Running a $20M+ Lawn Care Business (Interview with Lee Park)

Welcome back to the Mike Ames Podcast, where we discuss all about starting, maintaining, and growing your small business. Today we have an interview with Augusta's very own Lee Park. Lee has been a part of Augusta for five years now. He's a former park ranger who climbed steadily through the ranks and now serves as a franchise consultant. He's all about growing Augusta Nation and coaching franchisees on building successful businesses. Basically, he's the perfect subject for this podcast. As always, you can get the lectures, interviews, and more over on the Mike Andy's YouTube channel, but let's get into it and see what it takes to crush it within a $20 million lawn care company.

All right, welcome everyone. Thanks for joining us. This is Lee park, and as some of you had mentioned a few months ago, you mentioned, hey, why don't we have some interviews, get some more questions flowing? And so we've had Liz, we've had Brian, we've had Marcus, and now we have Lee. We'll probably have Brad on the show. And so this morning we're leaving the meeting and Lee is like, so is anything off the table? I was like, no, everything's good. And then like today I'm driving back from Mount Vernon. I'm like, oh, man, I'm kind of tired. Like, I gotta be on my game if Lee's gonna pull anything out on me. So I'm like, literally drinking caffeine, one of those ice drinks just to be like, make sure I'm on my game. Got back, turned the AC on so I'm not sweating, so I'm ready for the hot seat. But maybe give a little bit of intro on you and kind of what you've done. Just for anyone that might not know who you are.

Yeah, definitely. Well, thanks for having me on. Yeah, thanks everyone for being a part of the channel. Watching the videos, I wanted to start actually shout out to the media team. Honestly, the content has just gone through the roof recently in terms of just thumbnails, clickbait, headlines. No, I'm just kidding. But the media team has been phenomenal. The transitions, the just the camera work, the audio work, everything's been great. So shout out those guys first and foremost. But, yeah, I got started with Augusta, as you know, about five years ago, actually like almost a five year anniversary.

Really?

Yeah, yeah. So about five years ago, I just walked in the door. I had a seasonal job. I was a. A park ranger at a local private campground up in Blaine, near the old shop. Like a mile down from the old shop, I saw the Augusta trucks driving by all the time didn't know anything about you guys, walked in the door, gave Liz my resume, you guys gave me an interview, hopped on, and that's kind of all she wrote from there. Started in the field and then became.

Estimator and general manager. And then now you do the franchise business consultant.

Yep, exactly. So kind of worked my way through every stage of the business, essentially, from from frontline field worker pushing lawns to estimator general manager, and now helping with the franchise, consulting, coaching calls, and selling franchises as well.

So first time we've ever had someone else in the room during a podcast. The PR manager for Lee over here, his wife Sarah. So, you know, if we look over here, just to make sure we get the nod of approval, that's what we're looking at.

PRM makeup.

Cool. Well, let's go ahead and kick it off. Let's go.

Yeah, let's do it.

Awesome.

First, I want to say shout out Keith Kelfus. Shout out Essencia Water. Now, I do have a boat to pick real quick. So I haven't said this. I figured I'd say it for the pod. I did apply for Mike to be a Essentia brand ambassador.

Absolutely.

We. Unfortunately, our application did not get approved.

Hit me up. Did you actually, yeah, 100%.

Like, 100% real. I went through their whole process. I. I think it came down to not enough followers, honestly. So to you folks, smash the like button. Smash the like button. Smash the subscribe button. Uh, yeah. So unfortunately, if there's another water company out there that wants to be a Have Mike as a brand ambassador, we're. We're open to hearing options. So. Cool. Yeah, I have not a lot of direction for this. Mostly just really try to think ultimately with a lot of the viewers in mind for the CEOs, the business owners, the entrepreneurs, the employees, folks that want to know some of the deeper content about Mike, this is not really going to be about lawn care, just going to be 100% honest up front. So watch the next video with the thumbnail of some guy pushing a mower. We're gonna try to get a little bit deeper here. So first question is kind of about your day. So in the vlog format that you've been doing a lot, you've said that 95% of your day is zoom calls, meetings, you know, checking in with your managers, checking in with command center appointments, banks, all that kind of stuff. Ideally for you, what do you want your day to look like? Like, if you could structure your day and eliminate the things you don't like doing what would those things be and, and how would you structure your day? Like, and I'm talking like midnight to midnight, like 24 hour cycle. Like what does Mike Andy's day look like if he can take out all the minutia or the things he doesn't want to do?

Good question. I actually enjoy creating the content. Like that's kind of like my hobby. So that is sort of my thing I do for fun. Yeah, like I kind of, I haven't used the second channel for ages. But like that was really fun to me. Like talk about stocks or real estate, like random stuff I really enjoy. That's kind of like my hobby. I wouldn't do that 247 because become a job. I think whatever you do the least of in your day typically is what you enjoy because it's just scarcity, right. You can make golfing a job just by doing every single day and like you make it a job. Right. So, you know, because it's 95% of the day, you start to dread it because like that's all you do. It just becomes super common. So, you know, I like, I like making videos, but if I could do anything throughout the day, I'd probably want to focus 100% of my time exclusively on thinking about growth and strategy within.

The franchise or just in general there's.

A franchise for now at least, like in the short term it'd be the franchise. And I still think some of my day is that. But you know, if you're building a building, very, very little of your time is actually spent on the architecture and the plans and the designing phase. It's really like, let's go build the thing. Right. So that's why most of it is not that way. And I think over time it will become more of that. But as that happens, that starts to become a burden too. Because now 90% of your day is strategy. Right. And so it's just enjoying that process. The current 90% is, is, is important, I think. And I'll look back on with fond memories of being able to take phone calls and zoom calls when one day that's like off source. Like I don't do sales calls anymore. I miss that kind of a little bit.

Right, right.

And that's something that's probably you're like, man, like another one of these sales calls. Like, but it's just a matter of like, I think we always as humans just kind of put down what we're going through now in terms of the value of it. Looking forward to something else. And then we get to that and we look back like, oh, like it was really good to be there and vice versa. Then we're looking into the next thing. So I think just enjoying the moment is important and realizing that in five years I'll look back with fond memories and I'll probably. I wish I could take some calls with some bankers right now. I don't get to do that anymore. I don't get to talk, like, about balance sheets, so. Because I have a finance guy. Right. So I think it just. Now it's a bit of a drudgery, but it's fine.

I get that. And I think probably a lot of, like, business owners out there too. Like, I remember when I was your GM and the estimator had some scheduled time off. Marcus had had like, you know, just vacation, like everyone. And I hopped in to do some timed estimates and it was like, it's like the thrill of doing estimates again because you're like, oh, I'm going to close out. I know so much more about sales. Like, I'm going to close every single one, 100% close ratio. So I get that. In terms of, like, the media side. So you said content is obviously, you know, a big part of your day. It's what you really enjoy doing. You'd like to put more effort into that and, you know, really expand the media team. Right. We'd love to have, you know, five or six guys in house doing editing, videography, content for the franchise side. But I guess for you, like, what. What's the limitation? Like, why aren't we pushing into that side? Like, what is it? Because strictly a time limitation, because you want to give 90, 95% of your time to the franchise. So you don't want to invest, put the time and money into the content side. Is that kind of the thought process or two things.

So financially, like, this year, the media team will do over a million dollars in revenue, which is nuts, right? Last year was probably 400. Like, it'll probably triple year over year next several years. But last month, for example, we literally made $660 profit. Every single dollar goes right back into the content. Hiring another person, making things better and making new websites, whatever it might be. So it's very much top of the funnel awareness. It's what's fueled everything in terms of Augusta. We don't spend money on marketing for the franchise. And in pure honesty, to just be perfectly honest, if I had five or six more people on the team, media, yeah, we'd get a lot more done but it would ultimately probably require more of my time. And right now I feel very like, let's just be perfect. I would feel bad to spend any more time on the media, okay. Because I feel like very much that the franchisees deserve my time right now, and especially the first hundred fifty, one hundred that I've joined, that I need to, like, put my heart and soul into that and, like, every waking minute. And maybe I'm overdoing that in my mind a little bit, but, like, I've just over indexed on the fact that they have to all become very successful. And maybe down the road, I'll let off the gas a little bit and focus on the media more. But it has to be very much where, like the vlog, for example, I don't spend any real time on it because I'm just doing my day and I'm like, oh, this should be a shot. And I usually forget, like, oh, this could be a quick shot. I'm, like, driving. It doesn't take any of my time. That's why it's actually worked out really well, at least the last couple of weeks, because it'll probably change. But last couple of weeks and work well, because it doesn't take any more time. And I don't feel that guilt, which is just pure honesty. Like, I feel guilty when I'm making content for the public, when there's people that have put their whole livelihood in the line with Augusta, and I feel responsible, make sure that that pays off in leaps and bounds.

That makes sense. So essentially, what I would deduce from that is that vlogging is super easy.

Well, for me, Stephen has the hard job entertaining, like, this random day, then putting, like, some sort of a theme together. And, like, you do a great job.

No, no, I just. I just joke because this morning, like, we had a team meeting and Mike's addressing the team. I was like, oh, this could be a vlog. So I just whipped out my phone, recorded it from a horrible angle. You guys are probably going to watch it.

I recorded it. You know that you recorded. Yeah, dude, I was on the game, man. I had it on the other table. We had a two angle.

Steven's going to have two angles. Shout out Stephen. Yeah, but, you know, I think that totally makes sense. Like, wanting to give your effort and your majority of your attention to the people that have bought into Augusta that, you know, work for you or work with you, that that makes sense. And I 100% respect that. Which kind of brings me to my next point is, like, in a Recent video Mike said, you know, we're not going to go full barstool. And I'm a little bit of a stool, to be honest. I listen to some of their pods. I like Dave Portnoy in terms of just as. As a business person, their branding, their marketing, just the way they handle themselves. So why wouldn't we go for full barstool? At least not now. Is it strictly for the privacy or for the fact that we have partnerships? There's, you know, maybe money on the line for some parties involved.

Oh, it's definitely not about money.

Yeah, I know.

If we started talking about all the. That happen every single day, whether it be the franchisees or employees or the drama, every single day, the channel would blow up. Like, if you look at the top three videos of my channel that are over a million views, all drama.

Yeah.

Customer drama, employee drama, etc. If we did drama of what happens every single day of the calls that I can't record on the vlog, the channel would blow up and I would make plenty of money. But the bottom line is I don't want to walk into a room where there's a bunch of employees and immediately their thought is, I have to be on good behavior because he's going to blast me if I don't. Right. I don't like that feeling. I like to be a real human and talk about funny stuff and say weird stuff to people and then say weird stuff to me and not think it's going to be recorded or think it's going to be talked about. And when someone's fired, I don't say their name and things like that for a very specific reason. That is, someone going out the door with that in their mind is going to have a very different perception. And so I don't want that yet. Maybe down the road, because it would be valuable, I think, for a lot of people to see that, but I don't think a lot of people want to work in that environment. I wouldn't want to work in an environment where it's like everything is talked about. Like, if you make a mistake, it's exploited for views. Like, that's really what it is. It's just a drama show. And so it's different, though, if everyone approached the workplace that my job here is mowing lawns. But by the way, most of my job is actually be an actor in this game.

