Mike's Plan For Entering a New Market | C. Suite Unfiltered 114

So it finally happened, and I think I talked about this in one of our early, early, early podcasts. I got pulled over yesterday. He goes back to his car, he comes up and he goes, "I like your argument. This is a warning, but if the sheriff pulls you over again, we're gonna have to cite you." You know, when you're talking to a cop, you don't give them anything.

I had a $1.9 million change to the bottom line. $1.9 million for 3 to 4 months worth of work, and it's straight profit. It's like, shows up on the bottom line. So the $5,000 an hour that's being charged, like, is that a good, you know, return on investment?

He has grown a very successful Augusta location, and I believe the formal population of Van Wert is like 10,000 or 12,000 people. So I think like he's servicing maximum, you know, 15,000 to 20,000 population area directly adjacent to his town.

One change in a business can have huge implications, and people underestimate the value of that, especially as the business grows. And so if you have a million-dollar business and you make one good change, it's probably a $100,000 decision.

Welcome back. Another episode, The C-Suite Unfiltered with Mike Andes. How are we doing, sir?

Good, man.

So I have something that is— that is going to be a good story for you.

Okay.

So if you— if you're here for Mike, which I know most of you are, just skip like 5 minutes. So it finally happened. And I think I talked about this in one of our early, early, early podcasts. All right. So we're not getting political, but Lee's going to get political. I have done a personal political protest for the last few years. Do you know what this is in reference to?

Personal political protest. The 3P program. I don't know what you—

you were surprised I don't do this. So I, 3 years ago, stopped renewing the tabs on my car.

Oh, dude, is that a thing now? Everyone locally, I just see so many, like, tabs that are expired.

I don't know, but I stopped doing it 3 years ago.

And nothing happened.

So I got pulled over yesterday. I pulled over yesterday. This is the story. Lee got pulled over. So I have not paid my car tabs on my personal vehicle because it does not leave the county that I'm in. Goes Monday to Friday to work and back. And most of your tabs, taxes in the state of Washington go to the larger counties in the state. That car never goes into those larger counties. All right, Lee's getting political here. So sheriff pulls me over and he goes, he goes, so your registration says 2023. And I go, yeah. You know, when you're talking to a cop, you don't give them anything. So I just go, yeah, respectfully, yeah. He goes, so any reason? I was like, well, the citizens of Washington State in the last 10 years have voted twice to have $30 car tabs. They are not $30, so I'm not paying. This is a political protest. I said that to the cop. And so I give him my registration, which was from 2022. So I give him my registration. I give him my license, I show my proof of insurance. He goes back to his car. He comes up and he goes, I like your argument. This is a warning. But if the sheriff pulls you over again, we're going to have to cite you. Have a good day. That's it. So there you go. There's your not financial advice from Lee. If you're in the state of Washington, don't pay your tax. You can avoid paying your car tabs for up to 3 years before you get a warning. That also assumes you don't speed or do anything illegal on the road because I don't.

So I was just pulling you over because of the tabs.

I— yes. Well, it was— that's the thing is I was pulling out of a gas station and he was coming out of a roundabout near the gas station. And so he was right on me. So he had no way to not see because I don't think you get pulled over for tabs really anymore. But I think it was the fact that I pulled out like right in front of— I didn't cut him off, but I was right in front of him. He was right behind me. And he said when he pulled me over, he was like, I had to pull you over. 2023. But he smiled and chuckled when I gave my reasoning. So I'm not getting political. This is the most you'll ever hear my political beliefs.

I've seen, I've seen so many people locally not doing their tabs.

I think it's, I think we found the threshold is 3 years. You get pulled over in 3 years. So I'm going to renew my tabs now and then I won't pay for them for another 3 years.

Zach, do you do your tabs correctly? No, I actually just got in trouble with my wife about that yesterday. Dude, you have a loophole now, bro.

Let's go. So yeah, I just, I didn't know that. That's a political protest.

So it's like $100.

It's like $100. Yeah. And we voted as a citizen of Washington for $30 car tax.

So why is it not?

So because it's against the state constitution. I was like, but if the citizens want to change the constitution, isn't it in the state's purview to change the constitution? So we're not getting into politics. All right. We're not going to do it. So, so the cop said, this is funny, you'll appreciate this. He said, so are you saving money? And I said, I don't know. What's the fine? He said, it's $250. I said, it's about $100 a year. So yeah, I said, I'm saving $50 if you find me. So he like chuckled. He got it. So I think he and I were same page.

He got that.

He got that it was a political protest. Anybody, you can protest anything as long as you say it's political. So there you go. There's my non-financial advice.

It's a political protest. Yeah, that is so funny.

Oh, yeah. Because it's like protected speech and all that. When it's political protest, it's like there are certain protections around it. I'm like, you can go stop traffic if you hold up a sign because a political protest— are you cited? Are you fined? In some cases, yes. The majority of people that do that aren't fined. So same thing. It's political protest.

