Mike Minutes Mastermind 03/23/2023

Hello Gust Nation. Hope you're all doing super well. Let's go ahead and get things kicked off.

If you did not already. Please make sure you watch the video from yesterday that I emailed to everyone as well as put on the Facebook group. Other three specific things we went over in detail.

Copy this. I'm sorry.

We went over the fact that putting it in the estimate, putting the initial mow price inside the same line item is recommended. I gave the verbiage that we are using at my locations and what I would recommend you edit from obviously modify for your area, etc. We talked about initial mows and then the job notes that are required to make sure the crew is does a walk through if the client's home.

And clocks in and out. It's obviously being charged by the minute. And then we also talked about upselling.

Treatment packages and the recommendations around that. So definitely watch that. It's in everyone's email. It's also in the Facebook group. It's about 12 minutes long. Highly recommend you watch that one. Also yesterday in that same email is an invite for the roundtable which is happening on April 13th on Zoom. So look forward to it. All right, let's go and jump in.

Right. Question of the day and Marietta Google Ads starting it set this up and accessed the video on the dashboard on the done View ads tab. The Google search only going video. Two things when I sign into Marietta email to start the Google Ads a number that isn't associated with anyone. I have proximity. Yeah. So this is. This is your. This is not a phone number. This is a.

What's it called? Account id. I think it's an account id. I think that's what they call it. And if you ever call in, this is what they'll be asking for. So yeah, no, it. This number is not, not a phone number. It is a.

Customer ID number. It's weird that they use 10 digits like a phone number, but it's not an actual phone number. So.

Yeah, that's popped up by the max. Yeah, it's up in the top right hand corner underneath there. That's your account number. If you ever call in, they'll want to have that. Secondly, earlier today before my coaching call, I started this process. I put in our business credit card to set up paint method. This evening when I went back to continue with the setup, I was notified identified that our account had been suspended because they detected suspicious payments and activity. We see two holds at zero dollars in our account. One listed as provisional hold and the other is Dual hold. I attach a screenshot to computer screen where it reads the number at the top right and then the banner at the top stating our can have been suspended. There's the option to appeal submit an appeal for the suspended account. But I'm not sure what if I experience is common or this weird number at the top is it reason to be concerned? I feel over my head with these ads and now not sure what is happening with these two things mentioned above. Can you advise me on how to address these issues? Yeah. So there's two major Google across the board issues that we're facing. Number one, addresses being not verified and when you change your address in your Google listing, it just throws everything off and it locks your Google listing. That's the number one issue. Second issue is this right here that is setting up the Google Ads payments account like your, your ads manager. So this is what she's talking about here. Yeah. This little number here in the top right hand corner is not a phone number. Is your account ID and this is the number that they'll always want if you call in for help or it's the way they they identify you. It's your customer number. Basically what we're seeing here is a lot of times when you get a new email address and immediately you're creating ad account. What I think is happening because I don't know this is in the past two, three months this has spiked how much they're doing this. If you immediately start running ads on a new account, I think they're flagging that as like suspicious activity. So you will need to submit an appeal. And I know it's a pain in the butt but you'll just have to go through that full process. I know like when this has happened with our locations, Chuck jumps on it right away and just like all hands on deck, you call them, you email them, you fill out the appeal, you submit whatever information they want. You just stay on it. I know it's not fun, but even if you got the so hopefully by the end of day tomorrow we'll have the updated done for you ads. Even if you have those from the agency and even if they do, but even if they do the done for you ads and they're better or whatever, the fact of the matter is your Google accounts, your Google account still might get locked because of this and that is new payment information will do it sometimes.

But most times new accounts like your new email address and then you're immediately trying to run ads. It's like flags that. So just keep that in mind, go jump through the hoops. I know it's frustrating. This is part of getting things set up and just got to jump through the hoops. If you can ever call Google and you have patience, which I don't have, and you're willing to stay on the phone, give them your client id, jump through all the hoops, get transferred five times. Sometimes they might be able to do it with you on the phone, but we just take an approach of like, hey, we're going to email, we're going to call, we're going to submit the appeal and we're going to get this taken care of fast. So I'd recommend that now the agency down the road, if you wanted to pay them, they'd probably be helping you through this process. But a lot of the verification Google now is you have to do as the owner, have to potentially do stuff or give them eins, Social Security numbers, etc. So.

