My General Manager is Quitting (Mike Andes Interview with Marcus Roberts)

Welcome back to the Mike Andes Podcast, where we discuss the ins and outs of owning a small business. If you're new here, the Mike Andes Podcast is all about starting, maintaining and growing your small business. Today is an interview with Marcus Roberts, who until now was the general manager over at the Augusta Bellingham location. Marcus is one of the best and brightest to come from the Augusta family. Starting in the field, moving to estimator, and finally landing the general manager role at the age of 19. Marcus is now moving on and starting his own location in my Mike has a ton of questions for him. As always, you can find the video version of this interview over on the Mike Andy's YouTube channel, but let's see what insights Mike and Marcus have to offer.

Thank you everyone for hopping on here. This is another interview and we've done one with Liz, we did one with Brian from Command center, and now this is Marcus. Marcus Roberts. He is the general manager at the Bellingham location, which is the very first Augusta lawn care location. And before he gets started, because I don't know he's going to ask me, but I'm going to ask him a couple questions to break the ice. And let me first say, though, that in my opinion, Marcus is probably one of the most impressive young men I've ever met in my whole life. And I probably don't say that enough, but he's phenomenal at what he does. He joined Augusta a couple years back and I've just seen him grow and grow and grow from being out in the field to being an estimator to now being the general manager and in a few months going to go start his own location. Much to my chagrin because I tried to get him to stay as corporate for Augusta, but obviously going and starting his own thing is super good step for him and I'm really looking forward to see what he does. But I just wanted to preface this all by saying you are not listening to a novice. This guy's a phenomenal leader and manager and I really appreciate everything that he does for the local shop, for our team, for Augusta Nation as a whole. He is the quiet worker that does not complain, doesn't really say a whole lot, but leads from, from the, the mid range and I really, really appreciate them. So with that as your platform, Marcus, don't disappoint us in this, in this interview, but a lot of you had asked for interviews to get more information for myself about me and all that stuff. And I instead of having random people ask me questions, I figured the people who know Me best. Should I ask those questions? And so Marcus is one of those people that sees me occasionally once a week now, but. Cool. We'll go ahead and kick it off. Feel free to say anything about yourself.

I have a ton of questions. But yeah, I want to thank you first off for. For really everything. It's only been since 2019. I started with you, so only a couple years. It's been. But since that time, I really moved from Montana, moved to Washington. Here, obviously I didn't really have a lot of direction. I don't know if I wanted to go to college, what I wanted to do, but really I stumbled upon Augusta. My first interview was with Liz.

Your last interview with myself was you behind the camera, breathing very heavily. Yeah, exactly. That's where you might. You might remember in case you hear that voice, in case you notice that breathing. Like I've heard that before somewhere.

I've never been in the crosshairs of the Internet quite like that. So that was pretty nice to feel. I appreciate that.

Sorry, go ahead.

I did want to start off with. I did bring you something cuz I'm nice and I brought you a present. What? Here's your present.

Hey, this is gonna.

We. We very rarely do free ads on here, but this is kashi. It's. It's very rare that you get a granola bar that doesn't have a lot of sugar in it. There's quinoa in this chocolate chip, chia seeds. Very good.

Oh man.

So it's very difficult to find something that Mike likes, does a strict keto diet. So this is something I brought for him. No free ads. But Kosh, he got a free ad today.

This is definitely elevate the interview past Liz and Brian's like ratio. So bribes.

Bribes are very much a part of business. And this is how I kind of get by as a bribe. Mike made me bring these.

Awesome. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Those will probably be finished by tomorrow.

I did, yeah. I have a couple of questions for you. Mainly just starting the business. Obviously it started with you. Like I said, 2019. I started sort of in the field for about a year and a half and then I became the estimator and then I worked up. Right now I'm doing the office manager stuff. So end of this year, yeah, I'm starting my own franchise with Augusta. Really I. I owe a lot to you. Not only in. For me getting to learn about sales and becoming an office manager, really running the local shop here. We. We all really have a lot to thank you for, for this local shop here. It's not every day that you get to be part of a mission like this. Really what I tell new applicants when I'm trying to hire them now, I basically say we're like you say we're trying to do to the landscape industry what Amazon did with E Commerce. We want to really completely change the client expectations and really take a fragmented market and really change a client expectations for a professional service. So I really owe a lot of that to you and learning the systems and growing from the systems yourself. Liz neighbor Lee park, who will be on here later. I really owe a lot to you guys. I reflect about it a lot is that especially in this industry, I don't think anybody's had the sport that I've had. I got to learn directly under you, directly under Liz, directly under Lee. And I feel very prepared to start my own business and with Your Grace. The 3F program, it's called at Augusta. If you work in Augusta, this isn't meant to be a salesman, but if you're working in Augusta for two years, you know your numbers, you're coming to the early morning meetings that we do that, talk over the numbers. Get to start your own franchise for free. You get to start your own franchise for free. That's what I'm going to be doing. So I took advantage of that and I really appreciate it. You had a location that was sort of about to close down. It was, it was just sort of its own location. And then I asked you just one day like, hey, can I have this?

