In this vlog, Mike Andes documents the day‑to‑day challenges of building a $1 million lawn‑care business in a year. After a slow start with only one customer from 19 Facebook leads, Mike and his wife Brianna devise a "first visit free" promotion to boost conversion, script three ad variations, and calculate break‑even points (4‑5 services for mowing, 2‑3 for treatments). He discusses the risks of low‑quality leads, the need for credit‑card commitments, and plans to test multiple offers before the spring rush. Mike also introduces a public‑speaking training module for his technicians, emphasizing body language and communication skills. He showcases how AI (Claude) automates applicant processing in HomeWorks, creating a bench of ready‑to‑hire technicians, auto‑responds to Google reviews, and generates operational briefs. Operational metrics such as cost‑per‑lead, close‑rate, and pricing adjustments are reviewed, along with strategic advice on timing a home‑service launch. The episode ends with a personal update on Mike’s new meal plan, fitness goals, and a brief product tasting segment featuring Brianna’s brand‑ambassador role. Throughout, the tone is conversational and entrepreneurial, with moments of enthusiasm about experiments and caution about potential financial loss.
Chapters
I moved across the country to build a $1 million lawn care business in one year. Slow down. Slow down? I'm going 63. This cop's coming after someone. I don't know who it is. What's my first line? Ah, snap. I was supposed to get on that road. We are not ready for business, and we're not going to rush into getting customers. Last week, we turned our ads on, and we got all of one customer. You know, obviously delays on every single front. Okay, so this is a Facebook lead. Let's go. This is great. I would have hoped that by now I had at least 20 to 50 customers.
It was a little bit expensive for me. In the past week,
We did 19 leads, 19 estimates sent, and only one person accepted. The grass is not growing. The end of the season, and we've got to figure out an offer to make sure that people actually buy. So we're doing something crazy. Brianna came up with this idea on our walk Saturday night, and she's like, "Why don't you just do the first one free and show them how good you are?" So my thought is this: Okay, this is raw and unedited. Is I'm gonna do three ads. for Facebook, and we're going to tell people that their first visit is free. Yep. So if they sign up for mowing, they get one service free, like their first one. If they sign up for the treatment program, they get one service free. Now technically speaking, out of the 9 services, we're getting one free, so it's only about an 11% discount. And for the mowing, we're giving one out of like 40 in the year. The key is how many people after the first free stick with the service. That's the kicker.
So can they cancel anytime?
Yeah, they can. There's no contract. Now in the scripts though, like I've already created the scripts, I kind of infer that they're signing up for like the whole year. But we don't have a contract. They could cancel right after. And so this will only be good if we keep a lot of people. But a big reason I wanna do this is because Augusta Leads, multiple owners have wanted to test this out, but it kind of takes a little bit of Kahuna's because you could lose a lot of money if people start canceling right after the first visit. Like, it could be bad.
People just cashing on free cuts.
Yeah, right. Or you get bad leads, like bad, like low quality leads. But this time of year when there's like the grass isn't growing and we're going into the offseason, we're getting these leads and I need to like push them over the edge. And I'm trying to say like, hey, if you sign up now— now think, this is the thing, when they sign up, they've got to put their card information on file. And it's like they are set up for service. They have— they would have to cancel. They can't just be like, I'll book one service. They can't do that. I want you to hold this as like my teleprompter and it's listening to my text. So as I say the words, it'll move for me and then record it on vertical on that guy. I know now by doing a free cut, I'm basically— the cost of that customer is like $50 more. Come give me a free service. But if I can double the amount of leads I get because the offer is good enough, it could cancel itself out. So instead of paying $100 cost per lead, if I can get that down to $50 because so many more people opt in, I'm okay with the fact that now I have to put $50 more in on the initial service.
So how many services do you have to do before it
breaks even? About 4 or 5. And that's more for mowing. For treatments, like within 2 or 3 because the margins are better. So what we have to bank on is being able to keep them for the long term. This could be catastrophic. This could be really bad. And for everyone in the comments like, oh my word, what are you doing? We're gonna test like 4 or 5 of these type of offers over the next few months so that when we get to Spring Rush, we know exactly what platform, what ad, and what offer we're actually going to have. 'Cause yes, in the perfect world, we would've showed up here and be like, we do mowing services. And people are like driving. The problem is not a lot of people need mowing right now. And so we've got to get an offer that's too good for them to say no to.
