Mike Minutes Mastermind 05/01/2025

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Mike Man's Mastermind. We're back in the house.

Well I guess early this morning.

And we are rocking and rolling just as of like two minutes ago. Three minutes ago. Copilot has released several improvements based upon feedback on the estimate side of things. You will get emails, if not tonight, tomorrow morning. It won't change your workflow at all and nothing has been enabled. It's an optional thing you can turn off or on, sorry, you can turn on for pay in full options. So you'll get emails on that tonight. I'll be sending a video out next week on it but it will be cool. And then we have some other stuff coming out in a couple weeks as well so it should be very good.

One quick note, once you have your new automations set up from Command center, um, keep in mind we have increased the frequency of the estimate follow up automation. In the past on day 10 Command center would get an email saying hey, call the customer if they don't respond or they say no mark. The estimate declined but now there is a step for calling at day one, day three and then day ten. Now Command center can do this for you day one and day three. But I, I recommend if you have time the estimator be the one to make those calls. So all you'd have to do is go into the automation and change day one, day three to yourself. Now we're not going to send it to you if you're not going to do it. So it's going to default to going to Command center unless you go in there and just change it to yourself. Or if we see that you've already been doing that like a lot of people have already set up their little automations like remind yourself to do follow up phone calls. If we see that we'll make sure those are going to. But just as a heads up, once Command center has set that for you or if you're setting up for yourself, you'll notice that there's substantially more follow up on text and phone calls for estimate follow up. Make sure if you want to do phone calls on day one and three yourself that you change those notifications to be coming to yourself. So very good.

All right, let's go ahead and jump right in. I think that's all I had right present.

Share why is this not working?

There we go. Share screen Boom. Got six responses today. First one of them is from Mr. Anonymous. Is there a way for someone to build up their personal capacity or is it. Is everyone born with the temperament Capacity they're stuck with. I'm working on this as I'd eventually love to run multiple businesses. However, the thought of having, having to manage everything stresses me out. For me, I get burnout quickly if I do not rest, get time off and I'm able to recharge the old batteries. I am a true introvert and my social and people meter very quickly drains. So I really like first and foremost that you stated facts and do not start to make hyper hyperbolic.

Statements like because after, at the very end of this, most people say I am very true, I am a true introvert. My social and people meter very quickly drains. Therefore or.

And because of that I cannot be a good leader or I cannot be a good general manager. So I'm always very careful to not say those sort of things over myself just as me personally I don't. I would never allow those words to enter, exit my mouth and my ears to hear them because you will eventually start to believe them. And if you have that limiting belief, we have a problem. So I would first off just, just note that there are introverts that have become great leaders. There are introverts that have been great business owners. There are introverts that have done all the things that you want to do and more. And so it is not an excuse or not even excuse. It is not a prerequisite for being a great leader or having multiple businesses in which you, you described here.

To be an extrovert. You don't have to be Will certain aspects of leadership be easier when you're louder, when you're a little more boisterous, when you're more commanding, when you have a more dominating presence? Yes. There'll also be more areas of difficulty if you're really, really tall. It's actually really difficult to come across humble. It's sometimes very difficult to not intimidate new people to the team or entry level people. And so there's, there's pros and cons. Everyone's, you're dealt with what you got for, for some things. But you can absolutely change your personal capacity. So when you think about, you know, asset capacity or labor capacity, those are things I hire more employees, I buy more trucks when it comes to personal capacity, although it is much more, much harder to quantify. It's also in my opinion the cheapest thing to fix because one really good book, one really good conversation, one really good coaching call, one just sentence line, scripture poem, one little thing could be the key that unlocks a huge amount of personal capacity for you and the business. Whereas to increase asset capacity I would have to buy more trucks, hire more people if I'm increasing my labor capacity. And so I actually think personal capacity is the, is a huge unlock. There's a turnaround. You won't see it for six to eight weeks but I did it yesterday out in Ohio. $1.7 million business. Been in business for 25 years.

