Mike Minutes Mastermind 02/13/2024

Hello, Augusta Nation. Hope you're doing amazing. Let's get started. Let me switch over to my Ethernet. One second here.

All right.

Paste that in there. Great win. Nick Davidson, post in the Facebook group. Let's go raise those prices on some big contracts. It feels so good when you have a contract because it has a dollar amount. You know it's fixed. And then he's like, if I added 10%, I make an extra 40 grand for doing absolutely nothing but sending an email. Let's go. I love it. Like, it seems so normal to us, but that there's very few industries you can do that where you can just raise prices and immediately make profit margin because there's no incremental more.

Expense. Like, it's. It's awesome. Love it. Okay, let's get started. Present share screen.

Right? What we got?

First one is from Joel from Lafayette. You put Joel, Lafayette. I'm gonna think your last name is Lafayette. It's Joel Heck from Lafayette, Florida. All right, let's get started. Is there a better way we could share Facebook ads than posting wins in the Facebook group? My first thought would be a shared Google Drive folder like the one for digital resources in the dashboard, where everyone could post screenshots of their ads or copy and paste their images and text into a Google Doc. This would make it easier to see, compare, and use these ads than searching for wins in the group and scrolling through posts one at a time. I. That's a good idea. So, Joel, if you want to make a Google Drive folder, feel free to post in the Facebook group, and I will pin it as featured in the group, and you could just have it where, like, even there's, like, instructions, like, an instructions thing that you say, hey, make a folder. Here's how to create your. Your template to be able to share it, et cetera. That'd be pretty cool.

Because then people would be able to copy and paste better. I like that. That's a good idea. So feel free to do that. If you make the folder and just make it public. Joel, what you can do, too, is if you make it from your Augusta account, your Augusta email, Google Drive, you can just make it to where anyone inside of Augusta Lawn Care can open it up, like, to just the organization, and then you can post it with confidence publicly to the group. So that'd be really cool. If you post to the Facebook group, I will pin it to the top of the group. And then just make sure you have, like, an instructions document of, like, what you want people to do. Like, make a folder with Your.

Location, name, you know, include these things in the, in the word document or whatever. That'd be epic. You have an example and stuff. Matt from Salem, Oregon. Is it possible have Max have an accent based on the area code of the caller? Is that feature in the pipeline? No, it's not. Max will be the same.

I forget what age I used. I think I used like 29 years old or 32 years old or something like that. White male. That was like the option. So. Yeah, no, that, that would be. I know it sounds small, but it's actually really tough. You'd have to have. We'd have to different. Have to get a different actor for every single area. Like we had a specific actor that would come that came in and we did audio recordings and different their voice and everything. It's not like this. That's an AI generated voice. That's like a real person talking.

So we can't do that unfortunately. Like okay, they f back we could. It would be extremely expensive, to be honest.

Terrell Ek from Boone's Creek, Tennessee. Hey Mike. We have been testing one click emails in copilot to send a property went out now before our mowing season starts, the test emails have been ending up in our spam folders on our email. So I was wondering how to go about making sure they don't end up in everyone's spam folders. I think this has been talked about before. Just not sure where to find it. Thank you. A couple things. So we are seeing every single day improvements on send grid which is the mass email and then mailgun which is the transactional ones in terms of deliverability. So like I test this usually like once a week. So like this morning I sent to a brand new email address from mailgun which is what we use for transactional emails like estimates invoice and it went right in my inbox and that hasn't been happening as much for brand new people. So I'm glad. Like it's just we're getting better each day in terms of as more and more emails go out, like once we pass a million emails, 10 million, etc. We get certain levels of credibility. And then we're also doing things like where if someone blocks anyone inside of copilot, if someone a customer blocks and marks as spam, we will prevent from ever sending that person email again from any customer inside copilot to prevent them constantly marking things as spam and messing things up. So things like that are increasing the odds of getting delivered directly in the box in terms of Your one click estimate emails. Be careful in your titles of doing like a bunch of exclamation marks, all caps, dollar signs saying the words money or cash. Those are type of things that can help but it really is going to come down to like Send grid and mailgun. We switch to away from now four weeks ago and typically what they usually recommend like say is like two to three months is what it takes for us to warm up an ip, a dedicated IP address. So we're seeing improvements every day. And I would just say like for now the thing that you can control is like what words you're using and making sure that those are not you know, super sales driven. And I'm not saying that you're specifically Terrell. That's just like the thing that you can control for now.

