business owners should NEVER talk about these!

Don't talk to one, don't share it. Don't try to get help. Like, just be quiet.

Hey, everyone. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 85 locations around North America. And today I'm going to be talking about what you should be talking about in your business. As a leader and as a business owner. There's some things that we just avoid. We don't share with our team, we don't talk about with our employees. And I feel it's to the detriment of many small businesses. It's the stuff we try to ignore or we hide. And honestly, it breaks apart a lot of the relationships and the culture inside the business is not discussing and talking about things with the key people inside your business. Now, key people might not necessarily be in the business either. It might mean your spouse, it might mean partners, it might mean employees, it might mean investors, it might mean people that are vendors of yours in your business that are important key relationships to the success of the business. Not talking about the three things we're going to discuss today can lead to a lot of fragmented relationships and a lot of fragmented businesses that. So what we talk about today is really about is the quick course in communication. And I really believe that communication is the make or break. As a business grows. At the start of a business, a small business, it usually depends on the sales ability of the founder. If the founder and the business owner is good at selling, they have a good personality, they're able to sell their products, sell their services, the business will do very well. And that can easily get the business past half a million dollars in annual revenue simply by them being able to sell well. As the big organization begins to grow and expand, you have employees and more relationships that are interconnected inside the organization. It relies more and more in communication. So as that grows and that network that is required for more employees and more vendors and more customers. And now you have office support, and then you have field employees. Now you have a hierarchy, you have management, all of that. You must have good communication. Now, I was thinking about this mostly due to the fact that about a month and a half ago, I made a video for Augusta Nation, which is our franchise for Augusta Lawn Care. And we've over 85 locations. And I felt like I needed to make a video based on a few concerns that have been brought up by a few of our franchisees. And I'm very clear that, hey, we are not perfect, by no means. We're only about a little over two Years old when it comes to franchising, we are still trying to make it better every single day. And we by no means are perfect. We make mistakes every single day because we're young and we're trying to grow and we're trying to be scrappy with very little resources. And so it was just a few weeks after our annual conference that we had with all of of the franchise owners and there was some concerns, and there were some concerns about my level of commitment, there was some concerns about how the business was going, what the direction of the company was, what was our 10 to 15 year plan to really dominate the industry and what exactly did that look like? And so I made a 50, it was like 45 minute, 50 minute video for our franchisees on a Saturday. And without no editing and just talked to them one by one by one, all the questions that were brought up. And so I literally sent out a form the week prior, said, hey, look, if there's anything you wanna talk about, just fill this form out and then I will not mention your name, I'll just talk about it openly and there's nothing to hide. And I just knew that if I could get all of whatever feedback was in their mind onto a form, I'd be able to address it. Cause there's nothing to hide. And as long as a leader, you have nothing to hide and you do have good intentions, this video is pertinent. If you're trying to hide things, you're trying to manipulate people, if you're trying to do things that are wrong or illegal, that if someone found out you had bad intentions, like that becomes a whole different topic. You probably shouldn't share and communicate and you probably should not talk about some of these the three things we're gonna talk about today, the thing that you need to share, but if you have good intent and you know that intent is pure and you're not trying to hide anything, as a leader, I just don't see any good reason why you would not share with your team these three following categories. The first thing is about money. Most people get tripped up about money because they were taught and we are taught in our society. It's something you don't talk about. It's, you don't share about it and all the rest of it. In a business, in an organization where money is being transacted as vendors, as suppliers, as employees, as owners, as shareholders, as distribution collectors, as investors. Whenever money is involved, money needs to be a topic of discussion. It needs to be something that you can talk about openly. It needs to be something where, in my opinion, the employees and everyone involved knows where the business is at. Okay? So in my businesses, we have what we call open book management. The employees know how much money we are making, how much we are losing, where we are spending money, and they can see the numbers of the business. And for some people, they get afraid. And the only reason you should be afraid of open book management and sharing and talking about money in your business is if you're trying to hide something, if there's nothing to hide, you should be pretty willing and open with those numbers. And so you gotta, gotta break that social barrier and that social construct of like, don't talk about money. Money is bad. You gotta hide. What if you have a lot of money? Hide it. Don't tell anyone, don't talk about it, don't share with anybody else. And if you're not doing good with money and you're in debt, don't talk to anyone, don't share it, don't try get help, just be quiet. And we've somehow relegated this idea of money being a bad thing to talk about. And because of that, in our businesses, we don't talk about money. We don't talk about how well the business is doing, we don't talk about how much it is in debt or if it's struggling. And we somehow have just pushed money off into the corner and somehow ignored it, whether it be good or whether it be bad, whether it be positive, whether it be negative, whether we're making a bunch of money or we're losing a bunch of money. We just don't talk about money. We don't talk about money here. And we just kind of do your thing. You just work all day but don't know how the business is doing. In my mind, that is the wrong thing to do. Having clear lines of communication, extremely important to know where's the money at and who's making the money here. And maybe we do profit sharing so that people even just care about what the books are looking like. How much money are we making? Well, as an employee, I'm not going to really care unless I get a piece of it. So therefore, I will institute as an owner, profit sharing. So people actually do care about the profits of the business and they do care about where the money is going to. The second thing that people traditionally will not talk about in the business is their level of commitment as the owner, the founder or the leader. And this really comes down to time. Where are you spending your time? And for Augusta Lawn Care and Our owners, they definitely have the right to be able to look at what I do and say, hey, look, how committed are you to Augusta? We don't want you to just bail on us. And are you really still involved in the daily operations? And so I was able to address the fact that, hey, look, 95% of my day is still spent. My headspace is on Augusta lawn care. The other 5% of creating videos and media and all the rest of it. A lot of that part is automated. A lot of that part. I have a team around me that are employees that do a great job. But my mind space is 95 spent on Augusta Lawn Care and the next 