Mike Minutes Mastermind 06/21/22 (Lines of Credit)

Hello August nation. Hope you're all doing super well. Let's go get started. I don't have a whole lot of announcements. We are playing with the idea of making sure that everyone's mowing estimates have new has one more line added to it and that is about if someone doesn't give a new 24 hour notice of cancellation that they're going to get charged the full price. So we're probably going to add that by next month on everyone's estimates. Obviously it's not for existing customers. They haven't seen that they're not going to get a new estimate. But at least for people going forward they would see see it as part of the estimate notes. I'll have more details on that later. But we're getting a lot of people that are as we head into the summertime, they're canceling when the guys show up and or they're saying hey don't mow me today. And we got to have something in Ryan's like look, maybe you give them a grace period like a one time thing but they can't keep doing it like every other week. They're just like telling the crew just not to mow the lawn. So we're gonna. I'll let you know when there's more details on that. But we'll probably be adding in that line that hey, if you don't give us 24 hour notice of cancellation that you are charged the full price. All right, let's see here. Let's go ahead and add in some no or questions here. Share my screen. First one comes in. If there. If someone has a question from yesterday that I did not that you don't see today, let me know. I might have accidentally deleted one. As the forms come in, I accidentally sent. I think I might have deleted one. I could be wrong but I apologize. I don't. Maybe I didn't. I don't. I just don't know because there was like 11 or 12 from yesterday I deleted a bunch and then I realized that I was already in today's question. So sorry Connor from Evansville. For some reason I have two Google pages connected to Augusta, my old company brand. I never used Google and only use Safari. With Augusta I only use Google so I'm unsure why I have two. I also never changed my old Google business profile over the new name of Augusta. I have only used the newly created one that the Augusta onboarding team has set up for me. Any thoughts on how to fix this? My old profile is somehow the one that is Google certified and the one that pops up. My new profile has 30 plus 5 star reviews. Where, where this duplicate account has 17 reviews at 4.7 stars. So either is fine. But I've been sending friends and family over the Google pay to 30 plus and would hate for that hard work to go to waste. Do I contact Google? Yeah, so. So contact Google and tell them, hey, I own both of these pages. Can we please merge these together and then realize that your Google my business page really. Sorry, your Google local services page really has nothing to do with the Google listing, but you just need to make sure that those are connected in terms of the review side of things. So just contact Google, tell them, hey, I own both of these pages, I want them merged. And they're going to ask very specifically, which one do you want to be? The one that is going forward and make sure that's the one that's connected on the back end of your website that we built for you and just merge the other one over. They'll bring all the reviews over and everything will come across. And it's actually usually pretty good. In 2020, it was taking them months to do this, but usually it's like within a week they'll have these merged. So it honestly has, I found, comes down to who you get at Google and if they know what they're doing. Because sometimes they, they can literally take 30 minutes to figure out what's going on. Other times in 10 minutes like, yep, great, yep. Can you please verify that you own both of these and you tell them a few things and then they just say, yep, great. In three days it'll be merged and all the reviews will come across. So I just call Google and try to go from there. What advice do you have? Starting a YouTube channel about, about our business. I would really like to document my journey, but do not want to edit and eventually don't want to do the filming myself. Can you share how much your first guy roughly costs and the pros and cons of that? Yeah. So you don't want to be paying someone to edit your videos until you're making money from your YouTube channel. And when I say making money, like you need me making pretty good money, like the money I make from YouTube ads doesn't pay, not even for one employee. And so, you know, and by the time you look at benefits and all the rest of it, like probably not even half. So if you want someone to do it for you, you need to start actually generating revenue. I was talking to Ryan Payne about this and I'm happy to talk more about this at conference with all of you. And that is, you know, if you actually start to really get really good at something and you want to actually teach other people, like Ryan Payne's really good Christmas lights and like, that's a very niche topic that people like to learn about. You know, teachable.com is a great way to sell that information. You know, that's great. That's be a way to create some revenue so you could actually, you know, make more content. And so I think the biggest part, most rewarding part of making a YouTube channel is just documenting the process of building the business. So a few things I would recommend. Just start with your phone. Like your phone, an iPhone on 60 frames per second is literally better than most DSLRs. If you don't know what you're doing with the DSLR, if you don't know what you're Doing with the DSLR in terms of white balance and aperture and all the rest of it, it's not going to look any better than your phone because your phone kind of has all that software baked into it to figure out what to do in terms of settings, white balancing and adjusting the aperture and stuff. So I'd use your phone, I would recommend recording this direction, horizontal, not vertical, because vertical is just harder to watch long form. So I would recommend recording like this. I would recommend not streaming it. I'd recommend recording it and then uploading it, because if you record it, it'll record in much better.

