing on my screen for me, unless you’re going to say something nice, then you could do that.
(21:31)
But otherwise, look at your tablet. You might be writing on there. Now, before I go into actual action steps here, okay, action steps. I want you to tell me what’s one thing you picked up already. What’s one thing that you picked up already from me that’s making you think? And I’ll do a quick unshare here and see if we could reshare because sometimes there we go on the tablets, you touch something and you don’t know what’s happening there. So type in what is one big thing that’s clicking… Leverage. Okay, beautiful. What else is clicking for you already? What are you hearing? What are you thinking? Are you seeing a land of possibility for yourself? Maybe life by design or by default? A hundred percent. Same thing with a business. Greg’s helping you build a business by design. You struggled because you did it by default.
(22:20)
Trying to find your own way, discipline, and focus. Beautiful, Steve. Let’s dig into this. Everybody wants to tell you it’s all about mindset. Now, what if that’s completely wrong? You guys are contractors. When you pour concrete, if I pour concrete in inside your mind and it sets, will it grow or be stuck, type in the chat bar, it’s going to be stuck. Everybody wants to tell you mindset. It’s not about mindset, it’s about mind growth. That’s what you really want. And how do you get that? Always be studying and learning and curious. Seek out experts and learn from them to speed up success. It’s all about mind growth, not mindset. I’m glad you’re here, and I’m glad you’re working with Greg and I want to make this one training. I want you to find something here that you go to Greg and say, Greg, thank you for bringing Mike on.
(23:19)
That was worth a hundred thousand, if not a quarter of a million, if not millions. And I’ll prove the point why It’s worth millions. Okay? Millions. Alright, and yeah, that’s a great point, Nick. You never know everything, you just need to know more than you know right now, if that’s a “BOOM”, type in “BOOM” everybody. Let’s go for number two.
(23:44)
The guy in the white shirt is the guy that’s running a service company trying to figure @&#$?&! out. That’s this guy. That’s me. I’m just trying to figure stuff out. And then I got Backstreet Boy. Backstreet boy, that’s me. I’m like, GQ man. That’s a guy. He’s very @&#$?&! confused right there. He’s really confused about what he should be for the world, and this guy on the bottom, that’s the real guy that you have here today. That’s the guy who shows up exactly how he wants to, not how you think I should show up. Here’s a very key point for you guys. You must understand your identity and be your authentic to yourself. Some of you are so busy being fake to yourself, being fake to the world, because you’re worried someone’s going to judge you. Or are any of you loud people? Do you know what loud is? Do any of you loud?
(24:46)
You’ll know if you’re loud. Your wife’s always telling you you’re so loud. You’re so loud, right? Don’t change yourself. Extrovert, don’t change yourself for anybody else. Be your truest self. Now here’s the thing, all growth starts with perfect alignment of who you are. That doesn’t mean change, that means modifying your identity. Let me give you something I learned, and I don’t know what size your companies are. You cannot grow a $5 million company with a $1 million thinking brain. You cannot grow a $20 million company with a $5 million brain. You cannot. You must have a $20 million brain to grow a $20 million company. Your growth has to be at that level. Everybody’s trying to fight for just a little more instead of growing past it. I’m going to make a big point coming up really soon for you guys. Now, here’s what I learned. It’s not so much who you surround yourself with.
(25:58)
It’s how you surround yourself with those people. See, people tell me, and I don’t know if you ever heard this, Matt, they say, you know what? You become like the five people that you’re around. I’m like, no, not true. You put me around five broke ass people. I don’t become broke. They become rich, right Brad? You think because I’m around five broke-ass struggling people, I become broke and struggling. No, no, no. The five people become @&#$?&! brilliant. That’s what happens. That’s the impact. So you surround yourself with great people so you have a better chance of growing quicker. That’s why I’ve hung out with Kevin O’Leary from Shark Tank. I’m sure you know him or Mike Michalowicz who wrote Profit First or Jay Abraham, the highest paid consultant on earth. I hung around them because I knew something, not that it would rub off on me.
(26:49)
I wanted to do one thing and one thing only. Type in tell me in the chat bar if you want me to tell you what the one thing is, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve been around all these people one thing, and it’s one word, ready, Greg? Mastery. I wanted to master them. They never knew that. When I was on stage with them, I wanted to master their behavior. When they were coaching me on a strategy, I wanted to master how they thought about that. If Jay Abraham was telling me how to leverage assets a different way, I wanted to master his thinking. It wasn’t about surrounding myself with people, it was how I participated when I was around these people. Same thing at the end. I’m going to open it up for some questions. If you don’t have a question, that means that you are losing an opportunity because you are worried about something.
(27:50)
I know what that feels like. The first time I met Jay Abraham, I say met him, he sat a couple of seats over from me. I didn’t even want to look at the guy. If he looked at me, what the hell was I going to say to the highest-paid consultant on earth? So I just looked this way like, oh my God, I can’t believe it. And then I said to myself, wait a minute, this is weird. I have to make sure I get to a level where I can ask him a question and then get to a level where he wants to ask me a question. Does it make sense so far? Type in makes sense. Are you getting value? Type in value? I want to make sure you’re getting value here because this is not made to be motivational. It’s made to create a sense of transformation and change for you.
(28:34)
Change for you. If you’re motivated, when me and Greg leave and go about our day, you’re looking around where the @&#$?&! Mike and his energy. I need him. I don’t want you to be that way. I want this to be transformational. So when we go away, you go, that’s it. Execute, execute, execute. You put it into action. Okay? Number four, live with a badge of honor. I don’t know where you’re at in the world, like what you got for military or if anybody’s done military training. I’ve done a whole bunch of really intense combat training in my life. I trained with SEAL team guys and stuff. This is my kids when they were young, martial arts, this is a whole group of badass people we were helping, and this is a stage I’m on. Here’s what I learned. Honor. Honor is everything. If I didn’t think Greg had a sense of honor, wouldn’t be here.
