Copilot Mastermind 10/26/2024

Hello. Welcome Copilot family. Hope you're doing fantastic on this weekend. Let's go and get started. We got the mastermind for today, a couple quick announcements. First off, if you didn't see the release notes from this past week, we have enabled much faster release of emails from Copilot. And so the throttle of 100 per hour has been changed to 1,000 per hour. Emails that are underneath a 50 threshold will go out immediately. But in the past you've sent out bulk emails and you have tens of thousands of customers. It does take a considerable amount of time. Because it's 100 emails per hour, it has been changed to a thousand, which will allow for those to go out much faster. And that has been because of the backend improvements and changes we made throughout 2024 to ensure that there's not bottlenecks, there's not throttles, and we have full visibility of everything to do with emails at every single level, which ones are getting blocked, et cetera. And I don't mean just at the level of our email servers, but actually on the back end of what's happening. And so we can actually now have a dashboard. Actually, I'm going to quickly show you what we actually see on our end. This is not just what we get from Mailgun or SendGrid, but actually what's going on in the database of when people are sending emails, what the backlog is, et cetera. So the numbers I'm always looking at is right here.

The pending emails over on the left hand side there. And that being at zero is important. That means that the throttles are working, everything is being sent out as needed. The reason we did this is because if you have, say 3,000 customers, you send a mass email in the past that was taking 30 hours. That's a problem because now you got emails going in the middle of the night and you might not want that. So now having 1000 per hour will allow you segment down a little bit further. I do recommend if you have more than 5,000 customers or five hours worth of emails going out, I would probably chunk down your emails, mostly because not so much for the throttling that happens, but more a matter of making sure that when leads come in from your one click estimate emails and marketing messages that you actually are able to, in a timely fashion, deal with those leads.

Instead of having, you know, 50, 60, 70 estimates come in. And now it takes you a week or two to get through them all. So I would recommend segmenting down so you can actually service those leads when they Come in effectively. So that was an update from this past week. Another thing I wanted to go over real quick.

It is copilotcrm.com map. You can now get to this page and Parker posted about this on the facebook group. It's going to be pinned at the top of the facebook group going forward and really it's the only way to get there. And you can zoom out and see like, you know, other countries that we have members. But this is the.

Map of all the copilot members inside of copilot CRM. What's cool about this is it allows you to be able to see exactly who's around you and who you can learn from, who you can meet up with, who you can network with, etc. I think it's going to be a really valuable tool for the community.

Everyone inside of copilot is within driving distance of a few other members. And so I would highly recommend going in here, seeing where people are at. You can zoom in and the numbers open up as you get closer to a specific city. So for example, here you can see there are like 10 or so. You gotta zoom in sometimes because they're relatively close. Also.

These numbers, they are not exactly, or the pins are not exactly where the businesses are at. So what that can create is kind of a grouping of them to come together. Even though, like right here there are, you know, eight locations here, not far from Memphis.

There is a grouping of them. Because these are not the exact addresses. We don't want to dox anyone or anything like that. It's a matter of, you know, see the businesses around you that are using copilot. So for example, here we got, you know, five businesses all probably within 10 minutes drive, you know, being able to meet up with other business. Oh wait, there's more up here. So four, three, there's like probably 15 businesses within a matter of 10 minute drive here that are using copilot. The ability to meet up with those people, network with them, et cetera, super valuable. And I really do believe that a rising tide will float all boats. And so if you can get people with people in your market that are using copilot and go over the routing, the dispatching, automation, they have workflows that are working well for them. It'll certainly help you and it'll certainly help them. And by doing that, we'll all be able to increase the level of professionalism in our industry, raise our prices and change the level of what customers expect. So on this page co map, I explain a little bit more about the map. If you want to opt out, that's totally fine. You're like, hey, I don't want to be on the map. Totally fine. Submit the form, we'll get you taken off. Just keep in mind it is not your exact address. We are making this based on county and so some of them will be grouped in the same spot simply because we are not sharing the exact address. This, the ability. The awesome part about this is I remember the past when we use software and I was like, man, if I could just meet someone in person, it'd be so awesome to see how they use the software top to bottom or like shadow them for a day in their office, etc. And I understand it's like, well, I'm competing with them. Look, if all of our your local competition and all of our industry can improve our processes, improve our pricing, improve how we handle employees, that elevates the industry as a whole and allows us to charge higher prices. And that's why some industries in home services charge a much, much higher price. It's because technology and usually venture capital and private equity get involved and they elevate the industry by doing, using software, by increasing the community. And they usually conglomerate and bring people together. They'll buy a bunch of companies out and put them together so they communicate, they share best practices, they take the best ones and all as a whole, the industry will rise. So I really believe in this and so use the map. I'd recommend see who's around you, try to meet up with them. This should really spur local meetups. The ability to be able to get together, especially during the off season and be able to see who's, who's using COPA and watch their workflows. So highly recommend using this. And in the spirit of abundance, I think that this is the way the community should move and so that's what it's there for. If you want to opt out, totally fine, no hard feelings whatsoever. But I do think this will be a powerful tool for the community. All right, let's jump into the Mastermind questions. If you have not.

