Mike Minutes Mastermind 02/16/2023

What's up Augustination? Hope you're doing well. Let's go ahead and kick things off. Let me go for the Facebook group.

A couple updates. Of course I have to validate my account again.

I have some updates on the super side of things. Talk to them this morning. Bless their heart. One second here.

Code is 2, 9, 7.

Okay.

Talk to Zooper. I have several updates for those of you that use it. There's quite a few of you that switched to Zooper, switch from Zooper back to service Autopilot that we're going to try it off in Growth mode and still use it. But.

Yeah, most, most everyone's moving back to resolve, which I don't blame you. That's why we did not move large locations over to Zooper. I did talk to them about some of the issues though that some of you have been facing and let me go over those in just a second. I just need to drop this.

There.

Boom. Okay, let me go over the list of stuff from super from my call with them. So number one, a lot of people are saying they're having problems with charging credit cards.

What they said is if you just update the status, it doesn't charge the account that it just going to mark it as paid manually. But you've got to actually click charge cards. So they found on some of them when people were submitting issues. That was the problem is you were updating the status of the, of the invoices in bulk but you were not clicking charge cards, you were clicking update status and then if you do click charge cards, it'll only go through if there's an actual card on the account. What they're setting up and they're going to put into everyone's account next week is that if someone's count does not get charged, the payment does not go through. When you click charge cards, it does the automatic email to the customer getting that to be changed.

Cool.

Another thing was so yeah, charge cards not update status if you're doing bulk charging. Failed payment workflow is being set up. They're going to put into everyone's account starting next week the one click estimate email as it has it in the tutorial. You've got to make sure you go and check the link because when you download it out of the bundle, when you download the bundle out of the marketplace, again, this is for everyone. This is super. Only when you download out of the bundle it loses its link. The same thing happens in service Autopilot when you download one click estimate emails. You've got to Check the links are still connected because a lot of times when you download out of a third party like a marketplace, it's going to remove the links. So you've got to make sure they're actually all working.

So same thing as Super, a lot of people were sending out the one click custom emails without the link and so then it was breaking. And that link is the one that says thank you, the thank you page.

Another thing is they are adding in payment transactions and properties associated underneath the account details on the right hand column. So on the right hand column of the customer's profile there'll be properties associated. So multiple properties under one client as well as payment transaction. So all transactions will be there instead of having to go through payments on the left hand side, it'll be on each customer, which is nice.

And end of March, by end of March they're going to be having better filters on things like estimates as well as customers since those are somewhat limited right now. They're decent. Honestly, you can do it by tags, you can do it by service, things like that, but they're going to be improving that end of March like a, like recurring versus non recurring things like that. So update from Zooper's perspective again, I'm kind of trying to get them to focus on some of these more immediate bugs instead of like features, like they're all about features and improving their dispatch board, which is great and fine they should have been doing six months ago for us. But I need them to focus on deliver deliverability of emails and quotes and automations going through correctly. So if you have problems, email, email their support and they'll tell you what you did wrong potentially because they showed me like a lot of the things that bugs are being submitted is user error.

So just email them, be like hey, this didn't go through, am I doing something wrong? Whatever. Because again a lot of the things that we are submitting them as bugs, they're showing me it is user error. So just keep that in mind. I know when there are bugs in a system it's very easy to just immediately just assume it's an error with the software. But I'd say 60 to 70% of the bug we are submitting to them is it is user error. So just email support. If you have something go through not going through or something like that and be like hey, what's up with this? But supposedly they fixed the automation issues, the workflow issues and invoices and one click estimate email should be you answers. If they're not, make sure you Reach out to them. Those should be fixed. We have been trying to be the squeaky wheel and hopefully we get some grease here and actually get some things taken care of.

Okay. I thought you was going live tomorrow morning.

Nope, I'm live today. I'm live every day. Let's go on P4P. I'm going on live Saturday. Okay, let's go and get started.

