$650K Landscape Business! (Team Meeting) Switching to Augusta Lawn Care

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to the landscape business course. Today is. I've never done this. This is very different episode. But I honestly think this could be the most important content I've ever created, the most important video for you and your business if you have employees. This is actually a Zoom call that I had with a new franchisee that's switching their existing business over to Augusta Lawn Care. So they're Fine Lines Landscaping over in Augusta, Georgia. So actually where, you know, Augusta Lawn Care kind of originates the name from, they are starting, they're going to be switching from Fine Lines Landscaping into Augusta Lawn Care and coming for training here in a couple months. However, what this video is is actually the team meeting that Brian, the owner of the Fine Lines Lawn Care Landscaping, he has this meeting with his team and tells them about the transition going to Augusta Lawn Care. But that's not what makes it so important. Like that's the last half of the video. The first half of the video is the most important part. And that is a really open and honest what an owner has been thinking about and trying to improve in the business and make the business better. So Brian and Jeremy, his manager, who you'll see standing off to the right hand side, they came to Landscape Summit 2020 in January, which by the way, we are having one in this coming January. You should sign up landscapebusinesscourse.com conference. But they came last year and because of that they implemented P4P, grow their business quite a bit this year and now are joining the franchise. And so basically what this video is is Brian expressing to his team, very openly honest what his goal and vision for the company is why he's switching to Augusta. He talks about trying to create an environment where they can make more money, they can become successful either inside of the business or, you know, go start something else or do something cool outside the business, but come to work and work on themselves as individuals. And so I come in on the Zoom call about half through towards the end because he introduces them to me and says that hey, we're switching to Augusta Lawn Care. So they don't know that we are recording this video. But literally I'm just a laptop sitting in the back of the room. It's like 4am my time because it's 7am their time in Georgia. So if I look a little bit tired, that's why it's like 4am I got up at 3:30 to get on the Zoom call. But the reason I want to do this video is Because I truly believe this is the type of conversation, this is the type of meeting that every single business owner and employer needs to have with their team. If you actually believe it now, if you do not believe the things that comes out of Jeremy or, sorry, Brian's mouth, or my mouth in this meeting, you shouldn't even try to pose that as something to your team. It's gonna come, they're gonna see right through it. But if you genuinely care about their long term success, if you genuinely care about the culture of your team, this is the type of meeting you need to have.

The.

Now that being said, some of you are gonna see some of the employees faces in this video and be like, oh, you were boring them. And some people have commented about this before during our Wednesday morning meetings at Augusta where we talk about like personal finances and things like that. And someone's like, oh, you're boring them. They don't care about whatever, whatever.

This is the bottom line.

Changing the culture in your business is not something that happens in one meeting. It's not something that happens overnight. It's not even something that happens over several months. And honestly, it's not even something that can just be changed. With P4P, there's a whole lot of things that go into creating a culture. When you look at the culture of an entire country, that culture has been molded and shaped over years, generations, decades. Don't think the culture in your business is just gonna happen like switch overnight. Cause of one thing, it's a combination of so many different layers, right? From compensation, P4P to open book management, to the way you treat people, the way that you try to teach them, these are all parts of the culture. And this type of meeting is the thing that is the catalyst to get you on the right path. And so for those of you that are like, oh man, it looks like the employees don't really care. People are yawning, people are distracted. This is like if you had this type of meeting, it's not easy. There are going to be people who don't care at the beginning. There's gonna be people who end up leaving because the culture is not what they joined and what they signed up for. But changing a culture takes over repetition. It takes just stick to itiveness of just not giving up on what you want that culture to become. And sometimes it's gonna seem like you're just talking to a brick wall. Sometimes it's gonna seem like it's just like water off the back of a duck. And it's not affecting Them, it's not soaking in, they're not comprehending, they're not changing. And that can be very frustrating. In that moment, it can almost seem like you just wanna shake them and be like, come on, you can do better than this and you can make more money and you can improve your skills and get to a different position. You just wanna shake them to reality. But that's not going to work. And so when it comes to changing a culture in your business, it takes time, it takes a lot of energy, and it takes a lot of caring to actually make that happen. And without those ingredients, having a meeting like this, you're gonna get a lot of back people talking back to you. You're gonna have a lot of mumblings and grumblings. People are not gonna like you. But if you actually genuinely care about the long term culture and success of your employees, this type of meeting is the thing you need to get started on your journey to creating a culture where people come to work to work on themselves. Instead of just working on the job, they're working on themselves. They care about each other, they care about the business, and they're compensated for it. And they start thinking like owners. This is the first step. So I wanted to show this whole video. It's a little bit long, but honestly, like I said, I truly believe if there's one video that could encapsulate so much of what we believe at Augusta in terms of changing the culture, setting up your employees for success, making sure that they are winners in the game of business, and investing into them consistently to change the culture, just change the dynamic, change the way people look at the business and treat each other. This is it. And so do I think there's gonna get a lot of views.