Definition. And I would recommend, if you want to get a lot of views and you want to spend say 20 minutes editing the video, do mowing lawns while you talk. Don't just talk to the camera. If you want to get a lot of views, you can literally record yourself talking, but then take a few shots of you like mowing. You know, get a little cheap tripod. Where is it called? There's a thing called a gorillapod. You can just look it up on Amazon. They're like 20, $30. And you can literally get a little stand for your phone. And it has like little bendy arms that you can like wrap around your mower or put in your truck, whatever you put that thing around while you're mowing will grat some lawn and. And literally you'll 10x the number of views you get from that video if you spend 10 minutes editing the voiceover behind the mowing footage. So if you want lots of views, that's what I would do. And if you have a good personality, like I'm not super funny. I'm not super charismatic when it comes to like mowing grass. But if you are, you can actually get a lot of views. Look like SB mowing, Lawn care juggernaut. They get a lot of views and they just do this voiceover. They'll, they'll record themselves doing a video, talking about their business or what they're doing, and then they'll just do some mowing footage and they're not editing a lot. Like literally there you can take, you can take a video of yourself like talking to the camera about your business, about what you're doing as a five minute video. Take a few minutes of footage of mowing grass, chop it up in 10 to 15 minutes, throw it into imovie or free software, and you'll tend to a hundred x the number of views that you'll get on that video. So if you want views, definitely go after mowing your trucks, fixing things, going to a job site, etc. But I don't think you need a lot of equipment to get started. And I wouldn't get, I would not recommend getting someone to actually do the stuff for you, like editing and filming and all the rest of it until you have money coming in because it's expensive. A good videographer is going to cost you at least 20 bucks an hour. And that's if they're good. If they're not good, it's like, why not just do it yourself, right? Because then you got to get like, you go to either office space or they come in like randomly, like an independent contractor. Then you got to get equipment and gear, like it's a lot of money. People always like, oh, you must be making so much money from YouTube. It doesn't even cover one person. So anyways, all that to say I'm a big fan of creating a YouTube channel, sharing your information, what you're learning in your business, not so much just for other people, which is fun, but also because you get to look back and be like, laugh at yourself. Like I look at videos from five years ago when I was standing up against like a wall. I looked like I was in jail with like a little whiteboard and a little logo. And I had like the, the whiteboard was taped to the wall. And I was like, you just laugh at what the stuff you said and how dumb you looked. So it's kind of fun. Nick from Marysville. Oh, this question, boom. Quick question I just thought of. I know you want command center to make less call notes unless we need to address immediately, but I noticed Sometimes there are situations that transpire with clients that I'm aware, unaware of for weeks on end until it comes up again. I know you have weighed the pros and the cons, but I would like to hear just your thoughts out loud. Also, I have had some cancellations that I have not been noticed. No, I'm guessing notified of. And I only realize if after a few weeks I don't see their client on the board. I just feel like I should have at least have at least an FYI note just to know what is going on for the next time I deal with the client. Example today I didn't. A client didn't pay three weeks ago and got upset when we asked for card on file and apparently he was nasty on the phone and canceled. And then calls this week to restart services. That's weird. But now it's overgrown and he needs an overgrown charge. But at the same time I did not know he canceled or that interaction took place or that he restarted. Just curious about your thoughts. Yeah. So 100 when someone cancels, you should be getting a note. But