Mike Andes records a short vlog from Louisville (Omni Hotel) after attending the GIE conference, using his post-workout thoughts to argue that running a lawn-care business requires daily training much like physical exercise. He shares a concrete 20-minute treadmill routine (4% incline, 7 mph, ~350 calories) as an analogy for brief, regular effort; emphasizes systems, team development, marketing, profit margins, hiring practices, and regular self-education (books/audiobooks) over focusing on equipment. He thanks attendees at GIE and expresses motivation to produce more daily business-focused content.
Chapters
Hey everybody, it's Mike here. I want to make a quick video. I'm just about to leave Louisville at the hotel right now. We're just wrapping up. Gie been here this week. I'll show you a little bit around where I'm at. Real beautiful place. Omni Hotel here in Louisville, downtown. The bridge over to Jeffersonville, just over there, like a nice outdoor plaza area. But I wanted to just check in with you guys. I just finished a workout. As you can see, I'm sweating like crazy. And it was just reminding me of some of the things that applicable to business, especially lawn care businesses, at just how I was staying up here last night.
But when it comes to working out physically, one of the things is you gotta do it every single day. It's not like you want to do it all the time. It's not fun or easy most of the time, but it's something you have to do if you want to keep in peak physical condition where you your body. I think the same thing really goes for your business. If you're not constantly training, coming up with new ways to improve your business, if you're not actively listening to audible books, reading books, seeing how you can improve yourself on a day by day basis, I really feel like you're missing out a whole lot on the opportunity that you can build your business into. And that's why I appreciate so much everyone that showed up here at gie. Everyone that said hello, everyone that and was at my talk, shook my hand throughout the whole conference. Really appreciated every one of you be able to meet you guys in person. And it just really is a reflection that you guys came out to Gie. You're improving your business. You are the same way as you would be physically working out. You're working out your business, trying to make it better, trying to improve it, make it stronger. And one of the things about working out, like I said, you got to do it every single day, even when you don't want to do it. And as a business owner, we don't have many times the luxury of just pushing off a problem or an issue, or firing or hiring new people or changing a system within the business. I just really encourage you to keep doing that. This morning I did a 20 minute workout. Just 20 minutes. I don't really do long on top, not like I'm a bodybuilder, so I'm not getting paid to work out. So just did 20 minutes. I do what I call the 247 challenge. I run for.
20 minutes at 4 incline, 7 miles per hour. The 24. 7 challenge. 20 minutes at a 4% incline. 7 miles per hour. And so I do that on the treadmill. It's just enough to burn, like, 350 calories. You go like, maybe 2.3 miles. It's nothing major, nothing massive. I'm not running a marathon every morning. It's only 20 minutes. Gets my heart rate up, gets me sweating. And I think the same thing goes for our business. We got to be constantly improving every single day, looking for ways to improve. Obviously, there's rest days. Same thing with working out. There's days you take a rest. There's days you let your muscles relax, you let your muscles recover. And I think those are important, too. Vacations, getting time for yourself to mentally and physically unplug from your business. But I think there's a lot to be said about people that check out, that let their business go on cruise control and forget that they really have to continually improve themselves to constantly improve the business and constantly improve and exercise their team, whether that be team meetings, daily meetings, improving the business and the team that is around them. So I want to just really thank everyone that came out to gie said, hello, we're out here in Louisville, and just great seeing you all. And I just came back from this event really fired up about the industry, what we're trying to do. And some things made me mad, Some things made me disappointed at the way the industry is going and pushed me even the more so to help improve from a business side. I saw so many people getting wrapped up in the equipment and just a lot of the glitter around our industry instead of really what made a solid business that includes profit margins and marketing and systems and great techniques for hiring. And so some of that I get annoyed by because I know that a business is not about equipment or trucks or trailers. It's much more about the systems that are in place, the people that are in place. And so sometimes that gets me a little bit fired up, a little bit mad. But it really pushes me to make sure that I am trying to do everything I can to help you guys work out on a daily basis with your business. And when I say workout, I mean getting in the gym. Not the physical gym, necessarily. Maybe not on a treadmill, but maybe just listen to a book, maybe just listen to one of these videos. So I'm hoping to kind of make more of this content on a daily basis so you guys can kind of get in the. The business gym of just kind of thinking about something different, working those mental muscles for your business to improve. So I'm going to be leaving here, heading out to Louisville Airport here in just a couple minutes, taking Uber out there. But I just really wanted to thank everyone for showing up here at gie. I really appreciate meeting you all. Have a great day. Take care.
