Fixing 10 Businesses in 10 Days ($54M Lawn Care Franchise)

I'm driving this RV from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Bellingham, Washington.

That address.

Cause you put in that.

We drove past it. Our goal is to turn around 10 businesses in the next 10 days. My question is, what are you doing? This is normal. Like, that's okay. He's gonna have, like, almost 300 recurring customers by the time he hits month 12. My name is Mike Andes, and I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. And today, I'm taking you behind the scenes as we take this RV and do just that.

Someone forgot to close the back of the rv.

Is everything still in here?

I know I'm missing an Augusta hoodie.

Someone went to the bathroom last night, like, 3:55.

Not it.

Someone did not.

It wants you to know I appreciate you fellas very much. Lots of love.

There's spectators and then there's doers.

I could never do this job. The way that Zach was explaining the RV to me, I was like, wow, dude, we're gonna be living in luxury.

Oh, yeah.

In two days, we're gonna have un. Limited space. I'm like, huh.

Interesting definition, man.

I don't want to be alone.

Okay. Fantastic. That drive across the Rockies is where I'm a little concerned about the rv.

Really?

Yeah. So. Because it's, like, up and down situation.

Good morning.

We are having eggs and bacon once again. And Mike is having a spinach omelette, because I think he's had a spinach omelette almost every morning ever since, like, a decade ago.

I don't know.

It's been a long time. So we are on day.

Six.

5. It's Friday, I think. I don't know. All the days are blending. Yeah, I know.

You shower?

Yeah.

That was awesome.

Thank you so much.

It's beautiful.

So today is a ton of driving because we're going from Iowa to Kansas, Southern Kansas. So we're going to be stopping at three Augusta owners along the way. That's going to be a good time.

How long's the drive?

Oh, man. Total, maybe like seven hours.

Time on the road, is it minimum? Like, if you just map, like with Google maps, a to b? 9 hours. So it's probably.

Over 9 hours.

And then we're just stopping in between that. So. Yeah, good times. As Francis would say.

Good times. Good times.

There is a garbage bin.

Big one first and then the small one. Big one first. Wait, other ones? You said black one, Dude. Big one first.

Should I pick up gloves?

It's going to be a lot. There's actually gloves in the rv. Where did I see those oh, they're in the driver's side door, I think.

Yeah, there's like, a bunch of gloves right here. Oh, sweet.

Okay, cool.

These gloves.

It smells good over here.

I don't know what you're smelling.

Coming. Yeah, we're good. We're good.

Think it's valuable. What, like a good video to make? Oh, yeah. Really?

Because it was essentially just like we're coaching.

Okay. So today on the vlog, we are not actually going and doing a turnaround. We're doing three Augusta locations that we're visiting on the way to tomorrow's turnaround. So our first stop is actually with Jordan. He's the very first executive model at Augusta, where they start six locations over the first five years, and they purchase all the territories up front.

I thought the sales thing was going to be hard. I thought finding the leads was going to be hard. Where the constraint is probably employees and finding the right team that works together. We've had some turnover here, and part of it was my delay, and I was trying to give everybody a chance. I wanted this to be.

An option for them to grow into. Probably to the point where I was.

Trying to growl big shout out to him. I'm super proud of him, though, because it's not easy to go from zero to a million dollars in revenue in one year. And almost all that's recurring revenue. It's not like he's selling a bunch of big projects and commercial stuff. He's gonna have, like, almost 300 recurring customers by the time he hits month 12. That's phenomenal. He started right as spring rush hit. It wasn't like he had a website that had been up for a long time. So I'm really looking forward to next year because the second spring rush is when we always see the organic traffic on our websites jump. And so I'm really looking forward to him to be able to go into profit mode, raise prices, all his crew, be able to make more money on P4P and at the same time, just still get be getting leads in from the website. So I'm assuming you're kind of acting as GM and then you're kind of finding, like, how do you grow up?

You're not finding operations manager going for sale.

Yeah.

And then kind of like maybe ahead of the game, but trying to pick those individuals out now. Yeah, Mike, that I had certain SGM is really strong in our operations and restructured his bonus structure and everything, like, based on operational goals, efficiency, deal slips, things like that. And, you know, just trying to build that, like that's what's going to be.