(29:25)
If he didn’t think I had a sense of honor, he wouldn’t have invited me. See, when you live with honor, there’s, and you guys tell me this, answer this for me. In the service industry, in your construction world, if number 10 is the highest level honor in a company, construction company and one just dirtbag company, how do you rate the industry? I’m curious. Type in the chat bar. Let’s see, one to 10, 10. Amazing. One @&#$?&!. Five. Yeah, right. It’s not surprising because it lacks honor. It lacks integrity. Now, just so you know, honor is not something that has to be said. Oh, industry four, the US. Oh, eight to 10. Yes, I would hope you have higher honor, right? So honor is what’s going to let people know, and they’re going to want to work for you. They’re going to want to hire you as long as you live that way, as long as you live that way.
(30:36)
Let’s go for number five. I’m going to twist your mind up a little bit on number five. Number five, everybody has a business vision, but they very rarely have a personal vision, and their personal visions are normally very small. Now, it’s probably easy for all of you to comprehend what your life would be like 10 years from now, right? 10 years from now. Yes. Not a hard thing. If you’re 50, you’re 60. If you’re 40, you’re 50, you go, yeah, I get it. My company will be this. Nick says, retired. Yeah, the only people that retire, and I’m sorry you’re retiring, and I’m sorry that you hate what you’re doing, so that you don’t want to do it, no more because that’s a sucky life right there. I’m hoping that maybe we could shift that a little bit because people never retire from what they love.
(31:27)
They only retire from what they despise. Does that make sense? Right. Otherwise, people don’t retire. They move into something else that they love even more. That’s all. Now what about a hundred years from now? Most of you, when you think about the impact of what’s going to happen in a hundred years, you got yourself as dead, don’t you? I’m going to make it to 140. Right now, that’s where my mind is. I just had my blood checked. I’m level 51. My blood result says I’m running the inner age of 41. I’m beating it by 10 years. I just got to keep beating that shit more. And then I should make it to 140 and have some energy enough to talk to somebody and do help somebody out. So a hundred years might still be a stretch for you. What about a thousand years?
(32:17)
What about if this one training right here, you could tie one thing you did learn, changed, implemented, that if they pulled back the timeline a thousand years, they could come to rate to this moment in time? Do you know how old? Well, I’ll put Greg to work a little bit here. Greg, type in Google and type oldest company in Japan and see how old the oldest company was in Japan. I think it stopped in 2000 something. It was I think, 1200 or 1300 years old. One company. One company, guys. Now you’re impressed with some of your companies that are 5, 10, 50, a hundred. Imagine a company that’s over a thousand years old. So now, thinking a thousand years from now, what have you started to play at that level? Instead of playing, you got to get out tomorrow or 10 years or 50 years. What if you were playing the thousand-year game?
(33:27)
Would you start the game? Now, some of you are like, Mike, I just got to get out of the truck. I’m tired of, it’s too hot, it’s too cold, I’m too sore, I’m too tired, and my wife’s tired of hearing me @&#$?&!, right? Or husband, I get that. But what if you could change your paradigm a little bit on this and start thinking a thousand years out and your impact? Because look, if you have children, your children are going to have children. Your children’s children are probably going to have children. They’re going to have children. Is there a possibility? And you tell me in the chatbot, yes or no. Is there a possibility your lineage or your legacy will keep going through family? Is that possible? Generational. Generational. Generational. It’s not like this 400 years or 150 years ago, whatever, when you had no pictures documenting stuff.
(34:21)
Now today, with phones and all of this, you’re going to have stuff documented into existence. Now I get it, a thousand years ago from now, Steve probably going to be on Mars, right? I’m hoping there are a couple of satellite businesses of mine on Mars. They make you think they’re not living there. Now, come on. Are we really all that stupid? Oh, just woke up today and you got a satellite there and you’re sending pictures back, but we’re not there. Come on. I’m just ready to get contractors up there and start building some @&#$?&! out, making some money, right? If we could be the first ones there, man, we could build the whole city. It sounds like a whole lot of wealth. Anybody want in on that? Maybe I’ll start an investment firm, and we will build on other planets and stuff. Sounds like a cool thing to me.
(35:11)
Alright, number six. A lot of people don’t understand this term movement. Movement. When I built the service company to 32 million, I wanted to build a movement in New Jersey. I wanted to raise the standard Matt, raise the standard on how service was done. Everybody was in black pants, button-down shirt, black boots, black belt. They looked good, acted good, smelled good, and talked good. They did the whole thing. They had the floor protectors, and the red carpet. We trained them. Amazing customer service. I wanted to change the way that the service industry was looked at in New Jersey. That’s what I wanted to do, and I did it. I did it. And what happened is I learned through that that what I was creating was not a company. I created a movement. Let me give you a secret sauce here. Do you want to know how I was able to hire with ease? Type in “tell me” in the chat if you want to know how I was able to hire with ease? I learned the number one thing that people wanted out of to go work for a company wasn’t reputation, it was leaders. Leaders, yeah, people wanted to work for you a hundred percent, David. So true. You’re not from New Jersey, right? They wanted to work for me because everybody wants to work for a powerful leader who does one thing. What’s the one thing? Tell me what’s the one thing the powerful leader does?
(37:01)
If you get the answer, then I know people have followed me before or something. Lead, close. Nope, there’s something else. Alright, I’ll give it to you. They want a powerful leader to do one thing, fight for their livelihood, that’s it. Fight for their livelihood. And that’s what I did for every single year, and since I fought for their livelihood, they fought for the movement that I was creating, then I knew that growing a service. Look, when you grow a service company and you guys get to 32 million a year, does 42 million feel any different to you? It doesn’t. 50 million. Well, let’s just start breaking a hundred million. It doesn’t feel any different. Now, here’s a cool note, Greg. Here’s what they did. The company that bought me, check this out. I always thought that my service company could easily go to a hundred million in a couple of years.
