i want to quit (business failure)

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes here. And maybe right now, when you're watching this, you're a small business owner and you feel like quitting, and you're overwhelmed because employees have left you, customers are mad, there's projects that are going south, you're losing money, maybe payroll is bounced, and now you're trying to figure out how to get debt and another loan to make it through. Maybe it's a spring rush, you're just completely drained physically from all the work and the long hours and no sleep. And that's who I'm talking to today. And for any business that's great, the ones that have been around for 20, 30 years, it's not that they haven't had problems. It's the fact that they never gave up during the low lows. And I've talked about before, try to have higher lows and lower highs. A more stable approach to the psychological and mental roller coaster that is business. I want to talk today, though, about when you're in those low moments. Because I've been there, I've been there borrowing money to make payroll. When things bounce and you're embarrassed and there's not much money in the account and spring rush and customers are just pouring in and employees are walking off the job, they don't like you, you're getting negative reviews, you made a big damage case, Projects are going south and you're losing your shirt on them and the customer's unhappy, and none of the crew wants to go back and work on the project. I've been there. And so today I'm going to walk you through the steps to make sure that you don't quit. Because in that moment, that's when most people will quit and is in those low moments. The goal in business, though, is to get through the roller coaster and get through those low lows without quitting. Cause quitting is the only way to fail in business. I like the analogy of boxing in business, but the thing that's different between boxing and your business is with boxing, there's a finite number of rounds. You only have so many rounds, and then the game is declared a winner. In business, every single day is another round. Every single season is another round. Every single job is another round. And ultimately, as long as you don't give up, you will win the game. It's not a matter of who wins in the boxing match. In business, if you just get to the end of the round without staying on the mat, you're the winner. And that's 99% of the case with business, whoever can just get through the first five, ten years of business typically does really, really well. It's just those first few years are like hell because the low lows are so extreme. And the low lows come with financial, mental, psychological, physical pain that lots of people will give up in that moment. And so I encourage you to do, because we're all gonna get beat down, we're all gonna fall flat on our face, but instead of staying on the mat, you've gotta get back to your corner. And the beautiful thing about business instead of boxing, where there's defined rounds and you go back to your corner at a certain time, the cool thing about business is at any moment you can go to the corner at any moment, you can say, look, I gotta step back at any moment. When you're down and you're beat up, you can call a timeout. It takes some self awareness, but you can call a timeout, get back to the corner and be refreshed. And in the corner of boxing, you know, they stitch up the wounds, they wipe down their face, they have them smell salt, try to get them reinvigorated and slap their face and get them back, focused back on what the goal is. And maybe they were kind of like foggy and things were a little bit spinning, try to get them some water, get them refreshed, get them rejuvenated, get them back ready for another day, get them back in the fight. And that is who wins in business, the person that stays in the fight. Today I'm going to give you, instead of just the washy, gushy analogy, I want to give you actually steps to do in your small business, your home improvement business, when things are just. When you're on the mat, how do you get back to the corner? I want you to keep in mind that the 8020 principle applies in our small businesses like no other. The 80 20, 20 principle is that 80% of all the problems in your business are caused by 20% of customers. All 80% of the problems in your culture and your employees and your team is caused by 20% of the team. All of your profits, 80% of your profits are created by 20% of your customers, 20% of your services, et cetera. So when we keep this in mind, what I want you to do is say, okay, what am I going to do to eliminate stress, eliminate physical stress, financial stress, psychological stress? Here's what we're gonna do for first of all, we're going to cut the 20% of customers that are causing us 80% of the headache. These are the ones that are always complaining. You can never do anything right for them. They never pay their bill. All of the issues that come from us are psychological issues. Is most time. We're just very good people that don't want to make our customers unhappy. We want to make them satisfied. And so there's just 20% of people you should be cutting out because that's percent. 80. 80% of the damage psychologically that is being created for you is the fact that they just complain all the time. You cannot make them happy. And it might not be them. It might just be the fact that your business is not set up in a way that's gonna be most beneficial for them. They should go use a smaller company, they should use a bigger company, whatever it is. But cut 20% of the customers. They're creating 80% of your problems. Now you say, well where am I gonna cut them? You're going to cut customers that are the least profitable. So least profitable customers and services. Okay, so customers and services say, well, how do I cut these 20% of customers? Well, you're going to look and ask yourself, which customers am I most profitable on? Guess what? If you're traveling an hour away to do mowing service from your shop, they're least profitable. It's not going to be very profitable now compared to the guy that's five minutes down the street, very profitable. Obviously your pricing has to be adjusted and make sure it's correct. However, driving that far away is very rarely where I see profits being made. In a home improvement business. Lots of inefficiencies happen in drive times. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna cut out those customers. I'm also gonna cut the least profitable services in my business. I'm going to cut out the services that are literally creating 20% of my profits but creating 80% of the issues in my business. And you know what they are. You know what services. You're like, man, I gotta do this. I've grown the business. And most people don't do this because they're afraid of having a down year. They're afraid of not having as big revenue growth as the year prior. Last year we did 200,000. The next year we had 300,000. This year we're on track for 400,000 DOL. Great. But can we just take a step back and realize if we just did 350 instead of 400 and cut out that $50,000 of services that is causing 80% of your mental fatigue? 80% of the reasons why you have customer complaints and employees being disgruntled is because that $50,000 in this new service that you offer, just cut it out. Realize that by doing that, you will stay in the game. Yeah, you're not gonna have as much growth. Yeah, you're not gonna hit 400,000 because that's an arbitrary number you threw up at the beginning of the year. Yeah, you're not gonna hit that. But staying in the game is the only way to win. And as long as you. If you just push, I'm gonna go to 400. I gotta get to 400. We're gonna keep these services. We're gonna keep these customers. I don't say no to customers. I take all services. I'm just doing everything for everybody. If you keep that mentality, you'll stay on the mat because it's so overwhelming to stay in the game. And what I'm telling you right now is step back, get in the corner, and start cutting out those customers that are causing that stress. Cut out the services that are least profitable that you're driving way far away. And you're only doing it for an arbitrary growth number that you put up at the beginning of the year. The next thing I want you to do is I want you to cut the least profitable lead gen. This is one that's new, all right. This is the one that these other two you've probably heard before, but this is the one that I actually think is really important because it leads to number one and number two. And that is I want you to look at how you generate leads. That's what lead gen is, lead generation. How do you generate leads? Whether it be an estimate request form on your website, whether it be through web chat from someone coming online, whether it be someone giving you a phone call, whether it be someone sending you an email, whether it be an existing customer replying to a newsletter, all these different ways that people can notify you. They can come through Facebook messenger, they can come through. They can go through Google Messaging on Google, they can come through nextdoor. There's a bazillion ways leads can come to you and leads are generated. But I want you to notice something. 80% of your customers that come from these platforms, only 20% of them are really good. I want you to focus on them. If you only are getting your highest quality leads and they're being generated from recurring customers that are already on the books, existing customers that you've already done service for, focus on them. They're the ones that live with the Least amount of problems, the least amount of complaints. They're the ones who accept at the highest closing ratio. They're the ones who don't question you on price. They just accept the job because they know you've done a great job. I really want you to think about, well, where are my leads coming from? And should I actually turn off certain types of leads? Should I turn off the person that wants to meet me for an hour and talk about their project when someone else is very happy to take an estimate over the phone, put a credit card on file and just roll with services? Oh, no, I have to meet you. Well, you might be part of the 20% of people I don't want that's causing 80% of my problems. I truly believe if we cut out 20% of the customers, 20% of the services that you're offering, and we cut out the least profitable ways that leads coming into our business, whether it be from online or existing or new customers, or coming for a new marketing campaign. New leads are great. I understand new leads is what fuels growth, but I truly believe they're the least profitable type of new business. I'd much rather have $100,000 in new revenue coming from existing customers. Why? Because I'm gonna have a higher close ratio. I'm gonna have a higher profit margin. They're gonna accept things more, they're gonna complain less, and that's where I wanna be focused on. So why would I go spend a bunch of money on an ad campaign on Facebook when I haven't tapped into my existing them for services? I should be cutting out the least profitable lead gen, which in this case is I gotta go pay for leads in Facebook versus free leads that are sitting in my inbox because I've done work for them before. They're in my database. I can just reach out to them and tap into a lead gen stream that is much more profitable. Now you say, man, that was pretty deep. Okay, great. These are the three things that are gonna allow you to get back in your corner. This is like the water in your face. This is like banding up some wounds. Get focused, Step back a little bit. Yes. Revenue might drop down if you cut out services. You cut out customers. Yes, it will. But guess what? You're gonna stay in the game. And right now is the hardest time for home improvement businesses. After the spring rush when you had massive amounts of demand and you've been working crazy hours and you've had the least amount of efficient workers because they're all brand new. This is when Most people give up and quit. There's financial stress, psychological stress, mental stress, physical stress. Everything is just pounding you in the face. And people are like, oh, I gotta stay in the game. I gotta keep these custom. Keep doing this day and day and every single day. You just feel like it. And eventually you get knocked out, and that's when you lose. I encourage you, step back, do these three things, get back in your corner, refresh yourself, and then step back in the game stronger than ever. That is what leads to longevity, higher profit margins, and a company that stays in business. Cause staying in business is the equivalent of staying in the game. If you want a video about some of the really low lows of my business career, because I've had them too, watch this video here, where it explains exactly some of the motions you might be having that I've had. And I promise you, if you can just get through those times, success is on the other side. Not immediately. It might be three, five, ten years down the road, but it's worth every single moment.