Submitted a question before, I encourage you to do so. If you're on the Copilot CRM members group, go right to the top here underneath the featured posts. Scroll over here, right here, the Copilot Mastermind question submission and you're going to follow this link right here. Once you follow this link, it's going to look just like this and you're going to submit your question for the group. All right, and I will go over this every Single week on the weekend for the copilot mastermind. So let's go ahead and jump in, get these questions answered.

All right, got five here today. Start off with responses individual. Here we go. First one is from Mike Owens, Blackbeard Lawn Care. What gross revenue do you anticipate per employee throughout the winter? We aim for our snowplowing grants to generate 20 to 25,000 per truck per employee.

The main challenge is managing capacity. Customers expect prompt service so routes can exceed six to eight hours. While 20 to $25,000 per employee over four months isn't a huge amount, it is highly profitable with earnings of about $200 plus per budget hour and a profit margin exceeding 50%. Should I consider expanding by purchasing more trucks and hiring additional staff, even if it means the trucks remain idle during the summer, thus lowering asset utilization but boosting overall profitability? Yeah, so I would be careful. So I'm not opposed to this. But keep in mind the current margins that you're seeing start to diminish if for eight, nine months of the year they're sitting idle because that piece of equipment, especially if a larger percentage of your revenue is coming from snow plowing, your insurance is going to go up. It's a high premium service. The maintenance on that equipment is going to go up because you're doing snow plowing. And if you're sitting for eight, nine months a year and remaining idle, that margin starts going from 50% to 30% pretty quickly. And so I'm not opposed to this, but what I would do if I was you, Mike, is I would try to balance out the demand that you have in your growing season and snow. What that means is if you have a ton of snow coming in and not a lot of mowing and landscaping, I would try to increase the number of leads that I'm getting during my spring and summer months so that that truck, it doesn't sit idle for eight or nine months. That would be my objective. And my objective would be be able to use the same truck between the two services, which will also reflect on what type of snow plowing and snow services you are willing to perform and which customers you're willing to serve. I can't have a massive dump truck for snow plowing, but then do simple services for like mowing during the other eight, nine months of the year. So I would look at these as two different businesses, two different services. And again, is that bad thing? No, I'm always trying to create season specific offers with season specific services. And so this is fine. I'm looking as my mowing season, I'm looking at my snow season. I want them to equate each other though. So my asset utilization remains high, my profit margins on the snow plowing remains high. And that I don't essentially take a good thing going that I have going and turn it into something bad because I have a bunch of assets that don't get utilized. Because remember, all of your profits are sitting between what you're currently making in revenue and your full asset capacity. And so if your asset capacity by buying all these trucks becomes $100,000 a month and for nine months of the year you're only doing 40 or 50,000, there's going to be a loss of profit there.

