Mike Minutes Mastermind 02/02/2023

Hello, Gust Nation. Hope you're doing well.

Let's go and get things kicked off. Drop this link into Facebook real quick. I might have accidentally deleted one person's question on the form this morning. Completely accidental. I don't think so, but it's possible because I was accidentally deleting messages from yesterday, and I might have gone one too far, but hopefully I'm wrong.

All right, let's see. We got here.

Oh, this is a cool Facebook page. On the Facebook group, there's a cool post from Garrett about buying his. Buying someone's location. I'll have to read that. Cool. Let's go ahead and get started.

I had a few things I wanted.

To go over first, though, on my list.

First thing.

Large checks. Okay.

So this is cool. Let me show you on the Facebook group what inspired.

This is a great idea from Vlad.

Chrome tab Facebook group. Here we go. Okay.

A great idea.

I thought. This is the post I was just looking at. I'll have to read that. More of that.

If only, if only. There it is. Okay.

This from Vlad yesterday. Great idea. I love this idea. So the media team, on our list.

Of projects, we will get this done.

We are thinking we could probably make.

It as a template inside of the pro shop.

So you could order like five or 10 of them and then just have a big, you know, permanent marker. You could write on this. This would be great for profit sharing bonuses.

Vlad uses for someone who stays for 90 days gets 500.

But even for if you want to do attendance awards, this is just a great idea.

The reason for that is because most people have never got a big check like this. So I would recommend making it kind of a nice card stock or even.

A corrugated plastic, because they will take.

It home, they will take pictures with it.

It will not go in the garbage.

If it's too cheap of paper, it.

Might end up in the garbage.

It probably will. So we're gonna have a few different options.

We'll try to make one on the pro shop, but then also if you go to big checkstore.com I'll show you guys this real quick.

Stop screen. Present Share screen. Way too many steps they have me go through. Okay, big check printing.

This is where you get, like, corrugated plastic card things like that. These.

These sizes, it's pretty cool.

So we'll try to make a design that you could just copy and paste.

Into here, as well as have one printed off on the pro shop, which.

Would likely just be like card stock. But I think we can make it nice enough. We'll See if there's any corrugated plastic. But I definitely like this idea when it comes to just recognizing somebody and.

Their contributions or their bonuses or profit sharing or any of that sort of. So also on the Facebook page, one thing here, one second. Audio. Of course.

I apologize. There we go. Someone tell me that in the comments. No, I didn't. Okay, sorry. Better audio. Now, in terms of on the Facebook group, there was another thing. That's what Marcus up here. Oh, I didn't watch this video. I gotta watch this video.

Marcus made a post here yesterday about putting your thing on Bing. But what's cool is he showed a link, showed you how to connect your sync your Google My business page or Google listing to Bing so it automatically updates. This is great because you can do this in like 30 seconds and move things over. And like Marcus was saying.

Chat GPT investment from Microsoft implies that Bing might make a resurrection here. So we'll see if that actually happens. But it's something you can do in 30 seconds. It's free. And now you can actually sync it up with your Google account to where it updates pictures and updates from your Google account over into Bing. So highly recommend that again, I think if I remember correctly, last time, like 7 or 8% of traffic, web traffic, of search traffic still does come through Bing. You know, it's still, you know what tiny compared to Google. But it's definitely something you want to think about. And it's free. So check that out. It's pretty cool.

