Lawyering Up ... Mikes 30 Days Challenge isn't over yet!

Cool. Right on. Welcome back. Another episode, C Suite Unfiltered. Mike Andes in North Carolina. And we are recording on the actual last day of your North Carolina challenge. How we feeling?

Yeah, dude, the power has gone out twice today. All the stop signs or the lights around the local area are, like, sporadically working. So it's. It's been quite the day.

Nice. Yeah. So we did it 30 full days. This is the end of day 30.

Obviously, you know, we know that you hit over 1500 in daily revenue and you said, we're not stopping there. So, yes, you achieve the challenge. Check the box. But you're trying to book jobs out. So right now, like, how far out. How far are you booked out?

Well, the thing is, so, like, next week is full. The week after that, Chandler is. Is going for training, though. So even though we're technically booking in the now August, it's technically one week less. So I'd say confidently, we have three to four weeks booked out. However, I did just get a notification. A job, big job got accepted. So what. What was. What is more positive, though, in my mind is like, every day we're getting recurring mowing still accepted. And so, you know, that's been building. We have over 20 mowing customers, which is pretty good for June, like, middle of the year, it's not spring rush, so I'm happy. And yeah. So Chandler's channel will be taking things over. Tomorrow is a lot of training, even though it's after the challenge. Training a lot with him. Right. I think there's like 800 revenue, so a short day and then we'll do a bunch of training. Chuck is going to come up and help and train him up so he's at least good for the next week before he comes up to training in Washington.

Okay, that's awesome. That's sweet. Yeah, he seems like a stud. Kind of just came out of nowhere, obviously, in.

In the.

In the essence of a vlog. Right. We had our characters, and then this Chandler guy just pops in and starts crushing. So he seems awesome. Very excited to meet him. Yeah.

And he, he. He never even watched any of the videos. So, like, he, it wasn't like he was like, oh, yeah, like, let me jump into the story. Like, he just had been working hard for a month or so up in Huntersville underneath Connor, who's the GM up there. And Connor was gracious enough to allow him to come over. I feel like they already kind of knew they were going to lose him eventually because he had so much caliber and there wasn't probably going to be anything until next spring that he can move into. And then he was driving significantly longer to get up there, so it ultimately worked out. I think Chandler's a stud. He has that very much mindset like Connor does. Yeah, he's young, he's hungry, wants to learn, super eager, figures things out on his feet. So he's going to crush it. And. Yeah, look forward to it.

That's awesome, man.

Well, by the way, if the lights are flickering, so if. If the Internet cuts out, I'll just switch to my hotspot, and then I'll become, you know, a ghost.

If you. If your Internet goes out, I'll just monologue and.

We'Ll leave it in.

But it's running off of mine, so it'll record. It'll record on black screen.

I was gonna say, give me a topic to monologue on.

All right, well, let's go. Since the. The challenge is fresh, it just ended. I did prepare a few questions. Not that my questionability has gone to my head by any means, but I do want to start with arguably the greatest trio of questions to a business person of all time. The man himself, Simon Sinek. What, how, and why. Right. So we talk about starting with why. So the what was. I'm Mike, and he. I'm traveling 2,000 miles to start, you know, a lawn care. A $300,000 annual lawn care business in 30 days. Right. That was the what. The how. You. You bought your equipment, you bought your trucks. Like, we all saw the how. The how was watched. We saw it on the vlogs. So now let's go to the why. Why were you motivated to do this? Like, what in the world motivated you to take on this challenge?

There's a. Definitely a combination of things. Like, I never. I'm not. So first and foremost, I said a year and a half ago I was going to do it.

Yeah.

I just said it in passing, and then I put it on my YouTube channel. And at the time, I was probably doing it to kind of prove to, say, people like, hey, I'm still a lawn care guy. Like, I know how to do this. That was kind of like the. The air about my comment, and I was like, just watch me. I. I promised by fall of 2023, I'm gonna go start a location from scratch outside of the state. Yeah. And so that's where it started. That was a root of it. And as I got closer, I was like, just, like, super regretting the fact that I promised everyone to do that because, like. Like, how logistically am I going to pull this off? So that's how it started. I'd say I got closer though, especially going into like this past spring rush. I got somewhat excited by the fact that like I wasn't able to document exactly what I was doing for 30 days for Augustination for new franchisees. Because like right now we train them for a week, they leave very pumped up, there's lots of excitement, they just learn tons of information and then they get one coaching call for the first six weeks of being on board after being onboarded at Command center, which is fine, but we have seen time and time again, it's in those certain. The reason we do weekly coaching calls with you and Chuck during that time is because it's their children, like they need more care, same way that an infant needs more care from their, from their parents, they need more care, they need more help, etc. And so it's like, look, if we can't, if we can't, you know, we did monthly. Well, I do weekly for the first six weeks. I want like, I want to give them a daily, exactly what I'm doing, highs, the lows, what I'm going through, what marketing I'm trying. And then the hope was that we would see all the pro, like all the highs, the lows, as well as like me actively trying to work what we talk about in the stages of growth. So like it's easy for them to come to training. They see the tours of the two different shops that are relatively close to each other, the both of which are in like stage four and five of growth. But stage one, two, three, one, two and three are very gray for a new owner because we don't have anything to show them. We don't have infant locations and we definitely don't, definitely don't have anyone in the first 30 days. So the goal is that, you know, I've been making these videos publicly, but also I've been making daily videos that are more long form, just me talking like this on this computer for the franchisees that I can stitch together and say, hey, for your first 30 days, watch every single one of these videos and see what I was doing. And I want you to do the same thing. And they're going to see me struggle to find which marketing mechanism work right. And some of this is going to seem very staged because like when we look back at it, it's like everything from a media perspective worked out perfectly. Like everything that we wanted to achieve happened, but it was not planned. Like there was no ultimate Plan of like, definitely not the car crash, but like the marketing, for example, like, there was no scheme. Like, we knew we were going to hold the sign, the one sign, because it would make a good media bit. Right. And that's why we did like the first or second day.

