i got salty! (2nd half of video)

Hey guys, it's Zach here from the media team. Stephen behind the camera today we just thought we'd give you guys a glimpse on something Mike does for the franchisees called masterminds. It's just a daily thing where he goes over different questions they have and different tips to help them run their business, different updates with the franchise. So we thought we'd throw a camera on him and hopefully you guys can find something helpful. Enjoy this little clip from behind the scenes of one of Mike's masterminds.

Here we go. When you're doing bids for your mowing and you are in person because like a really large job, it can't be done over the phone, etc. Keep in mind that you want to do that bid as if you're using the smallest mower on your that you have. We've seen this a few times where people are bidding as if they had their 52 inch mower and then their 52 inch mower goes down and all of a sudden now crews will refusing to do jobs because the 21 inch mower is going to take them three times as long. So if you're going, if you're going to do a bid for a mowing job in terms of budget hours, calculate that at the smallest size of mower that you could possibly have. Because otherwise you're going to be juggling your schedules based upon which mower types match up with which properties. And that's a nightmare. You want it to be where with that 21 inch mower. If you have that on your route, you have that on your setup. That that mower is the kind of common denominator of budgeted hours. So that anytime someone shows up to the property, budgeted hours are within reason and within reach if they just have any mower. Otherwise again, you're doing your schedule based upon who has which mower, which size property, all the rest of it. So we saw this happen last week to one of our smaller locations and that is the employee basically refusing to work because the zero turn went down. Everything obviously takes longer, but the budget hours are not accurate for, for the smaller mowers. So when you do estimates, look at that and be like, okay, if I have, if my smallest mower is a 20 inch mower, how long would it take to do. It's a 21 inch mower at least as you begin to grow and you have multiple setups, use the smallest mower that you have on those setups as a common denominator. So if you have a 36 inch mower on every setup. You can use that as what you would be calculating budget hours based upon, but do not calculate based upon a 5260 inch mower. And you have one of them and. And it goes down. And now literally, you'll lose all your crew on Peter fee. They will not do the job. So just keep that in mind. That means you might be higher or overpriced on larger properties, but it's going to mean that your budget hours are accurate and that regardless of which mowers you have on the route, it'll work. Second thing, entry level. All right, so today you're going to get a little bit of salty Mike, a little bit of tough love, okay? Entry level positions should not have a salary. Period, Period. Period. I don't know how many times I have to say this, how many times I have to warn everybody. You should not put entry level employees on salary. We are consistently seeing this, a massive issue. Every single time an employee is put on salary, it's entry level. So I know the inclination is tempting because it's like, oh man, it's so much simpler and I can have them work a lot more hours and they'll work every single time without fail. This year that we have had people put their frontline employees on salary. We've had issues every single time. So resist the inclination to think that it's just simpler or easier. It's easier. You don't have to worry about P4P. They can do things on the side for you. They can help do some estimates occasionally. All of it makes so much sense until they're actually on salary. And people now are all of a sudden like, oh, I'm not going to work past 2:30. That happened last week. Someone was put on salary, no longer wanting to work past 2:30. People just not showing up. But they don't have to because there's a salary. They don't have to show up on time because there's a salary. So I just highly recommend entry level employees not be put on salary. Highly, highly, highly recommend. Some of my general managers are not even on salary because I want it to be with the harder they work, the more hours they're putting in, they make more money and that goes overtime. That's fine. I want them to see that direct correlation between more effort and more time, more money, not this unwritten contract between us. That is, hey, I want you to work longer and then there, and they want to work shorter because the compensation is the same regardless. It's a very, very bad dynamic for entry Level workers. So again, every single time this year without fail, that has become an issue for people that have put frontline employees on salary. And if you're like, well, they're kind of a gm but they work out in the field, don't put them on salary, alright? I would only put them on salary if they are hiring, marketing, making buying decisions and they are the general manager of the entire location. Without you there, that's when you'd put them on salary. If they are completely independent, that's the only time I put people on salary personally is if they're running a GM location without my presence at all. That's when they'd be on salary. Okay, all right, next thing. Again, a little bit of a salty mic this morning. Okay. Do not declare state of emergency if you're not going to listen to what's being what you're being told to do. Okay? There's a lot of work that goes into creating a plan for every location that goes under a state of emergency. And to have that thrown back and not follow the plan is crazy. It's crazy. I saw a plan last weekend that was perfect and it's not being followed.

And it's like, don't declare a state of emergency if you're not going to accept the help that's trying to come your way. There was a very good plan for who should be fired, who should be hired, how the schedule needs to be readjusted and for that to just be like blown off, like, oh no, we're not doing that, we're doing something else. Why declare a state of emergency? It's a waste of your money for Command center to develop all the plan, create the implementation and all the rest of it. I've seen other locations do very well at executing on what Command center is telling them to do. And in that six week time frame is they're flipping their business, they are completely changing it. Their schedules have gotten more efficient, they've made sure that they've cut back on base pay. That was way too high. I've seen the changes. But if you're going to ask for help from anybody, this goes for anybody, not just Command center, but anywhere in life. If you're asking them for help, be willing to put the actual change in making it happen. If they're going to give you suggestions, all right, but if they're going to reroute and change schedules and move jobs off, don't just like, hey, I'm just going to just, you know, pop off and do something else. I'm Going to go on vacation this week, like, you know, move my jobs off this week and tell my employees, like it's just rude and honestly it's just a matter of they're trying to do the best thing for your business and I see their plans and they're perfect. And so for that to be rebuffed is not right. AB State of emergency. I've mentioned this several times. There's been several updates about state of emergency, a six week plan to get back on track.

