My Coach Says "You’re Guessing, Not Leading"

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. And today I have the honor of the coach of Augusta Lawn Care coming on and answering some questions. We're gonna talk about coaching, we're gonna talk about management, managing your managers, we're gonna talk about hiring, scaling, budgets, a lot of different stuff. And so really in a quick kernel, kind of give an introduction for those of you who don't know who Nick is. Started out in the field at the Bellingham shop mowing a lawn, mowing lawns, and then ended up becoming the first recipient of the franchise fee forgiveness program at Augusta and became an owner. And then he ended up selling that location, joined the leadership team here with Lee, myself, and Liz at Augusta Lawn Care. And now he leads the coaching program for owners inside of Augusta that are helping other owners doing monthly coaching calls. He is really the firefighter when bad things happen. He also leads office hours every week on a live call with all the owners and is just a ton behind the scenes, whether it be negotiating preferred vendors and a lot of aspects of making sure the owners are successful. His technical role is owner success manager. Manager, which we made up, but that was like the epitome of what it actually meant to be in this role. And so I really appreciate you coming on, and I want to kick it off with something that we actually recently started at Augusta, and we had our first national holiday around, and I was like, planning and projections. And I wanted to kind of come from the perspective of, you have seen it without people doing planning and projections. It's like, we start the year and we grow this year, and then this year being much more intentional about, we're gonna have a budget, You have a marketing plan, we're going to stick to it. What have you seen between those two variations of planning that has caused you to be like, in coming to me, like, we need to have plans in place. People need to know exactly what they're spending and have a budget before the year starts.

Yeah, this, this was mainly as a result of the last couple of years trying to stop owners from complete collapse. And it's the worst thing when you see someone who's really good and ambitious, but they kind of grow themselves into a position where they're out of money. So I think a lot of times people set out on a goal that's just impossible from the start. But we never knew because we would say like, "Hey, what's your goal this year?" "Oh, I'm going to double." It's like, "Okay, do you even have the resources to be able to do that?" And a lot of times the answer was no. So that was kind of the whole intention behind the budget first is we can use all of the assumptions inside of the business. Cost per lead, you know, they're split between recurring and project clients, their average close ratio. And we could really build all those into a spreadsheet and then project, okay, with this amount of money, you know, you're also going to need to buy this many trucks, you're going to need this much for operating capital. Okay, with your current budget, what is possible instead of just coming up with a random revenue goal and then not knowing how you're going to get from here to there, like not really knowing what the path looks like. Um, so it was really insightful. Obviously it was the first like really big push that we've done because it's the first time we've had like a kind of a good tool, uh, to be able to use. Um, so yeah, we did the live stream. It was great. And I think, um, the thing that, that really shined through on that was people could now see like, oh, it actually takes a lot more resources to grow safely, um, than I was planning. And that was the whole point is for people who have the resources, to give them the green light because it projects their— I wish I could just show it to everyone. It projects the cash on hand every month. So it'll tell them, "Okay, hey, 6 months into this plan, even though you'll end the year with a 15% margin in growth mode, which is great, you're going to hit a cash crunch in June. And if you're not planning for that, you're going to have a complete collapse." So it's like, yeah, if you survive to the end of the year, you'll have 15% margin, Um, but not a lot of planning goes into the actual cash crunch. Um, that happens mid-year.

Yeah. For, for people who might not be in Augusta or are thinking about growing their business, I think a lot of times it's very easy to be like, yeah, we're gonna grow. We think we're gonna grow 10% this year. I think we're gonna grow 50%. Like we're going for 1.2. Okay. You did $900,000 at 1.2. Great. That's like 33% growth. Awesome. And then that's basically where it stops. And so what are some of the pitfalls you see of people doing that? Because one thing to say that's bad, we should do planning and budgets. Okay, I agree. Why? Like, what are the pitfalls? What are the things that you saw people doing prior to having a plan outside of just running out of cash?

Some of the constraints, like obviously liquidity being the main constraint, but then other ones start to pop up. Leadership is usually the one that pops up next when they're trying to scale the business rapidly. 'Cause that would be another situation where you have someone that has a lot of resources and on paper, like, yeah, they could absolutely scale and they could absolutely accomplish this goal. But they're entering into a different season of business that they're not yet prepared. They're pushing the personal capacity. And that's the thing with personal capacity is obviously everyone has a current capacity that they— just like a muscle, it's like you push it a little bit, it grows. Sometimes you can overextend. It's like, okay, you need some time to recover, but then you can slowly just rinse and repeat and you expand it over time. So it'd be the main thing is kind of people getting way ahead of themselves, like in too deep, too fast. And then kind of leadership becomes the constraint because, you know, the point in the business where they can't do everything themselves, you know, if they don't have the skill of leadership and they can't set a vision for the crew, set a vision for the manager, manage the manager, those things end up becoming the bottleneck.

