Mike Minutes Mastermind 10/16/2024

Hello, Augusta Nation. I hope you're doing good. Let's get this thing kicked off. Sorry for the harsh light, but it was that or be really shadowed. So this massive lamp glaring in my eyes. I am in Dallas. The leadership team is flying in from Augusta and we are going to a jocko's leadership event, so should be good. I will report back. We scheduled it like way back in the day. I think it's last year, actually.

Yeah, anyways, it's gonna be fun. Actually, no, I think it's January. We schedule it. Anyways, we're gonna be here for the next few days and probably learn a little bit about how they do their events and then also hopefully learn some stuff about leadership. I will probably be in and out because I have a lot of meetings, but it'll be fun nonetheless. So let's get started.

I didn't do a mastermind yesterday. There was no questions. One quick thing.

The media team did upload a bunch more templates and get them done through Pro Shop. The Photoshop files are in the drive. So if you ever see something in Photoshop and you're like, hey, I want to be able to customize this, there's the Photoshop files inside the Google Drive from the dashboard. So feel free to access that if you like. Hey, I want to customize this completely or change into the picture out and print it off from Canva or different online printer, totally fine. You'll just have to use the Photoshop files. Some. Some of the templates they make, they use Canva for things like that you need to customize for like winter services sales, et cetera. But it really does limit them from a creative perspective in terms of not being able to use Photoshop, like, you can really tell the difference between Canva and Photoshop quality. And so unless we want everyone, everyone to customize it like we do for winter services sales sheet, we usually do it in Photoshop, give you the file there and then put the template on the Pro shop. So there was a couple that had mentioned they wanted something changed on a document. The Photoshop files in there as well as. Also, there was a mistake on Vistaprint didn't allow you to edit the expiration date on one of the everdoor direct mailers, the flyers. So we submitted that to them. They just take forever, unfortunately. So sorry about that. All right, let's jump into questions. We got three today. First one is from Mr. Anonymous. I believe it was yesterday that someone asked you about the future of Augusta, how you continually implement systems and to make getting to 500k easier. It almost seems like you are stupid proofing the franchise to where you literally just have to follow the guidelines and you'll get to 500k. I see how this would apply to a GM running location. I found that if you leave too much up in the air for the GM to figure out, average GMs don't hit their targets. We cannot plan on having superstars at every location, unfortunately. And it needs to be where a super green GM can come in and crush it. What would you be, what would you do to be able to stupid proof being a GM and being able to hit that 500k level quickly? Would the regional manager be completing a lot of the higher level tasks such as marketing and helping with sales? What would you implement to make this a reality? So these are different questions. So the first is I wouldn't call it stupid proofing. It's like I want 100%. Nothing short of 100% pass rate of 500,000 in my mind is acceptable. So like all the systems I'm putting in place, whether you call it stupid proofing or greasing the wheels or ensuring success, that's what I'm trying to do. I know once the location gets to 500,000, whether the owner, operator or a general manager, if they can stay at that level, they can have four to six employees, manage them very well and then optimize for profit over the course of three years and be very, very, very profitable. And so the $800,000 revenue, $200,000 net profit, that is the goal. And so I'll be optimizing the whole system towards that because I do believe you can scale it with a quote average general manager that can manage four to six people. As soon as you require a general manager start managing 1012 people, it becomes a completely different beast in terms of finding, hiring, entertaining them, in terms of.

What you can do to make it easier for a gm. And as you know, I'm trying to do on my end, if you're trying to do it for your general managers, take things away from them that are difficult and complex or one off. So for example, my objective, like command center's admin, I cannot do operations for you. Like I can't manage your team. And so that's what a general manager, they should fill that role. The sales part is also the part we're working a bunch on to try to automate that as much as possible. But because if you can.

