I said to FIRE HER... She CONFRONTED ME!

My name is Mike Andes.

I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care.

We have over 150 locations around the world. Today we're in New Orleans with Trinity Tree Care.

I've been in business for three years. What am I doing? September, I got burnt out. What am I to do?

I just kind of quit.

We're traveling across the country, trying to visit with small businesses that are struggling and failing.

Last year was a year that I wanted to quit.

You care about people, but, like, we need the business to be successful.

It's just not working for the business.

First off, there's no profit.

The same amount I put out, I did. Our 350,000 last year is the same amount we made. Should I go get a regular job?

Secondly, they just signed up for $120,000 piece of equipment, all on debt.

I'm about to spend another quarter million dollars. Truth is, yeah, I can't afford it.

And third, the salesperson that they do.

Have, I'm 51, but I'm good at sales. I know business. You can't afford me.

It actually costs more for their wages than the total revenue that they've brought to the business.

I hired somebody in sales. It didn't go too well.

We all have jobs where.

Appointments, appointments, appointments, appointments.

She kind of underbids a little bit.

Show up to the job. The job was under bid by 2000 dol.

Why do we still have a salesperson? Let's see if we can turn things around.

And of course, the day we show.

Up, we have severe weather warning on the horizon.

Sup, Cody? How's it going? Good to see you, man.

How's it going, man?

Nothing like a little Louisiana weather. How's it going, guys?

All right. Mike, this is cj.

Cj Good to meet you. You've been around for a long time, I hear.

Yeah. My name is cj. My actual name or full name is Clarence Jarrett Cincinel.

C.J. is awesome. He's been somebody that's loyal, dependable.

I feel like he's jokingly telling me like I'm the stump grinder manager or whatever, but I just been, you know, working with Cody for about three years now. This spring will make it three years.

Hey, C.J. i need you to go run here. It's gonna get done, and very seldom does he have to call me back. I appreciate that, Ricky.

Lewis.

Lewis. And Rand. Rand. Was it Rand?

R A N D?

Oh, Randy. Got it, Pops.

Man, I want to honor my father in the midst of what I'm going through, even if this isn't what he want. Hey, look, I'm thankful for all the hard work you put in to get us here and all the sacrifices you made.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard being up under somebody like Cody, his dad, who's been doing it for decades now, you know, being around them and just trying to understand the business.

But now we're at a place where we're separate businesses. I'm able to do the work and serve other people. He's able to do his work because he still cuts trees. So in a way, he's my competition, but we work together. Rather than burning a bridge and having no relationship at all, it's like, hey, that's my dad. He's here to help me. He wants to see me succeed in life.

Are you guys heading out to a.

Job right now or so? I have a job on the books today that we're going to be doing, weather permitting. The lady that we're doing it for, the story behind it, is her father built the house in 1975, but her husband passed away recently. And I told her that the dream that her and her husband had, we're going to continue that by doing the work that we're doing today. We sell dreams.

Exactly.

And make them come true. So that's extra hours that I work. If they call me and like, hey, we need to go ahead and get this taken care of like as soon as possible. It's like, all right, I'll be out there. It might be 8 o' clock that I'm working to and setting things up. So we do have a job on the books for today, weather permitting. Because I don't want to be 70ft in a pine tree with 40 mile per hour winds.

Okay, you got the big truck coming in from California.

Yes, I have to go pick that up. So I was looking at them, I was just like 3,900amonth. I got that.

If we ain't had no money, we wouldn't be having that bobcat in the front yard right now.

Just throwing money at problems, but not addressing the top line problem. I was like, wait, there's a lot of things I'm probably missing within that payment. We need to get this addressed. And then the rest of these kind of trickle down. And then I'm just continuing to research that unit and I seen one come up online and there's only 120. I say only 120,000. It is the biggest purchase that I'm making. But for the efficiency things of it, it's just like, can't beat it. I get a lot of the drive and work that I do from my dad and I appreciate that. I learned a lot. That tree within an aisle where I could have that down but never even get into the tree. I'm just operating in remote control. But it's hard for me to shut off at times because my line still, there's stuff that needs to be done. It's not fair to the people that are around me. And I recognize that I talk to. And it gets lonely because they're just like. All you talk about is business. Like. Cause I'm going through it right now. I do go to counseling. My counselor's just like, are we going to talk about anything other than, like, things you're going through in the business? I was just like, I don't know. You're just somebody that would listen to me, you know?

