Mike Minutes Mastermind 08/22/2024

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to their mike minutes. Mastermind. Couple quick announcements, big shout out to Jason Murphy out in Louisville, Kentucky putting together the Christmas lights training. Looks like there's 70 people he said gonna be showing up there in a couple weeks. So congrats to everyone that's going. Big thank you to Jason. That is a huge undertaking to host that many people. So big, big thank you to him.

So I cannot make it that week. However.

I will be there another way. So.

There were. We currently have 59 locations that have their Christmas lights website up and running. Very good.

I expected to probably get a few more after some people going to train me to kind of see if they like it. That's good. As I mentioned last night, we are seeing about 20 or 30 of those starting to rank pretty good in their markets. It's just so tough right now because there's no traffic. No one searches Christmas lights during the middle of July and August. They just don't. So it's very hard to actually even have an accurate picture of SEO. I'm very confident that this time next year though, we'll have some really good domain authority across the country because there's just not a lot of other national installers. There's national distributors.

And if you search like in an incognito window in Google, you'll get a lot of distributors because they're national. Actual installers, there's not unless they're selling leads and those usually don't rank as well in a local market because they don't have a Google business listing attached with an address.

Alrighty. There was something else I was gonna say. Oh yeah. I am making a bunch of plans actually right now for the Seven Figure Retreat. The Seven Figure Club retreat. It's gonna be next summer. Everyone that is eligible will be announced at conference.

So that'll be on the Thursday of before Blue Collar Summit, which just us. I'll be announcing everyone that is eligible. It'll be based upon if you processed a million dollars or more through Augusta in the month in the year of 2024.

And that'll have to be verifiable and we will check the revenues, etc. We have to to make sure it's actually legitimate. So if you're like 998000 and I see a massive invoice go the last day of the year, I'm gonna check it out because I do want to make sure it's, you know, we hold everyone accountable to hitting that number. Now if you have multiple locations that adds up to a million. Let's go. I'm putting together some what I think is pretty cool stuff that I've been learning that I really feel is only necessary to really know and understand when you're in stage seven of the stages of wealth and so just basic stuff. Some things like for example putting your spouse on your articles of incorporation is a board in the board of directors and then their compensation is things like a vacation and you talk about the business on the vacation so you can kind of do some write off stuff there. Different things around real estate I want to talk about and how like use the S Corp, have a revocable living trust, things like that because that's, that's, that is actually meaningful at that size of business and it's stage seven of wealth and so we will likely record it and then make parts of it available to everybody on the dashboard. But you will not want to miss it. If you are eligible to be there, highly recommend it. It'll be really fun. Now where it's going to be, I'm not, I haven't nailed it down yet in part because I don't know exactly how many people are going to hit it. So I'm trying to get an idea of that. But probably December or sorry January, everyone will know who and then like February, March will actually make the arrangements for where it's going to be and then people can book their flights and all the rest of it. So looking forward to it. I think it's going to be really good. The webinar from last two Wednesday yesterday. Yeah, yesterday.

From Command center they talked about automations that is available on the Facebook group. If you just click on the YouTube link it's still there. However, within the next week it will be available on the dashboard as a transcribed using AI so you could search stuff if you needed to. So it does take us longer to get the transcriptions done and then put it up on the dashboard but then it's there forever and it's in the searchy thing at the top and we'll live there forever. For your admin staff or for yourself trying to find stuff. So that'd be good.

I think that's all we got for today folks. Let's jump in.

Do we need to get our Christmas lights Google verified? Christmas light sites Google verified.

That's a good question. What I would probably do Brent is I would probably see if you can just add Christmas lights as a service inside of your Google Local services.

Yeah, that's what I would do and just add it to your same exact one because I doubt they're gonna allow you to do two. I don't know, to be fairly honest, if they can, they would allow two accounts like using the same ein number or tax number. So if I was you, I'd probably go into your Google services. If there's a Christmas lights service, I would check that off. I just don't know if they have one even for Christmas lights inside of Google Local services.

