C. Suite Unfiltered: Grant Cardone partnered with WHO!?

Welcome back to the Mike Andes Podcast, where we discuss the ins and outs of owning a small business. If you're new here, the Mike Andes Podcast is all about taking your business to the next level. We're back with another C Suite and Filtered with your hosts, Mike Andes and Lee Park. Mike is still out in North Carolina doing his 30 day challenge, which you can learn more about by going to the Mike Andes YouTube channel. But C Suite Unfiltered must go on, so Mike is calling in virtually to join Lee for the next couple of episodes. This episode, Mike drops an exclusive announcement about Augusta. Lee pushes Mike on his unprofessional use of AI. And finally, a certain unnamed company has recently paired with Cartown Enterprises. Does this move make sense? You can see the video versions of these episodes on the C suite and filtered YouTube channel. Let's get into it. Here's Mike and Lee with the show.

All right, what's up, everybody? Welcome back. Another episode of C Suite Unfiltered. And now we're real podcasters because we're doing it over Zoom.

I think I like this. I think people might actually like this better because I get a more of a direct shot of our faces versus being where it's, you know, just the side shot of it. Side angle.

Yeah, the front is my good side. The side. No, the front.

Sweet, man. Well, you're in North Carolina. For people that maybe don't know, that is why we're doing this over Zoom. So you just went down there a couple days ago. Let's just start with how was the trip down? Let's start with that.

Yeah, it was fine coming down. We flew out like at 5am or whatever on Sunday morning. And we actually thought our luggage wasn't going to show up because we ended up being in line for the luggage for so long. And so we missed the 45 minute cut off before. Like, you're supposed to have your bags checked. So they're like, oh, your bags might not be on your plane. So as you saw in Day Zero's video, I lost 500 on that bet.

So.

So we're gonna see how that betting meter goes. And then the thought is, if I. If I owe on the betting meter, that was like, donate to some sort of charity or something. But at this point, I'm in the whole 500 because that bet. So although I redeem myself, I redeem myself because I also put a bet on when we went to the storage facility place. I said, I bet by the time we get out of here, I'm gonna Have an applicant and I'm gonna have an estimate. And sure enough, estimate came in.

So. Yeah, I love that. That's great. Side note, I like the new betting mic. I like where this is headed. Personally.

Betting. Yeah.

Oh, betting.

Here is not great.

The covers are like so thin. But anyways, I shouldn't say it so loud because the landlord is next door.

That's all good. I like this new betting venture. We're going down. See, one day when I have more money, I would love to just do just random bets with you, but you're betting leverage is much higher than mine. I would say.

At this point, I'm not betting against anyone I know.

Yeah, but. But I would. See, that's.

Marcus and I, who used to be the GM of Bellingham. Now as a franchisee, he and I used to bet on the NHL finals and he just, he sent me a bet. He said, who you picking for the finals this year? Because it starts, I don't know, in like a day or two because he picking for the finals. And I was like, I'm rolling with my guys, the Florida Panthers. And he's like, loser has to watch a whole baseball game and pretend like they enjoy.

So anyway, down in North Carolina, travel went good. Dude, that touchscreen at the one storage facility was very cool. People haven't seen it. You walk into the storage facility and you it said, it's open. And then all of a sudden there was just like a touch screen. And then you got a live call with a rep. Now, just from a business perspective to dive into. That was so cool because you have basically on demand service, but the storage facility didn't have to have an on site attendant, so thus saving them a massive amount of wages. So yeah, just go into that a little bit. That was honestly really cool. Like what was that like?

Well, like a store, a storage unit is similar to like a gym. And that is that your. The vast majority of your expenses are fixed expenses. And the more you can reduce variable expenses, the better.

Right.

So like anytime fitness model is okay, we have everyone be able to scan their fob in 24 7. We don't have to have as many people, you know staffing the gym. We can only staff the gym 40 hours a week instead of 80 or 100. And the same thing is true with storage. And that is the vast majority of your expenses will come from if you have to have a person sitting at the front desk all the time. And so first and foremost, public storage is a franchise. I just want to point that out and then the next is that was really cool, I thought, is because it's part of a franchise. They weren't just locked in on selling me on that location. They were. They were fine with me going three miles away to where we ended up going and reserving that spot so that that individual working for them wasn't working for that franchisee. They were working for Public Storage.

Yeah.

And then they simply said, hey, there's no available units at this place, but three miles down the road, here's what's available. They give me the pricing and I'm able to sell through. So very interesting. And you know, obviously that person's overseas probably much cheaper and able to do it basically 24 7.

