Personal Note from Mike: Managing Expectations

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. I am recording this on my iPhone while I'm driving and I'm actually going from the gym to the office. And so I don't know if I'm gonna keep doing these, but what I want to do and the reason I am making this is almost sort of a bit of a diary, like an audio diary. I hate writing. Diaries have never worked for me, like writing down what I'm thinking. I love audio. I'm really good at remembering audio. And so my thought process is I've always wanted to share more about the businesses. Not so much because I want people to know, but because.

If I was my 18 year old self, I would have wanted to hear from someone 10 years ahead of me and hear what they're thinking on a daily basis. Not prepared videos for YouTube or more polished stuff, but just the like, what are they actually struggling with. And sometimes when you watch videos of people that have what you are trying to attain towards, usually in the way of success or money, you can pick up on little things that they're struggling with or maybe you know they're going through a situation in their family or you know that they're going through a business acquisition or you know that they're going through a rough spot where there's a lot of customer service issues or you know, these things, but you don't actually get to see how they react to it. What you do get to see though is five years later when they are quote, unquote winning and those things are behind them and really they don't come up anymore. It's not like in their bio, the rest of their speaking career, they're like, yes, and six years ago when we first got started, there was a gazillion customer complaints and we didn't know if we were going to have an money to make payroll. What you hear is they built a $100 million business. Like that's all you hear. And so somewhat for myself to stay grounded, when I think that that'll become an inevitable result down the road for myself, is to have this as a track record of what actually the pain was and actually like have it recorded I think would be interesting. And in saying that I understand some people think that it is out of pride to say that, oh, I'm become super wealthy and so I'm going to document this.

Okay, probably is to some extent. I would say though that I'm very confident it's going to happen. Not because I'm great, but because like the trajectory where the businesses are going and the people behind it. And the vision is big enough for the business to become of size enough to where, you know, billion dollar is not like out of the question. And I want to make an exit eventually one day. That is the public stock exchange. And I think it'd be really cool if when I do that, it's not just we're all winning 20 years from now, but rather here's actually the struggle of getting off the ground. And I've tried to do that in the past with and doing more of a vlog style. But the problem with that is it takes a whole bunch of other people and it is difficult to craft a story that is interesting to watch. Audio on the other hand, is a lot easier because I can just literally record this on my iPhone and I'm literally driving right now from the gym to the office. And so my thought is I can share here the behind the scenes of what I'm doing right now to build Augusta Copilot PVP software and the media that we are trying to build and that whole situation. And I don't know how in depth I want to share because usually when I start sharing numbers and things, usually I get in trouble because people misuse the information or use it against me in some way and then I back off, which is never fun, whether it be someone internal or a competitor or whatever. But I also. The reason I still push against that temptation to just like bottle it all up is because if I was 18, I would have wanted to know these things and I would have wanted someone to talk openly and honestly about the struggles of getting something off the ground. And so we'll see. I'm gonna record this episode. It usually takes me about 10 minutes or 8 minutes I guess to get from the gym to the office and I'll record my thought of the day. And the problem again with this is usually my thoughts are around things that are actually happening in my business, which typically mean it deals with employees, franchisees, vendors, suppliers, contractors, people I am working with. And the risk in that is that they hear this and they somehow misuse it or they think that I am against them and I'm trying to like shame them when in reality I'm trying to document this for my 18 year old self that would have really benefited from hearing that. The actual moments in the fire instead of just the post op and the Monday morning quarterbacking of success. And I don't wanna fall into that trap. I wanna have this record to keep me grounded and to be able to pass on to Other people that say, I wanna become successful, I'm like, great, it's not so cool. My first five years of Augusta, I was working out in the field every single day. The last five years, every single person watching this, or if you're watching, listening to this now, you've only got to know me in the past five years because that's when I. And that's when the business started becoming profitable and I turned that profit into the media and into software and franchise, et cetera. And so no one knows about those other stories. Like the five years of stuff that I went through. At the beginning, I didn't really document anything. I don't have any record of me working 100 hour work weeks and working all night doing billing and then not waking up because there was no sleep and going out and working and mowing grass and.