Also I'm sending this Google Ad stuff up. It's asking to insert my tracking ID into my website via my CMS and something about a Google Analytics tag. I'm stumped. Please help. Yeah, so your Google Analytics tag, you are likely trying to run an ad based on conversions. If you're running based on conversions, it'll want you to set up the Google Analytics tag. That Google Analytics tag can be sent to web at Augusta Launch Services or from your website portal. So on the dashboard there's a link that says edit your website. You can also drop the Google Analytics tag on there and we will in a couple days consider there for you. If you're trying to track conversions. If you're not, if your goal is not conversions, you should not have to put in that Google Analytics tag. Right. We are working this summer on when we revamp the whole site. We are working on getting. We're just going to set up everyone's Google Google Analytics and put everyone's tags in. It'll take us a long time, but we're going to just do it for every single account regardless of whether or not you use the tag or not. You just can't. We have to figure out some account access stuff and like all the issues that you're facing on the front end, we are facing on the back end with Google. It's just been, I don't know what's going on. This is across the board. This is not just Augusta, by the way. I get contacted probably two or three times a week from people like begging for help because they're. It's just a pain in the Butt, Newberg, Indiana how can I, how can I send a proof of quote for mowing accepted to a customer? I send the welcome email for mowing with the date we are going to start. And she replied she doesn't remember asking for more service other than we already provided was proper cleanup. I'm in Zoo. She approved both services, property cleanup and mowing. I would resend the mowing or resend the quote. And then even if you have to screenshot inside of your system that set a specific date and time that they accepted and even the signature because it's super you have a signature. So that would be helpful. Keep in mind if this customer really does not remember, she might have something like Alzheimer's or something. So just keep that in mind. Unless you're being malicious after the fact you've already done the work. So then in that point if it's malicious then you know, go for the, go for the signature, go for the date and time stamp of her accepting the quote etc.

And the cool thing about Zooper is you got a signature in every single estimate. Right. So we're going to have that inside Copa as well. Evansville Connor I'm a little new to hiring outside of my friend group or peer circle of peers. After how many days or weeks do you know whether or not Canada is a good fit for us? So if someone has zero experience after how long do you expect them to be able to at least manage on their own? Maybe not quickly, but at least get the job done on their own. Like what do we do after the two week training period? They're still not getting it. Just wanting to know some loose parameters. Yeah, the, the reason this is Flex needs to be flexible is it depends on how much you need people. Right? Like if you are drowning in work, you're not going to cut someone because they're going to take three or four weeks to get up and running. But like in general, if someone is not going to get through training period within the two weeks, they're probably not going to get it. Like let's just be honest, if you can't figure out the basics within two weeks, it's unlikely you're going to ever figure it out unless you're just hoping. And so the but, the but the caveat to that is if you're drowning in work, you'd rather have a couple of those people that you've trained up for two weeks and they're at least decent, like hands on, say like a project, um, you might not be able to put some out solo but they're helpful and you're way behind. But like I would typically say, if they're not after the two weeks acceptable on that checklist on all different things, then they're just not going to get there. There's like one out of those seven or eight things that they're not acceptable standards after the training period potentially, then you know, they get retrained on those things. But if there's like half of them or not not acceptable, they're just probably never going to get there. The only, only way those, those team members potentially might last is if you have so much work that you can throw them on projects with someone else's experience and just be another set of hands to get move, move things, et cetera. Forest, what should we do if customers back gate have been locked for a few weeks and crew wasn't able to mow and then it becomes way overgrown. You have to send them a separate estimate to get the mowing in the backyard up to spec. And then you have to say like, look, we told you to unlock the gate every single week. We put, we put you on an automation can tell you every time before you did not. Now it's overgrown and in your estimate it should say there's a $50 cent per minute per man based upon being overgrown. And then that'd be a separate job.

I would warn them of that $50 cent thing before doing it or give them an actual estimated price and get it done. So. So there's no if you. Otherwise, if you make this person mad, they might just drop your mowing service altogether. If they're not mutually agreeing the fact that they messed up unlocking the gate. So what I do is recommend telling them the 150 or whatever that price is per minute per man, or giving them an actual estimate and then telling them like, hey, we've got to get it up to snuff. And then the regular mowing price can then be in play again.

