Wife Wants OUT of Their $800K Business

We are at a breaking point.

Okay.

Sam tried to kill himself in.

April.

Today we're in Utah visiting Sam and Emma from Powerhouse Flooring Removal.

We've talked about it a lot. It's like, either give up the company because this matters more to me, or.

The business is on Track to make $800,000 in revenue this year, but they haven't taken a paycheck in months.

That was kind of the hardest, most stressful thing because I was, like, being torn between, okay, I need to be here, and working and providing, but, like, I also need to be with my family.

My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 190 locations around the world. I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. Our goal is to give Sam and Emma a strategy to turn around the company in the next six weeks. Play this out for a second. Why keep the business?

This could very well be like, hey, let's close the business. Really?

So is the alternative, like, getting it.

Get a job? Just a job. You need operations manager someplace. Usually you can push someone with mental health, you gotta be careful because you don't know all the nuances of their situation. And so you gotta be very, very sensitive to. I don't want to be the person that pushes this person over the edge. And the fact that he has openly admitted on the application that he tried.

Quote, I tried to take my life because it was pretty dark and pretty.

Bleak, puts it this level of, like, okay, that's the line I will not cross in terms of pushing someone. And so I'll be much more sensitive to that.

It was affecting the morale. Performance was going down in the company. Yeah. So we're in desperate need of help, Mike.

And I think it's important, honestly, for people watching to know that he said that, because they will see a different version of me the way I push them. I will back up. Like, I'm much more inclined to, like, let's reduce the size of the business. Let's raise price.

Like.

Like, let's make this smaller.

The last three months, we've had a complete negative profit.

And then we only have about 18,000 in our bank account right now. And that's really terrifying as our payroll is 12,000. 12,000 to 14,000 every two weeks.

And everyone's like, oh. Like, this is not a turnaround show. You tell everyone to just come in and, like, make their business smaller. Close down. Like, no, ultimately, I'm trying to make them hit their goals. And their goals right now, as it stands, is to stay alive. And to be able to protect their kids.

We have one truckload of 33,000, which is 626amonth payment and then 34,000, which is 711 payment. And then we just had an unexpected loan that we had to get for 6,500 because we had our transmission in one of our dump trucks go out. We also have about $7,000 in credit card debt. On top of that, we have personal debts.

The thing that's like not being said in the application a is that she doesn't want to work with him because affecting their relationship really bad.

So we would like you to please consider us for your turnaround show. And we thank you for listening to us.

Thanks, Mike.

Thanks, Mike.

Do you think we should vlog this one or like not? And then afterwards. Oh, yeah, you should definitely vlog. Everything should be vlogged. Okay. It's the same. Why? What do you mean? I don't know. I'm just nervous. You're just nervous?

What do you mean?

I'm just nervous about vlogging it. I feel like it adds another level of like poking and prodding. No, we're not poking and prodding. I'm going to talk to these people like I would if these cameras were not here. And I could care less about whether or not Mike does.

The thing is, there's a thousand other people that watch this that don't talk about this stuff. And it's because of the way like even your mentality, like, oh, I just want to back up. That's what everyone does. And therefore all the people that struggle with this feel like they're all alone and then they take action on it.

We'll start with some praises that we got. Praises. We probably got our best review we've ever gotten.

Yeah.

Yeah, Noreen.

Yeah, yeah.

No, we got pictures of you, right?

No, it was these two that we got pictures of.

Oh, dang.

Okay, okay.

She was like, I'll just take pictures of the good looking guys. I'm not gonna take pictures of them.

I have never seen her more worried about the cleanliness of the house.

I told you not to tell them.

The only other time was when my grandmother was coming over for the first time.

But everybody got $5 for that one, so everybody got $12 this time. So I'll be sending that out through Venmo.

So.

Yeah, there you go.

There you go. Don't spend it all in one place, folks.

Well, having two kids, my house gets very wrecked.

Guys, don't go in the boys room.

Don't go in the boy's room.

Knock, knock.

Hey, how's it going?

Wow, this is a cool spot you got. Good to see you guys.

Good to see you.

So kind of walk me through a little bit of the. The story, like starting the business, like the whole, whole kind of background and we'll jump in.

