Mike Minutes Mastermind 08/07/2024

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to another mic commands mastermind.

If you watch this from the YouTube playlist. Sorry. YouTube playlists are whacked this morning. Can't they all disappeared so don't know what's up with that. Hopefully next couple days they'll fix that and I will put this into the playlist. So apologize for the two or three people that always ask for that. It is not in the YouTube playlist. I'll get it in there once they fix that. Okay.

Yesterday the media team went out and did a whole bunch of pictures and videos of Christmas lights. They'll be using those pictures for the print marketing material graphics. I did put a project in for creating estimate invoice and email signature graphics as well. And then once they are done those command center will put those into copilot.

Also I finished this document the other day. It's two pages. It's for your follow up phone calls, objections and then reasons to do a call because you want real reasons. You don't want to just be like hey, I'm following up. It's pretty weak. So we actually want to have specific reasons for any quote mowing and then projects very specific reasons why you're calling. So you can do it multiple times and there's reasons to call instead of just calling to follow up. The objections are also helpful. I would recommend once we we're going to get this nightmaide looking all nice and pretty for the media team. I would laminate this thing. It's gonna be four pages.

And put next to your your desk. Whoever's doing follow up phone calls, highly recommend.

Because you can just be like, okay, there are five projects follow up phone calls. Which one applies this one most? Am I a solo operator? Okay, all you're going to use number five.

Do I want to use that? We are booking out pretty far. Do we want to have a project canceled last minute? Do you want to have that? This is the favorite type of project our crew installs. Do we want to call out Colin because at a spot come available, do you want that day or in two weeks there's another day. So there's a whole bunch of stuff and you can just like choose your adventure. So very good. Yeah, I'd say within, you know, two, three weeks the media team will have a lot of that stuff done for the Christmas lights, certified lights. We got a whole bunch of boxes of lights and stuff from them so that we can make those.

Pictures and video and media if we ever get a light snowing like a dusting we'll probably go out and make do more because there's not snow. But I also know that a lot of us, when we actually are installing lights, there's not snow. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's the perception for the customer. But we did get in, like, fall and cold type of gear, since usually it is late fall, you're putting them up, and then in the middle of winter, you're pulling them down. So those will be available. Shortlay.

I also put a project for the. If you wanted to wrap a truck with Augusta Christmas lights, the logo, that will be available, and then you can take that design. And I. I know a lot of people are just going to get a small, enclosed trailer to be able to store everything. I really like that idea. It's better than putting on a whole truck.

It's also a big billboard, and you can park it, store everything inside. I like this idea. So you can just take that same design, move the graphics over using whichever printer person you have, and they'll make it look good.

It's all had in the way of announcements. Let's hop into questions. Oh, I had that fancy schmancy thing the other day. Where'd I go?

Oh, how do I do it? Oh, yeah, Banners. Here we go.

Bam. Let's go. Okay, there are four questions a day.

All right, let's hop in.

What do we got? Nick from Hudsonville. All right.

Hey, Mike. As you know, our business is a thing for large commercial projects, and it seems we're glued to them. No escape in sight.

I would say. If you're trying to get away from it, Nick, I just deploy your marketing dollars in the opposite direction. It'll take a while, though. You never want to cut anything out of the business. It usually takes three to five years to actually transition away from services, especially if it's making up, like, 50% or more of your revenue. So it took me a solid three years at Bellingham shop to get away from, like, retaining walls, paver patios. We did putting greens. We did tree chipping. Like, we did all that stuff.

Grading, excavation, like, the whole nine yards. Flail mowers. It took me three solid years to get away from that stuff and not jeopardize the business. Because if you built the business in a way and then you try to, like, change it fast on more than 50% of revenue, you'll just lose your shirt. So with our growth ambitions still running high, we're still relying on debt to keep expanding, given the recent stock market crash. Now might be A good time to think outside the bank.

