How Much Money Tigran Gertz ACTUALLY Makes! [Revealed at THE END]

No, it's not. Clickbait. Yes, we are actually going to show how much Tigrin Gertz makes from his businesses, in my opinion, based upon information that he has shared. I'm Mike Andes, and you're listening to Landscape Business Course. If you haven't watched the video that made a couple days ago about Tigrien Gertz and his video concerning debt, click the video. I guess it'd be up here. Click that link up there. And you need to watch that first. Do not continue watching this video until you've watched that video and then come back to this one. Because let me tell you the story of kind of what happened last night. I made a video about Tigran based upon the information that he had given in two videos. One about his truck that he purchased for $110,000 and financed the whole thing, and another one about debt and how he was $366,000 in debt on equipment and trucks in his business. So I know right now, some people are, like, watching the whiteboard. Don't look at the whiteboard. These are some of my scribbled notes. I'm going to explain all of them in detail, but I want to give some context first. First of all, for those of you who have commented and said, oh, Mike, you don't need to apologize or say sorry during your critique of these people. I appreciate that. However, I need to make it very clear that my goal is not to tear people down here. It is absolutely not. It's just to educate and give some perspective to those of you on YouTube that might not see the whole picture. And I want to give some context. And this is actually why the reason I'm going to do today what I do with Tigran is exactly why, like, four or five months ago, I started sharing my profit and loss statements from all my businesses because I wanted you all to see the full picture. I didn't want you just to see Augusta and judge me on that or even look at it and be, oh, it's so great. I want you to see the whole picture, because the whole picture is really what tells the full story. So I'm going to try to give you the full picture. Again, this is not his actual financials. I have not seen his tax returns. I'm going to guess based upon a few comments, the videos that he has made, as well as the video that I'm going to paste our entire zoom call that we had together. But let me backtrack a little bit and tell you what happened. So yesterday, I make a 36 minute video detailing exactly my critique of Tigran's debt and the way he looks about financing his equipment and his trucks. I make that video within one hour. People have been commenting on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. And Tigran was nice enough to hop in and actually start talking to other people. Someone tagged him, he watched the video and he started to converse with other people inside the landscape, business course, Facebook group on Instagram, etc. So thank you to Tigram for that, number one, being a great sport. Then he literally DMed me and said, hey, we should call. And I was like, oh, right now? Cause I'm at the gym and I didn't want him to think I was just trying to push him off. So I actually took a picture of myself in the gym on a bench press. And so I said, hey, look, I'll call you in like a few minutes, I'll call you on Zoom. It'll be super cool. And so right away I left the gym, came back to the studio and called him on the Zoom call. And you'll notice in this video, for some reason my webcam on my desktop wasn't working. So you'll see it's like the camera angle's lower. But I'm going to show the entire video that Tigrid and I had and some of the things that we just talked about and I think agreed mostly on. And so I think it's gonna be a lot of fun to watch that. But this is gonna be a long video because I'm going to share before we look at that whole. It's like 40 minutes long. I think before we look at that Zoom call, I'm going to actually walk through the information that he shared in comments videos and in our video that we're about to listen to, I'm going to go through the information that he shared and talk about what I think he made in terms of money. So first of all, T said, you'll see later in this video. But for most of you who are not gonna watch this whole video, let me be very clear. Tieran gave me permission and asked me to make more videos about him and prodding and kind of doing that. So if you think I'm being out of line by talking about his numbers and how much he made, he specifically says in the following Zoom call to make more videos about him. So I'm taking that permission and I am going to do what I do because this is how I think you'll see I'm not making notes in a Zoom Call. But.

