Pro+ Introduction | LandscapeBusinessCourse.com

Hi, it's Mike again and thank you for checking out Pro plus. I just want to kind of give a little bit of a history as far as why I started ProPlus and exactly what you get when you join the group. And so all this information is really below in the text below, but I wanted to kind of just so you could see me face to face and talk to you about it. So I know this is not a cheap thing to buy, especially you're just starting out. So that's why I want to give you as much information as, and inform you as much as possible, Especially smaller companies that are already in the program, they've expressed the cost. That is significant. Fortunately, none of them have ever dropped out of the PRO plus program. They do see the value of it. But I realize this is an investment and I do want to make sure that you know exactly what you're investing in and why I started the program. So let me explain a little bit as to why I started proplus and then what exactly you get when you're in the group. So the reason I started ProPlus was because. With the podcast. So I started Landscape Business Course Podcast about a year and a half ago and just after I started the course and had recorded all the videos and actually what happened is August 2016 is when I got hurt. If you've listened to my podcast for a long time, you know, I got stuck underneath one of our dump trucks and got a whole bunch of abrasions and everything. And if you actually listen, if you actually look at the course videos, you'll see in some videos you'll see some of the scarring are actually some of the marks. And that was from the accident that happened just about three to four weeks before we recorded the videos for that course. So anyways, after that, a couple months later, I started Podcast Landscape Business Course Podcast and began to answer questions and really just give as much information as I could to the community and our industry. And it was very rewarding. I loved every minute of it. The problem was is that it just got too met too much. There was literally hundreds of questions coming in. There still are, and I still try to get to them as much as I can. It just sometimes people wait a month or two before I even answer their small question. Just because the backlog of emails, especially when it comes spring, summer, fall, when we're really, really busy with the landscaping, my landscaping company. And so I really had to step back and take a look at, okay, the value of my time and then what am I able to actually do give to people as far as phone calls and answering their emails and giving them advice. And so what I resolved to do is I wanted, I'd rather get a few people and give them my attention and all my mentorship and really everything that I all I can instead of just trying to kind of like a shotgun, just trying to help everybody with you know, an email here and email there and late responses and I don't really give full response replies and I don't get much context to their question because someone can ask a question via email. But like if I don't talk to them or if I don't haven't built a relationship with them, I don't know where their business is coming from, what their growth rate is, who's involved in the decision making within the company. And so I just found it so much more rewarding when I got to know people, especially the course members, because I would kind of elevate their questions at the top of my list. However, even with the course now there's hundreds of them and it's still like very, very difficult for me to actually dedicate time, real time to their questions and dig into their website and get some context and things like that. So last year, unbeknownst to most people, I started what's called Pro Plus. And basically what I did is I took 30 people that had already asked for me to either I just went back to my emails over the past year and a half and looked for people that had asked about seminars or had asked about specialized one on one consulting or or had asked about getting more access to me or specific like regimented phone calls or scheduled phone calls every few months. And so I contacted them and said, hey, there's this group, if it's available, it's available. And I, you know, we had the same cost that we do now, the 179Amonth. And so, you know, I got 30 of them together and we joined. It was great. And so it was a great learning experience and I really learned how much I enjoyed getting to know them. And they're all, I think 28 out of the 30 are still on Pro Plus. And so now what I'm wanting to do is start a second group of 30 that is small group. I like the small group because when we do live webinars, maybe between only 10 and 15 get on live, which is perfect because everyone can contribute.

