Mike Minutes Mastermind 11/11/2024

Hello guest nation. I hope you are doing good on this Veterans Day for the US and for Canada is Remembrance Day. So big thank you to all the veterans. We actually have quite a few. We owe massively over index inside of Augusta Nation to veterans. I know a lot of times veterans are looking for some systems and protocols when coming out of the military and so it's they, they can religiously follow checklists and guidelines and coaching, etc. So we have a lot inside of Augusta Nation and want to say thank you to each of you for serving your community. I think the fabric of every community is only as strong as those who are willing to serve, whether it be serving in the military or serving each other community when times are difficult, that is the fabric of the community. So whether we talk about country or family or Augusta Nation, thank you. Those who have served really do appreciate it. I remember up in Canada they do the whole poppy thing, little red thing, it's much more popular up there, I think.

So. I remember every single year we'd go sell poppies and then because I went to school up in Canada for primary and so we sing the poppy song in the whole nine yards. So thank you to all I've served. Do appreciate it tremendously.

All right, let's go and jump in.

First from Mr. Anonymous. Can we get a separate service page on our websites for leaf removal? Web team told me no. It's a whole three month season for me. I feel like it would be good for SEO.

We haven't seen this really meaningfully change SEO, to be honest with you. I was actually talking with Tori on this weekend. This probably spurred the question. So I looked a bunch up with him. I'll actually show you. I think I have all these screenshots. One second. I just gotta pull these in, you know, give me like 30 seconds and I'll have a much better demonstration of what I'm talking about here. Just need to pull all of these into Google Drive. Does it actually pull them up? Of course it doesn't. Pulls up one. Okay, give me one second. I asked for 30. So we're coming up on 10 left.

This one here. Okay if I do that one? Yes. Okay, cool. All right, I got some screenshots here. Let me show you this. So we were looking at this specifically.

Which I'm assuming this question to them is probably what spurred this.

Let me share this other tab. Okay, cool. So what we did is we started just searching a whole bunch of.

Locations and you can see we're searching like Glendale, Colorado, leaf removal. We show up number one. We also show up in. And we're from a private server here, so we're not local.

Share this tab, which is Allen park leaf removal. So we're at the top ranking number one there.

What's this one? Rockport, Same thing. Rockport, Texas Leaf removal. We show up number one in the native, number one in the Google my business listings.

I think there's one more. He gave me Redmond. This is Washington Marcus. So you can see here we have Redmond lawn and Property, and it says leaf removal in the title. But we go really, really deep on leaf removal in terms of SEO.

And it ranks number one. Now I will say this. Actually, let me show you this. Let me go Google Trends. So I was looking at this earlier. So let's do that. Let's do this. Let's do leaf removal. Okay.

So what's interesting here is you can see kind of search volume, right? So let's just do the past 12 months. So obviously during, you know, the two or three months of fall, you have a big search term spike for leaf removal. Keep in mind, it does go all the way through till, you know, December, January, just FYI. So that's cool. Now let's do.

Let's do bush trimming. Cool. So this is gonna be the red line. So you can see bush trimming. Actually kind of little bit of an inverse trend of leaf removal. Because during the summer and spring, Spring and summer, I should say we're trimming more bushes, typically, if people are looking for trimming more often. Now this is the part that we really focus on when it comes to SEO. People search this way more often for those other services. So when you look at just these two.

It'S like, oh, we should spend time on leash removal. And I agree. But when people are actually looking for leash removal, what they do is they search for lawn care businesses. And it is minuscule. It's like literally a rounding error. The amount of traffic that comes in during the year for those other services compared to lawn care, which is the yellow line in this case.

You can see like it dominates like 1% compared to our leaf removal can be as high as like 1, 2, 3, 4% tops compared to lawn care. So we spend most of our time on the lawn care and landscaping terms simply because the amount of volume. And people do still search for lawn care businesses or landscape businesses when they're looking for leaf removal. That being said, if you have the property cleanups tab in the title of that page is leaf removal. Whoops, I'm showing this Anymore. Sick.