You've been a coach for probably now hundreds of business owners inside of Augusta. You've also been coached. And so talk to me a little bit about the importance of coaching. I think one thing that sometimes people will say is like, I don't have any big problems. I don't have any problems to solve, therefore I don't need coaching. Sort of like, I don't have any— my leg's not broken. Why do I need to go do a doctor checkup? Right. We understand the value of coaching. How is your thought process around coaching changed as you've seen what's worked, what hasn't worked, as well as the type of individuals that need coaching more over the past few years as you, as you moved in this role and then you've actually had to coach coaches on how to coach other people?

Yeah, I think obviously coaching is extremely important because it just kind of cuts out— like, that's part of the reason why people end up joining Augusta is because it cuts through the years of learning that you'd have to do on your own, making those same mistakes. It's sort of like a second set of eyes. So you have someone from the outside who's not emotionally attached to the situation. Like, they don't have the personal relationships with the employees or the clients, and they can look at things very objectively and say, okay, this is what the numbers are telling me. This is where your current stage of business is. This is what I know happens in that stage. I've ran through that myself. And that's ultimately— that perspective is why people seek coaching, or why they should, because basically you can avoid the mistakes before you make them. The incremental improvements that you make with coaching. So it's not just for people who are like struggling. So I think a lot of times coaching kind of gets that reputation. It's like, oh, you only coach if you don't know what you're doing. That's not it at all. Um, some of the best people, uh, inside of Augusta that actually ended up becoming coaches, um, they coached consistently to make small incremental improvements, small tweaks. Um, cause that's the main thing. In the past, what used to happen and why I made a big push to get people to start coaching when I first started this position is because people would essentially go at it alone. They would have no budget, no plan, and they would just go for it until they hit a wall and then they'd call and be like, "Hey, I need damage control." And that's why it was very negative. It's like, okay, you only seek coaching if you failed. So I didn't like that. And what I've seen as I've kind of worked with both sides, I've worked with people who are struggling tremendously. I've worked with people who are very good and honestly don't need a ton of my guidance. And you actually have to pull more and figure out more ways to help guide that person because they're already covering most of their bases. What's great about consistent coaching is that it's not damage control, it's proactive, and it's small incremental improvements. Like if I can send someone away with an action plan that's 1 to 3 items, small little tweaks, just a tweak to their follow-up process or just a little management tweak if they had a specific situation that they were dealing with, just a little tool that they could implement, that's a way easier lift for that person and they're going to see way better results versus someone who only talks to a coach once every 6 months and is facing complete and utter collapse. It's going to take 3 or 4 calls to get that person back up to speed, and those changes are going to be monumental.

All right, Nick and I are talking a lot about coaching, and in my opinion, one of the best use cases for AI is exactly this. So I've created 2 tools that you can use today. The first is like having me on your shoulder as your business coach, and it's completely free. Down in the description, there's a link and you can check it out. It is trained on all of my content, my books, my videos, everything, over 20 million words that I have spoken on YouTube and inside of all my courses. And it's trained specifically to help home service business owners like you grow and take your business to the next level. You can actually call it and talk to it. And the voice is eerily similar to my voice. So go check that out. Second is completely free again, homeserviceaudit.com. Get your website audited by me. Using everything I talk about to improve the amount of leads you're getting from your website. It's gonna look at everything about design, your speed of the site itself, the keywords, the banners, the titles that you're using. And so go check it out, these are completely free tools. You don't have to sign up, you don't have to pay, you don't have to put your email in if you don't want. Just go check 'em out today, the links are down in the description. All right, back to the episode with Nick. Yeah, like, I was thinking a couple weeks ago actually, I was thinking about the coaching program now having owners. And a couple years ago, the owners were like, hey, we'd love to have owners in the coaching program, not just corporate, oh, from, from us. And I was thinking about it and I was thinking, what's, what's actually, why is that successful? And I actually came to the conclusion that it actually has to do with humility. Because if I am a $1 million operator, it is almost thought of that like you must, in order to coach that person, you must have a $3 million company. You must have a $5 million company, but it takes a lot of humility to realize that it's like going to a doctor and like they have learned the processes, they have learned the systems, and they are looking at the book. It doesn't matter who you are, they're looking at the book. And I think that the coaching program that you've really developed and I'm really thankful for is like there's a system for it and like we look at the book and I don't care who's behind that. I trust that if they, if they're a coach, if they're the doctor, that they're gonna give me the correct prescription. And I think the, the unlock in all of it in terms of business to get better is just humility to understand that I can learn from someone else. And it doesn't even require them to be better than me. It doesn't require them to have more money than me. It doesn't require them to have a bigger business than me. I can learn from anyone. And if you're going to cap yourself to only learning from people that are ahead of you, you will, as you grow, and this is like, it gets lonely at the top. The reason it gets lonely at the top is 'cause you can't look down and learn from anyone below you. And so I think a lot of times just a lack of humility, especially as you become more successful, and then it caps your growth because you can only learn from people above you. And by nature, now you're talking about the top 1 1 or 2%. It's very difficult to access them. And so, um, I think the first trait of anyone that's constantly improving when it comes to the values of Augusta is humility to understand I don't know everything and I'm willing to learn from people that might not have the metrics that I have in terms of success. And I think when I was doing the coaching at the very beginning, it was sometimes a negative in that like they would listen to me just blindly almost because it was like, oh, like Mike's ahead. And he's done this before, he'll all listen to him. But I, I think that the ability to be able to have the humility of learning from someone, a peer, or even someone slightly below you, but they're looking at the book, the system, it takes no, it, the system is true nonetheless, regardless of who says it. And I think the ability to humble yourself to the system is something that, um, I have seen the most successful owners do. And in, in or out of Augusta is like, I can learn from anyone. I'm willing to humble myself and I don't know everything. And that opens me up to way more learning than just being like, I will only learn from people that have $10 million or $100 million businesses. And a lot of times their advice is the exact opposite of what you should be doing at that time.

