Mike Minutes Mastermind 04/10/2025

Hello everybody. Welcome to their Mike Man's mastermind. We're actually on set. They're getting camera gear out of the back of the truck. We are out in Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, Utah at a window cleaning business today. So a little different. Interesting. Very cool though. And.

Really trying to get them to focus on window cleaning since that makes up 80% of their revenue instead of trying to do driveway sealing, pressure washing, gutter cleaning and a host of other services because they can do the interior of the windows in the winter. So that was the main, the main thing. They also he wants to sell the business in five years. So focus on recurring. Your valuation will be much, much, much better. Let's jump into questions.

Quick reminder, one week from today we have the Roundtable, which is zoom for all the owners and general managers. So I sent that in the email and Facebook group last week. I'll send another one reminder on this weekend. Thoughts and prayers out to Ryan Payne. It looks like the fire fortunately did not affect their shop because they had everything cleared out all graveled. So I checked with them this morning. But yeah, it's pretty scary. So glad he was safe. And all of the shop space seems like it is so far intact despite the wildfire there. All right, Mr. Anonymous, let's go ahead and jump in. Am I sharing my screen? Yes, I am. Very good. How can I stop CC to stop clicking the button doesn't require a deposit prior to accepting an estimate. I love the very simple systems that Augusta and Copilot enable. When I wake up to multiple estimate acceptance notifications and then dig in and discover there's no cart on file and there's a pending invoice for the customer, I get very frustrated at the added complexity. Extra hoops to jump through. At no point in time did I want this button to click or an estimate marked accepted without having a card and deposit. So there's a couple loopholes for people to get through on this. I don't know who this is. So whoever you are, if this ever is happening, please on the form section of the dashboard you can submit directly to Command Center. You can also always email help gustalongerservices.com because there's a few loopholes that customers can get around this. So for example, if you do instant quotes for mulch insulation or property cleanups and that total like you might have. I've seen some people have deposit thresholds of like $100 in copilot, but if they do the credit card or they get the picture of the door hanger and you know, they don't have a credit card information, they haven't put a deposit down. And it could be to over your deposit threshold. The only way for copilot or sorry, the only way for command center to put that estimate in your, in your.

Account and market as.

Accepted is to get through that step. Also they might then call the customer and actually ask for the deposit or ask for the card on file. But if they get a voicemail, we don't want to leave the estimate in limbo. So all that being said, I'm not giving excuse as much as saying there are a few ways for customers to get around this. We're trying to close these off as time goes on with technology. So for example, once they accept down the road from the instant pricing form on the website will be collecting the card information down the road. I would love it to be where even the QR code that we give to the customer on a door hanger could also do the exact same process and get them into copilot sooner like collecting the deposit, collecting their card information, et cetera. But we'll have to do that like one thing at a time to close off those little gaps. So I'm not saying that's even what that is but, but I would definitely, whoever this is, submit that form on the dashboard, go to forms you can that goes directly to Liz or Even just email helpgustalongerservices.com and they'll look into exactly what you're talking about. Especially if you have a couple of those that'd be super helpful and you can send it to them. We don't want you frustrated over stuff like this. Just know that there are certain ways when it comes to deposits and card on file, that customer can get around it. And we're just slowly, as time goes on, we're going to have to use technology to close those gaps off but not.

Prevent you from getting those customers. So I think the vast majority of us, if given the opportunity to have 500 new customers, would probably take the risk on some of them potentially not paying the deposit, but we could secure them all. So that's why we aren't going to not give you the estimate or mark as accepted. If you've put out the door hanger, they've accepted it and they sent us a picture. But we can't get a hold of their phone or the first message is a voicemail. Well then we got to follow up with them again. And then it's like how many times do we eventually just hand it off to you. And so, you know, I imagine if this was like something you absolutely did not want to allow, even for people with door hangers or instant pricing, you could probably put on your wiki, but it's not really part of their process. Like if they're accepting the estimate, the customer in their mind is accepting the estimate. And on that door hanger you don't really, we don't say like a deposit is required or you have to put your car on file. So it would be a little bit weird to the customer if you're like well you know, you have to have a deposit and didn't get it. They'd be like, well I didn't know I needed to. So we just need to over time improve the instant pricing to where we get cards on file. We get deposits across all platforms, not only if they call into command center, but again, please submit this to Command Center. They'll look into exactly the ones that you mentioned and see what those holes are. Alex and Isuri with how important response time is making or converting and inquiring customer, how can we improve our web form submission? When testing, I was surprised there isn't an automated message to say we have received the submission, just a message saying someone will respond in two to three days most customers will continue searching for a more immediate response. Is there any chance it could be an option to have web form submissions delivered to our emails so we can manage them? Or at least an auto response saying that they should call for a faster response time? So there's a couple reasons we do this. One.