(38:02)
About three years after I sold, they bought a couple more companies in New Jersey, and I think they’re doing over 350 million a year. It’s huge. 800,000 employees, amazing what they did. Amazing. Just taking that movement. But I knew that that movement was bringing me to this movement in the middle and that movement was boom, changed the industry, changed the way the blue collar is, changed the way they function. And we did that, single-handedly. We changed the industry. We did it through a lot of pretty unique ways, having people come to our events, and we would run an event in New Jersey, and they put on MMA gloves, and we’d have them be punched in heavy bags, whatever it took, breaking boards on fire. I’m sure all of you at one time you did a board break, not at ours. We light it on @&#$?&! fire for them because that’s what you’re doing.
(39:05)
Do you ever feel like you’re walking through a fire, a building, a company? Tell me the type in “fire” in the chat bar. Do you ever feel like you’re walking through fire? Come on. Of course, you do. This is wild. It’s wild. Being in growing some kind of trade or contracting company. And then down here, here’s what I know people want. Let me highlight this down here. So you know what? People want to belong to something, there is strength in numbers and surround yourself with people who make you better. Let me tell you what my culture was like. I worked very hard on culture. Now, do you guys know there are multiple cultures in a company? There are lots of cultures. They act like there’s only one culture. There are lots of cultures. There’s the company culture, there’s the people you buy from the vendors. That’s a culture. Your customers are a culture.
(39:57)
Every one of your employees has a family dynamic culture. You have a family dynamic culture. Your community has a culture. These people that teach culture, they teach @&#$?&! bullshit. They’re teaching one culture, your company. What about all the other cultures? Let me tell you about my culture at my service company. I was talking to all 200 employees in the front, and you came through the back door and were going to come and kill me, by the time you got 15 foot in, they ate your face off, before you even got to me. That’s culture because not only do they follow the movement and believe in it, they protect the movement. If that makes sense. Type in “makes sense” in the chat bar. Is this good stuff? Are you getting value? Type in “value”. If you’re getting value, I want to make sure.
(40:48)
Alright, awesome. Let me tell you something I learned. This is probably one of the biggest things I’m going to share with you. If you want to 10x your business, okay? Do you want to 10x your business? You must. If you want to do it with ease, you must 20x yourself. Here’s what I learned. Check this out. After studying this decade after decade, why do some win? Why do so many lose? Most people think winning is their career and work. They focus all their time there. Sometimes, they destroy their marriage, their children don’t want to know them. They lose friends, they lose family. They focus all on this one bracket here of business, and it destroys a lot. But see, that’s only one 10th of the success formula. When I went and rewound time, what it took me to grow all these companies, sell all these companies was this.
(42:00)
I started to find out, wait a minute, what about, and you guys tell me when your relationship, if you’re in an argument with your relationship, type an “argument”, do you ever argue with your relationship or not? Where you guys live? It’s all like everybody’s all peace and butterflies, like everything’s harmony. Okay? When you argue in your relationship, you don’t give a @&#$?&! about your business at all, right? You just want to stop this argument. Is that true? That’s all you want to do is stop the argument. When you have a health problem, do you care about your business or you just want to get healthy? You just want to get healthy. So what I learned was, wait a minute, if I made sure my spiritual belief and my higher belief was dialed in, if I made sure I was paying attention to my individual growth and learning, if I made sure that my partner and love my relationship was dialed in, if I made sure I was aligned with family and friends, if I made sure I had community and contribution, and if I made sure my place where I lived charged me up when I was home, instead, it made me feel like @&#$?&! when I got home.
(43:08)
If I made sure I paid attention to having some fun in recreation, how many of you need to have, you work so much that you neglect having a little extra fun for yourself? Type in let me know in the chat bar.
(43:24)
Yes. I bet a bunch of you do, right? Yeah, it’s easy to do. You do all this work, you’re constantly striving to get to a level, and then one day you never get there except now you had no funds too. It’s not good. It’s not good at all. And then health and fitness, right? Health and fitness. So, everybody, there’s wealth and finance. Everybody focuses on the work One, what would happen if you focused on the other nine? Let me just tell you what happens. $32 million @&#$?&! business. That’s what happens when you focus on the nine. Everybody’s focused on the one. If this is a big aha for you that the 10x anything, you got a 20x yourself, can you type in “20x” in the chat bar, please? Can you type in “20x” in the chat bar? This is what sent me on the mission and why I built FuDog group.
(44:16)
I built it for one reason. I knew that to get people successful, they need to fix themselves first, then we could 20x. Let me tell you how easy it is for people to get programming that affects them. Watch this. When I was a kid, tell me if this happened to you, Richard. When I was a kid, I picked up, let me unshare this a minute so I can see a bunch of you at once. Okay? Some of you turn your screens on, you’re giving some of us a complex here, but when I was a kid, I picked up a quarter, and I told my mom, oh my God, Steve, I was like, look, look, I got a quarter. I was like five maybe. And Adam, guess what my mom says? She says, oh, that’s great, but go wash your hands because Andrew, money is dirty.
(45:08)
She told me money’s dirty. And has anybody else been told that or just my mom was like, go wash your hands. Maybe she was a germophobe or something. Now the thing is my mind, you don’t just get rid of that inside your mind. Way back in there is the program. Money is dirty. What about other things you’ve been told? My dad told me money doesn’t grow on trees. Did anybody else, what did your dad tell you? Did he tell you you have to work really hard for it? When I was making 20 million a year, everybody 20 million, I went to my dad. I said to my dad, you were all wrong what you told me. You said, money doesn’t grow on trees. He said, it doesn’t. I said, wait a minute, what if I owned apple trees and orange trees and lemon trees and I pulled it off and sold it?
