Mike Minutes Mastermind 12/06/2023

Hello, Augusta Nation. I hope you're doing fantastic. Let's go and get started.

Turn that up a little bit.

All right, today looks like we only have one question. However, I'm going to probably just spend the rest of time talking about what I'm currently learning and what I am trying to change.

Myself, what I'm focused on, etc, because I only have one question and this would otherwise be a probably a three minute, you know, four minute Mike minutes mastermind, which would not be fun. So let's see what we got here. Let me just drop this into the Facebook group.

No, no, no, wrong one. Sorry. Whoops. Wrong. I've dropped a long wrong link into Facebook. My apologies. Here is the YouTube channel. All right, folks, we are live. Did I put that into the. Yes, I did.

Okay. All right, so what we're going to do is we are going to start off with some hard hitting questions or one singular question and then we will switch to the education part where I will literally just talk about what I'm currently working on.

So we have one question. I think it was from Where'd it go? Where'd it Go? Present.

The question is from. I think it was.

Virginia Beach. All right, the question is.

Hey, Mike Pete from Virginia beach, former employee put a bad Google review. I read how Google will remove this as it's a conflict of interest. Has this been your experience and how long before they take action? Thanks. Yeah, so if you report it, typically I've seen these come down anywhere from a month to three months later.

I would make sure your response is really well worded and again, just take the higher road. Apologize that their.

Employment with you didn't go as planned and that they were let go for.

You know, whatever reason. Or we apologize your employment here ended and we wish you the best in the future in your future endeavors. Something like they take the high road because again, you are not doing it for the sake of the communication with the cut with the employee. You are doing it for the sake of every customer in the future reading that or at least reading it until it's taken down. Well, you are right. Typically they are taken down by Google. These ones are pretty easy to take get taken down, but I have seen them last several months. Typically I don't know if it's just a matter of YouTube being behind on review process or whatever, but that is sort of the case there. All right, I don't really have notes in this part, but because I only saw one.

Message, I figured I would share what I'm kind of working on. What I'm working on with Dr. Kashi, what's kind of in my head for the future, etc. So.

I didn't expect Copilot to grow towards that now until next June. So, like, we're kind of hitting our June projections right now.

And so.

I guess it would be May. May. Like, we're basically five to six months ahead in terms of, like, growth, which is fine. But that's why, like, we were a little bit more bruised and battered going into AWS last week, because there was way more load than we were expecting when we needed a switch.

Which is good. I'm not complaining. It's just a matter of deploying energy and time towards what's the highest bang in return for your time. Right. So for me personally, right now.

As much as I want to deploy energy and time towards Copilot, it's actually not the highest return on my time. And right now, like.

I have really awesome people to help me with operations, and if I stick around too long, I usually get my hands into operations when I shouldn't. And so the thing that I. I can uniquely do for Augusta Nation and for the community is.

Basically two things, strategy and promotion. So the strategy part doesn't really take that long in terms of, like, filling my day. It just takes me. It requires me to have time to think, which I generally can do just driving and basic stuff like that, but it requires that I have some strategy time. I don't spend a lot of time strategizing. Honestly, I don't. Like, I know that, you know, you only need one good idea and one good thought every once in a while to actually take execution on it. But I do believe that. That.

Those decisions grow in.

Leverage the bigger your company gets. And so I'm still in the process of building a bigger company. And so when someone like Jeff Bezos is like, he makes one good. Has one good idea a month or one idea good, you know, idea a year that he tries to implement, he's a massive company. One good idea is billions and billions of dollars. I'm not there yet, so I'm still in the process of building. And so it's a more execution time than strategy. So I would just say I'm only saying that because, like, when. When I listen or you listen to anyone else saying things about like, you just need to focus on strategies like, yeah, what stage of business are you in? And so I'm getting to the point now where strategy does matter, but I'm not going to spend most of my day doing it. I'm still executing most of my day, but what do I spend my time on executing, is the question, like, what's the highest return on my time and outside of strategy for Augusta? And that is like setting a direction in terms of what we're doing with technology, what we're doing with instant price. Like right now, the big three things at Augusta for me is like.

