Mike Minutes Mastermind 06/12/2023

Hey, everyone. Hope you're doing super well. Let's go ahead and get things kicked off while I'm getting this set up from YouTube to Facebook.

Quick reminder, if you have not yet signed up for the Memphis Workshop, which is happening in just a couple weeks.

Make sure you join. Just go to augustafranchise.com and there is a banner, and that links over to the site that Kevin Fairburn has set up for it. I know, Liz Lee, Chuck will be speaking. Marcus will be speaking, I believe. So they're doing a workshop on the setting up Christmas lights, and that's the day prior. And then obviously, a lot of just good time to meet up, touch base, etc, and I think it's just more morale boost for a lot after a long spring rush. So I know for a lot of us, we're just starting to catch our back, starting to catch our breath now.

And, you know, the next six months is where we start to see all of our profits and, you know, kind of the fruits of our labor from the past four or five months of hard work. So.

If you haven't and you are close by, I would highly recommend coming. The nice thing about Memphis is it is more centrally located, and so if you're within driving distance, I'd definitely be there, but just a really, really good event. What's funny is.

When I look at events like that, I look around the room and I'm like, oh, look, these are all the top franchisees. And it's like, oh, is it because they're the top franchisees that come? No, I think it's the other way around, and it's because they come to those type events, get around great people, get. Get other ideas, bounce things off of each other, connect with other individuals. That's what makes them great. And so if you look at even the other day, the shout out that.

Chuck was giving to.

Knoxville and to Kevin Cohen for both breaking 100,000amonth in revenue again, to two locations that are very well connected. Come to events, touch base with other people, ask questions, give advice, and that's the type of individual I think that will succeed. So highly recommend. You can make it be there. You can just go to augustafranches.com on the dashboard and there's a banner there for more information. All right.

In true Monday marathon fashion, we have eight questions. It looks like that came in.

Let's get started.

You know, I'm a little bit earlier than usual. It's just. It's gonna be a little bit more all around now, because now we have Projects going on, and the whole nine yards here in South Park. Ken from Venton, Michigan, you might have answered this question already, but I need to hear it again. How do you plan with customers that cancel because of poor, poor quality? Even though you know you did a good job? I'm not sure how to handle it. I want to do a good job so nobody fires us. But I'm also conflicted with a call callist attitude, with a callous attitude. Tell myself that it's not me, it's them, and they're bad customers. What you're saying could be true, but.

The bottom line is having that attitude won't improve your quality of life.

What the approach you want to take is, okay, well, what, what was wrong? What can we do to improve? And if you take that attitude and then go listen to them and not defend yourself, you'll probably actually learn a lot. And it might not be the job itself. It might been the way that you did the follow up or the walkthrough, or the fact that you didn't clean up a little bit extra or whatever it might be. So.

This, this is an attitude you'll have to overcome if you're ever going to have great customer service. Because even if a customer's in the wrong, you still need to listen to them. And if they consistently are wrong, they consistently are being unreasonable. Yeah, you're gonna let them go. But I would highly recommend, like, you're not gonna learn a lot from your customers. You are amazing. You do the best. You might enjoy doing their project, but you're not gonna learn anything. Right? So this is why you'll see me hop into, like, forums or like people online that say negative stuff about me. Because there's definitely grains of truth in all of it, right? And there's things that I can learn.

I try to improve based upon the people saying negative things. And then running that through the filter of like, hey, like, there's always people saying negative things, there's always unhappy customers, etc.

But also synthesizing the fact that that's really some of your best. Some of the best ideas for aggressive have come from unhappy franchisees that have said things to me. And then I'm like, okay, like that. Really look at this and think about it. And usually in the moment, I know that they're reacting from a heated or emotional point of view, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there potentially is a grain of truth there that I can learn from and become better. And so.

Having an open mindset to people that Are saying negative things about your product or service is extremely helpful for you because that's how you actually get better. And yes, like a lot of times there is 90% at of it is like emotion and customer unhappy and like they are unreasonable. But the other 10% you're like, you know, I could improve that, I could make that better. Right. I could send them a video of the project prior to getting started so there is no confusion. I could make sure I do the follow up the, the walkthrough an hour before I clean up so that there isn't any buyer's remorse after I leave. And then they're calling and saying there's poor quality. In reality, there's a couple little things I could have, you know, tidied up for them before I left the cleanup. So.