(46:02)
Is that not money? And he said, @&#$?&!, I just told you and taught you what my dad taught me. I said, okay, well, I’m teaching you a different way. Money does grow on trees. Can you write this down on your notebook? There’s no lack of money, none. There’s only a lack in your ability to go get more. There’s no lack of money. And this one might sting a little bit, but I’d rather give you hurtful truth than comforting lies. Is that okay? Not to hurt you, but to make me awaken you. And this one sometimes stings. And in the US we have this @&#$?&! called NyQuil. Do you know what NyQuil is? It’s like this. When you’re really sick, you take this @&#$?&! and it tastes so bad, it knocks the @&#$?&! out of you. It’s called NyQuil. This is like a spoonful of NyQuil.
(46:56)
Wherever you’re at in your business, you deserve right now you do, but you also deserve to have the next level of business. I didn’t tell you the good thing about the $32 million business the last five years I owned it. I had no office, and it ran without me. That’s good by design because, first off, if it doesn’t run without you, they don’t give you a lot of money for it. If that makes sense. Type in “makes sense” in the chat bar. Does that make sense? So I want to pay attention now, and let’s make sure we 20x ourselves. Now, relentless execution. Most of you, I bet are really hard workers as it is, but relentless execution is about this, having a very inspiring vision. So it never feels like work, ever. I never wanted my kids. Now my son’s 22. My daughter’s 19. I never wanted them to think I was going to work.
(47:58)
I wanted them to know that I was going for this, an inspiring vision, and I wanted to make sure I had consistent action. But there’s something you got to know about consistent action. Do any of you lift weights? Type in “weights” in the chat bar. Do you lift weights or you just lift plumbing pipes and two-by-fours and @&#$?&! like that, right? If you lift weights, right, and you take a 25-pound dumbbell, and you lift, if I just keep doing this forever, will my muscle grow this big? Like 25 pounds consistently? I just keep doing it, will it grow three foot? No, it don’t. See, consistency has to change. It has to change. You have to change the weight. You got to change the angle. You got to change the position. Everything has to change. And we all know that muscle is built by how? Tearing it some? You got to tear muscle, it gets little tears in it and then all of a sudden, it starts to grow.
(49:05)
But a lot of people grow in a business. They don’t want the business muscle to tear it all. They just want it nice and complacent. Can everybody just be peaceful? Can all the jobs and all the materials show up? Can everybody just sing kumbaya together and get the job done? So it’s consistent changing actions. And the last part is unstoppable energy. Now, my energy that you see here, and I’m not saying to brag to you, just so you know, my energy you see is self-created. I don’t drink any caffeine. I don’t eat any gluten, and I haven’t did caffeine in 10, 12, 13 years. I don’t drink coffee. I don’t drink tea. I never drank coffee. I’ve never done drugs in my whole life. I never drank alcohol in my whole life. Now, I’m not saying you’re bad if you do that. I’m just telling you that if you want to become unstoppable, rip out resistance.
(49:56)
Can you write that down, please? Rip out resistance. Anything that you feel is not creating you into a superhuman is destroying you some way. So wanting more but not willing to do different is a bad formula. Shake your head if you agree. You agree, right? Wanting more and not being willing to do different is not going to get you there. Well, let’s do number nine here. Number nine is knowing what drives you. Now I’m going to tell you a little story because I hope you’ll maybe see yourself in the story, or maybe you’ve been through the story, or maybe you’ll create a new story, and then we’re almost done and we’ll open it up for a couple of minutes of Q and A. When I was 15, I was on my own. Were any of you on your own very young? Just put in “very young” in the chat bar.
(50:51)
When you’re on your own very young, you have to figure out a whole bunch of @&#$?&! everybody. Okay? Now in the US, we have things like, I ate peanut butter and jelly and ramen or oodles and noodles and these things called steak gums. I don’t even know if it’s real meat, but you can’t figure it out as a young kid. And when I was 15, and there’s a picture of me, see the picture of me with the big @&#$?&! afro. Don’t ask me why my beautiful wife, what the hell she saw in that? What you don’t see is the chain wallet and the combat boots, and that’s my Italian grandmother. Typical Italian grandmother, always shoving food in your face, big house dress. And when I was young, I ran into a bunch of people, and they were telling me I was going to become like the rest of them.
(51:38)
Did anybody ever look down on you at all? Type in “look down” in the chat bar. Did anybody ever look down upon you? Look at you like you’re not going to become nothing, and to the point you start to question yourself. Well, I went home that night. My home, I lived in a basement, and I was on a bed with no ceiling, so just rafters and wires and pipes, and I had two journeys there. Now, I went to a vocational school, right? And in vocational school, you know what they do in vocational? It’s all kids on drugs. You get that? It’s all kids on drugs and back at the bus, snorting cocaine and stuff. That’s what they did. And that’s the point, I’m like, man, do I want to become like them, or do I want to be different? And I heard something say one thing to me.
(52:28)
I don’t know what said it, universe. God, you call it what you want said, “prove the world wrong.” That was my mantra, and it still is today. The moment you make a decision to prove the world wrong, you have the ability to move forward and build anything you want. They told me in New Jersey, there was already big companies. They said, you’re not going to grow bigger than the big companies because there’s too much what? Competition! When I built CEO World, they made fun of me because I called myself the business ninja. They mocked me. They said, what’s he going to do? And then I changed an industry all based off of this one phrase. My question for you is, are you at the point where you are ready to prove the world wrong? If you are, type in something in the chat bar. So me and Greg know it. Because if you’re not ready to prove your world wrong, then you’re just sitting here just saying to yourself, you are okay with exactly what you have. And some of you, I’m sure are successful here, but at the moment you think you’re successful enough. I would challenge you to do more so you could give more to the world. Okay?
