Mike Minutes Mastermind 04/02/2024

Hello destination. Hope you're doing good. I'm on a layover. Want to do the Mastermind? Couple quick announcements. First off is if you would like the client portal to command to copilot be on your website, you're just going to fill out the form on the dashboard. If you go to your settings under client portal, there's a unique link for every single account. We are not going to enforce using the client portal on your website, but if you would like it added, feel free to go to the dashboard and then on the website edit your website. You can add that link in there and then we will add that page to your website. So that is ready to roll. We had someone had asked about this a few weeks ago on the Mastermind as a way to kind of like help bring down your bill at Command center. Because people call in just to ask like, when's my next service? Or what's my invoice or whatever. They can now get the client portal and you can also really quickly access their username and login from their username and password from their client profile. So if you ever need to change it or someone forgets what it is or whatever it is, they can do that pretty simply. So cool. One other thing I was thinking about today, I was watching my video from a couple weeks ago about Command center. And that is like one thing you potentially might be able to do to save like 10 grand or so a year if you wanted is if you're like. Because I said in the video, like if your Command center bill starts getting around $8,000, that's when it starts making sense to start getting someone in house. What I was thinking is maybe if you're over like six or seven grand, what you could potentially do is try to get someone part time, like say four or five months during spring rush to bring that bill down when you know you can keep them busy and then just sit back to Command center when spring rush is over and.

You can't keep someone busy full time. So I was trying to like think out how we can do the best of both worlds. And that is like save some money during spring. I should probably save a couple grand if you do that. So four or five months you can save eight or ten grand.

And so it just a matter of is it worth it to train that person up, et cetera. But even if they left like randomly, which will happen as long as you just stay following the system, you can still switch stuff back to Command Center. The only thing I was thinking that might be cautious about that is full service tasks. Because if there's a wait list in the middle of spring rush and someone left that you are using, you have a bit of a risk there of not being able to put you in. But I think in general that'd be a good strategy if someone's trying to save their bill. Because I've seen some people's bills and it's okay. It gets scary when it's like 6, 7, $8,000. I think a happy medium is if you could find someone for four or five months potentially to do office work. You know, you can basically keep them busy full time almost and bring down your command center bill made by four or five grand and you pay that person. So you'd save a couple grand, probably a month. I would say ideally, then you don't use them for the other seven or eight months of the year when there's just not enough work for them to do and they're gonna be straight overhead. So just a thought kind of ideas exercise. If you haven't watched that video I made a few weeks ago, I kind of lay out a budget too of what you can expect if you're having your own office staff. I do recommend it. I think probably next year we'll probably have one office person at the dine shop, kind of like I just mentioned, at least for those several months. Because, like, our bill is the highest of all the destinations. But it does keep Corey from having to train an office person and manage them in addition to the team out in the field. So especially his first year. We will still run with the current system where everything is handled by command center. They do everything for them. But, you know, when your command center bill is 11 $12,000, it might make sense to try to get someone for four or five months. Like I was mentioning the. All right, let us jump into questions.

40 minutes. Oh, I think I'll go get to these. Eight minutes. Eight of these.

That's when we leave in 40 minutes. They're bored. Okay. All right, here we go.

All right, can we see this? Yes. Very good.

All right, number one is from Evansville.

I am going off my question a couple weeks ago asking about operational efficiency and why we don't focus on that more. We have used OTP since day one of Born regressed. My thought is that I may need to change our setup. We currently use a 52 inch and a 30 inch push, by far the most common setup in our area as well. We used to not service certain yards of areas because they have small gates for our downtown. However, with otp, we are getting more and more backyards. I'm hearing more and more from the guys. How much a 36 would be great for the backyards. We do currently average 32 to 35 bug hours per week and I think we could increase that by another three to five bug. That's. So this is the kicker. I, I know this is going. I'll keep reading it, but this is the kicker. Will it actually save this much time? And if you're confident in that, if you think you're going to be able to get an extra in this case would be 11 to 12, 12 to 8, 12 to 20% efficiency gained.

I'd probably give the go ahead. Keep in mind a third of that efficiency gain is going straight to the crew because of P4P.

So then just make the calculation based on that. Then it's okay. Well, if I buy the mower, it's $8,000 and a little bit more maintenance than usual. How long does it take in terms of budgeted hours when I'm getting a two thirds of it for it to actually make sense? So let's just do the math.