I don't at least recently, like in the last few years, I don't think there's anyone that could say like this that when they say something negative about my product services, whatever that I come against them. I'm usually like, hey, like let me hear you like get it all out. Because like I usually want that 10% of it. That's true. Maybe 20% of it's true. Maybe it's all true. But I just want to hear that because that's the only way I can become better. And that's the only thing I can control. I can't control their emotional response or the reactivity or the fact that they're not on their meds or whatever like that. But I can affect my quality of service. And the only way that I can impact that is by listening to them for a bit. Land Smith, I believe you guys. You said your guys are knocking doors. Have you found that knocking down every door and waiting like 10 seconds has gotten all better turn than just hanging the door hangers? That's getting a good bit more output, more out. We put about 800 door hangers this past week and I've gotten like two quotes. Any suggestions? Okay, great. So we have done both. I am finding that the only reason you should knock is if you are a good talker. And so the person I have putting out door hangers, one of them isn't a great talker. And so I'm like, hey, let's just focus on door hangers. Let's just focus on numbers. And it's been working pretty good. I got two estimates this morning from the work I did yesterday so far and I think one, they just said they got stuff that I got. Oh, it's an email. Then Emailed in property cleanup from a door hanger. So in terms of numbers, I, I made a video this morning that you guys will see at the end of the month for the kind of behind the scenes course that I'm making for you guys.

But essentially it's like I think you can do 100 to 150 if you're running like I was doing yesterday per hour and depending on the density of the houses, and then I would say a minimum though you should be able to do 60 an hour. Like minimum. If you're walking, you should be able to 60 an hour. Like it's not hard and that's like a more spread out area. So I would, I would say, you know, you know, if you did 800 door hangers, that's probably like 12 hours worth of work, 13 hours max. And if it's taking you 40, then there's a problem. Someone's not, not hustling or like they're, they're just, it just I was able to do 150 plus an hour I was running. But you could easily do 100 if you had, if you're really going for it. And so 60 in my mind, one per minute is not hard.

And so again, you just gotta do the math on the two quotes, right? So is it. So maybe a third one come in for example, and then just a matter of like, you know, tracking that, seeing what's working, what's not working. But even like they totally door holding that sign. I got another estimate within like 30 or 40 minutes. It's like, man, this is like a valid way to actually get clients. It's like, okay, well if I can get a client every hour to hour and a half, that means like four a day if I just stand out there. Is that fun? No. Is it more mind numbing than just doing door hangers? Yes, but it's just a numbers game, right? So I would, I would say you'd have a good sample set like 3 or 4000 door hangers the same way. I kind of think I have a good sample set on holding the sign out next to the road after like eight to 10 hours. So.

Yeah, I would just focus on numbers and not knock indoors. Unless you're really good at talking to people. So like my general manager, Terence, he's really good talking to people. Very personable people, really like him. And the other guy I'm hiring, Jonathan, isn't bad. It's just that the communication once the person starts talking to them isn't as, as personable. So I Would probably say, you know, lean in the direction of.

Just. Just get the door hangers out, I guess. I literally hardly talked to anybody for the hours I was putting them out.

Can you get to the time of how you acquire your first three locations after Bellingham, how did you start purchasing? Financed or paid cash? I did it all with cash.

And in terms of how I start them, Mooresville, like, we're. Our first North North Carolina location was simply because it was our first franchisee that ever retired and basically was like, hey, the business is doing good, but I'm just old and I always want to take it, take a break. So I was like, okay, great, I'll. I'll buy it off of you. I paid a good value for it.

Paid for all the customers, bought the trucks, and I was Mooresville. Something similar happened out in Connecticut. I ended up giving that location back to the franchisee after he got through kind of a rough spot and. But then we just kept growing around North Carolina because that's where having a regional manager within proximity of the locations is extremely valuable. Land Smith. I completely forgot that we had a deal in Andy's leads. Is that something you have tested or interested in? It seems like it might be a good route to go if you're just concerned with selling the schedule and not as much profit. I have not tried it, to be perfectly honest with you. Now that you mentioned it, I probably should do that while I'm here. It's not a bad idea at all. I'm going to make a note least so I can see exactly the process of getting set up and everything because there is no annual fee. So I have not done that. I have not tested that. It's not something I'm super interested in because I'm not really a fan of renting out leads for Angeles, who's also going to sell that same lead in three months to another landscaper. But I should try it out. Yes.

But I think the current. Current thing will say like 300 bucks basically in here. All right. This is anonymous.

I'm struggling a little bit with living for the weekend. Except when I get to the weekend, I'm bored and ready to go back to work. I'm constantly thinking about the business and how can I. I can improve it yet during the week. I can't wait for the weekend. The business is where it needs to be financially, and I am struggling a lot. The business is not where it needs to be financially. I am struggling doing a lot of the physical labor.