So starting the business. Let's see, you were. Yeah. She was pregnant when we started the company, so worked for one of our competitors. I was talking with him and I was like, hey, like sometime in the future, like, I want to start my own thing. He's like, well, that's a conflict of interest.

And then he fired him because of it.

Like, you're done today?

What?

Yeah. And so I was like Jesse saying.

You wanted to do it.

Yeah.

So I remember him coming home and telling me that, like, we're starting it today. And I was like, I was sick with the kid. I was the breadwinner. Pregnant, working anywhere to make the bills. Because he wasn't working. Well, he was, he was starting a company, but we weren't taking any profit from it. So that's kind of how that dynamic worked out.

We made it work though.

Just kind of crazy, those first little bit.

So.

Yeah, that's kind of amazing.

Well, he's.

She knows.

We were able to find work and start working with contractors pretty quick, running the dump trucks. Like we've been able to grow to a couple crews and get a couple decent contracts with like some restoration remodel companies.

And I know it's very much B2B to the contractors. What percentage of it is to say like your top five, three or five guys. Is it very concentrated? Like 80% of revenue coming from three to five people? Or is it more distributed across contractors?

60% to the top three or four. Especially like one of the restoration companies like throws off numbers because they give us like big, like when a fire happens in the house, we'll gut the whole house. And so those are like big bill jobs. Like even though we only do like four jobs for them, like service, master.

Serve, prototype, where is the profit? So like if you look at these type of jobs, one is like we got these massive one off occasional insurance jobs. Very, very high ticket in terms of revenue. Is there margin more There is their margin. These half day we bounce in for a contractor to do the demo. Where is from your perspective, like a job like, ah, that's our money maker. Which one is it?

I think it's more the insurance ones because we're able to charge, charge more. The remodel ones are okay. The ones that kill us are flooring stores. Like, I. I'm trying to get away with working with flooring stores for their tear outs. They're the most price sensitive out of all of them.

Oh, but the flooring store is installing.

Yeah.

So they don't like doing the tear outs, but they also don't like paying for the tear outs.

I was going to say that. I feel like the restoration companies are like the biggest money makers, but there's so many. Like, our systems just aren't in place for those that, like, there's so many errors that happen. Like, we just barely had a $40,000 job. But because the systems weren't in place, like, there were a lot of mistakes, and we're probably going to be losing money on that job.

And so when the mistakes happen, is that us like, damaging stuff on the.

Property for insurance purposes. The restoration guys are really wanting, like, as much pictures as possible. Like, like, if it's a backsplash that chipped, be like, hey, as we were removing the countertop, backsplash, chipped under pressure. Take the picture, upload it so we have documentation of it so that we can forward that to the restoration company. And the restoration company can get that covered by insurance. Because I'd rather have insurance pay for it than us.

So, for example, we're taking out a wall and wiring gets.

Yeah, like on this one. Yeah, like, that's exactly what happens.

So we were removing all the wiring upstairs, and we weren't supposed to touch downstairs. And then like, the guy sent the prog. So we have the guy send. Take progress videos and stuff every day. And he took it and he's like, yeah, and we're halfway with the wires downstairs. And I was like, no, like, if we didn't have to now replace all the electrical in the basement, like, we would have made really good money on it.

Okay, cool. This looks like so much fun. Until you break something you're not supposed to.

Until you kind of make those wires.

You'Re not supposed to.

So give me some clarity on, like, what each of your roles are now in the business and then what you'd ideally like them it to be.

So right now I'm kind of over, like, sales and estimates. That's like my big one. The crew, like, as they're pulling off baseboards, they'll accidentally damage the drywall. And so I'll be the one who's coordinating. Like, okay, we're getting the drywall guy to come and repair that hole. And like, so I'll be coordinating that is kind of what I'm doing. I'm the head janitor.

When you're doing the estimates, like, what's your hourly rate? If you're using budget hours, what's kind of that target number?

$75 an hour.

Got it. Okay, cool. So that's kind of the current rule. Now, what's the ideal rule? Like, what do you want to do? And what is the part of the business where I could do that all day?

I would like to get to the point where I'm just like. Just the. Like, marketing, basically. Like, me taking a contractor out to lunch and just like, networking that way is a big one. And then also just me getting out of the managerial weeds so I can focus more on, like, the leadership and, like, where we're going to take the company.

