how I built a 100-location franchise from NOTHING!

You knew that.

I didn't know that. That's hilarious.

Hey, if you want to make a confession, that would be a memorable episode.

I'm sure it's hard as an employee to see that much money on the table and be like, oh, so I'm not getting a piece of that.

This isn't going to work. This isn't going to go smoothly.

That's the only way to play the game. Like, we are going to be really good, or we're going to just fall flat in our face.

You know what? Has Mike Andes ever changed a diaper?

No, Never.

I won't call you for babysitting.

Then I'll mess up a bunch of stuff.

I'll get over it.

I think Steven's good at editing.

Probably edit that out.

You do a free. Free ticket to Summit. 400 bucks.

I was gonna give away a book.

You're giving away 400 bucks? That really asks quite a question.

Hey, Rhodes. Mike Andy's here. And today I have the honor of being joined by Brad Drayer.

Brad.

Brad's worked at Augusta for quite a few years, and he's gonna interview me. A couple of you had asked for interview questions to me specifically from people that have worked with me. So we've had Marcus, we've had Liz and Lee and who else?

Brian.

Brian on the show. But now Brad's at.

You forgot Brian. Shots fired.

Brian will forgive me. So Brad's been a really integral part of the local team. I remember a couple years ago, we talked in the truck one time. I was like, you know, you can. You can. You can leave and then come back if you want. Because I knew at the time, like, Brad's a cpa. He's an accountant. He has a lot of experience. He's worked at Turbo Tax. And I just knew that, like, financially, we weren't going to be able to match what he could make elsewhere. And I was like, it's okay if you go away for a year or two and then come back, and maybe we'll have a better spot for you. And he's like, no, like, I want to do something. So we were able to figure out a position with him with P4P. But then he also does a bunch of other stuff for me in terms of estimating whether it be at Mount Vernon's location or Bellingham's location. Kind of does anything and everything that we need. And I really do appreciate him. Just such a team player. And regardless of what area of the business it is in, just giving 100% and willing to step in and do weird hours and weird things and jump around and be like, this is what we're doing. No, now this is what we're doing. I really appreciate it. So with that as the foundation, you can ask me anything you want, but you want to first off, kind of give an introduction of yourself and kind of what you've been up to.

Yeah, sure. You said. I think it's been about roughly four years or so now.

Cool. It was like middle of the year when you first started. Right. Like he was in the middle of season when he got started.

Yeah. When actually Lee went back.

Oh, right.

Lee went back to school to finish his final semester and get his degree. So. And we were hiring, so he left. I think it was August or so when he went back to school. So when I started. Oh yeah, I think it was like the Tuesday or Wednesday after Labor Day. So let's go. Yeah, Just about four years to the day. But yeah, I guess kind of as far as my story goes, having an accounting degree and sat for the CPA exam and got that passed a little while after school and so forth, I kind of always thought I would go kind of the public accounting route, like CPA firm route and so forth like that. But was kind of, I guess, right place, right time, if you will, and my first job out of school and that kind of opened the door to a controller position kind of fairly quickly, kind of in the private industry side of things. And I just kind of was always able to make that work a bit, if you will. I did that and then in between jobs a little bit, I guess you could say, kind of thought that I would basically just do landscaping, you know, kind of as a short term gap thing, just clear my head a little bit, work with my hands and all that kind of stuff. I actually ended up working for kind of a competitor locally at first. So I did that and I still wasn't sure. I was kind of envisioning going back to the accounting career soon, if you will. But yeah, I was just kind of at that point where it's just like, you know what? Like I'm. I was already working a landscaping job at that point. So, like, what do I have to lose? Like, go check this out and Mike is legit then.

Cool.

Like, if not not, then I haven't really risked a whole lot by making the move, if you will. Right. So.

So we did our interview in our little six by six box that we had in plane. It's blazing heat. I still remember that.

Yeah. Oh man, that was a Fun one, but yeah, Mike turned out to be legit. So I remember going home from my interview and then my wife Janelle asked me how it went. I was like, oh, that was pretty good. It was like a, you know, 20 something year old kid that just wants to professionalize the landscape industry. She goes, oh, is that it? I was like, yeah, that's pretty well it. But my thing is I kind of have a hard, I would have a hard time betting against him after the interview. So I think I'm going to go join and check it out for a bit. So this is getting kind of long winded. That's good. Supposed to be grilling you, right? Yeah.

So then last year we started P4P. You moved into that kind of role, but it's moved. You've been doing, estimating, kind of doing everything. And then now we're looking forward to this tax season when you'll probably help the franchisees, you know, hopefully do their taxes and you really take everyone that's been doing their quickbooks at commands and we'll do their taxes more efficiently for them.