Next question is from Kevin Ginty from Wink Exteriors. If I eventually wanted to have an AI agent to answer my phone for the times it normally would go to voicemail, are there any platforms you recommend? I know you said you wanted to keep AI Max and Augusta, but do you ever think there'll be an option where we can purchase a template of the structure or script logic of AI Max from your media company so we can use frameworks to help build a version that works for our specific company? Yeah. No. Like, you would need a full team of engineers to modify. Even if I gave the script logic away and like the code and like how we interact with AWS and like our whole workflow, even if I gave it away, like, it requires a full team of engineers, so it wouldn't be actually helpful. Now these services that are getting out of the box, there's a whole bunch of them, they're getting better and better. Everything from like Air AI, there's like, there's a bunch of them and they're getting slowly better and better. They're slowly coming down in price, so it's not cost prohibitive. And they're getting, they're getting better in that usually you can like do certain prompts and customize it. I will say this based upon testing all of them. A of lot, a lot of what they market is very different than what I've seen in terms of their flexibility once you get inside the software. So I consistently am testing these. And so I would say this is the thing. 38% of people that get to voicemail do not leave a voicemail. Like if you miss their call, if you don't pick up, they don't leave a voicemail. Sorry, I messed that up. So I apologize. 38% of people that when they get to your voicemail, leave a message. That means that 62% of people, when they hit your voicemail and you miss their call, they do not leave a voicemail. You're going after that percentage of people. And so I would highly recommend, even if it's not great, even if it's a little bit cost per I'd be willing to pay like 500 bucks a month easily just for someone to answer the phone AI when the call is missed. I know that if you do that just on a very basic level, you'll get someone leaving a voice message to go from 38% to well over double that. And so I would recommend it. And if it's a little janky, it'll probably be that way at the beginning. The technology continues to get better and I do believe in the next year or two it'll become good enough to where you like it and you'll actually start reducing your hours that you answer the phone, et cetera, over the next couple years I think. And it'll just get better and better. So.

Kevin Ginty asked again one kicksterious do you would you consider window cleaning recession proof? I know it's more of a luxury service, but curious on your thoughts and if the answer is different for residential versus commercial clients. Okay, good question. So.

I don't think for commercial clients is necessarily a luxury service. You gotta gotta do it in order to bring in new customers. So a commercial client probably less likely to be affected as much for the recession because you need clean windows to like attract a good customer. I will say this.

Recurring revenue in general, any sort of maintenance of anything is going to be more recession proof as a whole because new is going to be very difficult to finance when there is a recession. And so any sort of maintenance is more recession proof than projects and installs during a poor economic climate.

In terms of window clean be your luxury service, I would say that for some people it's not a luxury service simply due to the fact that they have a lot of money. And so keep in mind even during a recession there are people that have millions of dollars and and them going from 100 million to 80 million is not going to keep them from not cleaning their windows. Also, if I am maintaining an asset that I have, even if it's bad economic times, I might not buy more real estate, but I might maintain my current real estate better. So instead of spending $50,000 on redoing the landscaping at my apartment complex, I might just ensure that I clean out the gutters press site, do the soft wash of the exterior and wash the windows for the for the tenants. So I actually believe that sometimes in a, in a recession what happens is people just reduce their spend to something that's more maintenance instead of install. So if you were installing windows during a recession, yes, very, very difficult because building will usually collapse during a economic recession. But there are always windows to be had. People are always make the windows dirty. And so now instead of replacing the windows or instead of remodeling their house, they'll just clean the current windows that they have. So I wouldn't say it's recession proof because it is a luxury, but so is mowing grass. Technically the grass could keep growing and like who cares? But people are more inclined to just make sure the grass stays cut then compared to.

Installing a brand new landscaping. Right. So I wouldn't say it's like there is no service that is 100% recession proof because ultimately people can just not do it and deal with the consequences of it. I think that for a the right customer that is one that has, is more affluent and if you have marketing, branding software, et cetera, uniforms, your trucks are decal, doing that attracts the right customer that even during an economic recession, they'll still get their windows cleaned, they'll still get their lawn mowed. Same thing with even the demographic of your customers. So if they're older, for example, they're not going to get on a ladder and do it themselves. So I would say the biggest thing to making sure you're recession proof is going after the right customer. Because the right customer, even in a recession, they physically can't do the work and they have the money liquid regardless of whether or not the overall market is going through a downturn. Adam Burkett Pristine green lawn and Landscape Question one When a customer books an in person estimate with an estimator, would you send a confirmation email reminding them and letting them know when it's scheduled for or do any sort of reminders before the scheduled estimate?