(53:50)
If you think you’re complacent because you’re 4 million, 5 million, 10 million, I don’t care what size you are, double it. If you don’t need more, give more away. Give more away. Here’s a great quote for you, and I want you to think about this. You enter the land of possibility when you choose to create your own reality. My reality was as a young person, I told myself, struggle, pain, hardship, frustration, anger, hate. And that was the reality I was choosing. Who you see today is not the same person 30 years ago.
(54:33)
30 years ago, I was mean. I was nasty. I was aggressive. I wasn’t friendly, and I didn’t know. I was just trying to figure out how to survive. When I chose to create a new reality, the reality I wanted to have the reality of an amazing family, an incredible relationship, great health, the ability to help people change the world.
(54:59)
It changes like that. Just remember what you want is already created, and listen to what I’m going to say for a minute. Ready, Greg? What you want is already created. You’re just trying to catch up to it. That’s all you’re trying to do is catch up to it. Now, for any of you, I got this is all free stuff and it’s only free because of Greg. If I have a book coming out called Mind Power, it’s all about shifting your beliefs and your mind. If you want it, write down that there. We’ll get it to you. I got a free Facebook group if you want to hang out with me and see all the crazy @&#$?&! that I’m doing and all the fun stuff. I’m saying it’s all about life. So it’s nothing about you, you’re in the place for business growth. Greg’s got you covered. If you want to know how to make your marriage more passionate, get your health under control, learn how to eat nails and spit @&#$?&! fire, come hang out with me in that Facebook group.
(55:53)
And then, if you’re on Telegram or Facebook, hit me up and tell me, I don’t care if it’s a day or years from now, Hey, Mike, that talk, it just did this for me. It changed this for me. It made me think this. And then I’ll know that I’m doing my part on why I’m on this planet right here based on your feedback. So if you’ll get in touch with me somehow or join the group, or can you type in “friends”? Because I didn’t want this to be, and Greg knows that I’m here because me and him are friends. I didn’t come here to do a talk. I came here to create more friendships so I could serve more people in the world. So I’m rooting for you, all of you. I promise you that. So that’s what I have for you, Greg. I hope this was helpful. I’m going to open it up for you to ask if anybody has questions for me, and let’s talk about some more @&#$?&! here.
Greg Wikes (56:44):
Mike, that was absolutely fantastic. I really appreciate your generosity with that. So thank you so much, and the energy and passion you brought. So let’s open it up for Q and A. Guys, this is a really good chance to get some of your questions out. So maybe just to keep it orderly, we’ve got a little hand raise thing I think you can do. Can you do a hand raise in this? Actually? Yeah. You can do a reaction and raise your hand to get a question out. So let’s go. Jeff, do you want to unmute yourself and get a question in?
Jeff (57:14):
Oh yes. So basically, Mike, you’ve speaking my language for this whole talk because when you start talking about creating a movement, you just kind of articulated how I’ve been thinking about how to change my industry because I really see that I need to fight for my employees. Thank you for bringing that context. And I’m really interested in understanding more how to that alive because I think that for a long time, the trades in the UK has been underwhelmed with skills. I did an apprenticeship in the New Zealand in the eighties, proper apprenticeship, the karate kid version, wax on, wax off every day hating it, but came out of it karate kicking, right? So I guess my question is how the hell do you do that, man? Because I’m really interested in transforming the industry in the UK or at least in London now.
Mike Agugliaro (58:16):
Yes, it’s really awesome. So let’s talk about the company first. My company had the traditional meetings. Let’s talk about all the @&#$?&! everybody’s doing wrong. And then I learned, I said, wait a minute. I said, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to change the way I do meetings in my company, and they’re walking in and I have AC/DC playing. You guys know AC/DC and I got thunderstruck playing, and I got it loud. I put in these big speakers, and these guys, they’re used to walking in, you know how trades that people sit, like this, you know this thing, I don’t know what this is called, but they kind of lay their legs out, they’re humping the air and then they kind of tilt their head down like they’re on a lowrider or something and I got AC/DC playing and then I make a commitment to them.
(59:07)
Here’s the deal. We’re not going to just grow the company, we’re going to grow your life. Did you hear what I said to all of you? We’re going to grow your life, and I’m going to make sure that I can help you. Now, I was predominantly men. So if there’s ladies on here, I’m just going to talk to the men because I was predominantly men. I said, I’m going to help you build your life here because if we build the life of your dreams, what we need to do in the company is a piece of cake. So I started teaching my guys how to be better husbands, better fathers, better grandparents, and better community people. And I did it with power. I stood there and said, this is me now. And I also said, the first time I did it, there’s going to be three groups of you now, one group of you, you’re so confused about what happened to him, to me.
(01:00:00)
The second group goes, I’m all in. I’m with you. The third group goes, I hate it, too much energy. And we love you, but you’ll go, and it’s okay, but here’s how we’re going to live from this day forward. So when I would walk in that building, I pretty much, it was like I kicked open the door and said, I’m here, let’s do this. And because I fought for their livelihood like this, the movement happened internal first, and once it happened with them, it grew external to the community. And then people started saying, oh, at the supply house you guys have supply house. They would go there and they would tell them, oh, who do you work for? And I go, who do I work for? The guys would go, you have no idea. You got to come and see who I work for. And they would tell the people at the supply house, what the @&#$?&! AC/DC playing in the morning at 7:30 in the morning, there’s AC/DC playing.
