Buying Another Shop, My Manager Quit, Why Your Employees Are Leaving

Welcome back to the Mike Andes podcast, where we are discussing the ins and outs of owning a small business. If you're new here, the Mike Andy's podcast is all about starting, maintaining, and growing your small business. Today, we're going to learn about how to problem solve. If you own a small business, you know that there's days where nothing seems to go your way. When things get hectic, you gotta know how to make things work. Here we have a couple of vlogs from Mike where he faces some challenging developments, plus a consulting call where Mike explains why it's paramount to know the direction of your company. As always, you can get the video versions of this interview and more over on the Mike Andy's YouTube channel. So let's dive right in and see what Mike's been up to the past couple of days.

Hello, Mike. Great news.

The underwriter has final approval on your loan. And now we are working with Ryan on the final flood review request to get this finalized.

Let's go.

Wrapping up the meetings. I'd much rather be allowed to have a franchisee be someone who's worked here or worked at an Augusta location like I hate personally. Like, when people just start businesses because they have money and they don't know what it's like to work outside. They don't always work, like, what it's like to grind and work in the rain and all that sort of thing. So I feel like it's part of, like, our culture for the owners to know what that's like. Now headed back over to command center for their meetings this morning. Kind of talk with Marcus about the transition plan for the next general manager. Since he'll be moving out and starting his location. He's gonna be down in Redmond. It's like an hour and a half away. But he's always wanted to start his own, so he's gonna be starting there using the 3F program, the franchise fee forgiveness program. So someone works at any location for Augusta lawn gear for two years, they get to start a location without any franchise fee, and so he's gonna be taking advantage of that. So we're just kind of going over the transition plan and who's going to be in line to take over his role here at the local shop.

We are late to command center. Run, run, run. Part of the reason why we need another headquarters is because here the biggest limiting factor we have is parking. We literally run out of car parking spots, and we have to park up the way Daddy leaves running. We're late for the meeting.

Good morning, Everyone, welcome to Augusta Nation. All you virtual people and the people here.

See our wonderful and the audience.

Yes.

And I think that's about all I have. And Mike, do you want to update anyone on the building?

This is the last time you will ever see this virgin piece of property sitting here in all of its glory. What a week. Together, like, it's just so frustrating. We're just trying to go through the loan process. It's been pretty painful. So I can't pay for the whole thing with cash. I need debt. We're just working on it, man. We got to figure this thing out. That's all I can say.

I've done a lot of coaching calls recently with franchisees, and a lot of you have been named individually. You guys are doing awesome franchisees. Love your support as well as myself. So even though I don't interact with you guys all the time, I'm in the Bellingham account, Mount Vernon account, and I'm in all the franchisees accounts on coaching calls. So thank you, guys. All she wrote.

That's all, folks.

Cool.

Hey, what's up, everybody? It is Lee with Augusta here, and I just want to steal the vlog for one second to let you know that we have five trainings available coming through the end of this year and into 2023. Okay, so where you're doing one training per month, September through December, and then we're doing one training next year in February. That's planned right now. And we have limited spots available to join the franchise. So if you want to join the franchise, get on the winning team, wear the Augusta Gold with us. We book a call with me. We are doing limited spots this year. Way less spots than last year. We're only doing 50 spots this year. So if you want to get in.

I want you to get in.

I want to change your business. Mike wants to change your business. And we want to help accelerate the professionalism in the lawn care landscape industry. So join us and book a call with me.

Thanks, guys.

Let's talk about customer service. I have been calling companies since 5am and this Roto Reader song that goes through your mind, it's not legit. I called them for their 24 hour service. Nope. Not even answering the phone. Neither did Gary's Plumbing. Laverne's was the best.

You're mentioning names. It's gonna hurt people's feelings.

Oh, they'll never meet them. They're just such wonderful companies. But today, they were not on top of their game.

24 hours, my foot.

Nope. Yeah, you can really Call it a show because it's in five units. If you don't laugh, you'll cry. I mean, we have, we have people going out and coming in the units today. It's going to smell really bad, you.

Know, mask the smell of smoke.

We got this.

Of course we got this.

It'll be a quick one.

It'll be quick.

And he said like, you find the main, you throw a line in there. He's like, it's a 30 minute service.

He crawled under the house and took me a video, but he can't get it undone.

But if we're all clogged, it means the main is right.