Right.

But it started working. So we ordered two other ones, one for mulch and one for property cleanups, which for the franchisees watching, we're going to make them available in the dashboard. Yes, I promise.

Nice.

But.

You know, and then, and then it was like, well, I'm spending money on Facebook and Google and that's not getting anything. So we ditch it and we go to door hangers. And that's working. So I want them to see that they, they potentially might go door hands and doesn't work. It's like, not like you throw up your hands, like, oh, I give up. Like, it's not working. It's like, no, you keep trying. And like I tried everything. I, I held this thinking sign in a mall, like, whatever it takes in terms of marketing, getting that traction is what's required. And then to the fact this is the part I didn't think was going to happen and I was hoping would and didn't. And that was we saw momentum kick in. Because typically momentum, what I've seen takes three to four months. Yeah. Because the thing I think the reason that it came so quick to us is I know the systems, right. So like I could follow them right from day one. It was a matter of just finding what worked in terms of marketing, getting traction. And then we got momentum. I think we can take that from three to four months down to one month if they have a better recipe of okay. I saw Mike struggling with these things. He kept following the systems. He, he did do exactly what we said in stage one, two and three, which is don't worry about your profit, focus on closing jobs. I don't care if you got lower prices. I don't have to care if you charge an estimate fee or dump fee. Like, you must get jobs on the schedule. And to see it live in action, me getting excited about like, oh my word, we just got two job accepted. I got three referrals. I got a Google review. Like everything's starting to very quick, quickly. That last week pick up is what I want them to know. That's what momentum looks like. Because if you ask me, in week two or three, when our closed ratio is under 20 and we have two or three mowing customers and the first mowing job is like a flat tire where we are literally at day 14 with hardly any mowing customers and hardly any projects. It doesn't look great. And for me, I have to be here for a month. For an owner that has other options or has other business opportunities or other career opportunities or job offers, it's very tempting to jump. And so for them to see me go that low and do that poorly in the first couple weeks, but then literally in a matter of 10 days, it all flipped to where now I constantly know that if I stay here another month, we can get three to four employees. And now we're booked out five weeks. And Chandler set up like.

It'S. Stick with it. And the systems are the backbone that you give your confidence to. And I make it talk about in the video on the last day. And that is when you step on a plane. The reason you have confidence and, you know, not too concerned about it crashing is because you know that there's been certain standards and procedures and checklists and protocol followed by engineers and pilots and FFA and flight controls and all these other things. And so you have to have confidence. And that's what gives you the ability to step on that plane. Because, you know, all those things have been checked. I knew all those things have been checked. That gave me the confidence to get on something that got me to the destination in 30 days. What takes, the reason it takes most people a year or two years to do what I did in 30 days is they don't have either a the plane, it's not dialed in, there is no system or two, and this is with Augusta, is they don't have confidence or training.

What did I say? They have not perfected those systems. They don't have enough confidence. Step on the plane, they hold on tight and let it rip. Right? And so I'm, I'm really happy with the overall, you know, that arc that we showed because everyone's gonna go through those low moments, including just a week ago when literally my GM gets into a car wreck. And you know, as we'll get into today, you know, here in a second, like it's still, that story is still not over. And so.

Yeah, no, that's good.

Very long question. But in true sign Simon Sinek form, I went all over the place that.

Well, and that was, that was a big open ended question. That was my most open ended. Expected it to be long because I, I asked you like, what is your, what's your driving factor? What's your motivation? Right? And that is, that could be anything for anyone. Now let me step into the shoes of a naysayer, right? Who says, well, it's all fabricated, Mike. This isn't legit because you knew there was an end date. And small business owners, they sign up and there isn't an end date. And it could make or break their whole family. It could make or break their whole financial situation. Like, that's. You just have this advantage because you have all this money in this franchise system. It's not real. What's your retort to that?

Well, it's absolutely like, it just depends on what they're coming. So they actually say that last part like they don't think it's real. Then it's like, I would have to like, really, like, hoodwink. What's the word? Hoodwink. Hoodwink. A lot of people, like, Zach's with me the whole time. Chuck's here. You know, my GMs that are like, on salary, I'd have to hoodwink them.

There'd be a lot of. That'd be a really hard scheme to pull off if this is all fake. I think the part that as I look back at is like, it does seem very fabricated in terms of like the highs and the lows. And there was definitely a sense of like, we were trying to create stories, right? So we have to emphasize certain things. But everything that happened, that video happened for legitimate. There was nothing staged in the. In the form of like the storyline. It was more a matter of like, let's take what is happening and try to make it better for media. That was happening, right? Like the thumbnails, the titles. We're trying to get more of the things that are more, you know, I'm not just like, today I'm mowing a bunch of lawns. You'll see me mow for like a minute or two. Like, it's. It's not the driving force of the storyline. And so we have to do not and, you know, kind of take what's there and then shine it up. But it's definitely not fabricated. Like, if someone think it's false. I don't know.