We could just kind of a natural fit there a bit. I'm kind of going off of some of the TurboTax work and the work it into it that I've done there. So that'll be a new, a new venture if you will, but certainly one that I'm looking forward to as well.

Cool. Awesome. Well, I'm ready for the hard hitting questions.

All right. Well, yeah, I was just kind of.

Brad probably knows my businesses more in from the num from a number standpoint than anyone else. I know every single time I do a meeting that Brad is running all the numbers in the back end and connecting all the dots from all the other meetings that he's been in. So he probably knows my business is best, I would say than any other employee besides Lisa who sees all the numbers on a quarterly basis. But you put all the numbers together, possibly he's running the margins like okay, how much does he actually have in the account? Like the other day when I was talking about the bank loan, you're like, so you're gonna need about X amount extra after that. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly right. Sorry, go ahead.

You're good. So not too many of my questions are that numbers related? Unfortunately. But yeah, I was just kind of running through my questions a little bit and the last thing, last thing that I did before coming out down here tonight was I was actually changing my 1 year old's diaper and I Thought, you know what? Has Mike Andes ever changed a diaper?

No, never. That. If that's the first question. Never happened.

Never happened.

Never. Nephew. I've. I have a few nephews and. And never. Never happened.

So you're in charge of babysitting for like an hour, and then, you know, you've got a blatantly obvious dirty diaper.

Just let it rip, you know, do.

You have, like, you gonna attempt it or just gonna wait for mom?

Just gonna wait for mom. Especially an hour. Like, if it's anything less than a day, like, I'm sorry, buddy, but you just gotta grit up and just take it.

Fair.

It's just not happening.

Good to know. I won't call you for babysitting then.

I know P4P would be miserable if I was all. In my profession, we gotta get a P for P softw parenting. Just, like, make the target audience a little wider. Like, it's like very narrow. And home improvement. It's like, good. Have this for parenting. So P for P for parents. There you go.

There you go. Well, yeah, I guess I was putting together my questions. I was trying to go semi, kind of chronologically, if you will. Kind of looking back, kind of over Augusta, my time here, and so forth like that. I guess I'll kind of try and do that just a little bit. Kind of talk through a couple different points and then have a couple items at the end there as well. So I guess first off, kind of growing up now, they're not that super business question, but son of a pastor for you. Son of a pastor for myself as well.

Wait, you. You son of pastor?

You knew that?

I didn't know he was a pastor, though. I didn't know that. Maybe I just never competed. That's hilarious. I didn't know that. Like, I knew I knew something along those lines. I thought minister, but I never knew pastor. Is he still a pastor?

He's retired.

No way.

A couple of years ago.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's funny. Sorry, go ahead.

No, so I guess first question was, you know, you have. You have the stereotype of the preacher's kid, right? Yeah. That, you know, we're basically. We're sheltered and just, you know, kind of not strict parents per se, but just kind of live sheltered lives, if you will, and then we get exposed to the real world and then, you know, just kind of go off the. Go off the deep end a little bit.

Yeah.

Which I found is kind of not. Probably not true, more than it is true. But anyway, stereotypes out there Right. So I guess kind of in that vein then have you, did you ever have like a big like get exposed to the real world moment where you were just like, I don't not go off the deep end. I mean for me, I remember watching the, the Water Boy, a PG13 movie, when I was like 11 years old, 10 or 11 years old. It was just like.

It's time for confession here, if you.

Want to make a confession. That, that would be a memorable episode. I'm sure.

Not really. Like, it's probably because I went to college so young. So like When I was 13, I was already going to college. So I literally just had learned like the birds and the bees, like all that stuff had just happened and then now I'm like going to college. Right. And so I think looking back, there was probably a lot of, a lot of awkward situations that I just didn't even know were awkward because like, I just didn't know what I was doing. So it was. I don't really, I don't really have a pinpoint. I know, I know for a fact there are things I missed, like jokes that I missed going through college and they were about me. I just had no idea what they were. And I would just like, like, I just didn't, I didn't care. And like, but like, even like, like movies and stuff, I have no, I don't watch movies. And still this day I'm really into pop culture. It's like someone can say a movie reference or like a line from it and everyone's laughing. I'm like, I have no cl. That's happening. And when you're 13 and 14, you're like already like so awkward in every single way. So you're trying to like fumble along in life anyways. And so I never really had like the moment where like, oh, I've been sheltered my whole life. But I definitely knew like I was not keenly aware of like a lot of social things happening. And so I just kind of came to the fact like, hey, I'm not here for social part of school. Like that wasn't for me. So it was like I was here for school and I. That's all I cared about. So it didn't really affect me a whole lot. But I'm sure there was like hundreds of times where I was like, so beyond behind the curve, sheltered.