Oh, I see what you're saying. You're like saying, okay, all right, so I'm assuming you're thinking people are selling and then going to have cash and then you're thinking about trying to get debt from other people. Okay. Do you have any advice on how to tactfully hint to friends or family that would be open to chatting about silent partnerships? I'm getting pretty tired of paying sky high interest rates on bank loans and securing on an SBA loan feels like trying to hug a bear. I would like to send this message opportunity out to in a, in more of a mass format, maybe to Facebook friends. Thank you for your wisdom.

Okay, so to summarize.

You don't want to pay sky high interest rates.

And you want to get away from the bank and so you're thinking about partnering up with friends and family. There's two ways to partner up. One is you're looking for a money investor, like hard money lender. And then another one is you're actually looking for a partner in the business that would take equity. So if you. Okay, let's do two things. First off, let's assume that everything you said is true and we're going to assume that we need to get money from outside sources. The reason I say it's an assumption is because usually this will cost you more than actually going to a bank. But mostly due to the fact that a back a government backed loan over the course of 10 years you will pay less because most non institutional investors like friends and family are not going to be willing to wait 10 years to see their money come back to them. Like they might do a two or three year loan. So the next question though is like do you want a loan or do you want an equity partner? Right. Let me just make sure these comments. Okay. Our commercial is all simple service, regular service. Thank you for the follow up template. Very cool. Okay, cool. Okay.

No equity partners. How to act tactically for friends and family. Okay, got it. Okay, so you're asking for hard money loans. Got it.

I would not do this as a public post for a few reasons. One.

98% of the people that see it, you don't, you don't really don't want them to see it. So this is like for example, every day I have to decide on this stuff. Like when there's an issue with an owner, do I a dress at one on one B, do I bring the leadership team in three, do I bring it to the fac? Or four, do I Have to make this public to August Nation. And then five, I guess, would probably be like, I have to tell literally everybody, like outside of August Nation, which I don't think I've ever had to do. So.

The only way to go up one level of communication and include more people is if it actually affects them. In this case, 98% of the people that would see this message cannot afford to actually do what you're asking them. I would be more targeted. And the reason for this, because I know what it's like to get these sort of messages. And if I saw it in someone's Facebook page, I would just discredit it immediately if they were. If it was an email directly sent to me with a video.

That was embedded or at least a loom going over the terms of what I'm asking for, I would be much more inclined to listen. If the person has thought through all the ramifications, they've thought through the terms and conditions, they've thought through what happens if they can't pay me back. And so I would really step into the shoes of the potential person you're asking for. And I would guess, Nick, that when you're posting it, you probably have five to ten people in mind. I would just directly email them and I would just say, like, look, this is not pressure. I'm just saying if you have money set aside that you would like to get a return on and above that of 4% from a Treasury bond, this is what I'm willing to do. And either a, you instructed this as a balloon payment, which is probably most advantageous to you, or monthly payments over the course of two or three years. The thing is, most non institutional investors will not wait 10 years. So that's the advantage of SBA because you spread your payments out so far even though they're going to. Yes, you're going to pay like probably 9, 10% interest right now, at least, probably even more, 11 or 12% potentially depending on your credit worthiness as well as the loan amount, which is a lot. But spread out over 10 years, that payment might be lower than if you do a two or three year term. Also, if you're going to do a two year, two or three year term, my terms and conditions would probably be a balloon payment. So it'd be like, okay, it's basically a shot clock against yourself. Okay, okay, I'm betting on myself that I can grow the business in the next 24 to 36 months enough and then start pulling enough cash out to pay this person back. And so and then I would like include in there like what are the penalties if you don't pay them back in time? Does the interest rate go up if you pass the 24, 36 month like thinking through all those things and then having it in a document and then doing a video and then targeting individual people. I'd make the video the same. I would make the email customized to them so not copy and pasted. It'd be to that person specifically. And then be like, hey, this is a proposal and please do not feel bad or our relationship will be in jeopardy if you say no. This is simply a matter of I am looking for somebody that is looking to.

