Mike Minutes Mastermind 06/13/2024

And we're live.

All right, let's get this thing started. Sorry, I did not put this inside of the Facebook group. Give me one second.

All right. I figured I'd start off a little education. Actually, what the education is going to be.

June 13th is.

It'S interesting because I. My location for anytime finished just past its 10th, is going into its 10th year since starting. So they have renewals. So it's kind of cool. Very interesting. I was able to quiz the person on the phone, told him, like, look, hey.

I'm also a franchisor, so I'd really be interested in how you're doing this. And so they gave me a ton of information, talked about the compliance and what happens if people don't comply. It's very interesting. So, for example, like at my location, and for most locations, it costs their renewal when they do a renewal, they revamp all like the design of the club. So you're looking at between 100 and $200,000 to remodel the club. New paint schemes, new signage out front, whole nine yards, at least 100, up to 200,000 kind of costs. So it was interesting. I said, okay, well like, how many people are actually able to do it? Because, like, that's a big chunk of cash to renew just. Just to be able to continue your next five years in the franchise. And so she said she has 350.

Renewals that she's done this year, 260 of them renewed, 90 of them either closed down or sold because they just couldn't afford to actually do the refresh. So very interesting.

So, yeah, that was. That was very interesting.

So, like, my location, I'm probably gonna spend like probably between 100 and 150,000 because I've already done some of the improvements. But then they talked about, like, what happens if someone doesn't comply. So was very interesting because, like, I know like in was a year and a half, the trucks are going to have to all be done a certain way. And so what happens if someone's not complying? So she gave me like the full out thing. It was great, great education for me. All right, let's jump into questions.

All right, Amber Live question number one from Joel from Lafayette, Umaro Uno. Since every location has different labor rates, would you be able to break down what your version of 400k and 700k look like in terms of budget hours per. Per.

Peak month and per year? I'm assuming the plan was for mostly recurring services since instead of large project and materials based work. Yeah, the goal is Mostly recurring. And then usually a larger percentage of your revenue is gonna make up projects in your first year or two. And then as time goes on, you kind of chip away at it to where most of your revenue starts coming from. Recurring. So I was talking to Nick today and like I think like 80 plus percent of his revenues is recurring. Some of our owners I know like max up and burnaby. It was literally 97% when I was doing his coaching calls. And I know he was trying to shoot like just that's all he'd do is mowing. And so in terms of this breakdown, I would say really, in reality, I kind of briefly hinted at in the video, but really you just need to get past 500,000 and then optimize for profit over the course of a few years and you'll get to 700,000 because you only need to increase your prices by 40% to go from 500,000 in revenue, not do any more work in terms of new jobs, new customers. If you just raised Your prices by 40% over the course of a few years, you'd get to 700,000.

So like that, that's really the most, the most profitable way to grow the business is get to 500 as fast as possible and then start optimizing and raise your profits by raising prices. Because if you raise your prices, they say you raise your prices in year two and raise your prices in year four, you could literally get from 500 to 700,000. And that's no new trucks, no new equipment, no new capacity, no new employees. If you just try to take your time and do it by price increases. In that video, I did assume you'd probably buy one more truck to get from 500 to 700,000 or 400,000 to 700,000, which you would not need to do if you weren't trying to grow as fast.

But yeah, usually your first year and second year more of your revenue is actually coming from projects. And if you're not going to do that, it's fine. You're just going to grow slower.

In terms of top line revenue. And my objective, like in the video is like fill up the two trucks as quickly as possible. So you're going to do more project based work simply because it will take you to get 100. Mowing customers, for example, could take 2, 3 months, whereas tomorrow I can sell projects and fill the schedule. So that's like a very common thing. I see even locations that have been around for a long time now, they're just starting to, okay, like I got to get more recurring work. I'm going to try to go from like 40% to 60% and then like 60% to 75% and try to optimize it that way just to reduce the amount of oversight needed. From project management perspective, number two, how would you consistently find GMs? Who? Oh, this is a great question. I thought I said I might said something little in the video. Great question. How would you consistently find GMs? You can grow from 0 to 400,000 in one year and then do it again to 700,000 in a second year after going through two spring rushes, two GMs. It seems like a difficult role to fill without burning someone out and keeping them incentivized, without owning the business, sales and without profits to share in it. Great question.

