Starting 4 New Augusta Locations in 30 Days, 13 Life Lessons

Welcome back to the Mike Andes podcast where we discuss the ins and outs of owning a small business. If you're new here, Mike, Andy's podcast is all about taking your business to the next level. A couple of things today. First off, as you may have heard in previous episodes, Mike has been in the middle of starting four new Augusta locations in North Carolina. In just under 30 days, Mike is going to have every single one operational. Introducing Chuck Fout, who's our man on the ground making things happen. We're going to follow him setting up the Augusta locations as he takes us through every step of the way. After this, Mike has 13 life lessons that he wished he knew earlier. We're talking game changing habits from something as small as eye contact to larger scale things such as the importance of being your unfiltered self. As always, you can find Aldous and more over at the Mike and his YouTube channel. Let's get right into it. Here's Chuck Fowl with how to start four new Augusta locations in just 30 days.

Now we started what we call the executive model at Augusta Lawn Care where you can start six locations at the same time.

It's not all fun, I can promise you that. It's, it's hectic, it's a little chaotic.

At times and everyone was like, you can't start that many locations at the same time. It's impossible.

We're not gonna make it. Not happy with them at all. So lovely.

Okay, great. Well, I own eight locations and we're starting four brand new ones.

Then you see the kind of, the chaos and I'm not a chaos person, so it freaks me out.

Chuck, my regional manager is gonna walk us through the entire entire process. He's going to show us the equipment that he purchased.

This is the other side, right? So yeah, I get to spend 50 grand on equipment, go to Lowe's and get shovel all the cool things that everybody thinks you get to do.

The trucks that he purchased, I get.

To buy eight trucks. Picking up more trucks, cars, trucks, more trucks, get them painted and get decals.

He's gonna hire these people.

Why do I make hiring sound so easy? He ghosted me.

And then they're gonna come to training and they're gonna come and actually learn how to run their businesses as general managers.

Then there' a whole nother side to my day that I don't think like people realize. Like I'm just not buying trucks in the middle of it. I'm coaching calls and all these other things. These all trailers, they need titles, getting Insurance lined up on eight vehicles, adding new drivers. This is the goody drawer here, right? Keys for trucks, mailboxes, storage units, new credit cards for GMs. Like, so all this stuff has to be ordered, processed, and put through the ringer to make sure that we're getting everything that we need.

So without any further delay, let's hand this over to Chuck and the general managers out in North Carolina. Charlotte, North Carolina, where we're starting four new locations in just the next couple weeks. Here we go.

A lot to it. Not always just buying and having fun.

Chuck in a truck.

We had the paint job here in Mooresville, North Carolina. We use Mako$500 per truck. And that includes, you know, obviously the standard paint and our color. So we have that one, we have this silverado. We have that Ford. Have this Ford, this gmc. We have this GM can see here. We have this one, and we have this one. On average, they are all about $15,000. That one is done. And as you see, some of them are in various stages, but bought and paid for. Eight trucks. There you go. Picking up more trucks for the paint shop.

All right, so we're dropping the trucks off it hitches. You can see one there here, one there. We got one more to pick up from the paint shop. You all zoom for anywhere from between 300 and 350 dol depending upon the make and model. That includes the hitch as well as the wiring for the pigtail and the plugs. We're getting the four prong and the seven way. That way we've got both it covers dump trailer. And if we ever need like a small landscape or whatever, for whatever reason. But yeah. So dropping off here at the U haul, it's trailer itches.

