Mike Minutes Mastermind 04/04/2023

Hey everyone, hope you're doing super well. Let's go get started. I'm going to do a little bit of education if I have some time at the end of today's Mastermind. Let me just copy this into the Facebook group.

All right. Boom. Okay, let's go to these questions and then I want to go over some stuff.

Present Share screen.

Right. First one is Kyle Tarvin. When is the best time to do follow up calls in the day? I typically do them in the mornings, but wondering if there's a better time to do them. Honestly, if you just do them consistently, I'm happy. I think the return on whether you do them at 10am versus 5pm is far greater or far less than just the fact that you do them consistently and you don't let them stack up over the course of five days before you get them done. So if you're pressed for time, it's spring rush, you're trying to fit it in. Just the fact that you fit it in. I'm much more thrilled with that. If you're actually trying to get ahold of people, obviously the evenings are probably gonna be the best time to do that. That being said, a vast majority of our in many of our markets, the vast majority of our clients are retired and so it's gonna be really inconsequential. And honestly though, they're usually less busy in the morning when versus the evening because of like dinner plans or family plans in the evening. And then during the day they kind of like go to the gym, do errands to other stuff like that. So I just be more focused on consistency. Max Harwood from Burnaby, do you have any strategies for diffusing an employee who's comparing himself to others? More specifically, at our location we use vans and one of them is larger and better suited for jobs with debris. At this time of year. The employee with a large van completes a lot of power raking jobs and is usually tempted to complete complain because the other employees have less physical work. The employee with the larger van does have a helper and usually makes the most money of all the employees at this time of year. So the grand scheme of things, it isn't so bad, but there's still a temptation to complain. Thanks for any suggestions.

I don't know if he's actually happening or if you're saying this is hypothetical. Make sure that they're making enough money to where they're willing to put up with the extra pain. So if they're doing power raking, that is more physically demanding than there's going to be. It's more intensive in terms of thinking about the work versus mowing which is like a little bit more repetitive. So yeah, make sure they're making more money by either increasing budget hours or the hourly rate you're charging the customer. So on P4P they're making four or five dollars more per hour. This is what we did before we cut chemicals completely and this is what we still do for like dethatching and aeration is those guys can make really good money but like I'm talking like five, ten dollars more per hour. However there's higher risk of damages. There's just like hitting sprinkler heads, chipping concrete with the aerator. There's more greater like risks. Right. So they make one bad air, they can really damage that. But if you're doing like way more physically intensive work, I'd just be trying to make sure that they're making more money and then you're gonna have. Some people are like hey I don't really care about the money, I just want an easier job than they'd go in mowing versus the guys that are like hey I wanna, I need to make an extra $5 an hour, $10 an hour and they're willing to take a little bit more of that, that physically difficult work. Just realize that not everyone's incentives are aligned with yours. Like most, most business owners were going to be more.

Money incentivized like versus some people that's not going to be like their main motivator like they'd rather just be able to get their jobs done for mowing and then head home at 5 o'. Clock. They don't want to work till 7 o' clock with back breaking labor whereas someone else that's younger or has different life circumstances like hey I'm totally down for that, I can make more money, I can work overtime, make more per hour, etc especially on P4P. So I just, I just align the incentives around P4P. Kyle Tarvin When a potential customer emails a photo of the Instant Quote door hanger for mowing, does CC mention the $1 per minute permission mow or do they just automatically schedule the mowing based on the pricing on the instant quote. Just trying to figure out if I need to write the $1 per minute on the inside here. So remember that two things. Number one, this is going to your email. So Kyle, I don't know if if commencer does your email or not but Instant Quote door hanger is going to come to Your email. Now, if they call, it's a totally different subject, right? They're going to tell them to email that photo because it literally says it on the door hanger. So if you're, if unless command centered in your email, you're going to be the one making this decision. If they, if command center is handling your email, they're going to get that, that picture, they're going to send them the quote.