Totally.

That's a different story. Right. And we're not there yet. And I don't know if I want to be there yet because it just emphasizes drama and I hate drama. So I don't like to talk about drama once it's done. Like once someone leaves, there's such a bunch of garbage. I just want to move on and you know, rehashing that is great for the Internet, but I don't think it's great for culture and morale.

Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with that. Like, you and me are on the same page. No drama. Same with Liz, Marcus, Lonnie. Like the whole team, we cut out drama as fast as we can and we move on as a team. I just, I think there's. It could be fun, I guess, for lack of a better. And. And two, I think for the barstool as well, their consumer, their customer is. Is not the person going to be involved in that drama. Like, I'm from Bellingham, Washington and Barstool headquarters is in New York City and I don't know any of them personally. So their drama is to me as a consumer and it doesn't hurt me. Whereas our drama would be more interpersonal or managers or franchisees. Not saying that franchisees create drama, but. Right. That's what we deal with on a day to day basis. Like you've said in other videos that, you know, once in a lifetime events happen to you every day. Now as a CEO of, you know, over almost over 100 locations. Right. So we can't always put that in front of the public. Which I get.

Which I get.

So cool.

Well, recently we would get sued, bro, as a franchise or we would get so sued out to a zoo if we started blasting stuff online because like a franchisor franchisee relationship is so legally binding that when you have, when you have anything legally binding, whether it be marriage, a contract, anything, you just open yourself up to being sued because that's the only way to manipulate the contract. And so with a franchisor franchisee relationship, if someone could ever try to prove that their location failed because of what I said on a podcast or a video, well then they have legal grounds to come against the franchisor. Like, it just gets super messy. Like barstool is not in business with the people that they're talking about. They're employees that can be fired. Right. And so that gets a little bit different too. Like I could probably talk about about like my locations, my GMs, my employees, but as you start talking about franchisees, like, you're just gonna get in a world of hurt. And I think somebody would have a huge amount of fun. Like it'd be great entertainment. But it's not fun for the person you're picking on.

Totally.

So totally.

I get it.

I'll move on. Always make another channel, bro. We can head up the new Barstool Sports Channel.

I'd love it. And barstool, too. You think about it like, they have ongoing litigation all the time. Any company that's making waves is just going to have litigation from everyone, their critics, their haters, the disgruntled folks. Like, it's just going to happen. And that's just drama we want to avoid. So cool. Well, recently, the management team, you know, yourself, Liz, Lonnie Marcus and I have talking, been talking a little bit about vision. Vision for Augusta and for yourself. And I think one thing that's funny, as I was trying to put together some questions to ask you, I feel like there's a switch that we kind of make as a society and these are just generalizations, but that as companies scale, it's like it turns into a corporation, right? And you have. And this isn't political, but, you know, like, the whole political argument, like, corporations aren't people. They don't get to vote. And, you know, like, I agree to that to an extent. Like, but corporations are built by people, right? And, like, you're building Augusta. Like, Liz is helping you build Augusta. I'm trying to help you build Augusta. And so Augusta will always be your business. Like, you are the one that built it. So do you feel that it's hard to express your vision as you bring in more partners and also have more eyes on you in terms of critics and third party opinions? Like, is it harder for you to express that vision, that passion in a private message? You know, I sent to you the other day, I said your vision needs to be big, bold, unapologetic, and keep receipts. And, you know, do you feel it's hard to express? That is the question.

I don't really care about the, like, critics. I really don't. It doesn't really bother me a lot, people commenting like, it will never get to me. What I actually care about the most is people I care about. Especially, like, franchisees, close employees, the ones that have been with us for a long time. When they say stuff, that's when I start to back up a bit on vision. Because especially if I'm being accused of unkept promises, right? So with the franchisees, if I feel like we're failing on something or we've let them down in a certain area, like, I back up on vision mostly due the fact that vision is stereotype, typed that your heads are in the clouds and you're thinking far in the future. And that is the case many of the time. And someone gets so wrapped up in the future and what's going to happen the next technology that they forget about, like, actually making a profitable business now and supporting the people that they made promises to. And so I don't want to be guilty of that. And so I think when I feel operationally heavy and we're going through a lot and franchisees are going through a lot, that's when I tend to probably cower away from the vision, because it's like, I know that is important. I know it's the thing I should be doing, but it's also like, in the moment, that person's not going to see that. Right? They don't have the vision of me. It being important for me to see vision and be focused on that. They're focused on like, hey, this strategically is not making sense. This is not making sense. This operationally is falling apart, and you need to step in and fix it. And so when. When I don't feel like I'm. When there's unkept promises on my part, that's usually when I probably back down from vision. And I've done that over the past six months. And so I feel like we've repaired a lot of those things and fixed a lot of those mistakes, and we operationally made a lot of things more sound and buttoned things up. And so going forward, I know. I hope to, you know, peel back that onion a little bit more and flex that muscle again. But it's something that I don't like to be super public about. Not about, like, people out in the public. I made videos about, like, how what we're gonna do in the future and thousands of locations and all this sort of thing. So it's out there, but I don't talk a whole lot about it, mostly due to the fact that the people closest to me are mostly worried about my daily execution and not what's gonna happen in 10 years, even though that's the thing that keeps me going every day.

So do you think the average person. Average employee, and I'm not saying Augusta employees, just in general. Do you think the average employee can't make a distinguishing. A distinguishing mark between vision and a promise from their employer or their leader or their CEO? Like, they can't distinguish between that because I heard you. You said promise multiple times. I'm like, you have made me zero promises. Like, you've just given me a vision that I've bought into and I'm gonna work hard for.

But I actually see provision and promises. If I, if the vision is expressed, I see it as a promise because if you don't have a plan to execute on vision, it's just a wild ankle, guess, dream, hope, pipe dream. And I'm not into that. And you know that like, if I'm going to express a vision, there's gonna be a plan and we're gonna execute on it. And if we're failing execution, I'm not gonna talk about the vision anymore. I'm just gonna execute on what I've said.

Right.

And so the average employee should not be expected to have the long range vision of what the company is doing. And so I need to be better about expressing that, usually to inspire people. But that being said, you know, they're not, you know, I don't expect an employee to think 10 years down the road, right? If something's failing in the business, they're not going to be like, okay, like that's great, about 10 years from now we're going to change the industry and like we're going to robots in 15 years and we're focused on software. They could care less. They just want their payroll fixed, this pay period. And so, and I have nothing against that because they're not in it for the 15 year goal. They might be. That's great. And you're going to get some people that buy into that. But most employees, they're much more short range because if they were long range, they probably go start their own business. They start, they do something else, they take bigger risks in life. And so especially Frontline, quote unquote, average employees, when you say that, that would be my response.

Yeah. So do you think as owners, like for the owners listening, that they need to be very clear about what they have in terms of vision for their companies versus like what are promises they're making to employees on say, an individual basis? Because I know, you know, last year and we talked about this a lot at Landscape Summit, you know, we had a minor uprising, if you will, some employees at one point. And I, you know, you and I were both accused of unkept promises. And, and I was like, I don't feel like I made any promises. Like this is a business, I would never promise anything to anyone. Like a promise to me is an emotional transaction that you make. And so for me I was like, well, no, I gave you plans and I told you we had to execute them in a few. The plans fell apart. You know that that was a team failure, not a failed promise or a failure on my part to uphold that end. So do you think that's what you're trying to say? I guess that owners need to make a distinction between a vision for their company and the promises to individual employees.

In that case specifically? Well, yes, it was very different, I thought. I think. But when, because like they weren't like questioning our vision and they were not, definitely not aligning the vision of the business with the promises that were being made. I think that though for me personally, when I express vision to a company like at a team or at an off site meeting, I look at that as like this is a promise and if I don't execute on that, I lied. I don't think like the, the idea of vision has become so uplifted mostly due to people like Steve Jobs. Right. That just, you know, just, just exuded vision and he was so ahead of his time. But he's one in like he's an anomaly. Most people do not have the ability to reach years in the future and pull out what the consumer is going to be doing and then manifest it and then tell their entire company who thinks they're crazy, that they're wrong and go in an opposite direction. Like the insanity that that's the average business owner is let alone a guy who mows lawns. Like you're just, you're really, you know, you're off your. And that's what's led to a lot of like hyper growth stocks and you know, companies, startups that just have these massive valuations. It's someone that simply sold all the investors on what vision and most of them can't deliver on them. And I'm not going to be guilty of that.

Yeah.

And so when I say what, what I talk about in a number of locations and what Augusta is going to do, that is a promise to everyone that's joined the franchise, everyone that hears that content, every single employee and everyone believes in that, whether it be an investor, someone who's a franchisee and is believing that for their own personal finances and their family providing. That is a promise on my part and I will deliver on those things. So I try to keep in the vision sometimes because like if I can't execute, I'm not going to talk about it.

Okay, I like that. Big, big fan. Think, think different from Apple.

So kind of still on the same gears of vision you were trying to be, you know, self proclaimed lawn care billionaire.

So we have the URL as of last week.

Let's go.

I love that it's just going to redirect you to mikeandrews.com it's not even.

But I think, and this is selfish question, honestly, as your sales representative for the franchise, like, what makes you and Augusta different? Like, why wouldn't they just go join another company not to be named or another franchise not even in lawn care landscape being like, you know, there are just investors that join franchises because it's an investment opportunity to use their capital. Right. So what makes you different? If you want to be the lawn care billionaire, if you want to have a thousand locations, if that is your promise, like, why would someone join you over any other franchise opportunity out there?

Because what makes Augusta different is that in my journey to a billionaire, I will share every single thing I'm going through with the franchisees. Most franchisors, as they become larger, the franchisor founder either sells off most the company or completely disassociates from daily operations. The majority, the vast majority, you can find very few, if any, that have more than 500 locations with the founders in contact with any franchisee. And so my promise to the franchisees is that I'm never going to sell out majority stake. I will always have a vested interest. And if I become a billionaire, they're going to follow in those steps. I talk about every. You will have every single day for years. Yeah. 10 to 15. Well, I'm not gonna be a billionaire in 10 years, 20, 30 years. You'll have a daily record of me talking to the franchisees about exactly what we're going through, what I'm doing personally in my finances, how I'm investing. And for the person just Getting started in 20 years as a new franchisee, when we have a thousand locations, it's gonna be like, this guy's way ahead of me. But for the person who joined last year, they're gonna be just a few years behind.

Right.

And so I think that's gonna be really interesting to see that. And I think that's what makes us different than any other franchise. Or is the fact that I have a vested interest in not just how many locations do we have? Like, I talk about that number and no one, like, everyone always asks, how many location. Yeah. I'm like, I used to say 500, and I realized that we're only 1,000 to make a difference in the industry.

Yeah.