No.

Mowing long grass in the wet rain will get more views. Striping or whatever, mowing grass on a time lapse, that will make more views. But the people who watch this video and actually implement the things that Brian is doing, they'll change their business. And he has the goal of getting a $10 million business in, in Augusta, Georgia. And I do believe he can do it if he sticks to these principles that he talks about in this video and continues to create a dynamic culture that breeds greatness, attracts greatness, and retains greatness, and then makes greatness become even better by the learning that they receive on the job. So without any further delay, let me go ahead and introduce Brian Connor from Fine Lines Landscaping in Atlanta in Augusta, Georgia. And they'll be switching over to Augusta Long here pretty soon. He did text me afterwards and tell me that after our video today. Cause you'll see, I kind of, like, finished up the video, and then we cut the video off. He said, after the Zoom call, these are some good questions and some good feedback. And he thought that they kind of opened up a little bit more. So that was really positive. I understand that me hopping on as a stranger they've never even seen before and on a Zoom call is not anything. They're gonna be like, hey, like, let me ask you some deep questions. So it was. I'm really happy that once he turned me off, they were able to open up, ask some good questions, get that conversation going. And I promise you, all of their employees were talking in the trucks today about the meeting they had this morning. Some of them won't like it. Some of them will jump ship. But I promise you, the culture will improve over time. Thank you so much. And let's go ahead and roll a tape.

Hey, morning, Hunter.

All right, guys, so we didn't do our Monday morning meeting. I wanted to prepare a little something for y', all.

So we'll get right into it. First off, I want to congratulate y' all and thank y' all for what's been the best year Fine Lines has ever had. I think I've mentioned a couple times in previous meetings, whenever I first met Jeremy, the path that Fine Lines was going. You know, I had a hard time making it a profitable company, you know, and growing at the same time.

And even last year when we had good growth, we thought we had, you know, some good systems, and we were trying to hire the right people.

Something was still missing. And what we found, what was missing is a way to align our field interests. So the ones that do the work with the interest of the actual institution, which is profit.

So what we did with that is pay for performance. As I was just letting the guys know, everybody beat base pay yesterday, which is great. That's the goal. And as y' all have seen, I think some of y' all have worked. Yeah, a couple of y' all have worked here when we had the hourly system. And now, you know, you get to see what the pay for performance system is. So those of you that have worked here during the hourly system, and if some of us a year ago.

How do you feel about the difference? Can you feel the difference?

I mean, more opportunity for money.

That's awesome. That's what we're going for.

So with that being said, I think we've done really well. We've developed, you Know, good, a good company, and we've got some good opportunity as far as the pay for performance you can make. You can make more money than you were before. Whenever we had the hourly wages. So. And that's good. But what I really set out to do when I first started this company is I want to make a great company. And in order to do that, there's a whole lot of good companies out there, right? You know, ones that profit, you know, got good employees and, you know, turn out a good product. But I think what separates the great. The good companies from the great companies is everybody joining in on the same goal. And whenever everyone is striving to be better every day and actually working on that.

It can create greatness. So what has been happening in the past, you know, since most of y' all have been here, you've known me as, yeah, I'm the owner of the company, and I do my best as a leader, but there's been some things amiss. You know, I've been. I've been the chemical operator for as long as most of y' all have known me, right. And that has taken up a lot of my time. And I hadn't been able to just spin and utilize my leadership role as well as I'd like to. So now that we have, you know, we've got somebody that's running that division.

And he would be here, but he's got a decent list. He's got to go by the chemical supply store. And he's also.

He put in his four weeks, so before he came aboard. And everyone's met him, right? He comes in at different hours. It's kind of hard to get everyone together. And he also put in his four weeks, so wasn't going to waste a whole lot of people's time. He had applied for a job before coming on here that he really wanted, and it's a training opportunity and, like, a career path that he was really going for. Great guy. We're gonna replace him with another great guy. And I know now that my role, as far as what this company has done through yalls hard work and growing it to the size, I've got to be the leader and I've got to be there for y', all, to support y', all, to help y' all grow and give y' all everything that you need and, you know, whatever the Lord decides to do with that division, if we get someone to replace them, that's great. We're going to continue on. But this is how passionate I am about wanting to Be really wanting to be there for y' all if that. I'm not going to go back into that division because I think it hurts the company more than it helps it. So we'll find someone to take that place. Because it's only been, what, two weeks now that I've actually, you know, been able to just be the leader of this company, and.

