How to Be a Great Coach and Lead a Winning Team!
8 Dec 2025 · 15 min
Podcast by Mike Andes (Jan 19, 2025) describing a coaching framework for Augusta Nation. Andes argues coaches should remind (repeat ‘broccoli’) rather than constantly teach new tactics (‘chocolate’), presents a 5-step COACH call framework (Calculate KPIs → Observe problems → Arrive at solutions → Create plan → Higher education), and explains how coaching drives reps, skills, accountability, and business results.
Chapters
All right, let's get started. So I want to talk about what makes a great coach and individual to obviously, the coaching program here inside of Augusta, but it really is more broad. If you look at some of the people that most of us watch in terms of content, they actually started as coaches. The reason for that is because it gives you a lot of clarity around how to create frameworks and communicate and get people to do stuff. And so coaching, I think it's like you can. There's probably 50 different terms for coaching that we just use in different walks of life. So some would call this counseling, some would call this consulting, some would call this mentoring, some would call this preaching, some would call this instruction, some would call this teaching. All of those will fall under this exact same framework of how to. How to be a great coach. So that's what I want to talk about today. So today's agenda, like Nick mentioned, is I'll give my presentation. I'll take any Q and A. So this won't be a long presentation, maybe 10 minutes. And then if you have any questions, feel free to jot them down, and I'll answer those, and I'll bounce off, and Nick will hand. I'll hand it off to Nick. I know there's some things he wants to tie up in terms of making sure everyone's set up and ready to roll. So why this presentation matters. First off, I want to define what a good coach is. Then I want to define what makes a good coaching call specific to a Gusta Nation. Third is to show additions to the coaching program and the kind of the major addition that we're adding this year with a little more of my involvement. And then fourth is how this will make you more money, specifically to you individually. So in my opinion, we've kind of done coaching calls wrong for five years, and the five years includes the times when I was doing them myself and then obviously handed down to Lee and handed it off to Lee and Ch. Then it's handed off to where there are corporate coaches, and then they're also all of you, including now a general manager, which I think is. Which is fantastic. So here's why it didn't work. I want to kind of COVID that today and then go over what we're going to do to fix it. So one thing to always keep in mind when it comes to coaching, and this is the hardest part about coaching, is actually realizing that people need to be reminded more than they need to be taught. And the reason that this makes is actually very hard as a coach, is because you say the same thing every time. And it'll get extremely boring for you. And you will think that it gets boring for the people that you teach, and it may. But what they actually need is to be reminded more than they need to be taught. But in doing so, it takes away the joy of coaching and the instinctual desire we have for new. So all of us as coaches, we want to be constantly adding new stuff to the people we're coaching, the people we're teaching, the people that we're training. And this comes, I see in the form even when people, quote, unquote, run out of things to talk about with their team at team meetings, many times it's because they think they need to have new stuff all the time. And so as a coach, it's actually a very boring job because the players cycle through the team, but the coach usually stays the same. And so because of that, the coach just feels like they're saying the exact same thing all the time. It's important to remember this because you will feel many times that you are saying the same four or five things on a coaching call. And by doing that, you gain the reps the same way that you're encouraging your player or the member of the team to get more reps as well. So the challenging part is when it comes to this, is that everyone you coach thinks they need to be taught. Everyone will come to you as the coach, as a genie, and they will think that they will come to you on a coaching call and you will solve all of their problems. And by having that framework of them showing up to a call, think that you're going to teach them something new. Because of that, many times they do not do what you actually instruct them to do, which is simply reminding them of the facts, reminding them of the things that they need to get done. And they, these, these are the same five, ten things that you will say on every single call. And people want to hear new things. And people will pay me a bunch of money sometimes to talk to me. And literally I'm like, I literally said this in the last video and it's for free. And so many times it is simply a matter of people think they need to be taught when all they need to do is be reminded. So the desired outcome for most of us when we. When you're doing any sort of coaching and you're trying to help someone or you're trying to get them to the next level of their business, like in the coaching calls, the desired outcome is the broccoli it is get them to eat the thing that we know will give them the strength required for to be able to succeed. Whether that be putting out door hangers, etc. These are the things that in our business we know if they do these actions, they will have a healthier business, they will have a healthier diet, etc. So whether it be physical life or in our businesses, it's the same thing. We want them to eat the broccoli. So in Augusta Nation the broccoli looks like this. Raise prices, stay in the