Mike Minutes Mastermind 05/09/2022

Good morning, Gusta Nation. Hope you're all doing super well. I don't have any big announcements, but I did see there were like five questions that came into the form and they were all really good ones. I had a chance to look through them. So let me go ahead and add that to the stream here and we'll jump in.

How do you balance meeting employees at the level, at their level, while calling them something higher? More specifically, employees need time to become skilled at lawn care, but the company also needs employees who produce quality work. We haven't had an issue with tons of callbacks, but sometimes when I arrive at a property afterwards to produce a new quote or provide a service, the quality of previous job is disappointing. I want to call my employees to higher standards, but also don't want to discourage them by demanding too much too soon fallbacks. Like, you might just have a standard that's almost unachievable for employees and most customers are just expecting this. And obviously the surveys, reviews are going to be telling of whether or not you're meeting their expectations. And then if you have a higher expectation in excess of, that's obviously fantastic. But it's a matter of training and that's going to take time. Right? So especially for max, like you getting your employees this year new and really growing quite quickly, it might mean taking a day of training, et cetera. And this is something like our local shop we really had to do. And that is literally stop for an entire day. Everything goes on hold and you just train. And that is when there's a delta between what I expect, what the customer expects, and what the employees are performing. When they. When that happens and you start getting callbacks, that's when you really have to go all in on training. If you're not getting callbacks, realize that you might have standards that like, might be way in excess of the customer. And I'm not saying you are, you have max, but just realize that if you're doing walkthroughs and the customer's happy and you're not getting callbacks and surveys are positive, just realize that as someone that's a perfectionist, you might have standards that are like significantly higher than 99.9% of the customers. Just keep that in mind.

Let's see here.

This is a good one. Recently, the issue of me requiring my guys to spray Roundup in the hard surfaces cracks to keep the weeds at bay longer and save us time by not having to line trim the weeds in the cracks every time has become the most recent point of Contention as we introduce P4P and they get upset about every little thing that hurts them from reaching P4Pmoney. I tell them every time that they get mad about something regarding PvP, I remind them that if they are losing time and money, then so is the business. So back to Roundup and how is that accounted for in the M.O. price we charge? I fully see now why Ryan Payne measures all hard surfaces and hardscape surfaces with the turf. The hard surfaces must be touched four times. Edged weeds and hard surface cracks knocked down, blown off could be leaves and and sticks in addition to grass clippers and require bag spray Roundup on weeds in hard surface cracks. So I my question and challenge for Mike in command to consider. Don't have to answer immediately on this mastermind is shouldn't we be measuring the hard surfaces with the turf for over the phone mowing estimates? Great. So this is a great question and I agree with you. The challenge that we have when we do by lot square footage is on larger properties. Because when you start talking about properties that are half an acre here. One second, guys, give me 10 seconds. My lighting. I forgot to turn a light on. One second here.

Okay. When it comes to larger properties, you might have a half acre or an acre and all of a sudden half of that property is not being mowed because just like pasture or there are ditches or just like areas that are not mowed. That's where it becomes difficult. And so the majority of our locations would be better off or be faster process just doing lot square footage. The thing is though too, you gotta remember, so when I have someone that has like local shop, hundreds of mowing customers, we would rather just save a couple extra minutes on the phone and just do a lot square footage. And this is probably, you know, Ryan. Ryan's large too. And so it's like look like this is use lot square footage. It's gonna be faster. But when we have three, you know, when we have someone that's getting started and their new location and they have five, six jobs and they're just getting started, every single one needs to be as accurate as possible. And so if one of those is says a $80 mo and really it's a $40 mo because half the property is not mowed, that's where we get a lot of issues. And so I'm open to this idea though. It'd be something that we would have to look at. Several of the locations that are large have large properties that the average is half an acre, an acre, et cetera. And seeing if this is something we could standardize. So I'm not against this and I completely agree and see why this would be a thought process, especially if you're spraying weeds and Roundup and things like that. We don't include that as a service. And what I would say is trying to do the Roundup actual portion during the summer months when the grass isn't growing very much, or any period when the grass isn't growing very much so that your guys are already beating base pay. And then so spraying some extra weeds in the cracks isn't going to affect them materially. On P4P, I would try to avoid doing something like that extra service during the spring rush or when things are growing really quickly. So that would be a more immediate fix. But then in terms of long term, I'm open to this idea. It's something that we would have to test considerably. And it's mostly the smaller locations and a location with larger properties. Those are the ones where I'm mostly concerned because accuracy does decrease as property size gets larger. So I hope that made sense. I'm not opposed to it though. I have two questions about profit sharing. I use accrual accounting, so do I still give a percentage of the net revenue, even though I might not necessarily have that money in the cat in cash in the bank, it's an equipment, etc. And it could also be accounts receivable. Still, with accrual accounting, what percentage of net profit should I be sharing while I'm in extreme growth mode? Okay, so let's talk about the first one. I actually really liked using cash accounting for profit sharing. And if you're in QuickBooks, you can just switch it from accrual to cash. Mostly because that way it's real money in the bank. Like it's change, like the Delta, the change of of money in the bank is what I'm paying profit sharing on. Mostly because things like, for example, you do a massive job and if you're not able to collect on it, like there is no profit. And yet all of a sudden now you have this. It's showing a big profit because it's accrual accounting. So I want it to be like, what's in the bank account is what I'm giving a piece of profit sharing for. And that's just my opinion. Obviously accrual is going to be used for the irs. It's going to be used for your taxes. But when it comes to profit sharing, I use cash accounting.