This is the last thing I want to go over. This is a document that should be up next week on the pro shop. And really looking forward to this because if you're like us in the Bellingham shop, you get really busy and you don't. You stop doing introduction packets or you run out of magnets, or you just get really busy and you decide not. You're not gonna do anything because you're so busy with what's up. So the intro packets that we used to use, the nice card stock ones, stuff inside, they're just expensive. They're hard to put together in terms of just. They take a while to put together. And it's just a lot, honestly. So this is gonna be a good solution, I think. Eight and a half by 11. And then we'll also do a postcard version. Really, really nice, like the premium card stock. And it goes over kind of what makes us different. It has some stats in here I think are pretty cool. Like with an average 4 seconds to pick up the phone last year we're open the offices have open 68 hours a week. Again I don't think most of our competition be able to say that as well as this thing in the back here. We used the average value of $2,000 per year per customer, divided that out by $70 per hour and then we multiplied those number of budgeted hours by two to come up with 57 hours per year that we save them. And then we gave them, hey, that's the equivalent of an extra weekend family getaway or 17 rounds of golf. So just kind of a funny slash statistical approach to it. They scan these QR codes. This goes to a review page. The ones that are on the website. I think It's Augusta Longer Services.com reviews. This one up here goes to the video page and if you don't know what that it looks like if you just go to Augusta longcare services.com videos. I think it's videos. Yes. It's here what your landscape isn't telling you as well as a lot of our different video gallery ads type of creative that we've put together in the past. So I think it's a great place to send them because we do pitch Augusta throughout these and also kind of become the knowledgeable resource for them to be able to check out. So looking forward to that. That should be available on the pro shop to to be able to have next week. Those are, those are for customers that you do in person estimates with. We are going to be creating a door hanger version that will be for when you do go to an estimate that's a drive by or someone that doesn't show up to an estimate time slot and then you can put on the door hanger like hey, sorry we missed you. And then it have some of that information on there as well. So that's all coming up. Lots of good stuff. Hopefully next week we have that one done and then we'll just keep adding to it throughout February. In terms of other designs that you all had mentioned on the Facebook page. All right, I think that's all I had. Yes. Large checks, intro packets and the Bing sync with Google. All right, let's move on to questions.

All right. All right, all right, all right. Ken from Fenton, Michigan says I got an idea. Tyler Kukle just put out a video of him using a walk behind spreader salt spreader on an entire parking lot. Someone commented get this guy a tailgate spreader. Would you be interested or opposed to setting up a system where franchisees could contribute to another franchisee's business like a GoFundMe and once the franchisee who borrows the money gets back on their feet or gets more work advertising, they would pay everyone back with interest. No, I would not recommend doing this. I, I definitely as a franchisor cannot get involved with this. This is lending money. This starts to become loaning if you're collecting interest. This is now starts to become regulated by Security Exchange Commission and a whole bunch of other stuff. If you want to do that personally, that's up to you, but I can't get involved and I would not recommend doing this either because a franchisee that you might help, you might expect that money coming back to you in six weeks and all of a sudden something happens to them and now you don't get that money back and now you're putting yourself in a bad spot. So I would personally just keep this as a personal transaction between franchisees for now. You start doing that. It sounds great in theory. Until someone goes out of business and then a whole bunch of people are left on the hook. Just leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Kyle Tarvin, with everyone having issues with using UPS box locations on Google, is it possible have multiple locations under one address on Google listing? I just got suspended for a Norman location using a UPS box location. I've already appealed it and sent a letter in with our name and address, but haven't heard back from Google. Could we just pick a random address and use that as our address on Google? So a couple things. One, if you've appealed it and you sent like a credit card statement, a utility statement and a whole bunch of stuff with that address on there, you should be good.

So that's the first thing. Secondly, could you pick a random address and use that address? Theoretically you could as long as you could verify that address with like a postcard. Sometimes they make you take pictures. So you could. In theory, yes. But just keep in mind like they're going to get mail. You can't just pick a random person, but you could choose like a friend's house if they were willing to let you verify and try to go that route. But again, if you have a UPS box location currently, because this changes quite often with Google currently you're able to get in no problem. You're just going to have to prove that you do use that business location. As.

With a utility piece of mail, a like a Comcast bill or cell phone bill.

Anything like that, you're able to typically get a wage. We usually like Chuck, when we had this happen he said like five pieces of documentation in all with our address on there, like our insurance and everything without that specific address. And then they almost immediately let it go through.

Marcus from Redmond, Any thoughts on wisetac client financing integration for Zooper from everyone I asked about. He here uses it, but seems it would be pretty beneficial for clients on services that they can't pay for upfront. Thank you. Also, please keep the Mastermind intro music. Oh yeah, that's good, Larry. I don't have to switchboard here. It's only at the other, other studio. So.

Wisetack. Yeah. So great for big projects. It's all integrated. When someone comes to estimate and it's a big project, they have the ability to be able to finance it. It's all on the back end. It really has nothing to do with you. Wise Tech takes the risk and does all the paperwork with them, etc.