But I really could care less because that's not a metric I'm really looking at. That is a means to an end of achieving, like, the changing Level of professionalism in the industry, we need a thousand for that to happen. But I'm really so concerned about that as, like, I'm tracking how many people go through the 3F, the franchise fee forgiveness that basically started with mowing lawns, become a business owner, and then how many people become millionaires in Augusta Nation? That's all I care about. And so those are the metric I'm really concerned about and worried about, you know, how many locations we have. I just could care less.

Yeah, I like it. So what I'm thinking then is, you know, to join Augusta. Ultimately, what you're saying is the culmination of all your commitment and all of the knowledge gained over those 10, 20, 30 years makes that growth for a new franchise exponential. Right. It's almost quicker and easier to adapt to our systems because they have that day to day record of everything that you've done, everything other franchisees have done. So you think that is what just kind of almost speeds them along faster? Is that kind of like the thought there?

Yeah. Like ultimately, like, we're trying to prove the model for an investor type of person that has $1 million and once they get 10 locations started, we're wanting to prove that out using my personal location that own. But. But really what Augusta stands for is what I was able to use the lawn care industry for, which is like, young kid, doesn't have much money and you build something out of nothing. I'm very passionate about that. And so there's very few franchisees, franchisors, I should say, that allow their franchisees to get started for as little as we do. There are very few franchise franchises you can even start for under $50,000. It's basically cleaning service industry, like cruise planning. Like, it's pretty basic stuff, but very few of those can you build like a chain, like multiple locations, and then really have someone actually be invested in you becoming wealthy, not just learning lawn care? I could care less about the franchise. You learn lawn care, I just don't care.

Yeah.

And it's still sometimes this is the, this is the gap between vision and operational excellence. Right. Because for them next five years they need like, what type of mower do I get, what size of mower, like, pricing, like all that. And in my mind I'm like, it doesn't matter. We could be selling ice cubes for all I care. We're just figuring out a method to sell something for some sort of arbitrage to a customer, make some sort of system that allows that to keep replicating and Then go invest and become wealthy and then be able to create jobs and do whatever else they're passionate about. And so I really care about that. And that is them becoming financially independent, wealthy and educated on, on all these topics of wealth over the course of their five or 10 years that they're with us and then be able to do something cool, whether that be internally in multiple locations or going something else completely different, if that's what they want. And I hope to build that right from the employees all the way up to the franchise or franchisees where it's like, look, we want you to be here and want you to grow. When you feel like you've outgrown what you're, you're capable of learning here, you need to go do something else. Right. And I hope to make the scale of Augusta so large that can stay in us for an entire career, whether it be owning multiple locations or working at corporate or whatever it is. I hope to make that scale, that ramp for them. But if it's not available, they should jump off. That's a franchisee. Like, they got a couple locations like, hey, I figured this out. I'm more passionate about restaurants. I'm going to start a restaurant.

Right.

But they've got, got the resources now to like manage market, understand dynamics of real estate and how to do investing. And that's important to me.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that maybe is one of the things that's hard for me sometimes to communicate on, you know, 45 minute Zoom call, if someone books an introductory call to know more about Augusta is communicating the fact that like you're, you're joining a mastermind group, you're joining an investment group, you're joining a community of people that are trying to better themselves. And like part of our, you know, we have the seven stages of wealth at Augusta. And the first stage of wealth is like, like build a business to half a million dollars in annual revenue. Like, that's like the lowest rung on our totem pole of wealth. And you have to go six steps beyond that to achieve wealth within the Augusta system in terms of what we want the franchise owners to get to.

So, yeah, and the big goal is like, hey, get them there as quickly as possible. Some people get there in a year because they're really good at managing people usually. And sales. Some people will take two or three years to get there. But then after that stage, it's a completely different ballgame. You figured out the selling part. You figured how to get customers. If you're doing eight, nine, Hundred thousand revenue. You're getting leads a lot. Now it's coming down to can you manage people, can you attract good talent for gm? Can you figure out real estate to be able to do multiple locations, can you do interstate, can you do outside the state? That's the type of stuff that starts to scale them up past that first stage of wealth diversification and all this other stuff that I'm just not, I'm just not passionate about making a bunch of people with good lawn care businesses like that's fun, that's exciting. But for them financially that's not super interesting to me. Obviously you want to change the level of professionals industry. That's going to come through scale. But in doing that will create a system for them to become wealthy. And that's all, that's all matters.

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So this one, this question more has to do with, you know, how great leaders, how great CEOs, great coaches can turn weaknesses into strengths. And the. I was trying to think like man, what's like a good story or a good analogy for this question? And I was trying to think like, well Richard Branson, he had all his failures and he tried to start like Virgin Records and he was basically running an illegal pawn shop music store. And then he was like, well I can turn this into a multi million dollar recording studio, right? Like he turned a weakness into a strength. And the story I could really think of though was probably best described as Team USA versus the USSR Lake Placid, 1980, right? Like USA, but Herb Brooks basically NHL players were not allowed to play in the Olympics, but foreign countries like the USSR had essentially professional Russian players playing on their team. And the NHL, or excuse me, not the NHL, the US Hockey team, the US Hockey Federation was like, well just go pick the best college players. And that was the task they gave to Herb Brooks. And he basically took the weakness of having under skilled, underage, underdeveloped players to go take on the greatest hockey Superpower of all time. Right. And he turned their weakness into strength in the sense that they were ragtag, they had a chip on their shoulder, they were young, they were hungry, they were out to prove themselves. Right? And so he took that and turned into their greatest weakness. And his. One of his philosophies was like, no one's going to outskate us. No one's going to skate harder than us. Like, Herb Brooks pushed his guys to levels of insanity with how much conditioning he made them perform. And so I know you said this in an interview with Layla Hormozi, which was command center is kind of your Achilles heel in terms of scalability. It's arguably one of the greatest strengths at Augusta in terms of having, you know, access to great office manager type folks all across the country over 12 hours a day. Right. That's phenomenal. But for scalability, it is a little bit of our Achilles heel. So how do you take command center and make it your strength? Like, what do we have to do to turn it into something that is the greatest appeal not only externally, but it's also the greatest appeal internally in terms of. Of. This is a profit center, this is a production center, this is an efficiency center. Like, what is your thought process there? Or is it even possible?

Yeah, like, ultimately, you have to create a system around manufacturing that level of talent. And that's the hardest thing to systematize is human nature. And so while retaining a culture, right. You can systematize humanity relatively quickly by saying, here's your box. You stay in it, and like, here's step one, step two, like this very much systematized. It's very difficult for what we do in terms of systematization because there's so many moving parts, there's so many different climates, there's so many different pieces and parts and services that are offered across the country. And, like, moving schedules and everything, right? So it's very. It's very difficult to systematize it and keep them in a box. But ultimately, if you keep someone a box, they have no idea how to react when something happens, when a curveball comes their way. And that happens every single day to them on the front lines. And so creating a system around, that's very difficult. But if we can ever systematize the. The development of that talent from raw into like an elite office manager will figure that out. But scaling. Scaling humans is the hardest thing to create a system around. And so it's not something I expect myself to learn over the course of a couple years, but once that is figured out. Yeah, it can scale, it can scale like anything else. But scaling humans is the hardest part. You can scale software very easily. You can scale capital relatively easily. Lots of different ways to scale those, those type of levers in a business, but humans, very difficult. And we will figure that out. It's just going to take a lot longer.

Yeah, well, and I think too, and I think this is a positive you, Liz, Lonnie, the folks that are in the day to day operations of Command center, like expect for perfection for our franchisees. And so the scalability is going to take longer. We are going to have more burnout, we are going to have more turnaround just because we do expect for, for perfection. Like we give the folks at Command center the ability to fail. Like, you guys got to meet Brian, who's awesome guy and you know, there's, there's times where, you know, we try something and it fails. And that's when we put our best minds together to fix it. And so I think at the rate we want to go and at the level of excellence we want to go, it's going to take time essentially. Let's see here, the franchise model as a whole. I want to just kind of ask maybe more specific questions about not necessarily Augusta, but just franchising in general. The 2022 or 2020, excuse me, U.S. census said that franchise businesses accounted for 11.4% of all sectors surveyed. And 61% of Americans think that starting a small business is a good career path. But of that 61%, only 23% of Americans think that franchising is a viable option. So it makes up a large amount of the census in terms of the survey sector, but a small amount of Americans see it as a viable option. So why do you think people wouldn't want to join a franchise over starting their own? Even though franchises statistically always have a higher success rate in almost every sector. Like, what do you think the biggest pushback is for most Americans or folks that are considering starting their own business?

I think there's a few things. I think one thing that is easy for a franchiser to say, like myself, is pride. Because people want to say that they built it on their own. And. But I don't think it's like a negative thing. Like, I get it, I get it, right? Like you want to have your own brand. You want to say you did it yourself, you picked up yourself by the bootstraps and you did, you built it your own, right? The fact of the matter, you just gotta look at the Numbers. Yeah, right. You just gotta look at the numbers and you gotta realize the reason why so many small businesses fail in the first five years is because probably they thought they could do it on their own. And so when you look at the success rate of independent versus franchise, it makes a lot of sense to follow a system that's been proven. And even for us, like, we just kill ourselves over like a 5% failure rate, right? When, like, the average is more like 28 to 30% if you're independent. And so, you know, it just. It's just simply a matter of numbers. Like, you got to convince yourself from a statistical standpoint, unless you have an advantage over someone who's done it a thousand times, you should just follow what they're doing. And if your goal is to beat them, do what they're doing. Like, you always talk about training, do, do what we've done, and then if you got a better way to do it, then figure that out later, right? But you can take a lot of time out of the equation, like Anytime Fitness. Like, the reason ultimately we, when we franchised Augusto is like, there is no way in the world I would start a franchise or, sorry, start a gym without being a franchise. I just can't even imagine, right? Like, going through Covid would have been devastating for independent gyms. Being part of a chain wasn't only just an emotional support. It was like, I know that financially I fall back on the systems that 4,000 other franchisees in Anytime Fitness are trying and testing and figuring out what works, and I bounce things off of them and take the best of 10 strategies that everyone else has tried and know which one works, that is invaluable, right? And so as well as the enterprise value of something that has a system behind it is much more because it's no longer dependent as much on the entrepreneur, right? If I have a system that I know works like Command center, right? If I know that all my calls go to them, it means I don't need to have a great office manager. There's less dependencies on finding incredible people in that business because someone else, the system takes care of those dependencies. And so as the enterprise value of a business is much lower, when if you remove the entrepreneur, the person who's gonna do it on their own, be independent, you take that person out, that whole business falls apart, right? The enterprise value of that company is absolutely nothing outside the assets. And so when you start buying a system, something that works without that owner, then it's a purchasable asset. And the business is actually worth something. My gym, currently as it is, that has, you know, 750 members or whatever it is. If you take that gym and it's independent, it's probably worth $200,000 right now. I could easily sell it for 700,000 because it's part of a chain and they know that the systems built behind it doesn't rely on me. It's a system that works independently of me. And when we have over the phone estimates, that removes the estimator having to be there.