Okay, good.

He said— he literally said verbatim, I like your argument. You're free to go. If we— if the sheriff catches you again, like, we're going to have to cite you. Not like that he wanted to. It was more of a we have to get your tabs. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to get my tabs. I'm going to get my tabs so that way I'm good for 3 more years.

That's so funny.

Hey, but I pay for my wife's tabs. I pay for, you know, the Parks and Rec pass, you know, to go to state parks. Like, I am a law-abiding citizen. I just don't want to pay for something that I voted against. So That's why.

So if I vote across the aisle and then they get elected, do I just not pay my income taxes?

That's a great point.

This is a political protest. I did not vote.

No, because you're talking about representation.

Okay.

This is not about representation. This is a statewide vote. This was up to the citizens. It wasn't a legislative vote.

What was the vote percentage? Probably huge.

Oh, it was huge. It was like 66%, like two-thirds. When was the last time a state agreed on two-thirds? Two-thirds of a state agreed on something.

To not pay taxes in Washington.

Exactly. So it was like overwhelming, like 60-something percent in the last 10 years. We voted for it twice.

Really?

And so I just told the cop, I literally said, I'm not paying.

Dude, how do you know this stuff, bro?

You got to stay informed.

I know. Stay informed.

I'm not.

That's great.

Well, this could really spiral. So we're not going to go down that rabbit hole as to why I think democracy is not a real thing.

Everyone can let us know all the other loopholes that we could also save an extra $100 a year on. So all in the name of political protest.

Yeah. All right. We're done with that. So for anyone that wanted to fast forward, Don't worry, Mike's going to start talking now. I want to talk a little bit about your expansion with Augusta for you, for corporate locations. I guess they're not— they're explicitly your locations, actually owned by the Holdco, which is Mike Andes Media, Augusta Franchise, and Homework Software. So I want to talk specifically about the market and like how you chose that market, why you chose that market, certain metrics you look for. So let's start with that. Given that you've chosen Dallas as your market, why the market specifically in Dallas? And are you comfortable with me saying the actual cities that you're going to be operating in? Or do you want to hold off?

I'm holding off mostly because Augusta knows, but I'm not— I'm making sure I don't do it because I don't want to throw my GM into like the hot bucket of like immediately he gets there and there's like 5 people that hate my guts doing stuff against him. So I don't know what— I don't, I don't want to put him in a bad spot. So I'm not saying the exact names, but it's the outskirts of Dallas.

Yep.

And there's probably room for 10 Augusta locations to fit inside the Dallas-Fort Worth metro easily, like maybe more.

More.

And so, yeah, in terms of why I chose that. Yeah, there's like a combination of like 20 things. So historically, most Augusta locations are in smaller markets in terms of the population size and they're on this in the suburbs and they're not going after a city that has 7 million people in it. And we thrive in those markets because we can just dominate on SEO very quickly. And so it's been really interesting to see, like, even in this new market, once we started the website, to be able to rank on the first page within— well, actually the first spot on Google within the first 3 days. Like, that was a good early sign. But like, I want to prove that it works in a larger market like that and start copying and pasting very close to each other. Most of our owners, when they copy and paste because like the nearest location that they could do another location is 30, 40, 50 minutes away, it's the natural progression to be able to start another location.. But I believe that if you take a population of a couple million, I still wanna use the copy and paste model so that the incremental component parts of each crew and then each location is profitable and I can break those off. And something I talk about with Jonathan even recently is like a lot of times people just, you wanna grow a $5 million business, so you just keep growing and growing and 20 years later you're still putting every dollar back into the business. And do you really have a profitable business is the question. Hmm. I think the copy and paste model, even if you wanna build a $5 million business is healthy to break pieces off. Like, I know that this location profitable, the first million. Okay, second million. Okay, I grow it up, make it profitable. All right, it's profitable. And then you build a $5 million business. But now, you know, there are 5 distinct pieces or parts or locations that are all individually profitable and that you don't have to wait 20 years of just plowing money back in the biz to actually ask yourself, is it profitable? Because so many people do build a $5 million business and like, I'm growing, I'm growing, I'm investing back in my business and 20 years of Oh wait, I don't have a profitable business because I stopped growing and I'm still not making any money. And so to avoid that, even in a larger market where you could theoretically build a bigger— like you could absolutely take my location and just do a $10 million location, 100%, just grow geographically similar to what City Jerk has done. They're probably almost $20 million now and they basically serve that entire market and they just have— they deal with the larger drive time. That's fine with it for them. You could absolutely do that. I still believe the ability to be able to chunk it down and have profitable component parts where you say these locations, this location is profitable, each individual crew is profitable, and I have evidence of that and I have it segmented down by general managers. And so yeah, why we chose that market also is partly lifestyle. Like Dallas is a place we would be okay living for 6 months. And so if I'm going to be going back every winter or checking back in there occasionally, like I need to make sure Brianna wants to live there.

Yeah.

