Mike Minutes Mastermind 12/26/2024

All right, let's get this show on the road. Welcome everyone to another Mike Minutes Mastermind. Happy Boxing Day to those Canadians and hope everyone had a very merry Christmas yesterday. The mess text messages are probably going out now, so you might hop in a little bit late. But let's go ahead and get started.

Boom. Numero uno.

From Hutch. Traditionally our P and L has only had materials dump fees and subcontractors included in cost of goods sold. Why was it recommended to set it up this way versus including direct labor for calculating gross profit? If we separate direct versus indirect wages, how would you recommend catalyzing GMs as the businesses business grows and they are less labor revenue producing? What was it recommended? This way. So direct labor should be inside of your cost of goods sold. So how you break that up? Most of the time people don't. Most times just put wages in one column. And so a lot of times what you'll see is people will just do wages under one and then they will take out the overhead like a GM or an admin person out of it and then figure out their direct cost. The reason is is because usually you will see a big chunk of money come out for your payroll and then you have to do a journal entry every single time to figure out direct versus indirect labor. So the honest truth is 99% of people just do wages and then if you're trying to figure out your direct cost, you would just take out, okay, I spent $300,000 last year on wages. Great, 75. That was towards a overhead position. Great, 225,000 is my indirect. Otherwise every single transaction for payroll is going to basically mean you have to do a journal entry which is a pain in the but. So that's usually why it's done that way. But cost of goods sold does include direct labor. So.

Mr. How should someone that runs multiple locations figure out how to pay themselves per location? If the owner is acting gm, should they be paying themselves GM salary or kept in the business and pay themselves a small salary? I've always leaned towards keeping it in the business. If the owner's acting gm. Yeah, if the owner is an acting gm, I would take a GM salary. If you have multiple locations, I would not take a salary from all the locations. I would take a salary from the S Corp at the top because I want to minimize my W2 income. I take a paycheck W2 from the S Corp and I would ensure that all the LLCs are paying the GMs from their individual LLCs. But I would not be taking a paycheck from every single location.

I'd have to have multiple accounts for payroll for every single one for the same person. Me, I would also have to file multiple W2s and I would have to have a lot more W2 income, which is higher tax at a higher rate. David Willis from Manhattan, Kansas. Mike, not really a question, more of a statement. Just wanted to say thanks for Mike Mintz, Mastermind. In the short time I've been with Augusta, you shared some very helpful advice when interviewing other owners about joining Augusta. I asked them why and what made it worth joining Augusta. One owner specifically said one of the best things Augusta was your advice on Mastermind. I tend to agree. Please keep it up. No plan on changing it. I also just want to encourage owners to take calls from those considering joining Gustates. I certainly appreciate those that took the time out of their busy schedule to answer my questions. Merry Christmas. Absolutely, David, Appreciate it. Yeah, and I appreciate everyone. We really encourage everyone to call other people before joining a guest nation. The reason we do that specifically is because when I, before joining Augusta, I pretended like I was going to join a whole bunch of franchises and not one single one ever gave me a full list of the owners. They would always say, oh well, like here's two or three you can call and you know they're cherry picked. And most franchisors give some sort of incentive if someone specifically comes from like a referral and so they're incentivized to do that. So I, I, yeah, I just, I never thought, I never left a good taste in my mouth. So that's why I said from the beginning we would just send a whole list. And that means that yes, once in a while there'll be someone that calls and they're not, maybe not the perfect candidate to be talking to a new candidate for joining Augusta or maybe outside the systems, etc. But it just, it felt the most right. So thank you to everyone that answers those calls because I know you're busy and I know that someone calls and it might be an hour long conversation if you go into the weeds with them about being inside of August Nation. I really do appreciate it. I just feel like it was the right thing to do for prospective owners is to give the full list of contacts. Now technically, if they got to their fdd, everyone is listed inside of there. But you don't give phone numbers away, you just give the email addresses and we give corporate emails for that. So, you know, usually you wouldn't get as much bothered. So I appreciate it. I hope by having all the owners on there you don't get called all the time, but if it's a couple times a year, a few times a year, I really do appreciate you guys taking the time. It just sets the owners up that are coming in with the right expectations. They've talked to owners, they know what the community is like and we're just trying to get better and better. Like how do we keep people from joining that will A hurt other owners around them B hurt the brand A hurt and see try to take more than they give to the community and so appreciate everyone tremendously. All right, this is Anonymous. Mr. Anonymous, I'm in a very bi weekly mowing prevalent area. What's the best way to have mowing estimates set up in copilot two separate line items so that customers can choose one weekly and one bi weekly. If two line items Should I create a mowing package template? Would CC send a mowing package instead of just single.

