Mike Minutes Mastermind 05/25/2022

Hello Augusta Nation. Hope you're all doing super well. I have a couple more days here where I am in turnaround so still back in a mobile office here slash trailer. So let's go ahead and hop in. There was one question that came in and if there's anything that's live, feel free to contribute. I don't really have anything super specific in terms of updates right off the bat. We are still working on several different designs and packets for the hiring for indeed Facebook, Craigslist, et cetera and we'll have different postings part later this weekend. Until then though, you will have the actual designs 8 and a half by 11 square and then rectangular, ready to roll here by Friday. So working on that and just trying to get different types of angles for hiring from P4P, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All right, let's go ahead and jump into this question. I think there was just one that came in.

Share my screen here.

Right. It's from Nick Marysville. I've never quite understood this Command center puts a note that says only charge car with client authorization when you filter the end of the month we can't see this note on everyone's profile. I just filter by card on file and charge them. As far as I know there is no way to weed out client that has this note. Also what's the point of having a card on file if you had to ask the client if you want to charge it? I 100% agree with this. I'll forward this along to command center. We what I am going to assume happened here is someone was over the phone estimate and they're like well I'll give you my card but I want to know when it's being charged and what they potentially would have says like hey well we'll let you know. That would have been the wrong thing to say in that case. Like look we're going to charge you either weekly or bi weekly or sorry weekly or monthly or whenever is on your wiki and that's going to happen. So if you don't want that to happen, don't have services. So I'll forward this along. Sometimes customers can be really pushy about this on over the phone. And you know as as a command center we don't want to like cancel a customer but it's usually a pretty tell tall sign if someone's like I'll give you my card but don't charge it without telling me. Like it's almost it's very difficult to do that even if you did tags and all the rest of it. Like, what are you going to email everybody a day or two before? It just, it's, it's not, it's like, look, we charge for all the service done at the end of the month. So you might get charged at the first, second, third. You'll probably see out in your card somewhere on the third every month. So I'll circle back with command center just so they know exactly what to say here. But I, I would assume this is someone over the phone and is very pushy about not charging it automatically. And that's why we run into so many issues with service. Autopilot is because people will put their card on file and then they can go in there and toggle it to where they don't put it doesn't allow auto charge. And then you go to cards on file and you think of they're all paid but you're going to clear it. It's not, it's because they can go into there and toggle off autopay. So, yeah, great point here, Nick. I'll forward this along. It's really going to come down to a customer that's probably being very pushy about not charging their card. It's like, look, we're going to do your services. We're going to charge it between the first and the 30s of every single month and for whatever services were done. And if you don't like that, you know, you got to go kind of file a kite. So I've had it a couple times when I've been doing training and I'm talking to a customer and they're like, I don't want to put my card on file. It's like, you have to, it's not an option. And so sometimes their next thing is, why don't you auto charge it? And so I'll just make sure that that is.

Clarified. Let me just take this down. I like to buy a house to fix up and sell a rent. When do you think we can expect to have a drop? Should I pounce on a house now or wait a few months? So I would wait a few months. This is my personal recommendation. Obviously there's no guarantees. The thing that is keeping the housing market somewhat afloat right now is the fact that there's just not a lot of things on the market. So a lot of people are not selling not because they want, they don't need to move or whatever. They're not selling because they, they know they're not going to lock in an interest rate that they've had over the past few years. So if I got an interest rate for 2 and a half or 3%, I'm not going to sell my house right now because I don't want to go buy another house and get 5 and 6%. So that is what's keeping the housing market floating. But if the interest rates continue to go up like they are and we go up to 6 plus percent, it's going to become unaffordable to buy houses and people will not be able to buy. So.

When should I expect a drop? I expect towards the fall. This year there would be a pretty good real estate drop. That being said, just because there's a drop doesn't mean that it's more affordable because the interest rates will be going up. Right. So the monthly price, the monthly cost to you is still going to be about the same regardless if you buy now or then. It's really going to come down to, you know, that initial price. So what that means is if you're trying to do a fix and flip and you're able to go in with cash, so you have 80 grand or 100 grand, you'll get a better deal in several months because the market will soften. But if you're trying to get a loan, trying to get debt, your interest rates are going to be going up too. So your cost per month is going to be about the same. So that's why, why the housing market has a lot of buoyancy because you have the fact that interest rates, as they move it also changes the prices of the housing. And that's what the federal, the Fed is trying to manipulate. Like, okay, if our market is just going crazy, well, let's raise interest rates so people stop buying as much because it makes it more expensive to borrow money. So.

Where are you wearing coat? I'm wearing a coat. We're in the office, it's raining.

No peeing or anything in here. We are booked out three weeks for projects. We are getting a lot of maintenance clients coming in. Should we cancel all small projects and just do the maintenance clients? We are running hard every night but are running out of time. Thoughts? So again, I can't see who this is. I can jump into Facebook and see just so I have more context, because usually that actually helps me a lot. How I answer these. Give me one second here.

