Don't Ask Mike This and Biggest Regrets - Episode 012

What's up? How's it going?

Not much, man. The producer's back in the house, so now we have to behave.

Now producer is back in the house.

Fun and games are over.

Yeah, she's been wrangling kindergarteners. So basically the same thing here.

Yeah, I know. Same thing as you.

Yeah, Yeah, I love it. All right, cool. I want to jump right in. You released the Get Rich slow online course. Yeah. Yeah. What was that about? I already. I took it. I took it. I finished it. Fantastic.

An hour and a half hour, if that.

Yeah. Because I listen. Because I listen to so much of your content. I listen to everything on at least one and a half, if not two. If it's more educational. Yeah, it's one and a half because I really want to grasp it, but yeah.

Okay, so here's the deal on this. Okay. This is only. This is exclusive to the C suite unfiltered podcast. But you need to say more often so people get to know. I feel like every time we say it, we got to explain it still.

Yeah.

But you know, one day it'll become content knowledge. Okay, so this is the DL on that. So Upflip is a YouTube channel. They have like 600,000 subscribers. I've done like five or six videos with them. I was one of their first few videos when they just had a few thousand subscribers. It was great. So they're like, hey, we want to do these online courses and we want to sell them. And I was trying to convince them, like, hey, you have really broad audience. You need to have a cheap price point. You're not going to get 500, $1,000 ticket. That's not your audience. You're start. You're the vast majority of your audience. It doesn't have a business or just getting started. Right. And they're not going to have the price point that you're looking for. So they want to do a charge. I'm like, I don't really want to associate my brand with theirs. Cause I don't know what they're going to do with it down the road. So I'm like, hey, I will not do a paid course where people have to pay for it because they want to do like a rev share. If, like I do, they do all the recording of me. I talk about how to start a lawn care business in a company. And then they would take it, edit it, make it all look beautiful, and then we'd do a rev share.

Yep.

I was like, no. I was like, no, I don't want to do that. But if you were willing to do a free course and give it to your audience as, like, a primary, like, get started, I'll do that for free. Obviously, I would get some, you know, attention, because people see the course. Yeah. But that's what happened, so.

Okay, cool.

I spent a week.

Yeah.

And a half, like, a long time preparing the course because they wanted to make it where. Because they got to fly people in. Like, he came from Portland, so he drove.

Right.

But, like, they don't have a team that necessarily. Like, they have lots of freelancers.

Right.

So I want to be organized. So I created the entire curriculum for like, 30, 40.

What'S it called? Lectures.

Yep.

All right. Spent a long time doing it, too, because I don't usually prepare for lectures. I usually. It's more a matter of, like, I'll do one or two here. Like, MBA for entrepreneurs. Like, one or two. This game really long. Sorry.

No, you're good.

But I really prepared this, like, really what I thought was a good curriculum. So he comes and we shoot it in an entire day. Like, we were going to do two full days. He was going to stay up here at a hotel. I got in one day, like, a lot of talking, and, like, my head was hurting by the end because the lights is, like, right above. Anyways, so a week later, their executive producer slash owner guy is like, hey, like, this is not good enough. He got a bad angle. There's several things we don't like about it in terms of, like, the angle, and there's not space on the side. We want to reshoot it. Or. Or do you want to buy it off of us? I said, no, I'm not going to buy it off of you, but please give me the footage. I feel like I spent a lot of time on this.

Yeah.

And so they were nice enough to give us the footage.

Cool.

They somehow lost, like, probably a third of it, if not half. But. Well, I was like, you know what? We're gonna take what we gave. They gave us. We'll edit it up, chop it up, and give it as a free course.

Okay.

So that's basically. That was a very long answer to where the get rich slow scheme happened. And so I was like, man, like, how do we promote this? Like, I don't usually do stuff for free. And, you know, it's very entry level. It's not like we're gonna go deep on this stuff. Right. So I'm like, okay, well, why don't we pitch this as a free thing that if someone get started and they can Grow into something like MBA for entrepreneurs, which is much more like tactical and business and much denser information. So I was like, hey, it's a primary for that. And we can kind of like throw some jabs at people who buy Lamborghinis and buy mansions and things.

Totally.

So you know the first coupon code because like, I was like, you know what? I'm never going to just give it away for free and put free. What I want to do is I want to use coupon codes that always change. So currently the coupon code is goat gang, all one word for no reason whatsoever.

No reason whatsoever. We would never do that.

Where's your greatest of all time dude?

Yeah, it's just greatest of all time gang.

Yeah.

You know, I like that. I think it's cool. Has anyone paid for it?

You know, I don't know. There's been so many signups. Like, there's potentially that someone accidentally did. Yeah. But if we would have actually caught it, we would have refunded them.

Yeah.

Like, the goal is not to make money.

Totally.

I just saw someone up in like two weeks, the cold core.

So yeah, someone like dragged you in the comments, like when you released it. I couldn't. It's the Internet. You don't know if it's sarcasm or not. But someone was like, really? Mike, you're selling another course?

Oh, yeah, they. They didn't get the joke.

Okay. I was gonna say I didn't know if you knew who that commenter was.

No, no, I don't think they got the joke. Like, hey, like the last line says, it's free and you just use a coupon code and you get it.

Yeah, that was good. I liked it. Yeah. Give rich slow program if you haven't done it. Check it out. I liked it. Honestly, it's a good. It is very base knowledge. It's. It's not even like 101. It's like a 99 level course primary. But it's very. It's just a good refresher. Like there were certain things I was like, oh, yeah, I haven't thought about that in a while. So check it out. Nice. So two new media guys hired.

Yeah.

What are they working on now? So you, you've hired two new media guys for your team and you said you have 25 projects in the pipeline.

So what are they working? So right now Kramer is starting on. When's this coming out? Next week. Next week. Okay, so. So Kramer's working on we like 40 or 50 different things that we do at command center for the French Disease. Everything from answering the phone to, to QuickBooks, expense categorization to payroll, like a whole bunch of stuff. What we want to do is make like a short video. Not explaining what we're doing because that could be like a 30 minute tutorial, but just showing us doing our work so that way the franchisees can see like, okay, these are all the things they do. Oh, that's how they do it. Like that's cool. Like at least they know what we're doing instead of just like this black box of like, you know. Yeah, we do a bunch of stuff for you. Like we want to show them. Totally. So that's what he's working on. It'll probably take him a few more days. Cause some of it's difficult. He had to wait for payrolls to be ran today so he could actually ask the payroll department to video them. And then next week Terrail starts and he's going to start on something called Built for Business. Oh, so this is the again, exclusive. Dude, you're getting all the exclusive.