Vince from Medicine Hat Hey Mike would recommend hey Mike would recommend using Nice Job to gather more Google reviews we use a few years ago with good results. I know there's been some conversation about Gust having its own reputation management software, but curious if you think this is a good idea in the interim. Thanks. You're more than welcome to use Nice Job. Nice Job is essentially what we're using to build what I'm working on with the review thing. We delayed it because we were going to give it to everyone in January. We delayed it because I wanted to add the texting automation side of things into it. And just to be clear, this has nothing to do with Copilot. This is our web team that's working on this and so we already have the URL. Like we built everything out but we're waiting on a couple things to be able to plug in on the reputation management software that we're building that will be competitive and comparable to Nice Job. Um, and we'll be about the same pricing to the public, but to all of you it'll be free. So if you want to do it in the interim like next couple months, feel free to. But I'm pretty confident like we're probably, I'm hoping by the end of March we have it ready to go for everyone and I'll, I'll give it to everyone as soon as I possibly can. And basically if you don't know what reputation management software is, feel free to look at Nice Job. It's essentially a place to get all these different reviews, be able to showcase them really easily on your site, manage them in one spot, answer back to reviews, have a QR code to get reviews better, have automation set up to get reviews, etc. From a separate platform that's built just for reviews. So yeah and then down the road I'd like to integrate with Copilot so that way you can do some really cool stuff with in person review, collection, etc. But yeah, so I would say like if you want to get for the next like two months, feel free to do so. If like if you really want to try to capitalize on some reviews or like you know, QR codes and things like that they offer for that, feel free.

I saw this on an invoice that was generated after the job was completed. Do you know what this is and how it got applied? This invoice cpic.

Let's see here how this get invoice.

Write off.

Oops 2/12 write off owing balance written off collections will pursue payment.

You would want to ask so I can't see your whole invoice. I can just see the one part you're talking about on the invoice. You want to reach out to command center in the collection department specifically and see if they put this on here. It seems like it was yesterday.

I wonder if it's an item and service. I can't see your whole estimate because it wasn't attributed to a certain property. It looks like it was added as an item in service, but I can't see the whole thing. If you reach out to command center you can specifically just ask them but I have a feeling that's an item in service. I just can't see the whole thing.

Oh sorry, I didn't show that. Basically it was on his invoice it was saying that it was going to collections, etc. So feel free to reach out to them. There's a chance that that was added incorrectly or potentially the change the ad, the date was changed or something and it looked like it was overdue. So just reach out to them, see what happened there. I'm going to go out and eliminate guests. So that's an item in service that was added to that invoicing correctly.

Chad from Valparaiso, Indiana I've always thought comparison is a thief of joy. Yet I can't help but wonder if I'm on par with the other solo operators that can start at the same time I did. Are you able to share the revenue levels? Other solo operators are at non specific locations but low median top revenue. I know location plays a big part etc I feel I do better when I have a gauge to base my growth on. My hope is that this year we really cement the online coaching program but then next year we really start bringing the data together from Copilot to be able to actually give this, these metrics in a way that is legally compliant because there are certain things I can't just share with you. But if I have a conglomerated bunch of data and everyone has agreed that being part of Augusta means you have to share your data with this entity, that is the coach.augusta franchise.com, then we can combine the data and give better trends and trajectory, stuff like that. So.

In terms of like comparison, you know there are, there are solo operators that within their first year got to 50,000amonth in revenue. But I would say the average is probably more along the lines of 10 to 12,000 in their first like six months like in their first season.

But a lot of people in their first like their second spring rush crossed the $20,000 per month marker and then have converted into growth model. So but it just it like you know, if you only have so much capital, it doesn't matter how many leads are coming in, you can only grow so much because you got to buy trucks and you got to etc. So like if someone joined as a sole operator but they had significant amount of cash coming in or their prices were high enough, they were super profitable, they will be able to grow much faster.

So.

Brian Connor from Augusta, Georgia, what are your thoughts on this? I have an opportunity to purchase a well established Christmas decor franchise. The owner of this franchise is the guy that purchased our our treatment accounts. Oh cool. His treatment business has grown to where the Christmas lights are more of a distraction. He did over $400,000 in lights last year. The lights were updated last year and he has clean books for the past 8 years. I know he'll be asking 450k for the sale. Do you think this is fair? I know the profit of the business is around 40%. Without any involvement on his end, his treatment team were highly incentivized and handled the installs. My thoughts on this purchase are that we would be able to fill our slow season with more budget hours and much more profit, allowing us to keep more key team members, decrease the need to do less profitable work and stack cash. We have a good relationship with our local bank and I believe that they would be able to facilitate the loan. If our loan requires 20% down, has a 10% interest, we would have a $6,000 per month, $72,000 per year for seven years. Interesting seven years. If the profit is around 200,000, that would give us an additional $130,000 after debt service. I'll be meeting with the owner next week. What preliminary questions would you advise that I ask? I'd be asking a few things. The 450,000 in revenue.

