Mike Minutes Mastermind 08/11/2023

Hello, guest nation. Let's go and get started. If you hear Jack hammering in the background, the unit next door on this side, that wall is building a restaurant. And it is rather interesting, the noises we were hearing today.

Let me just drop this into Facebook real quick.

Things.

One thing that's nice about having Max is, is he filters out spam calls really well. We're finding. We're working on that this. This past week. We're gonna start implementing some stuff next week. Because the problem with spam calls is you can block a number, but they'll use a different number, typically because they use is these systems that randomize the numbers in your area code and then call. So the problem with that has always been that usually blocking the number doesn't do a whole lot of good.

The thing is, though, with Max is we can recognize scripts. So what we're starting to do is we're trying to scan all the calls and see, okay, 10, 20 calls came in today, and they all said they started off with this line. And we're going to mark all those as spam and just hang up the call immediately on them so they can't get through no matter what. And we can hang up on them in a matter of a couple seconds instead of us always wondering, okay, did the owner actually set up a meeting to talk with this person about marketing? When really they're just trying to set up something with you guys and then, you know, the whole rigmarole. So that's been helpful. It's not perfect, but it's a whole lot better. And it just saves time of people on the phone trying to figure out if this person is legit or if they are just a sales call, someone trying to get through to you as the owner. And usually that's the cases. So.

What else? They got some call metrics. I sent everyone the email of the video I made two days ago about explaining about Max in the future of what we're working on with him. At the bottom of that, I put some call metrics in there in terms of what the last few days has been. Those will only improve as time goes on. In terms of the. The number of calls Max is able to handle, the amount of calls that were out of office hours, the number of leads that came in after hours that would have otherwise not been able to get. Because people call after hours, the vast majority of people don't leave a message. So it's like, well, they just call back tomorrow. They don't always. And so the hope is that when they talk to Max, we get them locked in, they've given their information, we've told them we'll get an estimate to them and they stopped calling other people and we were able to actually service them. So.

That data I sent in the email. So if you've been seeing the video, scroll the bottom, you'll see some data. I'll update that every month or so. So you can see that I'll probably be putting some more recorded phone calls in on the drive, if not today, on Monday as well. Just showing some more of the stuff that we're doing to eat, make the transition from Macs to command center easier and pick up on certain words and frustrations of customers, etc. To make that better. All right, let's hop into questions.

All right, four questions today. Mike from Athens, Tennessee. What do we need to start doing to get ready for switching over to Copilot? Do we need to use the Augusta email as login email? Should we enter our customer information or should we wait until being we are onboarded? You can do as much as you want right now. Just know that when you command center helps you onboard, it's going to be pretty hands on and making sure like we work with what you got. So if you already have an account using your Gusta email, if you already have a subscription, if you already have customers in that, that's fine. But also if we contact you based upon the first come first serve of that form.

We will be reaching out to you and asking like hey, like where are you at on these things? Because if you haven't even started, that's fine. We're we will set up your subscription, we can input your customers, we can do as much of that stuff for you. But if you already have, totally fine. But there's not really anything you need to do to get ready for it because when we come to your account, we'll see where you're at in the process and then walk you right through it. So.

I would say for the vast majority of everyone listening, they should just be having a free account so they can stay up to date on what's going on. The new features that are rolling out and listen to Copilot University. And the transition is pretty simple, especially if you're going from service autopilot to Copilot. It's a pretty easy transition. If you're switching to Zooper, there'll be a little bit more of a learning curve, but it's just operationally more sound than Zooper to the point that it's far, you know, you'll save so much time, especially on invoicing and routing. So I wouldn't say there's necessarily anything you need to do. When command center gets to your account and digs in, they will reach out to you and kind of see where you're at and then make a plan accordingly. Kevin from South Haven, Mississippi, any update on how the Bravo Pushmores are holding up and performing? The Bad Boy brand is the exact same mower just painted orange and has Bad Boy on it. Thinking about trying them out? Yeah, so far we've liked them. We're probably going to switch all of our because like we tested a few of the we tested some skags out, we tested some X marks out, we tested several. So we've quite a few different mowers at the Bellingham shop, for example. So this winter will probably standardize everything to the Bravo mowers. But yeah, we're happy with them. And what you really want to do is you want to make sure that what's nice is if you standardize like that, you can just teach everyone on the team two or three of the basic general maintenance stuff and then everyone knows how to do it. Changing out the pull cord, changing out the throttle cord, tightening up the throttle cord. Etc. Steven from Red Deer Hey Mike, question. I told this guy I'd buy his truck next week for 13k. Good truck. My parents said if I buy it I have to move out by September 30th. I also have 11k bank loan. I'm not fully booked out at the moment, but I want a second truck up and ready for backup. Etc. What would you do? Pay off the $11,000 loan at $389 a month or buy a second truck cash? I'll have 16k cash next Thursday.