The vast majority of estimates are either instant pricing wherein they are immediately getting another email from command center asking for their credit card information, or sorry, I should say from Copilot Automations. And we don't want to overwhelm them for a bunch of emails if they've accepted the estimate. Now if they are submitting an estimate for a property clamp, et cetera. So for example, like a drive by estimate.

The reason we say two or three days is because our hope is that the estimate is already. You do the drive by, they're already to the customer's house, you do the drive by, it's sent to the customer, they already have it within two to three days. Our turnaround is always within 24 hours of estimate.

Being on the property. But we say two to three days. That way it gives you a day or two to go do a drive by estimate. Would we want to email the customer? Also? I feel like getting three emails might be a little much for accepted estimates to get those immediately because they've been accepted.

So I will, I'll look into seeing if we can split this. Like if, for example, if they accept the estimate, if it doesn't do it like it does it currently and then if it is a in person estimate or like a not an instant pricing that we send them like an email right away. I'm also pretty confident they get an email right away. I'll have to check into this. I just haven't done this most recently Alex, but I'm pretty certain they do get an email.

I think that's how it's set up. Let me just make a note. Give me one second guys. I just haven't tested this specific process recently.

Estimate form.

Mail to customer. I know we have it. When they do the instant quote on the door hangers like this QR code, I know they get a.

I know that they get a email then, but this part I'll triple check on. I'm pretty sure they do get an email. So also if you ever want the form submissions to go to you, you absolutely can do that. Just from the dashboard you can change where the email goes. So that's totally fine. If you wanted them to go directly to you. Mr. Anonymous, if you are in growth mode and you get a couple of clients on opposite weeks but in the same neighborhood, is it worth combining them or take the opportunity to be in the neighborhood both weeks to keep visibility? I wouldn't do it for visibility sake. I would probably just like this gets less complex when you have a really small service area because if you're already like in their general vicinity almost every day, it's not a big deal. But if you're going out and there's only one or two customers, they're a little bit far out. I would be trying to get them on the same week, but I would be going there for visibility. But again the tighter the route you're probably going to be in their neighbor driving down their street almost every day or two or three times a week anyways. And so it becomes less and less of a problem the smaller your service area. But if you have a big service area, you're going out far. I would try to match them up on, on the same week if possible. It's just challenging because like what if they want to skip one week, then all of a sudden you got a problem. Right. So Kenny from Seven Hills, how are you different type of question. Any books you would recommend? I put one in the chat the other day called Recurring profits. Just really the emphasis on recurring revenue, how important it is. I know I feel like I've been beating that drum for a long time, but just how important it is. So many different levels. And the book really talks about not just home services, but everything from subscriptions to just how do you package every one time job into a recurring service? I have not finished the whole book, but from what I've got so far, it's been pretty good. Also, is there a difference between books you think are best to sit down and read versus ones you can get with audiobooks? Maybe like Alex's books are much more workbook style. The one I'm going to be coming out with is going to be also very workbook style with a lot more diagrams, things to fill in that you actually write on. But most books I like audio, even Alex's books I listen to audiobook. Honestly, when you met with Alex Hormozi and other successful coaches, I'm curious what insights they shared with you think would apply. Well, as someone like myself trying to scale relatively quickly. Also, how much overlap was there from what he told you in person versus what he puts online, YouTube, etc. Yeah, I'd say the advantage of any in person coaching or coaching in general is that it's personalized. So if you're reading a book, what you're trying to do is you're mining through the book to find two or three things you can change in your business. If you're getting coaching from that person, they're prescribing two or three things. So it's the equivalent of like why do you go to a doctor is to get a prescription for the medication you need versus going online and just like searching up symptoms. So if you're wanting more prescriptive information, you're going to want coaching. And one on one for someone like this is what you should do based upon these systems or these procedures or these numbers, these KPIs. Just like a doctor would prescribe you medicine versus if I want to know, you know, what's this big red thing in my eye? I could go on to Google or you go on a chatgpt and figure that out based on just the description of the symptoms. But that's when coaching is nice. And like someone like Alex, you know, his book is fantastic but I have to go through and figure out what are the few things I'm going to implement versus when you talk to him it's like, okay, this is like probably the biggest constraint of the business. And so instead of mining and mining through Things basically it's hand delivered as a prescription to you.

