Mike Minutes Mastermind 09/09/2024

Good morning destination. Hope you're doing good. Let's gonna get things kicked off. Happy Monday.

I didn't really have two announcements.

Later this week I'll have a bunch of training coming out about winter services, how to pitch that in a much more effective manner. I have four different ways to pitch winter services. We've been historically always using the worst one so, or I should say the least amount of effort and the lowest close ratio or conversion ratio of people of existing mowing customers going into winter services. So I'll be sharing more about that later today. How to pitch that over the phone individually kind of show a scale. So did I say later today? I didn't mean today. Later this week. Let's go and get things kicked off.

Why is there two of these one second.

Present. Thank you. All right.

First up is from Garrett from Glendale, Colorado. I think one change could largely solve Q4 collapse for 20% of franchisees. I believe the beautiful and I believe the single most impactful thing Augusta could do to help finders in the snow removal track would be to add Instant Quote residential mowing snow removal forms to the website. I think we talked about this the other day. I snow. I know snow is not your focus this winter because it affects only about 25, 20% of franchisees. But for us in that 20%, we typically only mow six months per year. Meaning we are looking for a six month winter solution in addition to Christmas lights. Our winter is almost six months long, so the P Ls I've seen from Colorado and similar areas seem to have a much harsher Q4 and Q1 collapse and are in the highest need of a winter solution as compared to the areas that where you can handle eight to nine months each season. It'd be a game changer if you were able to get us Instant Quote for residential mowing removal this winter, but I told Entertainment that's not possible. Yes.

I would like to do a lot of things and everything goes too slowly, but I we need to focus on nailing these things. In the past, when Augusta was smaller, under 50 locations, we moved very quickly.

But as we've grown larger, doing so creates a lot of problems for people for owners. And so I have moved much more methodically in 2024 at the franchise level.

In order to make sure that we have a very data driven approach to tackling these problems and that they are tackled.

Either slowly and rolled out correctly, but it is, it is much more important that we nail launches. And so my focus is exclusively on Christmas lights next year. It will be, there's a couple things but like I have a 36 month plan that started last March to fix Q4 and will take me 36 months. And so I understand that for.

Fragments of owners they will want certain winter services more etc and we need to focus on different areas and that's understandable. But I will stick to the plan and we'll do in a very data driven way of how we release things.

And so yeah, it's not to say it's not the most important thing to you but for, for me I have to focus on nailing it because for example, if I, if I have a split tension between four or five different tracks, this, this one year we will drop the ball on Christmas lights for example and then when I focus on something else next year no one will actually apply it because they're like, oh, it's going to come out half baked. So I will move much slower going forward to ensure that when we roll things out there well tested that they are nailed. Incremental improvements are far greater than like trying to radically change stuff. But in order for me to do that I need to focus on stuff. So this year it will be Christmas lights and then probably a little bit of winter services stuff because it impacts both of those, impact more than 50 to 60% of the owners inside of Augusta Nation. And then next year there'll be a huge amount of effort on this, this front too. And it's already, it's like, it's planned, like it's, I'm just gonna stick to the plan. So I understand that's not necessarily what everyone wants to hear but I want to make sure that when we release things now it's done in a more thoughtful way. Planned, scheduled, tested and a lot of data going into these things.

Bryson from Colorado Springs employees wondering if for 3F franchise fee, franchise fee forgiveness, if it has to be an immediate switchover situation. He's expressed interest in starting a location in Washington once he's worked with us here for two plus years. He's only been with me 1.5 months but I can tell he's definitely a GM or owner material. However, he has mentioned he wants to travel a bit before settling down in a location. If he were to own one.

Six months to one year.

Just wanted to ask if a gap period was something that a decision that had to be made on yet. Yeah, as long as they work the two years with you, they're eligible and then they would communicate with Lee. Schedule 6 to 12 months, that's totally fine.

But that gap period can't be inclusive inside the two years. They need to work with you full time for two years. Then they can do that. Joel from Lafayette, you mentioned that you have a social media buyer or team that does marketing tests. It sounds like they could have some valuable insights for the owners who create their own ads. Would it be unreasonable for your team to share what tests they ran and the results of those tests on a monthly or quarterly basis? So I did it during spring rush and I would, I would, I shared those and then that's kind of right around the time we made the most recent done for you ads. I do not have a social media team or buyer I should say now.

