Mike Minutes Mastermind 10/14/2022

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's Friday.

A couple things real quick off the bat. Last night's Roundtable is recorded. It is on the Facebook group as a YouTube video. It is also on the dashboard underneath Franchise Updates, so feel free to watch those. It's Q3 of this year's Round Table with the zoom. So thanks everyone for making an effort to get out there. I'm sorry for all the technical difficulties this morning. I don't even know this. Even this stream is messed up because Facebook was down earlier today. Connecting was down. I have a feeling aws. There's something wrong with AWS when you see a whole bunch of different sites go down. You almost always know something's up with AWS because they run the Internet. Anyways, looks like at least a few people are hopping on, so hopefully this is working half decently. Let me throw this in the comments.

Cool. A couple other things. Later today you will be getting an email in relation to. I'll just show it to you real quick. In relation to this document or this, what we talked about last night. That is for mowing clients that are existing as well as for Bed Maintenance clients. Basically telling them, okay, here's the parameters of what we do. If you want another estimate for the actual initial cleanup part, click on the estimate. We don't make this one super graphically intense. It's much more like an email.

So that will be going out. I'll make a separate video, making sure you know how to send those out correctly. There's one for Moen clients and there's one for Bed Maintenance clients in both Service Autopilot and inside of Zooper.

And in speaking of.

Service Autopilot.

Give me one second. Share screen.

It is also in Service Offline Marketplace. So both of them are there now. That being said, Marketplace inside Service Offline. Something that I have not mentioned in the past month or two, which usually I do this time of year for Service Autopilot users. And that is Winter Services. That email that is inside of. For Winter Services opt out. You do need to go through a process to ensure that it goes out correctly. All right, let me share this other screen. Sorry, this. It has way too many clicks. Someone needs to figure out this ui. Okay, this part. This is a Service Autopilot. If you're using Service. All right. This is applicable to you. If you're using Zoo for this does not matter. Go down here to Winter Services. Oops, I made a separate.

Videos here. You've got to test the link for Winter Services. The Winter Opt out and then check your automations. All right. These ones go over the explaining the service to your team and then any follow up when people come back. So please watch through these if you haven't already. I know most of you are an expert at this but 001 also known as Thomas Salazar he reminded me this morning about this because when you download out of Service Autopilot the tag when it comes out they throw on.

Ms. Venture Marketplace and then a time and date code. The problem with that is when it comes out it was not it will not sync with the automation because that that timestamp is not adding up correctly. So you've got to make sure that the you actually test that link and in these videos I'll walk you through how to do that. You basically got to take out that timestamp to make sure the automation is still firing because it's going to turn it off and then you've got to make sure it's done correctly. So if you have questions about this at Command center they can help you. But if you're using Service autopilot do not think you can just download the template out of the marketplace and send it out to your customers. It will sometimes I've seen it work so I can't say always but most of the time 99% of the time I it will not work correctly. So you'll need to follow these videos here to make sure that process is done correctly.

Cool. Let me make sure that's all I had. Also if not today, tomorrow there will be that form go out from Brad in terms of the tax stuff in terms of you would like to get set up with that because I know a lot of you are thinking about November starting to really think about end of year and what you want a section 179 if you should be buying more equipment what your kind of tax liability is standing where you are standing at and that is the most valuable call in my mind with your CPA is the end of year. Where are we at? Because guess what? January, February rolls around. If you do that it's too late. You cannot make adjustments. You've got to make the purchases inside of the calendar year. So that will be if not today, tomorrow that email will go out as well. That's all I had for announcements jump into questions.

This is gonna be so much better in about a week. I got this secondary display that plugs into your laptop but you don't need any power and it'll be right next to here so I can see my questions And I can see what's going on the other screen instead of constantly switching here. So I'm trying to make this a little bit better for everyone. Okay, Forest. Whoa, what's this? Can you give me a monthly list of one click estimates for the entire year? I'm making a one click estimate schedule for my working gm. This is a good idea. I can't really do that for you because it's depending on your market. Right. So what I would do if I was you is I would go through your documents that you've downloaded out of the marketplace or go to the marketplace and search. One click and it'll probably pop up all of our downloads. And then just based upon your market, I would figure out what you're going to send in January, what you're going to send in February, etc. Right. So for example, for us, end of February or mid February we said like get on the mowing schedule as fast as possible kind of thing. March is the mowing, mowing has started, the grass is growing. Etc. April is typically like treatments. May is this is your last chance to get on the mowing schedule because typically for us in May the grass is still growing really, really fast. June we switched to project based stuff. Then in August we switch to, you know, get your do the last chance for your projects, et cetera, et cetera. And as you have here, overseeing leaf cleanup, etc. So yeah, every single mark is gonna be different. There's probably at least 10 or so 15 options and some months you're gonna want to double them up like mowing, you will want to do them differently. We have emails for mowing that are estimates that are very text driven and other ones that are very, very graphic and picture driven. And so you can do those back to back months and you will want to during spring rush, right? So during spring rush don't be spending your one click estimate email. Don't waste ammunition on things like projects when you have so much mowing coming in. Focus on mowing and then do projects later in the year, for example. But every market's gonna be slightly different in terms of the timing of that forest. If you did that and you completed that, definitely go over the coaching call.

