Mike Minutes Mastermind 01/31/2024

All right, let's get this party started.

For some reason this screen decided not to turn on this morning. So this screen is going to be what I'm using today. That's why you have a backup to your backup baby. All right.

See here, Drop this into Facebook.

Boom.

Okay, we have some questions. Let's get started. Present.

All right, we got nine questions this morning. First one is from Tim. Is there any way of getting payment? If property is sold, they have no email and the phone on file is no longer active. Do I still need, do I, do I still send to collections?

If you have no email and the phone on file is no longer active and they sold their house.

If you could track down what they bought, like if they stayed inside the counties, you could search that, you know in which county they went to.

Potentially. Or you go to the house, the buyer and be like, hey, they still owe on this property. I don't want to have to put a lien against the property because it it's going to affect your title. Could you give me the contact information for the seller? That might be a way to get the money honestly, but without the contact information sending the collections almost as useful, useless because they don't have an address, they don't have an email, they don't have a phone number, they can't really do much.

Mr. Anonymous, is there a plan or is it even possible to have Max AI determine that an address is not in our territory or requested service is not something we so that Max can decline a lead or immediately hand it off to CC to decline. If during business hours when there is an invalid Google local services lead due to a service we don't offer or a zip code address we don't service, Google denies the dispute and charges a lead because Max ends the call by saying we'll review the information, get back to the customer later instead of declining the lead. This appears to be a small problem at the moment. Not sure if it's a larger problem for other locations. So understand if this isn't a priority, if this is possible, it would be nice to save a few marketing dollars and deliver a better customer experience by land them no sooner if we can't serve them. I already appealed to Google, say, say Max and AI and if someone listened to the call, they would hear that the zip code is out of our defined area. But they didn't care because Max didn't decline the lead. If you could send me an email of them actually saying this, I'd be interested because I have not seen this be the case. So if you could send me an email, whoever Mr. Anonymous is, although you have to disclose you are. That's kind of sad. Yeah. If you could send this to me because I have not seen this be the case.

Because they can look at your service offering and identify whether or not and he's not setting up an appointment either so it's not like confirming the appointment is taking place. So I have not seen this happen. If you could send me the email over there, direct info, that'd be great. Yeah. In terms of determining address, territory and then services that you offer, we are a long ways away from that. I'll be perfectly honest. There's a lot of connection points we have to make there and then individualizing every single location and the last thing you want is max to turn away a lead because the customer their at the address they give is their mailing address and that's outside the service area but their real address is inside of the service. Like there's so many different layers that this goes. So right now it is not an option. However, if you could send me an email it would be greatly appreciated of exactly what Google said back to you because I have not seen this be the case. That'd be excellent.

Nick from Mary's vote when a customer calls and cancels, how come CC doesn't ask them to pay and close their out their account? Also curious about the collections process in the middle of winter and right after we switch to copilot we have the most we have ever had in receivables right now. I'm not sure if this is getting handled or what it looks like since this isn't an automation sequence. I'm wondering, I'm worried if we are going to continue during winter services and people aren't going to pay after it piles up for a month or two which which with a big unexpected builder is a higher likelihood of them finding any reason and it's being the bill for the whole winter most of December hasn't been paid. We have about 12,000 receivables from December. So I would contact the collections department and you know, see when they're planning to do your account. I'm assuming they are still doing the regular process and all of this. But follow up with them on this in terms of this part, the top part, if they're on winter services and they're disputing something, we should be closing the account out. So again if you have a case of this happening, please send it into yellow slipgustalongassurpices.com so I can actually diagnose what's happening here. Because if a customer calls in and cancels, we should have a card on file. We should be able to charge them right away. Also, if you're, if they're not doing your invoicing at command center, they're probably going to rely on you, whatever your timing is, so they don't mess you up. So assuming you have a card on file, you're going to be okay. It's when the customer does not have a card on file and then they're trying to close that account. That makes sense. Send it to yellow slip. They would have a better answer than me on what that process looks like and what the SOP is for that.

Nick from Marysville Sending for my last question, I realized that I sent December invoices right in the middle of when the emails weren't working. There's a chance my clients never got it. I know some did and paid but most haven't. We are sending out invoices tomorrow shy resend December's and send January at the same time. Keep in mind, if they actually don't have a card on file, for example, and they're going to their portal, they're going to see how much their outstanding is. I would potentially Nick, if you're, if you're hesitant because like if you send in the middle of December and you're, you're hesitant as to whether or not the email went through, potentially send us a text message to those customers and then pick up the regular emails. I can show you guys how many invoices are actually going through and actually getting through. It's going to be in your mail gun.

