Mike Minutes Mastermind 04/20/2022

Good morning destination. Hope you're all doing super well. I was thinking about it and I think what I'll do is when there are franchise related updates, I'll give those first before I jump into questions instead of doing the updates at the end. So that way if you just listen to the first few minutes of each of these morning videos, you'll at least get an update of things that are changing or we're working on or things like that. And if you can't stay for the rest of it for questions, then that's fine. So a couple things here based upon what we were talking about in the Facebook group last night. One thing to really make sure that I would recommend is when you see a first time mo set up on your schedule, check to make sure that there is a credit card on file. Command center is supposed to put those on there. If we sell it on the phone, there's a couple ways around that currently and that is the client says okay, thank you, I'm going to get back to you next week, we'll be back in town and we'll get back to you then say well is there anything we can answer for you now or any. No, no, just send it to me and we'll do that. And then they sure enough, next week do it. Click accept on the estimate. Well, we don't have a credit card on file now. Even though the email that is sent to them automatically asking for their credit card information, there's a chance that they don't they get through without putting a card on file because they're not going to give us a car, a credit card if they're not accepting an estimate on the phone, we should be getting it if they accept. And that is something that we are cracking down on now. But there's still right now the way through that is they don't accept on the phone. They ask us to send the estimate over via email. They could accept. They get the automation to set up their credit card but they don't. That is how you could potentially be doing a one time MO without a card on file. So what I would recommend is just double check when you see a first time mo on the schedule, make sure that their card is on file.

And what was I going to say about that? Oh yeah. Another way unfortunately they can also do this inside of server solidify is actually we get their card on the phone, they get the email log into their account, they can actually then take off the card from their file. I've only seen this happen one time. I don't like they have to have malicious intent to do that. But I don't think that's a big issue. But it's a way around it. They can literally go into their account once that email gets to them and then disable the ability for us to charge their card that is on file. So that's only in Service Autopilot but yeah. So I would just recommend every single time you do a first time mo that when you see on the dispatch board just go into the client profile real quick, make sure there's a card attached and you should be good. So next thing, couple things is Zooper. There are four or five new training videos. I think another one's going up today on Zooper in terms of invoicing, editing, recurring jobs and and a couple others. So check that out on Zooper. On the academy we are working on several things here at Command center in terms of securing everyone's data a little bit better. We have obviously service autopilot, Google, all these other companies are supposed to be doing their own security stuff. But as we become larger, as we become we're sharing more and more information between you and us, us and you customers and us customers and you, we're going to try to add even more protection. The last thing we need is a security data breach in the middle of spring rush. So I don't think anyone's. We're not big enough yet for someone to make a bunch of money by hacking and then you know, basically saying give us money. That's not, that's not so much an issue. It's more a matter of like customers.

Credit card information being leaked or you know, if Service autopilot has a leak and then somehow tied back to one of our customer one of our accounts or something crazy like that. We have cyber security insurance on the franchise level payout to wazoo for that. But we are going to be probably working on some VPN stuff and some other things. We already have two set verification on a lot of the accounts and you know, obviously it's somewhat of a pain to get those. I understand that. But all that's for security especially when you have so many people at command yourself and then just people online even that can access the web chat and even their online portals, things like that. We just want to make sure are locked up. So we're working on some VPN stuff and we'll eat that cost here at the command center. I think it's all I had for direct updates. There were some questions I saw that popped in last night. So let me just go ahead and share my screen.

Oh, and real quick for the Zooper obviously academy done. And then just go for more training and Zooper, there's the new videos right under here. They have new written next to them, these four. And there'll be another one going up later today. Also, I know that Google and Nextdoor both changed their ad platforms, so the done for you ads will be getting updated.

By the end of this week. By this weekend I'll have those up. So I know that they've changed significantly. And like they're changing so fast right now, I almost kind of slow down my videos because otherwise I'd be making videos like every single couple weeks. And just the way they're changing next door and Google right now, just those two. So obviously all these local deal ones are completely irrelevant now because they've changed their platform completely and based upon early tests. I'm not a fan at all. But I will at least make updates for you for now and then within a few months I'll make a determination based upon the data if it's even worth it at all to do be using their platform anymore. All right, Kevin had a question here. What's the best way to tell a customer? What's the best, what's the best to tell a customer after doing the first time? You have to raise the price substantially or you cannot continue to service. There's a large property that takes a lot time to cut and blow. What happened is I told them we would do winter services for $160. Okay, one hour, two people. When it came to mo, CC rolled the $160 over to bi weekly mo and it takes way longer than one hour to blow to mow and blow with two people. So this will not work.