And so we had done the due diligence in terms of like from a living perspective would be okay living there too.

Yeah. Cool. So looking, zooming more into the market specifically though, like, are you looking at population? Are you looking at income? Are you looking at density? Are you looking at certain like labor statistics, like industries, employment rates, pricing? Are you looking at competition? Something else outside of those factors, you kind of identified this is the Augusta business model. This is how we copy and paste. This is for me and my lifestyle, my wife. We'd be happy living there. Talk about the market specifically. What metrics are you looking for that made you say, let's go here?

Yeah, so we go really— we're going to go really simple services. So just two services. And to do that, you do cut a lot of the market out because people do want like, hey, I want everything done by one provider. Well, that's not going to be us. Like, we're not going to do sprinklers and all this other stuff. And so you do have to have a larger market. You also need to make sure that that market can bear a service that I want the person who signs up to have year-round service. Now that means I'm cutting out the bottom half of my customers that usually are more price sensitive, their budget in the winter, they're like, hey, stop service. I'm trying to go after the buyer that's like, I want it looking good all the time. I do not want 3 months where you guys don't show up. I need you to have, you know, in Augusta we call winter services. For this case, like, I want year-round lawn maintenance. And so if it needs to cut once a month, I still want you showing up every 2 weeks. And doing what you guys do. And so that person needs to have more discretionary income. They want to be living in a, in a neighborhood where that means something to the people around them. And so I'm looking at more affluent areas. And so the areas that we have chosen are some of the most affluent counties in the state and, uh, and growing very fast. So like growth and then enough affluent fam households to where I can sell a service that I'm not gonna have people canceling during the off season. That's like the main— my main focus when I look at market.

Yeah, gotcha. That makes— that makes total sense. So are you putting more weight on— and I'm just going to choose like two binaries because I think these are two very important metrics that people look at and they get hung up on. Are you looking more at— and assuming generally good density, let's just go ahead and make a couple of assumptions, assuming generally good density, that the market is viable for the services you're going to offer. Between the two, are you putting more weight on household income or overall population?

I actually look more population growth and then household income.

Got it.

So population growth, immediately, you know, you have this upward trend, this, this tailwind of demand because new people coming in the market just generally means you have more leads coming in. And so if that is declining, if you have an area that's declining population, huge red flags, like I would not go into a market where there's a declining population. It's just because everyone, that usually means more entrenched competitors. It means that I do not have this random tailwind that I'm naturally gonna get more leads. It's just easier to grow, especially your first couple hundred customers. Like the cream of the top is so much easier if you just rank well on Google, which I know we can do. And then there's people searching for that service because they're new to the market. So like immediately I know I can get a couple hundred customers from that. And then in terms of household income, I'm looking at, okay, For example, my market has 100, little over 100,000 people in it. And I'm looking, okay, how many of these people can afford a service that they are not gonna pause during the winter? Okay, they need to be like over $150,000 to $200,000 of household income. Okay, what percentage of my 100,000 households have that? And in this market, it's high enough to where I'm like, okay, I need 5% of the market. I will build a million-dollar business on the recurring revenue side. All right, so there is a national travesty The media team just let me know, and that is that over 60% of you watching the video have not subscribed. You're missing out on all sorts of good stuff. Usually the videos with the least amount of views have the most amount of value for you and for your business. And if you're not subscribed, you don't get notified because it's not going to show up on your feed. So I highly recommend click the little bell, get notified and subscribe today. Thanks.

Yeah. If you look at Lawn and Landscape too, if you look at their yearly statistics, this is one that I thought was interesting. And I use when I talk to prospects sometimes is that It says 40% of homeowners will use a lawn care landscape provider within the last 12 months. So it doesn't specify if they're recurring or not, but 40%. So then what I do is you can almost reverse engineer it to say, okay, well, of that market, we know our typical customer is going to be above median household income, going to have above median household value. Right. And then it's like, okay, do they make up 40% of this market? Hypothetically, if yes, there's your 40% of customers. If no, okay, well, let's just look. Is there the cream on the top that I can scrape, as you're saying? And And I think that, you know, some people almost get, get overwhelmed by the metrics they're looking for. Do you think that there are any assumptions that are dangerous when projecting a market? Like when you look at that, you're like, you say, well, 50% of this market has above median household income, so it must be a great market. Do you ever see any dangerous assumptions when people are projecting their market growth?

Well, 50% will always be above median household income.

Well, yes.

Yeah, that will always be—

that was a bad way to say it.

That was great. That was great. That's just a great stat you could throw at anyone.

Most people would not catch that.

That's so much.

You got it.

This is 50— in this market is a great market. 50% of households are above median household income. Yeah.

So you know what I meant? You know what I meant? That like the, the majority— sorry, the majority are above like the average, not median, but above average anyways. So are there dangerous assumptions that people can make when looking at expansions or market? They're just like, hey, this, this looks good because of this one metric. Like, or do you have to look at a conglomerate? Do you have to look at a couple of pieces of data?