Get as many instant quotes as possible from your website, where no in person is required, no over the phone is required, it's just people checking out. But now the cards would hopefully go on to file inside of Copilot. Everything would be automated. That reduces the amount of sales skills that that general manager is needed. So you have sales, operations and admin. From an admin perspective, I know that we can usually handle locations that have four to eight employees pretty well at Command center, which is without too many hiccups. It's when it gets above that and we start adding a bunch of services, we start to drop the ball. And so I know that if I can keep the location at that size, four to six employees, 500,000 in revenue and then optimize to 800,000 in profit or 800,000 revenue. If I can keep it there, I can usually keep all admin under 8 to 12% of my revenue covered. Then I go get a general manager that just needs to take care of operations, running the crew, managing customers expectations, unhappy people, training new employees, hiring and onboarding, et cetera. Then from a sales perspective, we're also kind of trying to improve the automated part of that, which is like instant price forms when it comes to snow and then to services. Next year we'll be doing the same thing, getting the cards on file. That will be an objective to be able to do it from the instant quote. So then the GM isn't worried about cards not going through or cards not getting attached, or they're waiting on card to get on file so they can do service. We need to just take these tasks off their plate as much as possible. And then even down the road, like the goal of Command center would be able to actually do some of the hiring or at least the interviewing processes for the general manager. Cause that's also another skill that those will be required to have. And if I can take things off of what their skills are required to have, it makes their job easier. And it's easier to find an entry level person and make them successful if I don't need them to know Facebook ads and Google Ads and answer the phone and do emails and run payroll and log on to your dashboard and get your metrics. If I can just simplify it all, we can make it easier for that GM to be successful. And ultimately the goal of Augusta broadly for the team members is that they get to the next stage of their career. Well, if we can make that an easier step from field to gm, that will allow more people.

To get to the next stage of their career inside the company instead of there being so many complexities that they can't handle it. So the same way I'm trying to simplify it for owners by simplifying the model of Augusta, it allows people to scale and get general managers that don't need all these other attributes. Because if you're doing simple services and you're driving a lot of the traffic to just instant quotes.

They don't need to do as many sales things. So you don't need like role play on how to sell big projects and they don't need to understand the body language of a customer and then what to say when those things are important. Don't get me wrong, but if I can automate that as much as possible, it reduces the threshold of skill required in order for someone to go from field level to general manager. And I go, well, then what happens after that? Well, if I can do that enough times now, the person that's really excellent, that maybe has the skills to be an excellent person that runs a larger organization and they would then become a regional manager and help in the areas and be back up to other general managers that are coming behind them. And so that whole mentality like creating community is most strong in my opinion, when there are people elevating and there are people once elevated, help the people below them. If you create that, it creates a very strong chain. And so we talk a lot about it from the franchise level, but it's true for our team. If you can get frontline team members, become general managers and then they can do that two, three years in the field, two or three years as a general manager and then they're able to like you're going to 1 out of 10, they're just excellent and they could handle a $1.52 million operation. They would then become a regional manager. You can pay them better and it reduces the risk associated with having an all star because now they're managing general managers. So.

Yeah. Marcus From Alamo Ranch 1, what was your, what was your CAC in the early stages compared to now and what did you work to reduce it as the business grew? Yeah, so at the beginning, my customer acquisition cost was right around $200. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the season. It was not good. And then how to reduce it. You just like start figuring out ads, like what works, like tracking it so you actually know what the cost per lead is. Changing your creative out, changing video and pictures, seeing what's working and then adapting. Oh, this one's working. Don't just let it keep running. Make five variations of that ad. So just like just that essentially the done for you. Ads are 10 times better than the original ads I ran back in the day. And I thought I was doing good at $200 customer acquisition cost. But when you're. If you just get someone from mowing on $200 customer acquisition cost, you have to make $1,000 before you're profitable on them. Which means if they cancel any time in the first year in terms of mowing service, you're net negative on that customer.

What has been your employee retention rate and what practice have you implemented to improve staff loyalty and reduce turnover across all corporate locations? What I just talked about is probably the biggest factor.

Our employee retention rate has declined over the past 10 years. I can guarantee you that. And it's just mostly the labor market. Covid switched up. People move a lot more often. People being remote for college has also changed the dynamics because our labor force is younger. So people that can do online courses, etc. Makes the dynamics where they're willing to move where they like to be at instead of where they have a college. Which affected my locations because most of them are in college towns. 3. At 29 years old, you achieve so much. I believe you have a goal to be a billionaire one day. What percentage of that goal do you feel you've achieved so far? I don't really think about this.

You know, the companies will be valued pretty soon here, probably in 2025, mostly so I can start giving options to team members.

And executives and attract talent. But like I just don't like it. It's all on paper anyways. Like I still struggle from a cash perspective. So like I just, it has no meaning on this whatsoever. And like the billionaire thing is just target knowing that if I hit that, I will have to completely change who I am and my skills will have to improve. And so like that's a cool target, but like that's not the objective. The objective is changing level of professionals in the industry. I think if I'm a billionaire, I'll be more equipped to do that, especially when it comes to robotics. For someone who's successfully scaled your business to an eight figure franchise, how will you ensure that your pursuit of becoming a billionaire in lines with your personal values? And how do you balance that ambition with the responsibility of leading a franchise model where your success is interdependent on others?