Yeah. Uh, coaching, what I've come to learn is that coaching itself is a skill. Um, so it's very easy from the outside, like, oh, okay, if I'm trying to grow my business, I'm going to seek advice from someone whose business is larger than mine. But the actual skill of coaching and figuring out how to deliver that information and really what you end up being is a strategist. A coach is someone who can take all these different variables and kind of sort through with the context of the plan being Augusta, the business plan that we teach people at training. And so, okay, it's like, let's take their reality and then balance that against the plan that we established. And then the variables get really messy. Obviously there's different personal situations, capacities, things that you're dealing with. The possibilities are endless. So really, the coach, their skill is being able to navigate those situations and come out with the best outcome. That's it. You can have someone with a massive business have no clue how to coach. And I've seen that before and it just doesn't work. You can have someone who has the largest business, And, you know, how they got there over 15 or 20 years is entirely different than the playbook that you're trying to run. And they're just not going to have the same guidance for you. So it's something that we talk about with the coaches in the group sometimes, because sometimes, you know, this happened with me at the beginning is like I'm talking to people who are much further along in business, like, oh, like, am I even qualified? But obviously with reps and time, your confidence grows and you're like, okay, like coaching is just different. It has nothing. It's not just credentials. If you're just looking at on a piece of paper like, oh, this person did $3 million. Okay, I'm gonna talk to them.

Yeah.

That's just not how it works.

It's, it's funny. I was thinking about it the other day. A lot of times when you look at like coaches in professional sports, the best players usually don't make great coaches. And so for example, like Mike McDonald from the Seahawks, their head coach never played in football. No, never played, uh, in the NFL. Yep. And so there was an interview on someone asking him like, how do you treat the players differently? 'Cause like you can't yell at them. He's like, yeah, I don't yell at them. I don't do, did it. 'Cause like I have not done actually what you've done. But yet he's still the best of the best when it comes to coaching. And so how do you look at it from the perspective of, hey, someone has a whole bunch of money or has a bunch of locations and yet you're supposed to be the coach. What is the frame of mind that you're using to be able to still give them the things that they need to be more successful?

Yeah, context is everything. So a good coach can kind of figure out where the person that they're working with is coming from. Obviously, everyone's going to come at it from a different perspective, like Yesterday I was talking to someone who day one, like hasn't even started the business. Okay. I'm going to have a much different context when I talk to that person, the way I coach them through certain things, because their level of understanding is just going to be different. Right? Like a good coach can kind of pick up on that and kind of figure out where people are coming from and adjust to that. Or in the same day, I talked to someone who already has like an existing, you know, multimillion-dollar business and they're starting up with Augusta. And it's like, okay, This person knows certain things. So I guess a good coach can pick up on that. Kind of, I guess what you were saying about the best coaches not being players, that's absolutely true. And it's something that's not widely understood because again, people are just kind of looking at it black and white, like, okay, did they do really good in business? Okay, I should take advice from them. Or it's like their skill might be doing really good in business, but not actually coaching and delivering that message. So I forget what the, the original question was, but coaching, it's, it's really just, uh, being able to have empathy, being able to sort through the situation. And, and that's why coaching in and of itself is a skill outside of just running the business and looking at the numbers.

I think too, I think that's so interesting about coaching is like ego is always the enemy because if the person that you're trying to help has ego, you can be like, oh, that's bad. Okay. But if you, your coaching doesn't get through to them and they don't change their behavior, 'cause that's the goal of coach is to change behavior, then you have failed. And so sometimes you have to adapt to someone else's ego. And this is the biggest part when I come to coaching is like, I am really looking like, how much ego am I working with here? 'Cause I might have to match them and actually like, allow them to, give them a lot of compliments just for them to like, relax their ego so I can get in. How have you adapted to varying degrees of ego when it comes to people that have, big businesses, people have no business, people have money, people don't have money. And what, how do you, have you navigated when there's kind of this wall of like, hey, I know everything here. And I say this too for people that might be talking like their general manager or their salesperson or their crew leader who knows everything about projects and I'm trying to coach them on how it needs to be done according to systems of my business, not someone else's. What would you say to that person that's dealing with ego And how do you get them to either relax or how do you deal with it?

