watch this if your employees quit SUDDENLY

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. Today is a one on one zoom call that I had with an owner from Augusta Lawn Care. They started their business earlier this year. They've been in business about seven, eight months. They've grown very fast, 60, 70,000 in monthly revenue. But in doing that there's lots of new customers and recently they've lost a few of their team members just because of natural attrition. So we're going to be talking about a strategy, a short term band aid, if you will. Let's go and take this a listen. This might be helpful. If you ever have five, six, seven people on your team and two, three, four of them, you leave very quickly and make sure you don't end up yourself back in the field.

I don't know if their struggles are just part of the business, but the, the employee situation got, it's kind of dwindled down a little bit further. So I took action to put some pressure on some individuals about, you know, better performance. And I had the, the general manager, Brian, which I lost too. So I've lost Brian. I had another individual that walked off and then I just had another individual that gave us two weeks and another one that was driving too far. So I've lost four people. I'm down to where I have my general manager, Chris, the one that you met, another individual we just hired a little bit ago that's maybe a little bit below the bar and then a solid individual. So I'm really low on staff and already can tell it from the fact that like I'm, I worked most this week. I think I did almost 35 hours and I'm falling behind on all the stuff I should be doing. And I've got Mike working 40 hours. And so the question is, do I have a, a culture problem? Is this just normal churn? I mean, is it. Did I not focus enough on the finding the right people? Um, or. I guess that's lots of questions and lots of situational things, I guess.

Yeah. Like part of it is honestly just when you grow as quickly as you have and you're adding new people, it just, it's a tendency to not spend as much time as you should with them. But then it's also a function of. They're also getting thrown into a whole bunch of new customers. Like every single week you have more new customers when you're growing that quickly. And so there. It also just kind of like shows all the weaknesses in, in training or their quality because most damage cases, most callbacks are happening the first visit or two. And so it's just, it's really, It's. I would say it's more of a feature than a bug when you're growing as quickly as you have. And then the second part is you just starting to determine and recognize the patterns of what good looks like for an incoming team member. Right. So at the beginning, it's like, oh, I want them to have culture. And like, those are things that are valuable and important. And then it's like, okay, well, maybe I want some of them to actually know what they're doing because I'm growing so quickly. I need them to be. Also be training someone else after three or four weeks. Right. And that's. That's really the challenge is. And the. I understand, like, the, The. The. The tension is like, man, I want to just keep gassing this, but then also realizing that by gassing it, you lose people because you don't have the time to spend with them. And so, like, it's tough too. Cause you're kind of ending. Going towards the end of your busiest season, so you're kind of trying to get like the last of it. You know, there's a lot of opportunity. But you also know if you hired someone, that could be gone and two or three months because of the off season. So it is probably the hardest time also to go through that. Sorry, I'll switch my cameras. But I would say this is very common when you're growing as quickly as you have been.

Okay. Okay, so that's good. So now. And you already touched on a little bit. So is the action just, you know, so far I posted an Indeed. It's linked us to sparkhire. Um, it's. It's boosted. I think I upped it this week. But I had to be realistic with everybody that's coming in that this is. This may not be a winter job. Right. But also I had to be really specific that they know what they're doing when you come in, because we just don't have time to train either. So it's just going to be tough. I think that's what I got to live with.

Right.

Yeah.

Are any of your guys hitting above base pay yet, Jordan, or not yet?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, I think we're about 80% right now as well.

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Okay. So my thought goes to, you know, if you. If you had two different ads on Indeed, one is like, hey, it is more of a cultural thing. The questions are going to be revolving. Much more attitude. The Ability to be trained, etc. But then having another one that like hey, you need have two years of experience. This is going to be a three year stint. You're be paid very well for it, but you're going to be coming in here and immediately within a week of learning systems, you're gonna be training someone else. When you become an owner inside of Augusta Lawn Care, you get D daily masterminds and live streams. With me, you get weekly office hours with your owner's success manager, you get monthly one on one coaching from a coach. And every quarter you get together with all of Augusta Nation. This sort of camaraderie, community and support is what you'll need to take your business to the next level. If that's of interest, go to augustalawncareservices.com franchise. It's a high risk approach, but it's really the difference between you basically coasting the rest of the year versus being a still stay aggressive. Um and you're probably on those people going to be throwing away P4P but it's rare that someone joins people, gets in anyways as a newbie and gets to P4P within the next two months. Like it's usually takes a few months for them to get there anyways so. But by having the higher rate you would attract the person that has the 23 years of experience can immediately step into the role, get work done and hopefully within a week or two of just learning the systems and how things operate. Train somebody else.