Right. I think I spun the question wrong at the end by saying this isn't real. I started the question by saying, like, well, what if someone attacked you for saying, you know, you're leaving in a month, but a small business owner. This is for life. So what's your, like, retort?

My retort. So, okay, so this is the argument of Mike that would come back to that one. So the argument of Mike would say, I would actually put myself in a lesser position by knowing I'm leaving in a month than someone who disappears is their life's work or this is their career or this is their business. Because this is my business, dude. And I didn't have everything else I have to do. You better believe this would have grown faster. Yeah, you better believe we'd be here. Like, if I knew I was going to be here for three or six or 12 months or whatever, we'd be continuing to grow very quickly. We're not. We're putting the brakes on for Chandler because he's a brand new manager. He needs to come up for training. Then we're going to allow him to employ more people. So like we're putting the brakes on very heavily. Like the fact that we're booging out now we're four weeks and I just got a big, big project accepted to like, you know, six, probably five. Six weeks out is.

You know, that could be channeled into two weeks. Me hire two more people and we, we're still rolling here, right?

Yeah.

So I would say that if like what people forget and they always talk about it, but then they forget in this instance is when your life depends on something, you'll typically work harder, you'll have more energy and you'll do whatever it takes. Right. The fact that I am leaving in 30 days, I don't financially need this location and it's not going to make a meaningful impact on my quote, unquote, net worth. It further shows the power of the systems because it's not me needing it and being super hungry.

For the first three weeks. I'd say I was only working about four hours a day on the business the last week. I've been, you know, in the business like every day. But I think for someone that was had the same level of dedication to the systems and same like we are not deviating from these. Plus had 10, 12, 14 hours a day to spend on their business. Should be able to do exactly what I did. And the fact that instead of 4 hours of working 14 make up for the difference in quote, unquote, extra knowledge or money that I have. And also too, like, I don't think anyone should join Augusta if they only have 500 bucks or a thousand dollars. Right. And I was doing this mostly for the franchisees. Like if I just did the whole like start with a hundred dollars, we know from a media perspective that would crush. We know we would get more views. We know it'd be very, very wide appeal versus what we went, which is very narrow. Just for lawn care and landscaping industry. But I also know that if I were to start with a hundred dollars, there'd be zero real impact or benefit for Augusta Nation because they're joining with the expectation they do ramp quickly with the expectation that they do eventually hand this off to a general manager with the expectation that they are going to have 40, $50,000 at least to get started. And so for me to get started with a hundred would be a complete media play. And that was not enough. Like, that didn't wake me up enough. Like to do what we've done this past month, like the pain threshold would not have been as high. Yeah.

Now I had another thought and that would be, I think you had an advantage and you did start a small business, obviously the original Augusta LOC location in your hometown. But you're also not geared like most people. I feel like most people also sales in general involves a certain element of shamelessness and you have the advantage of you don't live there, you don't know anyone there, you don't care if you make a fool of yourself holding a sign. So I do think you have a slight psychological advantage there because I think if I did what you did in my hometown, I would not want to stand at the mall with a sign saying, do you need a mowing quote? Right.

So here's, here's the thing. I, I see where it's coming from.

Two things. One, I believe people have an inflated view of themselves, that everyone in their local city knows them when maybe it's 100 people, it's the people around their high school. Second thing is.

CD dun dull there. I literally forgot the second thing. But it's going to come. Just wait. That you said.

Okay. I would say anyway, if you go anywhere and go hold a sign on the public, it's going to be nerve wracking. I don't care if it's your hometown or people you don't know. Oh, this is what I was gonna say.

Everyone says that. However, if you were to fast forward, you know, five years and say, okay, that guy standing on that sign, holding that sign is gonna build a three million dollar business in our local area. And if you actually believe that, you'd probably do better at dealing with that social anxiety because you're like, I know what this is going to become. And if you fail to believe in that, that end result so much, you will be anxious and you will be, you know, drawn in and you won't be able to push through it. I'm not saying you won't feel it. I felt every single second was as I'm holding a sign out next to the road. And it took me a while, like, warm up before, like, I, like, move the truck and like, hopped on the hood. Like, it took time, but ultimately someone will do that if they actually believe that they will hit the goal. Because if you do, this is why people that say, like, outlandish things like, I'm going to become this. Well, it takes a lot of nut, like, like a lot of nerve to say that. But also it's a great story when they deliver on it.

Right?

Right. When someone says something crazy, but they believe in it so much and then they deliver, they're not crazy anymore. They were visionary. Right. And so I think most people don't believe in themselves enough and believe that they're going to hit their goal because if they did, they know it'd make a great story. And it just so happens that I have a camera following me tracking that story. So, yes, it's a little bit easier. But I do believe most people simply don't have enough confidence or swaggered about them to believe in their goal enough to say, laugh at me now and in five years, come talk to me. And so that's more the approach I've taken in general when it comes to like, the whole online stuff or people saying stuff is like, great, hey, just talk to me in five years and then we'll settle this debate. Because I'm not going to, like, squabble over now.