systems, track your close ratio, work with command center and how to do that well, do your coaching calls, put out door hangers, watch the mike minutes, mastermind every morning, simplify services, do follow up calls, switch to profit mode, send out email and text blast, choose a winter track. I would say that 80 to 95% of your coaching calls revolve around these topics. These are the broccoli inside of Augusta Nation. And if someone did all of these things, they would likely not even need coaching. They would be extremely successful. These are the things that you will say because for example, if someone comes to you and they say I don't have leads, especially if you have done this before, specifically door hangers, the only thing you think is like just put out more door hangers. Like this is just a function of the number of door hangers to put out and figure out how many per hour you can put out and how many leads you get per hour and then just go and pound the pavement. But this is the broccoli. No one wants to hear this, but this is actually the ingredients required to be in the case of broccoli, be healthy, have a healthier life. In this case, have a healthier business. These are the ingredients we consistently see the people who just show up and watch the Mike Mint's masterminds every morning and stay connected to the community have a much higher success rate inside of Augusta Nation. So these are like the little things that if they just did this, they would be successful. This is the broccoli. But the question is how do we get them to actually eat the broccoli? And that is adding chocolate. Because everyone wants chocolate, but what they really need is the broccoli. And so the chocolate inside of Augustination. And this is why some people will say they join Augusta Lawn Care as a franchisee or. And again, this can be applied to any area of life. They want new technology, right? They want, they want max AI, they want their website done for them. They want new leads. Everyone wants new leads. New leads to everyone they believe the problem, the solution to their problem, is simply more leads. Regardless. You could literally have no employees, no trucks. And, like, I need more leads. No, you actually need to get these other bottlenecks figured out. New mindset. People like to have a new frame of mindset when they show up to a call and you reset them somehow, you inspire them, etc. A new perspective, a new marketing tactic. Like, everyone loves a new marketing tactic. They're always looking for that. That's why you go into Facebook and you look on groups. It's like, what can I do? I saw this one the other day. I almost screenshot it. I was like, like, what can I do? Get 50 million customers really fast. I'm like, okay, so like, if we all knew that answer, we'd all just be doing it. And therefore it would no longer become fast. But anyways, they want a new mental framework, something to be able to use to create order to the disorder of life. That's what a framework does. It creates some sort of order to the disorder of life. So I can. I can actually picture it. I can actually frame it in some sort of a mental model. New advertising tool from the franchise. Everyone likes these. You know, if we do new instant price quote forms, if we do new door hangers, if you do designs on the pro shop, this is what people like. This is the chocolate. So the thing is, if you look back at all these, every single one of these are new. New tech, new leads, new new, new when reality to what Alex says all the time is like more and better before new. And so more and better is the broccoli. More and better is more door hangers, Better door hangers. So how do you do more? Literally, numbers. How do we do better? We figure out the timing, we figure out which neighborhoods, we figure out which offer, we figure out which pricing is going to work best on those door hangers before we start thinking about the next marketing tactic that is required. So the goal of this call is really how do we combine broccoli with chocolate to get the desired outcome? Because in the past, what's been frustrating is whether I did coaching or Lee or Nick or anyone else here on the call or in the past is we all know the broccoli, but you can't force feed an owner. The. The difficult. The most difficult part about the coaching that you will do is that you are teaching people that want freedom. You are teaching entrepreneurs that have left a 9 to 5 and they want the autonomy to do whatever they want. And because of that, you are now Trying to force to feed them into broccoli. It's not going to work. So this is the hard realization I had the first few years of Augusta. It's like I am taking the most autonomous people in the universe. The people that literally the reason they joined and left corporate world is for autonomy and freedom. And I'm going to confine them. And the way that, the way I think about systems and procedures because you will run into this on coaching calls when people say like, well I have this other idea or I want to try this out, for example. And you know, you're like, I tried that in the past. Like I've seen this happen. It doesn't work. The reason that the feeling is like this and this is how I actually explain franchising now. And this is how I would recommend you teach your when you teach anyone and you know that you're confining what they want, this is how I this is a great analogy. Even if it's just in your head. If you're trying to get a dog from the United States to Europe, it is in the dog's best interest to get inside of a kennel and get on a plane. But if you've ever seen trying to stuff a dog in an airport inside of a kennel, it's not fun. No, the dog does not want to get inside the kennel. Now we know, we know it's in the best interest of the dog. It's going to be the safest route for them