Free.
Free is a good price. And hopefully that kicks them over the edge. Like, these guys are great. I love the yellow vans. I like Max rolling up to my house every day. And then they're sold. All right, let's go shoot the ads. Basically saying, hey, we're so confident we're going to give you the first services free because we know you'll love it. That's like the general gist of the second one. And the third one Is too good to be true? Test this out.
So good, you'll love it. Too good to be true. What was the first one?
Both visits are free. They're on us. Okay, because we're such giving, caring people.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's it. All right, here we go. There's your teleprompter. So when you shoot, as long as it's facing me, and then bring this like right there because it's gonna line up against the middle of the screen. So here, let's do a little trial run. Okay, all right. Yeah, you shouldn't have to do anything. It's on play. Okay, cool. So that— yeah, from there, so like, both of those are on us. Your first mow and first pre-emergent treatment are both— no, so I need this as close to here as possible, or move this down. What's that? So it looks— I'm looking at the camera. There you go. Both of those are on us. Your first mow and first pre-emergent treatments are both free when you enroll in our mowing and treatment programs this October. Okay, great, it works. Let's go out to the van. So last night I recorded course 5 of Home Service Boardroom, which was about public speaking. So that's pretty cool. Um, it was super interesting as I started breaking it down, 'cause when I do the courses for Home Service Boardroom, they're usually like 1 to 4 hours long. But when you really start breaking down how much public speaking plays a part as a business owner, whether it be like technician, like morning huddles, you have one-on-one meetings, you have offsite meetings, you have when you're doing a whole bunch of interviews, like applicants or group interviews, you have when you're doing onboarding, like a whole bunch of onboarding for technicians. These are all public speaking events. And so the ability to be able to communicate effectively, not use a whole bunch of filler words, be able to use your hands correctly, have good eye contact, little stuff like that. So one of the 30-day challenges is they actually have to record a meeting that they have with their team and post it to the group and kind of break down what they saw as stuff they can improve and then get feedback from the group. It's gonna be a lot of fun, but I'm looking forward to it.
What are the guidelines of what they're talking about?
What do you mean?
In their speeches.
There's like morning team meetings and stuff like that. Like they're just gonna record it. Like kind of like just put their phone over to the side and record. And then our goal is to be able to help like, hey, you're standing with your hands in your pockets. Hey, you crossed your arms like a long time. Hey, you're speaking monotone. Hey, you're speaking like 90% of the meeting. Can you get your team members or your managers engaged. You're using um a lot, a lot of filler words. You're looking down at the ground. Like all these little things that for most of us, we look up to certain people that communicate really well. And like, it wasn't by happenstance. They record themselves. They looked at the game tape, they refined it, they tried to make it better. They got feedback. It's like super uncomfortable. But the number one thing I would tell anyone that's trying to get better at public speaking is record yourself. It is so annoying to this day to listen to myself, watch myself, but it's the only way to get better. Just like a professional athlete would look at game tape and be like, oh man, I should have done that there. Oh, I should have— my footwork there was brutal. And then I gotta go practice it. And it never gets— you're never finished. Like, you're just always gonna be watching game tape and trying to get better. But I wanted to introduce the first 30-day challenge for public speaking around just record yourself, analyze based on everything you learn here, and then we will also all give feedback. So I'm really looking forward to it. You sure you're gonna fit in there? Do you think I'll fit in there? How many customers do you need to reach the goal?
