Mike Minutes Mastermind 08/04/2023

Nation. Happy Friday. Let's go and get started.

All right, quick announcement. Actually.

Boom. While I am doing that, let me get all this set up on YouTube.

Starting Monday afternoon.

Let me just get here, one second. Edit get shareable link.

We are going to be changing.

How Max is taking phone calls at Command Center. One of the biggest complaints that we have from customers is the fact that right now there is no way for Max to hand things off to Command center if he gets in a bind or gets stuck. So what we're going to be doing.

If I can figure this out and drop this link in here.

Boom. All right.

What we're going to be doing is Max will be taking all incoming calls from the top of the funnel. Then when he answers the phone, he says, hey, this is Max. Thanks for calling us to lawn care. What can I help you with today? Whatever the customer says next, he's going to determine whether he sends it to Command center and says, great, let me go ahead and forward you that department. We get you taken care of for billing, invoicing, whatever the complaint, whatever. But if it's an incoming lead, because we know he can manage all of those, he'll take all of those to completion, get all their information, give that to Command Center. Command center will then schedule the estimate, etc.

Our goal, this is kind of. This is stage two. Stage two is all incoming calls go through Max, and he can usually process a lead in about 3, 30 to 40% of the time compared to someone at Command Center. So saving all of us on call time at Command Center, Stage three is probably still a few months away because we're gonna do a bunch of refinement in stage two. Stage three is when we are able to connect it to Copilot, which I'm thinking kind of like beginning of next year, we can start working on that, and then he can be handling things more like billing, invoicing. When's the next job on this? When's my job scheduled? When can I skip today's visit? All of that stuff. We can start working on the API with Copilot and do some really cool stuff. We're entering phase two. Phase one was basically just taking after hours calls, calls that got missed by command center, etc.

The vast majority is like, weekends, really helps, etc. Then phase three, like I said, phase two is going to be now Max is on top taking all calls and then only forwarding calls that he cannot handle, taking Command center, which right now is basically everything besides leads and sales. And then.

Phase three will be when we start connecting it to co pilot and he can start handling more billing related issues, taking card information, taking deposits, all that good stuff. So that's where we're at, that's what's happening. The only reason I'm asked, I'm mentioning this is if you call into command center we believe still going to work where you get routed directly to command center or if you do talk to Max, you get forwarded to specific team at command center that is able to answer more higher level questions. So we have a specific department that takes calls from franchisees and we've always had the routing done. Well recently we've had the routing done in a way that you are going to get someone that is high level if you do call in and someone that can answer more high level questions and not like new new team members at command center. So that being said, we believe that will still work just fine. But if there's any bumps or things next Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, give me a little bit of grace. We'll iron those out. We will listen. We listen to every single call and the team at Polyai and us review those quite frequently. So I will probably post by Monday or Tuesday a few of the recordings of how those handoffs work. The nice thing is now when customers call they are immediately there is no ringing. It's literally bam, right to Max. Max is answering the phone immediately. So there's no drop off of calls versus pickups. And then what we will begin to track over the next year is what percentage of calls can Max take from start to finish that number can go up. As we improve the technology, we improve the connection with copilot on the back end. And the eventual goal, and I've said end of next year is the goal for this into 2025 is can we get to the point where once that we can take that address and live Max can sell the job, get the card on file and do that all in like a third of the time of command center. That's the goal. There's a lot more work that has to be done on to actually give them pricing, get their card information, get it scheduled, tell them the date that they're going to be on the schedule, et cetera. But that is going to happen eventually. So I'm really looking forward to that. Okay, what do we got going on? We got questions. Do we have questions today? Share screen. Which screen? Mastermind. Boom. We have two questions.

All right, Numero Uno, Devin from Red Deer, Alberta. Hey Mike. Right Now I have 25 to 50% of my leads from my Facebook advertising page, at least for projects I've been using, start a conversation in Messenger. It works a lot, but there's a lot of tire creepers just starting and not replying. I currently link to my website. I haven't gotten many leads in the last 40 hours. What would you do? Thanks.

Personally for Facebook?

Yeah, you're gonna. You're gonna get way more if you do message like get message or send message as the button. You're gonna get way more contacts. Lots of tire hitters. A lot of people you'll show up to like I didn't contact you like very much. Tire hookers level up from that. Where you're gonna get a lot more is getting for is when they submit a lead, they actually submit that contact form inside of Facebook and then you go get it and retrieve it and bring it in.

Inside. Copilot, you can use Zapier to take that lead information and bring it in automatically. But right now you would need to go into your ad center and get that lead information. Just puts it into an Excel document, basically.

Then the third and the highest point is what you're using now is it's driving traffic to your website and hoping they submit a web a form there. The value of that lead goes up dramatically as you increase there, but the volume of the leads decrease. Right. So you're gonna get the most amount of contacts from just a message. You're gonna get less contacts by a higher quality customer when you do.