Yeah, good to know. So, and kind of jumping into a little bit more business related, if you will. First date that I would jump to would be August 4, 2016, day of basically your accident. With PTO and kind of getting sucked up underneath that and quite possibly easily could have died as a result of that. But certainly glad you didn't, that's for sure. But question would be, is kind of looking back at that, having to be out for, you know, a month or so, kind of as you're getting, getting going? Well, it might have been longer than a month. Correct me on that. But kind of, I guess looking back in terms of, you know, all of a sudden, then kind of on a dime, you're not able to perform all the daily functions that you were doing for a period of time. What did you learn in those next couple months as you could, you know, go out and physically do all your tasks that you were doing previously?

Yeah, I realized that my main role, if the company was going to keep growing, was to do what I could do from a hospital bed or from when I was at home. And that was like, giving leadership and direction for the business. But I could not be the one doing every single aspect of it. And that it wasn't wrong for me not to be sweating every single day and working 14 to 16 hours a day. Like, that was somewhat inbred into me. Just, I don't know, like, young. Like, I had to be the first one there, last one to leave. I had to be, like, the one that's sweating and working the hardest. And, like, if I wasn't doing that, I was doing something wrong. And there's definitely something to that when you're first getting started, but as the company grows, that will limit the ability for the company to actually keep expanding. And you'll cap everyone below you from ever rising up inside the organization because you're just, like, you're constantly, like, working, working, working. And I still love to work. But I realized in that moment that, like, my main role was now, no longer, like, doing the work, but, like, how do we strategically think about the systems and how work is to be done and not getting the work done. And so that's a shift for me. And I still this day, Like, I sometimes struggle with it. Like, especially when I show up to a job site end of a day and guys are sweating and dirty, and I'm like, in my polo shirt. Like, I don't like that. And that was really, really difficult for me. Even when I'm like, they knew I was, like, just out of the hospital, but, like, it was still difficult for me to put, like, this is not your role anymore. You need to be a leader. And that does not mean the hardest worker sweating out here for 14, 16 hours a day, and I still struggle with that. But that was, like, the first time it really hit me is like, that's not what I'm supposed to be doing. And if I'm doing it, it's actually, like, hurting the business. But still, this day, it's the hardest thing for me is, like, disconnecting leadership from just brute, physical hard labor is still something I struggle with.

Do you remember what your revenues were roughly in 2016? Like, it doesn't. I mean, I. I don't know, but it seems like you weren't maybe weren't quite at the size where you would, you know, where you typically advise, say, okay, now you can get out of the field. Correct. Like, usually that's kind of maybe in that 4 to 500,000 marker range. Yeah, no, we typically is what you advise. But were you there at that point?

No, no, not at that point. We. We had just moved over the. The blaine shop was the second year there. We were doing, like, maybe 60,000amonth in revenue, and for the year, we're right around 500,000. So it wasn't at that point, like, I was still doing estimates all day long. Like, we were growing very quickly. Like, the year after, we did 900 something. Right. So we were on this quick expansion. Like, that was August, when we probably, like, 60, 70,000amonth. That spring, we probably had 20,000. Like, it was a quick ramp. Right. So it was a lot of estimates. And, like, we just. The shop had just gotten started as the office manager, so we were, like, going full force now. Growth. So definitely not the point where I was, like, working on the business from a strategy standpoint. But that point where it's like, you're kind of this awkward for some people, like, influence. For me, like, transition between doing physical hard work with the crew all day long to actually now you're doing estimates and hiring and trying to figure out what was next for the business and.

Things like that, Jumping forward a little bit. Then about two years later, you know, a little more than two years later, you hire this guy named Brad and back in. In 2018, basically, you would do it where basically you hired somebody, and then you would have them basically come in and more or less shadow you and.

Kind of like, oh, yeah, like orientation day.

Yeah, do an orientation day with you. Or, you know, you'd kind of maybe do a few things in the morning and go sit down at lunch or whatnot. And, you know, maybe kind of do.

Where did we go for lunch? Did we do lunch?

I think it was the woods.

Oh, yeah. I just went towards coffee.

Yeah.

Okay. Because. Because the blaine was weird because it was like, kind of far away from restaurants. Once we moved to Bellingham, I would actually take him, like, the Mexican food or something.

Okay, gotcha. I guess I got hired too. I guess I hired too early, but I'll get over it, I think. But anyway, I remember kind of one of the couple tasks of that morning that you did is basically you had to go out and do an estimate. And I still remember clearly this particular client. They had basically a row of arborvitaes, and they wanted a fence built behind the arborvitaes, basically, just because they didn't want the deer to come up and eat, you know, eat the arborvita and so forth like that. You basically pretty well just kind of declined the bid and just said, you know, just call a fence builder, since they do it every day, all day, are going to be way cheaper than us. And I just remember thinking it was like, Mike, like, this is cement and wood and screws. Like, it's not rocket science. And if it's going to be behind this Harbor Valley hedge, like, we can do this. Like, this could be a good, a good job going in the winter a bit. Why did you pass on that? Well, I guess I know why you passed on that in terms of trying to simplify services. But at what point did you start realizing that not doing those jobs was going to be the way to be able to grow the business?

