Full transcript10 chapters · 9,769 words
00:00Shot at 25 and what he built after
Mike Venidis: After spending many years helping hundreds of companies grow, there’s a moment where you realize you’ve been teaching a game that you’ve never actually played.
Tyler Martin: Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue-collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line with lessons and grit that pay off big.
Tyler Martin: Here’s your host, the blue collar CFO, Tyler Martin. There’s a big difference between knowing what works and being the one responsible for making it work. At some point, the advice, the strategy, the playbooks, they all stop being theory and it becomes execution. That’s exactly what Mike Veneditas stepped into.
Tyler Martin: After more than a decade helping home service companies grow from the outside, he made the jump into ownership and started a building business from the ground up. And what he ran into is something a lot of people don’t expect. The pressure, the pace, and the reality of actually carrying the business
Tyler Martin: are completely different when it’s yours. In this episode, we get into that transition, what changes, what breaks, and what actually matters when you’re the one in the seat. Let’s get into it with Mike now. Hey, Mike, welcome to The Profit and Grit Show.
Tyler Martin: How are you doing, man?
Mike Venidis: What’s up, Tyler? It’s good to be back. Thanks, thanks. You know, it’s that you put on that filter. What is it? Improve your look like the 25, I think, have it on. So it helps me out. Takes off about 20 years. How long I can go without painting the grays in my beard, man.
Tyler Martin: I call them wisdom hairs. Man, that’s funny. Hey, well, welcome back. You were on my show, I think it was episode 22. You may or may not know this. You were a catalyst in helping me get so many guests. you introduced me to so many people and those guests have introduced me to other people.
Tyler Martin: So it’s been like this endless, a lot of it is because of you just being there supportive. So I was so excited when you said yes to coming back again, now that you’re in a new phase, a new journey. So maybe for the folks that don’t know about you,
Tyler Martin: can you tell me a little bit about what you’re doing today professionally? And then maybe just a tidbit about yourself personally.
Mike Venidis: I would love to, man. You know, what am I doing today? I’m building the world’s greatest adversity story. That’s what I’m building. You know, my life really truly began at 25. As we know, on the last episode, you know, when I was shot two times by a 13-year-old
Mike Venidis: child left for dead, you know, it makes me memorable, right? But like, are you doing something with the time you have left worth talking about? That’s just the beginning of the book. You know, for me, I found a lot of purpose in a career that was based out of resilience
Mike Venidis: through an unfortunate event and spent 13 years growing and leading a very reputable digital marketing agency called Rhino Strategic Solutions. It was about $1 million in size when I came in 13 years at the beginning. And 13 years later, the full portfolio value after mergers and private equity acquiring
Mike Venidis: was $92 million, give or take. And it’s a sizable organization, man. So all of the experience that we gained over 13 years is a blessing. And I’m all about growth. I’m obsessed with growth, even more than money. and we had an opportunity to apply the things
Mike Venidis: that we taught all of those years to a business of our own. So here we are, man. We are in the garage door world now trying to learn the entrepreneurial journey and live our best lives. That’s so awesome. How about, okay, give me a little tidbit
Mike Venidis: about you personally, just in today’s times. Are you like, anything personally you share, workouts, what you enjoy doing in your personal time, anything? Yeah, man. So building is like an obsession for me. So there’s really only two things I focus on. That’s my wife, Jacqueline, who co-owns his business with me. I’d be nothing without her, you know, and aside from her and our little Australian shepherd, Halo, I’m a health nut. You know, any, any free moment I have has to be spent on bettering myself because I obsess over the fact that the best version of me results in the ability to impact other people positively.
Mike Venidis: You know, uh, I’ve, uh, when that shooting happened, Tyler, like you just kind of wake up and you go, my entire life is for everyone else because I, you have this like weight, this bearing of, you know, like you’re lucky to still be here.
Mike Venidis: So show me you’re grateful. Right. I don’t know if you’re a man of faith, but I am. And I think that it’s very important, you know, that who am I when people aren’t watching? Yeah. Think about that a lot. So all my spare time and free time is devoted to like reading.
Mike Venidis: It’s trying to eat healthy. It’s going to the gym at 5 a.m. and trying to be the person that I say I am, right?
04:51Running the business with his wife using a 1A, 1B split
Tyler Martin: That’s awesome. Hey, before I get into, I want to talk a little bit about just landing on the garage door business. But before I do, I want to talk about having the husband-wife running a business, owning a business, especially a new business. Because I’m sure there’s going to be bumps if you haven’t already hit them.
Tyler Martin: How’s that playing out in terms of the marital relationship? And, and has that made the big marriage stronger? Has that made it more challenging? What, how’s that played out for you guys so far?
