Mike Minutes Mastermind 09/14/2023

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to another Mike Minutes Mastermind.

Happy Thursday. Let's go ahead and get started here. Let me just drop all this stuff into YouTube. I got several announcements, so hang on to your britches for just a moment.

Okay. First one is.

Where's.

Oh, there it is. Cool. All right, first one. The voting for franchisee of the year is now live. Your vote matters. So I forget exactly how many people there are nominated. I want to just ballpark and say like 20, 20 franchisees are so were nominated to be franchisee of the year. So now there is a ballot with their names and you can vote one vote per location.

If it ever came to a tie, I would throw out anyone that voted for themselves.

So.

But yeah, please do the voting. Very, very helpful. It'll close next week early. We got to be able to start ordering all the trophies and obviously franchise of the year is that is one of those.

Which leads me into the next thing which is September 15, which is tomorrow is a cutoff for revenue in terms of how we are going to determine the revenue markers for the location size. So if that matters to you, check that out. Tomorrow is going to be that 12 month rolling. 12 months is what will be considered the highest revenue for location and multi location operators. So tomorrow you can also expect max max metrics to be completed. So all of those numbers will be calculated and then.

Does it. That's what will be used for October's awards. If you are considering buying snow plows and snow equipment, you might want to wait another week or two. We are in the works of wrapping up a 28% discount with Western Snowex and a couple others.

And so hopefully next couple weeks we should have that up and ready for everyone on the preferred vendor portal, a preferred vendor deals page, whatever you want to call it.

But yeah, you might want to just hold off on buying in case those are brands that you like. So Lee's helping us wrap up those deals next week or two with those manufacturers. All right, let's jump into questions.

Ooh, three questions a day. Let's see what we got here. Present share screen. Oh, we came up by the way, quick announcement came up with a killer feature copilot we're really looking forward to.

And I, I liked it so much that I said hey, this is not going the backlog. I want to get this done the next couple months and it's basically I'll give you a little teaser.

Basically where when your.

Employees are at a property they can now do upsells. Now in the Past you usually be like, well, hey, if the customer needs it, take a picture, make a note.

Talk to the customer and ask if they need a certain service. Well, what we're going to be adding is a button that you can program to have different upsells and based on what the customer, what the employee knows is required or needed, they can tap on a specific service and it then sends a one click estimate email. Essentially that's the way the technology works with the formatting of it. You'd make it sound different, like, hey, our technicians write your property day. Here's what they recommended you need. If you would like this service, click here. If they click that, you're getting an inbox, getting a email back to you asking for an estimate for that specific service. And then you'll be able to program which emails go out for individual services. I'm really looking forward to it and it'll be awesome. Obviously there's user permissions making sure that they're not overwhelming customers with them by having certain limits and filters, etc. So we are working on all the details, but I think it's going to be a killer awesome feature for us to be able to incentivize our employees to do upsells but furthermore make it super easy for them to do it. But we'll obviously make sure they can't do it like 10 times. They can't do annoy the customer, etc. But I think it's going to be really, really impactful instead of having to do it more of a manual process or talking to customers, etc. Very much looking forward to that. All right, we got three questions. Let's jump in.

Whoa. Oh, there's a two banger. All right, we got Max Harwood from Burnaby.

Seems like a very intellectual question.

Cool. All right, let's jump in. Number one, can you comment on how you have grown by voluntarily adopting responsibility?

Okay. All right. When people see someone accomplishing remarkable things, it's tempting for those people to believe the person doing the great things is categorically different from them. Dude, using the word categorically in a sentence, that's a tense. There are of course different innate. Whoa. Max is still early in the morning our time. Come on now. There are of course different innate limits that people possess. Yet it seems like the major difference is that successful people just taking start taking action, taking on responsibility, start acting, taking on responsibility and grow through their actions. In your case, Mike, I get the sense. I get the sense that many YouTube fans and other others look at Augusta and come to the Conclusion that you are really talented, they put you in a different category. I don't want to deny whatever God given capacity you have been given, those are definitely a factor in success. But I think what is forgotten is your willingness to just start doing things, regardless of how poor the first attempts may be. Because it is through doing things that we grow. Here's the boiled principle, boiled down. People wait to take action until they have a certain capacity. When in reality.