So first and foremost, the most successful GMs are the ones that have worked with you for a long period of time. And so the reason that there's so much working capital that I baked into those is because, and you'll notice the fourth year is when I start, I got my first GM.

Started my second location. The reason is because I think those first three years I'm trying to groom somebody. I'm hopefully trying to think about in like year three and you'll see like the stages of growth. I say, hey, you're not ready yet to have a general manager, but you need to start thinking about it. Grooming someone for an entire six to 12 months is usually the people who do the best. If you look at all the best general managers, most of them. Most of them, not all of them. Most of them have worked as a field laborer prior to being a general manager for at least six to 12 months. The best ones, usually many years they've already worked inside the company. So there's so much built up trust, there's so much built up like expectations of who does what. It's super, super important in terms of the starter role. That's the reason that person wouldn't potentially go start their own is because they can't hold their breath for two or three years and not make any money. And so if they need the solid paycheck, but they're entrepreneurial, you say, hey, look, I know you don't want to be running operations. If you're going to be in sales role, you're the starter, you're going to get a piece of every single one that you build. And so you can look at the compensation videos for GMs, but like basically they can get 15% of every location they start which technically, if they just started one new one every single month, built up five of those for you, and then became a regional manager, they can make up to 30% profits on every single location, all of them. If they just built up a chain of five or six for you, like starting one or two a year as a starter role, handing off to a GM, getting it past 20,000amonth in revenue. If they just get past 20,000amonth in Revenue, they gain 10% of all those. And then the regional manager gets 15% based upon the region, the compensation document I have in there of new locations. So they could technically become your regional and then keep all the starter residuals. So I highly recommend watching those two videos. And then you can just like, I would make those videos for someone who's a starter and be like, okay, does this incentivize you? Does this get you excited? Someone who's really into sales, they just would rather be starting new ones all the time, getting new GMs, finding them, training them up, getting them put in place, and then if that person becomes your regional, because maybe after five years, they don't want to keep doing that, they become the regional and they can actually really, really do well.

Like, the numbers are very much on their side if they're really driven from a starter's perspective. But it's just like, man, five years for a lot of people, it's just like, it seems like, oh, five years, no problem. Five years is a long time to like, be grinding. It's easier said than done.

So.

2A. If you, if the question, the answer to the last question is develop people within the team to become GMs during those first four years operating their first location. What do you do to develop those team members so they are ready for that kind of massive growth? Great question. Joel's out here just laying it down. This is where optional meetings come into play. This is where the audible program comes into play. You're seeing who's taking the bite, like, who's going after it, and then you're just feeding them more. So, okay, we need estimates. We're way behind. It's. I'm going to send that person out and go do a few and see what happens. And I throw them in the deep end a couple times because there's no downside. Like, there's tons of jobs, we're booked out. I'm going to send them out and have them do an estimate or two on their route. Let's see what the customer says. I'm going to ask them to Put a, put the phone in their pocket, push record, do an in person estimate and then we'll break it down and try to make them better. If they get excited about that, you got someone on your hands that could potentially develop the best. GMs are always the ones that like are always coming into it very hungry. They're always looking for opportunity. They care more about learning and educating themselves than they are about making more money. Those are always the best. They're almost always the ones who eventually like either own their own business, become regional managers, I've promoted into leadership teams, etc. Mr. Anonymous, what advice do you have when it comes to hiring?

