Mike Minutes Mastermind 09/01/2022

Hello, Gust Nation. Hope you're all doing fantastic.

Sorry if I'm blurry. For some reason, all the WI FI networks today are slow. So thank you, Comcast. I appreciate. Okay, let's see. We got. We don't have any questions that were submitted. Very Sad. Very sad.

September 1st, we got four more months to the end of the year. We are only 66% of the way through the year, which means you have a third left, which means it is not the time to give up. It is not the time to let down right now. If you technically stop the year and you aced the entire year so far, you would have a C minus 67 to 70%. Let's go. So I highly encourage you, the next four months are the time to make money. It is the time to get ahead. It is the time to grow to capacity. I know that spring rush is difficult, and then you have this bit of a lull and a little bit of a reprieve in July, August, typically, and a lot of people start to see more profit. I understand that. But every single dollar you can grow closer to your capacity from now to the end of the year will literally save you 12 months next year of growth and a lot of growing pains next spring rush. If that means raising prices this time of year, do it. If it means growing and actually really focusing on fall cleanups and capitalizing on a second rush of mowing during the fall, do it. Whatever you can do now is going to save in the next four months, is going to save you 12 months if you would just put it off. Like, I'm going to relax next four months. Okay? So I understand that spring rushes when demand is high. Remember, the curve that we always talk about, demand curve during the spring rush is really high. Customer acquisition cost is really low. And then we also have that kind of secondary happen in September, October, typically. And again, you got fall cleanups, got a reprieve in terms of typically, a second, a little bit of a wave of mowing. And third, none of your competitors are marketing, okay? Because they're also going through the whole, let's coast to the end of the year. They've got their team on board and they're like, hey, I'm not going to try to hiring as much. Look at the amount of job openings now versus in the spring. And this will confirm the fact that if you actually are aggressive right now, you could find some good people potentially. I'll be saying that the same thing in December when a lot of companies will start laying people off or they will Let people go for a month or two. That is the time to actually be hiring. And whether or not you actually give them a position right away is irrelevant. At least promising them a position, February, March, whatever it is, that is the time to go aggressive. So we talk about, you know, default aggressive. I would say when everyone else is on the defensive is the time to go offensive. And for most people, they're going to start checking out around September in the landscaping industry because now they have good profit, they got through the spring rush, they got a good, decent team. They don't stop, they stop growing. So we need to do the exact opposite. The same way that you do contrarian investing and thinking opposite of what everyone else is doing in stocks or real estate, et cetera, you have to do the same thing with the emotions of the business. So when everyone else is coasting, that is the time to basically floor it. And when everyone else is flooring it in the spring rush and everyone's aggressively marketing and aggressively going after hires is usually the time you actually want to take a step back and make sure you don't burn out. So I would say pedal to the metal here the next four months and every single ounce of energy that you have left to put into it because it will save you a massive amount of headache next spring rush, whether it be raising prices or growth. Next four months are extremely important for all of us.

Other update health insurance. I posted on the Facebook group last night. I also made the form. Let me actually show you guys this one.

I will probably show this on email next week as well. Let me just go ahead and pull this up and show you real quick on the deals section of the dashboard. Oh, here, I'll pull this up. Sorry, share screen. You go to.

If you go deals, go to preferred vendors. And I put like halfway through all states. So here can fill out this form. This is the form that's going to allow you to get the quote. It literally will take you five minutes to fill out and then they'll get you a quote. It's really cool. My big push for them to get this for us was it needs to be extremely simple to get a quote. None of this, like we need every person's Social Security and all the other garbage. So that's really simple for you to be able to get that. And that video that I post in the Facebook group is available here. Within the next couple of days will be another video that you do, would show your employees, if they're eligible, to give them an understanding of the different options and plans and benefit information so that one will be coming. And I'll add a second video here for the employees so they also understand. And your employees also have direct access to Ryan who is at this ad email address. They can also contact him directly so that they don't feel comfortable talking about health stuff with you. That's what the agent is there for and to explain coverages. Like I'm not going to try to pretend like I know health insurance. The best person in the world. That's why we have the agent. And so make him earn his commissions and ask him questions, have your employees asking questions, etc. So what is cool is once they get signed up, they do get a benefits card that has a direct number to the actual provider and they can actually do like call in for doctor visits like E Health and all the rest of it. So most of the plans include free telemedicine and things like that are going to get added more and more as we get more employees and locations on board into the program. They have different tiers that they're going to give us free stuff on. And I think the first one is free telemedicine for anyone unlimited, which is kind of cool. So again, great way to be able to, in my opinion, be able to tell an employee, hey, give them a call instead of just them bearing the burden of being afraid to go to the doctor because the cost that was the main reason I personally implemented it is I hated the feeling of someone being sick. I know they're sick, but they're not going to the doctor because of financial stuff. I wanted to be able to say go to the doctor, it's paid for, do it. So that's the main reason I did it. And also of course it is a retention and attraction tool in terms of employees. So cool. There was no questions submitted, but I do have questions coming in here. One second.

I feel like I'm behind on marketing this time of year. In the past, do you have any recommendations of when to stop market start up marketing for aeration, Fall cleanup, snow removal. So aeration. So these are the three months. Those are three different categories. Right. I always try to emphasize take one month and focus on one service. So for example, aeration, probably a good time this, this time of year. September. Right. Fall cleanup, probably October, going into November, snow removal, probably November. Right. So that those three months you literally just answered it right there. So I would be basically marketing. If you're spending money on marketing, Google Ads, Facebook ads, et cetera, postcards, door hangers, I'd be focusing on those services at the same time. I'd be doing one click estimate emails in the middle of those months. Right. So you know it's the first. If you build on the first. I'd wait at least a week, maybe five days if you're really. If you're really needing the work before doing a one click estimate email. But aeration, I would probably say September fall cleanups, October, November, probably snow removal if you do all of those services. Again, assuming that.

I know it differs state from state, but any recommendations would help. Cool. I think that answered that question pretty thoroughly. Let me triple check and make sure there was no.

Questions submitted during this. Nope, there was not. Cool. All right, that's all I got for you all today. Again, next week there will be probably an emailed update video. Just make sure everyone sees it. I know some people don't watch the masterminds, which is a horrible thing to do, but the ones that can't miss updates I try to get out in email. So I will do that next week and that's going to be for more information on that health insurance stuff. But also the winter services and snow services document that we're gonna have filled out. So that way you don't have to worry about what needs to go on your wiki. It's gonna be all standardized. So that way at command center they know exactly what to look for and they can answer questions much better on the phone. When is the quarterly quarterly zoom meeting? We just had one last month. If you missed it, it is on the franchise updates on the dashboard. And the next one would be.

August, September, October. It's going to be like the first week of November.

Awesome. Take care everyone. Have a great day and we'll see you tomorrow.