The Facebook group is small, so you get to know the other course members and the Pro plus members. And so my desire for Pro plus and the reason I'm starting and opening it up again for another 30 people is I really feel like it's where I get the most benefit. So in one way, this is kind of selfish because I get the most benefit because I get to really get to know the business owners. I get to feel a lot more connected instead of just answering emails or, you know, once in a blue moon, like literally there's so many questions that come in, I don't ever remember who is asking what. And they'll say, oh, you answered my question, you know, six months ago. I have no idea what they're talking about. So with this Pro Plus, I'm really focusing on them. So I'm focusing less on just the general, the podcast questions and things like that and the YouTube things and Facebook stuff that comes in. I appreciate it, I try to get to it, but I'm really wanting to focus on the small group Pro plus members and the reason, and I have to say this, I'm sorry, if you don't get in, I'm not, I don't want this to become a 500 person group. This is not the objective of it. And I really can't do it because I still am CEO of my landscaping company. I still have another podcast, I still do other like other business stuff and I'm involved in it. And so I can't physically, I can't spend time because as part of Proplus, you get one on one calls. And so I physically cannot.

Be doing all these phone calls. I can't do hundreds of these phone calls a month. And so I'm still CEO, I'm still trying to grow a company, I'm still trying to franchise the thing and, and so it takes a lot of my time and that's really where, you know, the most value per hour for me is working on my company. But so I can't do a lot of people. So I'm sorry if you have to get on a waiting list, I'm sorry, I know there's people have already waited like five, six months for this to happen. Some of them will get in, some of them are still going to remain on the waiting list. So I'm sorry if you have to wait. I will work my, you know, work as hard as I can to try to figure out something in the future that will scale, scale me a little bit better, but still give personalized advice to you as the business owner for your company. So that's kind of why I started it. That's why I haven't really told a whole lot of People I kind of let it out in a webinar last year and kind of expressed it. But this is really the crux of what I've always wanted to do and as get a lot more personalized with these members. And so that's why I started ProPlus. Now what does ProPlus include? What do you get when you join ProPlus? If you get in and if you are able to get in, what do you get? Number one, we are very right from the get go. I know this was a big thing for the members that got in when we started tried this out last year and that is your competitors will not get in if you are in the course. Sorry, in Pro plus the reason is because in ProPlus we share a lot of sensitive information. We are very transparent as business owners about what we're struggling with, what our pricing is. And the reason that we're so transparent is because we know our competitors aren't in the program. And so I don't want you to have to hold back your information or how you price or your estimating tactics or your hourly rate because you fear that you know someone you know two streets down or across the city is going to be on ProPlus, figure what your pricing strategy is and just basically attack you. So it's if you're, once you're in, you basically lock up your zip code in Citi and no one in your demographic will be able to be part of the program. So I'm sorry again if someone else is already in the program and you will just have to wait until they either sell their company or they decide to move or they decide to go out of Proplus. And so I'm sorry again, there's a couple times that happened last year in Texas there was a bunch of people and so we just couldn't have some people join simply because they already want someone. A competitor was already in the program. So sorry about that. But like that is that we are going to stick with that because part of the course.

Is like I said, sharing information. And so number one thing that you get when you join and when you're part of ProPlus is a monthly webinar. So in the monthly webinar we all hop on everyone within a small group, including myself. I lead webinar once a month and I have a specific topic and I try to make it relevant to the time of year we're going through. So if we're coming into spring, it's going to be a lot of times about hiring, it's about upselling things and I'm going to look. I will show my company's information, I will show how we're doing things, I will show a lot of that stuff and then I will also lecture, really about everything that you should be doing, thinking about relevant topics at hand. When it comes to summer, how do we do xeroscaping? How do you fill in people's schedules during the winter? When we come into November, December, I start talking about that. So each webinar, each month, that's one time a month we will have a webinar, live webinar, everyone come on live and can ask questions at the end of that. So we have a live Q and A and I can answer all of your questions, usually those like 40 to 60 minutes once a month. That's number one thing that you get as part of ProPlus. Number two is the monthly hot seat, which is actually, I feel the most exciting and the most rewarding and really the most informative part of Proplus. What the hot seat is, is we select one member of ProPlus to become on the hot seat. And how this works is two to three days before the live webinar with the hot seat, I get in contact with the Proplus member, I say, hey, you're on the hot seat this upcoming webinar and I dialogue with them as far as numbers. I get a lot of their information, I look at their website, all of those things. We come to the hot seat