Where was I looking? Number four, Number two, they all have it. So it's, it's, it's in, it's in there and if you like, we're dying to have it. I was talking with Tori like he doesn't mind making one for you, but you'd be competing with this page which is already ranking number one on most of our pages. So hope that made sense.

Alright. And you share this tab again. Present Share screen.

Next up is Dylan Wirtz. What is the best way to set up the entity structure for multiple locations? Assuming is opening a holding LLC that owns the LLC for each location under it. Also, does it matter if the holding entity on top is an S corp from the beginning or is it the same as an individual location where you eventually just file taxes in S corp when you profit enough? So you're both, you're right in both regards here. Like you can just make a LLC on the top and then flip it over to being an S corp, but it's taxed as an S corp. All right, so.

It'S different. Like you set up an S corp from the get. You're going to be doing articles and corporation. You're going to have, you have to maintain minutes annually, annual minutes. You have a board. And so whether you do it from the beginning or not, I think it really comes down to what level of liability protection are you trying to get. I don't think this is even something we should be thinking about until we have three or four locations. I think from a focus on growing the business. Like I talked about this on the co pilot Mastermind on the weekend because there are a couple of members. And then I just keep asking questions about this and I was like, look folks, you're working in your second location. Do two separate LLCs, maybe do three separate LLCs. The only thing you're saving in putting the holding company together like that is literally the ability to file one tax return. So you're spending all this time and energy on saving like a couple thousand dollars a year. Just spend that time and energy towards growing the businesses and then get an attorney and you'll be able to clean this up. But the only advantage of really putting them inside of a holding company is the fact that you file one tax return and you take one W2 instead of multiple. That's basically it. There's not really a whole lot of asset protection by having them all in a holding company. You might as well just have different LLCs, completely separate. It doesn't really matter. So just keep that in mind, this is much more of a simplification process. It's a matter of not having to file so many tax returns. It's the ability to be able to take losses from one LLC and count them against the profits of another LLC really easily. You can do the same thing across LLC because it's all flowing down into your personal tax return anyways. But it's a matter of simplicity so please don't over index on this. I've seen this several times because I've talked about it in part in certain areas and then people like want have a bunch of questions about like this does not matter. You are saving yourself one to $2,000 a year in filing another tax return and you're saving yourself a little bit of simplification around payroll when it comes to paying yourself a W2. I would not overthink that personally. I would get multiple locations to the point where like oh, I need to probably figure out like more from an asset protection perspective separating the LLCs out, having an S Corp on top and I'm willing go spend two or three grand to get it set up correctly and make sure it's dialed in and have an attorney set it up and not do it on legal zoom etc. But until that point just, just focus on growing the business.

All right Mr. Anonymous.

In the next two years, humanoid robots that are quite capable will be sold to the public. In the next five to ten years, humanoid robots will get extremely good at taking a lot of tasks. You Elon says in 15 years he thinks there will be more humanoid bots than humans on earth.

If that's the case and these bots are taking over all labor, where does Augusta fit this picture? Humanoid robots that can do almost anything will be around 25k. So nearly everyone will be able to afford one or rent one cheaply. This is a huge concern for me opening additional locations. Thanks for addressing this. Okay, so.

You all know how pro tech I am, okay? So please don't take this as like the boomer because like I am extremely pro tech. We are not 15 years away from this happening. Like it's not even, it's not even close. If you think about where robotic technology is, we can't get robots to mow grass, let alone human humanoid robots that have to work with balance and sliding on hills. Like they won't let people touch them right now. And there's like will that change? It will improve. Yes, absolutely. I agree with all that premise. I believe that building infrastructure in terms of command center, a moat around recurring Customers and a brand is what, when, when this technology catches up, you'll be able to cash in on it. Because for a lot of home service business owners, $25,000 will be out of reach for them. And this is what will lead to the, the aggregation of our very, very consolidation of our very, very fragmented market is when this sort of technology comes. But you can't control that. What you can control is gaining market share and creating a brand that when this happens, you can afford to buy the robot before the rest of your competition can. And then doing it at a price that's low enough. But see, look at it. You can have all the robots in the world, but if you don't know how to sell, you will not get customers. And so the instant pricing, the ability to be able to sell 24, 7 all the things that we're working right now is to that when this happens. Because I agree it's going to happen. I don't believe it's going to be 15 years. But when this happens.