Yeah, your $5,000
goal. Yeah, it's like on average For treatments, we have 9. Because we have 9 steps, it's basically a one package fits all. It's basically just a premium package. There's not really like a lower-end package. The average treatment client's gonna be worth $800 plus per year. Let's see here, let's rinse this bad boy off. And so you think $800, and then for mowing, We do weekly for most of the year and then biweekly for the off-season times. Let's just say that's like 40 cuts a year. And on average, let's just say it's $50 a cut. That's $2,000. So if you have a mowing customer, it's $2,000. If you have a treatment client, let's just call it $1,000. If some of them accept both, that's $3,000. Let's just say on average each client's worth $2,000 per year to us. Just on average. So like some of them take both, some of them take just one service. That would put us right around 500 clients that we need. So 500 clients, $2,000 annual customer value puts us right at that million-dollar marker. And so when you break out— break down the math on it, it's like, okay, first 100 days probably won't get very many customers. Even if I get 50 customers and fill up one route, that's fine. Um, but then if I can get, say, 2 or 3 customers a day during the actual growing season, I'll hit that marker, no problem. 10 minutes well spent. Wash the old vehicle. Ain't gonna be rolling around with a dirty van. Come on now, spent $40,000, you got me looking pretty. Your first mow and your first pre-emergent treatment are both free. Dude, you're too far. I can't see it. These two, really? That, that should work. Okay, let's try this again. I was like, no, I can't read that. 3, 2, 1. Your first mow and your first pre-emergent treatment are both 100% free when you enroll in our mowing and treatment programs this October. I'm Mike with Augusta Lawn Care, and that's how confident we are that we are the right team to take care of your property. Join our year-round mowing service for your first free standard mow and join our 9-treatment fertilization we control— ugh, this is too— it's too slow. 3, 2, 1. Your first mow and your first pre-emergent treatment are both free when you enroll in our mowing and treatment programs this October. I'm Mike with Augusta Lawn Care, and that's how confident we are that we're the right team to take care of your property. Join our year-round mowing service for your first free standard mow and our 9-treatment fertilization and weed control program. You're a little too close. Just a little too close. I can feel my eyes moving. Is it— was it decent though?
I thought it was good.
Cool. So like keeping it at least 5 feet, I would say.
Okay.
Yeah, because
don't inch forward.
As soon as I'm here, I can feel like it feels like too— it's too— the angle's too off.
Okay.
Yeah.
About five feet.
Yeah, about five feet. We're crushing it. Join our year-round mowing service for your first snap. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to cut this all in one cut take, dude. It's a long ad. It's a long ad.
Put your mind to it.
What are you thinking?
B-roll.
B-roll. You're like, I can edit this. I want to just do it in one cut and then be able to send it to Matt.
You can. You got it?
Okay, here we go. One more. If we don't get it in this take, we're just gonna have to edit. Okay, 3, 2, 1. Your first MO—
What is this catastrophe you speak of that could happen?
Well, the catastrophe that could happen is I get flooded with leads, I do a whole bunch of free services, and no one sticks.
And then you just lose money.
I just lose money. But the worst case is that we validate this offer does not work for Augusta Leads because owners have wanted to do this But most of the time when you're running ads, you're not doing it in the offseason. You're like right now, a lot of them are promoting like fall cleanups or Christmas lights offers that we know work. But what happens when I sell try to sell mowing and treatments at the very end of the year when there's a few services left on the season? Can is this enough to push them over the edge? And then can we do a good enough job to retain them? Because they could theoretically cancel the day after and we lost fifty to sixty.
So it's technically like, it's not a good offer, 'cause it hasn't been tried before.
No, we know. Half of this is why I wanna try it for Augusta Leads, so the owners know. But like, here's the thing. Let's just say I've got, like last week we got 19 leads, right? Let's say our cost per lead was $80. If I'm able to spend the same amount of money, but get 100 leads instead of 19, Now my customer cost per lead is so much lower, even if some of them don't convert after the first service, I can make sense of it. But we'll see. Could be completely wrong. Could lose a lot of money. But I wanna validate for Augusta owners and then I want to see, again, for those watching, we will probably do 4 or 5 of these so that when we come to spring, we already know what offer is gonna kick them over the edge, what platform, what ad. So I got 3 different ones. The first one, They're all kind of focusing on the fact that the first visits are free. That has to be the hook, 'cause most people don't believe me. So like, we're gonna put it in the copy, the text of the ad, and then the first thing I'm gonna be talking about is like, your first visits are free. For the same thing, it's like mowing or treatments, or they can do both. Like if they sign up for both, they could technically get 2 free services. So it's pretty aggressive. It is. But we wanna see if this works, and if it does, this will print leads During spring. Like, if you're saying when everyone's lawn is growing, we will come mow your grass for free, tons of leads. The question is, can I convert 80, 90% of them into real customers afterwards?
