Should Your Business Add Another Service? (Q&A with Mike Andes)

If you have a question, go ahead and unmute yourself. And if it gets too congested, Tory can help us direct traffic in terms of who coming on. But feel free to unmute yourself and we'll jump into Q and A.

This is my first CRM and so my question is really revolving around accounting and what integrates best with CRM that you have found as far as really organizing and categorizing transactions, kind of pairing that with jobs, things of that nature.

Yeah, so great question. I would say first off, if this is your first CRM, I would not concern myself too much with integrating between the two, your CRM and your accounting software. So accounting software being something like QuickBooks in Australia, a lot of our members use Xero or FreshBooks. What I would probably do in a few weeks, we are releasing the one way sync of QuickBooks. Right now there's a two way sync and I usually don't recommend people do it because if QuickBooks change something, it can immediately kind of mess up a lot of your copilot and we have no control over that. If you're doing a two way sync, the one way sync will be really good because everything that copilot will just be shifted over to QuickBooks. So if you really are wanting to integrate with an accounting software, wait a week or two more and you're going to be seeing this coming out as a one way sync. And then that alert that you'll see right now on the two ways, it will go away because right now there's an alert if you go to sync up with QuickBooks it says like, hey, if you haven't done this before, be careful because a lot of people will mess this up in the future. There'll be a one way sync and I'll be removing that alert because I have more confidence that like any changes they make will not affect you. I will say though, like when it comes to the integration in general, if, especially if you're just getting started, you could always run a report inside of CoPilot to see the breakdown of where revenue is coming from and then use your accounting software to like just do transactions and bookkeeping essentially. And then if you know the IRS doesn't really care where the revenue is coming from, but if you ever did need to see a report, you could pull that up inside copilot. If you ever have questions with that, like book a call with ATC because they could see like, hey, would this be a good candidate to actually go ahead and sync up? Like would it actually benefit you? But I would Definitely wait for the one way sync to happen here in the next week or two because it's going to be simpler than the two way less chance of error. And then secondly, I would say don't concern yourself too much with this because it's not going to actually move the needle as much as just getting used to the software like the you even to see your first serums is difficult enough. I would try to like simplify by not having another complexity of trying to integrate with a bookkeeping account, a software and good job. I know, I know it's stressful like the first time you start using software. So good for you. Cool. Anyone else? I think the other gentleman. Go ahead.

Oh, I'm in the same boat. Is this my first CRM and I have a lawn crew and I have a tree crew. And I was wondering, I'm just trying to integrate co pilot into my lawn crew. Would it be easier to do it all at once with both lawn and trees or should I just focus on getting the lawn crew set up and then doing the tree after I've kind of figured out co pilot because the trees are like one off projects there. We don't go there every single week. So I didn't know what you think the best way would be.

Yeah, like if it's your very first one, it's not a bad idea to kind of put your toe in the water. Because what I see some people do is on their first software they're like I'm all in. They jump in and then there's so many little things that they, they could feel uncomfortable with and they just jump right back out. So it wouldn't be a bad idea, Zach. So even if you for just did it for one crew member. Right. Even if you do, if you're out in the field sometimes, just put yourself on it. Get used to clocking in and out, get used to the job notes, get used to all that aspect. Do it for like one crew especially as you go then into your busy season. Then you do all of your lawn care crews like to maybe February. Okay, now I'm good. Let's put all the lawn care guys on it. And then I would eventually want everyone on the same system so that way everyone just gets used of it whether they're on the lawn crew or the tree crew. Everyone knows copilot. Also from your perspective, one place to dispatch, one place to invoice, one place to do your estimates. It just sees simplified. But I don't, I'm not against the idea of like slowly trickling into it, whether it be like one person and then maybe two or three weeks go by and then, hey, going to do the long cruise and then a month or two goes by. Now I got the tree guys, but I'd be shooting if I was you to try to get everyone in by spring rush. So that way, like everyone's organized because you will. Your greatest efficiencies gained will happen when you earn one software or you just one system. If you're doing two, you're going to actually feel like it's so cumbersome because you just added another thing to your plate. So that would be my recommendation. Trickle in, test it. You'll see like, oh man, I kind of like when in the title it says this, I'll put this other information in there, or you know, tracking budget hours, things like that. You can just kind of like step into it a little bit more. Go ahead, Daniel.