All right? Let's not account for the fact that there's going to be higher maintenance cost on the zero turns. Let's just not figure for that. Let's assume that we get an extra four budget hours per week and let's just say that we do mowing for 30 budget 30 weeks of the year. So 120 budget hours saved. This is multiplied by $80. So it's an extra $9,600 of revenue added to the business. So I'm not thinking in terms of savings right now. I'm thinking, okay, you can add more to the custom, the employee schedule because $9,600. Now I'm going to multiply that with 0.67. So because we're giving a third to the employees, right? So 6432. So then that'd be how much he makes per year. So essentially, if you can get a mower for say seven or eight grand, it's gonna take about a year and a half to break even on that. So it might not be a bad, bad investment. But this is the kicker. Knowing this number. Who's this?

That is the kicker. If you know it's four budget hours, I'd probably give you the green light. If you actually do some math, actually two, you might not have the math now. Might get three years for it to make sense. Unless you're just trying to preserve your guys, right so there's a lot of different trade offs. Infrastructure, average yard last year went from $41 to $52 and larger. As we grow, some have majority zero turn and other have majority push mode. We have not done a price increase since joining. Our hope is to hit capacity sometimes we may and then drive that price higher, if that makes a difference at all. My thought was that we could use extra profit to help purchase these 36 employees offseason. You can buy a grade B36 for a little over six grand with tax. After the brand partnership that we have with them. I also feel that they're. That's pretty good six grand. I remember eating a couple years ago, man, it was like 36, 36 inches or even gravely was like 8, 5. I also feel that there's just not a great push mode out there to handle much. We are pushing the Toro 30s just don't last that long. We are probably pushing 2 to 2.5 hours a day in nine, which over the weeks that adds up to a little up on those little personal. 36 would last way longer. Yeah, I think you've convinced yourself like it sounds like you're really going that direction for the guys for just like so many different reasons.

So I would just say like run the map on how long it takes for it to make sense. And it sounds like based on what you there probably within a year and a half you pay them off. Like it makes sense.

Kevin from Ding Dale. I want to start booking out non time sensitive landscaping jobs like mulch starting July 1st. How should I tell the client that we got that far? So things like mulch, it's kind of a gray area.

You can't. It's definitely not time sensitive to you. Some customers are going to think it's time sensitive. So it's also a simple service though and something that isn't as complicated to project manage. So I might, might give like your existing customers some preference and then everyone else through July 1st. Again though, it doesn't matter if you're booked out. Like if you're booked out like for or five weeks.

Like I would, it doesn't matter. Like you're filling your schedule. It doesn't matter if it's filled up with mulch or mowing or proper cleanups. Like you're charging a certain amount for your hourly rate for. For labor. So if you're really booked out far, yeah, just like put it off to July. It doesn't matter if they accept or not because you're confident by the time you get There you'll be booked out more.

When the estimate comes in. In the estimate verbiage, after a client pays 50% down, leaning towards this because they are less likely to ask for a refund, but could also make some customers mad. Yeah, like the safest in terms of you actually want the job is number three. Now July is what, April, May, June. That is three months away. So that is very, very far for something like mulch, for something like a paver patio or a retaining wall or you know, removing trees. Different story. Usually three months out from mulch. What I would probably do if I was you is I would say on your estimate request, I would change the, the estimate verbiage template for your mulch installs or whatever projects you wanted. Or you can just put it in the notes. When you're doing the notes for Command center, you can just put the notes and it says like.

Currently booked out 8 to 12 weeks. You could put something like that. That way it's already been somewhat stated and if they actually pay the 50 down, you've. You've at least declared that already to them. But I would say like for mulch, three months out, collecting a 50 deposit, you might get some people mad. And I would probably, in that case put on your estimate request your estimate notes. In the estimate verbiage. I would probably, personally, I would probably pick number two because again, it assumes that we are completely booked. So like it doesn't matter where.

