Fake Perfume and New Hires - Episode 057

We are back. Another episode. C Suite Unfilter Now. I don't know if you know this. We hit a thousand subscribers.

I did. I saw that. Congratulations.

We did it. Well, no, congratulations to you.

A year.

A little over a year and a half, I think, because we started. I know. Under a year and a half. Just under a year and a half.

Cool.

See, I think 56, 57 total videos. So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, if that, like, what the metrics are.

Like, if you have another year and a half, I predict, like, 5 or 10,000.

Yeah.

And then like, another year and a half. Probably like another 5 to 10x. It just kind of, like, compounds that way.

That is, if you want to keep doing this.

Yeah. Hey, dude, I'm down.

I just don't know what the ROI is for you. I know. For me, it's, you know, stretching my skills. More exposure to kind of what you're going through, but hopefully it's valuable for everyone.

Well, so far, like, the next year and a half, definitely we're doing it because we're still, like, you're at the Bellingham shop a little bit more, etc. So, like, it's a good way for us to connect and, like, you know.

Yeah.

Jam on stuff. And then once we're, like, in the same office all the time, it'll be nicer.

Yeah. Cool. Well, I didn't tell you what this is, but this was a gift from my friend Brayden.

Brayden? Yes, Brayden. Who know.

He is my friend who owns a marketing company locally.

Okay.

So he got me these for my birthday, which was, like, a month ago. Guessing a mug, but feel free.

Okay, that's.

So we're. We're branded now.

Oh, that's.

We got the C Suite mug.

So these official Once you get a mug.

Yeah. These are for the set.

Yeah. Dude, let's go.

So. I know, I know, but I got the computer. I don't know. We'll see.

We'll see. Okay, so we're official, man.

Yeah. There it is. So thank you, Braden. There we go.

Local.

He got. Well, he got him through Canva.

Oh.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So ordered the picture and sent him to you.

Yeah. Well, my logo's on Canva, so I don't know. But anyways, there we go. We're official. We're officially a podcast now. We have mugs and, you know, maybe merch one day. Yeah. But thank you to everyone that subscribes, and we'll hope to keep going. So I have something Completely off the wall for you. But I wanted to maybe get your thoughts and see what this looks like for, for other brands, maybe in, you know, the lawn care landscaping space. But have you seen any ads? I've been getting bombarded with these ads recently. Maybe it says something about myself by Alt Fragrances. Alt Fragrances, Okay. Yeah, so I, I don't, I'm not a cologne aficionado, so maybe you must.

Have looked at some.

My targeted ads must be saying I stink because I'm getting a lot of ads for this. And I've talked to some people that see ads for all of these knockoff fragrance brands. So I wanted to talk to you about this because it's an interesting kind of thing that these fragrance brands are doing. So their whole thing is, hey, we want to be the, the David to big fragrances. Goliath. Right. So that would be, you know, Versace and like all these big brands, Dior. I don't know them because I don't, I don't use those products. But these big brands that sell to tiny bottles of perfume for 2, 3, 400, $500, you know, there's just one really popular one that's, you know, been around for 200 years, which I'm like, how does that work? But it's like $450 a bottle. It's called Baccarat Rouge. Well, this company, Alt Fragrances, you can get it for them for $40 a bottle. And it's in, it's. And it smells the same is what everyone says. Now they're using different compounds, but it smells the same. There's tons of different fragrances that are high end, that this company is basically mocking and selling at a discounted price. So knowing that information, what is your initial reaction to that? What's your, your opinion as a consumer, as a business owner? Like, there are these big brands, legacy brands that have an expensive product and now someone's making knockoffs. What's your reaction to that?

They're only building the brand of the, the primary thing. Same thing with like every other, you know, Louis Vuitton, et cetera. Yeah, there's always knockoffs. But the thing is the people don't realize it's not the, the quality of the bag, it is the brand image. And so if you're, if you're trying to mock or like trying to replicate someone. Yeah, you're following them. You don't have any creative thought of your own. So like alt fragrances will have no enterprise value. They will only be able to work on an Arbitrage until they eventually get shut down, et cetera. So they're just working off of the fact that there are people that don't want to buy authentic goods and they want to have the brand logo and symbol of, like, status.

Right.

That's what they're playing off of. But they have no intrinsic value. They're not worth billions of dollars. They'll never be able to be in this. They might get a thin margin, but it's like, you know, yes, we are going to compete on price, and we have absolutely no brand value whatsoever. You're not worth anything.

Yeah, but then it doesn't matter to, let's say the. The average consumer that wants maybe status without having the money for status, so they can tell their friends, like, oh, I smell like baccarat rouge.

You've. You've lost. Already lost the game of life, if that is already where you're at. Well.

And you and I are not the ideal consumers, which is why I'm confused. I'm getting these ads because I would never buy that kind of stuff. Like, I've been wearing the same deodorant for 12 years. Really? I'm an Old Spice guy. Like, just keep it simple, dude.

That's hilarious.

And I do have. I do have a scent I use, but it's like, if I'm going on a date with my wife or going to, like, a wedding, I'm not a cologne every day. Are you cologne every day guy?

Not every, like a spray. No. Because I don't have cologne that goes in my gym bag by deodorant.

Yeah.

That's all I need usually. Yeah. Other people might say something different.

Yeah.

But yeah, like, I try to, like, if I'm. If I'm cognizant of it.

Yeah, Yeah. I put it on for, like, date night weddings, you know, like, things like that. But I just deodorant and shower regularly.

You also work at the shop, though, where, like, you're around a bunch of, like, guys work on the field. It's okay to smell a little bit.

Yeah.

When you're in the office, the thing that I'm most like, conscious of is, like, if I'm leaning over someone, we're working on, like, a computer screen. I am within, like, yeah. 24 inches of them. So.

Yeah. Are you saying I smell? Because I feel like I'm pretty conscious of that.

