18 Year Old Running a $800K Business

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes, and today we're going to be headed over to Colorado and talking to a specific owner inside of Augusta lawn care. He's 18 years old, has already grown the business to almost $800,000 in annual revenue. He's just put it into profit mode and is thinking about starting a second location. He's got a great general manager and is trying to find another general manager. And so we're going to be talking about what does it take to actually get a secondary general manager, and what's the difference between leading technicians and then managing managers. It's a skill he hasn't learned, and at 18 years old, there's probably things that he's going to have to learn next that'll be difficult. So let's see if we can figure out a way to make that learning curve a little bit less steep and how he can grow the business in the future, because he wants to get to, like, millions and millions in revenue. Tens of locations. Bryson started off as a solo operator just a few years ago inside of Augusta Lawn Care. Graduated this year from high school, and in doing that, has grown up to almost 800,000. Let's go ahead and check in with Bryson from North Colorado Springs, Colorado, Augusta Longcare of North Colorado, Spring Springs. Let's go. Last year, the 150,000 went to 550 this year. Wow. Got 65,000 working capital. Very good. We got five employees.

Yes. Down to four as of this past week.

Cool. Kind of putting the lane off. All right, you're doing Christmas. Everyone's doing Christmas lights around here. Let's go.

That one for us is more of like a. We'll take what we get.

Yeah. Oh, and you graduated this year. Let's go.

But snow is our main.

Our main one.

Winter services and Christmas lights are like. We'll send out the email. We'll take what we get.

But snow, residential or commercial? Got is you do a little bit. Both. Okay, awesome.

Not more on the residential side, but like. Okay, we do for at least this year.

Okay, cool. Are you going to grow past a million or are you going to throw this in a profit mode next year? Okay, so you're going to go right through it. Okay, cool. Sweet. What can I help with?

Well, I guess my personal thing is, like I said, so my goal is 25 locations in the next eight to 10 years.

Okay. That changes things a little bit.

Okay, we'll do like. So we're opening another location next year.

Okay. We're splitting off a current inside of your area.

Correct.

Okay.

Because we have a pretty big. Like, there's nobody else around us, so, like, we can service.

Do you start as a solo operator? Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say, because we usually only give north to solo operators back in the day.

I can't. January 23rd.

Dude, good for you. You're like one of the last few let'.

That was when the Delta. The Alaska Airlines door fell off.

Oh, yeah.

They canceled. My flight was not affected, but they kicked me off my plane to. To give somebody else who was an adult of their flight. So I emailed you and Lee. I was like, I might not be.

Able to make it.

And I showed up and you were like, is the minor. Did the minor make it?

But no.

So I guess like that. Yeah. So that's the. That's the. The goal. And Andrew's a big part of that.

Cool. He's.

We've actually been at school. He's just incredibly bright.

Cool. What's your monthly term? Because you're growing quickly. So, like, what's your monthly say in like, the last few months? Is like 60,000.

Yeah, like 55 to 65. Last month we had like, a big project with like 90, but like 55 to 65.

Okay.

So we're at 4:15 as of today.

Okay.

So I guess my biggest thing is, like, in the next couple years. We're opening up another one next year. And the goal is possibly two in 2027. And I guess, like, that's what Andrew's question's about. Like, as long as we have the cash kind of thing, I need to figure out how to become the leader for that. And like, I guess what are the things that I should be working on to become. Because next year I will not be a general manager. We'll have to. Andrew being one of them, one being an undecided person.

Okay. So. So you're not going to start the second one. You're not going to. You're going to get a gentleman probably.

But, like, I'm not going to be the person, like, in charge of operations in that and stuff like that. I will be very much a regional. So still, like, completely. I. I will be doing nothing else other than working.

You're good at sales.

You're really good at sales.

And so I need to figure out how to go from managing, like. Like this spring, I went from managing zero people to five people. And that was like, the weirdest, hardest time of my life. And I feel like it's gonna be the same thing. Andrew is nice because we know each other so well that it's gonna be almost like he's a little bit of like a free pass as far as having to figure out how to like I can tell him bluntly anything and he just accepts it. Um, but I don't want to have to plan on like, I don't want to have to plan on like, oh, I can treat Andrew not as good.

I can turn him however I want.

Like more blunt and just tell him like you did terrible at this, fix this. And like he'll take it and he'll do it and he'll be good at it. But I don't want to be that person to him. And so I need to figure out like what are the couple things that I can do to go from zero gender managers to two to possibly four. 20, 27.

Yeah. So the constraint for multiple locations is finding great general managers. The challenging thing when you get your first general manager to be great is you think that they're all going to be that way. And you can build it two ways. One is you've tried to find and attract great, great GMs that are unicorns like Andrew and you grow slower because finding them is very difficult and you'll churn through poor ones very quickly. Or you make the systems in place where you can take someone who's kind of a A minus, B plus player. And it works. Now putting an A minus or B plus player in a existing location that's in profit mode, doing 600 700,000 annual revenue, very possible. Finding your second GM to be the sales related GM in the next location, very difficult if you're also, if you also lack the skill of managing managers. So like I would not warn you, I would just say caution tail is going to be a huge learning curve for you next year. So like just know you are stepping into very very difficult territory next year. I think you'll absolutely crush it. And at your age you should take all the risk in the world. There's only upside. So learning that skill is super valuable. So I would take the risk. Just know that it is very difficult to have this location fresh into profit mode and then starting to get your second location with a sales oriented GM that's going to have to be all like pounding doors. KPIs are much more around outbound versus much more profit. Oh, you're gonna move Andrew over. Yes.

