Mike Minutes Mastermind 05/20/22 (Hiring Graphics)

Happy Friday. Let's go ahead and get started with some updates and then I'll jump into the questions. As always, I try to get the updates out first. So that way if you need to bounce or just get the first few minutes, you're good to go. So this is something we are working on. Thanks to Val Thomas for suggesting this yesterday. And this is something we are working on over the next week. This is just the first one. Let me just make this a little different size. Give me one second. So this is just the first version. And this is. We've created three different sizes, so this is square. So so for like a Facebook ad, for example. And then we have like a more of an 8 and a half by 11 actually explains each of these positions. And really we haven't refined this. I'm seeing a spelling mistake and things like that. But we got this out this morning just to be able to show you what we're working on. So crew team member, estimate or manager and a business owner and really trying to show them that look, our goal here to get you through the 3F program and actually grow your business yourself. And again, 95% of 98% of people will not get to the third stage, but it's to show them that there is actual upward mobility. So we're going to be working on this. This is just the first design that Zach is helping me on. And we will continue to make some, several others. We have more information we want to put in this graphic. We wanted to do some lines. Let's simplify this. And then we'll make multiple variations so you'll be able to use this again in your hiring campaigns. And so like this one, for example, would be great for Craigslist and other ads that are long ways and then Facebook and then in an eight and a half by 11 or like a flyer. So we are working on this and we're going to have at least two or three different options for you showing a more graphical like this as well as crews out in the field actually working. So that's something we are working. And again, thanks to Val for giving that idea from yesterday.

All right. Also quick note here too, before we get into the questions.

Chuck out in Mooresville, North Carolina, had said this morning a really, really good point about the response rate when you get back to someone on Indeed. So it's something like 77%. He said greater response time or greater chance of sending someone for an interview if you respond back to them within 24 to 48 hours of them applying instead of waiting 3, 4, 5 days or just checking on the weekend, and now it's five days old. In this, in this labor market there, if there is someone that's good, they're going to get snatched up and people are hiring them on the spot. And so it can potentially go to whoever gives them a job offer first and whoever can get in contact with them first. So great point there from Chuck. If you get applicants, reach out to them as soon as you possibly can. Text them, send them a voice note. We've been working with this too, even at command, as I've been getting involved the past few months. More at the hiring side of things. If we get a good applicant, I'm immediately personally texting them and trying to set up an interview. So. All right, questions. Do you have anything on the dashboard for end of day or end of week tasks that I can have up on the wall? Shop wall, for example, clean out trucks, cleanup shop, et cetera. We've, we, we have with the Bellingham shop that they kind of use. I know Marcus has one. The thing is, every single shop is so different, right? Kind of trucks you have, what kind of services you. To try to make a blended, it'd be like very generic. And honestly, you'd start crossing off half of them. So every single shop, based on your services, based upon your area, based on your type of equipment, if you use push mowers, if you use zero turns, if you use certain types of zero turns, you need different things for the oil, whatever it might be that it gets a little bit tricky. So if we may want to be so vanilla, I feel like anyone with any decent shop experience is like, okay, this is like a very bland checklist, but we could work on something like that to at least give you get you started. Let me go ahead and share my other screen here. There was a few questions I saw that came in on the form. Okay, first one's on Vlad. What is command center's closing ratio for over the phone estimates? Is it higher than Augusta Nation's closing ratio for estimates sent via email? No, it's almost exactly the same. Again, it's not so much about your close ratio being a lot higher as much as the, the speed of these getting out and the fact that your cost to get this done over the phone is probably an additional five to six dollars of command center time versus 30, 40 minutes of you doing a drive by. And now that estimate being delayed by an extra day because you have to go drive to the property, send it the whole nine yards. So it goes from them getting their estimates in five minutes compared to one or two days. So that's, that's where we're seeing the upside. Now the actual close ratio is within a few percentage, it's slightly higher but not, it's not nothing meaningful. But the bottom line is what you're missing out on is the fact that when you have multiple estimates in a day, a lot of people are just not getting to them and then they're getting pushed off and then that, that's causing us not to get recurring customers on. So I see right now for the people that can, can do a drive by like the same day, they potentially are around the same close ratio or even higher. It's the people that are running behind on estimates that are two, three days behind. They're the ones that the close ratio over the phone is 10, 15, 20% higher when they're doing over the phone because they're, they're just running behind on estimates. So if you're like right on an estimate like a drive by hops in your schedule and you're driving there first of all probably not good because you're literally just driving, driving super inefficient. You're not creating a route on your estimates. But secondarily that is usually gonna be the highest close ratio. But again most of us are not like waiting at our desk ready to go do an estimate in 20 minutes. So yeah, I'd say an average, average, average it's about the same but it's it really the busier you get, the higher the close ratio is on over the phone because people, they're trying to find a landscaper, someone to mow their lawn. They're calling five companies and every single one is going to voicemail. Every single, every single one is they're not hearing back from for several days. So that is when the close ratio really starts to tick up. And that's what I've seen kind of. But average, average. It's honestly about the same.