Yeah. No, that was really cool. And I thought, I instantly thought what, what you had just said is that they're a franchise. Because I saw the sign Public Storage, and I was like, well, we have one of those in Bellingham with the exact same sign. So of course, gut reaction, I went and looked it up and I was like, oh, it is a franchise.

Cool.

And then I thought, it's just like Augusta, how we have the command center for the franchisees who can answer their phone, you know, and this isn't a sales pitch by any means, but I was like, oh, makes. It makes. It makes sense. You can just touch a screen, ask for a live assistant. They hop on a phone call with you, or a little mini zoom call. I thought that was just a really cool feature, honestly.

Yeah. And then everyone that says, you know, if you. Why would you franchise your lawn care business? Is the same thing with storage. Like, literally, you're gonna paint your, your, your doors orange and throw a public storage sign out front and you're gonna pay someone 8, 10. I think theirs is more at 12 royalty. It's like, yeah, it's worth it if they can have that type of technology. And so obviously, if the franchisor is not proactively doing that sort of thing, it's not worth it. But I guarantee there's no mom and pop that has a live agent like that with a touch screen and cross sell and is immediately, you know, videoing in and microphoning into me. Like, it's incredible. And so that's where franchising makes a lot of sense, is the economies of scale to be able to tap into technology and enable the businesses to afford technology that would otherwise not be theirs. That's even like what we're doing at Command center. And I'm kind of breaking it publicly in the video in a day or two. So I'll say it here, and that is, you know, using AI to be able to answer our phones off hours, on the weekends, at night, 24 7. And it be very indispensable between a real human and AI. And that, that costs us hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. And I think it'll become extremely accessible within three to four years. But, but our goal and the advantage of being in something like a franchise where you have buying power is that you get access to that technology the same way that that type of technology with that kiosk is going to be normal in five or 10 years for probably the mom and pop using an iPad. But currently it's not until public storage has a massive leg up of that many years ahead of the game. And by the time everyone catches up, they've moved on to something else. And so a franchise in my opinion is buying power into technology that other competition cannot afford. And we're only just now I've always said like, wait till we get 100 locations, we'll get some buying power. I did 50 for co op, right. So we were able to like get a lot of their vendor vendor agreements and even if they like site one I got signed up for it was great down here in North Carolina. But like the, the, the real, real power of a franchise is the, the technology that is able to be accessible because the buying power of so many locations and even like fitness, you know, now we're having where the phone opens up the, the door of every single frame anytime fitness. Right. That's an extremely expensive.

Cost to them that I'm paying for with my royalties. But no other local gym is having access to 4000 plus gyms with your cell phone and you don't need a key fob anymore. So there's lots of cool things like that. And you know, even with anything, it's like now on their phone seems like I'm trying to sell anything. So I'm explaining. And that is like now on your phone you can see how many people are in the gym. Like that's a really cool feature that you're not getting.

Super cool.

You're not getting that in a mom and pop. And that's a big reason why a lot of people don't go to the gym is because they think it's crowded. Well now you can look at your app and see, okay, approximately how many people are in the gym right now. And so again the, the power of franchise and this is I believe what will lead to the consolidation of industries like lawn care is the buying power of technology. And so I've been pretty consistently saying, you know, next five, 10 years of Augusta's journey is technology and whether it be co pilot P4P, a lot of stuff we have down the road. And then that will lead the robotics, but we'll be so far ahead when it comes in 15 years. Robotics that will have the back end infrastructure of software to plug into the hardware and it'll actually work. And that's when you get economies of scale.

Anyone telling you that you can get rich quick is lying through their teeth. Getting rich slowly, however, that's totally doable. Presenting Mike Gandy's Get Rich Slow scheme, a completely free course you can take right now. This course is a beginner's guide and overview to starting a small business. From idea to implementation, we cover the entire checklist of setting up your new business for success. Good businesses take time to grow, mature and become great. And no shortcut can ever compare to having a strong foundation for your company. So get yourself started by going to mycandies.com start and start building your business empire right away.

Did you. I know you're super busy. Are you staying up to date on my first million pod? Because I know you have referenced it before on this podcast.

Yeah, I'm a religious listener.

Yeah. Did you see the video they did yesterday? I went to a billionaire's dinner.

Yeah, I did this morning. I look at it. Yeah.

Yeah. So I, I can't remember who they were referencing to, but there was, there was a video of a guy who worked in like a tech startup, AI, whatever. And he's basically saying that like AI and the integration power that it will create for corporations is the new gold rush. It's the new dot com, it's the new Facebook, it's the new YouTube, whatever you want to call it, whatever bubble there is, it is the new one and it's going to pop off and if you're not on it, you're going to get left behind essentially in terms of making large amounts of capital. I believe that wholeheartedly.