There'S.

There'S enough infrastructure in place to actually scale it. Because what people are not talking about is in, let's just say in 15 years, the humanoid can mow someone's grass using a push mower. Okay, let's assume that for a moment. Big assumption by the way. Lots of weight, lot of whole, lots and lots of issues that. Let's assume it's true.

Okay, who's gonna fix the machine.

Like there? What happens if it rains? What happens if it's snowing? Like, there's so many things that will, will keep this from happening soon. So I genuinely believe this will become like, I think robotic mowers will take before the humanoid does, simply because the humanoid would have to account for so many more variables. Then it's a mower. Like we're trying to take one. We can't even robotize mowers right now, let alone everything else that a humanoid robot is expected to do. So do I think we're 15 years with this? Absolutely not. Do I think it will happen down the road? Yes. And, and I think it'll go to the company that has the largest scale and the largest infrastructure and the largest brand. And when people think about lawn care, they go to them first and they'll have the opportunity and the scale and the price power and the financing power to be able to actually make this sort of thing work. So.

This is a big piece. Like what will control the robots? Like what will actually keep them doing their job? Like the backend infrastructure still be required. So like right now I'm in touch with several robotic companies like their engineers being basically the command center to what they're, they're putting out. I'm going to a specific startup in February.

That is doing a really good job, but their command center is extremely highly capable engineers that like technical engineers that have been doing this for 15, 20 years, that's not scalable. And so we have to have the software co pilot and we have to have the command center behind me to actually be able to scale that technology. And that's why the place I'm going to this is phenomenal technology, don't get me wrong. But they can't scale it. They're burning money every single month.

And so until we make more money from this technology, no one will care. And so this is why like robotic motors haven't take off. This is why battery doesn't really take off on hasn't really taken off either. There's a lot of pros to it, but it doesn't make us any more money. It's like okay, cool, I get it. It works really, really, really good as good, if not better than gas, but doesn't make me more money. Until that question is yes, definitively, no one will change and the and the customer will not pay a single dollar more for it. Coach Connor, two questions. How do territories work? I'm next to other territories and with mine being first, mine sort of overlaps their territory. In the past, Mastermind, you mentioned that we can not mention areas of our on our website or have command center give us leads in other areas if we do not completely cover that area city. Our local hubs, our local hub of owners is trying to figure all of that out to, to avoid advertise, avoid territory disputes, etc. Yeah, so there's some areas where a city is specific, there's. There's kind of like two territories that come across the city especially from way back. Lee with the new software we have for mapping and stuff is way better about this but there are several locations that are grandfathered than where like people serve a city, you know, very large city and people serve the same city name in terms of how they work. Command center is always going based upon the map and so it's going to tell them which one to give it to. And so as long as all the owners know exactly where what the delineation is between that, you'll know where to market, where not to in terms of targeting, every door, direct mail, Facebook ads, et cetera. So what's your question? How do territories work? Yeah, so territories work essentially you have a guaranteed territory and any lead that comes inside of that, regardless of who marketed for it, regardless of whose phone number it comes from, it'll go to that person inside their guaranteed territory that's locked in by the map. And then outside of your territory, whoever gets the lead, they get the customer. If it's not in a guaranteed service territory, but your service areas can be as wide as you want. I don't recommend going very far, but that's kind of fair game to anyone who gets the lead and is willing to market that far out. But if you have specific questions on this, Connor, feel free to talk to Lee on the territory side or even command center. Like, hey, can I see the map? Or even if they took a screenshot for you, if you send an estimategustalongasurvista.com, they can send a screenshot of it and you can like go over it with your local owners group and like, hey, can we move this a little bit here? And give and take, especially for the ones that are from way back because now we're much more like hey, let's figure out like highways. It's just easier to understand instead of using the radiuses because there was gaps and stuff. So you can just talk with your other owners and just agree on, hey, we cross over here. Can we just make this the highway or something like that. The delineation, if you were the first one, you're the one that governs it and then everyone else is is like cut out of yours. So it always comes down to like if you're giving it a radius and then someone else's radius quote overlaps, they're behind you in terms of lead, lead superiority, I don't know, lead priority. There you go. So, but feel free as always, talk with Lee and you share the map as well. If you're thinking about another location or even if you just want to talk to command cent, they can give you the map picture so you can go over that number two, is there a feature in copilot that before I charge someone's card says hey, would you like to apply customers credit first before charging card? I don't always know when command center or my wife gives a credit or refund etc, so having that pop up would be helpful especially since a office told the customer it would be refunded or used towards the next bill and then was not. Okay, so let me think about this. So you're saying how to apply a customer. Would you like, okay, would you like to apply credit first before charging card. Got it.