So here's what's happening. Ah, lovely. And this is where people need to learn not to panic, right? Because this is going to screw up our entire workflow. So I get to U haul. Originally, we called them 10 days ago, and they said, yeah, we can have you in January 26th. And we can get all. All four of the trucks done in one day. Like, oh, fantastic, let's do it. We show up and the guy's like, oh, well, we can only do two today. We'll have two done by this afternoon. Okay, we can live with that, right? Like, I'll make that work. So then we go there today. It's now 4:30. So they close at 5. So we get there at 4:30. Mind you, they don't call, they don't anything. We get there, and the lady says, oh, well, the one we, we don't have the parts for yet. And then the other one, when we ordered, is wrong. So do you have like, when will it be done? Like Tom? Like, oh, we don't know. Well, what about the rest of them? Oh, we don't know. Well, we're supposed to get decals put on Monday. So now they don't have an answer on the trailer hitches. They can't even start the other two because they don't have those parts either. But, like, why not call and tell us? Everything would have been finished by the first, which was my goal. All equipment, all everything. Mowers, like, we're picking those up, Decals, paint supplies, everything. Because the GM start February 1st. So unfortunately, you know, you can't put a ramp rack on without a trailer. What do you do? You gotta expect the unexpected. Like old Mike Tys says, everybody's got a great plan until you get punched in the mouth. Here we are.

We go to a decal shop and you get all these trucks to get decal lined up, ready. He's finishing the short bed there. It's the decal guy crushing it. Got the finished product here, looking good. Got it all labeled up. Decal.

We're Lowe's here, right? So we're gonna get.

It's copy and paste. So we're going to buy four of everything. So we're going to four of these flat shovels for one of the spade shovel. I always grab cobalt because if you bring them back to Lowe's, they'll replace them for you. Hard rake. I like the scoop shovel. It's very good for handling. Well, we don't need any of this junk. A hoe and a, you know, all this other. You don't need any of this. The only thing we will get is a pitchfork for mulch. And then we will get a leaf rake. Do not get the plastic one if you're going to get them. These are the ones that we always get.

I like the fiberglass handles. Trash cans, we put normally one per truck. Pulling weeds. Are they sticks, debris, stuff like that?

Yeah, we'll get four per location. I like the brood, but they're $60 and these are 25. And again, Lowe's brand, they will replace these. They have a lifetime limited warranty.

Four trash cans, leaf rake, pitchfork, scoop shovel, flat shovel, spade shovel, hard rake. Every location will get all of those hand loppers for turning bushes. We will get an extendable hole saw and then we will get a ladder. So we always get little Giants. We try to get to 22 footers.

Like this. You can keep them on different stairs when you're doing like slopes to trim bushes, things like that.

And.

They'Re rated for £300, so that's husky callus. We don't have to be scared. Tarps. Our dump trailer that we bought has a tarping system, so we don't have to worry about that. But the 10 mil, the 5 mil is a real thin one. So I always recommend getting at least a 10 mil 15 mil if you can. But those are, those are pretty, pretty thick. But they also get significantly more expensive. Like you're going to have $20 by getting it a little bit thicker. 10 by 12. You can load a pretty good amount of leaves on it. And we'll get two tarps for each location.

This is what happens when you order four of everything. They got to fool them off the top, Shel.

All right, so this is like a mechanics tool. Set wrenches, sockets, impact gun. We just do three, eight gun. It works great. Changing blades, things like that, cutting pliers, battery for the impact charger for the impact tape measure, a mallet for when you start doing your ramp racks, and anything you need on your hammer or on your mower. Some of you guys may use just a regular hammer, but I'm more inclined to use a rubber mallet. But we got a hammer as well. Screwdriver. We don't need a lot, right? Phillips flathead, adjustable wrench, regular kind of pliers. And this will give us our basic tool set up for mechanics up. So we can change blades, do any small work on any of the machines. We have a measuring wheel as well to walk off for mulch beds and things like that.

These are the two dump trailers we just got in today. $6,800 for that one, $6,800 for that one. They are identical. We have four of them. Six by ten with a tarp. Again, same thing. Six by ten with a tARP. Again. They are both $6,800 for each of them. And we have four of them exactly the same and identical.