and we now I portray that and I present all of this information along with the video and with the person there, the member themselves, and we are able to do a hot seat where we look at the financial data, we look at the marketing tactics, we look at the website and then we as a collective group within Pro plus, analyze and dissect that company. We pull it apart, we look at the financial statements, we look at the cash flows, we look at how is the company running, the marketing aspect, the hiring, what challenges this person going through. And then we as a team, everyone within ProPlus collaborates and figures out how to make the company better number one for that person in the hot seat. It's absolutely invaluable to get all these business owners opinion of how they should be running their business. Some of it good, some of it bad, but valuable, very valuable to pick apart and really make people start thinking about why they're doing things in their business. So it's valuable for them, but also for everyone else involved because you're seeing how another company is run from the back end. A lot of landscape business owners don't ever get to see this sort of thing because everyone's worried about privacy and their competitors and people ripping them off. And so being able to see the behind the scenes of another company, see their financial data, see their onlines, see their struggles, and then get all these different objective opinions on how they can improve. People walk away from these hot seats even if they're not in the hot seat. And they have so many ideas of how they can improve and get better. And people share tips of things that work for them and their company when they're in the same situation. And so it's absolutely like the hot seat. I love the hot seat because you've got people that are doing a million plus in revenue that can give advice to the people that are just starting out. And then you have the people that are starting out that have brilliant ideas. And the person with the great big company is like, that's a fantastic idea. I've never thought about that from that angle. And they use that. So I really feel the hot seat's like the best thing in the world when it comes to Pro plus. But that's the second thing. Number one is the webinar monthly, also the monthly hot seat webinar that we do as well. Number three is you get one on one contact with me. And so what that means is twice a year you are going to get a 30 minute phone call with me. You are going to get my phone number and I'm going to call you for 30 minutes and we can really talk about whatever you want. But there's specific things that we'll go over in that phone call. Number one, it's accountability. I'm going to be holding you to your goals. So at the end of each year, typically we will do a goals analysis and I will be requiring everyone within the program to give me the goal, write out their goals, figure out what the upcoming year is going to hold for them and what their expectations are. And then these phone calls. Part of it is accountability. I'm holding you to those goals. I'm going to be bringing you back to those. I'm going to be reading over those. How are you progressing? You know, if you are wanting to get to a million dollars in revenue and you were at 750 last year and, and you're calling me in March, I'm asking, hey, how are we doing? Are we gonna get this million dollar marker? We are figuring out how we get this accountability to really be like I can be as a mentor to really hold you accountable to those goals and make sure you're tracking along towards them. So that is accountability. Number two, though, a lot of times I'm digging even deeper into their business themselves. So I'm looking at that. They'll show me marketing pieces via email while we're on the phone and then I can analyze those, go over those with them. They a lot of times have struggles that they wouldn' necessarily want to show in the webinar or even in a hot seat. Things that might be personal when it comes to hiring management or things going within the business so we can talk really specifically about their problems and their issues within their business. One on one. So every single year you get two of these accountability phone calls with myself. They're 30 minutes long and it's a phone call with me. I have 100% of my attention on you and I do my homework before I got on that phone call. And to make sure that I know what your goals were, if you've been in the program long enough to have done a goals analysis, I look at your website. If you're brand new, figure out what things I can already be giving, begin to share with you and really start to look as much information as I can. I keep track of all my Pro plus members as far as where they're at in their business. Like I said, if they've done goals analysis where their website was, I take screenshots. I try to keep a log of where they're at. So that when I do these accountability calls, I know I have some context because I don't want to come in these cold. I want to know who you guys are. And that's the whole point is, number one, I want to have context to when I'm giving you advice. And that's why the small group is important. And number two, these accountability calls take my time. And that's why I can't do more than 30 people at a time on Pro Plus. So that's the third thing is the one on one calls. So the last thing that we're going to be implementing now is a small Facebook group, the small group just for the Pro plus members. So in this Facebook group, this is great for like, if something happens during the day and you need instant advice, it might. You're not probably going to be able to get to me instantly. But if you put it on the Facebook group, people can give opinions as far as like, oh, I got a flat tire and X, Y and Z happened. How do I remedy this? Or I am, I have $5,000. I'm in this market what type of equipment should I be buying? Or more importantly, things that happen, like.