Are you planning on keeping this offer permanent?
If it works. Right now we don't know, 'cause like no one in Augusta has really ran this outside the spring rush. For spring rush, the thing prints, we know that.
Yeah.
But what happens when there's not demand and the grass isn't growing? That's what we're trying to test. The thing is, if leads were pouring in, you would not want this offer because you are going to lose some segment of these people and you're going to bring a lower quality lead in because the risk is that someone's going to call me and they're like, their grass is 3 feet tall. That is a risk.
Do a practice run real quick.
Okay. 3, 3, 2, 1. Boom. Is that going to be really tight on me then?
No. Your knees up are in frame.
Okay, cool. And then I'll just jump out. So 3, 2, 1. Get your first free mow. First mow free. Okay, all right, cool. Are you gonna close it or are you gonna leave it open? I'm thinking to open it at the intro. What do you think?
Doesn't matter.
Okay, yeah. Ready? 3. What's my first line? 1. Get your first mow free. Plus, your first pre-emergent treatment, completely free when you enroll in both programs with Augusta Lawn Care this October. We're confident we're the best lawn care company for you, and we're willing to cover those first visits so you can experience our service yourself. The free standard mow comes with year-round mowing enrollment. For the free pre-emergent— oh man, that's a big bunch of words. The free standard mow comes with year-round mowing enrollment. For the free pre-emergent application, join our 9-treatment fertilization and weed control program. If you choose both, we'll cover the first visit for each service. Either offer is also available completely separately if you just want mowing or just want treatments. You'll get to meet the team caring for your property and see how we work, and you'll get Max, our mascot, rolling up at your house. Later visits are billed at the prices you approve before signing up, and you can cancel future service at any time. Click the button down below and get your price. Enroll by October 31st, 2026 to qualify. Is it too good to be true? Find out for yourself. We literally washed this van today, and then Stinkin' Birdie over there, I feel like it's his obligation to literally rain on our parade. Yes. Also, I was told by the Guy that makes these, he watched the videos. Like, do not push on the ramp when it's going down. Messes these up. So I have to be patient and let it rest. He just said he watched the videos and he's like, "Do not push the push it down." Like, yes sir, you got it. Okay. So what if you you're here? What if I okay? Just wait. Like, well, let's just think about it for a second. So if I'm like this. I pull this guy out and I could be like this and then just talking to you, you swing around and get the van behind me. What are you thinking?
I think it'd be more fun to come right here.
You? Okay.
And then you pull it down and it's like a downward shot of you pulling it out, and then I'll cut in on the inside here and come back up.
And I'll come up close to the van?
And this is the angle we want to get the
Ah, gobbledygook again from the top, dude. See, and everyone that thinks that somehow this happens on the first try—
I got an idea.
What?
What if you say this like you're giving a heck of a deal to your grandma's best friend? And there's no pressure. You're just trying to let her know what you, what you have to offer her, and it's a good deal. Does that do anything for you?
Sure, I'll try it. I actually don't know. Yeah, okay, all right, cool. All right, here we go. 3, 2, 1. A free mow and a free pre-emergent treatment? Might sound too good to be true, so let me explain what our October 2026 offer is all about. At Augusta Lawn Care, your first standard mow is free when you join our year-round mowing service. Now, if you enroll in our 9-treatment fertilization and weed control program, that also gets you your first pre-emergent application free as well. And October is the perfect time for it. And you can absolutely use both offers If you need mowing and treatments, you get your first visit for free on both. And also, each offer is available on its own. So if you just need mowing or you just need treatments, first visit on us. The following visits are billed at your approved rate, and you can see that price before you get set up for service. And you can cancel future service at any time. Click the button below to see your price and sign up by October 31st, 2026.
It was the grandma was the unlock. It was that grandma energy, bro.
