Mike Andes marks two years since Augusta Lawn Care became a franchisor, growing from the first 10 owners to 54 locations across the US and Canada. The 3F program lets employees with 2+ years buy franchises, and three have already done it. He credits franchisees and the team for building without outside investors.
Questions this video answers
54 locations around the US and Canada.
October 2019 (the speaker cites that as the very first training).
Two-year anniversary; video metadata indicates October 11, 2021.
About 95% of locations that join Augusta Lawn Care are expected to be successful.
The command center was understaffed and missed roughly 20% or more of incoming phone calls.
Chapters
Thomas from Colorado, Kevin from Mississippi, Abraham from Texas, Dave from Arkansas, Jeff from Massachusetts, A.B. from New York, Nick from Tennessee, Andy from Oregon, and Nick from Ontario, Canada. I want to say thank you. And today marks the two year anniversary of Augusta Lawn Care becoming a franchisor and having locations around North America. And we now have 54 locations around the US and Canada. And I'm very excited about that. But today is really a different video. It's me saying thank you to everyone that has made that possible, whether that be you just watching the videos. Landscape Business course member, Lawn care media, lawn carewebdesign.com, everyone that supported the channel, and more importantly today, all the franchisees that have trusted me to take Augusta Lawn Care and try to do something special with it over the past two years. And the people that just read their names, those are the first 10 locations that got started with Augusta Lawn Care. And you know, every time I think about it just kind of boggles my mind just how they would even trust me. The fact that we hadn't, we didn't have proof of concept, we didn't have years of experience, we didn't have dozens of owners and locations and people for them to network with. And the fact that they took a risk on me and, and that they had trust on me is something I will Never forget. So October 2019, they came. It was our very first training and we did not have our stuff together. We didn't really know what we were doing. Honestly, we had a very great concept of what we want to do in the future with Augusta Lawn Care and the mission, the vision we had, but we didn't even know how to do very well at training our franchisees at the very beginning. Now I can confidently say that 95% of the locations that join Augusta Lawn Care are going to be successful. I'm very confident. The systems that we've created and the framework now that is set up for their success. But back then, two years ago, like, I didn't know it was going to happen. I had this grand idea and this vision and I just was so thrilled that the first 10 locations joined and kind of came along for the ride. And it hasn't been easy. The past two years has not been easily, financially or emotionally for me. I lose a lot of sleep over my franchisees businesses. Less, less than even, you know, my own businesses. I don't worry about them as much as a lot of my franchisees who are brand new, just figuring things out for the first time. And it always drags me back to my first year, my first two years in business that were so, so difficult and, you know, financially for them, and then they're growing and they're expanding and they're having employees that leave and they're having all those struggles. And I feel that again and again and again. And emotionally, that can be very taxing. And financially, we had a lot of people doubting that we could ever do the flat monthly fee model and make it work. I had a lot of attorneys and accountants telling me I shouldn't do it. They told me I would Never get to 50 locations without running out of money. So for those of watching from back then, well, here we are at 54. We made it. And it hasn't been easy. There's been months where it's like, man, goodness, are we ever gonna be able to turn this thing around? Are we ever gonna be able to make a profit? There's just so many costs that go into building a franchise and supporting the franchisees to the point that I feel like they need to be. And so, you know, we made it though. We made it through. And, you know, two years have been a wild ride. And I've made mistakes. And a big reason I say thank you to the franchisees, not just the first ten, is the fact that I am still learning myself. This past spring, I made a massive mistake in not hiring enough people for our command center. And we were literally missing 20% or more of the phone calls that were coming in. A massive oversight on my part because I did not realize that we were gonna have exponential amount of people we need to hire because not only were we getting more franchisees, the franchisees we had were doubling and tripling in size, and it made it for a huge amount of call volume and a huge amount of backlog during a very, very hard to hire people during this past spring and summer when it was so difficult to hire people in the office and get them trained up. It's not. You can just throw someone in the office. You gotta train them up for weeks on end before. Before they're proficient enough to even answer the phone. And they might not ever even make it there. So now you wasted your best people training someone who just leaves after a few weeks. And so the belief that my franchisees at Augusta Lawn Care had in me during that period of time is very humbling, and I'm very, very thankful for that. Perhaps over the past two years, the most rewarding thing has been seeing some of the young owners learn business and really take their lives, not just their business. And their financials, but. But their lives. To the next level. We have what we call a 3F program. It's called a franchise fee forgiveness program, where if someone works at a location for two or more years, they're able to join without any initial franchise fee. And we already have three locations, soon to be four or five locations have started using the 3F program. And this is by far and away what I would say from a career perspective is the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. And this is just being able to see someone that was starting out pushing a lawnmower, usually a young person, someone that wasn't in the industry before, and they're able to take it from that to building a really successful business and seeing the struggles and the way they had to just learn so much about people and leadership and hiring and financials and marketing. It's like the most exhilarating time in growing your landscaping business from 0 in revenue to 50,000 per month in revenue. It's such an exhilarating time after that. Usually you kind of get in the rhythm of things. You know how things work. It's a matter of scaling. But I get to literally do that vicariously through our franchisees multiple times a month, starting over and over and over and getting that feeling of excitement and elation when you're just getting started, and then that pressure when there's just tons of jobs coming in, the weather's bad and employees leave. And so it's extremely fun. It's been very, very rewarding. It's been the heart, one of the hardest things I've ever done. And it is by far and away the most fulfilling thing to see many of these franchisees, young people that have not had the business experience getting these skills, and then I pray and hope that they pass that along to their employees and give them an opportunity to do something really cool in the future. So also want to say a massive thank you to our local team here, especially the close management, Liz Lee Lonnie Marcus. A command center that has worked so hard and diligently, and we're literally 30, 40% of our staff as you just training or train, being trained as we're trying to grow and scale it so fast. Our virtual staff that's now out in Hawaii, Texas, and we're expanding around the US for our virtual staff at command center to be able to offer more hours of operation for the phone calls being answered. So I think I owe it to everyone that has made this possible and made my dream a reality, at least the beginning of the dream, and that is to change the level of professionalism in the landscaping industry. So whether you're going to join us in the future at Augusta Lawn Care, or you've just, you know, help the cause by really helping us financially from landscape business course, lawn care, Web design, that's what really has allowed us to keep us from having to go get outside equity and taking on money from outside sources. Is all of you supporting. So I just want to say thank you so much. It's been an absolute joy. It's been quite a ride, and I look forward to many more years like the past two, where we can see many people grow their business, be successful, and really just hopefully change this industry. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you tomorrow.