Simply because like we just kept testing the same thing and the same things kept happening. And so I didn't feel like I was getting a whole lot of data because like I knew that it was like, you know your Facebook forms are going to get you your highest amount of traffic and like responses they're going to be a lower close ratio. Changing out the pictures in the creative and the video once to twice a week it shows and literally double the performance of a campaign.

Having more than five variations of every ad will usually within a month cut your customer acquisition cost by about 30% simply because you didn't take the one or top one, top one or two of those ads and then make five or variations of those.

So it was, it just kept. The same thing kept happening. So it's like you know, there the money could be spent in better places. But I'll probably do that each year to see what trends what's happening because the state the algorithm changes quite consistently. Coach Connor on the website instant form where a customer can select other for a property cleanup or an upsell. Is there a way we can have them explain exactly what is they're wanting? Every time I get one of these property cleanup or other I call a client and have to ask about what specifically they're wanting. I feel like it feeds the purpose of the speed in which they we are trying to deliver. Either that or just tell me that, tell me that's what we have to do. And I won't put the estimate on my route until I know what is they're looking for.

So the objective of the form is to mostly make it where they yes, it is better for you if they would select from a list of 20 services.

I happen like I know that if you have a list like that it dramatically decreases the amount of people submitting the form because they don't find what they're looking for, B, they don't know what they're looking for or C, they just go to other anyways. And so the goal and objective there is to note is this going to be an in person estimate. That's the objective. And so if you're wanting more granular details, yes, that is lost. However, it dramatically increases the amount of people submitting the form when you give less than five options. And so if said, okay, well I want hardscaping. Some people don't know what hardscaping is. Okay, we'll put paper patios, we'll put retaining walls, we'll put hydro seed, we'll put sod installs. Like all of a sudden you just become this massive list. And so anytime the other it's not, it's actually not a distinction of really what services they're wanting. It's a matter of like, do I need to go visit this customer's property? Because if they put mowing, it can be over the phone, it can be instant quote, if you have that set up on your website, et cetera. So that's the main objective of that. It is to maximize the number of forms being submitted. And because otherwise like it varied but we usually saw a decrease of 15 to 30% of people submitting when because we have lawn care web design clients that will do this.

And so the only time I can kind of see it being useful is if you are in profit mode and you're booked out crazy far and you're like, I kind of want to know on every single form. So I get that. In that case, I'd probably keep doing what you're doing and then just reaching out and asking specifically like, hey, I'm plan to be at her house tomorrow, you know what specifically we're looking for.

But it's going to massively maximize the number of forms submitted. And that's what that form is optimized for.

All right, we got some other questions. Instant snow codes would be great. I used to do this when I first started out in 2015. Built it on WordPress and it was fire. Daniel Portillo do we get an email or some type of notification when our Christmas lights website is complete? You do not. It usually takes about a week and a half to two weeks. Daniel.

So if it's been more than two weeks, email the web team. But I think we've been hitting all those within a week almost. So if you're having a, if for some reason you don't see it, just web. Augusta longcreservices.com, they'll hit you up. But yeah, I think almost all of them we got done within two weeks, so. And there's not like a huge backlog right now, so it shouldn't be, shouldn't be long.

All right, everyone, I hope you have a fantastic Monday. And like I said, later this week there'll be a big. We'll be making a new tab on the Academy, actually. So right now there's a Christmas lights tab underneath the academy. It's going to change to Winter tracks and then inside of there you're going to see Christmas lights there and then you'll start one for winter Services and the other three will build out over the next couple years. But it'll be a lot of detail. I'd really recommend sitting down and watching the training once it comes out later this week, general managers, et cetera. I know for most of us still a few months, one to three months away, that this is a big deal when you Winter Services. But the same way that a lot of people are prepping for Christmas lights and getting ready for, I'd really recommend doing the same thing for winter Services. I really believe that this training, like, will massively impact the amount of people that switch from that convert into Winter Services. From mowing after breaking down like the different ways to be able to sell Winter Services, I generally believe we're actually doing it the least in the least.

Convert, like the least converting way and just the lowest effort way, which is sending an email and hoping that people don't click on the link. There's much better ways to do this after looking into it in depth. So really looking forward to sharing with you. I will have it from like hardest to easiest, highest close ratio to lowest close ratio of what I recommend you do and then you can choose from there. So hope you all have a fantastic rest of your week and we'll stay in touch. See you tomorrow.