Okay, that's what I'm thinking.

That I would agree.

So might as well throw like the lesser skilled person.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

Especially because I'm gonna be Pretty much the rm. And so, like, I still have, like, very much like a foot in everything where if something's failing, have that.

And then have you found anyone for your first location yet or not really idea?

It's not something where we, like, come to them and like, hey, you should. Do you want to do this right?

So your question is really like.

Like, how do I just become the person that they deserve kind of thing. Because we are thinking about, like, I've talked to Connor Hutchinson a lot in his model and stuff like that. So that's kind of what we really thought about. I've talked to him about, like, how can we take the dumbest person? Or like, what they talk about in the emac, where it's like, how can you take a monkey and be able to make them manage a location? And so we. Connor talks. Connor's been talking a lot about, like, the home office thing of like, building. Building it to where instead of. Because, like, right now I get somebody in command center gets a call, they can't handle it, so they have to come to me, whatever. How do we get. But they can't handle it because they're not actually our phone reps, they're command center phone reps. But if I answered the phone, I could handle it on the phone the first time, or somebody who was actually in the business every time could answer it. So we thought about doing that just to, like, literally take every routing, scheduling, all that stuff off the general manager's plate. Because obviously it's hard for command center.

To do because they're here.

But if it was in person thing.

Yeah. So I'm a big fan of doing a home office, especially once you pass a million. I would also say if you look at everyone that's successful in terms of home office in Augusta, unless I'm forgetting somebody, every single one that's successful has their spouse involved.

I was gonna say has a wife.

So let's go into that. Bryson, back to that personal capacity.

You need to do some interviewing.

The reason I say that, though, is. Cause if you don't have that, the reason many of them are successful is because they have someone who's willing to work 50, 60 hours a week, work about on the weekends, on the evening, et cetera. And so they have overcome the hardest hurdle in building an office, which is someone who doesn't leave because they're locked in. And so I'm a fan of that. I also ask myself, okay, if you only have 25 locations, your spouse down the road probably does not want to be managing 15 people in the office. And so I would just think through that and I believe in a way. Cause I know there's certain limitations with command center when you're scaling it forces you to build the business in a way that you can make a home office with a higher probability of success. Because what I find a lot of people that are not inside of Augusta when they start getting an office person, they have so much autonomy. They come so much complexity and such lack of standardization because they don't have the funnel of like oh, you can only do these three or four things. Your pricing has to kind of look like this. It has to all fit in the wiki. And so I would just kind of. I would put off making a home office as long as possible.

Yeah, we were thinking of 2027. It was like when we started.

Yeah. And you know we got three years to two years to find a wife. No, I'm just joking.

It's like 14 months, dude.

Yeah, well get after it, bro.

It'd just be a matter of. I don't think it's like to be clear, I don't think you need a spouse. What I'm saying is they have de risked creating an office by having someone who's not going to leave.

And that's why I'm trying to have it be where I don't like I'm not a manager at all next year. Well, a general manager at all next year. So that I can deploy. Not that we do an office next year, but I can deploy two things like my time. Two things like that. Where it's like great, I now have no more things to do.

Yep.

What can I fill my time with to grow.

And I would just be careful with filling with admin related tasks. Yes. That's my biggest fear. When you're so growth minded in that.

Phase, it would be more of like okay, how do we. Like how do I. It might be admin by like doing admin to train the first admin person. But then like obviously stepping out of that as soon as possible and more of just like yeah, yeah.

And command center next. Next year. Spring by the way is going to probably record all their training, their in person training. So you could hand it off to someone to learn so they'll help a little bit. We've never done it in the past cause like it's very difficult to do video training with in person cause they're doing a lot of role playing. But we're going to try to figure it out this spring. So that will be Help helpful. But I would just put a big caution around. I'm going to build the home office now. Like, for example, Connor was doing 180 to 200,000amonth in revenue and then started figuring out the home office thing. And we were like, right before I sold it to him, we were already considering it because, like, hey, we got all these people. Like, let's just get one person and kind of manage it all. And if we have a little bit of churn, fine. We can always hand it back to command center as long as we stay inside the systems. And so I would say if you don't have a spouse, I would just make sure you follow the systems enough to where if someone bounced, you can quickly hand it back.

Yeah, that's what we were trying to do too is like, in 2027, we have four locations, hopefully, like, theoretically. And that's where we can automatically start with like two or three people.

Yep.

That way if one person leaves, it's not the entire, the entire thing. It's like, oh, if we have three people and one person leaves, the other person can just jump in and the other two people can start.