Got it.

Let me think, give me a second here. I would just have an honest conversation with them like, and just be like, hey, the 160 that we, we, we price for you is for the winter services, but the mowing is taking us twice as long or whatever it is and we just can't do it at that price anymore. And I'm assuming you probably have to run 40, $50 at least. And so I just had that honest conversation with them and say we tried to honor that price but we just can't. We're just losing money. And if people are, are reasonable, they'll, they'll be okay with that. And if they're not going to take an increase because you gave them pricing based on winter services and now the mowing you can't honor that price. That's just so different. Then you know, I just drop them and then just make sure you put notes in their account that says winter services are 160. But then the mowing price is different because otherwise that's really what winter services based on is always that biweekly price. If you're doing biweekly services for winter services. So for example, that, that, that customer would not be able to get the email that says.

You know, the, the winter service will be the same prices as your mowing prices. Right. So that, that reducing the friction is why we've always said that and done that that way. So you just need to make sure that person doesn't get that email because obviously you'd be changing that for them a little bit. So I just have an honest conversation with them. But if you're losing 50, $60 in a mo like that, I just be like, look, when I gave you the pricing that was for winter services, we tried to honor that for the mowing services but it's just not, it's just not working for us and we' each time.

My closing ratio is 40 for April, I want to increase it because I'm bringing on another guy next week and need more work. Here's what I've done so far. Drop prices since the beginning of the year. A hundred dollars an hour to $80 an hour. Eliminated dump fees and estimate fees given all in person estimates. A magnet and pen sent all estimates in the 24 hours, usually a lot sooner and called estimates the day after the follow up. Any advice on what I can do to increase my closing ratio? Yeah, like max. I know your market pretty well too. 40 to 50% at $80 an hour is probably where you're going to be at, honestly because there are a lot of cheap competition in your area. And it's not to say that you can't have a high close ratio. It just means that you're hitting up against where you're kind of hitting your full capacity at 40, 50% close ratio at charging $80 an hour. Right. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be too worried about that. Honestly, I think that what you might want to double down, especially if you have a short term like you're trying to, to level up and get work for next week is probably sending an extra one click estimate email for projects which is kind of out of the ordinary because usually this time of year you don't want to be focusing on projects. You want to be focused on recurring work only. But you're not going to be able to get 30, 40, 50 lawns this week sold. But if you sold three or four big projects, you literally might be booked out for that one person for an additional two or three weeks, which then gives you those three weeks to then slowly get those recurring lows to the point where when you burn through those three or four jobs that you get from one click estimate emails, you know how you now have more recurring jobs to keep that person busy.

Bloomington, do we get notified if we are outside of the systems I.e. estimate notes or wiki pages matching things? This is a challenging, challenging one because like when I'm in training, for example, when we're, when we're going as fast, like if someone's like doing talk or like we call talk is the web chat, for example, and we're in a time crunch like that, we're trying to answer the customer, we usually can kind of figure it out. And a lot of times it's not like things are said contrary, they just, they could be taken differently between like wiki and dispatch notes, for example. But like the estimate notes, for example, I still see a lot of times people do not do supplies and hours. They just start putting in random things with commas. Little things like that we usually can figure out. We know what you're trying to say, and we don't want to bother you and be like, hey, this was wrong. Here's what should have been. We don't want to do that 10 times in a day for you. But what I would say is if you're getting a lot of questions like what does this mean? Why is it not your estimate calculator? What is the price for this.

Then? Then you might want to take a look at it, because.

For example, people putting dollar amounts inside the brackets is fine. But if you put 4 yards mulch $120, but then per yard in your estimate calculus, $40, we're going to default. We train everyone to default to what you give us in the estimate notes. And that's the way it should be. But just know that you're opening yourself up to a small, small little window of error that can happen. And that is they have to make that decision. They're trained to take what's in the notes. But there's always that thing like, look, it says in the estimate calculator per yard amount is $40. So therefore it should be 160. So you're just opening yourself to margins of error. And when that compound, like when there's not the estimate note done correctly. The.