And the big bomb like I see is the fact that you're the only person that can actually be in the tree cutting right now.

Yes.

When you have the $120,000 piece of equipment, can someone else operate that?

Yes. With me buying my time back, I want to be able to give my time to other people that do care about me. I can be in a group setting with people and I'm focused on the business. I would have to get them nicer certified. I would have to go take that course as well. But with a crane, it's safer. Some people have cut themselves cutting it and then it swings into them. Now they got a big gap.

I got a star right here.

So by having the piece of equipment, do you think. Okay. You'll probably still have to be on the site for each cutting job, but you'll be able to double your output. Correct. Okay, got it. And how far are you booked out right now?

Honestly, I can knock out everything that I have in a week.

Guys. You've got a week booked out. So this year, 600,000 is kind of the goal in terms of revenue that I'm assuming is you just maxed out because you're gonna have to be at every single job.

Yeah. So currently that would be maxed out.

I know if we're making money by the amount of work that we're getting, and if we're buying equipment, ring equipment.

You know, we've gotten more efficient. But I've also started to push harder because last year I was kind of laid back. Hey, we did this. Look, we've worked till 12 o'. Clock. Here's the full day's pay.

When I first started, everything Was kind of good. I mean, we had jobs here and there. It wasn't as busy as it is now. Like, back then, like I said, it was like a lot much slower. So we was able to have like time to go take breaks or take lunches and things like that.

I felt good about that because it's like, I want to take care of my workers.

But then as business started to increase, we kind of like had like, stop having much break times and lunches, and it'll make it a bit difficult, especially.

During, like the summertime, the end. Now I'm seeing that, hey, my expenses are way greater than just being able to give y' all a full day's pay for half a day's labor. And so that's tough at times because I want to push, push, push. Because it's the owner mentality. I got at the end of the week, I got to have checks coming in so I can make payroll.

The owner's mentality that Cody is talking about is very difficult to get employees to use that same mindset. However, if you are even want to consider the idea that an employee is going to operate at your level of efficiency and care for the business, you'll have to do two things. One, you'll have to be compensated like an owner, which means the harder they work, the more money they make.

What we call P4P pay for performance.

Where they get a percentage of all the labor revenue they earn for the business.

I just want to be able to pay my guys for the time that they do see they have a job with me, or whether they see it as a job or career. I want them to show up to work and enjoy it. I don't want them to dread the work that we do, who is very rewarding to me. But I don't know if they feel the same way with that.

Secondly, if you want them to operate like an owner and be efficient, et cetera, is you need them to have the information of an owner. And that comes in the form of open book management where you share all of the numbers. And in this case, Cody could share all the profits, all of the losses. He could show all the expenses and really them understand just how bad the situation is for the business.

I want them to show up to be like, you know what, I'm coming here. I enjoy the company that I work for. When I go home, I know that I'm able to take care and provide for my family.

My concern is that we are basically buying this brand new truck that's gonna allow us like probably double efficiency. Great. But we don't have enough leads to actually keep that thing busy. Cause right now we're only booked out like a week. So do we have a plan in place to get more leads and get more work sold to be able to.

Keep this thing busy over six or seven months? Only had like 130 leads come in. I was just like, I assume those.

Aren'T high quality leads.

Yes.

When it comes to marketing, you can understand it by thinking of like a funnel. So you have cost per click. How much do I have to spend on marketing into Facebook or Google or whatever in order to get one click? And then some of those are gonna convert into lead. How many clicks do I need to spend on before I get one lead? That's your cost per lead. And then you're gonna have a close ratio. A percentage of those leads are gonna convert into customers. Customer acquisition costs. At the bottom of the funnel, I have the cost that I have to pay. The amount of money I have to spend to get one new customer. We inside of the funnel, your conversion rate, there's another one.