(01:00:54)
And they would go, what? And people, the competition would pull their van in the parking lot to see what the hell we were doing. And then I would have people on, we had this little stage we built, we’d have people doing the Hulk smash, and I gave them an outlet to take men and allow them to be real men strong and a place to be able to get their energy out instead of bottling it in. Come on. First off, sometimes it’s lonely to be a guy, and it’s lonely to be a contractor owner, man. Tell me, type in “lonely” into the chat bar. If it’s not sometimes lonely as hell out there, is it lonely? Come on. I’m not the only one that talked to myself driving a van, am I? I had a lot of talks driving a van and a lot of tears driving a van, saying to myself, oh my God, I became like my dad.
(01:01:50)
I’m going to work a billion hours not see my kids. I’m going to miss special times. Come on. I know what it was like. So when I showed up that way, it changed. And then it was just natural that after changing like this, other people wanted to come and learn how we were changing lives. And it started with, I didn’t start that when I was 20 million guys. I started changing people’s lives when we had five trucks on the road. It was very small when I started changing my team’s lives, when I threw out all the books that I was learning about culture and this @&#$?&! and said, you know what my priority is to show you how to be the most amazing human you could be. Now everybody’s trying to hire A players. You know A players, da dah, hot dogs. I got news for you. A players, they’re a pain in the @&#$?&! ass.
(01:02:39)
Is that true? They want to tell you how to run, right? Yeah. They tell you how to run. You’re never doing it right. They never make enough money, and they poison the @&#$?&! out of everybody. You know what I did, Lucas? I hired B players and made my type of A player, my type of A player, and we would come in the morning fist to fist. Madden, you worked for me and we all showed up in the morning, come on in guys. Come on in fist to fist. Let’s talk about what’s about to happen today. What’d you do last night to be a better dad, a better father, a better husband? What did you do? Did you show up? Are you here now? You’re fist to fist with people, man, they go, I’m in. And they wanted to be better dads. They didn’t want to be the father who said he was still at work but was at the bar.
(01:03:30)
They just didn’t know any better. They needed to try to sedate themselves to get away from the pain and suffering that they were causing themselves and their family. When you start showing up like that, now they go, that’s the only place. And guess what? At that company, all the people, the majority of people I sold in 2017, they’re all still there. Matter of fact, they’re running facilities. These people, they’re all still there. The vice president, who was one of my directors, started with me as a plumber and he moved all the way up to director, which is one of the top positions. Now he’s vice president of a couple hundred million. So that shows you that. Now look, does it take some time? Yeah, but which one of you, I got news for all of you on here. Some of you, are quitting on the young generation.
(01:04:25)
You quit on them already. They have this whole millennial @&#$?&!. I got news for you. My son’s 22, he thinks quicker and knows more @&#$?&! than I know. It’s amazing. You know why? The computer gives them a rate of speed of learning that’s beyond us. How many of you had a father with an encyclopedia collection? Type in “collection” in the chat bar? Did you have this? My dad was so proud when visitors would come to the house. Encyclopedias, right? They got information in it. And guess what, Greg? My dad would go, oh, oh, welcome. Come to the family room. Look at my encyclopedias, right? Because the people used to go door to door and sell those things. Maybe not where you guys live. Today, pick up the phone, your kids are going to be, I see some of you with little kids, which is great.
(01:05:13)
I remember if you go look on my Facebook, you’ll probably find pictures of me holding my daughter in one hand, a cell phone like this, and a credit card ordering material. Can some of you relate? Type in “relate”, right? You’re ordering like, yeah, I need a couple of rolls of wire, THHN, and ics, and I’m trying to burt my baby. At the same time. Just start showing up differently. And guess what? Everyone shows up differently, and some are going to mock you in the beginning, but don’t worry about it. You show up the way you want to show up and tell the world you’re changing this industry where you’re at. You’re going to change the way we live here, and some will believe you and they’ll follow you forever, and some will move on, and then they’ll come back someday too. So I hope that’s helpful. Who’s up next? Brad? Is that good?
Greg Wikes (01:06:00):
Brilliant. Thanks Mike.
Mike Agugliaro (01:06:01):
Yeah.
Greg Wikes (01:06:02):
Awesome.
Jeff (01:06:03):
So helpful. And I really relate to where we’re making human being better human beings because a lot of men in the trades industry, they’re killing themselves literally because they can’t cope with being with the world. So yeah, listen, I’ve got to get my sleep and be a bit of dead, really thanks for this Mike.
Greg Wikes (01:06:37):
Thanks for that, Jeff. Appreciate it.
Greg Wikes (01:06:43):
Okay, let’s get Brad’s question on.
Brad (01:06:46):
Hi guys. I’m really sorry if you just heard that my three-year-old just went crazy, and it’s been awful. So if you did hear it, I do apologize.
Mike Agugliaro (01:06:55):
No problem.
Brad (01:06:56):
Mike, thanks for that. That was awesome. Really enjoyed that and thank you for your time. That is, here again, trying to cause havoc. My question is, you mentioned about the difference between a 1 million to 5 million to 10 million mindset.
Brad (01:07:19):
And I was just wondering if you could give me a rough idea of what you think the key differences are between someone who’s operating like a 1, 2 million business, someone who’s kind of doing like 5 to 10.
Mike Agugliaro (01:07:38):
Yes. Look, smaller companies have a Victim mentality and larger companies have a Victor mentality. And the minute you see yourself as a victor, it’s a distinction. Also, the other thing is like look, if you’re running a $10 million company, the way you communicate, the way you deal with culture, the way you understand marketing, sales, operation, it’s at a higher level. I learned to, and I don’t want to ever say overeducate, there’s no such thing as overeducate, probably only under-educate. I made sure that I went and was studying the company. So I went and started studying Zappos. I hired people, and executives at Disney, and I started studying some of the largest got one, 800 got junk. I started studying the highest caliber humans and started looking at the traits. How did they talk? How did they behave? How did they think? Someone with a $10 million company knows how to reverse engineer really, really well.
