Lee Got Called Out in The Comments | C. Suite 113

Oh, I thought, I thought we wanted to talk about your first hater online.

To my hater, I appreciate you. I love you. I have no problem with it. You could, you could say you hate me, it's fine. I, I still love you. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to be good to you, uh, because, uh, you know, there's no reason to, to be a hater.

98% of the content out there is actually made for that person, cuz that is 95% of the market. And so when I talk to 5%, I know my views are down. I know that bombs our channel.

You cannot just be positive and work hard and keep me, Liz, the Marcus's, the Nicks, the Brads, all these people have stuck with you for years by just being positive and working hard. You had to change as a leader. You had to push me. You had to have more direct conversations with me. We had to implement systems, P4P, yellow slips, whatever it may be, compensation programs. Like, you had to adapt your leadership skills.

I want to alleviate the pain that usually has taken 3 years for someone to figure out leadership and compress it down to a year. That they usually experience between 1 and 2 million. I want this to be like the home service Illuminati. Somehow you flatline at 2.4 for 3 years, then all of a sudden you went to 12 million.

I'm assuming that means we're recording.

Yeah, we are. Yeah.

So that's a good, that's a good open. Welcome back. Another episode of The C-Suite Unfiltered with Mike Andes. How are we doing, sir?

Fantastic.

Awesome. Well, here's what I want to do today. I want to start just a Mike Andes fun fact.

Fun fact?

Yeah, just like something. Let's go recent fun fact, like something that you did with Brianna, something that you're recently into something that you— just like a little tidbit about Mike Andes.

Okay, so recently I have moved my sleep schedule again.

Oh, here we go. Perfect.

I've been going really late and then waking up a little bit later. And so staying up later in the PM. So what happens is I get— I leave work, usually the office around 4 to 5. And so I've been recently taking a nap and then a cold plunge in the evening, which then gives me the energy till, you know, very late. That's new. That's new and exciting.

What are you doing the cold plunge? Like after you leave the office?

I go home, take like a literally a 10-minute power nap.

Okay.

Hop in the cold plunge and dude, lights on.

Okay.

It's great.

And then you're going to bed, what, like 10, 11? Like, I'm just saying.

That's when I go to bed with Brianna and then I stay and I keep working.

Okay, cool. I respect that. I can't do naps. You can't? They mess me up. Really? I've never—

Well, they mess me up. I can't sleep for a while after. That's what it gives me. Yeah.

So for me, like naps, I always feel groggy. Really? Doesn't matter time of day, how tired you are. I wish I could. So like Sarah, my wife, loves a good nap and she bounces right back. She's like, I got energy, I'm ready to go. I take a nap and I'm like groggy. I'm not a nap person. Interesting. Yeah, I just can't do it. I don't know what it is. Wired differently. Anyways, well, there you go. There's a Mike Andes fun fact for you.

Dude, if you pair it up though with caffeine and a cold plunge, bro, you come out of that— like, I'll drink, I'll pound a Jocko go home, take a 5-10 minute nap, hop in the cold plunge. Dude, I am good to go for 10 more hours.

I would do that in college. You have like a little espresso or a cup of coffee, then you nap. I would do that in college. That sometimes works.

But now I have this like, because now I have to work when she's sleeping and she doesn't like me to get out of bed. So like, I have to very much plan what I can work on where I don't have to like talk. I don't have to do anything loud. I don't have to listen to anything.

You need like, like, you know, like everyone has like the screen arms, kind of like, like these Mike Andes that people like screen arms. You need that on like the headboard of your bed. That you can just like—

little button? There we go.

Anyways, I love that. Fantastic. All right, well there's your Mike Andes fun fact to get started a little lighter to get the day started here at The C-Suite Unfiltered. But I want to talk about the home service boardroom.

Oh, I thought, I thought we wanted to talk about your first hater online.

Oh gosh, genuinely couldn't care less. That's the proper term. What was it?

Oh yeah, this big long thing of saying you talked too deep.

I beat a dead horse. That's fine.

Okay.

Like, I honestly, I'm like, that's fair feedback. So whoever you are, thorough. I'm thorough. Yes. I also, it was fair feedback. If you saw the comment, like genuinely doesn't bother me. I take it as criticism in a positive way because you are the viewers. So the viewers' attention kind of dictates what the content is in a way. And so there are elements where maybe I beat a dead horse or I'm too thorough, but I also don't want this The C-Suite Unfiltered from its inception was to show you in a different light. It was never to be just a Q&A like, oh, that's Mike's opinion, let's move on. Yeah, it's— that's Mike's opinion, but does he actually believe that? Or I'm going to press from a different angle. So yeah, to my hater, I appreciate you. I love you.

We got to put the comment up. I hope the editors put the comment up.

I have no problem with it. You could— you could say you hate me. It's fine. I still love you. I'm going to work hard. I'm going to be good to you because, you know, there's no reason to be a hater. Welcome to the club. Well, thank you, sir. Appreciate it. I know I honestly, sometimes when you post a controversial video, I'll say this guilty pleasure of mine as I scroll all the way to the bottom of the comments. Yeah, that's right. I like when Mike posts something controversial. I'm like, I want to see what the haters are saying. I just want to see what they have to say.

The recent Texas announcement was overwhelmingly positive. But then there's this one person that comments like, Texas has no freedoms and like just going hardcore. And it's good.