Yeah, it's a great question. Asking guiding questions is probably the best thing you could do in one of those situations. So if you have someone who's really attached to their way of doing things, well, one, you got to kind of step back and realize like they're coming to you. So like they, they, they need guidance from you. But a lot of times what ends up happening is they come to you for guidance, but then you start to give the guidance and then they go on defense with their ideas. And so it's like, okay, they know what they're doing isn't working, but they're attached to it. And I'm trying to deliver the solution that I know is the best for them and I know that they're coming to me for. So you really have to approach these situations really delicately because obviously you want the person to feel good and feel like the proposed solution is theirs. That way they'll have buy-in and they'll execute. So asking guiding questions, like if someone's, you know, really attached to a particular outcome, like very, uh, top of mind situation for me is like, okay, you have someone who really wants to grow. They have really high debt burden and really low cash, very little options. They have a high recurring base. Their business is over $500,000 and they've not gone into profit mode. So it's like, okay, I know what they need to do. They need to raise prices and that's instantly going to add $100,000 to the bottom line. They're not going to advertise. They're going to be in profit mode. They're going to be able to fix all the complexities that they built into the business. I can see that crystal clear because I've just seen it happen so many times. But then you have them attached to one thing is like, "Hey, I want to get out of the field. I need to grow the business in order to do that. So that's all I need to do." So it becomes really challenging because a lot of times what's required is pausing. Jonathan Patoschnig said this in your guys' interview. He said like, uh, he said like, build clean, build clean, build clean, build cleanup, build cleanup. If for no other reason, you're just learning so much over, um, time, at least that's been my experience. I gotta imagine it's been yours. So if you just keep your foot on the gas all the time, whatever you're doing wrong and whatever the mess is continues because you're just keeping up all the time. And that's necessary. So, you know, obviously in Augusta we have our, our path that we talk about and people think that path is linear. But they're missing all the nuance and the checkpoints in between. So it's like, okay, and this is how you would approach it with someone like that. It's like, okay, the goal is crystal clear. You want to get out of the field and you want to grow the business.

Great.

How are we going to do that right now? Currently, how it stands, that's what, that's what they don't know. That's why they're coming to you. So you basically, you take the solution that you know needs to happen and you relate it to their goal. So I know their goal is growth. So the opposite that they want to hear is go into profit mode. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to spell out how going into profit mode now is going to lead to further growth down the road. So I'm— and you spell out the entire future, like what it looks like, the entire future, but like 12 months, like, hey, listen, I hear your goal loud and clear. Like, obviously you want to repeat back to them and let them know that you understand where they're coming from. 'Cause if they feel understood, now they'll listen. But if they feel like I don't understand them, like, oh, your advice, like you don't understand my situation, I'm different. That's just how people think. So once they feel understood, I'm like, hey, listen, I know the goal is growth. And I know the goal is get you out of the field. And I know the growth, the goal is also profitability, 'cause you're really cash-strapped. So I'm like, okay, if we go into profit mode now, even though it's not what you want to do right now, this is what it's going to allow. It's going to allow you this much money at the end of the year, and I'll run through those projections with them. I'll say, okay, in 12 months you'll have this much money. The business will actually grow revenue because you just simply raise prices. You're— and then I would talk about all the other little inefficiencies in the business that are getting fixed, some of the debt problems and the expenses and all that. I would say, okay, and then once all that's fixed and you have this money in the bank, now that opens the door to all of the growth that you want. You know, and this person wanted to like overdouble the business. So I think that's a big part of it is just trying to take like what their goal actually is. And take your solution and then, like, connect them, even though it's not like a direct connection, like, oh, do this and you're going to have your, your goal tomorrow. It's like, hey, do this so that your goal now becomes something possible. Yeah, absolutely.

One thing I was actually thinking also a couple of weeks ago, I was looking at the Olympics. It's interesting because when they have a team sport, the coach does not get a medal. And the reason I thought that was interesting is because the level of humility that a coach has to have for the player to get all the glory, but yet if the team is doing bad, guess who gets kicked to the curb first? The coach. 100%. It's like such a, a weird dichotomy. It's like if we were doing bad, the first person we will always, like any bad team at the end of the season, like the NFL, they just fire their coach if they did bad. First thing to go. But yet like if, if the team wins, it's about the players. How do you navigate that as a coach? And again, I'm, I'm using the words coach, but this could be any time you are trying to have people inside your organization succeed or win or get to the next stage of their career and you're pouring into them. What would you tell that person that's like, there is a certain level of humility that comes with you take the flak when things go bad and you don't get any of the credit when things go good.

Yeah, it's, it's just a different mindset. Like, to me, it's just been normal for so long, so it's kind of hard to put into words, but I kind of look at it as like servant leadership. So the goal in being a coach is not glory. Like if your goal is to get credit over other people's outcomes, you will never be a good coach. It just doesn't work like that. You have to simply want what's best for that person. And in any other context, you want what's best for the team. You want what's best for everyone outside of yourself. And you view yourself as a tool and a resource to make that outcome happen. And the outcome for that person, the organization, the team, that's the thing that really matters. and that's what you're focused on. So that's, that's sort of how I look at it. I've never met a coach who, you know, takes credit for everything and you just can't because, you know, that you, you kind of exactly nailed it. It's like, okay, the coaches, you kind of take the fall for when the plan doesn't work and you get no credit for when it does work. The best coaches get the person who they're coaching to the solution. And have them maintain agency the whole time. So if I can guide someone towards a solution, obviously they're the ones over there executing, they're actually doing the thing and they feel good about it. Like, hey, that was my plan, I executed on them. I know I did a great job as a coach. It's hard for me to talk on because it's not something I've ever struggled with in terms of just—

Getting recognition.