Yeah. And I think, I believe that to an extent. I also believe that people say that about crypto. They said about nft, they sell a lot of things that get in the hype cycle. So AI is in the hype cycle. I think the valuation companies are ridiculous. Everyone just moves from thing to thing. Right. Last year, two years ago is a crypto. Then it was nft, like new technology and all this garbage. And then now it's AI. AI is completely overestimated. Right. Now, in my opinion, yeah. And people are taking things that the big names like Bill Gates and Sam Altman and people say, but it's still, it's still a ways off. It really is. And so I'm not, I'm not like, I think every single person when you're in the middle of a hype cycle is a, is a cool clip that they're talking about.

Yeah.

I'd like to say like this is the thing, right. People say about everything in my opinion. It's like who executes against it? Because back in 1999, Amazon was not the leader, they are not the, the head of, but they were able to withstand the popping of the bubble. So in my opinion, the AI companies that will win in the next 10 years are not the ones that are going to be the best technology hyped up the most. Now for all I care, ChatGPT and OpenAI won't exist in 10 years. It'll be the companies that are able to create business models that are actually sustainable like Amazon, Facebook, Google that came out of the dot com and got through the drop off of momentum and height and then won. Right. And so that's just my opinion. I look more the business side than the technology.

Yeah, I agree with that. And I think too we have to play with the big baddie on our back which is the United States government. Right. We haven't even had regulation start yet. I mean, I mean there is elements of regulation, but wait until they start getting in there and telling these massive corporations can and can't do with AI and then you'll see the Amazons, the Googles, the companies that can adapt and overcome those things. Those will be your winners in five, ten years. Right. Because they have to navigate the regulatory waters. Right?

Yeah. Sam Altman like played 40 chess with Congress though, basically, and was like welcoming the.

Regulation. And so ultimately what's going to happen is companies like OpenAI and Google will be the ones that determine this regulation and will probably cut off a lot of innovation from smaller companies in the future.

But I'm just like not in the hype cycle of it. Like honestly I think it's way overhyped. I just, I'm very interested in who builds businesses on the back of this. And every single day I'm working with it. So I'm kind of like, I feel like I see the guys who are in, in the hype cycle, I see the like the actual engineers working with it and being like, we've been doing this for years.

Right.

And so it just now becomes so mainstream, like with ChatGPT, that. Because it's becoming like a reality. But this is technology that's been worked on for a long, long time. Like we were talking about, about copilot being like, AI, you know, powered months before ChatGPT came out. And the company, the company I said that we're working with in terms of AI at command center for the phone side, they've been doing this for years. And so it just now that everyone like AI, AI and everyone even, honestly, people know what AI means. Like two years ago, most of the population know what AI meant. Right, right. So anyway, sorry, yeah, no, no, you're good.

I. I was having a conversation with someone and I, I said AI and then I did like the stupidest thing ever. I was like, you know, like artificial intelligence.

And they're like, yeah, I'm not an.

Idiot, I know what that means. I was like, I just sounded like an idiot tech bro. Like, like, I know something about AI.

I don't.

I don't know anything. But yeah, to your point too, about like, Sam Altman, like, even Elon Musk, he did that, like, super exclusive interview with BBC at, like, his gigafactory. Was it early this year or late last year? Fairly recent in terms of an exclusive with him. And he did like the classic Eli gets asked the question, or the classic Elon gets asked the question, pauses for 15 seconds awkwardly and then goes, we must be very careful with how we introduce AI. And like, he's doing the same thing, like 40 chess of like, I'm inviting regulation on it. I want regulation so that way I can manipulate it for Tesla and all my other companies and be on the inside of what will be regulated.

Right, yeah. He'll come out with his own. His own version of OpenAI.

Yeah, totally. Well, I mean, he's already working on, what is it? Neuralink?

Yeah, like the, like, even Twitter uses more AI than the 95% of these AI companies, honestly.