Yeah, so I had a question via clothing. So for all your clothing, where do you get them exactly? For all the. The print logos?

Yeah. So we actually have a couple owners inside of Augusta that have their own, like, stores that do the uniforms. So the actual brand, there's several of them that they use, but we just get them from them. So honestly, I don't have like a go here because they just do Augusta stuff, those owners. Um, but I would usually say, like, if you don't have anyone locally, I'd probably go to like custom ink. There's a whole bunch of T shirt stuff online, et cetera. Um, but I like, I personally like being in person like a local vendor. They usually had a little bit better quality and then the, the stickers that would put on usually lasted longer. It's sometimes difficult to get high quality stickers and like the glue when I went online. But it just depends who you get. Like every vendor is so different. I usually just try them until I find a good one. Which we've just had those people internal now for. For several years.

Right. So going from local to like franchising, you'd say. You'd still say stay local for printing stuff, right?

Yeah. Or yeah. Like, it's also nice too because sometimes by the time they print them and ship them, I could have just gone and picked a couple up locally if they have my artwork. It just really depends on your vendors. There was times where even before we had people in house at Augusta, it was like.

You couldn't even find someone local to do a good job. And then you have to go online. You know, custom order tees is a Good one. Custom Inc. Like, there's just a bunch of them, so.

Yeah.

All right. Thank you.

You got it, man. Bj, go ahead. If you can share this information. Who made your website is very user friendly and we're needing to update ours. Could you share that information? Yeah, yeah. It's. It's. It's. I'm very biased because I also own the company, so Lawn Care Web Design and HomeService Web Design.com. so they build all of our stuff, including all my other businesses like Copilot, P4P software, etc. So same team. Are you in lawn care? BJ, let's get design and installation. Yep. Yep. So feel free to check out LongerWebson.com, go to the our work page. There's several hardscaping companies in there too. You can check out. And then you can set up a call directly with Tori and the team and they'll actually, like, look at your site and see if you're good, like if it would actually be worth it. What's your revenue, BJ, just out of curiosity. 1.4 million. You'd be a good candidate. So just talk with them and then they'll kind of walk you through the options. Okay, Can. Can I go ahead and set up a call with Tori today? Can you send me a link, please? I will work on it. Yep. While we're in the Q and A. I will work on that. Okay, thank you. Yep.

Hey, Mike. So I got a question. I'm a solopreneur. I do window cleaning. And 20, 24. I would really like to break six figures since I'm a solopreneur. Just do enough. I don't just do enough, but I'm just doing enough right now to pay my bills and I'm really looking to grow. So my thing is doing with window cleaning, you can go residential or you can go storefronts, or you can go both. Right, Storefronts. They're really low on the ticket item, but it's recurring. And then residential, you can go higher, but it's reoccurring. And then it's a lot more marketing cost. So which way would you take it if you were in my position to really break that six figures this year?

Yes. Like right now, when it comes to.

Your leads that are coming in, where are they mostly coming from? Commercial or residential? Like the leads coming in without you marketing, so.

Well, without me marketing, I'm not. I haven't gotten any leads without me marketing. I do a lot of Facebook ads. It's marketing savvy. I guess you could say got it.

So like what I would, I traditionally say is like follow the money, right? Like if you start running ads and you're getting tons of commercial work coming in, go after commercial. If you start running ads and literally everyone's residential, don't force the market. Like the market will tell you what it wants. And so generally when it comes to something like window cleaning, whether you're cleaning a residential window or a commercial window, the window looks the same. So you shouldn't care. It's like which one is going to be coming to me for the lowest customer acquisition cost. And you can build the business around that. I will say that you can build a recurring revenue stream from residential. It's just how you make an offer to the customer. So for example, there's three different types of revenue. We have one time jobs, we have reoccurring, which is typically window cleaning and then we have recurring. The difference between residential and commercial is, is residential customers typically reoccurring which like they do need it occasionally, like they'll call you every couple years. Recurring is nice when it comes to commercial. But what you can do is you can create an offer for residential that says, hey, if you, if you actually schedule your next visit, you get a discount. Better yet, that would be reoccurring. Better yet, if you get on a schedule, you get even a lower price. So if someone comes to you and say, hey, what's the cost to do my window? You say it's fourteen hundred dollars. But if you schedule for the next, you know, every six months for us to come out, then the price is now 9 99. And so you can force the market into going the type of revenue you want simply by make, changing the offer. And so I would though first, before even saying that, I would say like, see what comes in. When you start marketing and advertising and follow the money, don't try to force the market into something that might not be coming your way.