I love it. I'm telling you. I'll take it.

You're definitely helping the ratings. So yeah, Built for Business. It's basically be, B for B, P.

For P and B for B.

No, it's A four built for B, I, L, T. Oh, four built for B.

Four B.

B, four B. It's not B to B. Oh, that.

Would be B four B.

B to B would be cool.

Nice. So you got P for P, B for B for B. Now we need A C for CEOs for C Suite. I don't know, we'll figure something out.

So yeah, basically my trainer Christian, putting together like the program I use for entrepreneurs and then we do like basically virtual coaching.

Your program, which I think we kind of skated over that. This is a more of a health program. A fitness program.

Yeah, health and fitness, exactly. Yeah. So it's geared from like my kind of way I do workouts. It's like 25 to 30 minutes a day, very intense. So yeah, we're just putting it all together and we have an app for it that we're using. So people take pictures of all the food they eat, they have to do certain workouts and then it's like a 52 week program with different intervals throughout. So it's very, very intensive. But it's really what I do and what I think is really helpful for people. So I know some people just need a plan and they need someone to hold them accountable to it. So we'll See how it goes. Partly it's mostly just to retain Christian. He's an awesome guy, and I think I want to do business with him in the future.

Who works at your Anytime Fitness?

Yeah, he's worked there for several years, and he's a great guy. He's really helped the gym. Like, we've almost doubled revenue.

Yeah.

So he's great. I want to give him more opportunity.

Cool.

And so most of it's just to retain him and give him more profit sharing and things like that.

Yeah. That's awesome. That's sweet. So that's. That's what the media guys are working on. And with Christian, the gym. So is there any other projects you want to tease? I was gonna ask you if you want to tease something. Well, because you took a selfie with your, like, I guess, idea board behind you, and I zoomed in so hard on that. I was like, I want to know what people are gonna do that.

So I kind of made sure a little.

That's good.

But, you know, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff we're working on now. With five people, we can get a lot done.

Oh, yeah, because.

Cause, like, in the past when it was just Zach and Steven, for example, you got. Steven's always working on, say, business bootcamp. So, like, one or two videos a week come out for that max, and so that's low. And then he locked up doing that because very high production value. And then Zach would be, like, trying to do the stuff, like social media for the franchisees and, like, lawn care media stuff. And then, like, juggling pictures and videos that we needed around, like, just internally. So now with five guys, like, we five guys.

Let's go.

We. We should be a crush project. So even the day I was able to add some really cool stuff, like, I want them to go down for two days, and instead of videoing, like, our local location, like, go visit some of the franchisees. Go talk to Marcus, who's getting started. Go talk to Nick, who's been doing now for two years. They were both came out of the local shop, like, and I want to, like, get a little bit more their story, check in with them every few months and, like, see how they're actually. The company's growing. So really for Marcus too, because people know him, and now he's going to. Starting his own thing. So he has great perspective because he's. He's almost gonna have to step from, like, what he was doing to actually go out in the field now and, like, getting his hands dirty. So I Think it'd be fun story to kind of track so things like that we're able to do because we have the people and we were changing our whole way of doing projects inside the media team. So I think it'd be really good. I don't talk about now because I don't want to say it's great until like we've done it for a few months. But I think it's me really helpful for us to scale the media team over time.

Gut reaction. Will business boot camp continue on 100%?

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah, we're going to change it up.

So I figured the change was coming to just outsider looking in perspective. Like the viewership dropped heavily. Aaron's story was great but that was the main reason people watched 100 and season two. The the guys are great. I can't think of Will as well. Yeah, he's military green, like great, great on camera.

Great guy.

Yeah.

The storylines though for drama are just not.

They're not as exciting.

Yeah. And so what we're going to do for now for the rest of season two is going to be just taking pieces instead of making a 45 minute clip. Because the problem is what I felt like we did the first two episodes of season two is some of the best content was at the end. But like you literally have lost 60, 70% of your audience by the time through 30, 40 minutes. So what we're gonna do is take like the highlight reels basically and make you know, five to 15 minute clips and have a concept. Cool thought. Yeah. Right. So like the last one was about like how do you deal with a bad employee that you know, shows up, worked high and you know, how do you deal with that sort of thing? The next one's gonna be like how much do you pay a gm, Right. That's gonna be like a kernel of it. And then he also got in trouble with the IRS and his accountant. So like there's some, a little bit of drama there but not enough to carry a four season.

Mm.

No four episode season like Aaron's was because he just had so much going on.

Yeah.

So I think as a mom, it's just me very difficult for us to ever find storylines consistently enough to run month long episodes or seasons on people. So our season three is gonna be. I'm very much looking forward to because we've already started recording for it. It just hasn't come out. So I kind of know it's gonna feel like. I think it's gonna be great. It's gonna be the 304050 minute episodes. However, it's me with one person and we're gonna do one call. So it's. I feel like it's gonna be really, really good. I already know because we've recorded them. It's stellar.

Cool.

So I'm really looking forward to season three. We kind of gotta get through season two. Yeah. Like, hey, let's get these done. But we want to finish the stories out and like take the highlights from it. But just difficult. Like someone with 12 employees, like in a month, you're not a lot of changing. Like I'm doing jobs like that's. You're basically daily vlogging your jobs and that's just not enough to carry hours worth of content that we want to keep fast paced.

Yeah.

So I just felt like we were doing a lot of filler in season two, episode one and two. Just because we were trying to make it more of a story is hard to bring us make a story and make the drama. Because we're not trying to make the drama, we're trying to take the story and make something of it. So. But the next two are going to be like, I'm really looking forward to season good. Yeah. The one, the one that came, that already recorded. Dude, it's going to be crazy. It's like a lot of drama around him and his wife and his relationship affecting the business and like. Yeah. And like divorce is involved and like he wanted to build a house or build a shop space in a different city. So that way, like when times get tough with her, he would go stay at the place.

Yeah.

It was bad news and like the business couldn't afford it. So.

Anyways, interesting.

It was a bit of a tease for season three.

Nice. Interesting. That's a good tease.