Right.

When we have the phone being answered by command center and payroll being done by command center. Guess what? I don't need a bookkeeper. I don't need a rockstar office manager. That is the type of thing that will improve the enterprise value when someone's selling down the road and they're actually building an asset in their business instead of just strictly a cash flow machine, that when they die or they get hurt by a bus, that whole thing gets wiped out.

Yeah. If I give you a million dollars right now, what would you do with it tomorrow?

Tomorrow if I had a million dollars, I would probably call the bank. I would call the bank and I'd tell them I don't need that SBA loan for the. Let's go for the headquarters and that we just do it with cash.

Yeah.

Because I know that by the time. If I had a million, I could pull enough out of my real estate to make it work and then within by time, because I just pay the invoices from the contractor. Right. And so I'd have the next, like six to eight months. And I can know from a cash flow standpoint we'd have enough to pay it off, so. But right now I don't have a million dollars to do that.

Well, I can. I'll just. I'll just wire it over real quick. That's okay. Right?

How many?

My wife approves, Sarah approves. So we're good.

There's only 50 franchisees. Come on, bro. You just need to sell those tomor.

Go.

Colby. Looking at you. All right. That was a softball. That was just a warm up.

Yep.

So I give you $10 million. What are you doing with that tomorrow and the following week, Obviously, you're probably not going to spend or invest 10 million in a day, so I would.

I would break it up a massive amount. Yep. Because I'm super conservative, so I wouldn't throw into one thing. If I had $10 million in cash tomorrow, like. Yeah. So if I. $10 million in cash given to Me tomorrow, I would probably spend 4 million of it on, on Augusta internally. I would buy with cash, obviously.

Yeah.

The headquarters. So I need about 2.8 million to do that. So there goes 2, 8, 2.8.

And give them an extra, you know, 2, 3, 400K for a rush order to get it done by the end of December. Like move in ready. December 31st.

You have a bonus of a million dollars if you get it in three months.

I'm just saying be nice.

So I spent three. Let's just say call it 3 million there. I would probably spend 4 million more building infrastructure for about 30 locations to get started next spring.

Okay.

So I would hire three regional GMs.

So all of these would be corporately owned.

Yeah, I would own them all. And I would take over Washington state. Let's go take the entire map of Washington. I take all the Augusta lawn care locations. We could get in there. I have three regional GMs with 10 GMs underneath them. I would find someone that would start. Their only responsibility for the next six months would be to hire up for next spring. They're only. Only thing they would be doing because you need to have about 120 people. So that would be what I do with 4 million. The remaining 3 million I think I'd probably put in cash, like in my pocket, because I don't want to say I'm done with it, but I'm like. The stress of, like, being so low on cash my whole life because I've invested so much of it, is tough. Yeah. And, and this is the thing. I know I'd say that. And like, literally six months, I find a place to invest it or do something with it. It's just a game that I feel like I, I get somewhat complacent when I don't have that pressure financially. And so I will always be pushing the envelope. And that will lead me to getting, like, really good at returns, I think. And you know, that's what most billionaires do is they just go all in on stuff.

Right.

But it is stressful, man. Like, I would sleep so much better if I had, you know, $3 million in the bank.

I'm genuinely surprised you said you, you'd keep 3 million in the bank. I thought you would deploy more. Not, not saying you wouldn't keep some. Like, obviously I expected you to keep like at least a million, but.

No, but see, at this point, we burned through a million dollars so quickly. Like, whether you look at like all the locations that I currently own, the franchise and all the rest of it, like a million dollars. It sounds so bad to say this, but like. Like, it doesn't seem like a lot of money now.

Totally.

Like, we can burn through it relatively quickly. A couple things go bad, a couple months of bad cash flow. I could spend half a million tomorrow on P4P software and other software that I want to build. So. So, like, I think I would say the three. I would say 3 million now, and I think within six months, I'd figure out how to deploy that in some way, shape, or form. Probably in something else of Augusta. I'd probably do real estate or stocks or something. I feel like I could do a really good return on Just for Play, like to keep myself challenged. But I think I always say this, dude, I've said this for five years. Like every year when I'm like, I know there's money coming. I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna take a break, take a little bit off the gas and just put a little more in the pocket. Just sleep a little better at night. But I never do. Yeah, I get money. I'm like, hey, I could spend this, like, the return on this. It's a great return. I could flip this. So, I don't know, you just. I don't think I'd be able to hold on to 3 million. Yeah, I wouldn't. Perfect world. Hold on 3 million. It.

I. I feel like you got to take at least. I don't know. I'm thinking of Ryan Payne here, franchise owner down in Texas. He. He pre ordered a cyber truck. I feel like we got to throw them like 50k to get that pre order for you.

I don't know, dude. I don't.

They're not taking pre orders anymore.

I know, dude, I don't want one to. I would like a. I like the cybertruck, right? I like a lot of cars. Like, I would love a Corvette. It. It seems like the new Corvette with the mid engine is a sports car, but you get for like 70, 80 grand. Like a nice one. Like, you get like 60 grand. I would like that. But then I step back, and there's several things that keep me from doing anything like that. Number one, the optics, the employees. I can't handle that if I'm gonna pay anybody. I know you disagree with this. I know you disagree, but like, the optics to an employee, I don't like that.

Secondly, when am I gonna use it? Like, I'm gonna drive into the shops. There's mud and gravel with like a nice car.

Well, not if we Just paid for it in cash. We'd probably get it asphalted. Like we'd probably, we'd probably pay. You're really going to drive.

Yeah.

I've really thought this one through. I know how I'll spend your money.

Yeah, I know. I, I don't like when people say money thing. It doesn't even cross my mind to spend on anything luxury wise. Yeah. Because I, I, I have a taste of what that is. I, it doesn't bring me any more joy. Right. I love building stuff. I will always love building stuff. And every single dollar I have will probably go into building stuff because that's what brings me joy. And I've seen people really, really poor head have, they don't even think about, they don't know what cybertruck is. They don't know what Tesla is. They've never been on the Internet and they were thrilled out of their mind for bubbles and a soccer ball. So if they can be happy with that, I do not need a cybertruck to be any more happy. And it might bring its fulfillment for like the first month. Like I would love it, dude. I would love, I would love a Tesla. I would love a really nice house, modern, on like Chuck Nut drive in the ocean. I would love that for like three months. And I'd be like, dude, I just gotta go build another business. Yeah, that's all I'd care about.

The Corvette throws me though. I see for me maybe it's stature. Don't get me wrong, I feel like you're Porsche. I feel like you're a Porsche guy. They're small, they're sporty, they're agile. I appreciate they don't have, they don't have massive high end top speed like a Corvette. So they're fun to drive for daily drivers.

Right.

Because they got good like zero.

But see, I have this problem. I have this problem and that is when it comes to cars, the thought of scratching it and reducing the value, it just kills me. Yeah. So if I'm gonna have a nice car, I cannot drive it anywhere, it might get scratched.

Yeah.

And that's really weird and messed up. But if it's a Corvette, somehow because it's like a GM and like not super expensive, I'm like, hey, you know what, I can drive it. I feel like I could drive it and if I'm gonna get a nice car, I'm gonna drive it. I'm not gonna be like, okay, it's so nice, I can't take it to the shop or I can't like I don't want to take it on a road trip cause I'd put miles on it. Like God forbid you buy a car and you actually use it. Right. So that's why the Corvette would kind of make sense. It looks cool, dude. It looks like a $120,000 car.

The new ones are sweet. I've been, I've been eyeing those new Ford Broncos. So.

Yeah, dude, yeah, I've been seeing some.

Of those souped up. Maybe we can talk raises or something.

Like I'll take one third of the 10, 10 billion. I'll go spend that. All right.

I gotta ask because I wrote it down, but this can be a short answer because we went pretty deep on the tent. 100 million.

100 million.

Like just where would you split it up? We don't have to go into the details or the rabbit hole.

I would definitely be going into philanthropy at that point. Yeah. More than I do now.

100 million. It would have to go outside of landscaping at that point. If I have a million, hundred million cash. Like by that time. If you have $100 million cash and you've built a business, you typically have our 10 billion plus net worth. Right, right. So typically 10 billion dollar net worth, you're thinking way outside of. Like I would no longer be thinking about lawn care landscaping in itself. I'd be thinking about how do we revolution, revolutionize small business and create systems for every small business owner for free to get them to a certain size in every single industry. And I would basically be trying to make like the Harvard University for small business owners for completely free. Right. Right now we got charge mbaforantrepreneurs.com plug, plug, plug. But like we need the money to keep scaling for things. If I had $100 million, I would hire an entire media team.

Totally.

We just go all out on helping small business owners. That's all I care about.

Just go just all the way to the wall to wall with a media studio and development.

And then I would use the money to get, I'd use the money to get awareness. So you'd pay your, you'd pay to play, right. You'd bring in, you know, Gary Vee, Grant Cardone, you just pay them to get the awareness to the thing that you want. And then you would deploy that against massive amounts of value to small business owners. And yeah, it'd be, it'd be cool.

Yeah.

But right now like I gotta get the hundred million so we gotta, gotta sell those courses and so, but that would be the goal. I Wanna. I wanna eliminate the fact that so many small business owners get started and so many fail because the amount of pain and pressure that causes in families and communities and losses of jobs and poor management and pressure and not sleeping and mental health just. It just kills me. So that's what I would do. Yeah, I'd fix it with 100 million.

I love it. Fantastic. Beautiful answer. Quick plug. Mbaforantrepreneurs.com landscapebusinesscourse.com calendly.com LePark Intro.

Just some plugs. Just some plugs. Let's see what else. Lawn carewebdesign.com all right.

All right, let's see. Cultural norm. So kind of definitely switching gears, I guess. Just a broad strokes question. I know, you know, culture, vision, those are kind of tied together a lot. Like, the vision helps you produce a culture. The culture feeds into the vision, right? Helps build the vision for the entrepreneur and the team and inspires them to buy into that culture. Because there's a worthy vision, some authors and business leaders would call it. I've heard that in different business books you find a worthy vision that your employees can buy into. What for you, in terms of culture? Business, corporate, cultural, like norms? What norms would you change and why in South Augusta? Or just in broad strokes, more broad strokes purposes? I think we go, for lack of a better term, kind of to the beat of our own drum. We're pretty loose, but. And I was trying to think like some good examples, but I guess, like, I don't know, dress code, business hours.

Like, I think the thing I, I care about most in terms of culture was speak for Augusta. What I care about is I want a culture where people are pushed to become the best version of themselves and cannot become lax. And that's going to push a lot of people out because I don't, I don't want people to be okay with the status quo or better yet, their status quo, because this is the problem. Some people are really good. And so therefore they are. They actually are above average performers. And they, they just top out, right? Like, they plateau because they're better than the majority of people working there. And so I want to make a culture where that's not acceptable. I don't care if you're a 99, you need to be 100. And that can be. That can put a lot of pressure on people. And I know that that pushes people out sometimes because people want to just come to a job. And I just, I don't want to be around people like that. And so I feel like, the best thing about being a business owner and employer is the fact you get to choose who you work with every single day. And I want a place where people want to become better, they want to make more money, they want to make an impact, and they come to work every single day trying to become better versions of themselves. And if they lost that, I don't know how long they'll last.

