Mike Minutes Mastermind 04/25/2023

Good morning everyone. Let's go ahead started. Let me just drop this into Facebook. I did check in with Liz and she did confirm that if someone's out of their service area and we find that out, but we already have their information, we are going to put them into your account but we're going to make sure that we either mark them as do not disturb so they don't get any information or altogether take out their email address so they don't get your one click estimate emails. So that way if you ever did move into a new area and there would been, you know, a couple years went by, you want to move into a different zip code or even potentially start a second location, you might already have 100, 200 contacts potentially that have already already in your system. So that was just from a question I think last Friday. Let's jump into some new questions.

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This is from Anonymous. Is there a list for Chuck to go through each day of task he needs to get done? For a gm, it could be relatively easy. If you have four estimates, that is two budget hours and filled the other four to six hours with work As a regional manager, is he just bouncing from location to location to make sure everything is in order? I know with Chuck being a coach his day is full, but if he was a regional manager, what would his day be? Yeah, we don't really have a specific thing for him. The reason is like a checklist or time because there's no one else in Augusta Nation that has five, six locations as probably next year and beyond when people start getting more, we'll definitely create more systems around the regional manager position. I would say off the top of hand that like I think once, I think someone's max to start off in one month is like four, maybe five and then as a regional manager and then they could probably maximize, like probably manage 10 locations that are running and functioning. But starting out four or five locations is tough. That's why I like with the, the executive model that has six locations, we allow someone, I think it's 12 months to get them all started.

They don't have to start them all in the first month. Even if they have all their GMs, they might only want to do like say three and then wait a few months and start three more or wait till next spring and do three more because it's difficult to do like six locations in one month. But in terms of the daily of a regional manager, he, he's watching the man, the numbers he's seeing checking in with the GMs, he has weekly meetings with them. He has one on ones as well as all of them together. And then obviously if someone's struggling, whether it be they're out, they're sick or their numbers are really bad, yeah, he's going to step in and actually like do like be there. And that's the value of having the regional manager being close by. And I think it's very, very important to have the regional manager close to your locations.

All right, next one. Kevin from Bloomingdale. On Friday morning I found out my commercial auto insurance had been canceled. So we could not work on Friday and a couple hours on Monday because we didn't have commercial auto insurance. Anyway, my one employee was asking if he can be paid for when we couldn't work because there was a problem on my end. Otherwise he would have worked these days. What are your thoughts on this? Definitely not. Would definitely not be paying him. He can work this coming Saturday if he wants to get the hours on this pay period.

The same way that you wouldn't pay them if it was raining. The same way that you wouldn't pay them. You wouldn't pay them if they were sick and they, or they called out and they wanted to go take a day off. So give. If you want more hours, give them, give it to them on a Saturday.

That being said, I'm guessing it just laps. Then you have to like pay or something like that. So that stinks. You should be get. Your agent should be notifying you or someone should be notifying you prior to lapsing. So I don't know if it lapsed. Whatever. That's. That's a different issue. But in terms of like whether you pay them, I'd be giving them more hours on the weekend they want. If they need more hours, I get that.

But it's part of business. Devin from Red Deer. Do you guys use payment plans for customers? If so, do you have any recommendations? I'm in Canada. Might be different than us. We don't do payment plans. I usually don't recommend it. I know that with wise tac, Buy now pay later is an option inside Zooper and we'll have it inside a copilot as well. But typically someone who needs Buy now pay later on jobs that are under a couple thousand dollars. It's probably not the customer you really want anyways, just to be honest with you. But beyond that, I would not do payments.

Marcus from Redmond, could you please have a look at this potential shop space and let me know your thoughts? Photos below. Rent is sixteen hundred dollars a month with two trucks each. Additional truck is fifty bucks a month. Comes with garage enough to fit my equipment, any equipment I'd ever need and to park a truck inside if needed. Well water, well electricity, automatic lights and motion cameras. Gravel space enough to park about eight vehicles and four trailers can, can dump debris on site. Oh, that's nice. He's gotten bids much higher than mine. Some in excess of 2400amonth. I'm even competing with Amazon for land as it's so scarce around me. I've sold him mostly on the idea that I'm a young hungry business owner. My currently current place is just over 650 out of a storage unit just a minute down the road. This would be a paying for a lot for rent now as I'm just getting started. But to secure a piece of land like this long term would make it able to grow. My final goal, 800k annual revenue. I'm keen on growing to just 200k this year. So it doesn't make sense at this stage other than growing it as quick as possible. Should I lock in this place for the long term.