Bryce closing from Van Wirt. What's your opinion on recruiting an employee from your competitors? There's a guy I went to high school with that's been working for one of my competitors for six years and he's one of the highest positioning yet. They're making 16 an hour as a crew lead. I feel he has better opportunity here at Augusta.

Or will this start a bad reputation for my company in my small town? You know, it sounds like you know this person really well, so you could just talk to him outside of work. I would say it sounds like.

And just be like hey, like we're looking and here's the opportunities we have. And I wouldn't just, I just wouldn't pitch hard, basically.

Honestly, like the whole point here is if you, if you did push hard, for example, and he goes to his boss and asks for a raise to 18 bucks an hour, hey, you just helped your friend out and if he's the highest position, they work there six years and he's at 16 bucks an hour. Like, yeah, there'd be better opportunities if he joined you. So I would take this from the position of this. If you know this person and you're friends with them, I would take this as the angle of your trying to get them to the next place in their career and not necessarily that you need the position, you know, really, really bad or anything like that. Because yeah, if they've worked somewhere for six years and you're still at 16 an hour, they should be looking elsewhere just for their own best interest.

Forest, how do we switch to Maps Pro? It's just a, on your service autopilot there on the settings and then you go to your account. Forest, how do we switch to Maps Pro? It's just a, on your service autopilot there on the settings and then you go to your account and you can add it right there along with like Your client portal.

QuickBooks integration, all their add ons. Basically you can just add Maps Pro and so Maps Pro is useful if you are doing a lot of optimizations, you have quite a few employees because the alternative is just buying the credits for the optimist for the route optimizations. It's 50 bucks a month.

Garrett and Cole from Glendale, Colorado, we are sending out estimates for 20 different Jiffy Lubes. This includes mowing, recurring weed pulling spring and our premium treatment package. I have a good relationship with the regional manager. However, some of the store general managers have made it seem like they are not wanting to spend too much if any money on their landscaping.

The regional manager assured us every location needs service. Despite two or three of the general managers saying they don't need anything and they take care of it themselves. Some of them are slightly outside of our service area. For those I quoted quite a bit higher. There are four that are significantly 20 to 30 minutes from the edge of our service area. Outside of our service area. For example, one location is 25 minute drive there and 25 minutes back it would regularly be a 40, 60 lawn. But if outside territory I added two budget hours so it would it was 200, 300 lawn. I don't know if he would just decline this quote or if he will accept every estimate and just rather have one provider in terms of the types of services we were providing is right up our alley. We would still require carnot file. So some are outside our service area and it is commercial. We are trying to fill capacity with four people and two trucks. If you accept at all 20 locations it would be 16 budget hours of weekly mowing, 28 budget hours, a whole bunch of other stuff, a bunch of cleanups, etc currently we have $6,000 or 6,000 cash on hand. We are booked out for one full time one part time guide through April 3rd. Rowing starts April 3rd. I believe we will start the mowing scene with about 45 budge hours per week without the jiffy leaves. We are still pre spring rush. I don't believe getting work will be the challenging part about the spring rush. Hiring and training will be. We have sent out 123 estimates so far marked about 30 of which are trippy league quotes. On April 3rd we are starting mowing and I have one guy returning from last year and a new girl starting. That will put us at three full time one part time in me. I'm currently not able to achieve work because I have surgery on my hip last week. I should be able to return to field and even April or May. Are we diluting our focus by doing these estimates? Should we not send them? Should we only do ones in our service area or the important focal pass is the regional general manager dynamic a recipe for a lot of callbacks. This last part, if the regional manager wants calling the shots, I wouldn't worry about your general managers.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about that and I just deal with your regional manager. I'd be upfront and honest. Without regional manager back. Hey, these ones are way outside our service area. We're going to charge significantly more. We're happy to just these ones inside of our service area or we'll do these other ones too. But they're we're just, you know, we are charging significantly more because they're just such a long drive for us.

So I just be open honest about that. If they take them, great. If not, just keep moving on. Do not spend a lot of time on this. It sounds like you've already overanalyzed in my opinion this whole situation. Keep moving forward because like you said, if you don't get these, this is not going to make a break. We're talking about 16 budget hours a week mowing. That's a currently a third of your mowing.

