Mike Minutes Mastermind 03/16/2023

Hey everyone, I hope you're doing super well. Let's go ahead and get things kicked off. Happy Thursday. All right, let me just drop this link into the Facebook group.

Live. All right, let's do this. So share. We're going to jump right into questions this morning.

Boom.

All right, first question comes from Max and Burnaby.

If I send a one click estimate email that includes a video link, will clicks on the video be categorized as links clicked by sa? No, it will not be. It only is tracking the actual links. It does not track the like.

Images or buttons that are clicked. I asked because I sent out one to click one in the term that includes a video. And over 100 people are categorized in the links click section. But I received. Oh, oh, I see you're saying you're. You're putting a URL behind the. The button. Okay, in that case, I have not ever seen or tried to decipher between that, but I would imagine yes, if you're putting a URL with a clickable link, it's just going to click can't. It's gonna, it's gonna count all clicked links. So whether they click on the email link or they click on the button that links to a video, I would assume that this is going to all count. I have not tested this, but I would assume just from knowing enough about email that that's what's happening. In order to get a.

Email report that breaks down each individual button, you usually need to use email providers such as mailchimp because they are sending it in a format that is much like a. Almost like a. Unfortunately, these are very easy to identify by spam filters and that's why most CRMs don't use it because when you use more of a text driven HTML, you can get these get through filters much easier. But things like mailchimp, they're incredible at reporting because they're basically operating like a PDF where you can track like each pixel. So.

That'S why if you do a mailchimp, you can see like which buttons they clicked on, etc. A little harder to do that in the way that we typically try to do.

Emails that get through spam filters. Links clicked 18%, you're 100, right? So.

Blue opened.

75 open rate. That's incredible. Let's go. How many people is this to?

590. Got it. That's awesome, dude. See what the name of this thing was?

Video attached. Let's go. Yeah. So.

Yeah, based upon the links clicked, it's going to count all links including email links. Video links, any link it's going to count. And that's pretty common for CRMs. It's just very difficult otherwise to get through spam filters. Oh, wrong one.

Oh, Lee just said max metrics are posted. There you have it. Okay, let's see here.

Excuse me. Number two, Max from Burnaby. Is there any problem with having the one click estimate request come to my Burnabyl rather than the General command center email? I asked because this would allow me to get estimates out faster if I have free time. It would also be accessible to CC when they check my inbox three times per day. Two things.

Yes, you can do this and you will probably get out fast. Like if you have time so you can do this, you can absolutely change where the link is going. You can totally. That's totally fine. Just know that when you get busy and then command center is checking your thing only three times a day and I would recommend having them go to the general one because they're going to be going through those all day long.

And they probably would push these to the main channel anyways. I have to talk to Liz about this one. I. I would not recommend doing this. I. I highly recommend not doing this because you're gonna. You're gonna bog down the email department a massively because all. If all of them are going in there, it's gonna slow down that department massively versus the, the main channel which gets is really geared for dozens of people working on estimates. So yes, like on a Monday morning you're probably going to get it out faster using this method because they're in your inbox. But you know like when they get inboxes to inbox zero, that means the estimates are going out within minutes of you sending them or completing them versus a couple or a few hours if they're just checking your inbox a few times a day. Right. So that'd be my recommendation.

And just keep the estimates going to the general command call at Augusta.

Nick from Marysville how is Bellingham lead flow this week? Last week we had a spike in leagues. This week we the weather has been good but we haven't got a single lead in 7 days. My search only ads got 44 clicks in the last 70s with a click through rate of 4.6%. My performance max, I know is least got 51 clicks with a CTR of 6.9% in the last 7 days. Average cost per click is $1.25 combined. I know it's still very early, but I do find it odd that we have 95 clicks and not a single lead has come in for seven days. It's just wondering what you're seeing. The grass in our market hasn't really started growing Nick. Even though March is typically when we start mowing it's like we're mowing, we're going to edging game everything. But it's not growing very much. Right. So I would not panic. You've been now through two spring rushes. You know what's to come. So because something is delayed by one or two weeks is not going to change the fact that spring rush is still going to be hot and heavy. So I would not be concerned about this.