And then your role, Emma now is like, admin, probably a little bit of operations.

We call her hr. All the guys call her hr.

The mean person. Yeah, I'm the mean person.

So if they're calling out, they're calling you, contacting you. Are you doing hiring?

Yes.

Okay, so you're doing admin and a little bit of operations, and then you're both kind of in operations. You're out in the field still.

If he's out in the field, then I'm doing a lot of the, like, pick up the slack work that he can't do.

Invoicing admin.

Yeah, like, all that kind of stuff.

Kind of fell behind on some jobs, and so I was, like, in the field every day, like, two weeks ago.

Okay, got it. And what do you want it to be?

Well, we. I don't know.

I want.

I think the goal is to get me out of the business. I feel like, just from, like, a marriage standpoint that it would probably be best for us to not be working together anymore. I know this isn't relationship counseling, but I just feel like we could be husband and wife instead of partners. I mean, I think we work well together, but when you only have a marriage based on work, it's not very good. So I think that. And I've got two kids at home, so I think being a mom and having my own kind of work scenario might be a better thing for us. So I think I want to kind of step away from the business to help our family situation a little bit better. The sooner the better probably would be our goal, right? Yeah, I think so.

Like, as soon as the owner loses passion for the business and doesn't want to be there, the business is sunk, period. Full stop. There's no. There is no turning around a business that the owner does not want to show up, is not present, doesn't want to be there. What is more painful right now in the next year? Is it this, the cash stuff, or is it, like, we are at a breaking point from a relationship perspective, from a role perspective, and we need to make that change pretty quick.

We are at a breaking point.

Okay.

We're at a breaking point. And we had. So for. Sam tried to kill himself and.

April, and we've just had. I mean, with the company, you know how hard it is. And it's very hard for a emotionally and marriage standpoint. And we're, like, really trying to save everything right now. Like, we had to live apart from each other for a little bit, and we're, like, really trying to save our marriage. And so I want. Like, we're at a breaking point. We've talked about it a lot. It's like, either give up the company because this matters more to me, or make the company work for our marriage. And we, like, make it work for our marriage. We're not gonna be slaves to it anymore, because we can't. We just can't do it. So that's it.

Sorry to say that we all understand is pretty crazy. Like, there's just so many imbalances and things that stuff can happen in the past, and people go through trauma and all this other stuff, and I don't really try to fix that. I just, like, what's the current situation and what's gonna be best to meet their goals? And I believe their goals are make sure that he doesn't do something stupid to himself and that he can heal himself on a mental side, and then the kids stay safe. And if the relationship stays intact. That's why she wants out of the business, is because it's affecting their relationship badly. Play this out for a second. Why keep the business?

Not saying this is what I'm recommending. I'm saying play it out.

Because of the scariness of doing something else.

Yeah. That's, like, the big one as far as, like, goals that we have in life. Yeah, like, personal goals.

We just feel like the business is the best way to be able to, like, make our dreams come true. I don't know if that makes sense.

Provide a life.

Provide the life for our boys that we want, like, we really want. Live in a. In a house on, like, 12 acres of land that has, like, just a lot of area for our boys to run around.

It's not the only route, but it's. It's a pretty good route to get there.

I mean, we've been making like decent money from the business so far this year. I don't know if it will be like, the net will be very much. Some people, like, they have enough money where they like my candies, where he can come. He did this for free. For us, like, that's a big deal. We want to be those type of people that have enough money that we can do that. And we felt like a business would be the course to take in order to do those types of things.

And then for me, it's just like I have a really hard time quitting. I don't know. Like, I just. That's one of the things I pride my. I don't know if it's pride myself in, but, like, I'm like, I'm stubborn. We joke all the time. Everyone's like, I'm okay just giving things up. Like, let's just call them the dogs. But I don't know. I'm really stubborn. I think that's.

My question to you is, is it the long hours or is it the stress and the tension caused by when you work the long hours? You also feel like a failure as a father, husband, that situation. And then there's tension between the two of you.

I think it's the second, like the long hours. I don't know. I feel like I do long hours. Okay. Like, grew up working on farms and stuff where, like, hours don't mean anything. Like, you just work. There'd be times where she's like, why are you out until 1 o'?

