Mike Minutes Mastermind 05/19/2023

Hope you're doing well. It's gonna get things kicked off. I just gotta switch over the YouTube while I'm doing that. If you have not watched the video. One second, give me. Make sure this is on. Check, check, check, check, check. If you have not watched the video from last night from Ryan Payne, highly recommend you do that. It's 33 minutes long.

So it's great. It's Friday. You got a weekend coming up. Watch it. It's great. You run through brick. You want to. Want to run through brick walls after watching it, so it's very good. I highly recommend you watch it. I think it got caught off at the end, it sounded like. But yeah, it's a. It's a good reminder, so definitely recommend watching that. He made it last night, like 10 o' clock at his shop, and it's like 33 minutes long and it's good. I. I just asked him actually right now if I could post on my main channel. Because it's a good one. It's a good one.

Let me just make sure this is live. Yes. Okay. Now I just need to refresh.

Yeah, It's a little bit of tough love and sharing his story, which is valuable as well. So just recommend watching it. It's very good that we prod each other to become much better. Just put it in here. Facebook.

All right. Sorry. It always takes a minute or two for me to do that. Just. Otherwise the YouTube link does not show up on Facebook. Okay.

For anyone that is using the audio version of the Mike Minutes podcast, if you have any feedback, let me know. I don't know if there's anything I can change. I don't use it. So please let me know if there's something that would make your life way easier. I just want to make sure it's as accessible as possible. So there's no reason as to why you cannot watch the mic minutes or listen to them, I should say. So I am trying to get those up right after the Mastermind. Again, I can't guarantee it simply because a lot of times I do have meetings right up against the back of these. All right. Someone had asked on the Franchise Advisory Council for me to show which testimonials have come in from customers. So that way you're not asking people multiple times. So let me go ahead and actually just show you. We have seven of them so far.

And I will share you. So this is just. This is really just for the people that have already asked clients for testimonials. So we got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. So I know that these are coming from three different locations. So the vast majority of you watching are not, actually have not submitted any. And I'm not pushing that right now because I know everyone's busy, but I need to get at least 15 or 20 before we actually put it on the main site. Once I put on the main site, you'll be able to see which customers have left reviews or not, and you won't have to worry about bothering them.

So, yeah.

Cool. Again, like three or four of those are fans, family of owners, and that's fine. We, we just need 15 or 20 so we can make a really cool page on all of our sites. It's one thing to show Google review, that's like, okay, Great, they have 300 reviews. Take it to like 5x. The value of that. When you have a customer right there saying their name, where they're from, and then you have the social.

Validation of seeing that across the whole country. It's like, okay, this company is solidified. They're not going to scam me. You know, especially when it comes like the dollar per minute per man, you know, thing for price. Okay, Everyone else is, is fine. I can see people, real people's faces. And it's not one or two where people could just fake it. It's like hundreds. That's the goal. So the same thing is true for all of our careers pages. If you go to your careers page now, it's going to look like this.

Just go to Waco.

Present, share, screen, Boom. So now on your careers page, we have your typical application, kind of the day in life stuff, etc. But at the top here, you now have entire cycle of employees giving a very, very raw testimonial of their work experience. At Augusta, there are about 12 of these. Again, I love down the road to have hundreds. So people can literally just keep scrolling and scrolling. They can. And honestly, what they're looking for a lot of times is someone that, oh, they look like me. Oh, they, you know, they're. I'd love to have a girl in here. So they. There's some crazy awesome girls around the field. We, some of our best outfield members have been girls. So anyways, all that say, I would love to have more of these because if there's more of them, I can make more of a floating chart and instead of just the scrolling left and right. But anyways, that's what I want to make for customers. We get, we can change the UI of this a lot as we get more and More we can change it to where they're smaller tiles, they're moving up and down. We integrate them with Google, Google reviews. We can do a lot of really cool stuff. So I appreciate those of you who have made the effort to make sure they get those. Extremely helpful. And I really do believe having them from around the entire country, from a whole bunch of people, gives a lot of social credibility and validation. Two people looking at your site, no one else is doing that. So it would separate us massively. Okay, let's jump into questions. That's all the announcements I had there.