So this is trailer number three, same thing, 6x10 with a tarp. $6,800, 7,000 pound axles, 24 inch sides, barn style doors. Identical. When you keep things identical and everything is systematized for us, we bought four trailers at one time. We got a better price because we bought all four the same. All the equipment is ran exactly the same. So if you ever do have an employee that you can promote to a manager, they then can, you know, move up and all the equipment is the same, training is the same. When they use the dump trailer, it'll be exactly the same across locations that we have here in North Carolina.

Just got the titles done for the trailers. They're all finished and ready to roll. Took about an hour and a half. They were about $400 a piece to do the titles, pay some property tax on it and the fees, $4. They couldn't split up the payment so I had to pay make one payment. But I cleared everything with the bookkeeper, the accountant to make sure, hey, how do you want me to process this if they can't process it individually? My one tip would be just be prepared. Your documents are prepared for the people. Don't be rude. Be, do your due diligence. Don't go in there blind being a knucklehead and treating people rude because you had to wait like come on, just go in and be, be a solid person. Trailers are done. They are in the places they need to be at all four storage lots. And now we're moving on.

The smartest business decisions aren't always the most obvious ones. You can go out there and learn entrepreneurship by trial and error if you want to, or you could learn it from Mike. Whether it's starting, growing or saving your business, the MBA for Entrepreneurs teaches the principles of small business ownership at every experience level. With over 350 in depth lessons and new monthly lectures, you'll have access from anywhere through the teachable app. Do the right thing for your business and sign up for the MBA for entrepreneurs by heading to mba4entrepreneurs.com.

Alright, so today is mower pickup day.

We are picking up the four stand on mowers.

Behind me. All lined up nice and pretty. Looking good. I got Connor with me. Yes sir. Get him done.

More equipment pick up today. Edgers, blowers, weed eaters, a couple more hedge trimmers. Oh yeah, eight blowers. Good stuff. Lots more trimmers. Edgers.

Getting ready to go into an interview. Starbucks is where I'm going to do them here so that I can be in market close to somebody's location. Just did an interview, three of them. First one I had spoke to him on the phone and then he no showed for this one. The other two had done phone interviews as well. The one that I had just done the phone interview, he showed up, loves himself, thinks he's awesome. The best weed eater in the world, can make art out of his hedges. Said he could trim dogs and he could put a Mickey Mouse in bushes. And you know he was a clown. I don't care how. Like, I don't care that you can lace perfect stripes. And most time if you're going to talk about it, you're not really probably a high performer. You just think you are because everybody thinks they're special and they're not. And like I said, the one guy, no call. No, they're not. No call, no show. But didn't show up. And I don't care. Like, I'll be honest with you guys. Like everybody asks me, well, what do you do for this? And if they don't show up, don't you get this skirt? No, I just don't care. Like, don't cry about it like it is what it is. Like if you dwell on it, you're going to be miserable. So just move forward and on to the next candidate. Not a big deal. Third guy I am going to hire. No lawn care experience professionally has, you know, mowed lawns here, there, mowed the neighbor's yard. Mowed his yard. But he was upfront, honest. Like I, I'm not a professional, but I, I'll teach him and we'll, we will teach him how to do those things. He's managed people in a retail setting, which is entry level just like ours, all of those things like that. He's ran businesses as a managed store manager, training manager, all of those things. That's what I'm looking for.

Yeah, that's where we're going. David, you ready to learn something?

You got Sydney up there. He left us. You got my kettle right there. Gonna be good learning something to train him on the plane. Connor, Sydney, David up there. Direct flight Charlotte to Seattle. And then we'll make the drive from Seattle up to Valley new.

Five deep through Seattle Airport.

It's 3:30 in the morning. We're in Bellingham, Washington. Do not let a busy schedule dictate your health and wellness. I got it on a 10 incline, long walk, 100 burpees. You can do it anywhere, even here at the Holiday Inn by the airport. There's just no excuses for not taking care of yourself. Especially as we get into the spring rush. You're going to want to continue to push yourself and stay healthy mentally and physically. Spring rush is going to be stressful. You got to get after it. You still got to keep going. 3:30am Here we are getting after it. There's just no excuse. Guys. Make time. If it's important, you'll make time and you'll prioritize what needs to be done.