Your close ratio.

This is what percentage of your leads become paying customers. Now, the problem with this is that not all customers are created equal. If they're not good paying customers that are doing the type of projects that you want and the size of projects that you need to run a sustainable business, it's still not a good deal.

I'm going to have him go set up and start cutting and then we'll join them.

Cool?

Cool. Yeah, get him, get him rolling.

Do your thing.

Don't let us get in your way. And then we'll jump into it.

Cool. Deal. That's Jennifer, sir.

What's the client you so terrified? And he's like so terrified.

Why?

Because he's like so like, he's like a millionaire. He's like set terrified.

He's here to help the business. Jennifer's worried if she gonna be mean to us. This is the thing that's been.

Challenging to me. We're at break even right now to today. We're at 146,000 expenses and around 156,000 in sales. I don't see any of that because as soon as I get it, I got a credit card bill because my marketing last year was 2,500amonth, spending up to 5 to 6,000 per month. Per month. And every dollar that I've made, I've spent it. But that doesn't even cover the money that I've taken out to cover expense. So it's not necessarily return earnings at that point. It's just like, alright, I'm just trying to keep the business alive. It gets pretty scary whenever that closing date. There was one night where I was just freaking out. I paid like 15,000 on it that month already and I still had a $3,300 balance that day that I was about to get interest collected on. I had a check that would have covered it but didn't clear yet. So I was just like, all right, hit send. They're gonna get their payment and if it goes through.

And I woke up the next morning, I had like $10,000 in my bank account. So it paid off that time. But it's not, it's not a good feeling. So I have to try figuring out, all right, if the leads are coming in, how do we close them.

Our sales lady, Ms. Jennifer, she's still learning and so I think like sooner or later she'll get better at it.

Could I also interview you?

Yeah, absolutely.

So in October I had the decision to either hire sales or someone to replace me.

I've been in sales my whole life and so, and I come from a sales marketing background.

My father was now working I.

And then there has been the pickup to where this is our best quarter we've ever had. But my expenses are like, hey, we're right here. We're number one too. So.

Well, yeah, we earned $100,000, but we spent 102.

I look at it and I was just like, dang. The same amount I put out is the same amount we made and it cost me $1,300 a day if I work or not. With how the business is being run, it's just like that's scary.

So you found someone to do basically the sales side, your hope was that they'd fill your schedule during the winter?

Correct.

Sounds like you paid just as much in wages to them as they bring in in sales.

Yeah.

As a rule of thumb, I typically want my salesperson to be bring in new business of at least 10 times what I have to pay them.

Why?

Because they are straight expense. If I pay them $50,000 for their whole year's worth of wages, I need to probably make $250,000 of revenue just to cover their wages, assuming I'm like say 20% profitable. And so if they're not making at least 10 times like 500,000 in revenue for the business, what's the point of having them around?

I would have applied at the beginning but I was just like, we're Doing good. We're rocking, we're rolling. And I was just like, maybe we're not. Maybe I don't have it all figured out. Maybe I should submit that video. And so it was just one of those moments where I was like, all right, I don't have it all together. I don't know everything. Let me humble myself. I'll submit the video and if it gets accepted, it gets accepted.

I sent a video. He's commenting the film us. And I said, what? What do you mean? A forgotten.

I was like, so excited. I'm like, what does that mean? Like, exactly. What does that mean?

So that salesperson, were they really just going to the leads that were coming in and doing this process?

I was kind of in the mentality is just like with the expectation I'm hiring someone in sales, they're going to know it. She has cause their job description says it.

So they must know how.

Yeah. With that. She has experience in outdoor sales or home service sales.

It's one of those things where, like you're saying, like, she's new to it, so she's still trying to figure out like the pricing. Every now and again we'll have jobs where she kind of under bids a little bit. And so she's still trying to like, figure out what's like that healthy medium.