And when you hit four locations, you're growing like 2.5 to 3 million. And from an admin perspective, what starts to happen is you start needing. You need specialists instead of generalists. So what happens is like 1.5 to 3 million. You have this nice window for an admin, which is you have like two or three generalists. Then as you pass 3 million, you need specialists, which makes it hard because now you have a payroll person, you have someone who does sales, like the over the phone stuff. You have someone who does phones, for example. And now you actually have three or four different points of failure. This is what we went through when we had like 90 to 100 locations at Augusta is we had to take Command center, which everyone used to be trained on everything. And then we said, okay, now we have like five departments. But the problem was there's one or two people. And if one person was sick and one person on vacation, I have no one to do payroll. And so there's like, there's like this nice happy medium 1.5 to 3 million. I find when it comes to having a home office. And so I would just be careful about specializing. Once you get three or four people too soon, it's almost like the wilderness. Yeah, you keep them in generalists for a bit, like where they. It takes longer to train. But having. Yeah, and that's the, the advantage of having a spouse in There because what you do is that you make them a generalist and if someone's out, they can fill in the gaps. So that's like. So I always. Just a cautionary tale. And also just when you, if you are dating and going after a girl down the road and you're thinking about this, make sure it's like, do they want to be managing five or 10 people? Because if not they then need to just know they need to be back up for a bit and get an office manager. Yeah. And then like in the upcoming book, I actually have a whole comp stuff around office managers. You want them incentivized crazy like Liz, like incentivize them crazy. Because when they're gone, if they have five or ten people underneath them, the waste in an office thinking like, think about the crew out in the field having waste. Admin can burn time and look busy all day long. They could go out and do like the coffee, they go to the bathroom and then like wipe down, do things on their computer, organizing, watch training and like be 10% efficient. And so you have to have someone that's like maniacally tracking every single thing they're doing. So there's a little more in the book. If you ever have questions once you get there, let me know. But we're kind of talking way down the road next year though, it's like we gotta get another general manager.

Yeah. Yes. And I think it'll be nice too. Cause it's again, Andrew is kind of a free pass. We're like, I know he's not leaving.

Dude, you're taking so much for granted. Poor Andrew's right there, bro.

It is weird I talk about him in front of him, but no, he's, he's fantastic. And like, well, he's not gonna leave.

And obviously I don't want to plan on that. But as far as like what I'm expecting right now, it is nice because it will be kind of growing from as far as like the people that I only have a couple piss offs before they actually piss off.

It's only one person right now where I have to like really figure it out. And Andrew's just. At this point I think Andrew will be more of an asset of like actually helping me figure out that other person than taking away bandwidth from me.

Yeah.

And so yeah, I think it'd be nice to just have to go to one person then after that, like then make the jump. Because this year it was zero to five people and it was the worst thing ever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I think.

The biggest thing when it comes like hiring managers for example, in my opinion is.

Being really clear with expectations. I think this is where a lot of people in their first like when they get their second or third gm they start to go off the rails a little bit. Is the expectations that they come in like you got profit sharing and you're making. We need very clear expectations. Like if you're a sales related gm, you are doing these tasks and like all the time. And those clear expectations are important and then having on target earnings for your GMs. I would recommend that. So OTE as we call it, it's like especially cause you now have a year of profit mode and it's been profitable. You're able to actually say hey, if you manage this location and your base pay is 70,000 and you make 15% of profit sharing based upon last year's numbers, 15% of $150,000, that's $21,000 on top of your base of 70 on target earnings, $91,000. That way when you go out and go on indeed. And things you can say Your base is 74.

It's not like an arbitrary.

The reason why locations that hire general managers that are in profit mode for at least a year prior is because you have confidence that when you tell them their compensation, you know it's going to happen. And you could say if you just do what we did last year, your on target earnings is this. And then what I show them and we're working on a document for everyone to do this. You can tweak things like okay, if you changed, if you increase revenue by this much and profit went this or you increase the efficiency here, here's what the earnings would be now it's not 91, it'd be 105.

They're hitting something like June. They know what it's going to end up being the year like hey, if we, if we can get to this revenue at this point and we start pulling that.

Yeah, because in profit mode all I want them to be thinking about is is retained earnings and distributions. Right. And so if I have a year of profit mode underneath my belt and I have $100,000 in profit and I'm able to tell them, you know, you get 15%, that's 15 grand like in the bank if they just maintain and so on target earning something you can thin pitch. So for example, when I recently my location I was able to say your on Target earnings is $120,000, your base is 70. But the GM made $120,000 last year. Cause I get this percentage of profit now. If you tweak these things, you can get to 140. And that's what he got to. And so I would just lean a lot into on target earnings and expectations. So. And just being like.

Most GMs that quit in Augusta are quitting because the entrepreneur. That's actually the truth. And so, like, I like the fact that you come in like, hey, what do I need to do that they want to work with me because most people will quit because their manager. And so I would be careful of one thing. As an entrepreneur, you have been rewarded in the past for finding a problem, creating the solution, and executing on it. If you want to retain a great manager and an A level person, they want to find the problems, identify the problem, they want to come up with a solution, they might run it by you, and then they want to execute. Just be careful with you always being the entrepreneur that hovers above, finds the problem, gets the solution, and then hands them a task. Because now they feel like I'm a glorified technician. And that's the risk of having a working gm, is that they might just feel like a glorified technician that makes salary instead of P4P. If you're just telling them what to do all the time, instead of being like, what do you think is the problem? Okay, what would you do about it? That's a solution. Okay, how are you gonna execute on it? And if you give them that opportunity, they can feel like an entrepreneur inside the organization.

I do think that's something I've gotten better at. Just that's the way I wasn't great at in spring. Honestly, it's come from just like being so tired that I'm like, I don't care, dude. What do you think we should do? I'm not even trying to be a good manager. I don't want to make a decision. Yeah.

But, yeah, I think that's something I had to get better at.

Yeah. And then. And then they feel like there's another thing when a location as well. So, for example, this location, you hand off to the new person, you get no credit for this location going forward. It's 100% them. And this is the hardest thing from an ego perspective as you get multiple locations in profit mode, it has nothing to do with you.