Kevin Ferburn, you feel free. I know it's just a month away for the Southeast in, In Memphis, the workshop. So feel free to comment or make posts on there. I know Dylan from down, Louisiana is going to be doing a workshop on Christmas lights. And I know for him, the last couple years that's been huge, especially for his market where it drops off significantly during the winter. And he doesn't have winter services or snow plowing. Like, it's been huge for him. He's doing a workshop on that, which is really cool. Liz has a quote she always puts up at command center, and that is, you're not considered a leader until you've made a leader out of those you lead. Something like that. Basically, until the people that you lead become leaders, you're not a leader.

And I think it's really good because Ryan Payne taught.

I'm just literally just blanking Dylan. And then now Dylan's teaching everyone else. So that's exactly what we are all about. And so, yeah, I just, I wanted to publicly say thank you to, to Ryan for just being a wealth of knowledge last year. I know Dylan will do the same. And I really do appreciate. I will not be there this year. I was there last year, but I need to be in, in North Carolina trying to figure out how to build a location in one month. So I will not be able to make it. I will be in go time. I got to train my GM that week, so. All right, let's switch over to questions.

I'm still kind of fired up because I finished watching that video. Let's go. Telling you, you gotta watch the video from Ryan Payne. If you like tough love, if you like a little spanky spank, you know. You know what's amazing? After any of my siblings or myself got a spanking when we were kids, everyone was such in such a good mood. Everyone just did great. So I think a spanky spank is sometimes good, you know, not politically correct, but Spare the rod, spoil the child. So Ryan Payne stepped up last night and delivered a little, little, little spanky spank. So. All right, let's jump in.

Present Share Screen.

Devin Sheridan, Red Deer hey Mike, I'm trying to run 100 hour per up here and base at $20 per hour. Is that too low? My route density is trash with 28 recurring mowing customers in like a mile, right? 9 mile radius. We just been doing projects. Should I up my base to 22 to motivate my guys to get neighbors, route density, etc. In terms of the percentage, you're only at 20% of your hourly rate, so that's plenty fine. Anything under 25%, typically your guys will do pretty decently on P4P. But I'd focus more on your route density, honestly, before trying to up the percentage to the guys or the dollar rate to the guys.

You're not that many customers. It's not really important even in terms of hiring right now.

I'd focus just selling more jobs and creating a more intense route. But yeah, when you come to training, you'll go over, we'll go over a lot of the percentages of P4P and you're within those confines now.

Chelsea from Arnold. Hey Mike, Is there a way to create a report on P4P for employees to see their final page? Okay, this is coming out. Yeah, this is coming out. We do a bi weekly pay cycle and I know it's nice to see what they did earn hourly versus their P4B total. We use QBO and it just seems like there isn't a good way for employees to see a final report for their weekly. Yeah, this is great. Yeah, so this is, we're working on this right now. I think this was a couple months ago. Someone actually brought us up and we've been working on it. And so last if you guys missed it the other day, we launched all completed projects in P4P software. You can now see a breakdown of how much money went to each employee. So just a really nice, simple way of doing it. We're going to simplify some things in P4P, some verbiage, some different things. It just we've been iterating so much and I went back to the other day, I'm like, there's some things that are just too complicated for people who haven't been in the software for years. So we're going to simplify some things. However, that means that one of the things we are working on this week or this coming week is sending out Next week. It's either next week or the week after. Within the next couple weeks this should be done. And that is where on a, on a, at the end of your pay scale, a pay period, you can click send reports. So the same way that they get daily reports, they'll be able to get a pay period report and see the whole breakdown. So yeah, I'm looking forward this too. So yeah, I appreciate it. Appreciate the feedback on P4P. I literally don't listen to anyone besides Augusta in terms of P4P feedback and like what features they want because it is still literally most of us in the software and actually utilizing it to its full capability and using 3D notifications, etc. So if you guys have feedback, definitely let me know. I reached out to a couple owners this morning asking for feedback about the projects that do larger, you know, 50,000 plus jobs and how it could be potentially better since I don't do a lot of those. Trill Ek from Boone's Creek. My guy did this this morning pulling out of the storage unit. I will have to say it's a very tight squeeze. I can tell he truly felt horrible about it and he said I could take it out of his check. Is that considered a yellow slip? All right, let's check it out.