You know, I will admit it's a lot harder to train somebody with the knowledge that I have knowledge and experience that I have to look at this tree, come up with a number with that, and then expect them to do the same. So that was a lot harder. How I see sales is. Sales is the heart of the business. You don't make money cutting trees. You make money doing sales at the point of sales, when you make your money.

I really would love to get his advice. I've been in sales since I was 18 and I'm 51. I'm just of a different generation.

Her pay is a salary per week. I give her weekly vehicle allowance for using her vehicle. And then we. It was initially started off at 6% gross sales that she.

That she brings in?

No, for the leads. Even the leads that I would be paying for.

Cody's giving Jennifer a 6% commission of top line revenue on all sales that she gets. I'm not a huge fan of this because if I just give a salesperson a percentage of top line revenue, they aren't incentivized to make sure that that revenue is profitable. They're just incentivized to the deal. But it doesn't even sound like that's happening right now.

We're paying probably 12 to 15% of revenue going out to an admin person.

About a quarter.

25%, I think. So 25% of revenue is going to the sales.

Yeah.

Well, there's all your profit.

25% of his revenue is going to Jennifer, who doesn't seem to be doing a lot in terms of sales. And he is somehow able to take that role on himself. He'd immediately be making 25% profit in the business.

Business.

And then after that, Sit down. From October to January or February, it's just like, hey, this is what I paid you, and this is what we sold.

Because it was like, 13,000 sold. 12,000 is what you cost you.

Yeah.

So why do we still have a salesperson?

That is a good question.

We value the coaching. We value.

That's the tough part. I think Jennifer is an amazing person. I love her personality. I love how she connects and talks to customers.

It's been six months. It's been six months.

Yeah.

Like, you're being nice, which is great, but, like, what's right for the business. Sometimes you just have to bite that bullet. That'll be a tough conversation, but, like, that's what's gonna be needed. Like, we can only be nice for so long before everyone loses their job.

The hard conversations that might take have to come up from. All right, if I have to let somebody go, how do I bring that up? How do I implement that? Because I want people to stay with me, but truth is, yeah, I can't afford it.

If we can remove revenue going out the door to a salesperson that isn't, like, even earning to cover their wages, and then use that four or five thousand dollars a month to get a truck that's going to buy back your time by probably double. Because that sales position is, like, that is the bottleneck to all of your revenue. Like, all your revenue has to come through that person. So their close ratio is 30%. And you hop in there, and all of a sudden now you have more accurate estimates, and your close ratio jumps to 60%. You just doubled your business. When we're talking about, like, potentially damaging someone's house and taking out power lines, like, you're the one that needs to be doing that.

In my team meeting, I told the crew, I was like, hey, they're coming out here to help the business. We don't want to be another statistic of a small business that fails. So to honor their time that they came here, whatever recommendations they give, like, I'm gonna Take care of that.

You can use me as the scapegoat, even.

And then that's what I've been waiting for. Because people have been asking. Yeah, My dad's like, I think you need to do sales for yourself. I vent to people because it is something that weighs on me. And after a while, people are just like, I don't want to hear about it anymore.

So this is what you do. You're gonna be the good cop, I'm the bad cop. You're gonna say, look, I love you as a person. I want to see you succeed. I want to make sure this works. I want to make sure you're paid. I want to take care of you. Here's the numbers. Like, we are not. We. We are doing poorly. We cannot afford this. Something's got to change. And Mike said, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.

Hello?

Hi, is this Cody?

Yes, this is he.

So I was just calling because we had two orders. They were placed two days apart, pretty much identical.

What happened was she. Whoever my sales rep was told me that the canopy's on backorder. And so they sent it. Sent the list again. And then I was like, yes, that's what I need. And so I guess that's the discrepancy.

If you can just make sure to check the order numbers next time. Because they actually had two different orders and you approved both. But just next time, if you could, you know, just case we don't catch it, you know, there would be a restocking fee, and you'd have to send it back.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Bye.

Like, I deal with stuff like that.

