Encounter – Jay Abraham

In this episode of the CEO Warrior podcast, the roles are reversed and Jay Abraham is interviewing Mike Agugliaro. Jay and Mike discuss the origins of Gold Medal Service and CEO Warrior and talk about the biggest mindset change that Mike made over the course of his business that allowed him to go from two guys and a truck to generating $30+ million a year in revenue before selling his company.

Key Lessons Learned:

CEO Warrior

CEO Warrior was founded by Mike Agugliaro and Rob Zadotti to completely transform the way the service industry operates. They turn service contractors into strategic and thoughtful entrepreneurs.
Mike takes in high growth oriented contractors and uses his teaching and training to level up their business and doubling their results and success.
CEO Warrior is an organization that gets people taking positive, powerful, and decisive action.
When Mike started out the only training he really had was what he learned at a vocational school. He had been on his own since the age of 15 and there’s one thing everyone who has had a similar experience knows, you learn how to survive.
Mike convinced his partner to venture out and start their own service business despite the fact that they had good jobs at the time. Little did they realize they that the first ten years would be extremely difficult.
They were young, knew they could work hard, and were willing to trade dollars for hours but that started to change when they got a bit older and started having kids.
Everything changed when Mike’s partner declared that he was finished, that he wanted to quit and couldn’t take it anymore. This put Mike on the path to looking for people who had already figured it out.
Imagine what you can do if you knew what to do. That was the lesson that Mike and his partner learned and that thought transformed everything.
You can try to wing it or you can find out what you need to know in order to succeed and really increase your chances.
Mike realized that marketing was one of the keys. Most small business owners didn’t understand what marketing means and what it can do.
Change is uncomfortable but if you don’t try to do something different you’re just going to stay the same.
The most important asset to people is their time. Times have changed and people now want convenience and simplicity. Becoming a source of one and adding additional trades allows you to serve your customers faster and more efficiently. It also leads to scalable and sustainable growth for the company.

Mindset Change

The biggest shift in thinking that Mike had was going from working in the business to working on the business. Going from the work itself to figuring out how to find new customers, creating assets in the brand, and creating a sustaining and multiplying business.
It’s hard to grow a million dollar business with a hundred thousand dollar mind.
Mindset change begins with your personal identity and then radiates out to your brand and your people.
After changing the brand, Mike realized that they needed to get around people that not only knew the business but would be around to make sure they don’t make critical mistakes.
When you find the best in the world you realize that one conversation with them can move you forward faster than a year with someone who hasn’t gone that far.
You have to want hurtful truths instead of comforting lies. You always have a choice, but if you trust someone who has the expertise and you get out of your own way, things will change very quickly.
Connecting the right people with the right leverage can lead to a decade’s worth of progress in six months.
When you remove the weak links in your business the whole chain becomes much stronger.
In order to appreciate expertise you have to appreciate as an asset that can pay greater dividends than any piece of machinery or technique you can use.
Why would you want your business to be just a paycheck if it could be a wealth creation engine?
Struggling people are usually surrounded by other struggling people. There are a lot of people that settle and begin to resent their life. Being around and mentored by people that think different is very important.
Once Mike started to believe in himself, he started to reevaluate his language and thought patterns. Once Mike articulated and believed the vision he had for the business, it became a question of not whether they will succeed, it was how big do they want to get?
There are no problems, only opportunities.
One of the greatest enlightenments that anyone can have is the moment they know that the reason they are on the planet. That’s a mindset change that transforms the way you think about the world and your place in it.
If you can get mind growth and then turn that new growth into your mindset change, the effects on your life can be profound. There are very few reasons why someone can’t win this game unless they choose not to.
Nobody retires from what they love.
You grow or die, and that’s true in business and life. It’s impossible to stay neutral and not making a decision isn’t possible. Inaction is a decision in itself. You have control of 98% of what happens to you, are you going to be a victim or a victor?
If you knew you were going to live to 100, what would you do differently? Be brave enough to step and move into your greater self.

Tactics

One of the smaller changes with a disproportionate impact on Mike’s business was changing the way they answered the phone. Instead of just a quick transaction, they began to focus on building a rapport with them and understanding what they really want.
If you don’t have a framework of delivery everything about your business will appear to be episodic and inconsistent.
Mike found out that the more they trained and coached, the more empowered and confident the team began to feel. If you verbalize your commitment to train your team and follow up, your team will reciprocate and commit back.
Every process and element of your business should reinforce the same message.