You absolutely. Could you just set up as a meeting and then prior to the meeting you could, you could do that. I would say you could also just have text templates and just make it part of the customer or the the estimators responsibilities like hey, you text people and using imessage there's a higher response rate but you could use, you know, set this up in terms of you know, texting everyone the morning of. So for example, what you could use in the dispatch board you could just filter by in person meetings at the beginning of your morning and you could just have a text template that literally gives Them their time frame and that morning when you know you're actually going to be able to get to them and you don't need to reschedule them, you can just bulk text them all. A template that includes the time that you're showing up today, that'd be fine. And there is a way to be able to have a merge tag of beginning time and end time. So you can say like between 2 and 3pm or between 4pm and 6pm you can do that. So I'd make the template I would probably just do like that way I've seen sometimes when people automate it and then they have to reschedule stuff, then they make customers mad because they told them they were going to be there. So I would probably, if I was going to do this, I'd probably do on the dispatch board filter by the, you know, 5, 10 in person estimates I have for that day make sure that yes, I'm able to hit all of these. I would have a template that has to be like my beginning, my start time and end time for that in person meeting and then it would send it out that way. And the reason I like to have a window of time I show up, not a specific time.

Question 2 what information do you have to your estimate before an in person estimate? What do you, what are you informing them of in the notes before they meet the customer? Well, it depends where the lead's coming from. If they're coming from an estimate request form with has a bunch of information about the job, I'm going to give them all of it. But if they submit an email and also hey, I need a property cleanup and I just get their address, email, phone number and then that that's fine. This is the thing I would rather have less information but know this is a valid lead. And so the reason I say that is because if you have a massive form, you get all this information about the customer, great. But half the people won't fill out the form. Half the people don't want to spend three minutes filling out all this information and you get less leads. So if you're in more profit mode, you don't want a lot of leads, you're not trying to grow a lot. Maybe you get more information for your estimator because it's beneficial to them, but if you're trying to maximize leads, you it's beneficial for the customer which is reduce the amount of time it takes to fill out the form. So in which case will lead to unfortunately less information for your estimator will Kelly from Military Lawn cuts at what annual gross revenue do you recommend getting a wrapped V estimate vehicle versus the GM just using his personal vehicle or work truck when not being used. I would own. This is just me personally. I would only get a wrapped estimate vehicle if I'm trying to grow a location to over 1.5 million in annual revenue. Otherwise I'm going to be keeping that location around 800,000 and I'm going to probably put the GM in a truck. So that way when things slow down and we're not in the middle of spring rush, the truck that he or she uses as the general manager can be used to get work done out in the field. And so I have a video coming out in this, I think a couple of them coming out in November about this exact strategy. I do believe that staying keeping a location below 800,000 most profitable. And if you're going to keep growing, grow it past 1.5. Because at that 1 million, 1.2 million marker, you start needing an estimator for sales, a general manager for operations and someone in the office full time on doing admin. That's three people doing all overhead functions. Expensive and the most experienced people. And that's why I generally see a location going to enter this wilderness between $800,001.5 million in annual revenue of profitability. Because they've got to stack up all these overhead people. They've got to get estimator cars. So if you're going to get past 1.5, go get the estimator wrapped car wrapped, in my opinion, otherwise that car gets used for only 1, 2, 3 leads a day for 7, 8 months of the year. When it's not spring rush, a location that's doing 6, 700,000 in annual revenue. Yes, during spring rush they're getting tons of leads. But like the ultimate goal for myself is to automate as much of the sales as possible and simplify my services enough to where things can be done over the phone or they can be done from my website and not have to go in person. So getting an estimator vehicle basically locks me into projects and jobs I cannot sell over the phone and jobs I can't sell for my website. And that's just not the direction I want to go for a location. I think I can grow to 6 to $800,000 in annual revenue using simple services, being able to sell it over the phone, be able to sell it on a web form. And I just don't want to have an estimate of driving around in a vehicle all day long. Their overhead salary, the cost of the vehicle, the insurance on that vehicle. You've got to have a sizable business to where that person's driving all day long doing enough work and producing enough jobs and conducting enough estimates to actually warrant all this extra cost of overhead. So I'm not opposed to it, but I would be shooting. I'd be only doing that for a location that wants to get over 1.5 million. And personally, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get six to eight trucks. I'm going to do six to six to $800,000 in annual revenue with one general manager, no other overhead people. And that's the model I kind of enjoy building and feel like is most appealing from an absentee owner's perspective. All right, everyone, have a fantastic weekend. Love you all. Enjoy the map. Get to know some of the other members inside the copilot family, and I hope it serves you well. Take care. Have a good one.