That'S a role that I want to fulfill. So if that doesn't work out, I'll sell that division because it's not making a profit as of right now anyways. It will. It's just. It's in its infancy. So that being said.

I've got something I want to let y' all know. So there's things that, like I said, that I've not been able to do for y' all and that I failed at. And from now on, this is how we're going to operate. And so I promise to consistently work on being the best leader that I possibly can. And what a leader does, what I think it should be doing, is providing each of y' all with all the tools, knowledge, and support you need to just to strive for consistent excellence and continual growth. And that doesn't just mean, you know, yeah, we do lawn care. Right? We mow lawns. But growing a great company is a lot larger than that. And it's. Growing a great company is, you know, growing great people. And, you know, people don't just hop out of the womb. Great. It takes a whole lot of work, and it takes a desire to be better than what you are. But with that, every day when you wake up, you want to be a little bit better than you were yesterday. And that's the kind of culture I'm trying to. Trying to get going here. And that that could mean there's two ways, a couple. There's plenty of ways y' all can grow, but y' all can grow inside this company and grow your skills, and I'm gonna help you do that inside of your own positions. There's also outside of this company, you know, I'm sure everyone here. Everyone here has goals, and they might be different, but if we get centered around the goals of growing fine lines, I'll guarantee you that Yalls individual goals will also be able to be met. Because I don't, you know, as far as what y' all can do for this company, that's great. But I don't want any of y' all to come in here and stay in the same positions y' all are in for more than a couple years. You know, whether it be you got a.

You know, you're wanting to go back to school or get a trade, weld, whatever you want to do, if it's not in fine lines, I still care about it. And so, you know, there's. There's always going to be obstacles and hurdles when you're trying to grow. And what you have to do is figure out a path. And sometimes that's, you know, that's probably something I can help in. I know that's something I can help in. I've had a lot of paths myself. You know, went the school route, was going to be a lawyer, several businesses. So really, I've been a coach for a lot of different things. So if any of y' all have any desire to do anything else inside lawn care, know that you can come to me and we can talk about it. We can figure out a way for, you know, for you to start that journey. And I say all that because I truly do care about y', all and, you know, that's ways y' all can grow outside of here, whether it needs to be a side hustle, you know, something like that. Because the basis of, you know, as far as how we get what we want in this life is money. It's a resource, right?

It's a tool.

And in order to get more of it, you've got to hone and sharpen your own skills so that you have more value out there.

So with all that.

There'S some specific things that I'm going to do as well, and me and Jeremy are going to get done.

We already did one round of it, but this summer was the first summer of P4P. We learned a lot. You guys definitely made it work for us and made it work for yourselves. And this is a couple of these changes.

What we'll do.

It's already worked in instances. P4P works on certain days. Sometimes it doesn't work over the whole pay period, but I know with these changes, it will work every day, every pay period, definitely.

So some of the. Some of the things we're going to do here in the immediate is we're going to fix all the hurdles that inhibit pay for performance success. I've identified a couple of them. So we're going to raise our current rates by about 12%. So that's going to be from 6,250 to $70 per labor hour.

And all we've already. We've already changed this pricing for all of you. You've probably seen yards, you know, two labor hours, 140 bucks. Those are, those are our new rates. So you'll already be seeing those because all the new add ons are at that rate.

So we're going to send all increases. We're going to create a deadline. Might be sooner, might be, might be much sooner, but we're going to create a deadline before the real busy season, which I would say happens in June, before things start growing and heat becomes a factor that hurts pay for performance. So before June 1st of next year, there will no longer be anybody at the old rates. And I'll make that promise to you, and we'll do it sooner if strategically it makes sense. I'll take Yalls opinion on this as well.

But.

My reasoning for wanting to wait until June is because as you know, we live in a. Some of y' all were here, some of y' all weren't. I came up with like 75 companies that y' all would recognize in the CSRA. There's probably three times as many. Yeah. Fear that if we do it too soon in the dormant season, when some people think we don't do anything anyways, which we do, I fear that they're gonna drop us and they'll easily pick somebody else up.

I'm battling with that and. But I know if we do it, say I send those letters in the middle of May, they're going to have less opportunity to get competitive bids because most people that are owner, operators or just have a couple trucks are extremely busy in the field.

And if you guys are doing as good as you are, they should want.

To stay with us.

And that's another reason. So going into this dormant season.

Doing the extra mile, I'm not talking about going over on your time, talking about formulating a plan, you know, carrying that out and then making that property look a little bit better each time. And that's all you can do. And we're gonna eliminate all discounts that are 10% and above. So a 5% discount, it's not gonna hurt y'. All. It'll still be better than the current rate. We got rid of a good bit of discounts, but we're gonna eliminate a whole lot more. I used to, used to give, you know, 10% discount for military, and then if they were military and call it 65 years, well seasoned, I give them 15%. Doesn't sound like a whole lot until you really dig deep into your numbers and realize we're shooting for a 15 to 20% profit margin. So whenever I did that, we're taking all the profit out of that job. So I promise to do that for y', all, for us.