Well, just to add to that, just to make it a little bit more clear right now, I started doing door to door. That's how I first started. So therefore I, I knew residential. So the marketing and the ads that I run are pointed at residential. I haven't run any ads towards storefronts or commercial. Right. So therefore that's why residentials coming in. No storefronts are coming in. But I have been thinking of the recurring instead of the reoccurring revenue. So that was kind of just to specify there.

Yeah. So like if you're, if you're used of going after the, the residential mark customer, I would just change your offer but not change your market. Like if you're used to going after that customer, you're used to marketing to them, advertising to them. That's your niche. I would just also say when you build your website, when you post on Facebook, when you post on social media, make sure you're targeting that buyer. Right. If you're making a bunch of pictures and videos and your website looks very residential, you're going to get residential customers. Like it's no surprise unless you make it very delineated on your website like commercial and residential. And it looks too different. It looks very, very different. So I would be just be very careful your branding because your branding will dictate whether or not you get residential or commercial organically.

Got it?

Okay. You got it, man?

Yeah, got it.

Thank you, man.

Hey, Mike, I got a question.

Go for it, Connor.

So my biggest bottleneck right now is growing a good team. I've kind of been a control freak and taken everything on and so I've got a really awesome guy and then another guy that's been with me for a few years who's kind of on and off. What would you recommend? I need to get two, like entry level employees. Two or three as I grow. This next season we're going to try and double what we've been doing. Is, is indeed probably the best place to look outside of, you know, initial connections, church, you know, community groups. Would you just recommend indeed for that?

Yeah. So indeed is probably the, the best paid strategy. Now one thing that I would recommend though is, is Facebook. So Facebook doesn't allow jobs anymore, but if you make a post and just make a link to your website's careers page that you might have a form on and you can also just do a link to a jot form. You can make a jot form as well. Then what you can do, make it like, like a job post. But there's no job postings on Facebook. But what you can do then is just boost the post to people in a 5 mile radius around your shop or 10 mile radius and then target only your age, demographic and the gender you want. So you can be like, okay, I know that most of my guys are between 20 and 35 years old and they all live within 5, 10 miles of the shop. Great. I'm going to boost that post to that area and to that demographic and it works like crazy good. Assuming your site looks decent, assuming that your form is not like a bazillion fields, you'll get a lot of traffic from that.

Okay, that's awesome. Thank you.

Yeah, you'll spend 20, 30 bucks and you'll get a bunch of applications typically.

Okay.

Cause no one's run, no one's looking for jobs. Like there's no one, there's no job platform now on Facebook. So like when you post that like it goes really well. Like it's all get shared a lot too.

So I have a question about reaching out to. So I'm going to reach out to the other co pilot companies in my area and, and also just in general, how do you recommend reaching out? Whether just like cold call or email or actually trying to get the owner's information and reaching out to them personally.

Yeah. First off, what was your name? Caleb. Caleb. All right, there we go. Because iPhone3 wasn't going to work well. Okay, great. So Caleb. No, you're fine, you're good. So yeah, so when you reach out I'd probably just email them because it's easy to find or fill out a contact form on their website. You could call them. If they're a smaller company, they might just have it to their cell and I'd just be like hey, I'm from Copilot, I saw you in my local area. I just joined. Would love to meet up, compare notes, see if we can't share about what's working, what's not working. You're going to have like one off people that aren't used to that community yet and they're like I don't want to talk to competitors. Fine. Like I just back up off after that if that happens. We've just released the map and we haven't had any in person conferences yet. Like this coming in Jan will be our first one with all of our members and so like I think it'll eventually like the whole ethos is that like a rising tide floats all boats and if you as co pipe members can increase the level of professionalism, have higher pricing, be more efficient, it'll help you guys. But sometimes people are just not used to that yet. They're not used to that kind of community and so like keep cars to yourself. So I wouldn't stress out if like they just don't reply. Just know that in time like I think as they're in the community longer they'll kind of warm up to you. Thank you. You got it.