Mike Venidis: I love this question, man. I think it’s made us stronger. Like we for sure have like every, you know, husband team, like we have our spats and our differences and like emotions run high at different moments. But, but, you know, for us, like we had a lot of practice, you know, a lot of people
Mike Venidis: don’t know because my wife’s like, she doesn’t really spend time on social media. You know, I use it like a tool. I’m very aggressive on social because I like to bring people together. It’s fun for me. you know, but like, because she’s never really like putting herself out there. A lot of people
Mike Venidis: don’t know that she ran all of Rhino’s digital marketing. Wow. You know, I ran all of the, the client experience, but she was the one actually running the teams that made the growth happen, you know? So, and she was there, I want to say seven or eight out of the 13 years I was. So like,
Mike Venidis: we had to learn how to work together. And, you know, even at one point she reported to me, which was super, it was weird. It was challenging. And we made modifications to try and avoid that dynamic, you know, but like you get practice and you learn things along the way, you know,
Mike Venidis: and the one thing that was super helpful, um, that we have to give credit to Gary Vaynerchuk for, you know, Gary V was a partner that, um, you know, the owners had, uh, had arranged, you know, a, a partnership with back around like 2018 or something like that. And
Mike Venidis: And one of the things Gary taught them that I latched onto and learned as well was create a 1A, 1B concept. That was like a very powerful lesson. So like one of the things Jacqueline and I did before we even opened up the doors at Good Golly was use ChatGPT.
Mike Venidis: Like we basically spoke to it freely about our strengths and our weaknesses and what our opinions were. And then we asked it to create a menu of who the 1A and the 1B would be based upon what we love, what we’re good at, what we don’t like.
Mike Venidis: So in instances where we don’t necessarily align or agree, it became very easy to pull up your cheat sheet and say, okay, I mean, we pre-negotiated that this is Jacqueline’s decision. If I don’t like it, a deal is a deal. You know, we kind of had that all arranged before we got in.
Mike Venidis: So that was like a real practical thing that we did that I feel like your audience could probably benefit from and appreciate. And you really want to get interesting, man. Start asking
07:28Two marketers worried about the holes they couldn’t fill
Mike Venidis: it, you know, who’s in the wrong when you’re being a bad husband. So basically it sides with the other
Tyler Martin: party is what I think I’m hearing you say. It’ll humble you and check you fast. That’s hilarious. That’s good. That is actually a really good tip. You guys both going in as marketers into this business. Was that a concern? Like, is there a part of you where you said like, okay, well,
Tyler Martin: we know we got the marketing side covered, but we have some holes here in these other areas that we’ve never really dealt with. And how, well, A, was that a concern? And then B,
Mike Venidis: did you do anything to offset that? Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was definitely a concern. You know, like it’s weird because the same thing that concerned us was the thing that attracted us. And there’s this thing, like when you’re obsessed with growth and you spend all of these years
Mike Venidis: telling contractors what’s wrong with their business, you know, and telling them what to do and giving them all this consulting and advice and trying to solve their problems. It’s not the same, like, you know, like not feeling the weight of having to make payroll
Mike Venidis: or not like actually doing it. There’s just this gap that sits there, you know, and it felt like it was the next tier. Like, like if you really are who you say you are, action is really what distinguishes that, right? Like it’s character is, is like what you do.
Mike Venidis: It’s, it’s not what you say. You know, so there was an element of that, like, you realize you’re teaching a game that you never actually played. Let’s play this thing because there’s no better way to like experience growth and to like evolve other than to finally like do all of these things you’ve taught forever.
Mike Venidis: Right. So, but the thing is, is like, you didn’t do it. So that was a concern, you know, to answer the question, like you go into this, this whole new world because we’ve never been entrepreneurs before. We’re like, yeah, we know what it’s like to lead, you know, 400 plus employees.
Mike Venidis: And there’s a lot of experience. Like, I do think developing leadership skills and, you know, having corporate experience, you know, in the white collar space was for sure an advantage and an upside. But the things that go through your mind is like, what do I don’t, what do I not have?
Mike Venidis: Right. You know, like, okay, how do you win over, you know, a garage door technician if you’ve never actually been in the garage and did the work, you know, things like that. But in our situation, it was such an opportunity. We were blessed.
Mike Venidis: Our business partner, Jason Henderson, he comes from the HVAC and plumbing space. So he understands the trades and the core components of the business model. Garage Doors was new for him too. But we had a network. We had people. That was the best value that came from being at an agency of that size.
Mike Venidis: Rhino had so many clients and it was so reputable. you know and like when you go out you speak and you teach and you do all these things you make lots of connections so Jacqueline and I had never had a better opportunity to be so well surrounded
Mike Venidis: and connected you know have mentors like Lou Habika on your side yeah fails gurus like his son
10:31Why the brand and the giraffe win the job
Mike Venidis: Andy you know and then obviously Jason has built and sold the business so you just kind of it helps because when you have a team you go into the world and you go I know no one’s gonna outwork me I know I don’t quit. I’ve got everyone I need. So how can I fail? And that helped a lot with our decision,
Mike Venidis: you know, helped us kind of overcome that fear of taking the initial leap, you know, that is good
Tyler Martin: golly. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, the branding’s epic. And from what I understand, Dan Antonelli
Mike Venidis: had a big part of that. Is that correct? My Jersey brother, Dan Antonelli, 100% had a part of that. Man, like he’ll tell you all day, brand makes the difference, but it’s, it’s, of course you would expect him to say that, right? He’s the brand goat. But the truth, Tyler, is like, hear it from
Mike Venidis: me. I go out on the field. Like I’ve been in the garages. I’ve been doing the work. I talk to the customers because I want to become, I don’t want to just build a business and say, I want to run a business. Like I want to go through every position and I want to be in my employee’s shoes,
Mike Venidis: every position in the company. It’s what I did at Rhino. And it’s what helped me become who I am today. And every single customer talks about that brand. It’s what they remember. The brand is everything, the story, the feel, the differentiator. And I mean, if there’s anything I can tell
Mike Venidis: someone, like, I know it’s not cheap, but man, like it’s, it’s like retiring without, you know, a retirement plan, but you’re going to go into business, take the time, man, sit down, get the brand, right. Put the vision into like, what is it? What is the name? And what do I want
Mike Venidis: people to feel? And Dan does that for you, man. I know I’m really putting him on a pedestal right
Tyler Martin: now, but like he deserves it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it’s funny. I was, when I was doing research on this podcast, I was looking at your guy, your guys’ branding and just looking through things and your creatives and going through your Instagram. And I’m like, you know, it’s just seems
Tyler Martin: so simple, but it’s so many companies don’t do it. Like if I, if I needed garage door services, say, and you guys were in my area and I’m looking through five different companies that do it, I’m picking your company just because you guys seem so relatable.