Look at these.

Okay, There's a picture. 400 square foot on a lot. Okay. So that's kind of like a storage. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So just for everyone that doesn't, isn't, doesn't know this area. Redmond is extremely high end. It's kind of where Microsoft operates out of. It's extremely hard to find land like this. So if you're like thinking that this is crazy expensive, you're right. But also in this market, 80 to $100 per hour is not hard to get in terms of labor because it's just the market. So because I know you, Marcus, and I know what you're going to do, I would give you the 100% pass on this. I think it's a good deal especially because you can dump debris on site. That's the kicker. So I personally would approve this because I know you'll get, you'll grow very quickly and I know your business acumen and I know you're not doing this risking cash because you have cash reserved for this. So I think it's a good go. That means you're gonna be paying around, you know, 18, 19 hundred dollars a month once you have seven, eight trucks there and are doing 800,000 in annual revenue.

Not bad considering the fact that you will spend more on that, on debris right now. So yeah, I would do this especially if it's really good spots right down the road. It's perfect for long term growth. I would try to lock in a long term lease if I was you like at least three years. That way you don't ever like caught in a bind where you don't know where you can go next. Eric from Largo because when you're, when you're doing, when you're three, four years in the business and something like crazy happens with your lease or you got to move, it's not as big a deal because usually you can't. You have the money to buy so you have a little more flexibility. But when you're first getting started I would recommend trying to get at least a year, ideally three years in the perfect scenario, five years. Just keep in mind in five years you might be outgrowing that space, you might want a second location, et cetera, et cetera. So don't do too long because then you could be locked into something you don't actually want. Eric from Largo I'm searching for a new hire and ran into some surprisingly old applicants. One was 60 and the other was 56. Both had Zoom interviews and were both confident about having physical stamina to work outside before 40 hours a week. The 56 year old gentleman has a multiple years of recent work history doing law and landscape. My concerns would be one Physically capable to do quick and efficient and not just survive especially for projects like mulch installs. 2 not very but not motivated by P4P to work quicker or even be able to and will always coast at base pay. 3 can't motivate and sell a dream of growth and upward ability when they are almost at retirement. I like to give people chances and don't want to discount someone for their age but overall seems like a bad cat company and culture fit particularly for my current situation where I need a strong hire. I have a high base pay to attract one. Just making sure my thinking here is reasonable. So it comes down to what you're attracting now. Like if you're attracting really good candidates because of what you you just talked about here and I know your situation too, like high high pay, you're highly profitable, very very efficient routes, extremely well.

Start a well foundation of a business.

So if you're getting really good applicants you might just want to pass all these because they have question marks. If you're getting plenty of applicants I'd move on. Next I would say is there are people that are 56 years old that can outwork people that are in their 20s 100% what gives me courage is that he has recent history of doing law and landscape. What I get concerned of when someone's like, I've been bagging groceries. I'm 56 and now I want to go work out with my hands. I can do landscaping. It's like it's more than just pulling weeds and planting flowers. So that's what I've always seen to be the big issue. I would just say, hey, especially your size, Eric. I'd say, come have them work for you today doing a mulch install and you'll have a very clear understanding within a matter of four hours whether or not they have the stamina to work hard. And you could just say, like, I'm gonna do a working interview. I'm gonna pay you for this day. Come out on the job site with me. Let's go ahead and get started. I'll pay you no matter what for today in cash. And then at the end of the day, I'll assess and see if it's a good fit for us.

I would do that. Especially your size when you have 10, 15 guys. You can't do that when you have 1, 2, 3. That's not a bad option to be able to do, especially if you have excessive candidates and you can be a little more picky and choosy about who you're bringing on.