Oh, here's another tease. This is another exclusive.

Dude.

Season three is probably going to have Copper Creek cuts. Oh, he's got. He's trying to focus back more on the business.

Yep.

As you hit a big boom back in the day with mowing lawns and things. But there's so many, so much competition in that kind of arena now his viewership has dropped, so he really focused on the business.

Brad.

Yep. Brad.

What's his last name? I can.

I don't. Brad Buer. B E. Yeah. Brad from Copper Creek. Yeah, Brad.

Everyone knows who's. Who that is.

Yeah. So yeah, we're going to hopefully help him get the business kind of ramp back up.

Cool.

And so I'm looking forward to that one because he's good at filming himself and he's really good at numbers and systems, and so that was gonna be good, too, but that'll probably be season three.

Okay. Interesting. I'm excited for season three, and that's not a shot at the season two, folks. Like, Will is a great guy.

He executes very well, but it's just not great drama.

He's, like, too good for a docu series.

Yeah.

Like, he. It's like, oh, yeah, we had this issue. Oh, yeah, we had a guy who smoked weed. Like, and then we made a decision and we moved on. That's like, well, that's. That's good.

Yeah.

Like, come on, give us something. You know, so.

So give us something.

He seems like a good guy. Well, what I would. What I would love to do, because I know last, you know, after the first season, because it did kind of blow up. We did kind of a breakdown. I would love to keep doing the breakdowns if the seasons, you know, have enough. Have enough drama, have enough meat in the sandwich, you know, so. Yeah.

Well, because supposedly. Supposedly my advice was not heeded from episode one from Aaron. He supposedly went out and got more equipment.

Yeah.

So. And even some of the advice I gave other people in season one supposedly has not been followed up on. So I. I don't want to jump on the gun too quickly, like, recaps. I want six months to go by. And even people from season two, because we recorded a few minutes ago, like, people that are in the videos have been fired since the time we recorded. So recaps, I think we'll be fine. Like, six months, 12 months. Because there's a lot more that's happened. That's the problem that we're facing is when you do daily episode. Daily recordings for just one month, there's not enough juice.

Yeah.

Right. So. And employees behave better during that time, et cetera. Like, you got to let some time go. A little water under the bridge. Some drama happening.

So some late payments, some car wrecks, you know, something exciting.

Firings.

Copilot. Completely switching gears from media and business boot camp. You are. I mean, is there an official launch date? Let's see. I think you said February.

I'm not putting an exact date on it. We're going to roll out starting mid February through the end of February, because.

This episode will come out, like, first week of February. So co pilot. We're in kind of the final stages of. Of pre release. How you feeling?

Yeah, so, like, we. We have almost. I don't. I guess I was about to say. I shouldn't say this but like I could care less. I don't have anyone to report to. So 500, we like 500 people signed up.

Cool.

So I think that probably half of those are probably gonna just do free and kind of like just check it out. But that gives me a lot of confidence. It also puts a lot of pressure on me in terms of the support side because I wasn't expecting from day one to have that many people in the software. So we are beefing up on support. It's a little scary just because you're hiring people and you're getting offices and desks and chairs and computers and you're like I hope there's people to support. So I think it'll be good though. We got some solid people. But I was expecting to do that in June, July. So I originally promised phone support and stuff down in for summer. But we're going to pull that right back to day one.

Cool.

So that will delay us a little bit too. I got to get the support team up to specific but we want like.

An overall update just in general.

Last night. Last night as of this recording last night we started the actual rollout of the code. So it's all been pre production. Now we have designing and we have development. When you start merging those together, just stuff breaks. It's just a pain in the butt. So I'm not looking forward the next two weeks before launch because I have to basically like we just have to as a team bring all this stuff together. A lot of different projects we've been working on and features and smashing those together. The KPI cockpit, like I, I'm working on that still. I gotta still work on some of the 3D stuff. So with AI that's probably gonna get pushed off. Like I'm gonna push that off in the march because that part is just I, I need to focus on the KPI stuff.

Don't you need like sample sets to test the KPI cockpit?

You need people to get in and break stuff.

Exactly right.

And so fortunately at the beginning we're not having the AI go and do things for you. It'll just be more like here's notifications, here's suggestions. So I'm OK mistakes because someone be like oh this is obviously incorrect and then we know. But I want to eliminate as much as possible because if I'm telling someone like this is what I think you should do. I want it to be right. And so there's just so many things you can't think of like scenarios until you get 500 people start using it and break stuff. Right. So we're going to do our best, but like our team of 10 people, like, we can only break so many things. You put 500. I guarantee you in day one, there's going to be stuff they find.

Oh, yeah.

But like, I want to eliminate as much as possible. So, yeah, it's just going to be a next two weeks. Very interesting. I'm not looking forward to it. I will not sleep very much. Like last night, if it's any. If last night is any indication of how next two weeks we're going to roll when we're working with teams. It's not going to be fun. Yeah, but. But we got to do it. It's gonna be fun. I gotta get it out because, like, every single week that goes by right now is getting closer to spring rush and people are less likely to switch. So it needs to be good enough to switch and it needs to be stable.

Yeah.

And the faster I do it, the more users I'll get. But if I go too fast and I make a pathetic product, it'll be bad rep for the brand. So. Yeah, we'll see how it goes.

Dude, Copilot to buy.

We'll find out.

We'll find out.

Oh, yeah.

I feel like again, I can tell when. When you're having the sleepless nights, if you will, or you're working. I think I just can tell, like, there's little things I pick up on. So, like, your Mastermind video this morning was just pure chaos.

Yeah.

Like, that was. Your computer wasn't charged and like something wasn't linking and then your Bluetooth was messed up and it was just chaos. And I was like, oh, man.

People don't know how hard daily Mastermind live streams are. When I'm mobile. Yeah, I move around on the Masterminds. I don't have a set that I walk into, so I have to have like a secondary screen. Now I have a microphone. Now I have, like, I have an audio thing. I do that every single day.

Don't take it for granted.

Yeah, dude.

People. People have offered to pay a lot of money for your internal masterminds. Oh, yeah? Yeah. But they're just included for the franchisees. But it was chaotic this morning, so if any franchisee is listening, you probably know which one I'm referring to. So Copilot to buy now.

It was good. Astromine, dude.

It was a great mastermind.

Like the auctioning system of Google and stuff.