And tell them that it's accepted. And in there it has all the verbiage and then as well as like the first visit scheduling. If you're put during the thank you and welcome email, you can mention in there, I would not put it on the door hanger. I would put the prices and then know that on these door hangers that you're putting out, you're walking by the lawn, right? This is the biggest thing and that is you're walking by the lawn. If it's overgrown, you probably don't want to put 40, 60, right? You probably want to do like first mow and do like X amount for a minute. The vast majority of these lawns you're going to go buy, you already know they take care of it. It doesn't look overgrown. It's a nice neighborhood. You're not going to even have to deal with an initial mow being a problem. Right? The reason we have that verbiage in there is for the person that calls knowing that it's three feet tall and, and trying to get a 40, 60 over the phone quote. Right? That's why we have that verbiage in there with doraing is you're walking by these properties and so they're only valid for 7 days. So if someone takes a picture and it says that you can put in the top left hand corner the little box that says valid for X amount of days, you can put seven days in there. And so that way, you know, like if you're walking by the lawn, it's not overgrown. You don't even need to worry about initial mo. So the initial MO price shouldn't even be a worry unless it's actually overgrown when you're walking by it. So it's very, very rare. Initial mo door hangers or instant quote door hangers require an initial mow because you would have seen it and within the seven days that expires, they would have had to have contacted you. Dustin and Champagne, how did resending mowing estimates to last year's requesters end up going? Did you. Do you know how many closed? I don't Know the exact number if April. If you see this, maybe can you help me get a number on this? I know they did send them out or go through them all. Some of them we have to raise prices on because we raised prices last June at the Bellingham location. I know we're getting a lot of. I'm getting here. Other franchisees that are doing this and it's working really well. I haven't got the exact numbers from Bellingham yet.

So. Okay, let's jump into some education stuff I want to go through real quick.

Oh, that's my mom. Okay.

Do you need WCB for all your employees? Workers compensation, I'm assuming. Yes, you will need that and I would recommend it. I know it's a pain in the butt. You're like, man, I need another insurance thing. The last thing you want to do is not have it and an employee gets hurt and then you're really stuck with a $50,000 medical bill. If someone something they fall off a ladder and there's ambulance is coming and they have to go into surgery or get an mri, you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars. So I know everyone hates it. Get workers compensation. It's. It's a good form of insurance. It's good for your employees and it's good for you. At what point do you consider financing a truck? We are at four trucks now, but not quite enough money to pay for one. Cash. Little concerned as we have older trucks and they break often. Would you bite the bullet and finance one cat. Just like if you were to buy two weeks ahead. If. Just like if you were to buy two weeks ahead to get paint, logo, et cetera or purchase more. So when we have to do too much work on the schedule to offset the payments, we are thinking of financing newer trucks to have cash on hand as we do snow work, etc, so the trucks will get. I'm guessing. Sorry this cuts your. Your comments after a certain period of time. I get the general point though. I would definitely. This is when you got to talk to your coach. They're going to give you a much more concrete answer based upon all the other data in your business. It sounds like you're growing very quickly. It sounds like cash is the problem because you have four trucks. You're growing very quickly. That's awesome. This is going to be a balance of what's that monthly payment, how much more revenue is going to bring the business. How confident are you that getting a fifth truck, you're going to increase your revenue by 15,000amonth with a 20% margin, because that's pretty good. That's $3,000 a month in extra profit. Should you be able to afford 5, $600 a month in payments? Yes. So talking to your coach, they'll have all that num. Those numbers to be like, yes, this. This would make sense. You're hitting capacity at 4. Like this. This would be the number one question is like, are you hitting capacity? If the answer that is no, I'm hitting more capacity at three trucks. That would make sense because you're using older trucks. Because I would. Typically, when you look at your capacity, your trucks, I would go down a truck. Like, I would go, like, probably 20% down, which means that when you get to five trucks, you probably want to look at your capacity as more like four trucks. If you have older trucks, right? So the Bellingham shop, I don't know how many they have. 14, 15 trucks. I don't know. But, like, we don't really schedule, like, all, like, the capacities at 15 trucks, right. We might schedule more along the lines of 12 or 13 is the capacity. Because we have older trucks, we know there's occasionally gonna be something break down. We want to have that. That limit.

So I'm not. I'm not a problem. I don't not have a problem with this. It comes down to the math, right? The confidence level that you have in that demand for that next truck. Next is the confidence that that revenue is going to be fulfilled. Using that truck is very important. And if you are running a profitable operation with gross margin, you should be able to afford that truck, no problem. And if that's the limit, like, be like, hey, the difference between us, you know, growing up to 30% this year versus not is me getting another truck. And I don't have the cash to do it right now.