Where they submit their information in Facebook like a form, submit their form, submit a contact form inside of Facebook and then you're gonna get less leads, higher quality leads if you just. They're sending them traffic to your website and they're submitting the form. There's. So it's very linear in terms of that regard. So the question is, do you want volume or do you want quality? And it's going to depend a lot on if you're in growth mode and you want every single possible lead and you want to be able to contact people you know, then you go further down that chain. Landsmith Tallahassee, Florida Going to be getting a landscaping truck and a trailer. Was thinking about doing about just doing an open trailer because it will be cheaper and can load the mower if needed.

Do you think the higher cost and lack of mowing versatility outweighs the pros of having it, especially when trying to save cash?

Yeah. The bottom line is if you're looking for a trailer that you're going to use for landscaping a Dump trailer is awesome. It's the best thing ever.

Now if you can get a pretty light one, sometimes you can actually use it for a open air trailer as long as your ramps are good. So if you really were trying to use it for like all purpose and you wanted to use it for dump trailer like landscape jobs and you wanted to use for mowing, you can do that with a dump trailer. It's just overkill. If you're mostly just using it for mowing, it's way heavier, it's built different, it's way like you're. You could. It's probably twice the weight as a regular just open air trailer that's for mowing like a utility trailer. And it's going to be like three to four times the price. I shouldn't say that. Probably two, two times the price. So I'm not a bet. I'm not against doing open air trailers for mowing. You're just going to have to recognize that you're going to have to train people on backing up trailers. You're going to have to have more space to park, which is fine in most markets. So I'm not opposed to them. And then also you're going to have to have some sort of security if you're leaving the stuff on the trucks every or the trailers each night or a shop space or whatever. Like same thing with a ramp rack. You're going to take the mowers off and put in the shop every night. Whereas like an enclosed trailer, you can park it, lock it up and it's done. We've just found that the enclosed trailers over the course of 5, 10 years start to look pretty beat up. Whereas like something like a ramp rack should last a very, very long time because it's just solid metal and we have, you know, when you do a enclosed trailer, again, I'm not opposed to them. When you get a lot of employees using them and you're using zero turns going in and out of every day. Like the hinges, the drawstrings on the wires, the brakes. Like you got another four tires on top of the four tires of your truck. So you just got to think about the pros and the cons. I'm not saying any of these things are right or wrong. It's just like the size of your property should dictate the type of of mower you have. And that mower is probably going to be the determining factor of what type of trailer you have. And your shop setup is probably going to determine also the type of trailer you have and whether it's over the phone or whether it is.

Open air, enclosed trailer or ramp rack, like whether or not you need a trailer. Right. So again, talk to a coach. But it should work from what type of properties do I have? What's. What's 70, 80% of my properties in my market in terms of size, determining my mower type, that mower type, determining then the size of trailer I need or whether I need a trailer at all, and then making the decision from there. But your shop space also needs to be brought into that calculus because if you can lock things up already, if you already have shop space, you're probably more inclined to go with a ramp rack or a open air because you know you have a spot to lock things up or keep them indoors. Whereas open a enclosed trailer, if you don't have that space indoors, you might want to use that. So you can just lock it up and it's at least safe for the elements.

All right.

That'S all we got for today. We'll see you guys on Monday. And really starting to make. Start making plans for conference, getting speakers all lined up and all the rest of it. Really looking forward to it. Within the next couple weeks, I will have a form I will need everyone to fill out from Augusta Nation that was coming because we're having the Tuesday night evening catered.

I'm interested to hear. I'm interested to hear. Okay, so I'm like 50, 50 on this. I don't really care.

I'd hear any. Any opinions on whether or not we should make Tuesday evening formal. Like, should we dress up? I'm not. I'm not saying we need to. Not saying we need to. But if you would like that, we can do it because we're paying almost a hundred dollars a plate and it's like super fancy on Tuesday night. So if you guys want to. I don't mind doing a dress. I just know I would. I think that it would be a good look for Kevin Fairburn to be in a tuxedo, and I think we'd all appreciate that look. But also, it's going to be a long two days, Monday and Tuesday. Might not want to get in a tuxedo and you'd rather just, you know, loosen the belt and eat a lot of food. So I'm fine with that, too. So if anyone has any strong opinions, share them in the Facebook group. Nice little dialogue about whether or not we want to have a formal Tuesday evening dinner or if we just do it right regular. But I will need a headcount for that food, as well as for Wednesday, when we go to the cathedral, we need to know how many people are going to be there just for seating and chairs and all the rest of it. So I'll be sending that out probably the next couple of weeks, and then I'll need that completed by September 15, just so that we can submit everything to the catering company and get things rolling. So I appreciate all of you. Have a fantastic day. Have a fantastic weekend. We'll see you on Monday. Take care of.