Remember this Feeling right now. Be committed, be eager, be ready to go.

So typically when I talk about general manager, I think of it as that person's gonna do all the estimates and they're gonna do all the managing of the team.

All five of the GMs taking their tests.

Well.

Lost the GM we got back from training, just had a week long training. First day in the field yesterday. Do some estimates, get him going. Today he shows up and says, I quit, Chuck. I took a different job that's been working the entire time. While we were at training, he's working on getting this other job. So now we basically paid him to go to training. And here we are, $2,000 later and he quit. I'll be honest, I'm just striking out, man. I am striking, striking out at the Mooresville location. The other ones, the guys are rock stars. Hitting estimates, getting jobs accepted, crushing. But Mooresville, I just can't. I don't know what it is. I, I don't, I don't know what it is. Hired the first GM back in October, didn't work out, couldn't get right with the systems. Now we got a second gm, was great manager of people, fantastic resume, Good, good interview. Quite frankly, it didn't even matter. Still walked out on the job this morning. The good note is he turned all his stuff in. Now that's a fantastic. But this is the stuff that's going to happen and I hope everybody understands. Like, you can't dwell on it. You can't think about it and cry about it and get hung up on it. Like, I'm picking up equipment, doing estimates, doing coaching calls, managing the other seven locations. It is what it is. Like, just doesn't matter. Now I've got to hire a GM and three new employees in the next two weeks. So two weeks from tomorrow, we fire the mowers back up. And we've already, we're already kind of mowing like our winter service people. That's life. What are you gonna do about it? Let's keep moving. There's nothing you can do about it. Move on. Stay positive. As old David Goggins says, stay hard, get after it.

Day one, GM training. Matthew Connor, Sydney. And this is. We're just putting the foot on the dump trailer, getting after it.

Like children. You set them free like little kids. On all the equipment.

Going to start.

We are doing live in person training for the new GMs. You can see they're going through. I've got them doing videos and submitting the jobs for estimates.

Awesome. Remember what I Said I'll include with everything that's just a property cleanup in a mulch job, a mowing quote. I'd give them a mowing quote every time, like so if this customer wanted this, I'm giving them a mowing quote.

We came back after conference and from there we just kept on rolling, right? We went right into starting four new locations. All of the territories butt up against each other. They're all, all centrally located, really close, really tight and dense. So again, you're going to see the exact same setup at this location as all the other locations. We spent about $67,000 to get them up and running and started with all the equipment. Mike put an extra 5,000 in because we started with the 80,000. He did bump that up to 85,000 because we had to account for just the increase in cost of all the equipment plus GM training, the accommodations to go along with that and to have a little bit more money in the account now just to give us some cushion. So 85 total, we spent 67 to kind of get them off the ground and rolling. And with that included, I bought, in a month's time, I bought eight trucks. Both of these trucks are V6, average about 15, 15, 5. And you'll. And you'll see everything is going to be identical from here to all the other locations. And then we have the dump trailer here, which is again 6 by 10, nothing fancy, 3 foot sides, 20 park. It'll do the job. Mowing setup, same exact thing. Blower rack, weed eater, trimmer rack, tool rack in the middle, gas cans, trimmer string and sprayer rack on the driver's side. This would be your curb side. So we put all of this stuff here. Had eight trucks painted, eight trucks decal, four standard mowers, four push mowers. All of this was done in 30 days.