It's still very cold. Like this morning was frozen this morning in our market etc. So in terms of our lead flow and stuff we're only like a week and a half booked out. But they're going to be working all day tomorrow and potentially even Saturday. So it's still kind of hiring more people. Etc. Nick from Marysville I forgot who asked the question a couple days ago about having a hard time hitting P4P with a two man crew. But this has been my experience in the last two days. Two years which doesn't make sense. Makes sense because our density is great and our budget times are accurate right now before growth takes off. The last two weeks the guys have been have crushed it on a two man route. But they are not. But they are not. And I know they are trying for a two for a full two man route. They are getting less than two bins of grass. That's how you know they should be crushing time. I've been thinking about this. It's difficult to balance meeting capacity which is the best for the business as well as getting the guys to hit consistent P4P which is better for them and retention based on capacity. I should run two man crews all the time but they rarely ever hit P4P like that. I'm thinking out loud but it seems to me that people will not be consistent until we make a more make become a more. Become a mature operation with even more clients and more density. So it's a difficult balance. If I really want to make sure guys make P2P consistently I would need to invest in more vehicles, make sure they have each other own solo routes. Also always hit PvP. That is not an issue. Yeah. So obviously as the location grows. Oh sorry. It's just an interesting dilemma. You want to reach capacity and make the most of what you got but you also want the guys to consistently hit P4P so it motivates them, which is not happening. Part of my struggle is I sell P4P hard to people during interviews. And then when the system is designed in a way where it's not possible, they check out quickly and now it's a false promise. Trying to find the balance between letting them know about how it's possible while also not overselling it to the point they expect it every week. Sorry. This long. I see this as a problem mainly because I feel like they are trying their best and it's just the way the system works that makes it not possible. What are your thoughts on this? I always hit P4P in Bellingham whether I was with the guys or not. It just doesn't happen here. I don't understand it. Yeah, so you're 100% right. As a location gets more mature, it gets more dense, your prices are increased, etc. You're it's easier for the guys to get above base pay. I would say this, if you look at your last year's revenue, I would venture to guess that I've at least even I'm thinking out your location, probably 30 to 50% of your revenue is still project based, I.e. bush trimming, weeding mulch and sols etc. It's not just mowing specifically. So this is the thing that.

You want to think about. A location that's new mowing is going to be harder to get P4P because you're not as dense, your prices are probably as high as you would want them, etc. However, at the beginning when your location is getting started, you're also having more projects and the vast majority of your revenue actually come from projects like 70, 80%. Now you've been been business now a couple years, Nick. It's probably more along that lines of like 40 to 50% of your revenue might be coming from projects. So you're what's happening is more and more of the weight is going to start falling on P4P for mowing, which definitely is affected more by having two man crews. Right. So what happens is either A you take profits and you put it into getting multiple trucks so your crew can make PvP or B, you keep raising mowing prices to the point that they can still make P4P on.

On Boeing. That being said, projects is where I'd be looking at because even when, if you're even with two man crews, it brings them down a few dollars per hour. Like let's call it three or four dollars per hour even by being with two man crews having projects that they can crush should still bring their average for the couple weeks above base pay. But the goal like is always to get them to become solo because they make so much more on P4P. Right. So even out in Bellingham they have plenty of trucks. So it's a matter of like train your guys up, get them on solo. That's why they have like this morning day. Today we do a solo cup. They put what's it called? Apple. What's it called? Sick. The sparkling cider. There you go. They take Spark Insider and everyone takes a solo cup and they do that as like a ceremony. Cheers to whoever went solo. The reason we do that is because that's when they're going to make way more money. The question is though, obviously that's going to take assets in the form of a truck, equipment, et cetera. To be able to get them to be able to.