Go to questions present. You know one of those days when you wake up and you just get annoyed with everything that's kind of damn having today. All right, first question. Oh, there's 11 today. Yesterday we only had one get stepped it up. All right, let's see here. We got Logan. Mike, from what I've learned from you about Google Max search ads, et cetera, is that we should use max more as bulk marketing and search for clients actively searching for services. Would you recommend keeping a low max budget until two weeks before spring, then triple it to increase exposure? Can you expand on how to maximize these services? Thanks. Yeah, I think that would be a good strategy, especially if you're trying to be more conservative with your dollars like your spend. Personally at my locations we just do a Google Max. But definitely if you're trying to be, if you're trying to conserve cash like in January, December, you might just run a search ad only. So you only get people who have intent based marketing, like they're looking for a certain keyword.

And then allow going up into spring rush and those times when people are searching and people have a demand for it. That's why you see all of the true green ads. They'll start rolling out now for the next three, four months. Because those are like on bumper videos for YouTube is because they know there's demand, they know that there's actual pain in the market. So I would definitely say, you know, if you're looking at like a percentage basis, I would probably switch from like a 30%, 30% Google Max, 70% of your ad budget for Google. Being on search during like the slow season and then during the busy season, like going into spring rush few weeks before, like you said, switching that 70% Google performance max and 30% search, that would definitely be a good strategy. I think if you're trying to conserve cash. We typically just do one campaign to be perfectly honest with you. But to be conservative, you're going to do a better, you're going to do better.

In terms of cost per click as well as just conservation of your marketing dollars. If you're willing to do the two and focus on the search during the winter.

When texting a client on Zooper, where do we see the client reply? I actually do not know. Let me make see here.

I do not know if you want an immediate answer on this email. Sirajuper co iperfect Just do not know. Yeah, honestly, I kind of honestly four or five months ago started just like shutting down on Zooper because this. I knew we would not be able to switch to the bigger locations over and I just. Even the stuff I was going through the day was supposed to be done six months ago. So anyways, Trey from Waco, starting as a new franchise. What is your suggested method to determine our mowing pricing model? How do we determine the correct dollar per square foot of yard mode? For our example, 400 square feet equals $37. Yeah, so I would get the OTP price MA price matrix and I would just use whatever mower size you have and I just roll with what they currently have in their. In their square footage matrix and just as a starting point. And then you can always edit it and modify it down the road as things change. But I would just start with that. So the price matrix, if you. It's that training. It's. It's a downloadable document. You got to fill it out and send it to estimate GustAlongerServices.com I personally would just use what mower size you have and what dollar amount per hour are you charging and then use that price matrix. That's all I would do. And then over time you can say, okay, I want my higher, my larger properties to come down a bit in price or I want my lower properties go up a little bit in price. Whatever. You can just modify it down the road. I would just start with that mower size and your hourly rate. There's a price matrix document. If you don't know what that I'm talking about. Trey, email estimate augustalongraservices.com they'll send that to you. And it was a QR code during training.

Audi from Plano, Texas. Hydrogen Hydrogen engine. There's been some chatter that Japanese audio manufacturers have announced they were close to an affordable hydrogen technology for automobiles that will cost about 50 more than current automobiles. What do you know about the hydrogen platform and the potential use over the road and maybe even more so for small generators and small engines? I actually hydrogen's really good. The problem is the fueling mechanism. The same thing with electric vehicles. The reason it's taken so long is not the manufacturing electrical vehicles. The fact that we've been using fuel for so many years that we have gas stations in every single corner, and there's not a charging network on every single corner, and it takes way longer to charge the vehicle. So the adoption of the technology will depend on the fueling stations. It will not depend on the actual technology itself. In the case of battery, you're also depending on battery technology to catch up and the storage of the energy. However, with hydrogen, it's the same thing. It's this. It's the fact that having a hydrogen fuel is way harder to come by. And just. It's just going to be very difficult to convince the consumer to suddenly whittle down their fueling stations by 95%. So I don't think hydrogen will take off before electric does, before electric takes over, just because that's where all the money is going is electric and battery instead of hydrogen. But I think hydrogen in terms of the technology itself is actually really, really good. It's just. Yeah, it's expensive. And then there's the fueling side of things. Right. So Tesla's figured out a way to bring down the cost and then get their charging network out, and that's why they're kind of the leader in. In electric vehicles right now. Ooh, long question. Let's go, Garrett. I'm planning a price increase for existing clients this May. Assuming I hit capacity, I will be focusing on mowing during spring rush.