It was great. Yeah. Derek Duran had some good ideas.

Yeah, that was good. That was really good video idea.

So, um, so last episode, we talked about 100 subscriber giveaway.

Yeah.

And I was like, let's give something away. Let's do like, let's do a gift card or something. You're like, that's boring. And I was like, all right. Well, you know, so you said we should ask our hundred subscriber to send a video and to send a video. Well, yeah. So I'll hand up. I dropped the ball. I waited too long.

But you're busy selling franchises. It's been a good week for you.

But I did. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a lot of franchisees coming on board. Very exciting. So I, I just, I. I picked two random people.

Okay.

That, that I had their phone number.

They were random and I had their contact information. So I'm just being honest.

Out of the 10 subscribers that you knew their phone number? You're like, these two.

Yeah. So you know, it's C suite unfiltered. I'm not gonna lie. I dropped the ball on like reaching out in time. I don't know how YouTube works. So I had two folks that I knew were early subscribers. And I just said, hey, you know, you guys want to ask me and Mike a personal question? That's. That's the reward. That's the giveaway. So I got one.

Videos or they text?

Just text. Okay, so I dropped them.

Are you gonna say the name of the person? At least their first name.

I can.

You gotta give them a little cred, you know.

Yeah, I want to give them credit. So this first one is Vlad. Okay. Winter Garden, Florida. Look, man.

Oh, I think I just chipped my teeth on the microphone.

Brutal.

If anyone wants to ask a question though, personally, just put in the comments. Like, honestly, if someone wants a question answered by us and it helps the algorithm too, we'll just, we will literally just answer it. So this is, that's why you said, let's give a question as a giveaway. I was like, but if someone put a question. Anyways, this is from Vlad.

But they don't get. We don't get talk of that. We don't. We've never talked about a comment.

That's true.

Which we should do.

We should start doing that.

If there's a good comment. If there's a good comment, we'll talk about the next part.

I need the producer to.

Let me know.

Producer is underpaid, bro. Although this is a non profit at.

This point, this point it is. It's 100%.

It's a work of the heart.

Yeah, it's a labor of love. That's what I was going work of the heart. So this is from vlad. This is 100 Subscriber Giveaway Question.

Okay?

And I, I prefaced it, I said you can ask a personal question to me and Mike.

And nothing is, I know he's going to go personal because he's a part of the mastermind. So he would ask all his business questions.

I said, I said nothing is off limits. So I prefaced with that. This is what he came up. This is what he came up with.

Is this producer approved?

This is producer approved.

Okay.

Can you ask Mike, can you ask Mike if I can have a.

No.

Any preface of that in each question is almost.

Can you ask Mike if I can have a personal in quotes one to one dinner with him during next conference? His choice of location, no limits. And I will cover all expenses of the evening. Please.

No. Anytime you start a question off with can you ask them to do something for you?

No.

No.

I'm gonna say no.

You must have one on one dinner with you.

I know. Well, there's other people too. But you know, the thing is like if someone asks for something, I have now this new thing, if someone asks me for something, it's an automatic now.

Okay, Thousand subscriber giveaway. Maybe do a one on one dinner.

Sure. How about this? If we hit a thousand subscribers before conference, then yes. Okay, how's that sound? So Vlad needs to go chill, plug the pod.

I love that. There you go. You heard it, Vlad. If you get us a thousand subscribers before conference, you get a one on one dinner with my.

And not to bash that Vlad.

No, no.

But if you ever want something from someone, don't ask that way because like so like for example, today I opened up my Facebook messages like DMS and like there is no less than 20 people asking for like my time.

Oh, totally.

So like if in the first three words like can I, would you please may I? It's immediate. Like I don't even look at the message now. So my, my approach to that one would have been something along the lines of produce. Like show me how you produce me value. Like for example, I've been this along some long time subscriber. I have, you know, promoted the podcast, whatever it might be and then slide in something then. Right? And yeah, because even provide, offering to, offering to get the meal is not the valuable part that I'm giving up, it's the time part. Right? So what people, they always like, hey, like if, if you, if I call. If you call me, I'll like, you know, I'll shout you out. It's like, well, like, that's not the valuable part. The value part is like the hour that I'm going to be talking to you.

Right.

Like, I don't. I can never get that back. I can make more money if you give me money. Even, like, I can't get the hour back. So just a little heads up for people if they're trying to, you know, punch up above and don't. Okay. This is so. So there's some people that if I don't respond back to them, then they come bashing me. It's like, dude, you just shot yourself for the whole, like, rest of your life. Like, I will never respond to you. So anyways, do we.

I, I feel like this is a natural bridge here.

Okay.

And we could, we can cut this out. That's what I always say that. But I never cut anything out.

There's no filter. If you start saying that you're going to cut things out, people will think you're a liar. Yeah.

Which, which I never have. I've never cut anything out. I, I edit the pod because I don't want choppy cuts and camera resets and mic resets, but right. There's nothing. It is unfiltered.

This is a choppable part of the, of the unfiltered podcast. A filterable part.

Someone was not thrilled with the sales call they had with me.

Oh, dude, you're gonna put this in the show.

Oh, man. Yeah. Okay. So I defended you, bro.

You did.

I got you.

I'm just saying that that was that they went straight to you with like an ask.

Well, they. So, so this is what happened. Are you gonna give some kind.

I don't know. Like, I feel. I don't want to, like, this isn't about. I don't want to make it.

It's a good segue from the last thing, though. Yeah.

I don't want to make it about that person. Just the situation.

Just use the situation. Because what I just teed up for you is actually like in the back of my head now. I think about it. It's probably where that thought came from.

Yeah. So someone had a, an introductory call. Sales.

So here's my question for you. Did it go well? Like the call in and of itself or was like, there's some red flags.

There were some red flags.

Okay.

There were already red flags on the call and I.

Introductory sales call for joining Augusta.

Yep. Introductory sales call joining Augusta. Anyone that wants to join Augusta ask, book a call with me. You know, we vet them, we ask them some questions. It's a conversation. It's not a sales pitch. And if you don't think they're a.

Good fit, you kind of try to nicely lay them off.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's. I'm assuming you did.

Yeah. Try to nicely lay them off as well as we have no space available in our next training.

Right.

And we're not doing another training for probably six to nine months.