So. But your. Your site itself isn't verified. It's your Google Local services account that is certified or sorry, verified I should say.

So I know some people are making separate Google Local or Google listings for Christmas lights and then other people are just using their existing Google listing and tying that in. We default to that because so many more Google reviews are there. You're also have a really hard time getting legitimate Google reviews if it's from now till this year. So maybe if you wanted to, you get Google reviews after this winter and then you start a second, a sep separate listing next year. But I would just recommend using your same one because it says Augusta throughout the whole thing. So it'll be legitimate. We can tie it into your site. It'll also create a lot of domain authority between your two. Like in the perfect world when someone search searches Christmas lights, they would literally have augustalights.com and then augustalongerservices.com and your territory name for both. Like I really see that happening down the road.

Because we'll create so many synergies between those two URLs. So.

Alrighty, let's jump into.

Oh, we got three questions. Let's go. Okay. Excuse me, Coach Connor, I believe it was Alex. You said there are three things that is worker, manager, and maker. Okay, so we're conflating a few things. So Paul Graham technically came up with this. Alex recently made a video about manager versus maker time. The worker part. You might have talked to Connor Hutchinson because I think that's the only person I've talked to about this. I added the worker part in there just like so just be clear, I don't want to put it on Alex. He never talked about that. I added worker in there because people try to become a manager too soon and Alex is talking to a larger business size. I do believe there's a worker phase in there from kind of like that that kind of phases out after 500,000. But like from 0 to 200,000 you are a worker. Like that is the labor part of the stages of stress. And then you can move into Manager and then that's 2000-008000-00800,000 plus in my opinion would be kind of that maker more or less. All right, so let's go here with the stages of growth in Augusta ranging from zero to a million plus. What are the worker, manager and maker phases or percentage of time spent each stage of growth? For example, for myself, we do over $500,000 last month. My role is changing, but sometimes I feel like I'm twilling my thumbs wondering what's next. Not because I don't know what to do, but because my role is changing and I'm not sure 100% what the best role would be or what each phase of worker, manager or maker truly entail. You're welcome to use me an example. I don't know if it clarifies, but I plan to grow my location larger, 1.5 million or so over the next few years since I am landlocked other locations and would have to travel a few hours for the next viable option. Yeah, so.

I would say.

You'Ve already passed the worker phase. Right. You're probably in the middle of transitioning from manager to maker. That's typically when you have an ops person that's running the location and you kind of have this weird hairy like transition going from manager to maker and that's using that 800,000 to a million dollar range. And so I've always talked about like switching from worker to manager is tough and switching from manager to maker is tough, I. E. You could just take the three things, stages of stress. We talk about labor, manager and architect. Those are the three we've always talked about inside of Augusta and just change the words out for worker, manager and maker time.

So in terms of not sure the best role would be at each phase. Yeah, like worker phase it is do the work right. The manager phase is like become a better leader. Like that is should be the focus of what we're trying to figure out. Maker, you start figuring out, okay, you start actually running numbers, things like your pricing, what price, what increasing your prices would do to the bottom line optimization, do you add more services? Focusing on something like Christmas lights would be a great move for a maker because you're going to have to figure out whole new processes and systems. That's not what a manager is usually very good at. It's going to be at the maker that like, okay, here are the systems, here's how we're going to do it, here's how we're going to organize the boxes, store everything here's the marketing material, here's the plan. That's the maker, right? So if you're twiddling your thumbs, that's typically what the maker is going to do is like they're on the kind of the bleeding edge of like getting the company forward, whether it be starting new locations, whether you start any more services, optimization of profitability, acquisitions, all of those things, like more maker. And a lot of times people jump to that way too soon. You're not kind of, you're feeling the bleeding of being a manager and you're bleeding into a maker and you're probably still managing most of your day, but then you're like, what am I doing for this other 25%, right? That's the maker time that you're not you, you, you're figuring out how to fill it. It's very weird transition. So.