Clock?

Do you not want to be with your family? And I'm like, well, I want to be with my family. That's like why I'm staying out till one o' clock finishing these jobs and stuff. I think it's the relationship tension that is getting caused by it. Then it's like, where does our relationship start in the business end? Like, it.

We've really had to redefine that. Like, hey, there's no talk about work when we get home. But that's really hard when you're the business owners and things come up and.

You guys get any help on that side, have you?

Okay, cool.

Is that going decent? Like, better? So much of someone's life is the person they're spending their life with, their spouse and their partner. And if they're not aligned, like, there is so much hurt and pain and breakages that happen. It's impossible to run a business successfully if you don't have the Support of each other. If there's bitterness, if there's a bunch of tension because of the business struggling, it makes it infinitely more difficult to run the business because. Mostly because you need to have, like, sound decision making, and you can't have the sound decision making when you're living in a constant state of tension and fear and stress with your partner. What's the actual numbers this year you.

Think you're going for this year? We were looking at it again, and we're thinking it's going to be like 6.

Okay. So around 600,000 is kind of what you're on pace for.

Yeah.

So spring and fall are our two big seasons, and then summer and winter kind of take us.

And if you start getting above, say, three or four weeks booked out, you start losing jobs. Do you feel Got it?

Which is why we got the second.

Crew to win the Got it and do. They were all full time or like, the second crew is like, hey, if we need you, we pull you in. But, like, during summer, you're not gonna be needed. How does that kind of work?

So, yeah, they're all full time during the summer. We had to get to the point where, like, we kind of had, like, a rotation to, like, we're just trying to get hours for you. Thursday, the job did reschedule for, like, two weeks, three weeks. So I'm working with Paul Davis trying to get one of the fire jobs in for Thursday, Friday.

So plan on working.

Plan on working this last spring, like, we just got so slammed that within a week I, like, got online, found the other dump truck, the Suzu one, and flew out to Portland and drove it back. Summer hit and it's like, okay, now we have to find word for two cruise. So it's stress.

Yeah.

The guys would be off for like, two. Two days during the week. Like, two or three days. Like, so we were just kind of rotating about that.

So Sam is really, really nice. And this is kind of a problem that we've had is that Sam wants everyone to have hours, like, so badly. So for a while there, he was putting everyone on the job when we didn't need everyone. So I feel like that was like a big issue. Sorry to throw you under the bus.

That's okay.

But you know, you know, that's what this is for.

I do have a problem.

That's what this is for is to.

Be able to be honest. Right. So he really wants all the guys to have hours. And so scheduling, like, six guys on a bathroom is not.

It's just not smart.

Because it's not gonna make.

You only have like three heads in a bathroom.

But he would, because he wants them to get hours.

So during. So how I'm hearing is like our break even. We need to make probably at least 35,000amonth in revenue. Yeah. The 4L framework shows the four reasons why every home serves business stops growing. It's either because of a lack of liquidity cash in the bank, a lack of leads, a lack of labor, or a lack of leadership. And right now, there's a lot of liquidity problems in the business. They only have $25,000 in cash. And in order to pass the liquidity problem, I need at least one month of revenue in the bank, which in their case would be probably about 50 to 60 thousand dollars of cash. We have 91,000 in debt. That includes kind of like credit cards, the two trucks. Of the 90 or so thousand in debt, how much of that is credit card debt versus the two trucks?

It's mostly the trucks.

Yeah.

Most trucks are 60,000.

About 60,000 is from the trucks.

So. All right, so 90k total. 60k is trucks. Okay. I'll be honest, financially, I don't think you're in a horrible spot. I really don't.

Yeah.

There's other. Just other things we need to deal with so that that doesn't continue to spiral. I think you're causing a lot of confusion by calling it floor, and I think you're pigeonholing yourself into the flooring companies that install. Like, who do I need? I need a flooring removal company when we don't even want those jobs. We want the contractors, and they're immediately thinking demolition because they don't want someone just come remove the floors. They want them to take out the whole kitchen.

Yeah.