And, like, usually you would say, like, maybe next year, that type of thing, and then see if they are serious and they come back to you, and then maybe. Okay, all right.

Yeah. Which I said to someone today, someone different, and they were totally respectful, and they're like, I get it. You know, space of training. I need to kind of work on my own thing now.

Just. Just so everyone's clear, if he says that doesn't mean he doesn't want you inside of guest the nation. Because sometimes they're like, we don't have any more space for training.

Yeah, this. This is the second person from today. We just don't have space of training.

Right.

And this other person, though, I basically was like, hey, we don't have space of training. And they. They basically went on the. The aggressive defensive. Like, they were ultra defensive and just accused me of saying things I never said. And then they tried to go above.

My head around you because they went to the local office.

Yep.

Then they. Then they emailed me, or. No, they d. The. No, they didn't email me.

They commented on One of your YouTube videos.

One of my YouTube videos. That's when I responded, because I'm like, okay, well, if you're gonna bring this public, here we go.

Yeah. And that's what. I don't want to, like, make it a public thing, but I'm not, obviously.

Yeah, we don't want to make it as a public thing. We're just gonna.

Well, I'm not gonna say the person's name or. Or what video they commented on, but it was just a very awkward situation.

Okay, so here's the question. So what was some of the red flags on the initial call? Because I think you told me a couple of these.

Yeah. So obviously, like, a big red flag is, you know, are they willing to learn? Like, joining Augusta? You're going to have to learn and try new things. So, you know, if there's an attitude of I've done it before, I can figure this out, that that's a big red flag anytime Someone talks negatively about former employees, former bosses, managers, former co workers, and in, in any sense, that's like slightly derogatory. Like, that's just automatic. No, thanks. Admitting, like, you, you don't want to work for someone else in, like, a negative light. Not in a, hey, I just, I've really tried working for other people. I'm just too, like, I'm too entrepreneurial. I'm too much of an outside the box thinker. I need to do my own thing for my own, like, sanity. That's different than I'm not going to work for anyone, period, because I don't like being told what to do. So those are a couple of the red flags. And when people kind of hop on a call with me to join Augusta and it's very much like, yeah, I'm ready to join, it's like, whoa, let's pump the brakes. And some people, I've told very bluntly, I just say this as much as an interview of you asking me questions as it is me asking you questions. And some people that come in a little too hot, I'm like, you know, we turn away more people than we let into Augusta. So just, just a heads up, like, I want to vet you.

We reserve the right to. To refuse service.

Yeah. So it was just. It was an awkward situation. Yeah.

Because he wanted in really bad. And we're like, no. Like, just because you have the money, like, that's the thing. It's like, just because we offer it does not mean we have to let you in. Just because you have the money and want to join. Right. We are not obligated to let you inside.

Yeah.

And I tell, like, people, and I do the videos with them, too, because, like, I sometimes send them personal videos. I'll be like, we don't let everyone in. Like, if I think you're a good fit and lead things, you're a good fit. That's not like the majority of people, the vast majority of people who book a call, you never join. So.

Yeah, so don't go straight to the ask. Yeah, that's that the guy was essentially denied by me. And then he went straight to you with an ask.

Yeah. So my response back to him on YouTube was like, look, you've got to follow systems at Augusta. And part of the system is like, you've got to contact the correct person. And, like, there's no one that's going to come to me and try to get in the franchise if you're not going through Lee.

Yeah.

Like, I've never questioned when you say, like, they're not a good fit. And I've never said, like, this person must come in, like, never. And so there's not like trying to make that happen. Be like, oh, Lee, we have to let him because he emailed me, like, that's not going to happen.

Initial red flag, now that you brought that up, is following systems. When I've already sent someone my calendar link and then they're like texting me or emailing me about a call, I'm like, I've already sent you the link.

Book it.

I will set aside 45 minutes for you and I will be prepared to talk to you. And like, I want to give you my full attention. If you're texting me, calling me, email me. I'm not going to give you my full attention.

And it's not like that we're obnoxious. It's the fact that indicators of something that becomes a much bigger problem down the road. And we've only learned that because now we've done it for a few years and we see the patterns of, like, who causes the most issues for us. Who doesn't end up working out and ends up closing their location. Like, it's pretty, you know, episodic. Like, we've seen the show before at this point. Right. So it's like that, that person, they might have really want to join. They might be a great fit at the beginning, grown their business really quickly. But it's like, okay, so what's going to happen when, like, they haven't implemented P4P? They have 10 employees and they're going off the rails. Like, that's the type of thing that we're thinking about now. Right. And now that we are, we are profitable and we've kind of crossed 100 location marker. It's like, there's no rush to get more.

Yeah.

Like, we kind of had to get to 100 just so we could, like, make it sustainable. But now it's like, look, I'm not in a rush. We don't have a target of goals, a number of people. We just want to keep the group as awesome as it is.

Yeah.

Like, I'm have to spend time with you at conference and like, I want to be able to walk up to you and shake your hand and like, not be like, this person's weird and dumb. I don't like them. So I'm going to have to deal with you for the next 10 years.

So we have, as of last night, 119 now.

Let's go.

Officially signed up the Rest will be coming to training in February and then launching into Spring with 120 locations, probably. So it's going to be exciting.

Yeah. There's no more available training all the way to, what, September?

Probably September. But I don't want to say that, because I don't want to be accused of saying wrong training days. So just being honest. Oh, man. All right, so that was Vlad's question and subscriber, but I also sent to another person as a backup.

Okay.

Because I was like, no, I have full, full confidence in Vlad. Vlad was first.

So you didn't have enough confidence to think that, Vlad. That's the truth.

I already said hand up. You want the full, unfiltered truth. I sent them a text, like, an hour ago. I was like, oh, no, I forgot to tell people that I need 100 subscriber questions.

You fall apart when the producer has to go back to school, dude.

100%. Yeah. The producer holds it all together, let me tell you. So I sent to another loyal follower, another franchisee. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's another franchisee. Look, if. If you are not in the.

Somehow, the subscriber count's gonna directly correlate.

With the number of franchisees they auto subscribe. I thought about that the other day because I set up their Google account. I was like, I could auto subscribe every franchisee to our podcast because I set up their Google account.

So anyways, we have a thousand locations, and your subscriber gets me 1001. Yeah.