That makes sense. Do you think with this new found perspective.

Right.

Having done this challenge, that any of your priorities have changed for Augusta as a whole?

Oh, man. That's a good question. Thank you.

It's a great.

Thank you.

Oh, dude. There's been a lot. I. I really haven't had time to think about it, to be honestly, especially the past week and a half, it's just been like. It's just been a blur. But I. I know it has.

Yeah.

To put my finger on it. Did you say the mission?

No, just your overall vision, your priorities is the word I used. Your priorities for Augusta as a whole, have those changed based on the new perspective you've gained? And I know there's probably elements you can't share publicly, obviously, and ideas that have come up or things you've shared in private conversations, but in general, anything.

There's countless improvements to the systems. There's countless, like, things that I will be better at. Like, it was 10 years ago I started. Right. So, like, I think it's a Healthy thing to kind of get back and feel that again. The thing is, there was nothing that happened that was like, super surprising to me because we've seen it. We've. We've been with a hundred people, other people doing the same thing. Like same trucks, same services, they fall in the same system. It wasn't anything surprising. But to live through it is, is, is, is, is good because the. I wasn't feeling pressure of like, financially this is going to make or break me. Right. Like, literally almost called it off a week ago. Right.

What the pressure I was feeling is what happens to the Mike Andy's brand if I come out and say I'm going to do this thing and then it doesn't work. Right, right. So for everyone that just saying, like, oh, like, what about, you know, people, you standing on top of a truck, blah, blah. Okay, what happens if I say all of this stuff and the systems are great and everything and I don't get to $500 a day in revenue, I get five or six customers. Nothing works. My website doesn't rank, nothing's happening. And that's a risk that was, that could have happened because we were only recording two days before we were publishing. So it wasn't like we could modify this or like, oh, we're going to have to like, steer this off somehow. So I don't even know why we were going down that path, but there you have it. Oh, like, the overall, like changes, like, definitely there's a lot of stuff, like I'll sit down, like on our flight back and like even over the next couple days after I a couple legal things.

And probably come up with some, like, better formulating of my thoughts of things that changed in my head. But I definitely, you know, I got a renewed sense of the fear of failure.

And I've always had that from a financial perspective because I push all the businesses kind of to the brink on, in terms of, you know, what we spend, we spend basically every dollar.

So I know that's like financially, but I don't know what that's like socially because for the past seven, let's call it six or seven years, I've always been, quote unquote, considered successful. And if this would have failed, it would have not just been a public in front of my friends and family. This would have been in front of my entire audience and franchisees that I failed. So like, there's definitely pressures to that.

And so, yeah, it definitely crossed my mind. And like we said we had conversations. Okay, so what happens if we don't hit this. Like, how do we spin this? What's the teaching moment here? Right? And so, you know, like, Copper Creek Cuts, Brad gave me a really nice out in a comment, basically saying, like, if you don't hit it, here's the things that people are going to learn. And. And like, basically saying, it's not easy kind of thing.

That's.

That is a good perspective. And I think. I think I tried to show that when I was really low.

Because in hopes that I would come back like we did. But in the back of my mind, I'm like, if this doesn't turn around, like, the ramifications of that would be difficult. And so, yeah, we had to make it work.

Yeah, I think a lot of people are still gullible, but I like to hold on to the fact that maybe most people can still do critical thinking today. And I think there's. There are content creators who are genuine. When they make a mistake, they pivot. Like Brad from Copper Creek Cuts was saying, which is, let's make it a teaching moment. Here's what the audience can learn from it. And then there's the guys that are worried about their self image, so they fabricate or manipulate the story to give a certain perspective, a forced perspective. I like to think that most people still have enough critical thinking skills to see through that when someone's doing that. And I think you, obviously, knowing you as a person, just morally, you would have been like, no, I said, we're going to do this. I'm going to share the whole truth. I'm going to share the failure, if it's a failure. But I think it's interesting. My favorite part of what you said there was, like, you felt the pressure of, like, social failure. I feel like that is what I was alluding to when I was saying you almost have this element of you don't have as much shame because you aren't known there. It's not your hometown, it's not this, that or the other. But I guess you really rebutted that question by saying, no, I actually have more shame if this fails, right?

Oh, yeah, dude.

Eyes on.

It's documented in history. Public.

Like, look at this guy. Make him feel like a fool and he still can't hit his goal.

Yeah, totally, totally. I wouldn't say I was ever nervous. I was like, you'll get there. And obviously I have to, like you said, coach franchisees when they get started. So I firmly believe in, like, you need momentum. You need momentum. Do this. If that's not working, do this. If that's not working, do this.

But I, this is a layup for you as coaches. You guys just get a point to my a certain day and be like, yeah, that's what Mike was feeling on this day. Like, and this is what happened. Like, so it's exactly what we needed. We need, we need the Bible to turn back to occasionally and be like, this is what happened. Right. And like this is normal. This is what happened. Like day four is gonna become like chapter 14 of Psalms. It's gonna be like, go there, read a couple verses. You'll be good, dude. It'll pick me up. So I, I like, I look back and like I was talking with Zach, I was like, I don't know what else we could have shown in terms of highs and lows that you're going to feel potentially in the first year we got in like the 30 days and like something like that happened last Thursday just completely derails everything. But that also happens. Now I would never wish that on anyone and I wish it wouldn't have happened to us or Terrence. But like it happens to everyone. Like it just, it's going to happen. And the fact is like we have never had a car crash like that. Let me make sure that's the correct statement. I don't think we've ever had a car crash ever have within your 10 or not, right?