Well, we don't get political on this podcast. No, ever. Never, never, never. All right. So you launched the Home Service Boardroom. This is a school community. So I don't want to talk about school as a whole. I know we've kind of loosely danced around it. We never really talked about like school as a whole or the program or Mozy's involvement in school. I want to talk specifically about you launching your community, focusing on that, not on school as a whole. So you launched the Home Service Boardroom for 1 million+ annual revenue home service business owners. You already create a ton of free content. You have Augusta, we've got the Command Center here, we have Home Service Millionaire channel that this is on. You have all your other podcasts with JP and everything that you're doing. You have your conferences, like tons of free stuff, courses, landscape business course, everything with everything else you're building. Why did this group need to exist?

Yeah, so it needed to exist first and foremost for Augusta Nation owners that are growing a bigger business or multiple locations. And I've seen that as a weak point inside the system is we have no leadership training. And so as much as it's like, hey, here's a book on leadership, it's like implementation of that. There are so many good books about leadership, and if you just incorporate all of them in your business, you would not need Home Service Boardroom. The bottom line is most people kind of like fitness and exercise. They still get a coach. The best of the best still get a coach. And because you need the accountability and for someone else to hold your feet to the fire to actually implement things. And that's just human nature. And so for larger business owners to be able to be together from different industries is really important. So in a way, I needed to create an environment where owners of Augusta could get in around other industries. So for example, we already have like private security in there, like gates and, you know, gate systems. We have gutters in there, cleaning companies in there. There's a ton of different industries for them to get ideas and see the world through a slightly different lens, but still through a home service lens. And so I'm actually trying to create the environment that I need larger operators inside of Augusta to be inside of, to be able to learn the skills of leadership beyond me just like standing up in front of me like, all right, do this and then do this and then do this. That works for some people. And when it comes to tactics, that is useful. But when it comes to changing your behavior, a lot of times you need accountability. And if you're trying to change the way you communicate, change the way you're perceived, change the way that you lead, it requires like repetition in front of and then like, okay, no, change that. Okay, switch, change that. Okay, do this different. Okay, do it again. Like that is required. And we know that conceptually for like crew members when we're training them, salespeople when we're trying to get them on a script. But when it comes to leadership, it's like, oh, here's a book, read it. And so I'm trying to create this environment mostly for Augusta owners. And in order to create it really solid, I need other industries in there. And so there's been these two things that I've been really trying to juggle. One of them is I need to give better leadership training for Augusto owners. The second is people that are outside of a struggling business or outside of lawn care and landscaping. I've never been able to serve them. There's nothing I have for them. And I've gotten a lot of feedback around this and I don't want to do any more coaching. So like there's no more availability to do one-on-one coaching with me because I'm like, it's not a good use of my time. But if I can spend that 1 hour a week parsing that out for 50 or 100 other owners, like I can make sense of that. And so, and if I can do it in a way where it brings really high quality people together for Augusta owners that I see as a win-win, because if you in the past, I can come out, fly out to your business, help you if you're struggling, like for a turnaround show, if you're not struggling, like we know the views are nothing, no one cares. So like then I can't bring the whole media team and like draw into a 6-8 week production in that. Secondly, if you're not in lawn care, landscaping, you're not going to get join Augusta, like you're not going to ever see me on a live call or ask Q&A.. And then when we've done roundtable or the, what's it called, the confession booth, we have tons of people in the queue and it fills up and I get to maybe 10 people out of 100. And so it just, it's been the most effective way to get really high quality people in a room. It's very valuable for Augusta owners. And then it is also allowing me to be able to help people that are wondering why they have a profitable business that's doing $2 million revenue, but they just keep beating their head up against the wall and they can't get keep growing. Like I was growing, growing, and now I'm like plateaued. So like someone joined the other day, like they've been plateaued at $2.4 million for 3 years and the unlock will be leadership skills. It will not be the next marketing hack. It will not be the next branding thing. And, you know, I now see all their P&Ls coming in and so I can see they spent $100,000+ on Facebook ads and that's not their constraint because that number has been going up the past 3 years, but their revenue has stayed stalled out and it's because they have not been able to attract the type of manager that is required to go from $2 million to $10 million.. And so I had to learn a lot of these skills the hard way going from 2 to 10 million. And so I'm just trying to break them down. And a lot along the way, the last like 5 years, I've documented a lot of these things and just like made Google Docs on them. And so I'm just basically taking a lot of those notes. I clean them up and then I'm presenting those to the team or, or to the, the boardroom. And I'm doing it once per month and then putting a challenge behind it. So the challenge part to me was really important. And that is like, I do not wanna just give you information. I want to see behavior change. And I want you over the course of 12 months to have 12 challenges and 12 different topics that we go over. And by the end, you have evidence that you have, you have changed your behavior. And so that's really what I'm leaning into. Cool.

Two things I guess I would, I would pick from that answer. The first being feedback loops. It's kind of my mental cue. The second being focusing on the leadership skills, but also opening it up to the public because you didn't have something for people not in lawn care and landscaping, and that just won't join Augusta. Like there are people that are high-performing business owners. I've had calls with them. I've had calls to some of you that are like, hey, it does not make financial sense for me to join Augusta. I love Mike, love what you're doing, but I'm focused on X, Y, or Z industry. So feedback loops. What you're saying is, is a group like that is appropriate feedback loops. It's not a one-off conversation with an upset employee. It's not a, a YouTube hater comment. It is constructive criticism. It is, here's a challenge. Do the challenge, and then we will as a community give you positive feedback. We will help you become a better leader. We will help you understand how to communicate more effectively. You're just not taking the current feedback loop of, hmm, I think my team doesn't like the way I communicate, but I don't know how to better communicate. Does that make sense? You're looking for that feedback loop for these business owners.