No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying when you start working with people, like, in a confined office space, that that's when I use to become A little more confident.

You're more self aware. Yeah. So it's interesting you, you mentioned the handbag. So I pulled up this article. This is from allure.com, which I believe does more like beauty products and things of that nature. So I would consider them somewhat of an expert in this. And I know this is a total tangent for us, but it's just interesting. So they're specifically talking about this company, not Alt Fragrances. I couldn't find anything on them specifically, but I found this other one. Dossier and Dossier is similar to Alt Fragrances.

Hey, there's a bazillion of them.

Yeah, yeah, there's tons of them. Dossier and Alt Fragrances are the bigger ones. So they said Dossier's creations are not counterfeits. Counterfeit proof, like counterfeit handbags explicitly mislead consumers by pretending to come from a brand with which they have no affiliation and are therefore illegal.

So they change the actual brand. They're just trying to say the product is the same.

Exactly.

You just said they changed the compounds.

Exactly. So that's where it becomes interesting. These brands can exist because unlike logos or monograms, fragrance formulas are not protected by copyright.

But you're saying they change the compounds.

Well, in theory, but this article. That's what I thought. But this article is saying that the fragrance formula is not protected by copyright. It's interesting. I feel like that's similar to, let's say like Gordon Ramsay. Right. Five star chef or whatever. Like his recipes, are they copyrighted? Technically, no, but it's. Do you get access to them? Can you make a good copycat recipe?

It just comes back to, again, people are buying the $500 fragrance not for the smell. They're buying it for that logo on the bottle. Right. And if it says Dior, it says something else. Like they're buying it, for instance. That buyer is concerned about that. Right. If you're saying that this knockoff has like the same product but different wrapping, that matters. Yeah, right. It's the same thing as like, well, is Apple's phone really that much better than a four or five hundred dollar Android? Like that could be debated.

Yeah.

You know, is it, is it really worth spending $5,000 on like a handbag? The knockoff is like 100 bucks. Yeah, well, it is for the person that wants that brand logo and he's actually the customer of the $5,000 handbag.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. So this paragraph goes on to say, so be on the copyright says, plus they offer an attractive model to consumers by claiming a democratized fragrance through lower prices. Dupe brands position themselves as the David to big perfumes, Goliath, delivering prized formulas to the massive without the brand or celebrity markup. Right. So it's interesting that they can get away with this. My question is what? Why can't these brands like a Baccarat rouge, like Aventus Creed, like these high, high, high end exclusive brands, why can't they copyright their formula? What would be your thoughts? I'm sure we could find that. But like why, why do you think they can't?

Well, I think that yes, they would do it, but I, I also think that they realize that they, they're not selling a perfume. They're not selling. A good point selling perfume. They are smelling perfume. They're selling a brand.

Yeah.

And a brand identity and the fact that they spent $500 on the perfume and is an image that people want, they don't want to be like known for. Oh yeah, that's like the alt brand, like who wants that? Right. For the person that's willing to pay $500, they're like, let's go. I do not want the alt. Like they actually would despise the lower price with the exact same product inside of it.

Yeah, yeah. This next paragraph goes on to say it is not altogether notable that brands jump at the opportunity to sell cheap scents. But the rising popularity of dupes is an indication of more than a just a demand for affordable products for some. It is also a symptom, symptomatic of decades of marketing strategies that have failed to educate consumers about the craftsmanship involved with creating high end perfumes. So do you feel that there is maybe a misconnect with these high end brands trying to sell that level of luxury to people? And so they just feel like, I don't need that luxury brand anymore. I can get the dupe.

I don't think that the customer that they're actually going after will not go for the lower product.

Right, yeah, I agree. I'm just like, so how are these, are these brands, these dupe brands strictly growing? Because that's kind of what this article also summarizes is that they are growing and they are having good sales and they are having success. Are these dupe brands just marketing to a completely different consumer?

Yeah, the consumer that can't afford. Yes, but like once the good status. Well, no, they don't get the status. Right. The brand, what they're they're looking for is like they actually like the scent. I would argue that the scents between A$500 and A$50 cologne are indistinguishable from most people.

Yeah.

And so I don't think there's much of a marker of people that like, are trying to get this certain scent that is $500.

Yeah.

Getting it for 50. I don't think there's a huge market for that because I think the people that go for the 500 are simply the people that want the brand, and the person that goes for the 50 is simply going about which one smells the best. Yeah. Yeah. I don't. I personally, when I smell colognes, don't see a huge correlation, like improvement of smell between $50 and $500.

Yeah.

It's all like, completely subjective.

Yeah.

And this is what brand is.

Yeah. And this is a quote from. From an expert in the space. So I don't know what their. What their title is. You know, a fragrance sommelier, if you will. The price of the fragrance reflects, at least to some extent, the enormous research and development of the creation and the sales from a successful fragrance are necessary to fund the creation of new products.

Same thing with drugs. The same thing with drugs. It's like, like to get it through FDA approval and everything costs millions and millions of dollars. So you're gonna have like one out of some number of option, like, of. Of applicants or like things that you want, drugs that you want to create actually succeed. So there is a level of truth to it, you know, but still, like, once you've created it, as long as you create the brand image, but like, that creates, like you look at these brands, like for their marketing company. Right. They have in magazines, billboards, whatever it is, like they are a marketing company.

Yeah.

The same with things to do, like with water and air. It's like a cheap resource.

Yeah.

But you can sell it if you just market it correctly. Yeah. So they're just marketing engines.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to look at. What about. Let's kind of translate this over because, you know, neither of us really care that much about fragrances or high end perfumes. But let's translate it to maybe something that, you know, we've touched on a little bit before. You and I both like watches. So do you feel the same about like, Rolex or Patek Philippe? These. You know, you can't get a watch for less than 15,000, $20,000 from these brands. Would you say it's the same thing? Like they're the consumers of an actual Rolex or a Patek Philippe? Do not care about the knockoff like they're going to pay whatever. But there are. You go on Amazon and you look up Rolex, there are $40 options that look like exactly like a Rolex. Do you feel it's the same philosophy that like Rolex, Patek Philippe are just a marketing campaign for high end consumers?