I look at those couple. I think that the thing that's more important, though, for most people, if you're starting one location, is like, are you going to want to be there? That's actually like a very hard tangible. And this is why most locations of Augusta, people start where they live. They don't like go move and start a location because if you move someplace and you don't like it and you want to leave, that location, if it's new, is probably not going to do great. If you don't have the capital to get a general manager in place, have the marketing budget to scale it very quickly. Like if you leave 3 months later and you have a $10,000 budget, it's not going to work.. And so the reason that the Dallas location works is like, I'm from day one getting a general manager. I'm gonna scale it very quickly. And so you want to make sure that you want to be in the area that you are servicing, in my opinion. Um, unless you have plenty of capital and you're gonna scale it quickly and get a general manager. But for the vast majority of people, that's why they do start their business wherever they were raised, where they have their family. Because if you're, if you're adding this a whole other complexity to the fact that like you don't even wanna be there and you're trying to always run away from that location, it's probably not going to do great. And so you need, you need someone solid there, whether it be a general manager or yourself. And if you can't afford the general manager, don't think you're going to like, this location is great. It's if it's the state over and you hate living there and you're flying back every weekend to your family, I don't think any discretionary effort is going to go towards that location. Hmm.

So you think it's more about aligning kind of like your goals with that market expansion? Yes, basically. So what are your goals then with expanding to Dallas? Like, We've talked about the metrics. You've identified these markets are solid. They match with your lifestyle personally, with your marriage. That all works. What specifically do you see as the goal or the reason behind this?

Yeah, there's a few big bets that we're making that I want to test for Augusta, like having vans, having those vans go home with the crew, not having a shop space. By doing that, you can't really do debris removal. You can't do projects like you have to really simplify services. You have to do way more onboarding and training with your technicians since you're not going to see them and like For a lot of people, that's how they do management is like, okay, they showed up, okay, they look like they're sober, great, get in the truck. And then they walk around the truck, they do a lot of the inspection stuff. And so the level of training and accountability when you have technicians taking the vehicles home, seeing you once a week instead of every day, though, that's a different level of systems that are required. And so wanting to test that, wanting to test in a larger market, the copy and paste, not like I have to copy and paste because the nearest market is an hour away. That is the traditional reason why Augustins have done multiple locations is like, I have a tiny market, I have saturated this market, my customer acquisition cost is going up. I either add services or I've got to go start a second location an hour away. That's the— then the vast majority of people. I want to show that like I am going to have locations right next to each other. And yes, I could drive 20 minutes and go to my next location, but I don't do that because I take one location, I get it to the 6 to 8 technicians, $1 million in any revenue, simple services, all recurring, and then I just do it right next door. And I feel like that is something that a few of our owners have done. I want to prove it, record it, and then document what I do so that's more replicatable and they can just follow the, the recipe, if you will.

Is there a way to look at a market or expansion if someone, you know, whether they're in a big market or whether they're more rural, for you to basically say this is a safe bet, this market is a safe bet, for an $800,000 to $1 million a year business? Like, what are you looking at to make you say this is a safe bet?

I would not look at the market for $800,000 to $1 million location. It all comes down to the operator, the general manager or the owner, whoever is running that day-to-day operations. I don't care if you're in a market with 10,000 people or 2 million. I don't care if you have a bunch of rich people versus not. You could have a market, a declining population. But if you're a great operator, guess what else is happening? None of your competitors have a tailwind. And so you're going to have less competition. They're going to, they're going to have, they're going to go out of business more often. You can speak to that in your, in your marketing to your ICP that doesn't— is tired of the people are leaving your market like your competitors are going out of business, i.e., all the customers that do want to stay there have a problem with the fact they can't find someone to stay long term in terms of their provider. So like in my opinion, it's all about the operator at $800 million. If you say I want to build a $10 million business, Okay, this now we very much need to look at. Do you have the population? Do you have that market to actually sustain that? But I believe that anywhere that has more than 15,000 or 20,000 people in terms of population can sustain $800,000 to $1 million business if the operator is great and everyone thinks they're a great operator. And I'm hoping to be able to show what good looks like a little bit in terms of at that size of location is like, you know, like operator, like this is what a good operator looks like. And I'm hoping to demonstrate it instead of just talk about it.

Yeah. And I think to use an example, inside of Augusta, we have Bryce, who's in Van Wert, Ohio, which no one has ever heard of. I had never heard of it until I met Bryce. And I think the actual formal population of Van Wert—

we love you. We love you.

No, this is a compliment to Bryce. Oh, yeah. I don't know.

Fayetteville, Arkansas. Big fan of Bryce.

