Mike Andes CONFRONTED at a Business Conference!

I cannot afford to hire a full time person. I drove 700 miles to come here. That's not the way this business works. I'm listening to everything you guys are saying, and I agree with everything you guys are saying about integrity and the type of people that you need and all those great things. And the whole time I'm sitting here, all I can think to myself is that you have enough business to hire someone full time 365 days a year. Because I've been doing this for 25 years. I cannot afford to hire a full time person to do this work for me. I have to hire, you know, part timers. You know, in the summertime, from March to May to August, I've got college kids lining up to work for me because I pay them $3 a foot. And the reason I pay them $3 a foot is because I don't have work for them every day. And when the winter comes, you know, even in the biggest, you know, I worked for one of the biggest dealers that life's ever had back in the day. We could have two shifts running seven days a week, you know, eight months out of the year. And I'm sure Chris can attest to that because he was there. But January, February, March, you know, I had a guy work for me for five years. And in the off season, I'm struggling to find this guy work. I've got to paint houses, I've got to move things for my friends. So, like all these things about hiring practices, how many people here literally have people who work with them full time, year round that you can hire them and give them benefits and all that stuff?

Anybody? So, so this is, let's see what.

The panelists have to say about that. My point is, is that a lot of these things are great. Yeah, we have a niche product totally. And our niche product is very, very hard to maintain a full time employee.

Right.

10, 20. You know, we're sitting here talking about it. I'd rather talk about how do we make more money and draw more business. So we're in a position to hire. But if we free ourselves, you have.

To clear to the 2 o' clock.

Panel for that one.

Oh, yeah, I know.

I free myself up too. But the bottom line is, is that in January and family, your phone's not pretty well put. Doesn't matter how many shows you do and how much marketing you do, how many sales you do. That's not the way this business works. I've been doing it for 25 years.

Yes, this, this is why home Services industries stink. Yeah.

And I totally agree with you. But like I, I came, I came into this business. I walked away from a Mac, I had a massive career in New York City. I won't get into that. I dropped it all, moved my family to Alabama, slept on a floor for a year, start likesaber Birmingham. So I'm not disputing that it's not profitable. This is one of the greatest things I've ever, I've ever been involved in and I have absolutely zero regret for doing that. But here I am nine years in with my own distributor and I'm not in the position to hire somebody full time. I can't think of anybody else here that that could unless they have this as an add on service.

Yeah, so I'll address this one. So every home service business has this because we have a seasonality problem. And so the last hour and a half of the day I have 500 slides I presented, I'm going to present for this to solve this one problem. And it is the root of every home service industry. Because I do landscaping and lawn care primarily. The vast majority of us lose money for three to five months a year. Lose money because we have all the fixed assets. We have all the trucks, we have all the equipment sitting there doing nothing. We have to pay rent, we have to pay insurance, et cetera. Your insurance doesn't stop for the five months. The rent doesn't stop. Your software, subscriptions, all the other stuff doesn't stop. And so that's why home services stop stinks. So we're going to talk about that 100% right? I agree. And so we'll talk about that this afternoon. What I would say is this, if you step back for a moment, every business is seasonal. I'm going to show that this afternoon. Apple has a seasonal problem. They sell the vast majority of their iPhones in Q4. And so how do we prevent that and how does Apple prevent this being a problem? Because of the past 10 years, Apple has not sold any more iPhones than the years previous. However, the valuation Of Apple has 10x in the same time. The reason for that is they figured this problem out. They started generating revenue through apps, through Apple Care, through other subscription services that could be year round and much more stable. So we're gonna talk about that this afternoon. Well, I will say is this. If labor and getting more employees like hey, this is not the constraint. I agree with you. There's only four different constraints in a business. It's either liquidity, the sounds like that's Not a problem for you.

There is leads. So I usually take liquidity, I take money, and I convert that into Facebook ads, I convert that into door hangers, I convert that into flyers, I convert that into ads, and I generate leads. So we have liquidity. And if you have enough money, you go get ads and you make leads. Now, if you have enough leads and you're just. So much work is coming in, the next constraint is labor. This is a 4L framework. First one L is liquidity, second one is leads, third one, labor. And then when you get a ton of employees, guess what you need then? Leadership. You need general managers, you need. Need other people inside the organization, et cetera. If labor is not the constraint, it is likely the fact that leads is the constraint. And so then it becomes a function.

That's my whole point of my question, is that we're all talking about integrity of hiring people. And the great thing about, you know.

The trust, it means nothing. It means absolutely nothing.

Jacked. If I don't have any work for the person.

100%. Because until you solve.

That's why I drove 700 miles to come here. How do I generate more business for me?

Yeah. Not trying to. You're good.

From the Conversation.