Let's be honest, the person that's willing to spend 15 to $20,000 on a Rolex watch, instead of the knockoff that looks exactly the same, it has the exact same utility and function. They are, they are afraid of one question. Is that real?

Yeah.

And if they, if they cannot answer that correctly and accurately and say yes, they, they, they again are, they need the status. And so the worst thing that could happen is someone asks you do you wear or is that, is that real? And you say no immediately. All sorts of conversations and perceptions are about you. Yeah. And you're avoiding that by paying a $15,000 price tag. That's exactly what the difference is.

So how do you, how do you feel about that as your social status increases, let's say, and your prowess in our industry is like an expert. How do you take that as your image? Like, are there going to be certain accoutrements you will add in terms of like, you know, name brand watches, name brand shoes, things of that nature? You just not care.

I personally don't really care about brands for my clothes.

Just in general.

Yeah. Like, you know, and then I just realized that some things are accoutrements. Well, my watch, if the battery dies, I'm not going to get it replaced.

Yeah.

Like I am very aware that this is an accoutrement.

Yeah.

Like it just needs to tell the time. It needs to like make fancy noises and we're happy. Right. And so you know, I don't spend more than $100 on a watch and I don't see a meaningful difference between $100 and $10,000. In fact, a lot of those really expensive watches, I don't like the looks of them. I don't like Rolex's.

Dude.

Yeah, I do not. You would. I would rather wear this fossil for like 70 bucks than a Rolex watch for 15 or 20 grand.

Yeah. Fair enough. We need to get you in a Patek Philippe. There you go. There's, there, that one's $900,000.

I just feel like, I just feel like there's, there's a watch on Amazon for a hundred or one hundred fifty that looks very similar.

Yeah.

And so like the only reason you do that again is if someone like literally Recognizes the watch and then suddenly their status of you think is so much higher.

Yeah.

So the question is, is someone the status that someone thinks of you spending the million dollars on a watch enough to spend that premium on the. What otherwise is the utility for function, shape, design? Everything looks the same for $100.

Okay.

Yeah. You're literally, you're trying to get the efficient audio and like, for some people that's worth it.

Yeah.

And so, you know, hey, yeah, what.

About like, okay, let's have it.

Made it that far.

Yeah, fair enough. Let's switch from luxury accoutrements, if you will, to luxury consumables. How do you feel about like high end dining? Like, high dining? Because could you, you like to eat out at nice establishments and get high quality food? There's nothing wrong with that. But like, who, who's the PR guy behind oysters? Like, why are oysters fine dining? Because they're kind of slimy. I don't, I like them.

I don't like.

But like, why are they so expensive? Why are they so sure. Fine dining, like, they're hard, they are.

Hard to harvest, to source.

Yeah.

Right. And so that's one part of it. And like, but then in terms of fine dining, I would say again, like, I'm not buying the food if I'm going to, if I'm going to spend a lot of money, like anything more than $30 for a dinner, like, okay, you're paying for the experience. Yeah. And so. Or maybe like a good cut of meat or something like that. But like I don't spend anything. Like, same thing. Like if I'm spending over 70 to $90 on dinner, like, that's a lot.

Yeah.

Because like that should be like, give me two entrees or like a steak and something.

Or you're a sucker for a Brazilian steakhouse, dude.

Yeah, but 70 bucks, like 77 and you got a ton of meat. Yes, whatever. Under a hundred dollars. Um, but it's still a lot of money. And I stuff like reconcile my brain a little bit. But like good food I still think is good. I give myself a little more leeway on that.

Yeah, I agree with that. That's, you know, my, my wife and I, our philosophy is like, we, we, we loosely budget. Like, you know, you and I have similar philosophies on that. Like, hey, I'm going to watch my money, I'm going to watch my spending, but I'm not going to track every penny. I kind of trust myself and my habits, but that's one thing I'M a little looser with is like, food. Like, if we can go to a nicer restaurant, get higher quality food, I'm gonna do that. Like, it's just. There's an experience.

You're paying for the experience. Right. So that's why if people have like, what do the Brazilian steakhouse, they walk around like, the sword and everything. Whether it be. If you go to certain steakhouses, like, everyone's dressed nicely, it's nice decor and there's music and there's a live person playing the piano. Like, all of that is the experience. The food could be the exact same. You slap on another plate and you throw inside of a chick fil a and all of a sudden you expect it for, you know, a quarter of the price.

Yeah.

So again, all brand, all experience.

Totally.

That's where your markup is.

Yeah, I agree with that. Do you feel that there is a disconnect?

Oh, I just have to have a little celebration.

Okay.

We had a big problem at copilot for the past few minutes and it just got resolved. That's why I never have my phone.

We're doing an interview.

I'm sorry, but I was waiting on it and it is. Yeah. So anyways, that was. That was a win for the pod.

Yes. Good. Now we can take a breath.

I can't remember exactly where I was going, which is totally fine. But what would you say to the person that maybe wants those luxury items, experiences?

I can focus. Sorry, I was really distracted the first.

You've been great. So what do you think about this watch?

Now you want to sell me on the watch?

Let's get this guy a watch.

Like, well, now that things are better.

Yeah.

What would you say to the person, though, that does maybe struggle with, like, they want that status. So they're going to get the dupe fragrances, they're going to get the fake watch and try to play off that they maybe have a higher status than they actually can. Can afford. What do you say to that person?

Go do it.

Yeah.

Like, I'm all for you getting the nice car, the nice watch, but, like, go do it.

Yeah.