No, we've had a couple.

Yeah. But we never had a car like a head on collision or a T bone interjection. And it's been 10 years and we have now tons of trucks now over here and over there. So the fact that in the first month I'm starting it happens.

Yeah.

You know, that's lucky. Right? So I don't know.

Yeah. I, I want to ask one other question. I do want to get back to the car crash because I feel like there's more to explore there. It's having knowing that the challenge just ended. But what would you say gut reaction? What is the top quality or skill you need to accomplish what you just did? Like another a small business owner that has watched the whole vlog series that's watching this, listening to this. What is the one skill or quality one. The most important to accomplish what you just did?

The ability to blindly follow the systems regardless of the outcomes that happen.

And.

That'S why I'm so bullish on franchising is because the only thing that keeps you typically as a new owner operator is the fact that okay, 100 other people have done this. 5, 000 other people have done this. I can't be that different. And I remember thinking this at any time fitness is like I was being trained. I'm like, this could be better. I think that. And I, I eventually said that, okay, they have 4,000 of these and they're training me to do something.

Yeah.

And I remember thinking I am going to follow these blindly. And so now and anytime we are in the top 100 clubs out of 4,000 and it's because it's literally when I went to training I said and we doubled revenue and like we have, we have the same square footage, same number of employees. Like it's, you can't do a whole lot like, and so it, because it'd be, it was simply like we're going to follow these systems religiously. And so when you're going through a low, low or like things aren't working out or like for myself, having under 20 close ratio as you know, is like red signals across the board. On a coaching call when that's happening, you don't deviate and you can, you just keep doing it.

Yep.

And we keep doing the same thing. And I kept doing the same close like I was doing follow up calls the same way last week as I was the first week. The first week, nothing.

This week.

Everything's just falling in our lap. Did I change pricing? No. Pricing change was the exact same throughout this entire challenge. We never changed our hourly rate. We never changed how much we were charging for mowing. We never charged. We never changed any of those things. And so I have the benefit. And the only advantage I would say I have is I have complete and utter confidence in the system we built. There was never a question of oh, should we change something? Yeah. And if someone could actually adopt that, that's what would give them the success.

Unfortunately, most people don't have a network of community or a franchise or a system to follow. And that's why they go take 10 years to build something. Right. It's because they're simply having to figure out. And I know it seems like a pitch for Augusta, but it's just a matter of like that's what franchising is. It is the roadmap that says do not deviate from that. And in fact we're going to penalize you if you do.

Yeah.

And like I say, one thing I've taken away from this, I'm going to start really coming heavy handed on people that go outside the systems and we're going to cut people out of, out of the system faster because deviation from the, from the, from the, the systems that work means people are going to fail. And failure is ultimately going to lead to a bad brand reputation for those who are following the systems. And two, it's going to lead to a less, less of a success rate. And so the model begins to be down, look down on when in reality it's not the model, it's the systems that weren't. And so I, I, you know, I will probably come out of this even more so like hey, if someone's ex not doing these things after some amount of coaching calls, we're just gonna start warning them, we're start finding people. Because I want the money, I don't want a single penny. We'll throw that into a slush fund or we'll slow that into a conference fund. I want that, that to be like, you follow these systems. If you don't, you're out.

And I think by that it gives the people that come behind them more confidence.

Yeah, I was gonna throw up my calendly link for people to book.

So hard and now people are, I don't know if I want to work for Mike. So.

Yeah, well like, and people, people look at systems as.

A really bad example. This is gonna be a really bad example. But just hang in with me, okay. Get, get the, get the thought of this as it came to me randomly the past five seconds. Okay. If you look at a prison, the bars from the purple inside look debilitating and limiting. The bars from the outside, that's freedom and that is protection and that is safety. And so this is what happens in a franchise model. I'll just be like completely blunt. This is how I think about it.

Yeah.

As of 10 seconds ago.

Once you're inside of the prison, I know this is a bad analogy. Just, just follow me.

Yeah.

It feels like the bars are constraining. The systems are constraining you. Right. You have a franchisor. You have people telling you you should do you. You have requirements, fees, penalties, etc, they can kick you out of the system. Right. You follow exactly what is done. You eat at certain times, you go to sleep at certain times, you wear a certain uniform, etc, and when you're on the outside, you look at that and you're like, man, that would like, this is like to you, this prison is freedom. And people will look at what we're doing with Augusta and what I've done is this week and like man, systems do build great businesses. Systems are great. They are wonderful. We should make more systems in their business. And then when they become inside of the system. It feels limiting. And so.

That'S a really bad analogy because it painted us in a really bad light. It's like we were prison. But that's how I think about it. It's like once you're inside, it feels debilitating on the outside. It's always rosy and cheery. And that's the thing we always. We talk about that, that curve of what a franchisee feels towards Augusta as time goes on, where it comes from, like, infatuation comes down. And then eventually over time, you start to see the value of it. And I think in that low moment, it feels debilitating. It's like, you mean I can't do this? X, Y, Z. I can't sell packages this way. I can't do these type of services. I can't paint my truck this.