Day in and day out. It gets really Old really fast. I have a brain dump. But any tips or advice? Yeah. So in my opinion, the reason you feel this way is because on the weekend, you're not in it, whereas in the, during the five days of the week when you're actually working, you're in it. This is why getting away to something like the Memphis meetup is healthy, is because you get out of it and you start to look on the business. And most of us as entrepreneurs, business owners, et cetera, we enjoy the process of working on the business and strategizing and thinking about where it can go and seeing the possibilities and seeing the growth and seeing what we can do and being inspired by other people. That's what we enjoy doing. And so what happens is when, when you're on hitting Saturday and Sunday, you're like, oh man, like, you know, yes, we are struggling financially, but man, we've grown quite a bit. We got a lot of leads. Okay, this, this employee, how should I improve that? Like, that's where your, your creative mind starts to be able to start getting into gear versus the rest of the week is like you have to just put on your boots and like get work done. And that's just part of the process.

You just can't jump from being in the field to working on the business instantly without a lot of capital. And so that's why you're hitting up against that. Because as you're growing, growth sucks cash. And if you don't have a lot of cash reserves, you're not going to be able to grow very quickly out of that. Like this location, for example. I'm hoping like next week I'm hiring a second employee. But again, I'm spending $500 a week for someone to go and do door hangers, right? So that's a few thousand dollars a month I'm spending on that marketing channel. But that is because I have the capital. So if you don't have the capital, it is going to be more work. And that's what you're hitting up against the five days a week and then the Saturday and Sunday when you're out of that work and you actually can step back from the business for a moment and not be in it.

Then you're like, man, like, I'm inspired. I want to think about hiring. I want to know where can I improve this? How can I make these get more leads? So it's very, very common. It's also a matter of as you get more mature and not just age wise, just like in business for a lot longer.

You, you should be able to start improving at being a little bit more in the moment and like enjoying the process of being out in the field, but then enjoying the weekend when you're able to work on the business and think about the future and how you're gonna expand and how you're going to grow, etc.

The financial constraints does make the work out in the field more stressful because you have financial stress on top of the physical stress.

Again, we've always talked about this, like you go through physical stress, then you go through financial stress, and then you go through psychological stress as you grow the business. You're kind of right, right in between the physical stress and the financial stress. You're coming out of physical, like as you probably next year, probably getting more employees, etc. As you go in that second stage of financial stress. There is an overlap there. And that's like when you're hiring employees and there's not a lot of money in the bank. And that's where you hear stories of like, can't make payroll and all that sort of thing. It happens to everybody. It is a, it is not.

A surprise. It is to be expected as you're growing the business because it happens to every single person. So.

Yeah, I think.

There'S days I look back like, man, I always loved if my boots are just mow grass for the day, right?

And what I've tried to get better at is not thinking like that because when I was on the field I also thought, man, one day it's gonna be great. And I can like be in an office and have like a lot of locations and I can help the franchisees and I can focus on making the videos and improving the training and all those other things. Well, those things have all come to pass. So like, if you constantly are living for the next thing, you basically will never be have any level of contentment or enjoy your day to day life. So being cognizant and like connecting with people like this on a mastermind or thing like Memphis Meetups, like, okay, these are all different people at different stages of growth, different stages of their career, different stages of their business. And yet there's a lot of people that like want different things. And so the same way that, you know, about seven, eight years ago I was like, man, I just wanted to be an office. Well, now I'm in an office and I'm like, man, I just want to put my boots on his work so I don't have to deal with code and things breaking and developers and drama and people and emotions and all this other stuff. So coming to realize like I'm going to enjoy this stage of the business and it might not be easy, I enjoy every part of it but I am going to enjoy this part of the journey because it's not going to be like this in 5, 10 years, right? Like in 5 or 10 years I'll probably look back and be like man, it was so simple when we were first getting started Copilot and there was only like 10 or 15 developers. Like that will count. That'll happen, right? So just being, recognizing okay, there's this is a moment. This is a unique part of the business journey. I'm going to enjoy it and I'm going to enjoy the good, the bad and I'm going to feel what it feels like to be in this.

Present state of the business.

Lion Smith Number one Would we be able to add pine straw door hangers? Maybe add them as a service to the multi service one. The majority of people here use that and mulch. I think we have one. If not I will. Oh I know we have the pine straw installation, postcards, flyers, etc we don't have an instant quote door hanger for them but we do have all the designs on the pro Shop. Is there any way we can order the signs that you are holding? We will put them on the pro Shop. We order, we create a couple more. Eventually we'll put them on the pro shop. Yes.