Yeah. I don't think about it. I think anyone that's— I guess I could simply say that, like, if that's why you would think about coaching other people, because you think you're going to get recognition and people are going to love you and all this stuff, probably not a good reason to do it. Because the reality of coaching a lot of times is you're dealing with messy situations and sometimes people don't take action. Sometimes you pour into people and they don't do what you say. And it's, you know, insulting in some ways, but also like you care about the person. So you're like, agonizing over why they didn't take action on the thing that you know would have solved their problem. So coaching is like a lot of the burden and the problems, and you kind of get all that side. And the little glimpse of satisfaction that you get is when you see someone on the other side and they've solved the problems in their businesses and they finally have profit, and you can tell they're just happy. That's why you do it. And it's just like if you went and do something nice for someone, like if you go buy a homeless person food, it kind of selfishly makes you feel good. I think that's maybe the internal motivator is like, I know when I see my people win, like that makes me feel good, but I don't seek external validation from anyone. And the coaches and I, we talk about this all the time. I'm like, we kind of laugh because it's like, hey guys, we're over here just trudging through the mud. We're over here dealing with all this stuff and we get no credit for when stuff goes right. And Yeah, it's, it's a service. Um, it's, it's just like anyone who goes into service, you go into it with the mindset of like, okay, I'm not doing this for the glory. And if you are, it's like you're, you're just approaching it completely wrong. Yeah.

A lot of people wonder, what do you actually get when you join Augusta Lawn Care as an owner? Well, in addition to all the coaching and the training and support, you also get access to two custom websites for Augusta Lawn Care and Augusta Lights. You get access to p4psoftware.com. You get access to an applicant tracking software to be able to do virtual interviews with all of your team that's joining for your lawn care technicians. That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's a whole lot more. Go check it out at augustalawncareservices.com/franchise. Now back to the video. Taking it back to more, uh, owner and the daily operator in the business and their employees. I think a lot of them might not necessarily have coaches or even do coaching on the business level, but they're— they do care about their team. And they do care about their employees. And you know what it's like to own a business. And a lot of the, the traditional employees that are coming into this industry are entry-level. They're younger guys. They have a past. They have issues, things that they're working through, maybe addictions. They don't have the qualifications or the skill set or maybe the professionalism that we might want them to have. How did you navigate as someone that was just really just a few years older than a lot of them, or even the same age, as trying to give them coaching, but then also like realize they just might want a paycheck and they might not want to improve their life. I know that was frustrating at times when you want someone to improve and you can see so much potential, but like they don't have the spark. From a coaching perspective in that light, what was your mentality or how did you kind of deal with that? Where like, for me it was like 1 out of 10 people will actually take advantage. 1 out of 10 people that I pour into will actually, you know, hopefully improve their life and get to the next level of their career. But for 9 out of 10, it's just like, oh man, How did you deal with that, though, as a young entrepreneur?

Yeah, going into it, obviously, I think just recognizing that that's going to happen first is the first step because you can easily kind of be overly idealistic and be like, man, I'm going to do this, I'm going to build this business, everyone's going to love, love what we're doing. And, you know, I was just going to like come into work like skipping every single day. So I think coming to the realization that that's not actually how it works is the first step because you're like, okay, now I'm kind of— I'm not idealistic. Like, I'm just balancing reality. And I think just kind of meeting people where they're at is probably the best thing you can do. Be clear about your motivation, like, hey, I want better things for you guys. Here's these opportunities, here's a 3F program, here's management positions. This is where we're trying to take the organization. Be really crystal clear with the vision and the mission. So again, a lot of the young guys in the blue-collar work that we do, they haven't really had any kind of A lot of times they haven't had positive role models. They're doing blue-collar work typically not because it was a first choice, but because it was just the only option available. So I think it's, it's important to kind of lay everything out for everyone the same way. Every employee that comes in, they have the same opportunities. The mission is still the same. They can all be a part of it. I think that's about all you can control as the leader. And then ultimately, you can guide and support them along the way. Some people come around at varying times. It took me close to a year after working in the field to open my mind to something else, to open my mind to becoming an owner. Because for that whole first year, I was literally just wanting to drink energy drinks and get jobs done. You know what I mean? So a lot of guys come in like that. You can't force your agenda down their throat. You know what I mean? They come around at their own speed. So I think that's really all you could do is just be clear with the goals of the business, the opportunities that it presents for them, how they fit into that, how you can guide and support them, figure out what their goals are, see if there's alignment. If there is, great, I'm going to pour into that person. If there's not, they're just not there right now and they are just kind of looking for a paycheck. Okay, I might step back a little bit and just kind of let them do their thing. Let them cook, as you would say. And eventually they might come around because as you continue to talk about it, continue to talk about P4P, non-bonus opportunities, profit sharing, open book management, 3F program, management opportunities, you continue down the road of always talking about these things. Eventually they're going to be like, you know, when they're at the point in their life where they're ready to take the next step, they'll be like, hey, there's opportunities right in front of me. And it's almost like they're not able to see it until they're ready. And that was the case with me. So I think that's the main thing is that you just have to be careful not to kind of force your agenda down their throat and let your goals become theirs because you could easily want more for someone else's life than they want for their own. And that was really tough. And that's what I had to learn at the beginning is a lot of times I'd go out of the way to hire people that are rough around the edges. So I'm like, Man, like I could help them a lot. So it's kind of a bad way—