We have all seen the videos that talk about how our business hinges on sales and hiring. I can't speak for everyone with the hiring portion seems to be more difficult than finding new clients. In my case, I've often left the throttle off on taking new clients because I can't find the employees to do the work. The issue that I've had with indeed is that I get 40 plus applicants. Half will answer the first question that asks what do you think you would be a good fit for this job? If you don't answer this question then you will not be considered for this position. And they still don't answer the question, much less some of the other questions. Okay, great. So let's stop there because this is a very big topic. Let me break this one down. I'll also say there's a video coming out next Tuesday. I'm going to go very in depth about this one topic and that seasonal workers.

But that aside, this question too nebulous, way too abstract for a frontline team member that is not going to be able to like think introspectively as much like this. You might get your grade A talent to answer this question, which is a screening mechanism. But if you're not having any good people just even filling out the form, like filling out the application, you're going to have to remove some of these filters. This question is a great fit for someone who's literally looking for one specific job. There's two or three in your market and they're going to apply and spend a lot of time on them. I think a better question if I had to like on the spot here, give me a second.

Another question might be have you looked at our website?

They take enough time to actually look at Augusta's website before hopping on and filling out the form. Have you checked out augustalonger services.com boom.

One that I would recommend putting as just like an optional thing is like even like do you know, have you watched any videos about Augusta Lanca or even Mike Andy's? It's just, just throwing those out there. Again, those are easier questions, yes or no. It doesn't require them to answer a whole bunch of like thought provoking introspective stuff. Just a recommendation. Another one you could ask there, if you're trying to filter people, is how many years of experience do you have and require them to put in the field a certain number of years.

Because that's going to be more like beneficial to you. Like the answer to this question you got to ask yourself like in answering this question, am I being deliberate to where there is a right and wrong person? Because really at this point the only reason you're doing this is to literally just want something set here. Like something. Just having something unanswer is usually a pretty bad screening mechanism. I would look for yes or no answers or a number. So like number of years of experience. I'd go with that one. Because if you're looking for someone experienced and you're like one year minimum, how many years of experience do you have? They have to put that number in. Have you gone to our website?

Have you heard of Augusta Lawn Care Services before? Things like that? Yes and no questions are good. About 25 to 30% will show up and most of those are stellar. I'm guessing art is what you meant here. Stellar either. In our state, all you have to do is click to apply to jobs to keep your keep your unemployment.

I'm now starting to pass out business cards to anyone and everyone since indeed doesn't seem to be a viable option for us. Also making folks on Facebook next door, etc. Any other suggestions? So if you have more leads than you have work, raise your prices so that the work that does come in you're so exceptionally profitable on. And the guys make so much on P4P. You now can raise your base pay to a point where you will attract more talent. Like I happen to believe that if your base Pay went from $20 to $25 or $28, you'd be able to find good talent. Because remember they're looking at base pay. And so if you have more leads then you can work because because of the lack of supply of labor, increase prices, you have more demand than you have supply. What happens? Price should go up in the natural supply and demand curve. So increase prices. By doing so you will then be able to raise your base pay. And ultimately people are coming for a job they're coming for a paycheck. If you give them more more people will apply and better people will play.

Landon Smith Tallahassee, Florida do you think we could get an automation set up in Copilot for sending someone an email of their schedule? For example, when you create a customer it pops up with suggestions to add a property to create an estimate, visit, etc. It would be nice if a suggestion popped up to email the client with the services date whenever we finish creating the visit as opposed to having to go back to the client search, click on their profile, click the Send estimate option, then select the correct one. Just I thought that would make a process a little easier if that's possible. Thank you for all you do helping us keep crushing it. Okay, I'm failing to see exactly what this is do. It pops up with suggestions when you create a customer pops up suggestions to add a property create an estimate.

Popped. Be nice if a suggestion popped up to email the client with their service dates whenever we finish creating their visit.

I see the use case, I see what you're doing here. There are also other people that would just be super annoying for a pop up to annoy them every single time they create a visit. Because there are times you aren't trying to notify a client right away, I would just set up the automation to your point like you just set up on automation whenever a certain service is set up you email the client right away.