Right.

So even, like recently when I talked about, like, my locations, I show my profit and loss. You notice like, I didn't take any credit. I've never been there. Nothing about me Technically, I've worked at Bellingham Shop for six years with no pay. Right. But technically, it's like, all the credit goes to them because you want them to be able to thrive inside that and take ownership of it. And that's the difference between the working GM model and.

Why you usually need to grow to a $2 million business before you get GM is that if they are operating inside of the working GM model, they should be able to have the autonomy to hire fire, make decisions, and find problems and give solutions. Just be very careful. You will lose really good people that are entrepreneurial if you just constantly suffocate them by coming up with the solutions for them. And it's tough. Cause you usually know the answer. The hardest thing is when a manager's going through something and this is really difficult, and you know the answer, but don't jump in. You want them to come up with the solution. And, you know, like, they came with three ideas, and you're like, that one's not gonna work. That one's not. That one's okay. And then they've gotta, like, figure it out sometimes. So there's times where I've forgone hundreds of thousands of dollars knowing that there's a mistake going on in the business, but I need to let that fire burn. So they make a mistake and come back to me and say, hey, I'm doing something wrong.

Cause if I would have jumped in, I would rather them have 100% of their energy and discretionary effort going towards their idea than 80% of their effort going towards my idea. Correct.

Okay.

Okay.

Andrew has a question.

It's time. Oh, yeah. That's 100% good, dude. Mr. Perfect over here, bro. Goodness gracious. I am so. I am. So.

As we're scaling to four locations, the one in 2026, one in two in 2027. We were just wondering about the capital reserves that we should have, as we're taking on a lot of debt. So for the two new locations in 2027, we were wondering about, like, what would be a reasonable baseline to go in for to the year with in cash? Cause we were thinking in 27. In 2027, we were thinking 200,000 roughly. But cash, there's gonna. Yeah, cash. Including two new locations.

Okay. And you're financing everything?

Yes. And then financing trucks and equipment and all that for the new locations will add quite a lot of debt, which is fairly hard. Just getting the one truck. They were like, we don't believe you. You've had a credit history for four Months.

I got the Christmas age.

In the short history of the business.

Yeah.

Do you have any recommendations for like financing and capital reserves or anything to help grow at that rate?

Yeah. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

Yes. One truck is co signed.

That's what I was asking. Like I would, I would, I would rather give them a chunk of something just as be a co signer. Not a chunk of equity. But like I'd rather give them money.

Just so you can quickly scale. Like again, if I was talking to someone else's family whole, I'd talk about this differently. You guys are 18, 19. Like let's go, let's scale the thing. I would make sure your second location does well. I would not think about 2027 at all because you're gonna get into such thick craziness next year when you have two locations because you no longer can be there at both of them at the same time. And so before you think, because here's the thing, everyone thinks that it's like linear growth in terms of location. Like I'm gonna do one next year, then two year and three after the year four. It's like no, no. How it's gonna work is you're gonna 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 5, 10, 15. Because you'll have to learn the skill of management. And so everyone thinks that like oh, if I did it once, it's just going to copy. It's a completely different business. And so I would focus first on how do I get my first location. Profit mode. You've got that check one. Then it's a matter of okay, how do I duplicate this in general, manage and learn the skill of management. Get my second location up to 500,000. Then you will have like the world will be your oyster. If you have this location doing 750 to 800,000 in profit mode, $150,000 in distributions. Your second location in profit mode, not sucking cash, you will have a 2027 where you have to spend money or spend 50 to 60 thousand dollars in taxes. That's when you start the next location. And $150,000 especially if you have low, if you keep your, your living expenses low. That starts the whole location in cash. Or two locations to your point. If you finance the trucks. But there's a real like I'm so pro the two truck four employee $500,000 model. And getting that to 500,000 like you have and then raising prices, that is so profitable. And it's easy for a general manager to manage two trucks and three other employees, and it can absolutely do 500,000. Especially in this market where you guys are gleaming the Christmas light so much. And then like, it is 100% possible.

So even two trucks financed, you're looking at $2,000 a month with fixed, with insurance, starting on the location. It's all about how quickly you can scale it up. And if you have a location that's pumping off $150,000 in distributions, you need to spend that money or pay taxes.

Yeah, yeah. Our thought is, like, next year, obviously, that could. That location could easily. It's a big area, so, yeah, we'd probably want to grow to, like, what people. It's like the 500, 700, 775, whatever kind of thing.

Yeah.

Like, we could probably do 800,000 in that easily. And a lot of profit, like, with all the difference being profit.

Okay.

And so what our plan is, is like, that'll be we're just going to cut off a certain area, grow that back to 700, whatever. And like, we're going to raise prices heavy, obviously, in that. And then not in the new location, split off the new location, like June.

So at that point in June, that'll be like a $800,000 location, split off 2, 300 grand of it, and then have it just keep funding the other or funding the customers.

Yeah. And if you wait a year or two, you're gonna have such better terms. Going to a business, going to a bank. We had three years of profitability or three years of at least records and two years of really strong profits. You had three years of credit card being ran. You'll have good enough credit by then. So I wouldn't overthink that part. I genuinely believe you start your second location when your first location in profit mode. You start your third location when you need to because of taxes. Because you would rather put 75 grand towards a new location and getting it ramped up and than spend $50,000 in taxes on $150,000 of distributions.