And you're like, well, I was going to do a GM location there.

Yeah.

And then last minute, the GM didn't want to move from Idaho, so we just did.

Oh, is that right?

Never really opened it up. We got the trucks, but we never started. We never got a single customer. Yeah. And then you're like, hey, it was.

I, I love how funny it was, is basically I said, hey, can I have this location? You're like, sure. That was the conversation with this. This is the next 10, 15 years of my life. And that's how it started. So I really know, I really do appreciate you, Mike. Everything you've taught us, really the morals, it's changed my life from not really knowing what I want to do. I thought really growing up, the what life was all about was working a 9 to 5. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but going to College, working a 9 to 5 is invest in a 401k. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, go on vacations whenever you have time or whenever your boss allows. And you've really freed me from that mindset. I didn't know there was a mindset like this, in which, like I said yourself, Liz, who really. And Lee, who really built this up from the ground, you really stand by what you say, you know, off camera, whenever the, you know, lights are off, and you really have to grind. You do very much on a daily basis. And that really, it's proof enough that I really want to be a part of this forever with Augustus. I really appreciate everything you've. You've done for me, and I do have some. I will be a little bit selfish here because I do want to ask you some questions specifically about starting my own location.

Go.

So really, in the last.

We can consider this your first monthly coaching.

Yeah, there you go.

You could charge me for this.

We'll track the time, and you'll charge me for this. I look forward, really. I learned a lot about the numbers, key performance indicators, things that make a business successful. And you talk about that a lot in your courses. I want to ask you a little bit more about sort of the mental struggles with starting. Really, like I said, I've had a lot of grace from all you guys. You give me so much support, so much so that I feel like I really need to go prove myself and start my own business. For me to really know what the pain is like. I talk to a lot of our franchisees, and they say some stories that really keeps me up at night. No, really. I mean, I've gotten a lot of support. I learned about estimates, the sales process, the general manager process, and pretty much how to run a whole business. I just don't know how to start it up from the ground.

And the pain that comes from that. So you've told your horror stories before. You've said a lot before about really starting your own business. When you switch from Andy's Lawn Care to Augusta Lawn Care Services, you've really told the horror stories. You know, cut down the wrong fence that cost $30,000. I remember you were also very humble in saying, like, there was at one point where you didn't know if you were gonna make payroll like that. I think about that a lot, actually. I think that's something I very much need to feel in my business. But my question would be, what are sort of the mental struggles with starting your own business or starting your own venture?

The difference, I think when starting, for most people, if they've. Especially if they've gone from being an employee to now Their business owner is as an employee. Even if everything is going bad and you're taking ownership of the business, ultimately the business could fail and you just go get another job as a business owner if that, if you fail, that will follow for the next seven years if you go bankrupt. And everything that you have is tied to that business. Because as much as you want to think that the legal system will protect it, the business will take down someone's personal finances. And so everything, it's not just it's your car, it's your house, it's everything that you have is wrapped up in this business thing. The same way that, you know, a parent would feel everything that their identity and everything is to a child. When you have a business and it's in is running, it's not like you can just walk away from it. Like it's like the grandparents, everyone loves being a grandparent because you be with the kids for a little bit of time and then you walk away from it. And you know, I think for someone like yourself who's been a manager, the difference is you don't get to walk away from it being the owner. It's like you're with it all the time, including at 2 in the morning when it's waking you up and crying like a baby. You have to attend to it. And that can be very psychologically, emotionally hard because there is no off, there is no break, there is no vacation. Because even when you're on vacation, when you're first getting started, you it's still there because there is no, you know, paid time off as a business owner. You have to go produce. And so it's the ultimate Commission's job. It's 100% commission. And you can go negative on commissions in this case. And so I think that that can be very, very taxing on someone emotionally and psychologically and especially if they have dependence, which, you know, you and I both, when we first got started, don't have that. And so it's actually, we have a lot more latitude in the sake of risk. But for people that don't have that, that latitude, that, that's even more, you know, stress and pressure.

Right.

What habits would you advise a new business owner to develop when they're starting a business? Like you said, you have to attend to things at 2am or on weekends or whenever you're on vacation. You're never really legitimately on vacation. What sort of habits did you sort of pick up, especially when you were starting, that you feel at least takes a little bit off the Mental anguish of starting a business.

I think, like I talked about conference last year, it's higher lows and lower highs, right? If you can be emotionally stable in business, investing, leadership, you'll always do better than the average person because the average person is going to be so impacted by, you know, the news, what's happening in their co workers. What's happening? Is the business low on finances or is it doing really, really good? And so I think most people would probably judge me now and say that I'm pretty emotionally stable when it comes to businesses and like business decisions and investing. And I don't get too wrapped up in the emotions of what's going on. But it doesn't take away the sting of like today, you know, firing two people. It still hurts when they say bad things, but you can't let that go into a deep low that's going to prevent you from getting back in the saddle. And so higher lows and lower highs is important. And we talk a lot of times about higher lows. Like, don't get depressed in that scenario. But also if you're going to say that and be emotionally stable, you have to also say that you're going to have lower highs, which is when everything is going good and everyone's cheering your name and thinking you're the best thing in the world and you're killing it, and that you had the best month you've ever had in your small business and you just hired three really great employees. You don't get too excited because if you go on that emotional roller coaster up, there's usually a harsh down. And so whether it be investing, business, management, leadership, relationships, high highs lead to low lows. And that emotional roller coaster of up and down to extremes is what causes most people to quit because it's just so jarring emotionally. Right?