to be able to get to their destination. Like yes, the dog could be free flowing throughout the cargo of the plane could get hurt. And so the same thing is true of business. You know that them staying within the systems, you know, them doing eating the broccoli is going to be best for them. But if you try to force them into the kennel, they're just not going to enjoy it. And you know, you're like, I know this works. I know this is the safest route for you to have a successful business if you do these things. And it's so frustrating for you see, you know, an owner inside of an airport trying to stuff this dog inside. We know, but the dog does not. And it's not to say that the owners are dogs. That analogy kind of falls apart there. But it's more a matter of it is true that you know what is required for them to be successful and that's why you're a coach. You know what they're required. Anthony specifically, Connor, what a great general manager looks like and what to do in that role. And so the question is, how do we convince them to get inside of the kennel? How do we get and convince them to get inside of there and realize that it is the safest route and to get to the destination of a successful business, of a more profitable business, of a general manager that makes more profit sharing, etc. So when I look at coaching in general, I like to ask this, always use this frame as like, who's the first person to get fired on losing sports team? So be like, oh, it's the quarterback. Oh, it's like the defensive line, it's the coach. If a, if a sports team is doing poorly, the number one thing they will do first if it's on a downward spiral, is they will fire the coach. But yet even though we all believe the coach is so pivotal that we will change the coach out if in the event that the team is doing poorly. But very few will remember the coach if the team wins the championship. All right? And so this is the difficult part about coaching is you will get no glory whatsoever. And furthermore, when glory happens, you will pass it along with the people that you have taught. So when a coach gets up on a stage at the end of an NBA season where every single game his, his job is on the line because if the team starts doing poorly, they will fire them very quickly. Yet when he gets on the podium at the end of a championship, he will simply talk about all of his players. And so very few people will remember in this, this picture, for example, this is Michael Jordan. Very few people remember the coach. And you might know these guys. Kobe Bryant, Shaquille o', Neal, Michael Jordan. But there's one thing that Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille o', Neal, Kobe Bryant, all these great players have in common. Phil Jackson, he was a coach. So Phil Jackson had 11 NBA championships. That's more than Kobe, you know, Steph Curry, Jordan and LeBron. We all know the bot. Like everyone knows the bottom people, everyone knows the players. Very few people know the coach. And so I, I was looking at Phil Jackson and a lot of the documentation about what he did as a coach. And this is kind of where this whole framework came from. And so what makes a good coach, because I believe what makes a good coach in NBA will also make a good coach in just about any other area of life. So the first is they convince the players to do. The second thing is they do that because they know the reps are required to gain skills and the skills are required to win. So in order to Win in business, the only thing we need is skills. Well, how do I get the skills? I need reps. And so the only thing we need to do to convince the people that we're teaching is to go get the reps to get inside of the kennel. Because if I get them inside the kennel, the plane will get me to my destination. I have fairly good certainty of that. So if we look at, you know, you've heard me say this before, and I was like, what's the difference between successful and unsuccessful? One person has skills and the other doesn't. And so how do I get the skills reps? And so the only thing we have to do as a coach is to convince them to do the reps. Because they're not going to feel like putting out door hangers. They're not going to feel like staying inside of the systems. They're not going to feel like doing a lot of these things the same way that that pet does not want to get inside of a kennel. So further breaking this down, like, what makes a great coach, okay, they inspire. So from a mechanical perspective, they get reps, those skills, those reps get skills, and those skills make them win. The other framework I like to use is like, you inspire the player to be great. This is the challenging part, more of an inspirational side of a coach. So the technical side is I need them to do reps. The more inspirational sides, they inspire their player to be great, they show is required to be great, and they hold the player accountable to achieving greatness. So inspiring the people that you're coaching and then showing them your business using analogies, using other examples, things that you've gone through, stories, you've gone through the exact same thing. And then they hold their player accountable to actually achieving that greatness. And many times the scoreboard is the determining factor of whether or not that player is winning. That is their KPIs inside of their coaching scoreboard or scorecard. So what does a good coaching call look like? So if we take that same frame, we say, hey, how do we apply that to a coaching call inside of a destination? So first off, we look at the KPIs, key performance indicators, things inside the business, and shout out to Joel for, for making that really simple. Now inside of the, the, the software. So, so we look at the KPIs, then we diagnose the problem and then we offer solution. This has been somewhat more.