Tyler Martin: Like you just, I mean, in your wordings, you say, you know, good people and things like that, but just the giraffe and the whole colors and the vibrance, and you’re very open in your social media. It just would make me feel like, oh, these are people I can relate to. If I’m going to give
Tyler Martin: anybody a shot, that’s who I’m going to give a shot. If I, you know, if I don’t, they’re not come by referral and it seems so simple, but at the same time, so many companies don’t do it.
Mike Venidis: For sure. Yeah. I mean, you’re, you’re spot on. It’s everything in the sales experience is a feeling, right? Like at the end of the day, you know, as homeowners, we make decisions based upon how we feel and none of us want to feel like we made the wrong choice. Right. So what do we value
Mike Venidis: and appreciate when we make our decisions and what makes us feel good about the decisions we choose? You know, so like you really do have to put the thought into how do you want to be perceived and what do you want your, your clients, right? I call them clients, not customers, because we build
Mike Venidis: relationships here. That’s not transactional. Like I’m not going to come in and fix your garage or spring and say, thank you. Goodbye. Like I want you to program my number, you know, Jacqueline and I put our face on everything because like, we don’t run. We’ll never say
Mike Venidis: that we’re perfect, you know? And if we have issues, we don’t run away from them. We fix them because that’s what good people do, but that’s the brand. Like who are the people? Because at the end of the day, if I’m going to choose a company, just like you said, Tyler, like,
Mike Venidis: I just want to feel good about my choice. And the easiest way to feel good about my choice is to know I’m working with people that even when things don’t work out, they’re going to work out because good people don’t let bad things happen.
Tyler Martin: So how did you land on garage doors? Like, I guess what I would think, you know, I would think, okay, I know, of course, Tommy Mallow has very large, he’s the leader in the space, I would argue in terms of how, you know, his name in this community. And then Guild, I think,
Tyler Martin: I don’t know if Tommy Mo is part of Guild, but Guild recently got acquired. I’d feel like to some degree, this is kind of a saturated space as a novice to this area. Like how do you land
Mike Venidis: on garage doors? Well, I mean, we didn’t choose garage doors. It chose us, right? Like I didn’t, you know, when Lou had reconnected, you know, Jason and I, after he was a client many years ago, You know, and he did hit the goal, the ultimate goal, you know, to build something respectable and to sell it and to build a life.
Mike Venidis: I mean, Jason’s an incredible human being. I mean, it’s part of why we chose to go into business with him because we want to sit at tables with people that we respect, people that embody the character of the people we want to become, you know.
Mike Venidis: And we leave the tables when we feel like they aren’t the examples of who we want to be. So to answer the actual question, like he chose garage doors. We didn’t choose it. We never chose garage doors, but we’ve been in it now and I love it.
Mike Venidis: I mean, God has blessed us. Like just happened to fall into it. And I’ll tell you why. I mean, he is a non-compete, you know, the plumbing and the HVAC world. And he did the research. Like he figured out what are the industries that have similarities to what he’s familiar
Mike Venidis: with. And there were multiple options. He chose garage doors, you know, and what I’ve observed coming into it as a marketer, because I still have so much to learn. But like what I’ve observed so far is, yeah, I mean, Tommy, great human being, you know, he genuinely like helps people.
Mike Venidis: And, you know, Carrie Kelsch is another one. Like I admire her from afar. She’s got like an incredible culture. Sure. You know, she’s part of Guild. I don’t think Tommy is, you know, but these people are the example. You know, they built things and they did the work and they and they set the vision, you know, for guys like me, for gals like my wife.
Mike Venidis: of, you know, like if, if we have these skills and the work ethic, you know, and the desire, like what could we accomplish? So they’re pioneers, you know, they’re very impressive. They’re competition, but like, you know, competition is a standard that motivates you
Mike Venidis: to be better than you are. It’s, you know, so I have to give all the love to those, those folks, but outside of like those massive respectful organizations, Tyler, like it’s interesting to look at the trade. I mean, there’s a lot of companies here, but like, it’s not as saturated.
Mike Venidis: I think is some of the other really common traits, you know, and I think that when you look at the model, there’s a lot of upside to it, a ton of upside to it. You know, I think that one thing that I’m really enjoying as a marketer is you’re not just dealing with emergency repair, you know,
Mike Venidis: like you’re not dealing with this need based demographic. You’re also dealing with a want based demographic, right? Because garage doors improves the aesthetic of your home. like it increases the value of your home by 268 was like the last metric I read. It was the front runner for increased home value at the beginning of 2026.