So you don't have to get hung up on finding the perfect place space the first time, making it, you know, this massive shop space and any of that, you just don't need it. Like get what works to get you started and we'll run $300,000 on all these setups. So. And if they really hustle and crush it, we could do 350 with exactly the setups that you guys are seeing. Eight weed eaters, four edgers, eight backpack blowers, handheld hedge trimmer for like lower level stuff. An extended hedge trimmer power 2620 from Echo that could do like tall Holley these, the Combi system to also do crape myrtles with P salt. We also did A, you know, assorted tools, shovels, wheelbarrow, all of those things. Gas cans, weed eater, string, mower blades, everything. So that when they came back from training they could open their container and go to work. But as you can see, it's just an oversized man door. This is the part I'm not a huge fan of, but again, the only parking we could find in this area area. So when you bring the mower in and out, it's just, it's very tight but it's whatever. Got to make it work sometimes, right? So dry erase board, keys for the trucks. Identical equipment everywhere. It's all the same long hedge trimmer, weed eater, edger, blower, mower, push mower. This is a residential Honda. That's all it is, it's a residential Honda. We're going residential 21 push mowers because we use our standards for everything. Ladder. All the tools are in there that you would need. Need two blowers, handheld hedge trimmer, all your mixed fuels, your gases, all those things. You got another bucket with some more tools in it, shovels, things like that. Again, there would be no problem fitting another mower, another push mower and a couple extra weed eaters and you could, you could run a half a million dollar business out of a 10 by 20 storage unit. We ran them all in storage units, they all got UPS mailboxes. But when you're on a 30 day timeline, you get what you can get and what you can find in the area. So all those things, all in all, it is possible to start multiple locations. We did it.

This is one of the graphic designers on the Augusta Media team. We do not come cheap. So if you don't already have someone on your team, you should be taking advantage of Lawn Care Media. We've created countless original designs for any service your business might offer. And we've made it easy for you to make the designs your own. Just download the package, then add your logo, number and email. You'll have everything you need to storm your local market. Head over to lawn caremedia.com and get started today.