10 to 15 years of taking over the lawn care and landscaping industry. That is where my mind space is at. But it is absolutely plausible for your employees, for your managers, for your spouse, your family to question your commitment to the organization. Whether it be a business organization, whether it be a family organization, people that have stake and skin in the game, they have a right to question your commitment. Where is your time being spent? Do you actually care? What is your long term vision for this business? Are you committed to sticking it out with this business? This is why relationships fall apart. People don't trust in the other person's commitment. But a lot of times the reason they get to that stage and where that relationship is breaking apart is because they never had the discussion about what level of commitment do you want from me or what level of commitment do I want from you? That level of commitment should be talked about. And so when you're talking to employees, you should do the same thing. Like, hey, what do you think? You think in like next couple of years you're going to be here? Do you want to, do you want to become a manager? What are your plans here? Like, is there something we can do to facilitate you staying here? Whether it be more money, whether it be position, whether you just want to learn some more things, what is it that's going to allow you to be more committed? And by the way, I'm not just going to like, you know, I don't want to fire. I've done this one time and I still regret it this day. Firing someone without actually communicating about the fact that the commitment level was not there and we just fired them. And I still feel bad about it somewhat to this day. There's other reasons why they probably should still have been fired, but I felt bad by the fact that I did not communicate to them prior that commitment was the part that was in question and I should have communicated Far prior in terms of like, look, your level of commitment is not where it should be at. And unfortunately, that decision of mine to not communicate effectively might have led to firing someone that could have rectified their behavior if I would have just communicated better and asked them, what level of commitment are you willing to give your level of performance and commitment to the business and your position is not satisfactory. That level of communication is extremely important. And if you don't, you're going to lose good people and good people will leave because you don't communicate effectively to them how committed you are to the business. So if you as a business owner are telling the employer that, hey, we're not doing very well financially, we're in debt and we're struggling, we're going to try to make it and everyone we need to rally together. But then your commitment is not high and you're showing up late Monday mornings, 11am to the office. You're going on a two week vacation in the middle of the busy season. Like, they have absolutely the right to question your commitment level. And so not communicating about your commitment level and where you spend your time and how you're working on the business and your plans for it is absolutely detrimental to the organization as a whole moving forward. And in that call, that was something I had to be very clear about. Here's what my intentions are, what I'm committed to and showing the money. Those are the first two things. The money and where your commitment are, those are two things. The taboo subjects that in relationships and in business we don't talk about. The third thing that we need to talk about, but we don't usually is future plans. Where are your goals? What are your plans? Both for the employee, the business owner, a relationship is like, what do you see in the future happening for you? Do you have certain plans, goals, aspirations? What do you expect the future to look like? And this is absolutely something we covered in the call with our owners at Augusta Nation is like, look, what do we see in the future? Like, what's our unique selling proposition to joining Augusta Lawn Care? And I was very honest. I said, look, these things that people would probably point at now are actually not our usp, our unique selling proposition. Here's what it's going to become as we reach scale in 5, 10, 15 years, here's what the plans are. And it really helped. I felt like some of our franchisees that see certain things that we might have questions about or doubt or be skeptical about. But then for me, let's share here, here is how this works into the long term plan and the long term vision of what we're trying to do. And honestly, I was somewhat holding that back. Again, because we doubt ourselves as owners, we doubt ourselves as business owners, we doubt ourselves as leaders, we doubt our ability to actually execute on future plans and therefore we keep those things to ourself. But all the while, the people you're leading, the other people that have stake in the game, your employees, other relationships, your family, your spouse, those people they need, they deserve, and they are questioning whether or not what your future plans are and whether or not they should be involved in those plans. And as business owners, a lot of us as entrepreneurs, we think very deeply in our mind, we are alone with our thoughts. We're usually somewhat introverted. We like to be alone and think and plan and strategize. But we've got to share these things with our team. In my opinion, you must communicate this with your employees and anyone that you are leading in an organization. I challenge you this week, if you have kept back the financials money, if you have not talked about your level of commitment to the business and what you actually do on the weekends to help the business and the things that you're doing in the evening, and you share some of the behind the scenes of where time is going to make sure the business is doing well, have a meeting this week. That's two commitment. When you talk about money, open up the books. Two share your commitment. What are you doing with your time? Are you committed to this business? Are you committed to this relationship? The third thing is share your future plans. You might have all the goals and ambitions in your mind, but your team out in the trenches, the front lines might not see that. And they might be so down looking at like tomorrow and next week and the next month, they don't actually look up and see way down the road what you as the operator, as the leader, as the visionary can see the opportunity, you can see the vision, you can see the finish line. But they can't because they're in the minutia of getting things done and getting operations done. And that's fine. That's probably the best place for them to be and where they actually excel and do better than you at. However, they occasionally need to have a glimpse of what's coming down the road and not sharing that vision, not sharing the goals, not commit, and the future plans of the business is we are selling ourselves short of the opportunity. And what the employees could be bringing to the table, what they could be learning and growing in their own career. It's also selling the business short of the commitment level that employees would otherwise potentially bring forward if they just knew what the future looked like. They knew knew what was going to happen down the road. And so whether it's employees, spouses, family, any sort of organization when it comes to leadership, having those taboo subjects of money, commitment and what the future plans of the organization are expressed to the team at least occasionally, is something extremely valuable to create a cohesive culture. An organization has a clear future and a clear common goal towards getting that thing done. In this video right here, I talk about the five different stages of leadership, though. From the very worst, where you literally force people into doing things, and towards the very center of the goal of what you should be trying to become as a leader. I've learned a lot from it. Check this video out here. I think it'll help.