They want them to take out the whole bathroom. Honestly, a rebrand is kind of step one. That could be done pretty quickly because it's mostly name, logo, and a few things on the website and then allow us to go into a market that is more profitable, which is going after these custom builders and remodelers. And that's a much more consistent lead flow that we can govern. Because I would imagine in your service area, there's probably 300 to 500 contractors you can work with. When you have that small of a lead base, you literally go one by one by one. We've got to change the name because the flooring removal that we're doing isn't even profitable, and we don't want that work. Change it to Powerhouse Demolition. We've got to get the DBA doing business as attached to our business license, we've got to get the logo changed and we've got to change the website to be able to make sure it's reflected of the brand change.

So we've had, with the insurance. So we've had them ask questions about that before when we have had more things on there and then try to charge us more money.

So like, like we had junk removal on there and then they were trying.

To classify us as something different.

Okay, and how much more per hour was that? Workers comp.

I don't know. I didn't actually ask them.

Yeah, I would dig into it because I, I'm gonna get my. It's a couple dollars bottom line. If you ever did a huge mistake that was $200,000 and you telling them that you're only doing flooring and then.

You'Re not gonna have coverage, it would be better.

Right. And so that's also like just like a quality of life, being asleep at night knowing that if I do do something crazy and it's not a quick two day rewiring and it's a $100,000 bill, we're covered.

Yeah.

I think though if you do that, you're gonna double or triple your leads because now people don't think of you as a flooring removal company, think of you as a demolition company. I also think that demand's higher price. The second part of the rebrand is changing the website address, the URL. And by doing that, they'll also be able to get a more professional email address that has the name of the company and not just a Gmail account.

What about, I mean our trucks are branded as that.

Leave it for now because right now we need to get the lead. Once your trucks show up, the job's.

Being done, they don't really care.

Right. And like eventually, yes, we can rebrand.

The trucks and rip them when they need.

Yeah. And right now, like even, even the logo, if you take out floor removal and just put demolition, because demolition is a long word, makes it all work, it'll fit. So I would leave the colors, leave everything besides that one word and then the page just looking more like a demolition. Going into the coaching with Sam and Emma, I genuinely believed I was going to tell them to scale back, make the business profitable, because having more cash in the bank relieves a lot of stress. And by doing that, the business would be better and that would put less stress on their relationship. But the ultimate goal from both of them was very clearly stated that he does not want to be in operations and she does not want to be an admin. In order for that to happen, we've got to grow the business, which means there's going to be a period of time where they're going to have to put their head down and do the boring work.

And that was kind of. Our goal is by 2026, I would be like sales. I might take over some of her roles. We have a virtual assistant who's doing all, like, the busy work on the computer. And then we would have had my cousin step up from a foreman to, like an operations manager.

The entire crew was professional, respectful, friendly, extremely hard working. And they made me smile each day. No, they can't sing worth a darn, but they give me a chuckle.

That's a shout out to Dallin.

Don't matter.

The gentleman that was here this morning doing the kind of leading the team meeting, is that your. Is that your foreman that you're talking about?

The Stache?

I didn't see them. I just heard.

Oh, if you heard him, then, yeah, that's my cousin.

Got it. And how long has he been with you?

He's been, like, on and off for a total of two years.

Yeah.

This is probably one of our best.

Crews that we've ever had, including Dallin. Regardless of Dallin, they make fun of.

Each other all the time, but, yeah.

You know, this is the first time our mom has a box of alcohol.

Especially because some of us are underage.

From an operations perspective. Is he as good as you? Almost.

Yeah.

Okay, so. And what was his name?

Dallin.

Dallin.

Yep.

Whoa. D A L I N. How old.

Do you think he is? Really quick.

Is he younger, like way up?

He's 21.

He's 21?

Yeah.

That was.

So.

Do you think he would take that role on and, like, be able to run with it as a leader of operations?

Yeah.

Okay. And the only thing holding it back is technically you're sort of in that role right now. Yeah, got it.

Okay. He's balding too, so it doesn't help that he's.

Yeah, he's bald.

And.

Yeah, I was like, poor guy. It's a good thing he got married quick. But we just let go of one of our other foremen and so we're still training the new foreman and he's like, doing part of that training.

Dallin is.

Yeah.

So if we were to bump up Dallin right now, like, then we'd be like, have two brand new foremen, basically, which is a little scary.

Could he Serve as foreman and operations manager though.