I think that's just kind of how I think about it.

Yeah, that's fair. I just had three people cancel intro calls with me. So thanks for that analysis.

I don't want to go to prison. I like to use the analogy of you broke your arm and you go to the doctor and how's the doctor going to correct your arm? They're going to put it in a cast. Casts are uncomfortable, they're itchy, they're constrictive. But you need to keep that cast on in order for your arm to heal correctly. Therefore, franchising is like the cast. It's going to make your business grow correctly. But it hurts and it's not fun and it looks weird or it feels weird or this limits your range of motion. So. Yeah, exactly. Right. You have to paint your truck yellow. That's like the first question people ask me my truck yellow. I'm like, you don't want brand awareness, but anyways, so.

But even that, like, for example, like, I have. I have some things up my sleeve. Like.

We. We need to make sure we are. We are holding that people's feet to the fire on that. You must paint your truck yellow. You must have and you must submit it to the franchisor. Like, this is not out of the. Out of common for franchisors, Right? At all. And so, like, if I truly believe that everything we did this month is because I follow the systems, why would I not religiously make sure, guard, protect and enforce those systems in the model? Right?

So you're never going to go to a McDonald's with blue arches. Like, you just would. Dumb as that sounds, you just wouldn't. Like, if I saw that driving down the Road. I'd be like, that's a fake knockoff sign. Sketchy. Not buying from them McDonald's.

Right?

But I see the golden arches and I'm like, oh, yeah, horrible hamburger. But I know what I'm gonna get, right?

And I'll get it very fast, and it'll be very cheap. Right. It's convenient. All right. Last thing I want to wrap up with on the pod. Don't want to get too long winded. But since I have the privilege of the inside track, I know what's going on over there and the people are going to get to know. So we'll release this after. But you are, dare I say, leaving us on a bit of a cliffhanger here in North Carolina. So I know we were just all excited and talking about how you did it. Good job. Congratulations. But what's going on with the truck situation and legal issues?

Yeah, so basically, you know, the crash happened last week and so got report back today. Everything is fixed in terms of the suspension, but the. The frame is bent on the truck. How bad that is, we don't really know. And so they put it through like on a machine and stuff. They said everything's gonna work just fine. It's gonna drive just fine, whatever. But basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to drive it hard tomorrow, see how if it's running well, like how I'm like really crank on it. Might even take it off the road a bit just to make sure. It's like, like I really feel confident. And then basically we limp it along or like we would get the, you know, auto body done, but then I would. I told Chuck, I'm like, if this thing ever has one problem, electrical, anything, it's just kick to the side.

Yeah.

And more than likely my hope is that Chandler can just outgrow it. So, like, he can need a third truck and to start to use this truck very little. It's fortunately, from that perspective, our cheapest truck we have in all of North Carolina.

Bonus.

Yeah. The thing is this, the cost of that truck is going to be a drop in the bucket to what is going to be coming down the pipe. Because today I got kind of at the insurance and so I had a recorded statement of what, like what happened and all the rest of it. And then they notify you of, like, what the legal processings are going to be. So the other, the family that got hit, unfortunately, there's two kids and an adult. They all said they were injured, and so they got an attorney already. And are coming after me. So I already know how this looks. It looks like they're going to name the LLC of our company at the top and they're going to list off my name and every other LLC I own. And so I can get my name and the other one's lifted off pretty easily just because, you know, the corporate veil in terms of just different LLCs. I got to protect that, though. Like, I have to import, like, show it from a legal perspective. So I gotta get an attorney.

And then, like, I have an attorney, but I can't. I don't have one that's going to be able to do injury law down here. So I have to figure it out tomorrow anyways. They're gonna come after me with everything they got. I know that. So I'm just gonna lawyer up and hope that I can kind of keep it. Yeah, we'll see. Insurance is obviously there, but they're gonna go for everything. I just know it just based on the way everything was said, the fact they already have attorneys.

There's a lot that kind of goes into just kind of beyond know where you're going. So I'll just lawyer up and hope we can keep it the minimum, the damage minimal.

Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure you can't say a lot since legal proceedings are.

No, I haven't. I haven't signed anything yet.

Okay, great. But you still probably just keep. Keep it, you know, keep it tight, if you will. So are you. You're new to the area, so are you just gonna call one of those injury lawyers that you see on the.

Highway, on the unavailable from entrepreneurs that.

Moved all the way across?

No, you notice. You notice. They never. They never are advertising for defense. They're advertising for. Oh, they got.

They want the money. Yeah.

Because you get a percentage. So when they. What. What's going to happen is they're going to see the llc, then they're going to look up me, and then they're going to see all my LCs, then they're going to see my stuff, and then they're going to be like, oh, we can. There's pockets to go after. So it's normal, though. This is. I was talking to Zach. I said, like Verizon, for example, probably has a big truck, you know, crash every single day on their fleet. Right. I've been 10 years. This is our first one, literally our first policy claim, I think, ever in North Carolina. And so.

You know, it's just part of the game. And I'm not looking forward to It. But we'll see how it happens.

A little bit of a gut punch to end it.

It's a learning curve. It's a learning curve, too. Like, I've learned a lot of stuff about, like, employee law.

You know, I've been sued over that before. I help my own on that. You know, franchise law. I've learned a lot about. I've never done injury law. So tomorrow I'm gonna start reading up and then just educating myself, and then I'll start looking for legal counsel.