Hey, I had another question here. Is there any alter alternatives to Ramp Rack, the. The rack site thing?

Yeah, there is, there is one called Mo and Go. Mo and Go systems. It's a little bit cheaper. We have not used it before. The quality of build seems to be a little bit less like bulked up. But it is significantly more cheap. It's not manufactured the same way. It's like a one man operation again, just kind of like which one you like. But yeah, those are the two that we kind of have seen before in the field. I think a couple of our team does use mo n go systems.

Yeah.

Do you put dash cams in your trucks also?

No, we don't. The reason we don't is because we use pay for performance. So like I'm not really too concerned if they're on their phone or not. And so we. You can copilot, you can track their device. Like we can see where they're at on the map inside of the of copilot. But beyond that we don't. We don't do anything.

And then just one last thing. Is there a specific company you prefer for vehicle maintenance?

Not really. Honestly, every single. It's always just trying to find a good mechanic locally that you actually trust. Because otherwise like they can. Especially if you're not mechanical like me. Like they could say I need a new transmission. I'd be like, great. And they really needed a fuel cap like literally. So I would just be trying to find something local you can trust. I. Ideally it's referred to you by another contractor and they give you like preference preferential treatment in terms of when you need to get something done quickly. So it's just like, it's very individual.

All right, thank you.

You got it, man. Anyone else, feel free to unmute yourself.

Hey, if you don't mind me asking a second question while other people.

So I've been thinking on piggybacking on that last question since I'm a solopreneur and I really want to grow this year, I've been thinking of adding pressure washing as well and just having those two main services.

So far it's been all about window cleaning. Should I just stick to window cleaning, really grow that and then maybe upsell in the future a couple years from now or should I just go ahead and maybe try both and try to grow through different avenues? Fill in the holes?

Yeah. Like if your goal is okay, build a million dollar business, the question is, has anyone in your area built a million dollar window cleaning business? If the answer is yes, it means it's not. You're not constrained by. By the market. And so the only reason I would add more services is a. I can't Grow a business big enough with the current service mix I have, or B, I don't get any leads for the current service that I offer for a series a period of time. The problem I have with adding pressure washing for you is that your curve for window cleaning is going to match the win the demand curve for pressure washing. So I would say I would focus your marketing on one service. I would get really, really good at that one service. And then when you get so many customers and then you add pressure washing, it'll be an immediate win because you'll immediately have a huge database of customers inside of copilot to upsell to. I think right now by adding more services you get, it's dangerous because you start adding, you have five businesses running out of your one company, all doing $50,000 a piece of, and all of a sudden you have like, no systems. Very hard to train employees, very like, it's very hard to make that profitable. So I would just zero in on one. And it also gets confusing. The customers start adding all these different brands and we do all these different services. It's hard to focus your marketing message and your advertising too. So I would just stay focused on. On the one.

Got it, got it, got it. Okay.

Thank you. You got it. Hey, Mike. Go ahead.

Hey.

So I am also a solopreneur and I just moved my business up to Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was working in Georgia for about four years, so I'm doing a completely fresh start. So I'm trying to get consistent leads. And it's been super cold out for pressure washing and window cleaning. And I do dryer events also. So I've been pushing that pretty heavily. But I'm trying to figure out where I can just consistently get leads. I'm doing community Facebook groups. I'm posting every day next door, door to door every day. And I've tried yard signs and door hangers. So I'm just trying to make sure. But I'm getting like a job a day and usually something small. Just trying to figure out how to get more leads pretty consistently.