So he showed me under there, but he didn't have, have the pit full pipes and he couldn't get the old thing out.

All right, cool. I got my stuff, guys. Ran down.

For being someone who builds software, I get very, very frustrated when it doesn't work correctly, which basically is a setup for failure when we have to deal with so many software packages. Like this morning I had to have a meeting with Lonnie because the software is not sending out mass emails like it's supposed to for the franchisees. This type of stuff just bogs me down and ruins my day. Now I get it. I know how hard it is to build software and when you improve it, there's so many bugs. I get it, but it really wears on me. See, what some people don't realize about software, it's like building a house. You can build the entire house and everything's operational. But if you want to move a load bearing wall, you basically have to tear apart like a whole bunch of other parts of the house. It's like major construction and it has a whole bunch of ripple effects. So you want to change a feature, add something to a piece of software. Well, you could. You actually create a whole bunch of other issues. Like, you know, if you take out a wall, you gotta take out the plug plumbing, you have to take out the electrical, you have to remove doors and windows and all the rest of it. And so same thing happens with software. I understand, but it doesn't take away from the fact that having construction done while you're trying to live in the house is not fun. And trying to use software, it's trying to be improved is also not fun.

Had to get my water bottle. And just for Lee, he gave me this. He loves Essentia because it's alkaline. Very good. And Keith Calfus drinks it too.

So this is the software I use for my morning masterminds with the franchise, it's called Streamyard. What's cool about is we kind of do announcements then we go through questions and then like education so other types of wealth building type of things, whether it be the business side or investing, stock market stuff, real estate, whatever. So that's what I'm about to hop on right now. I'm running a little bit behind but then we also have our where they submit their questions. So there's five of them this morning. It looks like they fill out a Google form and then we basically go go live. So we're jumping into right now.

I'm.

Going to work on that and then I'll make sure that I have a form that goes out. So if you're wanting to do Christmas lights that we put that on your site, we're going to take that, modify it slightly but use as much as you possibly can in terms of design and integrate that. So I will be working on that next couple weeks. We're working on creating a website similar to this like a landing page for for some of our locations. Last year did Christmas lights and they just crushed it. So we had a training event in Memphis, Tennessee last weekend and a lot of people are going to try doing it this year and they crushed it last year. So it'll be really good to see if they can stay use this to stay busy November, December and January especially. And so we're trying to just improve the site to make it more of a landing page for this specific service so they can drive traffic to it because it's a very a cost per click and lead driven type of business because such a narrow window of time to get the client. So we're working on some things right now in terms of the Christmas lights and using it as a service for the website. Okay. So the banker just contacted me and the loan has been approved. That is for the Mount Vernon location. We bought some property for them and it is not the headquarters. Unfortunately the headquarters is not anywhere close to being approved and but this is a good one though. We need to get this as well because we want to have a place for them to actually just establish the roots and start to grow down there. And honestly is a big part of this is a vote of confidence in Caleb who the general manager that was just so flexible and moving down there and there's been such a great support. I wanted to show like hey, there's a long term thing and I'm committed to that location in the long term. So part of it's that and we're using it as a way to also have the shop. There's going to be a rental property on the land there as well, so it's going to be good. So now what I need to do is focus on getting the gravel installed, the fence installed, and setting up all the contractor to actually get the whole property ready for us to move in as soon as possible. Hopefully in a week or two. So I lied yesterday. I said that landscape business course was live, but it actually isn't. By the time you're watching this, it is live, but there's a couple delay. They delay. So right now, Zach is launching it.

It's live.

All right, let's see if we refresh this bad boy and see what it looks like. Boom.

Oh, yeah.

Let's go.

Now we're talking. Now we're talking, baby. Let's go. Check this out.

Check this video out.

You click on the video and it plays inside of the whiteboard. Good job, Zach. Okay, Steven, it's a favorite part of your day, which is thumbnails. I didn't know how this would play off of tomorrow's video. When you open it with. Oh, right, right, right.

Oh, I see.

You're trying to hype it up for tomorrow's video. Not necessarily, but like, I. I was gonna play off of it in the thumbnail with different text. I need a loan. What if it's more like unexpected 334k invoice. What? I can't pay it. I can't pay it.

Yeah, that's good.

Put that in the thumbnail. Oh, yeah, that'll be in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't pay it.

Should be in the thumbnail. I think that's all. All you need right there.

That's good.

