Mike Minutes Mastermind 05/17/2022

Good morning, Augusta Nation. Let's go ahead and jump into things. I think you guys know my name. I'll take that away. So couple updates and then I'll jump into questions. First update, I had mentioned it the other day about reviews and some of the things that we would be working on. Let me go and show you what we're testing and then what is happening right now. Let me share this with you. This is in relation to.

Showing reviews on your webpage.

And one thing that Ryan painted asked me about is, hey, is there a way that we can get this rating thing to show up underneath our web pages in search like it does here on Facebook? More importantly, if you look at pages like angie's list, for example, 814 reviews, you can launch startups or they'll have a whole bunch of these reviews. This is called a schema that Google basically is pulling from the site and trying to get review data. Now, the reason this one has like 814 is because it's a conglomeration of like 10 companies that they throw all the reviews together on. What we were trying to do, and Ryan had asked, hey, like, could we somehow get where all the reviews from across all of Augusta Nation are on there? And we would have like thousands of reviews. The problem with that is that we need to create a review page. And the reason these companies can do this so effectively is because they are actually aggregating these reviews onto the page that they're trying to rank well on Google. Whereas for us, we are not trying to get a review page rank well on Google. We are trying to make a homepage, a service page, estimate page. Those are the ones we're really trying to push. So what we're trying to play with right now, and you can see it's on the Wacom one right now, and that is right here. So we got the schema to finally show up. It is an absolute wild card as to where Google will show this. It's. There's not a lot of rhyme and reason to it right now. And so that's what we're really trying to test right now. But this is pretty cool. This is on the home page of the Wacom location that we're testing this right now. And then let me show you what it looks like. This is what we're trying to roll out for everyone as soon as possible right now. It only pulls from Google and not like Yelp and the other ones. But this is what we're trying to roll out for everyone. It starts at the most recent five Star review and would start automatically going through these like a slideshow and so pretty cool. Looking forward to being able to roll us across everyone. And what's really cool too is it has the right review which will take you directly to Google my business page to be able to submit that. So I think it's really cool. And it is going to also add some validation in the form of search that underneath your page your homepage is going to show this part. So we can't really conglomerate everyone unless we made a reviews page. We don't want the reviews page of all locations to rank above everyone's home pages and service pages because that's where we actually make money. So. But this is going to be something we're working on. Trying to get this to actually show up on everyone's home pages is our first goal. Then hopefully service pages. It seems like Google's not throwing the scheme up on that for some reason, but it is the home pages where we're getting most of our traffic. So that's what we're working on right now and should be here next few weeks. A better update on that. But we're gonna be trying to make sure that gets rolled out. Let's see here. I already showed that there is going to be some Zooper updates in the next couple days and I'm making videos on those changes. So for those of you on Zooper Key, probably tomorrow or the next day, keep a look on the academy for new updated videos. They made some cool updates and based on our request, so that should be good. All right, let's go ahead and jump into other questions here.

First one's from Kevin from Southampton, Mississippi. Could command center calculate PVP weekly instead of daily? Some guys are sitting a couple days a week, they make almost $200 in PvP that day and then don't do so well on the other days, but don't see a negative or that reflected and wonder why they are not seeing all the P4P or bonus on their check. Plus, I need to make some adjustments from time to time, but might not get to that night. Get to it that night and the report the next day may be may not be correct. Okay, great. So couple things here. First and foremost, I really do believe the daily reports are good for the following reasons and I'll tell you why they're not good reasons. Not good. They're good for the reason that if someone's not making P4P on their paycheck, it's good for them to at least see that they're making above base pay on a daily basis because it gives them that, that quick feedback loop of this is possible. But what you'll have to explain to them is that over the course of the whole pay period you have to be consistent. And usually if you show them the, you know, show them, hey, we calculate hourly every single day. We calculate P4P every day. @ the end we total them up and take the total of them. That usually makes a lot of sense to them because you can express it like this. What we don't want guys, is we don't want somebody here working one of your colleagues that is making a bunch of yellow subs and we're all trying to fix their mistakes and all the rest, but they're going super fast. And they go fast one day and the next day spend the entire day doing yellow subs and the next day they go really, really fast and the next day they spend all day doing yellow subs. It's not fair that that person make above base pay. It needs to be a consistent person, someone who actually has good quality that is going to be able to make sure they don't get a bunch of yellow slips that will allow them to get above base pay. And so the consistency is rewarded by having it where it's not a daily basis. But of course the whole pay period that we check base pay. So the positive part is that for someone just getting started as an employee, they get a faster feedback loop of like the ability to make above base pay because they just need one day where they kick butt and, and finish a 12 hour job in six hours or something like that. And they see a big bump in P4P. What we're, you're gonna have to explain to them is like, look, just cause it says that does not mean you're guaranteed to have that end of the pay period. You have to be consistent throughout the pay period.

