Mike Minutes Mastermind 01/05/2024

Welcome everyone to the Mike minutes. Mastermind, go and get this thing kicked off.

Didn't have one yesterday. There's 17 questions. I don't think I'm gonna get to them all. I did see the first one though, and it's actually part of my announcements. So I'm gonna go into my questions here in just a moment. But the first one is actually what I was going to be, was going to be an announcement. So real quick though, quick announcement. I made this post on the Facebook group.

Excuse me. Your December invoice from Command center is going to be delayed. We moved everything from QuickBooks over to Copilot and because the volume is so high, like going from zero to that, Stripe doesn't like it. So they're throttling how much we can charge every single day right now. So the payment for December's command center invoice is going to be delayed. What that means is you might end up getting your December command center bill close to the 15th, which is when your franchise fee comes out. Just keep that in mind because it's not a double charge. It is simply what would otherwise been charged yesterday or today is probably going to be delayed somewhere between two and seven days because they're throttling us. So hopefully by next month this will be fixed. They just don't want us to have that much volume on a new account. So we've moved everything over to Copilot. One second. Before I go into that, let me make sure I get this all set up. Totally forgot. Sorry.

YouTube.

Speaking of YouTube, yesterday I was on the plane and I had like 20, 30 minutes.

On my phone without my laptop. So I went through YouTube comments for the first time in a while. That was interesting. My goodness. Wow.

There's some interesting people out there, ma'. Am.

Let's see here.

People have an opinion about everything.

One second here.

Drop that there. There's YouTube. Okay, so I know I mentioned before, but Command center is using Copilot to all the invoicing, billing, etc. For copilot. Sorry, they're using Copilot to all of the billing for Command center and the franchise fees etc there. It's not really about the billing since that's all just me going through Stripe ach like normal. It's really the fact that we'll be able to set a whole bunch of automated related, automation related things. We'll be able to keep internal notes way better. Also down the road, when we have the coaching program set up, which they're going to be all getting trained Next week. And then probably in February, being active, we'll be able to set up like as user permissions so they can go in and see certain things, but then have it separate from other aspects that we might not want a coach to see.

So, you know, if there's things going on in someone's personal life and they're talking to me, I want to keep track of that inside their account. But. Whoa, someone's trying to call me. Connor Hutchinson, you're trying to call me? What in the world? Okay, you cancel the call. Just making sure you're okay, please.

Okay, now contact afterwards. Okay, let's see here.

What was I talking about? Yeah, so that, that's why they switch over to copilot.

Is happening. And so.

Yeah, that's why that payment's getting delayed. So let's go ahead and jump into questions.

All right, question number one.

Again. This is one thing I was going to make kind of an announcement.

All right, Max Burnaby, should I begin creating sequence automation in gopal or will many of these be created by CC before spring rush? So most of them have already been created inside your account.

That are required for.

Invoice collections, estimate follow up, etc. Assuming that they set up your account for you.

The reason I'm saying that because even this morning we're having discussions about like all the changes that we want to make and especially now that everyone has texting capability, there's so much more we can do about like internally. Now we can actually text your team members too. So that offers a lot of options.

And so.

The ability to be able to tap into that, like right now we gotta get everyone in copilot get through a spring rush. But like I really think about that by the end of spring rush everyone will be familiar with the system, et cetera. And then we can really start to drill in like very specific sequence automations. We can get Mike Callahan and get some of his advice as well, but really dial it in. Especially the fact that you can actually use automations a lot internally with your team now because you can text and email internally like your users.

Question number two, Joel from Lafayette.