And for a lot of us, once we've built a 7-figure business, we've been in business for 5, 10, 15 years. We actually don't even know what good leadership looks like if we don't if we don't have it ourselves, we don't have the skill. And so first off, you have to have the humility to know that you can improve in leadership and it is a skill worth learning. By people joining the community, they kind of opt into the fact that they, they, they know they need to learn. So like you already have that kind of self-selection of like someone who's willing to join a group about leadership understands they have a deficiency or they can improve their skills. The second part is then being able to see it modeled and see what good looks like. And for a lot of entrepreneurs, the reason that we struggle with this once we hit 1, 2, 3 million is we haven't been employed by a good boss ourselves. And so we haven't actually seen it modeled in front of us. And for a lot of business owners that hit 1, 2, 3, they're the biggest business owner they know. And so they don't even know how to judge themselves because everyone there on Facebook groups or even their competition is 300,000, 400,000, 500,000. That's a very different leadership style or what it looks like to be good at leadership at that size, because leadership by example at that size is the way to go. But that's not going to get you to $10 million. Like leadership by example and like, just let me demonstrate this in front of you. Might work for 5, 10, 15 employees, but not at 50, 100 employees. And so a lot of them do not have any frame of reference. They have not seen a good boss because they haven't been employed by anyone for 5 or 10 years. And the skills that they have developed are simply a function of what has worked in the past and what has worked in the past will not work in the future if you're scaling.. And I learned this like so hard, like the, the most brutal way and like had to change my mindset about stuff, how I communicate and all the rest of it. And so I'm hoping to break a lot of those concepts down. So it took me maybe 3 to 5 years, they can get done in 12 months.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I really like what you said there, cuz I, I'm thinking about my own personal journey as a leader and as someone who you entrusted to manage your original location was I saw leadership modeled by you and Liz. And so I was like, okay, I just wanna copy that because they are good leaders. They have treated me well as someone who is a steward of their leadership. And therefore I want to exemplify the traits that I saw in you and Liz. But I also had to learn it myself where I like distinctly have this like core memory of one of the times I was leading and I had some issues with the crew and I was explaining it to you in one of our weekly meetings. I was like, well, this has kind of happened and this was, this was like their body language and this is whatever. And you, your reaction was, that's bad. And I was like, I couldn't see it because I hadn't had that experience. And you were an objective opinion that was like, The way you just described that situation to me with those employees is a bad situation. We need to fix it and here's what you need to do. And that was you stepping in, giving me that.

Oh, was that when, when, when like there was cultural issues?

It was before that. Like it was way before that. It was like a mini issue with like—

When you were GM?

Yeah, when I was GM. Oh wow. I was the GM. Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't remember it. It wasn't, it wasn't a big deal.

Okay.

Like it wasn't something that it, it was something that could have snowballed and been really bad. But you stepped in and identified that's bad and here's what you need to do to fix it. It was a cultural soft skill thing with leadership that I was like, well, I'm leading based on the data. Like, this is a data-driven decision and I'm making this decision and I'm having these conversations 'cause this is best for the business. And you were like, that might be right, Lee, but this situation you just described to me as is, is a bad situation and here's what you need to do to navigate it. And so that's what you're saying. You're kind of opening that door where like, okay, people maybe could watch YouTube videos of you, see, you know, you, your leaders practice those skills, but they need that corrective action, that focus, that group pointing them in the right direction.

Yeah, I think when it comes to what, what we demonstrate or what we consider a good leader, we can only have a frame of reference. So whether it be pastors, parents, other leaders in your community, whether nonprofit or businesses, that's what you consider yourself as and compare yourself to when you say, are you a good leader? But if you've never seen what good looks like and you came from a boss you didn't like, boss you never got along with, and you're like, I'm going to go do my own thing, but you've only seen a bad boss. You're going to probably feel like you're doing a pretty good job. But in reality, you cut people off, you have huge amounts of churn, you start growing to the point where like every manager leaves after 6 to 12 months. Like, why is that happening? And for a lot of people, they understand, okay, yes, it's a leadership problem, but then they don't know where the next step is. Like, why? Like, what do I need to change? I want to change, but I don't know what to do. And I think that's hopefully the thing that I want to demonstrate in front of the owners. As I'm watching through the video with Lee, I realized one of the biggest questions wasn't answered, and that is how do we do the revenue verification? When you join school, you'll immediately get a direct message from me, and you'll just need to submit your profit and loss statement that shows at least $80,000 in monthly revenue, or if you want to show a whole year, it needs to be over a million. So one of those two things have to be true, and we do this just to increase the quality of the group and the conversations that are being had. And it's not beginner stuff, it is Certainly focused on leadership. So just want to answer that because that's one of the main questions I get about joining the group. So join today because at 50 members I am going to be increasing the price and that's only going to be to new members. At the time I'm recording this, there's 8 more spots available. So get in now and I look forward to seeing you inside the boardroom.

Well, cool. We'll jump to a different question here. We could, we could really drill in on that, but I want to ask more about the group, kind of zooming out a little bit, like why specifically build this for owners doing that million plus? Is it specifically because of leadership? Is there specific advice? You can give to them versus people under the rich only get richer. Yeah, the comments hate late-stage capitalism.

Yeah, they're like, you're only helping the people who have money. And it's like, no, there are like thousands and thousands of videos.

So let me give you the chance to explain that. Is it— this is some of the notes I had. Like, is it changes at that stage that make like the advice different? The problems are different, the community needs to be different. And I'll let you define that. But those are like some thoughts that I had. It's like it's different advice, it's different people, it's a different community. Different problems, like why specifically are you making that the threshold? Like you cannot get into the club unless you meet this requirement because leadership looks different at that size.

