Mike Minutes Mastermind 02/01/2024

And we're alive everyone. We're doing amazing. Let's go ahead and get started here.

A couple quick announcements. I made posts on the Facebook group. We modified slightly the web chat introduction basically to add in Max answering the chat and assumed that the customer wanted an estimate instead of asking them if they wanted an estimate. Most people come to a lawn care website to get a quote. They do not come to chill out. And so instead of asking if they want an estimate, we will ask them what type of estimate they would like. So that was a change. Worked yesterday with Dr. Kashi on a lot of different Facebook ad options as we go into the upcoming season. In my opinion, Facebook ads are okay.

If we get enough cost per click and we can qualify the leads. The reason I usually see bad performance on Facebook is because they're using lead forms and it's so easy to make a lead form on Facebook that the close ratio is 10 to 20%.

And we don't want that waste a lot of time and resources. And so I think the objective is drive them to the website to fill out the instant quote form. How we pitch that we have several different ways we're going to be doing it and I'll make sure I have all that to everyone here in a couple weeks. I'm going to be going over version two of some things with him next week we will have ones highlighting the fact that we are offering 24.7phone support and that we we're going to call it concierge. They can have their 24.7on call concierge for their lawn service. Always answering the phone. Guaranteed we we're going to have something that we quote unquote become famous, have become famous for Augusta and that's the four click estimate. Within four clicks you can get your your quote up and running. There's several different titles that I'll be given options for as well as breaking down the value of a mowing service by its component parts. So things like weed, whacking, edging, blowing off walkways and sidewalks, etc, we all just assume that it's mowing but actually breaking down those pieces and parts and then giving what the value of that is and being able to give away something for free, which in this case you can give away free 24.7phone concierge for their lawn and yard. No one else can do that. Sounds kind of insanity. We can do that because now Max can answer the phone 24. 7 and you can guarantee if they don't get a phone call that their next lawn service is free. So things like that. We are working on guarantees, offers and adding scarcity as well as.

Locality. So attention Whatcom county residents. The first 50 people, you know, Augusta Long hair is coming into town. We're famous for our four click estimate. First 50 customers that sign up for our lawn service this spring will receive our free 24.7Law Concierge. We guarantee phone calls are answered. If not, you get your next mowing service for free and get your quote within four clicks. So these are the type of things we are working on and I will have more results and instructions in a couple weeks before spring rush get started. We are leaning a lot into before and after pictures in terms of the creative. So thank you everyone on the Facebook group that submitted pictures to me. I will be using several of those and I fully anticipate those two things, the 24. 7 phones being answered. No one else can do that as well. And we're going to name it, obviously, like I said, the phone concierge for their lawn as well as.

The instant quotes. So those are two things I think will jump off the page. We can create guarantees around them and show the cost of savings when we break down the component parts of a mowing service. So looking forward to that and looking forward to sharing it with everybody. I think it's going to absolutely crash.

All right.

Move on to some questions.

Question numero uno is from Kyle Tarvin, Oklahoma. I've been getting interested in general health. One second. Let me make sure my audio is good.

All right.

Been getting interested in general health and longevity lately. I have to admit, I haven't been taking super great care of myself and I want to change that. I am working out more and trying to stay on top of a good sleep schedule. Getting at least eight hours. Wowzer. Trouser go. I've been reading up that a good probiotic can help with a bunch of different ailments. I'm already taking turmeric, a multivitamin, high doses of vitamin D for seasonal depression, and glucosamine for joint support. Joint support. Do you have any recommendations on supplements or probiotics that I should look into for overall health? Longevity? Two, do you have any supplements you regularly take for health? Okay, so the first one.

Personally, I think that probiotics are a bit of a fad.

Prebiotics, probiotics, there is a difference.