Right.

And then just kind of looking for individuals that match the other, you know, future sales and backside of it too.

That's cool. So he's crushing it. I'm really, really happy with the way he's managed the business. He just got started this spring without any prior lawn care experience, and his first location is doing 60,000 in monthly revenue. Already doing all simple services. So super proud of him and his wife.

So I just started up to weeks.

Ago, and pretty much I've been doing all the aerations for him.

Oh, cool business.

Yeah, I've ran mine for the past, like, four years. Oh, nice.

And yeah, then I just saw the Augusta stuff and I was like, dude, this seems like a really cool opportunity.

Do that kind of on a side then.

Not actually ever since high school. So, I mean, I've kind of, like, slowly grew in the past, like four years.

Cool.

But I've gotten to a point where I kind of plateaued a little bit. Yeah, I just want to learn. Cool.

So good stuff, Good stuff.

Dive in for a year or two.

Play that all you can do something.

Picture in front of the Jeeps.

Sorry, we're kind of in behind. I think this whole trip, that thing just drives so much slower than a car. So you put into, like, the gps like four hours. It's gonna be at least five hours. Here, let's get in here. You guys are in the camera. Did you have an update you wanted to the vlog?

Not related to Jordan, but yeah. So yesterday's.

Jordan, we love you.

Yesterday's turnaround from Eric Vargas.

My question is, what are you doing? But this is the grind phase, right? Like, this is the next three years is like doing some of these things is not the things you are comfortable or want to do, but if you do those things, you'll have a wife and a $500,000 business by the time you turn 30.

He texted after we left and said, good afternoon. Happy Thursday. I just want to say thank you and the team so much for taking time out of your day to meet with me. The conversation, knowledge, and experience was an unforgettable one. Thank you for everything. I'm excited to implement what I was taught and to see how the business is in six weeks.

Praying for a safe travels for you and the team. Thank you for helping and doing what you're doing. Happy Thursday. So that is five out of five of the applicants that we have gone to that have reached back out and said how much they appreciate it. So it's really making an impact.

This is from Eric.

You haven't met him, but that's my little boy.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

So he made you something. He sucked it into the very small envelope, so I'm not exactly sure how it.

How it looks now. That's awesome.

I'll make a video for him, and I'll have resend it to you.

Yeah. Oh, wow.

Let's go.

Go big.

What's that say? Go big.

Red.

Oh, red. Okay, got it.

That's the best launchers. That's awesome.

How old is he?

He's eight.

Oh, that's awesome.

I'll make a video, and I'll have her send it to you, and I'll address these.

That'll be awesome. He really thinks that's cool. That's super cool.

On the road again.

Let's go.

Oh, man.

Safe travels, guys.

Thanks, brother. You have a good one.

Cats have been a reoccurring theme in our turnarounds.

No turnarounds for the day, but there's like a huge gap between Iowa and Kansas, so this is the best way to fill it, and it's a great way to take us on earth. Check out this super cute drawing from Gordon's son.

Yeah, we're gonna make a video now for him.

But he did.

He asked me which I like best, a turtle, a dog, or a whale. And Augusta is the long.

The best lawn cares ever.

That's pretty good for Max, dude. Not gonna lie. For eight years old, I couldn't draw a dog like that in my lifetime. Dependent on it. Can you make a video on your phone for me and we'll send it to him?

Let's do it.

Ready?

Gotta get all three camera angles.

That's right. I want to take a quick moment to say thank you to today's sponsor. Really? You guys thought I was going to do an ad read? You all have made this possible. And I wanted to say thank you all the members of Copilot, CRM, Augusta Lawn Care, and Home Service Web Design. Because of your support. This is why we're able to do this turnaround show. Last year, we spent over $1.66 million doing the turnaround show and traveling to almost every single state in the country, it seemed. But dozens of home service businesses that were struggling were turned around because of you. And tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of home service business owners were able to watch those episodes and learn from it. So I wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I look forward to sharing the full episode of the Turnarounds that you're seeing on the vlog in the next coming few months. Hey, Eric, it's Mike. I just want to say thank you very much for your drawing. We are very impressed by how well you drew Max's face.