Single line item for OTP estimates? Should I just mention something like yes OTP use mowing package for estimate on the services page of Wiki? Oh and I'm not following here. If mowing package is a possibility, what would your thought be of adding a treatment plan to a mowing package estimate as an optional upsell just an extra box they can check if they want treatments and didn't happen to ask about it.

Okay, I don't know who this is, so I don't know if you've come for training or not.

Yeah, so you, you would only you'd basically put bi weekly only in terms of pricing.

In your notes. If you're doing a drive by in terms of otp, you're just going to make sure with command center you have it set up to where they don't even see the weekly price. It's only going to show the bi weekly if you're really wanting this to be the case. So inside your mowing price matrix matrix that the command center uses you can have this set up. So even on OTP they're going to see bi weekly only. But you just need to contact help GustAlongerServices.com and set up a call with them and be like hey, I want to go over the bi weekly aspect. But again if this is someone who hasn't come for training, I would wait just wait on this.

Package because like you can just you if you have your treatment package set up, you can just always put in there like.

You know, add basic treatment package and they'll get it added, keep in mind that if someone's doing an estimate from the website that even if they select mowing like they might select the upsell of a fertilizer, but it's not going to give them pricing. Just keep that part in mind. But you know, check and see what I'm not 100% sure what you're asking to be honest with you. And so just check in with help@augustinlonginsurance.com maybe book a call with them and or even just call Command center and see if they can't help you. Again, assuming you are already in the system. If you call Command center and you haven't come for training, they won't know how to help you.

Mr. Anonymous, a thought why I had while running if an employee acquires five customer submissions, they get to fire an angry customer of their choice. Is this dumb or a worthy incentive for employees to acquire new customers? Thoughts? I would just incentivize it, keep it really simple. In terms of money, dollars and cents is an easy way to be able to have a mode of currency. If you start doing things like they're allowed to fire a customer, you're giving them leverage in a regard that I don't think they should have. They might just not like the property, they might not like the person. And all of a sudden you're going to get blasted online for something crazy like discrimination. So I would not give that power to fire customers. If the customer's angry and you want to let them go because it's in the best interest of your team and your crew, then go for it. But I would, I would never give the responsibility or the power of letting employee customers go to my team. Like that is a very personal decision. If they want to bring that up to you and then you as the leader make that decision, I think that's probably going to help the culture too is like if you do this on their behalf versus them like getting to choose this.

I personally wouldn't put that in like they might have a bad day. If they have a bad day as an employee, like all of a sudden want to fire one of your customers and you've made this like negotiation or like this point of hey, if you do X, you will get Y. Well now if you don't do Y, you're a liar. And so if they have a bad day and they also got you five customers, all of a sudden they get a fire one of them. Like we're kind of going backwards. I think this would be something that you would do if the customer was causing enough pain for your crew and for you that you would fire them. Don't need an employee. Employee to basically hold that over your head and tell you that you have to, you know, have to let someone go. So. All right, everyone, I hope you have a fantastic Thursday, a great weekend coming up here ahead. I'll see how many questions are tomorrow. I know this week a lot of people are out taking it easy, totally fine as we head into 2025. But I will see if there's questions tomorrow and I will answer them here on the Mastermind. Love you all, and we will see you tomorrow.