Okay, so we're gonna give this a shot. We're gonna do it for the next week or two. And again, I don't usually like to give away services free. I think generally it brings in low-quality leads and people that are hunting for a bargain. What we are doing though, and what I'd recommend if you're gonna try running this offer, is, is make sure you get the credit card. So in order to set up their service, and you notice in all my ads, I am mentioning this is a year-round program. This is a 9-step treatment program. This is a year-round service. And so they know what they're signing up for and they have to put a card on file. And so I do believe we're going to get some people do one service and then cancel. And that is what it is. But I want to see if this is enough to be able to double or triple our lead flow and kick people over the edge to committing to the service and just getting their card information is a huge amount of skin in the game. Do not run this offer if you're not collecting card information or if you're not having them sign up for a recurring service. Just offering a free service, it is like maybe 1 out of 10 that will probably take you up on the service on an ongoing basis. So that's why we're requiring them to sign up, get a price, get their card information on file, and be on the service. And if they want to call and cancel, that's fine. Our job is to do such a great job and for Max to be so lovable and adorable And earn his keep on the door of the van that they don't want to leave. That's the plan. We'll find out in a week if it works out. I always like looking at the CEOs like Sundar Pichai from Google, Satya Nadella from Microsoft, who are hired CEOs that could be could be kicked out because they communicate so effectively. Like the way they held the hands, for example, like the You always see their hands right here. They call this like the box. We talked about this last night. Like, you're in the box, not in your hands in the pockets, not hiding your hands, not being like all over the place with my hands. Like, stay inside the box. Show your hands. Like, if I do this, you immediately like, they— you think I have something to hide.
For sure.
I'm just like, I'm holding them back. Like, I'm hiding versus being like just doing this and showing you my hands. Is a way of showing like I have nothing to hide. Yeah. So little stuff like that. I'm hoping it's helpful. Are you? Are you buckled up?
Yeah, buckled.
This cop's coming after someone. I don't know who it is. That Ford. I was like, I'm not doing anything wrong. Hey, sorry buddy. Took one for the team.
Do you believe that 80% of communication is body language?
Um, I don't think it's necessarily body language as much as nonverbal. So what you don't say, pauses, eye contact. Like if you have a team meeting and the manager's looking down at the ground in the middle of the team huddle, every single technician will do the same thing. And so people are mirroring their leader. And so if you have a lack of Energy in the morning. No one's engaged. Am I engaged? Am I changing like my volume and my pitch or am I monotone saying the same thing I've said every single time? Mm-hmm. I have no, no energy in the morning. Like, so yeah, it's just one of those things you'll never perfect and it's so discouraging and frustrating the more you actually know about it because I still pick up on so many issues I have the way I communicate. But I'm better than I used to be, and so I just keep trying to get better. And a lot of it, honestly, is to be a good, effective communicator, you just need to think about your audience. If you constantly get in your head about your performance, as like, I, I am concerned about how they will think of me, that will make you nervous. I would rather get nervous around, I have something of value that I am trying to get them to understand, or trying to get them to change behavior, or trying to improve their lives. And it's my responsibility to communicate effectively to make sure they understand this. Now it changes from a place of service, like I'm trying to serve them, versus performance. That's— that was always the unlock for me when it comes to public speaking, is like, I am doing this because I genuinely care and I want them to understand this. And the pressure I feel, the nervousness I feel, is because I care deeply for them, not because I'm trying to perform or look good in Changes the whole dynamic. The biggest thing is being humble enough to realize that you do cut people off. I think we all do it if we're thinking like fast thinkers, we're always trying to get stuff done. That's all like good attributes, but you gotta be careful not to disrespect people and make them feel less than because you're trying to get ahead. And I still have that problem, but I still do it all the time. I try my best, but—
Ryan Payne was telling me Oh yeah,
he gives $20. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was great. Ryan Payne, he's an owner out in Texas, and he was— he would always cut people off. And so he finally started walking around with a big wad of cash and he said, anytime I cut you off, tell me, I'll give you $5 or $10 or something like that. He said in like one day he spent a couple hundred dollars, and so he quickly learned not to cut people off. That was great. I moved across the country to build a $1 million lawn care business in one year. And last week we turned our ads on and we got all of one customer. Now we got like 19 leads, like sent out 19 estimates, but that's like a 5 or 6% close rate. That stinks. So throughout the week we've adjusted our pricing down slightly. I'm hoping this week we get a little more better close rate than 5 or 6%. But really what this comes down to is the time of the year. That we decided to open up. And so I wouldn't recommend most people start a new business, specifically home services, like we did, which is like 4 or 5 months before the spring rush. Here's my recommendation. If you have almost no money and you need money tomorrow, like you're quitting your job and starting your business, I would, I would start your business right in the middle of spring rush because leads are going to be pouring in. Most of your competition is literally turning off their ads or not able to fulfill on all the work because they're so far behind. So customers are just calling anyone, like anyone that can pick up the phone and do the service will get the job. If you are wanting to grow a little faster though, I would get at least 4 to 6 weeks before to get all your equipment, all your vans or trucks, and get a couple new technicians ready to go, and you can scale faster. Now your question is, why are we going like 4, 5 months before. Here's why. I don't know this market at all. And so one of the things that we've learned in the past couple weeks is pricing. And I've had to make sure, okay, at 6% close rate, guess what that tells me? My prices are probably too high. And like, what about follow-up? What about speed to close? All those things. Yes, we make sure we dial all those in. But at 6%, I know because I've done follow-up phone calls with customers, they say that it's because of price.