I'm assuming the leads kind of come pouring in during the spring rush then. Is that right, Avery?

I haven't got to experience the spring rush yet. We moved up here during winter, so we're just trying to basically any of the warm days we're going out, trying to push pressure washing and everything like that. But dryer van, I've been pushing that on like, social media and everything like that.

Yeah. So like, kind of like back to what I said before, like I'd be looking for a different service than pressure washing. Where do you live, Avery?

Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Okay. Yeah. So you're going to deal with stretches of weeks where you can't pressure wash. Right. So if you can figure out a complimentary service to do during those times, that would be ideal. Or you just like kind of close down during the winter and, you know, shut down. Right. But I would be trying to find a complimentary service as an inverse demand curve from recurrent service. Or secondly, I'd be figuring out, okay, can I spend, just spend more money and find the few customers that do need this service during the winter?

Gotcha. So like Google Ads.

Well, figuring out what your customer acquisition cost is like, step one. Because usually your customer recording cost during the winter is probably like five, five to ten times more than the spring, which you can make sense of if you take a customer and sell them five things and then you have a really good long tail lifetime value of the customer. And so it just depends on like what is your customer acquisition cost, knowing what that is during the spring, knowing what is during the winter. And if you can make sense of advertising and getting more customers in the winter, even at a higher customer acquisition cost, if you can make sense of that because you have a great lifetime value, you can take huge market share because then you can spend a bunch of money, basically fill your schedule, knowing that in the long term you'll be able to keep upselling that customer. So this is where, where I'd be leaning heavily on like do we do mass email, do we do mass text through copilot to keep customers warm? Sell them five things that are three every year. And that's how you take a thousand dollar customer and turn them into a $4,000 customer. Now all of a sudden you can afford to spend more on customer acquisition costs if needs be during the winter. Gotcha.

Makes sense.

You got it, man. Cool. Anyone else have any questions? Feel free to just unmute yourself. Going once, going twice. Still have 10 minutes left if you want to hop in.

Well, if I get to keep asking, go ahead. Yeah, so really this is, this is the last question that I have written down.

So as we grow, right, I want to make sure the company's healthy, but I want to make sure that I'm able to pay myself because at the end of the day I'm a full time in this, right. I have to pay the bills. So how would, how do you manage those finances? I guess in order to make sure that you're able to pay your bills but at the same time you're able to grow and get employees in the future and like maybe get a truck or stuff like that. Right. So maybe at the beginning stages.

Yeah. So like in terms of taking a salary out, you know, are you an S corp right now? Jesus. Or are you a llc?

I have an llc.

Yeah, got it. Yeah. So like usually once you Pass like about $40,000 in annual profits, you're going to want to, you can stay as an llc, but you can be taxed as an S corp. What that means is you'll have to start taking a paycheck from the company. And so there is yet to be a case where the IRS comes after people for giving themselves too low of a salary. There is no case law that has that backs up the fact that you need to be paying yourself a gob's amount on salary. The reason you want a low salary is because you don't have to be paying as much taxes. I'd rather take that as distributions from the company. And you're still going to have to pay federal income tax on it, but not all the other stuff that goes along with it. Now the only reason to switch from an LLC to being taxed as an S corp is because you get around self employment tax, so 15%. And the reason you usually wait until you're about $40,000 in profits is because it does cost like three times as much to file an S corp as an S corp compared to your simple LLC or just like a 1040 on your on your tax return or schedule C on your on your tax return. So all of that to say I would get a good accountant. So like you can actually get a free one. Home service. CPA is my firm and Brad's right here, he's my CPA. So you can book a 15 minute call with him and see if it'd be good. He might just tell you, hey, maybe next year or the year after. But like in general, a good CPA should could say should save you five to ten times what they cost. Because like my first one when I actually got a CPA instead of running it myself, they're like, oh yeah, you've been missing this one deduction and we can get you $5,000. I was like, oh, what in the world? I was like crying over the thousand dollars I had to pay them so I would get a good cpa. They'll walk you through this as the business grows. Like right now as an llc, you know, any profits in the business, a pastor entity, which means any profits in the business are going to be taxed as personal income, regardless of whether you keep it in the business or you take it out. Doesn't matter. So I would just like, you know, in general, as, you know, like, if you want the business to grow, you will starve yourself of the personal, you know, withdraws, and you will invest back in the business. But when it comes to, how do I take that money out, once you become an S corp, you'll have to get yourself an actual W2 again. Pay yourself a salary.