Okay, there's a lot of questions there. Okay. How will you ensure that your pursuit of becoming a billionaire, Like I don't think about that at all. I really don't.

Like my personal value. Like the billionaire Thing is like, it's like I love to run. So do you run marathons? I don't know. I just like love to run. And so every day I run and sometimes I run races and sometimes I, I run ultramarathons and sometimes I run a marathon tonight, a half marathon. I don't judge myself, I just run. I love running, for example. The same thing is like with money, like, I just enjoy it a lot. I know that I need a certain amount of resources and able to make a certain impact. I do not care about the resources. I want the impact no matter what though. And I require, I realize that the, the resources are an ingredient to get making the impact. Like, and it will be a side consequence of making the impact too. Like, if I'm able to actually pull off what we're trying to do, then like, yes, I will have a lot of money. I actually believe that me having a lot of money, I'll be able to do more, have more impact. And I have a few people I stay in touch with that I feel has really exemplified this that I know have made nine or ten figures and they didn't really change their lifestyle and they're the same people and they give back a lot and no one knows about it. And that's the type of person I want to be. So.

Number three, Mike from. Mike, Athens, from Tennessee. No. Mike from Athens, Tennessee. Sorry. After yesterday, Mastermind, I set up my Google and Facebook pixel and sent it to the web team. Yes. I'm embarrassed. I was. Well, you're not the only one. Don't worry. Just one of. Don't. Yes, I'm embarrassed that I was one of those that had not set mine up. Shame on me. My question is what once they're set up, how and where do I get and read the information from them? Great question, Mike. Thank you. So in case you didn't watch the Mastermind yesterday I basically said that the majority of owners in Augusta Nation still haven't set up their Pixel for Facebook and they're tracking stuff from Google. To do that, go to the dashboard, go to edit your website and then just request it. We will then set it all up for you. You don't have to do anything. Sometimes it takes them a week to two, sometimes do the processing at Google. But once it's good, then when you run your ads, you should be good to go. When you look at the done view ads, you'll see how to add the pixel or add the Facebook tracking or Google tracking to your ad. Now in terms of the reporting Side when you open up adsmanager.facebook.com or ads.google.com when you go to your campaign now, all you'll see is another column that will do cost per lead and it'll only be there if you have your pixel set up correctly. Now if that does not make sense to you, set up a coaching call with Nick. That's what he's there for. As owner success manager, he can walk you through all of this. He goes through multiple locations every single day and knows where to look for the cost per lead, how to track it, change the graph on Google Ads and make sure you're set up for success. So I would do your first step which looks like you just got set up and, and it'll probably take a few days for it to actually get inside of your ads accounts. Once we do our work on the backend with the web team and then book a call with Nick and it's like, hey, this call, I need 15 minutes. I want you to show me how to look at these numbers and what they mean and he'll walk you through it. The reason I don't have a ton of training on this is because it does change like all the time. They're moving the buttons all the time. So sometimes if you don't want to book a call with Nick, for example, and you're like, it's in the middle of the night, you can go into YouTube and just look up like.

How to. How to analyze Facebook ads performance and then just search by most recent. So usually within the past four to five, six weeks you find a video about it. It's usually going to be most relevant and like the buttons will be where they actually are at currently, etc.

What's the best way to update phone number to get the daily reminder for the mastermind? You can comment below, comment on the Facebook group. Don't comment on, don't comment on YouTube. Please go to the Facebook group and make a comment there. You can also DM Liz if you want to. She's done that before.

So yeah, just go on to the either DM Liz or on the Facebook post that this is currently being.

That I put on on the Facebook group to this YouTube just put your phone number and your location and then we can put it inside of copilot. So we just send it from copilot. So. All right everyone, hope you all have a fantastic Wednesday. Appreciate a lot of the messages in the past few days about the last couple masterminds. I appreciate it. Apparently everyone likes when I get mad and I'm salty, so guess if I get mad, we'll have better masterminds. But I appreciate the good questions, and they just keep getting better.

And that makes it fun. So love you all, and we will see you tomorrow. Take care.