Want to take care of the under budget and let them look at them.

Oh, sorry. Yeah, my printer wasn't working this morning or my Internet wasn't. And I know I printed y' all out yalls schedule. I'm gonna print it out again so that y' all have it and want to. Probably want to get you a folder put in the truck. Y' all can put the notes on the job, but sometimes just having a physical piece of paper and writing down the ones without a meeting. Before last, you know, we talked about investigating the budgeted hours. So if y' all are doing a property and you want to, you know, create an investigation. So I say, hey, this property, I really can't hit the budget hours. It's, you know, I'm always going over, bring that, you know, bring that, put it on the piece of paper, and maybe we'll. I've got a blank whiteboard somewhere. Yeah, I'll get a bigger one. We'll put it up there, and y' all can even come in and write it on your own. Or actually, we can use the small ones for each individual schedule and y' all can write them down on there so that we can correct that. So I think that's.

That's very important. That lines up with your P4P, of course.

Yeah, that's huge. So.

Okay, so we got the P4P, the new rate. What it means for you all, just getting kind of specific here. The difference change is. I don't know where that board went. I'm sure it's over there. Not too important. So what this change does and what we're shooting for is 30 production hours a week. Right. And what that boils down to is eight 45 minute properties a day.

So if you get that done with the new rate, it's $756 a week. And so what we're trying to get is if you keep 30 production hours year round, that's a $40,000 a year salary as far as team members go. And that's what we're trying to achieve and make happen.

And with, you know, with that. So what.

We don't want y' all to make this, though, for more than a few years. We want more opportunity to arise for y', all, and I want better for y'.

All.

So whether that opportunity be, you know, another company, different line of work, or as we grow, because as I've told y' all before, I want to grow to a $10 million company, four different divisions here in the CSRA and I highly believe that's possible and it's not going to happen without some changes in myself and some changes in the company as well. But even inside the company, with that kind of growth is going to come a whole lot more opportunities. And.

I'd like to explain that here shortly. So some of the things that we're going to do, need to do that I'm going to do my best at is and it's going to be necessary to. I told you earlier, it's the best year we've ever had. We set a goal out early in the year to break a half a million and I think we're going to crush that. It looks like we'll hit closer to 650.

So that's extraordinary. Now everything that it took to get to that that level is going to take a little bit different characteristics, a little bit different.

Different strategy to get to a million. And then once we get to a million, which, which will be next year, we'll hit that.

There's going to require a little bit more, a little bit more unity. You know, culture is going to be extremely important.

To get to 10 million.

And you know, what we're going to need to do is align our goals to every day try to achieve to be the best landscape company that we possibly can. And there's some things, as y' all know.

Anything else you want to add before I transition?

We still need to go over, I guess how to make P4P work for them. Coming in wise, I did want to make a change as far as maintenance goes on. So on Mondays if you don't have sharp blades, we'll change them but non paid maintenance. All I want you guys to worry about is keeping a clean truck, truck, bed, trailer and then blades Mondays and Wednesdays and your air filters. Anything outside of that, you guys will get paid appropriate amount for taking care of your equipment. Beyond that point. One thing that you guys that we could do better on is when you guys come in on P4P. I'm not sure if we have everyone on the checklist on your jobber yet. We need to get there. But you have a checklist to look for your truck and trailer. Make sure you have everything. And also I want you guys to read over your schedule every day. Just you don't have to click each individual job and go to the notes Procedure, say for a maintenance account, you need to look at the notes at the while you're at the maintenance account. But if you have a cleanup Everyone in here watch the videos before you go because it will save you from having to come back and get some materials. But I want to try and focus on you guys coming in at 7 and being gone by 7:15 every day. So. Because on P4P, it's great that we all, you know, like to chitchat in the mornings, but the main focus would be get with your teammate, get your schedule, get your truck ready, and go hit your production. Because that's where you guys are getting paid in the production.

Right? And that doesn't, you know, that doesn't. We don't say that. We don't want to harp on y' all about that. We're just trying to assist y' all so y' all can make the most. Because it doesn't hurt the company as far as doing that, but it does. It will hurt your paycheck. Just in the matter of, you know, 10, 15 minutes a day for five days, that's how you would want to think about it to maximize yalls profit.

And then as far as we're gonna have Monday morning meetings, and then Thursday morning meetings will be. It'll be much more brief than these meetings. We'll keep it to 15 minutes.

