Fixing 10 Businesses in 10 Days ($54 MILLION Lawn Care Franchise)
This is a vlog-style YouTube episode following Mike Andes and his team driving an RV across the country (starting in Raleigh, NC) to perform business turnarounds for franchise/home-service owners. The chunk documents on-road challenges (an RV leak, low MPG, weather/storm driving), a meetup and coaching session with a local Augusta Nation owner group near Denver (discussing delegation, management, and scaling from ~$35k to $200k+ revenues), practical logistics (late campsite arrival, Little America stop), and an outro where Mike promotes a free Black Friday training about franchising and scaling to 200+ locations. The tone mixes practical troubleshooting, coaching, and personal reflection.
Questions this video answers
Raleigh, North Carolina toward Bellingham, Washington (RV road trip via Colorado → Wyoming → Utah).
Over 200 franchise locations.
Almost half a billion dollars.
Once you pass $100 million.
Chapters
I'm driving this RV from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Bellingham, Washington. We are headed into a storm.
Our goal is to turn around 10 businesses in the next 10 days. Even if everything goes smoothly, I just want you to not have that pressure.
We gotta get going.
We will close at about 9 o'.
Clock tonight, arrive at campsite before 9.
Yeah, we'll probably be closed by the time you guys get in.
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. Whoa. We're gonna die.
That was a long day of driving. I'm in for three long driving days.
The most optimistic thing to do is start a business because, like, the chances are so slim that it's actually gonna survive.
We're in Colorado.
Oh, no. Catch it. No.
Oh, my God.
Just kidding.
Just break it down and see how much money we save. If any of this trip.
It's not really the money. It's honestly the time away from the office and, like, all the breakup of our usual routine.
Yep, exactly.
Doing that only four times a year versus, like, almost every month is.
Yeah, we definitely. This is our most expensive trip, really. For sure.
I think we're on day six or.
So of driving across the country.
Yo, is Mike in here?
No, I think it's there.
There's water drizzling throughout the entire thing. I'm gonna go on a limb and say someone's not ours. Of course someone else put cans of carbonated beverages underneath the fridge.
It's coming from here. Why is this water? Dude, see this line? There's a line of water there. Line of water there. Line of water. Oh, dude, no. It's coming out of the bathroom. Someone must have missed the toilet.
That can't be right without.
When you flush, sometimes there's water in the top of it a little bit. Wait, maybe those bumps it over.
Gray water is full.
Oh, no, no.
We don't believe that.
Yeah, we officially do not believe that anymore because we emptied it the other day and it was immediately full.
So I think it goes the other direction.
We don't believe it, but we emptied them out.
It's almost like someone forgot that they were peeing and they walked around.
Well, if we come back.
Why is it leak in the. Hold on a minute.
All right, let's get out of here.
So we didn't figure out what it was officially.
No, I guess not.
Water.
We know that carbonated beverage.
We'll come back and find out, I guess.
Yeah, Taste test.
Just be the fridge leaking, though, like. But why would it go this way? Because the RV moves forward and back and up and down and side to side hard. I don't know. All right, all right.
Okay. So we're meeting, like four or five of the owners of a Gusta Nation that are all here next to Denver area. Super solid group. They're probably one of the ones that get together the most. Like, every few weeks, it seems like they get together.
I want to repeat what I did as far as profitability next year.
Right. Just keep.
Cuz like I said, it's the best year we've had. It's been less stressful. It's just been really smooth. And I just. I want to keep, you know, keep that growing instead of carry some more wrenches that here and make it worse.
Or what if you.
Yeah.
Go backwards.
Can I give my opinion as to.
Why you did better this year?
Give me your opinion.
You have grown personally a lot in the past 24 months. That's the difference between last year and this year. Yeah, 100%.
Well, I appreciate that. Yeah.
I remember some of our conversations and things, and I'm really proud of you.
I appreciate it.
You crushed it, dude.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm thankful for you to be in his life because you were, like, huge for us, for him, so just thank you.
Yeah. That's the difference between 2024 and 2025.
I appreciate it.
