The Blueprint That Took Us From One Shop to 154

Hey, everyone. My name is Mike Handys, and today we're going to be talking about what I learned going from my very first lawn care business all the way to scaling it up to over 150 locations around the world. Now, the very first thing you got to realize is that in order to get to 154 locations, you have to get to number two. Going to two is the hardest thing. It is easier to go from five locations to 10 locations than it is to go from one location to two locations. Why? Because at one location, you can be in one spot. But as soon as you pop an office 30, 40 minutes away in terms of a drive, you can't be in both places. Which now means you can't be the one motivating everyone. You can't be the one organizing everyone. There's going to have to be systems and procedures in place that people can follow independent as to whether or not you are actually physically at the location. And that's the hardest thing. It's not having great people. It's having systems in place that even if you're not there, things still happen. The crew still has their job notes. They know exactly what to put on their truck. The office actually knows how to open up the software and what to do for up incoming leads. And everyone's not just waiting around twiddling their thumbs until you show up. And so going from one location, two locations is going to be the hardest thing in the world because you will not be able to physically manage chaos when chaos inevitably happens at both locations at the same time. The perfect test as to whether I want to scale a regional chain of 5 or 10 locations. The best way to do this is start a second one. Every single system in your business will show its cracks and its weaknesses as soon as you do that, because you physically will not be able to be the juggler, the master juggler, handling the chaos at individual locations. The number one thing that's going to be hard for you to do and the number one impact as to whether or not those locations will be profitable and successful is whether or not you find good general managers. Now, I call them general managers. You can call them whatever you want. You can call them operations managers, you can call them leaders. I don't care. I call them general managers. And that's the one person that I hold responsible for that location. Because ultimately, you need one person to get information from. I need one person that's accountable so that when I'm gone, there's someone in charge. You're not going to be there all the time. And you'll need somebody as the leader of that location every single, single time an employee shows up. That general manager is responsible for all the financials, all the numbers, all the hiring, all of the sales. And ultimately they are responsible for the financial well being of that location. The success of a location after you pass the first one 100% depends on the general manager. You can take a mediocre general manager or a low performing general manager and put them in the best performing location with the most profits and they will ruin it. I've seen it happen firsthand at my own locations. The success of each individual business will hinge on that general manager the same way that you, because you're the great general manager of your first location, made it successful. You'll need to find other people that can be successful just like you were in your first one. Now you must keep in mind that these general managers are employees. They're not entrepreneurs. They're not going to be just like you. The number one problem that I faced and I see other people face when they start doing multiple locations is they look for people that are just like this. And the problem with that is they usually leave because they have aspirations of owning their own business. And so if you were looking for a general manager, realize they're gonna have skills that are different than you. There's two different characteristics that I'm looking for in a general manager numero uno. Are they really, really good at sales? Because if they're really, really good at sales, they're gonna be able to grow locations. These are people that love selling, they hate boring minutia and management and one on ones and hiring and training. They the same thing every single day. They like selling and they like starting and they like growth. That is the starter role at Augusta or also the general manager that is very good at sales. Now on the other side, there's another type of general manager that is also very good. And I don't like them any more or less. They're both necessary and they operationally are fantastic. They aren't usually that great at sales. They're kind of like a working gm. They're really good out in the field. They, the team loves them because they feel like they're one of them. They're not like rah, rah, rah and selling and out in their truck doing estimates. They like systems and procedures and pay for performance and they like those things. That's because operationally they're a great gm. Now this is my opinion, if you're Starting a whole bunch of locations. Find someone who's really, really good at GM in that starter role. They're good at selling. They don't mind doing door to door, doing door hangers, cold calling, follow up calls. They're just ruthless at getting more sales. And then take that location and transition it to someone that doesn't really like sales but is really good at operations. And they love working with the team and they love hiring and training people and doing the same thing for the next 10 years. That's what they love. And they don't want the risk of going out and trying to start their own thing. That type of person is exactly who you want as a general manager. Because remember, a great location with a poor general manager will be kaput. Bad location, bad territory. Not a lot of good customers with a great GM will still be very, very profitable. Now, at Augusta Lawn Care, we have a franchise and people get multiple locations all the time. The reason it's a little easier for them is because they have systems and procedures to follow. And the general managers can be trained the exact same way when they come to corporate. Should I start a franchise or should I just do corporately owned locations? I own a franchise. And a lot of you are going to think that I'm going to say what I'm about to say because I don't want people to compete with us in franchising or when that is exactly the opposite, because I really want people to do more franchising. I think it's awesome and it gives people systems and procedures to follow and keeps them from going way out in left field. However, if you're thinking about starting an empire in a whole bunch of locations and you're like, I'm gonna franchise my concept just like Augusta Lawn Care, I would be very, very cautious. Here's why. Let's say you take about 5% of revenue from your locations that are franchisees. That means you would need to go sell 22, 020 locations that are franchised in order to recoup the revenue of one singular location. And so I ask a lot of people, like, what would be easier starting one new location corporately or going and starting 20 to 30 franchises? I'd probably make more money if I just started them myself. And that's usually the case. Well, really the bottom line is at Augusta, we franchise because we want to get to a thousand locations. And I don't think I'm gonna be able to do a thousand on my own. And I want to do a thousand to change the level of professionalism in our industry. I. But if you're just trying to make more money, doing a regional type of corporate chain is probably your best bet. Don't go on the other side of the country. I've seen this all the time. Literally in our local area. Someone has three locations, very hard already has broken apart within a matter of three or four years the partnership that they had. I recommend if you're trying to make more money, stay in a regional area and start locations up every 40 to 50 miles. But that's usually how you're going to make the most money. Franchising is a completely different business. Keep that in mind because I see people all the time. I'm gonna franchise and just make money while I'm sleeping. It's not like that. It's extremely difficult. And I'd only do it if you had some sort of other reason outside of money. Making more money is probably gonna be corporately owned locations, finding great general managers, operationalizing your systems and crushing it. You need more customers, you need to grow. Here's a video how you do it. You use Google and you rank in five different spots on Google. Cause there's not just one, there's five. Watch this video here on how to do that so you can grow up past one location.