Prevalent inside of our coaching calls in the past. And we're gonna add to this. But like, this is the Basic of what a coaching call looks like. It's like I look at the numbers, I diagnose the problem, and I offer a solution. Now there are gonna be some people you get on a call and if they've done, if they've been eating the broccoli, they actually don't have a lot of the pro of problems. And so there's still more that we want to add to this. This is why we feel like there's been a big drop off in some people using the coaching program is because there is nothing more for them to hear once they've heard the same broccoli pitch 1,000 times. Now, do I think they still need the broccoli pitch? Yes, it will improve their business, but if they have memorized it, they will not show up to a call. And so we want to add to that. If we break this down further, we inspire them. We show them how their business and life will change if they win. And we give them the tools to make the changes required to win. And so these are simple frameworks, these past three slides that I use when it comes to coaching. I need reps. I'm going to convince them to do the reps so they get the skills so that they win. I'm going to inspire them to be great. I'm going to show them what is required to be great. And that's why everyone here is either a general manager, an owner. Like, you are showing them how to be great and you can use examples and then you're going to hold them accountable to be to achieving greatness. We inspire them. We show them how their business and life will change if they win. This goes back to the analogy of like, sell them the vacation, not the traveling. Like, don't sit on air flight. Like, it's gonna be painful to hand out 5,000 door hangers. But let's go ahead and talk about how their life will change, their business will change. If they handed out 5,000 door hangers, if they actually are able to get another lead source besides just Facebook ads where they're paying $200 cost per lead. This, this is, this is my frame. I think about this all the time. The player's record determines the coach's legacy. The reason we talk about Phil Jackson is because of his players. And so as much as we want to elevate in this, in this talk, like the role of a coach, the player's record is what determines the coach's legacy. And so when I think about that, it's like, well, am I a coach and it's always been a frame for even Augusta Nation coaches, like, am I doing good? Like am I doing a good job? Let me watch your team perform. The people that you coach, what happens after the coaching session? What happens after six months, 12 months, two years of them being under your tutelage? What are the life and business results of those you've coached? So even, even as a coach, the broccoli sometimes will be things that are outside of their business because you realize that them figuring out their personal life, their relationship or their health situation would then give them an extra 20 or 30% bandwidth and energy and efficiency throughout the day. So this is where coaching starts to become very, very multi pronged because although the broccoli is we want what we want them to have, they're not capable of eating the broccoli simply due to the fact that they can't walk that many steps to do 5,000 door hangers simply because they're out of shape. And so this is where it becomes where as a coach, you actually have to start feeling out areas outside of what the broccoli says because some people are incapable of having the broccoli. All right, so back to the broccoli example. We know this, the broccoli, what we want them to be able to do. But this is the ingredient and that is the chocolate. And that's what we are adding. And I'm calling this the coaching call framework. This is how the coaching calls would go forward and this is what nickels start to be building on top of over the next several months with all of you. So this is the coaching call framework. The acronym is just Coach. First off you're going to do is you're going to calculate the KPIs, then we're going to observe problems in the business. Many times the KPIs will tell you what the problems are in the business. But sometimes the more advanced coach has to dig deeper than the KPIs, because again, the KPIs could look fine. But then you realize that the reason that they're fine instead of great is because they literally have a relationship problem that is sucking up 40, 50 hours a week from them. And that's going to have to be dealt with. So observing problems a is arrive at solutions. Everyone wants the solution and they literally are expecting you to come up with that on the beat, like on a drop of a hat. When I was doing medicine and doing a lot of shout out to Doctors, we spent 90% of our time in the first two. And then the third one we'd spend like five minutes at the very end. So we would be doing heart rate, we would be doing blood pressure, we'd be talking about their living habits, we'd be observing problems with those things, we'd be talking about those issues. And then at the very end is usually when we would diagnose someone with something or we would prescribe something in terms of medication. Unfortunately, Most coaches spend 95% of the time prescribing and for that reason nothing gets done. Because if all I did was just throw a piece of medicine at every single issue that is thrown at to me from a patient, they just leave with 50 pills. That's all that would happen. And when it comes to coaching, the vast majority of coaches over prescribe. The same way that many doctors overprescribe is because we get this 1, 2, 3 ratio way out of whack. Calculating the KPIs very important. Then observing problems and then a very small fraction is actually arriving at the solutions. We all love the solutions and we feel like as coaches that's what we should be doing. And as a doctor, I should be prescribing, I should be telling them what to do when the vast majority of number three goes off the rails because we completely messed up number one and number two, and it's like the part I kind of hate about the turnarounds. People always see 15, 20 minutes of me prescribing when there's usually two to three hours of me simply doing number one and number two, asking questions, talking to other people, getting all this information and then you're seeing the 5 to 10 minute highlight reel of like, hey, this is what needs to happen, this needs to change, this needs to happen, etc. Number four is create a plan. And number five is the part that we're adding and that's higher education. So this is the coach framework. C O A C H. The fifth one is the one that's brand new, but this is how you can use every single, on every single call, every single coaching call should follow this framework. First, I'm going to look at their KPIs. I'm going to observe their problems. Many times those problems are pretty evident by the KPIs, but sometimes you have to do some digging. The hardest coaching calls are the ones that are the KPIs. Do not tell the story. The third, arriving at the solutions. Fourth, I'm going to create a plan. So, okay, here's the solution. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to do those door Hangers next week. Okay, so next week you're going to order the door hangers. Great. The week after that, let's do a thousand, then another thousand, then two thousand. Okay. Then you're going to book another call with me in one month from now. That's your plan. And then higher education, that's the part that's new. So what is higher education? It's a monthly framework that the coaches, you all are going to teach every single month. And now this is going to include one of the following. A mental framework, a marketing framework, time efficiency framework, health and wellness framework, Life balance framework. This is the type of thing that I've been in the past few months. You see me sprinkle into the mike minutes, Mastermind. And when I do that, the number of views on those videos go through there if everyone watches them, because that's the chocolate. All right, so what we're trying to do now is add the chocolate to the broccoli. That is the coaching calls to increase the participation of everyone inside of Augusta Nation. Now, these frameworks I'm going to create every single month. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to hand them to Nick. And then you're all monthly calls. After you've gone through your regular, you know, making sure you get on the same page, you bring up certain issues with certain owners, et cetera, you're going to go over what that new framework is and how to teach it. So you'll be the first one to get those frameworks. I will not be sharing those in the mike minutes, masterminds. And if I do, it'll be after you all have already done your coaching calls. So you'll be the first one to deliver this to the owners. And by doing this, you'll probably do it 10, 15 times. You're going to get the reps required to actually really understand the framework. But also it'll be the chocolate that everyone wants at the end of the call. Right. So after you've calculated KPIs, which half people don't, after we've observed the problems, arrive at a solution, create a plan, then at the very end of the call, we have something to give them in terms of chocolate. Cool. Last slide. So how do you, as you as a coach, how does this make you more money? Because there is so much in terms of goodwill that is is passed along in coaching. And I really believe that, as I said earlier, the best coaches become the best players. And there's a cycle that happens when it comes to content and when it comes to teaching, one, many of the people that we watch are they were one time coaches is because you simply narrow down your framework. You do reps required. And so but that's kind of like the goodwill side. How does this actually make you more money? And this is what I've seen doing coaching is like first off, you're going to be able to identify what good coaches are versus bad coaches. So this framework you can then use to be like okay, is this person coaching me good? Like because now you will you. We have all been vicariously coached from content books, et cetera. Being able to identify who good coaches and who's not based upon this framework is pretty easy. Two, coaching is another form of selling. Remember the very first step of the three steps, which is I have to convince them to do the reps. So when it comes to coaching you, all you're doing is you're selling them on doing the reps. And this applies to general managers, employees, your personal life and anyone below you on the org chart that wants to improve, assuming they want to improve. This applies to everyone.
So if you're trying to get your next, your next location started, if you're trying to get an employee of your general manager motivated, all of this that we've talked about today will solve will be the exact same framework. And then fourth, the reason I think this is really helpful and this is why we have the coaching program and the franchise advisory council pushed for this a couple of years ago, is to have more ownership involved is when it comes to coaches, tenure and reps matter. And so if you look at the average age of an NBA coach, it's over 50 years old and yet the players are in their 20s, they're in their 30s. But it actually matters when it comes to coaching is having tenor and having reps. So by you doing more coaching calls, you are simply gaining the reps that you need to be a great coach. And the reason for that is because you start to get to know what good looks like. The same way that a coach in the NBA knows what the hardest playing the highest achieving players, how they practice. You as a coach start to see the the patterns of which players are successful based upon the systems that you preach. And so many times the biggest advocates of the systems we talk about at Augusta are the ones that have been doing coaching because they've just seen over and over and over that they work and they've seen over and over and over again when they tell someone something and they don't get inside the kennel and they get inside the airplane, bad stuff happens, and the likelihood of them hitting their success, the likelihood of them getting to the destination is simply lower. And so that's all I really had. I'm happy to answer any questions in terms of Q and A stuff, and then I will hop off the call.
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