I don't want to make light of this situation, but I think. I think I'm excited for the day when I get named on that sheet with you. It's gonna happen at some point, and I'll be on the list. I'll be like, let's go. Let's do it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, they usually go to stakeholders. As long as you're not an equity stakeholder, then you're fine.

But, yeah, you get thrown. Like, I got thrown. I've been thrown on several from franchisor franchisees because they'll. They'll take the franchisor and then they'll take me as part of that. Right. So it's usually just a matter of getting good attorneys to get you off the. The legal stuff. So. But, like, right now, I still have a pending one that's really bad because.

A franchisee.

Employee took a truck and rammed into a family vehicle, but it was much worse than this and massive amounts of legal processings. And so I'm still in that one. I'll be removed. Like, I'll get off of that one. But anyways, it's. It's. It's a lot of legal stuff. That's why, like, I. I don't get, like, super threatened by legal stuff now because I kind of get how it works. But this is one I said I've never done. I've never done injury law. So, like, I've been threatened. I get cease and assist quite often. I got one from, you know, our own, like, a vendor of ours recently.

But I'm not like, personally, the thing that I think is it does like, okay, let's take off injury law for a second. This is completely separate. I'm using, in terms of, like, corporate law, and when you start using trademark law and stuff like that, we have never, to date, knock on wood, we have never had to enforce legal action to protect Augusta Lawn Care ever. And we have had almost 20 copyright or trademark infringements, and never once have we threatened or have I ever had my legal Counsel send them a letter, every single one. We resolved, and we've spent less than a thousand dollars in that time period on legal counsel for those. And so I really think companies that are super litigious, I think they've lost their ability to innovate, and they're spending their time on, like, the same way that the city tried to sue me. It's like, seriously, you guys. You guys can't figure out, like, how to figure out taxes during COVID with the Canadian border, and you're going to come sue a guy that's trying to do free work for you? Yeah, the same thing I think about when it comes to companies that start to do that. And so there'll be other things coming out down the road, what's all been happening. But, yeah, I don't like it. And so, like, when. When someone does it with Augusta, usually they're hearing directly from me. I'm just like, hey, look, here's our trademark. Feel free to read through it. It's very guarded. We have it in every single state, every single province. We're locked and loaded in Canada. US Like. And I have only one time I ever had to say, I will basically send the dogs on you if you don't comply. But we never had to get the actual legal counsel in on it, where those get very ugly. I'm only one time I was like, look, if you don't comply, I can guarantee you this will cost you a lot of money. It's not worth it for your business, and I will sue you very, very deeply. And so only one time. Every other time, it's been very cordial. They've all done it willingly, and I've made sure and guided them through the process of getting things changed for, like, their logo or their verbiage or whatever. So, you know, everyone now has a dog. Right. Which is great, totally fantastic. But if you get too close to my trademark, I'm going to call you and I will work through it like a friend would. And that's. That's kind of how I think it should be handled. Like, the whole I'm going to take legal counsel is like what we hear from our customers when they're, like, unhappy and throwing a spizzy fit.

So, yeah. Is it. So, like, obviously, it's trademark law, but what about, like, parody law? Like, if someone's making fun of you.

That would be.

If you were trying to get personal damages. So you would. You'd be saying if. If something is.

Sorry, I'm dull, it starts with a D. I'M forgetting defamation. Defamation. Yeah. So defamation is four different clue. We're getting too deep. Yeah, there's very, there's four specific things defamation has to hit. It's extremely hard to prove defamation. Same thing with fraud. You have to, with defamation, you have to be able to prove the other person knew that it was false and then said something about you. It's extremely hard to prove defamation.

Yeah.

And that's why typically you can kind of say whatever you want about people on the Internet is because it's very hard to prove that that person knew otherwise. And then said you did X, Y and Z. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah.

Am I gonna be, am I gonna be convicted of.

In case, you know, C suite needs to do some sketches or something? We're covered. I think we took a weird turn there. But you can leave North Carolina willingly. Everything should be okay. Like, is there any more you can share at this point? Like business wise, everything's fine. Legally kind of in a bind.

Oh yeah, yeah. It's, it's. The business will be fine. Chandler will be great. In terms of legal side, just, you just gotta figure it out. We'll figure it out. I feel bad mostly the fact that their insurance rates are really, really good because they haven't had any claims. And now this is gonna throw a monkey wrench into it. So I'll pick up the tab of whatever like is over our insurance limit and then. But they gotta kind of pick up the tab of the increased insurance. So we'll see how that goes.

Yeah.

Yeah. Bummer.

Well, you did the challenge. You made it through a little bit of a, of a bummer note to end on, but kudos to you, I think.

But again, from a media perspective, the way that this, the, the challenge ends because we tonight is like it's the last day. It'll be edited, you won't see it till two more days.

But the way it ends is, is actually like perfect because I get very excited. The last day. Everything's like not told you so but like this is what kind of everything we've been saying here. Right. And then I ended on down and I really, I kind of how I wanted to end. And that is the saying continues like month two. There'd be more ups and downs, there'd be more issues. I'd probably have a hard time employing a bunch of people then trying to find new shop space. Like it's always going to be something and there's no finish line. And like for me we had this artificial 30 day deadline. But like it's Always going to be highs and lows in growing the business. And so I kind of wanted to end on down because like, that's kind of like my brand and I like it. Yeah.