Facebook. Let's see who actually said this. Thomas. Okay, see here. Cool. So a couple things. If you're doing really basic, simple projects, you should be able to bring in new hires and throw Them onto a mulch job, a weeding job. Even if you have to check in on them at the end of the day, you should be able to get some help a lot faster. That's the advantage of being simple services is you can throw them onto a project and they can make 5, $600 on a project cleanup or whatever it is, as long as it's simple. Simple, simple like mulch, install gravel install weeding. Right. Basic stuff. That would be my first inclination. Can you find people? And I feel like I can't find anybody to work for me. That's what's a matter of you got to move projects off, right? So in this turnaround that we're doing now, last Saturday, we moved off all projects for the next three weeks because we needed to, you know, redo the team. We needed to get focused on the mowing customers. We need to get everything dialed back in. And so.

We moved off every single project. And if they canceled, we were sorry, but we just were honest and like, we can't do it. And so that. That's worst case scenario, though. Like, I think best case scenario, you find someone that can do really, really basic stuff. They just need to be like, dependable to show up because they don't need skills. They don't even know how to mow or edge or blow or use service all part much like they just literally have to be a property, pull those weeds, install that mulch, like basic. That'd be my first thing. And that's why basic services is so important. The next thing would be to yes, move the projects off and focus on your recurring customers. You don't want to go after the golden egg when you and leave the golden goose. The golden goose that keeps laying eggs is recurring work. And so just make sure that would be my recommendation. Obviously, simple services. It sounds to me like if you can find somebody, that would be the ideal scenario. Worst case, push your projects off. Give yourself two to three weeks of like, if you have three weeks booked out, contact people and be like, hey, I can't do you for three weeks. I'm really sorry. I know this is super inconvenient. I know where you're planning to do your job.

And I just can't find anyone to work for me. And if you can wait for another three weeks, I'm happy to do the job. If not, I understand if you need to find another provider, here's the thing, everyone else is three to four weeks booked out and can't find employees either. So they're just going to Take it. They're just going to accept it. They're going to be three weeks out and they're going to be like, okay, whatever, that's fine. Most people will do that.

Is there a way to give us a heads up when we are starting to wonder outside the systems in a way which could lead to bigger problems down the road? Perhaps a gauge or something that indicates green, orange, red, red being danger. I know I get outside the system sometimes. I want to be sure I stay on top of that. Yes. This is why the month the coaching calls lead is so important because that is my. That is the indicator across the entire all the locations. And for the locations that had had.

Emergency declare a state of emergency last week, most of them had not had coaching calls in four or five months. Maybe one of them didn't have any of her. So like, that is the gauge, right? And I know for some of you, you're like, man, the coaching calls us, we're just going over numbers. We're just connecting. I'm just kind of sharing with a coach kind of linkage what's going on. Like, it's almost like a therapist talking to them. That's perfect. Because what you're not getting in that scenario is, hey, this is messed up. You got to change this. And if you're not getting that, that's means you're on the right path. It's more a matter of time and execution instead of, hey, you're getting off track.

And you know, we can only do so much in terms of recommending things and this location currently I had recommended a lot of things that were not heated. And so that's why I'm have take the location over and turn this thing around. Whereas there's another location right now that's the same thing's happening. Lee and Liz are jumping in and helping in their state of emergency. And if they're going to do something outside what they're telling them to do, like, we can only do so much. And so I'm hoping that after this turnaround I'm able to chronologically say what happened and what I did and show the numbers to all of you. Because I don't want it to be like hypothetical, like, oh, like I just hope that they know what they're telling me. Like the systems work. And so I'm. I'm proving to myself and I'm proving to hopefully all of all of you that after this that I can show you the numbers and say, hey, this is what a struggling location was doing. Here's how we turn it around, here's the system we could plugged it right back into the same systems, plugged it right back over the phone estimates right back into P4P. Here's all the things that were wrong, here are all the things that we changed and the systems that we all use. And here's what it's doing today and that's what I'm here for. And it's gonna be really, really powerful. But again, I know when someone's in state of emergency, it's easy to start acting out of emotion and what seems very short term and that's challenging. But if you can, those calls with Lee are important because it's a way for him to gauge exactly you're talk green, orange, red. That's exactly what that is all about. And if he thinks someone's red, I'm hearing about Liz is here. They have meetings every week between all the management. So that's, that is the gauge. The gauge is on a call and.

You know, red is if we're in a case state of emergency. That's when everyone at Command center knows we have a short list. We have daily calls with that person to try to get them back on track from command center's perspective. But yeah, I'm here to make sure that the systems that we talk about so often are not just good for peacetime. When everything's going well and big company and running P4P, we're going to take a struggling company losing tens of thousand dollars a month and turn around using the systems that we talk about every single day. So I'm looking forward to being able to show that to you. It's been a great turnaround so far.

What is it? Monday? So day three. It's been a long week, but I'm gonna hopefully after a month or two be able to show all the numbers and be able to show exactly what's going on. Taking a company that's in a state of emergency and flipping it completely around using the systems that we talk about every single day. So hope that helps. But in terms of gauging it, the coaching calls are so important. Usually when I get escalated things that are 901 status, employees walking up the job, big things that happen like this or whatever it might be. Uh, I asked Lee when was that time you had a coaching call with them? And it's five, six, eight months. Never. Right. So as, as much as you might think, it's just like, oh, I'm just talking like why are we. That's a good thing. Because in that talking. He's trying to pick up on things that potentially might seem like you're out of the systems or that you're starting to deviate from them. And the location that I'm at currently that we're turning around, that was five months ago that the deviation started, and now it's means I have to come in and step in. So, anyways, thank you all so very much. Have a great rest of your Wednesday. Happy hump day. Let's roll. Take care, everyone.