Personally, I would probably not, especially if this is a really good employee. Felt really bad about. I feel, I feel like this is kind of just. Especially if it's a tight squeeze, it's kind of on you. That's how I would look at it. Simply because you chose that spot to be tight and if it's really hard, like if they're a good employee, they felt bad about it. I'm probably not going to take it out of their check to be perfectly honest with you. Now if this person is a repeat offender and always super making mistakes, that's a different topic. But I. I don't like to take away from the guys unless I am using it as a way to correct behavior. I am not looking for every opportunity to take money from on yellow slips. That's not the goal or reason you have yellow slips. You have yellow slips to keep bad actors out that go way too fast or are.

Are just trying to game the system. You have to have it for quality control. But yeah, Trail Ek from Boone's Creek. Are we supposed to ask questions when clients cancel services or just delete their recurring job? Charge their card and send a receipt? We raise prices to go. So I'm sure that 99 of the reason a few are canceling I would definitely ask. And when someone calls into Cancel Command center, they're say, is there any, any sort of feedback you want to give us? And things like that. Just keep in mind too, a lot of times people are canceling because, like, they're moving.

They're, you know, they think the grass is slowing down. There's a lot of other things. And so I would definitely, if they're calling you or you're in contact with them, definitely ask them why. But I think a lot of times we overthink this because, like, oh, they almost hate my service. Like, no, they're moving or they're out of town for three months and they're. Or their kid comes back home from college and mows the grass for the summer. Like, so don't overthink this one, but do ask 100 and Command center will ask us and they'll give you the feedback if it's something that is, you know, like a complaint. But typically people will complain once or twice before they just straight up cancel. So usually you kind of know about it. Eric Largo from Florida. When firing someone, what is the best means of delivery? Phone call, text message, face to face when they come in for the next scheduled shift? Honestly, like, I would just be very flexible on this. Every situation is so different. Every person is very different. Whether or not you ever want to see them again is important too. Whether you do it like over text versus in person. Um, I personally think that usually you want to do it in person if, if it. There's someone that has worked with you for a long time, et cetera. But again, like, if they've worked with you for a long time, you probably have given them warnings, you've given them performance improvement plans like, it shouldn't be a surprise to them. The ones that, where it's like, you don't even, like you're busy, you don't want to waste the time to even. I feel like their second day and like they didn't show up three times. Like they've done malicious things. It's like, I don't even want them to come back. Don't worry about bringing your uniform back. Just like, please, I don't want to see you again. I would say, you know, a text message might be. Might be good. I've done in person firing where the person wasn't expecting it because I didn't do a performance improvement plan. And it was just a matter of like, other circumstances. And those are tough. But I feel like sometimes you owe it to the employee to give Reasons actually talk to them face to face. But there's definitely times I understand when someone like does a no show, for example, I'm not going to be like, I don't even want to lead them on to come to the next shift. It's like, look, you're gone, don't come back, you're locked out. Bye. Like, so every, every single one's so different. So don't. Yes, there's certain operating procedures but like realize that like every firing is different typically.

And I just stick to that Teralac. I've been listening to the video you made about follow up objections. Super helpful. After you go through the paces to get them to the point where they agree to get in on the schedule. What is a quick way of wrapping up as far as getting the quote marked accept? Do you always take that responsibility of signing and accepting it or tell them to like that's what they have been willing to do this far. Like, like that's what they have been willing to do. I don't understand this last part. Or tell them to like that's what they been haven't been willing to do. Oh I see. They haven't been willing to push the accept button themselves.

I would go ahead especially on smaller projects where like you're not too concerned about like.

The thing is if it's a big project, they're going to pay a deposit anyways, right? So I. If it's a big project, I'd be trying to get a deposit on the phone call. Like great, all right. So to go ahead and get you on the schedule, I just need a credit card. I can go ahead and take that deposit and we'll get you on the schedule right away. That's what I would be going for. If it's a big project, if it's a small project, it's like I just take their word for it. If I'm on the phone with them, they're like, yeah, I want to go forward. Let's go ahead and do it, let's get on the schedule. I'd just take their word for it. Honestly, I'd mark it complete on my end and I'd roll with it. Obviously.