Sorry, if you added this, it'd be. It'd be 25%. But like you said, going to spring rush. If your concern is not getting more jobs, then don't stress out about this. Focus on getting your crew up and running, get them trained up, et cetera, and. And stick to your guns on pricing and just be really open honest with the regional manager on, hey, these ones are. We're going to be way more. We're going to be way more expensive on these ones. These ones I know I can be competitive on. I'm going to give you a price for all of them. Sixteen budget hours a week mowing. That's a. Currently a third of your mowing.

Sorry, if you added this, it'd be. It'd be 25%. But like you said, going in a spring rush. If your concern is not getting more jobs, then don't stress out about this. Focus on getting your crew up and running, getting them trained up, et cetera, and stick them. And you can pick and choose which ones you want us to take. Just go from there. If they have a credit card file, you're basically going to treat these like a regular residential customer and per cut pricing and all the rest of it. So that's great. I just do that.

I've given. Or this is Max Harwood from Burnaby. Excuse me.

I've given an informal job offer to a new candidate, but they won't start employment. Want to hear guns on pricing and just be really open honest with the regional manager on, hey, these ones are. We're going to be way more. We're gonna be way more expensive on these ones. These ones I know I can be competitive on. I'm gonna give you a price for all of them and you can pick and choose which ones you want us to take. Just go from there. If they have a credit card on file, you're basically going to treat these until March 31st. Shortly after an employee from last year who's not currently working for us reached out, said he was looking for work and wanted to come back. They hit him off for the winter and he was a good worker. Would you recommend proceeding with the first guy because I've made an informal offer or switching to the former employee? I think what you got to ask yourself is what's your bottleneck going to be this spring if it's going to be hiring, I just take both of them, especially as we head into April. In your market specifically, Max, like in April, things take off. This is your second spring rush. There's a really Good chance that maybe for a week or two you're struggling to find a figure out where they go but definitely want to take the work from last year. He's good to basically hit the ground running. You know he's a good worker. Don't, definitely don't let him slide to the ground Cracks this other person, they could last two days and they leave. So again I would just get them on board. You've already committed to them, you've already verbally told them that I don't know how long they've been holding off getting a job. So I would feel somewhat reluctant to just cancel on them like you are because you're a good person. So good job. I would probably just give them a shot and if they don't work out well, they're not high performer, you can let them go and you didn't put in jeopardy the person that you know is going to work out great. So I would do both. I just don't see in four or five weeks from now you not having a labor problem. So might as well. If we have two and they're great, both good workers, you'll have a couple weeks where they're only working 30, 35 hours a week right before spring rush will catch you up or catch up to you. Taro from Boone's Creek, what kind of procedure should we be doing for follow up? I have sent an email to get sent to them the next day. Is that like an automatic thing? That always happens. Should we always call back the very next day? I just didn't know how much is too much.

My rec. Excuse me. In my personal.

Opinion the first couple days are most important. So like I'd rather you quote unquote follow up too much the first day or two. So like it's the first day that email's going out. Great. You call them that same day. Like that's, that's a good one two punch. Hey, I sent you an email just following up and now I'm giving you a call. If you leave a voice message, great. If you get them on the phone, it doesn't seem like it's too intrusive but you just were there yesterday, you've sent them yesterday and you're making sure they get it right. And then you know, currently there's day two, day three, day four, day five emails. The fifth day you're also calling them and there's a automation there. So I don't think like this is the thing. One out of 100 people will say you're following up Too much. And the other 99, if you can improve your close ratio by 10% because of the follow up calls and following up too much. Like you just got nine other clients. Right? So I just focus on like you. If you get people saying that you're following up too much, you're doing a good job. And until that point, until like 1 out of 10 people are saying that, I just keep following up.

Cool. All right, what else we got here.

Mike? Sorry, I haven't been able to hop on lately. Quick question. I have a past client. We did a fall cleanup for contacting me about a job in November via text. Should I respond or leave it alone? As she stated, she will not use our services today. But hey, Mike, sorry, I haven't been able to hop on. Quick question. I have. We did a fall clip copy of the job. Okay, so it sounds like this person's unhappy.

It sounds like this person's unhappy and.

You did a fall cleanup for them and now they're contacting you about it.

