The Lawn Care Millionaire (Jonathan Pototschnik) is back!

Some people don't know. Is that actually the second year of doing Augusta lawn Care? I actually started Augusta Cleaning Services.

Today I'm going to be interviewing Jonathan Patosnik, who was the founder and CEO of Service Autopilot. He used to be involved in Sea Turf, which was doing almost $10 million in annual revenue down in Texas. And I'm really looking forward to it. Talking about what he's done since being a lawn care millionaire. That's what the name of his channel was. And I actually really started making a lot of my when he stopped making his content. So over the past few years, he really hasn't made a lot of content as he has sold off his stake in Service Autopilot and moved on in his life. So we're gonna be diving deeper into that, what he's doing now. And then later this evening, I have our quarterly managers meeting. We have a dinner that we do every quarter. And there's a lot of really exciting developments that are happening at Augusta right now that we're really preparing for next spring. And so we are really having to dial in the strategy and make sure that all the management team is on the same page. So it's gonna be a.

You're going to be like, go to a Toastmasters. Anyone know what Toastmaster it is? No one knows what Toastmasters. You guys know, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's like the New Bengal George Foreman Grill kind of deal.

I don't know about that.

So I really like the day one packets. You have the checklist for the trainer. You have, you know, another sheet that goes more in depth on the P for P.

I mean we have all the literature for like the insurance and things like that up on the board. You know, there's a lot of transparency here. So outside looking in seven day here, I'm liking what I'm seeing. Because if, if, if the management team is transparent with me, I'm gonna bust my ass to, you know, do what I can for the company.

And I think that's important as well. I think it like, the more transparent you are, like you are as a company.

About leadership and everything else, the less it from. From the outside looking in, the less it seems like it's trying to be hidden and the harder people will work.

Yeah.

And the principles, the thing that I think is like what works for a business organization works for every other organization would be a family level, church level, you know, non profit, you know, whether military, whatever it is, it works. And so when someone's like, someone will come into a vest and like, oh, it's like, so transparent. So, like, you just like, share a number, but then they go home and they keep secrets from their family. They keep secrets from their loved ones. They don't tell their spouse about everything they're doing. It's like, well, then, yeah, it works here, but it also works outside of this. Right? And I think that's where people really fail the disconnect. Like, they'll listen to the audiobooks about business and stuff and they're like, oh, like leadership and organizations. Like, no, what works there also works in every other organization. Like, people are humans and they don't want to have things between management and employees, but they also don't want between spouse and children, between, like, between spouses. Like, it's just very much like it works across the board, you know? And so I just think business is a proxy for any organization or hierarchy inside of life. And that's all we do is relationships.

So just finished the interview with Jonathan Patosnik, co founder of service Autopilot in the past. That was an awesome interview and I'm really looking forward to you all being to see it.

Yeah, I wasn't passionate about the service, but I do have this general belief that when you get good at something and you get into it, you can find more passion in it. So I've become much more passionate about, say, city turf as an example, or home service. I would, I would have zero desire to sell that company. Zero. Two thoughts came to mind as you were saying it. One, I see a ton of individuals trying to leave home services too early to move to their next thing. And add on to that is the beauty of building a home services business, or frankly, any business that you just stick with for a long period of time is you learn the skill set to go build whatever the other business is. You know, for those that as you accumulate a lot of money and you're like, where the heck do I deploy money over the years? As you take money out of your business and you deploy it, you're like, okay, go put it in public markets and go put it in real estate. I can go put it in bonds and go put in versions of insurance. I can put it in all these things. The best place to deploy is right back into business because that's where the best you can get the best yield on your money. So if you have the skill to build something, you have one of the most valuable skills that exist, period.

I was honored to talk to him for 30 or 40 minutes off camera afterwards and very excited. That was One of my favorite interviews ever. I didn't look at my notes one single time because he's like having a conversation and honestly, like, I just love talking to people like that. I love business so much, love this industry so much, know it so well and someone I actually look to like, I can learn from that person. So that was great. That was a lot of fun. Especially after just getting a chance to talk to someone like that. Is that successful is not something I gotta do every single day. And I can just learn so much from someone like Jonathan. So it was a great interview. Can't wait to share the whole thing with you guys. Obviously the off camera stuff is just between myself and him, but the interview's fire. I asked him hard questions. I did not, you know, give him an easy one, especially for Surface Auto part members and things like that that might have questions. I pressed him hard. So I think you'll enjoy it and I really, really look forward to sharing with you guys next week.

All right, it is the evening and I am headed to another meeting. And this is our quarterly managers meeting. This is including Liz, operations manager, Lee, franchise business consultant, Lonnie, manager at Command center, and then also the local shops gm, which right now is Marcus. Several things at this meeting we have to determine, number one, who is going to replace Marcus because he's becoming a franchisee, moving a couple hours down south and starting his own location in about two months. I. So we got to get someone else trained up and they have something up their sleeve. While I was away in Australia, they said they had some ideas that were a little bit out of the box besides just replacing Marcus. So I don't even know what it is. They wanted to talk about it at this meeting. That's one of the main objectives. We're also going over the massive changes that we are making at Command center, gearing up for next spring rush that I'm looking forward to. So it's a great time for us to get together, challenge the thoughts and ideas and for the people at the top of the organization, just to stay on the same page and the direction of the company, we do a couple of these a year for the the whole team. But for the managers, we do these quarterly.

Typically when I'm doing an evening meeting, I like to do it over dinner mostly as just a thank you to the people that are taking time out of their evening to do work stuff. So we're going down to a nice restaurant down next to the bay. One of the things that I fear the most with these type of meetings or any manager's meetings as we continue to grow is the fact that as we grow and I have a public image that gets larger and larger, that I can't connect with my managers and they can't feel comfortable enough to challenge me on things because I speak with a lot of conviction. I'm sometimes misinterpreted as someone who just will steamroll people, But I really value people who do kick back, give opposing ideas and challenge my thoughts and opinions. And so what I have to be careful of is because I have such high convictions in certain things that it doesn't make someone who has a better idea or potentially just needs clarification or needs to question the idea, to really believe and get behind it. I need to make sure that they don't feel like they can't be heard or that I am going to just not listen. I really feel where most organizations fail once they've passed 2, 3, 4 million dollars in annual revenue is typically having these type of meetings, having all the managers on the same page and everyone pulling in the same direction.

Bellingham Bay, baby, let's go.

Squalidum Harbor. And that is where we're gonna eat.

Well, Lee and I are here, still waiting on the other three. Profit sharing's gonna get whacked. Oh, there's Marcus.

Let's go. Right here.

We have Augusta of the next.

Quarterly meeting's done. Liz, how was it? So fantastic. Yay. Lee, any synopsis?

We are gonna go change lives and we are gonna go change the world one person at a time. We're making America right.

It was a successful meeting.

Long meeting.

It was over three hours, but we had a lot to go over. And that was portal meeting that we've actually had to make certain decisions and executive decisions during the meeting. So where we hash things out, everyone has different opinions and we argue a little bit and then come to some sort of conclusion. So decisions are made, things are going to happen, and you'll probably see those within the next couple days because there's several big changes that we'll be making from that meeting. So really thankful for them. It's nine o' clock and they're just going to be headed out. So I appreciate people like that that are willing to sacrifice an evening and come out.

Get the vision of what we're trying to do.