And it's just the most aligned with the business. And so it also makes sure that general manager is actually collecting on the accounts receivable and not just letting those pile up, etc. In terms of number two, what percentage of net profit should I be sharing while in extreme growth mode? If you're in extreme growth mode and you're using that cash based accounting, you're not going to have a ton of net profit. Right. And so this is why too honestly, cash accounting makes a lot of sense to employees because they just see like money in, money out. It's much less like, oh well, we got paid for this last month or we did the work this then and that. That's what gets confusing for employees and they start stop trusting. The process of profit sharing and overbook management is when they don't understand things. Right. So I've found cash accounting to be the most simplistic be like, hey look, we just literally take the transactions and we throw them in this, this P and L profit and loss and there it is. And so in terms of net profit, when you're growing really quickly, you're probably not going to have a lot of net profit. So I usually recommend 10% for everyone in the field is as a good starting point. But again, if you're growing really quickly and you're buying a lot of stuff, you're marketing all those things being accounted for as cash expenses, you won't have a ton of net profit. And that's why usually the first year or two you're just, you're showing the numbers. You might have small amounts that they're getting in terms of profit sharing, but it's down the road that they really start to make money once you move away from the business. Because profit sharing is really there to keep them motivated when they don't see you at the business all the time.

Maybe I'm alone alone in this, but could CC begin attaching aerial maps to quotes that are given over the phone? I'm not really doing much of the mowing, so I get a lot of calls about new properties that were done over the phone, about property lines and where they should mow. Oh, I see, you're saying.

Yeah, so a couple, we've tested this. The challenging part is several things. Number one, Google Earth Pro only allows you to do one polygon. And so if we have to do like a front and a back backyard or a side yard, what we have to do is add up those as separate shapes and we can't get a full picture. Now in, in actually inside service autopilot, you can Save these in time in terms of the, the maps to a specific account, which is awesome. The problem is you gotta have a 50 per month subscription. And so if we did that immediately, we'd be all paying an extra $5,000 a month across Augusta Nation to basically just have that. And I have a, I have struggle seeing that value prop, especially for smaller locations. So it's a matter of like just what can we standardize and tell everyone they have to do. We could to Google Earth again like the first thing I said only one shape at a time. So if we have to add up multiple shapes, you wouldn't be able to see that. The other thing is it's just another step in the process that makes it a longer call and just adds more and more variety and, and room for error. As the average tender command center begins to go back up to what we had last year, I feel like things like this we could potentially do. And then more importantly, once we're all in super, these are the type of things that we want to add, we can add. This is not like a super complicated thing. It's a matter of I'm already expecting people to know two softwares. I'm already kind of splitting everyone's attention. And so adding the aerial map is something we can do. It's another step. So I have to make sure that it's valuable enough for everybody to make it part of the entire system. Right. Because this is going to take an extra, you know, 20 seconds to take a screenshot, save it, attach it to the file, et cetera and that is going to be valuable. But it's got to make sure it makes sense for everybody if we're going to make it standard operating procedure. So we have tested this. It's definitely possible and it's definitely helpful, especially for you if you're not going to the property yourself ever to do mowing and stuff. I see the value in this. It's just a matter of right now Google Earth Pro not being able to save shapes. We have to add it manually and then we have more a matter of we're already. We've got to just reduce steps right now to reduce air. Every single time you add a new step, you're going to add air into it. Right. Like for example, this one could be a matter of oh, the, the screenshot wasn't taken, it wasn't attached or was attached incorrectly or the attached twisted things like that. That is what just creates more and more error. And so it's not to say it cannot happen. And I'M open to this happening, especially once Zooper. We're all on Zooper and I'm. We're able to train commands around one process, so. And the average tenor needs to come up to what we are. Last year we've like, we've talked about, we've stopped the bleeding and people leaving and now it's a matter of, you know, working the backlog, which we're now getting, you know, clearing inboxes out. We're getting much more that done and now then we can start adding more systems and processes and some of these sort of things I want to wait on until we have everyone in the same software just because otherwise we're going to add too much variability. And so that's my main concern. But service Allpup Maps Pro is great for this and we really considered making this standard. But again, $50 per month for everybody.