Kyle Tarvin, a national brand owes us for 600 for two months of service. They have basically ignored our calls to collect and we are having issues with them in the past. So we are ready to move on, drop them and move on. Is there any way to get paid on this since they are a company and not individual? I know with individuals we can send them to collections and hurt their credit but I'm not sure if this is worth it for businesses. It's still painful for businesses. I would still send them to collections per usual. If you use Empire you can use the documentation on the dashboard to submit to them. At least you'll get $400 out of it instead of you know, nothing. Chelsea from Arnold Hey Mike, we are really enjoying your 30 day challenge videos. Have you ever run into bad Google reviews when doing door hangers? If so, how do you handle that? In our market door hangers generally work really well because but we seem to get a few 1 star reviews. When we do do them people state that we are trespassing, soliciting even though we don't knock or that we are leaving garbage on their property. Just curious if this is a concern to you. It is not a concern to me. And even if someone comes and approaches me during while I'm doing door hangers, I'm not concerned about it. It's like here, here's the bottom line. I could knock on the door and annoy you because 99 of the people that I knock on that door, I'm going to be annoying them and taking their time. Or I could simply put door hanger with a customized quote. This is the part where I feel like we get away with it really, really well. And I have, I don't believe I've ever seen any of our locations that I have have a bad review from. This is because it's customized. It's not just like we're going to throw door hangers in every single house. If you're doing instant quote door hangers with a price on there, it's customized there. They can see the date is different. They can see you've written with a marker. Like I don't have the best writing and you can tell this is handwritten. So I feel like it's more, it's more personable. I have never gotten a one star view. I don't believe ever for doing that. And it's not soliciting, it is canvassing. I don't even really address that on social media because people have such opinions about this. It's anything with trespassing, it's a matter of like it. So door hangers, for example, some people have post office post boxes or what are they called, mailboxes next the road. Some people have literally on their doorstep. It is not illegal to go and knock on someone's door. Right? It is not trespassing. If you trespass, it would be if they wanted you off the property and or you were inside their house like you were breaking, entering. So that's trespassing. Okay. So if they have a sign that says no trespassing or no soliciting, I just avoid them. Like obviously that's the type of person that would probably leave a one star review or not like it. So I'm not going to try to force it on them.

But I don't think I've ever got one. And honestly I think the couple one star reviews that say this, the response should be, we are in your area. We apologize for any inconvenience. We saw that you might need our services and we wanted to give you a customized quote, personalized quote written on the, on the door hanger. Right. I would assume, Chelsea, that you've done these in the past without customizing them with the note on them, like with the, the writing. And that seems to with this. But I am not concerned about this at all because again, remember, the person looking that you actually care about for reviews is the person that's looking for to do service with you. And so if they see someone that hasn't even done service with you, leave a one star review, it doesn't affect them. Right. They're looking for, is this person reputable, is this company reputable, do they do a good job? Do they have good customer service? Someone leaving a one star review about your door hangers and then you give you a very professional response to them, tells that customer, okay, first off, this has nothing to do with what I'm trying to rate this customer, this company on, because I'm looking for service. I'm not looking for whether they need door hangers or not. And then right below that is the level that your, how professional your response is to them. So I'm not concerned about this in the slightest.

At all. I did a pretty lengthy video.

I've been doing a video every single. Hey, got another estimate. Let's go. Who's this for?

Ah, very nice.

Why does that name seem familiar? Linda. Linda. Linda.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. I know exactly. That is okay. Did a good last week. Okay. So.

Yeah, I did. I'm doing a video every single day for all of you. But then I did one video yesterday and if you'd like to see it, you can. I did for the course numbers. So if you're in landscape, business course or MBA for entrepreneurs, just go to the very bottom. I made like a 25 minute video while I was riding out my door hangers yesterday. Just kind of walking through the math of door hangers that I'm seeing so far and.

Kind of elaborating on what the video today that went up after I got kicked out of the holding, the sign, I went over like, hey, if you did one customer a day and you had 5% of every single month of attrition, here's the kind of business you'd be growing over the course of a couple years. And I actually broke that math down a little bit, so feel free to look at that. Everyone has free access to all of those, so feel free to take a look at that. So.

I'm thinking next week I might release the course that I'm making for all of you, like the daily behind the scenes.

But we just gotta get the media team caught up back home, didn't do a bunch of filming, getting a bunch more pictures and videos for all of us.

So hopefully next week I'll have that up, and then I'll update it as I go throughout the challenge. All right. Hope you all have a fantastic Monday. We'll see you. Take care.