Thoughts on simplifying initial mow rates. With the move to using the simplified small, medium, large end quote prices for mowing on the website, I wonder if it would make sense to simplify the initial mow rate to just be a flat rate. I suggest using the bi weekly rate for all initial mows instead of dependent on whether or not the grass is overgrown. I looked at all my initial mowers visit Prices from last year to compare the clock time overgrown rate of dollars per minute per man, the actual price charge the client the regular BI weekly rate, 1.5 times the weekly rate for us and 2 times the regular weekly rate. I found that the bi weekly rate would have resulted in 9% less revenue average, $6 less per client and the 2 times weekly rate would have resulted in 21% more revenue average of $14 more per client than the actual prices we charge the clients. Since we already included the bi week rate in estimates and the difference is smaller, it would seem to be the simplest to use for a flat initial MO rate. For all initial mows, $1.50 per minute per man equals $4,000. Actual rates was 4,400. Bi weekly rate it would be 4,000. So okay, so you're breaking all the numbers on I get what you're saying here and you're basically saying should we have a flat rate for the initial MO instead of doing it permanent? Permanent.

You could theoretically do this. You could put this in your instant quote at the bottom. You could put in the terms and so.

Let me show you this whole question. I think there'd be additional savings on CC build and CC training with a flat rate since the invoicing team would have to spend time identifying the initial MO visits, calculating the overgrown rate and change in rate before submitting an invoice. And there would be fewer likely zero customer complaints about being surprised with a high rate high initial MOW rate with their overgrown lawn as a result of a small data set for one location with push mowers in one year. So I'm curious if any other locations have looked at the data and have similar or different results. It seemed like using the biweekly rate for all initial mowing via simpler without impacting overall gross profit on these visits. Now for the question. I like to make this change in my location. What would be the best way to note for the scheduling invoice team to always use the bi weekly rate for initial modes? I would talk to command center directly and see if this would pose any problems. I know if you're handling your invoicing you're going to be fine because what you can do is just put it in the bottom of your terms and conditions at the on the instant quote as well as on the estimate itself if you wanted to.

And if you do that.

Then you shouldn't have a problem. Here's my concern. Okay, at a larger location this is what I hear because the biggest thing is P4P. If you have a set dollar amount. They are no longer now taking their time on that first visit. And that's what I'm really wanting because the initial mows as you get a ton of employees, that is almost always where your yellow slopes come from, at least for us. And that has always been initial mows and weeding.

So that would be my only concern is now if you set that as a double rate, for example it's like yes, most of the time the guys will have plenty of time. But let's say they do walk into a lawn that's completely overgrown. Maybe you say okay, like those ones we're going to not mow them and we're going to tell the customer differently. But you've said now in the, in the notes that like all initial modes are going to be double the price. So you'd have to probably add another layer of like if it's over a foot it requires an in person estimate. Something like that maybe. So I'm not against this because I actually, I see where you're coming from. You make more money and it'd be simpler to sell. It's P for P that I'm actually thinking about the most because I like to be able to tell the guys, spend as much time as you want doing it. Do a walkthrough with the customer. Like spend all the time, dial everything in because you're getting charged. We're charging by the minute. And so it's mostly yellow slips. And a yellow slip will take a lot more time than command center explaining the $1 installation, 50 cent per minute per man on the first visit. So yellow slips cost so much like it's, it's one of those things that doesn't show up in your P and L. But yellow slips cost so much as you get team members.

So like you can see a direct correlation. You have churn profitability and yellow slips and because yellow slopes literally will cost you 30 to 60 minutes per and that's what I'd be careful of. And then P for P2 just making sure that like the guys aren't rushing the initial mos is like a, is a big thing for us. That's why we really embraced that. I'm not against it though. I think for, especially if you're doing the moe's and you know it's gonna be a good quality etc like and you're just gonna eat it if it's over that I would, I would say you're. This is the right move 100%.

This is from Mr. Anonymous. When giving a GM a profit percent of profit. Should we be adding any of our distributions for being the owner on our pay versus being the regional manager before factoring their percent? What's your mindset on this? Yeah, if you are the regional manager and the regional manager gets a certain percentage, that is an expense to the business. Okay. So it'd be factor like it's as if it's going through payroll. So it'd be going through QuickBooks, whatever you're using for payroll. And that would be expense. That being said, if you're taking distributions as an owner, that's different. All right, so what I mean by that is you, you have. Let's say you're acting as the regional you should have in your compensation plan. The regional gets X amount percent. Great. That takes out as if you know it's a regional manager taking that percentage because that's part of their comp plan. Owner's distribution is after all of that. It's after the GM gets their cut. It's after the regional gets their cut. Then you have distributions. The distributions is on the balance sheet. It's not on the profit and loss statement. So it won't affect anyone's P and L.

