Mike Minutes Mastermind 11/05/2022

Hey everyone, hope you're doing super well. Let's go get started. Several announcements and reminders really quick off the bat. First off, I know every few months I'm saying this, but it's becoming the constant pattern and that is the just like not showing up to estimates and jobs jobs that you've sent a thank you, welcome email out and told them you'll be on a certain time, they're just not showing up without any notice. Like it's costing you a lot of money. Not just because customers leave, don't pay their bill, but also then you're getting many, many calls to command center when you're not showing up for day after day after day and then we can't get a hold of you. So number one thing is like if you're going to schedule an estimate or schedule a job, show up. If you don't, let command center know so we can diffuse the issue before it becomes a big customer issue. Customer service problem. There are two one star reviews came into me yesterday, both of which were did not show up to estimates or jobs. So it's very basic in this industry. If you can just answer the phone and show up when you say you're going to show up, you will probably succeed within five years. You can do a lot of things wrong, pricing, hiring, everything else. Do those two things right and you'll probably do half decent. So I highly recommend you don't. You do not not show up to a job just randomly like, okay, it's okay, you're busy, but let us know at command centers we can block for you because otherwise customers are gonna freak out and they're gonna call us 10 times and we won't know what's going on because we just seen your in your database it's supposed to being done and we just, all we can do is apologize. So that is always, almost always when we, we have yellow flags at command center, the managers do flagging locations that are potentially going off course and the number one, one number one thing is not showing up to estimates or jobs. It's always the thing that ends up when it was a crash down the road. So highly recommend.

I would imagine though unfortunately the third of of owners that don't watch these dailies are unfortunately the ones that are doing that. So whether it be you are meeting up with other franchisees and owners, I just highly recommend them doing two things. One, staying plugged into these dailies even if they're just listening to audio or listen to it later, that's fine. And secondly, showing up to estimates and jobs because eventually I have to step in. If you're being a bad representation of the brand and that means taking away your license as a franchisee, if you're going to ruin it in a local market and there's four or five other people around you, I have to protect the brand and I will do that. So I actually have no one in my mind. I'm saying that to be perfectly honest. I'm just making that clear to everyone else. The round table is going to be a week from tomorrow. That is October 13th at 5:00pm Pacific Standard Time. That's 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time. I will be sending out a email invite for everyone. That is our our quarterly zoom call where we all hop on a zoom call and do some updates. It will be our last one before conference in January so share updates about super software things. Things are working at Command center in terms of the departments to get ready for next spring rush, etc. Etc. Going over a little bit of the Zooper training that will be happening at conference. The CEO will be there at conference. The CEO Zooper is going to be coming to our conference there on Thursday during the day.

Last announcement here. Thank you and welcome emails. I would recommend everyone take a look at their thank you and welcome emails. Make sure you go over it see what it it what you want it to say.

Remember that when we.

When we do your download, when you initially start, we have to somewhat keep it vanilla. But if you want to customize certain parts of it, you can just make sure you know what it says. If it says on your thank you and welcome email that they have to have a cancellation clause or they have you're giving them dates. You gotta abide by those, right?

And I would really recommend using thank you and welcome emails. There's time and time again when we see jobs that are being scheduled without thank you and welcome emails being sent out I. E. The customer really doesn't know when their job is on schedule. They just click accept and then you show up. Right? So thank you and welcome emails. Very important to send those out again. I'm talking to a very small few I believe when I say that people are not sending out thank you welcome emails but to it's the way that the customer knows what the next step of the process is, the timing in which you're going to be coming out. And I would not make that super super long. That email I would probably if there's a fine print that you want to include, I'd put on the estimate. But because you need them to read that. Thank you and welcome email. Don't put a whole bunch of verbiage and make it a super long drawn out thing. So I think that is all I got for announcements. Great. Let's jump into.

Questions. Present screen window. All right, we got four this morning. See, make sure you guys can see that.

What if I pull this in? Does that help?