Wow. Wow. Like it's very rare that we go to a Turnaround. And the 4L frame on the 4L framework Leadership is the one that they're having trouble with. And he was in terms of just the way he communicates. His dad never congratulated him, never told him he was proud of him. He actively thinks the business is bad because of spiritual reasons. He thinks money is bad and trying to make money is bad. And so like he's gonna fight through that fog but because of that he, he lets that affect the way he leads his team. He doesn't give people high fives, he doesn't encourage them. He doesn't look for the good in what they're doing. He never congratulates them like they come. He comes across as cold and formal with them. So all of that say this is a trait that can be learned. Now let's give you more of a tactical thing. I would recommend leadership training and tactics from Jocko Willink. Read that book. It is so, so good. All right, Dustin Beer Nink Thoughts on charging more for the customers that must that must pay via check that is non profits businesses, older customers that say they don't have a card. The amount of admin time to run to the post office, input the check payment and run to the bank sucks. And the automations annoy these customers because they say they sent a check already. Not to mention we are the bank until we finally receive payment. This is fewer and fewer as time goes on but it gets increasingly annoying to still receive checks as we are now in 2025.

So the thing is this, if you, if you require a credit card on file, they're not going to accept the estimate. They would have to reach out to you and ask for hey, I don't, I need check. Only the hard part about that is if then you turn around and say oh well because of that there's an upcharge. It's really difficult to turn that around honestly. Like if they call in like hey I can't put a car on file because we only do check, it's a, it's a commercial or a business or I'm an older customer or whatever. It's really difficult to sell them when you're like oh yeah, okay, oh, if you change it's going to be X amount more expensive. So what you could do. I'm not saying everyone should do this by the way. I'm just saying if this is a big problem for you and it is enough pain to actually warrant doing anything about, you could put in your estimate. This price includes having a credit card file additional payment or additional fees will be incurred if checks or cash is accepted. You could just put something like that. That way if they do actually say I want to have checked, you say no problem. Just so you know, you see it on the estimate, there is an additional charge and then they would be expecting it again. The whole credit card on file situation coming out Monday to everyone should also close this loophole of people being able to accept again, there might be that out person that right now would not even fill out the form because they don't have a credit card or they don't want to or whatever. And it just becomes a matter of like do you want that customer? And if you don't, then don't allow them in, in my opinion. And then if you do want to accommodate them, you could potentially have a fee attached to it. But you just want to make sure that's clear in your so like for example the gym we have, we have our pricing and it says assumes ACH payment and if you would like to do credit card as an extra $3. So everyone just goes with ach. So we are actively working on inside copilot trying to distinguish between ACH and credit cards. I'm not guaranteeing anything because we're still seeing like what the ramifications of this are so that you can either a like for example eat the cost on ACH but then pass along the fees on credit card and like a little more versatility and customization there we are exploring that for future iterations inside Copilot. Next question from Mr. Normous. I've kicked around the idea of helping of having someone help me film and edit videos on a YouTube channel. I was thinking of doing a life a day in the life mowing, etc. My hesitation is I do not want to be the one actually shooting and editing the videos. This is not something I enjoy doing and I probably wouldn't be consistent with it because of this. Knowing that, knowing what you know now and having experience with a media team. How would you go about this to be able to get content out there, but not also so hiring a Full time videographer, editor. Okay, good question. So if you wanted a full time editor in person and they you wanted them to shoot, edit, publish, do things from click to close, essentially it is being expensive. By the time you pay someone like you're looking at, because you're gonna have to be local to shoot with you, you're looking at at least 60, $70,000 plus their taxes and benefits and etc. So like it's not cheap. What I would recommend if you're getting started is find someone on upwork that you could give a Google Drive file to and say hey, this is kind of what I'm thinking and come back to me. You can access people overseas if you wanted to. There's definitely more management of them. FYI, they're not going to understand certain freak phrases, et cetera. You're also then going to have to have a videographer that's local. So you have to have a videographer. You're going to have to be the liaison between that and then handing it off to an editor. So it can get a little more cumbersome if you go the virtual route. Now if you find someone local and you're just going to contract it out, it's also going to be pretty pricey because usually they're going to be charging the realm of 80 to 120 an hour at least to film, bring their gear out, etc. So this is my, my 2 cents. This is what I would do. I would personally do more vlog style if you're trying to get started. I would get a gorillapod. You can look it up. It's a little thing for your like a handle that's movable, can grasp onto things. Gorilla Pod on the end I would have the attachment that goes to my phone on the 3.5 millimeter screw. That way you can just throw your, your phone in there, bend it back and you're rocking and rolling. Cameras are really good. You could shoot in 4k for all I care. Even if you just did 1080p 60 frames per second, it'll look really good. I would start there, I would upload it to upwork to find an editor. The shooting now you're doing yourself and you don't have to get someone locally. And then you can hand this off and probably get it edited depending on the type of editor you get for.