That. If you want me to clarify it more, I can. Matt Slicky from South Salem.

With Copilot. Not integrating with Copilot QuickBooks. Would you recommend still having it as context? I have next to no QuickBooks experience. Yeah. Okay, so give me one second here. So the QuickBooks integration is actually pretty good with Copilot. Like I was just working on yesterday with one of the devs. It's pretty good. Here's the thing. It solves just a couple very small problems that are pretty easy to find without needing the sync. And so the apprehension that you're bringing to connect your QuickBooks account is exactly what I want to prevent people from doing it. Because it just takes one time in the entire year where we make an update or QuickBooks makes an update, and then either of our dev teams take a week or two to adjust to the other person's code. That is all is required for you to spend hours of having like duplicate payments, duplicate invoices, and a whole bunch of stuff.

So we have the connection. It's pretty good, actually. Like we actually spent a ton of money and time on it and like we still are updating it and people are still connecting to it and we don't have like massive problems with it. I just don't recommend it because the main object, the main bonus of having it connected Is that inside of QuickBooks you're going to have your revenue broken down by invoice. That's the main benefit. When in reality you can just mark all the service income, have that on your P and L. And then if you ever need to for the sake of an audit or you're just curious, you can run reports inside copilot on your revenue. So.

It'S just. Yeah, I just, I don't see the benefits of doing the sync. And it literally takes one time a year for something to go off with either of our code bases to like throw a switch and you're spending hours trying to like weed through things. So it's not that I'm against it, it's not that doesn't work. It's just every single CRM I've ever tested been a part of been in their Facebook group. Every year there's something that happens with the connection and it's not necessarily anyone's fault. Like Cookbooks is changing their code all the time. Every CRM is changing their code all the time. If they're ever not exactly right. The two way sync duplicates stuff. So Mr. Anonymous, over the next three to four years I intend to have several locations in a city with 150,000 people. Right now we have 200k in revenue and clients are spread out throughout the city. Do you recommend growing this entire city? Knowing I'll split it about a year from now, allowing the new location to have some clients and momentum orders narrow down on my actual location, which is about only half of that.

I would probably just focus on growing top line revenue because remember, if you look at the stages of wealth, the very first stage Is grow to 200,000 in annual revenue or 500,000 in annual revenue. I don't even think that considering secondary locations is something that should be on your horizon right now. It should just be grow to 500,000. Then you have the thought process of okay, do I split this at 500,000? Do I now try to go next year to 750 and then break it off the year after that to have to. But at 200,000 revenue I would just focus on growth. Like get to 500,000. Right. Assuming again, like I don't know who this is. Assuming you have enough profitability and you have enough cash in the bank to get to the 500,000. I try to do that. Then you open up this box of okay, I have two options. One, I can make this location more profitable and keep it around 5, 550 or 2, I can continue growing next year, grow to 750, break that off the you're following and have two locations. Like all of this is like a year, year and a half down the road. So like that's why the stages of wealth needs to be followed in sequence, in my opinion. Get to 500,000, then you make this decision. Okay. And if you're struggling from a re, from a cash on hand perspective, like profitability, that's when it's like, okay, maybe you should actually take one year, be profitable at 200, 250,000, 100 grand in your in your pocket, and then go to 500,000. So like that. That's the importance of making sure you have a plan with your coach.

Gusto. I meant P4P. What a noob.

Oh, I think you meant the integration with copilot and P4P. Okay, now I'm confused. Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. The connection with P4P and Copa. Yes. Okay. The integration with Copilot and P4P works. There's one problem with it majorly right now, and that is if you want to make a change because it's a one way sync, you have to go into copilot and make a change in someone's time card. We are building something I'm hoping will be done by Monday or Tuesday. That's like my hope. And that is you can on the time card just immediately pause the sync and make manual adjustments to a time card in P4P without having to go into copilot. So. Yeah.