I just genuinely think we'll have money going into 2027. I guess it's like my point, we've. We've grown to 550, and we had $3,000 in January because we had no employee. So it was like we started winter with like 9,000. We weren't spending any money.

Right.

So it wasn't like a super tight thing. Obviously less money than ideal.

Yeah.

Now we have like, we. We just had 70 grand in the bank, and then we bought that truck and are putting wraps on stuff like that. So we're like 50, 55.

Yep.

So we've made money on that. 550. Now, granted, I've paid myself some. Not a lot.

10, 15, probably 15,000.

Are you planning to get married next year or two? No. No. Okay, then. Then you can. You can keep it pedal to the metal. I'm just saying, for my life. Who knows? Yeah, yeah.

There's nobody currently in the picture.

Yeah, it's okay. It'll perfectly align with, like, the third location. Getting married, having someone in the office. Like, yes. Maybe they're older. They have good credit score.

Planning, bro. Planning.

Cool. Cool. Awesome. Yeah. I think the skill of management, I would just say in all, like, you're doing fantastic. You're way ahead of me at 18. And so the whole objective of Augusta is like, to make it where you can do it faster than me. I spent five years beating my head against where you're at right now. So, like, excellent. I would say the skill of management cannot be underestimated in terms of how difficult that is.

So what's the number that we need to have? Like, you said, like, start the third one when you have money that you.

Need, like, put somewhere when your accountant is telling you in November, like, hey, you're going to have a $50,000 tax bill if you don't do something.

What's that number then? As far as, like, okay, let's say we hit a number and we're like, okay, we go into 2027, and those are the. Or 2028, whatever. What is, like, is that number including financing stuff, like, plus cash reserves for locations? Is. Is that obviously each location has a little bit of money in it? Is that, like, general fund, like 200 grand?

I'm not too worried about cash. I'm more too worried about you're gonna have a meeting with your accountant in November, December. They're like, you have $150,000 in projected earnings. It's gonna go get taxed for 40 grand.

I just also wanna be safe when having four locations. Like a general.

Like, in general, I'm always looking for a month of revenue. So, like, every single time I'm looking at you guys revenue, I'm taking this number, dividing it by 10, and saying, do they have a fork in capital? And then I go to growth mode. Oh, they're in growth mode and they have enough cash. Yes. Go, go. If this was 25,000, I'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's hold off a year, right? So you. You. You have the green light to grow. Because as Long as you have a month worth of cash flow in the bank. I'm, I'm, let's go. And now with trucks the way they are, like I would, I would recommend most people finance stuff get new. Like it just starts to make pencil in.

They said that if I had a 20 points higher on my credit score, the, the bot would have just automatically approved me for two trucks. But because I was like a, it was lower. A person had to look at it, be like, oh, he's had a credit card for four months. It's not gonna work.

Yeah, that's actually why I didn't get a lot of debt starting out. Cause I was so young I couldn't get it. So it probably hampered growth a little bit. But it was also like a forcing function. Oh, I have to at least break even. So yeah. Good job man. Proud of you. Next year is going to be a wild ride. So just don't let your ambition for the more locations hamper the fact that it's going to be difficult. You will learn the skill. That skill is the thing that unlocks you from a millionaire to a Deca millionaire in the future is your ability to lead people and just realize that takes time and a lot of like mess ups. Like you'll go through a few GMs except the expectation you have not done it before.

Right? It's like if you first time on lawns, like you need training, the guy's gonna make a couple yellow slips. You get it. The same thing happens with general managers.

What's the first time?

This is why if you talk like Dustin Biernick for example, he got like an excellent GM this year. He had to go through a couple to figure out like, oh, this is what a great GM looks like, right? And that's why I lean on like the coaching metrics so much. Because if you can catch a bad GM in the first week or two, you can get them out. Just be very careful to not like. Especially when you go third location, but even your second one, make sure they're doing their weekly scorecards. That will catch like the thing with Corey recently when we were like, hey, he's doing fine metrics wise, 22%.

That weekly scorecard saved me probably 50 grand if I waited two or three more months. And then it's just all the pain that you have to get, you know, get them out of there, clear the deck, no one's left, everyone's been great. The location continue to be profitable because those weekly scorecards I was able to catch the fact, okay, Yeah, I listened to. Yeah. So just make sure you do those. Good stuff, man. Awesome. Nathan. Sorry, Did I answer your question? Yes. Okay. All right. Is there another question you had?

No. Oh, we'll come back around. It'll be great. Okay. That was fun.

Hey, real quick, I wanted to invite you to a private event that I'm hosting on Black Friday online. You can sign up@mikeandys.com Black Friday. I'm gonna be doing hours worth of training that I've been working on for the entire year. Also, there's three massive announcements that I haven't even told my team about. It's at the very end of the live stream. I can't wait to share it with you. Go to mikeandys.com black Friday and register quick.

My issue. And, like, actually, whenever you guys were announcing you were going to be coming, I had booked. I had requested the breakthrough thing just because I had no idea what I was doing at that point. It was, like, in the middle of August, and now it's become like, okay, I have to sell stuff now. That's what I'm actively doing. But at that point, it was like, what Garrett was talking about, where everything was going awesome. We were making a bunch of money. We paid off our franchise. That's the other thing, too. We paid off our entire franchise fee and have gained all that money. Stuff like that. So everything was going perfect. No issues. And I was like, I have no meaning of life. Like, I hate myself. All I'm doing is being a manager, and I actually hate being a man. Like, I hate being a. Like, just a regular general manager.