Yeah, well, fence building specifically takes some skill, and I am not good at construction. And so, like, when we talk about adding more services, it was like adding dump trucks or chippers or like, artificial turf. But, like, adding in fencing was like, way beyond my pay grade. I, I, I would not be able to offense for the life of me. And I don't believe at the time we had anyone on the crew that could. And so it was definitely good. Like, if we would have got a job, it would have been bad, so that one would have been easy. But I think even at that time, I was starting to realize that we needed to simplify services because I was getting to the point where, like, there was a lot of issues happening, like, like customer complaints and yellow slips and stuff. But it wasn't like you saw it, like, even the two years after that, we were adding artificial turf. Maybe a year already adding artificial turf, still doing, having big dump trucks, tree chipping. Like, you saw that, and then you've seen the unwinding of all of that, and that's been painful, and it Takes a lot longer to unwind services, and it does. Like, oh, yeah, we'll do the fence great. Like, in a day or two, you could probably buy the trucks, the equipment, the machinery, you know, watch a YouTube video on how to do it. But it could literally take a year or two to unwind those services once that person's told five other people about you. And now you have all these leads coming in for fencing, and now you have a whole bunch of wood in the back that is inventory, and you have a bunch of stain. And all your crew, you spent days and days training them. So, like, it takes a long time to unwind the services. And so maybe at that time, I was just starting to become smart to the fact that, like, we can't do everything. And saying yes to everything is a recipe for massive failure. And I.

It.

By that time, it already happened a few times where there's jobs where I'd give the money back to the client in. In full. And, like, that I knew would kill me for a month or two for the business. But, like, I just knew we messed up. And I didn't have anything to say besides, sorry. So, like, here's a check, too.

So I laughed because it was only. I think it was, like, three weeks ago, doing estimates, where somebody asked for basically an artificial turf, you know, installed just because, you know, they had seen the turf out front of our shop. It's like, oh, yeah, that's still there, isn't it?

That was the. Yeah. When we moved to Bellingham, we were like, it'd be great to have a putting green out front. Everyone will love it. And now. Yeah. It's the forgotten stepchild of the Augusta Nation.

Jumping forward just a little bit. Then again, as well, to. I. I'm. I was trying to remember if it was the spring or the fall off site in 2019. I think it might have been the spring one.

2019. Oh, I know where this is going. Okay.

But. But, yeah, there's. Yeah. Is it an off site that. Well, certainly the.

We went off the rails.

The local managers will certainly recall it, if you will. Yeah, I think we had. We think we had messed up somebody's PayCheck by, like, $9 or something like that. And you would have thought that we had, you know, tried to burn their house down or something like that. And then some guys kind of chipping in about, you know, kind of like, hey, well, can we get. You know, we have to use our phone on this job. Can we get some phone reimbursement and just kind of Threw a whole bunch of stuff at it. And then it was also, I believe it was the same off site then where you had basically said, kind of laid out that we were going to begin the early stages of going through the franchise. And you alluded to me remembering the numbers. I think the year prior, our bottom line was like right around 180, give or take. And then you had. Then you basically said, it's like, okay, well, we basically spent close to about 100, you know, basically just moving the shop from Lane to Bellingham and, you know, installing the artificial putting green or turf putting green and retaining wall and split drill fence and all that that we did out there. And basically part of that was just keeping the crew busy in January and February a little bit. Right. Because we didn't have winter services or anything at that point in time. But it was basically kind of like, yeah, we spent about 100 kind of moving, moving the shop. And then you're going to take, you know, basically about another hundred, you know, to kind of go start the initial steps of franchising and so forth. And it was just kind of one of those meetings where it's just kind of like putting all. Putting all the pieces together. And it's just like. I mean, part of it in my mind was like, he's really going to start trying to franchise with $100,000. This isn't like, sure, maybe you open the door, but like, obviously, I mean, and obviously you weren't trying to complete it with that. But. But I just remember thinking it was like, this isn't going to work. Like, this isn't going to go smoothly. But at the same time, like, I. I mean, I wanted, like, that's the reason that I was still there. Right? Like, I wanted. I knew the. I knew the plan, if you will, and this was beginning to implement that plan. But it's just like, this is all we have. This isn't going to work. And those guys are already mad anyway, so, like, this isn't going to go well. So I guess kind of question goes is like, I still look back at that and then kind of just be like, kind of, why so open? Like, I mean, that was kind of like open book management kind of before.