Is there a minimum? Oh, this is from Kevin from Bloomingdale. Is there a minimum for free shipping on Pro Shop now? I thought it used to be free shipping. Always with Augusta. I bought 20 worth of business cards, but they charge $5 for shipping. Not a big deal. But I thought I would check. Yeah, anything over $50 is what it's always been for free shipping.

That's the slowest shipping method. Yeah.

Yeah. So I would just, you know, wait until you have more than $50. You gotta buy. Honestly. It's always been that way. Connor from Evansville. When should you go into profit mode versus growth? We currently have four trucks. P1 is filled with two people doing projects that are larger or larger commercial. Mowing that we have. P2 and 3 have full solo routes as well as with 90% mowing and the rest small maintenance and projects. P4 is currently mine and is for estimates and whatever field I need to do rough. Currently at roughly 137 budget hours a week, I still have asset capacity. If I double P3 and P, P2 and P3. But at what point do I have cash? I just cash out and take a year profit or just fill to asset capacity. So there's no loss, opportunity cost versus labor capacity where I'm at now. Great, great point.

This will come down to honestly, your personal finances. If you have a little bit of money in the bank, I would probably stay on the offensive.

And that is fill up P2 and P3 with another employee. Because by doing that, you will be able to get to 180, 190 budget hours SIM a week by just adding in two more employees to those two trucks. And I'd potentially actually hire three people, knowing that now when you have five, six, seven guys, almost every day there's gonna be someone out sick, on vacation, it's their birthday, whatever it is. So that's what I would recommend doing if you're trying to maximize profit at both the labor capacity and asset capacity. That being said, if you, if, if you were like, hey, kind of, you know, in spring rush, I think I can get to maybe 140, 150 budget hours with my current crew, current trucks, and just stay there for this year.

That'S fine too.

So it really would come down to your personal finances. I think, though, at your, what you're currently standing here, you could easily get to 180, 190 budget hours by getting a couple more guys. Having more of a backup person, like over hiring, but just knowing that, like every day there's out of seven guys, there's going to be someone out because P1, there's two, P2, so one six. So yeah, you have up to six guys. Six times 30 is 180. Right. 180 budget hours is probably your capacity and where you'd maximize that pivot of profitability because you'd be maxing out your trucks and you'd be maxing out your team. And what I like is that you have P4 kind of already as a backup. Like, if someone really had to, you could let them take the truck out for P1, 2, P or P3. If any of those trucks went down, you could give them your truck for the day and you could make do with like a personal vehicle if it was down for a day. So again, you're, you're optimizing profitability at probably 180 budget hours with your current truck set up. When it comes to stress and what you financially want to take on, maybe instead of going to 180 budget hours, you're like, hey, let's just raise prices, stay around 140 budget hours and optimize for profit. And then I'll, I'll go past 180 next year. That's totally fine. It just comes down to your personal.

Circumstances and in a coaching call that's I'd be going over. So is what are the goals for this year financially? How do you feel? And it's okay. If you need to take the year, be at 140, optimize for profitability, raise prices, lower close ratio and just like literally just be like, okay, this is why in copilot I'm having that date booked until. Because I want you to see like okay 140 budget hours. And as soon as you start hitting up against that line, I I would literally I want it to be like if you see that number going red, if you see those. Those date things, I want to be able to tell all of you like when you see all those.

Lines, next four weeks go red, which means you're above budget hour capacity. Raise your prices or you need to increase your capacity right here. Just so everyone knows what I'm talking about. I know I talked about yesterday, but.

Here.

So.

No, not this one.

On your in co pilot when you get here, you got this is literally what your labor capacity is right here. Okay. When this starts to get close to this because it goes yellow within within 80 when it goes start turning red, that's when you're over capacity. And I will just tell everyone like when everyone. When you see all these go four yellows, you need a higher. If you're in growth mode, if they go yellow and you're in profitability mode, you need to raise prices means you're coming up against your budget hour capacity. I need to raise prices if all of these are yellow. So.

Yeah, it really is up to you at that point right now in terms of how close are you to that capacity. Do you want to raise prices right now, optimize for profit this year and then raise that red line by. By hiring people I. E. Increasing your budget hour capacity to 180 budget hours. So good combo. All right guys, have a fantastic day and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.