this is the thing with Service Autopilot and that we've fixed with Zooper or Zooper has fixed for us and that is inside Service Autopilot. Just to notify that someone canceled is literally a ten step process. Not ten, it's probably eight. Eight step process of create a ticket, create a calendar event, dispatching it to you so that you can see it and creating all the notes insight. And then we are going to go and create the same notes inside the office notes of the client inside Service Autopilot. So literally it's like it takes us five times longer in Service Autopilot because in Zooper you go to call notes and as they're talking to you make some notes and when you click a set, when you click save it saves it to their profile. But it also immediately sends an email to you telling you inside the email you don't have to go to your dispatch board. You don't have to get your dispatch board cluttered up with a bazillion tickets. Like as the comp. As your company grows. Like, like I look at Bellingham's dispatch board sometimes and there's like 30 or 40 tickets tickets that Marcus has to go through because of stuff like this. Like person canceled, person changed their card and file. Like there's so much. So there's just always this balance of we don't want to clutter up your dispatch board. But that's the only way in Service Autopilot to get. Get an email to be fired off. We can't have the email being fired off by just leaving an office note. And so the only way to notify you is to literally create a ticket dispatch it, create a calendar event, the whole nine yards. And that's a pain in the butt. And it's like you would get annoyed if every single interaction was a ticket in your dispatch board, because it literally clogs your dispatch board up and your email. You just get all these emails and the day, like, seriously, I have 30 random tickets of just like, what happened in my day. So there's a balance there. Because when you're smaller, you know if you got three or four of those in a day, you'd be like, that's fine. But when you have 50 or 60 or 70 of those in a day, that can be very, very annoying. So we kind of have to balance it out. That being said, Zooper is going to fix this because as they're talking the phone, they can make office notes or, sorry, call notes, and they just click save and it saves it to their profile and automatically emails you as a franchisee. It does not create a ticket, doesn't create something on your dispatch board, doesn't muddle up your mobile app with tickets, and you just get an email of exactly what was done inside the email, not going into the dispatch board and seeing everything there. So that's what I would say. There's a balance there. And I know there's always. Every single client interaction is so different. Like, if you've known them for five years and then they cancel, you want to know about it. If they cancel after two visits and they never paid you and. And they're a pain in the butt to mow, you're like, who cares? Just move on, let's go. So there's always this balance. Ultimately, we need to make it to where you're not going to be annoyed by having your dispatch board and your mobile app just completely filled up with all these tickets. Like, if you're doing estimates as the owner and you're getting all these tickets and you're trying to find where your estimates are at inside of all the tickets that have been dispatched to you. And those tickets are just like so and so canceled, so and so updated their credit card information, so and so pause service, like, you literally have tons as the business grows. So that's kind of the balance. And I know it's not perfect yet. Ultimately, my goal is that inside Zooper, you get the emails and you can quickly just Click through them and see all the call notes. Instead of going to oh, so and so has a call note on the dispatch board. Okay, Go to service autopilot, look at the ticket. Okay. Mark it as complete back to my email. So that's kind of the goal.

Also, who can I seek counsel from about getting a line of credit? I have a plethora of questions you can ask them here, Nick, anything specifically. Go ahead and fire away right now. There's no other questions for today, so feel free to go ahead. In terms of lines of credit, I would 100% like you mentioned yesterday.