Yeah.

Okay. All right. And then how long has that person been with us, the virtual person?

He worked in the field with us for a year and a half and then ops for.

Yeah. So we moved back to South Africa in June. Yeah, we got videos.

African. Okay.

Okay.

We do have like a 40 year old guy. He's the VA. Ronald's like 50 I believe, but he's like one of.

When he's here, he's the party.

He's great.

But he does a lot of remote stuff now. Nice.

Obviously because he's not commute and so.

He'S work part time. What's his schedule?

It's full time. We're just paying him salary, but it's not really like this many hours. Like he's just kind of available during those hours and then he'll do whatever we need him to do during that time.

Okay. I have heard that phone calls come to your phone.

Yes.

Why?

Because that's how he did it in the beginning.

I mean like, why doesn't it go to this person in South Africa like.

Their admin right now? He has a pretty thick accent.

He has a really thick accent. Giving away a lot of my roles to the virtual assistant was so hard because I was like. But I like, like doing that and I like, I do it a certain way and I like it a certain way.

Okay. And what is his current salary?

800.

Yeah, it comes down to like every.

No, 800 every two weeks comes down.

To like $10 an hour.

Off the top of your head. What's he doing?

Scheduling. But not like the phone calls. He's doing like putting it in the schedule, sending over contracts, Google reviews, like responding to Google reviews, posting on our social media.

He's keeping in touch with the contractors a lot of the time.

So we're gonna create. It's gonna say six weeks, but it's really six months. Alright, I need you an admin for six months.

Okay.

If you can give me six months, we can get the business to where we don't need an admin person full time. You specifically over the next six weeks, I need Emma to start creating systems for admin and also finding someone that can actually speak English good enough to be able to take the phone calls, even if that means training someone brand new. And that scheduling invoice, literally every single thing you do needs to be in a video, including.

So I do like payroll, all of that stuff. Yep, everything.

Everything. I'm going to put in here a six week plan, but it's really, Admin systems. And that is going to come in the form system, a learning management system, lms, which is essentially just a bunch of videos. Yeah, Screen recordings. I'm talking to Emma and Sam a lot about creating systems in the business. Systems for sales, operations and admin. Now behind me is the system we use at Augusta Lawn Care to run the admin for over 200 locations. Phones getting answered, sending out estimates, sending out emails. Now, I want to invite you to a private event that I'm hosting on Black Friday, and we're going to be shooting it directly in this studio. I'm going to share with you exactly how to build systems in your business for sales, operations and admin. So if you'd like to come, it's completely free. Go to mikeandy.com Black Friday Register today and everyone that shows up gets a free $597 gift. We'll see you there. I want, after the six months is for you to spend some time as you're getting someone else on. You're still gonna find all these holes as you bring them on. Like, oh, I didn't make a video for that. Like, oh, that's not clear. Oh, they dropped the ball. And then from operations, they're gonna complain about things that are dropping, and you're gonna still have to help that person, but you're not gonna help them wave. Like, I will do it. It's a matter of, like, oh, I will make a video training them how to do it, and I will not do it myself.

It's gonna be hard because I know when you give it off to somebody else, like, they don't care about it as much as you do because, like, this is my baby. And I think that it'll be hard to see, like, things fall through the cracks. But I definitely think that it's gonna be good for me to be able to step away just for my relationship. And I think it'll be good.

And so basically, this is going to get us through next spring, the busy season. You have basically two busy seasons this fall and next spring after that is when we need to be handing admin off. It's not going to cost us any more because you're going to get someone to work part time that can speak English and take all these tasks on. I would recommend upwork mostly to the fact that it's going to be part time and they have reputation to guard on there.

Would that mean firing our current one so that I kind of just. Just take it?

Yeah, you can't have it where they can't answer the phone. Okay. Yeah. If someone can answer the phone and be virtual and remote and all across the bed, great. But if you are answering the phone, that's a huge bomb. Like, you'll always be an admin.

Yeah.

Because you'll always know about the bad stuff that's happening. And that's like, actually.

And then friction. That's the friction. Because then I'm like, yeah.

Because even the way that you said about, like, the. The wiring, the number of damages per week, I can tell, like, that's where all the friction's happening. Because you get the call. You're me. Like, we can't afford this. Also, that means I can't. I can't see him.