So this is getting better by the day. Now I think we're up to 95, 94, 95% delivered and these are transactional emails. So invoices, estimates, etc. Yeah, 94.65%.

And.

0.76 are being suppressed. We now have a dedicated IP. See like that helps with deliverability as well. So like those are happening. But if you send it during the time when you think that potentially they didn't go through, which most of them will actually end up happening if they were sent during those couple days there in the middle of December they actually got queued up and then sent. The problem is they got queued up and sent on a brand new email address and so likely went to spam because that number started lower and it's been working on all the way up. Like I think the only email addresses we aren't getting through to right now are icloud because like the icloud is such a stringent spam policy and I'm sure as we just keep climbing up we'll be able to eventually get high enough deliverability score for them to accept us. Those are the ones that are really tough icloud but we're getting to Gmail in the main ones. So I would say go ahead and try texting this Nick so you feel like in case you feel like I don't want to like bother people if they did get the email for example. But keep in mind when you send January, like if I was you Nick, I'd probably just send January's and then ideally get people's credit card information on file. So you can just charge people's cards.

And I would probably take the approach as you are billing out in February of like the invoice subject being like please update your payment information invoice due as the subject line. So people open it and they actually follow the link and they put a card on file. And.

That would be my recommendation. And so today it'll have the final aspect of where a client can literally go into their portal. They don't have to toggle on autopay, they just have to add a card and it'll be able to charge.

And so I would recommend you know when if you're sending out tomorrow or the next day or whenever is just send them out with that as the title of the subject or the subject of the email and then in a week then see okay, are people still not paying? Then send out the text messages and then I would take that approach. But the goal I think over the next like two, three months is just get everyone's car on file so you can automatically charge them. And so I apologize for what happened in the middle of December there. It is likely that they actually went through but they probably queued up and then sent on a brand new server once we got it all set up and then probably went to their spam. You're 100% right.

Mr. Anonymous. What is your recommended verbiage on our invoices? The first couple times we use copilot considering nobody will have cards on file and we need them. Do you have any other input on this? Yeah, well I just said there's what I would recommend something like payment information, payment update, payment information update required or please update your payment information dash invoice due something like that. I wouldn't put overdue, you're gonna get people unhappy. But I would put do when if you're sending it out because you need them to click on that link and once they click on that link it is so easy to add a card on file. They don't have to put a have a username and login, they don't have to toggle anything on, they just add the card and then you're good to go. So.

I think in two or three months we'll like this process a lot better. But obviously the switch is always painful.

But yeah, that would be my verbiage on the subject of the email to make sure it gets opened up.

Val Thomas from Nocatee, Florida Copilot Question Is there a way or a way that is coming to be able to clock into more than one property at the same time? We have a lot of multi property stops where we drop the gate once, do three to five houses but haven't been able to clock into more than one at a time. Yeah, no this is that something we have have in our roadmap for sure.

Right now. I know obviously you're probably having to just manually change the times and divide them out. There's no like perfect way to do this.

Because especially if multiple crew members like which person is the one that determines if they actually switched between properties etc and then if like one person clocks into five of them, one clocks into one of them like what happens there. So kind of regardless of which way we take it, we will probably only make the people happy if we adopt exactly what service autopilot did, which wasn't exactly perfect either. So we will. We do have this on our list though to attack multiple multi property stops.

For sure and I have a few ideas of what we could do. It's probably going to be likely. It's like you're going to have to determine a crew leader to determine like who is the superior Clock in clock out.

If you have multiple crew members. Landon Smith from Tallahassee, Florida Hey Mike, I've really been considering window cleaning as an add on service. I've been debating it as the goal of my location is to keep everything simple and not feel the need to add on so many services and I definitely don't want to do at the expense of more rolling customers. However, I have found that it's a service that you can make 150 to $200 an hour doing and seems like a relatively simple service to do and train guys on. Also not heavy on startup costs. I'm currently in a spot where I really need more lawn care customers, yet I also need to fill the Sketch schedule quickly. So I'm not sure what to focus on. So I would disagree with one thing and that is like it seems relatively simple to train new guys on. I have a lot of contacts in the window cleaning industry and like it is very difficult to find laborers that can clean windows and take pride in like no streaks along the edges, making sure there's no dabbles or there's no drips.