Be in their own truck, it costs money. So there's that balance and it's challenging. Yes. The first few years your guys are going to make less PVP as the company grows and scales and then you hit profit mode where you raise prices, you're close, ratio goes down. That's when you really start to see them be able to make more. Still if they're in, in two man crews, keep in mind it's not a bad thing for this to happen. I understand when you're currently at like a second, third year where a lot of your projects you're getting more and more recurring revenue, there's pressure there. However, down the road, as you know, in Bellingham Nick, keeping it the same is important because what's going to happen is guys always want to work together. Great. There needs to be the fact that there is that, that less amount of revenue that they're going to get by doing so and then if they do work by themselves, that they which is not as enjoyable, that they make more money. Right. So hope that made sense. Kind of butchered that. But I would say look at your projects, make sure that someone is able to still get above base pay by mixing up your mowing and your projects enough. So even if there aren't two man crews and they're only beating P for p for like 20, 30 cents or a dollar, that they can go do some, some projects and crush them. I would also then say that.

If some, if them getting above P4P like is very important to you, like that's probably where you're going to take your profits and think about getting another truck and doesn't have to be a fancy truck. It can literally just be get them to be able to separate so they can be on solo routes and make more money which motivates them, helps with the tension etc. But everyone looks at mowing so quickly when if you actually broke down how much of your revenue is coming from projects, you should equally be looking at both of them because project regardless if there's two people or one person it typically doesn't move the needle much for P4P. So.

Just because they don't have to there's not start and stop you're staying staying in one spot. I noticed my tag automations on Zooper are not being sent out. I tested them on myself and did not receive any message in my email I've attached a photo on the back of the back end settings on Zooper. Do they look correct to you? Let's take a look.

Job carrier is equal to and has a specific service dispatch and.

It is dispatched.

That looks good to me. I would.

Allow this might be the issue allowing updates done through workflow to trigger a. You're not doing a multiple one. It should be fine. Send this. Send this along with whatever you just hear this. Stop. No sick boom Boom. Open up the second one.

Sorry, one second.

Okay, this is the second module. Very good. Share this one.

Boom. What do we got here? Jobs module action is send notification recurring jobs. Then do these actions. Thank you and welcome. Oh, this is your test. I'm assuming this is not actually what you're trying to do. Your action type might need to be altered here to jobs select the events, the notifications. Yeah, send both of these to Zooprand. Just say like hey, what am I doing wrong? To be perfectly honest with super, the way they change around their fields for their workflows, I'm not a huge fan of it does not make it intuitive.

And most of their automations we they created custom for us because like it's not intuitive in terms of. In terms of self creation. So I'm yeah, I'm sorry about that. For now I would email them and just say hey, what am I doing wrong? Why aren't these firing off? I would assume it's something to do with that action type but I have not done enough or tested it because they change those fields so often to know right off the bat. So sorry. I don't know if anyone watched today's demo of Copilot though I did a whole bunch of automations. I think I did one actually a couple weeks ago there was one. If someone could post it in here, that'd be great. And that'd be just a demonstration of like six automations you can build in Copilot. It's extremely very, it's extremely user friendly. We're making it to where like you could really get creative with it and then whatever's in your head you're able to get onto the screen versus this. I still don't really understand fully how Zooper's workflows work. I've seen them work sometimes and other times like that action type thing messes me up. So yeah, send that. Send those pictures though Cameron to Zooper and say hey like what am I doing wrong? These are not firing off. And what I don't like unfortunately is usually they'll say we took care of it, it's working now. And they don't like educate me on like why did it not go through first? Like what did I do wrong? So anyways that's what I would do for now though.

Any ideas on when the random will be next month? Yeah, I will announce it probably next week but it would likely be that first week of April. I will yeah make that announcement next week.

Nick for Tennessee Cordova My PVP is about. My question is about the PPP score. When at it is set when at is set at 1 third 33.33 then above 3.0 score is when they are earning P2P so when we move the percent up for tougher months 40% April doesn't 3 point. Yes it does. It would move to 2.5 right? I think I talked about this before. So if you move the thresh, if you move the percentage to 40% anything above 2.5 then is when they'd be making above base pay. If you move it to 50% anything above a 2.0 they'd be making above base pay. If you move it down to 25% anything above a 4.0 score is when they're going to make above base pay on beaverp.com if I if I change their percent on their user profile and then send a daily report that shows they have a score just below 3.0. Oh but they are actually earning dollars. Do we tell them this point scale slides down when we change? No, I would not worry about this. The score portion of things is relevant really mostly to you so that you can get a a screenshot. I did this mostly for the fact that if you have like 30 employees you could just scan that one number and no efficiency. I would not worry about explaining the score thing to them. I don't even know if the score is on their on their daily reports, but even if it is, I would not be concerned about that.