And so, like, that's the immediate thing that the perception people don't want to have is, like, when you have the fake, it means I want this. And I do not know. I do not know how to execute towards it.

Yeah.

That's what you're telling everyone. Yeah. Like, I want this. I am here. I cannot get here. I am going to do what it looks on the outside as if I have made it yeah. And that is like a weak person. I'm just gonna be like straight like, yeah, I can up. No, dude, you are a weak human being if you have to do that for status and you haven't done it. And I think any huge player, if they saw that, it's like a huge red flag to them is that you are trying to be something that you are not. And you have not. You do not have the goods for it. You do not have the. You do not pack the punch behind it.

Yeah.

You know, all bark. No. Is it? No. No. All hat. No cattle like that. That will crush you for people that are like way above you.

Yep.

And so what would my message to them?

Yeah. Like what would you say?

Save every dollar on the 10% discount thing that you're doing. Save every dollar and put it towards getting the skills to become a. And make enough money so you can go buy those things if you really want them. And I have no, like, there are people that really like cars. There are people that want to spend a million dollars on a watch and like, to them that's a win in life. And I'm like, let's go. I don't get that same warm, fluffy feeling. But like, if that makes, you know, gets you going, great. But like trying to have that without putting in the work. You are a cheater.

Yeah.

Like, if you want, like if you want to admit it or not, you cheat.

Yeah.

And I would, I would venture to believe that they do other shortcuts in life trying to get the result without putting in the work.

Yeah. Fair enough. I think that's true. What about maybe the person that just like, is okay with the, with the dupe with the fake? Like, are they. Should they just own it? Like, what are your thoughts on those people? Because obviously.

Oh, yeah. If you're gonna do it, own it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't be like this nice Rolex I got. Be like, laugh it off. Like, yeah, there's a fake Rolex. It's 100 bucks. Looks just like, like that's what I would do if I was trying to fake something or like I was trying to get something was a knockoff. I just like, you know, just play into it like, yes, this is fake. I like the look of the watch. So I bought it for $100.

Yeah.

It's a Rolex Whoopi do. Fun conversation starter by the way too. And you could use it as a way to like make people like take the, like a self demeaning joke.

Yeah.

And so.

You know, that would Be potentially the move, I guess. But I don't know. Like, why would you do that? Just get a watch that you like that looks good, isn't a Rolex, and, like, own it like this. A fossil. It's just $70, dude.

I'm a G Shock guy, dude. You've had that for a while. It's like 50 bucks. Yeah, it works great. Battery lasts forever.

I have two, so just in case anything ever happens, I do have a digital one. So.

Yeah, let's go. Yeah, definitely. What. What are some. I know I've asked you this before, but since we're on the roll, like, what? You know, is there a luxury item, a thing that you want maybe down the road that you'd like to, like, reward yourself with or something that you think would be cool to have?

Like, yeah, like, I would say I don't look at things like status, physical things to, like, I want this. Like, down the road, I would love to have X. Like, and the thought never crosses my mind. That's why it's actually, like, most people have a hard time buying gifts for me because, like, I don't actually think about, like, I need to have this.

I mean, I stopped. I used to get you stuff for your birthday. Now I just don't. I just say happy birthday.

Yeah. And then the last one, they have me open up, up gift commands. There's like, underwear, deodorant. I was like, oh, my word.

Yeah, I'm glad I wasn't there for that anyways.

Yeah. Like, I. I know. Like, it's not so much a status thing as much as, like, I know when I get this, I will have. I will have been like, I'll be a hundred times. I'll have. I have made a hundred times more impact. I do now, like, my revenue and everything. We have 100x and as a private jet. Yeah. Like, I travel the past four days. I hate it.

Yeah.

Like, it does every. Like, we only have to do every three weeks. But it kills me. Like, I hate. Like, I didn't sleep much last night. Didn't sleep the last three nights before that. Totally. You know, I'm trying to get all my meetings in all around. Like, doing the turnaround, traveling, being on plane. You can't do video conferencing. So I would just love to have a private jet.

Private jet with Starlink.

You sure? Yeah, dude.

And, you know, just throw it in.

You know what Starlink costs per month on a private jet? No, it's like 10 grand a month. It's extremely expensive. Oh, yeah. And it goes up from there. Like, that's base.

Whoa.

Yeah, it's really, really expensive. So, like, I think. I think also I might down the road, change my mind. I even want that. Like, I just know that right now I hate the experience of traveling. I hate dealing with all the people. I hate doing a tsa. I hate dealing with grumpy people. I hate dealing with all of that same. And it's not like, it's just. It'd be so stupid to have that much money and actually spend it on that. And like, if I had enough money, I would be one of those things. Like, hey, I have a problem. I have no other problems I need to solve in life. I'll just attack this one. But you literally need, you know, 2.5 to $3 million a year for maintenance if you're using it a lot. And we use a lot. Like this past week, we literally flew the east coast, Florida, South Carolina, and then back up like it was all over. Right. So that would be like the weird crazy. But I'm not like, I need to have a jet. Definitely not. I would only use it if, like, what we're currently doing is like, where I'm flying all the time. And it. We could get like a big return on my time. Yeah. And supposedly you need to make about $12 million a year in profit, like take home pay, in order for it to make sense of time savings. So if and when I cross that. Not if, when I cross that, it'll be a matter of like, okay, now can I make sense of it from just like, okay, I save more time. I can get this done. Instead of four days, I get it in two. Then it starts to become a conversation. But at this point, it's not like, you know my radar. But that's definitely something I would like to have.

So, earliest timeline. I ran some numbers in my head. Four and a half years.

Four and a half years? You have a jet? No, no, no. I'll fly private in five years. I would probably just, I guess. But I won't be having my own. Like, you're.

I'm just. I'm giving you a stretch goal, dude. I ran some really rough numbers.

Okay, so what are those numbers? Like, how did you come up with that?