AI with max, instant price forms, and then integrating Copilot. All three of those things together is what I'm focused on from an operational standpoint. Liz is focused on crushing the spring rush with command center and just like, mass amount of training and systems and procedures, et cetera. And so I try to leave that alone. And so.

The biggest thing I can do right now is promote. And so promotion takes a lot of time. And whether it be going out and doing these, like, turnaround videos, we've seen a lot of success with those. We're trying to double the output of those. So we're hiring for the media team. I'm trying to increase. So we would love to be able to submit, you know, put a turnaround video every single week. The one that goes out today, for example. I really want you all to watch it. It's not the best, like, drama, but it is in terms of, like, we don't have a lot of B roll. And this is the. The shot, the video shoot that when we got there, we didn't have any cameras. Literally, it's all just on iPhones. So it's not great, the audio or the video or anything like that, but.

The story is important, and you're going to see someone that diverged their attention into two different businesses, and now, like, things are falling apart and we, like, capture it. It's. It's really, really crazy. So really want you all to watch that one. And I think that there's a lot of people online telling people how to run their business, and I just want to. I'd much rather show people. I think it's the highest form of.

Of proof, too. So as much as I enjoy that form of content myself, I like watching people do things. I'm not a huge fan of people telling me what to do. As much as I enjoy that form of content, it's. It takes a lot more time for us because I have to travel, we have to go out there, et cetera. But I do feel like it's unique content, and I feel that from a business perspective, it is the highest form of trust because I can tell you all day long how to run a business. But if you actually go see me live, walk into a business that I've never been before, and I have no contacts, I've never talked to the owner before, and I'm able to solve problems with them, that gives a level of trust that is greater than me standing in front of a whiteboard being like, this is how you do it. Because I could have a teleprompter, I have notes, like, I could have planned what I say on a whiteboard or podcast, wherever. When it comes to walking to these businesses, it's very apparent that, like, I'm, I am understanding as the viewer is understanding what's going on. And it is happening live with real people, real, real team members. There's real hiring and firing going on. And so from, from a brand perspective, it's the highest form of trust, in my opinion.

Now, the problem that I see with that.

The turnaround videos is the only people that are willing to do, like, you have to have a few screws loose to be in your lowest moment and allow us to come in and video that. It's very, very humbling. And that's fantastic. And I appreciate the people that allow us to do that. The problem is for every one of them, there's a hundred other people that won't apply and, and that need the help, but they are, they're not willing to be. Have a camera, have cameras come in rolling. And I, I get it. It's not fun to have cameras rolling when you're in your lowest moments. So whether I read a book or do something else that would give the roadmap of doing a turnaround. Because, like, when I go in these turnarounds, like when I'm trying to operate, operationalize and, and create a formula around is like, okay, this is. Seems very intuitive to me. Like, when I look at a profit loss statement, a balance sheet, like, but like, really what am I looking at? And trying to actually get a formula for someone to be, so I can give it to someone, be like, okay, yeah, you don't want to come do a turnaround, that's fine. But here's this book or here's this manual, and it's going to walk you through exactly how to do the turnaround for every business. Because, like the 4L framework, every business is in, somewhere inside that, inside of that cycle. And so.