That's actually really difficult.

You draw Max better than I do. And you spelled Augusta correct and very, very good. Also, your dad gave me the same hat that Max has in the drawing. So thank you very much. Also, to answer your question, you asked me which I like best, the turtle, the dog, or the whale? I told her dad, but I like the whale the most because I don't really like pets. And so if I had a dog and I'm on a trip for two weeks, he'd be at home. It wouldn't be good. And if I had a turtle, he'd just sit in the cage the whole time. Probably get lonely while I was gone, so the whale could be free in the ocean while I'm here in Nebraska visiting your dad. So thank you very much for the drawings. They're amazing. Hope you have a great day.

You guys can tell me if I'm going over and, like, push that. It's totally fine.

Perfect.

Okay.

When you're like, last question, then you.

Ask three more questions. Yeah, I know, I know. But if. If I need. If you need to push me on it, Totally fine.

I'll cut you off.

Okay.

Will you close the windows to record the HSM videos with a little quieter?

Okay.

So we were in Omaha, Nebraska, visiting Jordan from Augusta Lawn Care. We now are in Columbus, Nebraska, and we visited with Logan. He has two locations, one here in.

Columbus, and then another one an hour and 15 minutes away in Grand Island, Nebraska. Is that right? Yeah, Nebraska started that one. That one's in growth mode. What did you learn, though, in that process? Because obviously you do it a little bit differently. But what would you change?

I would have really done at least a good year of profit here. It was good when I left it, but it was only good because it was a lot of projects that were really profitable. But my skills in the field were one of the big reasons that it was profitable. I didn't think that was as big of a deal as it was. So I think what I would have really done differently would have been make a bigger push towards recurring, have a good year of profit while maybe slowly training up someone into be a GM role.

So his first location was not in profit mode. It was not doing mostly recurring services. And so he's been really moving it towards much more recurring Services this year would be perfect. Read around that. 700, 800,000 annual marker in revenue, throw it in profit mode, do the same thing for second location.

We lost a lot of the team. We had a huge snowstorm. We pushed through pretty hard.

Yeah, I remember this. Didn't someone else come out over to help?

Oh, yeah, we had. I called in my sister. I called in my sister's friends and my sister's friend's friends and my friends. I mean we had everybody helping whoever we could.

Oh, dude, I remember this. Two feet.

I think it was Connor Stead texting me like, dude, Logan's like not doing good right now. So I'm really looking forward to like in a year from now for Logan because he should have two really solid locations, both in profit mode, probably together doing 1.5 million. So shout out to him all the hard work he's put into it. It's not been easy for him going through general managers and trying to figure out that skill of managing managers, but he's been crushing it. So on to the next one. Here in the rain, we're swimming the RV float.

We're looking forward to lunch. Jeff Bana.

The road trip so far.

How long have you driven today already?

Five hours. Four or five hours. Now we're doing three and a half more hours.

And then I'm not sure from there. I think it'll be another two hours from there. Yeah, because like we essentially we have some awesome franchisees over here and then we need to go to like the bottom middle of Kansas to be close to our next franchisee location. But like if you look at the population density of the United States essentially like at Kansas and over like the beginning of Kansas, like really the border, like Kansas City and over to the west coast, there's like no one lives in the middle of the country, so we don't get any applicants from there. We don't have a lot of franchisees there. Like our distances start to get so long. So that's why like as we go into like Saturday and Sunday.

We have longer drives. Like that's why we put it, those are our drive days because there's just like not a lot of applicants to get us back into the population. It did sound like a tornado siren.

That'd be cool.

We could film a storm chasing vlog.

I get back in town late Wednesday night though. So like Thursday or Friday would be fine. Or the week after that. Not complex enough.

Also like signed up for a multi year lease and that's the only way they lease them Right. It's like multi year. Yeah.

So I'm actually subleasing from them, but because they're so like, they need to get out of it. That's why I'm able to get all of the furniture in the lease. So all the dividers, 40 screens, a whole bunch of chairs, tables, like sofas, like all that stuff.

Wow. That'll be tight though. It'd be nice to have that. But that would be such a huge, like, move in cost. Yeah.