Crash course in open book management.

Sure.

It's like, maybe we'll close the book.

No, now you see it, now you don't. Yeah, like, you know, open book management is actually easier when you're not making money. Because very. For me, because, like, hey, we're not making money. That's why no one's getting bonuses or raises, and there's nothing fancy around here. When you're starting to make money now, you actually have to have like, a real discussion about where does this money go. And then if you look at, like, even the tech, big tech, their profit margins have eroded over the past five to 10 years. And it's mostly, it's very normal for a business that grows that fast and is that profitable to eventually slowly come down. And a lot of it has to do with just the employees being like, hey, like, we want a piece of this too. And that's fine, that's normal. And it's baked into their valuations. The problem with small businesses now, you. You have. When you have profit, there's this determining factor of are we spending this profit on retention and the employees and giving back to the employees in the short term, or do we take that money, invest in the business to potentially in five years, give them a better opportunity inside the business? Right. Like, and, and what's hard to explain to employees sometimes, which you understand a lot of times, and that is there is repercussions to just giving you everything right now because it means, you know, we kill. If we take the chicken's egg today, there is no chicken that's gonna hatch. And so at that moment in time when literally is our first couple years of being really profitable, meaningful of anything, it was like, I knew that every dollar was gonna have to go into the growth if we're gonna franchise and like, the legal side and all the rest of it. And so, yeah, like, to the employee that was like, oh, there's great margins, like, there's lots of money made. I should ask for a truck and for a company car and all these other. And that's what happened during that meeting. And I had to be like, I. I knew that if we did that we would not be able to afford the franchise. And we did it by the skin of our teeth. But if we would have also been like, oh, yeah, now you get money and you get money like, yes, I might have kept some of those employees because we lost them. But there would not we not have been able to grow the same way we would not have been able to franchise, and we wouldn't have been able to create positions that now today I'm okay, I'm proud of what we can pay that person, and I'm proud that we can offer you these benefits. But we would have never got there if, like, too early in the process, we started giving those benefits away. Like, we only started health, health benefits this year, right. Was it beginning this year? Last year?

This year, right. Yeah, this year.

And like that was a big struggling point. I wanted to offer it, but I knew like every moment I could delay of that, that was like $8,000 a month that I would save that could go towards growing the business to allow the expansion so that someone could make, you know, 30 or $40 an hour instead of 15. Right. And give some upward mobility for someone. So there's always that trade off. There's no right or wrong because you have to balance those two out. You can't just be like, oh yeah, you need 30 years, like vision. Or else you're not, you're not cut out for us. You're going to lose people, you're going to lose good people. And we lost some of those people in that meeting that actually I felt good employees, but they, they wanted the short term and, or maybe they just couldn't hold their breath. Like there's. Everyone's in a different situation, family wise, financially, they can't hold their breath for a year or two. And even for you, like, I kind of wanted to give you that door out a couple years ago, like, hey, I'm okay with you leaving for a couple years because we don't have this ready yet. And if you come back in a couple years, that's fine. Right. And so I understand that. I don't blame anybody because it's hard as an employee to see that much money on the table and be like, oh, so I'm not getting a piece of that. And, and I get that. I understand.

Yeah. So then I guess just kind of following up on that a little bit in terms of when you pull the trigger on franchising. You know, one of the reasons that you said that you did it is you feared that you were going to be losing some good people along the way. You know, mainly, you know, Lonnie, as I know you've mentioned in particular before, but possibly Liz, possibly others as well. So kind of following up to that last question as well. Were you ready financially to franchise when you look back on it, or, or, or was that decision maybe rushed a little bit out based on the fear of people leaving?

I don't think there's ever been a perfect, there'd be ever be a perfect time. I did believe that and I was like, I really believe that there would never be a moment where like, ah, we're ready, like, everything is perfect. Because it wouldn't be like, we're still not perfect, we're still trying to fix Things and improve things and make adjustments. So, like, if I ever waited for perfection before I pulled the trigger on franchising, we would still be at zero locations and, like, ready to franchise soon. So I ultimately knew for us to pull the trigger, I'd learn way more in the failure than if we waited five more years to get it just right. And so, that being said, financially, I was pretty naive. I think honestly, when I first pulled the trigger in terms of what the costs were going to be, like, I was like, okay, I knew like, 100 grand I'd get all my franchise disclosure documents, operations manual, franchise agreement, Everything would get buttoned down. We get licensed in like, 20 states. Like, I was kind of ready for that. What I wasn't ready for was the promises I made of, like, no franchise fee for the first eight months. I gave people like, three, four, $5,000, which wouldn't even cover the legal fees to get initial fees. So I didn't prepare necessarily for the ramp up for the first year where we just, like, lost money hand over fist because, like, zero revenue, lots of expenses. That was. That was the Prof. Loss statement. So it was tough. But, you know, I put everything I had into it, and I just figured that that's the only way to play. Play the game. Like, we are going to be really good or we're going to just fall flat in our face. And every single sale for the first seven or eight, I cried after because, like, I just knew, like, that was like, I knew I had to get to 10 right away. And we got 10 coming to the first training. And that was like, I didn't believe we could do it. I figured if we get 10, we get a thousand. So we're still on the. On our way to a thousand. But we got 10. And that was, like, huge to me. I knew that, like, every single sale, because at that point I was selling. I knew, like, the. The. The future of the business hinged on making those sales. And that was pretty relieving to get.