Just prepare yourself. Like you said, higher, lower highs, higher lows, keep consistent, that type of thing. I also know, you know, you work out regularly, you find other sort of ways to detach from business. You would, you would recommend that too.

I can't say I can detach from business. I think those things actually allow me to have some level of consistency and baseline because I might not be able to consistently make money in the business day to day. I might not be able to consistently have employees that love me every single day. I might not be able to consistently have customers that love me every single day. But what I can keep consistent is, did I eat right, did I exercise correctly, did I get decent sleep, did I have a spiritual connection like Those are things that if I, I can keep those stable, typically lead to the higher lows and lower highs because I have something to baseline off of. And what happens is a lot of times when people have low lows, depression or elation of high highs, they start to get out of rhythm and they stop doing the things that keep them baselined. In terms of a lot of the mechanics of did you sleep good, are you eating okay? You know, did you work out or you've just been sitting behind the computer for the past 24 hours? Those are the type of things. And so I just do those things mostly to keep myself relatively baseline even. And you don't like. I don't usually want to work out. I don't usually want to do those things. But it's a requirement to stay emotionally healthy. Right.

When you're looking for a GM or somebody to run your business or a future just leader on a team, what are some qualities or characteristics you kind of look for? Obviously it's not somebody you're not known for. Just hiring somebody that's worked at a corporate for another job and bringing them in that really not always has a good impression on team culture. You really have given it a lot to the employees who have been in the field. They know what it's like, you know, this is lawn care specific. They know what it's like, they move up, they learn about the estimate process and then they become a manager. But what are some things you look for in a GM for one of your franchises or a leader on one of your new teams or really anything as it pertains to the landscape industry?

Yeah, it kind of depends. Like if I hire a gm like I have for some of my out of state locations, I don't even see them in person prior, so I can't build trust very much, much and I can't build any sort of rapport with them. So for you, for example, you know, I saw you for a year, six months I guess, before going to estimator, and then a year of being estimator before you were a gm. So that was easy because I was like, okay, he's a hard worker, he's diligent out in the field. Okay. He's listening to audible program. He's actively trying to improve himself. He's trying to become better, he's saving his money, he's listening to everything we're talking about. He's really trying to become a better person and working on themselves. That's huge. And then that's why he became estimator. And then in the estimator role it's like, okay, he really cares. Like he's willing to push, he's willing to grind when no one else is looking. Those are the characters of a great leader. And so that's when then the GM role is relatively straight lined. What's more challenging when you have to hire a GM that you haven't been able to build that rapport with. And that's more difficult because you really are taking a big gamble, honestly. And so you really like as much as you want to talk about like you know, nonverbal cues and doing background checks and reference checks, like it's simply you are gambling. If you're going to just promote someone directly to a GM like I have in the past and so I don't think there's any science to it, but for myself I have to trust the person. If I don't trust them, if I'm like looking over their shoulder at all, then I'm probably going to fire them within like very, very quickly.

Gotcha. Okay.

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Lee Obviously I get to hear him. We're in the same room. He consults with all of the franchisees for Augusta, so I kind of get to hear a little bit of their conversations as well. But for a company which is a little bit typical with Augusta, that's growing very, very quickly. What are some warning signs you kind of look for? Or when somebody is growing very quickly, what do you kind of think in the back of your head? Like what should they be careful of?

Yeah. When they're growing relief quickly. Have a whole bunch of new employees. That's a bit of a red flag. If they haven't managed people in the.

Past, if they hire a bunch of people at the same time.

Yep. Or like even like say in three weeks to get like four or five employees and they had one last year.

Yeah.

Very, very likely there's going to be a crash because again, you're just Ramping up, high highs become low lows. It's predictable, right? And so the first thing I would say is a warning sign is them ramping up number of employees too quickly when they don't have management experience. Number two would be when the ratio of their project work is very, very high. Because I know what's going to happen. They're going to ride this wave of tons of projects, usually during spring rush, and then they're going to come to summer or winter and those projects dry up and there's no recurring revenue. And so all of a sudden they go, their revenue drops 70, 80%. And that's extremely jarring. And so I think those are two of the things that pop into my mind. First is like growing too quickly leads to usually depending way too much on project based work and then leading to a big crash in revenue. And by the time you get that crash revenue, you've already built up your fixed expenses too high. So then you start to lose money during those times. And then secondarily is you hire so fast because you're growing, which is fantastic and very exciting. But if 15, 20% of your revenue is recurring work, well, when those projects dry up, you're laying people off, you're letting people go. You're stuck with a bunch of trucks that you don't use anymore. And so those are the two things I see usually when someone's quote unquote, growing too fast.