Got it. Okay.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Got it.

Hey, I had a question about, like, mental health and health. I was wondering, do you have a specific diet that you follow?

Yeah, so I. I do Carnivore now, but I have not done that for, like, ever. I've only done that for the last couple months. I think that, you know, mental health is super important, mostly due to the fact that if that fails out, everything else below it will fail. Right. So, like, you can build a great business, and then if that caps out mentally, you're done. So in terms of, like, you know, sleep, exercise, nutrition, et cetera, like, it is super important. And so I think it's just like, knowing yourself personally in terms of what you can do nutritionally. I do Carnivore, so, like, meat only. It's. It's super helpful for, like, losing weight, but also just, like, super helpful when I go low on sleep. So, like, I'm getting ready for conference. So, you know, operating on three to six hours of sleep every night is tough unless you have good energy throughout the day. So Carnivore has been super helpful for me. I'd recommend keto, too, just like, to reduce carbs. I also recommend little stuff like a walking treadmill, a desk at home. They're like 120 bucks on Amazon. You'll walk four or five miles while you're doing invoicing every evening. Like, it's a great hack there.

So, yeah, all the. All the above. Those are super important.

Yeah.

How much sleep do you get? You said three to six hours.

It. I wouldn't recommend it. It's. Not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. Some people need nine hours. Like, so don't use that and be like, I gotta go get, like, Yeah, I do decently on low amounts of sleep.

Cool.

All right, thank you.

Dad was wondering when. When to bring on a second guy. I'm sorry, a third guy.

Yep.

I am not working in. I bought my business from my dad.

Last year, and I've never worked actually, in the Business. I've always worked on the business. And it's. We start with 80 customers and so we grew it to about 160 during the summer. And now we're probably running 120. But it's only over from one guy working on it. So how do I get in? When, at what point should I get another guy for him to go out and work with? Because I have another job outside of lawn care. But I'd like to be able to do this full time.

Cool.

And bring somebody else on.

Got you. So right now, how many trucks do you have?

I have two trucks.

Got it. So he goes in one and then you go in one sometimes. Is that right?

I have a totally other business, a totally other job. And so I am certified arborist and do trees and all that. So I'll go and do that when we get projects. But I'm never in a truck.

I'm usually totally. So, like, let's just say assume that like the capacity of this one individual sounds like. Let's just call it 150 customers. I'll just make this up 150 customers. That means that as soon as I get a second guy, you're increasing your capacity to 300 customers. Now that's your labor capacity. That is one employee, 150 customers. Now your asset capacity is the number of trucks you have. And right now Two Trucks is telling me that you could get 300 customers without buying another truck. Because if you hired one more person, you'd go from 150 customers capacity to 300 and you wouldn't need another truck because you already have the other truck purchase. Is that correct? You have the two trucks?

Yeah, I have two work trucks and then I have a personal truck.

Cool. So. So I. I would be giving you green lights to grow. Like, I'd probably be trying to even market to try to get to 250 or so customers as soon as possible. The reason I say that is because as soon as you add that second guy, you're probably almost gonna become unprofitable. Like basically break even the business if you just added their salary. The hope is that though you're able to grow to 250 or 300 customers, I. E. Grow to capacity. So what you really wanna figure out is like, what's my capacity limits for assets and labor? So for labor, right now you have 150 customer capacity by getting a second employee that's gonna go to 300. Well, right now if we have one employee in each truck, we have two trucks. We have a asset capacity or trucks of 300 customers. So basically I'd be hiring someone else and I'd be growing to 300 customers as fast as possible. The reason for that is because you are most profitable when you're close to capacity. So Whether you have 300 customers or 3,000, your asset capacity and your labor capacity once you hire someone is going to be around 300 customers. I want to get to that as fast as possible. And so as long as you have the budget to go spend on marketing and you have the confidence, you're going to be able to scale quickly, I would do it. I would not do it. If you're like, I might get to 160 or 170 customers next year. If that's the case, then it's likely that you will not make any more profit by having a second employee. And then I would do is just raise prices. 150 customers you got and just make it more profitable. Cool.