Right. Yeah. And I mean, one of our core values is we embrace constant improvement. Right. Like that. It's a core tenet, is exactly what you're saying. And I think having people that embrace that are just going to bolster that culture more. So I think ultimately fighting complacency is kind of what you would say, I guess. Or do you feel like at Augusta, I guess, trying to form a question through all my thoughts would be, we don't really have a hierarchical ladder. Like, there's no structure. It's like we. Like you said in one of your acquisitions, there was a guy, he'd never had management training. We just put him in because he had equipped himself and was ready for the position when it came, became available. There was no wait list. There was no 1, 2, 3. Like, we just said his name, gave him the call, and he stepped up. Right. So do you feel like that's one of the ways you fight that norm? Like, how are you going to continue to fight that cultural norm of hierarchical leadership and management as we grow in scale and we will need to silo more and have more departmental managers? Like, what is your thought process behind that?

Or do we just become corporate? Like, and I hate that. Like, we've talked about this at length before, but, like, I never want Augusta to be like, the corporate Augusta. Right.

I think first and foremost, honestly, the leader has to care about it. Cultures born over the course of generations. And so when you think about culture and then you tear back that to cult, really, you're trying to build something. Like, you know, you talk about American culture. It's been formed over what, three, 250 years. So trying to change that, good luck. Now, if we would have rewind the tape back to 1820, we could have changed a few things.

Right?

Right. We could change the culture of America if we would have ran wound back tape. A lot easier than trying to change it now. Right. So I think being actively diligent about pulling the weeds before they come trees is really important. And unfortunately, most leaders are more in, more incentivized and embrace making themselves look better than pulling the weeds. And. And they don't care about the culture. They do. They care about the culture enough to make more money. Let's just be super honest about it. The reason they want a great culture is that people want to come to work and that they can say we have a great culture so like we can retain employees. They don't actually care about the culture. They really don't.

Yeah.

And it is proven by the way that they fire. They will keep someone who is toxic because they make good money for the company. And so when you start making firing decisions based upon culture, you set the rule determining laws and rules of that culture and that cult becomes those rules. And that takes time. And once that organization gets larger and does have more silos and you look at an organization like the United States that has departments and, and you know, you have, you know, different branches of military and government and legal, it's so hard to change then. Right. But ultimately it has to come from the top. If the leader doesn't care about the culture and is not invested fully in just making that culture better, it will never ever, ever, ever work.

So just pull a Google and just make nap pods and like water slides in the office.

No, like I think those things are all absolute bandits.

Totally. And I think it's a facade in my opinion.

Yeah. And it mostly is, it appeases the IT check, does the checkbox thing for the, the, the HR and for the CEO. I care about culture. So I got a pool table. It's like, no, if you cared about culture, you would have a meeting to make sure that your $15 per hour employees have figure out a way to make 25 over the next 5 to 10 years in their career. That's what you would do. You would invest that $3,000 in that pool table into audiobooks for them. You figure out that $3,000 to get a screen that in the break room maybe like scrolls through educational content about finances. That's what you would do.

I think a practical example I guess would be you and Liz a few years ago made the decision to stop providing snacks and drinks for the team and you decided you were like very popular opinion.

Yeah.

But you, you did that because you thought, well, there are guys that don't need those snacks. They come prepared, they don't need drinks. Like they pack a lunch. And ultimately by buying that, you guys are taking money out of your snack and the employees pockets. Right. And so I think finding a way that better helps employees and employers win is how you develop culture.

And magically the profit sharing program was born the next.

Exactly. Yeah. Now that money for those 3, 4, $500 worth of snacks goes into the employees pockets, divided up every quarter. So. So another thing I wanted to kind of talk about is more the philosophical side of my candies.

So go a little Keith Kalfis.

Go a little Keith Kalfus. I was thinking thoughts, shout out Keith. I hope I get to meet Keith at gie. That's like up there for me. That is like so high up there for me. Huge Keith guy. Anyways, so there is a, a philosophical doodle, if you will, an antidote that someone created. I just airdropped it to you, so feel free to pick up your phone there. I got it here on my computer screen. But basically. And I think we'll have Stephen throw the graphic up so you can see it, but I'll explain through it a little bit. So it's a picture of eight glasses of water, or really nine glasses of water. And essentially the top left is what an optimist sees and we go through philosophical worldviews and how they would view this glass of water. So as Mike reviews it, I'll briefly explain to you guys. The optimist sees the glass as half full, right? Very positive. The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The realist sees it as a glass of water for what it is. A physicist sees it as has gas and liquid inside of a solid. If you want to take it another step further. A surrealist sees the water in odd shapes and forms. A relativist sees half empty, half full. It's all relative. A utopus sees the water at the top. It's utopia, it's euphoria. A skepticist sees it's not water. And then a nihilist shout out Alex Hormozi sees nothing because water doesn't matter.

Water doesn't have any taste.

There's nothing thing. Water is nothing. It doesn't exist.

It doesn't matter. This segment is brought to you by Essential Water.

No, they denied us. Man, I'm salty. All right, so for you, just looking at that, I know it's so.

I already know.

It's so deductive, right?

Yeah.

But like where would you align and why would you align with, with that kind of psychology?

Somewhere between the realist and the physicist, honestly. Yeah, because I like to break things down into their components. And I obviously went to school and did a lot of physics and chemistry, so I like to break things down, liquid and gas. That makes a lot of sense. The realist, like I do like to just think that I do that I try hard to be a realist. Like, what is the actual. If I step out all of emotions, strip out all emotions, what's the actual situation looking like? That's what I'd like to be. I'm probably more of a physicist, and I get way too in the weeds and stuff because I'm breaking down the component parts and the molecules and the. The particles move together and all that garbage.

I like it.

What are you.

I. I.

Wait, let me guess. Yeah, I'm gonna guess.

Do it.

You're. You're. You're probably a relativist.

That's. That's pretty good. I would say I'm. I'm a little bit relative. A little bit realist. Yeah, I'm very you. And I see a lot of stuff eye to eye in terms of, like, the reality of the situation. Like this. It a. Is a.

Because you're a relativist, dude, you always like to go, like, both sides of the equation. You always, like, like theoretical stuff. You always, like, do the. What's it called? Parenthetical. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you do.

I always preface all my questions, our ideas, to you and Liz. I never just, like, give you and Liz a straight up idea. I'm like, hey, I had this thought. What are your. What are your thoughts? I'm like. So I have three bullet points.

Don't take this too. Don't. Don't take this too seriously.

Just.

Just hear me out. Yeah. Yeah, I would. I'd agree.

Yeah. I think I'm a realist. Probably mostly a relativist. Like, it is. It's. It's both.

It's happening to Sarah.

Huh?

Have you shown it to Sarah?

Yeah, we talked about it a little bit.

Do you agree with this sentiment?

Realist.

Realist.

All right.

Yeah. So, okay, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe marriage. I'm a realist and a business. I'm more of a relativist.

I don't know.

I don't know if it's good or bad, but I think that. I think.

I hate saying this because I feel like it puts me into, like, a dumb trope.

But, like, what's a trope?

Do you not even know a trope as a relativist? Like, like, you're. You're that dude that says. Well, there's a lot of nuance to it.

Like, yeah, it's true.

And no one likes those people.

Yeah.

Even though it's, like, true most of the time.

But you and I are kind of like that. We always Try to find the other side of the coin.

That's fair.

We do. Like, someone will say something, like, Liz will say something, and both of us are like, well, like, from this side, it's different. Right. Or if you say something, I'm usually trying to find the other side. If I say something, you're like, well, what about. Like, what about this?

Yeah.

So we kind of see both sides of the coin.

Well, there was that moment the other day that we. No drama. We're not barstool in this. But you, Liz and Lonnie were all aligned. And I just was like, wait, no. Why?

Like, oh, yeah.

And I was just like, why would we do that? And you guys all had some, I guess, history there. And I had the relativist viewpoint where, like, I saw it for both sides and I was like, no. Like, I don't.

Yeah. And as soon as Liz said your perspective, I immediately agreed. That was actually. I wish that. That's the sort of thing I wish we had in the vlog.

Right.

Like. Cause like, I was like, like certain thinking. She was. Lonnie was. You said one thing. I said, he's right. Like, change it. Go for it.

Yeah. Because I had the.

You're such a relevant relative.

So do. Do you think, like, as a realist and a physicist, in terms of just this, you know, example, do you feel like, what are the pros? What are the cons? Being a business owner, being a million dollar CEO, like, is that. What are the benefits of being. Having that worldview? What are the negatives that you see.

See the benefits is that money gives you options. And ultimately I heard this the other day and I was like, as much as bad as this sounds, it's 100 true. It gives you freedom. Like, for example, if you disagreed with the mask mandate and you wanted to travel, if you had money, you had freedom.

Yeah.

You go get yourself a private jet.

Swear.

So freedom ultimately will come down to money. Like, if you don't have money, you're going to be told what to do and you will have to listen. And that's why I'm really against handouts from the government, because it makes everyone dependent on somebody else. It's taking away your freedom. And so I don't even remember what question was. I love.

Pros. Pros is from a money standpoint, it gives you freedom. I can do what I want. If I want to go buy a cybertruck tomorrow, I could do it, but I don't want to. So I'm not going to. If I want to go Buy a house. If I want to sell my real estate, I could do it if I wanted to do more gust. Like, there's so many options. There's freedom.

Downsides, lots of responsibility. And I don't take that lightly. So it's a little. A lot of pressure mentally for me. I know some people, it's like they hire a bunch of people, or the bunch of people are depending on. They don't care. They're really usually this person that is wrapped up a lot in their vision. And they fall so love with the vision, they forget about the execution. Typically those people are the ones that don't feel the weight and the burden of leadership. And because I feel that way, the thing that I like, my Achilles heel is sleep. And if I can't sleep, it typically almost always falls back on. I know there's just responsibility.

And so I know that's a good thing. I'm not trying to do this like a humble brag. Cause I know it's a really good thing to have as a leader. It's a good thing to have. But I also know having a conscience.

Caring about people in the slightest.

Everyone always thinks, you know, if you have more money, it's all your problem. It doesn't. It doesn't make you any more happy. I've seen that both extremes. And so I've decided that I don't need it to be happy. But building things, like, I'm. I'm addicted all in, 100%. If you take that away from me, I'd rather die to not be able to build. And so whether or not I have money, whether I have the value of the companies, it's not super important. Like if you stripped out everything, I lost everything. Tomorrow I'd be out in the street figuring out something. Something I'd be selling, you know, getting soda cans. I'd do something. Dude, I just want to build totally. As a kid, my favorite, like computer game was. Or board game was like Monopoly in life. Right. I just love building.

