Mike Andes films from Cat Island during Thanksgiving, sharing how he uses vacation to think through business strategy. His lawn-care franchise has ten trained franchisees, with the next cohort training in Washington in February. He's also launching a book next spring, hosting a Landscape Summit in January, and releasing Ketosis Cups.
Questions this video answers
November 29, 2019.
Cat Island, Bahamas.
The first 10 franchisees finished training a couple weeks before the video.
Kevin Martinez, Germantown, Maryland (joining in February).
augustalongerservices.com (franchise page).
Chapters
Sam.
It's.
Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes here. And usually I know you used to see me in a studio, business, boot camp, podcast or landscape business course. Today is going to be a little bit different, as well as the next week or so, I want to bring you all along for a vacation that we're on this week. It's Thanksgiving weekend. I'm here with the family, but I want to kind of bring you all along. I know a lot of times I talk about the grind, the hustle, hard work of being an entrepreneur, but I did want to bring you along for some of the good times, relaxation, this kind of weekend. And so this is a place called Cat island in the Bahamas. Beautiful place. It's a little bit windy today, a little bit overcast, but actually makes it easier to record for you guys. So just a beautiful, beautiful place. Really not a lot of. There's no resorts here. There's really not a lot of, like, tourist attraction type stuff. It's really just about sit on the beach, relax. We have WI Fi, though. It's very good.
But this is, you know, the type of thing I like to do for vacation. I don't vacation a lot, but when I do, it's my time to kind of replug, you know, recharge and just kind of unplug from the day to day, but still thinking a lot about the business, thinking a lot about you all.
And think about new and creative ways of going, kind of attacking the different things that I'm trying to figure out. So when I go on a vacation like this, it's not just about having fun, necessarily, or even just relaxing or sleeping or anything like that. Even though it's something I still have to do during this time to kind of recharge. Last week, I was kind of sick and under the weather and just hadn't been sleeping much. So it's good for me to get out and get some good rest. But more importantly, during these times, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, I look at these as opportunities to really.
Really look at, like, what are the challenges I'm facing right now? What are the things I gotta figure out? So before coming here, I had a list. I still have a list. It's the first day, about 15, 16 different things that I need to get done here, but not just to get done. Some of the things I literally just put down, like, think about. Like just think about this subject, think about what we can do to solve this issue or just come up with new ideas. Right. Like, I feel like a lot of times we get stuck in the same, same surroundings every single day. Go to work, go to the office, do the same thing, go home, go to the gym, same thing all the time. We eat the same stuff, ride the same car, wear the same clothes day in, day out. And so for me, the vacation is obviously for my body, but also for my mind just to kind of like see different stuff, have different surroundings and get in a place where I can start to think outside the box. Because, you know, we drive the same route to work all the time. We drive, like I said, we eat the same stuff, like all the time. Just day after day, the same old thing every single day. And what that causes your brain to do is not be able to fire and think about new and creative solutions because the same circumstances, the same surroundings, same environment it's in every single day. So the next year, five, six days, I'll bring you along and be here at Cat island in the Bahamas. I'll get some great shots for you. It's really relaxing out here. Beautiful, beautiful out in creation here. But more importantly, I'll be thinking about several things that we're trying to figure out at Augusta. Even so, we got our first 10 franchisees that just finished training a couple weeks ago, and we're trying to get our next 10. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, how am I going to do that in terms of what's the offer going to be? How can we improve it from last training? What can we make it, how can we make it simpler? How can we make it where they leave even more equipped? What systems can we implement to make P4P and other systems we're estimating, how can we make that simpler and easier for them to figure out from the get go? And so those are some of the things I'm thinking about. You know, big shout out to Kevin, Kevin Martinez out in Maryland, over in Germantown, Maryland just signed up and so he'll be joining us in February, the next group of franchisees at Augusta. And if you want to join, check out augustalongerservices.com franchise and on there you get a bunch of information. And in February is when you'd be coming for training. You'd come for three days up to Washington. I promise you, it will not be looking like this in Washington. All right? It'll be rainy, it'll be cold. Who knows, there might even be snow in February.
You'll come. I promise you won't be worried about the weather because we'll be inside and we'll Be just grinding the entire three days. It's an absolute marathon, as the first 10 franchisees could probably testify to. But you can come get you trained up and everything. And so on this sort of a vacation, I'm trying to think, you know, what can we do for the franchisees to make their businesses better? Make it where they figure out the systems faster, because I know the systems work, I know that they're there, but how can I make them simpler so it doesn't take them a year to kind of get switch over if they're in existing business because most of the franchisees already have existing lawn care businesses. So it's a transition. And they got to switch from paying their guys by the hour to paying them by performance. They got to switch the way they do the estimating. They got to switch the fact that now they have a different brand and a website and all this other stuff. And so how can I make that better for them? And then we got a book being published next spring. I'm wrapping that up with the editing process right now. So working on that during this vacation.
We've got Landscape Summit coming up in January. And so I'm finalizing the schedule next couple days here. I'll actually have a video here on the beach. I'm sure it'll probably be here. And I'll be telling you guys exactly what the schedule is going to be for Landscape Summit. So.
Looking forward to it. A lot of different stuff I'm trying to work on, trying to do. We got Ketosis Cups, which is the name of our food product that we just launched. Ketosiscups.com is now live and you can order those, make online orders. They're going to be shipping out in a couple weeks.
Just got a lot of stuff going on and I can use these times kind of unplug, recharge and get creative about different stuff. You know, look across the water and just think about like. And stuff you wouldn't even think about usually because you're in the day to day, right? Going from one thing to the next. I do the same several workouts. I don't mix it up a whole lot. I eat the same stuff all the time. Pretty boring. Drive the same office. We just started command center for the franchisees and we just signed a new lease. So that's literally starting next week. And one of the things I'm very blessed to have is as I'm here, gone this vacation for the next week or so, having great people allows you to do this sort of thing. The command center is going to get launched next week. I won't be there. Augusta Lawn care is still going on. I won't be there. First production round of ketosis cups will probably be made while I'm away. So you can't do that if you don't have good people, great people that are supportive of the vision, supportive of you as a person, support of the business. They all want to become better professionals, better further their career, make more money. And so I'm very privileged to have that very fortunate and be in this place and not have to worry about the money side. Right. So it's beautiful here. Shots for you.
So I hope you're doing well. Hope maybe one day you can join me here at Cat Island. Just love this place. Super relaxing. There's no one here you can see. Nice little soul on this beach. And I don't think I've seen anyone all day here on this beach. I went running here on the beach, back and forth in this little bay this morning. And so I'll bring you along. I'll see you guys in the next few days. I'll make sure you catch some of the highlights here in the next few days. And I really appreciate you guys and your attention and just supporting me. Thanksgiving was yesterday and I didn't really post anything because I was traveling the whole day. But do want to say thank you. I really appreciate each and every one of you. Have a great day. We'll catch you later.