So, like, even with what we're working with, Command center, like, that AI that is actually operating is going to sound like a human being communicate amazingly. It is a. It is a technology that you start to build the infrastructure by which the AI operates out of. It's not generative, it cannot figure out its own thing. That's what they're all afraid of, is that it can like, learn, adapt, and then build. Right? It can learn and adapt, but right now, building anything is a very long ways off. And I think we all get very hyped up in, like, the elements of Building like learning what you do and do not like and like being able to adjust and transfer things. But, and I think it'll move fast. But ultimately as you get more competition and people getting hyped and more money gets poured into it, the cost is going to get down, down, down and people get squeezed out in terms of profitability. They're not gonna be any money. Now you get someone like Google Bard will come in, say hey, you don't need to pay US$20 a month like ChatGPT with one thing, we'll do it for free. And so you're gonna have a lot of money poured into it which will bring the cost down. It'll be great for consumers, it'll be great for the technology, but businesses will fail because there's not and no one to pay for it. And so that's why ultimately a lot of times these technologies get wrapped up into the large tech companies is because they either acquire the talent, acquire the businesses, or they simply just cost cut everything to the point where no one can compete with them.

I feel like there's, I have like a half formed question on that for like your opinion. Do you feel that, and this may come across throwing enough people to like read into what I'm trying to say here, but do you think that people that embrace AI more readily have capital that they can deploy to use AI? Like I feel like the common man, and I'm not saying anything negative, like I'm, I'm in pretty much every average demographic in the United States. Right. But like the common man, I feel like, except for height, way taller than you and a lot of other people.

But I feel like the common man or like boomers and like a lot of people I interact with and maybe more people more conservatively. Right. Like that's majority of the people I probably interact with on a daily basis, just to be 100% honest, like are very opposed or very worried about the implications of AI. But I feel like you get these people with capital and they're just, they see how much it's going to save them, so they're going to basically force it down our throats. The common man's throat. Do you see? Do you think that's a fair assessment?

Technology is going to move on with or without you, in my opinion. And, and even, even theorizing or thinking about potentially trying to slow down is a fool's errand. Whether or not you're on the train and actually are part of the quote unquote gold rush, whether that be from a Monetary standpoint, time saving perspective as a consumer or simply just being someone who's a student of the game, that's someone's decision. And if they're gonna, you know, like people. When I put the thing out about Copa integrating with OpenAI last week, people are commenting on there being like, AI is taking away American jobs and all the rest of it. And honestly, every single technology that came out, people said that, they said about a tractor. And Right. You know, a couple hundred years ago, 30 of our population in the United States was farmers. Well, now that's less than one out of a thousand point one percent of people are farmers. And the reason for that is because of the tractor. Is anyone complaining about that? Does anyone want to put their hand and start pulling weeds by hand or tilling the soil with a hoe? No, we moved on to different things. We figured out ways of creating cars. And then you have an entire industry around that creating technology and software. And like today I have an entire group of a team on laptops typing in code. That didn't happen 100 years ago. So the tractor simply allowed people to focus instead of farming and pulling weeds, developing software. And so when AI comes along, yeah, it will take jobs. Robotics will take jobs away. Instead of trimming bushes and installing mulch and laying lines, we will start focusing on optimization of drones and the robotics and fixing the drones efficiently and fixing the robotics efficiently and communicating with customers and having a human touch to an otherwise very sterile environment. That's going to happen 20 to 40 years. And so whether or not someone wants that to happen or not, it's going to happen. And so people can get free. They can say it's jobs are being lost and all the rest of it. I just don't see any massive need for jobs right now. Right. The labor market is just fine. We should be 100 supporting anything that is taking. Putting America back on the map in terms of technology. And so that's just my two cents. Yeah.

Okay, well, let's bring it home. Last thing, I want to get back to North Carolina. I know we got the anytime AI, we go down the rabbit hole, but I think it's just so interesting. But let's bring it home for Augusta.

Right?

Let's get anecdotal with it. Someone, someone comments. Mike, that's so dumb. Why would you do that? You're gonna lose the level of professionalism that you have with Augusta. The people at command center that answer the phone integrating AI with your phone service, people want to talk to a real person on the Other line, that's not going to solve any problems. It's only going to hurt you and Augusta. What?

What's your retort? They're not my customer. My customer wants to talk to someone and get their problem solved. That's the only reason they call me. They call. One simple thing is that I have a problem solved, and the faster I can do that for them, the better. They don't care if it's a robot talking to them. They don't care if it's a grasshopper talking to them. They simply want to make sure that their problem gets solved, and whoever does it the fastest and cheapest is going to win the game. And I could care less what commenters think about AI. I think about how we're responding, and they're going to call us in the middle of the night to see how the AI responds, and they're going to mock me about how it doesn't sound good at first, because we're gonna have to really iterate, and we're gonna listen to every single call and have to fix things. And we have three phases of doing that. If, yes, Co pilot's gonna actually kick butt next year, and people are gonna be absolutely floored, and they'll be so far behind us, they don't have a shot in the world. Yes, that will happen, but they can say whatever they want, because ultimately, the only thing that matters is the customer. The customer will.