I believe I can get up to 200 million customers by May, which I believe would produce about 32k in monthly revenue. I ran the numbers on the price increase spreadsheet. See attached. I also broke down profit before and after price increase is a 25% price increase from $80 per hour to a hundred dollars per hour. Too much of an increase to existing clients, first and foremost. I don't think so, because again, if you're talking about a $40 mo, that's going from $40 to like $48. If you're talking about $50 mo, that. That's going from $50 to $60. So a 20 oh, 25%. So that'd be a $4 mo into $50. I don't think that's too much.

The majority of clients will join this spring. I would not raise prices on new clients unless I wanted this to slow lead flow as well.

25% price increase would mean 8% goes to the employees on P4P and 17% would go to the bottom line. I ran the numbers for worst case scenario. 40% of clients cancel after price increase. 80 out of. Out of 200. Unless I was running a 50% margin on those 200 clients. At 32k monthly, I would have more profit raising prices by 25% and losing 40% of clients, bringing down my monthly revenue to 24k on mowing, but increasing profit. I drew a chart, see attached showing my profit margin before the price increase and after the price increase. What other factors before short term profit would you consider prior to a price increase? Would a 25% price increase greatly increase attrition at the end of this year with less recurring clients mean less chance for upsells and overall less profit on cleanups? Mowing season is only six months long here. So does that mean I have more I lean more heavily or less heavily on mowing versus project during the mowing season? Okay, great question. So let's go ahead and look at these real quick.

This is the document, everyone, by the way, it's in the dashboard. You can see this and see the breakdown. So you can see what he did here. Blanket price increase. Profit increases are here in the amount of revenue, amount months here. New customers.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So again, if you haven't done this before, go visit the coach. They can walk you through this process. But you could have either a blank price increase, blanket price increase, or you can also do an hourly rate increase here and you can do these two different options. So you can see what he did here.

Increase negative. So your revenue went down obviously, and then your profit goes up over these months. And this is assuming.

Where am I looking? Canceled. Add to weekly rate $2. See this, this is the kicker. This is the kicker, right? This is the part that I was looking for right there. So what you're assuming is you're getting 30 new clients.

Per month on weekly service. If you're doing that. So you're getting one and a half clients per work day. So if they're 20 workdays, you're getting one and a half. Like one or two clients a day. Basically, yes. You're good to do this because you're growing at such a fast rate that you'll literally make up for the 40% loss very quickly. Like within a matter of a couple months, you'll have just as many customers because you're growing at 30 per month. So that's the part that the assumption is. That's why if you're getting to capacity, how much you raise your prices is going to be somewhat determinant based upon how many new clients are coming in the door. Because you're willing to lose a bunch of customers if you have tons of new customers coming at the top of the funnel. Right. So. Okay, I like that. Very cool. I think that the question you brought up is really important. Yeah. So this is just a breakdown, kind of like what the graph would be based upon your profit increase. Yeah. Okay. So if someone wants to screenshot this or something, they feel free if you want to like diagnose this. But I get the basic gist. So 40% cancel, going from 200 to 120 clients, what that does to the mowing revenue, etc. Okay, cool. Yeah. The question is like, bottom line, you will make more profit by raising the prices by 25%. You're probably gonna double your profit margins. So which means you're literally gonna make more money on the customers that you have. As long as more than 50, less than 40% of 50% of them don't cancel. Right. So, yeah, raising Your price by 25%, you will always be more profitable. And it's very rare that you're going to lose more than half of your customers. However, you've got to be careful about this part right here. With less recurring clients mean less chance for upsells and over less pro. Yes, Right. You're gonna have way less opportunity to upsell people. And during your slow season, if you've lost all your mowing customers, you're not gonna have anyone to sell into. But if you're getting 30 new customers a year or a month, that should give you the confidence to raise prices significantly higher. So that's the part, that's the part I was looking on that document is how many new customers are you getting? If you're getting 30 new a month, that means within literally a matter of a couple months, you'll have all 60 that you lost right back to you. So that's the important kicker right there.