The thousand franchisees and another producer. Oh, 1002, baby. So, all right, I'm gonna keep this person anonymous, so that way people see it as a very valid question. Not that this person would be invalidated. What? By their name. But I don't want them. You just invalidated the question. All right, well, then, see, we'll cut it.

Probably. Marcus.

I was like, all right, if Vlad doesn't text me back, I'm texting Marcus back up.

Okay, so now I expect this. Actually a really good question too. Yeah.

Because Marcus is just a phenomenal human.

Being, and he knows me really deeply, so he's not gonna surface.

He knows you, so same preface.

Okay, you.

You have a personal question you want to ask Mike and I answer on the podcast. Nothing is of limits.

Oh.

He said verbatim, what is something? And I haven't thought about my answer, so we're. We're doing it live. What is something each of y' all have done that you deeply regret and would never do again? How did this impact you? Slash Your decision making process after the incident.

Okay. Is this personal or business only?

I mean, it is. We did say a personal question.

I know, but I don't really have anything personal. I think I would never make a.

Mistake in your personal life.

No, like nothing. I deeply regret. This guy.

Level this guy over here. No, like it's, it's all good.

Thanks.

It's all fine.

I have the business one. I'm trying to think of personal. You go ahead. I'll try to think of first one. I have the business one on the tip of my tongue.

Well, I think I can think of a lot of business ones.

Okay, I'll do business then. You do business one then. Okay. So my business one would be I started Reset mind and body basically like, like my first foray out of lawn care and landscaping and cost me probably about 100 grand basically to realize that like, okay, I'm getting into something that I. I don't have any expertise any more than anyone else that just has three or four hundred thousand dollars laying around. So it's just a stupid idea. It's like when people are like, they do lawn care lessons like I'm gonna go do H Vac. It's like you have no skills that are gonna like transfer over besides just being a good leader or marketer. Right. And in my mind, oh, that's. I can take those skills and like we can build something up underneath. This will be great because it compliments in the winter when lawn care is not. I just made sense of something. I was like, dude, stay in your lane.

Yep.

And so I, I cut the cord after like signing a lease so that I had to pay like $80,000 plus just in break it. To break the lease. Yeah. And then $20,000 in like designs that we were gonna do and like all the rest of it. So spent a hundred thousand instead of 400, 000 because that's what it taken really to launch it. But it really just solidified me like, stay in your lane. That's why like over the past few years it's been like I've done other lawn care stuff like home service, cpa, lawn care media. They all hit home runs because like I know what I'm doing in those. Like, I. I feel like I'm in the 99th point, 99 percentile. I was like not a square one with reset minor body. Even though I think it would have been a great idea. So yeah, not all good ideas need execute against.

It's fair. Reset was such a cool idea. I was excited. I Was very excited for it, but do you think it's ever something?

Maybe. But like, I just. I'm not going to spend my time on something that I'm not the best at, so.

And I feel like a lot of people probably don't know what reset is because that was a few years ago. You're following.

Yeah, it was going to be like cryotherapy and saunas and cold plunge and. And red light therapy and that sort of thing in like a studio environment. And you could come in 24 7. And it was really going to be focused more on mental health, which I'm pretty passionate about.

Elevator pitch, high end mental health, gymnasium.

A 247 gym for your men, for your mind. Yeah, that was. That was kind of the goal place to kind of like do meditation, prayer, stuff like that. So, yeah, just decided not to do it. I just knew, like, literally three months into it, like, okay, I. I could just cut the cord here, lose 100 grand and walk away, or I could just like, I'm gonna do this and I'm glad I cut the cord.

Yeah, it was a cool idea.

Yeah.

My business one. I have one that comes to mind pretty fast. I very poorly handled the customer. So you probably never heard of it. Like, it was. It was a minor, minor issue that I probably would have never brought to your attention.

Your biggest business regret.

Can you. I mean, can you think? Yeah, of course I know. What are you thinking about the mutiny?

I think it was just prior to.

That part of the mutiny.

Yeah. The person I think you wanted fired and you thought later on we could have handled it differently.

Yeah, that one did come to mind.

Okay.

I don't know if that's as. I don't know if I regret.

So now you got to confess this other one, though. I know.

Yeah. Yeah, I want to confess the other one. That one. I. I regret how I handled my actions with that person, but I think it was a good learning experience for myself and the other person. Like, I think there was. There was good understanding made after a bad situation. So I don't regret that one as much because in business you make a call and some of them are good, some are bad. And I think that was a bad call that actually had an okay outcome because it was learning experience for. For the both of us involved. Mine is. And I still think of this. I can't think of the customer's name, and I wouldn't say it, obviously, but it was. It was a pretty bad regret. It was just in the chaos of spring. And, you know you have other customers mad at you, and you got employee drama and, like, the whole nine. Right. We had set up an annual contract with an hoa, so always, always a good time dealing with hos. We set up an annual contract with an hoa, and all we had to do was, like, brush clearing. Twice a year. Twice a year, brush clearing. And it was around the retention pond.

Oh, yeah, I know this place.

Yeah. Yeah. So honestly, the job went fine, but what happened is the former person in charge of that project on the HOA didn't confirm that they were going to do it again. So we needed to come back and we needed to bring in heavier equipment to get the clearing done. Like, we needed to bring in a dingo with a brush cutter because they had waited too long to say, yes, you're approved to come back for the brush cutting. And so I just handled that exchange port. Like, we already got off on the wrong foot because it was a new person in charge, and the last person had, like, passed away. And that's just a sensitive subject in general. I didn't do anything wrong in that regard, but it's already an emotional situation. It's like, well, this person on our HOA board passed away, and, like, I'm doing it to help them and, like, their family. And I'm like, I understand it's emotional. Like, I'm very sorry. And. And I tried to be as. As apologetic as I could in that regard, but basically, long story short, they didn't realize that the contract was a price per time, per service, and it was to be done bi. Annually, so twice a year. Right. And so I charged them the full amount, and they were extremely upset, and I just didn't budge. And I didn't really have any grace or tact in that situation. I was like, I have a million other things to deal with. This is. You know, and in their mind, you know, it's the HOA. $2,000 is a lot to them. That's what the invoice was. And to me, I'm like, we're gonna do 150 this month. So, like, $2,000 is nothing. Like, leave me alone. Pay the bill. And I just. I. My emails were very short. I was never unprofessional. Like, I hold myself to that. But I went back and like, a week later, I looked at the emails. I was like, man, I was just so, like, abrupt. And so you're wrong and I'm right. Like, leave us alone. That was just my tone. I didn't say those actual words, but I Just felt horrible about it because of course, they canceled. They ended up having it sent to collections because they refused to pay, and it was just a bad situation. And then, like, the whole hoa now we'll probably never use Augusta. So it was, like, 20 houses, but still 20 houses that we'll probably never get as customers. So I just. I handled it poorly. I didn't respect the customer and. And their needs and their wants, and I was less than forgiving. So I just. That one just weighed on me. I just felt like I handled it very poorly.

