Mike Minutes Mastermind 11/14/2023

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First off.

There are daily support calls now going to be that are live streams for copilot support. So 3pm Pacific Standard Time, that's 6pm Eastern Standard Time. It will be a live stream for up to an hour. So if you, if you're onboarding customers into copilot, if you need any help whatsoever, if you have a new gm, whatever it is, they can get support, you can get support on those. So just make sure in the Facebook group for copilot CRM and you will be able to directly talk with Parker in the office here and get help support, importing help support, anything that you need, he's there for that hour. Second thing is, I was talking with Chuck last night. He said every single corporate location in North Carolina has sold four to five winter service customers that were not mowing customers. So they're really pitching winter services as a new service and they're getting people to accept. So that's good information. Shout out to Alexis. I think like yesterday she got like three accepted estimates or whatever. So the door hangers are available. They did the one click estimate email pitching winter services to people that were not in their mowing that like actively mowing and they got a lot of response. So it's not going to be like, you know, half the people accept. But hey, if you can pick up four or five recurring customers in the middle of winter, let's go. So again, like the mind shift, mindset shift of oh, it's winter, we slow down versus if all I did was sell winter services and that was my business model, this would be the time to like hit the ground running. You know, if your whole business model was keep your, keep your property looking great when your grass is not growing, this would be go time. So I think if, if you want to be in a growth mindset and keep growing during the winter and at least pay the bills, like try, try to make that switch in your head and you're like, oh, like this is actually my time to like expand in terms of that service and then you will be able to likely convert all of those winter service people into mowing next spring, like that's going to be an easy one. So highly, highly, highly recommend doing that. The door hangers are available for print on the, on the pro shop and when one click estimate emails can go out and you can pitch people who are not currently mowing. So highly recommend doing that. Shout out to the gyms that are crushing it out there with those. All right, let's jump into questions. This week we do have new owner training, so the schedule for the masterminds might be a little bit affected. I'll try to keep it on track, but sometimes it gets affected during these weeks. Okay, this one is empty.

I think. Let me just triple check. Someone submitted an empty question. So I guess that's a moment of silence, I think. I don't know what's going on here. One second. Oh, no, I'm wrong. No. Moment of silence. All right. Eric Largo. Eric Largo, Florida.

All right, let's see here. Earlier this year I moved operations from my family's garage to a story storage unit in a business park nearby.

There's new step. I gotta always add this in. Sorry.

And I've also gotta copy this into the Facebook group. Man, just really struggling. All right, this morning I forgot my. My laptop after getting that to the office to drive all the way back home. Okay, let's see here. Boom.

Boom. Wow. It's kind of blurry. Mercy goodness. Give me one second. I'm going to switch over to Ethernet. Give me one second. It's going to block me out for a second.

All right. 3, 2, 1.

And we're back. Okay, let's go and get started.

Moved. Moved operations my family's garage to a storage unit and business park nearby. Good spot. But looking ahead, parking for employees that I plan to need next year will become a big problem as there's currently only two additional spaces available to rent. And I also plan to add a dump trailer. Is renting a house and running operations out of it a feasible option? Assuming the landlord was in the know and good with it and the area spacious and or zone for commercial or mix. That's the big key part right there. Yes. I'm not sure if that even exists or if this is more in the territory of buying a house with land. I. I tried finding the masterminds and YouTube videos where you're talking a lot about house hacking and getting the Mount Vernon shop set up, but was having trouble hunting them down. Could you have give a quick breakdown of pros and cons and shop space expansion efforts? Great point. You really do want to look at the zoning. I'm really open to anything that is zoned commercial or that allows you to do this. Typically if you live on the property in a rural area, they allow for like rural commercial or rural business, depending on your zoning. For example, the Mount Vernon's route, because I don't live there, they can only have a couple employees, so having all those trucks has been an issue. And we can't burn there, et cetera. So they're actually going to be going to a farm nearby because they can, like, literally, for I think it's like five or six hundred bucks, they're parking all their trucks and the guy's like, yeah, just pile everything up and I'll burn it for you. And like, they have water and electric, the whole nine yards. So I would say as long as you're not in a rush, you can find a good spot. The big thing is when you have a rush, that's usually when you have to do something quickly. And that's like, what I do with the Mount Vernon shop a year and a half ago is like, very quickly had to move. It had to be very fast. It's like I had to go do something that was like, long term, not great. Great choice. I made it work by doing like the whole Airbnb thing and hacking, like you said. But that's really not the best solution. You want something that you can grow into that's zoned for it and you're not going in trouble. If you're living on the property, they're usually more lenient. I wasn't living on the property, so they don't like that. And that's kind of what got me in trouble. So I wouldn't say trouble. They just, there's a K. Can you guys move? And then I'm like, hey, can you give me like a year? And they're like, yes. So we had lots of time. Tim was able to find a better spot anyways in terms of just there had water, electric, all there, and we can dump everything. And Dale's. He's just going to take care of it, like part of the, of the lease. So I would say, you know, would I go rent a house and then put my shop space stuff on there if you're going to live there? Yes, but most, most landlords are going to be pretty hesitant. They're also not usually going to like you being there and then trying to lease out the house separately because it's just hard to rent out the house if you're there. After submitting my question about shop space, I remember the option of shipping containers with a blank lot or space rented, and I'm betting that is a better route for how small I am to resolve to solve parking issues. Although I am currently spoiled with ample electricity and bathrooms with My storage unit. So wouldn't love giving that up. If you didn't already discuss the container option, what are some things to think about when purchasing a shipping container? Ideal size and how that affects transporting costs, transporting logistics and new versus used. Yeah, like if you're in a pretty small area the 20 footers are going to be better because they're just. You don't need as much space. But if you have lots of space, the 40 footers are nice because you have more, more storage and there's usually cost per square foot is less because they're bigger in terms of electricity and bathrooms. Bathrooms, you can get a pub, a portable toilet typically for between 50 and 100 bucks a month and they'll come out and empty it once a month or twice a month or whatever. Electricity. A lot of times if you're close to something they can run power to or you're going to be running generators. I've done both. The only time we really need generators is for lights when it's like winter and it's dark in there a lot. And secondly is for sharpening blades. Other than that. Oh, and charging up the dump trailers. Sometimes we would put a trickle charge on with like a small 1,000 watt.