Leadership at $200,000 is go out and do more work, like put your big boy pants on and grind and hustle. And when you get your first employee, demonstrate to them what good looks like by working your face off and you just do more door hangers, upsell them more times, make more phone calls and work more hours. And as much as you want to get around that, like I need a leadership training. No, you don't. You need to lead yourself like you need to go out and work and hustle. And then when you get your first employee, be with them all the time and demonstrate what good looks like as a technician. And so having that person in the group, they would learn the wrong skills at the wrong time. Fair. And I will also say that 98% of the content out there is actually made for that person because that is 95% of the market. And so when I talk to 5%, I know my views are down. I know that bombs our channel. It hurts my media team because like we need to make money. And so in a way, it's selfish in that I know that the content I'm sharing in this community would bomb my channel. And a 4-hour video about marriage is not going to do great on a Mike Andes video. And so that's part of it. Part of it is if I give that information to someone who's just getting started, that's actually the wrong information. What they need to know is work harder, do more hours, get better at doing your follow-up phone calls. And that's the stuff I have made 5,000 videos about and have tons of free content about. And so my objective now, like how I framed it, is like I will do everything possible to make as much free content as possible, free tools as possible to get you from 0 to 1 million. Once you're past 1 million, I need to actually get you in a community of, of very tight-knit other owners that are in the same size because a $200,000 operator does not understand the problem that a $300,000, $3 million operator is going through. They don't. They've never seen what 10 employees walking in your office and quitting at the same time feels like. And so I will also say that everyone thinks that someone who has a $2 million business somehow has it made. Like, why are you helping people that are making more? I, I get to see every P&L of people that come in now. And so the other day I saw someone doing over $5 million in annual revenue and losing a lot of money. And so as much as people would say, oh, this, this person's so successful, why would you help them more? No, they, they're still struggling. Mm-hmm. And just because the revenue is high does not mean they have figured out management. And you can tell in their P&L that there's churn in the mid-level manager. There's a bunch of reasons how you can tell that, especially when you look at the amount of overhead salaries and several other things. But when, when you see that there's still pain, it's just hard for that person to go describe to their peers that I'm, I'm still going through pain as an entrepreneur, as a leader, even as a business owner when it comes to financially. Because you're the biggest guy in the room. And for a lot of these people joining, they are the biggest business owner that they know. There's no one else. And so everyone around them thinks they're doing well. And that's a very hard place to be because you can't say, actually, I'm struggling, because none of the people around you actually have the answer or the solve for the situation you're going through. And so I'm trying to create an environment where those people, it's safe to be like, hey, I'm struggling. I cannot get a manager to stick with me for more than 6 months. I'm losing money, but I don't know a single person in my network that's making as much as me in terms of revenue. And they all think I'm doing really good. And that's like a weird place to be. It's just as painful in a different way as being the operator that's physically stressed in your mind because you're working 7 days a week, 14-hour days. It's just a different type of stress. And I think everyone gives credence to the person working their face off. Because it is physical stress, but the psychological stress that comes along with a 7, 8-figure business is a different form of stress. Like, no one's going to complain about me sitting at my computer. I joke with Brianna all the time. I'm like, yeah, I'm really stressed out. I've been sitting at my computer all day long. However, it is a different type of stress, right, that needs to be dealt with. And because we in blue-collar world a lot of times will put on a pedestal the sweat that comes along with growing when you're smaller and the equity of growing the business, boots on the ground, doing the work, working hard. We have a hard time actually putting into words the stress that comes along with sitting at a computer trying to balance numbers, sitting at a computer wondering why you can't get managers to stick with you, sitting at a computer wondering why you're spending six figures on ads and that keeps going up, but your revenue's flat. We, we, we have a hard time being able to sympathize with that person and that person has a hard time being able to get the answers they need because everyone in their circle sees them as the most successful person. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. I'm even thinking about you as, as my leader, right? As my direct manager and CEO. When I joined, you hired me the year you broke $1 million in annual revenue. So that was the first year.

Really?

Yeah. The first year you did like $1.1 million.

So it was only like the year or two after accident. Year after accident.

It was right up. Yeah, it was a year after the accident. So I didn't know about the accident. Like, I found out about it later. But anyways, I joined the fall you broke like 1 million, you did 1.1 million. And while you were talking, I was like, yeah, I remember like having conversations with my friends and my then girlfriend, now wife, that before you told us, before I told you guys, it was an offsite lead drop.

It was like, so there's this girl in Tennessee. I think we're going to get married.

The Southern girls just get us, man. So I remember like distinctly being like, yeah, I like this guy. Like, he's positive. I think he cares about me and like I could tell you worked hard.

Yeah.

And so I was bought in because you were a better manager than any other manager I'd had previous. I was like, you're positive, you care about me, you work hard. That got you to a million. You cannot just be positive and work hard and keep me, Liz, the Marcus's, the Nicks, the Brads, all these people have stuck with you for years by just being positive and working hard. You had to change as a leader. You had to push me. You had to have more direct conversations with me. We had to implement systems, P4P. Yellow slips, whatever it may be, compensation programs like you had to adapt your leadership skills. So to your point, even the person that maybe is at $200,000, quite literally, you can get to $1 million by just working harder and like being positive and caring about your employees. You really can. It's once you cross that threshold that the stress changes. As you talk about the owners in Augusta, it becomes a more financial and more psychological stress. And I think that's really cool that you're leaning into that because you know, we really believe here at Augusta, like a lot just comes down to the way someone leads. So I want to pivot a little bit from the specifics of like where the group's at today, the inception of the group, and talk about like what you hope this group— for this group to become. Because I know you don't really nowadays, especially in your entrepreneurial career, you don't launch new ideas or concepts without thoroughly thinking through the long term. Like you've gotten better at that. And I think I'm sitting here like, What do you hope this group becomes in 3 to 5 years?