Well, I mean, I was like, well, I mean, I don't want to divulge, but I' think, well, okay, I guess I was off on a couple. Okay, now I see where we would need to.

We would need to 6x revenue.

Right.

We would need to. Okay, profit margins like, everything is. Goes back in the business right now, so I can consider a business expense. But, like, before I go take $3 million of after tax money, I have a lot of other things I want to get done.

Totally. So you don't want to dump that money?

I feel like if I can sacrifice a little bit of time flying on planes and like, currently what I'm doing is like optimizing every minute of that and going decently. So I can still be productive if I can just do that and then spend the $3 million on like software engineers and get like 10 really good engineers. Yeah, I would rather do that.

Totally.

And I think that's gonna be like the theme for more than five years.

Yeah, fair enough. I'm just trying to put like a, you know, a stretch goal.

Dude. Someone in the, in the comments on the notice of the last time said your questions are very good.

Oh, thank you.

I would agree. The last one did good.

Thank you. I'm trying to get better.

You're good. You're good, dude.

Okay, so I wanted to ask. Let's get back to kind of the beginning of the article I read about fragrances and dupe fragrances in the high end, things of that nature. It got me thinking. And this is, this is an incomplete thought, but I wanted to know why this doesn't necessarily work for, let's say, Augusta or franchising. Right. We don't have our, our, our recipe, our secret sauce, our procedures, the ways in which we teach owners to operate in Augusta as a copyright, similar to these high end luxury fragrance brands. It says their formulas are not copyrighted. What prevents someone from being a dupe Augusta? Like, other than. Yes. We have, you know, obviously trademarks on like Max and our name and logos and our colors and our brand identity. But what prevents someone from just slightly tweaking it so they're outside of those trademarks? And then we, since we don't have our procedures copyrighted, somehow siphoning off what we do internally.

The same way Tesla doesn't do any patents on their engineering. Like they literally have open patents. You can go, you can go build a Tesla car. Yeah, just go try to build the manufacturing and like the team and the marketing and the brand. And have Elon like, yeah, replicate that.

Yeah.

So they realize that it's all about brand. It is not about the mechanics. That's why, like everything inside of Augusta, you could probably get 80 to 90% of it just like watching my free content and you probably fill in the gaps, talk to a few franchisees and figure out everything else. Yeah. You're missing one thing. A thousand locations.

Yeah.

And so when you talk about brand, like when we have a thousand locations, even I think once we get about 500, people will know about Augusta when they show up to a new area and they'll just think of Augusta. You happen to not have that when you have one location. And if you want to copy the dog, if you want to use the font, if you want to do a similar name to Augusta, fine, You're just not going to have one thing. And it's very key ingredient has a thousand locations. Right. You're also not going to have a lot of other things that come with a thousand locations, like brand discounts and software that we don't allow anyone else to use and access to command center, like all these other things. And you don't have me. Just the same way, if Elon died tomorrow, Tesla stock would go way down. He's an irre replicable thing that no one else can knock off. And I happen to think that I'm one of one, you're one of one, and most individuals are one of one. And without me, Augusta's value is lesser in terms of the brand. And so you just don't have that. So go for it. In doing so, you will simply elevate the brand. What we as a brand stand for, and that's the actual hope of Augusta, is that everyone does copy us and they do implement our systems and they do take our open patents and go build an electric car. This is the same way that Elon wants everyone to get electrified and make things more sustainable. And that's why he did the open patents. The same way that I share all the stuff we talk about Augusta is because we will be very successful. We will grow the brand. Everyone that copies will simply elevate the entire industry. And that's the whole goal of Augusta.

Right.

So it'd be like a win, win, win.

Yeah. So what's the difference between like, yeah, a copycat and like a dupe? I guess, and I don't think that's like a fully formed question, but like when, when, when did Wendy's change from a copycat to a dupe for McDonald's or did it ever. Were they ever a separate brand? Right. Because McDonald's standardized, you know, fast food in America. Right. Well, then you had Wendy's and all these other brands show up. So is that just copycats? And McDonald's has been ahead and now they're a competitor. I guess. I'm not Fully forming a thought. I'm just trying to think of this in all from all angles.

Yeah, but think about from the perspective of McDonald's, if their goal was to democratize food and make it more accessible to the average person, whether or not someone thinks it's high quality or not, like there's demand for it, if that was their goal. Having copycats is a fantastic thing. Our goal at Augusta is to change the level of professionalism in the industry that happens by having more copycats. So I'm thrilled when there's copycats. Don't touch my trademark because I'll come squat and I'll give you a little bit of my mind because I'm protecting the owners around you instead of Augusta Nation. However, outside of that, copy us. Go for it. That's the whole mission of what we're trying to achieve. I happen to believe you won't listen to me until you are competing with us. Until we have enough locations and we have a brand image, no one copies some random handbag. They go after the $5,000 with all the brand cred.

Right.

I want that. I want to become the $5,000 shopping bag handbag that everyone wants to copy. And by doing that, hopefully the industry improves. So it's, it's like for us, it's part of the recipe and we want it to happen. Just don't touch certain parts. Like the trademark stuff. Yeah, but like I want you to do P4P. I want you have a great website. I want you to be able to have automations. I want you to have credit cards. Like all the stuff we talk about. I want you to do it because it'll help the whole industry. And that's like the whole reason Augusta exists.

Yeah. And if Augusta is like high end luxury, maybe we could have like a fashion Week or something.

I was thinking like, you know. No, just Fashion Week. That's it.

And like, what are we getting? Fashion.

I don't know. That's what high end brands do. And you got all these celebrities line the Runway. We get a bunch of people in yellow and dog suits and, you know.

I don't know if Augusta would be necessarily the catwalk type of folk, but.

I think I could name a few franchise owners that are, you know, Kevin, Kevin Fairbairn, he'd love to do it. He'd crush it. Yeah, there's a few that would crush it. So.