All those other things were there, but once you got that right, like personal capacity, those other things fall into place. And so that's what's so difficult. Even when we do these turnarounds, I don't have the rapport built to where I can be like, no, no, no. This business stuff, that actually doesn't matter. What really matters to you? This personal issue, if you just dealt with this, all of this would take care of itself. So you did the hard work on that part together. And because of that, that's why things fell into place this year. So just want to commend you for that.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Colorado. Colorado. So how we have it in Augusta Nation, we have all of the owners, and so I am looking for. Okay, Arizona, that's A. There's C. Colorado. There we go. So we got Garrett Smith, D.J. and Stacy. I think another part of it is don't be okay feeling dumb, like, it's not a bad thing. And if you're like, I kind of struggle with that, like, maybe I'm just too dumb for this, that that's fine. There's a lot of dumb people that are like extremely wealthy, great leaders, but they're just really, really good at being like, oh, they have the skill I don't have. I will go to them. And then it's usually that person is humble enough to be like, I'm okay with being the dumbest person in the room. Like, one of the things that was most humbling to me is when I went to this, this, this conference in Austin and every single person there had had. They were probably all at 50 plus million net worth and all had a business that did over 10 million. And like, you're just very humble and you're like, I will shut up right now and I will be quiet and I will take notes. And so I think the growth, though, when you're in that position is off the charts. And I think in your position at your size, when you're going into where all of these people have been there past, like three to four years take opportunity like that is such an opportunity to be like, I do not have the skill. Great. They do because they passed it. I'm going to go ask them what to do. The fact that, the fact, the skill that you have that most people don't have at your size is the ability to look back and be like, there was carnage. Most people in this instance was like, hey, this is my first year. Like in growth mode. We went from 35,000 to $200,000. I would take it. Take me an hour to break through. Like, no. Like, there's three or four things. If you just fix it during spring rush, you'll go to 500,000. And so I would just really lean into the fact that you're in a community, that all these people have unlocked what you're currently going up against. And don't feel bad to ask them, like, what's the unlock?
Not a good look. That we organize this and we're the late ones.
Well, hey, we have to park like five blocks away because church, dude, that is crazy.
We're gonna turn around over here.
Hey, that's the name of the show.
So the megachurch is having its Sunday ceremony today and they have taken all of the parking spots and we need at least six. At least all the guests mentioned saw us at least right behind the rv. So they know we're. Oh, hang on. We're off roading.
Good thing we were slightly on time. So now we can be slightly late.
Yeah, we still have three minutes. Can we move that?
I can move it.
It's okay. We'll just hit it.
There's A sign that says no church parking.
We got a lot that way.
That's crazy. As far as the eye can see. It's not very far because of this sun.
Honestly.
Dude, you're still drinking your flamsteed, bro. Isn't that your second coffee of the day? Yeah, bro.
You know how some people do like pre workout before they go to the gym? Yeah. Somebody have to pre carbonate before they. Or pre caffeinate before they drive like all day.
200 milligrams before you're 500 milligrams.
Yeah. Caffeine doesn't wake you up. It just prevents you from getting tired. So if you're already tired and you're.
Drinking coffee, I don't think that's how it works.
That is how it works. And caffenoids, like just caffenoids?
No, they bind to the same receptors.
Look it up.
Look it up.
Do your own research.
This is the Zach science bill. No we ever put the sign back.
That we ran over.
There they are.
There they are.
Let's go.
We saw the yellow. See you.
How are you?
We, we have full confidence in Zach.
He's a.
To get in. I mean, there's chairs outside.
Yeah, right.
It's a couple doors.
Cool. Good. How you doing, man? Yeah, it's been good. It's been good. A lot of climbing. It's far across the country?
No.
But yeah, we started Raleigh on Sunday, like last Sunday in Raleigh, North Carolina. So Clinton, Raleigh, direct flight. That was nice. And then got a rental car in Raleigh, RV in the area. So spend the first two days in a rental car in an suv and then drove up to Knoxville where we did coaching Knoxville, and then swapped out for the rv. So we got to see the rv pick it up from like an RV U Haul junkyard. So we're like, hopefully this one has all the working pieces of it. So that's broken down.
Yeah, that one is sweet.