Chad, are there any objections to having the brand Augusta brand in YouTube videos if we decide to document our long. No, that's like fantastic. I would love that. Like it's the whole reason Augusta exists. It is not about Mike. Andy, my goodness. Yes, please, please, please, please. I would be very, very happy if you have Augusta stuff in your videos. If you are saying good, assuming. Assuming you're saying good things in terms of helping others, helping the industry, giving tips, that's what we want to be known for. You're saying bad things and hurting other people. Then I would not be happy. Mike Cooper from Athens. I set my hourly rate. How much longer hours longer do you think? Oh, pre. Okay, good. I set my hourly rate 80 when I started with August a year ago. But I'm not getting that on several yards. I was close to capacity, but I have had several drop offs because they bought a mower or something, someone in their family will cut it. Therefore I will consider myself in growth mode. I work a full time job, so I have guys that work for me. We did not meet people too much last year due to route density and pricing. I have a new crew this year and my rent business is much better. I've been able to hire the guys I have in at 1750 an hour. Would be better to lower my rate to 70, 75 an hour. Still strive for the 80 per hour. This guy's not gives my guys more budget hours and therefore more time to do a quality job and make P2P.

But basically you'd be giving them, you'd be lowering your rate and giving them more budget hours. Doesn't do anything in terms of people because your labor rate doesn't really change change Unless you change the price of the customer, it doesn't change their ppp. It gives them more budget hours. If you move your rate down, yes, it's going to give them more budget hours, but it doesn't change the labor revenue. Remember, you're giving the percentage of labor revenue. The budget hours are like a measure for them to be able to know if they're on task and like if they're efficient or not. But it is not actually changing their paycheck.

If you're trying to do this, just give them a higher percentage during certain months of the year. So for example, if you think in by say April or May, you're going to sell fill up your schedule. I would just give them, you know, 35, 40 of P instead of 33. The pros to start. My guys make more money on P. But what would happen when I raise my prices once I hit capacity? I just feel bad. I have sold people on PCP and they're not hitting it. I know that part of my, my fault due to pricing not being what it's set at. Do I lower my price point and still try to quote a higher rate or do keep it as is? I would personally give them a 40 on P2P knowing that when you hit capacity, you're going to raise prices. And so I would predate that. So like say I'd probably, if I was you, say June 1st. I'd probably say June 1st. I know I'm going to probably be hitting capacity based upon, okay, I'm getting a few more jobs every week or whatever it is. I'm gonna hitting capacity June 1st. On June 1st, I'll be raising prices. Until then I'm gonna give my guys 40 on. That's probably what I would do if I was.

Coach Connor. I might have to go guys here in just a second because my flight's boarding. How does auto charge feature work? What does that mean when I send invoice it'll auto charge the invoices sent within a certain amount of hours after the invoice was sent. Just want to make sure I do not double charge clients. So it's basically invoicing and charging are separate. If you want to do auto charging I don't have auto charging on to be perfectly frank I would I I'm going to wait for the time when we have a feature that was you can select which time it auto charges. Right now it's the midnight thing. I would rather it be where I can choose the minute we don't have auto charge on I want the auto invoice create and then I'll just bulk select everyone and charge their cards and go go that direction.

Greg from Ozark Would it be possible to have a Google voice number associated with our Augusta Gmail accounts and have the cost added to our command center bill? I think it'd be nice to have able to have number forward inbound calls to our business number should customers try to call back. Thoughts? No. If you're going to get a Google voice number get it through a different Gmail account. Get it through a grasshopper. There's way too much management of it if you go into the corporate account and we've seen it before where someone tries to do it and then Google like ban a number and it affects a bunch of other owners. So just get another Gmail account because the customer doesn't know the number. Like they don't. It doesn't tie back to your email at all.

And then or get like a grasshopper or something like that. Let me just see here one second. I'm going to see if there's questions that came in on here.

Remind me to add a number to get text about going live.

Oh Connor, just just email help GustAlongerService.com say hey can I get one of my this phone number added to one of my vacations because I'm just literally using copilot to search all the owners and I'm removing the people that don't want to be included.

Here. I'm going to get these last two tomorrow guys. Sorry, I'm just going to take this one off and I'm going to enter this. The title of my Google listings is Lawn care service and Greenwood on the search page results. Is there email for the web team to ask for change this title? I don't see as an option of the web request form own Jenks, Oklahoma and Tulsa counties. I don't know where Greenwood came from. Yes, send it toWeb Augusta longer services.com they're brand new, so usually over the course of three to four weeks we they are testing a whole bunch of different stuff in each account in each location, but shouldn't be saying Greenwood. So probably in their testing they might have forgotten to put something off there. So just web GustAlongerService.com if you can screenshot it for them, that'd be excellent. It saved any time you're scanning it. All right, I'll get to those last two on the form there. On the next Mastermind I'm gonna miss this fight. All right, here we.