You'Re not going to get his employees, so you will likely need to retrain people. Have someone to manage the Christmas light side of things, which is totally fine. Just keep in mind that 20, that 40% profit for example, is taking into account the fact that he is not involved at all. So there's no owner salary coming out of that as well as all his current crew is trained and locked and loaded. They've done this for eight years, right? So it'd be like if, if you know, even you, Brian, you've been business for eight years, probably close to that now. I think maybe five or six. Like you're getting up there. The business is going to become very profitable. You get systems in place, you have people in place. Like if Jeremy left tomorrow, all of a sudden the value of the business goes down, right. Because he's a key person. So just keep that in mind. I'm not saying you disqualify the purchase.

The from a financing perspective.

You know, your profit's probably looking more around, I'm gonna guess 170. So you'd still have about a hundred thousand dollars on, you know, of profit after debt service. Then it matter is a matter of do. Would you then still have to go pay someone 50 grand to manage this? Which again you can still make sense of the money. It simply is a matter of if, if you have to go hire someone else, say 50 grand. And now your profit per year is 50 grand for seven years. Is this going to be worth it for 350k, right? Like you basically would double your money, right, which is not bad in seven years. I'm just saying like that's how you want to think about it. Like, okay, let's say you make 100 grand a year though in straight profit though distributions after everything's taken care of. Now all of a sudden you make 700 grand and you're having like a 2, almost 200% return on investment.

So I just really crunch those numbers. You have the right head mindset for this and seven years is a long time. You will have to replace all the lights. I would assume sometime in between there. I'd also be looking at what assets you're actually purchasing in terms of the quality of those lights. I'd be looking at their retention rate from year to year in terms of Christmas lights. Of that 450,000. Is that depending on half of that revenue coming back as new customers next year or has it been 450 for the past three years and 90% of them are the exact same customers and they already have the template drawn up for the lights and like they're locked, unloaded. And can you raise prices by 10% and immediately recoup most of your cost of capital? Right. So if you could raise prices by 10% now all of a sudden you have $500,000 in annual revenue and you're. You basically cover 70% of your interest payments or your loan payments. Right. So that's also something I'd be looking at like what, how much price flexibility? When did they last raise prices? How long have those customers been with him? Because if it's been 4, 450, 000 in revenue for the past four years and their retention rate's like 80, like 80 of people are coming back every single year, it's a really good chance you could raise prices by 10 and wipe out most of your your debt payments. So. Great question.

Brian Connor from Augusta, Georgia. I recently hired a good friend of mine in the Augusta, Georgia location. He's looking for a career and wants to go aft. Wants to go after the general manager spot for the Aiken, South Carolina location. We starting that one from scratch February 2025. We will be making the decision November 1st. We currently have three team members interested in the GM spot. They range from having one season to three seasons with us. I have removed myself from the decision making on this hire. Jeremy making the decision. Would you get out in front of the possible nepotism talks and have a meeting letting the team know that I will not be making the decision and the decision will be made by choosing the best candidate for the job. Or would you just handle any questions on a case by case basis? I would personally institute a system that you know, I would not change the like nepotism would be in my opinion to change the hiring process for this individual. If you are making hiring decisions for everyone and now you're going to switch it to Jeremy just for this person, it that actually shows that there's nepotism because you're changing the process of how everything works. So I would probably just make sure that Jeremy is always handling hiring so that way no one can question it. It's like oh well Jeremy hired this person and there's no question that you brought this up.

And then Jeremy can always back it up. If someone has a problem with it or says something, he's like hey, Jeremy hired Him over here. Brian had nothing to do with this. And so this happens quite often with myself, people that I know.

Etc. It's easy because it's like, hey, look, I don't do the interviewing. You can apply online, you can apply, you're going to get interviewed by, you know, these people, one of these people, but it's not going to be me. And I don't have any decision making process in that whatsoever. And I don't insert myself in that conversation at all. Like zero. And so that's usually the best way to do it is just have the system in place where there's no nepotism even possible.

And obviously like Jeremy's going to hear this and sound like you guys have already talked about it, but ideally you don't even mention it. It's like, hey, you got to enter the system like everyone else apply. If you're great, you'll get accepted, go for it and then just stay, stay away from it. That's ideal. But you are getting the size, Brian, where I think like that starts to become the reality for anyone listening only has like one or two employees. You are going to be hiring the person. And so this would be then a conversation to be had. When you're getting deciding you have two locations, Brian, you're looking at the third one. Like I would really just encourage trying to get out of that decision making process as a process so that when someone does apply, you can say, hey, here, here's how you enter the system. I have nothing to do with it. And here, you know, they're going to judge you based upon your merit. And then it's just easier, honestly. That way you don't have to handle things by a case by case basis. And then I just try to like not murky the waters of the hiring process at all. It's like, hey, you got to go interview with this person. And then like, I don't. I stay out of this. Like it's nothing to do with me. And again, if you're watching this, Brian's in a different spot. He's going to be getting having his third location next year. This is a different conversation, right? So.

All right.

Boom, boom. Did we get anything else? No, that's it. All right, everyone, I hope you have a fantastic Tuesday and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.