Yeah.

And, like, I have no. Like, we're making money, but also, I know we need money for winter, so I shouldn't be spending this money. So, like, what do I do? I shouldn't be risking this money to possibly make more money. And so, like, whenever you go into the architect stuff, where it's like, okay, no more fires are coming out of my plate. And at that point, I had, like, worked through my entire backlog of, like. Well, the entire backlog that I had, not saying there was nothing else I could have done to get better. And that's mostly what I'm asking of, like, if you get to a point where you're like, okay, I've fixed every fire, every immediate thing that makes sense. Do you have anywhere? Maybe it's just me keeping more track of, like, when I think of things, writing them down more often. Is there a place you go as far as, like, okay, great, I've. I Feel like I've solved everything and everything's working awesome. Nothing's or I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As far as like we're pocketing tens of thousands of dollars a month at that point. Where do you go to do things? So I don't enjoy doing it, I just enjoy working.

Yeah. That's really why we, we have multiple locations is because the problem that most people experience is they get one location that's very profitable and then they like, well, I'm bored, I'll just keep growing. And they grow it into something that they can't make profitable and super dependent on a bunch of mid level managers. And so that's why I know next year you will not have this thought because you will be learning a brand new skill. And when you get a third location, same thing will happen. And then eventually at 5 or 6, you're like, okay, now training a regional is really tough. Like they've got to think like a business owner and like manage. They've got to manage managers. So that's in part why we do that.

I will say it was very hard.

In spring and then I figured it out. Or like I'm not. It sucked.

Yeah.

But like I figured out how to make my employees not quit and produce revenue.

Yeah.

Like a baseline, like that's obviously the goal. And so I feel like I figured those things out and I was like, great. What else do I.

Right. The biggest unlock from like money making, I would say, is when you can go from deprivation to aspiration. So deprivation is there's pain, I need to pay the bills, I can't make money, everything's falling apart, I have no cash in the bank, I need to go into debt. That deprivation fuels us usually for three to five years as entrepreneurs. And then there has to be this switch because if you don't, you'll stall out here because you're just so used to deprivation. And so like the greatest entrepreneurs don't need to make more money, but yet they're making these huge risks, making big gambles, making acquisitions. They're going working 14 hours a day. Why they're an aspiration. And so what can happen is we get addicted to the, the neurochemicals of cortisol pumping through our veins when there's problems going on. And that's all coming from deprivation. And so you're like, no money in the bank. Immediately know what to do. Go make more money. Like, we got problems to solve. When that goes away, that's when you need a mission to fall back on as to why you're doing this. Because then that becomes aspirational. Yeah.

And I guess I almost like would almost argue that I've never been like this is like sounds super privileged but I feel like I've never been in deprivation. I grew up like parents are very like higher middle class kind of thing.

Pretty well.

Garrett's been in my house. It's a nice house. Yeah.

They just someone a good amount of money.

What was that big job in August that fixed everything.

Good. Yeah.

I would almost argue that that like almost my entire journey's been as great. Like we had no money over the last winter, but it wasn't like a buying.

It's not.

We didn't have people on payroll. It was just me and we paid people white as snow. And so I'd almost argue that I'm always in that.

It's not almost.

It's not like this seasonal depression thing where it's like, oh, I have nothing to do and I don't feel like doing anything or burnout or whatever. It was literally, hey, I want to go. Like all I want to do is work. And I feel like I have nothing to work on. It's like where I just needed to figure out something. I need to figure out some place of like, okay, if I had nothing to work on, I. I don't know what. Not that I don't know what to pick next. I don't know where to find something to pick next. Is almost what I went through was going to like a month ago and it was like, okay, I don't want to risk like it'd be the stupid thing to risk the cash because we don't have like this earlier. It's got a second spring rush, but.

For winter kind of thing.

We don't know how it's going to go. Yep, I need money in the bank for winter.

What do I do that doesn't cost a bunch of money, all that kind of thing. So like right now we're building a landing page page for snow that looks really good. Like run ads against and stuff like that. But I'm not actually building it. I'm just telling some guy in Bangladesh how to do it. And so it's like that kind of thing. I'm not spending a ton of money on it, but it's gonna make stuff better. I just don't know where to find those things.

So first off, I would say don't ever beat yourself up for the fact that you got a five year leg up on everyone. Else in terms of never having deprivation.

No, I'm not saying that. Yeah.

I'm just saying it's like a foundation. No, I know, I know, I know. I'm just saying don't ever feel that way. Like, if you got it, if you got the asset, use it. Right. It's like Alex always says, like, Shaquille O', Neal, never apologize for being 7ft tall and then therefore being able to make millions of dollars. So don't worry about that. That's why you're 18. You're able to be having these problems. So I would say.

You need to figure out a reason why you're trying to start. Like, why are you trying to start so many locations? Why are you trying to make so much money?

Like, why don't I walk in?

But yet. What.

I know why. Because I want to do missions long term and be able to, like, build things and, okay. Not be like, the telling, like, there's a place for it. But I don't want to do a missionary that, like, sends cards back and, like, can you donate $12?

Right.

For the rest of your life?

Let's go. Yeah, dude. Let's make a lot of money. How much money do you need to do that? How much? I don't know. So I'd get clarity in your goal.

Yeah.

Because clarity, your goal will give you deprivation.

But how does that. Like, if I can't find anything to do, like, an aspiration. I really want to do things, but I don't know what to. It's not that I don't know what to pick. I don't know, like, there's nothing to pick, I guess, is my question.