Figuring out a way to be able to give that away to owners. And then look at the show and like, I really want that in my business. I am not willing for someone to come show up at my business and quote Unquote, expose me, but I need the help. And so we want to try to make that available. And so by doing that, kind of like the, like the framework I'm using right now is like Dave Ramsey did the total money makeover and that's what people use to like get their personal finances right, is like, I want to do the same thing for businesses. And I think what that will do is, is twofold. Number one, everything we talk about on these masterminds inside of augustination, at training, stages of growth, pay for performance, all that stuff is literally just pieces and parts of what a turnaround should be for a business. And when someone's in dire straits, it's like you need a road map, you need a book. You need a book. You mean you need like a plan, like a where am I at this timeline and what steps do I follow? And I want to make it more like a workbook. So I don't know whether or not we're going to write a book or not, but. But that's kind of where my head is at. And all of that is promotion, right? It is obviously allowing me to be able to reach more people. And those people are building trust with them, allows them to join Augusta and be part of what we're trying to do. And so even this coming training here in January, we have I think three, possibly four owners that are already over a million dollars in annual revenue and they're converting to Augusta because they see the value. And I think even one more year it's even more apparent because we'll have like the trifecta, in my opinion, of instant price forms. Max on the phone and copilot all talking to each other and it'll be like they'll be nuts. We're not doing instant price forms for anyone else online for long hair web design or home service web design. It takes incredible amounts of time for us to get this fast and efficient on every single site and then make it customizable, etc. So we aren't doing that. No one's getting what we're doing with Max, unless they want to spend a gazillion dollars to build it. And then COPA, everyone can use, but they're not going to have those two other ingredients. So.

That'S kind of what I'm focused on is I have to focus on strategy side. So to do that, like I got to free up myself in time. So that's why like I got an assistant. Just hire an operations person for co pilot because I've been the one hiring and like on daily meetings and all the rest of her copilot, which is necessary for the first year to get it off the ground, etc. But I'm actually bringing over Lindsay, who is my gym manager, many time fitness. She's worked there a couple years. She's really great. She actually has experience running what's called ERP systems for factories.

So enterprise resource planning. So it's like large amounts of data and like she's pretty good at this stuff. But I need it from over an operational standpoint, like hiring more people and onboarding people. Like we're hiring so many people, like we just got to keep track of it and like it's falling on me right now. So I'm trying to operationalize as much that as possible so I can focus on the turnarounds, I can focus on strategy, I can focus on like higher level like weekly meetings with say like the team building, the AI max AI and copilot, like the vision of that and not be in the weeds as much and just part of growth. And it's never fun in terms of everyone's like, I want to work on strategy. It's like, well, in order to do that you're going to have to take sales, operations and admin and operationalize all of those and create systems around them and have people in place to handle like all the different facets of those parts of the business. And so.

A lot of people say like they're working on their business when reality they're usually working in sales or they're working in like one aspect and they've handed off two out of the three of sales, operations and admin. If you can hand off all three, in my opinion, that's when you're really working on strategy. And so really part of strategy for Augusta Nation and what we're trying to do for small business owners is like I need to go out and promote and I need to create more content. And so how do we like make that as smooth as possible? So I can still take meetings, it only takes me about two to three hours per turnaround of my time on site, I can still do meetings while I'm traveling, etc. So that's what I'm trying to like really nail down. So I can still be effective but then also increase like double the output we're doing for media and then, and then hopefully just like that leads to more people following and then the people who cannot and do not want to be able to have us come with cameras, they can have some sort of A manual to follow and use examples of the turnaround show that we've had. Like, this is an example of when people had a problem with leads. Here's an example when people had a problem with labor. Here's an example of people having problem with liquidity. And then when I look at the profit and loss statement of the balance sheet on the way to. As we're driving there, it's like, what are you looking for? Well, first thing I'm looking for is how much cash do we have on hand? Second thing is, are we profitable? Third thing is, how fast are we growing? These are all indicators of what I'm going to say in the first few minutes when I'm talking to them and have my points that I'm going to hit during the turnaround. And so if you don't have cash, that's a problem. If you're unprofitable, we're eventually going to have a cash problem. And if we are growing fast, growth sucks cash. All this turns around to one thing, liquidity. That's the first step of the 4L framework. So I just want to break it down for people easier. And so they, when they have struggle in their business, it's like, why am I struggling? Like, it's very frustrating when a business isn't working and you're pouring time and energy and money and you're stressed out of your mind. And I just want to make it where, like, someone can step in from that and be like, oh, like I identify. This is where I'm at. And this is the number one thing I should be working on right here in the business. And that would be. That would be the goal. I'd be very happy if we can accomplish that. So that's what I'm currently working on. That's all we had for the day because we only had one question here on the Mastermind. So appreciate all of you. Hope you have a fantastic Wednesday. We'll see you guys tomorrow.