Morgan Latimer, please explain each KPI. Let's look here.

Okay, so on here, this little icon here, this little eye icon will tell you how we are calculating that.

Time to close is essentially the amount of time it goes from the time they ask for the lead or to ask for the quote to the time that you actually get an accepted estimate.

The lead response time. I'm sorry, lead response time is the amount of time it takes from the time they asked for the estimate to the time the estimate is sent to them. So again if you click on the little eye icon, it'll tell you more. I know that the graphic part here is so small, I hate it. This is something that we'll be addressing but in terms of like what it means go the icon, it'll tell you exactly what is time to close is, you know, how long is an estimate stay impending. So the thing with instant pricing is a lot of times our lead response time is zero because literally the same second that command center is creating the estimate, they are accepting it. So you know, close ratio is pretty straightforward. Time to get paid, how long is an invoice stuck? And pending your labor efficiencies, your budget hours divided by your clocked hours. And if you're not, one thing to keep in mind why this might not match up with P4P is if you are not keeping track of budget hours on things like to DOS etc. So yeah, so just go through the little eyes, it'll walk you through these. The actual graphics themselves are abysmally small. Look at like the size of my current screen compared to the whole thing is, is pathetic. It should be much more easy to zoom into this and be larger. So we have insights into making this a lot smoother in the future on mobile specifically, but even on desktop.

So.

Number six. Mr. Anonymous, hypothetically if you, if you were not a credited investor, but the safe requirement is to agree to the terms and being one, do you need to prove that you are one? So there is basically inside of a safe we're allowed to have up to 35 non accredited investors. If you're an accredited investor, essentially you meet certain requirements and there's like a self, what's it called self verification process. I've heard the exact terms of it. It's like $100,000, you make 250,000 a year. There's a couple other things and so you can self accredit as that. And if you're not, then it'd be something that down the road we'd have to like open it up separately for you. But it is a self self attesting. We are not requiring you to submit that information to us and prove that you have money sitting around or prove on your tax returns how much money you're making. And so it's really is just a self assessment and so it is not required. We are allowed to have up to 35 non accredited in into the safe and so we're looking to like okay, if we ever wanted to let more people what would entail it would likely mean we, we have to do some more disclosures for those people and a couple other things. So we've looked into it but basically right now we have like I think it's up to 35 and they're non accredited and then it is up to you to self assess whether you are an accredited investor or not. And there's. Oh man. There's a site I was going to share what's it called?

Self credit. Anyway, sorry.

I had it the other day, I was looking at the other day but basically it's a way for you to be able to self assess like are you an accredited investor or not and be able to self assess. But we are not taking tax returns, we are not asking for submission of funds and yes technically you can just check that box and move forward. So it's really on your part to assess that and then if we ever wanted to or needed to open it up to non accredited we are allowed to have up to 35 in our in the safe as it stands.

Alright, I think that is all the questions for today. I hope you all have a fantastic Thursday and we will see you tomorrow. Remember one week from the day we are doing the Mastermind or sorry the roundtable we got several cool updates from preferred vendors to updates to the website stuff that's coming down the pipe so looking forward to it. Love you all and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.