before and after on this project. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was the problem. But what I failed to realize is they didn't want help. They didn't want what I wanted for them. And I cared about their future and outcome more than they cared about it themselves. And it's hard to come to that realization. But then once you do, you can kind of it's liberating in a way because you can kind of disconnect and say, "Okay, I'm going to treat this person the same. I'm going to give them every opportunity, but it's up to them to take advantage. And once they show the initiative, then I'm going to pour into them, but I can't force them." It's like, obviously you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, that thing. And you just eventually just have to kind of disconnect from the actual outcome, treat them the same, give them the same opportunities and realize 1 out of 10 is actually going to see this and be like, "Hey, this is pretty cool. I love what you guys are doing here. How do I become more? How do I do more?" And then 9 out of 10 are going to be with you for a few weeks. They might do something wrong. You end up firing them. They quit. It's just a Passover job. Okay. But that's just reality. You can't let your vision for someone else's life be the driving factor. Ultimately, they're the ones who are going to decide what they're going to do. Your, your job is just to facilitate the environment to where there is opportunity, and it's up to them to capitalize on it. And you give them the tools and guidance necessary to capitalize on it once they show that they're willing and able.

Yeah. One thing I wanted to go over too, from a coaching perspective, coming— going back to the owner side of things, is I see a lot of times owners, when it comes to coaching, they really miss the forest for the trees. And they'll get really zeroed in on one thing in their business and lose the ability to step back and see more perspective and see how small that thing is in relation to the size of the business, the overall direction, and more larger levers in the business. For example, pricing or going into profit mode or hiring the right people or adjusting your base pay, the bigger levers. And yet they're focused on their one very little niche. I don't want to even like fill in the blanks, like it could be equipment, it could be a system, it could be their website, it could be an ad, it could be an email. Whatever it is, they get really zeroed in on one thing. What have you done? Because I know it's one of the most frustrating things for me as when I try to coach someone is like they're focused on the completely wrong thing and they're pouring all their energy in this thing. I'm like, whoa, just like step back. This has absolutely no consequence on the business compared to this other gaping hole. How do you kind of reframe someone or what have you seen work when it comes to even just helping the owner understand that like this is, this is a problem, And there's a lot of problems in your business, but this is a tiny little thing compared to much bigger issues or opportunities in the business.

Yeah. The thing that they're like fixated on, I'm always trying to find a way to draw the connection between where I'm coming from, where they're coming from. So if they're stuck on this like one thing where it's like, you know, I need to sell more of like this kind of job, it's like, okay, they're stuck on that. But I know their goal should be, you know, simplifying services. For example, I'm trying to draw a connection between like their goal and where they need to be and how, how their goal could still be important. Maybe that was a bad example I give, but like their goal could still be important. But I'm trying to draw a connection to where, where they can go to where it's actually going to benefit them. So an example of this, and sometimes I'll just say this on a call, is like, hey, we're looking for the largest lever to pull. Like there's— we're looking at 12 different levers. There's all these problems in the business. Like you see it, I see it. They're everywhere. Okay. Um, what would make sense for us to pull this tiny random lever over here that doesn't really move the needle very much? Um, but it satisfies you because that's what you're focused on. Or the thing that's like truly going to move the needle, which is, you know, the, the big lever, like the, the big problem. And if you could draw a connection between pulling the big lever and solving that and having the downstream effect of solving this other little issue that they were talking about, maybe they have an employee churn issue. And the main issue is that their route density is terrible, they can't do P4P, their pricing is low, and they have no money or vision or leadership. But it's like, okay, you have all these problems, but the main thing that we could pull right now is Price increase, drop some of the clients, fix P4P, and then that's going to fix your employee churn issue. So just, I guess, finding a way to kind of relate the thing that they're focused on, relate that to what you know is the big lever that you could pull immediately that's going to give them the immediate change. It's sort of like a dopamine hit. Like if they can pull, if they can jump on a call with you, get clarity, take action on this one thing and see massive change, they come back for more. Like, okay, we did that. What else can we do? And then you rinse and repeat that, and then that's when coaching gets really good. So yeah, it's challenging. There's not just like a— it's not like you could just roll that out every time and get it to work. Some people are very humble and teachable, obviously being one of our core values in Augusta. The benefit that I have is I work with everyone that Lee has screened, and Lee screens people that are humble and teachable. So it makes coaching more actionable for me versus if I was coaching people from the outside. We're all kind of Operating on the same wavelength, we're speaking the same language, we're running the same playbook. So there's a lot of benefits to that. But for people, I guess, who aren't that way, yeah, that's what I'm trying to do is like, hey, there's this one small issue that you see. Okay, great. Let me talk about the big lever that I see and how that's going to connect to the thing that you see. Because if you can draw that connection and get them to see it, then they're— because they still want that problem solved. That's the one that they feel every day, the employee churn. They feel that intensely, but they don't necessarily feel that like route density or P4P is the problem, even though you, as from the outside, can see like, okay, clearly if these guys are making more money, they had performance incentives, like clearly they would stick around more.