Yeah.

And if the customer wins, that company will win. And the only thing the customer wants is their problem solved. Fast. Fast and efficiently. And if I can help me do that, and I'm on board. Yeah.

And this is no offense to anyone that works at a call center, but you and I. Pride.

Wait, hold. Hold the phone. Hold the phone. For the fact that people at command center will hear this. Potentially, let me be very clear that the tractor will happen at command Center. Right. We will go from answering phone calls, doing very busy work like copying and pasting and putting things in estimate calculators, and it will move more towards, as time goes on, more of a consulting role with franchisees focusing on payroll hiring. We can really take a lot more on from a hiring perspective for our franchisees if we're able to not have to build the minutiae of creating estimates and answering phone calls about, like getting. Getting someone's credit card information or taking a review on the phone. That should all be done by AI and then we would move our workforce over time towards more of a consultant role. And then down the road, when technology comes along, those People that were once answering phone calls while getting someone's credit card information and taking complaint are now actually dealing and interfacing with robotics out in the field. That's. That's what Command center will do in 15 to 20 years.

Yeah, yeah. And just to clarify, what I was going to say has nothing to do with Command Center. I'm just saying from a consumer's perspective, still playing kind of devil's advocate. I would rather talk to a finely tuned AI than I would someone from a massive call center that has the script that after I say anything, they're like, oh, that's great, Mr. Park. And how's your day going, Mr. Park? Oh, that's great. Is there anything else I can do for you today, Mr. Park? I hate that script. Talk to me like a person or be a robot at that point, like quite literally. And I know that sounds harsh, but that's such a robotic conversation. I'd rather have it with a very efficient AI than someone who's just going to treat me like I'm a number on the phone, like either talking like a person or make this more efficient. I don't care. Just pick a lane.

Yeah, And Devil's Advocate.

Hold on, Sorry.

Yep.

And we don't do that at Command Center. We don't have scripts. So I don't want people to think like Command center, not coming at them. They're phenomenal people. But like, I'm talking massive call centers, right?

Yeah, but, but ultimately, as any company scales, you have to have systems in place. And so any, anytime you add more people, whether it be Call center, any sort of unit level production, you're going to have to create model systems, scripts, etc. And we do training around how to react to certain things, et cetera. There is a level of depersonalization. However.

What I am confident in is that the rate at which AI will learn and adapt and become better is faster than the average human being. That is 100% true. And so I would rather have the capabilities of a human being be focused on the thing with that a human being is good at. A human being is good at creating empathy. They are good at having emotion. They're good at being adaptable to situations that are not repetitive. What AI can do better than a human being is those things. And to the, to the critic of what you just said, they would say, well, I'd rather just talk to the person that. I get the same person on the phone every time. They're local in my area, I can hear their accent. All the rest of it. That is true for subset of people. The same way that 15, 20 years ago there are people that only wanted to send checks, put cash underneath the mat, etc, but again they caught up with the technology and now everyone just expects cards to be on file. They expect to get their invoices in the, in the like. For example, the person that I did an estimate today, they're extremely unhappy by the fact they don't get estimates in email. They're literally wanting to switch from their provider because they just see an invoice at the end of the month and they're getting charged and they don't know what's happening. So that was someone who didn't stay up with technology. And so in my opinion, what will, what will tend to happen is as technology increases, the cost of time becomes more and more valuable. And so consumers will be more and more conscious about the time that they're saving and the time that they spend on the phone talking to someone, the time that they spend waiting on a call back from someone because they left the voicemail yesterday and now they're just getting back in the day. All of that gets cut out with AI and people will value time a whole lot more in my opinion down the road as we become much more globally integrated, as we become much more integrated with the AI, as we get used to using self checkout and we start getting used to calling and robotics listening to us. Self checkout 10 years ago was a disaster. People hated it, it was full of memes. And even Home Depot over the past year has proven that they can take what was used to be a joke and turn it into something phenomenal in terms of self checkout. And now it's just adapted and people figured it out. And now I get annoyed when I deal with a checkout person that's like mundanely standing there and can't communicate for anything. I was like, give me a self checkout. And that will happen, that will happen in time. And so there will always be a niche of individuals that want consumers, that want someone that is local and personalized and one off person. That number will become less and less as the value of time becomes more and more and someone just wants their problem solved. And that ultimately is what a business exists, is to solve a problem for a customer. And whoever can do that the fastest, the most efficiently will win that game.