Right. I love not roller coaster tycoon.

Dude, I was about to say roller coaster and mall tycoon. Let's like mall tycoon. Is it a great game?

Was it Zoo Tycoon? You build this?

Dude, I did all the tycoons. Let's go. Yeah, man. So like, that was my favorite building. I love building stuff. Stuff. You know, things like Runescape, those sort of games, like where you build stuff. Like I never used dude, Farmville. Yeah. But I probably would have been addicted to the game. I just love building Things. Right. I don't really care if it's a lot of building or a little building. I just want to see progress. And like, if I don't, I literally would rather die. Like, I know it's like super extreme. If you like, oh, you should be like, suicide, I don't care. I would rather die than not to be able to feel like I'm building.

Something because it's so constricted for your, for you and your personality. Is that what you're saying? Like, you'd rather act because, like, you, if you couldn't build, if you could create something, like, you would just feel swamped, like you couldn't move.

The moment you're not growing, you are dying.

Right?

So why not just make it final, you know?

Like, if you're not a nihilist.

Why die over the next 60 years if you can make it final? If I'm going to stop growing today and over the next 60 years, become contankerous old crabby, talk about the news all the time, tear everyone else down. Why not just die today instead of just growing? Focus on myself and becoming a better person. Yeah, if that's not happening, like, you know, put a nail in it, bro.

Very politically correct.

That's fine. That's all right. That's cool.

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I, I think though, like, it's also the, the phrase that a lot of people say, like, movement isn't progress. And I think you always want progress. You don't want movement. And I think, you know, I align with that. Liz aligns with that. A lot of our team at the command center and just a lot of franchisees, like, yeah, I could move a lot and I could make decisions and I could flip my business and I could do that. But it's like, I want progress, I want results, I want to build. So I, I see what you're saying there. I like that.

That's why if I had the 3 million cash, it wouldn't last very long because I'm so addicted to the build. I'd figure out where to do it, make it the build bigger by just having the 3 million.

Yeah, gotcha. What do you, what do you think?

It's an addiction, dude. It's not healthy. Yeah. Like if people actually tear back, like it is psychologically messed up to have that in your head. And that's why I say, like, entrepreneurs are stupid. They are, they are, they are messed up. Something's messed up, dude. To put yourself with that much pain and pressure and risk, there's something wrong. And that's why, like at conference I talked about, like when I actually self diagnose of why I am the way I am, it goes right back to childhood. Almost everything does. Right. Like when you're bent in a certain way, it goes back to seeing hurt and pain around money and never wanting that. And you just go all extreme the other direction. The same way that people like see their family get so involved in like health and fitness and being like skinny, they go the opposite direction or vice versa. They see their family being skin so fat and just like burger, they go opposite and they become as this bodybuilder machine. Right. And so I truly believe that entrepreneurs, like, there's something messed up because you wouldn't do it. Like the average entrepreneur makes $33,000 a year still. So like, if you're, if you're logical, why in the world did you do that? If you're any of the nihilist, pessimistic, whatever, like the glass is stinking empty.

Yeah.

Like, so like you have to be stupid. Like there's something messed up and it's an addiction and it's not, it's not healthy at all. No one should want that. Yeah, well, like people laugh when Elon says, like, because someone's like, yeah, someone was like, what can people be like you? And he had, he paused like 15 seconds. Like, I don't think people want to be like me. Everyone laughed and you just saw in his eyes like he was dead serious. And it's true. It's like I have like a drop of what he has. Like if this is him, I have a drop of it.

Yeah.

And you don't want that, but if you have it, it, you'd rather die trying to go for it than, than push that away.

And I think entrepreneurship or entrepreneur is, is a term that's used too loosely. It's like anyone that starts a business is an entrepreneur. And you're talking about like not a serial entrepreneur. But someone that has that, like, switch in their head that they can't turn off. Right. Because, like, anyone could go start.

I didn't know what an entrepreneur was like, right? It's. It. It's something that you. Is a genetic predisposition.

Yeah.

Like, there's something messed up.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, the entrepreneur thing, everyone likes that because now it's, like, a popular thing. Right.

We're getting Freud and niche and we're getting deep here. I love it. And two, like, you know a phrase that I've heard, and I know you've heard, I've heard Liz say it. Like, it's. It's extremely lonely at the top. Like, I think most sane people, and I think just as humans, we. We desire culture. We desire interpersonal connection. And when you're at the top, it is extremely lonely. Like, Elon saying, like, no, you. Like, you don't want. That is because he knows, like, he's extremely lonely and he's extremely burdened all the time. And I know, like, I've seen you in some of those states where you're extremely burdened and you're lonely. And, like, I can say whatever I want, but, like, you're. You're where the buck stops. Like, not with me. So, like, I can encourage, I can help, I can work, I can do whatever, but, like, it ends with you. And so I agree with you. It's like you have to have a screw loose up there, but it's the.

Decision you make, right? Like, so you're either gonna be lonely at the top, but guess what? It's really lonely at the bottom too.

Yeah.

Right. And I think that, unfortunately, because of. Our society has told everyone, and we've all bought in the lie, that being lonely is a bad thing.

Oh, here we go with the nihilist stuff. Right? So, like, because we believe that being lonely is bad, what we do is we. We gravitate to the norm and to the media. Because if we can become average, there is. There is a camaraderie because so many people are there. There is no loneliness in the center. And so that's why everyone becomes average. That's why people put an average level of effort and have average levels of income, average level, you know, average, everything. Because in average is camaraderie and is plenty of others. There is no loneliness in the mean and in the average. And so if you're going to deviate outside of the average, you better be prepared to be lonely. And if that's the desire you have, don't think you're not going to be lonely because it's going to. Is part of the game.

And I think there's a definition between alone and lonely. Like, there are lonely moments at the top, but you're alone at the top. Do you see that distinction?

I agree.

Like, there are times where you're, you are lonely. There's nothing that Liz can say that I can say that we can do as a team to like, take off your plate. Like, you are lonely in those moments, but also you're just perpetually alone. You're like at the top.

But again, is it a negative thing.

From your perspective or from.

I don't know, I just don't think it's a bad thing because, like, if I've made the conscious decision to be lonely, if I am lonely, like, I know that what I'm doing, I'm going to have moments of loneliness. So why would I perpetuate the thought that I should not be lonely? And that's a negative thing. It's part of what I'm doing. Right. And so I have decision to not do that and push myself. And if I didn't want to, guess what, I wouldn't be lonely. I'd be out every afternoon and evening with family, friends on the weekend, chilling out. I wouldn't be like scrambling my brains at 12 o' clock every single night. And that's a decision I made. And so for me, I've made a decision to do something. Therefore loneliness will probably be a result. So if I'm going for this and this is the goal, how is loneliness negative? It's just part of what I've signed up for.

Yeah, I mean, building muscle. You have to tear the muscle to build it.

Right.

So like it's damage, like soreness after working out. So it's just a more extreme psychological muscle that you're exercising in those moments. Cool. We can move on from that one. We got deep. I loved it.

Let's talk about motivation. So, and this is more General, I guess.

Mow. Mo.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. Go landscape. Businesscourse.com. all right. Motivation. So this is more just for the masses. Law of averages, the bell curve, if you will. You know, people in that middle percentile. Right. And for the business owners, for employees. Anyone listening to this one?

Standard deviation to the left and right.

Yes.

Back. Our physicist.

Like, so someone who isn't motivated, like, they can't get out of bed. They are lonely. Right. And they're not a CEO. Like, they're just, they're living their life they're lonely. And I don't want to necessarily talk about, like, depression or mental health here, but it's. It's a part of that greater conversation, and I want to be sensitive to that. But just someone, they're not motivated, they can't get out of bed, whatever it may be. You know, what do you feel is, like for you? And then we can talk more about, like, generically for you. What's the most productive way you motivate yourself? Is it like inward motivation, like hyping yourself?

Dude, this could get really deep.

Yeah, I know.

Keep going. Sorry.

So, like. So I kind of broke it down into, like, like, like, almost like a category of, like, four. And some of them can intersect. So you have inward motivation, right? You spiritual, emotional, hype yourself up. Prayer, meditation, whatever you do to motivate yourself internally. That is a way that a lot of people do. Outward motivation, listening to motivational speeches, books, you know, being affirmed by others, whatever it may be, you can be motivated outwardly. And then of those two, you can also have positive and negative. Negative, right? And so, like, you know the classic phrase, chip on your shoulder, right? You know, negative is like, I'm gonna prove people wrong. Like, oh, this guy said, I. I can't do it. I'm gonna do it. Positive is, I'm gonna be the best because I want to bring people with me or I want to, you know, it's not prove everyone wrong. The positive side is like, I want to make an impact on other people's lives. So for you, what do you feel like is most productive for you? Is it inward? Is it outwards? Is negative, Is it positive? Or do you just nihilistically, you know, I just do it because I do it.

I definitely don't have, like, the chip on my shoulder thing. I got over that after college because I, I. During college, it was driving me a bit because of people saying that I shouldn't have, you know, started mowing lawns instead of doing the whole medical thing. But I don't really care about that. I would say this. Why do you, like, the big question, like, what gets you out of bed? Right? That. That's the ultimate question. And so my question is to you. Why do you sleep on a bed instead of out on some pavement, like on the sidewalk? Why would you. Why do you go to bed? Like, why do you sleep in a bed?

I mean, for the comfort, for the rest, right? So know that you're recharged once you.

Get out of bed. What is the opposite of that discomfort? What Gets me out of bed every day. Every day is discomfort, being out of balance. And that's the addictive part of being entrepreneur. And what I talked about and, like, why I wouldn't have the 3 million in the bank, because if I had the 3 million in the bank, think I'd be comfortable. I just want to stay in bed.

Yeah.