Yeah, build up recurring revenue. So it is a consistent service. And I've really, in the last six months got to see with the general manager sort of position is the schedule. Lee's helped me a lot with this. He kind of a good analogy would be like having a schedule. And scheduling jobs for people is, it's a chess match. Like I've ran into things, right? I looked back at Lee, he sits behind me, I look back and I say, Lee, I don't, I don't think there's a way out of this. Like seriously, there's so many little instances like that that just. I'm very grateful to have Lee right behind me who can guide me through those things. But that's something I have noticed. Recurring revenue is much more consistent and it's much easier to build a business around rather than one time projects which like you said at one point could just be cut off or at one point you get too much and you have to hire certain employees.

And it's common the first year to have a higher percentage of your recurring work coming from projects because you can ramp that much faster. But I get concerned when someone's growing and building infrastructure. Around $100,000 a month business.

Right.

But 85 of that is projects because I know what happens when that slows down.

Right.

So it's very common though in the first year for someone to be 60, 70% project based work. Just don't build infrastructure and put down. Go get a big shop at a bunch of trucks around that size of business because that will come down fast. I'd rather someone really focus on building out the recurring side and the projects will come, but just book them out in the future. Like just book out farther and hopefully fill in those lulls in project based work because there's, you know, booms and busts in, in project based work.

Gotcha. Okay. When I have my franchise, I want to grow it quickly because I do have a bet with Nick.

He's.

He's the franchisee in Marysville, Washington. I have a bet with him. He said I have to do 440,000.

I don't know why this number 440,000.

Revenue in my first year.

First year.

I think I could do it. We'll see.

Yeah. So you need three employees. At least three employees.

I think one person. Just based on Nick's location. If they're super efficient, which they are very much at Nick's location is it could do about 150,000 per person for one year. So I think two. Yeah. Maybe three people and then that. That'll be a quick growth.

But that's 40 their first year.

That's part of the reason I'm asking the question.

Okay, let's go. Maybe now I know. Are you going to get a month earlier out of the local shop? Like I got to get grinding for.

Yeah, I got to start. I'm thinking is this the case is I really want to start almost like January 1st. That way almost all my paperwork is consistent with year end. Would you recommend something like that? Just start? Yeah.

If you start your LLC like the first, you get your business license the first week of the year. That way you don't have to file anything on your taxes for 2022.

That makes sense.

Okay.

I did also have some quick fire yesterday. Do you have any questions for me first? I have a bunch of quick fire, yes or nos.

Go for it.

Okay. These are yes or nos. I hopefully can get you to say something super controversial. That's.

Anything controversial really takes hold very well on the Internet, I've heard. So he's quick fire. Yes or no.

So you can't think about it just yes or no? Can I expand on the.

Well I get. I suppose not all these are yes or no's, but there's a little bit of just asking you again, quick fire questions mostly. These will all pertain to just business in general, not necessarily the landscape.

Super controversial like abortion.

If you could get. Yeah, I think the haters would really like that.

Gotta get those clicks in there.

Absolutely. So first couple questions and then I did a little bit of googling. So back in your MBA days. I'm gonna ask you some specific questions. Let's go see how much you really know.

Quiz me on my mba.

Let's go, let's go. So quick fire. So you can't think about it. Three things you look for in an applicant.

Good eye contact.

Confident confidence in their references and their appearance. That's so bad. Their appearance during the interview. Like they're. They're non verbal cues.

Oh, I see.

Yeah.

So like eye contact.

Well that's the first one that's iconic except for then like the way they sit, if they cross their arms.

All right, we'll count it. Best platform to market on.

Ooh, right now I would probably say Google, but Facebook's coming back.

Really?

Yeah.

What's the most underrated platform in the.

Market on right now for home service? It's still Google. Local services right now.

What is an entrepreneur?

Someone that's stupid enough to think that they have to start their own business.

All right, these next questions. Quick fire again, MBA days.

Okay.

Some of these are multiple choice. Okay, so let me finish my question.

Oh, okay. Okay, cool.

Short term financing is obtained for a period of less than what?

Well, it depends. Are we talking business finance?

You got it. What's the answer?

Typically 12 months.

Yeah, that's correct. What is the type of business entity that issue shares?

Any corporation can. But typically a C corporation.

Okay. Small businesses account for what percent of GDP each year in the U.S. 10%, 25%, 50 to 75% or 75% plus.

I'm going to say 50 to 75%.

Yeah, that's correct.

Let's go.

That maybe I think it's like 60. I think the studies from like 2010, that number's got to be less now. Now it's got to be less. Products or materials on hand for a business is called what cost of goods.

No, wait, no. On inventory.

Yes, that's correct.

This is a type of business owned by a government. Is it A, a manufacturing business, B, a cooperative, C, a crown corporation, or D a nonprofit C. That's correct. The Dow Jones Is made up of how many stocks?

Oh, dude, the S And P is 500. Honestly, I think. Let me think about this.

Oh, you can't think. This is quick fire.

Oh, it's 100.