My managers quit on me. How do I go out and find someone that is qualified and can do this and not make me pay $500,000? So very valuable because it's instant. So, right. So Facebook allows us to do groups. It's closed, it's not open to everyone else. And just the people within that. The group, the Pro plus group, can see it and they can have contacts because they've seen you in the webinars, they've seen you in the hot seats, they know more about you and so they can give very valid advice. They know the size of your company and things like that. And you know the people giving you advice, where they're at in their business. So it's very, very complimentary. And the Facebook group, I think is going to be. Because we haven't really added that feature yet with ProPlus last year. This year, that's what we're wanting to do. So that's going to be a new thing for us. But I think it's going to be very valuable because they'll get faster feedback and better communication and conversations going on. So if you have a question about something within the business, a great thread will be started. And if you have a great question about hiring or your system, your career, fair. How did that go? The pros, the cons, what you did good, what you did bad. A post on that Facebook private group would be great. So I hope that kind of answers some of your questions about Pro plus. Like I said, I wish I could open this up to more people. I wish I could make this a lot more accessible and do 2, 300 people in the program. But. But I'm not going to right now. So I'm sorry, if you have to wait, please do fill out the form below. I'll let you know if you're in the waiting list so that you don't just like not know what's going on. But we are opening it for 30 more people right now. And so. But if you are going to have to be on the waiting list, I will let you know. I don't know when you'll be able to get in. So right now some people have been waiting like.

Three, four months for one market and there was another market because they had someone else in the program already. They've been waiting like five or six months. So I'm sorry about that, but I'm very strict on the fact that I'm not going to allow competitors to be both in the program because I want everyone to be able to share information and be very transparent because that's when you get the best advice. So I hope that answers some of your questions below. Down below, you can read all of this stuff in font and text form. I want to kind of do it face to face with you. This is not a cheap program. It's because it's very small and I have to make it worth it. The time that I spend on the program with the members that like I'm just being very honest. I can make more working in the same amount of time in my company. I have to make it reconcilable because I have to go hire a manager to do the things that I would be doing otherwise in the company and because I'm spending so much time with the members. So that's why I'm charging for this. I wish I could do it for free. I wish I could do it for everyone. But it just doesn't make economical sense if I have to go hire a $70,000 salaried individual to take over the responsibilities that I'm not doing what within my company. And so that's why I'm charging. It's $179 a month or you can get it for a one time 17.99 if you buy for a whole year. And so like I said, all of those things are included. The monthly webinar, the monthly hot seat for one of the members and then you've got your. The accountability calls two times a year with myself for 30 minutes and the private Facebook groups all include that. And remember, none of your competitors will be involved, which is great because like I said, you get the cleanest, the most transparent advice. So yeah, I really Ford, I hope you get in. I really, I look forward to being able to get to actually know your company and really going deeper than just these surface questions about what type of equipment and just like stuff like that. I would love to go really deep looking at financial statements and all that stuff and then you really becoming a part of the program, a part of a team, part of a group. And when stuff happened in your business, you don't feel, feel like you're alone. That's what I want to achieve within this. That's why I want to keep it small. I want to keep it tight. You get to know each other and maybe one day we get together in five years because we get to know each other so well. So Again, Mike Andes, landscapevinniscourse.com thanks so much. And I look forward to seeing Pro Plus.