to my haters in the comments...

Hey, what's Mike Andes here? I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have almost 100 locations around North America. And today I'm talking to someone that actually left a comment in relation to a video that I made a few weeks ago about how we had an employee that was late by 15 seconds and they lost half of their quarterly profit sharing. Now in that specific quarter, the profit sharing, as long as someone just showed up on time and didn't call out last minute, they were able to make $1,200. And so by being late one time, that gets half. If you get late, if you're late twice, it becomes gone complet for that whole quarter. Or if you call out late and what we require is like two hours heads up. You can't be ready to supposed to be working at 8am and then calling out at 7:45 as being sick. You can call out earlier in the day and give us some heads up, but if you're sick all night long, you can let us know earlier. So how we have it is one strike and then two strikes, it's completely gone. And the first strike is half of your profit sharing is gone. And so in relation to that, I think some people have had the notion that there's like really being tough on employees and going to really hurt morale and really hurt the culture. And I disagree strongly. I'm going to read this comment, I'm going to read my response to the comment and then elaborate a little further as to why I think these type of standards and rules need to be enforced. And actually employees want this level of objective rules in the business instead of subjective people making boundaries and then making up compensation rules, et cetera. So let's go ahead and read the comment from a couple weeks ago. I'm not going to have the name of the person because it's not about shaming them. This is just a good conversation, a good debate. I think to have. The more I watch of Mike's videos, the less I like the business culture. Yes, rules are rules, but this is overbearing and ridiculous. These are people's livelihoods. If you want to dock bonus pay by a percentage, that's one thing, but taking it away entirely over 15 seconds, that's just plain sick and disgusting. So first and foremost we are taking half of it away. So it's 50%. So it's a percentage. It's not the entire thing if they're late one time. So let's keep reading. As I said in a comment on a previous video, I Hope I never pass the money threshold at which human decency is entirely ignored and disregarded. So let me stop there and say that I think this has a premise that when you make a lot of money that there's a threshold by which you become less decent as a human being. And I think that's a flawed and ignorant perception. Your employees bought you the fancy camera and mic you're recording on. They bought you their new fancy truck with a fresh paint job, a ramp rack and thousands of dollars of tools. They bought it for you, you didn't. It's their labor and effort that made you the money. They all quit tomorrow. Can you service all your properties without them? Doubt it. So someone like this is probably not a big believer in capitalism. They would much rather probably have it where the government controls all of the businesses and all of the resources and allocates it accordingly to its people. And that no one can really get ahead very well. Because honestly, of course, they bought the tools that they are working and those tools were required in order for them to have a job. The trucks that were purchased by their labor are required in order for them to have a job. It is not for me personally. I don't touch any of those tools or equipment. They don't bring me any personal benefit is actually required parts of the business so that they can have a job. And I as an entrepreneur love creating jobs and I can do so much more efficiently than the government can. And that's why ultimately communism typically does not work. So my response to this was so where's the line? 15 seconds is fine, but what about 5 minutes? What about 15 minutes? Who makes that arbitrary decision if there's a 5 minute grace period? Again, this is talking about being late. We basically would be moving the standard. Team members want standards and clear ways of winning the game, in my opinion, not subjective rules that are fluid. Maybe we'll try and get Canon video of the team talking about the culture and their thoughts on this case specifically. Most importantly, people aren't late and show up ready for their team members and coworkers. Again, I talked about this in the previous video when I brought up this case where someone was late 15 seconds and because they were late, they still lost half their profit sharing. That was at $600. And again, people suddenly do not show up late after examp like that. And so this individual responded back. Like I said, a rule is a rule, but you're giving your employees an all or nothing ultimatum. As others have said, if I knew that the time it takes to tie My boots could cost me $600. I'd just call in sick and lose my day pay instead of my entire quarterly bonus. So if you were at the point of tying your shoes, you'd already be close enough to start time where you'd be considered an unexcised absence at Augusta Lawn Care for this