It's harder than you. Again, lots of things are simple. Whether or not it's easy to train someone that is brand new is difficult. So I wouldn't, I just. Again, I think window clean is a great service. Whether or not it is an easy, simple service to train guys on that part, I would try doing it a couple times and seeing how you know how training goes. The reason is because your customers look through these windows every single day. And typically the ones that are going to pay that kind of premium, 150 to 200 an hour, they are really nice houses with really nice views, which means they're looking through these windows all the time. So if you make a mistake, it's not like oh like the grass will grow back. It's like that must be fixed because that smudge is going to ruin my $2 million view. So I'm not, I'm not trying to discourage you from it and I would definitely, especially during the, your off season, your slower season, it'd be okay. Like in Florida you have a lot more bandwidth though as a 12 month service. Like I think focusing on recurring mowing throughout the spring rush, pushing projects further off into the summer, really building up your occurring. You can really like winter services during, in, in a place like Florida, like you can crush it. So I would really focus on that and then potentially supplement, you know, using the window cleaning. The only thing I'd be hesitant of like window cleaning has the exact same demand curve as mowing. Oh, two questions you have. Sorry. Do you think that it would be a smart add on to fill schedules and stack cash a little quicker? I would say if you're a solo operator, yes. Just don't hold on to it too much because I do feel like down the road you'll probably let go of it due to finding people and training people and like liability people are on ladders, et cetera. To which should I market more heavily? Right into door to door given I need more longer customers but also need to fill a schedule. Also taking in consideration time of year a tad.

I would start like if you're solo, I would do door to door if you're in Florida you can sell certain services right now that a lot of people can't. I would probably go door to door and if you have more time than you have money right now I'd be doing that and just figure out what those numbers are and like do I knock? How many doors do I have to knock on? How many doors have to do hangers on to get a paying customer. But like in Florida you have demand. It's not great as great as during spring rush, but you can do services. So.

I would fully explore that first before I dive into a completely new service. Have to get new liability insurance, train guys, new ladders, whole nine yards. Right. So I would try that. I would definitely work on that first because I think it's like the easiest thing to expand into and then compliment your other services and get like people in your database to be able upsell them down the road to give them one click estimate emails down the road, et cetera. Joel from Lafayette RCC follow up calls on estimates when they get an automation email part of basic service? I do not believe so. Let me think for five seconds.

I don't think so. The follow up department is is part of full service. I asked because I was thinking that my team doesn't follow up on estimates sent on Friday until Monday but since C is open on Saturday for basic service it would be great if they could a next day follow up. Yeah, no, I am 99% sure. Let me think.

That'D be a very question asked for Liz. Liz listen to this and she will respond to you Joel in the comments Because I know back in the day we used to have these come through the same email that like the the main email everyone services for basic servers But I don't know if that's still the case.

I do not know.

Yeah, I am not confident enough to answer that question Joel. Liz will answer in the comments. Mr. Anonymous, last question. An Augusta location that does 500,000 revenue with 20% profit, 75 to 80% recurring revenue and three trucks. In your opinion what would be the range of what that business is worth make any assumptions needed. Okay, well I'm going to assume in this event that the owner does not have to be there and there's a general manager in place. If that is the case it is probably twice as profit. Twice at the enterprise value is twice as much. So let's assume this is pumping out $100,000 in profit as distributions to the owner. Let's assume that there's a general manager in place and running all daily operations and the owner is not involved, I would probably say is worth.

A minimum of $300,000 plus asset value. So probably like 400k.

Again, assuming all those things are placed. That's assuming, assuming there's a general manager, assuming it's pumping out $100,000 in profit and it has been doing that for at least 12 months. Like it's done did it last year and it's on track to do it this year again. And assuming that general manager in place, assuming the owner is not involved at all, it is worth probably 400,000. I would guess between 350 and 400,000. If the owner is involved, it is probably worth half of that.

You know, I mean involved is like you're juggling the fires, you're handling estimates, you're handling calls, you're doing follow ups. If the owner is involved at that level, then I would say that it's, it's significantly less worth in terms of enterprise value because it's harder to find a buyer. It's easy to find a buyer where it's like, hey, this is a business is completely plug and play. You literally buy it and tomorrow you're going to get a return that is like so much more valuable. So. All right everyone, I hope you have a fantastic January 31st. Tomorrow is February 1st. Just as a quick FYI for all you gentlemen out there, Valentine's Day is in a couple weeks, so figure it out. All right guys, take care. Have a good one.