$500,000. Depending again like are you doing vlog style? Are you doing high production, Are you doing teaching? Just like there's you $100. You could also throw this into AI by the way. So it depends on what you're trying to do in terms of graphics, text. Like, there's so many layers. So I'd have to know what you're trying to do a little bit more in terms of what style of video to give you more guidance there. But I certainly can answer more of those questions. So. Josh Short from Yorktown, Indiana. Two questions.

One, I've come across a client that wants to trade a new enclosed trailer for service for the next year. I've calculated the work and it comes to $6,700 for the year. For the work she is looking for mowing service, moss insulation, leaf cleanups, and overseeing the trailer is in pristine condition for everything except the tires. Sitting for three years would do that. To go out and buy the same trailer would set me back $7,000. Cougar brand seven by 18 and close. Wow, it's a big trailer today. Maybe I'm just overthinking it. I have a need for a second trailer, and one is being offered. Okay, this is the first one. Okay.

So here's the thing. You're only. You're only. You know, you're basically saving $300, but then you're seeing your cost of good. Since you only pay cost of goods sold in 6700, let's just say you're really saving like two or three probably. Right. So if you really need the trailer, I think this is a good move. I would make sure it's very, very clear in writing of what's included here so that way it doesn't get murky. Nine months into this, when she's like, oh, I thought it also include fall cleanups. Like, no, like it didn't. And then he's like, I want my trailer back. So, like, I'd be very clear on your. When you're doing this sort of exchange of what's included, what's not included, what would require a work order change. I'd be very, very clear about that so you don't turn this relationship sour. My two cents. Second one. Are you planning on making an app for franchisees to make Mike Brains AI chat? For those of us in the field, it would really help to have a quick and easy way to answer questions and not have to go to the website. This is not at all a must. But it would be nice being his deep. Being hip deep in spring rush makes it much better later in the year. Thank you. Yeah, so I'm working on this. I am actually trying to get it where it's text and or WhatsApp so you can have your WhatsApp for like.

ATC at copilot. It's only for augustination have that number and then you can have a separate one is Mike Andy's AI chat and this literally talk to me on WhatsApp and it's. It's really good. And so especially I've seen because I can see the conversation on the back end and people from Augusta get the best answers because you're speaking to it like I you would talk to me that way and so I don't have to guess what you're talking about when you say capacity 4L framework, you know, asset based growth. Like these are the type of things that we always talk about and I say in my vocabulary. So the best answers usually come back to you all. But yeah it would just be for Augusta probably for WhatsApp. I'm trying to figure out text too just so in case someone doesn't have WhatsApp for some reason. But it'll at least be WhatsApp. So I'm working on that. It'll be a few weeks so I got to register the number. I've got to do several things on connecting the technology but I'm hoping within the end of the month. Hopefully that's probably a reasonable timeframe unless Twilio takes a long time on the texting side. I can get that set up for you guys. Yeah. Cause I know going to the website sometimes just a bit of a pain and if you just WhatsApp it and it does the same thing, you know. Let's go Mr. Anonymous. We have an idea to have the mother in law help with administrative tasks in the business. Everyone's excited about the idea. She lives in Mozambique. Is there anything going to get funky with a copilot login and actions happening from Mozambique charging cards? My assumption is no because I'm assuming COPI is hosted in the US but definitely figured it wouldn't hurt to ask so it shouldn't. If you ever did though you get her a vpn. So VPN will allow her to be able to appear with her IP address as if she's coming from the US and be fine. It definitely would not be copilot stripe might occasionally throw a flag on this and just require more authentication. So when I go out of country or I'm traveling almost all my stripe stuff I have to get logged out of Facebook. It'll do this to you. Email Google definitely it'll do this to you. So as long as you're okay with two fa. If Like a password authenticator app. Be very, very helpful. Like 1Password is really good. I use LastPass, but I like 1Password more. FYI, what else should I be careful of? Yeah, VPN. I just use a VPN and like 1Password. LastPass.