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That's, that's all I'm really trying to do is just draw that connection. But it's not like that's going to work every time. Like, you have personalities and every coaching scenario is different.

Like, I think for a lot of the owners listening, they— their coaching is actually going to happen mostly with their employees and especially management, because a lot of times employees that you might want to get ahead, you might overlook the fact that they— hey, they maybe they don't want this in life. But when it comes to your manager, you're like, you got to kind of toe the line and like, I do need to coach you through this and I'm going to be a little more hands-on. And so kind of using that for people that are getting a manager, what do you see as some of the downfalls of entrepreneurs, sole operators handing off to a general manager or handing things off at people that are no longer as technicians, they are managers, whether it be sales manager, office manager, operations manager, general manager. What do you see as some of the balls that are dropped? We've consistently talked about like managing managers is a different skill than managing technicians. But many times we see it take a year or two for someone to kind of figure out that process for themselves and their flavor of leadership and coaching. I'll use that phrase, their manager. What do you see as the things that people usually mess up in that phase of kind of being a little messy?

The, the handoff is certainly messy, especially the first time around. I think probably one of the main ones is the difference between just delegating and dumping. So dumping is like, hey, you're the manager, here's all your stuff. Here's some resources that you can watch to learn this stuff. Good luck. Okay. That's dumping. Delegating is like, hey, I'm going to hand you routing and dispatching. Okay. I'm going to walk through, I'm going to show you how to do it. Okay. We're going to do it together and I'm going to correct you whenever you make little mistakes. And then I'm going to have you do it on your own. I'm going to watch you. And then once you do that, I'm going to give you feedback on it. And then I'll repeat that process if necessary. So it was very structured, one-on-one training, slow ramp on that one thing. And then I'm going to go through and do the other thing. So that's actually delegating because you're actually giving that person the tools and knowledge to succeed at the task that you're giving them instead of saying, "Oh, you're the manager now. Your job's to take this stuff off my plate here." So I think that's probably the biggest one is the actual handoff and looking at it through a different lens because a lot of times we're just— when you're going into management, you're taking in your prior context of, you know, just working with like your entry-level techs, it's pretty straightforward. It's like show up, mow the lawns, clock in and out, put it in the notes, clock out for the day. Like there's not too much in-depth that you need to get. Like there's pretty like simple standards. But with a general manager, like it's so much more dynamic because they're learning how to be a leader. So they're learning how to manage the employees. They're learning how the software, how to run the business. They're learning how to do sales. They're learning how to communicate with clients. And all of this stuff that you've slowly learned over the last 4 or 5 years of growing your business, you have to, you have to teach them that stuff unless you want to spend 5 to 10 years of them just figuring it out on their own. So yeah, I think the handoff is extremely important and kind of like, I know it's tough in business, but like instead of viewing it as like, oh, easy button, I finally got a manager, they could just take stuff off my plate. and I'm going to just like disengage. It's destined to fail. Putting— I say this to people all the time, is like putting a manager in place is more work than just doing the work yourself. That's why a lot of people get trapped into not growing the business because it's easier just to do that versus the time and energy to get a manager up to speed and truly train them properly. So that's a big thing is like if you're going into that management transition, instead of viewing it as like, oh man, this is like easy mode. View it as like, hey, this is going to be so much more work and I'm going to be doing double time for the next 3 months getting this person up to speed. Not only am I going to be doing all my stuff, but I'm going to slow down and take the time to get them up to speed, which is going to be annoying for me because I'm like, I could just whip through this stuff in 2 seconds, but I'm going to spend double the time on it because I have this person shadowing me. I want them to do it. I'm going to have them make mistakes. It's going to take time to recover from those mistakes. So that's like probably number one thing is like delegate, don't dump. And the expectation should be there's a nice long ramp, you know, a 90-day ramp like we talk about getting that manager up to speed instead of having the same expectations as we would like a normal tech is like, hey, we're mowing lawns, you trim, edge, mow, and blow. Here's how you do it within 2 weeks. We need you to be efficient. That's pretty cut and dry. But with a manager, it's like, it's so dynamic. They have to learn all these different skills. So we kind of have to acknowledge that and realize that we learn those skills over the course of a slow ramp of 5 years. I can't expect them to have it all figured out in 2 weeks. Like, I need to work closely with them for the next 3 months, give them guidance and support. And only after that time that I've gone through all these things with them, I've done it for them, I've done it with them, they've done it on their own. After all that time, over 9 months, that, or excuse me, uh, 90 days. Then I might make a judgment. And I'm like, okay, based on the rate at which this person's learning, based on how many times we've gone over these certain topics, do I continue investing in them? Are they showing improvement and progress or are they still not getting it? And I've given them a long, nice long ramp. Then you have to make a tough decision is like, okay, do I need to go with a different manager or do I invest more in this one? But that's the main thing is like really treating it as like this is not just the easy button. Like getting a manager in place is more work. And it's the same thing with growing your business. Like it's more work to grow your business and hand it off. But long-term it gives you the benefit of like, okay, now it runs without you. So it's more work, but you get the benefit on the backend. It's the same thing with the manager. It's like, it's more work to get them in place, but the benefit on the backend is like, okay, they can run it and you can go do something else versus what would be easier is just throw a manager in place. Hey, here's all the things we do. Here's some videos on the dashboard. Watch these. And good, because like, that's easy, but it's not going to work out long term.