So it, that's the positive side and that's how I would look at it. The second thing is though, and that is this is the part that we are running into is sometimes you haven't been able to get to making adjustments. And so obviously in the perfect world we're able to take a look at our P4P each evening and make sure we add any additions or subtractions or manual adjustments. But if that's not happening, I need to talk to command and see if there's a way that if they, if you tell them hey, don't send daily reports if that's going to be relayed in a Manner that's going to be never done. Because we could potentially do that.

I feel like, because we were talking about this with Lee and Marcus, even at local shop, there's definitely issues with this getting the daily reports and you haven't been able to make adjustments yet.

But doing a weekly report. The problem with that is now they're not getting individualized data. And when they ask for specifics, you actually have to like really dig in because you can't remember 5 days ago what jobs they were on. You can't remember five days ago that their mower broke down. You can't find like. So that's why the dailies is so nice. But we do need to make something where we can block the, the reports from going out. So let me talk to command center about that. Let me make a note here and see if, if there's a way that if they tell you to not send, if you tell them not to send out daily reports, if they can just not do that and then leave it up to you to explain to the employees, I'll see if that's something that we can do. But I know that, you know, the system is they run everything and they click send out the report. So let me make sure there's something that we can actually do and that is block daily reports from being sent out. And then if you wanted to send the daily reports, you could or something like that. But I do believe, I do believe, especially when you're first getting started for a new employee, that is a good way to give them a taste of P4P on a daily basis. That then to see that number. But then the follow up to that is when they say, well, why didn't I get any bonus on my paycheck? Well, this is what happened. That was one day. Here's how we calculate Monday. Yeah, you kick butt and you got $300 extra. But the next day you had yellow slopes and you had to go way back. And then next three days you're on a project that took us twice as long as it should have. So that is a good learning experience in my mind and a way to train them on P4P instead of just showing them weekly data. They don't remember the jobs they were on. It's just like again, just a number. They understand it's harder for them to correlate. Oh, like yesterday I kicked butt. I should keep doing those actions. It's harder for them to correlate weekly actions with daily actions. So you know, in the perfect world, one day I'd like to be live. I'd like it to be where they see live throughout the day, how much they're making. Because I want that, I want that, that feedback as close to the performance as possible. But I, I see this part we talked about even a local shop, you know, Marcus won't be able to get in there, make some adjustments or when they do it causes a bunch of questions. And so we're gonna, we're gonna look at a few different ideas, potentially ways to just stop daily reports or check it off in Settings, for example. But for now let me check Kevin with command, see if there's a way we can predictably and accurately not send out daily reports. If that's what you want. I don't want to commit to that without saying that because I know part of their system is that's the next thing on the checklist. So I will look into that for you. And I made a note here. Daily reports for P4P. Okay.