Well, it really comes down to it's all this kicked off is you're not booked out at the moment. So I think you might be getting ahead of yourself in terms of need a second truck. If that truck's not moving five to six days a week right now, I would wait. You can always buy a truck. You can always buy a truck and within a matter of like a day have it operational and with a matter of a couple weeks have it painted and decaled. So that is never a bottleneck to growth. The bottleneck to growth is getting booked out. So I would personally get booked out and get make it so uncomfortable with one truck to the point where it's like oh my word, I have to buy a second truck. It's not a matter of Even asking if it's a question or not.

Alex. At Stanwood last year we had three guys working out on average, three to four days a week in the winter. This year things are slower. And I currently have four good guys left.

Down from seven in the spring. These four are good employees who like it here and want to and would want to stay. I cannot, I cannot pick one to let go. As we go get to the slow season, where are some good options to manage the downsizing for this upcoming winter? I am leaning towards cutting everyone's hours until someone leaves on their own, which is an easy option for me, but probably not the best overall. That's really the best overall, honestly. I would also say that you still are probably getting ahead of yourself a little bit because there's a solid, you know, we mow till the end of November in Washington, even though it slows down in October. November, like, you can really lean into fall cleanups. Corerations keep the guys busy. So like, you got all of August, September, October, November before there's an issue. I would highly.

Thing like I would. There's a very good chance that in the next four months, one of your four people leave just due to natural attrition. So I would not cross this bridge too soon because within four months, it's likely this will take care of itself. But if it didn't and all four of them are still there, I would do what you said. And that is just like, lean out the hours. Maybe they're only working 25, 30 hours. You tell them at the beginning of October, you say, hey, it's gonna start slowing down a little bit. If you need full time work and you need to go get jobs someplace else, you have a guaranteed spot to come back year mid February. I'll give you an exact day if you want to go get something else. Otherwise I'm just going to. We're going to get as many jobs as we can, but the number of hours might go down to 25 to 30 hours a week. If that's fine with you, which a lot of people in our market, for example, are fine with that, because cold, raining, miserable to work out. And they're okay with 25, 35, 30 hours a week. But. But you can just say, like, if that's not okay with you, I understand and you're welcome to go get another job. And I guarantee that when you come back here, you're coming back at the same spot, same pay, and I'll give you an exact date. And there's plenty of work to be had over the holiday season, December, January, February. Because retail is so, so.

Busy. So if they want to drive for the post office or something like that for a few months, they could probably do that.

How can we call CC without getting Max? So if you call from your specific cell phone number that Command center has, we finally got it set up, I think, to this morning, where now you'll get around Max and it'll come immediately to Command Center. If you're calling from a different number or a number that's not in our system that recognizes your number, you'll just get Max. And then you just say, I'm a franchisee. Can I please talk to commit someone at Command Center? And he'll route you through and he reckon and he recognizes that you can call now and get an agent without getting Max. Email me if you're not. Oh, it Liz. Yeah. So if you're not, what Liz is saying here is, is your phone number is probably not in the system. So we have it to where all of your numbers are. Your personal phone numbers are in there. So if you do call, it should go around Max and come directly to Command Center. But if you do, if you're called from someone else's number or whatever, just tell Max you're a franchisee and you need to talk to Command Center. Can you talk to someone, a live agent, and he'll put you through. So.

Cool. Yeah. Right now, 0.28% of our calls are coming from franchisees. But we still want to make sure that when you call, it's going specifically to not only just Command center reps, but we have a governed department just to answer your calls for the more seasoned. Have more seasoned agents on there available. All right, everyone, have fantastic rest of your day and I will see you on Monday. Thank you.