Mike Minutes Mastermind 07/03/2024

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Let's get this party started.

Happy Wednesday. Tomorrow is July 4th. Hope everyone has a fantastic day.

Let's jump right into questions.

Boom. First question is from Garrett from Glendale, Colorado. It's a long one.

All right. By far our biggest complaint and reason for cancellations last year was snow. Clients from Snow Clients was that they did not like the pay per push model as they didn't know how much it was going to cost each month. It is pretty normal in our area to be quoted as a monthly subscription and I strongly believe it is better to bill monthly for residential snow removal this winter we are switching from the pay per push model that we used last winter to a monthly subscription this winter. For example unlimited snow removal for $2.99 per month instead of the previous model of $49 per push and $49 per de icing service. Worst case if we fill the capacity and or have a heavy snow year I can raise prices mid winter. I'm trying to decrease opt out percentage when we switch from mowing to our winter services which is going to be snow removal build monthly. We currently bill daily for for mowing charge same day services, no invoice sent so we don't bog down their email inbox and there's no confusion. What service? 1. Depending on the trigger for snow removal, we typically.

Service clients for snow removal at least once or twice a month, but it is not every week. I believe by billing monthly I will decrease snow removal attrition to month month to month as clients will see the value almost every month as they are charged the same rate each month whether we service them three times or one time that month. 2. I believe if my goal is solely to decrease opt out percentage in the transition mowing into winter services, that would be beneficial to have the same billing frequency between the two services. I also believe that the less frequent the billing cycle, the lower the attrition is. In general. Per Alex Harmozi's video, I really don't want to make my cash flow worse by going from daily billing to end of the month billing. So my idea is to switch on August 1st to monthly billing where clients are charged in full for the current month. For example, if they have 4 times $75 mo in the month of August we would charge $300 on the 1st and it would be added to their account as a credit and slowly chipped away over the course of the month and then when we switch to snowmobile it would be a clean Transition at the same price and billing frequency. There are obvious downsides as I imagine we will lose some customers when we switch billing frequency as it is a pain in terms of admin. That being said, I think that the one thing that would completely change the business is to make money in the winter and therefore anything I can do to increase the clients that transfer over from mowing to snow removal would be a big whim. Am I crazy or do you think that I am? What I am proposing is worth at least trying and learning whether or not it has a positive impact this year. The alternative would be daily billing for mowing and then we switch billing cadences when we switch to winter service. But I think people would flip out and cancel when they saw a charge for $300 on November 1st when they are used to seeing $75 charges for their mowing. For reference, we are doing $50,000 per month in recurring work across 175 recurring clients. Okay, let me tackle this from several angles. First and foremost, I think the change in billing cycle is going to cause an alert, especially because you're charging every single week the same amount the way you're doing now. I would just try to stay on that same cadence as much as possible. As much as humanly possible, I try to stay in that same cadence.

That's why winter services, you get people to be able to stay opted in is they don't like people don't want to have to change stuff. So as soon as you do this in terms of the monthly, as soon as you bill that 300 people are going to freak out. I would also say what's going to happen if you change to monthly billing and you do prepay? It means you're going to be charging Someone this week 75 and all of a sudden next week they're going to charge 300. Every single person will call you, every single one. And so I would be more inclined if you're going to do pre billing to do that the beginning of the season when you're not going to have 100 of your customer starting and then like, hey, here's your new pricing and you're we're going to be charging March 1, for example, or April 1, and you'll be pre billing going forward and how it's going to work and you outline the positives for them, right? You are going to have a little more aben on this again because people, if they cancel, they're going to want a refund prorated for the rest of the month. They just are especially for mowing now for the snow service. If you're going to switch pre billing just for the winter.

I don't know if that's a good move. It's just so much confusion for customers that if you're going to switch from pre billing and it sounds like you're gonna switch to free billing for mowing too, I would just do it at the beginning of the mowing season. What I would do if I was you, probably to reduce problems on this one gear, is I would switch. If you're trying to do the 299 model for snow, do that this winter. Great. Then next spring switch to pre billing. Like these are two different concepts. One is the flat fee versus push model. I'd change that. You have like plenty of evidence to know that's the right move. I would then wait until next spring before I switch everyone to pre billing for mowing and for snow. It is going to increase your admin cost, but it is great for cash flow. And so if that's what you're wanting to focus on, fantastic. I like the pre billing model. Just know that when someone cancels now, you're going to have to reconcile their account each and every time. Every time. Which again.

A general rule of thumb is like 20 to 40% attrition happens simply because of people moving, etc. Even if you do a good job, 20% of people are going to cancel, which means there's a lot more admin time. Instead of just clicking cancel, it's like cancel, then let's reconcile their account, let's refund them, then you're going to be charged the processing fees. So these are little things to think about not to say against pre billing. Pre billing is incredible when it comes to cash flow. It is the most ideal case scenario. But I would personally break out these two massive changes you want to make in separate tranches. And switching to pre billing is always easiest at the beginning of the season to prevent any sort of mid season upheaval from customers. I would also try your very best to try to make where this weekly cadence keeps happening. So for example, maybe you don't do 299 per month. People are used to getting billed weekly, so why not just $75 a week? Or if you want to do like 40, $49 a week, for example, now all of a sudden you're probably making like 210, $220. Maybe you can't make sense of that for snow, but then you get the recurrence. You don't have to switch to pre billing and the same billing schedule applies. So you're like, hey, going forward you opt in, it's going to be $59. That would put you at 70amonth. If you do, you know, $59 per week and they keep coming out just like your normal mowing would at the same time. And.