location. If I knew that 15 seconds cost me my whole bonus, I really would have no incentive to hit benchmarks for the next three months. So that's not true because P4P pay for performance every single day is giving bonuses based upon performance. This is a quarterly profit sharing. I, as the owner, give 10% to the frontline employees as long as they just show up and as long as they don't call in sick last minute. And the reason I do that is because on P4P pay for performance, if they show up late or they call out last minute like that, it affects the ability for their team members and their other coworkers to make money on P4P. So this is a way that I bonus and create incentive for for them to actually show up for their team on time and make sure it's fair and equitable. I'm now in the unique position where I'm not only earning my hourly rate, which I'm probably going to stretch a little here and there, I'm going to do anything and everything I can to make sure I'm still making money. If you're late one day, do you cut yourself out of an entire quarter's profit if you're late one day? I think what he's saying here is like, if the owner is late one day, do I cut myself out of an entire quarter's profit? Again, ultimately, you have to. You have to address the fact that ownership and equity comes with risk. And yes, it comes with the upside potential of profits and outsized returns in comparison to the average labor. The average labor shows up to work and knows that when I work one hour, I make X amount of dollars. There is no guarantee in entrepreneurship or small business. And in fact, 70 to 80% of business owners would be better off just going and flipping burgers at McDonald's for the guaranteed pay of 15$20 per hour in comparison to risking thousands of dollars going into debt and for years on end not breaking even. And then one day, there's the potential that they earn more money. There's a potential that they have quarterly profit and if they show up late to work one day, they're probably going to have side effects of that. They' employees are probably Gonna start showing up late today, late to work one day. But I don't show up to work late because I want my employees to follow the, the, the leadership that I'm having. And so I don't show up late. And so if I did show up late one day, I don't know what I would do. I wouldn't cut myself out of entire quarter's profit though, because I probably had showed up on time for five to six years, getting the business off the ground without making a single penny and paying all of my employees far more than I was making and I was actually going in the red. So again, capitalism is probably not for an individual like this. They'd be much more happy in a socialistic or communist.

There is no, there's redistribution of wealth and there's really no point in trying to risk capital or risk time, money, energy, and for years not make any cash. The first five years of my business in Augusta Lawn Care, this is prior to us franchising all the rest of it. I made less money in those first five years in profit. I did last year in one year. And in those first five years I was working 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week. And last year I worked at that location that specifically netted out over $300,000 in distributions to me. And I worked there less than one hour a week. So some people would say that's unf that I worked an hour to a week on this location and netted out hundreds of thousand dollars in distributions. What those same people probably would not do is volunteer to work for five years for absolutely no pay and work like crazy amounts of hours until you're bleeding out your eyeballs. Most people wouldn't want to do that. And that is the risk and opportunity of entrepreneurship and capitalism. When the majority of your employees livelihood is based on the profit share and you take that away over 15 seconds, what incentive do they have to make you more money faster? So again, keep in mind that profit sharing is completely, completely separate than pay for performance, or P4P we call it, which is the faster they work, the more money they make, the more efficient they are, the better they're at their job, they'll make more money. So this has nothing to do with that. The profit sharing is in addition to, and as a bonus to people that have stayed for the entire quarter and that have showed up on time. And again, I have to do that because if I don't on P4P they make a percentage of the labor revenue they earn for the business. So if you're with a crew of say two or three people. But one person shows up late, guess what that's doing? It means all the other people are sitting in the truck waiting for them. So I, as the owner don't want that to be happening between the dynamics of the culture. So I just say, look, I'll, I'll incentivize. I'll give an extra bonus for people just to show up on time. And ultimately the decision here is, do you make them still give up half their BONUS if it's 15 seconds versus 15 minutes? And that's all I address in just a second. He's just finishing up here. He says, you do you man. There are 5 million corporations that think exactly this way and they do just fine. I'm sure you're going to be hugely