Big fan of Bryce and his family. But what he did is he— and I don't want to share his revenue numbers publicly, obviously, without his permission, but he has grown a very successful Augusta location. And I believe the formal population of Van Wert is like 10,000 or 12,000 people. And then there's another town like 15, 20 minutes away. That's another couple thousand, like 2,000 to 5,000, somewhere in there. So I think like he's servicing maximum, you know, 15,000 to 20,000 population area directly adjacent to his town. Maybe he expands outside of that now, but like it's one, the model behind him, but two, the operator that he is, like how he's honed in his leadership skills and built a team of managers and figured out how to make better offers and sales pipelines for his customers to grow revenue. It ultimately was the fact that, like, he's a solid operator with a solid model behind him, and then he'll be able to expand. So I think it's interesting that you bring that up, that, you know, it comes down to the operator, comes down to the person driving the thing. Do you think that in kind of looking a little bit more like at Augusta specifically, and I guess if you want to critique me or whatever, but do you think people ever like underestimate market analysis or the model in which they, they launch versus joining Augusta? Like, do you think they underestimate the value that market analysis and a plan and a business model— do they underestimate that value and overestimate kind of the fact that, hey, I'm a good operator, I can figure it out?

The best athletes still have coaches. And I think that the reason they do that is because there's someone that's going to tell them not to do certain things and what to do. So like, I don't know if you hear Alex recently talk about him getting a gym coach.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, he's fine in the gym, but he's like, I have been able to resee what having a coach feels like and like, I don't really need them, but I'm going to pay for the best one possible because I need someone to give me like positive reinforcement. I need someone to say like, nope, don't do that. And I just need to follow the plan. And so in my opinion, the person that says like, I'm a great opera, I'll do without Augusta, for example. Totally fine. You can be successful. Like, that's like Alex can do his workout and look incredible and do whatever. That being said, the constraints that a coach offers, or in this case the system offers, is the thing that allows you to get that extra 5 or 10%. Like, that's what makes you elite. And no one likes the coach. And like, do one more rep. Like, it's painful, it's hard. Do one more rep. You got this. Like, but that extra one rep is the thing that gets you the last little bit. And so in my opinion, the advantage of speaking as a franchisee at Anytime Fitness, the constraints of the system is the thing that I can fall back on and allows me to be the best operator in my market. I don't have the skills, but what will usually happen is I will start adding services. I'll start doing all these little things because I can. I'm independent. I can do whatever I want. The same way that someone in the gym, they can start lifting however they want because there's no one telling them what to do. So if I get a coach, yes, there's constraints. You will not do that tricep. You will do only bicep only. Like there's someone telling me I can and cannot do some things. And for some people, like, I will not do that. Like, that's the same thing with the franchise. It's like there are constraints. You will do this a certain way. And for some people, they hate that. For other people, they realize that's how you get to the elite level, is having the constraints of a coach, of a system that guides you in a certain direction and prevents you from straying in all these other areas, which are usually distractions. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And I think it's interesting because I sometimes— and if anybody here has ever had a call with me, I sometimes feel like it's hard to communicate that without coming across as arrogant or that we have it figured out and you don't, because that's not necessarily the case. Like, yes, we have a record and a proof of 200 locations and other owners and a lot of success stories. So like, obviously the model works. What you've built is working, but you never want it to come across as this is the only way because there are so many ways to win in business. But what you're saying is having that external factor of a coach is kind of the term you're using, just gets you that extra squeeze, that extra 5 to 10%. So when do you think people need to come to that decision-making process? Like, is it when they're kind of on the brink of, okay, I think I can't get to the next level, I should get a coach or I should join Augusta or whatever? Or do you think it should be thought about beforehand? Because I feel like that's how a lot of people approach maybe their calls with me is they fit in one of two buckets. It's like things aren't working in my business and I need solutions. So let's see if Augusta is a solution. And then there's bucket B, which is, hey, I think this is a good opportunity and maybe it aligns with my long-term plans. Do you think that— I guess I don't have like a very specific question there, but do you think approaching coaching is better in case A or case B? Like case A, I don't know how to get to the next level. I need a coach. Case B is, hey, I think I know what my 10-year goal is. I might need a coach.

I think it's like going— should you go to the doctor now and get a checkup, or should you wait until you're hemorrhaging and need surgery?. And so most people will come see the need for systems, a coach, whatever, when they see definite problems in the business. I think the next level of business happens— I'll use Alex for an example— is when you're like, I am doing very good and I still need a coach. That shows a level of humility that like, I am doing good, I am great, I am awesome. I don't have gaping wounds, but I still need someone else to get eyes on what I'm doing. So like when I recently have gotten a coach and we'll talk about this next week.

Yes.