Is only by taking action that we develop our capacity. Curious to hear your thoughts on whether or not you think this is accurate. Oh man, this is. This is deep. Okay, let me think for a second. Okay. People wait to take action until they have a certain capacity. In reality, it is only by taking action that we develop our capacity.

I don't know if that's true.

I don't think by taking action we develop our capacity.

I also don't believe that success gets harder as you continue on the path of success. So what I mean by that is think of it like climbing a staircase, right? Let's just say there's 100 stories of stairs.

Your premise would be that by starting at the bottom, I gain more muscle in my legs because I am walking all the way up the steps versus the person that starts at the 50th floor and continues walking up the steps. It is no harder the first step for the person the 50th floor versus the first floor. Accounting for the fact that gravity is the same in both scenarios, which is not the case, but let's just assume it is.

You are assuming that by the person on the first floor getting from first floor to 100th floor that they are going to be more muscular, like they're going to be better developed. Let's just say that versus the person at the 50th floor getting the same point, not having the same strength because they did not start at the bottom. I would deny that.

Because the person at the first floor could have plenty of action. But instead of going up from floor one to two to three to four, they're just going up and down floor one. That's all they're doing. And like, oh, I have action, I'm taking action. And that's why I'm very careful about telling people to take action on things and like even execute, because execution to them could be doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, which is the definition of insanity. Like you'll have to keep challenging yourself. And that's why I look at success much more of a stair Step. But in my opinion, it is. It is more linear, if not somewhat bent in a. Like a direction of getting easier as success continues. And so.

I don't think action in of itself extends capacity.

I think increasing the level of intensity or the weight of the action over the course of time would increase someone's capacity. I do believe that. Let's continue on the next question because I think it's probably linking. If you accept the above principle as true, it is. Is it counterproductive to provide people with shortcuts to success because it prevents them from expanding their capacity? Interesting. Okay, so let's assume that I think it's true because I don't fully believe it's true. I think the type of action is important.

Let's. Let's read the full question. With an organization like Augusta, we are provided with solutions to problems. The intention is to allow franchisees to grow faster and perhaps further than they would on their own, or at least in a way that is less painful. I sometimes wonder, however, if the act of providing people a solution actually limits their own growth because they are never forced to wrestle through the problem and expand their own capacity. Oh, that's a great question. Don't take this in the wrong way. I think Augusta is great. I'm using the franchise as an illustration of what I think is a wider phenomenon of life. And my real question is whether you think this is an accurate view on reality and what. You make all these things. Great. I gotta stand up. Sorry. Okay, this is a great question. Okay, this is. This is. This is really good. So I've thought about this a lot. Okay, now I know why his first question was the way it was. Okay, for one second, let me make sure I'm actually. Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Now we're standing up now. Now we're live. Okay, this is a great question. Fantastic question. I love these. These make me think. Okay, so.

I see what your point is. Here's why I disagree. If I go to school and I learn that the Earth is round, and I look at all the evidence that supports that. A globe, a map. I am told from my teacher, I am told by Google that the Earth is round. Great. I have come to the conclusion that the Earth is round. Fantastic. You know, another way to. To come to that same conclusion is travel around the Earth and figure it out yourself. Right. Now, this is the question, does the person who travels around the Earth themselves in a boat have more conviction that the Earth is round than the person that was taught in school? That is the debate. Because. And I'll bring this back to business a second, but I think this is a good analog.

If the end result is the goal and that is to be more successful or to achieve more.

Then how someone gets there, whether it be fast or slow, isn't really, doesn't really matter. The difference is the conviction in the result. So if the result is that you understand that the world is round, you can learn that in school, you can learn that in a Google search in one minute. Note that the earth is round or you can go to space or you could travel around the entire earth and figure it out yourself.