Get return on their money and I would like to avoid the banks if possible. And I would probably if I was you, Nick, you need to have a strong case to that investor as to why you, you are going to them instead of the bank. Right? So you could just be honest. You could be like, hey, it's a six to 12 month process to go through. Go to the bank. I'm willing to pay a premium to a private person such as yourself. It's not the industry I'm trying to get around. It is the fact that I have to like spend all this time and energy when I could just spend that on the growing the business and then pay someone that I know more money. But make sure like if I'm an invest, if I was doing this, I had money parked aside, the thing that I'd be looking for is a, is my return greater than a risk adjusted, you know, risk free investment of treasury bonds. 2 what happens if this loan does not get paid back? Like do I, do I get a piece of equity? Do I get the trucks and equipment as collateral? Because that would be an irregular loan. And so I would be looking for that as an investor. And then you know, you would want to make this clear. This is devoid of your personal relationship. It's like, hey, this is, this is a business opportunity. I'm going to treat this.

Professionally. And the way that you present that, if it's just post in a Facebook post, very blase, you're getting a lot of weird comments. 90% of people, you don't want to see that comment that because your competitors will see it, your customers will see it and both of those parties will misinterpret it. Even though it's not bad. Like a business growing very quickly. And I know when you came over like you had a lot of already the commercial stuff going on, like a lot of companies have debt, especially if They've grown to over $500,000 in less than three years. A lot of companies have debt, whether it's because of acquisitions or buying equipment. And so it's simply a matter of who do you want to see this message? I would personally tailor that because the type of person you're targeting that has 100, $200,000 in cash ready to deploy, very different situation.

So anyways, that was a very long answer, but it was a good question. So I would be more targeted in my opinion, Nick, because the type of person that you're asking for isn't going to take kindly to a mass message. It'd be like, let me think, let me just give an example. I'm not thinking of anyone. Let me just try to think of an example for a guest. So.

Here'S an example. Someone's having a disagreement between two owners inside of Augustination and I publicly talk about it on a 3M and make a post on Facebook. Inside the group, everyone be like, hey, like that's weird. Everyone have their opinions and comments and things. It's like, look, this is an isolated one off incident. We don't need to talk about this with everyone and give names and details.

That might go. If it happens again two or three times, then it goes to facility. Then like what happened most recently when we have to let an owner go, I bring that to the entire Augusta Nation. And I didn't go to like the public and blast somebody. Right. So I'd be very careful with you always want to keep your target audience in mind when you're asking for anything and always ask yourself, if I was in their shoes, how would I want to be asked? So if you want to always, if you always, if you want to get answers from somebody, if you want to get like mentorship, if you want to get training, coaching from someone that's way ahead of you or has a lot of money, you just simply have to step in their shoes. Like, what would they want? Like, if I was them, what would I want? And so for example.

I look at someone like Dr. Cash and Alex, way ahead of me, very honored that I can, I can pick their brain. And so the way for me to be able to.

To do that is show myself that when I'm around them, like I just simply take care of them as much as I possibly can. So like with Dr. Kashi in a more of a public environment, I'm making sure like I get his coffee and like they notice those things. And then like I knew like right after that he made sure He Alex called me out and talked to me. These are the type of things like it's just like if you want to go here with somebody you're going to have to like how would I want to be approached? And so there are several people that.

Yeah, anyways. Yeah, anyways, let's keep rolling. Cool. Number two, Coach Connor for the GM when doing the 0 to 20, 20 to 40, et cetera incentives are you doing this based on P and L or build? If doing build that's the work they just got completed. Which work for they can mostly control if doing P and L It's depends heavily on the owner they mostly cannot control. So again I would check pick one or the other. I would argue that they can control what's on the P and L because they control making sure they collect on invoices.

So if you use P and L I happen to know that end of each quarter when I know a GM is getting a big bonus, they are making sure they get follow up phone calls, they are calling invoices, they are going to people's, they are following up, they're pushing command center to do like the final calls, they're trying to send stuff to collections a couple weeks before to get something. So the GM should be able to control both of these things. I would just stick with one. And then my, my concern is if you're doing it based upon build now all of a sudden they're not incentivized based upon collecting the actual money. And so that's why if you're doing profit sharing. Oh I see you're doing revenue. Okay, got, I got you revenue incentives. This is not the, the profit sharing. Got it.