If I'm failing on that one Landon, I let me know. Also a coach or Nick would be happy to walk you through actually creating the automation to make that work. Ken Lynn I would like to jump on the constructive criticism and words of encouragement bandwagon. I somewhat agree with the person that the other day with their constructive criticism post I had a lot of teachers tell me that I was beyond help because I couldn't learn the way that they were teaching. So I see where they are coming from. But I'd like to encourage you and the team that they that you are doing better than most companies out there. You actually care about our success and that is why I'm with you guys the same way that you are with me. Don't give up on this Gearhead.

I don't think I have anything to say about this, do I? I don't think there's a question. Okay.

I had another thought about that last night and I'm just trying to trying to just give me a second here. I was thinking about the.

Happened.

I forget what it was.

Okay, this wasn't it but this came to my mind, in that analogy that we that was used yesterday in terms like teachers basically, oh, you don't get it, like, you know, whatever kind of thing and getting frustrated. I think the difference, because I was trying to wrap my head around like why I wasn't making perfect sense of it, is in that event of like a teacher, the student doesn't know what to do. I think what's different in this case is we all know what to do, but it's actually executing on it because I can't force someone to do something even if they know what to do. And so the amount of apprehension around things like raising prices when I look at coaching scorecards or like notes, and the amount of times that people have like drug their feet for months on raising prices.

Is crazy. Or there's been something that said multiple times inside of coaching calls and then it doesn't get hap. It doesn't happen. Like, everyone knows what to do. It's not a matter of like lack of education or lack on the coach's part to be able to impart wisdom or even explain things as to why it should be done. Eventually someone has to pull the trigger.

Has to actually take execution and then take responsibility for actions like they are their person. So I think that's in general, like, the problem with the education system in general is very passive. It is a matter of the teacher dumping it, learning onto a student. But in business, it's like, we know what needs to happen. Like, I can guarantee you if you raise prices, you will make more profit, right? And so it's like, let's fundamentally think about the fact that, okay, this person doesn't have a lot of profit. They have work coming in their eyeballs. If they raise their prices, yes, some customers will leave, but will they make more money and will make more capacity for new customers to come along that are paying higher prices? That makes a lot of sense. And so I think any frustration of a teacher when it's like, okay, so now pull a trigger, like I've explained it, you understand it. Pull the trigger. So that that's like the difference, I think, between education and business, like passive versus we are all in control of our own businesses and ultimately we all run our own businesses and we make decisions for ourselves. Whereas like in school, it's like, you will learn this and like, you will be here all day long regardless if you want to or not. There's no ability to be like, I'm out of here, I'm checking out anyways. That was not what I was Thinking about yesterday, Kenlyn continues. That leads to my first question. I keep gravitating mentally towards hiring people that are good at what I'm not good at. That's why I keep leaning towards some sort of team lead or general manager to help to handle the admin side that I am not good at. For example, I hired someone to we whip for me that is actually better at we whipping than I am. They are more detailed than I would be and I don't mind paying them to do it. I also don't mind paying out more to someone that takes on more responsibility in a team lead or general manager position as long as it is efficient and takes stress off my shoulders. I know in the past you said there's not enough meat in the bones, but I'm almost willing to split my profits with somebody as long as they help me grow. What are your thoughts on this? Where am I going wrong? How can I fix my thought process? Is it just fear or is it legitimate concerns?

Okay, Ken, I love you. I'm gonna just shoot it straight. All right, here we go.

And we all support you. 100. Lynn, I can. I do too. 100. I'm just gonna be as straight as honest because I want to. I want to give the correct answer here. And I know you want. You're looking for the right answer.

Hiring for your deficits requires realizing you have a deficit. And so if you're actually going to guard your deficits, it requires first and foremost being introspective enough to realize what the deficits are.

And then hire that person and let them do their job.

Even if you think they're doing it wrong. Because if you already across and establish the fact that they will do the job better than you because you have a deficit in an area, let them do their job. And furthermore, you have to be the type of person that that person who has skills that you do not have wants to work for. And it will require a sense of leadership. And what I would say, Ken, you are heading up against is you are going from laborer to manager and you're having a very difficult time handing off labor and becoming a manager.