Switching out my shirt multiple times throughout the day because I had a rash underneath it and sweat and my throat would get all.

Swollen up and I couldn't breathe very well because I was allergic to the grass. So I'd have to start really early in the morning because by 11, 12 o' clock I couldn't even hardly see because my eyes would get swell shut. Like no one sees that stuff. And I think it's always a matter of like, I regret not being able to have that recorded and I don't want to wake up in 10 more years and wish that I would have documented all this process of what we're building currently. And so that's why I'm doing these. So if you enjoy this, I need to know some somewhere other than where you're listening now, because right now where you're listening, you can't make comments on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, etc. So if you want to hear this stuff, I need to know about it somewhere else, like, I don't know, Facebook group.

YouTube, I guess you can make a comment. Usually I see most of those. So here we go. So today's thought is about expectations and.

The challenging part of running a business and knowing that you have expectations from employees, expectations from partners, expectations from family, and managing those is important. And we can all say that we don't care what other people think. That's a bunch of baloney because I've just never seen any human being that can actually operate without the actual care what other people think of them, their business, etc. I have never yet seen one person. And I would actually be very concerned if that was ever to happen because you would not be human and because we are human. We actually care what other people think. I think there are varying degrees of that. And whether or not someone changes their behavior based upon other people's opinions is a trait that I think is worthwhile trying to develop. However, we all care what other people think. And so.