Case in point. You really feel like this is serving for other people, but, like, ultimately he needs to serve himself kind of thing. I think he's coming to that realization. Like, you can't just keep giving and giving and giving until you have nothing.

It just comes down to a standpoint of pricing wise. I can't afford this position.

I have a feeling you will double your revenue just by you taking it over. Because you'll go from 30% close ratio to 60% close ratio. Because you know all about these trees and can talk the ling, and you know how to sell them, and you know how much you can give and how much you can take, and your confidence level is 10x. Someone that has never done it, They've.

Never been in the tree. This is why having systems and procedures are so important. Because if you're going to grow the business, you'll need to delegate tasks. But if you delegate tasks without having systems in place. Someone might take five or ten times longer to do what you would normally do and do a horrible job. And if that's the case, you might as well just do it yourself. Unless someone can do at least 80% efficiency compared to you, you probably should just do the work.

Your my biggest struggle right now would be getting myself back into the sales position but allowing great, like extending grace to somebody. But then it just comes down to a point of like, all right, it's just not working for the business.

I think it's a matter of like there's several steps. First off, it's like reduce costs by cutting out that position completely. That extra savings is going to allow us to buy a truck that is going to double your output. That doubling of output will allow you to fill that rule of sales without any problem. And then maybe you spend a quarter of what you're spending on that currently. Just get the admin taken care of. Have an answering service, have someone part time that just checks your email and answers the phone. Just get the admin side off your plate. But you still are doing the sales. Now you're also going to sell twice as much many of jobs and be able to to fill the backlog of work because you're going to your bet. Your closer issue I bet will go from 30 to 60% off camera.

I think she heard our conversation.

How's it going?

Hi.

Sorry, I just wanted to introduce myself. Yeah, absolutely.

No, thank you.

This means so much to our company.

I appreciate.

I'm Jennifer. I'm here to make commissions and I'm not making commissions. It's, it's too little. I mean I'm used to making 45, 65, 95 grand a year. I mean I'm 51, but I'm good at sales.

For what?

It's 600 bucks as too much. Are you kidding me? So nickel and diamond, these people and it is, it's killing me. I wanted to start off at 600 bucks a week, but I thought I was be making, you know, $1,600 a week at this time. And I'm not, I'm not going to make Commission on a $1,200 palm tree.

Right.

You know, I need to make commissions on a $6,000 job or $8,000 job or, or a big job.

When I look at like the, the financials, like it is in a bad spot. Right. And ultimately Cody. Cody's comes in the perspective like I want everyone here to do well. He really is trying to take Care of everyone. Like if the business is bleeding money and we have don't have money.

Absolutely, I agree. I've own businesses, I sold businesses. I know. That's why I'm like, yeah, I've got the business sacks.

So then, then I would do is play to your strengths. If you know that's your strength. And right now you feel like you're chasing garbage leaves that don't accept. What if he did this and you proposed to him? Hey, hey, my salary, I'm willing to do all the admin stuff. I'll take that off your plate. Anything that I bring in personally. Not the ads. You can handle the ads if you want. They're trash leads. You handle that. Any work I bring in, I want this cut. Now you bring in a lot of value because you're saving the ad spend if you bring in the leads. We already know together that he's paying five grand a month to bring in leads. So if you can replace that, you become very valuable to people the business. You take the sales, she handles admin and lead generation.

Yeah, right.

And if she's not going to be able to make any more than 20,000 because she can't bring in leads, she'll leave on her own. Yeah, you won't have to fire. And then you then have time. Instead of running after all these tiny little garbage leads, you call up property managers that have 50 properties they're managing. Then I would just be like, hey, you take the garbage leads. I'm not gonna take them anymore. I'll do all the admin so that we can pay the bill. And then I want to cut like higher cut like 10% of whatever else I bring in, whatever that number is. Because now he doesn't have to pay for the ad so he can afford it. And you know, your strength is bigger contracts. The property managers, the people that are going to come with you with a hundred thousand dollars of work a year, not 1500. I think you'll double your close ratio just by using account sales.

Okay.

And then it's like, well then you're.

Going to double the business.