The dispatch board and the wiki notes are say different things in terms of estimator availability, things like that. When you compound all that, that's what creates a 10 15% margin of error instead of 1 or 2% because those things compound. So but yeah, I would just say Bloomington in terms of being notified. If it's really, really stark, we're going to reach out and just say hey, this is wrong. We don't understand what you're saying here. But if you're just getting lots of questions, that's when I would ask yourself. But still to this day I would say 60 to 70% of the estimate notes I am doing in training are not to the standard. There's something missing either. There is not correct commas, things are not in the estimate calculator numbers in the estimate notes and the estimate calculator don't match, etc. But again, 40, 50% of locations do a fantastic job of it. So again, just a quick reminder too, like making sure that your estimate when it's clicked complete has all the notes in it because now that command center is on your heels. If you're just clicking complete and then I'll add the notes later or add the rest of the estimate later, it's going to get sent out with half the notes being done. So just a reminder there.

Is there a way to an essay to bulk send paid invoice receipts to clients after bulk charging cards? I believe there is. I don't really train on that side. I'm not the best at the back end of that part. I don't train on that side. So definitely reach out on the Facebook group. And Liz Akira Lonnie, someone else can help you with that I'm sure. I know there is a way. I did not know of it right off the top of my head. Nick.

Okay, long question. Long questions are in advance. I hate bi weekly modes. It beats the crew up and it's hard to account for the additional workflow every other week. The extra time is never enough for Fescue during the spring or enough for Bermuda in the summer. It's hurting our consistency for scheduling. It causes client service days to always change from week to week and it's hard to get them consistent. We also have two. We also have two what I would describe as gra. Oh I see. We also have two what I would describe as grass growing rushes. March, April, May for Fescue and June, July, August for Bermuda, Georgia.

St. Augustine. This causes no reprieve for the crew and hard to split up mandatory weekly modes like Bellingham, March, April, May requires weekly mowing because we service warm and cool season turf. Due to being in the transitional zone for turf, it's not easy to track who has what type of yards and it's not easy for command to know the difference. Most clients honestly don't know what they have. Yep. What are your thoughts about requiring weekly mows for the entire season regardless of grass type? I would say the split is 60 to 40% on the percentage of lawns with fescue versus Bermuda. I think it would create consistency, workflow and scheduling. But obviously we lose some customers who want bi weekly. Just something that would. That might eliminate headaches now and we are continuing to grow. Thoughts? Yeah, I would just standardize it across the board. Weekly mowing is required from month to month and for you it would be March to August or just across the board weekly mowing is required and not even give it as an option. The thing that I would say is I would still put it on the the estimate if people cancel services like once. Like for example, you skip someone's lawn because they have a bunch of ladders and toys all over their lawn. When you skip that next service, that next one should be an upcharge using the biweekly price. But I would just put it in the, in the the estimate. Comments what is required and that is weekly services required.

Given these months.

And for you to be March through August if assuming that September, October, November, December, and especially for those of you who like Brandon will do like one cut in December or January. Yeah, I would just say weekly mowing is required due to high growth during from March through August. Right. And then just if they click accept that's it's part of the schedule. It's, it's. It's. You have it in writing that it is required. I just do it across the board. And in terms of peeling off the band aid of existing customers, you would probably lose a few. But in the middle of spring rush right now and most of them need weekly anyways is when I would do it. So for you, I'd probably do it in like May. Chuck, like when you're kind of having that crossover of fescue and Bermuda when they kind of both need weekly, I would send the email out and just say going forward we're going to be requiring weekly services for your lawn through these months. And the reason for this is because it just makes it a better customer experience for scheduling. It's very difficult for us to do scheduling on a biweekly basis. I'd pitch it that way and just roll with it because. And I'd do it during that time when they need weekly already because it's not such a hard pill to swallow for them.

Cool. All right, that's all the questions I had today. Hope you guys have a great day, and I will see you tomorrow morning.