Ken Finton, Michigan. Hey, Mike, I have. I had asked a question over the weekend and it didn't get answered. Or perhaps you did and I didn't hear it. I was wondering if it got through. You're gonna have to ask me the question. I don't know. I answer all the questions. I didn't skip any, to my knowledge to check Monday. Person I asked though, didn't go through. There was an issue with the. Sorry, missed you door hanger visit. Print said that you need to contact them. Permission to change at the glossy side. Okay, I got it. Yeah. So the glossy side is where the note section is in the QR code we cut out. If it's flipped.

You likely saw this before it was accessible. To public. So I jumped the gun on a couple of designs last week and said they're available, and everyone went and saw them when they were not ready yet. Vista, we have to put them up and then you guys can see them. But then Vista Brand has to come along and do their editing thing. So.

The glossy side is where the note section is and the QR code. Okay, I'll send this to me a team, but I'm pretty sure they fixed all this stuff or they're working on it at least. Yeah, unfortunately, we have to go through vistaprint and all this stuff, and it's kind of a pain in the butt. And you guys see it before they edit. Like, we have to put it up then. Then they go in and edit it. So I apologize for any confusion on that. I am shutting up right now about new designs, even though there's several in there, because I want to make sure vistaprint signs off on it and says like, yes, they're good to go. So I apologize for jumping the gun on a few of them last week, but there are some cool ones that we have ready to go. We're just waiting on them to finalize stuff. But I will send this to the media team just to make sure.

Give me one second.

Derek from Allen Park. Is there a reasonable way of calculating the cost of OTP estimates? Average call with prospective client, 10 minutes, $9 cents permit on the phone, $3 per estimate creation.

3, 3, 9, 5, 10 calls, 139 per customer. By the way, the $3 per estimate creation doesn't There. There's not that charge. Derek, it's only time on the phone. We don't charge this $3 anymore, just FYI. All right, three. Oh, I see what you're saying. You're assuming like there's other things that potentially are happening. Okay, got it. Okay, so $13 per call, 10 calls, $139 cost, 50% close ratio, five customers, one cost per OTP accepted is $27. Do you know the average call time for OTP? Yeah, it's about eight, nine. Eight to nine minutes right now. Are we charged $3? No, it's just time on the phone. Sorry, I did not read this whole question. Is there a current command center pricing list somewhere to keep update on? Current command center pricing list to keep update on?

There's not. It just. There's just a few numbers. So there's $1.09 per minute on the phone. There is 90 cents for full service and other tasks.

And that's it. So. But there is no Estimate creation fee. So for those of you who have no idea what that is, back in the day we used to have an estimate Creation fee is $3 for mowing, $6 for landscaping jobs. That no longer is the case. It's only for that time that's spent on the phone. And then if someone is getting like an estimate request form, they're just tracking that time as well. And that's 90 cents per minute. So yeah, right now it's like eight to nine minutes of the average full like OTP sold. There's some that are slower because the person's really slow with their credit card information a lot of times. Um, or they're like, they're. They ask a lot of questions about services and things like that. But I'd say the average is eight to nine minutes. Cause there's some people that like, you get in, you see their, your property, they measure really it's like a cookie cutter lawn. They get their credit card and file. You can get in six minutes. So.

But yeah, some of those bigger properties, I say like 11 to 12 minutes sometimes. So I. The average last year was like almost nine minutes. Kyle Tyron how often should we be checking the performance and financial health of our locations to ensure their success? What type of things would you be checking? I'd be checking the P4P software. That's literally the main thing. And then their P and L monthly. P and L. Because if those two things are on point, I really don't care about much else. The labor is the biggest variable cost that is out of my control as the owner. And the P and L is ultimately what is the determining factor for a general manager in terms of profit sharing. So I want to make sure I keep an eye on that. But those are the two things I'd be looking at because your labor and then your fixed cost. Labor being P4P. Fixed cost being all everything on your expense. P and L.

