Go on the OFFENSE! - Inspiration for Business Owners

Hey everyone. So we are now headed to Ferndale, Bellingham, Lyndon to do some drive by estimates. Today we're making some videos for the franchisees, how to do drive by mowing estimates. So we're doing some training videos and figured bring you along for the ride. And the reason we're doing this today is because.

Watching this now you know what's going on with the whole coronavirus thing. And so what it's caused is a lot of project based work being put on hold since the economy's really taking a hit and people are pretty worried and afraid about it. A lot of our target market is retirees. They have money in retirement and a lot of questions and fear right now. So projects and things can be put off but recurring maintenance can't be, especially if they're older, they don't have equipment, they physically cannot do their mowing. The grass continues to grow, the weeds continue to grow. They have to be maintained the properties, especially if their property is one of their biggest assets, their house itself. And so mowing is an essential service. And so if we do go on into a shutdown, we'd be able to continue doing that. And so we're really kind of taking advantage of this. And as most of you know, I've talked a lot in the past few years, really since 2016, about the chance of having another recession, having another downturn and what to be focusing on coming up to that point and then during that time. And so even a couple years ago at the conference, we talked so much about keeping cash right now, paying off debts, being anti fragile, making sure that you aren't over leveraged and so that you can keep cash, that when the next recession does come, the next economic collapse does come, you can actually capitalize on it. And so that's what we're actually trying to do today. Our state last weekend went into, they closed all the restaurants down our gym got closed, all gyms got closed, most hotels are closed. And so just kind of a really changing, fearful kind of time for a lot of people. And so what we're doing is we're doubling down on what we can do and that's mowing and recurring services and folks focusing on building up that recurring revenue. And I've said this before time and time again about people that the past 10, 15 years, because the economy's been good, the money has been in the projects because you can go out and you sell fifty, sixty thousand dollar projects, you sell five of those and now you've got a pretty decent sized business. Well now that money's not there. People are pushing off those big projects, they're delaying them because they're just afraid. They don't know what's going to come. Their retirement is, their 401k is disappearing. And so we're really trying to focus on the mowing and, and the things that really are the recurring revenue drivers and stable cash flow right now. And so yesterday for all the franchisees we made a document in service Autopilot where we basically pitched Boeing services and made it where they click, with one click they can order an estimate. So they click the button, it triggers an estimate to be made for them. And what we did in that estimate is basically addressed COVID 19 and everything that everyone's going through and said hey, because of that we're changing our parameters around giving estimates. And so no longer do you need to meet someone in person. You can just click this button and within 24 hours we'll have an estimate to you. And so in the past we did drive bys as well, but really never looked at it as like a selling feature. Some people like to meet people in person but in this email we really picked it as a positive, kind of a highlight that we're trying to help the community by doing these drive by estimates, practicing social distancing. They don't have to come out of their house because a lot of them are quarantined. A lot of them, if they're older, they don't want to be around younger people that could possibly give them the virus. And so it just reassures them that we're looking out for their best interest, we're looking out for their safety. But we're also making sure that as we come into spring we are taking care of their property as the grass is growing. So today that's what we're doing. We're making videos for the franchisees on how to do these in scale and in volume. Yesterday afternoon around 4pm the office sent out the email with that one click estimate and we got about 30 replies so far that afternoon. So I think between 4 and 6. All those estimates they put on for me today and I had about 25. And so they'll probably get another 2530 today. And so that's really the power of again I've talked about this before, the power of having all of your clients database and staying in touch with them with a newsletter, having the one click estimate. These are all things we've talked about for so, so long. And for some people they've laughed, some people they just Kind of turn a deaf ear to it. Some people have said they don't need to do emails and do email newsletters because they're already getting so much business and word of mouth and they're so great that everyone comes to them. But these are the times when the economy starts to constrict that actually proves who's been paying attention to their business and focusing on longevity and the sustainability of their marketing systems and their business in general. Whether it be cash flow, whether it be how much cash you have on hand, whether it be marketing, having the database of emails, having where you've been emailing them already every month so it doesn't go to their spam filter when all of a sudden you're like, oh, I need to send monthly newsletters. This is not the time to be reactive. This is the time to be proactive and put your foot on the pedal and really go on the offensive. Right now, people are not spending money on marketing. Traditionally, this time of year, every Sing Lawn care company is doing door hangers, flyers, every door, direct mail. They're doing Google Ads, they're doing Facebook ads. Right now, they're not. Some people I know in our community haven't even started mowing lawns. We've been doing it for about two, three weeks now consistently and three weeks now. And so this is the time to really be on the offensive, not just defensive. What you do not want to do is wake up in two months and your big excuse is that you're not going to grow this year because the coronavirus I'm going to be and the franchisees of Augusta Lawn Care are going to be the ones that prove you wrong and that you can grow during these times if you built a sustainable business without over leveraging yourself. And you have systems in place and you have marketing systems in place. This is the time you can actually grow and expand into the marketplace because all of your other competitors are not spending money on marketing. Your cost per click on Google is going to be less. Your cost per customer acquisition costs are going to be less because no one else is out in the marketplace. Restaurants are closed down. They aren't spending money on marketing, they aren't the gyms, they're all closed down hospitality, they're closed down flying flights and they're not advertising. And so when they're not advertising, it drives your customer acquisition costs down. And this is the time if you have cash, if you actually save money during the times of prosperity and economic everything was going well, this is the time you can spend that money and get stuff for pennies on the dollar. You can get customers for pennies on the dollar. You can really expand in the marketplace when no one else is doing door hangers and there's no one else trying to promote brand awareness. You can be the one that makes sure that you stay in. So when things do pick up, because they will when things do pick up that you're front and center in the mind of the customer because you've been the one in the marketplace putting your name out there. And so that's what we're really trying to practice today. I haven't done estimates for the local shop in a long, long time, but I'm trying to be an example for even our local shop of like, we are focused on mowing, we're focused on recurring revenue and number one, I don't want any of the employees to fear for their job. And then two, I want to make it very clear to the franchisees that this is what we need to be doing at this time. We need to be focusing on recurring revenue, focusing on mowing and using the systems that we've put in place for marketing, like the one click estimate to be able to focus on this time when everyone else is contracting. This is our time to really expand and grow.