Okay, so you probably know about pay for performance by now. You already know that it can change the way you do business and increase the efficiency of your employees drastically. But it's never that simple, right? You can't just switch your business over to P4P in a day, but what you can do is check out the free course we built, P4P University. P4P University takes you step by step through the entire process of implementing P4P in your business. We explain exactly how the system works, how to use the software, and most importantly, we don't waste your time. Once again, this course is absolutely free. There's no reason not to check it out. If you're thinking of starting your business on P4P. So go to mycandies.com P4P to get started.

Foreign.

North Carolina. Jump back a little bit. Let's get a little bit more behind the scenes on kind of what's going on down there. So you couldn't eat until you got your first customer. You got your first customer. You can eat now, right? That's what I heard from Liz at least. So, yeah. Anything else you want to share with anybody? I. I don't really have, like, specific questions prepared, but, you know, maybe you got the. You got the storage unit, you got the truck, you're down there, you're set up, you got at least one customer, you got somebody hired, and somebody from TikTok actually reached out for a job or they heard you on TikTok, saw you on TikTok.

Yeah. So spoiler alert, that one didn't work out. But I did find someone else, hired them, send them a job offer today. I always. I filled out the form and command center will send it out tomorrow, but I texted him and kind of confirmed things. So he's moving in town four hours away. He's moving in for the job. So that's a good thing. Chuck actually originally moved from Ohio to Morrisville.

Yeah.

So that was.

That was a good omen.

But he'll hopefully be my general manager. And I'm hiring him a little differently, usually obviously behind our labor right now, but I'm hiring my GM. So I'm actually hiring at 25 an hour. And then basically as part of the jobs, like, you will become my gm and that will switch to salary, basically at the same rate, you know, 50, 55 plus or 50 to 55,000 a year. Usually a thousand dollars a week is what we do for a GM starting. So it was a switch to that, but it's part of the job. And so we'll see how that we saw. We'll see how that works, and then I'll probably try to find another, like, labor later this month.

Okay, cool. That's awesome. What's his name?

Oh, Wade is the one that we're hiring.

Wade.

Cool.

Welcome aboard, Wade. Stoked. It's very cool, man.

I think it's most frustrating and you'll see it in day two, which is like today's video. So it'll come out in a couple days. It's like I'm just mostly frustrated by the fact like I can't go do the things I know will move the needle for the business, which is like the door hangers and holding the sign next to the road. And even just those things I know moves the needle for the business. I can't do this because like even Today it was 2:30 by the time I was able like start doing stuff in the business.

And I gotta get back here for meetings in the middle of the day. So it kind of messes up stuff up too. So like we kind of do our shooting for the video like you know, 8, 9 o' clock to like, let's call it 11. And then I do my meetings and it's kind of like, okay, well now I got the afternoon. So it's just tough. But ultimately like I'm doing behind the scenes videos for all destination, like longer form, just like talking to the camera of what happening each day. And so you know me today, you know, putting the decals on the truck, washing the truck, like those are useless, needless things to do. Yeah. When you're actually trying to grow the business, they're just the busy work. Right. So I was just frustrated. Yeah, I kind of showed it on the video that like I'm not able to do the things that I know actually move the business forward.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Has the sign been working? You've been holding a sign that just says mowing quote two minutes or something.

So I was only able to stand out there for like 30, 40 minutes. That's the problem. Right. So I want to stand there for a good solid two or three hours and actually get some, some, some metrics on it. So I can say, okay, I get an estimate per 30 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever. Because if I can do that, I will hire someone. And so that's my goal tomorrow, knock on wood. And that is like, go get at least two hours of standing out with the sign. Because if I can get one lead every 30 minutes, that would probably beat out door hangers and I'd probably stick to that. But I could probably hire out the sign, give someone minimum wage and then tell them like, hey, per lead, I'll give you X amount of Dollars. So I've got to figure out the metrics of that and I can't do that based on yesterday because it's like pouring down rain. I got one and called it right and it was like maybe 40 minutes of standing out the right. It was, it was horrible. So one way is like, well, maybe they were sympathetic to you and that's.

Why you got it.

Or it's like, hey, in my opinion, like no one wanted to stop because they, as soon as you roll that window down, you are stoked. And so we'll see. I think tomorrow will be a good test. We'll do it for two hours at least and see what kind of numbers we get.

Nice, I like that. Well, we'll dive back into North Carolina next week a little bit more. I'm sure there'll be more stories. You know, you'll be a full weekend at that point. So I, I don't want to, you know, dive in too much.

Right.

We'll, we'll get the behind the scenes next week. I want to switch it up here to something, you know, I, I am a power user of a, of a product that will stay unnamed and I got an email from them today that they have recently partnered with Cardone Enterprises. So there is a well known CRM that has partnered with Cardone Enterprises to have their sales training, sales tactics integrated into their CRM. And, and yeah. So what are your thoughts on that? Interesting.