Kyle Tarvin can we get more options for yard signs? 12 by 18. A lot of the new designs in the Photoshop on the Pro Shop look like they are larger and more expensive designs. I'll look into this because I know this. A lot of them are larger here. One second. All sentiment.

Let me send this to Pro Shop. Pro Shop, Pro Shop, Pro Shop. We'll just need to request it and they'll size everything correctly.

Media Team.

Pro Shop yard signs. Yeah, I know some of them. They only allow the big, big ones like the big.

24 by 36 and they're huge. They're almost too Big. They're wind sails. Okay. Yeah. So we'll ask vistaprint to allow smaller options for everyone. Okay. German Edwin Washington. I wanted to ask you if I could change my service area to cover entire cities instead of the five mile radius where I'm located. There are a lot of commercial properties around me and I've noticed that I've been missing out out on a lot of leads. I just figured that the customers are usually outside the service area on the south and west of me. I'm currently running Google Ads and Performance Max, but more than half of those leads usually fall outside the service area and it's a bit frustrating not taking advantage, especially as a new franchise. Thank you for your advance and help. So there's two different things you're talking about. So service area, you can modify as much as you want. You can, as long as you're not in someone else's territory, you can serve anywhere.

Just make sure that your territory, if you're a solo operator model, make sure where you're going to put your territory next year or two or if you have a growth model, make sure you're inside your territory to make sure those are protected. And then if you need to move your center point because like maybe your growth model, you're like, hey, I, I'm getting a lot of leads outside my territory. You need to talk to Lee on a coaching call and you need to go over moving that center point because there's a legal process we have to go through to do that and it has to be approved in the whole nine yards. So I would personally say if you're just getting leads outside of your territory, then that's fine. Totally fine. Service area, you can just, you know, tell command center once a month we modify the service areas and they can get that changed for you next month.

Totally fine. Instead of the five hour of Queen commercial around me, I'm just making sure I get this question and I notice I've been missing out a lot of leads.

Southwest I'm currently running.

Okay, so if, if you were a growth model, I would potentially think about moving it towards the southwest by a couple miles to get those people in. And you got to talk to Lee about that. And then if it's just a matter of like you just want to service that area, totally fine. Make sure your service area is updated with estimategustalongerservices.com and on a monthly basis we can update that. So that's totally fine. So I would start with the latter. I would make that your service area if you want to and then if over time because you're new, let 6 months, 12 months go by make sure that that is continuing to happen and then you could just move your territory address slightly if needs be just to make sure those protected down the road.

Should. Oh this from Plantation. Should I soon ramp these up or keep testing?

I'm guessing these are going to be ads. Link clicks 98K. This is from your mobile app. Got it. Reach cost per click is 82 cents.

See what else we got here. I don't know what type of campaigns these are. That's my only problem. Let's hopefully see here. It's not loading, loading, loading, loading, loading. I don't know why this is not. This must be a wrong. It's a png. Let's try a different one.

Okay, your click through rate is high so I'm assuming this is a Google performance max. Your conversion rate is pretty high cost conversion. That's pretty good. Okay.

Okay, these all look good. 294 is how much you're doing. $10 per day. That's why it's so good. Yeah, when you have a low budget like this you can crush it because it's only showing it to like the most valid clicks. So yeah, these look good. The question is how much are you willing to spend? How are you planning to grow a lot during the spring rush and if you're willing to ramp up then yeah, as you head into spring rush this is the time to spend money. As we head head into more demand. Every dollar you spend now is going to have the lowest cost per click and customer acquisition cost compared to the rest of the year when there is no demand and therefore when there's demand, when demand is low cost, customer acquisition cost is much, much higher. So yeah, if you have dry powder, this is the time to start thinking about deploying that. And as you get busier the inclination is like oh, I'll lay off of of marketing. If you can spend in spring rush and be able to accommodate that growth, your customer equity costs will literally be 10, 20% of what it would otherwise be during the winter or like slower times. What do you think of Angie.