Thanks.

You got it.

Yeah. So this past year, I was scheduled in the field at least three days a week. And then I had my guys out on the other crew. I'm gonna, like I said, I'm gonna try and have two full separate crews. Should I schedule myself in the field. My concern with me being scheduled is I had to fill in when people called out. And it put me in a really bad place because we're so small, you know, two full time, one part time, and then me.

So my plan is to have two crews of two this year and have me not scheduled on a truck. Should I be scheduled? Because I'm kind of running as a gm, right. I'm not. I'm involved in the business heavily.

Yep. What's your revenue for this year, Connor?

300,000. 300,000.

Yeah. Tough spot. So.

I would say when it comes to scheduling, do you use budgeted hours?

Right now I'm gonna start. I've been using yardbook, and so I've kind of just been. I know how much long the routes take. And I was on last year I was full time mowing in 23, and then 24 is when I kind of was part time in the field.

Cool. Yeah. So this is a math equation. Right. And it comes down to budget hours. And so I know that the switch to using budget hours instead of just going off the top of your head is a bit of a, you know, a bit of a task. But if you can do that, this becomes a math game. Right. Because like, how many full time. How many full timers do you have, Connor?

Two.

Two. Two and then, then you just. Two full timers and you. Cool. So for example, some people are like, okay, Well I have two full timers, so 40, 40. And then I'll just. Let's say I work, you know, 30 hours in the week. Okay, great. Now it's 110 hours that I can do a week. Right. And then that's how they start scheduling when reality, you know that some people are going to call out, some people are going to get sick, some people are going to not show up to work. So what I do, we schedule at a 30 budget hours per 40 hour week. So a full timer does not complete 40 budget hours. They complete 30. That assumes a 75% efficiency score. Because if I take budget hours divided by clocked hours, it means they're going to complete 30 budget hours if they work 40 hours in the week in terms of clocked. So I assume the 75% efficiency score. What that does is if someone doesn't show up for a day or two, it means everyone's going to probably have to work an extra couple hours overtime. Right. But what it prevents is you scheduling 120 budget hours worth of work and then realizing that if anyone doesn't show up, you're working on the weekend.

That's what, and that's what I've been doing, you know, because I went from working like 12 hours a day when I was in the field and then I bring guys on and I'm like, oh wow. Well after eight hours they're pretty much sick of me. So yeah, yeah.

So I would just schedule for 30 budget hours a week. And then if they get finished on a Thursday, they're off for the week. Like if everyone shows up to work, usually you have a short week, but what you're doing is you're planning for the fact that occasionally and as you grow, more often than not people, there'll be a gap and then you'll be able to have the actual time allocated to take care of that. So usually if, if everyone shows up at our cruise, we'll usually work 35 to 36 hours a week. But if someone don't show up, then we can, we make up for it. Like we have the, we have the, the capacity for it. That's why in your budget hour capacity charts inside copilot, if you start getting within 80% of your capacity, it starts to turn yellow. And if you go above, your capacity goes red. Because then I can anticipate in the future I want to stay within around that 80% marker of my Budget hour capacity to. To make up for the fact that people are going to be not showing up, et cetera.

Okay, so would you say it's reasonable to expect with. Basically we've done about 300,000 and like I said it was BA. It was one crew and then a half mowing. Ish crew. Would it be reasonable for me to. My goal is with two crews to go 500,000 next year. Is that a reasonable expectation with four full time guys?

Yeah. Comes on to your pricing. Right. Again, this is a math game. Right. So if I. Yeah, we're pretty good. We're.

We're north of $100aman hour.

Yeah. So it's just a matter of like, okay, If I complete 30 budget hours per week and I'm charging a hundred dollars per, that's $3,000 of labor revenue. How much no materials do I usually charge? Well, sometimes I use some projects like let's call it 4,000 of revenue per employee per week. Time that by 4, that's $16,000 per employee per month. So you can just run the math. Once you figure out budget hours. Budget hours will be like a huge unlock for you.