I think that's only on the report you're seeing. I could be wrong there. But now, as of today or tomorrow, the push notifications will be going out. So that way when you send click Send reports or in Command center click Send Reports, they're going to get push notifications. I would highly recommend everyone, by the way, even if Command center is doing your P4P, to log into your account occasionally, like at least a few times a week because there's going to be 3D notifications that tell you like, oh, so and so just went above base pay on their per day basis for the first time or so and so just made above base pay for the first time ever or this job went way behind or talk to so and so and do a recon like it gives you some really good, valuable insights. So I definitely recommend doing that. Over the next couple months, we'll be working on the three new notifications for the employees and they'll get push notifications similarly saying, you did a great job, you crushed that project, congratulations, your first pay period above, above base pay, etc. So definitely recommend that to anyone that has Command center doing your payroll, totally fine. But them seeing which of your employees are the most efficient and who should work with who is not super effective using it is. So I'd recommend looking in there occasionally. Kyle Tarfin, on your last C Suite unfiltered podcast, you talked about small business owners. Really looking at what bank is holding your money. Do you feel Relay is a safe space to hold cash? So I, I looked this up the other day. Give me one second, Relay.

Before I misquote, I want to make sure that I said this correctly. Yeah, so this is it right here. Boom.

Oh, I guess. Here you go. So like Relay, for example. It's not Relay is just like the COVID story. The Relay doesn't have a bank charter. They are with Evolve. So Evolve is pretty big, I feel pretty confident in them.

Etc. They're FDIC insured, obviously. So again, for everyone that has is one thing we didn't clarify on that that podcast is the fact that if you have under $250,000 in any bank that is FDIC insured, your money is safe. Okay, let's be very clear about that. If you get above $250,000 in your bank account, that's when you are opening yourself up to risk. If that bank ever went under. Now we just saw with, with Silicon Valley bank signature and even with Credit Suisse in Europe that the government still steps in because they don't want it to be contagion, they don't want that to cause a bank run. So you know, it is what it is. But definitely for people, a lot of people, they will do a whole bunch of bank accounts at $250,000 and they'll do different bank, different banks with 250k in each just for the sake of them knowing that it's FDIC insured. So like if anything happens, like if any person at Silicon Valley bank lost their money, they had less than $250,000 in their account, they were already guaranteed to get their money back. We're talking about the companies that had millions and billions of dollars because they were running payroll through there for multinationals, etc. They're the ones that were all freaking out last week not knowing if they were going to get their deposits insured. But if you have under $250,000 for any bank that is FDIC insured, then you're good. So if you have above 250,000 it becomes a conversation.

You could do multiple bank accounts and they're all insured. That way you can do between different banks. Like this is as people get a lot of money. That's why they don't bank with one institution. They'll do five, six, 10 different banks just to prevent potentially something bad happening.

Kyle Tarvin what is the best way to buy T bills for simplicity sake? So if you go and talk to your bank, sometimes they'll actually have direct. But even on. Let me pull it up. I'm assuming for a lot of you like Robinhood and the type, those type is where your.

The quickest access is. So let me pull up the exact ticker. So shv. So this is the iShare Short Treasury Bond ETF. So let me pull this up. I should do this on my computer. Sorry, it's like let's see. I think that's all the questions. Great, let me delete these all and then let me go back to my main screen. Okay, so.

If you have Robinhood or Weeble or whatever. If you see here, this is the SHV there's basically short term treasuries. You see that 4.54 yield the past 30 days, pretty good. So right around 4% yield, your expense ratio, that's 0.15. That is the cost you're paying to have it in an ETF form like this versus a Actual going to the treasury because you can go to the treasury site, like buy them all like that. This is probably the easiest way for you to do it.