And not like that I'm leaving Dr. Kashy, don't worry about that. But like, it's just like an additional eyes on the business. And like when it's like, well, what's your problem? What are your constraints? Like, I don't have any gaping things. I know what the issues are. I'm working on those. I have a very clear roadmap, but I need— I still need coaching and I don't even know what you're about to say. I don't know about what you're going to see, but I know I need other eyes on this. And whether they have done that type of business or seen a larger size of business or they just have different eyes on the business, because I generally believe if you took me out of day-to-day operations and I came back in a year and I looked at the business differently,, I would see different things because I'm removed from that. So I just need someone else with eyes on my business. This is why, like, the coaching program in Augusta is like, there are peers looking at each other's business and able to coach each other because we've agreed that these systems work. And I get the owner out of daily operations, or the person that's not seeing all the minutia, to be able to put eyes on it and immediately can identify problems. It's not like it's rocket science when I go do turnarounds. It's just that I'm not seeing— I'm not in the day-to-day and so mired down with like what's in front of them. I can just like zoom out and be like, oh yeah, this is the problem, this is the problem, change this and we're good to go. And so I believe that the next level of humility or progression for an entrepreneur is to say, I do not have big problems in my business and I still need a coach and I still need help. And I still know that there's like, I don't know what I don't know is a level of, of, of hubris that most people have too much of, have too much hubris to be able to say like, I don't see all the problems in my business. And I need a coach. I need help.

Yeah, you mentioned humility in there, and my, my brain went the opposite direction, which is like ego. I think they're always in a constant battle. It's like humbling yourselves or leaning into your ego. Do you think that is the biggest holdup for people to take coaching? Because I've talked to people that have been on your turnaround show. They've booked a call with me and they're like, hey, maybe I want to check out Augusta because Mike came out and they, they say this more often than not. It's like, I got so much value out of the couple hours he was here But then you get to like, but you have to pay a few thousand dollars to join Augusta and it's like massive roadblock. And so do you think that that's a humility thing or do you think that's a financial decision? Just like honest question.

Um, well, that would be very individual, like whether or not they have the capital, etc. I think that one change in a, in a business can have huge implications and people underestimate the value of that, especially as the business grows. And so if you have a million-dollar business and you make one good change, it's probably a $100,000 decision. And for a smaller operator to be able to have the foresight to know that they're going to grow their business and like, I know that having the systems in place when I get there is going to be a high-leverage opportunity. That's why someone that's new would potentially join Augusta or get a coach or etc. For someone that is of a larger business, it makes more and more sense because decisions are so weighty. And so like even with the coach that I have now, like in our intro call, he mentioned something. I wrote a note down. I made— I ran the numbers and like, it's a very small change at a $1.9 million change to the bottom line. And it would be probably a 3-month project, 4-month project, but $1.9 million for 3 to 4 months worth of work. And it's straight profit. It's like shows up on the bottom line. Pretty good. So the $5,000 an hour that's being charged, like Is that a good, you know, return on investment?

Yeah. We need to have like a paid subscription for like— so I can ask, we can pause right there, cut it right there, and then I ask you directly what the change was. So like, you know, people pay $50 a month, get the Patreon or the exclusive content or whatever.

So technically there is a paid version. It's called Home Service Boardroom, and it's for 7-figure entrepreneurs that are in home services and wanting to get to $10 million in annual revenue. And the reason I made the group is because I found so often the times the thing that actually gets someone to $10 million is nothing to do with tactics or tips or how to make, get more leads. It's the fact that you got to attract great talent into your organization. No one's building a $10 million home service business without other great people. And you've got to become the leader that is required to get that person to fit their goals inside of yours and the organization's. And that's the type of thing we talk about inside of Home Service Boardroom. Creating a vision for your company, creating compensation models and systems, and more importantly, showing up as a leader that they want to follow in terms of your personal life and nutrition, your health. And every single 30 days, there's a challenge that we do to keep each other accountable to actually making improvement and not just learning more tips and tricks. So go check it out. Link is in the description.

Yeah, that's interesting. I, I, and I wasn't planning on like going down this road because we already planned, you know, kind of the next pod. We are going to talk about coaching. But I think it's interesting when you look at it from a humility perspective, less of a financial perspective, because even, you know, this is kind of stemming into what we're going to talk about next week. But like, I had to tell you pretty honestly, I was like, I think there's a skill gap with me. And so I think achieving X would help me close that skill gap. And this isn't me like tooting my own horn. I think realizing that was humbling. I was like, oh, that's kind of a gut punch. Like, there's a skill gap. Like, Why am I desiring this? Because I think there's a skill gap. I can't quantify it, but it's there and I know it's there. And so that's not like me touting myself or tooting my own horn or whatever phrase you want to use, just using it as an example. Do you think that's ultimately what it comes down to when someone's like, I'm going to sign up for coaching or I'm going to pay for someone to teach me? Like they're humbling themselves in that moment.

Yeah. Like this is the hack for any— if there's an employee listening, by the way, I'll now spill the beans. Is if you say you have a skill gap, at least for me, whatever you want, it's all yours. Like, that's when you were asking for a budget to be able to solve the problem. Like, that was where I was like, oh, okay.

Yeah.

