Mike Minutes Mastermind 06/26/2024

Hello, Gustination. Hope you're doing good. Let's go ahead and get started.

See here.

All right, we'll jump right into questions. Got five of them today. I'm out in California for a couple quick turnaround today. We're doing a junk removal business and a pool cleaning business. So very interesting stuff. Very interested to see how both those industries, the pool service companies like pool cleaning. I've always really liked that industry. Very similar to lawn care. And that is recurring.

Very similar in that.

It'S all about just managing your turn, keeping customers on long term.

And there's like really not a lot of equipment. However, the thing that is really challenging for a lot of them is there's lead source. Like people sell routes all the time. So the challenging part is like, there's a lot of lead. People that get leads, make a route and sell it. And so like the guy that we were working with today, he spends like 2,000 to $3,000 per client on his routes to buy them. Preposterous. So kind of crazy.

But it's very interesting.

All right, first one up is from Mr. Anonymous.

Thought.

Giving a GMA a higher 5%. Oh, this is the.

Oh, okay. Sorry I didn't delete this one. Sorry. This is the ones from Monday. I did this one.

If you haven't seen that video, I already did this on Monday. Same thing with this one. So my apologies, one and two. I did on June 24th. I just didn't delete them from the.

Questionnaire here. All right. Kenlyn says, recently I had an epiphany. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you've been saying this for a while. Simple services are scalable. But that doesn't mean that you can't complicate the simple services.

Maybe simple.

You can make it complicated. For example.

Accepting yards that are too big, those hot ones.

All right, we're back. Sorry about that. Bad Internet service. Okay. But yeah, basically when you have tons of leads, the customers that you want, and the services that you want, it really is a matter of being able to be more selective with like, for example, the guy that we're at today, his pool service, he lets customers tell them which employees are going to show up and which day of the week they're going to be serviced and time of day. So when you look at his route of 150 jobs, it is literally just blended. Like there is no left to right, top to bottom in his territory from days of the week, it is like completely blended. And it's because he's Not a capacity. And he's willing to cut. Let customers tell him when like he literally asked them what day of the week do you want to be serviced? It's like, wait a second dude.

Like, let's just tell them when they're gonna be on and if they have a problem with it, they can bring it up.

So.

In general, yes, you can make a simple service complicated. And you'll see like in this pool service, it's the most simple varieties and variables into the service. And so customers aren't gonna be happy. Except we can only do weekly service. But you only will usually do those things when you're. You have plenty of leads and you're at capacity.

Alamo Ranch.

Hey Mike, I'm currently watching the interview of Howard Schultz on the acquired podcast. Would love to hear your answers on these questions I thought of while listening. Would you say Howard was the visionary for the company? Yeah, absolutely. Two Howard mentioned when they opened the LA location, that's when Starbucks really took off. What area in the US would have the same effect for Augusta, where we would become a household name? If you had to guess, I don't think it's really a location thing. I think it's more of a saturation thing because for Starbucks they became a fashion accessory. So being around places like New York, being around places like LA were big moves for them because it was a fashion play. Like they needed the logo to become a piece of fashion. We don't have that. And so really for us it's brand awareness instead of like a pr, like.

Getting in the hand of a celebrity. Right. So like they knew that they could get into places like LA and be high end celebrities would come pick up the cup and then they get the paparazzi to be shooting them with like Starbucks cups. So that was a huge marketing play. I don't see the same thing happen with Augusta as much as brand saturation and number of locations to where you just see the proximity and the speed of seeing the brand and the amount of times you see it makes it much more.

Top of mind.

Howard mentioned affordable luxury when describing Starbucks. He listed three reasons why it is so quality coffee, the experience and why it felt what it felt like to walk around with a cup. Do you think Augusta could be considered affordable luxury? And if so, what would be the three things that make it so? Well, first off, the most basic form of saving someone's time, whether it be oil changes, whether that be cleaning out their gutters, whether it be mowing their grass, washing their laundry, you're saving the customer time. And so you can only do that if you have a certain amount of money. And so it's an affordable luxury. But I would say that it is still more expensive than something like Starbucks. Starbucks, you can have the affordable luxury for like 20 or 30 bucks a month, once a week, right? And so you have to have more money to have a home, a lawn care service, because you're usually looking at 150 to $200 per month. So I wouldn't say it's affordable, but it's affordable compared to, say, for example, having a chauffeur or a chef at your house. So there's levels of luxury. Right. And I think that, you know, Starbucks is definitely the lower end of luxury, but anyone that's having their lawn mowed has valued their time at a certain amount. That is usually above 30 to $40 an hour.