You might not want to do that. If you are very, very concerned about like you know, $600 them then saying like the only way this could return banned. They say like, oh no, we never said accepted the quote. The bottom line is someone says that, it's like look, why don't you stop us when we showed up at your property? Right? So that happens Very rarely. But I would personally just roll with it on the phone if they accept. Great. I'll go ahead and mark this as accepted on my end. You'll get an email confirmation of this because again, you're going to still send them a thank you and welcome email which is saying what data service you're coming, confirming the quote and all the rest of it. So it's not like they're going to be surprised that you show up. So I would just accept it for what they say on the phone. I'd roll with it.

And yeah, in copilot we'll be able to customize this a little bit for us in terms of like quote, the signature, the deposit, things like that. We'll be able to customize this a little bit for us and I look forward to be able to make changes based on what we all want come like kind of like we do with P4P. It's like, oh, like this would be really nice to have this feature. Great, let's do it. We'll get it done in a couple weeks, so. But we can definitely do that.

Hey Mike, besides P4P, I need some outside the box incentives to get guys on board and keep them as reliable employees. Any ideas?

I don't know if there's any out of the box ideas. People want to be compensated, treated well, and they want to.

Have a purpose for showing up to work. The purpose part is the hardest for our industry because it's pretty monotonous work. So what you're typically going to rely on is the ability to have upward mobility is probably going to be the purpose for someone who stays very, very long term. And whether it be growth inside your company, GM positions.

The 3F program, etc. That's long term people, more shorter term people. Give them a good place to work, a safe place where they can be respected, they can be acknowledged for their hard work. They you fire people who are bad actors and that they that demotivate them, like that's a huge deal. You not firing someone can be the biggest demotivating factor to the higher performers and so be very quick about firing. Those things are honestly more important to most people than the quote unquote, out of the box ideas that we come up with to like retain and attract employees. Because a lot of times the incentives that you come up with when you ask a business owner a question like this is incentives that make the business owner want to work somewhere. Like more money, you know, the gas, cards, all that's all fine and good. But if someone Was like so motivated by money. Do you think they'd be working, you know, pushing a lawnmower? Probably not. They'd probably figure out how to become the 3F program. They would be with you for years. They want to become a general manager, they want bonuses, they want to be in the estimated position. They'd be trying to get ahead in life. So you've got to think about from the perspective of the employee. For a lot of our entry level guys, this is their first or second job. They're trying to get a foothold, they're struggling through. They just got to finish high school or college, make this a good place where they can work six to 12 months. And if they want to work longer, they're probably going to be motivated and they're going to want something like the 3F program. They're going to want an audible program that they're going to be incentivized and motivated by things like a gas card for perfect attendance, the, the leaderboard on P4P. They're going to be competitive. So it motivates everyone gets motivated by different things, right? Like, even if you listen to Ryan's video from last night, he's motivated, he's very competitive. There's some people who care less about the max metrics. They literally don't look at them. He's competitive. That's his fuel. That needs to lean into that. And so you've got to figure out what makes all of your employees tick the same way. Right. Like, I understand that for some people, the coaching calls, they just, they don't care what anyone else thinks and they're just going to do their own way anyways. And they don't care about max match. They don't care. They're not competitive. They just simply want to make more money, whatever it is. And so you have to realize the same thing is true for employees. They all have different motivations and your goal is to be able to retain as many as possible. The same way I look at the franchisee and say, okay, there's some people who are going to encouragement, there's some people who are going to want, really value the masterminds. There are going to be some people who really need someone to give them a spanking. There's some people who need the coaching. There's going to be some people who need the software. Like, and I take the approach of I need. My goal is to retain a franchisee by giving them as much support and help as possible. And I'm going to take all these different avenues to try to make that happen. The same thing needs to be for you. If, if you're trying to retain an employee is like, okay, can I get purpose down? Can I have an off site meeting? Can I do profit sharing? I'm going to try to look at incentives. So if people are money motivated, they need a gas card, they want to have special perks because they show up on time. Whatever it is, is it a matter of someone's really hungry to learn, educate themselves? Okay, I'm going to get an audible program. So you're trying to go from all these different angles to try to get as many people as possible. But I can guarantee you, they guarantee you that you got to look at from incentives, right? So you have compensation, you have culture, and then you have upward mobility. I look at those three things like as the. The three that are really the reason why people show up to work. So. All right, guys, have a fantastic Friday. Have a great weekend. I'll see you guys Monday. Homework for everyone is to watch that video from Ryan. I appreciate it. And we'll see you guys next week.