They are important. But I do think they are a bit of a fad. And so it always just changes from one thing to the other. Right? Like that's how people sell stuff in this, in the world of supplements. So there's such high margins in supplements. It's like usually like 90% margins. And you usually, if you get people hooked on it, they keep taking it every single day. It's hard to prove whether or not they work. So it's pretty easy to be able to keep selling it assuming that you, you have information flowing. So I'm not against them, I'm not against them. I'm just saying I think what you're currently taking is pretty good. I think everyone should take a multivitamin just in case you have something deficient. And then obviously talk to a doctor and do blood work and they'll tell you exactly what you need. You're low in iron, et cetera. And also depends, like ladies versus guys, et cetera, what you're gonna need. So talk to a doctor. Not me, however. What do I take for my health? I take a multivitamin, I take a creatine tablet, I take a amino acids tablet, and then I switch it up with one other thing. So like one other tablet per day and that includes omega 3s, a turmeric.

Fish oil, and I think it's a.

Apple cider vinegar tablet. So do I think they make me better? I don't know. It makes me feel good, I guess.

I tested sending a paid receipt text an email from one of my customers account that had just paid with a check. There was no area to leave a tip on the text or via the email receipt. Yeah, for paid invoices there's not a place to leave a tip. Right now we have this on the roadmap. I know it seems like it should be there, but it is a completely different transaction. It makes it very difficult inside of Stripe. We have to go back to the API, which again, just know it's on the roadmap. But right now the only way for someone to give you a tip is if they are paying an invoice. I know that's not ideal and we do have it on the roadmap down the road to be able to go back and hit that same charge with a tip or create a new charge inside of Stripe. But.

Right now you can't do that. You're correct. If you're sending a paid invoice receipt, there's really not a place to leave a tip. Not ideal, because if you're getting cards on file, most of your transactions are going to be that. I understand.

Eric from Largo, Florida. Hi, Mike Cameron. Just posting the Facebook group about annual price, hourly rate increases, tracking inflation, and it reminded Me, I meant to ask that about this in the Mastermind. I never did. John. I think Jonathan from Florida Turf Pros posted a video a few weeks back on the subject and said for new customers he would be instituting an annual price increase per inflation. Don't remember exact specifics. This is also the route you decided to go with Command Center. So I was wondering what your thoughts on this for lawn care would be. Seems logical, but I'm thinking it kind of tire hands add friction when you want to do a separate price increase based on capacities being hit or correcting a previously originally under bid midmo. Okay, yeah, so I don't think anyone should do price increases based upon inflation.

So I just don't. The reason we do it at Command center, we have different goals and that is to create consistency for all the owners and not have big jumps and spikes in prices. If we just like if we use the same logic at Command center that we use inside of our long convenience, we would raise the capacity. And then once we were at a certain number of calls, we're like, okay, from here on we're going to raise prices again and we're going to raise prices again. Like that's how we'd be doing it. That's not how we. My command center exists. It exists to serve all of commands to serve all of Augusta Nation. So we will continue to increase capacity to to warrant the supply and serve everyone.

And our costs have far dramatically outpaced inflation. Our base pay is more than 50% increased over the past few years. We've added medical benefits, etc. So don't think do what I'm doing at Command Center. I think that's how you should do in your business. You're optimizing for profit. Command center is optimizing for service to you. Two different things. We obviously try to become profitable. I think we're a couple percent profit and I would like them to be able to get to 20% over the course of time and incentives are aligned with that. Sorry, you probably are hearing them a bunch. Sorry, you guys are probably hearing them talking next to me.