Any feedback on the Y Bravo push mowers? I was thinking you guys have been trying them out in the Bellingham shop since Honda is out of the game and the issues we've had with 30 inch mowers, I'm hoping good things from the wide Bravo mowers. Yeah, so we, you know, we tested several out this year. It seems like that's the way the team's going. I think they're going to order like 20 of them from the the dealer.

Corey would probably be the best to actually answer this question. And it's probably something that he will hold on until after a spring rush. Like actually know what it looks like to have 20, 30 guys working out in the field with the Bravo mowers.

Connor Hutchinson. Hutchinson. You always mess me up with calling yourself Hutch, but it makes sense because in a lot of spots in social media you also name yourself Hutch. So it makes sense. With the new QR code door hangers, will they all drive to one page or each location input Their own QR.

Can we use the current URL link if you want to create our own QR codes for spring to direct people to the mowing form on our website. Or will the website link change with the upcoming updates here? Yeah, like right now. See, the thing is you could technically make a QR code that just takes them to the form. You could do that. Like that's totally fine.

Actually, give me one second.

I have a thought. Just give me one second. Sorry.

Okay.

Yeah. So right now if you. Because the instant price quote form is just on the website, you could just make a QR code directly in the website and they can fill out the form and get an instant price. You can do that. What we're trying to do is down the road later this spring is to where when they scan the QR code, it takes. It says, oh, this QR code means that it's this price. So now when they go to the form, the price is already filled out, it's already marked as accepted. All they have to do is the top part, which is their contact information.

So that way then you instead of having to write the prices out, you can have that printed or you can still write it out. But then when they scan the QR code, it's already accepted, the price is already locked in, it shows the picture. They can confirm that if they want. But like all they really need to do is put their contact information.

Okay, this is the last one. Then I gotta run. I will try to do another one, if not today, tomorrow to catch up on these questions. Kyle Tarvin. Currently I'm paying around $100 per month for vehicle GPS tracking. Oh, I apologize. I think, I think it was. Matt asked us something about mile IQ.

In terms of tracking mileage. We don't have any plans like actually directly integrate with Mileiq or something like that. We used to have a feature in Copilot that could kind of track the mileage, but it really depended on someone being super good at dispatching. And it didn't take into account things like if you traveled and you weren't on the dispatch board, the truck mileage wasn't accurate. That it was basically tracking all of the trucks that you would assign to cruise. And it kind of do it and learn new report at the end of the year. But it wasn't great because if you drive the truck to go get an oil change, it's not on the dispatch board. It was inaccurate mileage reading. So that's why we took that out. You would want something more along the lines of Something to actually track the trucks or just have a good system for getting your odometer readings each year if you're trying to get mileage. Kyle Tarvin currently I'm paying $100 per month for vehicle tracking. I understand correctly. None of your equations have GPS tracking on trucks. Is there a reason why you don't do this?

P4P solved a lot of these problems. We used to pay a lot of money. It was like a lot of money for vehicle tracking at the Bellingham shop. P4P Soled all the problems. We ended up not using it a lot. Other than emergencies or wondering where someone's at. And copilot, you can track them in the map.

Like on the map side things, you can see where all their devices are at. And so especially like, if you're concerned about it, I would rather give them a company device so that you can like track the device all the time. That would probably be easier. But there's a lot of pros that come with actually plugging in the device to the truck itself.

Like, there's a lot of stuff that is additional to just seeing the, you know, where they're at on the gps. But yeah, we just haven't had like a huge need and cost, like managing all the plugins and like all that sort of thing has just been a bit of pain. I'm not against it. Not against people having cams if they want to, to monitor, et cetera, but, you know, we've just never seen a huge need for it.

All right, everyone that's gonna. I'm can. I'm gonna stop the mess around for today. I will either do another one later today or tomorrow to catch up on all the rest of the questions. I love you all have fantastic Friday. We'll see ya.