If your level of conviction is lower that the earth is round by learning in school and learning, learning that way, then maybe spending 10,000 times longer or millions times longer and millions of dollars traveling the world or going to space is going to give you more conviction. The earth is round, then perhaps that's a good investment. That could be Deb in my opinion when it comes to business, for example, let's just use pay for performance as an example. If I if you can come to training and in three days, four days, whatever it is, I convince you that P4P is the best method for your business. The question is not whether or not P4P is correct because the earth is round. That is correct. What is in question is whether or not you believe it as much as the person that had to figure it out themselves. So for example, let's just use this example. Nick Davidson just joined the franchise, just left training. In the past couple months I've seen two really good executions on his part. One, he did exactly we talked about at training and raised prices on 12 month contracts that he was in the middle of and we walked him through how to do that. He's got on a coaching call, we talked about training. I would assume that probably added 3 to $5,000 of straight profit to the bottom line. He just paid for his entire franchise fees right there. Just if if that was the one decision he was making, right second decision, he just this week started using pay for performance.

And he posted about it on the Facebook group. That's gonna be a huge change to his business over the next year. He has done that change in the past couple months since training, converting commercial contracts, doing a lot of legwork to come to the conclusion that P4P is the best for his team, his business and the future success of the business overall down the road. Here's the question. Does Nick Davidson believe more in P4P than the person that never has used hourly and came to came to training and have only used P4P in their business. There is a debate there. The same way that there is a debate that the person that travels around the entire earth believes more that the earth is round after going to space and doing those things than the person that is told in school or looks up on Google. Whether or not the earth is round, the level of conviction that that is fact, in my opinion, is the delineation as to whether or not expending that much time and energy and years of wasted, you know, doing all these contracts and underpaid like, is it worth that? It is. If the only way you're going to be believe that P4P is the right way to do it and the only way to believe that you're going to raise, raise prices is to go through that pain. I don't personally think that pain is necessary. I don't personally need to go drive around the entire world or go out to space to see the world is round. I don't personally want to experience the pain of not running P4P, not having a website, not having uniforms and all the other stuff we talk about in terms of leadership, et cetera. I don't want to go through that pain and I don't think it is required in order to be successful. What is required to be successful is to realize the conviction in the outcome and secondly.

To not lose your conviction that that is not the end goal and that there's future growth ahead of you. Right. So the same way that Nick, like, he's going to figure this out, he's going to, he's going to, he's going to feel the full impact and the change is switching to P4P. But he will stop growing here and he'll keep going up and down level 42 story 42 of these stairs back and forth. And unless he determines, I'm still going to get to number 100 and there'll be more things I'll need to change and adapt and continue growing. But he just jumped from level 10 to level 42 by implementing pay for performance. And so whether or not someone starts on level 50 having done all those systems in place, or whether they have to go from the bottom and go through trials and tribulations and years of unprofitability and figuring things out before that is completely up to them. And I don't think it's right or wrong. I do believe that some people have more convictions in the systems of Augusta after trying it on their own and not working.

I do believe that. And that's why unfortunately people who come times the new people, they will have less conviction. It's not whether or not it's true or false, it is the conviction in the result. Because they have less of that, they will not implement things. So whether or not the earth is round doesn't matter. However, if I don't have full conviction in that, I might change my behavior based upon me thinking that it's flat. And so someone might change their behavior in doing P4P or doing open book management or you know, using technology, etc.

But I do believe you can get all around all of that pain and all that time and energy expended to get to the exact same result by just simply having the conviction of the end result and then furthermore realizing that that is not the final destination and that you got to continually go to the next story of the.

Of that staircase of success. And so the question I think is valid is the person that starts at zero when they get to level 50, are they more likely to continue to level 100? There's a very good chance that that is true. Because the person that starts at 50, they might be like this is good, I'm fine. And they don't challenge themselves to continue. And I think that's where personal capacity is. Like how far up do you need to go? And I think that's the part, that is.

The part I really look at. Like some people don't need to get to level 100, they just want to be at level 60. Great. I can get them to level 50 as fast as possible. Let's say join the franchise. You use this for anything in terms of educating yourself, learning, et cetera. I get the level 50 and they only have to go 10 flights versus having to figure it out all by themselves. They still get to level 60 but now it takes five times as long. Right.

So.

Good question.