Mike Venidis: So like as a marketer, you can have so much fun because dealing with a luxury demographic who doesn’t have this emergency and this need is way different than dealing with like this emergency need situation. And to get into the different like mentality and perspectives of those two different homeowners,
Mike Venidis: it’s such a fun game because as a marketer with all this experience, you get to be strategic and you try to think about two different ways to play it. Like, and I always try to think about how to be practical for you, right? Like for your audience, because like, I want to give value.
Mike Venidis: I don’t just want to talk like, what is something you can do? If you’re not looking at meta ads for like luxury, might want to reconsider that. Like we’re still trying to kind of work through all that and figure it out. But it’s crazy when you see how many leads come in, you know, for like
18:06Garage doors chose them, not the other way around
Mike Venidis: new garage door estimates in social media versus like a spring repair, an emergency, right? Because if it’s an emergency, I don’t go to Facebook to find a garage door company. Right. Right. That’s an example, like something practical of like, okay, well, how do your customers think and what
Mike Venidis: are the tactical things you can do in this industry? And then the only other thing I would say is like, I don’t want to say garage doors is easy. It’s not, but it’s scalable. It’s scary in many ways. Torsion Springs, the weight of these garage doors, they’re deceiving, right? Because
Mike Venidis: when you lift the door, it’s so light because of the springs. Springs break, you can’t lift the door. It’s the heaviest moving part, the largest moving part in the home. So there’s a lot of intimidation that comes in doing the actual work. But the thing is, is the scalability and the
Mike Venidis: capability of training genuinely good people on how to become technicians, there’s an upside there. It’s a lot harder, I think, in my opinion, to train plumbers, HVAC techs. So I like that because it opens up the field for me to find really good, good people that
Mike Venidis: I think have great hearts and create lives for them by simply teaching them a trade. In our holding company, we have a national service director. He’s an incredible human being. His name’s Caleb, and he’s one of the most talented guys I’ve ever met.
Mike Venidis: you know and he’s been indoors for i don’t know somewhere near like 15 years give or take something like that but like when you listen to him he can create a garage door technician out of anyone on the planet he’s we just got to pick the right people so for me that’s fun too i mean i know
Mike Venidis: i’m kind of going on and on and on but like i’m just i’m just passionate about it because it’s just fun to like have something own something and build something where you can be in control of changing other people’s lives versus just trying to make the best of
Tyler Martin: what cards have been dealt. So when you say, because that is a common issue, especially in
19:59Training a technician from scratch in 30 to 60 days
Tyler Martin: the HVAC space, plumbing space, electrical, is getting qualified people. So what does your timeline look like in terms of if you need a technician, what does that timeline for training look like? It sounds like, I don’t want to say it’s an easier process, but creating a process
Tyler Martin: for training someone might be easier. Well, what’s that timeline look like?
Mike Venidis: No, it depends on the person. Right. But I think you could arguably have like somebody ready to go out on the field, like within 30, 60 days tops, like that’s conservative to say two months. You know, I know Tommy’s built an incredible school, like he owns this market. Phoenix is huge, but you know, you see an A1 truck everywhere out there. Like he’s done well for himself. He builds a lot of these technicians too, you know?
Mike Venidis: so I think there’s things like that there’s schools all over and I think there’s also like really talented people that learn fast you know like for me I used to do commercial millwork when I was 20 you know I got out of that space and I was a white collar guy for 18 years after the fact
Mike Venidis: but you know the minute Caleb had started teaching me how to change springs and you know I went to Vegas and we have what’s called the door lab there so like I went through and I did the work And then I would go into customers’ homes and like you would, you know, you get real life experience.
Mike Venidis: And I mean, that training was a couple of days for me. You know, like if you make the effort and you document the steps and you really study the steps, you’re pretty much there. The next hurdle is just overcoming the fear of like the real life experience because you’re dealing with homeowners you’ve never met before, you know.
Mike Venidis: But like the majority of homeowners, it’s like my favorite part. they’re they’re so kind they’re they’re this they’re nice like i i can’t really remember one really crappy rude homeowner maybe i just haven’t been in business you must be in a good area yeah it depends on why you know we’re just good people so we get good attitude maybe you
Tyler Martin: attract good people yeah maybe you attract good people yeah um there you know i i just i chuckle because, you know, there’s always a bad apple. I mean, there’s just, you can’t, usually can’t avoid, you know, running into that one or two people a year
Tyler Martin: that are just incredibly difficult. No matter what you do, probably are going to be dissatisfied.
Mike Venidis: Look, they’re out there, man. Yeah. And the best thing that I can tell any operator, whether that’s like a customer, whether it’s an employee, you know, I think everybody is pure at heart and they mean well,
22:29You can’t consult your way through a bad hire
Mike Venidis: you know, I think that some people are just misguided. Yeah. and that’s something that you kind of have to remember. Like you just have to kind of, I think, remember in life that not everybody’s going to see eye to eye with you, and that’s okay.
Tyler Martin: Well, what’s your biggest takeaway? Going from the advisor seat now to being an actual owner-operator, what is your biggest takeaway? Just for folks out in the audience, are there some things that you’ve experienced in this journey that maybe you didn’t anticipate? Or, yeah, just kind of take me through any bumps in the road
Tyler Martin: that you’re like, ah, man, I didn’t see that coming or anything that’s been a little bit more challenging than you had anticipated?