You know, and it covers unlimited snow removal. So I would try that if you really like the per month subscription. Like it's just two different things. I think right now if people are so used to weekly billing, just keep on the same weekly billing and adjust it to the six, you know, 59 or $49 per week and you get unlimited snow removal, right? Yes. There's gonna be weeks where like I haven't paid you. There's been no snow in a few weeks. This is true. So you're trying to switch though a second thing which is now switching to monthly billing to get less payment cycles and remind them less of their bill. So I would probably try to do one of those things instead of all of them at once. You might get a little bit more pushback than you're expecting in terms of switching to pre billing, switching this the frequency at the exact same time.

Mike Athens from Tennessee I was looking at the Augusta Lights website and it looks fantastic. However, I do have a question about step five. Five particularly worried about storing the lights for them. I feel like this could be misleading the customer that we they have ownership of the lights. I plan on only renting the lights to them.

I see what you are saying. Let me just check it out myself.

We provide the lights, we install the lights, we handle any maintenance.

We will return them to our facilitator.

Yeah, like the thing is they do not own them.

It says, except two says we provide the lights. So it makes it pretty clear like they are not buying them. And then like step one says free light design quote.

So if you ever actually had an issue with this, we could potentially change this. And like specifically say you do not own the lights. But, but if someone's canceling service or they're not going to continue service for Christmas lights, they typically understand that like they're not getting the lights given to them. Especially because like when they cancel is when the lights are in your possession.

And so as long as you get the lights back, you're good. They're never going to, they're just not going to opt back into next year. So I don't see that ever being an issue. We've used this similar verbiage from a lot of other services. But if it became a big issue we could definitely address it in terms of making it very clear you do not own the lights. This is a rental. But I think we can avoid that harsh language. And it makes sense mostly because the only time people are canceling is when they don't re opt in for service again next year. And at that point they're not like give me my lights back. You don't own them. So you could put this probably in your more like your along your estimate quote like inside your quote. I'd probably put that there. But on a front facing marketing site I want to open up the valve as much as possible and not put harsh language that could detract. But again, if we have a lot of problems with you down the road, we can make it more direct if needs be. Joel from Lafayette Number one, will there be options for the image shown with each package price range on the Christmas lights websites like we have for mowing for instance now the images show ground lights, trees, walkways, bushes and those might be good to include in the standard and premium packages. Not right now. We don't have the option to have different images for this.

And so if you wanted to add things like trees, walkways, bushes, there's so much variety to that because every single house is so incredibly different. Number of bushes, size of bushes, which bushes are included and which are not, it's going to require typically a custom quote. So if I was you, I would just put that into your range and then when you give the direct quote you could include those as options. You just want to keep it as simple as possible because what you don't want is someone like well I don't need the standard package because it has bushes included. I don't have any bushes. And now they want a cheaper price like look, these are very generic for the house. And then all these other things you could add as add ons down the road.

To Is there a plan to replace the drawing images house pictures of real houses with either real lights or a mocked housing plan? I think showing a real house would tie to tie in customer emotion to make them likely to submit a quote request. So based upon what we've tested, the what we're trying to get in those pictures is just a very quick understanding of what the service is. So one thing that we've done. Let me see if I can actually pull up a real one. I think it's going to change one second.

Yeah, there you go. It's like one thing we've already changed based upon testing is the color of the lights like the yellow, the red and the light blue on the, on the house.

The reason we don't want to show an actual house is because as much as I agree with you, if we showed a picture close to their house, it would look, it would increase the likelihood of them buying. Here's the problem. You have all sorts of different types of houses. So whether you have one story, two story, you have commercial, you have different types of pitches and houses. So if I give them a house picture and it doesn't look like their house, it does the opposite which is like, oh, it does a house doesn't look like mine. My house is much bigger. They must not be able to do project my size. And so I just want to give a generic like hey, this is kind of what's included as a general because I just need them to very quickly identify what they want and that is either like, good, better, best, that's all you're asking for. And a budget, really what we're trying to establish there is a budget. We're not trying to necessarily sell them there because we give price ranges and if this was a concern, I would just increase your price ranges to encompass a lot more space so you'd grab a wider audience.

Because yeah, when we put specific houses in there, people just click less. Mostly because they're looking at now at the house instead of what type of lights they want. Right? So they're looking like, oh, that house looks closest to mine. We're not asking about which house is closest to yours, we're asking what type of, you know, where do you want the lights? Like what's your budget and where do you want the lights? So we just saw a higher click through when we did the pictorial thing. Instead of people looking at the houses and identifying which one is closest to theirs, which is the objective of the picture. Pictures in mowing. The objectives of Pictures in mowing is we want them to pick something that looks like them. In this case, we don't want to add any sort of complexity to adding the type of house because they're going to look at the house type instead of the type of lights that they want installed. So.