That to go ahead and get a line of credit now when you don't need it, if you have cash in the bank and you don't need a line of credit, that is the time to get it. Okay? So when it comes to an opportunity that arises down the road, like land, even like I mentioned last week, talking about land, you're trying to get enough of a line credit even if you don't need it, to where? If there's an opportunity where a piece of land in the next six to 12 months just goes on like nothing, I guess is like an absolute steal of a deal that you can jump on it. And the interest that you pay on that home, that line of credit is like half of what you're paying in rent. That will happen as long as you're ready for it. Right? So I really like lines of credit, business lines of credit, home lines of credit. If you have a house, et cetera, what are acceptable terms? Should I get the largest line possible? I would typically say yes. Get the largest line you possibly can that you're going to qualify for. And in terms of acceptable terms, what you're going to see is prime plus. So prime is typically like the 10 year treasury usually going to be like 5%, 6%, whatever. They're plus prime, which is like 1% or 2% typically. And that 1 to 2% is typically what the bank is going to make in profit. That number doesn't change a lot and doesn't really move the needle a lot for you. Don't worry about that. I would focus more on getting the bank that you already do banking with so that you're not having to send your banking information like 10 different banks. The biggest mistake I've made in my career when it comes to banking is I literally do business with about 12 banks now because of real estate, all the different businesses and SBA loan and like all this sort of thing like it's a pain in the butt because every single year I got to update them all on finance, my financials, I got to update the home equity lines of credit. I got to update the lines of credit. So I've gotten pretty good at like getting a package and sending it to them, but it's still a pain in the butt. And so I would recommend more focusing on which bank you use because it'll just be simpler for you. Don't worry about the 1% versus 1.25% above prime. Don't worry about that. It's not going to make a big difference what companies, organization. I think I kind of talked about that. My line of credit is only $10,000. Never had to use it, but there are more restrictions on it than I thought. I almost have to get it approved by my banker before I request funds. So that would be checking the different types of line of credit. Most revolving lines of credit, you do not need approval. So this might be. I'd have to look at the type of line of credit you have here. But I'm assuming this is some sort of collateralized loan or like a very limited micro, like under $10,000. Once you get above $10,000 and you're only at 50 and above, you typically can just use it literally like a credit card. Like, for example, myself. Oh, man, I wish I could open it up. I could probably do this later this week. I'll think about it. I'll see if I can do this. I think, like, I think I can show you. But basically if you it's. It shows up as a different account in my online banking, I can literally just move funds from one to the other. It's literally like a checking account has a zero balance and it shows the available credit. And I can literally just move money from my, my line of credit into my, my checking account and it just starts charging me because it accrues on a daily basis and turn your interest. So I would Recommend Getting above 10,000, though that's typically going to probably have different restrictions. And typically if you've been in business for a few years, it's easier to get above 10,000 and go for 50,000 or 150,000 is tough. 100,000 is tougher. Above that, it starts to really get easier because your business is larger. So usually you're going to start with a 5 or 10,000 and have to do it. Kind of be in business for a year or two and then just always ask you could. It never hurts to ask your banker like, hey, can I get an increase in my line of Credit. Keep in mind if you're asking for a line of credit increase that is going to take a credit, they're going to check your credit score. So try to align that when, if you, if you, if you're going to get like a new credit card or a loan or ask for increase in your line of credit, you're going to get a ding on your credit score. Try to align those together. It will impact your credit score less if you can get your dings and your credit your inquiries to line up within a few days instead of having them spread out all the time. It doesn't look good on your credit score when you have all these inquiries spread out over the course of time because it seems like you're always asking for new credit. Whereas they won't penalize you as much in your score if you're asking for credit at the same time. Because typically as you're getting like a mortgage on your house, you're going to go get like four or five different mortgage options and so all of them will ding your credit. So when they're all together like that, it doesn't penalize you as much because it thinks you're going for one loan. And so if you want to appease the credit score gods, what you want to do is get like a new credit score. So for example, we just recently opened up a new credit cards for the location we just took over. So I may try to line that up with increasing my lines of credit because I wanted all of my credit score dings, my inquiries to be in the same week or two. So hope that made sense. I bank with Chase. Is it good to go through a large chain like this or should I go through a smaller one? I like credit credit unions just because they're usually like non profit and they're local. Chase is great. As you talked about though the