Mike Venidis: I mean, the two first things I think come to mind is like, you can’t consult your way through a bad hire. You can know everything and you can be, you know, the greatest person on the planet, but like, you really got to get the first hire right.
Mike Venidis: And for us, we’re blessed. Like we have incredible, incredible selling tech. He’s talented. He’s got a great average ticket. Like it’s such a hack. I mean, I can’t stress that enough. Like if anyone was about to start a new business, I would tell them take all the time in the world to get the first hire, right. But that’s hard,
Mike Venidis: you know, because an interview can feel great and they still might not be the right person. So like, I think there’s an element of that. Like you can be the most talented person on the planet and you’re still going to have, you know, that, that obstacle of like finding the right people.
Mike Venidis: I don’t think there’s anything you can do to circumvent that. Right. I think the other thing do is like the emotional weight of the phone, not ringing. I mean, this is the thing, right? It’s like Jacqueline and I are, we’ve made, um, you know, the name for ourselves is being talented
Mike Venidis: marketers, but you know, like we basically deconstructed everything from a search engine inside out. And we understand things like aggregators and Yelp and Thumbtack and Angie. And, and what I think like we didn’t, didn’t necessarily like anticipate was it doesn’t matter how great your brand is. It doesn’t matter, you know, how you look from the outside in,
Mike Venidis: there’s still a flywheel. There’s still momentum and traction. It needs to be gained. So like, it doesn’t matter. You could have all the money in the world and infuse it. And there’s this, there is an unhealthy rate of growth, you know? So I think you really have to
Mike Venidis: like hone in and, and understand the art of lead buying and speed to lead. And some of like, you know, that gap that I talked about earlier that we’ve learned is if it’s 11 PM and someone’s locked in their garage, you do go, you do answer the phone. You do actually put your phone on ring
Mike Venidis: and put it next to the nightstand. When you’re small and scrappy, you do wake up. And if it’s 11 at night, like you still drive an hour, you know, to that city and serve that person because that’s the phase you’re in. And I think there’s like some operators who, you know, they build the
Mike Venidis: business around their lifestyle and that’s okay. But like, if you want to be great, the business comes first, you know, and it might be a little, uh, cliche, but like, I’m telling you, those are the things that we’ve realized is you have to buy leads in the beginning.
Mike Venidis: You have to like find ways to get your brand out there. You know, anyone that’s like friends with me on social media, like, like, man, I hope I’m not annoying anybody, but I can’t afford to worry about that. Like you have to post every single day and make sure that your friends, your family,
Mike Venidis: your connections, like they have to think about good golly. They have to think about my wife and I, because when the time comes and the garage door breaks, like, have you been consistent? Have you programmed and trained the community to think of you like, and trust you to be the answer
Mike Venidis: versus going to Google or going to Yelp and purchasing leads? Because that’s the game. The game is how do I decrease the amount I’m spending to market and generate those leads and get free leads through community connection and organic channels. So on a bit of a tangent here, but like you could be the best marketer in the world.
Mike Venidis: And until you actually go out and start a business, you’re going to have this like epiphany of, yeah, like just because you know it all doesn’t mean it happens overnight. Like there is a gym process. You do have to show up every day.
Mike Venidis: You do have to put the reps in like the weight doesn’t fall off from your magic shot or your magic pill.
Tyler Martin: But that’s so real, man, because as advisors, and I can say this true for myself too, you get into those discussions and you talk about getting more leads or you talk about growing or you talk about improving your cash flow, whatever your discipline is.
Tyler Martin: But it’s so much different when you’re on the end of having to do that. It’s like, okay, that’s a different world.
Mike Venidis: Yeah. I mean, I remember so many calls vividly. We would tell contractors, do this, do this. Well, it’s easy, right? Because they don’t do it. And then when they don’t do it, it’s easy to just sit here and go, well, I don’t know what to tell you because you’re not doing the things that I told you you need to do.
Mike Venidis: And you just kind of keep going in circles. It’s like gym training. Like, hey, you say you want to lose 20 pounds. Well, get in here and do the work. Why didn’t you show up? Why are you eating that garbage? So it’s different.
Mike Venidis: Like actually go to the gym and lose the weight versus telling someone what they need to do to do it. Yeah, it’s huge. It’s a good point.
Tyler Martin: Hey, I want to go into this other area of the podcast, and that’s just something that I call the number. And I want to talk through, is there a metric or a benchmark within either your business or just the industry in general that really you make a really important number to the business that you’re focused on and you’re either trying to build towards or it’s something that you keep in your radar?
Mike Venidis: Yeah, for sure there is.
28:04Blended average ticket versus average ticket
Mike Venidis: I won’t go into too many specifics, but I will tell you that if you’re not actually taking the time to build a budget, which is a painful process, but we did it. My wife and I in Q4 of the previous year, we would sit down and we sat with Jason and we worked through what the budget would look like.
Mike Venidis: and we crunch the numbers, like take the time, build the price book, think about your margins, understand like the value of running, you know, a remote reprogram job versus, you know, a motor sale, two drastically different tickets, but don’t get like hung up on that. I think where like
Mike Venidis: businesses go wrong is they go, oh, it’s a remote pre-growth, a remote reprogram, which for those that don’t understand garage doors, right? Like you can show up and you could reprogram a remote, like the homeowner just doesn’t know how to do it, but it’s not a long, complicated process.