Because ultimately what I'm seeing is when someone's in a state of emergency, I know it's like, hey, you're a rip cord. It's like, hey, I need help. But during that time is not the time to run from your business. When everything's falling apart and it seems horrible and everything, employees are leaving and customers aren't happy and you're having to cut back on services and increase prices. I know that's the time you want to run, but as a business owner, we signed up to be a leader and if you're going to be a leader, you do not run during a time of war. And so I'm seeing this happen at a couple locations right now. And I'm sorry, it doesn't cut it. If you're gonna be a leader, you signed up for this. Like you signed up to be a business owner. You're going to have to run into times of crisis and that is the time to buckle up and it's time to actually do harder work and is jump in and like get dirty. Alright, when command center, we had all the issues a few months ago. You saw what I did. I jumped in, I started literally being, taking calls and being on the front lines and jumping in and training. That's what is required of a leader. It's not your obligate, it is not your.

You do not have the option as a leader to run when everything is falling apart is not even an option. That is an employee that gets to do that. Like, hey, everything's running, falling apart my company, I'm just gonna go get another job. As a business owner, as a leader, you do not have option. And so please remember that the next couple years, as I've been very consistently saying, is gonna be very difficult for us as business owners. It's gonna be very difficult, but it's not the time to cower or run away and be like, I'm just out. And what I'm seeing right now is people tapping out and they're like, okay, well I'm just gonna Go away for a week. Ok, what about the projects? What about your employees that you just hired last week? What about, you know, the four interviews that you have scheduled for this week? Well, I just, I'm just walking away that I understand the desire to do that. I've been there. I know what it's like to be like, hey, just like, I just can't take it anymore, I've got to get away. But you have resigned that right as a leader. To do that, you're going to lose everyone that you're leading if in a moment of crisis and when the bow gets hot, you just turn your back and run.

Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Everyone wants to make a bunch of money. Everyone wants to have a small business that can do a million dollars in revenue. And everyone says that they can sacrifice for five or 10 years to make that happen. But it's not easy. And so in the times when it's not easy is not the time to like, okay, like, you know, I'm just, I just gotta take a break. I just gotta take a break. It's not the time to do it. It's the time to actually dig in and do harder, deeper, longer hours, et cetera. And if that's not appealing to you, that's what business is. That's what being a leader is, is that when you run towards chaos and you run towards the battle, you do not run away from it. You have resigned that right and that luxury as a business owner. Alright, so everyone says, you know, whatever it takes, I'm gonna do whatever it takes. But like, seriously, you're taking a vacation in the middle of spring rush, like when you just hire new people and you had four guys walk off the job and you got a bunch of interviews and projects on the schedule and you're behind and you're supposed to, you should have been mowing on the weekend and you didn't. You just like, like it's chaos. I understand that it's not fun to be in that kind of environment, but that's what you signed up for when you said you wanted to be a leader. That's what you signed up for when you said you wanted to be an employer.

I just do not understand why people do not get 30 Google reviews. I say that at training, like 20 times. I say 100 times all the time. That is the most impactful thing you can do for your website. And from an SEO standpoint and your ranking sample is get Google reviews. And I still see people with 3, 5, 9, 10 reviews. What are we doing? Are we gonna seriously go work 60 hours a week when I'm telling you if you just spend an hour or two texting family, friends and just asking them to review you as a person, the business and the brand, the professionalism, whatever it is, and put a five star view, you gotta get those.

So out of one side of our mouth we're saying we're doing whatever it takes, we're gonna work hard and then literally we run from times of battle and, and we won't do the simple things that are actually going to move the mini to like getting Google reviews. Like how hard is it? Okay, like if we can't do that, are we really going to expect that we're going to somehow lead like a million dollar organization and we can't go get Google reviews? Like I give you a sheet of training now that has the checklist of what you need to do when you leave.

Our first location that really closed down recently and.

And we had two Google reviews after three months. Like literally within three to four months the location had to close down, but we had two Google reviews. Of course we're not going to get a lot of leads. And then when the leads came in, like why are we getting estimates out one to two weeks after and not showing up to jobs and command center's getting a bunch of people calling saying that they're not showing up to estimates. All right, so on one side of our mouth we say we want it, we're willing to sacrifice, we're willing to do whatever it takes and then we can't get Google reviews, we, we can't show up on time to estimates. You know, so a little bit frustrated and then you have.

The six week plan and the state of emergency and it's like yeah, let's do that. Okay, great. But like are we going to implement, are we going to actually execute on the plan? It's one thing to say I want to turn my business around, I want to make it better, I want to raise prices and increase my route density and all the rest of it. But are we willing to actually do the hard work to get there or do we think that this, this business is just gonna fall in our lap? It's not easy. I've never told you at Augusta Nation that this is gonna somehow be like an easy thing. Take this pill and we're good to go. It's really, really difficult and if it was easy it'd be a scam and everyone would be doing it. Alright, so the reason that everyone is a chuck in a truck and has no employees and works by themselves is because that's easy. You can make a good living doing that. But if you wanna build a business and become a leader and have employees and have a business built on systems, it's not gonna be easy. Welcome to the club. Like, that's how it is. And so if you can't sacrifice for the next three, five years to get to that spot and do the hard work, the hard, boring work, then, you know, like, what do we expect to happen here? So a little bit of Salty Mike this morning. I see a whole bunch of questions came in, so let me go ahead and hop over those.