But if you are optimizing for profit, you're not going to base it upon inflation. It'll be too slow. You will not be able to increase profits. So in my opinion it should be based upon capacity. Like everyone, I always ask what's the best time of year to raise prices. The best time, time to raise prices is when you hit capacity. That is, that is the best measure of when to grow a business. Not the based on seasonality, it's like, well, what if I lose more customers? It doesn't matter if you're at capacity. If you're not at capacity, don't raise prices because you need to raise the capacity. You need to increase the amount of work you're doing until you hit capacity because that's where all your profits are. Why would I raise my prices if I have an extra 30% of excess capacity? Because I have trucks sitting in my yard, I have employees that aren't working really full time. Why would I raise prices then when, if I could just put more on their schedule, I would be able to be just as, if not more profitable than raising the prices. So hit capacity, raise prices, hit capacity, raise prices. That is in my opinion the best way to do it. For example, if you lost 20% of your customers because we're in an economic recession, are you really going to raise your prices on your customers? You could potentially lose 30 to 40% of your customers just because they're everyone's price sensitive. During a boom cycle when inflation is quote unquote 4%, 5% like it was last year, but yet your, your cost of labor went up 20%, are you really just going to raise it 4%? So just want to be careful with that, in my opinion. And typically inflation numbers lag. So you know, the combined inflation probably over the past four years has been probably around 20%. Like labor for all of us has probably gone up 40 to 60%, fuel has gone up, electricity has gone up far more than 20%. So I just don't believe that. I think that's just kind of a lazy way of doing it. Like, oh, based upon inflation, we'll raise prices. You do that if you're trying to serve your customers to the highest degree. If you're trying to maximize, maximize for profit, you would do it based upon your capacity. You'll be able to raise prices significantly more because raising your prices by 4% or 3% a year based upon inflation is literally on a forty dollar mo. A dollar or two. Do not raise your prices by a dollar or two. Raise your prices by at least five to ten bucks. Five dollars on a forty dollar.

Lawn. You're literally raising your price like 12%. Like inflation is not 12%. Nowhere close to it. Last year is probably 4 to 5%, I'm guessing. So I just genuinely believe by doing that you will leave money on the table if you raise it. You will absolutely leave money on the table if you raise based upon inflation instead of market demand. Like prices never if you look at just fundamental economics, it's price is never determined by inflation, is determined by supply and demand. If you have more supply, if you have more demand than you have supply, you should raise prices 100 of the time. And you can increase your supply by getting more trucks and more equipment and more employees. But as long as demand exceeds your supply, you should be raising prices.

And in a high interest rate environment, when there's money sloshing around, guess what? People have money, they increase the supply. You should be able to raise your prices. So it does usually correlate, but it shouldn't be based upon that number strictly in my opinion.

Kyle Tarver from Oklahoma. I hear you say sometimes you get frustrated with how slow things are going. I'm guessing this includes command center, your location, growth, etc. I sometimes find myself in the exact same exact situation where I want things quicker, but they aren't happening. How do you tiptoe the line between voicing your opinion on how things should be versus letting your managers do what they need to do on their own timetable?

I don't actually get frustrated, you know, I think for a second.

I don't think I should get frustrated a whole lot at the people when things are going slow. I just get, I just get frustrated that the results are not happening quick enough.

If I thought, if I was actually getting frustrated, a manager or someone because I thought they were the cause of it going slow, I would let them go or I'd have a talk with them. But typically it's not a matter of.

Issues. Issues typically if managed correctly, it's not a matter of like.

Me telling somebody to go faster. Faster is typically not the best long term route. Typically especially operations. People like they are a little more slower, they're going to be a little more deliberate. They want systems and processes and I'm okay with that. I will always probably be unfortunately frustrated with how slow things go, even if they're going fast. So like I've got a little bit better just like realizing that's just like a flaw of my own. It's not anyone else's issue. And so.

Realizing the operations is important, systems and procedures are important and going fast is not necessarily a bad thing. You guys have seen what happened when I've gone fast before. Last year with Max, the year before it was.