Mike Venidis: So now you’re like walking into the lion’s den because you have to charge something to validate, you know, overhead and like, but you also don’t want to like slap them in their face when they go that much to do this. So you have to find ways to like add value and like get alternative forms
Mike Venidis: of like value from the job versus transactional money, right? Like, am I understanding that even though this won’t be a high revenue ticket, did I do the necessary things to make sure that this is a memorable experience? Because that’s really the game. It’s like you can buy leads for so long, but you’re always going to be that way until you
Mike Venidis: do the experience, build the experience that is so good that the organic flywheel starts to offset what you spend. So some of the things that we look at, right, like isn’t just the budget and like, what do things cost and what do we generate a number that like, I’m a huge fan of is your blended
Mike Venidis: average ticket. Right. Because that tells me a lot, you know, I had to learn this, like, and I had to learn this very quickly. And I mean, Jason’s taught us like so many things. And what we had realized was, you know, a high average selling ticket is different than a high
Mike Venidis: average blended ticket because you have two halves of the game, right? The first half is just selling in general. Okay. Second half is what did you sell in the sale? The blended ticket is so much bigger to me because on the blended ticket, like it tells me your
Mike Venidis: ability to sell in general. It’s not just how much you sell when you sell, it’s your ability to sell
Tyler Martin: as a whole. Well, wait, let me, it’s the real world example. So average ticket, you know, it’s just all your tickets combined. It’s say it’s 15. I’m just making up this number, $1,500. How does the blended ticket, the blended ticket sounds like it’s almost like once you’re at the client site, is it what you sold against that $1,500 above and beyond that?
Tyler Martin: I’m kind of confused where that, how that blended ticket works.
Mike Venidis: So let me put it this way, Tyler, like an average ticket says every time you ever close the deal, what is the value of what you sold? Yep. The blended average tells me every single home you ever went to, did you sell at all?
Mike Venidis: And on average, what did you sell? Got it. See, that’s kind of a bigger deal, right? Because how many times you walk away from a job with a no, to me, it’s far more important than what you actually sold while you were there.
Tyler Martin: So in other words, if you had eight homes you were going out to in one day and your blended rate was 500 bucks, you know, at the end of the day, you’re going to probably have $4,000 of revenue for that day because your blended ticket is 400 bucks for every house you visit. Is that kind of that kind of concept?
Mike Venidis: let’s put it this way if i had eight jobs in a week right my blended average considers every job that week even the ones you didn’t sell at all got it interesting so your blended is always going to bring your blended is always going to be lower than your average yep yep it considers all the
Mike Venidis: times you walked away and got a no from the customer yep which is a deal because i think in garage doors like there’s a lot of um you know price shopping right like in garage doors you know springs might break eight to 10 years, like a traditional spring, maybe you get more, but like
Mike Venidis: in those concepts, because there’s a long period in between customers don’t care about your backstory. Yeah. The brand matters. Like, and they want to like feel good about the choice they make. But like, once you’re in the home, I feel like there’s a lot of like price shopping and comparisons.
Mike Venidis: So you really have to take the time to build an organization that, that delivers a value that feels right at that price. I don’t think any business wants to be the cheapest. I don’t think any business wants to be the most expensive. But at the end of the day, wherever you fall in the scale,
Mike Venidis: make sure that you’re worth your cost. Make sure that you’re contributing things that are differentiators and other organizations are not. It’s common and cliche to tell the sales guy to bring the trash can in from the curb, but that’s just common courtesy. And it’s something that everybody can do.
Mike Venidis: like what are you doing that other people are genuine like they’re legitimately not doing so i think those are some of the things you know that are very important you know to be thinking about when you’re in a world where like you’re determining what your price book is going to be
Mike Venidis: because you can price yourself however you want you just have to be able to confidently look you know tyler martin in the face and say look this is what i charge but this is what i’m gonna do and then you hear it and you look at me and you go shit i’m gonna actually do this just because i
Mike Venidis: want to experience this. Like nobody else is doing this. I mean, I have the money. I feel good about it. I’m going to go ahead and do this because I want to have an experience we’re talking about. Yeah. And that’s what you do, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So that blended average ticket,
Tyler Martin: is that something that you’re kind of like constantly looking at? Is that a number that drives you? And like, when you’re looking at the number, are you doing anything to change or adjust to get to that number where you want, want it to be? Or how did I, I’m just trying to figure out
Tyler Martin: like how that plays into your business? Like how much of it is a focal point?
Mike Venidis: Well, let me put it this way, right? Like when you’re, when you’re new and you’re scrappy and like, that’s a huge component because like when you get into lead buying matches before you’ve generated like that organic lead flow and that consistent, like healthy cost per lead, right?
Mike Venidis: The problem is like, you’re up against competitors, right? Like you talked about Tommy earlier. Right. He probably has a much larger marketing budget than us. He can outspend us. I mean, that’s presumptuous of me to say, Right. Like one can assume. And if that’s the case, like he’s going to basically outbid me for every single lead on the planet and he’s going to get all the work.
Mike Venidis: Right. Right. So you have to kind of be mindful of in the instances where you do purchase a lead at a high cost or you have a high cost for lead. One of the greatest hacks you’re ever going to have is an incredible employee who can sell, serve, you know, who’s going to actually help like bring your vision to life.
Mike Venidis: They don’t cut corners because if their blended average is high, they sell good and they’re generating enough income. Right. That’s how you can start to offset the expense that comes in from the marketing while you’re trying to build and get the flywheel to move.