Yeah, right. So that's what I probably didn't really talk about because like, I think just you taking on sales, like the ratio is. She showed me the number. Yeah, it's like 20, 30.

Yeah.

Like the thing I find is both of you are super nice and you're looking out for everyone else, but you.

Gotta look up for yourself. You gotta make more money.

And if the way to make more money is like, hey, I'm Gonna have my base. I'll take care of the admin, but then I'm gonna go sell what I think is right. And then you can tell him, convince him, like, don't spend the $5,000 ads.

Give that to me.

When I go to a bunch of jobs and ask for 10%, she can.

Drive every single lead.

And, like, I will give you 10% of whatever lead you bring to me. Yeah, because that's. We're paying a whole lot more than that right now. Facebook.

Yeah. That's crazy.

And then if she fails, she will lead herself. And she knows she didn't. She wants to help the business, blah, blah, blah. But I think, like, her strength is not selling. It is lead generation. And that's the least what she believes her skills are to let her do that.

Yeah.

And then go from there. We know he's spending $5,000 a month on bringing leads.

That is so much.

So if you can just replace that.

So much money.

Just replace that though, Right?

Like, if you can bring in $50,000.

A month in new work and you're getting 10%, that 5,000 just came to you. And it's not generating $50,000 a month right now in revenue.

Those.

I have enough leads in my network with construction, with hotels, with Airbnb, with real estate. Just people I know. I mean, I'm older, I've got contacts, I have people.

Just put it all on her. She becomes lead generation, not sales.

You're sales.

She's lead generation and admin. And then you let her die on her own sword. If she crushes it, we're happy because we don't spend money. Google and Facebook and we give her the money and she's happy. And if she doesn't do well, she'll just leave on her own.

Gotcha.

I'd make more money if I went door to door.

Oh, 100%. I agree with the same thing. Like, we do door to door too. Like, with just lawn care. And like, I know you can sell.

I know people my neighborhood. I can knock and say, hey, I.

Live two blocks from here.

What you got?

What's up with that tree?

Like, look at this thing.

This thing needs to be cut off.

Like, come on now.

I don't feel comfortable just dropping all leads coming in because.

No, don't do it until she. She's bringing more leads. Like, you're going to take these new. These leads that are coming in now have a better close ratio on them. Actually make them worth something.

Okay.

She is going to be like admin and Then go do lead generation.

Yeah.

And you're going to be nice and like, I will still pay the $28,000 base, but I need all the admin done. Yeah, pronto. You're gonna spend that anyways. You can get someone part time by 28. So like, great. But then the other three hours a day you are like, I can door knock. Great. Let's see it. So I see is there's a disconnected communication because he's thinking, he's trying. He's doing his best to keep you busy and he wants to provide for you. He wants you make more money. That's how he's thinking. You're thinking, I want to get more.

Money for the business.

I know it's struggling. I want to help. Help him. There's a miscommunication of the fact though, that you focusing on something different in.

Terms of sales will bring the business.

More money and make you more money. Yeah, make more money. Like God forbid we make profit in this business. Just have that conversation with them. Just say exactly what you're saying to me, to him, like, I know I can make you more money if I go out and do the lead. And he's trying to protect you and you're trying to protect him. At the same time, we are neglecting the thing that's actually going to help both of you, which is go after the right type of customer. The thing that you're going to be really good at selling. Don't worry about giving him the price on the. On the tree. Just get the job and get him on the site. Yeah, I just.

I want to make money. Yeah, I want to make money.

100.

I want to make Cody money. I want the company to grow. Yeah, I like it. I like it.

So let's go.

Awesome.

Good stuff. Thanks. Jennifer.

So frightened of you.

No, don't be that way. Are you kidding me?

Fine. I'm sorry.

Hey, you're the one person I'm taller than.

You can't get a hug you. You'll do great. Great job. Good.

I'm so terrified of you.

I was like, no, you're good. You're good.

I didn't sleep last night.

Dude. I was willing to pay that $1,400 for an hour with you.

Hey, we came out with. We had to come out, take a shower.