Is that the same one that we beat Getting integrated with OpenAI on Email Builder?

Yeah, that, that would probably, that's probably the one. Yeah.

737 max. Let's go.

Yeah, so I think it was a misstep. I think it was misdirection. I think they're going to get kickback from their audience because it's off brand. It's not going to be with Grant Cardone. That's just. I'll break that down real quick. They used his name, it's not going to be with him. Grant Cardone will not be your mastermind coach. It's a way for them to integrate another product, slap their name on something and then 500 goes off of the Cardone University. That's essentially what it is. And I've used code on the university I got for free for seven days and it was in my opinion very worth, very, very little. I'd pay $99 for it, maybe 199.

The vast majority of the actual training was 20 plus years old, 15 at least. And the vast majority of everything else was just cut up of webinars that he's done in the past that was mostly I would say 60 to 70 sales selling other products and there's a coaching and the Masterminds that are 10, $15,000. So it's a big upsell. He will teach you how to sell by selling you stuff. And so I think it's a bad brand move because anyone that does it will just see right through it very quickly. And that is, it's a slap a name on, give a discount to a very, very expensive product that has nothing to do with home services and is what that. It's just very off brand. It's bad move.

Yeah, yeah. It seemed weird to me because the email, like if you, if you see what the email is, it's like the, the praise hands emoji. Like yeah. And then it just says we got Grant Cardone. And I'm like this doesn't, like, it doesn't compute. It didn't make sense when I saw it. My literal reaction was what in the world. That's what I said. And I'm thinking, so here's, here's, here's.

Here'S the, here's what Grant did this. Let me be very clear. He is buying out H VAC companies and the 737 Max program has another program program.

That will also go unnamed but is a, is a sister company inside of a larger conglomerate. And that company focuses on H Vacs. They do CRM for H Vac. And Cardone is currently buying out using Cardone Ventures, a lot of H Vac companies. And if you look at his ads that he's running is a lot against H Vac companies. And the reason for that is they're buying a whole bunch out and then they're going to take it public. So that's the, that's his move. That's why he's doing it. He is not doing it for 737 Max. He's doing it for their partnering sister company. And that's why he's doing it. And so if he does show his face, that's why he, that's why it'll happen. It'll be a pitch into Cardone Ventures. I can guarantee you.

That's, that's just one. A whole nother layer is this is most, is most of that portion public though, like the H Vac buyout and the partner company.

Listen to a podcast he did two weeks ago with this house.

Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. And two, just from like a user of the 737 Max, if you will. It didn't make a lot of sense either because I'm like, well, Grant Cardone now is like strictly real estate and like B2B sales. And when you have a home service CRM, you're B2C. Like, you're going straight to consumer, straight to customer. So I was like, even though.

No, it's B2B. It's B2B still.

Oh, really?

A CRM? A CRM?

Well, no, like, the users of the CRM are B2C.

Okay, okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah, so.

So I was like. And I know, like a sale. A good salesperson. Can you be.

I got what you're saying. I see what you're saying.

What I'm saying is like, you're taking this real estate B2B mogul. And yes, he's a great salesperson. I'm not knocking him. He's probably better than I'll ever be at sales. But it's just like Jim down the street with his plumbing company doesn't necessarily need sales training from Grant Cardell, in my opinion.

It's a different form of sales.

Right.

So, yeah, no, I agree. I would actually massively disagree with fact. He's a good salesperson, too. The type of. When he does sales on, like, videos and stuff like that, he's using a type of sales that would never work for someone that was not named Grant Cardone. You cannot say some of the things that he says to people on the phone. You cannot. You will not. And he can get away with it because people will laugh and then he'll say, that's why I did that. Like, that will not work, dude. I'm sorry, that will not work. And if you actually listen to what.

He says in a lot of his.

Podcasts, is he actually downplay sales massively? He just, like, get in front of people, just like, be known, basically. Right. And I believe that that's why he's been successful, is be known. Don't worry about what people. Whether or not people agree with you. And that's even something that I've taken away over the course of the years of seeing his content and not agreeing with how he kind of does a lot of stuff. However, he cannot, you cannot fault him for being known. Everyone knows who he is. And that's why that company would, would, would use his name is because he's been known. And that's the value is the name. And so even like when we do, like our tick tocks and all the rest of it, like, we were getting between 15 and 20 million views just on YouTube, probably 20 million plus. And when you look at the other platforms a few months ago using Tick tocks and stuff and like, hey, that's a negative brand version. It's like I don't care. People just see it. Well, guess what? Like literally this week I call my first applicant and they're like, do you, are you gotten tick? Are you, is your company on Tick Tock? And he didn't even see my face. He was those on the phone. Right? Exactly.