You're, you're saving time though you're not saving necessarily or getting more customers can command make a video on how to measure a yard using satellite images. It would help when going door knocking the way that I that way I don't have to guesstimate. Is that a word? Yeah. So there is one. And I know you're on zooper so you're seeing in there but if you go to service autopilot go to the very bottom of there. It is a six step process and there's six videos, short videos of how command center does over the phone or OTP estimates. Check those out. The same exact process applies in Zooper. Everything's exactly the same. And by the way, anyone that is on Zooper, there's new videos being updated almost every other day of new features. So for example, they finally have got toward the parent job will pull from the child job the video. So that's the estimate video. That is the project management video. It'll now carry that over correctly into the job. So videos are on the the Academy.

Kevin, two questions. I will probably be hitting $20,000 in revenue this month as a solo operator. This will bump my monthly 3 from 700 to 1200. After June, monthly revenue will probably drop to around 15k. And I will be paying an additional $500 for services I do not use. I feel like that extra $500 per month would help me build up cash to get to growth model sooner. And then you could recoup your costs on me through the additional services that the growth model provides. You walk us through the thought process behind that. Yeah, absolutely. So keep in mind that this, this part is not really true. We don't recoup costs on additional services. Command center it cost us a lot more to provide full service because the amount of Training required is five to 10 times longer for full services compared to basic services. So that is why we're able to have a lower cost structure for solo operators because the, the volume and the issues created when you're smaller. If you're just doing mowing like simple services and it's just phone calls, we can, we can get someone trained up within three to four weeks, maybe five weeks, just depending on their skill level coming in for basic service. For someone to be able to do like payroll, to be able to manage a full service account, go through people's emails and manage leads and follow up emails and all the rest of it that takes months for them to get efficient at. And so that's why we have to do that. And in terms of the 20,000, it's like I made that video the other day. We have to have hard set deadlines. 20,000 and above is where we start to see a lot more different types of jobs coming into command center, a lot more moving parts, people needing help, projects are getting larger contracts start happening. And so that's why we've made that the cutoff for solo operators. And again solo operator model is simply built for someone to get started. And as yourself, Kevin and several others, they just immediately almost got to that 20 within a matter of A month or two. And that's great. And just stay at that. And I think that's going to lead. As I'm looking at the second question, I'm thinking about 20, 23 and what I'll be doing for my. With my profits for this year. What I would like to do is buy another truck and all the equipment need for a trailer setup. That will give me two trailers and one trailer setup, which will make me about 3, $300,000 with four employees. I think you'll probably do more about 400,000 if you have four employees based upon your pricing. But if I do that when I won't have the funds to purchase a growth model, and if I purchase the growth model, then I won't have the funds to purchase a truck to even, to even need the growth model to start with, I'm in a pickle. I'm probably overthinking this. Your thoughts would help. Yeah, I really do believe you're overthinking this. All right, so two things. If you're growing your business to that size, you know, $400,000 next year, it's your second year in business, you would be able to finance the, the initial fee, and you'd end up paying like 3 or $400 a month if you needed to. If you needed to. Now what I'm saying, that is because you can keep growing your solo operator business, pay the $1,200 a month. And then when you want to lock in your territory and you need full services at command center, then pay the initial fee and lock in your territory. And if there was someone that comes along in your market that's looking for a full. For a growth model, we're going to notify a solo operator, like, hey, just so you know, we know you're close to being or over even above 20,000, do you want to go ahead and lock that in because there's someone else? It's like, Lee will reach out to you. It's not gonna be like, hey, by the way, someone's started today in your local area. We're not gonna do that to you. Especially if we know you're above 20. We know you're on that cusp of wanting to go to growth model, we'll let you know. So don't. I would not stress about that. What's going to be more likely, the thing that pushes you into needing the growth model is the fact that you're going to need help with full service stuff. You're gonna need help with the payroll. You're Gonna need help with someone going through email inbox and managing those other things that currently are not being done under basic services. So, Kevin, definitely feel free to talk to Lee on this one, too. But my inclination is keep growing your location. Go above 20,000, you'll go up to $1,200 per month. And don't worry about the initial fee until either A, someone's moving your territory, or B, you're going to get through end of next year and you're like, man, I got quite a bit of profits and I need from a tax perspective to get this paid right away. And you can amortize that, that initial fee as well so that you talk to your CPA about that with the taxes. But that's what I would be saying is just keep growing, focus on that. And then either A, if you are pushed into it because someone's one in your area, that's fine. More than likely you're going to be able to just keep growing at the $1,200 a month, and then you're eventually like, man, I need full service. Otherwise I have to go get a shop, an office, and an office person. That's when you make the commitment. Then.

