CAREER FAIR | MikeMinute005

Well, I had to choose between my girlfriend and this.

Hey. Well, you made a good decision. There will always be another. Happy Valentine's Day.

So tonight is the career fair at Augusta Lawn Care. And so we'll be having I think like 10 people there that are potential hires. And we're looking for two and probably three people to join the team. For those of you on the course, I'm going to record the entire thing. So you know exactly how to make these presentations and get really good prospects for your next employee and especially coming to spring. So it's gonna be interesting to see how this works. Exactly. I've never done one of these career fairs before. Essentially how it's gonna be set up is I'm gonna provide food and all that good stuff and then I am going to do a presentation, just like talk to them about the company's history, kind of where we're going, what our goals are and plans for the future. Then we'll talk about the specific job positions that are open, what their requirements are, what the positive, like our culture. I think it'll be super. All small businesses, they have these kind of career fairs after they've already done application and then at the career fair they sign up for an interview. It really just proves that you're really committed to them and you really portray what the business is all about and the training that they're going to get.

Once they jump on board.

And if you show that kind of level of commitment to them and that you're really invested, you know, you're having an entire evening, you're giving them food, you're doing a presentation. It really just shows that you're really serious about what you're doing. You're not just going to like try someone out because those rarely work out.

Alright, so we're at the office now. It's 3:30. At 4:00', clock, this place is gonna be jam packed. We got 10 potential new employees showing up today. So we got chairs out, we're gonna have pizza. We already got a bunch of drinks over here and then more in the fridge. So how it's gonna work here, they're gonna come in, they're going to get their little name tag and write their name on it. I'm gonna just record this, I'm just.

Gonna set the camera down.

So probably not gonna be the best of footage, but hopefully you all of what I'm talking about during the presentation and get an idea of what you should be doing for your employee introduction. We call it career fair, not job fair. Because we're looking for people long term, make this their career. Everyone out. Happy Valentine's Day to everybody. I didn't need a whole lot. Oh. Cause it was gonna be last Tuesday when it snowed.

You're giving me time, man.

Now I can. It was a good excuse.

You're like, you know what?

I gotta go. No chocolate. No roses this year.

Well, I had to choose between my girlfriend and this.

Hey, well, you made a good decision, man. There'll always be another. Happy Valentine's Day. I started Augusta Lawn Care three years ago. Three years ago as of March. And so this is our third year. It started off with just me by myself in a trailer. That's the uniform we used to have. So future going forward, we're really looking to expand. I know that mowing a lawn is not the most exciting thing to do. I know that trimming trees and raking mulch is the most exciting thing to do, but it's really kind of ground level. And so as we grow quickly and we get a lot of people, we'll need people to manage, and those people will be drawn on the people who come up first. So the people who we are first, four or five hires, those are the people who can grow with us. Become a management for an entire location, things like that. Become an estimator. So there's definitely room to grow. You are capable in and of yourself. You're independent. That's what we're looking for. I'm not looking for a yes man. I'm looking for people that challenge me on. On my marketing ideas, how we run the business, and that's how we're gonna grow our team. Culture is something that's super, super, super important to me as we go forward. I know that right now we're small and we're, you know, to talk about culture is usually something a corporation like a Fortune 500 company is talking about. But this is the most important thing for me this year. I kind of dropped the ball last year because I have a podcast and other stuff about things I do. And so it kind of pulled me away from the business a little bit, and I failed in this regard. And that is communicating with everyone, like, every single day, getting to know people more and knowing where everyone's at. And so you'll notice if you get a job offer on your employee contract, you can be fired for doing something against another person in the organization. You get one strike. I'm gonna warn you, we're gonna talk about it as a team. And then after that, you're out that's the one thing I won't deal with, is undermining either management or even someone below you. However it is putting them down, whatever it is, that is the one thing that would get you fired the fastest. I really believe that coming to work shouldn't be a drudgery. There should be no tension between people. Like, I know that you're not gonna get along with everyone, but, like, definitely, as we work together, team, as we grow, that's what I feel is the most important thing. You might break a window. Like, Josh has broken a window too. I've broken windows. Like, I probably. Like, I didn't even sculpt. Remember that first one out next to the water? Yeah. And so, like, it was a $700 glass window. Right. And so.