Yep.

You know, Chuck just hired a guy and he came from the content and when he said one of his best employees ever. So people can argue all they want with, with grants, ability to sell and they have right to. I don't think he's a good salesperson, but from a marketing perspective he's been known and that's the real value. Because if you can have a brand and that's what he's established, you don't need to sell.

No.

Like when this company 737 Max gets on there and says his name, that's all that needs to be said in terms of what's going to come and be delivered. They didn't say a lot about like what you're going to learn, the strategies you're going to get from the sales training. They don't need to, they just need to say Grant Cardone's associated with it. Everyone knows what they're, what they're talking about. And so that's why getting known is so important. And it is far more, it's far better to be known than lent. And that is what he has lived his life by. And you can't blame him for that.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think I was, it was a little tongue in cheek saying that like he's this world renowned salesman. Right. Like I, I think you know some of my personal feelings about Grant, it feels slick, his sales ability. But I do think he, he is a great motivator for sales people and does get people to kind of get uncomfortable with the sales side, be comfortable getting uncomfortable being known, being in front of people, talking to people. And when he does like some of his like, you know, you'll see exclusive videos from like conferences or seminars. He does. And when he does like objection based like training with people, he is pretty good at like that objection based training but objection based training, I don't know, I feel like there's little value in that unless you're just playing the numbers game of sales and you get in front of as many people as possible. And I know these four scripted objections, and I know exactly how to respond to them to make the sale. And if I don't close, I move to the next one. And I just feel like for most home service people, that's not how they're selling. That's just not it. They're trying to make a connection. They're trying to create a relationship with their consumer so that they have a trusted brand and can keep that customer, you know, recurring in our industry. Right?

Yeah. 100%.

Yeah. Sweet. Any other thoughts on that? It was just an interesting email. An interesting email on. On, on today.

So I have to keep some of my thoughts.

Oh, yeah, I know, I know. I just got. I got a poke a little just to see. Just to be safe. Cool. North Carolina Grant cardone, lots going on. You want to wrap it up with some non financial advice?

Oh, yeah, dude, I got one. So mine is. Is something that is like obvious to probably every landscaper out there. And I know I'm an idiot for not knowing this prior. And I always was like, why do. Like, I got why guys wore long sleeves. All right, I get it. You're in a really hot environment, but I never did. I never wore long sleeve. Always short sleeve. Dude, wearing long sleeves does make you cool off. Like, I'm not joking, dude. It helps you not get sunburned. And this is not revolutionary to 99%. I know that. But wearing long sleeves and like, like a hat with the thing over the neck is awesome. Yeah, I just started doing it last few weeks, kind of getting ready for the trip and stuff. And it's. It's game changer. So long sleeves with a hat and a neck. The thing that covers the neck. You know, I always thought it was, you know, just a bunch of hearsay, but it is not.

Yeah, fair enough. Well, hey, when I was in the field, I was. I was gonna throw this out there because I did have some of the guys at our local Bellingham shop asking me some questions. And my non financial advice was actually weirdly kind of the same. Is like the garters, like, they're great. So getting like one of those buffs. So I always did it, especially back in the field. And this is nothing revolutionary either, but that's my non financial advice is get a buff. Because when I was in the field, most of the summer, I was spent doing projects. And that was back when we were doing walls, patios, lots of like earth moving. And so I was spent hunched over most of the day or on my knees, like building wall, building. Patio so the back of my neck was exposed. I would get one of those buffs, and then I'd pour freezing, like, cold water on it, and then I'd put it back on and then just pull it up. Great move. So it's actually funny we got the same thing because the guys are like.

Did the hats come in for the guys?

We just came in for the guys and giving them at the team meeting tomorrow. So all of our guys at the local shop now have these awesome hats, these new hats and sun hats that you got for them.

So cool.

Good. Stoked. Right on. Well, that's all I got, sir. Thanks for taking the time. Appreciate you stepping out of your busy week to join us on another episode.

See you soon. Filter, baby.

Wouldn't miss it, like, and subscribe. We just hit 400 subscribers, so let's go. Thousand by October, baby.

This has been the Mike Andy's podcast. Now you have some ideas on how to take your business to the next level. And if you liked what you heard, we have tons of of lectures, interviews, and more over at the Mike Candies YouTube channel. That'll be right up your alley. That's all we have for you today. We'll see you next time.