Yeah.

So Travis said that recently, which I really loved. He says always choose the hard right over the easy wrong.

So that's good. Yeah. I think the— on the other side of building a business that can run without you is better valuation, quote, passive income, etc. But it is so hard to get there. And the thought that you're just somehow going to like pass the keys to someone, they're going to do it. Even with all the playbooks, 'cause like it is one thing to train for efficiency versus train to lead. Like training someone to lead is not a 2-week, here's your checklist. That's what you do for a technician and it works. Here's a checklist, here's your trainer. We look at every single day, we have these notes, 2 weeks, let's go. But training someone to lead can take a very long time. And so I know recently we've more or less ironed out like the, you know, 3 to 4 month slow handoff. To make sure that throughout that entire time I'm reflecting on how I, an owner, am doing. I'm reflecting on how the general manager is doing. They're reflecting on how I'm doing. And then we're communicating throughout the entire time because so many of the times I saw is 6, 12 months down the road, there's this big blowup and everyone's mad at each other. It was misaligned expectations of what I should be doing as the owner and what you should be doing as the general manager. It's funny because as I, as I say, and as you were talking, I was like, that's somewhat what I did to you. And like Lee and to Liz, I think in part it's like, I didn't know what the role even should look like. I think when you expect someone to step in a role and you think you know what they should be doing, you better make sure you be willing to give them time and show them what that good looks like. Unless you are just sort of like, hey, I need you to go figure this out. Great. Now I'm going to give you the space to fail, figure things out, mess up. But if you don't want that mess up to happen, you better be giving them a very clear roadmap and a good transition.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Like if you are putting someone in a position and you're for whatever reason don't have the bandwidth to guide and support them for that position, you're right. It's like, okay, you kind of got to budget in time for learning, time for failure, mistakes. And you've been very gracious with that, with like me, Lee and the team. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Like, yeah, true delegation takes work. It just does. Yeah.

Upfront work.

Yeah.

It's like, it's like a healthy body. It's so much work in the gym. But then once you get there, you have the metabolism that, yeah, you can eat a hamburger and you'll burn it off.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's just the whole mindset with business and everything. And yeah, I think a lot of times, like, you know, great operators, this is what I see is like you have great people who it's like the journey is hard, like being steeped in the business for years and wearing all the hats, like it's very hard. So it's, it's very natural to kind of get disillusioned somewhere along the way. And look for the easy button. So I guess having the perspective and kind of coming back to the coaching, like talking to someone who's like, can kind of bring you back down to earth is like, hey, there's no, there's not a finish line. It's like you're going to hit $800,000 and put a general manager in place and then you can make six figures tomorrow. It's like there's, you're going to have to guide and support this person. You might go through 2 or 3 managers before you actually figure out how to manage the manager. So I think it's normal. It's the same, it's like destination thinking. It really helps when you're struggling in the moment, but we know that's just not how reality works. So yeah, in some ways it's kind of a tool that I think people subconsciously use is like, "Man, if I could just get here, everything will finally get better." It's like, no, the game just changes. The goalpost just moves. So thinking about that and then kind of approaching Managing managers, like, okay, this is going to be more work in the short term until I develop the skill. And once I develop the skill, that's when things get fun because then you know what the expectations are, you know how you play into that, how to guide and support them. And you're like, okay, now it's basically like as I bring guys up and we've seen owners inside of Augusta do this, it was like they keep bringing team members up and they almost can't bring them up or—

Can't start locations fast enough.

Yeah, they can't start locations fast enough because they have all these guys and it's What they've done is they've solved the leadership constraint. They went through the first 2 managers, which was like a huge lift. But then once they got that skill, they have the liquidity because they have all the first few locations that are spitting out profits. Now it's like, dude, we have all these people trying to, trying to come up within the organization. And now they just, they've solved leadership constraint. They just keep putting people in place.

Yeah. So awesome. Well, thank you for coming on. Uh, for anyone that might have questions about coaching, general managers and just all the experience that Nick might have, feel free in the comments, drop it down below. I know on behalf of all of Augusta Nation though, big thank you to you and really developing the coaching program, but also all the other levels of support you do for the owners is certainly the coach's role of behind the scenes, watching me on stage and the content I make. And I get a lot of praise, but a lot of the backend, the, the little, what are they, the pause of the, not the pause, The duck. The duck.

Like underwater.

Nick is underneath the water making it happen. And I appreciate it tremendously.

So awesome.

Thank you.