I'm okay with it. It just. How confident are you that you're gonna have gross profit margin once you actually get that truck and the payments have been. Has been paid, Right. So talk to your coach on a monthly. On your coaching call. I'd be. My recommendation. All right. I wanted to go this Good. I have 15 minutes. Minutes. Let's do it.

Not that I already got these done. Let me delete these either. Forget I do them again. Okay, those are done. All right. Now let me try to hook up my remarkable.

Sorry. I should have done this before. I was thinking last night about this. I wanted to share it, and it might actually help me kind of, like, solidify my thoughts. So let's see if it works. All right. So my thought is that there are four different ways to grow your business. Let's see if I can't share it with you all.

Where's remarkable? Oh, there it is. Oh, look at that. So fantastic. See if I can't. Oh, yes. Okay, cool. All right, let me see if I can't put some work words to thoughts here. So these are the four should probably number these four different ways that I think of growing your business and really growing your career as a whole.

Sorry, I'm trying to look at these notes that I may also made on my phone.

So core growth is same problem.

Same customer. Okay? Now I'm going to try to use a couple different examples, zooming in and zooming out, so you guys get this. So let's think about lawn care, for example, your lawn care business. This would be the equivalent of trying to get people to go from bi weekly service to weekly mowing service, right? Same problem. Their grass gets long, same customer. All right? You're not trying to upsell anyone. You're not trying to.

Get more customers. Same customer. And you're trying to literally sell the same thing, which is their grass grows and you want to sell them more mowing, okay? That's their core growth. In my opinion, the most profitable growth. Okay. Is take the same services you got now and sell more of that to the same customer. Okay? That is always, always, always going to be the most profitable growth. No one likes doing it because the same of the same old repetitive thing. That's where the most, most of your money is going to come. Most profitable. I should say profitable.

Okay? Second form of growth, horizontal growth. Okay? So if I look at all these different industries and opportunities that I can take in business, it's like, okay, I've gone pretty deep on lawn care. Oh, look at that. You can see this. It's like, well, now I want to go do paving or I want to do. Let's go way out here and do like a restaurant. I want to start a restaurant. You know, I'm going to sell cars, okay? So you start having horizontal growth, and in this case, you're going to have.

Same problem.

Different customer. Okay, now for your rent customer. Now I just kind of messed up because I explained that was bad in your lawn care business. That's what I was using up here. I was saying, like selling more mowing to the same customer. Horizontal growth would be, you got lawn care down. And now you're like, I'll do fertilization, I'll do paver patios, I'll do some Retaining walls. I might work on some putting greens. You know, I really like tree trimming, et cetera, horizontal growth. Same customer, Sorry, same problem, different customer. Okay? So they still are in the lawn care sphere. You're still, you know, in the yard. You're still in the green industry. It's the same problem. They need someone help around their house, but different customer. Because not everyone needs a paper patio. Not everyone needs a retaining wall. Not everyone needs an arbor divider, hedge using projects, et cetera. That's horizontal growth. You can definitely do this. This is where everyone goes. Because it's like the fastest way to grow, okay? Especially in lawn care and landscaping. Okay? Now what I'm trying to do here is also parlay this not only with lawn care, but also your career as a whole, right? So I was kind of doing the beginning, like, hey, this is lawn care. And then other industries, the same thing can then be zeroed in on your. On your business. And so whether it be looking at your business being like, okay, lawn care and mowing, now I'm doing bush trimming, Now I'm doing fertilization. Now they're doing all these other things. That's horizontal growth. Adding more services, right? Same problem. The customer needs help in their yard. They don't have the physical capability to do that. Different customer, right? So this is also like geographical. Going way outside, this is like horizontally. You think about expanding your radius, your service radius. So serving customers that are further away, this is.

Starting new locations, is also horizontal growth. Okay? The fastest way to grow, as usual, adding more services and adding radius and how many people you're willing to serve is the fastest way to grow, okay? Vertical growth, okay? So if we take the same analogy.

Now, this one is different problem.

Problem.

Same customer.