For, okay, 3 to 5 years is different. Okay, so 3 to 5 years, I would say I would want to see this as what I've, I call Augusta 2.0, which is most people join Augusta, if they don't have an existing business that's already doing $700,000, $800,000, they join 'cause they want to grow to $1 million. Great. And if that's all you wanna do, fantastic. But if you wanna do a second location, I need to train you up in leadership. And so I see Augusta 2.0 as like, if you want to get here, I have a roadmap for you to improve your skills because it's going to be what is required to actually have multiple locations. And so when we talk about having multiple locations or multi-unit operators, I was like, great, just do it again. And I forgot one thing. The way you will lead and manage has to completely change. And so I have seen that be the constraint for many of our operators and owners inside of Augusta. And so I'm doing my best to solve that because it's a soft skill that is very hard to train, very hard to measure, very hard to quantify. And I've always stuck to like close ratio, number of leads. Like we've always tracked that stuff. Call rate, percentage of we pick up before 8 seconds, like all these things. But I never thought about the fact that as soon as you do a second location, as soon as you have a mid-level manager, if the leader is not ready for it, you can keep doing this over and over and over and over again. But they have not changed their behavior. It's going to keep failing. And so I'm taking a hack at that. I believe that I would like it to make it where people that are at $600,000, $700,000, they're like, I want to get in that group and there's something to aspire to get into. And that it's not this blank canvas of like, hey, like, once you get the size, like, good luck, you're doing great, just do it again. When in reality, I know that doing it again means you need mid-level managers, you need them to stick with you for the long term. You need comp models that work well for those managers. And that needs to be a skill that many times is honed through seeing other perspectives, other industries, and other owners that have done it many times. I think some of the best, the best takeaways will come from people outside of lawn care, landscaping that are doing something adjacent to us that they can learn from. And so in 3 to 5 years, I would say I would want it to be a place where Augusta owners know they can gain the skills required that they do not have when you're growing a smaller business, when you've worked for bad bosses your whole life, gain those skills so they can keep scaling. And there isn't this hard I want to alleviate the pain that usually has taken 3 years for someone to figure out leadership and compress it down to a year that they usually experience between $1 and $2 million. That would be like the 3 to 5 year goal for—

cool—

for the group. The long-term vision is like, I want— this is going to be taken out of context, so let's clip it. This wants to be the home— I want this to be like the home service Illuminati. It's like this group that everyone just knows. If you've been in Home Service boardroom, this takes a while to build out this reputation. Like you're just an absolute savage. You stay inside this club and if you're in the club, everyone, everyone wants to know what's going on inside the club because everyone grows. Somehow you flatline at $2.4 for 3 years, then all of a sudden you went to $12 million. I want that. I want that reputation of just like this absolute Illuminati. It's just such— that's what I want it to be like. Like this, the, what's it called, the Navy SEALs of the home service industry. If you get into it, it's like your ticket to be able to come to the leader that is required to get to $10 million plus. And I just want, I want example after example after example of like they were at $2 million, 5 years later, $12 million. They were at $1.4, 5 years later, they're at $7 million. Like I just want example after example, but that's going to take quite a bit of time. Yeah, but that would be my goal. It's like everyone wants in, but you got to pass $1 million. And once you're in, it's just like this, like, I don't want to call it hazing, but there's like this process of like everyone just pushes you to become a better leader. And there's so much peer pressure to become the certain individual that is required to build an 8-figure business.

I respect that. So then the question is to go, I guess, be the antithesis of the clip, which is like the Illuminati, if you will, of home services is like, why do you just— is that— that's just your mission. That's just your vision. Like, I know you on a personal level, but like, this is the platform. This is the unfiltered. Like, why? Why do you care about someone going from $2 million to $12 million?

Because I know that there's just as much pain when I hit $3 and $4 million and had to change as a leader as when I was doing $700,000, $800,000, got caught underneath a dump truck and almost got put out of business and was working 80-hour weeks without any profit. There is just as much pain at $3, $4, $5 million and wondering, why can't I keep managers? Why am I spending all this money on managers and they don't stick? And, and not having the awareness or the people around me to point out, oh, it's because of the way you talk. It's because you said this to them. It's because when they said this, you said this. And no one feels bad for that person.

Yeah.

And I know it's like to feel that and feel so stressed out and feel that pain. And so I've always talked about like what drives so much of my content is talking to the 18 and 20-year-old version of myself, 18-year-old being come starting the business and leaving the medical field and like that separation is required to start. Then at 21, realizing I had no systems, the business was broken and I had to fundamentally change it. And I believe that there's this like this third avatar that I will start to talk to more, especially in this group. And that is the $3 to $4, $5 million revenue that I was at and just like wondering what is this invisible hand pushing me down and realizing eventually that it was me and the way I communicated and the way that I led. And by no means am I perfect and everyone needs to have a certain style and there's a wide variety of styles that work. But understanding what universal principles of leadership actually keep you from growing a bigger business and keeping good people and attracting great talent and building a vision that is vivid enough for your team to be able to fit their dreams inside of. Those are things that are foreign to me, and no one else was going to point that out to me because I had a bigger business than everyone else around me. And so that would be like the long-term vision.