Next thing up, Vlad, should we be investing 100 of our profits in the business solely or should we be also investing into our Roth IRA SEP IRA which is self employment and solo 401k as well as our business? I know we can at least 10x our investment, our businesses, but should we all be maxing out our Roth ira? Etc. Depending on your answer, I may have additional questions to follow up with later. Yeah, like I'm a big fan of these things, these tax advantaged accounts, your Iraq SEP IRA, solo 401k. Etc. Keep in mind as you have a business, there's certain things, certain one certain accounts here that if you offer to yourself, you have to offer to your employees. So definitely talk to whoever you're sending these up with that you don't. You just gotta be careful because for example, with the SEP ira, if you have employees, they have to have the same limits and benefits as you. And so there's certain things you want to look into. But I'm not opposed to this. Here's the thing that I look at though, and this is not me talking five years ago, this is me talking today. And that is the time it takes to set these all up and manage them and just have another account. Like I have bank accounts with like eight or nine different banks. I hate every single one because I have to like remember bank passwords and I can go to different branches. It's stupid. If you can do all your bank at one place, awesome. And then sending up these accounts will be easier. But I, I just setting them up, the process, setting up Setting up for employees, educating them on how this works, direct redirecting funds inside of an ira. A lot of this in just my mind. It's time and money. And what it comes down to is let's say I can do $6,000 into my IRA and that $6,000 otherwise would have been profit. I might say $1,500 to $2,000 in taxes, right. So my question is, is, is it really worth the $1500 or $2000 in tax savings? That's my question. And if I spend that $6,000 on my business, would I get more than $1,500 in returns? That would be the next question.

So I feel like once you have a predictable profitability margin, whether that is 10%, 20%, 30%, whatever that number is, if it's a predictable number, I think typically you're going to have better returns in your business. But, but what's going to typically happen as your business grows to the point where actually is making a lot of profit now saving $1,500 on taxes isn't appealing when you're making $200,000 in profit. It's like it's such a drop in the bucket, right? And so that's when real estate and other things that are bigger just make more sense. Because if you're, if you're making predict, you know, always the next 10, 15 years, you knew you're going to make 50 to $60,000 in profit, it'd be a very good idea to make sure you're maxing these things out because you're probably going to be able to get all of your tax basis removed by the time you take your standard deduction. And then you take, you know, your, you put all these accounts like IRA401K, you probably would be able to save yourself 3 to $4,000 of taxes to the government income taxes and you'd probably be able to shelter most of your income from taxes. The problem is when you start making 200, 300, etc. It's like, well, I just not going to take the time to save fifteen hundred dollars in taxes and set up a different account. And now that money's locked up, by the way, by the way, that money is locked up for the next X amount of years, otherwise there's penalties. Otherwise I pay taxes anyways. So that's why it's just like, look, do I want to lock up the money for that long? Do I think I can beat the returns if I just spend the money in my business? And for most small Business owners, the answer to that is yes, because if you're growing a business really quickly and you're profitable, you should be able to get better returns over the next 40 years on that thousand dollars today than putting it in the market. And people are gonna be like, well, man, if you put a thousand dollars in today, in 40 years it'll be $3,000. You know, with the stock market, great. But if I spend a thousand dollars, my business, can that become 15 or $20,000? That's simply the logic. And so of course of 40 years, like that's a long time. So that there's compound in the stock market, there's also compound in your business as you keep a customer for years on end. So I would just say that I think it's a great. I don't talk about this enough for someone that's making 30, 40, 50, 60,000, maybe 80, 90, $100,000 in profits every year. But again, if you're continually growing and going beyond that, it's probably not going to be worth your time to save a thousand, $2,000 to set up the accounts, make sure your employees all have the opportunity to do so. When I know I can just have a business expense like an Airbnb for example, where I can take still all that deduction in the first year, so save on my taxes, but then have an appreciating asset that I can have cash flow on. So things like that. I think there's better avenues if it's from a tax standpoint that you're doing this and most people are asking this question about SEP IRAs and IRAs and 401ks. It's more a matter of I'm trying to shelter my money from the government in terms of taxes. I feel like there's better ways to do it if you're growing a business up size. If you're staying at 60, $70,000 of adjusted net income on your profit on your tax return, great, great solution. Here is these tax advantage accounts are fantastic. I just have a big problem with locking up my money for years and years and years.