But we're gonna. We're gonna do that a whole lot more consistently than we have been. And that Thursday morning meeting will mainly be. I want to. I want to get engagement from y' all about, you know, because there's things that are going to happen Monday through Wednesday and.

Like, you know, y' all to share, especially as far as the investigating the budgeted hours. That can be something that we can share there. Yeah.

Does anyone right now have any yards they know? I mean, I know Chris and Matt, Tamara Jones. Anyone else got anything?

Clark's construction.

Budget average. Budget. You've been going over on budget average.

No, there's just. It's a. It's not a basic maintenance. So obviously it's a full, you know, full grow. But with that ditch line and all the other stuff, if you. We skip the inside of the ditch every other visit, you know, but that second visit, when we go back to that ditch just for somebody to weed that front half and take care of the dish, that's gonna take care of the whole two hours. That ditch takes the whole two hours so that other person is stuck cutting, and we eat the rest of it. So therefore, when you come to a halt of finishing where you're at on the front end, you don't have time to go in and go around, let two people hit that ditch at one time.

Big difference.

I used to do that dish by myself, and it took about hours to hour 15, but two people going on that ditch. She got that dish knocked out.

Have you guys been going over on time, Chris?

Yeah, well, not necessarily going over. It's been, you know, about five, 10 minutes here and there. But if we were to physically go.

Through, there's just a lot more that.

Needs to be done, and we don't have the time to go do it.

Yeah, I would say specifically with that one, that was one of my original accounts, so I know a lot of the details there. You definitely, you know, as far as the office crunch, you're going to want to.

You're going to want to make sure the office runs looks the best, but as far as, you know, picking up, you know, pine cones in the back by the pond and things like that, definitely don't do that.

They got a bunch of big sticks, you know.

Yeah, you gotta move those out of the way.

Yeah, All I ever did there, big sticks, they were made in the woods. I trim the bushes, and I only spray by the buildings, so, you know, I can meet you guys there.

Yeah, we'll meet you there and show you the.

You might not have to do as good of a job as you guys have been doing.

Yeah, we'll definitely meet y' all out there.

Anyone else have anything?

Grow town source? I know that.

Yeah.

You know, go more, right?

Yeah.

Water is dead. Every bit of that. Every bit of it did.

And then you guys just. Just pay attention to that.

You got anything, Anthony?

Gotcha. All right, well, yeah, we'll get to get you those fresh sheets and be a folder so you can keep it in, and we'll. We'll get into that. So, like I was saying before getting.

Down with this, the new toolbox, please just put the tools back so we know where they're at.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Anybody know where my flashlight is?

Is it a black one? In the toolbox.

All right, so.

How.

I.

As y' all know, I've been following Mike Andes with Augusta Lawn Care, and a lot of the systems that I've been implementing and trying to do are, you know, directly from him. And as far as giving y' all more opportunity and growing to the level that I know is possible and I. I deeply desire to do, there's gonna be some opportunities that I want to offer y' all that I wouldn't be able to or. Let's just say I think this is the best way to do it the fastest and to be the most complete. So with that being said.

Jeremy and I went on a call with Mike Andes this week and we talked about converting fine lines to the Augusta team, the Augusta brand, which we are in Augusta. So typically what it would be Augusta Lawn Care of Columbia, Augusta Lawn Care of Augusta. It'd probably just be Augusta Lawn Care Services here. So I truly believe as far as the team that they've grown and the brand they've built.

A lot of the systems that they have are going to enable us to push those boundaries a whole lot faster. So with all that in mind, me and Jeremy talked about it and we do believe that it is in everybody's best interest to make that change.

I've got a couple.

Over here.

Go over.

So here's some of the, you know, the why I joined Augusta, the team Augusta, some things I just went over. They've got a proven positive team culture led by people that genuinely care about your personal growth and success. And I've met with their team, me and Jeremy have met with their team. You know, the way we care about y' all's success, these guys are just going to be more people and more. Another organization that generally does care about all of us and wants the best for us.

They have a motto or not a motto. They've got a vision and a mission to increase the level of professionalism in the landscape industry. And before.

Ever since I've been watching the podcast, I've, you know, kind of in my head been figuring out if it'd be good for us and something I wanted to do.

And you know, one of our missions was really just focused on what we can on us and in this area. But I believe that when you're trying to do, when you're trying to change yourself.

And you really truly are working on that, it kind of is a catalyst for change of others. So, you know, if we focus on ourselves and try to be the best we possibly can, we're already going to be examples to other people, you know, and they're going to see that. So it's not like I was kind of back and forth, I was like, why do you want to change anybody? You know, I don't even know if I have the power to. But when you change yourself and you strive to be the best and you really want to do something different in this industry, because look, you know, as far as Yalls experience, and I've experienced this, most people look at the landscaping industry as a dead end job and we don't tend to get a whole lot of respect. But that starts from within. You know, I'm sure just from, you know, some experiences and being with fine lines. You've seen possibly a little bit more respect and a little bit more.