I think it's helpful for big projects, like anything above 3, 4, $5,000. I'm a little bit worried about doing a work for someone that is not able to afford their mowing and therefore have to finance it because the, the Wise Tac is so much more difficult than like a credit card. So if they can't get a credit card and they're applying for Wise Tech financing, I don't know if I want them as a client. So the only reason I feel like this could potentially be helpful is in the case of.

Large projects, I'm talking 5, 10, $15,000. It is pretty slick. It's inside Zooper and we will have it inside a copilot from day one. So in terms of my thoughts, that's my thoughts. It's good for big projects. I don't see a ton of people using. I don't. This is a unique selling proposition. Honestly. Um, I think I would use it as a way to get around someone's issue around financing. So if they're like, well, I got like, I'm gonna have to wait a couple months because I got more money coming in for X from X, Y and Z in a couple months. Great. Why don't you just go ahead? At the estimate you can have a fight. There's a financing tab. You can fill out the information and you have zero percent financing for six months or whatever. Check it out. That I think is the way that you use wisetac as a way to get around.

Objections.

Whoa, this is long. Okay. This is anonymous. Anonymous. Something interesting about Augusta is that you can have a franchisee convert his existing business into Augusta and instantly be a top ranking location monthly revenue number of recurring, et cetera. Have you considered some sort of tracking or reporting for locations that are starting from zero and following the systems as taught at training? This is not coming from a place of jealousy or comparison. It's just trying to see a roadmap and examples of people doing what we are tempted to do. Lots of examples we see and the noise in the Facebook group is from people that have not taken the Augusta path to get there. There's no disrespect or minimization of what they have done. Lots have leveraged big projects and different methods to build the company and then are simplifying or they have started on their own and done it in a certain way and built a base and converted to Augusta to implement systems and optimize. This also seems to be true of what Bellingham did by doing large projects and things that we are told not to do now. But the revenue projections to scale were substantiated off of that business, but they're not now. So to scale I see you're saying all this is all this to say the Augusta model of today is relatively new and it would be helpful to see some examples and proof cases their location is doing well and following systems. But how do we know who is. A monthly revenue metric is fine, but it also can highlight someone not following the systems at all and they're just. They're really doing the opposite was suggested. The GM locations seem like a good example to be learning from and I think we've learned from those locations that the upfront investment was bigger for those locations than most franchisees were doing starting out. This could be inaccurate, but all franchisee franchise advisory councils had businesses before joining Augusta. Nothing wrong with that but may hint at the balance that. At the balance that is felt. I wholeheartedly agree. Just keep in mind that the majority of people that join Augusta start off with an existing location. I would say it's around 70 to 75% of people who started Augusta had an existing business. The reason is because usually people don't know the value of the systems until they start. They try doing it on their own. So the vast majority of people started Augusta with an existing location.

And for locations that started off big, I would. I would actually argue that the. The systems that they implement prove the systems more than someone starting out because if a big business joins and the amount of money they can save is incredible once they implement the system. So for example, like I know Ryan Payne talked to me, they did I think similar revenue or maybe even slightly less, but they made A hundred thousand dollars more in profit after a full year of P4P. So it magnifies the impact of the systems. Although they had businesses prior to Augusta, in terms of us trying to parse out, like, max metrics between different locations based upon whether they started with Augusta or. Or if they started, like, converted over, it'd be a lot of work on our end. So we're not going to split up max metrics. But what I would say is, as you get to know people inside of Augusta Nation, just keep in the back of your mind know, hey, this person switched over or this person started brand new, et cetera. So there's locations that, you know, go from 0 to 70, 80, $100,000 in monthly revenue from 0. But then there's also locations that join at 60, 70,000 and take three years to figure out all the systems and actually realize that P4P has to be implemented and all these other things. So that's why, though, in that max metrics, revenue is only 20% of the weighting. So there's other things, like close ratio reviews, all these other things to actually account for, like how we rank in terms of the max metrics. So, yeah, I'm not gonna, like, break them up, but I think it's definitely something to consider if you're, like, talking to someone like, okay, did you start inside of Augusta or did you convert over? And I think the reason that you're seeing, like the Franchise Advisory Council have a lot of people that have converted over is because they. They actually see the real value in the systems because they tried doing it without before.