Unexpected. 3, 4. I can't pay it in the title. Error in the thumb or just unexpected invoice. Dot, dot, dot. I think, like look good. And then in the. The title or the thumbnail will be I can't pay, exclamation mark. There we go.

I just got back my 2021 tax returns. All four of them. So I'm assessing the damage and then getting ready to pay Uncle Sam a lot of money.

A huge factor in growing your business and getting customers involved is having a strong online presence. That means your website. At Lawn Care Web Design, we build easy to use lawn care websites for a flat monthly rate. Your new lawn care website will work on all devices and is specifically tuned to attract local customers. We also include SEO services so that your website can be properly listed on search engines and Grow online. If you need the perfect site for your lawn care business, head over to lawncarewebdesign.com to see what our team can build for you. Next up, more problem solving in action. What to do when one of your important managers suddenly quits on you? Let's find out.

Steven said I need to make more establishing shots. So this is what you get today. So you might think I'm joking, but in reality, when I'm prepping like this for even a few minutes in the morning, usually I'm using my phone to listen to something. Either a sermon or a video or a podcast or something. And so I am sacrificing by having my video as the camera so that you all can get your entertainment for the day. So I hope that watching me put my gel or whatever this is, what is it called? Fiber in my hair is entertaining enough. Okay, so for the past couple hours I have completely forgot to record. I'll fill you guys in in just a minute. But it's almost 9:30 and that's when we have our franchisees. Mastermind. Mike Minutes Mastermind. So let me knock that out and I'll fill you in on what all went to happen. Went down. It has to do with the bank and it is not good. And everyone think it's clickbait. All these things. It is not clickbait. These things are really happening. And right now this is a big stress for me and I'll explain more why. Just let me get this Mastermind knocked out and we'll connect again.

I'm not paying more for another person.

Because they want a $600 incredible plan and then someone else just wants to.

Get by with a $200 plan.

That is very generous compared to most because if you're doing 50%, you could probably get away with like $150 as your bonus. The rez the only reason reason this is considered a benefit is because of the non taxable event for the employee. And you can still write it off. That's why it's a benefit and that is how you do Mike minutes. Mastermind. One of the best decisions I made this past spring for the franchise was to start these Mike Minutes. It has been extremely helpful for me and I think for a lot of the owners for us all to stay connected every single day and for them to be LS questions directly to myself. Even though they have Lee for Franchise Advisor and Chuck for Franchise Advising, we have a Facebook group, a lot of them have a lot of chats together. It's still good for Me to keep direct connection. As I've always said, even as a company grows, if the founder starts to just disappear, a lot of stuff can happen. Bad inside the organization and murmurings and all the rest of it. So it's really been good. This morning, for example, we got Mike Mint Masterminds. It's a Google Doc, a Google form, and we got 10 different of the owners that submit their questions.

And.

And it's a lot of fun. All right, so I want to be really honest about this whole loan process thing. Yes, the $3.3 million loan. Some people you don't need to have the building. Other people are like, you're just making up a bunch of drama. Okay, let me explain what just happened, because the underwriter has now told me why this whole delay has happened. Let's get into it. But I got to actually get ready because on the other side of this wall is Anytime Fitness. It's another business that I own. I spend usually about 30 minutes a week over there. But right now, unfortunately, our all star office manager is leaving and going to Michigan. And so I've got to find somebody else. They line up a bunch of interviews. I'm gonna go knock those out and maybe I'll show you a little bit around the gym. But let me explain a little bit about this whole loan thing, because we finally have a reason for the hold up. All right, I gotta change shirts, though. Okay, so now that we've changed, let's talk about this bank thing. So the underwriters from the sba, here's what's actually happening. Okay, you know what? All good things happen on whiteboard. So what are we going to do?

We're going to do a whiteboard presentation today.

Okay, so this is how. This is the problem right here. You got me, Mike Andes. Below me, I got four different S corporations.

Okay?