When people are giving numbers, this is constantly what I'm doing in the back of my mind, whether they're talking about taxes, whether they're talking about hourly rates. And this is why a lot of times people get frustrated when they listen to my consulting calls and they ask why. For the first 20 minutes, I'm just asking questions. I'm gathering this data so that I can get some really valuable information. Now, I would love to do a deep dive on Tigran and get some of these holes that I'm gonna be assuming today filled in and actually get a really clear picture. But this is the reason I'm really making this video and I made the last video is Cause I know Tigran's making another video, so. So make sure you subscribe to his channel. And he says he wants to get to 100,000 subs, so we should help him do that. But first of all, the reason why I'm doing this video, and I did the last one, is because he's making another video about debt. And I want him to answer some questions. And I'm not trying to do like a I gotcha moment or anything like that or make him look bad. I'm trying to push him and prod a little bit so that he can share more and know what questions we need answered so we can learn and we can improve our businesses. So I encourage him to share and explain, and hopefully this will kind of move things around a little bit so he shares even more. So I'm going to share the entirety of our Zoom call. The only things that I edited out of the Zoom call were swear words from Tigran and cuss words. You all know I never talk like that. And I want you to be able to watch this video in front of your family and kids and not have to feel bad about it. So that's the only thing I edited out of the video. It's completely raw. Besides, you'll hear the drops in audio. And that's just when he was swearing. And I don't think badly about people who swear. I personally just don't do it. And so that's why this is my show. And I can cut out cuss words. So I'm gonna do that. Let's go ahead and jump to this whiteboard. This is the fun part. And then if you're really interested and you like that, you can actually hear some of the dialogue between me and Tigran. And you can kind of see he's obviously never heard of my material or heard about me at all. So in that video I kind of share a little bit about what we do at Augusta and and kind of what I've been up to. So without any further delay, let's talk about how much Tiger and Gertz made in 2019 based upon what information we have. And I hope he shares more. Okay, so this is a bunch of hoopla to most of you and that's fine. Don't try to read ahead. I'm gonna walk you through this whiteboard of my thoughts here. So when we finished our call, I literally just came over to this whiteboard and started jotting this down. That's why it's all messy. Okay. I could have made this nicer and done it like that. But instead of doing the whole iPad thing like last time, I'm gonna do on the whiteboard and just the way that I kinda think in terms of just throwing stuff up on a board. I'll walk you through it. It makes perfect sense to me. I'm gonna make it perfect sense to you. And again, I think this is gonna be really helpful for you when you think about your business and when you think about quickly analyzing numbers in businesses. This is the privilege that I have of seeing so many businesses and P&Ls every single day of being able to look at these things pretty quickly. Alright, first and foremost, section 179. So this is something on the last video that I talked about on Tigrans. So again, these are my random thoughts and notes after talking to Tigran. I'm going to walk you through them. Section 179. Section 179 allows you to take the full asset value and depreciate it in year number one on a given asset. So on the last video, when I Talked about his $110,000 truck, I said that he was only going to be able to deduct that over a five year period, which the IRS typically gives for a vehicle in terms of straight line depreciation. So it's like $22,000 per year. He'd be able to depreciate, but he's 100% correct. A couple people mentioned in the comments, yes, you can take a section 179 which would allow you to write off the full amount on years number one. Now the problem with that is that if you do not continually keep buying equipment, you're eventually going to have to pay the tax bill. And so again, I'm not a huge fan of using the section 179 unless you're continually growing at an extremely fast pace. Because if you take $110,000 deduction this year, the next four years, you're not gonna take any deduction on that vehicle. And so you're gonna have to buy something new and buy something new and buy something new. And that's what leads to people getting into a massive snowball of debt, in my opinion. So section 179. Now, in the comment section of the last YouTube video, Tigran made this comment that said it was either he either needed to spend $110,000 on a truck or by doing so, he said he was gonna save $50,000. He said that by doing $110,000 expense, he was going to save $50,000. Now.

I don't know how he came up with that number. I think he's just kind of rounding up. Because the corporate tax rate in California is 28%. And the reason for that is because you got 21% federal and 7 to 8%. I'm just rounding a little bit. 7 to 8% in California for state corporate tax. So corporate tax of 28%. So if he took $110,000, he's going to be out 32,000, $33,000 in that first year depreciation if he took a section 179. All right, so I think when he made that comment, he was just rounding up a little bit. And that's fine. I'm not holding him against that. I'm just saying for clarity, again, you do not buy $110,000 truck and get a $50,000 deduction.

Saving money. He might have saved 32,000 to $33,000 in taxes by buying that $110,000 vehicle. Getting the one year depreciation in a section 179, again, I don't think that's a great decision. The reason for that is because, remember, he paid 110 for an $84,000 vehicle, which basically meant he paid $26,000 in financing, taxes, warranty, all this other stuff on top of the value of the vehicle, and that really wipes out his $32,000 in savings on taxes. I do agree that the value of a warranty is valid, especially on a new vehicle. That's awesome. But watch the last video for a more full description of the $110,000 truck. But I wanted to put that one line item in there because it's definitely something I did not talk about in my last video doing so, because that's exactly what he did. He did a section 179, 50k savings. Now this is important because this builds on some of the numbers I needed to know how much he makes. So again, I would love for Tigran to correct me on all of these things that I'm assuming. Alright, so in this video that you're about to watch, at the end of this one right here, after I do the white board and I show the zoom video, Teerden says that his 2009 tax was going to be like $250,000. He said a quarter of a million. And I do believe this is kind of a little bit of. Again, he's just rounding up, right? So it's probably 240, maybe 260 somewhere around that. Maybe, maybe he's going down, who knows? But he said 250 based upon the way that he was conveying it in that moment, he was trying to make that tax number look big. So I actually feel like he's probably rounding up a little bit. But again, these assumptions, I'm going to use his words, alright? So I'm going to use everything that he has said to try to determine how much he made. So let's assume that his tax liability was going to be $250,000 at the end of 2019. Because he said at the end of 2019, his tax accountant called him up and said, hey, you're going to owe a quarter million dollars to the government if you don't do something about it. And that's why he said he went and bought $110,000 truck so that he could get a section 179 and in his words, save $50,000 on taxes. Okay? So what we're going to do is we're going to use his words. I'm not going to try to inflict what I believe the actual numbers are. To be more precise, I'm going to use what he said, alright? 2000 tax was going to be about a quarter million dollars. That's why he bought the truck. And he bought the truck and said he saved $50,000 in taxes by doing so. Now I believe it's more like $32,000 to 33,000. But let's just give him the benefit of doubt. Let's say it's $50,000 in taxes that he saved by buying that truck. That would bring his tax liability for 2019 to $200,000.

Alright?