other day, Nick, there's certain parts of it's a pain in the butt. I also use Chase for the out of state locations because there's so many branches. Can you hold a line? I'm not make payments until you get it. What is a revolving line? So revolving line is basically it's like a credit card is like you put 50,000, let's say it's $50,000. I can use 10,000, pay 10,000 off. I can use 25,000 paid off and my 50,000 credit line just stays there. It's like a revolving line of credit. I can pay it off, I can use it, I can pay it off, I can use it. There's other lines of credit where it's like, hey, here's 50 grand. Like, typically a car loan is a line of credit. It's just a fixed line of credit that's like, hey, here's $30,000 to go buy his truck. It's not like I can pay off 25 of it and then like take more debt out on that, on that truck. It's like fixed payments and you pay it off and it's done. There is no revolving. You can't keep coming inside of that line of credit or inside of that loan. So that's what a revolving line is in terms of not making payments until you use it. You're. Yes. Depending on which bank, sometimes banks will make you pay like a point. So like a 1% as a fee to just start the line of credit. And I'm a, I'm not opposed to that. Like, bank's gonna make their money. And so even if I have an inactive loan, inactive line of credit, sometimes they'll make you pay 1% of whatever you're increasing it to. So for example, a couple years ago we moved the line of credit for the local shop from 50,000 to 100,000. So that extra $50,000 in line of credit, the increase, I had to pay 5. Sorry, not $5,500, 1% as a fee to get that initiated. But once you've done that, you can just leave it open. Most banks never charge you to keep it open. That'd be one thing I would check on in places like Chase is if you have an inactive line of credit, you have to pay any fees. Like sometimes they'll pay. They'll make you chart. They'll pay. They'll charge you like a point per year. And you don't want that. Most good banks will just have you charge. They'll charge you a fee to get initiated and that's it. You don't want to do annual fees.

Small local bank might be why it's not as available. I requested $10,000 because they didn't run, need to run. Yeah, exactly. Yep. So yeah, if they don't run your credit score, they're not going to give you much in terms of a line of credit because ultimately you are the signer on that account and they're going to want to check it. So I'm surprised they even gave you 10,000 without checking your credit score. So what I would do is once you get your, if you have your 20, 21 tax tax return done and you can walk in there with some financials and, and you try to get that to 50 potentially they're going to check your credit score though. So again try to align that with other credit activities. If you, if you know you're going to have those soon. How about building the business's credit? How do you even get started with that? None of my current suppliers report our interactions. Yeah, getting a business credit card is important. Tying that to your ein number is important. Honestly though, until you're pretty large you're not going to be able to get like people always talk about getting loans to their business. You have to be pretty large for the, and been in business for quite a while before the business can take 100% of the liability. Without a co signer personally, almost no loan. The SBA won't do it. Most banks will not let you take a business loan without a co signer and without a personal guarantee it's called, which is you as the person behind it has to sign on it. So yeah, like people talk about all the time, like taking business, taking loans out their business. Like we're talking, you gotta be a massive company, have really, really good credit and been years in business. And so that's tough. Like even the local shop, we're not able to. I'm not able to get a loan for the building project without personally guaranteeing it. But by personally guaranteeing I got way better terms because they feel more confident with that personal guarantee on there. So what are they looking for approval? Should I use my assets like trucks as collateral? So if you use your trucks as collateral, you're going to get better terms typically and you're going to get higher amounts of, you know, rate limits. Right. So let's say you probably would get like say $20,000 as an unsecured line of credit, you're going to have a higher percent, maybe 9, 7, 8, 9% interest where if you do a secured line of credit, you might be at 5 or 6% in terms of the percentage on that line of credit if you secure it against your trucks. Now that being said, you're going to have to have a lien holder now on your trucks. And that means if you want to go sell your truck, you're going to have to make sure that lien holder is taken off of the title because they become a lien holder on that truck. Even if you don't take anything on the line of credit, if you use it as securement to your line of credit, they are becoming a lien holder on that truck. So if you're ever going to sell it, you're going to go to the bank and say, hey, they've got to sign a release form. And they come so that they say, hey, look, we are no longer going to take, you know, be a lien holder on this truck or this piece of asset, this piece of equipment. And then that way you can still go, you can go sell the truck for free and clear on the title. So I, I do like using the, the trucks as collateral. Just keep in mind, if you want to sell, you're gonna have to go get a release form. And if you do that, that might impact the credit worthiness of the line of credit if you're removing assets or removing collateral from the back end. So, yeah, some good questions. Cool. All right, guys, have a great Tuesday. We'll see. Guys. You.