There's a little more in the book. If you ever have questions once you get there, let me know. But we're kind of talking way down the road. Next year though, it's like, we gotta get another general manager. The reason why locations that hire general managers that are in profit mode for at least a year prior is because you have confidence that when you tell them their compensation, you know it's going to happen. In all like, you're doing fantastic. You're way ahead of me at 18. And so the whole objective of Augusta is like to make it where you can do it faster than me. I spent five years beating my head against where you're at right now. So, like, excellent. I would say the skill of management cannot be underestimated in terms of how difficult that is. All right, Ben, don't let me trip. What do you want a vlog update?
We both do this.
Just put it in backwards. It looks like we're walking forward. Awesome meet up with all the owners. Always great to see constituents of Augusta Nation. This group is super special because this guy. This group is super special because they get together quite often. They just have such a great group bond. All of them are kind of in similar stages, like going from one location to their next, right. In that profit mode, 500,000, 800,000 in revenue. When they're trying to delegate out of sales and get out of solo operations is what they'll end up doing is they'll actually start doing more admin, which is actually a lower leverage task because typically you want to move up this. This is great. Up this, up the ladder in terms of leverage, like admin tasks, let's call it a $30 an hour task. Operations, you can make $100 an hour. Sales, like, that's a $200 an hour task. And so, and even for some, like I was talking to Joel earlier, he's like, hey, sales is actually not my strength. And so his like marketing acumen, though, sets up more getting of the work. So like creating the systems and the architecture for them to succeed at Christmas lights, etc. The challenging part is like when you're in growth mode, you and you're at 200,000, you're doing all three, you're doing the phones, then you're all of a sudden you're hopping over to do the job, then you go out and do an estimate. And so it can be a lot, I think overall, really great. Hopefully we get some clips for you guys. We'll definitely be putting all the whole thing on the HSM channel. But what's cool is I have so much just knowing them all, like over the past few years and knowing that they're going through with their personal life and things. I can go so much deeper in the training and the coaching because I know what they're actually going through. And it's not like I just get a little snapshot, five minute clip before we show up at a turnaround. So it was great training. It was great. I love it. On the, like, the personal media side, we say we want to make home service business owners rich, right? And we hit very blunt on the nose that people get. Just get it. Oh, he wants to make people money. Cool. For me, I want, I want people to avoid the pain I went through. And I don't want them to have to go through five, ten years of unprofitability, beating their head up against one, almost getting killed because I didn't have systems in the business. And so that passion will outlive hitting the more vanity metric of like a thousand locations. Because every single time I talk to anyone, anyone doing under 2 million, I know exactly what their pains are and what they're feeling. And like the, the, the incredible immense load of pain and pressure that comes with not having systems in the business. And so like, I can empathize with them. I get very emotional and like involved with them. And like. So I used to preach back in the day, right? Because you know this language. So I used to preach. And after you preach, you get off stage and you were like, I'm leave me personally, I'm physically drained. Like. Cause like you're operating as a different level. And I get the exact same thing after talking to business owners. Because you care so deeply about the person in this case, not their soul, but you care about solving pain for them in their business and knowing that that pain causes pain in their relationships, pain in their physical life, mental health, and all the rest of it. And so I can't solve like it is a savior's complex. I think I will be able to change everyone's soul, but I know I can change just pain for them in their business. And if that, then it affects all these other aspects. And so I get really worked up and emotional about that. And so it's not a fake, it's not a facade. I don't have to put that on. And so anything that turns you on that way, I would just lean into it and I create definition in terms like, oh, like I felt really good doing those things. And then just like, how do I build a business that I get to do more of that behavior Change reveal.
In 3, 2, 1.
Things be just fine. Oh, anticlimactic driver.
All right, good sign.
We're good.
We're good.
All right.
Hey, we're clear. We're in the clear. It was just a one time pee. Let's go.
We do not travel for the holidays.
Oh, really?
Period.
Full stop. I don't care how upset anyone is, they do not travel for the holidays. I could visit somebody two times for the price of a single holiday trip. I do not care.
Also.