It was a little bit expensive for me.
Oh my goodness, we got to cut prices. We're probably too expensive. So we reduced prices just a little bit this week. I'm looking forward to seeing what that changes. And I'm also, over the next 4 to 5 months, gonna be playing with offers. So I'm gonna be saying, okay, what offer can I make in the ads that's going to hook them in so that when I hit spring rush and I put a lot of money into marketing, I know exactly what's going to land. I know my pricing is right, I know the offer is right, and I know my timing is right. Instead of me showing up here in Dallas where I've never done a lawn care business, and guessing on my pricing, guessing on my offer, guessing on my timing going into the season when I have to nail it, which is Spring Rush. And so the more money you have, and the more capital you have, the earlier you want to start the business and get it ready for the Spring Rush so you can really nail it. 'Cause the difference between nailing it and not, like, figuring it out 3 months into Spring Rush is likely going to cost you a year of growth. And so my hope is that when we nail the pricing, we nail the offer, we nail the timing, and I head into Spring Rush, Yes, I'm going to have to pay for a few months of extra overhead and wages and maybe not some inefficient labor. But my hope is that when we hit the spring rush and I spend a lot of money on marketing, we can scale very fast. All right. So one of the kind of the secret weapons that I have alluded to but not shown you a lot of is how we are using AI. It's like my secret weapon in the location to just automate things, make things go faster, and take things off my plate. I'm going to show you some specific use cases that we are using. The number one, one that I like is the ability to create a bench. So when you have a whole bunch of customers, awesome, and then you have a whole bunch of employees, great. But there's a time when you go to Spring Rush, you get all these customers and you don't have enough employees. And that's when you're scrambling, you're taking anyone that can possibly hop in the truck and help, and that leads to bad service and bad quality. And so what we're trying to do is create a bench of people that right now, like, we are not hiring any more people. We have a couple technicians and that's it. But I have about 15 or 20 people that have applied to work here. You can see all these applicants inside of Homeworks, and this has all been done automatically from my Claude account, which it is scrubbing my email and looking for any applicants and putting them into here. And when it's doing that, you can see here, like, this is Kingston. He applied via the careers website form on September 21st. His resume summary is in the call notes. And the resume image is under images. I didn't do any of this. I just saw it in the email and marked it as done because I knew on the backend Claude was going to come in here, make a great summary of their entire resume, and attach the resume down here below. Also, it texts the customer— or sorry, in this case, the applicant— and said, hi Kingston, this is Augusta Long Hair Flower Mound. We received your application and you've moved to the next stage of hiring. We've not— we're not hiring at this location yet, but expect to in the next few months. When a spot opens, we'll text you a link to a video interview to get started. Thanks for your interest. So the fact is, now I can keep these applicants warm so that when we get to spring rush, I might have 5, 10, 15 really solid candidates that are ready to go when spring rush hits. And so for a lot of people, it's either like I'm focused on getting customers or I'm focusing on getting my crew members, and I'm only getting my crew members once I have so many customers I can't get the work done. I want you to be creating a bench. This is like, kind of like when it comes to basketball, you might have 5 people on the court, but then you got like 10 people on the bench. And so you might have 5 technicians out in the field, but I want you to get like 10 people on the bench, people ready to go. I already have their resume. This person worked at Chick-fil-A here in Round— in Flower Mound, and I've reached out to them and said, hey, look, you've gone to the next round of hiring. And before they even get that notice, I have Claude scrubbing their resume and ensuring they have either certification, Or they have done lawn care and landscaping. And so it can do so much of this for you, and I didn't lift a finger. I didn't do anything. And so for a lot of people, they won't create a bench. And here, down here, attach their resume. That's cool. Um, but a lot of people will not create a bench in their business because like, I don't have time, I'm busy out like training my existing crew, I don't have time to like create the bench or keep them warm. Now I have as a customer type inside of HomeWorks a spot where all these applicants can sit and it's pulling them from my careers tab on my website. Also, my Indeed ad is off. Like, I'm not spending money on my Indeed ad right now, but it's active. It's there. And we're still getting 1 or 2 a week of people applying to come work here. That's cool. Other things we're doing, for example, is like responding to Google reviews. And thank you to everyone that's left a really nice review on our Google page. I