With a coach. That'd be a great idea. Another Airbnb cleaning question. Oh my. I bet someone watched that video from several weeks back. I think up flipped it on up. Airbnb cleaning. Maybe that's what is it profitable make a profitable business. Around 50 labor costs. It is assuming you have yo yeah, cleaning has very low equipment costs. Cleaning supplies are usually less than 5% of revenue and marketing spend should be less. But from everything I'm seeing, there's no possible way we could price it at 3x labor like we try to do at the minimum in Augusta. I think at 50% labor we can get pretty decent wages while still only being on the upper end of market prices for turnover cleans with lower costs. I wonder if it is possible. All things are possible to them that believe and I just don't know if I believe in this. I did cleaning. So we started Augusta Cleaning Services like my second year of business. I shouldn't say we. It was me, myself and I, and I think I hired my mom.

But anyways, yeah, the margins are just tough because the thing that we're ultimately selling is labor. Especially when you don't have equipment involved, the thing you're selling is labor. So when I can only mark it up by 2x. And again that assumes 2x on the job site, which means once you include waste is probably still like 60% of gross revenue going towards frontline employee wages. Non nut management estimates, emails still have to all be done so your margins get squeezed to oblivion. Commercial cleaning gets interesting because you have massive chunks of work, but again you're just competing with such massive players that are willing to have such thin margins. So.

Airbnb specifically, I'm not a huge fan of just the cleaning side. I know this is the new thing to pitch on TikTok right now is that you clean people's Airbnbs needs.

Like unless they're big houses, if they're big houses where you're staying, you're spending, you know, four, six hours cleaning at someone's house, there's definitely money to be had there. But if they're like condos, one bedroom apartments, my places for Airbnb, you know, you're cleaning them in an hour or less and so, and that's very thorough and so to say that you're gonna make a good money and that means there's windshield time between every hour of work which basically bring it right back to what we kind of do on a long care basis. Right. So I've never been a huge fan of cleanings because it is a commodity. You cannot bring efficiencies.

It's difficult to bring in efficiencies in equipment or trucks, etc. And people get very tied if you're doing residential cleaning to the individual person that is cleaning. So when you have a high turnover, it gets very difficult to manage that. That's why Commercial cleaning is the what everyone wants to have is because you can create an actual business where people want the result and are not attached to the person. But when it comes to residential cleaning, everyone gets attached to the person. And so when you have turnover, you're. You're super your handcuffs like massively. And if you think it's easy for to go start a lawn care business and one of your guys compete with you, just wait until they have 15 of your customers that they go inside their house every single week and they create a really, really personal relationship with and there's no difference between them coming in under your brand versus their own brand because the connection and relationship again is formed with the employee. That's why like mixing cruise up a little bit on mowing. And it's also why your goal is always to keep all the communication flowing through the office is because you don't want them to create the connection with the employee, you want them to create the connection with the brand. So that way employees come and go, but the brand relationship with the customer stays intact. That's why job notes are so important as well.

What does one second, what does full capacity look like for a solo operator? One man one truck at 30 to 40 budget hours in the field or two man one truck at around 60 budget hours possibly two man two truck. I want to hit capacity for solo would. I want to hit capacity which for solo would be 20k and then go into the growth model. I'm at 6500 per month now but just adjusting just the pricing for growth next spring and I anticipate growing well above that during spring rush. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, so you're 100, right? I really believe that capacity is right around that twenty thousand dollar level for a solo operation. And again that's a very efficient two person one truck operation. I've seen some locations in our higher end markets do a 24, 25k per month with just having one employee. But they usually had a second truck. So I would say.

The. That would not be capacity though because if you have a second truck now, you have room to have two. Two employees like you, one employee both going out every single day. And yeah, you should be doing 25 30,000amonth in revenue as your capacity with one truck as your capacity limiting factor and then two employees being the max for that.

Having that as a limiting factor of one truck to employees. Yeah, like 18, $20,000 per month in revenue is very doable.

If you pay wages out of say four or five grand and overhead of five grand. You should be able make five grand a month in profit on capacity. Right now, every dollar we go below capacity, we still have the same truck. Like we have the same fixed expenses. It's going to be margin like you're, you're, you're going to not have a lot of five, you're not going to five, $6,000 a month in profit, I can tell you that. So.

Winter services is bi weekly, but is the price our bi weekly mowing price or weekly mowing price? Yeah, so I thought I was going to get a ton of kickback on this. But when, when we, when we switch to bi weekly and, and if you're in certain markets this might be more difficult like we talked about last night. But when we switch to biweekly, we do charge them their bi weekly mowing price. And so you're gonna get some questions about this. But again, as long as you had that estimate quote for biweekly in your original estimate, they should be cognizant of that. And command center can pull that up and immediately tell them like hey, you were bi weekly mowing, you're now bi weekly on winter services, which on a month to month basis is gonna be cheaper for you. And we typically don't see people needing weekly services for winter services mowing. You needed it every week, you don't really need it every week. So we kind of try to save you some money Going to biweekly, the per visit price is more but the monthly cost averages out to be less. So you're gonna get some people kick back on this and arguing against it, but it's a small percentage and you do wanna go for that biweekly price at all possible cause it gives the guys more budgeted hours.

