A Mother’s Voice Leads a Warrior from Tragedy to Triumph
OP Almaraz works inside multi-million-dollar mansions in Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Bel Air, California. His clients are business managers, estate managers, and insurance brokers who speak to him on behalf of their clients. Their clients are celebrities and other high net worth homeowners whose homes have been damaged by smoke, water, and mold. Excellent service and a pristine reputation for discretion bring Allied Restoration Services to their doorsteps. It’s a niche market that OP has captured, catapulting the home restoration company he started with his brother in 2008 from $800,000 to a projected $11 million this year.
“When I joined CEO Warrior, everything changed,” said OP as he recounted his progression from tragedy to triumph. “My brother had passed away unexpectedly, and as I grieved; the company we were building together began to lose money. Our mom and stepdad had invested their life savings in our success, and I was failing.” At the time, OP’s accountant looked at the numbers and told him he couldn’t run the company without his brother. “Go tell your employees to start looking for another job,” he said. Refusing to accept that path, OP replied,
“There’s no way I will shut down this company. I just buried my brother, and I’m not going to bury this company.”
Recalling the words his mother said to him as a child, growing up on government cheese and food stamps, “Mijo, you can do better,” OP became determined to push through the sadness and stop listening to the negative voices in his head. He listened to his mother instead.After a drop from $4 to $3 million in revenues, he felt he needed a mentor to help him bring them back up, so he went searching. After one failed attempt, a friend led OP to CEO Warrior where he was told his mindset was holding him back. “I didn’t fall for it. Then I woke up at 1am, and realized they were right, and my decision to join CEO Warrior took me from fear to 500% growth.”
Transforming a business
With CEO Warrior’s guidance, OP’s company grew significantly in the years that followed, including a $2 million dollar jump in 2019, and $1 million a year after that. He says most people in the restoration industry don’t think they will learn anything from an organization that serves plumbing, HVAC, and electrical service businesses. OP says they’re wrong. “When I went to CEO Warrior bootcamp, I was determined to get my money out of it, no matter what. My strategy was to reverse engineer everything for restoration, and it worked.”
OP believes that far too often, to their detriment, restorers look through a certain industry lens. “When people do that, they think the industry can’t be changed. However, when we get outside our industry and look through a different lens, we expand our minds, and it changes everything. CEO Warrior training is real, raw, and relevant for our disaster restoration industry.”
Applying the teachings
CEO Warrior helped OP understand that there is a different way to do marketing, organize your business, and create processes. He has also learned that the leader sets the pace and the employees run at the pace of the leader. “When employees see the leader growing, holding themself accountable, and painting a beautiful, massive vision, they want to follow.” OP also sends his staff to Warrior events, and says they come back with more energy, focus and a better mindset.
“With CEO Warrior, changing your mindset comes first,” OP points out. “Then comes the implementation process, followed by accountability. Soon, everyone converts to the new culture. Accountability comes with Warrior score cards. The cards define responsibilities and expectations for every position. For example, if you’re an estimator, you are required to be knowledgeable, contact clients, and bring in new clients. Employees keep track of how they’re doing, and every month, they review their scorecard with their manager, and make necessary adjustments.”
OP has also implemented CEO Warrior’s 4 Steps for Improvement. “This is a powerful tool because employees begin to understand that you run a business, and they need to show up and do their job. If an employee gets 4 strikes, they’re out. The process is easy to deploy, and employees like it.”
Marketing is another area of focus for OP. He uses CEO Warrior’s “Shock and Awe” techniques, sending documents, audio recordings, and videos to clients to capture their attention, generate calls, and seize more revenue. Revenue also came from a pivot to commercial work when the pandemic hit and OP saw a dip in client calls. He quickly got his team trained and OSHA certified. As a result, Allied Restoration Services picked up a million dollars in revenue in just twelve months.
As in most businesses, education and training are a key focus, and for Allied Restoration Services staff, there is a laser focus on discretion and protocol, so signed non-disclosures are not broken. The insurance companies OP serves trust him, and they make referrals based on that trust, so it’s imperative that staff understands the magnitude of their discretion.
Restoration Mastery
Enlighted by everything he learns from CEO Warrior, OP and Allied Restoration Services Senior Vice President Tim Bauer started a training organization called, Restoration Mastery. Together, they coach restoration business owners throughout the U.S. how to keep up with their booming industry. OP was the first restoration business owner to join CEO Warrior, and now he and Tim have joined forces with CEO Warrior to bring Restoration Mastery clients CEO Warrior strategies.”
Giving back
Supporting others and giving back is important to OP. “After my brother passed away, I started to realize that people were forgetting about him, so in his memory, I started the Passionate Life Foundation. Victor loved feeding homeless people, and we were providing holiday dinners to people in need before he passed away. The Foundation keeps his name alive, and we carry on his mission to provide hope during tough times. We’ve provided meals for 4500 people.
As OP heads towards $11 million this year, he realizes he hasn’t grown his business alone. “CEO Warrior taught me to draw support from my personal life,” he explains. “My wife, Ivonne, is my biggest supporter and cheerleader. She knows the vision because we co-created it, and that makes it powerful.”
OP also believes in the power of change. “Change isn’t easy, but by embracing change as your ally, you can shift out of any circumstance, even in the midst of tragedy and chaos. If you’re a CEO that’s ready for change, join CEO Warrior. Coaches are the high-octane fuel for you to become the person you set out to be.”
Now that OP has embraced the necessary changes that will take him to $11 million in 2022, we asked him what’s next? He answers, “I grew up thinking I was destined to live in poverty. Changing my mindset and silencing the negative voices of doubt in my head changed that.
“I want to keep doing better and continue to build a profitable business for my family.”