think we've got like 20 or 30 so far, and I really appreciate it. And everyone's been very respectful and not lied, they just said, you know, that the brand is good, that our service is good, John, myself, so I appreciate it. But there's an autoresponder using AI that's going to use SEO-friendly terms, which is your service area and your services. You wanna use those in your responses to people that are leaving Google reviews. And so we have that one set up on a daily basis, automatically happens. We automatically take Indeed applicants, put them into homeworks. Same thing with applicants that come from our website. We got an end-of-day brief for the GM and for the CEO. So for John, the GM, he's gonna get more operational tasks. Like for example, if there's callbacks, if there was mistakes, if there's skipped jobs, I'm going to be getting a brief much more around like customer acquisition cost. Where are the leads coming from? What's our close rate? I got a Google Business Optimization, which is the end of each week. It just is going to tell me, one thing I could do to make my Google Business Profile better, whether it be tagging pictures, adding a button to a post, it could be adding products to my page. Right now, one of them is like, hey, I use AI in the background of one of the images. That's the COVID image for my Google Business Profile. It's like, hey, it's better if you use a real photo. Like, okay, great. So today I'm going to take a photo with my, my, my just my basic camera on my phone. Not do any color grading and put that up on a Google Business Profile page. So there's a whole bunch of little things you can do. I will show you a lot more. I'm showing you most of the things on the applicant side and stuff that we already use in the challenge. But as time goes on, there's owners in Augusta that have, you know, and members of HomeWorks that have completely automated scheduling, invoicing, all their email, all their text messages, all their marketing. Like a lot of it can be done. Connect it with the MCP connector to HomeWorks. And it's asking a couple questions. For example, what are the, what are the top 5 customers that I'm undercharging on and what should I be charging? It'll tell you. It'll be able to see how long you've spent on every single one of their cuts on those properties and what you should be charging them. Uh, you can say, what's my most profitable service? You can say, what's my most profitable employee? Who's the most efficient? These are things that it just will be able to pull so much data. And in the past, what used to be a $10 million company, they would go get a data analyst You now have this at your fingertips. Yesterday we were at church, and afterwards I didn't open up Homeworks. I didn't open up my laptop. My laptop was running back here at the Airbnb, but I was talking to Claude and just be like, "Hey, was there any accepted estimates today?" Okay, great. Yep. I was able to tell it to send text messages. I was able to send estimates from there. I was able to check on pricing. All this from my phone talking to my agent. I wasn't in the Homeworks app. I wasn't on my laptop. My laptop was running here and it was doing all sorts of things and it was checking on notes and all this from my phone and not like just me talking to it, not even me typing, not inside the application of Homeworks. And so I think this is the future. This is why we've made Homeworks so much this year around AI and being able to connect to these agents because I think it's super powerful. And so anything that you're doing on a recurring basis that you like have to set up a reminder for Almost all of it can be handled by AI now. All right. So I'm officially on day 8 of my new meal plan. So not only are we trying to build a million-dollar business in a year, I'm trying to become a shredded unit. For the first time ever, having a coach that tells me what to eat, and I eat the same thing every day. So this is technically meal 4. Let me see if I can get a fork. Um, so far so good. Have not gone off meal plan at all, thanks to my wonderful wife. Uh, I would never be able to do this without Brianna because one reason: meal prep. I hate spending time making food, but I can put things inside the microwave. And, uh, so shout out Brianna for— I'm the best. Always making sure I have all 5 meals. But so far, I have not really lost a lot of weight, but I feel really cut. I think I have lost some fat and gained some muscle. Obviously here I don't have what we have back home at the gym, which is the body scanner, so I can't see my body fat percentage. But I've probably lost a pound and I just feel a lot tighter. Like, I think within 4 weeks I'm gonna, I'm gonna be good. I think I'll start bulking. We'll see. But sometimes I miss, you know, other food, but not a ton. But if I had to make it all myself, it would be way harder. Way harder. Brianna does a great job because she's on the meal plan too. She's not on my exact meal plan, but she's the same coach. So she memorized my whole meal plan, like all 5 meals, in the first like day. So I don't have to think really much at all. I just come home, throw this thing in the microwave. I wake up, meal 1 is done. I get back from work and meal 2 is ready to go. So I appreciate it. I would not be able to do this. And I— that's always killed me about nutrition is just the prep part. So.