Yeah, I would just stick with one or the other. Just remember you don't get any money if you do this based upon revenue like you want the money in your bank account.

So that would be my 2 cents. Unless you are responsible for collections. If you're doing all the collections work then yeah it'd be out of their hands. But typically my general manager is responsible for everything and whether that be them communicate with command center like hey I know we're through the automations but please go through these again or please send everyone to collections a couple weeks before they should be managing that.

Matt Slakey from Salem, Oregon. How do you recommend handling when an employee loses a customer gets a one star review? I've had a few steady clients cancel, some with an explanation, some without quite a few be upset by the quality of his service. But working with me and a lot of Yellow slips in. In my opinion, I'm feeling frustrated by the rework and chasing fires. Also, can we get a spreadsheet with all locations names on Google Drive?

So there is a. There's not a spreadsheet available but on the directory of the new dashboard. Wait a second. Did I skip something? I feel like I skipped. Skipped something. One second.

No. Okay.

There's not a spreadsheet. There is the new directory by state and then you have people's names in there. You can also, by the way, you can also just go to the map on the locations of the main site and then the email for every location is on there. Just FYI. Okay.

So if this person is crushing on pay for performance, I'm going to start instituting a dollar per lost customer. If the cut. If the customer cancels due to lack of service, I'm gonna look at whoever was there last and they're getting dinged X amount. And usually you want that number tied to a specific thing like your customer acquisition cost. So 100 is a nice easy one.

And then you know, if they're not hitting above base pay and they're having low quality, it means they're slow and they do bad work. That's when I would fire them. So yeah, that would be the distinguishing vector. If they're above base pay, I'd be going hardcore on yellow slips and manual adjustments. If they were below base pay and doing bad work, they should be fired. Ms. Anonymous. Okay. All right, all right. Will you be giving a little summary regarding when we can expect the waiting list for those who opt in the beta? Oh, I'm guessing you're talking about the showcase reviews. Got it. You. Yeah. So we're trying.

There's people, several in the beta, but we are trying to make it integrate with stripe right now.

And then we'd be able to track if they've ever left a review. So there's a few things we're working on right now. We are still working on this. It is a little bit more delayed. Before we rolled it out to everybody, I was hoping to do it in July, but I think the wait will be worth it. And if you're trying to get a ton of reviews right now, there's a couple posts today. This morning I saw one was like basically offering a free mowing service to all your existing mowing customers. I think they got like 18 reviews. They sent to 60 people. That's cool. If you're slow right now, this is the time like you don't need money to get paid. You can get upsells, you get referrals, and you get reviews in the form of payment. The other one was just more of a personal post on your Facebook page. Usually you with your family crushes on Facebook and then just saying like, hey, it really helped our small business, our local community. We're looking to be able to hire a couple people and grow our business and create local jobs like that crushes. So I think Connor said, I said he got like 30 or 40 reviews from one post. So I would recommend that for now, this will be really cool to be able to track all of this and then be like, have a link that's easily textable. See, when people, like, open up the review thing versus.

Actually submit a review, etc. So we're trying to integrate this with Stripe, and I don't want to do it through Zapier. We want to make it a direct integration. So we're working on a couple things with this. This is a completely separate team from Copilot. It's actually the web design team that's working on this project. And so it's basically doing a backseat to Christmas lights because we wanted to hustle all those sites through.

Okay, we got another question. Looks like in the comments. Give me one second here. Bam. What do we got?

Tactfully, Friends and family. Yeah, if it's friends and family, Nick, I would highly recommend. The approach that I took.

It is it can be demeaning to an investor that has that kind of capital to just see a public post. Now it looks like a plea for help versus a partnership or a professional engagement.

Where is the Google form to post a question? Located on the new dashboard. So as it says right here, post questions in the comments or using the form link in the description. So everything every three. Mike Mintz, mastermind. In the description of the YouTube video, just click on the little like more button. There's a link says submit questions, and there's. There's your Google form. So. All right, everyone, I hope you have a fantastic Wednesday and we'll see you tomorrow. Take care.