You know, people hold you to a higher standard of our clients. You know, not a big spectrum. But I truly believe that if we focus on that, we will change the landscape. Industry, you know, as far as, you know, companies seeing the things that we're doing, they're gonna have no choice but, you know, so they can and still succeed to adopt some of the things that we're doing. Because we're going to raise. We're going to raise the bar.

So with this change, they've got a proven model with systems that are going to be required to achieve the level of success and the level of business that we're going for. I know a lot of y' all with pay for performance.

There'S a, you know, y' all ask questions. I think some of y' all might have gotten frustrated about it. What's lacking is the transparency, because we don't have a system after every day we go in. We go in our Excel spreadsheet every day. And Jeremy, you know, does the hours, does the production. I'm still in a spreadsheet format. It's hard to show y'. All.

This one comes with an app, so every day you'll enter in the pay for performance numbers.

You get an email with your hours, work, what you produced, and your hourly breakdown.

Yeah. So the email, the next morning, you'll know exactly what you did.

We'll have a call center. So that will further enable Jeremy and I'll take something off of our plate that we can help focus to y' all and Yalls needs.

And then the biggest thing that I'm excited about is future opportunities for employees to operate.

Or in their location. So, you know, I said we're going to expand the CSRA and this is future. So I haven't, you know, chiseled this out in stone or anything, but let's just give an example. You know, Aiken is a decent sized city. It's decently far away from here. So let's just hypothetically say may not be Aiken. Like Myrtle beach might be Savannah. You never know. But the next location, how I want to grow is I want to create an operator system so that, you know, if y' all want to move up in the company, set you up with your own location, and you're the operator of that location, kind of like what Chick Fil A does. So you're running the show. You're getting profit shares and all that. And.

I think it'd be really good as far as being able to offer opportunity to y', all.

Because hopefully, you know, as far as Yalls own personal growth, that's something we're gonna. I'm gonna make a point. Maybe it'll be a Wednesday meeting. Maybe it'll be an optional meeting in the mornings on a different day. But I know each and every one of y' all want to grow as far as inside, and it might be, you know, money motivated. You know, the world does just turn around and you get what you want out of life, and a lot of times, you gotta. You gotta put money up front for that. So that's a large part of our life. Not everything. Definitely not everything. But I would like to be a part of that growth. A small part.

So with that being said, I'm gonna turn it over to Mike Andes, and he's gonna talk to y', all, and we can listen to what he has to say.

See if I can get him up here.

Hey, Mike.

What's up?

Hey.

Good morning.

Good morning, guys.

I don't think you're looking at the ceiling, aren't you? Okay, cool.

Morning, Mike.

Morning, guys. How's it going?

Morning.

Good to see you guys.

So, yeah, I guess.