Do you think so? So like right now. So the one of the guys that's leaving was my highest guy. He was, I think he was averaging like $26 an hour. The remaining individuals are probably going to bounce around that $24 25. So I mean it. Knowing that they're risking P4P I mean is it a risk for culture to say to bring somebody in at $25 an hour on a short term period or I mean what. How do you manage that conversation?

Yeah, I would if I was you, I'd be looking as like very much in the next six months. And I was like I'm going to be hiring someone that is, I'm only telling this a three to four month gig. I'm going to pay them a higher rate. They're probably not going to hit pay above base pay, but I don't really care because I need them. I'm actually thinking of them as trainers and what I'm trying to get do is get two of those and then two of the like people that are willing to learn, willing to train, they will be P4P. They'll be at a lower rate. And then my goal is to get four people right. Go ahead.

Oh, sorry. I should be listening instead of talking.

Just going through my head like that Chris that I have hired, like he could priority jump into that role since he's had the business, he seems to be mirroring the quality expectations and the other things that we have. So, you know, maybe I need to think about that differently than, and not be so scared to hire somebody that isn't fully able to hit the field and be by themselves. Right?

Yeah. And honestly a lot of it, this, this happens a lot of times in the first year and even two is like we always plan for new hires and they join with the expectation I'll be here forever. But if you just look at the track record, they last three to four months as just like a standard. And so if someone's so all star and wants to stay with you for a few years, you're going to move mountains to make sure that happens. But the average, one, average team member stays three, four, five, six months. And so I think there's, there's two ways of looking at. One is you go get the person that very talented and just say, this is a short window of a gig. I'm going to be overpaying market premium for this talent to come in, spend a week of training and then immediately be training someone else. And then that person is the one that I'm actually going to invest into, try to get them above base pay. And I'm kind of thinking about them longer term, but also know they're probably going to last three to four months. Like it just, it just is the nature of the game.

So with that in mind, then like considering how fast I'm growing, like I just, I had to have the gas on the hiring as much as I have it on the growth of the business though, don't I? Just having that churn is going to be part of it.

Yeah. And like I don't know what you have. Do you have a set up, like a fixed fee for your marketing company right now?

Yeah.

Okay.

No, no. Like they're doing a percentage of what our spend is.

Okay.

Yes.

And there's no flat, like a thousand dollars or anything like that. No, that's not bad because, because then it wouldn't be a horrible idea if you're falling that far behind just to be like, okay, at least for a month, I'm going to focus on getting four new people Two skilled people, two less skilled folks. And then I'll be able to turn these ads back on and just let them like, hey, I need one month to kind of get my footing. And it also allows the chaos to decrease when it comes to new customers coming on. Like just the growth just creates so much more chaos when you bring on new team members. Like it's a collision course when you're like growing that fast and hiring a whole bunch of new people. That's where you just. Operations gets blown up for sure.

So just kind of put a pause on that and then I, I can still focus on converting into winter services and because I don't want to happen.

Is you go for the short term growth and then we lose out in the entire off season because you don't have the time to focus on it for sure. And so I think by slowing that down, focusing on the hiring, getting two solid experienced people at a higher rate that they know they're not going to go into winter and then having to others that will just basically hop in the truck and learn from them over the course of the next four to six weeks. And then we can turn the ads back on and hopefully keep those more talented people. Like that would be the goal. But we've just been very clear with them. Like the expectation is, is a three month gig for sure. So you're basically, you're basically hoping to pick off the people that are leaving other companies that don't have an off season plan.

Yep. So almost like head hunting in that case.

Yeah. And even like, even companies like Trugreen, um, that just do chemicals, like they really fall off this time of year a little earlier. Cause it's, they're so spring push forward their demand. So I would be really just like in your ad be like, hey, if you've worked for another lawn care company and they're laying you off for the next three months, we at least got you you covered and there's a chance we continue after that. But like look at this as like your three months kind of almost a working trial. And then they'll be even more inclined to like really put the effort in. You can even put it as a trainer position. Okay. Your expectation is that you have experience and you're training within one week.

Mm, for sure.

And then that way even if you talk to Chris and be like, hey, do you want this position? Cause like I'm willing to increase your pay, but you now are kind of on this more of a trainer pattern. It's I can't, I'm not really going to be pushing for winter work. Or do you want to stay where you're at? You're basically making that now on P4P. And then we'll make sure you stay into the winter. Just so that way he feels like he sees the Indeed ad. That's where I've always gotten burned in this in the past. And they're like, I wanted that position. Like, okay, like, I should have offered that beforehand.

