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. I worked for one of the biggest dealers that Lifesaver had back in the day, we would 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 build fees 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 if you're. We have a niche product totally. And our niche product is very, very hard to maintain a full time employee.

Right. 10.

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

To be under 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 February, 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, so I know.

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 Lifesaver Birmingham. So I'm not disputing that it's not profitable. This is one of embrace things I've ever, I've never been involved in and I have absolutely zero regret from doing that. But here I am nine years in with my young distributor and I'm not in a 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, 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 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 years previous. However, the valuation Of Apple has 10x in the same time. The reason for that is because 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, okay, this is not the constraint. I agree with you. There's only four different constraints in a business. It's either liquidity money. Sounds like that's not A problem for you. Okay. 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 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 the trust, it means nothing.

It means absolutely nothing, Jack.

If I don't have any work with a person 100%.

Because until you sold.

That's why I drove 700 miles. Come here.

Yeah.

How do I generate more business for me?

Yeah.

I mean. And I'm not trying to. Yeah, you're good 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 Jordan, you have employees.

Okay.

Shannon, Larry, you have an employee.

Yes. Full time.

Yeah.

Will you have an influence?

Perfect.

Mark Alderman got an influence.

Had one per. Right. All right.

Yeah. Okay.

So the statement that no one here has a full.

I didn't say no here.

There.

I asked and does right say. This isn't a for 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. A lot going on about sales and marketing.

We're going to get there.

But this right here is about leveling up. And I think one of the main thing.

Is getting. And they talk about it is get stuck where you can't get to that next spot and hiring hard and leveling up and. But you're right, the sales come first and maybe there's a, you know, there's a. 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 sale. Talk about all the 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 critical. And if you don't have them, actually, if you don't have them before you grow, then you squander it. So I think this is, you know, 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 the day, 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, what can happen?

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 just 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, like, 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 laborers, to then get leadership. And now all of a sudden, my margins collapse because I have overhead positions. 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 hanging book. Yeah.

I just wanted to add one thing. What you're talking about right now was exactly what I brought up 10 days ago. My question was, when it gets slow, what are you doing with these full time employees? And then Eric went around the room. You see, you got a full time employee, you got a full time employee, you got. You got a full time employee. Is Eden storming your fence today?

Yeah.

Tomorrow, Monday, Tuesday, all.

Every day.

You've got a fence schedule seven days a week, 365 days a year.

No, no.

I'm sorry, not seven days a week.

During our busy season.

Yeah.

That was my whole point.

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

Oh, I do too. I got employees with kids.

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 making me mad. And so I get where you're coming from 100%.

Yeah. Watch. I'm gonna tell you this 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, talk 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 and I get in these boots and I talk in front of you because 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? All right, thanks, sir.