From what I've seen. That's why young professionals will do it, people that retired will do it, etc. If someone doesn't value their time at 30, 40 bucks an hour, they're usually gonna do it the service themselves. So can you explain what. What brand equity is and what is the current brand equity of Augusta? Like, I'd say, really right now, like, if we, if you actually believe that what we sell is time for the customer, it is brand equity is we actually give time back to the customer before we even service their property in the form of the instant quotes on the website, in the form of having a card on file so they don't have to actually pay an invoice every single month. These are the type of things that, like, if we actually believe the time is what we're selling, the same way that Howard believes that what they sell is like, luxury, a third place from home, et cetera. The reason that Starbucks got off there during 2007, 2008, they started adding a whole bunch of menu items that, that were, like, didn't smell like coffee. And he walked into a coffee shop and it didn't smell like coffee beans. And so getting away and deviating by adding too many things to the brand is usually what dilutes the brand equity. And so that's why, like, with Christmas lights, for example, we create a separate branding because I did not want to dilute the lawn care brand by adding a bunch of, like, things like Christmas lights. It is like, look, it's a separate entity from the customer's pov. It is Augusta, but it's a different brand. So to take away, so we don't dilute the Brand equity.

So that'd be my two cents. Same way like McDonald's did with the McCafe.

Kyle Tarvin, when do you have an ETA? When the Christmas lights marketing platform we done to where we can pay per lead. I. We don't have that. I'm very interested in what? In using that this year instead of having to run my own ads. Yeah, we don't, we don't have a platform for that. And I won't offer until like the, the math on this scent makes sense. And by the time it does, it'll probably be a little bit late in the season, to be perfectly honest. And I don't even know if I'll offer it. So it would have to be I will make done for you ads and make you sure you can walk right through it. And then if you wanted us to manage it, I did not offer that right now. And I will only offer that if I believe that us managing is gonna like, save you at least 30 to 40% on it. And if you don't, if you're like, hey, I just need someone to do it, there's other people that will be happy to do it for you and you can pay them. But. But from my perspective, I'm not gonna do it until I think that us managing it overdone for you ads leads to a massive discount on your end. And we're not offering that right now. So just FYI, we might test it though, so that way in the future and see if it's something that we could do in longer term for people that want to as an option. But I really don't want to get into that business in terms of I think I can share like 90% of the value with just getting done for you ads updated every three to six months and staying on the cutting edge of that for everyone versus, you know, actually taking a fee from everyone on leads. And then some leads aren't great. Some leads you show up and they're not there. Some leads just ghost you. And then I don't want to be on the front end of like, you know, lead quality issues. I'd rather just focus on building the system so that the leads that when they do come in you, you increase close ratio. So that's kind of my focus.

But I think I generally believe that like the done for you ads will get you 80 to 90% of the way there without having to spend any management fees. And I generally believe if you had trouble with it, you talk to another franchisee that's doing those, they will be able to walk you through it very quickly. Now hop on a call with Nick, owner, success manager. I know he's reaching out to a lot of people that haven't booked coaching calls in the past. While those are the type of calls you're like, hey, yeah, can you just walk me through this? He does these all the time. Someone like that 15, 20 minute call could save you 1000 bucks a month on management fees. So I would recommend that and I genuinely believe it can get you 80 to 90% of the way as if you had an agency or you paid anyone to be able to do the ads and like run them the campaigns for you. So. Alright everyone, I hope you have a fantastic Wednesday. Can't wait for Memphis. If you haven't signed up, make sure you go to augustastore.com they have the link right at the top. For the workshop, you do need to pay, I think it's 40 or 50 bucks per person to cover their costs. Kevin, make sure you talk to Liz, she has something for you to check as well. But everyone can't wait to see you there. I have a presentation. I know there's several other people going to be presenting and really looking forward to it. So I'll see you guys tomorrow on the Master Rhine. Take care.