So these are S Corps. Now, underneath these S Corps, I have LLCs. And this is the way that I kind of protect my real estate and different companies from ever hurting each other. Because if something bad happens over here, I do not want it to affect over here. So I do. I have different S Corporations. These are holding companies underneath me. And then below these, I have LLCs. Okay, so this is kind of how it looks. Now, here's the problem. When we look at this loan, two of the major S corps I have are the franchise. And then over here, I have what we call Augusta Lawn Care Corporation. Okay? Now, in the past, Augusta Luncker Corporation has been very profitable and very consistent in its profitability because Underneath this, I only had one location. Okay, forgive me. Okay, so erase all this. This did not happen until this year. Now in 2021, because I made a lot of money in terms of capital gains because I made a bunch of money in stock market and things like that. This is what happened. We were like, okay, good, great. We need to make this company make less money because it's going to get taxed out to wazoo. Last year was our most profitable year. The Augusta Longer Corporation, the local shop did over $300,000 in distributions, almost $350,000 in profits. It was going to be a tax wazoo. So what did we do? We added two LLCs of locations that I started last year out of state and put them as LLCs underneath LLCs, underneath this S Corporation. What that did is absolutely crush the profit margins because they're brand new. So we're ramping them up. Lots of costs and expenses go into it and you lose money. So it caused the profitability go way lower than what had been in the past. Been a nice, very consistent going like this. All of a sudden that happened. And so big red flag to underwriters. That one I can explain away, right? And unfortunately, my tax returns are very, very long and complicated. So I had to, like, show them the numbers. And this is what I've been doing for the past 24 hours all last night, is digging all this stuff up for them and showing because, like, bankers are not tax accountants and they're definitely not the irs. They do not know how to look into a tax return that's 300 pages long and find this stuff. So I have to break it all down for them now. The franchise. The franchise. The franchise. Now, the fact that they don't like is growing really quickly, but the profitability has not been achieved yet. They don't like that. They don't like massive growth with unprofitability. So you might be asking, well, how do you have an unprofitable franchise? Like, where's the money coming from? Well, in 2021. So this is last year. This is really the tax year that they're looking at. I made a lot of money in capital gains because of the stock market. Now I took all of that capital gains and pumped it back into the businesses, okay? Especially the franchise. And that was just like my own personal money. It's on my. This tax return. My 1040 is where you get all of your gains, your capital gains. So the thing is, they don't care about capital gains when it comes to a loan. They only care about the revenues and the profits of the businesses because that's the long term, 10 year term that they're putting on a loan. They don't care that I made a whole bunch of money in the stock market last year because this money flowing from me in the form of capital gains in the stock market into the business is just a balance sheet activity. It doesn't show up on the income statement. And so those are just owners contributions coming into the businesses. So it still looks like the businesses are losing money. Now as a whole, I'm just fine. I made a bunch of money in the stock market, put it into my businesses, but doing so allowed us to invest and have a loss on the income statement. And so they do not care about me making money and doing this. They care about the fact that this business lost money and is still growing very quickly. And this business all of a sudden grew a bunch because we added two LLCs and, and dropped in profit margin because of doing that. This is what I'm trying to explain right now and this is why it actually is a bad situation. I wrote a long document explaining all of this and then I have dozens of documents in terms of graphs and charts showing all of this and showing that hey, this is a one time expense. Like things like that we had to buy infrastructure for the franchise and developing the software and all the stuff we invested into it is one time. I don't need to do that again. This is not going to happen again. This is going to be a consistent profitability going forward as usual. And Even things like P4P, like that's a one time investment that's eventually going to stop and it will become profitable. So that's what I'm dealing with. It is not drama and clickbait. This is actually stressful for me right now because we need to move into this building. We need to for several reasons. The first reason why we have to move in this other building is because it's going to be a much better training experience for a franchisee. This is the biggest reason why I'm doing this is because when they come here for four days, because we just moved it from three days to four days training. Now when they come here for four days, I don't want it to be in this room. As nice as it is learning on that board, I want it to be where it's like we're learning. And I look out the window and I see, see what we're talking about right now. The reason that guy's running across the lot is because of P4P. Oh, yeah. When we were just downstairs there, you saw them answering the phone at command center like this, the same way that we're talking about. So it's extremely important to me that we get this building. The second reason why we're getting this building is because from a financial perspective, our rent is going to be over $11,000 per month next year, and that's only going to go up in 10 years. My mortgage on this building will still be $14,000. My rent will probably be 25,000. So there's a long term play. I know in the short term it doesn't make sense, but I believe in two to three years, I'll look at this and be like, that was a very good move for the brand, for the franchisees and financially. But right now it's extremely difficult because on a $3.3 million building project, if I get an SBA loan, I got to come up with $330,000. I've already put more than $330,000 into the building project. If I have to do a conventional loan that's 25% down, literally, we're talking about 800,000 plus dollars being pumped into just the down payment on the building project. I don't want to put that much cash into a building project that's going to be wrapped up for 10 years. I don't want to do that. And furthermore, because of this situation, no commercial lender is going to touch this with a conventional loan because this just does not look good on paper. So the only way I'm going to be able to get this is by convincing them of where the businesses are going, why, what I'm doing, and why 2021 looks the way it does in my tax returns. So there it is, all open for the public to see what's going on and why. This is actually pretty, pretty stressful for me. So let's go ahead and go to the gym and interview some people about being an office manager.