I guess I've met Brian. I met Jeremy last January. And so for those of you don't know, I started, like, Augusta longer, like, six years ago. And I'm 25. So, like, if you think about, man, what's this child doing here? I'm 25, and we're a lot of young guys that are running the company and have built this thing up. And so I'm really excited to have Brian, Jeremy, you guys all joining the team. And I think what's kind of unique about you guys joining is the fact that you guys. Your name in Augusta, Georgia, is why our brand is named Augusta Lawn Care. Right. And so we've always had tons of leads coming in from around, you know, your area, simply due to the fact that our name ranks really well in Google in your area. And so it's gonna really help with leads, bringing in leads, things like that, growing the company. And that's why Brian and I have talked for a while and stuff like that. But I think what Brian was talking about was the most important thing to me, and that is giving you guys the opportunity to go as far as you want and make something really cool, if that's what you want. So, for example, our local shop so we've been doing this for six years now. Our local shop, we got two guys this year. They're actually starting their own franchise and running their own businesses. And one guy's name is Nick. He's 20 years old, and then Brad is 29 years old, and they're both starting their own locations. And really what we try to do at Augusta is really make it where we could. Like, we are not about mowing lawns now. That's what we do on a day to day basis. But really what we're trying to do is gain skills and business leadership and really trying to, like, improve ourselves. And so what I would encourage you guys to do is like, as you come to work, yeah, paycheck is good, but, like, come here and try to, like, pick Brian's brain. Like, what you guys get right now per hour is not going, like, change your life. Honestly, it's like no landscape. We only can make so much per hour. And, you know, it's not like, you know, Brian's in debt right now. He's trying to dig himself out of that. We're trying to work on the systems to make sure they become super profitable and be able to give back to the guys. But, like, I think the biggest thing is, like, come today, come to work every single day. Like, how can I. What can I learn today? What can I learn about business? What can I learn about, like, leading my team on a big project, dealing with a horrible customer, someone that's just an absolute idiot, for lack of a better word. Like, that's the kind of skills that are gonna lead to greater opportunity down the road, you know, and that's what's gonna really change your life. You know, a couple dollars more per hour is not gonna change your life. And the last thing I would want anyone to see, see anyone do is, like, leave a job for a couple dollars more per hour, just over the money. When in reality, someone like Brian is, like, truly invested in trying to give you guys the skills that will set you up for something cool down the road. And so, you know, whether it be team meetings or whether it be working with each other, learning business, I'm sure down the road with Brian joins when you guys are officially on board with Augusta. Like, we have audible accounts, like, on our phone, we have, you know, shared audible accounts where we all listen to books, we talk about the books, and it seems like, man, I like crazy. We're a landscaping company. Like, what has that anything to do with us? It has nothing to do with lawn care. Has nothing to do with landscaping. And we're not interested in creating. Like, we don't even, like, I don't even get excited or passionate about lawn care landscaping. Honestly, I got really excited about, like, seeing people, like, just change their life. We've seen guys come in, they have, you know, hooked on drugs, bad backgrounds, coming to our, you know, our company, even locally, and just turn their whole life around. And just by the fact of, like, hey, we come here every single day to work for each other and make ourselves better every single day. And, like, man, that will change someone's life and they'll make more money. Like, so, for example, we started the P4P system, and, you know, we got guys here making 25, 30 bucks an hour. And is that good? Yeah, but, like, they're not even thinking about that. They're thinking about what's the next thing, what is the next opportunity, how can they become an estimator? Like, every one of you should be gunning for Jeremy's. Jeremy's position. Like, everyone, Like, Jeremy's job should be on the table every day because there's other people that are just, like, absolutely kicking it. Absolutely Trying to make themselves better, improve themselves. Like, we have a locally, our first shop. So we have 25 locations right now. And, you know, our first location, it does about. It'll do about 1.7 million this year in revenue. The estimator, the person who runs that entire operation is 19 years old. And really what it's proving is that the systems that we build in the business, it's not about who's the best landscaper. I can point to so many landscapers that are better than us at what they do in terms of, like, mowing lawns or building walls or installing mulch. But at the end of the day, that's not what we're passionate about. We really want to improve. Like, how can we make ourselves better? And so Marcus, he's 19 years old. The reason he got the job after literally only working six months, no, eight months at our location is because he came to work every single day, listen to audiobooks, learned about business, learned about how he can lead, and literally went from, you know, a minimum wage job to probably making, you know, 50, 60, $70,000 next year with profit sharing and everything. And so, like, we talk about money a lot, and I know Brian talked a little about this morning, and it's because it is obviously a big part of why we come to work, you know, provide for our families, get ahead in life, pay for our bills, et cetera. But, like, that pales in comparison to what we want to try to build in terms of giving you some skills. And like our company, I know Brian alluded to it locally at our Augusta, we tell them right up front, we don't want you to work here for more than three years. We don't want you to work here for more than three years. And, you know, most people are like, oh, we wanted to stay here forever. We don't. We want you to guys go something like so much more cool like it. We don't want you working 10, 15 years or like, you know, God forbid, when you're 40, 50 years old, mowing lawns every single day. That's not what we're trying to build here. We want to make this where, like, you start a place and you get skills, you learn something, you make more money, you get ahead. And then maybe it's, you know, you do take Jeremy's spot or maybe just go do start your own location like Brian was talking about. But I just wanted to, you know, hop on here this morning, say, say hello, you know, kind of welcome you guys all on Augusta. But like.

I know we'll see more of each other in the future. It's. By the way, it's 4 o' clock my time, so if I look super tired, I'm. We're in Washington, like on the west Coast. But yeah, I just wanted to say welcome the team. I'm sure you guys will see a lot more of me. You'll get yellow uniforms pretty soon. But, yeah, welcome to the team. And I know the big thing is.