Yes.

Tonight.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna have to call in this issue. Knowing this is hurting the business and I hurting our relationship. I don't want you hearing about it.

Okay.

And now he is still gonna have.

To like that a lot. It will probably help our relationship and make us be like, okay, we're working on this. We're gonna work on this together so that we can have this in the future, like, for our family.

He will have to work later. You just won't know why anymore. And it's not gonna cause friction because it's not you calling in the mistake knowing it's hurting. It's gonna be someone else talking to the operations person. He's gonna figure it out. I need 12 months before strict enforcement of the cutoff.

Oh, yeah.

I know. It's a long time. I know that. I think we just need to think it in segments, because if we, like, we're doing it now, and if we do a hard cutoff, we're gonna hurt the business so much that it's gonna cause more financial pressure that then affects the relationship. So I'm trying to go, like, financial, then I'm trying to get your role, and then we can define the aspect of him being able to be more present on time, etc.

I like having, like, a date. It's like, hey, six months. This is our goal, and we're going to. I don't know. It just feels good to have clarity. Like, it feels good to have certain goals that we can both work on.

In that six months. On your side, we're creating systems for operations. Every single time you get a phone call that he can't handle, we need to create a system around it or cut the service.

Yeah.

If there are things that are happening that only you can handle, we need to get rid of it and the reason I'm okay with that is because they'll free you up once he takes over to go do sales the right way.

Yeah.

Like, right now, he knows a lot of stuff. The problem with that, even, like, right now, when you create systems, you're thinking, I gotta hire someone new. You're gonna think systems very differently. Like, very much like ABCs. You can cross all these bridges. Cause he's already been here for a long time, knows everything about the crew. That's a problem because you will skip steps in your systems. And so the part that I will need you to both work on is actually helping operations get systems in place. In six months, when your admin person is getting the phone call, the goal is that they go to Dallin. In order for that to happen, he needs to know a lot more. So now when you get a call and there's a mistake happening and you call him, you got to think, okay, what would Dallin have to know to fix this problem if he was just told this mistake happened? How it usually works is, like, sales gets the job, hands the admin to kind of set things up and then hand it off to operations. Operations does the work, and then hands it back to admin, says, go bill them. All those handoffs right now is happening between the two of you. And there's so much inherent knowledge, it needs to be systematized. Does he currently know about the business much, or is he basically a field worker on steroids?

Right now, I'm a field worker on steroids.

Cool. We're gonna bring him in.

Like, we do. We actually haven't done it this month, but we do, like, the P and L monthly.

P and L. With the team.

With the team or just him? Yeah, with the team.

With the team.

Okay.

Yeah.

But we haven't done it for this month, or we didn't do it last month when we lost therapy. $30,000, which probably should have been a.

Month that we brought it up.

Okay. From the team perspective, there's quite a bit of churn there. Is that correct?

Yeah, like, yeah, there's lots of people who will have. For like, a couple days, and then, like. Or they'll come one day and then not show because it's. It's tough work. Like, it's not fun. But yeah. Yeah, Guys, last six months, we have them for, like, a year. We're like, wow, that was. That was a good team. That was a good team member.

It's hard to find people that will do it, like, in a way that they're gonna actually Take care.

Be respectful.

Like, not just, like, demo it.

Like, because a lot of people think it's like, oh, he's going with a sludge. And, like, it's like, sometimes it's a little more complicated than that.

And did they all look to Dallin as, like, kind of, like, kind of a leader in. Okay, I would tie him, his increase in pay to paying off the credit card debt, because that's the tension. Another tension. So I need that broken in order to get him wanting to take things off of your plate. And so how much cash in the bank do you all feel you need to feel a little more comfortable? Like, 30 grand?

Well, I like having a little bit of a savings in there.

I mean, like, base, Bare minimum.

Bare minimum.

35. Okay. 35. Okay. So what we're going to do is we're going to tell Dahlin at the end of each month, we're going to look at the P and L, we're going to look at the balance sheet. We're going to see how much money is in the bank account. Anything over $35,000 goes directly to that credit card balance. When that credit card balance hit zero, your base pay goes from what it is now to this and then make that sizable.