Mike Venidis: So like the blended average is such an essential number because in life, we focus on what we can control. Yeah, that’s what leadership is. Right. The only way you’re going to get employees to put on the booties when they go into the home, to follow the steps and the processes, push dispatch on service, tighten, call ahead, ask if you can stop and get them.
Mike Venidis: Whatever your process is, the only way you’re going to get them to do it consistently is by earning the respect and taking good care of them. What else are you doing? Paying them a commission or however your pay model is in the industry is something that I think matters, but it’s expected.
Mike Venidis: That’s what business is. Like I expect you to pay me to work for you. So what are the additional things that you’re building and implementing into the organization that makes it feel more than just that? You know, so like, can you get your blended average ticket tracked in a way to where like
Mike Venidis: you set a goal? Can they exceed that goal and get an additional monthly bonus? You know, like, are you commissioning them the same way as every other organization does in the Valley? Or are you giving them more? Like, these are the things that people don’t think about that really help like distinguish
Mike Venidis: yourself in that, some of those processes. But I will tell you this much, man, like your people, you’re only as good as your people. Yeah, that’s for sure. And that’s everything. Like I, I, uh, I tell Jacqueline every day, I’m like, yeah, we, we repair garage doors. We put in garage doors,
36:24Inside the Good Golly network, not a franchise, not PE
Mike Venidis: man. But like, we’re in the people business and relationships is everything to us. Everything.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s so true. Hey, last thing I want to just cover, I just want to talk about just in terms of the holding company aspect of Good Jolly and what your vision is. I’d love to talk about that a little bit.
Tyler Martin: And it’s a network, as I understand it. It’s not a franchise. I think there’s some confusion around that. But what’s your guys’ plan and what are you doing? I think you have six locations now.
Mike Venidis: We do. Six locations now. We have another two in a vetting process. Wow. And I have to be clear, man. This is Jason’s vision. And it’s a rare vision. Like there’s not a lot of people that can do something like this. And his decision to do it is I think what makes him interesting to me.
Mike Venidis: You know, he’s, he’s a special person, you know, and it feels, it feels powerful to be able to say that about a business partner versus like an employer. Right. Yeah. And, um, you know, the vision is pretty cool. Like what I like about it is it is a network.
Mike Venidis: And what people don’t understand about that is like, it’s not a common thing, which is why they go, Oh wait, it’s not a franchise. Oh, it’s not private equity. like here, the entire model is built upon like risk and betting on each other. And every location
Mike Venidis: has the decision-making rights. Like they have their own ability to go out and run their businesses as if it’s their business, you know, and that’s a very powerful thing to understand, right? Because when you have those rights and you can make your decisions and you run it the way you want to run
Mike Venidis: it, there’s a lot more, I think like authenticity and, and power and passion that comes from that. Because while Jason could technically write things up and say, these are the rules and you’re going to pay these fees and do things that like other, you know, uh, organizations
Mike Venidis: might do, it’s actually truly like, no, it’s, I have to convince you. So it’s, it’s, it’s different, you know, because you have, um, you know, a business partner here who they don’t tell you what you can and can’t do. What they do is they try to convince you.
Mike Venidis: They try to help you understand. So there’s a difference there. Like your, you’re, you know, your manifestation and what you’re building is, is it’s heart driven. It’s education based, it’s growth oriented because you’re learning and growing from each other and you’re strategizing and working together to create something that actually has buy-in.
Mike Venidis: Because when you convince somebody, you have to buy in to what you’re being convinced. You know, and then everything’s optional too. Like the beauty of it is it really is the entrepreneurial dream. I mean, if you’re a hardworking person and you’ve always wanted to flex that entrepreneurial
Mike Venidis: muscle and like try something, which is what Jacqueline and I like always wanted, you know, like it’s the perfect opportunity because you have this network and the support team that helps you overcome the things that are intimidating. you know it eliminates the analysis paralysis it it gives you the who network to be able to like
Mike Venidis: ask the questions quickly get the answers so when you think about it right like you’re gonna have naysayers you’re gonna have like people that are jealous or they’re pissed because they go oh like you’re not truly going through the process i’m like am i learning am i growing am i learning
Mike Venidis: and growing a hundred times faster than you and we shouldn’t really compare ourselves to others but But that’s what tends to happen. People like to compare.
Tyler Martin: So for Good Golly, do you guys envision, like you have one network location. Do you see you and Jacqueline, do you guys envision like having multiple network locations someday? Or what will that look like for you guys?
Mike Venidis: No, so Good Golly is just one network. And the brand, like Good Golly is…
Tyler Martin: I’m sorry, I might not have asked the question correctly. Do you envision you guys having more than one location? I know Good Golly is the overall brand of all the locations, and there’s six of them. But I mean, will you have, do you kind of, you and Jacqueline, do you envision having
Tyler Martin: multiple locations someday or will you have the one presence in Arizona?
Mike Venidis: You know, man, like we’ll probably just limit ourselves to Arizona, like an ownership. Okay. Because I think, you know, you have to understand, Tyler, like our decision to do this, it was to become, it was to grow, you know, it was about like getting experience and I can’t
Mike Venidis: be in two places at once. Right. Could I have multiple locations in Phoenix? Absolutely. But anything outside of Arizona, like, no, you know, we did build this holding team with Jason. So like we do work with every location in the country. I got it.