That's 250,000 that he said he was going to be owing minus his deduction of section 179 is going to bring his total taxable income to $200,000. Now this is where the fun begins. And if I've lost you, don't worry about it. Let's just say right now he is, we are going to assume based upon what he's told us that his total taxable income was 200 or sorry, his total tax bill, I need to make. Sorry, I apologize for that. Not taxable income. This is his tax bill, how much he was going to pay the IRS? $200,000. So we can take that and we can then start figuring out what his take home pay was, what his taxable income was based upon a 43.5% tax rate, which is what I believe he falls into in the state of California, which is an income tax bracket that I feel he's going to fall into. It could be marginally lower, but it's going to be very close to this. But based upon a 43.5% tax rate, he would then have had to be, this would be his taxable income, $460,000. Alright, we're going to get into a second if you're screaming right now, well this is a personal income tax, this is not corporate. But we're going to get into that. Alright but let's just say for now if he said that he paid $200,000 in 2019, assuming a 43.5% tax rate, that would mean that his take home pay was $460,000. Let's all just step back for a moment though and say congratulations. Right now I know I'm going to try to tear all these numbers apart and some people are going to say I'm making Tigran look bad. Let's just step back and say this guy's almost making half a million bucks take home pay. Congrats to him, awesome job. You know, if he took $460,000 home and paid $200,000 in taxes, he had $260,000 in the bank last year. Congrats to him. Could be more, could be less. This is what I'm gathering based on the data that we have. Alright now so based upon the information we have right now, his take home pay in 2019 would have been $460,000. Now I personally just again knowing some other things, I think it's around $300,000. And one of the reason that leads me to believe that is in this video that we're about to watch in the zoom call, he said he's nowhere near a million. And just based upon that verbiage, I don't think he's at 460. Again, I could be totally wrong, but this is what I believe. I believe he's more around 300,000 because of this comment about this right here. And I have not rewatched this video and dissected it or anything like that. I literally recorded, did the video with him yesterday, walked over here right after, made these notes, had Thanksgiving today, dinner and all that good stuff with my family, walked over here now and it is 10:15 at night and just gonna go over this. Okay, so I have not rewatched the video and dissect what he said. I just remember two very clear things in terms of the 1 million here and about the $250,000 of what he was going to pay. So let's assume though, again we're going to use what T has said in the day that he has given us, not what I think the number is. So let's assume that his take home pay, his taxable income is $460,000. Now this is the part that people forget and this is the part that Tigran is actually the best at. And I'm so happy that at the end of this video he recognized that YouTube is what he wants to build on because Tigran is an entertainer. He's amazing at it. He's great at getting attention.

And then capitalizing on it and monetizing it. And so congrats to him for that. And some people are gonna think that I'm showing this as like a downer on tger and it's not. Look, if you're great at landscaping, you can make a bunch of money there.

Great.