Oh yeah, I already adjust this one. Actually this morning I saw this one come in. Caleb, we have had a couple Google call service calls go to command center recently and the phone will ring continuously. And instead of going to voicemail, it replays the greeting recorded by Liz about the call being recorded. People hang up when they hear this and the lead is lost. Does it go to voicemail only at certain hours of the day or does it go to voicemail after Playing that greeting again. If it is the latter, then what? Then that will prevent people from leaving message. Great, great point here. So we're checking to see which accounts this has happened to. But basically that message from Liz that says this call is being recorded for training purposes.

Helps probably keep 80 to 90% of spam calls out. And that used to be like 50% of the calls at command center. So that's been really helpful. The problem is in this case here is that's playing again at 30 seconds. What should be playing is we're going to answer your call in the order received. We're on the other line right now and we'll get to you. And then that's the only one they should hear. So we're double checking this. We had already fixed this, but maybe on a couple of accounts we missed this up. So I've already sent this to Lonnie and Liz and we're working on this. But basically it should go directly to a voicemail after hours. And if it's inside of hours, we're answering the call. And the only reason they'd hear a second message is if they've been hold for 20 to 30 seconds. And that's going to. That should say, hey, we're on the other phone line. We try to make it sound more like it's a smaller company. We're on the other phone line right now. We're going to answer your call as soon as we get off the line. And so that's what happens right now. So we're working on this one, Caleb. And that should be fixed if. If not today, asap. Are there any videos on which are there videos or which videos are best to send current employees and new employees explaining P4P? Kevin, it sounds like you might have a few employees asking quite a few questions based upon your two questions here. Feel free to reach out to me if there's specifics. But also inside of the dashboard, if you go to academy and then more training and P4P, there's actually videos I made specifically just for the team. All right, so the intro is the one that's going to be really basic explaining them. Yeah, seven minutes long. This is the one you probably want to look at. It's me explaining it for the employees, not for owners, but for the team. Then we have the employee team interviews where actually show employees that have their experiences so they can see these. And these are the three steps of implementation. Right. So these you might want to avoid if you've already implemented P4P, but this is probably the one that's going to be the one you want to take a look at. I made it pretty appealing to watch too in terms of having actual shots of the crew and like we made it pretty fun to watch. So it's great for the employees. You can just give this to them. It's an unlisted video, so just copy it and send it to them. That would be my recommendation. This is a seven minute video one. And then this is one with the employees that actually give the interviews and their experience with P4P.

Let's see here. I think another, another one came in. A couple came in here. Bloomington. At what point do you pause services after not being paid? I don't have a ton of customers that haven't paid yet but I also don't want to keep waiting around and working for them to get payment. The automation should be sending you an email that tells you to stop service. And if that's not happening it could be because your net, your payment terms are long. So if you have like a net 30 and then your automations start being triggered 14 days after being overdue, that means that someone's going to be 45 days since you sent the invoice before they even get the first automation. And it's like the third email that comes to you in the automation sequence that tells you to stop service. So you can change that? Absolutely. Talk to Leon Coaching call. You can absolutely change the days of, you know, move that forward. But keep in mind that all of those triggers for the automations are based upon when the invoice is considered overdue. So if you have net 30, you just added 30 days before the automation sequence even starts. That means that 14 days after that they'd get their first email. For most of you, you're due upon receipt which means 14 days after they have been sent the invoice they're going to get into the automation sequence which typically aligns with 28 days. It's going to get an email to you saying stop service, send them the collection, the whole nine. So all of that is in the sequence for the automation for follow up on a overdue invoice. And you might just want to change.

Your dates. You potentially might as well move them forward if you're not getting those and things like that.