Yeah. This is what's called a bond etf. So we'll take all these short term bonds, they'll practice them together and then you buy a part of an etf just stands for electronically traded fund.

It's Nick, I hear what you're saying. It's tough. We definitely cannot raise prices because we are trying to scale up the recurring side as much as possible. So it looks like the only other solution is to buy more equipment.

It's really difficult to do projects and hit budget hours with trailerless trucks having to account for manual unloading time of the trucks, adding trip to dump debris and then grab mulch on a given project. I basically have to give to bid jobs higher to account for this, which lowers my close ratio. But if I don't bid them higher then guys can't hit budget out. Yeah, but see, this is the perfect tension, right? Although I understand the frustration, this is the perfect tension on PvP and that is you want your close ratio. Like for now you're the owner, you're in the day to day, right. But when you have an estimator any or you have GM doing your estimates for you. This is the perfect tension of I need a high close ratio, but I need my budget hours to be high enough for my guys. That is the perfect tension to be accurate on estimates. That's why with P4P accuracy of estimates is massively improved in my opinion. Because it's the perfect tension between if I bid this too too many budget hours, I'm not going to close the job, my closed ratio is going to be horrible and if I bid it too high too many budget hours, I'm not gonna have, I'm not gonna have the job, but if I go too low my guys are gonna kill me. Right? This is the perfect tension. The tension, the pain that you're feeling is why P4P is so good to have a general manager or an estimator doing the estimates for you. Because there's that balance.

We started writing everyone's daily score on a whiteboard in the units for all to see for the week, trying to get them hyper aware of their score. Great. I'm glad Nick, that you're actually doing this is fantastic. It's been, I know it's been a bit of a journey switching over to P4P. Whatever you need to do to keep in front of them. Great. I think what's the thing that they're going to understand the most is the scoreboard on their app. They actually see who's making the most money in the business.

That's what the language they speak, which is dollars per hour. And they can see who's making more. So they can also now see on their app their progress over time. Right. So they can see from month to month what they made if they're improving with their capacities and budget hours, etc.

Do you ever use debt to grow? The Bellingham location, back when we had more skid steers and track loaders, I would buy those on debt.

And we had a line of credit that I used one time.

For something I don't remember, it was like years ago, but after this, after we got rid of this kid, steers. Oh, and it's zero turns. The zero turns I would get zero percent down financing on. And the skid steers. But we sold two out of the three skid steers and.

We don't use. We don't. I think we've paid off. Yeah, we paid off everything in terms of the, the mowers because they were three years old, like three year terms. And they got all paid off. So. Yeah, for equipment like the track loader, sorry, the skid steers, those two of those, and then the mowers, we used debt, but those have been paid off now. And would I do it again? Yeah. If you're trying to grow quickly, those are easiest to get debt on because they're assets going out and getting a personal loan you're gonna have, it's harder to qualify for. Or even a business loan like the sba, it's harder to qualify for. There's way more requirements and the interest rates are way higher versus a piece of equipment. It's just way better. So, like, if I would be asking myself, okay, do I want to spend $10,000 on a truck or $10,000 on marketing? Right. If I want to get a loan against the truck, right now you're probably paying 6, 7% interest. Right. If I want to get on a loan for the marketing, which is basically like working capital for my business, I'm probably paying 10, 12% and it's way harder to qualify for. I don't have an actual asset. So if you're determining between those two, like get, get debt for. If you're like, if you're cash strapped and you're trying to grow, get debt on the equipment because it'll be easier to. Easier to get debt on and your rates will be lower versus just getting a regular business loan like 7A or a line of credit or whatever that will cost you more and be way harder to qualify for. You'll submit all your paperwork, all sorts of documentation versus equipment. They know they have an asset to go pull from you if you ever don't make payments. So it's a way less risky loan. And it is a secured loan, which means you have it has collateral, which is the piece of equipment they can come pick up if you don't pay. So, all right, everyone, have a fantastic rest of your day and we'll see you tomorrow, which is Friday.