Yeah.

As Augusta grows. So here's a thought I had because you alluded to this on the last pod and maybe we can talk about it. Depending on, you know, what you want to share. But we are potentially bringing someone else on kind of towards the top, if you will, at Augusta to offload some of the work that I'm doing, some of the work that you're doing, some of the work that Liz is doing. It feels that maybe there are bottlenecks to accelerated growth because of restrictions at the top. So we're bringing someone on. That's what you feel is best. And I agree with you. So what was the tipping point to make that decision to offload some of our tasks to this person? Is it strictly for long term growth? Is it. What's your. The reasoning behind that?

Yeah. So@accentition.com basically I realized, you know, everything becomes a who problem. So it's like, hey, I want to grow Augusta a thousand locations. What's preventing me from doing that? And I have like all this list of things I need to get done. Like I need to improve the training, I need this. And all those things are true.

But when I talked to Alex and I and he asked certain numbers and I and he said, you're allowing people to leave without any penalty and they can take their customers. Their customers and go and start keep doing their own thing. How many people have done that? Like how many people have left Augusta and taking their customer list with no penalty and has gone and started, you know, Billy Bob's lawn care? I said none. Like there's been ones we. There's been one that we kicked out and they're still in operation. But we were all in agreeance that we need to kick this person out. Yeah. But when he heard that, he said, like, you need to can. This isn't a direct quote, but it's like along the verge. You need to can your emotions and sell. And so what I determined is, okay, I need to sell, but I also do have these list of things I know that needs to get done to improve the experience. And like, you make the unit economics of Augusta locations abhorrently good. And so we're kind of taking this two pronged approach, which is like right now, we have never sold Augusta. We've never run ads, we've never promoted it. Never like literally, you don't hear me talk about it. Like, this is what sells the branding, literally every single location.

Yeah.

So when they, when they hear that, they're like, you need to can that emotion and look at the data and realize you were providing value to people. And that needs to be recognized first and foremost. And then, yes, you can hire people to knock out all These things you want to get done from a technology standpoint. And one of the things is, I want much better service for the owners, especially the ones that are struggling. But also just in general, we have a lot of really good people inside of Augusta Nation, and.

That'S fantastic. And I love all of them. The issue that arises from that is they have ideas that could potentially be seen as criticisms that they don't want to voice. And, you know, like, from my. From a leader perspective, I require the leaders to be able to push back on me.

Yes.

From an owner's perspective inside of Augusta Nation, it can be intimidating sometimes to come to me directly on, like, say, a mastermind, which they can and they. Some of them do.

Yep.

But I understand that if you have 500 owners logged onto a live stream with me every morning and you present the idea or it could come across as negative, that there is, like, a negative push against that person.

Yeah.

I don't think for the vast majority of people, because they've seen how I react when there is negativity. Like, we act on it, we act very quickly. It's very, very. Like, I take action on things very, very distinctly. However, it's still not going to take away from the person that is a nice person and just doesn't want to ruffle feathers. And so I need someone to literally be reaching out to people and being proactive about, like, hey, I saw this. Like, is there something you think that could be improved? Is there something we could do to help support you more and really be on the offensive in terms of helping the owners? Now, we have a limited budget, and that's the hard part about all of this, is we don't have expansionary revenue where we are increasing the franchise fees to the owners every single year. We have never raised the franchise fee. And for anyone that's in, their fee will never go up, which means our actual margin will just slowly decay with. With inflation, which kills. And so it makes it difficult to actually have the support, a level that I would want. If we were getting royalties from everyone, we would, on average, be making about five times as much in revenue right now. Four and a half. Four and a half times as much revenue. If I had four and a half times as much revenue, we could do all sorts of crazy support stuff, but we have very limited margin to be able to work on support. And so that being said, we. When they. Basically, my big takeaway from being at the workshop was like, I need to hire people and I need to give them a finish line and say, Run and go. Bye, bye. And go finish this.

Yeah.

And who is. Who is not what needs to happen with who. And so. And not filling in the how. Like, hey, this is what I need done. You are the right person for it, and go do it.

Yeah.

And so I know that we need to get to a thousand locations. I think it'll help a lot of the owners by building the brand that they'll get so many more leads. Like, the best way for them to get lower customer acquisition cost is actually us getting more locations the same way that like even you saw on the Facebook group recently. There's people that haven't had to put any hiring outs because they're getting just like people applying at Augusta because of, like, the content and the brand itself. And so we are trying to lean into the fact that having 150, 500, 1000 locations is actually the thing that differentiates us from every other competitor in your market. Everyone's trying to be the small local guy. There is a subset of the. Of the audience, and I would venture to believe it's 50 to 60% of the customers that want a big brand because they want not only what we just were talking about, the identity with the brand, they also want the brand confidence. Because I know if I'm buying the $5,000 Versace bag, I expect that zipper to be done well.

Totally.

And if it's not, I know there's a brand behind it to back it up. The same thing is true when it comes to service, in my opinion. I hired Merrymaids knowing they were twice the amount of cost for Janitorial, but I knew if anything happened, if they broke a camera, if they stole cash or a check off of my desk, I'd have someone to go to.

Yeah.

And so I believe that there's a market for that. And I believe that that's our unique differentiator is actually that we're bigger. And the fact that right now, what they're seeing in the owners of Augusta Nation is applicants to Augusta to. To work for them because of my brand. And we're really doing the SEO to, like, if you've ever watched one of my videos, you're probably going to really start to see, like, being hired at Augusta, and those are being funneled them for free. They're not running at Indeed ads.

And.

And it's like a tangible benefit of the brand.

Yes.