Gum needs to get into the trash can. Please, please put it into the trash can. So I don't have to take it off my shoes or off of the bed I'm sleeping on. There was one on the bed I was sleeping on.
So sorry about this.
Sorry.
Please take my rolled gold.
Pretty.
Sit down.
Yeah, it'll be like a nice little break before the drive. And then we can go further than Laramie. So we'll probably end up driving for like, I don't know, three hours or so. And then we'll just like stop at rest Stop. We'll take another break at Little America. That'll be fun. You see what Little America is all about.
Brom here.
I'm so hyped. The fall of a Little America has happened. You think America's bad? Wait till you get to Little America. It's way worse.
Marca.
And then.
We'Ll get to Salt Lake tonight. Right now we are headed to Cafe Mexical. It's so good. It's like from scratch and it's delicious. And it's my one stop when I come to Colorado.
Oh, that looks amazing.
Right?
So far I only had the dressing.
Okay, how's the dressing?
Really good. Contra lime.
There we go. It's only wins from here.
Oh, my God.
I almost spot two.
It's nothing.
Even tomorrow for tonight, the mango ones.
Cilantro lime, mango salt.
Made here, Made today.
Wow.
I see the hype.
Yeah, Walmart does okay.
It's like Walmart.
Yeah, yeah.
It'll have everything. Oh, my God. We have to get. There's a note on our itinerary. Let me see that. Arrive at campsite before nine in red and all caps. We gotta get going. Brandon and Mike are in the King Supers buying ice cream right now. And I hope they're on their way out here because it's currently 3 o'. Clock.
That is squeaky. That's really tight. We might end up in Walmart parking lot tonight. The address isn't even on here. Just as a lagoon. RV park. Hopefully that takes us to where we're trying to go. There's no address to remap and see. Dude, that's squeaky. Oh, eight hours. Oh, that's an alternative route. Seven hours, though. Seven hours. Let me just make sure we have highways on. Okay. All right. Oh, we're not gonna make it. ETA is 9:30pm so we miss our campsite tonight. They're casually walking over here like two little lovebirds. We'll see. You don't even know.
Hey, it's Mike here, back in the studio. I want to say thank you for watching and I Also wanted to invite you to an event on Black Friday that I'm doing completely free, where I'm actually showing you the step by step of how I went from zero locations to over 200 franchise locations and how if you're interested in franchising and actually being the franchisor, how this could be useful. Or if you're interested in copying and pasting multiple locations and creating a regional chain, how to exactly do that. It's going to get very, very much in the weeds. That training is going to be about three to four hours long. So go register. Save your spot today. Mikeandys.com/Black Friday.
Yo. Oh my God. Snacks forever. Wow.
I got bad news for you in the itinerary says that we need to arrive before 9pm in all caps. Itinerary right now puts us arriving at 9:30pm that's okay, I'll call ahead and.
Surely they'll have wiggle room for us.
They're gonna beat us.
They're gonna beat us up.
They're not gonna let us arrive.
Yeah, okay, cool.
Just call ahead.
Here's the little bites you asked for like five days ago.
Oh my God. Actual little bites. That's wild.
Wait, is that not what you mean?
No, I love little.
This is not what I meant. No, but this is sick. This is great. Thank you.
Hi, my name is. I have a reservation for tonight. We're back in.
Back in.
I was just to let you guys know that we'll be late. Maybe around like 9:30 to 10 o'.
Clock.
Because we will close at about 9 o' clock tonight. So we'll probably be closed by the time you guys get in. So the gate will be open, but I am able to check you in over the phone. Let me just get that process started.
Is the rest of you closed?
There's this big sign that says close on it.
Dang. Go for like G.
Crazy.
Made for it.
Yeah, made it.
So out of breath.
Look at Zach parking at a mud puddle just for us.
Seriously, like is it mid3 seamless or like is it hard to like get a hold of them, to work with them, to strike deals with them?
We. Well, like we process like almost half a billion dollars through stripe. So we're a big customer though.
Are you really? Yeah.
So they, they actually seems like such.
A big company that like a billion to them, I feel like. What's their evaluation?
Oh, they're still private companies, but they're probably a couple hundred billion. Yeah, they're big, but.