Towels and everything.

Yeah.

Since the turnaround, a lot of my times been traveling. I had left to go to California to pick up that truck. Flew in there, got there Thursday, and from Thursday to Monday morning was spent driving back. That was a lot like 35 hours. So it was fun. As soon as I got back, put the truck to work. We had some thunderstorms roll in pulling houses off the trees, but people are pulling trees off of houses.

In one day. I did like 10 bids and four jobs. So that was good. From a perspective of money wise, some of them were insurance claims that we have to deal with insurance. It might be December before I get paid, but be nice to have that. Friday I have an event for hurricane preparation thing, so I'll be able to have a booth set up, made some flyers to hand out. And this is with like the Home Builders association, so I'm not out of 500 companies. I'm the only true service in there. And so I'm looking forward to that. I believe that'd be great networking for me.

I'm trying to reduce my overall amount. I'm spending the amount of money I'd be saving between letting go, Jennifer, C.J. transitioning out, getting another job, reducing my marketing down, getting rid of one of the coaches I had comes up to be about 12,000amonth, even with the addition of the new truck that I got. So I was just like, that's a lot of money in my pocket.

She never brought up the conversation that her and Mike had. I didn't believe she would. She's like, I had three people tell me I was a office assistant. I'm not an office assistant. I'm sale. I'm a salesperson. I just considered with Mike the conversation Mike and I had. And from there I was just like, all right, I kind of made up my mind rather than put her in office admin because she clearly communicated that's not what she wants to do. I just like, all right, I'd rather let her go go. Because another perspective I had is if I put her in office admin, she as soon as I get I feel pressured that I'm not able to make something, I'm going to send her to go run an estimate for me or place a bid on the job and then just get back into that rhythm of, oh, you're doing your whole role again. So I'd rather be a clean break and just like, hey, I'll figure it out from here. About a week after that, I had sat down with her. I was just like, hey, I said before Mike and the team came here, I told y' all that I'd be looking letting I would be following through with ever whatever advice they gave me just because I don't want to waste my time. I Said to simply put it, I can't afford a salesperson right now. And I just kind of laid it out like that.

I said, here.

This is what I have. I have for you kind of as a. As a severance package. So I made sure she's taken care of throughout the rest of the month. And then from there, it was. It was a little rocky. She initially took it, okay, okay. She was just like, I'm thankful for the opportunity to work here. I really love working here. Really loved working here. I love the job, the people she kind of to. What she described was, I feel like a failure. I said, well, no, it's not that. I said, I want. I can't. I just can't afford this position. And I said, I do appreciate all the hard work you put in to get the business to where it's at now. I said, I'm just not at that place where I can afford this. I showed it to the numbers. I said, the numbers don't lie. The numbers don't lie. Thank you. And so. So it was tough. And then following up with that, it was tough for me because I recognized the reason why I went that route because of everything. At the end of the day, having to do sales, operation admin, all of that, just fall back on. See, and it's just like, man, I'm tired.

First two days, I was like, oh, this is awesome. I was love collecting deposits and doing sales. Then it's just like, I hate answering the phone while driving. I hate answering the phone while I'm on a job site. So from there, it's just like, all right, I had to turn my leads down because a lot of my solutions that I would come up with would be just throw more money at it. Let's just throw more money at it. If she wasn't closing because she thought she wasn't getting enough leads or quality leads, okay, let's double the budget. And so April, we spent like, $8,000 in ads, had 92 leads come in, only 30 appointments booked. So I feel like that was a little low. And then on those 30 appointments booked, there are only seven sales, but four of them my name was on. So I was just like, that hurts. Like, okay, that's justification in and of itself that something's not working, and I got to let you go.

So, yeah, I'm just place of trying to figure things out.

Out.

On the first day, my girlfriend was just like, hey, be present. We're at dinner, and you're answering the phone, calling people. And I was like, hey, like I need that reminder sometimes because my mindset is, nobody else is going to solve these problems but me. And that. I said, that's. That's the hard thing about a business being a business owner.