Yeah, I completely agree with that. I've seen that happen in the past too. That, you know, just even if they don't want it, you gotta make for sure everybody has the opportunity. Right.

So, yeah.

Cool.

I know it's not fun turning off ads, but I do think it's almost like. I'd almost say that would be a good strategy anyways because it's your first off season. The ability for you to really focus on trying to get 150 to 200 people to convert into winter services or like go into that next thing. I think that's the difference between the next four or five months being very good versus just your fall. So I would look at it as kind of like a. Maybe a bit of a positive getting your operational roots down for the next like month or so. For sure.

Yeah. That's going to be hard.

I mean, it's just, it's. It's crazy, like how much stuff is coming in and I've honestly lost my ability to be as reactive as I can. And we've lost a few people. But I mean, there's still like I could put 250, 260 hours worth of work on those schedule every week, which is a good thing.

There's two cool things. One is by turning it off for a little bit, we know we kind of need to just because the operation and hiring, like, you also kind of get a test what happens when you turn off ads.

Very true.

Because sometimes you've got an SEO to the point where now 50 to 60% of those leads still come in.

Yeah.

And then it's a good barometer for you going the next spring rush, have a little more capital set aside instead of spending it now anyways when your customer cost is half as much to be able to deploy that. So I wouldn't look as a bad thing. It's so tough when you're growing that quick at any location, even the location down Mount Vernon. When we went into profit mode and then all of a sudden like five guys left and that crew is only six people, we kind of had to go through the Same thing. And it was like, okay, we turning off every, every new, new customers out. We raised prices way up on them just to focus. And then did the two strategy, like two, two new hires that were long term, lower pay, but two, we went out and overpay. I think we paid 28 bucks an hour because our markets were a little bit higher and just said like, look, this is a three month stint and you're a trainer. And the expectation they come in is like, okay, I do work for a week, but then I'm immediately training someone else.

And did, did they stay or did they, did they take their.

Honestly, I don't remember. I would, if I had to guess, I would say at least one of them stayed, but I just don't remember. I wasn't the general manager, but I know that's how he pitched it. Like, hey, the reason this is higher is because of the three months stint. And I would. I know for a fact that if they would have stayed, they would have had to accept the fact that they're now on P4P. The base pay is back down to a field team member.

For sure. Yeah. And just like from a conceptual thing, like just probably looking too far in the future, but when you think of a small team like that, how do you, how do you ever get. Or maybe you don't like protect yourself from the fragility of, you know, if you have eight people supporting this much revenue and three leave like you're, you're in a tight spot.

Yeah, there's one is scale. Right. So like when that happened, for example, immediately the Bellingham shop contact him and was like, hey, if you need a couple guys for a week or two, just let me know. And so I think for like three days they sent two guys down to Mount Vernon. So there's part of it is just scale. And even though that individual location was struggling, you're able to then pull people from other spots. Same thing with general managers. Like if a general manager goes down, we've had it before. Generator just kind of covers failed person for a second. So I think you grow out of this stage because across even like the multiple locations, the ability to pull trucks, pool employees is useful for sure. Yeah, it is. You're at that very critical stage of like you're growing small team and new team members. Like whenever you have new team members with a bunch of growth, it just. Operations always gets hit hard. It's so difficult. No one knows the properties. No one knows to talk to like the most senior person. It's just so Hard to keep good quality.

Yeah, yeah. And I still like to keep my finger on quality. And you know that that also makes it hard too, because it's. I like, I feel like sometimes I've got to pump the brakes on what I. How aggressive I am just because I'm trying to protect the workforce we have too. So that's not a place I like to be in either.

And a lot of it is, like, going into next spring, you'll have all these reps of like seeing what a good team member looks like. And also, I think this exercise that I'm kind of pushing you towards will give you a really good balance of okay, what happens when I do short term train? And like, that is always my release lever, Like, I have to pull it. I can go to it if needs be when a location is in hypergrowth mode. And I've used this, like, even in North Carolina, we did the same thing. I went and got people that have been doing this for a long time. I told them I'm never going to be able to pay this flat rate forever, ever. But I'm going to have you for three months. I want you to train four people. And we would usually fill it. So it just depends on the time of year. We did find it very difficult to do that in the spring. But if it happened mid year or like this time of year, it's usually you can find someone because you're overpaying them essentially. And at least, you know, from day one you can put them in a truck and they'll at least do a decent job for sure.

Cool. That's a great idea.

Cool. Well, I got a balance by next meeting. I had a random cancellation. I was like, oh my God, make use of it.

So that was awesome timing. I appreciate it.

Awesome, brother. You have a good one. Best of luck to you.