And the reason for that. Let me be careful. One second.

You put so much emphasis on the labor being correct when if you were a great manager, the right labor would come to you. I mean this with all the love in the world, but that's the honest truth.

If you're going to have laborers and you're going to break from being a laborer to being a manager, you have to Become the manager that laborers want to work for. And that will require changes that are very, very difficult. How you speak, what you talk about, how you talk to other people.

All of those things will have to change. And that is a very difficult process. But if you're. If you're honest with yourself enough to ask this question, I think you have hope to be able to make those changes.

And again, please don't take that wrong. I just wanted to be like, give it the answer that is actually, in my opinion, correct and if executed on, would lead to the best outcome. But that's. That's the answer. Oh, Ken Lynn comes up again. I just watched my first Alex Hormozi video on Heart. However, I apologize in advance to Alex if I ever meet him. Okay, so you watched your first Alex from Mosey video yesterday. Okay, great. He had said, when the customer isn't happy, it's not only after their refund, but go above and beyond to make them happy. In my experience, whenever I give a refund to somebody, it's because it's a Karen that just wants to complain and want something for free. If I'm wrong, tell me now, if I'm not wrong, how do I balance these two truths? Great question. There's one line in that, in that video, if I remember correctly, if not, it might be something that me and Dr. Cash talked about previously and that was there are unreconcilable people which, regardless of how much you pour out, they will never be happy. And at that point, you need to burn your bridges and walk away realizing there might be downsides and there might be consequences of that. But if you. If you have done everything you can and you actually really do care, and you really have tried everything possible to do everything you possibly can to rectify, to improve, to change, do whatever is required. Because they don't really care about the refund. They just want to make sure that is improved and changed and you've done everything possible to make that happen. This is an unreconcilable person that you are pouring your life into that you will never be able to win. And so I don't remember if Alex said it as a one liner in that video, like some people are unreconcilable. Or if that's something I have said, talk with Dr. Kashi. But I would say that there are people that no matter what you do, they will simply be mad. You could literally refund them, build them a new house and a new yard completely from scratch, and they make. They have an issue with it some way, shape or form.

Well, Kenlyn is on the war path today. When it rains, it pours. This is my last question of the day. What are we going to get? When are we going to get our nicknames and who gives them out? I want to be on the council that gives out nicknames. I'm really creative and very funny and you all know it.

Oh, man. One of a kind. Let's go.

Matt from Salem, Oregon. What do you think about promoting a name your own price property cleanup? My thinking is you are more likely to close a sale and you still get to hit whatever budget hours you want. Is it leaning too much into the bargain hunters and ignoring the people who just want the work done? I would agree with the latter. I've never tried this.

Ultimately, the right customer doesn't want to do any work. They do not want to have to come up with their own price. Also, anyone in the right mind is going to go lower than they would expect the price to be, which means you lose on any discretionary profit in the business. Because there are times you give a price to someone and they're like, oh, snap, I would have paid $1,200 and they said $800. Great. There's other times that they accept and the opposite is true. And so you lose out all discretionary profit here.

And then you're always going to have consequences and downsides of the expectations of whatever their price was. So you think, oh, $400, not too bad. I would have made you charge 450, but we'll do it for 400. And then all of a sudden they're like, no, no, no, no. I wanted all the bushes removed and I wanted new molds. That's not including a property cleanup. What are like. I just think it'd lead to a lot of customer service issues because there's not clear expectations. Like the number one way to have bad reviews and bad customer service, like, feedback is just not clear.

Standards. Like, what does good look like? What does complete look like?

A couple of questions, time management related. First, I realize I'm spending a lot of my time on my phone, usually Facebook and YouTube. It is becoming a problem and would like your opinion on this because I need both for franchise purposes, one for guesstimation and the other for the masterminds. Is there a way to manage this issue better?