Generator. So but if you have a, a solar panel on top of the, of the COVID for those, the trailers a lot of times you won't even need to charge them very often. As long as that's working well. Where do we find locations are for sale on the dashboard? They're not in the dashboard but if you go to augustalongerservices.com franchise, scroll all the way to the bottom. There's one that says like buy existing locations. I think there's two for sale right now. One just got sold though I think and his new owners picking up in February. So yeah, there's at least one or two on there right now though. On the Augusta Lawn Care Services.com franchise.

Boom. As I noted in the Facebook group, we're excited. Next year we'll be expanding to Australia. That will be good over there. There's. It's kind of ripe for franchising because they're so used to it. It's very common over there. Like it's not like when you start they're not as entrepreneurial. They're very much like they just want franchises. So it's very, very branded over there. Like if you want to start a business, you start a franchise. And that's why there's 2000 gyms mowing and less than 10 of their top performers that I was speaking to last year didn't have an employee. So I think it's going to be like they, they'll do their thing at gyms and if they want to grow and scale up and really get bigger, will be a nice easy progression.

Question, do you sell winter services when 90% of your properties are brand new construction with little to no trees and the grass is already totally dormant? We did a leaf service opt out and we were only able to keep about 25% of all customers. The leaf cleanups were a tough sale already.

So I don't know why I did a leaf service opt out. I'm assuming you have a lot of leaves in your area, but I just don't know why you do a leaf service opt out.

Anyways, let's assume that winter services are tough because of new construction and you're saying 90% are new. I would really lean into the other services that are offered in winter services, like checking the gutters.

You know, there's not a lot of bushes. Okay, well we're not bush drain. We're going to pull weeds, we're going to edge up the lawn, we're going to blow things off. So I'd be leaning to like after a windstorm, everything's blown off. There's not twigs and branches laying on their lawn. There's not, depending where you live, palm stuff laying and debris anywhere. So I would try to lean that as much as possible.

But yeah, it's obviously tougher if you're new construction and those lots are basically plug and play already and then they're frozen over if it's that cold. But if everything's dormant, it is tougher. Winter services. Winter services are great for more established areas. Um, so that is going to be difficult. 90% of your properties, new construction, that's a lot. That's like literally means that a couple years ago Nothing existed in 90% of your territory. So that might be of a stretch. I would actually look at the data and see if that's the truth or the case. If it is, I would just lean into those other services and keep in mind that if they're just buy new, if they've bought houses in the past year or two, they have money because you have to have to qualify for loans in the past two months or two years so they have money. There's a good chance they might have the second house. I'd be lean to all those other services that give them peace of mind. And remember, you're selling peace of mind. You're not selling the bush trimming, you're not selling the leaves. Like checking the gutters, checking the eaves, like doing other stuff around the property, getting creative around that sort of thing. Even if you're like, hey, we will get the mail from the mailbox and put it through the door. Whatever you want to get creative with. That's the type of thing you might have to get creative with. But it is more difficult, like, just straight, honest. It is more difficult on new construction because so often the times they don't have a whole lot of maintenance when things go dormant. Everyone have a fantastic day. We will see you tomorrow. Take care.