Like I, I, I honestly, to be perfectly honest, I feel like I didn't really pat go into like really optimizing for maker time until I was over 10 million. Like, to be perfectly honest, I still felt like a lot of my time was wrapped up in management.

So. Thomas of Stone Oak, do I need to resend requests? I sent email media team on how to add them to Facebook, Instagram to manage and have not heard back from them.

Zach is out.

So you might be delayed this week. He's out?

Yeah. So there's a video, but right now they just have it. They're planning to make a more of a tutorial on that page. Right now it just says contact them. They're gonna make more of a tutorial. The problem is every single time we've done videos in the past, within a matter of few months, Facebook changes where the tabs are at. So they're gonna make a tutorial, a new one on that page. Right now it just says to contact them. It's a little bit of a slower process.

Also, you probably won't hear back from them. You'll probably just see stuff get posted to your account. So I don't know when you sent the email to them, but usually every two weeks is when they add all the accounts into Facebook and Instagram. Well, sorry, we don't do Instagram. The thing is, if you connect your Facebook and Instagram on your end, then it'll automatically go to your Instagram as well. So usually it's every two weeks they add all the new accounts in. So if you came to training a couple weeks ago, you're probably on the deck for next week.

Would be my guess.

Mr. Anonymous. What are recommendations on things to look for, to prepare for when moving away from where the business is located. I'm considering moving the next day over and continuing to run the current locations I own and opening a new one in the new state. What things would you recommend having in place prior to doing so? What are their biggest hurdles to expect? Sorry for no context. You're fine, you're fine. Um, first off, I'd be trying to do at least 400,000 in revenue if you're going to move out of state. At least. Like if you're thinking of bringing a GM and it's doing 150 or 200,000, it's not going to make money. And I should say clarify, it might make money, but if that person leaves, you're probably not making money because the cost to switch out a new GM is just too much at that size. So at least 400,000, ideally 500,000. And in profit mode I'd be giving you green lights.

The next thing I would be considering is have you simplified services enough so that if the GM does bounce you can replace them relatively easily. So a complicated service mix. I'd be very hesitant to move out of state.

I would make sure those would be the two main things. Honestly is enough size and then simplified services enough to where if that person leaves, you could replace them quickly and you don't have to like become the gm.

Because that's like the worst case scenario is if you lose a gm, you have to step in and that's. You're basically the serving regional manager which does that. If you only have two locations. And so to avoid that or prevent, to reduce the damage and time required of you being in person when that happens, not if, but when. You just want to make sure your, your services are simplified as possible. Make sure that if, if everything is being done according to systems so that if that GM dips, you can throw everything back at command center the next week and hop over there and get someone else pretty quickly. That would be the goal.

So like again, if you're getting to that size like you're following the systems like I've always said, once you're of a certain size, I don't know, I'm assuming you're larger, Command center becomes your insurance policy. So in the event of that happening, you throw everything at them because you're following the systems and then you just go back over there for say a week or two and get a GM either ramped up from inside the org or you're bringing from some outside and training them up ideally from within the org because they're used to the systems. But those would be things I'd be focusing on is like if you have your pricing nailed, that is you're in profit mode and your revenues are high enough and your simplified services, it just de risks the business a lot of.

Is there a way to put a tab or something on the normal website to link to the the Lights website?

We talked about this before.

I will bring this up again. I know I had discussed this with the web team. There's a couple things we were weighing out.

I'll talk about this with them. Good point. I know we talked about this. I'm actually blanking on what what the reason what, what exactly. We were balancing out both options. We kind of did a split test on it. So I'll get back to you, Ricardo, because I'm just blanking as to why we haven't put it up there yet. All right.

That is it for today. Thank you all. We'll see you tomorrow Friday. Thanks so much.