How I Built a Business That Does $12,000,000+ Annual Revenue💰

You don't want to be doing your job. You are tired, you are emotionally and physically drained. You are financially struggling.

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. And today I'm going to be talking about the five things that I had to learn. The things I had to beat my head up against. As we've grown Augusta Lawn care to over 65 locations as of this week. And this year, we'll do eight figures in revenue. So fairly sized business. And these five things will work whether you are building a million dollar business or you're trying to get to $100,000 business, or if you're trying to build a 10 figure business. And so these five things I've had to learn the hard way and I hope that by me sharing them, you're able to kind of get around them or hopefully alleviate some of the pain that I had to go through. And in learning these lessons.

First thing I've learned is that I have a lot to learn and I don't know everything. A lot of times because I share in the public, whether it be podcasts or videos, I can come across like I'm very confident and I am in most of my decisions in business. And that's why I talk about business. Cause it's something that I feel I'm pretty good at. I feel like I do have a lot of confidence in business, but I still have a lot to learn about a lot of other things. And as the business has grown, it's not just about business. You talk about people and leadership and finance and a whole lot of other things outside of just business. So I have a lot to learn. And in my opinion, a business will only grow to the extent that the owner is willing to learn and expand themselves personally. So if you have limiting beliefs, if you have limiting factors in your skillset, the business will always only grow to, to that level of your ability to change and go and evolve and continually learn in those things that are otherwise going to limit you.

The second thing I've learned is that you have to be pure in your intent. So knowing what your intents are for the business and why you do certain things in the business is in my opinion is extremely important. Because people are going to question you, they're going to question your decisions, especially grow the organization very quickly. And you have a lot of employees. What you have to know is why you're doing what you're doing from a very high level so that when people question you or they think you're doing something wrong, you know that, you know that, you know you had the right intent. And that doesn't mean you're going to not make mistakes, because you will, and I have plenty of times. But to be able to put the bedrock of your decisions on the fact that I have pure intent, and that is to help other people, that gives you a lot of courage to be able to act decisively, knowing that you're going to make mistakes, but your intent is correct. You're not trying to scam people, you're not trying to get around people or hurt or damage anybody else. You're only trying to do good. And that will give you a lot of decisiveness in making decisions flow faster instead of questioning yourself. Because people will pick you apart, they will pick your decisions apart, and they will disagree with you, and you will be wrong. And I have been wrong and am probably wrong on many things now. But to know that I made that decision with pure intent is extremely important.

The third thing is something I always preach on the podcast and the videos, and that is delegation. But for myself personally, I used to be and still have tendencies to want to micromanage and get my fingers into everything. I do like being busy. I like having a lot of things in the air, juggling a lot of things, and I enjoy that. It's part of being an entrepreneur. But the bottom line is, the more you delegate, typically the bigger your business can become. And without delegating a lot of things in your business, you will always be the bottleneck. And typically, when I've delegated after having fear of doing so, it's always surprised me to the upside. Whether it be delegating sales or delegating hiring or delegating accounting, whatever part of my business that I handed over to someone else, answering the phones, doing emails, and I just blindly delegated them somehow, some way, it's always worked out better than when I did it. And this is entrepreneur. That's tough because we, we think we do everything great and wonderful and we're the best at everything in our business. And maybe to some extent that might be true, and you might be more efficient than everyone else in your mind, but typically when you hand things off, it somehow gets better. It gets done better than you did it before. And at the very least, it frees you up to do things that are more important for the business, even if someone else does it a little bit less better than you.

The fourth thing that I've learned as we've grown to 65 plus locations is that P and P is very important. Not P for P, P for P is pay for performance. And we've developed that system here at Augusta Lawn Care for paying our employees. But P and P is something different. It's pivot and push. And without it, it will absolutely cap an individual's as well as a business's potential. And whether it be in terms of growing the business, whether it be someone's personal development and their ability to grow in their career, if they cannot pivot, that is, make changes and adapt to changes quickly, and they cannot push, that is grind and get through the times that are really difficult, the times that are not fun. The things that, you know, everyone thinks about entrepreneurship, like going up to a stage, everyone's clapping and there's music and there's smoke and everyone's cheering and. Or after a big quarter, you're going in an ipo. And guess what? The parts that you don't see is the push parts. The parts where you don't want to be doing your job, that you are tired, that you are emotionally and physically drained, that you are financially struggling. That's the push part. The pivot part is the ability to see that you need to make a change and adapt quickly on a dime and make decisions decisively. The inability to have P and P push and pivot will absolutely cap your personal and business potential.

The fifth thing that I've learned over the past couple years as we've really grown the business, is that you have to fall in love with the game. There's a lot of ups and downs in entrepreneurship. Every single day is an absolute whirlwind of an emotional roller coaster. Everything from employee issues to customer issues to franchisee issues to then everyone. Within that framework, they're having family issues or health problems or financial problems. There's always something that is going to keep you up and down. Then you can win a big deal. And then there's good and there's bad. It's an emotional roller coaster, and you have to fall in love with the game. You have to fall in love with the thrill of the ride, and in doing so, also not allow your emotions to get in the way of you taking action. You can't let your pride or emotions dictate what actions you take in the business, because you're on an emotional roller coaster, and yet you can't let those things dictate the actions you're taking. So how do you do that? Fall in love with the game. You fall in love with the fact that this business thing, this entrepreneurship thing, this small company you've tried to birth and try to grow and build is actually working on you. You're not working on the business. You're not working in the business. The business is working on you. It's molding you. It's actually training you to become a better human being. It's training you how to be a better leader, how to be a better father, mother, participant of society and community. That's what a business is actually all about. The business is working on you. And when you fall in love with the game, when you fall in love with entrepreneurship, you realize this is not about working on a business or building a company that makes money. It's about going to work to let the business work on you. That's what push and pivot is all about. The business is working on you. It's molding your character into something that's moving, much more valuable. And that pressure that's caused that pressure emotionally and financially creates diamonds. And that focus and that falling in love with the process of becoming a diamond is the hardest part. Falling in love with the pressure and the pain that entrepreneurship is from an emotional, mental, physical, and financial standpoint, that is who will win the game. Because you will not quit. Quit, and you will not get off the grinding stone of pressure that will make diamonds as long as you don't quit. I hope that was helpful. I've learned so much. I have so much more to learn. And regardless of what any public perception is that I might be confident or young and be able to figure things out, everything I touch turns to gold. Just know I'm like any other human being that has to learn, adapt, fail, and I make mistakes every day, single day. I'm Mike Andes, and we'll see you tomorrow. Hey, everyone. I'd like to invite you to Landscape Summit. It's a conference I have in January. It's gonna be the 13th, 14th and 15th of January, 2022. It's here locally, and I'm really looking forward to meeting other landscapers like yourself, that want to grow their business.