Now, this one is not necessarily better or worse than number two. It's kind of the same. Kind of what I've already talked on, like, vertical growth. So for example, instead of like, hey, Mr. Jones, we mow your grass, we can also clean out your gutters. We can also pressure wash. We can also do all these other things for you for the same person, okay? So not only do we mow your grass, we will do fertilization for your grass, we'll do coreration for your grass, we'll do dethatching for your grass, we'll do treatments for your grass. And what you're doing is going vertical. This is what, like, why I think that's zoomed in on your lawn care business, right? Like fertilization, like all these things for your lawn care. Your lawn, your lawn, your lawn. You're solving.

These problems for the same customer. Okay? The same thing could be like with vertical integration. When see a vertical integration for, like Augusta, for example, it's like, hey, we're going to do all these business. Business services, but then it's going to vertically integrate with Augusta. So we do all of these things inside of Augusta. Lawn care, everything from web design to taxes to marketing to the website stuff, all of these services are going to be done inside of Augusta. That's vertical integration, okay? In your business, that is taking lawns and just constantly for the same customer, solving more problems for them, okay? Whereas up here, you're taking the same problem, but with different customers. You're expanding your radius. You're like, hey, I'm going to go serve this different city. I'm going to start a new location. I'm going to, you know, increase my service area. Okay? So this one, this horizontal growth is great for revenue growth. Like, it's very easy. Like, hey, we're just going to add the city to my. My website and we're going to start marketing that area. And I'm just going to tell command center, I'll service, you know, a different, larger service area. Great, you'll grow way faster. Vertical growth, same thing. Typically higher profit margin than number two. And that is different problem for the same customer because you don't have any more customer acquisition cost. Your customer cost typically is like the cost of sending an email and upselling customers. Okay? Diagonal growth is not what I recommend. This is the most expensive. It's a different problem.

For a different customer.

This is the equivalent of trying to sell someone.

Tires that you were doing lawn care for. Okay? Different problem, different customer. Okay? This is the equivalent of trying to start a restaurant.

When you were doing lawn care before. This is the shiny object syndrome. Shiny object, okay? And if you look at this, this is when you start being like, okay, I'm going to do a little bit of this and a little bit of this, and I'm going to do roofing. I'm going to do a little bit of handyman stuff. I'm going to start a restaurant over here. And you basically just diagonally grow. You're growing across and down, okay? So you, you literally have different problems for different people. You have no segmentation. You don't choose a customer and solve all of their problems. The. The only way, in my opinion, to grow a longer diagonally. That's I've seen be successful is you add more services, you add commercial, and then you Add more year round services like Christmas lights, etc. That's the only diagonal growth and it's not really super diagonal because like still home services. Well, I get like it was. I get like someone going further than that would be like, okay, I do your lawn care, I can also do your H Vac. Well, yes, home services, but like that's a bit of a stretch, right. And then you can go further and further to where you have people that do like all sorts of crazy things and they never really achieve anything because they're constantly trying to serve different customers with different problems. Right.

So thank you for letting me think out loud. I need to hone in on a little bit more on these. But this kind of like the four different ways you can core growth, selling the same problem to the same customer. Number two, you can grow horizontally by selling the same thing but to different customers. Expanding your radius, expanding new territories, selling to more people, vertical growth, going deeper. Different problem, but the same customer going very deep with that relationship. Typically this is what upselling is all about. And then diagonal growth, the shiny object as I call it. Different problem for a different customer. Your customer acquisition cost goes up at the same time that you're trying to learn new services. Okay. And you can go really deep. And the reason I just messed this whole mess it up, I feel like a little bit is I should have done this, gone through this all just at your lawn care business level and then zoomed out to your career level. I kind of went back and forth. I apologize. But yeah, it can be, it can be applied at both right diagonal in your lawn care business. Looks like trying to do artificial turf and mowing grass and launching a new division into paver patios. That's what diagonal growth might look like.

But then the same person done correctly in terms of timing, that could be vertical growth. Right? Because like hey, I've done residential for a really long time, getting a ton of people asking me for commercial. I'm going to go deeper with these customers because a lot of these my customers are like property managers, real estate brokers, etc. So anyways, that was my musings last night. Somewhat imperfect because it's still a raw but hope it was helpful for somebody. All right, let's see here. BM reset mowing as did this. Did they edit price or at all or just resend. They. They edited some of the prices because we raised prices. We raised our, I think our floor as well as just our overall rate last June. So I think they did go through them. I think.

April went through them all and. And sent them out one by one. But I'll get more data on that soon. All right, everyone, have a fantastic rest of your day, and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.