Two of them. Right.

What was the second one? Laura, Brandon and.

Thorns. Oh, oh, right, right, right, right, right. We weren't sure if that was us or not, but it probably was anyways. So, like, I didn't. I don't get mad over that stuff. Like, if it's an accident, I get it. Who's gonna be joining are the ones that are gonna be in five, 10 years, the ones who are managing locations and many people. And I want that to be solid. And so this is gonna be the biggest thing this year that will be changing everything from, like, our team meetings every week now.

Incorporating things to grow as a team, as people, and not just as far as our work. So we'll be doing things like, I'll be getting everyone whatever kind of book they want or audible, like to listen throughout the day. Like, I want to grow as people, too. So if you're interested in a certain field or if you're interested in management or business, we can go over how we run the business. And so I'm all about that. And I want this to be, in 10 years, a place where you tell your children, hey, this is a great place to start your career or even to grow with them. And so that's what I'm looking to create here. I'm not trying to create the most profitable enterprise or the biggest brand or whatever like that. I'm really interested in the people that work here.

There are times, obviously, this is a seasonal business. We're super, super busy. Spring and fall, little bit of a slowdown in the summer, and then slower in the winter. We're really working on leveling that out by getting more commercial jobs. So commercial work allows us to keep people full time throughout the winter. We are on top of people about efficiency. That's the one way we make money in this business is efficiency. So whether it be on the new implementation of our system, where you have an app and you have all your jobs and you're starting clocking in on one, you go through that one, clock out. We know down to the minute if we're making money, if we're losing money. And so it's all about efficiency. And. And so we're not gonna be, like, on your back, like, what are you doing right now? What are you doing? We're not gonna be like that. But we are tracking every single thing. Cause that's the only way we can really know if we're gonna be able to scale this out. And we can't grow and get a second location. Like, for me personally, I know that when we get second and third location, that's when people within the organization can grow with us. And so I'm trying to get there as fast as possible. And so this year, I know that, like, how much money we need to save in order to get Bellingham location. And, like, that's the goal. So, like, Liz knows I cut my salary in half because that's the goal. And so everything is really centered around that. Whether it be getting commercial jobs, leveling out the winter, getting the right people on board. It's all centered around, really, for us to grow and to get to that place. Yeah. So, like, don't sign up for an interview if this is a summer job, and then you're gonna leave. We want people here for, like, two, three years. Obviously, if something happens to you, I get that. That's totally fine. But we are looking for someone at least stay with us and to grow with us. And you're gonna see it reflecting your paycheck and all, like, what you're doing. And you're gonna learn a lot. Right. But at the same time, we need that commitment for us to grow steadily. We can't have that just turn over like crazy. And so if you're just wanting a summer job, I can recommend you other places. That first Monday is gonna be when you get your uniforms, when we watch all the videos for tutorials on how to do everything around here. And you can ask questions during that time and stuff, but on the Tuesday.

Tuesday, we'd go out and actually do it in the field. So we're gonna go to harborside apartments, which is in Blaine, one of our commercial contracts, and do all the mowing stuff. So you're gonna learn firsthand on the zero turn with me and Josh and everyone else there. I'll say you're mowing and you start and then you're gonna. You can leave job notes. You can take a picture and it'll attach it to that to the office. So, like, big thing. The only thing that separates us from our competition is our communication. So that's communication with the office to the crew, the crew to the office, and the office back to the customer.

So you can always ask a question without you being on the ground, right?

Absolutely. Like, that's the big kind of what we're learning right now is how to get me not at every single job. And so there's some. We're gonna drop some balls. Like we were still learning in that process. Like, we'll make mistakes and it's like, oh, my goodness, I knew that, but I wasn't there and I should have been like. So, like, we're trying to figure out how to do that, make it more efficient. So as we grow, like, I can't be every single mowing job. I can't be every single even landscaping job. I need people to do a walk through with a customer. Things like that that I can teach to people, and they do it and we move forward. But yeah, as far as our system that we use, everything is from billing to scheduling to routing. Everything's on that app that we use.

Anything else?

No. All right, cool. Pizza. Thank you guys for coming. I appreciate it. Tell your wives and girls friends. I'm sorry. Blame it all on me.

Thank you.

Sam.