If you're a great entertainer and you can make great videos, great content, great social media, great courses, all that stuff, then you can make good money there too. Now everyone kind of discounts people when they say, oh, this person makes money on YouTube. I'm not trying to do that. You go try to sell one course, you go make a course, spend several thousand dollars, spend several weeks making it, put it together, and you go try to sell someone on buying that course. It's not easy. It's not easy to build up the trust, build up the rapport with people and actually get them to buy things from you. So this is in no way a downer on Tigran. He has a really great skill of being able to communicate, make great content, make great videos, do really cool jobs and be able to show that and express that to people and teach them. Therefore, he makes good money online. And you're going to see in the Video, it's him. That's what he wants to focus on. And I'm glad he said that because that's where I feel like his strength is actually at. So based upon the information that we have, Goat Gang is a private group that he has. Based upon the monthly subscription fee and the amount of people inside of it, he is making $24,000 per month. With that, I could be slightly off there, but I'm not much. Alright, YouTube. I believe he's making three to four thousand dollars a month from YouTube ads. And I'm basing that based upon how many subscribers I have. And I make about five to six hundred dollars per month in ad revenue. And he has about eight times as many. No, he has about five to six times as many subscribers as me. So I'm going to assume he makes three to four thousand dollars in straight ad revenue. Okay, YouTube ad revenue. Courses. So courses. He sells courses online. He sells a bunch of merchandise, a bunch of other stuff. I believe this is about $12,000. I think this is pretty consistent, conservative, but I do not know this number. This is absolutely. I'm making this up right now, but it's based upon what I know I make in course revenue. It's based upon his size of audience and based upon how many people he's already convinced to pay a subscription fee every month. I feel like he's making at least $12,000 per month on courses. Kudos to him. Great job. Now this is the part though that I want you to focus on, and this is the part I feel is very important for us to realize from these great guys on YouTube is that they are making money from YouTube and that's why they can afford the $110,000 truck. That's why they can afford to have those big payments. If you're making this much money in basically recurring revenue and money that you don't have to get a bunch of employees and overhead for, you have a very high profit margin. This is like 90% profit margin type of stuff here. And we talk about this in our Zoom video today. This is massively profitable in terms of percentage. Therefore, you've got to remember that if you're making $30,000 per month in online revenues, which is basically straight profit, you can absolutely afford $10,000 per month in payments, like we talked about in our last video, for a bunch of equipment, equipment that makes good videos, trucks that make you look good on your videos. And I'm not, I'm not bashing that. I'm just saying that's what he's doing, and that's awesome. He's making $360,000 per year in his online business. Kudos to him. Great job. One thing you hear me talk about in this video, I hope he's doing breaking his corporations up really good. I think he'd save some money on taxes by doing so and making sure that he stays under certain tax brackets, et cetera. However, we're going to assume that he made $360,000 per year in online revenue from his courses, YouTube ads, Goat Gang, et cetera. Okay? Now if we take $360,000 out of the $460,000 in take home pay. So $460,000 take home pay minus what he made at YouTube and from online stuff. And again, this number could be off. There's a good chance. There's obviously some expenses involved with making this stuff in terms of content, things like that. We're gonna get in that in just a minute. And then, so if we take $460,000 take home pay, minus the 360,000 made online, there's $100,000 left. So you'll see this arrow go all the way around here. This goes to his landscaping company, Applewood. Alright, so this Is where that $100,000 in profit is coming from. And so if that $100,000 in profit Is here on a $3 million business, the business is at 3% profit. Alright, and so this is the part where I kind of want some explanation. This is where I want the explanation of everything we've talked about to figure out what this number actually is. Because if I run these numbers correctly, and if all my assumptions so far are erring on what he has said, not on actually what I believe they are, and erring on the side of caution, then this is what the numbers are. I don't feel these other numbers, by the way. I'm going to get into that in a second. But, but based upon what he's told us, this is what it leads me to believe is that Applewood did $100,000 in profit, like all expenses, everything after owner's salary, everything. Not like before the owner's paid or anything like that. Like all, everything done. $100,000 in the bank, which we're not gonna cry about, most of us would take $100,000 and be pretty happy. And on a 3 million dollar business though, that's 3% profit. Now if you're running a 3% profit profit operation, I would be very scared because the viability of that business during an economic Recession, losing some employees, your health being poor, you having to go hire someone if you got sick, you're gonna have to pay them a whole lot more than $100,000 just to run the business of a company that size. So this is not good. And this leads me to my next thing. In this video, you're gonna see that Tigran says that his business, Applewood landscaping, has a 15% profit margin. If that's true, which again, I love to see the numbers. If that's True, on a $3 million business, there should be $450,000 worth of profit coming from this business. If there was $450,000 worth of profit, that alone, that alone would result in $200,000 plus in taxes. If his profit was over 400. Sorry. If his profit was $450,000 on a $3 million business, that would be a 15% profit margin business. If he was taxed on that, he would already be paying more than this $200,000. And that means that he would be making $0 online. So I know this is not true. I know he's making money online, so that's why I put this number in here. But if this is true, if the $360,000 per year, which is awesome because he's killing it, is true, then that means that he's only making $100,000 in profit, bottom line, after everything from Applewood. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying from a percentage basis, very risky. Now all of that is being said, I've made some assumptions here. I made a couple assumptions here down on the online part. I feel like I'm actually pretty close on this number. I did make some assumptions in terms of following what he said here. And I did give him the benefit of the doubt of his take home pay, like what's on his accounts. But anyways, this is actually up here. What I think is actually closer. I'm literally pulling numbers out of my hair right now on this one. But I'm going to explain why I think this. All right? I think that he made online, in actual taxable income, $250,000. The reason for that is he might have made $360,000 in income, but I can guarantee you he wrote off his $25,000 computer. I can guarantee you wrote off cameras. He got a camera guy now. He might have wrote off certain parts of his office, all of that stuff. And he should. That's good. That's awesome.

That's great.

That's why we have the tax code. Good for him. So in this case, he would have wrote off the $90,000, no, $110,000 in expenses off of his online business. Subscriptions, video, putting the courses up, hosting them on websites, creating the websites, all that good stuff. Let's assume that he did. $250,000. Now, that money, unless it's in a corporation of its own, like in corporation, let's assume it gets taxed at 43.5%. If it's like in an LLC or sole proprietorship, or because I know he keeps it separate than his landscape business, it might be in a corporation. But let's assume for a moment though that it is an llc, single member or sole proprietorship, and it's going directly to him and gets taxed at 43.5%. If that is the case, he's paying $108,000 in taxes on his online business. Now let's assume because he has a corporation for his landscaping business, I can almost guarantee you he's taking a salary from the business business, paying taxes on only the salary and then paying a corporate tax rate on the profits from the business. Because with a corporation, your business has its own tax return. In other words, like you pay yourself a salary and you pay income tax on that, but then there's profits that stay in the business and you only pay corporate tax, which in California is 28% instead of 43.4, which I assume he's probably in that tax bracket. Again, I'm assuming that. So I would assume that he has a salary of $80,000 approximately that he's taking from Applewood, which is smart. You don't want to take a huge massive salary because the more you can keep in the corporation, the more you can get taxed this lower tax percentage. So I'm going to assume he has an $80,000 salary at 43.5% of an income tax, personal income tax, which will result in a 34% 4800 tax bill from his salary corporation. Alright, now this is where I'm really just assuming. I'm kind of throwing a number out here. I actually assume it's not $100,000 in profit in Applewood. I actually think it's $202,000 or about $200,000 in profit after everything, after his salary has been taken out. Again, these are separate tax returns. Okay? Separate tax returns. This corporation of Applewood I would assume makes about $202,000 at a 28% tax bracket is going to be $56,000 in taxes. And if you add up all of these things, that equals $200,000, which again, if he's telling the truth about having to owe almost a quarter million dollars, and if he's telling the truth about a negative $50,000 section 179 deduction, and he's telling the truth that he paid $200,000 in taxes and in 2019, if that is all true, these are the numbers that I think he's actually at. I could be completely off, especially in the corporation, and there's a chance that his online business is in a corporation and getting taxed at a corporate rate. But these are the numbers I think are happening based upon the information that I have. I hope that was helpful. And if you don't understand something about the corporate tax rate or something like that, don't worry about it. That's why we have CPAs, that's why we have Landscape Business course and people like Tigray that we can learn from. So without any further delay, this is all the information I got based upon what I'm about to show you here in the Zoom Call that I had literally one hour after the video that I made yesterday about his debt and about his perspective on debt. And the main thing that I wanted to get across to viewers is that, hey, debt is fine, but you don't need debt and you don't need big equipment and you don't need. Need brand new trucks to get started. You can get started with humble stuff. You don't need all the stuff right off the bat. You can grow into it if that's your goal, if that's your objective. So without any further delay, let me go ahead and roll this Zoom Call completely unedited, besides just those few words that I went ahead and dropped out. But thank you so much, everyone. Mike Andes here at Landscape Business Course. Make sure you subscribe. Check out the video from yesterday. And here goes the Zoom call.