What do you mean?

How do I find if I've completed everything? Like, it's. It's September and we're going into winter.

Yeah.

I've completed everything as far as, like, I sprinted and we succeeded in this year.

Yeah.

As far as, like, we're growing as much as we're going to grow as far as, like, we kind of the track for the rest of our run rate, and we've succeeded in that. And I really don't want to, like, start. I can't start working on. I can start. I can't do spring now. I can't skip these next couple months. So instead of these next couple months, it's the same thing people go through in winter of like, hey, I have all. I want to work. I have goals to do as much as I possibly can. But I don't feel like I have anything to do because it's not like, we can start a second location right now. So what's the next step as far as, like, we've succeeded in this one location, more or less. We can't start this next one until in August. Like, the beginning of August.

Okay.

Nine months from.

Or whatever.

Where do I go there? Where do I find things deep within? Not where do I find the energy, but, like, where do I just find tasks?

This is why, like, having a coach is important, because a coach will look at your P and L and be like, oh, yeah, there's, like, five things here you need to fix and do better. Right. You look at as good. Like, it's making profit. That is ultimately the finish line. But every good business can become better. And usually outside eyes looks at him like, oh, whoa, whoa. Like, what's up with your insurance? Like, what about this? Like, sometimes the best thing to do when everything's going right is play good defense. So immediately go into, like, I'm gonna go get my insurance priced out. I'm gonna figure out all these efficiencies. Like, go into that mode. I would also say.

Like, I do think clarity on your vision will be super helpful. Like, it's really easy for me because, like, a thousand locations, like, very hard line. Okay, we need to. Like, we're going public in 812 years. Like, there's. There's lines you have to cross. And I would say that gives you a sense of deprivation when you're. When you have nothing to do, like, when you don't know what to do next. Like, I am so not even close to where my goal is at, and therefore, I need to be doing something. Well, what do I put that energy towards? Yes.

In that case, I do feel the deprivation of, like, wanting to be. I've never felt deprivation of, like, in the business, that kind of thing, But I do feel like, gosh, I'm not there, and I want to be there.

Yeah. I think, honestly, if you get some clarity on that, I would actually determine, okay, what are the mission things you want to do? How much will that cost? And work backwards. How many locations will I need? How many would them be in profit mode? Like, work all the way backwards and know the math on that will give you a sense of, like, I'm behind, you know, like, and to outside people, you seem crazy. Like, why are you working so hard? It's a function of, like, you know, the deprivation between where you are right now and where you want to be at. I would deploy as much energy as possible in those moments that you're like, hey, I have to wait six months for another vocation. I would deploy all my energy towards defense to make sure the person that comes behind you, that is not at the level of entrepreneurship that you are, is able to run the business and be just as profitable as you with it. You got to make the thing dummy proof. So that's like simplify and systematize everything. Simplify and standardize everything. Right? So anything that you do on a daily basis should be boiled down to how can I make a two year old understand this? Not because they're dumb, because I want the level of skill required to replace you as low as possible. And so usually I would just like slip into defense mode. As soon as you go into that, like everything's going easy. Great. Go into defense, fix all the problems. So that way when the next opportunity comes, you can go fully into it, like 100% of it into it. Because this is so dummy down for someone to hand it off to make sense.

I know you've had.

Just hygiene.

This is kind of the back end of my question. When it's a Friday morning, you like.

Open your computer, all the field work is done. There's nothing you.

We work four times. It's like, what do I. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I, I would, I would just. What does an architect do? An architect is not going inside the building. They step away. They, they create the plan for the feature, the blueprint, and then they look at areas of the building that need fixing or have problems or stress, and then they solve those. And the challenging part as entrepreneurs is you are running the business as an entrepreneur. The level of skill, of coming, someone becoming behind you is not going to be at your level. And there will be churn at that position. And so you want to ask yourself throughout the day, like, what are the things when things were going bad, what was happening? And solve those problems. When everything's going good, you gotta solve the problems of the things that were happening when times are bad. Because just because things are good does not mean it's like next spring rush is not gonna happen. It's gonna happen again. So how do I solve those problems? Create the systems in place so that someone behind me can still operate this business.

I missed conference in 2020. Was it the 2024, 2023. Whenever you went through like your.

Why?

I've heard like all like the stuff.

About it.

Because I know you're like outside of business schools or not. Not unalike, if that makes sense. How have you gone through like I should define it because Right now I'm like, I have no idea. Like, a lot, as much as possible. Yeah, I just want to work and then do that later on, that kind of thing. How have you gone through, like, actually defining that? Because it's like, ideally this, but, like, if I could get to this, like, I would so much rather do that kind of thing. Because you just do more of this.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, I have very superficial goals that are public because everyone can understand them. So it's like, change the level of professionalism in the industry. We all know what that means, what professional means. Great. You answer your phones, you show up in a uniform, you have trucks that are labeled, you're insured, all that stuff. On the, like, the. The personal media side, we say we want to make home service business owners rich, right? And we say very blunt on the nose that people get. Just get it. Oh, he wants to make people money. Cool. For me, I want people to avoid the pain I went through, and I don't want them to have to go through five, 10 years of unprofitability, beating their head up against the wall and almost getting killed because I didn't have systems in the business. And so that passion will outlive hitting the more vanity metric of like a thousand locations. Because every single time I talk to anyone, anyone doing under 2 million, I know exactly what their pains are and what they're feeling and, like, the incredible, immense load of pain and pressure that comes with not having systems in the business. And so, like, I can empathize with them. I get very emotional and, like, involved with them. And, like, so I used to preach back in the day, right? Because you know this language. So I used to preach. And after you preach, you get off stage and you are like, I'm. Leave me personally, I'm physically drained, like, because, like, you're operating at a different level. And I get the exact same thing after talking to business owners. Because you care so deeply about the person in this case, not their soul, but you care about solving pain for them in their business and knowing that that pain causes pain in their relationships, pain in their physical life, mental health, and all the rest of it. And so I can't solve like it is.

