On June 19, 2026, Chuck Thokey spent 69 minutes on Tommy Mello’s Home Service Expert. What follows is the substance — the frameworks, the numbers, and the one stat that made the whole conversation turn.
Tommy Mello built A1 Garage Door Service into one of the largest home services companies in the country and has interviewed several hundred operators about how they did it. When he opens an episode by saying his guest built sales teams that generated $220 million in revenue, the next hour is usually worth transcribing.
Here is what was in it.
“Eighty percent of sales leaders are either struggling or need to be replaced”
This was the line that reframed the episode.
It sounds harsh until you look at how the average home services company appoints a sales manager. The best closer on the team gets promoted. That is the entire process. He was outstanding at sitting across from a homeowner, so now he is responsible for eight people who need to learn how to do that.
Those are unrelated skills. Closing is performance. Leadership is diagnosis — watching someone else’s appointment and identifying which of five things went wrong. A great closer often cannot do it, because he never had to break down what he does. It is instinct to him. Instinct does not transfer.
The result is a sales manager who runs meetings about numbers instead of skills, because numbers are the only thing he knows how to talk about. Pipeline reviews instead of roleplay. And a team that plateaus while everyone wonders why the star’s magic did not spread.
The four buyer types
The framework Chuck teaches most often, and the reason his most-viewed training is called How to Sell Anything to Anyone.
The premise: the Golden Rule is wrong in sales. Treating people the way you want to be treated means selling everyone the way you personally like to buy. The Platinum Rule replaces it — treat people the way they want to be treated.
Which requires reading, in the first four minutes, which of four people you are sitting with. Some homeowners want the number and the date and nothing else; slow down and you lose them. Some need to like you before they will hear anything about the roof. Some need every specification and will not be rushed. Some need to know the neighbors did it too.
Same product, same price, four different appointments. Most reps run one appointment and win with the twenty-five percent of homeowners who happen to buy the way they sell.
Full breakdown: How to Sell Anything to Anyone — the four buyer types.
Best, better, good — and the 90% middle
One price is a yes-or-no question. Three prices is a which-one question. Those are completely different conversations and only one of them has you in it.
In the episode Chuck puts a number on it: presented properly, roughly 90% of homeowners land on the middle tier. Not because the middle is a trick, but because the middle is genuinely what most people want and they have never been given a structure that lets them find it.
The failure mode is building three tiers where the top one is not real. Homeowners can tell. If the premium option exists only to make the middle look reasonable, they feel the manipulation and retreat to the cheapest — which is the opposite of what you wanted.
Full breakdown: Best, Better, Good.
The Power Hour
The operational answer to the sales-leadership problem above.
One hour. Every day. Not a pipeline meeting — a training block. Roleplay, objection drills, presentation reps, film review of actual appointments.
The objection most owners raise is that they cannot afford an hour a day off the road. The counter in the episode is straightforward: a team closing at 28% that gets to 40% does not need more leads, more marketing spend, or more reps. It needs the same leads and better execution. The hour pays for itself faster than any lead source you can buy.
It is also the mechanism that makes everything else stick. A framework taught once in a Tuesday meeting is entertainment. The same framework drilled daily for three weeks is a habit.
Full breakdown: The Power Hour.
The case study Tommy pushed on
Tommy asked for a real one, and got O’Leary Roofing.
They were doing about $800,000 a year. Chuck’s first coaching client. They built a five-person sales team, installed the systems above, and grew past $6,000,000 — and by the time it sold, it was described as one of the most profitable roofing companies in the country.
The full story, including what actually changed first: From $800K to $6M.
Watch it
The full episode is worth the hour, particularly the middle section on hiring simulations and the KPI dashboard segment near the end.
He Grew A Company To $220M — His Warning To Every Home Service Owner · Home Service Expert with Tommy Mello · June 19, 2026 · 1:08:51
Chuck Thokey has appeared on 38 podcasts across the home services industry. The full record is at Chuck Thokey: In the Media.