(01:08:38)
Someone with a smaller company doesn’t reverse engineer. They’re just trying to build a one-year plan. How many of you have an organizational chart type in “org chart”? If I say something you don’t know, put in question mark two, don’t let me run over you. An organizational chart tells you, your people in your company, right? What roles they are? Nick, it is a chart that shows the founder, owner, directors, managers, HR people, accounts receivable, and all this stuff. It’s just a blueprint, and they call it an org chart or an organizational chart. All of you should have one, even if you’re literally one man, you should have an organizational chart because all companies have multiple roles. You have accounts receivable, you’re collecting money, you have accounts payable department, you’re just playing all the roles. Now, the most important thing is if you have a 3 or $5 million company, you should have an org chart for that, but you should have an organizational chart of what a $10 million company looks like.
(01:09:39)
I learned this from a church, one of these churches that they played the drums, electric guitar and @&#$?&! really cool. I did a bunch of electrical work there, and when you walked in the front door, guess what was there, Andrew? It was a big framed picture of this big church they’re going to build someday. So I went to the pastor and I said, what is this? He goes, well, we’re going to build that someday. I said, when? He goes, when everyone here believes it is time. And I went, oh @&#$?&!. I said to him, that’s good. And I said, how will you know? He goes when they believe they’ll give all the money it takes to build that? And I went, that’s what’s missing. What’s missing? My people only see the vision of the year. They don’t see the vision of the future. So I built an organizational chart back then on what a $10 million company would look like, and we were a couple of million.
(01:10:38)
I said, everybody, I want to show this to you. That’s where we’re going. What part of the chart? Okay, Greg, what part of the chart do you want to sit in three years from now or two years? Well, I want to be the leader up here. That’s what’s waiting for you. So they would self-accountable. Everybody in the culture, Brad, they would tell people that were, look, was I the only one that had some lazy @&#$?&! working for him or just me? Probably, right? They would tell the lazy guy, you better get your @&#$?&! going because I got a place I’m working to get to now. I wasn’t trying to get the lazy guy to work. They forced the lazy guy to work. How cool was that? So you have to be able to see that right there. When you see that, everything changes and ask yourself, well answer this.
(01:11:35)
This will be fun. If a company, a PE firm, is a private equity firm, what that just mean, everybody? It’s a whole bunch of big shots with big degrees that have more money than you and me that come in and buy things that they feel they can make better than what you could do. That’s it. If a PE firm walked into your business today and looked at it, what would they tell you? Type it in the chat bar. What would they tell you if they walked in your business today, where you’re at right now, they looked in your house, your building, your garage, whatever, your truck, what would they say? This is normally fun, and be honest because you’re not, I’m not insulted or I’m not like there’s no judgment here for me. That’s the one thing you’re going to love about me. There are no judgments at all.
(01:12:26)
Hire more people, needs better organization. You need a firefighter. Someone told me that a long time ago, said, you’re a professional firefighter, Mike. You need more employees. Most of the time when a PE firm comes in, they go, look, you don’t have core values, you don’t have scorecards, you don’t have an organizational chart, you don’t have leadership, you don’t have culture, you don’t have a brand, you don’t have a theme in your building. It feels stale. The way everybody communicates is choppy. You don’t have enough people, right? Look, you’re wasting my time. We’re your employees, right? People told me that it was easy for me to hire employees because I had 200. How do you think I went from two, me and my partner to 200? Because it was easy? No, because I became powerful. I became powerful. Everybody answer this for me. You all say the same answer.
(01:13:22)
When should you be recruiting? Tell me the answer. Same answer everybody tells me. When should you be recruiting? Always. Let me tell you a story, Greg. Ready? Here’s how you’re always recruiting. Do you guys where you live, do they have telemarketers? Do people call you and try to sell you @&#$?&! over the phone, or that’s not allowed where you live? It’s allowed, Greg? Okay, my son’s probably about 10 years old, okay? And we’re sitting, yeah, cold callers, Nick. We’re sitting down for dinner and the phone’s ringing. Who’s calling, everybody? Telemarketer, right? Lucas? Telemarketer. My son is going like this. Get it, dad, get it. My wife’s looking at me like this. You know that when the eye like don’t you @&#$?&! get that phone, right? She’s thinking it’s dinnertime. My son though, you know what you got to do, Andrew, right? Because your son’s going get it, dad, get it. So I pick up the phone, and it’s Dish Network. They sell like satellite stuff back then, and the guy goes, oh, it’s so-and-So from Dish Network, I said, I’ve been waiting for your call. Thanks for calling me. And the guy’s like, right? And he is so good. Oh my god, Lucas, this guy is so good on the phone, his process, communication, and I said this, you’re really good. Where do you live? He says, New Jersey.
(01:14:47)
I said, are you looking for an opportunity of a lifetime? He said, tell me more. I hired him. That’s always recruiting. When you guys get coffee or go to a coffee shop, you get coffee, Danish, whatever. When you go there, I’ll know if you’re good at recruiting because when you go there, you handed the woman cards and said, everybody that comes in, see if they’re looking for an opportunity. I’m looking for a person. If I go on your Facebook, there should be every hour you’re looking for somebody. Everywhere I turn, you should damn near have a blinking LED light on your van that says, looking for great people. See, when you become relentless, you solve any problem you want. That’s why I never had a problem recruiting. I had a waiting list of people to work for me, and I had 200 because I did whatever it took.
(01:15:39)
Now, let me solve your brain problem. Ready, Greg? Solve everybody’s brain problem in this one thing. Tell me if my brain was ever going to think differently. Steven, here’s what I told myself every day for a year, there are not enough people. There’s not enough people, there’s no good people. They all rob. There are not enough people. There’s a deficiency in people. The news says there are no people. My friends say there are no people. The economy says there are no people. You think. Then my brain went, wait a minute, Mike, you’re wrong. There are lots of people. So I had a coach many years ago, and I said, there’s no great people. It’s hard to get people. He goes, wait a minute. He goes, hang on a second. How long have you been telling yourself this story? I said, well, it’s true. He goes, is it true? Because there’s a company down the road with 250 of your type of people.