Now we're talking efficiency at its finest. So also, I was thinking in the back room, like you're saying, to get a cabinet that can lock, we can put the supplements in it, but then we can make it more of like a break. We'd have to get everything out here, though, like all the supplements and all the rest of it. Here was Mike over Anytime Fitness Blend. Check this out. You might have come here in the.

But a little closer.

Come on, check this out. So in the past, you might come here. It's eight, nine o' Clock at night. No one's in the office. You don't know what to do. I want to have some of these beautiful, beautiful supplements. And you're like, what do I do? I can't pay anybody. This is the solution right here. You take out your phone, whip it out, open up the camera, scan this bad boy, and now you can check out even if no one is here. So this is a beautiful thing. Whether you need some weight loss tablets, collagen.

I don't think it's some protein. Protein powder. That's all here now. And you can check out without anyone being here. Staffed in the office. Check out today. Whip out the camera and get chopping. What time is Laverne's coming on Monday with the water fountain? 10am Sweet. That we good? They're good. They came in yesterday and saved my bacon on one of our rentals. It flooded the whole thing.

Yeah.

Came up through the toilet and it's gross. I know. It's just this. Or like.

I think it'd be simple, man. Right. This one's corded, right? Because Ethernet to the modem. And so a lot of those, that. That dock is part of that system in there. But you're right. One of them is wireless. One of them is cordless. Wait, when you say corded, you mean like. Like it's old fashioned. Oh, no, that's. That's stupid. No, that's why I was like, why are we okay with this? No, no, Back out of that. Yeah, no kidding. I can't hear you. Oh, no, your thing came out. I know. It came out, like, right before. The screw's still in there, though. Yeah, the screw's still in there. I just haven't fixed it since the interview, so it reminds the flow of that chair. Yeah, I know. $154.

Okay.

Do you want me to do that one?

Sure.

We'll just throw this one in the cabinet. Okay. These two will go in the offices, and these will be extras in case. Just ringing. We can put them out there for, like, members dances. Put them out in the middle of the club, like, hello, this is Anytime Fitness. That's hilarious.

Actually, it's not bad.

Yeah.

Yeah, let's just do it.

Yeah, that's not bad. Yeah. Do we ever get that? Yes. So what he told me is that the assisted pull up is pretty much screwed and we might need to replace the entire thing. Wait, what's wrong with it? It's, like, sticking, so then it's, like, adding more resistance. Basically, you go try it out. Is it actually sticking? Or is it just.

It actually sounds better.

Right here.

See this?

That needs to be tightened right here. This is a loose right there. But then even like this garbage. This is what I don't like about Advanced Pro is like when they grease, they need to clean up all this gunk. A lot of work though. It's so much better though. I didn't like ridges before.

Yeah.

Like this part.

Yeah.

As long as that can stay on it. Those are beast to get on, but it's because they can't come. They need to be a beast put on so that our beast take off.

Yeah.

They don't just slide around. Okay, cool. Yeah. Whatever we need from Advanced Pro in terms of fixing stuff. Let's get them a list together so that the treadmill and then even like consistently I see where they. When they do stuff like the greasing, they don't wipe up the old stuff like that. At the bottom of that just add more like clean the stupid stuff up. All right, so I finished up at any time fitness today. We're actually doing two vlogs instead of the regular one per day. Why? Because it's too stressful trying to get all the footage from the morning edited in the afternoon and then put up the next day. It's too much stress on the editing and the media team. So what are we gonna do? We're going to record two vlogs a day and try to get ahead of by one day. So there's a little bit of a gap couple days. So now I'm actually going to be headed to the headquarters property and I'm going to mow the entire thing with a massive exmark mower.