Let your unfiltered self be your filter. Just be yourself and that will filter out everyone that you don't want to do business with or you don't want to partner up with. I built 120 plus location lawn care franchise and today I'm going to share with you 13 different things that serve me well and things that I found to be true and that I learned over the past 10 years. Building the business. Number one is to invest money in Only the areas that you have a knowledge or skill advantage. In other words, don't go try to invest in penny stocks and the stock market if you are not above average in those areas, because otherwise you're just dumb money. And those are typically the people who lose their shirts when it comes to investing is going into industries and investing structures that they don't have any unique advantage in. I only want to invest my money in the thing that I am in the top 10 or 15% of investors in that category. That's typically where most of the profits are. In that top 10 to 15%, the people who are best in knowledge and skill in that discipline. Number two, time is worthless when you are poor. Now, some people are gonna hate me for this, but your time isn't worth a lot when you don't have a lot of money. And so for people that are saying, oh, I don't have the time to do this, or it takes too much time to door knock, or it's too much time to go and talk to people one on one, your time is not worth anything. It's very invaluable when you don't have a lot of money. As you begin to make a lot of money, that's when efficiency, saving time, having a virtual assistant, all those other things come into play. But at the beginning, when you're not wealthy, your time is worth nothing. And you should spend as much of it as possible trying to ensure that you get the skills and knowledge to be able to have the upper advantage. So like we mentioned in number one, you can actually have a unique advantage in the marketplace. Number three is come to grips with the worst possible outcome. Just realize that as you begin to go through your entrepreneurial journey, things will happen that are bad. Realize what those are going to be potentially and then come to grips with them prior to them happening. Already foresee an employee leaving. Already foresee something really bad in the business happening, losing a key person or a customer leaving. Envision those things, come to grips with them, have a plan in place. And even if you don't have a plan in place, just realize that it's probably gonna happen. And if you come up with that mentality and it doesn't happen, great. But if it does happen, you're emotionally stable through that period of time and you're not reactive to things that happen in the business. Number four is great when it comes to investing and business in general. And that is anything that that is popular already, the money has been made in that area. So when the crypto market went crazy and NFTs got crazy. Each market, each bubble, when everyone starts to know about it, the money has already been made. So if you're just hearing about it from hearsay and the public and people just talking to you about it, I guarantee you the vast majority of the riches have already been made. So don't get swept up in things that are popular. Focus on the niches, because that's where the riches are. And when those niches blow up and become bubbles, the money's already been made. Number five is that high growth equals low profit. In other words, growth sucks cash. If your business is growing very quickly, there's a very high likelihood that you're not gonna have a lot of profit because you're buying more equipment, you're hiring more people, you're investing into RD and you're investing into marketing. And those things cost a lot of money. So you're gonna be cash strapped. If you're growing very quickly, don't expect to go from 100,000 in year one to 500,000 in year two to 700, 800,000 in year three and expect, expect somehow to be really profitable. It's unlikely unless you're inside of a high leverage opportunity like software, where there's not a lot of unit cost. But if you're doing something in terms of home services where labor is involved, as you begin to scale, your unit cost is also going to go up and so your margins get compressed. Number six is listen to, comprehend. I stink at this one. I'm still trying to get better at it, but that is when I'm listening to someone talk, I'm not just waiting for there to be silence for me to say something, something. I'm just listening to comprehend and then formulating a response. And that might mean that there's a one or two second gap in between them stopping talking and me starting talking. But there's no need to try to fill in those gaps because otherwise you're gonna disrespect the people that you're listening to and they're gonna feel it. It's disrespectful to people and your employees and the people that you're trying to lead will not like it if you just can't listen to them. Because your truck constantly, constantly formulating what your next sentence is going to be. Number seven is that scarcity is the greatest closing mechanism. You can have all the fancy skills and sales abilities and tactics in the world, but scarcity is the number one way to sell more whatever you want, whether you're trying to sell employees to come work for you, whether you're trying to sell more jobs or whether you're trying to sell million dollar houses, regardless if there is scarcity involved, whether it is perceived scarcity or actual scarcity, because there's a limited number of something I've consistently seen the salespeople that use scarcity, whether it be perceived or actual, are the ones that close the most deals. You can create scarcity by simply limiting supply instead of just constantly getting more and more employees and more trucks and being able to do increasing the supply of what you can do in your business. So perhaps instead of expanding your business, what you actually want to do is reduce your capacity or at least cap it. So that way demand continues to go up and now capacity is below that and it allows you to raise prices and increase your profit margins. Number eight also has to do with sales and that is unload the prospect's gun. And this is basically what's called damaging admissions, which means say everything that's bad about your product or service or whatever you're trying to sell. If you're trying to sell an employee to come work for you, say everything that is potentially bad about taking the job. If you were trying to sell a prospect on becoming a customer, tell them everything that is bad about your service or product. Why? Because if you do that and then tell them all the good things, they'll believe you, you about the things that are good and they'll trust that whatever you're saying is in reality the truth instead of you trying to sugarcoat