And they're also the ones that are most willing to share about the systems because they see the before and after. And then they are the ones that usually share in the Facebook group are the most involved in helping other people convert into those systems. So.

I'm not sure exactly what the question is. I think you're just kind of considering sort of tracking, reporting for locations that. From zero. Yeah. So currently I'm not really planning on trying to split the tracking and the reporting based upon if they started from zero or if they converted over. It's just gonna be too much work to try to split between those two things. And some people are very much in the middle. It's like, well, okay, they had 20 customers. Are they new or did they convert over? Like, I would say, if you actually take the amount of people who didn't have any long care experience, we're talking about less than 10 to 15 of Augusta Nation.

So the vast majority either has some small business or had an existing thriving, you know, four or five $600,000 business before coming over. So it'd just be very difficult for me to be the one that is like, okay, you're on this side and you're on this side. I don't really want to split up people too much down the road. The only way we'll really split people up at conference is going to be if you have a multi operator or above a million dollars in revenue. We'd probably have down the road different sections of, of the conference in certain parts. Just so that way you get the most out of it. So.

But yeah, in terms of I would just talk to these people, right, talk to these people that you're mentioning. And I think what you would find is that because they had an existing business and they didn't have the systems when they switched over, the impact of the systems proved themselves right. And then for the people that are starting out, what I've, I have found is the people who join without prior experience, they question the systems way more because they don't have anything to bet to base it off of. They don't have anything to say, okay, if I didn't do P4P, this is what my business looks like. If I didn't have the sales system, if I didn't have command center, this is what my business looks like. They only know the Augusta system. So in one way I almost prefer someone to have some experience prior without Augusta systems because then they have something to benchmark it against, right? They're like, okay, this is what my business now looks like with the systems. And, and that's an, actually an easier comparison than someone starting out from brand new because like typically the person starting up brand new, they're the ones that kind of get out of the systems because they don't know what it looks like to run a business outside of the systems. And so there's always like, oh, I could do this, I could do this, I do this. Where someone who's done that and comes to the systems is typically much more rigid and strict about the systems. Based on what I've seen another anonymous question have why have you chosen locations you have for a new Augusta location that you personally own? What terms that, what, what market will be ideal in your opinion? So how I position mine is in order to have the regional manager within proximity of the locations, it's a massive advantage. So when I knew that Chuck was going to become my regional, I basically said we're going to start all the locations around him. The reason for that is because like a couple weeks ago we had to let go One of the GMs Chuck's able to step in for a few days get the new GM up to up to up and running. So having a regional manager in proximity, massive advantage. So that would be the number one thing I'd be looking at in terms of multiple locations is is the regional manager if you're doing like multiple in one area like I am is the regional manager within proximity for general manager like if you're doing your first location or second or your first multi unit one like your second location or third location I'd probably be you are the regional manager so I'd be looking within proximity of driving distance from you.

Evansville number one I see a lot of customer emails being filed away to completed on Gmail but I see no responses to them. Is CC going into essay and responding to the email? I can send examples to whoever would be best. Maybe this is a fluke but when I talk to people and tell them why they should go with us, it's because I tell them we prioritize responding to them. We try to respond back to service autopilot as much as possible because it's on their client profile. But you're more than welcome to send me a couple examples of this. I can take a specific look at it but we try not to have open ended conversation with someone who responds back to us. We try to be the last one to respond back to them but typically it's going to be inside of service all if at all possible. So that way.

There'S this. It's easier to keep track of in the long term compared to just sending it out of your email. Number two on the command center tasks what does the hiring pre screening call look like? Do I have to give them the indeed passwords? They can check what does this look like? There's going to be a bunch of videos on this coming up in probably next week. There's like 40 of them and a lot of this will be answered. You'll see exactly what's happening. So my goal is just to be able to be like hey watch this certain video. You're going to see how they pre screen watch a certain video, see exactly how this is happening. I to be perfectly honest don't know about the indeed password part. I don't think we actually go through indeed but I do not know that I'm talking. I have no idea honestly. So that is going to be more clear in the videos next week. That will show everything that's being done and how they, how it gets done.