successful in business. I spent 30 years slaving in retail and food service jobs for people who think the way you do. And it's exactly why I started my own business. I can't stand working for people with this mindset and I refuse to be that guy to get ahead. So ultimately though, if 15 seconds is. You're really your big stickler point, this is what I would say is that fluid rules to a game is recipe for disaster and confusion and chaos. It'd be like if what someone in this situation is saying is that I am, you know, being a snob, rich snob, because I am for 15 seconds taking away $600 from somebody. And I don't like that either that I had to take away the money from somebody. It's not like I put that in my pocket. And so it's just a matter of where do you draw the line? And if you're playing the game of business and you actually want your employees to learn the game of business, it'd be like going to a baseball game and be like, yeah, that was. You were almost safe, so we're going to call you safe. You're theoretically out, but you were almost safe, so now you're safe. It'd be like a touchdown. It'd be like, hey, you were almost to the touchdown. You were almost there. We were only on the half yard line. We'll just give it to you. It'll be considered a touchdown. That's the equivalent of giving someone profit sharing and giving them a boat bonus. When you've set a defined line, there is the marker line of a touchdown and oh, you're close to it, so we'll still give it to you. Like where, what kind of game would we be playing if that was how we played in the NFL. No, what do they do? They have chains to actually determine exactly first down. They have play by play action and replays and a review booth and people that analyze game footage just to determine whether it was an inch short or where they actually got into the goal line. And so if you're going to actually play the game of business and you don't want to make your, your, the players of the game, the employ very frustrated, you've got to have consistent markers, consistent lines, consistent standards. And it'd be like if in football it's like, hey, we're just going to determine arbitrarily whether you got into the touchdown zone or not. And if it's close, well, we'll see whatever the, the referee thinks, we'll just roll with that. No, like we have review and video and multiple angles and we can challenge things. Because the reason you can do all of that and everyone ultimately agrees to these rules is because they're defined standards. And those defined definitive standards is what makes the game possible. Without it, it is chaos. Without it, there's a bunch of objectivity or, sorry, subjectivity that's happening because it just be based upon if the ref thought you were in or not. It'd be based upon if the ref liked that team. And you as the business owner are in this case the ref making the decision as to whether or not someone's going to get a bonus or get a profit sharing. And if you're not going to have clear standards, where do you draw the line? Again, if it's 15 seconds and I don't say that that's late, well what about 30 seconds? What about a minute? What about five minutes? Well then what if you give Joe five minutes late, he still gets profit sharing, but then so and so is six minutes late. What's to say they shouldn't be able to also get profit sharing? And now if you don't give them profit sharing, are you playing favorites with Joe? These are the type of things that make cultures ruined. These are the type of things that make the players of the game frustrated and they want to give up and stop playing. So what gets them mad and frustrated and they end up actually turning on their own team is because there is no clear standards. And so I really think that most employees want structure. I really believe that they want to know how they can win the game. And if you don't have clear defined lines and touchdown markers and first down markers and hash marks, you don't have a game. You just have chaos. And so I think most employees want structure. They know. They want to know how to win, they want to know how to make more money, they want to know how to get the bonus. And if those are murky and unclear lines, you've opened yourselves up to subjectivity, where it depends on who knows the boss, who likes the boss, who's worked the longest there, who butters the boss up with coffee in the morning. And I truly believe that the people that show up and you are allowing other people to get outside the lines, outside those standards, it will create resentment for the people who are actually doing their job correct. If I would have not penalized that person for 15 seconds being late, it would have created resentment for the person that was 20 minutes early and had all of their truck set up, all of their equipment set up, and then this person just shows up late, hops in the truck and rolls out. That's not fair. On P4P, that's not fair. You're using performance based pay. And so I truly believe that employees want structure. They want to know how to win the game, and they want rules and standards that they can look at and know there's measurable weight to succeed in this game. And that's just my opinion. I'm Mike Andes. We'll see you tomorrow.