Is a tough sell, honestly. So per month.

I've noticed when. Oh, this is a good one. I noticed when command center speaking to customers on the phone, they. They use terms like yes, he does that, he does offer that service or no, he does not offer this type of service or camera. The owner will come out and take a look at the property to give you an estimate. Yeah. Is there a way this can be changed that way? Customers are under the impression that I am the owner or that I am not, I'm guessing the owner. Or is this the way they've been trained? Yeah, this is a great question. And so I'm going to put this in the meeting notes for us to get a little bit more defined on this. Partly this is the fact that inside of their wiki they're seeing like owner's name and they see yours and then they say estimator and then your name. They need to be. I'll be bringing forward. Is the fact that like, look, just because the owner does not mean we. We say that the owner and they are trained to say that the estimator will be there. That's what they are trained on. But I'll bring this forward because we have had this happen a couple times where. Because the owner's name and the estimator name is the same and then the. The client asks like is this the owner? And they'll say yes. And we got to be. We got to teach them a little bit how to finesse around is the. Are they the owner? And. And really just expressing you're the estimator and that they'll. And really how you get around that, like is this, you know, is Kevin, the owner, like, is that. Is, is he the owner? He's gonna be. Am I gonna be meeting the owner? Like, theoretically, they're gonna say yes because they see that they're answering that question. But we gotta train them a little bit, I think, on finessing around the fact like Kevin will be there, he's the estimator, he's going to take a video, he's gonna send it back to the office, we're going to send the estimate and just kind of trying to finesse around that question a bit. So this is a great one. And I'll be following up with Command center on this one specifically because obviously we want to default to always just calling the estimator. And that is what they're trained on, is the estimator will be there, I'll schedule you with the estimator, etc. So yeah, in terms of this part, he part same thing, it needs to be. We. So I will move this forward to a team meeting also at Command Center. So thank you for that. That.

Or at least give us the square footage of this turf they measured. Yes. So in your custom fields, this part is in the custom field or something. Yeah, Andy. So if you look in custom fields, there is a section for this and this is something that we are making, trying to make a way where it actually doesn't allow them to continue without putting this number in. Because what's happening right now on some of these, these turf measurements is they measure the property, they, the customer accepts, they put a card on file and then they don't get the square footage in the custom field. And so this is again another point that we are working on to eliminate those. They're much, it's much easier once you send an estimate, you schedule it, or sorry, you measure properties, you send the estimate and then you put the, put the square footage in the custom field. What we're forgetting sometimes when the job has been accepted because we kind of skip over that custom field part and get a card on file, it's like, oh, we're ready to roll. So this is again another something that I'm going to put back into the training that we do train them on. And that is in your custom fields, you will see a square footage of the property. And so sometimes is also skipped because it's a drive by. If it's a drive by, obviously we're not getting the square footage. And so it would be in the custom field. But there's three custom fields that you have weekly, biweekly price and grass square footage. And so that grass square footage one should be filled out when they do it over the phone estimate. And that's actually where they go first. If you look at the videos inside the academy, that's where they go first. And they'll type in the number into the square footage there. So it should be in the custom fields. And so. Yeah, it's not like a picture, though, which is what Connor was referring to. So awesome. A couple of good things for me to feedback for me. So I appreciate that all of those things get communicated. And so the screenshot thing is something we've been deliberating, we've been testing, and something I'm open to once we switch to super, just to eliminate having all these multiple ways of doing things and how to attach different things. And then I'll definitely be doing a little bit digging on the part about saying someone's the owner and how to kind of finesse around. That could be stated as an unknown because it might be the owner, but he may dispatch one of his crew members that could do the estimate also. That's why we just say estimator. I'm not sure who this was exactly, but yeah, that's exactly right. Awesome. You all have a great day. Take care.