It's like you're stealing my questions or something. Because very next one was selling franchise number one, if you will.

Yeah, Thomas.

Thomas are in Denver.

Littleton.

Yeah.

What was I was gonna say, what was your reaction that night after he first signed? Like, somebody outside of Augusta pays you money to say, yeah, I want to join Augusta, be part of that.

Yeah, dude. Like, I'll always be indebted the first 10, right? Because the first 10. There had never been a franchisee training. There had never been anyone. They couldn't call anybody like, after 10, at least the group who came later could call the first 10 at least be like, how is training? Is Mike a real person? Like, is Augusta just a marketing gimmick? Is it a pyramid scheme? But, like, the first 10, man, like, if and when we go public, they'll be the ones who get, like, a little kickback. Because, like, I don't know why you would join. Like, Kevin Fairburn, he's number two. Like, no idea why in the world they would join. Supportive from day one. In a kid that's like 20, what would have been 20 to 23? Like, it was ridiculous. I would never, never suggest anyone do it, by the way. I would. And so I think it's crazy that they would do it and eternally grateful for it. But my thought during that moment, man, it was like, okay, I have to deliver now. Like, because everything's building up okay, Legally got set up. And then it's like, okay, now I'm gonna sell people. Okay, okay. Like, this is gonna be great for your business, and we're gonna help you and all this stuff. And then it's like, oh, snap. They. They. And they just put, like, their life savings in this thing, and he's gonna quit his job and he's gonna go start this thing, and I'm responsible to make sure he's successful. Like, then it was like, wait, on the. Like, on the shoulders right now you have to, like, deliver. And that was very difficult, and I think we made plenty of mistakes. But I did make sure that they paid very little franchise fees for the first eight months. They didn't pay anything. And they also had massive reduction. Like, their. Their franchise licenses that they have now have, like 5 and 10x in value since they bought them to just their franchise license. I feel at least that's been a good investment. But, no, I'm eternally grateful to Thomas, Kevin, Jeff Bromley. Like, there's just that whole first group of ten. I'm just. I don't know why you would ever join. Like, you literally. You have to be crazy. And so I'm very thankful. Very much so.

Alrighty. So I'm, I guess, kind of jumping forward a bit, basically, to kind of where we're at now. And that's kind of as we kind of get ready for the next stage of growth with Augusta, if you will, and kind of get closer to the point where, you know, maybe some franchisees start look. Start looking more at opening up a second location and various items of that nature, kind of along those lines. I know one of the things that you would are going to do is basically try and build a database of kind of GM candidates that, you know, some of those franchise, current franchisees can call and say, I'm so and so looking to open a second location, you know, 30 miles down the road looking for a GM for that. I mean, and granted, I guess obviously they may have their own employees from the original location that they want to go do that. But I mean, or you know, potentially just a new franchisee that basically just wants to be hands off and have a GM as well. But I guess in terms of trying to look at building that GM database in the current labor market, where do you envision, you know, a number of the people that go into that database coming from? Yeah, so the ideal, I guess, where do they come from and kind of what does that candidate look like?