Hey, Matt. How are you, man?

Good, man. I'm doing good.

Good, good. I hope you didn't take the video out of context.

No, not at all. The video is good. I liked it.

You're. You're in San Jose, right?

Yes.

Very cool, Very cool. Yeah, I've watched your videos, man.

Dude, the video, the video you made. The video you made is like, it's geared towards, and I, I'd have to agree with you, like, yeah, doing. What'd you say, a hundred grand a month should not get totally ten grand of.

Payments. But in all honesty, my payments, my overhead is around 24,000amonth.

Yeah.

And my payroll is around 15,000 a week.

Yeah.

So I need about 90 grand.

Yeah.

I know you. I know you kill it. Like, I. And that was the main thing. Like, in the Facebook group that I have, that was the main conversation. And that was like, which. Which, by the way, you must be very popular because all of a sudden everyone started chiming in anyways.

But, yeah, that was. The thing is, like, the point was not like, that what you were doing is wrong. It's that 98% of people watching yes. Videos, they think that it is right. It's the same way. Like, for me, people think like, oh, you need, like, you know, 20 trucks. Like, no. And I actually point to you sometimes, hey, look, he doesn't have 50 trucks. He does not have 100 employees. And yet he's killing it. Right.

Yeah.

And so I think just a. It's a good discussion to have, because so many of us on YouTube or that anyone that makes videos and content around business advice and not just I'm mowing my lawn kind of videos or I'm building a wall, you know, my backyard. You know, the ones of us who are actually giving business advice, I think it's a really good balance for us to kind of bring out.

Right.

Because so many of the young guys look at it and like, oh, that's what I need for success. And so.

Mm. The thing. Yeah, I agree with that. So, like, a lot of the guys that are, let's say, doing smaller jobs, like, to me, that, like a ditch, which even if I was. What did you say? What did you say? Those kids, they bought a ditch. Which I was like, 50 grand.

One was. One was 56. One was 50. I want to say seven. He paid off some of it, though.

So they basically bought a 1550, just like I did.

Yeah.

When I just got. And what kind of revenue were they doing?

Both of them were under 200. One of them had been around for, like, there. They've been in business.

If you want to post this in your group, you can. You can record this if you want.

Oh, it. It automatically records. I think it pulls up in my Zoom account after.

Post this in your group. I don't care.

Okay.

Yeah.

I appreciate you being good support, like.

Commenting and stuff, too, because I think it's a good dialogue to have and especially for, like.

This is the thing, like, most people that are like, your size business and my size business, they're not watching YouTube videos. Right. They have figured it out, and they're feeding from people above them, like, Grant, Gary, etc. Right. And that's where you're at. And so I think the problem with YouTube is that it's usually the guys just starting out looking for advice. And so that's why I make those videos.

But, no, I'm thankful you're a good sport, like, comment and everything in the group. I appreciate it.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

If you want to post in your Facebook, you're more than welcome to also send me. Send me a copy, too. I'll post it in mine.

The thing I wanted to, like, really make clear was the reason I bought that truck. And I wasn't really planning on buying that truck, but when my accountant told me, he's like, my hair's looking crazy, he's like, hey, man, you're gonna pay, like, quarter million dollars in taxes. And I was like. I'm like, I know I made money, but I'm like, and that's a good problem, you know? But I just didn't want to pay quarter mil in taxes because as soon as you write that check and that money's gone, like, they don't even give you a pat on the back. They don't do anything and steal your money, and that's it.

Especially in California. Yeah.

So I was like. I was like, dude, I had. I had about. I bought that truck. Literally, I signed the papers for it January 30th. I mean, December.

December 30th.

December 30th. Yeah.