Yeah, I love that. Fantastic. Well, let's, let's pivot off of that. I had a couple other questions, but I think you answered 99.9% of them better than I could have primed them. So I want to talk Sabbaticals.

Sabbaticals.

So you talked about this.

Someone had to bring it up.

I didn't want to, you know, I never want this to be a podcast where we talk about other podcasts. So it's not going to be that. Okay. Shout out you and Jonathan Petosch talking about sabbaticals.

Lee's like, so I actually need a couple of years off.

No, not at all. Not at all. No, I'm loving it. So I was like, first off, you know, let's go Alex Hormozi. Let's define what a sabbatical is. So the definition that I found, a useful definition of a sabbatical is that it is an intentional extended leave of absence from work, typically lasting between a month and a year. Unlike a standard vacation, its primary purpose is not just to rest, but for deep professional or personal development, such as studying, writing, traveling, and recovering from burnout. And it was traditionally associated with the clergy or pastors, as well as professors in universities, that they could then reinvest in their study, in their, you know, if you're in the clergy, your relationship with God, if you are a university professor, to do a deep dive into your specific field, right? You take the time off from teaching or doing whatever to really just focus on your specific field. So I wanted to know, because you recently said this, not, not talking about specifically what you and Jonathan talked about. I want to extract something you said from the conversation. You said that you probably couldn't take a true 30 to 90 day sabbatical from your businesses until late 2028 at the earliest.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to commit by the end of 2028 to take one.

I think you should.

I think it'd be great for you. Not this year. Not 2027. But I can commit to the end of 2028. I'll take 30 days.

That's great.

I think, I think it would be fantastic. I would, and I can't wait till the day I can ask you what'd you get out of it or if it was a big giant waste of your time.

Why that timeline specifically?

Like what was going through my head when I said that? Yeah.

This is Seasfood Unfiltered. But obviously, you know, you can't share too much.

Okay, the honest truth is what I said, and that is like, I do feel guilty. Okay, but I would feel guilty doing that, 100%, especially when I feel like right now I do not serve all of the people that support me to the level that I would feel comfortable enough to be able to step away from daily operations and grinding and pushing. And what I mean by that is not to take away from the leadership teams or the people that are doing the work, but the speed at which we move would slow down if I stepped away right now. And we still have that much time for me to catch up to the point where I feel like the sabbatical would be beneficial to the organization versus slowing it down. And especially around several elements of the businesses that I think that right now I cause some pain for our members. And I need speed to compress that timeframe of how much longer that it lasts. And I take that really seriously and I would not be able to relax. So like, it would almost be impossible actually. And the counterpoint to that would be that maybe getting away would gimme different perspectives to be able to solve the problems in a more efficient manner. That could be true, but I'm not ready to do that now.

Can I go full Jack Neal here?

Sure.

I've been listening to some recent Jack Neal.

I reject the premise. I heard you say that in a leadership meeting the other day.

Really?

Yes. I was in my office and I could hear you. I reject the premise. I was like, oh my goodness, someone's been listening to Alex too much.

No, no, no. Jack Neal. And I'm going to ask it exactly how he would. You said causing pain. What pain are you causing to your team?

Well, I wouldn't say to my team, I would say to my customers or to the people that support me. And so how I see it, and this could be wrong, is the people that are like, I have this vision, this mission of trying to change the industry or help home service business owners. In order to do that, I need money and that money comes from my customers. And so the, to the degree that I care about the mission, I have to care about the customers in order to have the fuel that is required to get me there. And so if someone gives me money at a stage at which I feel like I am not yet deserving of it, I feel that there is this gap and I can fill that gap by showing how much I care and how hard I am pushing towards the goal. Whether or not that is just a broken psychological thing in my brain is debatable, but I do feel that. And so there are certain things that I feel like I have done a good enough job and I, and I always am giving my best, but the actual end result, the product is good enough. There are other aspects I feel like that are deficiencies that cause pain to the people that support me. And until they are, quote, good enough to where then I can step away and step back, kind of like if you're doing a molding or you're doing a, what's it called, like a sculpture. Like you gotta get to a certain point before you step back and start asking yourself, should I refine this? Should I adjust this? It's like, no, you gotta still like whack out this huge chunk. Okay, like let me focus on that and then I'll step back and I'll get more reflective about how I should fine-tune this. I'm not at the fine-tuning point perspective yet. And again, I could be flawed I could be wrong on this. I will never know if I'm wrong or not, but I need a year to, for my— me to feel good enough stepping away to be able to get that reflective about the business because that is a luxury. And this is a key part that Jonathan said. He's like, what we're talking about right now is a luxury. This is awesome that we even get to talk about this. And I don't think I've achieved that level yet.

So what has to be true then by late 2028 that isn't true today for you to be able to say that? That's where, like, yeah, and I'm not pressing you to share.

I need my NPS scores on every department to a certain level.

Okay, that's fair.

No, don't ask me this question. What is the number?

No, no, no, no. That wasn't the next question. That wasn't the next question, I promise. That's fair. That's fair. Do you feel— okay, let's just play devil's advocate. That's what you do on podcasts. Do you feel that an NPS score, albeit, albeit a metric that all businesses use to track customer success and satisfaction, Do you believe that that is too objective of a reason to take a sabbatical and you aren't taking in certain subjective elements like this leader on this team has just been crushing recently and maybe something outside of NPS is so drastically positive that maybe the public doesn't see, maybe the customer doesn't see, but this leader could handle me being gone for 30 days. Like that's a subjective thing that maybe not is not impacting your MPS. Does that make sense?