Mr. Anonymous.

Alright, let's see what we got here. This is a very different question that we usually get in the Mastermind but I'd love you to take take on it. As I always want to be improving all aspects of my life. I recently started to volunteer at my youth group at church. I don't really have time. I'm making Time because I believe in the long run this is more important than just about anything else. I have an issue that I am butting up against and that is our youth pastor, in my opinion, lacks leadership. Colleagues. Ooh, this is juicy. Let's go. I feel our important. I feel our important lead. Well, for instance, if he has an issue with someone, he will just call them out instead of first talking with them privately. I'm guessing you mean like over the pulpit. I see a couple options, but would love to know what your approach to this would be. One, speak to him on the side about what I am seeing and have been told by other leaders about how they feel when he calls them out for something. Okay. Two, let it ride. Continue to serve and accept that leadership should not be the main focus with serving in the church. Three, a mix of both. Four, something I am overlooking or not thinking about. I'm currently getting one of one on one coach from a pastor, another church that I trust and somewhat lead me into serving. And I have brought this up to them. His statement was, no matter what, what, when you are a leader, you will typically scrutinize someone that is attempting to lead you. Good point. I should keep my head down and keep the main thing. The main thing. I'm not a huge fan of this response because when I fail or suck and a team member gives me constructive criticism, I want to hear it so that I can improve.

Okay.

I don't know this person enough to know what would be the most effective way to deal with this situation. Because if someone is not receptive to constructive criticism, there's really nothing you can do.

And then, because if they were, then it's just a matter of approach. It's like how do you approach someone who's actually above you and give feedback? Because that's very important. You can't just, even if they want constructive criticism, to just say bluntly things you're asking for a ruined relationship.

So, but the first part I don't know enough about and that is, does this person, are they open to constructive criticism? Do they try to improve themselves? Are they reading books? Are they, are they getting mentorship from other pastors that are like trying to improve their skill and their craft? If the answer to that is no, the likelihood of you coming against them or giving any feedback will likely not be perceived. Well.

And I would also say if this is the you youth pastor, I would assume there is a lead pastor that could supersede this person and you could potentially bring that subject matter to the lead pastor and then Again, like, they should be able to then deal with the, the, the issues if they so seem fit. Because they're the ones that's kind of like the leader of the organization, the quote unquote owner and founder. And what they say goes the same way I can a business. Like, if the owner agrees with something that's happening lower down the company, like, it doesn't matter, like you, you go get another job if you don't agree with it. And so I would probably just use that route. And if you like, hey, I don't have access to the lead minister, then it's a matter of like what I just said before, which is like, does this person actually want to improve, actually want to change, care about the people and the youth enough to actually want to improve themselves? If the answer to that is no, you basically have no shot. If the answer to that is yes, then the next part is like, how do you approach them so they don't feel like they are being.

They don't feel.

I think I'm blanking on the word. They don't feel threatened. There you go. And then, and then the next thing would be like, if you have direct access to the quote unquote owner or founder, you bring the thing up to them and they might just, FYI, as some leaders do, is say, look, you need to go directly to them and you need to figure it out. And now you have permission from the leader of the organization to go talk about it. And it blows the whole issue of like you retaliating or saying anything. Okay, I went to the lead, I went to, I went to the owner and they said I should come talk to you about these concerns. And here's what I'm saying. And then your approach to them needs to be like, very. I would be elevating them, I'd be thanking them for what they've done for you, etc. So your approach is correct on that would be very, really, really important in my opinion. Those are always really hairy situations.

Mostly because usually I've seen at churches is leadership is not clear. So therefore they're like the even. Like there's subset subsections that like, don't lead up to the founder or in this case, like they made the lead pastor. If there's not clear, like organizational settings and people don't rely and trust in each other. That's like usually where I see the church thing just breaks apart. It's like so difficult to get things done. Done. You're working with volunteers, so it makes it much more difficult There's a lot of objectivity in terms of what's right and wrong because the founder hasn't made it very clear what is, should and should not be done. Mostly out of being, trying to be PC. So because there's so much gray area, there's a lot of conflict that happens at mid level management positions like youth pastors, worship leaders, et cetera.

So again, I just think that like a church operates very much the same in terms of organizationally and like the dynamics of leadership apply no matter what. It's just a matter of it's more difficult when there's gray and you know, I can look at the core values and like make judgment calls. It's a lot harder when your, your core values is say the Bible or some sort of theology that has gray in it and everyone has an opinion on. So that makes it much more difficult to be honest.

All right, everyone, I hope you have a fantastic day and a great July 4th. Command Center's hours are open tomorrow because we have Canadians and Australians owners that are still operating. So I think there's like 10 people working tomorrow making sure everything's getting done on the simple services side of things. Take care, stay safe tomorrow and we'll talk later. Take care.