And so ultimately, discomfort is what gets me out of bed every single day. The knowledge of knowing, like, I have to perform, I have to get going. And like, that is, again, like, there's something. There's a screw missing, there's something wrong. That shouldn't be the way it is. But. And everyone in the comments is like, you should just, like, relax and, like, enjoy everything. You want to beach that sort of thing. I have no desire whatsoever. Yeah, I want the discomfort. And that's why I talked about, like, being out of balance. In order to make progress, you have to be out of balance if you're gonna run. You're constantly out of balance if you're running. So therefore, if I'm gonna make progress, I will constantly be in a state of imbalance as long as that is important to me. And so to get out of bed, to get in bed, you get comfort. If you wanna get out of bed, you have discomfort. That means that could potentially, for someone who's an entrepreneur, could be that they. Your kids will go hungry if they don't get out of bed. Guess what? You're gonna get a bed. If you love your kids, it could be that your family's depending on you to be able to go to college and. And do something for the family and get them out of poverty. Like, you're gonna get out of bed. And so I think, unfortunately, because of social programs, because we've lulled everyone to sleep in our culture where if you don't have. If you have discomfort, we're gonna take care of you. And so because we've made it so comfortable to be in our society, no one has discomfort to get out of bed and do anything cool and push themselves and go hard and get out of balance. Cause, hey, if I get out of balance, I might get hurt. So why would I not stay in a comfortable position where I have social programs taking care of me? I don't have to push. I can take everything that's given to me. And so what we've done, we've put a bunch of feathers in the nest when what we should be doing is pushing people out. And so whether that be the way that people are parented, the way that Our education system works the way that our tax and social programs work inside of our country. All of those things are designed to make our culture and our young people softer and to get more comfortable. So why in the world do we keep asking the question what gets you out of bed? What gets you out of bed is all the opposite. Things that we're giving to the them. And we wonder why they're lazy and they're, they're. They don't want to go to work. We made it so easy for them not to. They're in bed all the stinking time. And so for me personally, that's probably why the addiction to staying out of balance and constantly, you know, trying to grow things is there. Because that's what gets me out of bed. I never have a problem getting out of bed. Never. Because I know, like the moment that I wake up or the alarm goes off or whatever, like I know there's something. It's pulling me out of bed because if I don't, there's people depending on me. There's things that would happen negatively if I didn't get out of bed. And that's what gets me out of bed. I'm sorry. It's not like I just enjoy. Like, my day is so fantastic. I just love going to work. Like, it's not that way. It's. It's discomfort that pulls you out of bed and so just get uncomfortable. Like, people are gonna think you. I'm really weird when this vlog comes out tomorrow, when I said I didn't drink water going up the mountain. Right?

Yeah.

Oh, you haven't seen it. Sorry.

I ran Oyster Dome. I didn't, I didn't drink water going up. And the week before I throw a rock in my shoe. Right. And the whole idea, like doing hard things become popular because of Jocko. But I did that sort of thing going through college. I would, when I was studying, I would do something that was negative just, Just to make it harder. And I truly believe, I believe that we've so made it so easy in our culture and so many, whether it be getting food, whether it be making getting money, whether it be going to college, all these things are so easy now and given to us literally, like getting a date.

Like you can get 500,000 dating apps.

Yeah.

Blindly swipe.

Everything is so easy. Maybe that's what I should try. It's like, you know, everything is so easy now. Then we wonder why people aren't motivated. So back to motivation. Get. Get some uncomfortability in your life.

Yeah. Be comfortable with the uncomfortable, essentially. So you would say. I just kind of want to surmise, you would say, for using those four categories, it sounds like yours is more. More inward, negative. Probably a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you think? And it is like a chart. You have, like, a thing. Yeah.

And then what was the other one?

Positive, positive, negative, inward, outward.

Ooh, definitely. Definitely between the two of negative, inward, very hard, myself and that sort of thing that we talked about. And then also positive, outward. Like, I definitely want to have an impact. Like, that does. That is part of what pulls me and gives me the, like, the personal responsibility thing going on internally.

Yeah. And, like, outwardly, you've said that, like, you want to, you know, make people millionaires. Those are the metrics you judge Augustus success by. How many owners become millionaires? How many guys go through the 3F program and start their own location? So that's your outward positive.

Vibes.

Vibes.

Vibes.

But there's a lot of nuance to it. So.

Do you think. Now, this is just off the cuff, not a prepared question. Okay. Do you think someone that is motivated by outward negative pressure should be a leader or a business owner?

I think they can be. I don't really care about what motivates somebody, because motivation doesn't really do anything. It's, like, fuel. The question is, what are they trying to lead people towards? Right. Like, you can be fueled by negative external influences. Like, for example, you hate. Hate your. Your. What was it? What was it? Motivated? Was that the word?

Yeah, well, motivated.

You could be motivated by this external negativity. For example, I hate the news, and I don't like the fact that everyone's so left and right. Like, there's got to be a middle ground. You can be motivated and use that negative energy from the external to make something that's in the middle and that you're really passionate about and help people.

So I don't really, really care what motivates people.

Yeah.

Like, shout out Joe Rogan. Yeah.

Like, you just described Joe Rogan.

Yeah.

Like, that's what motivates him, is that he just, like, hates everyone's opinions and how bipolar ice everyone is in a way. I mean, that's a horrible. Yeah.

So I don't really. I don't really think about what motivates me or what motivates other people. I simply care about what do you. If you're leading people, what are you leading them towards?

Mm.

And what change are you trying to make? And is that positive? That's really all I care about whether that where you get your motivation. I don't care. I don't care if you're messed up. I don't care if you're psychologically mess up the meds that make you motivated. I don't really care. Just get motivated, go do something. Right. And if you're a leader, you have a responsibility to do that. And so as long as that's positive, all power to you.

The outcome. As long as the outcome is positive. Yeah, I agree with that, I guess. And I see kind of using that, that glass picture that we talked about, the nine glasses of water, that's where I think I see you as the physicist, because you're breaking it down. You're like, well, motivation is, is an input, but we're looking at the output. So if I take A and B and put them together, what's my output? And that, that's how you would view that as a physicist? It's an equation, right? Like motivation is, is whatever. That's the theory we're talking about. But there's an equation that gets you an outcome. Right.

No one puts fuel in their car in order like you put fuel. You put motivation in your car to get somewhere.

Right.

Only thing I care about is the destination. And are you making progress?

Right?

Right.

Not just movement. Yeah.

Cool.

Last question that I have. Well, maybe a couple more. But last officially kind of prepared question. So obviously I've already dropped their name a couple times. Like, Alex Hormozi is just a massive influence on me right now in terms of just ability to sell a. Sell a beauty, ability to communicate, ability to lead. Just phenomenal. In terms of his advice, he said this phrase quite a few times. And he recently released a video on content production. And I sent it to you and the media guys. I said, dude, this is a fire video. Like he talks about how do you scale up your content, how do you 10 extra content, monetize whatever, get sales, get leads, whatever your goal is, how do you get it there? And, and one of the things that he said, and like I said, he said it multiple times, is give your best stuff away for free. That's what he says. And for me, when I'm on a sales call, I send folks the roundtables. I send them information about the franchisees. They can view certain documents that they have. There's a certain element of things that I will send them that that's totally okay to send. But do you feel like you've already given away everything for free by having the YouTube channel and so many videos and so many pieces of content. Content.

I think, in. If you look at why I try to give it a lot of way, like, of what I'm thinking about most of the franchisees, but in terms of publicly, I hold a lot back because kind of what we talked about before, like, the vision thing, but just some of my thoughts. Like, I don't think about my thoughts a whole lot. People think I'm pretty. Like, I think a lot, and I do think a lot, but I don't think about my thoughts and, like, their importance in the world and all that sort of thing. Yeah. So, like, honestly, like, part of the reason why we do interviews is to pull some of that out.

Yeah.

Because it is there. I know it's there. I just not. I don't have the skills yet. I don't have years of figuring out how to verbally say those things. And I also think that my career, as it continues, the best of what it has in me, will come out in the form of business content because of the foundation, the fundamentals I believe in. And so I'm not, like, in a rush to get there. I don't try to say stuff that I like. I'm not. I don't know about because, like, it'll. It'll come. It'll be fine. Right. The reason that Alex can speak with such conviction, Alex Hormozi, is because he's done it. He's built that size of business, Right. So it comes across. He comes across like a massive alpha male because he's so confident and says things so without any emotion, because it's like the truth to him.

Right?

So if I say certain things that I don't have an experience fully in their fullness, if I don't experience them in their fullness, I can't. I can't say it with that same level of conviction, even if I believe the same thing. And so I think that I definitely hold back a lot. And I don't have no. Like, oh, I need to get this out. I don't. It'll come. It'll come. I'll always be sharing. And as I get more confident in certain things, I'll share it. And when I know it to be true, I will stand on it and plant the flag. And there's certain things in business that's like that. So there's some things morally or whatever, like, hey, like, this is the truth, and, like, this is what we're gonna do. Business decisions, et cetera. Like, there's certain things, like, even with the smaller locations, when they're first getting started. Like, there's certain flags that I've planned. I know this is right. I have no doubt question there. I'll say it 10,000 times and it'll be true every single time. But part of it is, like, I'm not the type just to throw out, like, my convictions. Right. I want to have proof, data. I want to know this is the truth. And when I say it, if someone follows it, they'll get the same results. It's repeatable, it's systems. And. Yeah. So part partly, though, why we're doing this sort of podcast is if I talk to anyone else, we wouldn't go. Go get this deep because they don't know all the surface stuff about me. And so you go right to, like, the penetrating. Like, what's motivation? Right. No one else gets there because, like, how do you start your lawn care business? And, like, what's about franchising? And, like, what's the difference between franchise and independent? Like, like, that's all. Like, you can find 100 other places. Right. So I think the deeper stuff will come in time as this sort of stuff happens.

I talked to a couple of the other folks that did the interviews with you, and I was like, yeah, I'm. I'm not going to talk about lawn care. And not in a bad way in the sense, like, you've already, like, how many times can you say something? Right. And. And that's, I guess, more towards what my. What my question is about. It's like, it's not like you and Augusta are necessary reinventing the wheel. I think we're just trying to perfect it and scale it. Like, we're. We're taking the wheel and we're turning it into a car.

Right.

I think is what we're doing. And I think for me, like, do you feel that Augusta, I guess, has, like, a secret sauce, or do you feel like a lot of what we do is in your videos and it's just behind the veil of. Well, we have the structure, we have the systems, we have the red flags. Like you said, we have accountability. We have the command center coaching calls. Like, do you think it's just basically the. The recipe for the sauce is out there, but we've actually assembled it and put it on a burger and you can enjoy it when you join?

No, the information is commoditized. It's. Everyone can watch all my videos and everything, how we run and stuff at Augusta. Right. But execution is a completely different beast because someone will take a thousand things. I talk about my, my videos and alter one thing and it messes everything up, right? And so this is why, like I, I love Tesla. I could care less about their valuation or whatever. Elon or whatever. The reason I like Tesla is because they let all of their, their copyrights and their trademarks. And trademarks, but their, their patents on all our technology be open source, which basically means anyone could just go rip them off right now. Now you literally have exactly how they built this thing. So there's nothing like proprietary in terms of their technology that people can't literally go try to replicate. But what they realize is that you can't because you don't have our team, you don't have the systems that we built, you don't have the manufacturing capability and you definitely don't have an Elon Musk at the top, right? And so whether or not you, the other thousand startup electric car companies, what's different between them and Tesla? They have the exact same information. What's the difference between someone watching my videos and a franchisee? They have the exact same information. You're just not plugged into the thing that's going to keep refining that system and keep you accountable. Those thousand things, right? And it's like, oh, hey, make sure the drive, the drive shaft. You just, if you don't fix that, that's going to mess up this entire battery pack, right? And yet this other company is just getting started, going to spend four years figuring out the drive shaft and that messes up the battery pack. So.