That'll be a game changer because when I was looking in the software, it feels like I was kind of like wandering and guessing a lot. And I just barely got on the call with Christian last week and started looking at all the features and so I. Yeah, I think that'll be good. Thank you.

Got it, man. Anyone else? Oh, Reed. Go ahead, close out.

Quick question about close ratios. I'm solo operator, just do irrigation repairs. And this year I have raised my prices twice. And since my last price hike, I'm still sitting virtually at like an, we can call it 100 close ratio. I think I've had a total of less than 10 people tell me no since I started back in August of 2022. So is this. And I know we'll probably go over pricing later, but I, I'm flat rate and I base all my flat rate off of like $200 an hour.

Is this more. Because I kind of have a captive audience that I go out, I find a leak, I dig it up and I say, hey, this is what the problem is. And they're like, they're, you know, nobody at that point's going to say, oh, I think I'm going to get three other quotes on this. Or am I still too cheap on my pricing?

Yeah. So whenever, whenever you have this sort of quote problem, you have a supply and demand, you know, imbalance. You have Way more people demanding your product than you can supply. Now the question is, do we A, increase supply, I. E. Grow the business and hire more employees, or B, do we increase prices? And that would then reduce the demand because people, eventually people will say no to $5,000 an hour. And so the question really becomes, what do you want the business to become? Do you want to hire people and grow or are you just like, I'm going to stay at what I'm currently a sized at.

Okay. But it's definitely we want to hire and grow.

Then, then you have, then you can grow. Right. Like if, if you have 100 close ratio, then the only bottleneck is marketing, like getting more leads. Right, Right. So if you have that high of a close ratio, they're saying, we are willing to pay this. And if you're like, I want to grow, the only thing you need more of is more leads. And so the, the constraint in that case to growth is just getting more leads. That's when I'd be like, okay, where is my website dialed in? Do I run ads? But like, if I, if I don't have the website, I would not run spend a dollar on ads because you have a compounding effect with the website. So, like, how many employees do you have now, Reed?

I don't have any. It's just me.

Got it. Okay, cool. So I would definitely say there's two options here. One, you could raise prices dramatically, probably bring your close ratio down to 60, 70%, assuming that keeps you busy enough. Well, I think is going to probably be the move here is you got to get more leads. Because if you were pounded with leads and accepted jobs, you would have to go hire someone.

Yeah. During the summer, I've been running Angie ads and Google local services and I probably have about 60 to 70 leads a month and my capacity is about 40 to 45.

Got it.

So I'm lo. I'm losing leads I can't get to. In other words.

So it's time to hire someone. Like, if your goal is expansion and growth, you're getting that many leads, you can't even get to some of the leads. And everyone's accepting. You're going to go get an employee. You're going to. Because you have now more capacity, you can get more jobs on the schedule. You're going to hit capacity with him, and then you'll have the same question, do I raise prices or do I go hire a third person? That just becomes the game. Every single time you hit capacity, you have that option, do I grow? And go get more employees or do I raise prices and go into profit mode? And so it comes down to, like, how much cash you have on hand. Like, if you did. If you were really cash strapped right now, like, I don't really know if I can grow more employees, then I'm just raising prices. Let's go to 250. Right. So it just becomes a game of do you have cash and do you want to grow at that point? Zachary, I think you had a question. Go ahead.

I didn't have a question, Mike. I just wanted to say hi. I'm coming over from yardbook.

This year was pretty rough and I'm looking looking forward to be part of the co pilot community. We were trying to be a Augusta location this year, but it's just not going to happen. So I'm hoping that taking a step into into copilot and kind of doing business the way people with co pilot and Augusta do that, that by the end of 2025, we'll be in Augusta location. So I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself and put that out there.

Awesome. Cool. Awesome. Let's make some money in 2025. Have a great Christmas next week and very happy new year and I appreciate you all tremendously for being inside copilot. We'll see you guys. Take care of.