We've seen it time and time again. The best way to motivate your crew is to compensate them based not on their time, but rather based on their performance. P4P enables your business to maximize efficiency and keep your employees motivated like no other system. You can pay your employees the smart way with our new P4P software automatically updating efficiency, numbers, real time project tracking and individual employee metrics on a day to day basis. You can learn more today@p4psoftware.com this last segment is a clip from a private consulting call Mike did. How can your business actually take advantage of a recession? Plus some strategies on how to keep your best talent working for you.

This is actually a special clip from a private consulting call that I had a while back. The company was doing over $4 million in annual revenue and was really trying to think about what the next step in the career in the business evolution was. And so I talked a lot about two things. Number one, how to take opportunity during this coming recession and how you should be positioning yourself in terms of buying out, competition or growth or profitability and how you should be thinking about that. The second thing we talked about is the importance of having a mission, a mission statement, values and actually having a clear goal and direction for the business. Not just from a financial perspective but also as a way to retain talent.

Of your mid level managers.

So as you get past millions in revenue you need mid level managers and sometimes you'll make decision in the business not because of just the finances but simply to retain and keep those individuals challenged and on the team. So without any further delay, let's go ahead and roll the tape and I'm just going to show you a piece of a call that had think it'll be really helpful.

Yeah. Number one is retaining your leadership. Right. In terms of making sure that they know the vision. That's my biggest fear when I read your thing is actually you have a really good system. It sounds like it from a leadership perspective but if you don't have a vision you'll lose your a talent when it comes to leaders. You might keep your leaders out in the field because they're just looking for a better paycheck and you can afford that over competition but you won't hold on to an A class manager that if you don't have a clear direction of where the business is going to. And so you know, the only reason I actually started franchising probably a year sooner than probably two years sooner than I thought I was going to is because I wanted to retain my mid level managers and I knew that not doing the franchising was not going to be.