Let me see here. Give me one second. Let me shoot. There we go. Do you think it's a good idea to publicly show which locations are in that state of emergency? Maybe it's someone close by us. We could offer any help we can.

This is a good thought. I would say twofold. I. I agree. And I.

I think because all of us in Augusta Nation want each other to succeed, and we are all on the same team, I'm inclined to say, yes, this is a good idea. The other side of it, Andy, is where I'm kind of coming from in having hesitation on this is when people get to that state where they're just wanting to give up, and they're basically on life support, and command center is trying to help them run the business, collect on old accounts, protect them from mad customers. When they get to that site, they're not in the state of mind where they want people to know, right? And so that's the balance that I want to kind of walk there. Some people, I don't want it to make it where it's embarrassing to be on the state of it, be in a state of emergency. I want it to be where if I need it, I jump into it so command center can block for me and sustain me through that time. And I don't want them to feel embarrassed, especially if someone's doing 100 plus thousand revenue and all of a sudden now it's public that, oh, they're going to try to go back to 30 or 40. That should not be an embarrassing thing. And I don't want someone to not declare a state of emergency because they're afraid of being publicly, quote, unquote, shamed, which is. It's just wrong. But for people in that state of mind, that's how it's taken. That's why a lot of people will work themselves into a frenzy and work themselves into a point of over just completely wanting to give up is because they're afraid of failing in front of other people. And the flip side to that is all of us here want each other to succeed. But again, in that frame a mind, most people, when they get there, they're not in the mood for everyone to know what they're doing. And it's embarrassing to some people. So I'll balance this out in my mind. I also kind of. We know who's on the state of emergency currently there's two or three.

And so potentially what might happen is I might reach out to you or Lee on a coaching call would let you know, hey, so and so is nearby. Could you reach out to them? For now, that's how I'm going to keep it. But I'll definitely keep this back of my mind, Andy, because I think this would be helpful. Um, but I just don't want someone to prevent getting help when getting help potentially for them might be a blow to ego or pride. And when someone's at that stage, they're not thinking clearly a lot of times. So there's just a couple of us right now working through it, a couple locations. And I think we're going to get through it. I know we will, but they just need a little bit of help and I don't want someone to prevent doing that because they're embarrassed for whatever reason.

But awesome. I appreciate all of you. Good 15 minutes and within, by Monday or Tuesday, we'll get some really good of those graphics for the hiring. Some different options you can use in your ads of you all.