something by only sharing the good positive things. And a lot of us try to hide the skeletons in the closet when what we should do is parade the skeletons, get them out of the way, and then focus on what's good about our product and service. Now, before we continue to number nine, the gentleman's agreement is that you subscribe to the channel. I make these videos for free and all I expect in return is that you you push the subscribe button. Now this gentleman's agreement operates on the trust system, which means I cannot see whether or not you subscribe, but for absolutely no cost whatsoever to you, I only ask that you subscribe to the channel. So please do that and let's continue to number nine. Number nine is really simple. Eye contact, build relationship. Whether you are trying to do this with your employees, the people that you are leading, your customers, vendors, big deals, you're trying to close, make eye contact. A lot of people because of technology are not great at this. And this is some People say I have like piercing eyes. It's just simply the fact that I'm looking at someone in the eyes and they're not used to it and it can be a little bit uncomfortable. Try to practice this on people specifically, that you might actually tell you're working on this. Because if you can get eye contact with people and get comfortable with looking them in the eyes, you'll be much more perceptive as well as you'll be able to sell people much more. Cause you'll pick up on things that you would otherwise have always missed. Cause you were looking here or looking off the side and talking here or looking down. Look at them in the eyes, make eye contact and get comfortable looking deep into someone's eyes. Now, obviously, don't be weird about it, but absolutely, eye contact will unlock a lot of opportunities for you. Number 10 is let your unfiltered self be your filter. A lot of people are always concerned about what people think about me. What do people think about me online or social media? Just be yourself and that will filter out everyone that you don't want to do business with or you don't want to partner up with. For example, my, I'm religious. I will pray on my channel. I've been pretty public about this. We pray and it's simply a mechanism to screen out a lot of people that down the road, if they start doing business with me and I tried to hide like, oh, I'm not religious. I don't mention Jesus. If I did that, that might bring in more people on the up front. But down the road, eventually that's gonna come into the play. My true colors will show and they'll eventually leave and it'll create way more headache for me down the road. Cause I'm trying to constantly hide something. Just be your authentic self on social media and in person. And some people will not like that. And that will be the filter that will keep them away from the other individuals that just respect and like the fact that you're just authentically you. And those people will be your best fans and typically your greatest supporters. Number 11 is to go very narrow when it comes to influencers or mentors or people that you look up to and try to emulate in business or in life. Go very narrow. Don't try to try to take 15 or 20 people that you follow on YouTube and try to emulate everything that they're saying and digest from a fire hose of all their content. Take one or two that you look up to admire and realize it might only be A couple years that you really focus and go really deep with that individual. But during that period of time, get everything you can from them, absorb every piece of content, but don't do it from too many people because so many different perspectives and ideas are gonna simply confuse you. Back in the day, those influencers. Influencers were Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk. Now I've moved on from them because I feel like they've moved on to things that I'm not really super supportive of. But back in the day, I remember very consciously taking those two individuals and trying to extract as much as possible and really tried to keep everyone else's opinions and ideas and angles and perspectives away because I wanted to go very deep on those individuals and I probably did that for about two to three years before kind of realizing that they had moved on. I didn't realize, really like the direction they're going and I moved on to other people that I admired or I wanted to absorb information from and went very deep and very narrow on them. Too many different voices, ideas and opinions and perspectives is going to confuse you, not help you. Number 12 is that the quietest person in the room is the person you want to hear from. Typically, the person that's running their mouth is the person that has absolutely nothing to share, usually has the least amount of money, has the least amount of experience, and has the least information that you need. Seek out the individual that's hardly talking because they're usually the ones that are the wisest, have the most experience, and usually have the most money. And just a little tip for you, that probably means that if you want to become that person, you should chart to be like them. Don't feel pressured to be the person that's always talking, always sharing, always communicating, always posting on social media. Be okay with quiet, diligent, head down, hard work that is required to build the base, but which people will actually listen to you and they'll ask for your opinion and what you have to say because you aren't constantly just randomly spouting it off at any moment in time. The final thing I want to share is progress over perfection. This is simply a matter of speed. If you look at billionaires and multimillionaires and people that become very successful in any area of life, most of the time they act very quickly, they're very decisive, and they're okay with the fact that 1 out of 10 times they're going to make a really bad decision and that's gonna hurt them, but they'd rather swing 10 times and make nine hits than try to get the one perfect swing and wait for 10, 15 years. Keep swinging, keep making decisions and be okay with the fact that progress is far more important than perfection. You're not gonna be perfect. Just keep swinging and eventually you'll hit home runs. And the cool thing about business is the fact that people are known for their home runs. They're not known for how many strikeouts they have. So keep swinging and swing hard because just one or two massive AT B that could potentially put your career on the map.

This has been the Mike Gandies podcast. Now you have some ideas on how to take your business to the next level. And if you liked what you heard, you have tons of lectures, interviews and more over at the Mike Gandies YouTube channel. That'll be right up your alley. That's all we have for you today. We'll see you next time.

Sam.