Yeah, like, and Even, even like two years ago when I put out a thing for GMs, I had 60 some odd candidates. This year we'll have probably less than 20. So it's definitely going to be harder. And what I think is going to be more common is that the GM is just a frontline staff member that gets promoted from within. That's going to be much more common because they already know the systems. They're confident that, hey, if I can work out in the field and I know how to run the CRM, I could probably just be trained for a weekend and be good to go. And that's true. And so we've trialed this out with Mount Vernon next week. Actually my general manager is handing it off to someone who only worked at his location for two months, handing off to him, and then we'll probably in spring start one next to it and bring someone else from their organization over. So it'll become more of a farm process, kind of like, you know, AAA double A, you know, the majors trying to farm up talent from entry level to become your gm, that's gonna be much more common than to me like, oh, here's this database of people who just randomly wanted to join Augusta but not become a franchisee. That's a very special person because it's someone who believes in everything we're doing, is willing to take less, but is not willing to become an owner. So the only reason that they would not be joining as a franchisee is usually financially, they don't have the capability to. And that's usually short term. And it's just difficult to find that type of person because if you have that tolerant of risk to like move across the country like Chuck did to become my gm. Like you are entrepreneurial, like you have something in your brain that's twisted a little bit. And so you're probably going to want to do your own thing down the road. So it's hard to find that type of person. It's a very unique situation where they're going to be a GM and move. For example, it's much more likely that you have an employee is frontline staff member that you're able to promote from within. And especially using like the working GM model where they don't have to manage 20 people, that's going to be very likely. That that is how people scale across. Augusta Nation is having, you know, multiple locations and they just constantly are farming their best employees and popping them into a new location. Oh, this person's like too good to be a mower guy. And they've worked for us for a couple of years, great GM and they can just plug them in because at 500,000 revenue, they just need to manage three to four employees. And that's going to be very doable. And we are trying to prove right now with my locations that you know, you can do a 500,000 in revenue, have a few employees, have someone who doesn't have a the best leadership money like marketing. They're just plugged into the system with a few employees. They can manage those and you know, run a 20% profit margin business. And that's not nothing to like ride home about. You're not making millions of dollars when you start copying and pasting that time and time again every five miles along a corridor like the i5 one that starts to make a good, good sense and gives opportunity to the guys in the front line, which I'm still very, very passionate about.

Good to know. I like that. So yeah, I guess I was thinking more kind of trying to come a little bit from the, the outside perspective. But yeah, I mean obviously you're big on, you know, kind of promoting from within as well, which is kind of one of the cores of Augusta. So jumping way down the road then I say that basically you need a thousand locations to, you know, professionalize the industry, if you will. I asked you your reaction to selling the first one. What's your going to be your reaction when you sell number 1,000?

We'll probably go out for dinner or something like that. That's about it.

You're gonna like have an acknowledgement?

Well, even at 100 we'll probably do like a dinner. I don't know, like we'll do something.

But you're not big on the acknowledgments. So that's.

I need to improve in that though. I really do. Like, I know, like that's a humble brag in the entrepreneurial world to do that sort of thing. Like, oh, I don't, don't worry about like taking a finish lap, but I need to improve in that. It's not right as a leader to do be that way because there are people inside the organization that do need acknowledgment and recognition. And even though I don't hold myself accountable to do some of those things to myself or like for the organization and have like a party, there are people that need that. And that's not wrong. That's just different forms of like you talk about love languages. There are different ways of recognition. And some people really need like, hey, you did a great job. We hit this milestone. Like to me it's like it's a number. Who cares? Like, that's not why we're here. But that does not mean that is, that is any more virtuous than someone who needs the pat on the back or needs the victory lap or wants the company party. Right? So when we hit a thousand, there's a very good chance we'll probably have a party. Not because of what I'm like, oh, we need to spend $5,000 on doing a company wide party. It'll be because there's probably 50 people in the organization by then that that is like a meaningful thing, that they want to see some recognition over that. And there's going to be some, you know, prizes handed out and cash handed out and it'll be for them and for me though, personally, it just, it'll be like another day.

Something, something to look forward to.

Not that I need the recognition.

Like finally.

Ten years from now I'll be able to do that.

Sorry, jumping back to kind of a video that you had mentioned or something you mentioned in a video a little while ago that I know is kind of at Lee's pushing a little bit, if you will, but you basically kind of for the first time acknowledge publicly kind of the, the end goal, if you will, or the exit strategy for Augusta and that. And that is basically, you know, going public, as you mentioned. Why, why mention that when it's still, you know, you don't have a really timeline for it. Right. You know, when it's still maybe 15, 20 years away. Kind of like what's the, what was the reasoning? Well, I guess twofold what was the reasoning and kind of Saying that publicly and then I guess two. Has that always been the vision? Has that always been the end game or was it ever selling out to a private investor or something like that?