Yes. Because if someone's humble enough to realize they have a skill gap, it means that whatever they are about to spend money on, they will likely receive from it because they're in the position of opening themselves up. It's like this goes into like a very spiritual perspective of like, if you can open yourself up to receive,. And so if a, if any team member or you think as entrepreneurs and coaching, but like for me, if an employee is able to identify, I have this skill gap, I have found the solution. Can you fix this with money? I'm like, yeah, 100%. Um, most people cannot do one of those two things. One, realize they have a skill gap. Most people can't do that. Two, identify the, the solution, i.e., the coaching, or, and clearly articulate that this is the solution that I need. And then by doing this, it allows me to do X, Y, and Z in the business. Most people can't like do that math or they can't be humble enough to realize I have a skill deficiency. And when people realize that, for me, blank check.

That's good to know.

I know, I know.

It was like my last bullet point. So there's a good teaser for next week. I guess we could probably start wrapping up there. That's a good teaser for next week. We're going to talk more about coaching. I'll share what I had to pitch to Mike that he just approved. Now you all know of the hack as an employee to say it's a skill gap, but I think that's cool. I think it's very encouraging for me to hear.

But also, but also have the track record of being able to change behavior. Ooh, fair, right? Like that's a given for you. So like, I know that, okay, he's identified again, we go back to problem, solution, execution. I know you can execute on whatever you, whatever the solution is. I won't even have to get involved. So like most people can't identify the problem like that. There is a problem.. And so if someone says, I have a problem, I need help. Like, again, this goes very much spiritual. Like, if I have a problem, I need help. Okay, now, now you have opened yourself up to the solution. You have opened yourself up to coaching. You have opened up yourself to behavioral change. And most people have too much pride to even say, I have a skill gap. I don't know what to do here. I am deficient in this area. And therefore you will never receive. Hmm. Again, going into like the spiritual direction.

I like that. Yeah. I saw, I saw a tweet recently that went heavily indexed towards the spiritual side of what you just said. Not going to share it publicly, don't want to ruffle any feathers, but it's very interesting. It was very interesting about that exact concept, that like about how certain faiths, it's like, oh, come as you are, but it's, it's not actually like come as you are. It's come admitting that you, you are not enough or you're broken or you're whatever. So anyways, not going to get into all the specifics of that, dude.

We can go along though. I think that this is why so many times if you look in aggregate, the people entrepreneur that you look up to, at least for myself, a lot of them have a spiritual element of some sort. And I believe it is because the same attribute of— and if you look across Augusta, like, it's very, like, spiritual, religious, however you want to say it. It's because, in my opinion, there is a level of humility to say, I do not have what it takes to live this life at a certain level. And you fill in the blank of what religious sect you go down or whatever religious background. It is someone that says, I don't know everything and I need help. That person can usually in business take that same skill and be able to learn from other people. Say, I do not have all the skills. I need coaching. I need to be joined with Francis. I need to join a community. I need other people in this life to be able to be successful. And that is a great skill in business. Hmm. Hmm.

I like that.

And for the person that's like, I don't need God, I don't need other people, I don't need community, I don't need to go to church, I don't need anyone else telling me what to do. I'm not going to read a Bible or any sort of A religious doctrine and tell me how I should live my life. That person usually can't open themselves up to anyone else in business. Mm-hmm. That's gonna tell them what to do. Yeah.

It's interesting.

You have thoughts, dude.

No, no, I, I know you have thoughts. I have thoughts, but I don't like, I don't have well-formed thoughts. That's my issue. That's my skill gap is I can't compartmentalize. I can't figure out how to deliver.

Sorry, I went through it that hard.

No, you're fine. You're fine. Uh, so, uh, let's, let's end with one final question here. That is not related whatsoever.

This will be the leadership team chat discussion next week.

Yeah, that's perfect. I'm honestly just more excited to start recording next week. We just don't have enough time. I knew I wanted to make sure we had enough time for that topic that we're going to get into coaching. But we have previously talked about him on the pod before.

Okay.

Christopher Nolan. We both went and saw Oppenheimer. Remember Barbenheimer? Are you going to go see Odyssey?

No.

The new one?

No.

I just didn't know.

Isn't it science fiction?

No, no, no. It's based on the Odyssey. It's Greek angel literature.

Is it real? Like, did it happen?

Well, it's Greek mythology, so no.

Oh, so there's like dragons and all that sort of thing?

Well, there's like Cyclopses.

Yeah, I know. Like the Greek gods and all that stuff. Yeah, I check out.

I don't know.

Oppenheimer was real.

Well, it's, yes, but it's also one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written.

Yeah.

The classic.

Maybe it's a skill gap. Yeah. My skill gap, as soon as I see something that's like, oh, that's not real. I'm like, oh, I'm checking out.

There's a runtime of 3 hours. So I'm like, I mean.

I know, dude. This is an investment. I know.

Like, look, I love, you know, I love Matt Damon, love Anne Hathaway, But 3 hours, like, that's— I don't know. Somebody in the comments, should we see it? Yes or no?

So as soon as I see things that are not real, I'm just like, I don't—

I don't know.

I'm checking out.