Yeah. So I can't. I can't think of anything personally that, like, I would really like. Big regrets. I'm failing on that one. I'll think of something probably tonight.

Yeah, I know. I'm trying to think a good person.

This is what I think is going to happen. Like, this was funny. Is. This is the regret that I know I'm gonna have when I'm older and I'm perfectly aware I'm gonna have it, but I'm still deciding to literally keep doing it. And then it's like, I know one day I'll be like, man, I wish I would have, like, taken some time off and, like, gone and traveled a bit and, like, hung out with people more often. But, like, in the moment, I'm like, no, that's not what I want to do. Like, objectively, if I had the. I wouldn't choose it. And it's not because something else is motivating me. I don't need something else. More money or whatever I get. So, like. Like, I think everyone is expected to say that, though. I'm really hoping I don't ever regret it, and I have a feeling I won't because, like, I objectively have thought about this. Like, okay, Michael, you know that everyone says that. Like, why not just be, like, smart and just not do it? I'm like, no, like, in the moment, this is what I want to do. Like, I would rather work than go on a vacation. And if I want a vacation, I just work on the vacation.

Yeah.

Because that's what I want to do.

Yeah.

So it'd be interesting. I just think everyone says I'm like, man, am I walking myself into this trap? And then I just. I just don't think I will. I don't know. I could be wrong.

Yeah.

I'm like, I won't know for, like, 20, 30 years, probably.

Yeah. I definitely have, like, personal regrets, but I'm trying to think of, like, a good one, you know, what about going to school? Going to school.

Well, you met Sarah. You can't say that to her.

Yeah. Geez. No, that was great. What do you. Why would going to school be a regret? Oh, you're saying just, like, the time wasted while giving theoretical. No, I enjoyed my time at school.

I guess I would regret probably going to school as much as I did. I spent six years. Five to six years of my life, just literally that I am for business, for school, that is, like, now I don't use any of it, but I do feel like there's value in it that, like, I got used to working with people that are older than me. Like, it doesn't. Like, I don't see age very well. Like, when I'm working with people. And then two is. It did, like, dedicate myself to something, which, by the way, was worthless, but it definitely, like, made me probably work on the skill of, you know, dedicating myself to something. Like, just. Even though I didn't understand it, even though I. I didn't think it was helpful for me at the time, Like, I had to learn calculus. Right. And so, like, now, hopefully, there's things in, like, the business. I'm like, oh, this is annoying me. Like, I will do it. So it probably helped me a little bit there.

Yeah.

But that would probably be. Actually, if I have to really think about. That'd be one of the things. Like, I poured my life into it for five years. I thought I was gonna be on doctors. Like, you had to have perfect grades. Like, anything less than an A was a fail in my mind. And it was very, like, A or failure. And so when you have that level of expectation, I was like, oh, you were a genius because you started young. It's like, no. Like, I worked so hard, and so. And then the first of me, I'm like, oh, yeah, we're not doing any of that medical stuff. I'm, like, sick. I could have had so much more fun.

Fun.

Yeah. So anyways.

Yeah. I don't know. I can't think of anything, like, juicy enough.

Okay.

If you will. It's good thinking, like, some minor ones.

We're young, dude. I also don't get regrets. You don't really get to have regrets until you're, like, 35, 40.

And I just. I don't know. I feel like I'm the type of person I. I kind of. I, like. I do what I want, and I just deal with the consequences. Yeah. Like, as. Like, as. As dumb as that sounds. And I'm not trying to be, like, gung ho. Like, like cheesy alpha male. But like I just like, I calculate my decision. Yeah. I make it and I live with it.

Yeah.

So I think in business I have probably a lot of regrets. Like just because I'm learning how to do business. I learned how to be your general manager. I'm learning how to be, you know, a business consultant. So I have a lot of regrets. They're like, man, I shouldn't have said that advice or that was a dumb idea or we shouldn't have tried that. But in life I think I'm much more calculated because I know what I want at the end of the day and I just make decisions and go, yeah, like, I think I execute.

I make a lot of dumb little ones. Like, yeah, like things I like. I. It still eats me up. Like our last managers meeting where I had to apologize afterwards for eavesdropping on a conversation. And like that's a regret, like micro. Right. But it's not like I'm like in 10 years going to remember that like all my life. Right? Yeah. It's like big ones I haven't had yet. I'm sure there will be though. Like I'm not, I'm a big believer. Just like come to grips with the fact that you're going to have regrets, you're going to fail, you're going to mess up. Because then when it happens, it's just less like, oh my word. Right. So like I will have probably I'll make some big mistakes, make some, have some regrets, make poor decisions and like that'll happen like any expect. I partly learned that because like in school, if you're only expecting A's, like you're eventually gonna, you're sending some failure. Right. And so, you know, I've just decided with business it's like, look, I'm gonna strike out sometimes I'm gonna like really mess up and probably my personal life too at some point. And like that's fine. Like I'm expecting it.

But not to be cheesy, but like you said at conference, it's like, but you, you have to respect the fact that you stepped in the batter's box and you were willing to take a swing.

Yeah.

Like that takes courage.

Yeah.

To step in the batter's box and swing. Like, yeah, you're going to strike out.

One thing I want to ever regret. Back to the producer bringing this up. So is is like me getting involved in a relationship.

Yeah, Here we go.

This is the part you cut the video like that that would be something that, where it's like, I can't mess that up because important to me. And like, that's why I haven't rushed into it. That's why I don't really even think about it because, like, it's, it can't be second place. And so the business is, for now, like, number one. And I can't see them being anything else. And I'm not going to try to split that with someone else or, like, expect them to be like, hey, like, by the way, business is kind of just as important as you. Like, that's not going to happen. So, like, I think that my biggest fear, honestly, is making a. Having a regret around that.