I'm assuming you're saying if there's a credit on ic. Okay, so basically if someone doesn't see that there's a credit, then someone gets charged and. And they don't get the credit applied prior. That's a good point. You could submit this as a feature request if it's not happening already. And to be perfectly honest, this could already be a way to do this. So talk to ATC if you wanted to. But this might just be a feature request like, hey, can we just have a pop up if there is an outstanding credit and then I go to apply, I charge the card.

That'd be a good feature request.

All right, one second. I think there's some comments coming in one second here.

All right. Hey, we are starting to record our GM meetings weekly. I found whether it's a dean's list recording or a video YouTube video, the ability to look back and watch what was said can help a ton of. I agree. I would just say be careful about putting putting on publicly. From personal experience, when it comes to GMs.

If someone has a rough quarter, if they're having a rough week, just. I would err on the side of keeping your GMs instead of sharing.

I also like to share, be open. Hopefully other people learn from it. Awesome. But it makes it difficult when you're really trying to dig in on a problem and personal issues and things like that. So just my word of caution, but overall good. Let's go. I'm trying to figure out the best place to store these. But also have summary notes so that GMs can search topics and get answers quick. Google Drive, YouTube, etc. Any recommendations? Loom is really good because then you can, you can have a transcript of the, of the conversation. Zoom. Same thing. You have a transcript that you use via AI.

And then you could just do it in Google Drive or YouTube like kind of like we do. You put it on a YouTube channel or YouTube playlist when you upload the video, just put in a playlist like GM recordings or something like that. Connor has an example. My protector covers part of Newburgh, so I feed that part. Or is that mine And Hugo couldn't service parts of this location named territory, etc. We've had some command confusion. Yeah, this is all, this is all governed by the map. So it, it really does not matter based upon the city name because there are some cities that we have like three plus locations that are servicing. It's all on the map. So being really clear what that map looks like is important, especially if you are both servicing a specific area quite a bit.

And so I know you're one of the older territories, so you're. You're using radiuses, potentially, Connor. So you might just want to be like, hey, Hugo, what's the highway we want to cut this down at? So we both know it's super clear. And then just talk to Command center and they can adjust stuff for you if needs be. That's. It's been way easier since we started doing that because originally we did radiuses, but then you have overlaps, etc, it makes it more confusing and just. And we don't want that. So please. I know. Connor, you and Hugo both work well together. Like, just connect Command center. Like, hey, we have agreed this is the line. Can we please move stuff? And if you need to get Lee involved to put that in a document for everyone, that's fine too. So Lee, maybe just reach out to Connor. If you could just make sure we get. Get that cleared up. Sounds like there might be just some clarification required. All right, everyone, I hope you have a fantastic rest of your Monday again. To all the veterans, thank you for your service and for everything that you do for each of us and have done quite a few that are active inside of Augusta Nation as well. So I appreciate that and look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Take care.