Via text. I wouldn't reach out to any customer via text. Honestly, like where you're back and forth them and they have your personal number that I. Hey Mike, sorry, I haven't been able to hop on lately. Quick question. I have a past client. We did a fall cleanup for contacting me about a job in November via text. Should I respond or leave it alone? As she stated, she will not use our services anymore. What? Hey, Mike, sorry I haven't been able to hop on. Quick question. I have a we did a fault clinic copy on the job. Okay, so it sounds like this person's unhappy.

Sounds like this person's unhappy. And.

You did a fall cleanup for them and now they're contacting you about it.

Via text. I wouldn't reach out to any customer via text. Honestly, like where you're back and forth them and they have your personal number. The nice thing about copilot is with the two way messaging inside of there, you can keep a message. It's all the messages are inside the CRM. It's not your personal number.

I'm not 100 sure. It sounds like she's unhappy. So she's unhappy. I definitely contact her. I just wouldn't use text messaging. The craziest text messages I see and everything you say can be used against you and it can be screenshotted and can be misinterpreted to make. Just out of curiosity, will copilot use AI to send customers? Estimate after we submit the notes on the field and answer chat box questions.

The estimate so it will not send it out for you. What you'll have to do or working towards I should say because we're not there yet with price matrixes is instead of. Instead of having to have the process of going through the estimate calculator and formatting it all correctly etc. The goal is that from your mobile phone you can think about copilot is with the two way messaging inside of there you can keep a message. It's all the messages are inside the CRM. It's not your personal number.

I'm not 100% sure. It sounds like she's unhappy. So if she's unhappy I definitely contact her. I just wouldn't use text messaging. The craziest text messages I see and everything you say can be used against you and it can do the price matrixes and when it sends the quote it looks nice. The problem we have with service autopy is they're mobile and super. The mobile version when you put it all in gets def does not look good when you send the estimate out.

Because the price matrixes are there. It's just a matter of it looking good. And so that's why we've always had to do it from desktops and reformat things and go through the pricing calculator. But down the road the goal would be that from your from the price matrix in here the formatting of that estimate looks good enough to be able to send from your mobile device and there's no in between needed. In terms of answer the chat box question.

Yes and no. I know that this is definitely obviously what everyone is heralding right now and everyone's up in arms about AI. AI like for Chantbox has been around for a very long time but the companies that use it the most are the ones that have massive amounts of data and massive amounts of funds to throw at this sort of thing. It's going to be a while in my opinion, at least a couple of years before that sort of thing is completely automated. Especially when you start having things like emotions from the customer and other things that still having a purchase is great. Like no one here likes talking to be screenshotted and can be misinterpreted.

Just out of curiosity, will Copilot use AI to send customers estimate after we submit the notes on the field and answer chat box to a chat to a robot on the phone. Like when you call Google for example and you're talking like five students.

The estimate so it will not send it out for you. What you'll have to do or working towards I should say because we're not there yet with price meter different robots to get to the right. That is not an enjoyable customer experience. Like let's just be honest, would customers that are 60, 70 years old be willing to actually pay more money? Hedrick's is instead of, instead of having to have the process of going through the estimate calculator, formatting it all correctly, etc. The goal is that from your mobile phone, someone on the phone and a real person they're chatting with. That's definitely a valid point, right? And if you don't have millions of those messages coming in every single day like these massive tech firms do, is it worth it just to pay the extra 5, $10 a day for someone to actually be real versus the few chats that are going to be answered via robot? If your lifetime value of a customer is 5, $10,000 might make sense if you're. If the lifetime value of a Google can do the price matrixes and it sends a quote, it looks nice. The problem we have with service Autopilot is they're mobile and super. The mobile version when you put it all in full user is say 2, $300. They maybe not right. So obviously the cost this will get come down, the technology will get better. But I definitely think that as AI starts taking more stuff over, what's actually going to happen is the value of, of keeping a real person and having that person is actually become more. And so it's what, what you got to do though is you got in order to keep that person efficient and so that the financial part of it still makes sense is they've got to use AI in order to make it more efficient. Right. So for example when someone chats in the the goal would be like to where you can click on their account and see all their information right away instead of having to go find them. Right. The extra 20, 30 seconds. Right. The ability to automatically see based upon the chat.