Okay, I don't think this is a great excuse. I'll just be perfectly blunt and honest here. I don't think it's a good excuse to say because I need like I want to delete an app like YouTube because it wastes my time, but I also need it for 10% of the time that I am using it. That is positive. And that's for example, the Mike Mann's mastermind. This is not a YouTube issue. This is a self control issue. Because if you just watch the Mastermind, you're good. The part that needs to be curbed is the fact that we click on suggested videos and we follow the algorithm and then we desk scroll for an hour. That's what kills you. And so what I would recommend in this situation, instead of trying to curve the outcome, just curve the behavior. Like the behavior of death scrolling should be like. It is the number one thing you can do immediately to get 10% of your day back is like you never, like you never go on to any device without an intention. You never, like, you never pick up your phone. Like I have an intention to check a specific app, I have an intention to watch a specific video without. Oh, look at that. Let's go. The new designs are so cool. Anyways.

The.

Without intention clutter appears. And so if you're trying to get rid of clutter, get more intention. Like be more intentional with what you're trying to do with the device. Be more intentional with what you're trying to do on YouTube. If you need to set your phone to grayscale, just literally Google how to Grayscale iOS here. You can literally make your phone where it's just black and white. So you're not going to fall into that trap because it's not as fun to watch black and white videos. But I just need to watch the masterminds. Guess what? This doesn't change over here much. That doesn't change very much. You can watch in black and white so it'll prevent desk scrolling very quickly. That's what I did when I found myself doing that a lot like without intention going to the device, turn your phone to black and white. So that would be what I would recommend. Then you'll get in the habit of not doing that. Location related. Number two, this is my third spring in the landscaping business. One of my own, one on my own. And this is the second year with Augusta. Everything is paid for. I have four trucks, two dump trailers and a utility one. Currently 90 clients and about 15k in recurring revenue. I'm sitting on $90,000 in the bank. 65% came from project based work and 35 from recurring. And I don't really know how to utilize the money. I watched the multilocation Roadmap video and I think I am in stage three or four of the roadmap. However, do you think I should keep the money in the bank and wait until I get to Stage 5 or to open a second location? Or do you recommend it or what do you recommend? Okay, this is a great question. It's a great question. More people are going to hit this. As we head to the second half of the year and people actually start having money in their bank account, two things. Number one, lock the money. If you're actually trying to save up for a second location, lock the money. It will otherwise spread legs and walk away. It will find the new mower, it will find the new truck, it'll find another trailer, it'll find another something to go. Figure it out. When I say lock the money, whether that be a savings account, a CD certificate, deposit, put it inside of a S&P 500 or, or an account that's going to bear some sort of interest, most high yield interest savings account up to 250,000 is going to be FDIC insured and right now you're going to make like 4 to 5% interest. Great, do that. Secondly I would say is realize that in that video I state the number one reason a location will fail or succeed is the general manager. So what should we focus on now when we're, we have a little bit of cash, but not necessarily enough to start a location, groom that gm, spend time with them, go over the numbers, start to do estimates with them, you have plenty of cash. So even if you're slightly less profitable because they spend time with you occasionally a day or two a week, doing some admin, doing some sales, going, doing estimate follow ups, understanding how to use the software, how to dispatch, how to manage the crew. This is the type of thing that you can set up for the next six months to really focus on that. And then if you do have 140, $150,000 now you can go start a second location with plenty of backing to be able to grow very quickly. I would also say there's nothing wrong. Again, this comes down to your goals. So I'm not gonna, I don't want to make it affinity here, but if you're like, hey, I don't need to grow like massive, I'm not trying to grow massive. I just want like two or three locations and I'd be super happy in the next 10 years. I would then say just wait until year five because then you can get the initial fee that can be put towards the next one it's like, then your cost is way down and you probably by then, like another couple years, you probably have $200,000 that you'd have like, plenty of to set aside for the second location. A general manager, its final cylinders in a location that's in profit mode. So there's nothing with taking an extra year or two and slowing things down.

All right, I think that is it for today. Another fantastic mastermind in the books. Appreciate you all. I'll see you all tomorrow. Take care.

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