I want the same thing on customer acquisition cost, and that will happen when we get more locations. So, yes, I need to fix certain things. Like we. We have like, the winter problem. And as like, yes. Our industry as a whole like goes down like 60, 70% revenue. Not good. I need to solve that. And that's like my biggest thing. Over the next six months we're gonna have like five different tracks that owners and Augusta Nation can use and is a, a repeatable track for five different ways to handle the winter and make money. So that's like a big, big thing for me. On the flip side, I can't be like, okay, well for the next six months I'm not focusing on selling because like selling more locations is what builds the brand and allows that to. In the long term, like I can't focus on the short term so much that the long term real like the, the heavy, heavy hitter is ignored. And so your role needs to be selling.

Yeah.

And we've already talked about this, but everyone watching this, it's new and that is like a lot of the service side is going to be delegated to someone else and then their full time position will be to help owners.

Yep.

And so it'll be owner success manager. Yep. We don't like to call them customers. So usually you'd say this as csm Customer service manager or customer support Customer Success Work on Owner Success Manager, osm. And so their role will be like surveying, reaching out to owners that are struggling. Like every single day there is owners that are having a big issue. We have 150 locations that will only continue because if one person has one problem every year, that is basically one per working day. Yes. And so right now a lot of that falls on you, falls on Liz. It can even get up to me sometimes when we just need a dedicated person to doing that instead of when those problems arise. We have five other things we're supposed to be doing and we can't do it well. And so I want to be proactively reaching out to owners and be like, hey, what can we improve? Do you want to see this? We can get better ideas if people actually give some critical feedback. And so we want to like smoke it out and like be proactively reaching out for it. And we've tried. Like the masterminds, people can submit yellow slips for command center, they can submit feedback from the forums. But like I know that if I just hire someone to go get that information and pull it out of them, get them on a phone call when they're in struggle, that would be the goal. I have to be very careful with our margins because we don't have expansionary revenue and we're not Going to raise the price of the monthly cost to the owners. And so I have to be careful. Careful long term where that goes because it costs. We. We dig a big trough in the winter with command center hiring gazillions of people and all the investments that we're making. Like, I just gotta be careful. And that's. That's the fine line we're walking. And so do we want to talk about who that is?

I'm fine with that. I can hold off on a couple days to release this.

Yeah, you just have to wait till Saturday.

Okay. Then I'll post it Monday or I'll. Or have it post on, like, Sunday.

Saturday's fine.

It's fine Saturday.

As long as the Guston knows first. So it's gonna be Nick Reed. Nick Reed started. Yeah, Bravo. He's still gonna have his own location, and he's got a general manager in place to run it. It's been profitable from his first year. He's decided to keep it around, you know, inside of that, like, 3 to $500,000 marker, and it's profitable. And so he will probably work there like an hour or two in the morning just to help them get started for the next several months and then merge over to his. His team member that's already worked for him for like three or four years and that wants to take on general manager and then eventually move to Florida in like, five years and start his own location. So it's kind of a perfect thing for his gm, et cetera.

So that was a big thing for me, is like, making sure he was solid at his location. And still I think it'd be really positive. Have in the leadership team an owner, like, he actually has an ownership. I have an ownership. You have a coaching, like a pulse. A ton of owners. Liz has command center, but do you have an actual person like, that is not me. Ownership in leadership will be positive things. And then furthermore, he's the only person that has gone from working the field. He missed a couple other steps. Estimator and gm. He didn't ever hit that. He went from work in the field to owner. And then now we'll be on the cor. On the corporate side of things, helping the owners. And so I think it'll be helpful for owners to be able to talk to someone who has been an owner and feels their pain and knows what they're feeling through from their perspective. But his primary role will be to just simply make the experience of being an owner of a Gusta Nation better and doing the things that I can't do simply because I need to focus on more scalable communication. And that's going to be his role. Yeah. And some of that will take off things off your plate. So that way, you, as the WHO of the sales side, was crush it. And, like, I really do believe we'll double the amount of locations in the next 24 months, even potentially 18. And so there are things that I need to do in that meantime that I am focused on in terms like solving the winter problem. Several other things. Operationally, I need to let you know, the success of the owners be handled, and I need the sales side to be handled. And then we're gonna go ham. Yeah. I said four and a half years ago that the motor on Augusta would be complete in five years, and it'd be obvious I still have seven, eight months. And, like, the only thing I'm focused on is making sure that everything I've said lines up with that seven, eight months. A lot of that revolves around our technology right now, and it'll kind of come together right at the end there. But I also want to nail down several things that I saw gaps in our unit. Economic economics for the franchise, for the owners, and I think I can nail those things down by then as well. So I'm working on a bunch of training on, like, especially the winter thing. Like, we gotta make. The landscaping industry is notorious for digging a massive hole during the winter. We need to make it where owners can be profitable during the winter. If we can do that and then go into sales mode, like, people like, this is what Alex said. If you can fix that one problem, he's like, you'll. You'll sell 200 in a day. Yeah. I was like, fantastic. That's what we need to get to a thousand. Yeah. And then it's like, well, if they do that, then we have bottlenecks. What can. Would we have to, like, reduce services at command center? Would we have to change things up in terms of systems and procedures for coaching? So there's all the other stuff, and I get wrapped up in that because I really care about the owners. But it's like, ultimately, if we sell more locations, their customer acquisition cost will probably get halved. The same way that a lot of them aren't spending money on hiring people because they're getting all these applicants coming through the website because of the brand. If I can do the same thing for customer acquisition, it just becomes like, you can't replicate that. You can't replicate 1,000 locations.

No.

So that's what we're going for.

Yeah. So owner, success, manager. I think one thing that's important for maybe people to take away, I like to try and step back, look at the theme of this decision you have just made. And it seems that you have made a decision to be on the proactive offensive instead of the reactive defensive with the owners inside of Augusta. Because it feels like having worked with you and in the position I've had for the last two and a half years is when there's a problem with an owner, when we are reactive because we care. And that's great. And I think that's what people would want out of a leadership team of a franchise they're a part of. They would want the leadership team to care so they will react to that situation. You're saying the reactionary aspects of Augusta are in theory slowing us down, keeps.