So I think it'd probably save like maybe 50 grand.

Yeah.

This side though, dude. Well, I haven't been there, so I don't remember.

You sure.

Got us a tour of the top.

So that's what. Next Friday.

Okay.

I'm gonna be. That's what he was calling me for is I'm gonna meet him there and do a video for everyone.

102. Okay. But I need to. I need to cap.

I need to capture your reaction though.

Okay.

This is fully open.

Wow. Is everything still in here?

I don't know. I know I'm missing an Augusta hoodie and two black shirts.

That's crazy.

At least they're just black shirts.

Yeah.

They weren't. $40 a pop. Yeah. So no one would spend $40 on a shirt. Right. Everything has to be put away all of the time. And all the things need to be checked as if you're ocd because, like, you're in a small shared space where it's so easy between stuff like loose things, things get broken, misplaced. So that's why come with me.

That's why if you look at my.

Stuff in the rv, it's folded and.

Packed and put away in the right exact space. Because I'm aware that if I don't, everything will get lost. Now take a look at Francis stumble here.

See how it's all over the place. These socks get flown out a window. We could have lost the hoodie out the back. I'm not saying Francis is the problem. I'm just saying this is what is needed to successfully drive across the country.

Someone forgot to close the back of the RV and some stuff flew up.

The like actual trunk piece was just clicked up. So Francis's shirts and hoodies were just flying out the back of the RV and into into no man's land. We lost them all.

So far. Yeah. Two shirts and one hoodie allegedly are belong to. I don't know.

There's just sort of that one million dollar budget. I was like, dude, I'm not even gonna close this door.

It's so hard.

I'm not gonna. Hey, we're not pointing fingers, but Zach's the last one who opened.

Was probably me.

I don't know.

We are now headed to down south to Kansas to meet another Augusta lawn care location that also started this year, the Willises. And Yeah.

Hello.

So do you go by Brie or Brianna?

Either one. Y' all are like the third, I guess location I even able to see today, so.

Oh, cool. Super exciting.

Yeah. Yeah. So you stopped and Colorado and seen a couple of guys.

We will. That's on our way back up to Washington.

How you going, dude? Good to see you, man. Good to see you.

So we normally have two guys full time.

Are you the manager? Like, yeah, I'm the manager.

Okay. All right.

So we have finished the third and final Augusta location today. And that was kind of interesting because the first one was in like hypergrowth. Jordan, he's on pace to do like a million dollar run rate within 12 months. Very cool. All recurring super growth, like growing very, very quickly. Then Logan, he's taking his two locations and trying to put them into profit mode over the next. Well, he's putting one in profit. He's putting a second one in profit mode next year. But he's been in Augusta now for three, four years. And then we got the Willis family that just is not even a year in Santa Augusta and they're still in that going from solo operator to getting their first few employees. So kind of a good range. But yeah, the Willis family is awesome. I'm really proud of them. The mom, Debbie, she takes a lot of the admin work on and then Ryan, fresh out of high school to be just learning the skill of management. And so I think that's going to be their really big unlock is Ryan learning how to lead and hire people, train them out in the field and they absolutely have the assets to run a $500,000 $600,000 business. Honestly, it's honestly like it just becomes normal and it doesn't get easier though. I, I never pitch that.

Okay.

It's just a function of like you're like, this is normal. Like, that's okay.

Well, just the pain of the growth part of it. She, she's nearsighted, I'm farsighted. So that's what great. Make us a great team.

Yeah.

Because she keeps, she keeps the reins.

I'm.

I'm always the optimist. I'm always like super positive.

We're 20 employees here, honey.

Look at all this parking space.

One thing to keep in mind is before we go to the guest delegations, I don't see any of their numbers. So most of what I'm actually going off of is like if they make questions of mastermind, which we have daily, or like the Facebook group, or if I've heard from one of their coaches about them. So it's kind of interesting. I go in with way less numbers. Much more like just knowing them as part of the community.

This bro.

Swing wide, Swing wide.

I don't know if we're gonna make.

It, guys, but you might need help backing up.

No, he's craz.

Sam.