But it's based on a real book.

So it's based on a real book.

I mean, the book is classics, as they say. I don't know how to define that.

The book is fictional, but because the book is real now, it's based upon a true book. Yeah.

We got to stay in our business, our lane on business content. People really judge.

Zach is good at that sort of thing. All right.

Any non-financial advice for the people?

Oh, dude, you go ahead.

All right, so I got one.

Oh, I do have one.

If you, if you want a cheap and easy date night idea.

Okay.

With the spouse.

Okay.

Deconstructed charcuterie board. So just go to like a high-end grocery store, get like a nice loaf of bread, get some nice selection of meats and cheeses, some olives, whatever. And then just go literally take like camp chairs or go somewhere. There's like public picnic tables by like a beach or a lake and just Did you do this recently? Yeah, yeah, we just did it recently. We went out to Birch Bay.

Okay.

And just literally sat by the water and just had like a nice fancy loaf of bread, some meat, some cheeses. Like, didn't present it in any way. Like, literally had a pocket knife just cutting it up, ripping. It was great. But like, you just— it's just like relaxing. Get a nice cold—

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Ernie was not there.

Ernie was.

What?

Because he just played on the beach. So it's perfect.

He just— he can play by himself now?

Like, yeah, yeah.

For that long?

Yeah. Well, he needs interaction.

Okay. Okay.

But yeah, so we just had a little cooler, so we just had all our stuff sitting on top of the cooler.

He'd come over, eat a piece of bread.

Go back, eat a piece of cheese, go back to throwing rocks.

That's a good age. They can kind of self-distract for a few minutes.

But it's cheap and it's very like restful.

Oh wow.

So there you go, there's your cheap.

Did you hear about this? What happened? Did you watch Breeze's vlog? We just had a charcuterie game night.

Oh, I did see that. Okay, yeah, yeah. No, this was before. I didn't steal that. All right.

We're gonna do that for the leadership team. It's gonna be fun.

Nice. They've done, we've done that. Sarah and I have done that a few times.

Yeah.

Where it's just like, hey, we don't feel like making dinner. We're kind of tired. Like we feel like we need to reconnect. Cool, go to the grocery store, grab stuff for like effectively a deconstructed charcuterie. Just eat it wherever you go. Do you reckon it feels more work than just making dinner.

You're like, we're tired, we're not really feeling it.

No, but you just go to the grocery store, you get like 6 items, throw it in a cooler. Like, I'm not talking a ton. I'm talking like bread, couple of meats, couple of cheeses, some olives.

We went all out, dude.

I know, I saw. So looking forward to that invite.

So there you go.

A great, cheap, and easy way to connect with your spouse. Deconstructed charcuterie with a view. Lake, water, a nice public park, something like that. Get outside.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you're not in like 120 degrees.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, weather's perfect in Washington right now.

Perfect. Okay. My— I don't really have non-financial advice, but it's more of a thankful. I'm living in a house where it's, I think, the first time ever where I've had forced air AC.

Oh, nice.

Outside, outside of the office closet that I lived in, I had forced air there. That was really nice to be AC. But now I have a house. We recently moved, obviously, this early this year, got a house and it has AC. And dude, it's such a game changer, bro. Like, we're out here dying at 85, 90 degrees in Washington, so forgive us. But to have a house that has AC, so nice. I used to have like the window unit and stuff like that, but like to have forced air AC and you're like, in 20 minutes it's going to be like crispy in here. Dude, it's such a blessing.

Dude, that's optimization that I can get on board with because we invested in AC and this earlier this year we invested in like a really nice couch. Like most expensive piece of furniture I've ever bought. Really?

Now, like, do you mind sharing how much?

Uh, well, we got the storage ottoman, we got the thing. So, uh, I think in total with delivery, we're like $4,200.

Whoa.

That's like one, one couch. Like, I'll show you pics. I'll give one to the team to put up. Lee's couch. Y'all be jealous. Uh, but like, it's a quality of life. Like, I rest so much better in the evening. Because like the house is set to a nice cool temp. I have a really comfortable couch. You think there's ROI in there? All right, there's ROI.

I feel like Lee's the type of person to sit down like, this couch is nice.

Yeah. Oh, 100%.

Join the couch.

Yeah. If you ever need help getting a couch, just call me.

I do. I would love to see you shopping for a couch. I would love to see you shopping for a couch.

It's methodical.

I'm sure. I'm sure you have like a rubric of what's going to happen.

All right, that's a pod. Like and subscribe. All right. And here's the couch, absolutely gorgeous. The wife picked a phenomenal color, great pillows. Now there's one of our cats, shout out Rocky, named after your Tennessee Volunteers, Rocky Top. Anyways, uh, yeah, don't mind these though because, you know, Rocky and the cats like to scratch. But, uh, this thing is so comfortable. I mean, you can just plop right there You got the extra space over here. The, the camera angle doesn't do it justice, but, uh, let me just say, great couch.