No, it's not.

Sick. Dow. Dow Jones.

Is it like, I thought he knew his stuff. Internet. I thought he knew his stuff.

It's really low. It's like.

It is low. It's pretty low.

It's like 50, isn't it?

Lower?

25.

Oh, it's 30.

Is it. Is it fixed at 30?

I don't know. I think so.

Because I go up in time.

I think it's just 30 and it stays 30. Like, so s P is always.

But I think the Dow but does something.

I think so, yeah.

Oh, I didn't know that I knew the S, P500. Like, if they put someone in, like last year, they had Etsy, Tesla, then they have to kick two people out. So I have to look at it.

Yeah. I guess we'll have to Google it. The Internet will let us know. The comment section will let us know. Yeah, that's pretty much all I had.

Let's go.

I. I was gonna mix this question in here. What is your Social Security number? To see if maybe he'd give it out, But I don't. I didn't think I would get him. I would have had to mix it in random. We would have paid application.

Yeah.

Well, cool. I did have a couple questions. Just different from landscaping, the lawn care industry. More about just real estate. And you've got into software. Obviously, you do a lot of different ventures, but what we're in right now is one of your rental units. So it's seven units right here. Is that right?

10.

10 units. Okay. The Tiki Apartments.

A couple of these. You and Liz. Liz being the property management company that kind of runs these for you, you've changed some of these. How many units to Airbnbs?

There's two Airbnbs, and then there are seven rentals, and then I live in the. The tenth one.

Gotcha.

Okay.

Gotcha. I know you made the switch. You started with one, and then did you find out as a pretty good source of income? Well, I mean, right now, just based on what you're saying, there's. There's some things going on. Did you get a bad review or something on Airbnb?

I don't know, man. It's all up into the right now. We got some bad reviews about smoke stuff, but we're figuring it out. But no, I mean, we did the first one which is like on the other side of this wall. Okay. And it was like, hey, this is really good. We're doing twice as much revenue every month compared to the rent. And, you know, why don't we just do the one next door? Because at the same time, we were doing a turnover in number eight we want to make next door to me. So I'm in number nine. That's number ten. That's number eight.

You said you get twice as much as if you were to rent it out.

Rent it out monthly.

Really?

Yeah.

All of these, are they month by month or are they six month or a year?

Oh, 12 months. Yeah. At least 12 months. Yeah. Year long lease.

Gotcha. Why don't you move all these Airbnb, or is that the goal?

It's. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of cleaning and things like that. So Liz is systematizing it and then she's going to hand it off to someone that will bring the margins down a little bit. I want to see how we do throughout a winter. I feel like this location will do good because it's so centralized to the city, like hospital, the mall, Western Washington University. So I think it'll do good during the winter. But I want to prove that because if the revenue drops down to like fifteen hundred dollars a month, well, I might as well be renting it then.

Right, Right.

So I want to play with seeing. Okay. Does it do well as an Airbnb during the winter? And then two, could I potentially only do Airbnb for six months and then rent it as a fully furnished unit for say, 22, 23 hundred dollars a month for six months and actually beat out Airbnb for six months? So I gotta play with that and see if that works. And then I don't think I'd turn them all into Airbnb's, but I could be proven wrong because, like, literally the cash flow is incredible.

Right.

It's fantastic. Those two units alone pay for the entire mortgage of this entire apartment complex.

You think that mostly has to do with Bellingham being kind of a town in which people come and they go skiing up the mountains, then they go over to the ocean. There's a lot of things near us.

There's really no. Not been a lot of commonalities with what people. Because when people come book on Airbnb, they tell you why they're coming. Right. So I've seen everything from a lot of mountain bikers to people that's coming for Western Washington University events, to hospital people to people coming for conferences. Like, it's a very diverse. It's a lot of outdoor stuff, though, because Bellingham is kind of known for that. But people will come for, like, a brewery event, a music thing. Like, it's very kind of like all over the place. So what's nice about that is it should create some consistency during the winter. Whereas, like, the Airbnb that we're starting down south is like a tiny house in the middle of a farm. I don't think that's going to do very well during the winter because more of a destination.

Right.

But I think I'll be able to get three times as much per night during the summer when everyone wants to be there.

That'd be really interesting to see how those tiny houses do.

Yeah.

You could have multiple on that lot. I saw that lot of you could have multiple. I mean, you know, there's. There's going to be the shop down there. But also I think you start a little community.

Community.

Your neighbors would really love you. You'll have a huge commercial landscape business, and then I'll have a community of tiny houses. You've given me a lot of information, like guys that know their stuff. This is not necessarily real estate, but just anything economics and finance, which I'm kind of starting to get into in those courses and things. Kind of macroeconomics, more type of things. And obviously there's Tom Nash. He talks a lot about stocks. There's Meet Kevin, who talks about real estate, stocks, the psychology of money, everything like that. But are there certain audible books or certain courses that you've taken before that's really helped you other than those guys?

Yeah. Like, got to keep in mind with YouTube and investing, as with any influencer, that they get less views when they actually produce really good content. That is helpful because what's going to get more views is talking about the hottest stock.