Mike Venidis: We’re responsible. Like every individual location has the ability to pick and choose, like if they want to opt in or out from the luxuries that the holding team offers. Okay. Right. They can go outside of the scope. They can bring on work with private vendors.
Mike Venidis: But like we as a holding team provide luxuries and conveniences. and when you start to look at it that way you know that’s what makes it so capable of like to get onboarded to open the business to grow and to like hit the ground running fast got it so all
Mike Venidis: that to say jaglan and i are uh you know alongside jason in every location throughout the country as we can scale but like as a uh as an owner probably just hang out here phoenix and continue to try and grow like as human beings because that’s what we really care about yeah that’s
Tyler Martin: really cool, man. I love what you guys are doing. I love your branding. I love you. Love talking with you, man. You’re always like a great guy. And I know, you know, there’s always that school of hard knocks period where the first couple of years are tough. I know you’re going to build
Tyler Martin: something special. I know when we have our next conversation, you’ll be at probably the first phase of that special level. And then it’ll just keep getting bigger and bigger. I mean,
Mike Venidis: I appreciate you saying that, man. It’s just another chapter in a book. And at the end of the day, it’s all about serving other people and making a difference in other people’s lives. And if I truly want to make a difference in this industry and be able to be qualified to go out and keep speaking on stages or trying to help people, there’s no quicker way to really be worthy of that other than to go through it.
Mike Venidis: You’ve got to push yourself in the shoes of the people out there that are going through it. It’s the only way you’re going to relate. You’ve got to do. You can’t talk. And that’s all we’re trying to accomplish, man. My goal is to really redefine the home services and provide value and experiences that have never been heard of and seen before.
42:27Free classrooms for the trades in exchange for service
Mike Venidis: And I got a long road to go, man. And I got a lot of great people to learn from. And life is just good, brother.
Tyler Martin: Hey, man, if people wanted to reach out to you, whether it be for other podcast appearances, speaking, or just figuring out about your venture, where’s the best spot to do that?
Mike Venidis: MikeVanitas.com, right? Like, I always tell people, you can’t spend all these years like learning how to be, you know, an expert digital marketer and let that go to waste. So we’re having fun here in the Good Golly Network, putting it to best use.
Mike Venidis: But consciously, you know, as a man of God, like we basically said, hey, Mike, we need this dot com. You subscribe 100 percent free. There’s a form there. I haven’t even finished building out the website, man. It’s been sitting because I’m like so busy with this business.
Mike Venidis: But the truth is, is that the vision is I want to be able to offer classrooms and answer and help and support everyone in the trades 100 percent free. But the the contribution is community service. And the only reason I require it is one, like, it’s just the person I want to be.
Mike Venidis: I want to give back. But two, I want businesses to be bought in and nobody’s going to come into a classroom style setting and like get free advice and get the answers to their marketing problems. Unless like they put in the work that makes them actually like engage and be there.
Mike Venidis: So mikevinitas.com. And yes, I read my own emails. I do my own social media and I love to meet every single person. It brings my heart joy when I get to help people. It’s what gets me up in the morning.
Tyler Martin: Dude, you’re amazing. I wish you guys were in my area. You would be coming out and checking out my garage.
Mike Venidis: You should open one up out there, man. Let’s go.
Tyler Martin: We’ll see, man. I don’t know. That’s a lot of work. I mean, I’m not sure if I’m ready to be those spring, those 10 year spring scare me. Every time one of ours break, I’m like, oh man, I’m so glad I don’t have to do that.
Mike Venidis: I did learn that too. Green fielding a business versus acquiring one. It’s a whole different game, man. And like, really, it’s like you got different operators that are really built to truly like, and one could argue you’re not necessarily like green fielding because some of these
Mike Venidis: luxuries are here, but like you are starting from scratch. And from the community’s perspective, it is green fielding. So yeah, it’s exciting.
Tyler Martin: Okay. Well, hey, best of luck to you, man. I definitely want to talk with you again in the near future and keep trailing you through your journey here.
Mike Venidis: I appreciate you, man. Thanks for inviting me back on. And I hope that your viewers found value in this, man. Everybody get out there and win, baby.
Tyler Martin: Take care, Mike. Cheers. One thing that really stood out to me in this conversation is how different it is once you’re actually in it. It’s one thing to understand how a home service business should run. It’s another thing entirely when it’s your phone that’s not ringing. You’re higher that didn’t work out.
Tyler Martin: Your cost per lead is higher than you expected. Every decision you make shows up in your bank account. And that’s where I think a lot of people get caught off guard. It’s not that they don’t know what to do, it’s that they underestimate how long it takes to build momentum, how important
Tyler Martin: those early hires are, and how much consistency really matters when nothing feels like it’s working yet. What Mike said really lands. You can’t shortcut that phase. You’ve got to go through it. You’ve got to keep showing up, keep marketing, keep answering the phone, keep tightening your
Tyler Martin: process, even when the results lag behind the effort, because that’s the part that actually builds the business. Hey, if anything from this episode felt familiar or hit close to home, head on over to CFO Made Easy to learn more about how I work with home service business owners,
Tyler Martin: or book a free intro call at cfointrocall.com. We can talk through what’s going on in your business and potentially I can help you out. Thanks so much for tuning in. I always appreciate it. and I will catch you on the next episode.
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Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: a fractional CFO for HVAC contractors.