100%.

If this isn't for you, you can come back later.

No, I'm just.

Stop, Stop.

Listen for two seconds.

Roman and Bjork, you have employees.

Yeah. Okay.

Shannon, Larry, you have an employee?

Yes. Yes. Full time? Y.

Well, that's where I'm at.

Yeah.

Will you have an employee full time?

Yep. Perfect.

Mark Alderman, you got an employee full time?

Had one. Perfect. All right.

Okay. So the statement that no one here has a full time.

I didn't say no one here or there, but I asked and does Right. Say. This isn't a force for how we disagree. That's why we're here to have these.

Conversations for a lot of people. This is the thing we're going to talk about. We have a lot going on about sales and marketing.

We're going to get there.

But this right here is about leveling up, because I think one of the big things people talk about is getting talked about is get stuck where you can't get to that next spot and hiring's hard and leveling up and. But you're right, the sales come first. And maybe the, you know, the talks are out of order, but, you know, the schedule is what the schedule is. But I promise with, you know, the next talk about sales is going to talk about all the winter stuff later on today. But you know, how to hire correctly and how to, you know, generate the, you know, the systems that are necessary in order for those employees to be successful. It's very cool. And if you don't have them, actually, if you don't have them before you grow, then you squander it as you can. So I think this is, you know, while it may not be perfect exactly for you at this moment in your career, I think for a lot of people in the room, it's huge.

Hey, David, by the end of today, I can guarantee you'll have a strategy for getting more leads. And if you don't, please talk to me and I'll give you my personal cell phone. We'll figure this out. Because you have a constraint of leads. I 100% agree. And until you fix that, labor doesn't mean anything to you.

I mean, it's like, I'm not having business. I did 100 fences a year. That's pretty good.

Yeah. So now we just got to figure out, how does that become 300? Because when you do get to 300, you'll need employees, Right? So we'll figure it out. By the end of the day, we'll have a strategy, at least two or three ideas, and if you don't, please talk to me, make it happen. Will you finish your four Ls? Yeah. So the first one's liquidity. You turn that liquidity into usually advertising to get leads. When I have too many leads coming in, I need laborers. When I have a whole bunch of laborers, eventually I need leadership. And that cycle keeps going. Everyone's like, oh, if I can just grow the business, I'll grow out of it. Well, as soon as I get leadership, guess what happens now? I have people that are overhead, and I have a liquidity problem. So growing a business is painful because you just consistently keep moving through that cycle of I need more money to get more leads, to then get more labors to then get leadership. And now all of a sudden, my margins collapse because I have overhead position. So what? I have liquidity problem. And then, so this is how you grow a business. And that pain only stops when you stop growing the business. I saw your hand.

Yeah, I just wanted to add one thing. You know, like what you're talking about right now was exactly what I brought up 10 minutes ago. My question was, when it gets slow, what are you doing with these full time employees? And then Eric went around the world. You say, you got a full time employee, you got a full time employee, you got a full time employee. Got A full time employee. Is he still on your fence today?

Yeah.

Tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday, all day, every day. You've got a fence schedule seven days a week, 365 days a year. No, I'm sorry, not seven days a week during our busy season yet.

That was my whole point. Is that my first.

David, I got you, bro. I got you. I actually am in your camp over here, cuz. I hate off seasons. You're going to see I'm in your camp like I'm on your team here. I want leads during the off season and I want to keep employees busy full time.

Totally.

I used to burn $100,000 in the off season of all my profits for the first nine months of the year. Just got burnt in one quarter every single year. And that makes me mad. And so I get where you're coming from 100%.

Oh yeah, watch. I'm gonna tell you a story this evening. It almost killed me. It literally almost died because of this. So please give me till this evening and then if you could please do me a favor, do a Q and a at 5:30 to 6:00 clock with me right here on the stage once I've talked about this because I feel your frustration. I am super mad about this for the whole home service industry. I travel around the country literally this week, talked to three companies, all of which are struggling, can't make money and have these problems and I get freaked out mad about this stuff. I do software, but I get in these boots and I talk in front of you. Cause I care about home service business owners that are having this problem. And so I know there's a fix for this, trust me. And so please give me till this evening. We'll go through it and then I want you to actually I'll have you come up and I want to go over your business and we'll figure out this problem together. All right, Fair enough. All right, thanks, sir.

All right, guys, give it up for the panelists.

Thank you very much.

Oh, picture.

Let me get over here.

Our moderator.

That's right, that's right. He did a decent job. He did a decent job, you know.

Let's go, coach.

1, 2, 3. All right, thank you.

Please tell me you got that whole confrontation. I did. Let's go.

The music team will love you for that. Are you going to leave yours on? I'll turn it off now.

I got so.