Right.

And if you look at me, Kevin and Tom Nash, since you mentioned those two, both of them are massively lost in the stock market over the past six months because they invested in very speculative stocks, whether that be a firm or Palantir.

I lost a lot of money in Palantir. Because you listen to Tam.

Yeah. And you had no idea what they did. And you're like, oh, you said I should buy it. I'm just gonna buy it. Yeah, I know.

That's exactly what he said.

He.

He was very convincing.

So maybe.

Maybe I'll do my research next time.

So in terms of learning about investing and things, like, obviously I had a bit of A head start. Because the MBA just learned about macroeconomics. Like I understand how to read a financial statement. So like, I really backed out of a lot of those stocks in October, September, October of 2021. Because like I can look at a financial statement like this. This company will never, ever make sense on paper. They're the total addressable market that they specifically say is, will never. Even if they had 100% market share, the financials and the earnings per share that they would come up with, still doesn't make sense from an economic standpoint. Like they'll never be worth this much money. And so.

Unfortunately though, that's what people buy into. Because if it's gone up, people think it's a good stock, right? Just because something's gone up does not mean it's a good stock. And just because it's come down does not mean it's a good, it's a bad stock. It simply is a track of emotions in the market. And so you got to look at the actual earnings. You gotta look at the actual financial statements. Like, people don't realize that some of these companies do. Oh, they do $10 billion in revenue, great. But they have $40 billion worth of debt. They're insolvent. And so that's not a company that is very, you know, friendly to a investor that's conservative on things and doesn't, you know, it's not gonna 10x, right. You're not going to buy a conservative stock. And it has a 10, 15, 10 to 15 price to earnings ratio. And it's not going to triple in revenue, it's not going to triple in, in price in the next year. And people don't want that. They want the fast gains. And so that's what unfortunately people like Kevin and Tom Nash, they really emphasize, like if you look at all the stock picks that Tom Nash has talked about over the past 12 months, literally more than 50% of them are under 80% down. Whether it be like you can just go down the list from FUBU to there's a whole bunch of them. There's a whole bunch of them. Not Fubo tv, but there's a whole bunch of them. Solar panel stuff, drug administrative companies, like all that good stuff, right.

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Is there anybody though that you recommend that doesn't necessarily have a lot of views or more so probably the Audible books, right? It's. It's more so like you're writing a book. You're not necessarily. I mean you, you still are looking for an audience for people that you know so you could sell more. But are there certain books or you just. Because I know you're somebody that obviously you listen to people, you see what other people are saying, but you also do the research. You go on a Yahoo. Finance or whatever it is and you see their actual income statement, their balance sheet, where things are going. But I also have a tough time because I've done that before. It's very much. I almost get analysis paralysis. It's like there's so many numbers to look at and there's so many things that are different with each industry. Like you know, you look at airlines versus a different industry. It's like what looks bad on an income statement might just be the industry norm. So are there certain like industries you're certainly follow or how do you kind of.

There's two different approaches, right? Like I think from an investing standpoint, most people should just invest in an index fund, something like the S&P 500 or the spy or in Vanguard's index funds like you know, Total World Index, like VT or VTI or vto. So those are great stocks or place to invest. I think for the majority of people that's what they should do because that's what's best for them financially and emotionally. So they don't have 90% drops, right? Because most people the reason they lose in stocks, not because they choose the wrong stocks, it's because they get out the wrong times. And so by having an index fund that only goes up 10, 15, 20% in either direction, it's much easier to get through the down times and you don't exit the game.

But from that's the investing side for most people, that's what they should do for most people. From an education side, I think that most people should invest in the index funds and then go learn about what actually a financial statement is all about. What price to earnings ratio means, what earnings per share means, how to read a balance sheet, how to read a financial statement, how to understand a PEG ratio like, what does that mean? Those are the things that are really good to know. Not because you're going to even invest in individual stocks, just because it's good information. And so I kind of had the. I was fortunate to. When I went to the MBA school thing, it didn't help me a lot my business, but it gave me a lot of confidence on the first part, which is like reading financial statements, reading balance sheets and not being overwhelmed by them. Right. Seeing billions of dollars and like, okay, that makes sense. But I'm looking at this ratio, I'm looking at this one thing. I'm looking at, did you know capital expenditure, the KPIs. Yeah. And so that, that is the part people need to learn. And I don't really from an investing standpoint, most people, 99% of people should just put money in index funds, but I think that every single person should also know how to read a balance sheet.

Right.

Know how the financials. Like, why did PayPal just go up 11% after hours? Why?

Right.