Oh yeah. I'm— the reason I said 28, 28, 28 also is like I'm confident enough to know that if I did nothing for the next year, we would get there.

Got it.

I'm confident with our leadership and with the direction and where we're headed for all the, the current deficiencies that I see. We have the roadmap to get there. And if I did nothing, if I checked out today, we would have an MPS score over what I require in every department.

The roadmap set.

Yes. And the leadership team is in place to make sure it executes well. Uh, so that's why I can confidently say by the end of 2023—

So the deficiency is we just haven't hit certain goals yet.

I want to get there faster.

So how do we get there faster?

I feel like that's still my role as a founder, is to push, right? To see where the areas are, like all the little 2%, 1%, 5%. Hey, this course correction here. I think we're all generally going the right direction to get there in 2028, but I think we can do it faster and more efficiently by me being still involved.

I completely agree with that. And that's an interesting conversation that I had with Nick 'Cause obviously we listen to the podcast and I was like, what do you think? What do you think? And so we're like going back and forth and I don't wanna speak for him, but we differed slightly.

Oh really?

Whereas he thought progress would almost stall.

Really? Mm-hmm.

And like I said, I don't wanna speak for him. And I was like, but, and then I thought internally, I was like, but you've laid out a path for me and my goals.

Yeah, I think under—

I report to you on a weekly basis. You check in, you wanna know when things are right or wrong. Like you sent me a message the other day like, hey, why is this invoice X, Y, and Z? Totally fine. Like, that's your job as CEO to check and make sure I'm doing certain things the way you want them done. But I also know what my 2026 goals are. I know what my 2027 goals are. So I felt that my, my specific performance might not stagnate. Maybe without you pushing, checking in, sending some, you know, either supportive messages or probing messages when you do, would maybe hurt my motivation or maybe not allow me to get there as fast. So I agree with you on that. I think that we could still get to certain goals just looking at my department. But I do think you being involved in like being that driving factor, that push, that motivator, that counterpoint to whatever we're doing is important.

So yeah, I think Nick underestimates his ability to be self-reflective.

Nick, you're really good at your job because he is.

He is actually— that's one of his strengths is being self-reflective and then like critic— critiquing himself. And he, he also has that roadmap. And if he executes on it, like, it'll be really good. All the stuff that he's doing for coaching. And so part of that, though, is like, you've been in your role for 4 or 5 years.

4. This would be 4 years, like, right now.

I think it's 2.

Yeah. Yeah.

So part of it is like having a track record of knowing, okay, I have, I have improved at this rate over the course of time. And so I think Nick is really starting to escalate how, how fast he is improving his department. And I think underestimates just how, how good he is at his job.

He's really good at his job, like really good. And that's what I want to try to like share with him, I was like, but you know what you're doing and you're developing stuff. Like Mike isn't looking over your shoulder developing this stuff. Yeah, you're checking in with him and making sure it's going the way he wants it as the CEO. But like, you still know the roadmap, right?

I feel like also like when I'd say a few years ago, you and I were really hands-on and stuff in sales, for example. And so you probably would have felt like the dependency a little bit more.

Exactly.

And so more recently with Nick, we have done the same thing with what he's doing. And so, but the roadmap's there, he will execute on it. He probably just feels like, oh, like I will need that again. And yes, you will, but you also be self-reflective enough to see what works and what doesn't and then be able to self-correct. But like his feedback loops would mean have been tighter in his department than like you and me.

100%. So yeah, that's one of the things I've like been thinking about recently. So let's— I'll just take a deviation from the sabbatical. It's like there's an element of like, and this is— I'll just be totally vulnerable, unfiltered on the C-Suite Unfiltered is like, I don't have as much communication with you. And I'm like, does that mean it's a good thing or is that a bad thing? I'm like, like, I don't know. But at times it's like, it is because you trust me that I'm doing my job. But then there's times where it's where I'm like, but you haven't checked in, so are you worried? Like, it's the classic, like, relationship. Like, they haven't texted me back. It's like, oh, they were just busy, right? Like they had a family emergency, whatever. And so I do see that point. But I also wonder if, like, other leaders would feel that way. And maybe— and this is not me speculating, I'm not thinking of any leaders. I just want to be very clear. Anyone on my team is listening. Is it more so that you're like, just by being that driving factor, by being the coach, like you are the head coach, like you have put together the team of all-stars. And I'm just using that term colloquially. You put together your team of all-stars. You know, they know how to run, pass, catch, whatever, but you still are going to call the plays. You're still going to check in. And you believe by you calling the plays, you checking in, like, we'll just get to those goals faster.

Yeah, I think the, the evolution I still have not done, and I think it'll happen in the next couple years, is going from player coach to coach on the sidelines to general manager and then in the owner's box. That's different. Like, that's a different progression. I feel like true owner's box is you're running a $50 million plus organization in terms of revenue. I'd just say it is a very broad stroke. Everyone's like, I want to be the owner working on my business. Like, well, you're running $300,000. Like, it's You're not there. And so I feel like there is still a lot of growth for me personally and in my leadership style to be able to be that person. But you also, the closer you get to the field, the more impact you can have faster. It's like the owner might wanna make a change, but it takes 2 years to reinvent the team. Mm-hmm. Whereas the coach down on the field can like, get that guy off the field, replace him right now. And so there's a faster feedback loop. And so, uh, the coach that's down on the field can become an owner down the road., but they need to have usually more money. They need to have a little more credibility from a business perspective or whatever, but they have less feedback loops with the players. The actual result of the team's performance is impacted by the owner in longer term versus the coach on the field. And I'm still making that transition. And so I feel like there will be players when, when they're like, I really enjoyed seeing Coach at every single practice. I really like the coach pulling people off or doing the huddle. It's like, well, that, that's going to change as he moves into the owner's box. Like, he's a little further away. He's still seeing every single game. He's still paying for everything. He's still looking at the very long-term vision. But I'm not at the point where I'm looking 5, 10, 10 years down the road every single day. I am still very much with the team. And there, there's always going to be pressure whenever someone goes from player coach to coach on the sidelines to general manager to owner's box. There's going to be a little bit of pressure and the team adjusting to that, I'd say.