It is a savior's complex. I think I will be able to change everyone's soul, but I know I can change just pain for them in their. In their business. And if that, then it affects all these other aspects. And so I get really worked up and emotional about that. And so it's not a fake. It's Not a facade. I don't have to put that on. And so anything that turns you on that way, I would just lean into it and I'd create definition in terms like, oh, like I felt really good doing those things. And then just like, how do I build a business that I get to do more of that?

What do I put a monetary goal behind that or a size goal?

Because then you know what the goal is. So for example, if you're like, okay, I want to do missions, is that. What is that? Is that like. Are you talking about like building orphanages? Are you talking about maintenance schools on.

That side of like. I guess not necessarily like long term where I live there for 10 years or whatever kind of thing.

Right.

Having a be Garrett. And I've talked to some about this of like having a B where it's like, oh, Bryson did this. So therefore Bryson would be a valuable asset to like whatever organization kind of thing.

Okay.

And then being more of like the like in a higher up position in that. Of like almost like an advisor role kind of thing. But then also being able to be.

Like in a non profit. Yeah.

But also being able to. Cause there's not as many issues of conflict of interest as a non profit. If you're like, oh, well, I'm part of this. But also they need this. I can make this donation towards this and I actually know where like that need is needed the most.

Yeah.

So I guess like all the above. Both having that be my actual day to day and then also having it be something where it's large monetary.

Large.

Amounts of money towards that.

In my opinion. This is my opinion. Giving large sums of money mostly helps you in your brain. Sure. But one second, one second. Giving that money to something that you're really passionate about is super awesome. And how I would figure out more clarity around where you want to give that money to. And I just get over there, I'd be like, where do I want the money to go? What do I want to do do? And then, then you have an emotional bond when you give the money.

I guess I know what it would go like. I guess it's. It's Haiti and it's kids in Haiti. So like that's been working since I was like seven.

Okay.

I like, I like sometimes on weekends we'll go in contract and do like different meal packs. I started a meal pack in Florida that we like 1.5 million meals or something like that. So like I know it's like that and around that.

Yeah. As of now. Right, right. It's good change.

I guess it's more of just like, well, if you could do one of these things, that's awesome. But if I could, like, work harder, make more money, and then do two of them, that's, like, really cool. Or three, but whatever kind of thing.

Yeah.

Does that make sense? So I guess that's what's hard. Like, I know exactly what I want to do, where I want to do it, but obviously, everybody would rather do 100 times more if possible. And so I have a hard time, like, putting, like, oh, I want to make this much money, then I can be done if that makes sense, or be done with the business side of things and then still put that much effort into something else. I have a hard time, like, being like, oh, well, I'll be done with growing. I'll be done with this, and then I'll put that effort into this. I have a hard time, like, defining when I'll be done.

Most of the time, that doesn't happen. Most time I see is people who give a little. When they get more, they give more. Sure. Yeah.

And so that's my issue is, like, I have a hard time defining. Like, you said, define your. Like, how much money do you need?

I said a lot.

You're like, well, to figure that out. I just don't know where that line is.

Yeah, it comes from the architect. In the architect phase. I would really think through that. Like, if you're thinking about from a legacy perspective or, like, the feeling that you want or is it the thing that you want to see, like, really getting clarity on, like, why do I give this money? Like, that's a really important thing when it comes to philanthropy, in my opinion, is, like, why am I giving this money? And then, like, what do I want to change in these people's lives or their circumstances or, like, the. The world I want to see? Great. What would be a number of people or.

What'S the impact I need to make and quantify that? The easier it is then to say, backtrack it. Like, this is the size of business I need to get there. Instead of saying an arbitrary number of locations. You might be able get there with 10 locations.

If that's the goal.

But then you get to something double at 20. I guess that's my issue. I just don't know if there's a great answer to it.

There's not. Only you know that, because Otherwise you'll be 85 years old trying to grow your businesses and be like, I'm one day gonna give to the kids. In Haiti. Right. And so you think about like even, even like over the course of a 40 year career, for example, yes, you can make more money, like, but eventually you run out of time. And so if you only have five years at the end of your career to give and it's like, it's so much. But what if you would have been able to grow half the as big. But you did 20 years on it. Right.

I think I've more thought about it in like a. Yeah. Span of years. Years of like, what can I get to. To by 28 or that's 10 years or 28 or 30 or whatever. More of like, hey, just do as much as possible until this time. Then transition instead of coming to like a monetary thing.

Yeah.

Or because time's more definitive. As far as like if I like because that's a done. Right. Like money could keep going. But as far as like years go, like 10 years is like once 10 years is up, that's a, that's it's done. And then it's like, okay, well you've created this off that, so now go do this.

Yeah. Yeah. Only you can answer that question. Yeah. It's a tough one. So.