Something like that. I just moved too quickly. And so going slow is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it's a good balance. If you have that notion that like I'm going too slow probably is a good thing that you Actually slow down. So like we've done with Command center or with Copilot the past couple of weeks and that is like yeah, I want, I just want everyone to jump in and start fighting fires when reality it's like we do need to step back a little bit, create a system and like why did. What's the root cause? Create better infrastructure, create better teams and then attack the problem head on and have a much more calculated method, so. Eric, Largo, Florida Hey Mike, it has been like pulling teeth getting cards on file. After transitioning to Copilot, I have my Open receivable from 2323 down to a couple clients, but some have been unresponsive to the barrage of emails, texts, calls, voicemails and getting no answer at the door. These clients had a card on file in Zooper so I am tempted to go get the November December billings process through that. Thoughts? I would, I would give you a yes on that. If there's a couple left and they're really getting under your skin, go back into your old Stripe account, charge their card and then just go into Copilot and market as other and you'll be fine. Also, I know you've mentioned there is a way to import over stripe card information that isn't suggested, but maybe a fine solution for those handful of problem clients. Can you tell me how to do that or direct me to resources to use? Thanks. Yeah, a few people have tried to do this, including the Storch. They tried to contact Stripe and see if they can move it over. It's. It's a much more painful process than they at first let on because if you search it it's like oh yeah, no problem, we can do the porting, no problem. It is far more complicated than they let on. But if you have access to the old Stripe account, I'm okay with you going in there charging it just so you get the money and if that's really getting under your skin and then just mark it as an other payment inside of COPA so all your numbers are lined up correctly and make a memo. I'd be okay with that. And then I would probably just make sure that in the invoices you've already done text calls and voicemails and getting no answer at the door. You're probably not going to get paid from them very long anyways if they're not responding to any of those things. The card that is on file will likely expire or have NSF non funds pretty quickly. A non responsive customer is not a good customer in General, if they don't respond to anything in their texting, calling, voicemailing, the whole nine yards. It'd be one thing if, like it was just voice emails and they're going to spam. It's different when you're texting, you're leaving voice message, you're knocking on the door. That person's probably not going to be around very long. I sure hope their card that is in super actually goes through. So. But if there's a couple, if you just have down to a couple, I would go ahead and charge those and do it that way.

And then as you have problem customers, you know, attack it more from a text perspective or giving them a call, et cetera, if it, if it's becoming a problem. But until, until, like, you have.

Lots of growth for most of us in terms of spring rush and customers need you to show up, you kind of fall on the wayside. So we're even seeing the past, like, even week uptick in how many people are putting their cards on file because they actually need it. Like in some areas of the country, like the grass are starting to grow, you need a cut or two. And so they, oh, okay, yes, I will get my car. I will actually open up the email that says August lawn care because my grass is now growing. So, yeah.

We have an. I talked with Dr. Cash yesterday too about something that was a really good idea. When we break down the component parts of a mowing service, for example, in our market, we always haul away the debris. What you could do is when it comes to that page that, that pop up where it says you need to have a cardinal file, instead of making like a requirement, you'd say, hey, it's, it's required. However, if you add your payment method now we're going to go ahead and add for free the removal of all of the lawn clippings. Well, we already hauled the clippings away. It's already included in the price, but you can offer it as value add. So then they're like, not only like, oh, it's a requirement, but rather it's like, I, I am able to get a free service that's typically 15 per service. I'm gonna get that for free if I just put my card information on. Let's go. So there's ways down the road to make this more palatable too, that I'm taking note of to make sure cards are on file if it's something that you're acquiring.

You can't hear my. Why can't you hear me? I sure hope you can hear me. I've been talking myself this whole time. Check one, too. You should be able to hear me. Well, I think that's you. I sure hope it's you. There's other. There's other people on here, so I think I would have. I would have heard about that. All right, that's all I got for today. I hope you all have a fantastic Thursday and. Oh, we can hear you. Okay. Very good. Talking to myself for the last 20 minutes. Lord have mercy. 24 hour law enjoys on Brian. You're always full of the L's. You help me with the. The four L framework with the L's, and now you get the 24 hour lawn liaison. I'm sure there's other we could get four Ls in there somehow. The lawn liaison. I said laxative, but it's probably not a good descriptor. All right, we're going to cut it off there if we go downstream. All right, take care, guys. Bye.