This is gonna be a big tank. Me and Mike just calculated out the price of gas for this trip. Do you have a guess so far or total? Well, the total gas, like if you extrapolate it out.

1200.

Yeah, it's exactly right.

Are you kidding?

No, you got it exactly correct.

I'm too good.

That was a long day driving.

We're.

I'm in for three long driving days. Today was nine hours of driving. Tomorrow, like just driving. Like time on the road, is it minimum? Like if you just map, like with Google maps, a to b. 9 hours. So it's probably.

Over 9 hours. Tomorrow is 8 hours if you map A to B and then the next day is eight hours if you map A to B. Google estate. Estimated time in the seat. 9. 8. 8. This is the only way to get across the middle of the country.

There's nothing here. The Rockies will definitely slow us down. That's some big boys. Big mountains. Where we are now, we have Kochi in the morning, bright and early. We have to wake up 5am at the latest. If they're taking showers, the team needs a shower in the morning. I'd say 4:30. It's gonna take a year. Oh, yeah.

I forgot why we're standing here. Honestly, it's been a long day. Thanks for driving.

It's like almost 10 o'. Clock. So we got here on time for the itinerary and it just had an easier morning, which unfortunately makes tomorrow morning very difficult. And then today we soaked up all that time trying to just recover from being so tired the first two days. So you know, the Es and flows.

Peaks and valleys, brother.

Let's get part 41. 2.

41.

No, just 41.

Just. Okay. You said 41?

Yeah.

Are they numbered over here?

41.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Okay.

So don't tell me you the wrong one.

The reservation.

Yeah.

It says for driving directions, click here.

It's 41 minutes for.

Oh, man. Is that closer to him? Or further away.

Yeah, I think it's closer to him cuz he's in McPherson.

Oh. So we just. Did we drive past it to this lovers?

Yes. But why is that address? Because you put in this.

We drove past it.

I think it's gone for a.

Okay.

Yeah, we're supposed to meet.

So did we actually pass it? Yeah, we passed it 40 minutes ago.

Yeah, somewhere I put the wrong address.

Actually.

Yeah.

I have a feeling we're gonna have to. Yep.

Last light for like 10 minutes.

45 minutes.

Not too bad.

Tire.

10 hours after driven. That's not that much of it. Just an hour.

I can run in and ask if need be.

I wanna. I just don't see like there's no numbers on the ground, no numbers on the fences.

And there's obviously like cars and RVs. So like, maybe we're in the wrong spot.

All right, you want to pop out here real quick?

Yeah.

And I'll swing around to the other side.

Okay, sounds good.

Sleepy boy.

The spell, it's too powerful. Maybe it's right here across the way. Look at this, like whole barn. A minion thing. See the like trailers and stuff? I bet that's it. It's all dark. Park over there. I guarantee.

I can't believe you left behind Brianna.

Yeah, she's never gonna find out. Yeah, that's 100. It. It's crazy. There's no like big signage or anything. Let's see. Oh yeah, there's like RVs over there. Okay, let's go get Brianna. We figured it out. All we gotta do is not give up.

I feel like there may or may not be some sort of life lesson here, but.

Francis, run down. Go here. Francis, run down and go get her. Can't come out. Put my finger on it.

Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry.

I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying.

Oh my God.

They just want to leave me behind too. I'm not going to lie.

So no shoes, huh? That sucks.

Dead.

What a horrible day to have ears.

Were you sitting here thinking of that the whole time?

I tried it out on Mike. He didn't think it was floating. So I thought I'd say it again just to see if it works.

The Data is conclusive. 0 out of 3.

The guy then was like, have a good stay. And I was like, you too. Oh, not you too. Oh no, you didn't say that, did you?

Oh.

Me too?

Or not you too.

Have a good day.

You too. He just joins us.

Big brain moment. Embarrassing.

Just mess up after mess up.

Totally. Such the worst thing is cry myself.

We got to get you some sleep.

For real? For real.

FYI, the instructions say to access any building areas, please press 2 and 4 simultaneously and then press 3.

What was that code again?

Literally, was it 2 and 8?

I've already forgotten.

Oh, man.

What a day.

All right, so toast. I talked to the attendant over there. We have to move.