It was, I need something hard for them to work on. I need something that they could like really sink their teeth into and get messy with. And so if you have that type of talent, I don't know, I don't know if you do or if you've just kind of grown them up from nothing. But if you have grade A incredible mid level managers, you need to have a really clear direction of where the business is going. So they get involved in that because you're not going to be able to compete when it comes to the pricing power of larger companies coming in and needing that type of talent. They'll come in right now and offer them 100 grand. You're like I can't afford that. Like they're just an office manager. Well they might Stick with you. If you could offer them 50 or 60, but you have the vision of where the company is going and they're able to be part of that and they see themselves growing at the company and they're like, hey, I'd rather take a haircut the next few years in terms of salary, but be part of something that as we build it, if you wanted to sit back and have more time and let the business run, you can do that. If you want to grow and expand and just like grow the thing massively, you can do that. So it's gotta be really, really clear what you want and why you want it. Otherwise you're gonna keep flip flopping and you'll just keep making your managers mad because they'll be like, where's the direction here? Why are we growing? Okay, the next minute's like, oh, let's focus on profit maximization and consolidation. Like they, they've gotta have a very clear direction of what you want. And that might mean, okay, a year or two of X, which is profit maximization institute P4P. And then in this year, two years from now, we're going to go on a massive offensive using those margins. Whatever it is, it's clarity of mission that is required to get to the next level and clarity of why the organization exists. Because in the past it's just simply been how do we serve customers better? And that's a great mission to start on. But as the organization gets larger and you get removed from customer service and you get removed from the daily operations is not motivating to you anymore. Right? It's going to be development of other people, it's going to be expansion and brand awareness in your local market. It's going to be recognition, it's going to be fame, wealth, whatever it is. You've got to be really clear what you want. I feel like the next level from where, you know, going from 5 million to 100 million, for example, that step simply is based upon having and attracting great talent. That's simply what it comes down to. The type of talent that's going to grow an organization from 5 million to 100 million will need something hard to chew on, will need very clear direction. Their compensation will need to be tied to the goals and objectives of that plan. And so someone that has a five year plan of where they want the company to go benchmarks strategic initiatives at each year, what the profits and revenues are going to be each year. That's something that grade A talent is attracted to. Because the alternative to that grade A Talent is to just go work for another massive $100 million company and make a really good salary, but not really be invest in any sort of a strategic plan other than next quarter. We have to make X amount for the investors. Right. And so that's your leverage point to attract that a hundred million dollar talent is to have a goal and some sort of plan that they have alignment with. Right. And so I'd be strictly focused on how laser like focus can you get on a five year mission of what you want to go, where are you going to want to go and why? Right. What the plan? If the plan is maximization of profit, why if we want to grow and become massive in terms of revenue, why if we wanted to diversify or if we want to consolidate services, why like those all need to be very crystal clear so that when you present to a manager or you present to a potential CEO down the road, as you get to 10, 20, 30, you've got to be very clear why this is happening. Because you otherwise will not be able to get the hundred million dollar talent. Those go to $100 million company and get paid more, better benefits, better stock compensation, et cetera. But they'll do it with you if you have. Because building something is so much more fun for that type of individual that's type A than just joining something that's already been built for five year for Augusta is definitely to change the level of professionalism in the landscaping industry. Right. So that's almost an infinite goal. Like you can't necessarily ever achieve it. Right. And that's with design. Because I do never want to hit like oh, we wanted to get 100 million in revenue. Well then what happens when we had 100 billion, then where do all my top people go? Where's the team? What are we supposed to rally around then? Right. That's a never ending goal. We will never actually be like we did it right. But we will always be able to work towards it. Right. And so for you it's a matter of like, well, what are you passionate about outside of just the numbers? Because the numbers won't motivate anyone outside of just their paycheck. That will get people short term, but what's the long term thing outside of the money? And that could simply be how that you're passionate about taking a frontline staff member and turning them into a millionaire, or taking a frontline staff member and giving the skills to become a manager and make six figures, whatever that metric is, that's going to be much more tangible outside of Money is usually the thing that you can get people to rally around, right? Like you and I both need $100 million CEO type person that's done this before to step in. The only way they come and step in is because of a mission, right? And ultimately that's the only reason why I started franchise is to retain that talent. But ultimately to attract that. You will need people to be coming to your organization if that's the end goal and only way they're gonna come in is for some outlandish goal that you're going for. You can think about like something we track, for example, is number of guys that start off in the mowing field and become owners, right? That's a big thing I track how many of our franchisees become millionaires. Something I track, right? Those are the intangible things that will motivate you and keep you motivated beyond just the money. Because the money at this point, like when you're tossing up, do I grow or do I go sit on a beach? Money has become inconsequential, right? Because either way, like, I'll be fine. Either way, it's not going to really impact me. Do I really even want to do lawn care? Do I want to go invest in real estate? If you're in that transition, that's when it's like you need something besides money, right? And you just got to be really open and honest and clear with yourself as to what that is. And just, hey, if it's one of you, if you want to be famous, great. Like that's what everything should be pointed towards. And it's not to say like that's bad or wrong, that's what you want. So do it right? It's just about being really clear. Why, like, what is the goal here? Because it'll keep you more focused instead of flip flopping back and forth. I think if you had an off site meeting with your managers or even I'm sure you have as part of eos and things, but like when you do that, I would assume some of the things that they're thinking about is like, okay, I've been with this company for several years. We've been grow, grow, grow, and now we're having a down year. What's up with that, right? Why is that happening and how does that relate to the mission? Because if they're, if they've stayed with you because of growth and they're constantly having something hard to chew on, new services, bigger contracts, offering different types of snow plowing and all these other things and that's what has kept them. Now all of a sudden that becomes in question, right? And so if growth is the only thing that's kept them, you've got to now clarify the vision outside of growth because that build disillusioned. I think honestly, the down year is going to be more about labor. It's going to be who, when, as we go down into it into a more higher unemployment, who sucks up all the talent? And so the down year, like it's simply like who becomes the biggest lawn care landscaping company. Yes, it's going to be who buys out the competition, Right. But ultimately there's other opportunities in a down year, right? Like there's real estate that all of a sudden is really cheap. The stock market's really cheap. Everything gets cheap, Right. So it's really going to the play is who's built their business now in a profitable manner that when you have a down year, you can actually cash in. Because everyone wants to cash in a down year, but they just don't have the resources. They're tapped out and they have. No one wants to give them debt. If you can get, if you can invent.

Someone to finance you during a season of a down year and you're credit worthy, you just take the market over. That's when you go into higher leverage, when everyone else is just trying to, you know, get by.

This has been the Mike Andes Podcast. We hope you enjoyed this look into Mike's problem solving process. We have tons of lectures, interviews and more for you over on the Mike Andes YouTube channel. That'll be right up your alley. Anyways, that's all we have for you today. We'll see you next time.

Sam.