For winter services. Is the email you're going to send us the opt out email? No, that is not the one I'm going to send you all is the leaves for your mowing and your bed maintenance clients. We just need to send the one email for opt out or do we need to send the email you're giving us plus the opt out email? Oh yeah. So the email I'm going to send you guys, if not today, tomorrow is going to be for the leaves for your existing mowing customers and bed maintenance customers. The opt out email is already in everyone's database. What I was talking about is watch the videos. If this is your first time sending out winter services email and even if it's your second or third, I'd recommend watching those videos really quickly. Just making sure that your, your if you're in service Autopilot that your merge link is correct, your automation is correct, and then test your email. Like send it to yourself and make sure it goes through, click on it, make sure the email comes to you, etc. The email from the automation is going to be governing either going to command or going to you. So however you want to do that is totally fine. Just make sure it's all done correctly. And I go through those few short videos I just showed for service Autopilot. If you're in Zooper, you just need to change your link again to go to you or to Command Center. On that button, click. But please, please, please test your email. Do not send out a thousand emails to your customers without making sure that when you click on that button, an email is coming to Command center or is coming to you and things are happening. Please, please, please ensure that it's very, very important.

Which take that back. It's not going to go to Command center, it's going to come to your email. And if Command center is doing full service, they would see it. So that's why you need to change the, the automation though is because it just says in the box, it says territory @augusta longer services.com, you need to put your territory name in there. All right. For Service Autopilot.

Do you roll all properties into commercial into winter services?

Yeah, we do. I'm pretty sure we do. It's a good question. I'm 99 sure we do because that's, that's the advantage of charging them per cut. Pricing is we just roll them white into winter services. And again, a lot of them really like it. The property managers love the fact that things get blown off. They don't get complaints from tenants that say their leaves are blown up against their back door. Like people really like it. So yeah, we just roll right into it. I'm 99.9% sure. Unless customers have specifically asked not to in the past. So cool. But please, please, please watch those videos. If this is your first time doing winter services, please check your tag is working correctly and the email is being fired off correctly. There's nothing more embarrassing than sending out two hundreds of customers and that they're clicking the email. It says, thank you, you've been put on winter services or you've been opted out and you're going to be going to, we'll start mowing your, your lawn next season. Whatever it is.

You'Re going to want to make sure that's dialed in. And furthermore, remember, if they click on the Opt out button. What that basically gives you license to do is put them on the schedule for mowing next spring. All right. Even if you put it on, you know, I'm not really sure when I'm starting. Okay, put them on March 15th. Just put everyone on there and then you can figure it out later. But the thing is, if someone is on winter services, they're going to roll right into mowing. If they click opt out of winter services, you're obviously going to not set them up for winter services during the winter, but you're going to set them up for mowing next spring. Because the opt out email says, click this link if you would like us to not to would like to opt out of winter services and just have a show up for mowing services next spring. That is what you want, right? There should never be an email going out from an Augusta lawn care franchisee that tells her, tells them customers, hey, we're about to get started with mowing. That should never really happen. The only email that infers that is the one that says, if you want to get on our schedule, our mowing season starts X, Y and Z. But in terms of you should not be waiting for permission from customers to get started on your mowing. It should be a matter of if they opt out of winter services, they're starting in the spring unless they tell us otherwise. And if they don't opt out of winter services, we're rolling into winter services and then merging right into mowing season come spring. And again, the advantage to knowing your approximate day or week that you start mowing is that right now you can literally start putting those people who opt out of winter services, you can be putting them on for spring mowing season.

Obviously, those of you in service all, it's going to throw a bit of a monkey wrench because we're switching to Zooper. But I'd still recommend doing it because then what you're going to be able to do is just take that all the customers you set up for mowing for next spring and you can just literally go through that list and copy them into Zooper. Okay.

All right, have a fantastic weekend, everybody. And if you did not watch the mastermind, please do so out of the roundtable. Last thing, actually, two locations, their Google my business pages are suspended. One of them I've already addressed Modesto. The other one is Boone's Creek. This is most likely having to do with you changing your address and then sometimes it'll randomly freak out. So you'll need to submit the form to get try to get reinstated, you'll need to do it multiple times. You have to call them, you have to do a whole bunch of stuff to try to get through, but you need to make sure you fix that. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. Franchise longer services.com I can only do so much since I am not the owner of the business. They are going to want you to be contacting them.

So but if you need a hand like I can kind of give guidance but it's honestly just a matter of like you got to submit the form multiple times, you've got to call them multiple times or you've got to take the the address out and go to service area for just a moment and try to get reinstated and then change it back to the address down the road is a potential option but you cannot, you do not want your Google my business page down very long. So please get that figured out just for your SEO sake. It can really damage you for two or three months if that goes down. All right everyone have a fantastic rest of your week and have a great weekend.