It's a winner. Okay. Forest had some good questions yesterday about him starting a second location. So I'm going to kind of piggyback off him. As you know, we are starting a second location this year in Norman, Oklahoma, 15 minutes away from Moore. The plan is from John to take over the Moore location and I go start the normal location next year, but fly under the alc of more banner until the norm location is profitable and consistent. I already have the truck and equipment for this normal crew, but we would likely be working out of the more location shop space for the time being. You had mentioned getting the website and Google stuff ahead of time. So you're just ranking. Would we need to pay another franchise fee for the norm? Yes, you would. Yep. And running. Or could we get set up now with the agreement that we'll be pushing a note? So basically as soon as you, as soon as you buy a franchise license, we legally can set you up on our end in terms of that location. That's when you get the website built, etc. Yeah. If, if we do need to purchase another franchise license before starting when, what would it be since our location are right next to each other. Yeah. So if your second and beyond locations are always $5,000 discount, so it's. It'd be $15,000 versus the $20,000. There is no discount on the solo operator model. But if you're doing a growth model right next to another growth model, that's when there's a $5,000 discount. So yeah, for us legally we have to have a signed franchise agreement in place which requires the fee which then initiates us to build your website, set up the email, all the rest of it. So what, what you're. It sounds like you're doing is trying to get some customers in the area you're going to be moving into and then that. Then purchase that location. That's totally fine. Just realize it's probably gonna be pretty unprofitable. And this is why I get a little bit afraid when people try to do this if they're running too low on margin is the fact that you're 15 minutes away now you're driving that all the time you can literally make all that new, new, those new jobs become unprofitable and then you don't want to sink the mothership. The location that's doing really well. Right. So that'd be my only concern. But I, I know you, I think you got a handle on this. Ma, we've talked about this one before. That's always a good idea if you're thinking about starting a second location. Is that okay? Well, I'll go do a little bit of marketing there and see if I can get some customers. And if it starts to do really well or just even If I get 10, 15, 20 customers. Okay, great. I'll lock in the location the next spring rush. Like this is what I would do. I would be like, okay, I'm going to, throughout the summer months when it's a little bit slower, start marketing in that location a little bit, see if I can get some jobs. Great. It's working out really well. Great. I'm going to go ahead in the fall or winter, get my franchise license so I can get my website, all my accounts, everything. My LLC set up January 1st and then spring rush, actually have a second location with a GM and roll, but have that a little bit of a boost from having 10, 15 customers already in that area. That's what I would do. Do you have any issues with the eviction moratoriums the last few years on your real estate? Yeah, it was a pain in the butt. Couldn't kick people out, they were vandalizing the house. They had drug paraphernalia everywhere. We had video of them doing drug deals and still they would not evict, kick them out. So it was pretty brutal. But we're past it now. Famous last words. Number one, when you are getting, when you, when you are a GM just getting starting out and you hire your first employee and you are working in the field together, would you do estimates with the employee in the truck? Okay, so you're saying if you're a GM starting out and you hire your first employee and you work in the field. I see you're saying.

Okay, let's see. These are the options I thought about. Option A, the GM and employee work in the field 6am to 12 30s for six hours. Drop the employee up at 12:30, then continue solo estimates from 1 to 4. Option B, GM and employee work in the field from 6:30 till 3:30 and do estimates in between jobs together. GM employee work in field Monday, Wednesday and Friday, then do estimates Tuesday and Thursday. All day employees solo Tuesday and Thursday. Keep in mind, this is the one I would recommend. Right. So that way it's most efficient. That way, Tuesdays and Thursdays there'd be the most estimates, they knock them out the quickest and you'd have that second truck that the employee could go do, go out and do jobs with. So that would be my recommendation. Again, this assumes you, you're gonna have two trucks from the beginning. If you only had one truck, then you'd have to do some sort of modification. I'd probably recommend doing something along the lines of like a four days you work on the field and they're longer days. And then one day you do all your estimates that are drive bys and in person. And then over the phone estimates are being done throughout the whole week, obviously. So typically that's why over the phone estimates do well is because it's for mowing, which is more time sensitive. Things like property cleanups or products can wait a few days. If you can't get to the estimate in time, just realize, you know, one out of five estimates, if you push them off for four days because you can't get to them, they're going to have someone already have taken care of the job. Potentially one out of five that'll happen to you. You'll show up the job like oh, sorry, we already got taken care of. That'll happen occasionally. But ultimately, when it comes to working GM model, you want them in the field as much as possible and you do not want your other, your other employees sitting in the truck for 20, 30 minutes while they're doing an estimate. So I would either a, if you have two trucks, this is option C is what I'd recommend. That is work with them probably three to four days a week out in the field and then the other days they go solo potentially on projects. So for example, the working gym could get them started on like a weeding job or property cleanup or mulch job and then go knock out all the estimates for that day. Right. So I think it's like Monday, Thursday is what I probably recommend. What is your working gym schedule as far as doing estimates? Does he work solo or with a team member? What does he, what days do you recommend? He works in the field? What days do you recommend? He does estimates. Yeah, So I would probably recommend Mondays and Thursdays is a little more spread out than Tuesdays and Thursdays. And again, when you're first getting started, when you only have say 10 estimates a week, you don't need two days to do that. Okay, news flash, you're doing less than 10 estimates in a day and that's all you're doing. You are not working efficiently. Bottom of my line. Very, very like I have a lot of confidence saying that. Or you just, you're doing estimates way too far out of your territory and you're driving around too much. But drive bys like, my goodness, you should be able to do like 15 of those a day. No problem. No problem whatsoever. 20 a day is like probably pretty average, honestly. So that's why, like what I'm saying in terms of how many days a week you're doing it with the working gym out in the field, it's going to come down to how many estimates do you have. If you only have 10 estimates, I'd be trying to smash those down into one day or two half days. Right. But 10 estimates does not take two full days. If it's taking, if you're doing 10 estimates a week and taking two full days to do estimates and you're like, oh, I'm doing estimates today and I'm doing estimates twice a week for two days and you're only doing 10, you're completely inefficient and you get on a coaching call and get to the bottom of it. That is extremely inefficient. Especially if you're working gm. You won't be able to make money at that location. All right. A full estimator schedule in my mind is 8 to 10 schedule estimates in a day. It is 12 to 15 drive by estimates in a day. At least. At least. All right, so if you're not getting that volume of estimates, smash down the time that the estimator would have. Right. Potentially now it's Mondays and Thursdays. It's only from 1 till 5 that they do estimates. Right. If you're only getting 10 estimates a week, that's all you need. All right. Because the over the phone estimates should be done over the phone. They should not even have to go do them. It's only drive bys and in persons that they'd have to be doing.