And last year, we did the same similar thing. Like, literally, we bought another company. Like, just like a small, like, landscaper. It was like 75,000. And there's the last day of the year. I'm like, I will pay $10,000 more for this business if you just give it to me before January 1st.

Yeah. How many. How many businesses did you purchase already?

That one we purchased last year, it was like 75 grand. And then way back, I purchased another one that was small. Like, 55 accounts. Like, mowing accounts. But we.

Say it again, sorry, that's all in your area.

Yeah, in our area. Yeah. The franchises are all across the US and Canada. There's 30 of those. Yeah.

Dude. Speaking of which, like, you thought. You thought that the truck was, like, a big deal, right? But, I mean, you're gonna freak out when you see this thing.

This computer was 25 grand.

Oh, you got one at the end of the Mac, bro. That's crazy. Dude.

It's an amazing. This screen is. The screen is beautiful.

I bet the render speed in Final Cuts. Beautiful thing.

Yeah, it's like, it's almost instant. And another thing that a lot of. A lot of the young guys I want. I want them to see is, like, I don't have kids and family and a wife. Like, I chose. I don't. I chose. I don't want that. You know what I mean? Not. Not. I don't want that at all. I definitely do want kids, but I don't want that when I'm in my 20s or my 30s. And I know a lot of guys in your group, and my group, they actually have kids in their 20s and 30s, and that's a decision they made, and they got to stick by the decision because they. They chose to have kids. Now they got to make sure they raise their kids. Like, you cannot abandon your kids. And. But I don't want that right now, you know?

Yeah, I'm the same way.

That's why I'm able to buy, like, this computer. I'm able to buy a truck. Yep. I mean, I'm able to buy, like, because I can't. You know what I mean? My mom always says this. She's like, you. You don't have kids. You don't have a wife. Stop. You know, because my. My thing is, like, I'm pretty. I'm pretty frugal when it comes to, like, spending on my personal level, but, like, I can write something off. Dude, let go.

Yeah. Which I respect. Like, even, like, with your house and everything. I've always noticed that, even from I started watching the videos in the beginning. So, you know, and I'm. Yeah, I'm the same way. So, like, I don't have family or kids or anything. I live at my office. So, like. And I mean, literally, like, I have. I sleep in the closet. So, like, I'm a similar way. And, like, that's why, you know, I'm the same way. Like, it's hard because, like, on YouTube, people don't watch all your videos. Right. And so the same thing happens with me. Like, they do not get that context when they watch one of my videos, when I show, like, I went from this to this to this in revenue, and they're like, oh, like, I need to do that. It's like, no, no, you have a family, and you need to be taking money out to feed your children and put a hat, you know, a roof over their head. You're not going to be able to. And that's fine. That's. That's not. It's not. You're not any better. I'm not any better. Like, it's Just like, that's your life, you know, Just voice. Yeah, totally.

That's all it is. And like the people, you know, the people that troll on me the most is like, I go and I click on their Facebook and I'm like, dude, this guy, this guy drinks, this guy smokes. Like, I don't, I don't buy any cigarettes. You know what I mean? Like, you see me in Miami, I'll be smoking like a hundred dollar cigar. But like, when, when do I ever do that? You know what I mean? Like, I don't drink. I don't actually don't like drinking. I just like working, you know? Yeah, if, if, if I work and spend money on stuff, I can write off. Like, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just my choice. Just like it was their choice to have kids and a wife hates her.

Yeah.

But, but the YouTube comments, they just, they just, they just come after it.

Oh, yeah, I know. Don't worry. Trust me. They come after me all the time.

Like, what I'm. What I'm doing right now is I'm in a, I'm in a position where I. So I get like a report in like November, early November for my accountant, and he tells me what, what I did and that, that 15% figure, you're actually, you're actually very close. It was like, it's hard to tell on some years because like right now what I'm doing is I'm not depositing any checks into my business account just so, like.

The profit goes down so I don't have to pay as many taxes. And then January, I'll deposit like 200, 250 grand.

Oh, so you just do a. You just do the cash accounting instead of accrual, basically.

Well, I'll like, like I have a check right here. It's 50 grand. I'm just gonna hold it.

I'm not gonna deposit it.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So then that way I just get taxed on it next year. It buys me a little more time.

Yeah.

Legal.

Some things that like, you gotta, you gotta know because a lot of people, they keep depositing checks and shit and they're like, oh, we're good, we're good. And then they get hit with the tax bill and they're like, well, yeah.

You just gotta, you gotta know the game a little bit. Yeah.

The only, like one of the, one of the fastest way to grow is just to get equipment. You know what I mean? Like once, once you build it, like, the right people will come and the reason. Oh, one of the other reasons I wanted to like what? I'm gonna put this in my Debt video. I have another Debt video coming out. It's gonna be like, why Debt is Good, Something like that. I gotta work on the title still.

The.

The reason is when, when I was.

You could say, you could say, you could say the haters spoke. Here's my reply on Debt.

Yeah, yeah, I came up with this title. My, my cameraman, he actually came up with that title. But this, this, the, the reason that I wanted to buy all this equipment is when I first started, when I was like 25, 26, I was literally at Home Depot at like 8:30, 9 o' clock at night loading wood for the next day. And I was like, dude, this is killing my time. Like, this is, this is getting really old. And.