But you're big enough where you have Like.
Yeah, access.
Yeah.
Because like a regular company, a CRM, processes funds on behalf of other people. Like, we don't make 400, $500 million. But our company, our like customers, users, they process them. But to stripe, it's the same thing. Right. So you might have like a massive company that does 400 million in revenue is the same exact thing as. As from a customer size perspective.
It's co pilot. Yeah.
That's cool though. That's cool that it's brought to that size. Like, what size did you have to get to before you let.
100. 100 million. Once you pass 100 million, they start.
Kind of paying attention.
Was that a goal to like scale up to that point?
No, they reached out to us as soon as we did it because they want. They invited us to like golf tournaments and like their event, their conference. Yeah, we'll pay for you. Like, they just start whining and dining.
Have you gone to that stuff?
No.
I can just watch the keynote on YouTube. I don't need a golf. A golf like golf light sales rep. Yeah.
How does he do it?
Whoa. Doing it. We're doing it live.
It's yellow, folks.
Look at him go.
It's like an air show.
He's crazy.
We're going down. We're going down, folks. Going in.
Coming.
That's pretty crazy.
That's pretty fast. I know.
We are going from Colorado through Wyoming to Utah for a turnaround tomorrow morning. We still have about four or five hours of driving, I believe, and we need to have dinner, which hopefully comes soon because, you know, the belly is empty.
Yeah. Little bites. Because we're on a strict berry strict diet.
There's blueberries in it.
One couch has 890 calories per container. Zach.
Right. Okay.
That's.
Zack's been it for the evening. What else did we need to talk about?
We're heading into a storm.
We are headed into a storm.
So there's this like giant storm that we're driving into. It's been like on the horizon and moving. There's lightning everywhere and like these big like downpours of rain. And I almost guarantee it. I think we're going to be driving.
I think we're going to be driving and just hit a wall of rain. Like no rain. And then immediately.
We did now.
Flickers out.
Maybe the real tents for the friends we made along the way.
This is sick.
But we still have so far to loot.
Nothing like having to wear sunglasses.
That's 40 minutes. Yeah, that's really far.
That's really far.
Lack of sleep.
We have be getting an average of nine miles per gallon.
You can't get to America fast enough.
I'm getting stuff reported at the same time.
One mile and that's a state time that would let me.
So close yet so far.
At this point. Might as well. Except I gotta use the restroom.
So I like honestly never heard of Little America until you talked about it. What's the significance?
It's the only stop between Colorado and Utah.
Really? That's great.
Yeah, really.
It's just a classic road trip stop like between here and Utah. So if you're, if you've ever road tripped, which most people in Colorado have road tripped, you would have stopped at Little America at some point. It used to be bigger, I feel like. And then it had a decline and now with BUC EE's I think they're trying to come back.
Why can't you read? Just be cheese and balls.
Brandon's two favorite things.
Sushi from a place like this.
That's like sushi.
In your hand.
To be fair, I got to get.
Her a little gift, you know.
Look at this little bear. Oh, I guess it's a dog. I didn't read it. Wait, have a question. Is it different than you remember?
Oh my God. So much worse.
Back to the rv.
Yeah.
I called my wife, we road trip through here a bunch and I called her. I was like, remember Little America? I was like, I brought him here. I was so hyped. The fall of a Little America has happened. You think America's bad, wait until you get to Little America. It's way worse. They used to have floor to ceiling marble bathrooms and dollar cones. They probably still have dollar cones, but like I didn't get one. But they redid their kitchen. That was probably for the better. It was kind of like a greasy divey kitchen. But in it heyday it was like the place to stop. Like it was worth the drive. It was, was worth multiple hours to get to because it was like so sick. You like pull in. They have like this whole perimeter of big trees and playgrounds and like the bathroom showers. I don't know what happened man, but they did remodel. They got a new mascot. No one likes any of it, especially me. Yeah, nobody in there. It was heartbreaking. And the bathroom was disgusting up. Every toilet I tried was clogged up until.
That was bad. That was bad eating, but that was bad.
I'm not commenting. I'm not commenting.
We need to depart here at 6:10.
Get there at 6:30.