Hope that made sense. Hudsonville oh, speaking of the guy, Nick from Hudsonville. We need to retain high quality workers in the winter. We what we did last year is we took our full timers and paid them a flat rate salary which was more than their base pay at $30 30 hours a week. That did not mean they worked 30 hours a week. Some weeks they only worked 15 or 20, but I still paid them for 30 other weeks they worked 40 or more. I of course paid them overtime if they worked beyond 40, although I don't think I had to do that all season. Although this is an exception and not the norm. We average about 90 plus inches of snow per year. We Have a lot of commercial snow plowing, so there's quite a bit of work in the winter, but there's a lot of down downtime as well. What are your thoughts on continuing the system and not doing P4P during the winter? I'm worried that we, if we leave them on a P4P system, the work will be way too sporadic and they'll end up getting laid off or leaving. I like the guaranteed salary for the winter because I can call the crew in whenever I need them to do shop maintenance or equipment. We have quite a bit of work that always needs to be done.

I can see PVP working well on our sidewalk crews as they are all part timers, but some storms take a lot longer than other storms because we may have more snow. There's a big difference between 2 inch events and 6 inch events. Yeah, the last part is the part that I think is most important. If you are charging the same to the customer on a 2 inch event at a 6 inch event, then you probably can't use P4P. This is why typically I recommend when it comes to snow plowing is to somehow tier the amount of work being done to the pricing. However you're not doing that, that's fine. I understand that's a more complicated sales process, but I'm not opposed to the 30 hour thing. I would definitely still have P4P in place so that when they do need to work a lot of hours, they are more efficient at it. I would also probably in this case do something like hey, if it's your first year here, you're going to get guaranteed 20 hours. If it's your second year, 25. If you're guaranteed here for longer, like three years, four years, whatever, you're guaranteed 30 and potentially move that all the way up to 40 hours guaranteed for people who have been with you for a very long time. Because the last thing you want to do is you hired someone in June or July, they're two, three months in now, you're going to snow season and guess what? They leave March or April and you've just paid them a bunch of money. During the time when you don't make a lot of money and there's less money to be had and if they're working 15 hours and you're paying them for 30 now all of a sudden you're paying people $30 and you didn't really get much out of them, you know, plus $30 an hour, plus just because the fact that you are doubling your base pay essentially so probably like 35 or $40 an hour when they're doing shop maintenance or like, not very much. So I would just be careful with guaranteeing 30. I would probably reserve that for the people that have been around a while. And I would probably realize that as long as you have your core group that you can call on during a big snowstorm, that I would allow. I would. I'd figure out what that number of people is that you must have on call and then everyone else via tenor. I would.

Basically guarantee them a position coming back or say it's going to be more sporadic. And some people are okay with that and it's up to them, like, hey, look, you can come back February 21st or you can stick around, but you're gonna have less hours. And you start guaranteeing people the hours as time goes on. This is what we do at command center. And that is like, as people stay here longer, they're guaranteed the more hours during the winter. And then people that are newer just don't have that. And so if they want to come back in three, four months, they can. But we have to correlate workload with labor capacity. Devin from Red Deer when Augusta super profitable, I want to build, buy a new community center in Red Deer called the Augusta center in my hometown. Pool, rink, library, courts, daycare. What are your thoughts? I would say do not think for a moment about this. I would just focus on building a massive business. Things like that there will always be opportunities for. No one ever complains when you give them money. Making the money to be able to give is the equation that should be figured out.

You may have already shared this info, but when are we getting the new decals and designs for the trucks? I'm hoping I can show it by conference, but it'll definitely be by the end of the year. And it will not be enforced. Like, you must put these on. It'll basically be for everyone new moving forward. And then as you get new trucks, as you get.

Then, then you could use it. So don't feel like I'm going to be like, hey, everyone's got to tear off their decals. But it's not going to be like that. But I also know that there's some people, like, even at Bellingham Shop, we're getting more trucks. I know you're like, hey, should I wait for that? So I'll definitely have it by the end of the year. I'm hoping that I can at least show everyone by conference what those are looking like.

So. But I'm not going to like, require everyone to change their. You know, in two, three, four years, if you wanted to redo your decals, do them at that time. P for P equals game changer. Roger that going on there, but I think it was a good question. Good job, Max. I appreciate it. Very intellectual. I'm sure you and Lee have very intellectual conversations about the world. Anyways, all right, guys, we'll see you. Take care. Have a good one.