The more, the less, the less trucks I buy, the more I have to do. Because one of the things that I freak out about is like efficiency. I need the company to be efficient. Like if my guys, like for instance, on Friday I came to the job site and we had mulch delivered, for some reason they decided to put a tarp down on the road and then do. I'm like, well, why do you guys do that? And they're like, oh, this guy said that he didn't want the driveway to be stained. I'm like, well, just put it on the driveway. I'm like, now that the tarp's gonna get ruined because the ditch which is gonna. And the tarp and literally the ruined. And I'm like, don't ever do that, you know, and that, that's like the little bothers out of me. But I'm very.

Particular in how I want them to do things. So I just, I just run a tight ship.

Have you ever heard of paid for performance? Like, have you or do you or do you pay your guys hourly? Right now?

My guys are hourly.

Okay.

What I'm working on right now is actually with one of my, with two of my leads because in 20, 21, I'm gonna be doing two different crews. So I'm with a five man cruise. Instead of having like all 10 people on one job, I'm gonna go five and five. And I'm getting another, I'm getting another tool trailer. So that's really the way it's gonna do it. But my two, my two leads right now, they're gonna be making 40 bucks an hour and they're gonna be pretty much handling. I finally have trained them pretty well where they can make decisions like.

They can make. They can make lightweight decisions.

Let's call me right now.

They can make, like, lightweight decisions.

And they can communicate with the customer. That's really the biggest thing is, like, communicating with the customer. So then I don't. I don't have to do it as much. Even though I do go in there every day to stop in what's going on, talk to the customer, make sure it's good, talk to Hector, talk to Jose, and then go about my day. So I just want to, like, not do anything with touching material, you know what I mean? Go to Home Depot. Like, I went to the dump just to go to the dump just to make a video. That's. That was like the only reason. Yeah. And.

But I found out if I don't get those trucks and I don't put those people in the right position, then. Then I have to just do more work. And the whole thing is like, for me not to do as much work.

You know, mental work and all that stuff. Sales is fine, just not to do as much work like in the field. And that's what these guys get stuck in. Like they just working, working, working, working. And then I'm like, they turn around. They've been working for 10 years and you're still in the same position. I'm like, bro.

With that, you know.

Yeah, we do. We do this thing called pay for performance, or basically like the guys on the job get a percentage of revenue instead of hourly. And so we create software around that and then like profit sharing stuff like that. So that's kind of like exactly what I believe in too. Like in terms of. So to. The owner doesn't have to be thinking about the job, thinking about customers, you know, everything kind of runs itself if everyone's based, you know, no one. Like our company basically is paid hourly, right. You get percentage of revenue that you earn for the business. And if you're on a big project taking weeks long, whatever, you divide it between your crew. And so they're basically trying to beat budgeted hours.

Just the leads.

Say it again.

Is that everybody or just your lead guys?

Every single person. Including, really. Yep. Frontline employees. So, like, the lead gets a. So let's say there's 200 hours budgeted on a project, right? So there's going to be a certain amount of dollars per budget hour for the manager of that job. But usually because we have pretty flat level, like, not like hierarchical, usually we just split that between them. But essentially if there's two, say there's 200 budget hours we're charging, let's say, $80 per man hours. That's $16,000 in labor. They're going to get a percentage of that revenue. No matter if the job takes 85 hours or 300 hours, they're going to make a percentage. So what's nice about that is you basically take your biggest variable expense, which is labor, and you make that a constant. Right. And sometimes, like, they'll make a lot of money, but I don't care because there's a constant. Right. And that's the hardest part about estimating is, is that going to take 100 hours, 120 hours, or 300 hours, like, if something goes wrong? Right.

Yeah.

Well, when it comes to performance, like, it does not matter how long it takes them, whether good or bad, they're getting paid the same amount. And they like it because now they're incentivized to think about things like tarps on the road, and we take money off of their paycheck if they damage things, if there's complaints, if they don't take care of their. Like, if the equipment isn't cleaned at the end of the day. So, yeah, it's worked really, really well, and they love it.

How many people you got working well?

So our first shop. Our first shop is the one that is the local one, and that one has 15 to 20. Right now we're in our. We just start December 1st is Thanksgiving. We lay out some of our people off, so now it's like 12, 13. And then we have a couple. We have a second corporate location, and then the rest of franchisees.

Sick.

Yeah.

Okay, how many people total in the franchise?

There's. There's 30 franchisees. You mean like total employees overall?

Yeah.

I'd say.

A lot of. Because we just started franchising this year. Right. So a lot of them are new, so only have a couple employees. So I would say like 150, maybe.

Wow, that's cool, dude. Yeah, so that's really cool. And you're. You're going nationwide, huh?

Yeah.

So last. Last November was our first 10 that's joined. And then in next week we have our. Our 30th that join and is coming for training. And so we have a couple in. In Canada and then the rest in.

The U.S. that's really cool.

A lot of fun.

That's pretty cool. How old are you?

Pardon?

How old are you?

I'm 25.

That's amazing, bro. Good job.

Great job.