Yeah. Does, when Mike Andes hits a certain amount of net worth, does he become a minority owner of any professional sports teams?

I don't think so. No, I think if I ever did a sports team, I want, I want to own the whole thing.

Yeah, fair. Which then you're talking multiple billions.

Yeah.

Yeah. Which we're getting there. That's what I'm saying.

If I ever did, I would want the whole thing, which means we gotta, you know, we gotta keep going. Gotta keep going.

Yeah, we gotta buy out Nintendo's share of the Mariners. All right, last question for you. Uh, we will do not financial advice. We got to go quick here, but what would you define as a successful sabbatical for yourself? Like right now, if you took one, let's just do the hypothetical. You take one right now.

I think the sabbatical to debate— oh, this— okay, continue what you're going to say.

No, you take one right now. What? And let's just call it 30 days. Hypothetical.

You're going to do it right now.

I'm doing it right. Or later this year, like get out of the kind of busier season. Call it winter before conference.

Yeah.

You take 30 days. What would you define as that successful being sabbatical once it was over? Like, what would you hope to achieve or have happened?

I think if I did it now, it'd be more personal. Like, I have done 12 years of just working. So like, it'd probably be more personal and like the potential side of like potential personal side effects of like getting through the phase of being agitated and stressed and, uh, feelings of guilt, like getting through that would probably be the biggest benefit now. I feel like there's going to be more benefit. And this is like that slippery slope. It's always going to get better. It's like, I'm aware, but I think if I, if I looked down more like the 2028, the sabbatical would serve a purpose in the business, and that is it would be a physical separation of coach on field to coach in the owner's box. That would be the change, because when I come back, I have a very different perspective and I'm completely removed from any of the daily operations.. And I think that that's what I'm working towards. And when I do take the sabbatical, there'll be an intention behind it versus just personal improvement.

Mm-hmm. Fantastic. Any non-financial advice for the people?

Non-financial advice? I don't have any, dude. I'm trying to look around for it.

You're just giving, you're giving too much to JP. Yeah, I know, I know.

You're saving it for our pod. I've been asking.

That's fine.

Being promiscuous with my, uh, my non-financial advice.

Just putting it out there for anyone.

Okay, here's, here's some non-financial advice. If you're currently invested in the QQQ, i.e., the S&P 500, you want to look at your expense ratio.

Okay.

And I would rather have that lower because like, for example, you can have like a, you know, an actively traded fund. You might be paying 0.1 or 0.2% as your expense ratio, which means every year they take that out no matter what. If it goes up, goes down, doesn't matter. They take that expense. That's the cost of managing the fund. For an index fund, it's usually pretty low because it's passively— it's not actively traded. That being said, there's still expense because they got to rejigger and rebalance things ever so often. If you're invested in something like Vanguard or from Charles Schwab or whatever that is tracking the S&P 500, look at your expense ratio. It could very well be 0.07% or 0.09% expense ratio, which is very low. But the IVV, is the lowest expense ratio for the S&P 500 if you're investing into it. And I believe it's right now 0.03%, which technically speaking is less than half the expense compared to other funds, index funds. And so if you're just like, hey, I'm just passively putting money in the S&P 500, I have it on auto coming out of my account, consider going to IVV, which is the ticker symbol for an index fund tracking the S&P 500.

Not financial advice.

Not financial advice. Not financial advice.

All right, fair. So my not financial advice is I was— I felt personally called out up by a recent Alex Hormozi newsletter. So sometimes you got to read newsletters.

Okay.

Because like, like for all the newsletters you get, and I only, I subscribe to 4 newsletters. I'm very specific. Yours, obviously.

Duh.

Alex Hormozi, because he just drops like one a week.

Email faithful.

Yes. Scott Galloway.

Okay.

He's a few too many from Scott though. He's teetering. He's teetering. And then my coach, Mike Manzi.

All right.

Right. But Alex had one recently about having a group. And one thing he shared that was really interesting, he said shared methodology allows you to stay focused with zero decision fatigue or wasted time on other methodologies, meaning like stay in your lane, stay hyperfocused on your lane and do the thing that will make you successful in that lane. Don't take in all these other opinions. And I think we all get distracted. We all want to try the new thing. And to your point, like, I've been in this role for 4 years, so there are so many times I'm like, I should try this, I should do that, I should— it's like, just do the thing. Like, let's make a minor tweak. Like, later today we're making a very minor tweak that's going to take an hour of your time. It's like, to my sales philosophy, but I'm not like massively doing this like quarter-long project that's going to drastically change sales. It's like, just stay within the methodology that we know works. Stop looking at every— everything that doesn't work and have a group, i.e., if you're over $1 million in annual revenue.

Yeah, that's right.

Please join the HubSpot Millionaire. That is the C-Suite Unfiltered. Thank you for your time. Like and subscribe.

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