A lot of times when it comes to like, employer, someone like Brian this morning standing up and talking about everything he said. I know as an employee, man, like, you just don't. Part of it, you just don't believe. And part of it just like, you know, there's gotta be some sort of catch here. Like, obviously Brian's just trying to make more money on us. And that's sort of what always comes with P4P is people are like, oh, like, what are they trying to do to catch us? Like, how are they trying to manipulate the system to make more money, basically? And so basically, when it comes to Augusta, long grand, like for our, when we joined, have franchisees joining us, the number one thing we're looking at is like, why are they doing P4P? Why are they actually trying. What are they trying to do? And honestly, like, the only thing Brian and Jeremy talked about the other day is culture and like, wanting to create more opportunities for you guys. We Have a big debt to kind of handle with the company. And we're going to tackle that together and try to make it more profitable so we can give more money back to you guys. And they haven't talked about it yet, but they're already thinking about profit sharing programs for you guys out in the field. And once we can get this debt tackled, trying to get the wages up, that's all they talked about on our calls. And so to have someone like that as your boss, I would just say whatever you can do to pick this job apart in terms of learning it, figuring things out, and just, like, mine it for everything it's worth because, like, you might go do something else, right? Like, if you're passionate about snowboarding, like, maybe you go start a snowboarding, you know, gig, maybe you always want to have your own ranch. Like, that's the thing you want to do down the road, like, figure out what skills you can get now, whether it be like, you're gonna have to learn how to deal with people you're gonna have to deal with, like, business stuff, marketing, all those things are valuable skills you can learn now. And so I'd really encourage you guys just, like, mine it for all it's worth now. But, yeah. Anything else, Brian, you want me to yak about?

Yeah, actually, I forgot to mention the audible account that I purchased, but for some reason, it got lost in between my personal account. And there's no business account right now. But, yeah, we got that for y'.

All.

I think they only let us start with four, which is fine. I've read a lot of them or listen to a lot of them, but I'd like to listen to them again. So I've got a starter for.

A lot of it was recommended by Mike. I've got a couple others that I want to start with y', all, and hopefully they'll call me back today and we'll figure that out. Another thing I forgot was the profit sharing we're gonna.

We got. We're paying 4400amonth on equipment payment and debt, and we're gonna put a big thermometer up on the wall as it goes down. You know, thermometer is gonna be heating up once it gets to 100.

We hadn't ironed it out, but you guys will do a profit share quarterly bonus for you guys.

Yeah.

So we can, you know, just to give you an idea of what that. What that looks like, you know, we're gonna hit a million dollars next year. So I think if we hit our target goal of a 20% profit margin, then it looks like about a $375 check to y' all every three. Every three months. So, you know, you're looking at $1500. Yeah, yeah. So looking at 1500 additional because y' all are. Y' all are. Y' all gonna be thinking about it, and you are definitely contributing to the profit every single day. So that just further aligns us, you know, P4P aligns us. But this.

You get the share of the actual profit that y', all are, you know, creating as well, instead of just the revenue. But, yeah, I appreciate you mentioning that.

I forgot to do the thermometer, and.

I forgot about the audible, but does anybody. Does anybody have any questions for Mike or want to say anything?

I'm excited.

Cool. Mike is excited.

Let's go.

Cool. We'll get everyone else excited too.

No, like, I think. I think the big thing is, like, even with audible, like, so many of our guys, when we first started it, like, it was just, like, almost like, eye rolls of, like, oh, my goodness, we're supposed to listen to books while we work. But, like, now when you come talk to our guys, like, the same ones that were saying that have turned their life around making more money, have goals to go start their own location, and they point right back to the fact of, like, coming every single day to work on ourselves, not just on the jobs, right? Like, we can come every single day, work on jobs, mow lawns, make them look better, work on the properties, but working on ourselves. That's where you're gonna get the most roi. That's where you're gonna get the most return on what you're trying to do. And so, like, it's just so funny. Like, the people who start working on themselves, like, listen to audio books, listen to podcasts, like, they're the people who just change their lives so quickly and, like, change their income potential, and it trickles into other parts of life, right? Like, if someone comes to work every single day trying to become better, you do the same thing in your own relationships, right? Like, you go and you try to make yourself a better husband, a better boyfriend, whatever it might be. And, like, the average. The average relationship ends in divorce. The average business after five years is closed. And, like, here at Augusta, we have a massive hate for being average. Regardless of what it is of average, levels of anything result in average results. And we're just not interested in becoming average, and we hate it. And so I just encourage you guys, just work on yourselves, make hard decisions, listen to audiobooks, improve yourself. And we don't want you working here in two to three years. We want you to go do something better, something you might be more passionate about, or you can make more money. And if it's great, hey, if it's with Augusta and you go start another location of your own, we'll be 100% behind you. But if it's going and doing something else, we want you to go do what you love and make money money. Like, there's no shame in, like, making a lot of money and doing good with it. And so, yeah, like, I know I'll be in touch a lot more with Brian, but I'm sure one day I'll drop by there in person and say hello to you all. But just wanted to welcome you to the team. And, yeah, if you guys ever have stuff you guys want to go over, I'm happy to hop on another call, but I just wanted to say welcome and have a killer day today.

Appreciate it, man.

You guys got it.

Have a great day, Mike.

Take care.