(01:16:34)
So he’s either amazing and has a different story, or your story sucks. How about this? There are people everywhere. You just don’t know how to see them yet. Listen, God’s truth, universe truth, whatever you believe, he says, today, I want you to just go like this. There are people everywhere. You just got to see them. An hour or two hours later, I got a call, from someone looking for a job and I hired an electrician. I’m blown away by, now this mentor calls me up. How’d today go? He’s God, and drop this @&#$?&! to call me. And he’s going, oh, anything good happens? And I’m like, well, yeah, kind of good. He goes, well, what? He knew what was going to happen. I said, I hired someone. He said, of course, you did. Change your thinking. Change your result. Think like everyone else. Get the results everyone else has.
(01:17:23)
And I will tell you that changed my life and I never, even today, whatever they’re saying about people, if I start a service company, which technically I’m allowed to, now my non-compete is gone, I’ll fill that @&#$?&! with 500 people faster than any human we’ll ever see, why? Because I know a lot of people will come and work for me because I will be relentless in talking to them. I will find them, hunt them, track them. Because when you’re a winner and you’re a victor, you only know one thing, win. Some of you just forgot when you were 18, you did probably the craziest @&#$?&! in the world without thinking twice. But then you got married, you had kids, you start becoming safe, you get a little belly, you get a little tired, you work a little bit, you complain a whole @&#$?&! lot. You shift that @&#$?&!.
(01:18:15)
Everything changes. Type in the chat bar. What made sense for you there? What made sense? I don’t want to, look, in the beginning when I showed you the picture to make me look intense. It’s bullshit. I’m very intense because I care so much about you winning, and I don’t even know you enough yet because I hate watching people in any industry and anywhere in the world suffer and they’re only suffering because they choose to suffer. Okay, Greg, I’m going to open it up for you, my friend to tell me. I know we’re running a little over. I’m here for more time if you need me. I’ll go away if we’re done.
Greg Wikes (01:18:52):
Mike, that’s actually, I’m just going to ask one quick question if I can be a little bit selfish. I know there’s a lot here. How, so obviously you’ve gone from being on the tools to running 200 employees. How did you upskill yourself to run an organization like that? Was it winging it? Was it studying and learning how to be a CEO or was it bringing on the best people that knew more than you? What was the key in that?
Mike Agugliaro (01:19:20):
I’m going to give you the one thing that I think is the biggest key, and it’s probably none of those things you said. I became very intrigued, Greg, in human behavior. Why? And I started by being curious about my behavior, what made me do all the good stuff I did, what made me do the stupid @&#$?&! I did. And then I started to study people, like what makes one person hungry to win, another person not? What makes one person exercise and another not. And when I started to really be curious and understand the common trends in people, then I knew how to lead the people. Write this down, everybody. You cannot lead what you do not understand. Let me say it again. You cannot lead what you do not understand. And I understood myself, but I didn’t understand all the other blue-collar guys. I didn’t understand how they felt.
(01:20:27)
I didn’t understand their struggles. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t believe it. I did a special thing, Greg. I called it the million-dollar club. I had service experts who did the service. So they go out, repair the plumbing and electric and they would produce a million dollars a year for me. One guy, one truck, a million a year. I had 12 of them. And the way I built them was I did this thing called the Millionaire Club, and I ran it myself. We were bigger, but I ran it myself. And I’d meet one day a week for one hour, and I wanted to show my management team that I could take very good people and make them better than they could imagine, and we would share very openly. And the one guy says to the group, he goes, I wasn’t going to share this, but I’m going to.
(01:21:17)
I’m in therapy. He says, so right away I go like this, Steve. I go, well, you think you’re the only one in therapy here. I don’t know who the @&#$?&! in therapy. I just don’t want him to feel weird. All of a sudden, I find out half of the people there are in some form of therapy for help. And I go, @&#$?&!, these people really have problems. Now look, I’ve had therapy in my life. I said, these people have problems. I never knew they had problems, so now I got to redirect and help them in a different way. It was all about understanding their anxieties, their depressions, their pressures, and that’s what started the curiosity of human behavior, is if you start studying that, that will help you grow to any size leader you want to be. Because the more you understand the people, the more you can relate, the more you could serve, then it was just solve a problem.
(01:22:15)
How many of you read books? Do you read a lot of books? Type in “books” in the chat bar. A lot of people read books. You should only read one book, the book that solves your most immediate problem. That’s it. You go on Facebook, everybody’s like, you should read this book on this and this. And I go, do you have that problem? They go, no. Why you read it? Don’t read it. And you should only read a book until you get an awakening. If you read a book and it says, do this thing, and you go, oh my goodness, Greg, that’s what we’re missing. Shut the book and implement it. The schools made you feel like you’re a winner. If you finish the whole Tom Sawyer book, you’re not a winner by suffering through a book that sucks. You’re only a winner, when you take a strategy, when they read your book, they should take the first strategy, and implement it instantly. Don’t read until they implement it, then they should go back, read the next strategy, and implement it. Because having 10 things and doing nothing is a waste of time. So I hope this is answering your questions. I’d love to tell you what other people will tell you. Well, you should study Jack Welch and you should look at this. No, no. Study yourself first. Study other people. Show up the way they need you to show up.
Greg Wikes (01:23:36):
Yes, that’s fantastic, Mike. Great answer. So listen, I know you’ve really been generous with your time. Mike, appreciate you doing this and showing up with so much energy, and this was all for free because of your love for helping people and contributing back to the world. So really, thank you so much. If you’d like to work with me to fast-track your construction business growth, then reach out on www.developcoaching.co.uk.