Or at least make sure that those automations are set up correctly. How should I word estimates for lawn treatments? Should I add the total amount for all visits or per visit? Also do. What do franchises offer for basic and treatment packages? Yeah, so first thing in terms of the total amount, I would not recommend doing this unless you're having them sign a contract, because then you need to make sure that you're locked in for the X amount of visits. And usually this will scare people away because a premium treatment package literally might be fifteen hundred dollars and they're less likely to say yes to that. But if I say it's $120 per visit and I show the aeration, core aeration, the fertilization treatment, treatment per per visit pricing, they're much more inclined in, in terms of acceptance rate to accept the per visit because it looks way cheaper. It looks way cheaper to accept $80 per visit than it does a $900 treatment package. So. And then this part here, you're. You'll work with Lonnie if you ever want to make changes on this. We kind of have standards that is kind of a lot of people use in terms of treatments packages for basic and premium. But she can help you customize this. Make sure it's updated inside of your service autopilot or Zooper and make sure that's been corrected. It's all the questions I had here. Let's see here. Whoa. Regarding adding adjustments, what. What might work when I need to add an adjustment for someone, I use SA app and add a calendar event manual adjustment and title it whatever they did and has place for calendar event notes to further explain what that manual adjustment is.4. I assign it to the crew member. This allows them to even clock into it and track the actual minutes they spend versus the budget time I gave them. This also means it shows up on the dispatch board when I am looking through. Yeah, this is what we do too. So this is actually something we have this actually Good point. So we have a project for Command center to be able to add the yellow slip as a service for everyone to be able to put onto your dispatch board. So, so if someone gets a yellow slip, you'll actually be able to go into a service and select yellow slip so they can go back and punch into it correctly. Because I found a lot of times, like we've done this a long time at the local shop. But what I'm finding is someone will be like, hey, so and so yesterday, this is a yellow slip. Go back to their property and fix it. But there's no way to track it. And that's a good point. So we already have this as a project item for Command Center. Dude, we got to go through every single person's account and add it as a service. But if you Already Think about this. I would just do it yourself. Add an extra service called Yellow Slip that you can create jobs with a title called Yellow Slip. And if you do that, then when, when an employee goes back to a property, they can punch into it. So if that, if that's over your head, like creating a new service and all that, don't worry about it. Command center, it's going to be a project. We're going to do it on every single account. It'll take us like three to four minutes in every single person's account. And then that way when you get a yellow slip, you'll literally assign the job to somebody and then it'll be showing up on their dispatch board. It'll be able to track their time in and out. I'm finding a lot of people are just telling employ employees to go back and fix things but now we don't have any record and we can't see in their timeline etc. So yeah, this is definitely something that should be happening on Yellow Slips and adjustments. Making a yellow slip service in terms of adjustments though, Things like add $50, add $20 because of whatever it might be, that is a little more difficult because those numbers need to be in P4P software.com However, you're right, you could assign budget hours to specific things. We've talked about this before at the local shop too. Like okay, sharpen blades, that's gonna be one budgeted hour, that's gonna be two budgets. And then it's up to them like do it quicker. There's some things that we just decided, hey, we don't want to be paying people P for P on things like changing the oil. Because one mistake, it's not like oh, it's a little yellow stuff. You just ruined a ten thousand dollar mower. So there are some things that we just say, hey look, we're going to do that manual adjustment. I've just time. But what you can do is exactly what Nick is talking here. And this is what we do at the local shop. We create a job for them to clock into so we have record of that time and then we just use that for manual adjustments. So definitely makes Command center job easier too because they don't, you don't have to go in there and they have an accurate punch in. So we will definitely be putting the Yellow slip service on everyone's accounts here next couple weeks. That being said.

We still need to refine the ability for you to somehow block daily reports if you haven't been able to get those manual adjustments. In for each day on the software. So down the road, Zooper will integrate with P4P. It's in our contract with Zooper, when we signed it and when I paid them that that would eventually happen. As I've said, it's going to happen probably in 2023. But that's the type of integration that will alleviate a lot of these issues is because it could carry that information over from like a job that was a yellow slip or is a manual adjustment. We could call it a service like that, and it automatically brings that over into a manual adjustment inside the software P4P. So things like that will be helpful and we can improve next year. Awesome. Thanks so much everyone. Take care and have a great rest of your day.