VPN. What's it called? Shark. Sorry, I have a certain VPN. I use Shark. Something there is Surf Shark. I use Surf Shark. No plug for them. Just that's what I use for my vpn. It just allows you to be able to look to the databases if you're from a different country. I get it because it's helpful for us to test stuff because sometimes someone have a bug and it's like, we cannot replicate this. No one is having this problem. And it's because this person's from the Congo and it's like, oh, they're not allowed to see a certain thing in their country and it's getting blocked. So that's why I have the vpn. Jameson. I have a two man crew that consistently does not hit budget hours on job. They will get less than seven budget hours done today. I know that one of the jobs is slow. One of the guys is slow and the other guy hit P4P by himself before. Is this a problem of budget hours being wrong or the slow employee holding them up? I've been thinking about letting him go for a week now because it doesn't seem too interesting getting better or speeding up thoughts. I would probably talk to the person who's, the person who's, who's capable. You think of going faster. Do they already see this as a problem? Maybe they don't want to speak up. Maybe they don't want to be, you know, tattling on their, their team member. But if they're, if they've hit above base pay and they're money motivated, they know they're going slower. And so I would potentially I would, I would try to bring this up not in the fashion like are they not working hard? The person you're working with don't do that. Like, hey, I noticed that, you know, last week you were able to make above base pay. Fantastic. I want to make sure that continues today. You guys did seven hours between the two of you. That's 3.5 budget hours each. You're a little bit below. So I just want to make sure, I'm setting you up. What can I do to make sure? I'm giving you all the resources you need to be able to hit budget hours and make more money. Because I know you got it last week. I want that to continue. I want that to grow. I want to be. Not $100. I want to be two or $300 a paycheck. So frame it from that perspective. Like, what can I do to help you make more money? What can I do to help you be more efficient so you can make more money? Not why are they, you know, why is the person you work with so slow? Or are they slow? Like, don't force them to rat them out. Just be. If you take that approach, what potentially will happen is like, yeah, like, man, I'm working with him sometimes tough. Like, it's just. We just don't go as fast. And you can ease them into potentially giving you information that you might need to make a firing decision, but not make them feel like you are.

You know, making them do something they feel might be. Is compromising to the person they're with. Right. And it's nothing bad against them. It's just a function of. Some people are not comfortable talking about other people. Other people, they'll tell you within the first five minutes, if someone's slow or someone else is lazy or doing something off, off on the clock, that's bad. So just different personalities, I guess. I don't know who that person is, but the person works fast. But if their personalities, they don't want to talk about it and they try to block for their team, it can sometimes actually be difficult to get them to talk up or speak up. Usually with the money motive people, they will.

But I would just approach it from like, you trying to serve them, you trying to ask for their feedback of how you can improve to make their job and their life easier. And then hopefully out of that, they get some. You. You'll get some more information about this other person and as to why they've been slower recently.

All right, everyone, hope you have a fantastic day. Look forward to seeing you all tomorrow, if not tonight, first thing in the morning, you guys will get the go to market marketing messaging around the pay in full option. You'll be able to toggle it on if you would like. There's a lot of improvements made to the estimates of how they look based upon all of your feedback. So thank you very much. Things like the recommended tab just being bigger, the name of the customer being at the top instead of the big dollar amount. Lots of little changes they made based on everyone's feedback in the survey. So thank you all. They really take Augusta. We have a separate thing for Augusta feedback and prioritize that and just. We just know where you all are coming from. So much better. So appreciate you and hope you have a fantastic evening.