Why? Like, it broke a certain cycle of going down in revenue and declining market share. You break that, that's a really good signal if you're investing in growth. Well, what about if you're investing in something that's no. 6, a 6 price to earnings ratio, Something like a, like a Intel. Well, it's declining revenues, it's losing market share. It's not growing, but it's super profitable. It kicks out of tons of cash. What's the value equation? One gives a dividend. What's that gonna give you? A little bit of money every single year. Whereas you're not gonna get that from PayPal. So those are the type of things that people should learn. And I think that for some people, they jump into the one off stocks way too soon and their price to learn those things is way too high. When they should just invest in, in vt, vti and just stick with those and then go spend like 100 bucks on a random stock that you think is good. Because if you do that now you're going to listen to their earnings statements, earning calls. Now you're actually like, look at their price to earnings. You're going to see like, why did their stock go up? Why they go down? Okay, today it went down. There's no news about the stock. Why? Oh, it's because someone just invaded another country. Or like today Pelosi goes over to Taiwan and everyone's like, oh my word. This is, this could be more like stress and pressure between China and Taiwan because now the US is going to Taiwan, they're sending their House of Representatives. So like, that's the type of thing that is important to know, like how all of this stuff affects the market and why.

What you're saying is invest a small amount. That way you have some skin in the game so that you have more incentive to actually follow what the company's doing.

Yeah, and I really don't care if someone invests in individual stocks. Most people should not. You usually lose more money than just investing in a regular index fund. But from an education standpoint, it's extremely valuable to know that stuff.

Right.

And I think if you have a little bit of skin the game, you'll look at the headlines a little bit differently. You might read an article about a certain company and learn something new simply because you have $100 in that company. Right. So now I have still a lot of my stock portfolio in individual companies, but I also feel like I have above average understanding of the financials. Right. Not phenomenal. I'm not confident enough to go speculate on. Companies are going to 10x. No idea, no inside information. Sorry.

But yeah, for somebody that doesn't necessarily want to start their own business or, you know, just likes their job, you know, likes their place in life and they just want to invest passively, you would recommend something like that. Just a little bit of edge. You know, obviously an index fund for most people, maybe 90 of people, but an index fund or having a little bit of skin in the game, just like your spare change. Invest like acorns. You've talked to us about things of that nature or what my dad talks about a lot is a Roth ira. Roth ira, yeah. Things of that nature would recommend. Because really last week I was talking to Nick in Marysville about really how important it is, especially these days with, you know, and people always use this excuse, but things that are going on in the country like wealth inequality or, you know, people not having as much money, like the poor and middle class don't have as much money, student loans are higher, things of that nature. What Nick said that really kind of struck a chord with me is like, you don't so much really have a choice anymore. You kind of have to do invest. Even if it is like in a Roth IRA or a 401K or something like that, you, you do need to invest in, in things to be successful and to be financially free. How much more importance would you place on that now versus when you were just getting started in business or is that just something the media hypes up.

In terms of like IRAs, 401ks, etc.

Yeah, just how important it is for somebody to not necessarily be an investor, like invest in certain stocks or real estate or a business, but just taking steps to become more financially free. How, how much more important do you think that is now?

Well, Leah, like I truly believe that if we just stripped away the high school system and just taught people financial, personal education, like financial education for them personally, we'd be like leagues ahead of where we're at right now. I think we need to read, do math, a little bit of math in primary school, and then we need to learn about personal finances.

Kiyosaki would agree with that.

So, but, but so the small steps. I think that how you invest is going to depend on two things. One, what are your end goals? And two, how much money do you have now? If you have, if you're, if you have like three or $4,000 a year, you should absolutely be looking into an IRA, right? Because that's going to protect that money from taxes and you're going to be able to put it into an index fund or any stocks and that's going to grow tax efficiently. Secondarily. If your goal is to retire when you're 65, 70 years old and have a million and a half, $2 million, probably same strategy should be followed. So you got to look at how much am I investing and what are my goals down the road. Now, if your goals are, I want to become a billionaire, I don't care how much you put in an IRA, it's not going to become $1 billion.

Even 10 million, like it's not going to happen. You're going to, you have to do real estate or leverage something or start a business, you're going to do something more. And then the second thing is if you have $100,000 a year, $200,000 a year to invest again, investing, you know, three grand into an HSA Health Savings Account and six grand into an IRA is not going to make a huge difference in your financial education, in your financial future, because you have a hundred thousand. Why would I even care about investing six grand? And so I think those are the big things you got to look at because like, if you have a hundred grand a year to invest, you should be looking at real estate, you should be looking at other vehicles that are going to have much better return.

And, you know, skimping or like getting so worried about your IRA, $6,000 in there. When you're saving maybe $1500 or $2,000 a year in taxes. That's why you do the IRA. Well, you have a hundred thousand, right. Your goal is to make your own billionaire. So how much money you have now and what your goals of investing are should be the indicators as to how you should be investing now.

Gotcha. Okay.

And you're going to take steps, right? Like some people, if you only have three, four or $5,000 now, that's fine. Like do an IRA, start putting some money aside, like, you know, focus on those sort of things. But like as you begin to grow, okay, now get an FHA loan, get some real estate, house, hack it, get an Airbnb. Okay, now I've got a little more money coming out. 20, 30 grand. Okay. AM I going to get another piece of real estate? Am I going to get another loan for a house and get some. Now I'm going to have four or five rental properties or am I going to go put this in the stock market? Am I going to potentially own my own business where I can turn that $30,000 into a couple hundred thousand? Like that's, that's the progression that most will take unfortunately 20, 30 years to realize when it literally can take 5 to 10.