Define shredded unit.
Shredded unit. Shredded unit is abs, visible 8-pack. Like, I can get a 6-pack pretty quickly if I just cut a little bit, but like an 8-pack? That takes some serious dedication, dude.
Without flexing though, or like with flexing?
Um, just without flexing. Wow. That's the goal. That's the goal. But Brianna is so diligent with her— well, her stuff, so I have to stay up with her. Yeah, you making all my food for me?
He's going through half a dozen a day.
Oh my word, I have 6 eggs a day, dude. 4 for meal 1, 2 2 for meal 5. All right, so let's see what we got here. This is meal 4 technically. We got butter, ground beef, and a whole bunch of zucchini. Very appetizing. Check this out. Oh, so good. And salt and pepper. Yeah, you can't live without it.
Can you use any fancy seasonings?
We have some sauces. Brianna is a brand ambassador for this company right here. Yeah, dude.
Yeah, Bree.
Come. Yeah, come be a brand ambassador. If you use the checkout at checkout, use the code Bree for 10% off. That's a legit code. She's official. You know, now you know how we really make money in this household. You know, I spend $300,000 on setting up a lawn care business because my wife makes the big bucks.
Mike is not big on, you know, being sponsored by the brand, so I need to do it for us.
Pick up the slack. All right, dude, the moment has come. The moment of truth. All right, so here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna do a blind taste.
Oh really?
So yeah, you can't look. You can't look, and then you gotta tell me which one do you like the most. All right, so this is number 1. He doesn't know that.
Well, I dig that on a hot dog.
You dig that on a hot dog? Okay. Okay, this is number 2. Number 2.
What do you think it has to be missing for a sauce to be healthy?
Uh, sugar and high calories.
Ooh.
A little hot sauce, hey?
A little kick to it.
A little kick sitch. Okay, this is number 3. It's this one here.
Yeah, he doesn't like that one.
You don't like that one? No, it's good. Okay, all right, dude, which one was the best?
The buffalo.
The buffalo? The— okay,
so 2, 2's my number 1.
2's number 1? Yeah, you can.
2's number 1.
Okay.
Yeah, and then 2— the first one, the first one's the second best.
Okay, all right, that's this one. And then this one you're not a fan of?
Well, it's just a lot of sauce in my mouth. I feel like it needs to go with something.
Okay, yes, you're right. So yeah, this is, this is what you said number 1 was.
Who wants a spoonful of tangy pickle? Yeah, mix it up. I like it.
Yeah, it is good. It was good stuff.
The buffalo one was really strong.
I know, I love this one. It's my favorite. Sweet and nutty Thai peanut sauce. They have low-calorie sauces, but my actual favorite product from them probably is their cream of rice. Clearly I'm not a fan at all.
Plop that thing down.
In my opinion, these 2 are the best flavors. Brownie— are they in frame? Yep. In my opinion, these 2 are the best flavors: PB cookie, brownie batter. If you mix them, extra points. French toast and lemon pound cake, they're a little mid, but this is a really great fast-digesting carb to have as a
And at checkout—
And at checkout, code BRIE to save—
10%.
10%.
So I don't take sponsorships, but if you want to sponsor my wife, now we can get the money. That's right.