So that's fair. Well, it's reality, right? Like as soon as you have a win, like you could have a loss in your business. Like that's just how it goes. Like the day you crush it and score like a bunch of clients is the day your best employee quits. Like that's just how it goes. Right. So. Well, do you have any overarching, not financial advice for the people?

Dude, I have non financial advice that I've shared before.

Okay.

But this month has made it all the more true for me.

Good.

And that is. Oh, wait a second. I have two bits of. Dude, oh yeah. I have two bits of financial advice.

Okay.

So all around fashion. Okay. All around fashion.

Mine is actually fashion related. So there we go. Okay. Okay.

Okay. So the first one I have talked about before, but this, this month really made it solidify. It cannot be overemphasized how important it is to have long sleeve shirts that are dry fit if you're in landscaping industry. Now, the reason this is such a breakthrough for me is because I never, I always wear short sleeves and I feel like, you know, I just like kind of, you know, you get really, really dark and or you know, put sunscreen on. Like the very, very hot of the year. Wear long sleeves. It's the best. It keeps you way cooler. Wear the stupid hat that everyone thinks looks stupid. It's the best. I never had to put any sunscreen on. I didn't burn. I didn't get over hot. You know, you sweat, you cool off. It's great. Okay, here's the better one. Okay, here is the real one. I know. You know it's coming too. I think I dropped it when I said fashion. Your. Your socks. Yeah, your socks at the Memphis F minus, bro. Dude, not only were they not Augusta yellow, they were a neon green hiked up mid calf while wearing shorts. Yeah, I'm just saying I don't think that fast is the C suite. I don't think that is necessarily going to be good look for you when it comes to your Fortune magazine cover when this podcast blows up. And I just think that, you know, if you're going to wear shorts, wear the calf version of socks or better yet, if you're gonna wear shorts, wear flip flops or sandals. And so I think that's a good move for your, your wardrobe and for your future design.

You know, I mean, I'm currently wearing shorts and the same length of socks. There's black.

So I'm just saying. I'm just saying, you know, here's the thing.

I. I will defend myself by quoting. Well, maybe not quoting, but directly quote, indirectly quoting, paraphrasing Gary Vee. I swear so much, because that's who I am, right? I wear weird colored socks because that's who I am. And.

But even Gary's tamed things down over the past couple years, you know, so there's hope. There's light at the end of the tunnel for you, bro.

I'm just saying. I was there, and I was like, look, I'm at this meetup. Mike's not here. I don't.

Know.

I. So we had the meetup, and here's the real story. Number one, I'm a light packer. I travel, and I just had a backpack, and so I had to walk from my hotel to where the meetup was.

It's a long story.

The humidity was like 99%, and I was bad there. I am not going to wear a polo and slacks to the meeting. I'll wear shorts and a T shirt, but I already had my socks on, and I said send it.

So that's it.

I just think those socks in general should get, like, excommunicated for your word.

They're great. So one of my favorite pairs my mom bought.

My not financial advice is actually also from the Memphis meetup. It's also fashion. But this is. I have to give credit to Ryan Payne. Great guy, great franchisee, great business owner. And he said, if you're gonna have a. A business hat with, like, your logo, your word, your. Your words on it, whatever, always keep one fresh one that you never wear out in the field, so that we always have one for, like, when you want to nicely represent the brand. Because there was a mix of franchisees. You want to talk fashion? Clearly had their field hat on now. Field hat guy. I wear mine with the sweat stain still. But ever since we got these black ones, this is the clean one. This is never gonna get sweat in. It's gonna stay clean.

So I feel like. I feel like we have to declare a winner for non financial advice. And if we have to put this one, I would say you did win. That's a good call. I actually have two pairs of boots here. Same pair of. Same type of boots. One boots is for estimates, and when I'm only doing estimate work, other one is for field work. Perfect.

I love that. Yeah. So there you Go guys. That's your advice?

Hey, here's how I tell the difference. Oh, I can't reach them. I put. I have a black marker on the tongue inside of of the one I put. W on stands for work, baby. These are the ones I wear all day.

I think you just, you just outed yourself. Because if you can't tell which ones are your work boots, you're not working hard enough.

No, no, no, no, no, no. See, this is, this is incorrect because. Because if you have cloth ones like I do and you don't have steel toes, you can throw them in the wash. I wear cheap boots that are light, that are cloth, and you can throw.

Them in the wash. And so you're not defending yourself. You're making it worse. If they're cheap, you'd wear them out. You blow them out. You're not working hard enough, bro.

I'm not. I am going to wash my, my boots if possible. I can't wash the ones that are steel toes. They're too heavy.

All right, maybe this is what the people want to see. Take a picture of your work boots. I'll take a picture of mine.

That's the whole point. You don't clean your work boots. I clean them. I put them in the wash. Yeah, okay. Because they're light.

Well, let's people decide.

There's non financial advice. Wear lighter shoes when it's hot. Like lighter and weight in the summer. So you can throw them in the wash and they always look like the nice pair that Lee never has.

No, disagree.

Or just wear socks. Yeah.

100 socks. All right, that's fun. Thanks for listening like and subscribe. Share whatever you want to do. Appreciate you guys.