I think you and I have a lot in common, honestly, like, that's why Like, I watched your videos before I even started because you were obviously, you know, earlier to the YouTube game than I was. I just kind of recently started. So I watched your stuff when I was young. It's like I started college when I was really, really young. Like when I was 13, I started college. I thought I was gonna become a medical doctor. Ended up dropping out and starting Augusta Lawn Care when I was 18. And then I went to. I did my MBA at night, so that was fun. And then, yeah, just been growing Augusta, so it's a lot of fun. But I, you know, I listen to Grant a lot too. Like, I really like him. I like balancing him and Gary Vee because, like, Grant is like, Grant is like sales, motivation, push and like business, business, business. And I think Gary kind of brings a good balance in terms of like just emotional iq, treating your employees like caring, really that personal side, which for me is a big deal.

I agree. Like, treating your employees correctly is one of the biggest things that people overlook. And that's like, that's why my, my life, I consider my life to be easy because.

It'S just the employees are paid well and they handle their thing. So like then my, my, my day is pretty smooth. Like, people, some people come visit me and they're surprised at what my day consists of. Like, I'm just driving around.

The phone. That's really it. Like, there's nothing much. Sometimes I go get a pallet of pavers, sometimes I go to Home Depot, get some concrete. But that's like rare.

Yeah. Have you started doing some stuff outside of the landscape business? Like in terms of your own real estate or do you have other businesses too?

Right now I'm just focusing on YouTube. My target this year is to get to a hundred thousand subs before 2021.

Yeah, let's go.

I got 12 months. I need a hundred. I already. The way I do it is like, you know, Grant says you do the math backwards. So I need 165 subscribers every single day average every. Every day or in 2021.

Awesome, man.

Yeah. So that's like, I'm really focusing on that. So I hired a cameraman and he's actually a really good editor. Like, cool. Very good editing skills, which is a game. Is gonna be a game changer for sure.

That's good. Yeah. I just got our full time guy. He doesn't just do media for me though, like because we have the franchisees. Right. So he spend time making like videos and pictures for them on their social media and things. But.

I got him in July. But he had worked actually in the field at Augusta, like mowing lawns for over four years. And then he joined and started doing the full time media stuff. So it's cool.

I'm in Washington state, so it's 10, 13, just like you.

Oh. Oh, you're really, you're close.

Yeah, man. I got to live in this, this no personal income tax state, though. I can't handle that, that, that California tax.

And that's. That's one of the other things is like, if I don't spend the money, they're going to steal it from me. So I just, I might as well.

Is it, is it 13%? You guys are eight. I forget.

It's. If you make over a million dollars. Yes. 13.

13. That's what I thought. Yeah, man.

I haven't, I haven't come close to.

A million dollars in price, so. So sorry for my ignorance on this. Is it. If you're over a million, it's 13. Under. Is it 8? Is that right?

Yeah, under 8 or 6, something like that. It goes in tears.

Oh. So it is tiered. Okay. Okay.

But like if like last year on, on I ended up paying like 20,000.

I think it was state tax and then like 40 grand in federal tax, you know, or 50 grand. I don't remember what the it was, but I paid like 78 grand.

Which honestly I was surprised. I was quite happy with that number. Going from quarter mil to that.

Have you, have you thought about doing a second corporation for taxes or do you already have a couple set up?

So I have, I have an umbrella.

Okay.

Tigrin Enterprise, and then I have DB Applewood and I have Goat Gang and I have the real estate, a bunch of other ones. But the accountant said, he's like, dude, you live in California, you're gonna get either way.

Yeah. The thing is like, if you split them though, then, then you can stay out of certain brackets.

Right.

Especially when it comes to YouTube because you're. It's so much. It's like there's no.

Nothing to write off.

Right?

Yeah, but he does, he does all that. Yeah, you're right. He does.

All good. Good.

But as far as far as like, the thing is, dude, like, I don't know, I just, I don't even want to worry about like the whole tax thing. It's just I want to do everything in my power to not pay as much, but I know that I'm paying, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

So. And like, it is what it is. That's why we live in America. America is a great country. It's just the whole point is you just need to make money. You make money, then you're gonna have a good life.

Yeah.

You know, you don't make money.

I've been there. I've been there when I don't make money. And it sucks because every, every, everywhere you go, like, I can't imagine having kids and they wanted to buy, they wanted like a little car and then me tell them, like, no, we can't have that car.

I can't. I can't pay $30 for that car. That just bugged me up.

Well, he's killing it now. On YouTube, like last year, he's basically like. He said publicly, he said, like, I'm not really the business anymore.

I'm.

My full time job is YouTube. Right. So, yeah.

And honestly, that's, that's the goal.

YouTube.

YouTube is. It's fun, man. I really like YouTube. It's really. It gets you, like being more creative.

Yeah.

You know, Cool.

Well, I appreciate Tigran. I'll let you go, but you know, feel free to reach out anytime. I really appreciate the call, brother.

Yeah, dude, if you want, you want to make more videos about me, do it. I don't care.

Well, with your permission, I guess I can make more crazy claims up front. So. Yeah, I'll just say I could.

Yeah, make some crazy.

Honestly, let's get tigrinted at 100,000. We got to make this a 2021deal, man.

Yeah, bro, that would be appreciative for sure.

All right, brother, have a great evening. We'll see you later, man. Later.