Right now, the challenge for myself is managing expectations. And for Copilot, I've tried my very best this whole year. 2023, we're coming to the end right now. I've been very clear with people that, hey, look, we are not ready for prime time and we are playing CA all of 2023, and we won't be considered, quote unquote, better than everyone else until the end of 2024, which is a whole nother year away. Like 12 more months, 365 days, and tens of thousands of developers hours before I feel like we are actually going to hit that spot. The problem is expectations run askew sometimes. And sometimes when you actually try to damper expectations, people hear something else. And that is, oh, this is something I need to get on right now. And it's so good when you're like, no, I'm literally telling you it's not, and you gotta give me some time. And what I something I look up to in terms of managing expectations and kind of like not looking up to as much as being somewhat amazed by is Elon Musk. Like, the guy literally comes out four years ago and talks about a cybertruck, says it's going to be out the next year. And then four years later, we're still talking about, you know, now the first ones are being made and they're coming off the assembly line. And so maybe, maybe you can get it next year, which means you're going to wait a minimum of five years before that truck is actually in your hands. And somehow he has 5X'd his delivery date. So from one year to five years, he has doubled the price of the truck in that time. And yet people are still raving to get the truck. Here's the thing. I think that we think that however, there are. The vast majority of people's expectations have been dashed. And the question is, is he responsible for that? And how does he even survive and actually get through his life with the. The noise of the 80% of people that are disappointed because their expectations have not been met. The people who got on the waiting list put their hundred dollars down and now are, you know, super mad that it hasn't come out two, three, four, five years later. And so could he have done a better job of setting those expectations, probably he could have been like, hey, we don't know when this is going to come out, but we're working on it. That might have been a little bit better. But even still, it's a matter of, as a business owner, we are constantly, regardless of what size you're at, you are constantly selling, you are having to sell and manage expectations at the same time. Because, for example, he had to sell the cybertruck in order to get enough support from shareholders in order to actually be able to spend the past four to five years of R and D building the truck. Because if he didn't have enough support and he didn't sell it correctly, like if he didn't show the truck, for example, and it wasn't this big controversial thing, they didn't have a big show and tell kind of thing, there wouldn't have been enough support from the shareholders for four or five years throughout a pandemic to actually put money towards developing the infrastructure like an entire gigafactory required for that truck to be built. And so the challenging part of any business that is growing is you have to, at the same time, you know every problem, issue, customer service problem, you know, bug, if it's software, at the same time, you do know that you must be able to sell the product and be able to get people on board with the vision. Because if you don't, you'll never actually have the fuel enough to actually get through the like Elon calls it production hell for Model 3. You'll never actually be able to get through that if you don't sell the vision. And so it's a very much of a cat and mouse type situation, chicken, egg type situation. It's like, okay, do I have to create a great product and then go sell it? Do I have to create this perfect service business and then be able to go get great talent, then be able to get more customer, et cetera, or do I have to sell it? Sell that, we do a great job and then use that momentum to be able to go find the customers and find the great. And so that's the challenging thing that I'm kind of dealing with right now, is setting expectations. Also having to sell like copilot is going to change the game. It is different than everybody else, here's why we're different, etc. While at the exact same time, you know every single issue inside the business, you know what every single fault, failure and risk potential of failure is, and you're like, well, that's software, okay? In every Small business is the case because you know, you want to grow the business and you're going to have to sell your general manager, your mid level managers and your employees on staying with you. And you're going to have to sell them on this vision that is not currently in front of you. It is not. You are not currently attaining it. It is far in the future. And in order for them to stay, you have to sell them on that vision that is actually not yet a reality. And if you don't sell them on the vision, they will leave. And if they leave, the vision will never become a reality anyways. And so this is like, in my opinion, something that you deal with at every size of business, assuming you are growing. And that is you gotta sell employees, you gotta sell customers, you gotta sell vendors, you gotta sell partnerships on the vision. At the exact same time, while knowing all the failures and faults of your business, because at the same time you've gotta go sell a new employee and a key hire on joining your company, you also know all the problems with the business. And yes, you can have radical candor and you can tell them exactly what's going on and you can be upfront and honest about what the flaws of the business or their position are or, or what you're currently struggling with. However, the expectations can still remain unchecked. And the question is, do you scale back what you sell the vision on? That's the question. Do you scale back the vision and be like, hey, this is an okay product. I'm not gonna sell it, I'm not gonna advertise it. In doing that, you might actually put at risk the vision of ever realizing what the full potential of the business or the product is because you don't get enough momentum behind it. And so I'm not necessarily making a point. I'm talking about something that I'm still learning and trying to develop and currently working through with Copilot and even Augusta. But Augusta is a little bit further down the road and the value proposition is more clear. But with Copilot, it isn't clear to some people in terms of the immediate, and I would like completely agree with them, I'd be like, look, I have told people this already, but like, if I was choosing a CRM right now based upon what is currently in front of me and everything was held constant, I would not choose Copilot. But I have to sell the vision because I know it's going to happen. And in order, if I can, if I can continue to sell the vision of what it's going to become and get a momentum behind me, the vision will actually take place because I need the capital, I need the support, I need the customers, I need the contractors, I need the key hires to join the team. And if I don't sell the vision, the vision will never actually come to fruition. And so I'm talking about software, I'm talking about like these things, but in any of our small businesses, this is happening. You're selling customers. You have to go make a sale today on a project, a job that you know you made a mistake on last year, that you know you could potentially mess up, that you know potentially one of your employees could make a mistake on. And you know that's happened in the past. And at the exact same time, you have to sell to this customer. And you can set expectations all you want, but if you're gonna promise a certain product, you've gotta deliver on it. And you will be held and judged not based upon the product, but based upon the expectations that the customer had of the product. And yeah, that's what I'm currently thinking about. So. Alright, I'm at the office. Been sitting here too long. If you like this sort of random podcast, let me know. Again, you're not gonna be able to tell me in the comments because there are no comments on the podcast. You're gonna have to tell me someplace else. And if this is helpful, maybe I'll keep doing it in the future and maybe, maybe, maybe, just maybe, I'll feel more brave to share more numbers and things that we're going through in the businesses. I love you all have a great day. Take care.