It'S not secret sauce. It's simply information versus execution. The franchise is execution. What we sell, sell for free is information for free on the, on the podcast, videos, et cetera. And if you took the conglomeration of all my free content, you would not need to buy a single thing From Augusta, from landscapebusinesscourse.com MBA for entrepreneurs. None of it would not have to do a single thing. But what those things sell is execution, right? People buy landscape businesscourse.com because it starts at zero and it ends at a certain point, right? You get the MBA for entrepreneurs because it gives you a foundation theory on all these things about business. They're starting this endpoint. Someone joins the franchise. Because I'm going to show you, hey, there's step one of growing wealth. 500,000 in revenue. 2, 3, 7. Investing. Like there's a process and most people cannot execute. And therefore information is completely like there's no value in it. And someone like Tesla who has a built a trillion dollar valuation has proven it does not matter how much information you have. And what I could tell everyone what we do at Augusta, like through and through. Exactly. The T. And they'd still fail not to say that like a lot would also do well and they'd learn from it, et cetera, and they'd take pieces and parts of it. But you don't have the thing, you don't have Tesla. I'm sorry.

Yeah.

And I, I realize that right now, I'm a part of that. If Elon got whacked from Tesla, the valuation would get like decked 60 to 70% down. And so I am very cognizant. It's not pride, it's not saying anything, but I am very cognizant of the fact that, that I am the Elon of Augusta. And down the road, that has to change. And that has to change for Tesla. And you have to take that knowledge and that locked up, pent up, whatever energy. And now how do you scale that? How do you make the franchisees like me? And that sounds weird, but that's what Elon did with all his employees. He got them to think like him, they work out on the floor like him. They pushed for delivery, execution on quarterlies like him. And so.

If you do that, you start making change. And so they're going to change the electric car industry, the solar industry, battery technology, robotics, et cetera. And we're just trying to change the lawn care industry. So it should be achievable.

Yeah, yeah. No, I, and I think in all of that there's an element of. I'm trying to kind of form my thoughts to exactly what I want to say. But there's like you said, the execution, but also the accountability, the camaraderie, like being a part of big, something bigger than yourself. Like if you, you not saying that you don't have pride in your business, but maybe like we talked about earlier, you know, pride is one of the reasons people might not give up their brand or join a franchise. But maybe you have pride in the brand or the community that is a franchise and you want to have that accountability, you know, be a part of something.

People, people don't join Tesla because they have better benefits or better working conditions. Right. That's why I don't care about pool tables and ping pong tables. It doesn't matter. They join Tesla because they're doing something cool.

Yeah.

And they want to be part of it. And they don't care if they make a little bit less. They're doing something that's going to Change the world. At least they believe that. Right. And so.

When it comes to culture and things like that, I just want to have a vision big enough for people to feel like they can grow and expand. And, you know, like you said, I need to be better about showing what that is.

But I'm sorry, no one outside of Tesla has won the game. And so when people say, oh, it's like, it's a crowded market. Look at the electric car industry, look at automotive industry, and tell me about competition and razor thin margins and how hard it is to find the best talent. Right. We'll do the same thing in the long care industry.

Yeah.

And so in 2007, 2008, that's literally 14, 15 years ago, when Tesla was getting started, the people didn't, like, it's a fragmented market. Why would you get into automotive? Well, like, they've proven that it's possible, and it takes 15 years. So in 15 years, come back and talk to me about this. That, and you'll want. People will want to join Augusta. Not because we make more money than everyone else. Not because it's, you know, going to be, you know, they want to paint their trucks yellow. They'll join Augusta because they know what we're trying to do with the industry and because they've seen so many people go through a system and become millionaires. Bottom line.

Yeah.

So I'm not really too concerned. Like, you know, we don't talk a lot about, like, selling. We don't talk about selling a whole lot at all. We don't do marketing for the franchise that will sell. Hell, when you start pumping off electric cars off of assembly line, people start gathering around, start becoming raving fans. When we start pumping off millionaires, and that sounds really weird, but when we do, over the course of 10, 15 years, people are gonna be. That's what'll. It'll kick off.

It'll happen. Yeah. I remember I was in middle school and I saw my first Tesla in downtown Seattle, and I, like, told my dad. I was like, dude, you should check out this company. They're super cool. Cool. And, you know, probably. He probably just passed it off, you know, but it was like, yeah, it was like 2009, we were another Mariners game, and I was like, yo, that's a Tesla.

Like, it was making those articles that you see, like, at the bottom of, like, a webpage. Like, if I would have invested $1,000 in Tesla.

Yeah, totally. Total click.

I'd be a billionaire.

Yeah. Look at all this theoretical money. So I wasn't Gonna ask this, but you. You brought it up, so it's your fault.

Let's go. This has been a breeze, bro. I thought it was gonna be hard, all right? I'm not even sweating.

Well, I mean, bring the heat. This. This one maybe won much of a breeze as. As. Well, I'm not sure if you can even officially answer the question on the. On the record.

Oh, man.

What. What happens if the Elon of Augusta gets whacked?

I think we're pretty close to actually, the point where we'd be okay.

Yeah.

I think within 12 months. Well, we actually. The company would still be just fine. I think.

Not just mass liquidation.

No.

Just a fire sale.

No, I think we're. I think we're 12 months away from where I could confidently say if I got hit by a bus, the company would still do well. It's still grow. The content will live on to be able to attract enough people to the. To. To the company and that the team that we've built internally would keep the vision alive and the culture. I think. I think I need one spring rush under my belt to say that officially. So I give me 12 months.

Yeah. So next spring rush, you want to be out of the day to day ops?

No, no, no, no. I don't want to be out of daily ops. It's a matter of, can I be out of daily ops and not lose the heart of Augusta. Right. That's the bottom line. And so. And the vision of what we're trying to do. So get whacked in 12 months. Mike's expendable. He's getting by a bus.

Come back in 12 months. It'll be me, Zach, Steven, Liz.

All right, last question. Personal question. Check out if you guys want, but appreciate you guys watching and appreciate you having me on. Let me interview you, try to get a little bit deeper, dig a little bit more out of you, and hopefully this was valid, valuable for you guys. So make sure to comment, like, subscribe. All that good stuff helps the media team out.

This is the longest video. Maybe this will get, like, the most retention and so therefore, the most likes because we got to beat Marcus from last week.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. Marcus and I should put a little wager. We should put a little skin in the game on this. We'll see.

All right. Right.

If for my Stranger Things fans out there, I don't even.

Stranger Things.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

But is it TV show, right?

Yeah, it's a TV show on Netflix. It's. It's a thriller. It's it's great. It's a good show.

It's like, new.

Yeah. Newer. Well, the new season just dropped.

Got it.

Big fan. Shout out the Duffer Brothers. Anyways, there's. There's a song. The song. The song is.

You go really bad this question.

I might not know what you're talking about.

No, no, no, you're good. No, you're good. It's. I'm just making a horrible cultural reference, trying to make the channel more relevant. There's a song. It's 1980s pop song, and it's like, if I can make a deal with God and switch our places.

Okay.

And I was like, dude, if I could do that, if we switch places, okay, what. What would you do if you were me? So I'm the Elon of Augusta, Right. I'm the CEO. Right.

You're me. And now you're asking, if you were me, what would you do? You.

No, no, I'm asking. You're me.

Okay. So I'm you.

Yep. So I am Mike. I am the CEO of Augusta. I know Lee Park. You are the franchise business consultant.

Yeah.

You're in my role. Like, what's. What are your steps? What's your plan?

I'd have to know, like, your goals. Like, I have to know what. What you want in life, you know, And I think I have a decent understanding of that. Just because you're more.

I mean, you can say I'm. I'm comfortable. I'm an open book. I tell people out on my. I'm on their intro calls. Like, I want them to know that I am an open book. What do you think I want?

What you want?

Yeah. What are my goals?

Oh, okay. Like, of course I think about money right away. Right. So immediately. Immediately I'm like.

Makes me sound like a horrible person.

You make sure Mike gets hit by a bus in about 12 months and then make sure the equity comes out. I would. I would double down on your. What is your unique selling proposition to the world? And that is what, like, everyone talks about investing, making money, and ultimately, I don't think anyone should invest in something that they don't have a unique advantage in. Right. Why would you invest in the stock market outside of an index fund if you don't know you don't have a reasonable advantage over the average person when it comes to stock market and valuation. Why would you do that? Why would you invest in real estate if you have no idea what a cap rate is? You have no idea about construction. You have no. About property management. Like, you shouldn't do it. So then you got to ask yourself, if you want to have outsized returns in anything, you have to have outsized and above average levels of intellect and knowledge and information in that sector. And so I think over the course of the past five years, you've had the unique ability to see from. From a worker's perspective, an estimated perspective, a GM's perspective, a corporate level perspective. You talked to a bunch of owners, you've talked to GMs, you've seen everything. Right? And so I would double down and triple down on that. That. That thing that you have full range and like, from a business operator standpoint and a lawn care industry perspective, you're like in the 99.9 percentile. So if I was you, I would just do whatever I could to double down on that. And I know you're kind of already thinking this direction. That's why I'm kind of going down. And that is I would start opening up Augusta Law and care locations that are virtual. Yeah, right. Because you have all the information. You have a massive advantage over other industries, over other business sectors. And you've basically been able to absorb all that and see what works and doesn't live from other owners. And so there's no questions. Like, you literally could tell a GM this is what you do, and if you don't, you're fired. Because I know this is going to work. And so I would, if I was in your position, I would double down that the next five to 10 years. And then after that, it looked very, very different.

Yeah.

In 10 years, if you did that, you'd open yourself up the place where you'd have to start thinking outside of, outside of Augusta and outside of lawn care, whether it be investing in real estate or other things. Like, I know you wanted to do a wing stop, so you probably making that move. But that's. That's probably what I would do if I was in your shoes.

It's good advice. Money. That's it.

Cool. Let's go. Thank you all for joining for this hour and a half session. This, this. I almost said trial marathon, so appreciate you guys coming on. And make sure you comment below if you have other questions for Lee specifically. I appreciate you coming on though, Ben.

Yeah.

Appreciate all your help. Been here for five years. I can't believe that. And besides, like, you and Liz are the closest to me, me. So, you know, all the faults, all the failings, all the issues that I have, and you're very gracious and I appreciate that. And you do take a lot off my plate. And I appreciate the fact that you guys are so understanding of an entrepreneur. Both of you are so tied into so many of the stuff I listen to and the world I'm into in terms of entrepreneurship and business ownership. So you understand my idiosyncrasies and the weirdnesses, which I. I really do appreciate, because I know it's not easy to get along sometimes with that type of personality. And so the fact that you even take the time to think and absorb that information helps me be able to operate the way I should and not always have friction around the things I should be doing or the way I should be thinking. Because you take so much off my plate and you don't complain. You never complain, and you never push back on that part. You push back on a lot of other things. Yeah, we have plenty of arguments, but I appreciate your support and being the operator and the. The doer of everything we're trying to do. Yeah.

Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I love it. Destination.

Awesome.

Let's go.

This has been it for the Mike Andes podcast. Now you know what it takes to run a $20 million lawn care company. We have tons of lectures, interviews, and more over on the Mike Andes YouTube channel. That's all we have for you today. We'll see you next time.