Right.

And so.

Yeah, well, thank you. That's, that's pretty much all the questions I had. My last thing just touches on software a little bit. I just want to ask you about, you know, obviously we're developing, developing a software right now and kind of the quirks with how that's working. A lot of people say.

Software is a lot more expensive and it takes a lot longer to develop than you might think. Would you, would you agree with that? And I just want to ask like, since it's so alien to me, what are some of the struggles you've had with really investing in software and developing a software?

Yeah, like unfortunately finding developers in the past years has been the hardest because everyone wants to build a tech something and all these tech companies had so much money because they just got massive amounts of, you know, all the stimulus money went to Apple buying iPhones and the likes of them. And so they have tons of money to throw. Literally a couple months ago, Apple literally just gave a hundred thousand dollar bonus to all their developers. Just randomly, $100,000 cash. Like you can't compete with that.

Right.

And so very high demand for developers right now. Yeah. And you can always outsource it to like countries and pay someone like 30, $40 an hour in, you know, Bangladesh. But then you're fighting like they do sloppy code, they don't follow Kind of the nomenclature of coding. And I know enough about coding to know, like, good code versus bad code. If I can't read it, there's usually a problem because, like, if you have someone who's good at organizing their code, they have how they document how things are done, it costs way more, it takes way longer, and you're going to have to spend money on usually someone that is, you know, in North America to really have a better grasp of the code itself. So, you know, you can get away with hiring it out, right? Outsourcing at 20, 30, $40 an hour. But then you just, you just make up for all that savings in extra time that you have to educate yourself, organize things. If someone, you know, disappears for three weeks, you got to, like, find someone new. So we just kind of bit the bullet and I've just been plugging away at it. Hopefully the bulk of the investment in the code should be over the next few months because we're redesigning it. And there's several pieces of key features I want to implement, but it should come down in terms of expenses after that.

Gotcha. Very cool. That's pretty much all the questions I had. I really thank you. There's, like I said at the beginning of the show, it's. I've really very. Been very blessed to have worked under you. I get to ask you random questions like this on a daily basis, and I annoy you, you know, during the night or just about questions and about stocks and real estate and finance and things like that. But like I said, a huge testament and I owe everything to you. I really didn't have a direction at all, but having some sort of platform with Augusta Lawn Care Services and seeing how systems operate and what a healthy business looks like, what an unhealthy business looks like, what are the KPIs in the business? How do you know if you're being successful or if you're just doing everything for show? Things like that. You've learned me that I could really take with me forever. And I could also teach to the people after me when I do leave this location in the Bellingham, you know, I'm really going to do my best to teach this to other people. I mean, like I said, it, hopefully it will be a spider web of you. You. You kind of start, you teach everybody. You teach all of our franchisees on a consistent basis. You have your YouTube platform, Lawn Care bookkeeper. You have all these different businesses that teaches people how to. How to run things for themselves. And that's something, you know we really appreciate. And I really. Like I said, I can't thank you enough for the things you've taught me in the past three years. For me to just go start my own business, I'm very confident I can. I just have to feel the pain now. Like you said, starting your own business, that's the only thing I haven't felt.

You were going to start last. Last fall. And I was like, hey, man, give me one year as a gm and I'm really happy, honestly. Like, I. I second guess myself a little in the spring. I'm like, man, did I hold them back. Like, I know you really wanted to go get your teeth, really sink it into something, but I think having the experience at the local shop with so many guys and seeing drama and having to fire and hire and having a schedule that's, like, unmanageable and having to figure things out, like, I think it'll put you ahead of someone like Nick, who has all the skills and all the rest of it, but, like, he's had to learn that massive skill of management is a whole different ballgame.

Right.

Compared to, like, even business. And doing the work itself, managing people is like a whole different ballgame.

Right.

So you got leagues that.

That's why.

No. 440. I think you could do it because, like, for you, three or four employees, you like, oh, it's a breeze, dude.

Yeah, exactly.

You're used to so many more.

Yeah, that was the main part of the question of growth. I want to grow quickly, but I also don't want it to come tumbling down. So lower highs, hard.

You'll be fine because you got all the. Man. It'll be a breeze because you're so used to so many guys. It'll be like, man, this is not hard at all. I only get a few emails a day.

I get to start with managing myself. I'll call out on myself. How about that?

Oh, man. Cool. Well, we got to make sure we get more likes on this video than Brian's. That's right, because that is the. The running joke that they have computers going, multiple computers in command center. They go around and trip the video on and push, like, for their own video. So make sure you like the video. Marcus, thank you for coming on.

Thank you.

And maybe we'll have you on again before you leave the premises. You're happy, breathing. See you guys.

This has been the Mike Andes podcast. We hope you enjoyed this conversation between Mike and Marcus, and we wish Marcus the best of luck with his future endeavors. And if you like this we have tons of lectures, interviews and more over on the Mike Andy's YouTube channel. That'll be right up your alley. Anyway, that's all we got for you today. We'll see you next time.