Us from staying focused on the long term vision.

Yep. Keeps us from staying focused on long term vision or slowing us down to getting to that long term vision sooner than later.

And that vision is having the customer acquisition cost of the ownership by having a big brand.

Exactly. So we're going to be proactive, hire out to who problem, get Nick in place to where the owners will be some more successful. You and the core leadership team will be able to focus on that vision and implementation.

Yeah. And I would hope that we can get like an OSM for every like 150 locations. That's based on like how much I can afford. I think every 150 locations, we would need an OSM.

Cool.

And so when we get to a thousand, we probably have a team of like 6 to 8 osmosis. And probably Nick would be leading that up. I don't know. Yeah, that's down the road.

And then they take the private jet to the locations that need help.

But see, you can't afford it. Unit economics, we can't make sense of that.

No, I agree.

Like twelve hundred dollars a month. We can't do certain things. Like it stinks because sometimes I know it needs to be done. Like they need 40 grand of cash infusion. We can't do that.

Yeah.

That's literally three years of franchise.

Yeah.

And so that, that's, that kills me because I know we could offer so much support, but I also know I'm so hard against royalties. And like, the more money revenue you make, the more you're paying us. Doesn't make any sense to me as an owner. I wouldn't want that. And so like, of course, like when I go and visit Alex and Stuff, they're like, why would you not charge royalties? You'll get way better enterprise value. I'm like, I understand, but I would never sign up for that. Like, I wouldn't sign up 100 page document that locked me into 10 years regardless, unless I died. I was tied to it. And if I left, I wouldn't keep the customers. And the more money you make and the less you need us, you will pay us more. I don't like that. And so I can't with good conscience sell it.

Yep.

And I think what I needed to hear from them is you need to look at the data and you need to say you are providing enough value to actually sell this and you need to go sell. And so I will feel good about that, I think in like seven, eight months that we can really put our shoes on for selling. If I can deliver on several things. And it's like, that's my only focus and my only preoccupation for the next six to eight months.

So what's the. The USP then for the next year? Has it. Yeah.

Has it changed?

Has it changed after these conversations with Dr. Kashi? Alex? Yeah.

No. Like, the USP will become more and more clear as we get more locations. So it's like the chicken and the egg. Do you get more locations and therefore drive customer acquisition cost way down? In the past, I've always thought about the flip side. I was like, help the current owners make everything perfect. But if you make it perfect, we will never actually attain, like, reach the goal of getting all locations and driving everyone's customer acquisition cost down, which we can do, like totally 100 know we can do that. And so it's like chicken, the egg, and like, you got to kind of work on both. And I've just like, we have not put any attention towards actually getting towards that goal. None. Zero. Yeah. And so people watching this, by the time you see this, even might have even seen an ad or two, and we're gonna start tracking. Like, we have tons of stuff we're gonna put into this. So I have hired lots of people and we're gonna go all out. And then I know that what we get in the skills of that we can literally next spring rush, give directly to the owners. Because I will have spent like hundreds of thousands of dollars on figuring it out. And I'll be able to consolidate for a local market and then literally give them the blueprint for what we used. I can't do that because of the past four or five years, like a gut, like the Bellingham Shop, Mount Vernon. My locations have been in profit mode. Like, they haven't been growing. We haven't been spending tens of thousands of dollars. And if we do spend, it's like three or four or five grand. Well, now when I'm going to pony up and spend, like, tens of thousands, I will know the mark. Like, I will know so much more. Dan. We're going to be doing, like, 50 to 60 different ad sets, so I'll know, like, certain words and, like, pictures and videos. I'm going to nail it and then, like, be able to hand that to everyone next spring rush.

Cool.

Anyways, that was a long tangent. Yeah. That was us welcoming Nick to the family.

Yes. Welcome, Nick.

He's going to be the leadership team right up with us, and it's going to be a lot of fun.

It's a great guy. It's perfect, too, that he is owner, success manager, because he has been, like you were saying, in every position at Augusta and found a way to make it successful so he would be able.

To go to a location and fit really well with the employees. Yeah, I don't want a suit and tie. Totally osm.

Totally.

Like, I need him to be able to walk into a team meeting, realize that someone needs help with their truck, and, like, go do it.

Yeah.

And, like, he. I just know he would just do it in a heartbeat. And no team member, frontline team member, would have a problem working with nick.

I have 100.

That was a big deal for me.

Yeah.

Same thing with, like, you, me, Liz. Like, we've all been through it all, and we would happily jump in and help someone alongside of them at the lowest level Org. And I know he'd do the same. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's cool. No, I'm excited to work with Nick. It's going to be good. I think that's all.

I have financial advice.

You know, I don't have any, so I'm just going to say thank you to the thousand subscribers.

Okay. Very good.

It's pretty cool. If anybody has any advice for me, you know, monetizing a YouTube channel, things of that nature, let me know. But just now, thanks. Thanks for the subscriptions. It's cool. I enjoy doing this. I hope that there is some value for everybody that listens. I don't want to just sit here on a soapbox, but I am thankful. And it's. It's fun. It's been fun.

Yeah. Okay. You went, like, really good. Now.

I'll save the one I was about to say till next time. So it doesn't seem like I'm repeating yourself there. And then this one, I'm going to go with really basic. I think I've said this before, actually.

Totally fine.

So replicate financial advice. And if you have a list of the financial the non financial advice, we got to hear it again. It's really simple. If you want to be healthy, pick up heavy things and eat meat. That's my new. I love it.

Cool.

So that was something asked me today. Dude, you're looking really good. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, dude, just pick up really heavy things and eat meat and you'll be good.

I like it.

That's my non financial advice.

Good. Awesome. That's pod.

Let's go.