Yeah, it's like from, from almost day one, I'd say this the first year of Augusta, I knew we were franchises and I knew we'd go public eventually. How that all happens, you know, things come up based upon the people that come into the organization. Like, you know, web design. We get added because we get good team members. You know, the media sides taken off because we got good team, lawn care, bookkeeper. Like, you know, you're doing the CPA thing now. Like the team is the one that make that happen. But. And so how it happens is irrelevant, but it's going to. The reason I told internally the team is because there are people that need a clear picture of where we're going. And for me to operate on a day to day basis, it's easy when I have that goal, that big of a goal, right. And if I don't share that with other people that also need that type of goal to like stay in the game. Because like you take something really amazing like building a great business or having an amazing relationship or a family or whatever it is, but you break that up over a course of, you say a thousand days. Well, it doesn't seem like anything changed from day one to day two or from day 57 to 58, but over the course of a thousand of those days, they made something really, really awesome. A great family, an organization, a business, whatever it might be. And it's very challenging for employees or people inside of an organization to get to get through the monotony of day 57 to 58, when they don't see much, just seems like they're doing the same thing. Or worse yet, day 100 to day 300, where they did the same exact thing for 200 days. It's hard for them to stay in that without the vision of what happens at day 1000. Right. I have the pleasure of knowing where we're going. And so Lee really put a lot of pressure on me. Like, you need to share this because there's other people in the organization that don't know that and you'll lose good people. And so he was right about that. So I acknowledge that and told everyone internally in terms externally, why I would say it, that's a little bit of a challenge because I think I don't like saying the external part because twofold one, it sounds like bragging. Like when I have not done it. I'm not even close. Like we're not even, like we're not even close to winging going public. We. You have to at least 15x our revenue to become a meaningful amount on the stock exchange. Unless you're going to be a penny stock which is. You're not really not wise. So like, you know, we're not even close. So to say it comes across kind of like you're bragging. But then secondarily, if I would have recorded and put publicly that meeting that you were in. When we talk about going franchising, we have all these locations, everything. Everyone would have thought the same exact thing. So the question is, how soon in the game do you start sharing publicly so other people can learn from it? So it be the vlog or all the rest of where I always am questioning like, should I really be sharing this? Like I'm putting these things out there. It's like, well, I would have died to see people that would have. Now everyone focuses on the pays attention. But I don't want to. I don't care about that. That's not where I'm at. I'm not here. I'm back having the team meeting and trying to tell guys I'm a franchise. Like there's other people there in that location. Like that that's more meaningful. And so the question to me is like, when am I going to start actually giving the information out to people? And so that way they have a track record and go not. Not when they were going public. All right, I start this daily vlog. Go back to the time when like I couldn't find employees and like I didn't know what I was doing and I was trying to figure out payroll and like I was taking debt and I couldn't figure out how to get loans on a head. Our first headquarters building, like that will be meaningful. And I want to do that because I really admire people. And then I go back and I'm like, sick. Their first video, they're already making millions of dollars. Like I can't really. I don't have a. I don't. I can't relate to that. And so I want to be someone that when someone says you are doing great or you're so lucky or I really admire you, I say, look, you're just getting started. Will, watch this video. This is 2017, this is 2016. This is me with this tiny little microphone in the corner, like this piece of garbage camera with three employees and just watch the whole thing. Watch everything. And so that Means sometimes sharing stuff that I'm like, I don't know if I should say this, but. And you're a little bit afraid. Like, I don't really care what people think, but asterisks. I care what people think because, like, it sounds really stupid to say we're gonna go public and we're gonna have a billion dollar company and we're gonna be the biggest landscaping company. Like, that's, you know, very against my, like, back to being a preacher's kid. That's not what you're supposed to do. So you're supposed to be humble and you're supposed to like, you know, just take life as it comes and be grateful for every moment. And I am. But I also want to be that. The 17, 18 year old that can look at what I did and be like, I can actually see the steps that he took and where he said things that were. Seemed outlandish at the time and he did it. It. So that's, that's kind of why I shared publicly.

Not the best follow up question to that then, but I wrote it down so I got to ask it. But kind of stemming from, you know, Lee basically on his interview, kind of asked you what you would do, you know, if you got basically a million in cash tomorrow and then 10 million in cash tomorrow, then 100 million in cash tomorrow. But you're trying to put something, I would say tangible, but this isn't tangible to that Mark Cuban, you know, Shark Tank extraordinaire, hypothetically comes to find Mike Andes and basically offers, you know what, you're never going to sell majority stake in it prior to going public. But Mark Cuban comes to you tomorrow, 10 million for 33%. For Augusta, your answer is 10, yes, right now?

Yes, I would take 10 million for 33%. Ultimately, the reason is because there's, there's. I can do something with that money, right? Like if someone, if, if, if in six months from now or a year, someone came along, I'd be more questioning because I don't know where I'd put that money. Inside the company. Company, right. I would. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to spend it. But like, it's not like inside the business. I know where to spend that money. And partly, like with that one, the only reason I'd take it because the valuation is so out of whack, like we're not worth that much money in on paper. So like it'd be fiduciary. Stupid of me not to accept that deal. But let's say someone comes along and offers me 5 million for 33%. That's not something I would take simply due to the fact that, like, I don't know what I'd do with the 5 million to improve our valuation by 15 million. I don't know. I don't know how to do that right now. So just plugging money in is not really a good situation. And what we've bought into an entrepreneurship is like the raise and the fundraiser.