Garrett from Glendale, Colorado, Denver just raised its minimum wage to $17.29. My base pay last year was $16 per hour and was great because large chunks of P4P large chunks of wages were P4P bonuses. Once we hit route density in the summer months, mowing P4P averaged around $28 per hour. I am currently $80 per man hour. Currently. However, I am planning on increasing this May to 90 or $100 per man hour. I have two returning guys from last year who are both at $16 hour per hour base pay. My question is at what point do I raise base pay? Even with a base pay at $18 per hour, it's basically minimum wage. And I'm not sure I'm able to attract people with that. Which when I'm hiring the fourth and possible fifth person this spring or summer, once we hit capacity with me and two guys, should I raise prices to existing mowing clients and then raise base pay or see if I can hire 18 prior to raising prices?

Thanks.

So I would first and foremost go to 18 and see if you can can hire at that level. Given the fact that you were averaging 28 again the best time of the year. But like let's just call it 26, 25 even as a blended average for the year, if that was your average, then you should have no problem even at 18 in terms of your base pay. Cause there's still enough meat on the bone at $7 increase per hour on P4P so there's still enough incentive for them to work hard.

And if you're raising the prices up to 90 $100 per man hour, not only do you give yourself the flexibility of raising your base pay, you still are. They're going to make even more on P4P. So I don't think there's a big problem. Keep in mind that legislation does not drive the finances of the.

Of the individual. So them raising the the minimum wage doesn't change how much people need to make in your market. It'll take years to calibrate. So I would raise it to 18. If you can't hire, you have plenty of flexibility to go to 20 because at 90 to a hundred dollars per man hour, it still passes the 25% rule where 25% where your base pay is less than 25% of what you're charging per hour to the customer. But it sounds like your guys are, you know, being pretty efficient and, and making good money. I don't think this will be a problem. You have plenty of room to move your your base, pay up to attract talent and then the retention is going to be the game when it comes to your hourly that they can make on P4P and which seems like it's pretty high. Val Thomas, Nocatee, Florida In QuickBooks I've been trying to figure out where to categorize business travel expenses that are not meals that are not meals like lodging, rental cars, Uber and airline flights. Thank you. I would do that under travel.

There might that might not be in the suggested list on QuickBooks that we give from Command center because usually travel is not a big, big part of our business. However, you can just add it in your chart of accounts as an expense. I just do under travel.

And yeah.

That'S what I would do.

If you have questions about that the QuickBooks team can help you or even if you just want them to do it, set up a chart of account for you. It takes just a few minutes, but something like that. For example, the videos next week is going to literally show you like exactly what they're doing in terms of expense categorization. Do you, do you let Chuck decide when a GM isn't a fit or is this something he needs to run by you? This is pretty much Chuck's decision. He'll run it by me, but I'm not. I've never stepped in front of that. Is it better to reactivate our Google Ad for mowing from last year that already has impressions or start a new one? Does this affect anything with the ad? I would recommend if you made an ad last year that's a Google Performance Max, I would recommend redoing it because there's so much has changed. If it's a regular search ad only, I don't think necessarily need to change it because that product has not changed a whole lot. Assuming that you have a good click through rate ctr, I'd probably let that one run, maybe reduce the budget and then do a new one and just compare the two and then if the new one's outperforming because of the new features, then you can move more money towards that one. But if you have a Google Performance Max ad from last year, I would change it because there's been so many changes that have happened over the past three to four months on Google Performance Max.

Oh, there's one more question that came in one second here.

This is from Trey Lewis, Waco Mike thank you. God bless you in making Augusta Amazing. Excited for the future great. So for those that don't remember, Trey left Augusta, and then he's coming back. So basically, he was he had a rough time getting started, and within a month or two, we were that let him out of Augusta. His son's coming back to help him and is joining again. So just a heads up in case anyone wonders why he's asking a question. When he had left, I know most of you did not get to meet him, but he came for training last summer and then very quickly had to had to leave just because of some health things and other issues. But he's he's good to go. He's gonna be starting back up here and looking forward to it.

So thanks, Trey.

All right, guys, hope you have a fantastic Thursday, and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.