I just get amazed at how people like become the estimators in the company and they're getting five to ten estimates a week. It's like, no, no, that is half to a full day's worth of work. And we're being generous. When I give you 10 estimates and say it's full day's worth of work.

Especially the working GM model level and that size of business, you will never be profitable if it's taking you all day long to do three to Five estimates. You'll never become profitable.

This are my. These are my projected numbers for new location, Tracy county or California. Based off my data from my current location when I started keeping spring rush in mind. What are your thoughts? Growing too fast. Our goal would be to stay steady at four employees and not grow past that. Numbers look pretty profitable at this stage. All right, let me open up this attachment. I'm gonna have to close this down. Stop that. Share screen. Present. Present. Window. Chrome. Here we go. See what we got Shot. Rent coming in. Workers comp. This is December. Okay. This is assuming you're starting now. Okay. December. January. Okay. I'm assuming you already have the trucks. Okay.

March. This is your revenue. 9,000. No. As your expenses.

Where's your revenue?

Oh, there it is. My bad. Okay. 450. 480 hours. Where are you getting that number from? 480 times 80. 4, 80 divided by 3 employees is 160. So that's my only problem I see with your math right now is you're assuming that they're working 40 budget hours a week. Right. She did 480 here. When in reality they're going to work 30 budget hours a week times three. Now you might be including your GM though, to do field work, which would be totally fine. So you actually, you might be right here. My apologies. You might be right. You might have done 480 divided by four. Got it. Yeah. 120. Okay. So if that's the case that you're. If your manager is working 30 budget hours per week in the field, these numbers make sense. The question is, are they going to do that? I don't feel like they're going to be able to decide at this rapid growth. If you're growing this quickly, basically going from like, you know, up to 40,000amonth in revenue, you're probably going to need a solid two to three days a week of just doing probably three days a week doing estimates. If you're going from zero to 40,000 in one spring rush, you're going to be doing so many estimates just to keep up with that. So you might not quite get 30 budget hours for the working GM. I know. You won't actually. You won't you'll get like 15 to 20 max. So but aside from that, the numbers look good to me. Yes. You're going to kind of level out of that. That 40,000. That's a good move. Yeah. So I think these ones are. These are the ones I'm most concerned about. Forest. Because you're growing so quickly that that working GM is going to be need to be doing three days a week of estimates which is probably going to reduce the amount of budget hours they can complete from 30 down to like 15. So that's my only thing I see right off the bat here without diving too deep into your.

Your numbers here up top.

Lee is working with something with Angie's leads and seeing if there's something that they can give us some sort of a discount or something like that. They were offering us some sort of a portal and then like not where we didn't have to get locked in very long term. So we're looking into that, seeing if that might be helpful.

But given how much you are spending, planning to spend on marketing, I do think that this rate of growth is achievable. It's really going to come down to the capacity of that working gm. But to my knowledge, you're going to be going over there, right?

I forget, I forget if you're going over there or if you're saying a GM over there. But like if you're over there, I think you know, you're probably going to be able to do this no problem because you're going to put in the hours to be able to get the estimates required done and still get 20 to 30 budget hours of work done a week. But if you're doing a working GM over there, I would not count on them getting 30 hours of work done a week plus be scaling from 0 to 40 in a few months. Of course.

Can we hit the million dollar location if we have two people in one truck? No, you can't. Which would help us with the capital expense of growing and having it done work. So instead of having 10 of trucks. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. I thought you were saying can you become a million dollar location with one truck and only with two people in it? Okay, we're on the same page. Which would help us with the cap book since I'm growing and have it be more variable cost instead of having 10 to 12 trucks having six, eight. Yeah, you totally can. 100 can. I would just say that if you're doing that, you'll need to raise your rates enough so that your guys can make above base pay. Because that's the biggest thing I see people hit up against when they have double two or three people in a truck on recurring routes is that they have a struggle with their guys making above base pay. And so the, the like we talked about, Jeremy from Augusta, Georgia, either a, you get more trucks and more fixed fixed expenses in order so they can be more efficient. Or B, you raise your prices so that that increased rate allows them to make above base pay. So you definitely can. Doing it the second way is just going to take a little bit longer because you're going to be having a higher rate, therefore a lower close ratio. But if you have the trucks already, I would just raise your prices over the next year or two to be able to make sure that the guys can make above base pay even when they're on a crew of two.

Awesome. All right, guys, have a great day. Happy Wednesday, and we'll see you tomorrow.