And I don't want to speak for you, but I assume you're of the belief that once you're married to someone, it's. That's it. Yeah, 101 and done.

Yeah, one and done. But everyone says that when they go into it, right? So I'm like, super into, like, the math of all this stuff and just like, okay, so like, if as you make more money, what has that did your divorce rate? And like, all because, like, I, I. Everyone believes when you get married that, like, you're not gonna get divorced. But, like, literally three of my cousins in the past two years were divorced within two years of being married in Australia. So, like, it just happens.

Like, I was like, trying to think of names.

You don't know who they are.

I promise I wasn't.

So it's just like, yeah, everyone's happy. I was congratulating them and I get the back of my mind now I'm like, statistically.

30% chance. So I don't know. I don't know if I'll ever be able to get over that side of my brain that's, like, so calculated to ever actually do it, like, get married and get involved with that level. But, you know, I do want to be a dad one day, but not right now. Same not right now. Like, I don't see myself being a dad. So yesterday we have all my, oh, my grandkids. Mercy. My.

Niece is over.

Yeah.

And, like, I can handle them for about an hour, but when they're starting to, like, cry because, like, someone didn't sit next to them and they got to go to the bathroom and they didn't, like, something in their food, I'm just like, I would die. Yeah, but you can get a nanny. And that's my goal is like, by.

The time that I was that the numbers you've crunched.

That's the numbers we crunched. Bro, we got to be able to afford a really expensive nanny that can just handle the kids when I'm fed up with them.

That's, that's the solution. I like that.

Sorry, this is not really going over well.

This is good. No, I think it's good. I think I agree with you on the kid part.

And I'm not ready as a father either. Like, I'm not ready for it because I would, I would want to be like, shut up.

I will say this though. I, you know, now I can, I can lord this over you. This is the one error area where I can say I'm ahead of Mike.

And Dude, you are 100 ahead of me.

I have been married for three and.

A half years for a long time. Woo. Three and a half years.

Almost four. Yeah, three and a half years.

Speaking from experience.

Speaking from experience.

You almost have a degree, bro.

Yeah, yeah, we're close. I've. I've done some extracurriculars, so we don't want to ask.

Extracurriculars?

No, no, it was an internship, it was a one time thing and I actually, I have a group chat with a couple of my best friends from college and I went to a Bible school, so take that into context. But one of best friends, he wanted to make a dumb decision and he was like, ah, the lady said no. And this is his girlfriend. He's probably planning to propose at some point. I don't know, I don't want to speak for him. I know he listens, but. So anyways, it's his girlfriend. They've been together for a while. And he was like, she said no to this. How do you guys do it? And a couple of us are married in the group and he was like, lee, Connor, give me some marriage advice, five words or less. And my buddy Connor said something very smart. So this is free marriage advice. Thank you. Which is be okay with being wrong. And I feel like if anything, you're the type of person who needs to hear that as well as me. Like just, just be okay with being wrong, man.

So I don't do well with that.

Yeah, I know.

I always come to some sort of resolution and I know that that will hurt me in the future.

And my five words or less, marriage advice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Listen. Stop talking and listen.

Stop talking and listen. Dude. That's five, dude. Yeah, let's go. Are you saying something about Sarah right now?

No, no, no, no, no. That was my piece of advice. I feel like, like if she brings something up sometimes I'm just like, well, no, it's wrong because X, Y and Z. Or no, I don't agree because abc.

Yeah, my.

Because I'm like, I'm a very calculating person. I'm always planning in my mind.

I always like to say things against people. Not because, like I'm against them, but just because, like, I don't know. I think it's partly how I was raised.

Oh yeah.

Like my mom, dad, dynamic. But like, I always want to say, like if they say a statement, it's like immediately like counteract it. It's like so bad for a relationship.

For like you, like you were saying you would always counteract them. They weren't counteracting each other.

No, I always want to be like the, the devil's advocate. No, no. I mean, I see you're saying like, yeah, my mom's much more that way. Like you say something like, well, what about this? Like just. Just for the sake of being devil's advocate. Right. But it creates some friction sometimes and so I'm sure I'll be the same way.

I feel like your dad is like the least combative person.

That's why he does a good job.

They've stayed together for 30 odd years or whatever.

He's taking your advice well.

Yeah, yeah, dude, he's the best. Like the least combative person. Just so kind. Such a nice, nice man. Yeah, so I don't know, I think, I think we can wrap it there with. Yeah, a little bit. But we gotta end with our. Now it's a. Yeah, not financially. Now it's a recurring segment.

Dude, now that you say this, I literally thought this week this is what I'm gonna say for not. Not financial advice. And now I don't remember what it is.

Come on, man.

Okay, so what's your not financial advice?

Not financial advice.

Down the road, when you have a producer that is going to actually do the work for you, you need to have like a little clip here. Oh, yeah, yeah.

That's the segment not financial advice.

Go for it.

So my not financial advice is. You already got it. I'm gonna say it's those pieces of marriage advice, so. From myself and my buddy Connor and his wife Brooklyn, Shout out and their beautiful girl Haven.

You only say people's names if you're saying positive things about them. Yeah, why not the negative? This is unfiltered, bro.

Yeah, but like, I don't need to put people on blast. Yeah, but like I can be unfiltered without putting them on blast. That's true. So he, he said be okay. With being wrong.

Okay?

And I said, listen. Stop talking and listen.

So my not financial advice hit me with it is to invest in good shoes. So I used to be of the type anything less more than $30 was too much.

You're an Amazon wardrobe guy. Just buy stuff off Amazon now.

I was the TJ Maxx and Ross guy.

All right?

That was my. My jam. Then I found that on Amazon, there's a lot of Chinese brands that are small. Yeah. So they work great for me. However, I also learned that cheap on shoes is not a good idea.

Idea.

I would spend no more than 30, but I would literally burn through my runners in like six months because I trail run and all the rest of it. So now 250 shoes you got. They lasted two and a half years.

Almost hookahs. And they're beautiful. What are they?

Hoka.

Yeah. Hoka.

Yeah.

Sweet.

New Balance Oasis. There's some good brands out there. I like the Big Meaty.

Yeah. I get some New Balance. I like those. Those are good. It's good enough. Financial advice good.

Not financial advice, dude.

All right. Thanks, everybody. Like and subscribe.

The long pod C suite, unfiltered.