I want it to be good for him, too. Like, being able to give him those bonuses and be like, hey, this is like. Like, you've been with us from basically the beginning. Thanks for everything you've done. Because he, like, we couldn't have done it without him.

So if we get rid of that debt, like, he deserves that bonus. Like, he's. He's a stud.

You just have to ask yourself, if I could push that button today, would I pay him more? You absolutely would push it. If you could pay off all the credit card debt right now and him be fully running operations, you would push the button.

Oh, yeah.

So don't get skimpy with his base pay increase. That's his big win. The other win in the meantime, because you're gonna be taking all Those extra responsibilities, $1,000 extra per month if I do not have to work on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Which means when someone calls out, they do not contact the admin person. They contact the operations person. And for now, that might kind of be you, but that needs to be more and more towards Dallin. Is it Dallin or Dalin?

Dallin.

Dallin. Even if you create, like, a Google Doc for him that he could put on his phone and he could just put, like, a title and then start making checklists. So, like, A checklist for a job walkthrough. A checklist for getting the crew out for the day, A checklist for equipment maintenance, like operations. Great for checklists. Video's great for administration. And then I just need 12 months where you say, okay, as long as you get Friday, Saturday, Sunday with me, it's okay if one or two of the nights you go really, really late.

Okay.

Is that okay?

Yeah, I can do that.

Okay, cool. This is probably the biggest change in operations. And like I'm asking on a turnaround, but it's required if you're gonna keep growing and keep the family together. Yeah, right. And because like that growth sucks cash, growth creates chaos. I'm asking you to do that in the short term so that you can step back a little bit more down the road. Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah.

Scaling up, like putting in that, that front, front loaded effort to scale up is gonna be a way better payout than like scaling back and then working every day, like in the field, like.

But the expectation with Dallin is that after six months, once this person is brought up to speed, that we're gonna do the same thing in your role, which is more and more like the next six months is gonna be you handing off team meetings, one on ones, hiring, everything. He now has a higher base pay. He's very well compensated. That's fine. To pay for that, we need you in sales. And right now sales is crippled by the fact that our brand is completely messed up. It's hard to sell when I have no idea what you're selling. And the thing that you say in your name, you don't really want to do sales is going to switch to very much of a B2B strategy and that is going to be. We are going to get every single contract. This is something you give your admin person a slow time. I want every single contractor within a 30 mile radius that is under this size of business. And I want you to go through every single Google page, go through use, chat, dbt, scrape them all, their phone number, email, their address, the name of the business, and I want the name of the owner. Because you're probably dealing with owner operators, right? I want the name of the owner and a lot of them, that's their cell phone number you're contacting. You're gonna scrape that lead list and that's your hit list. You're gonna meet them, you're gonna text them, you're gonna do everything. But now inside of your name it says demolition. They know exactly what you're doing and you can very quickly say, hey, what we do is we do all the dirty work so your crew can get in and everything's good to go.

Getting that direction, that course correction, and being like, hey, like, just focus 100% on this client. Then.

Not all your problems are solved, but a lot of them will be, hopefully.

And then here's the kicker. I had one more coming. Okay. We're gonna take.

One week vacation after six weeks. Six months. So after six months, when Dallin is operations manager and you have someone set up, I need you to leave for.

A week and just test it out.

The expectation is there will be problems.

Okay.

Guarantee it. There'll be four things that will happen that are really bad. They'll figure out how to get through it, but you're gonna come back and be four big problems.

Yeah.

That's your test. These are the last few things we need to fix before we actually can do this. Okay, cool. Okay. And as soon as you fix those problems, that's when you go into sales.

Okay.

He's now operations manager. That's already been cleared before you go on the vacation, and he's now incentivized to make sure you stay on that vacation. And now you go into sales. If you can go for. Wait for that week, fix the problems that pop up, then you can move into that role.

Yeah.

Awesome.

That's perfect.

So excited.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

I just want to say thank you for letting us come out. I know, like, the fact that you said what you did on your interview or your application is why I said, like, we have to go.

Yeah.

I know what it's like to be there. And the fact that you said it, that takes a lot of humility.

Yeah. It wasn't very.

I was like, sam, you got to say this part. We were really nervous about it too.

I mean. Yeah. Like last night, she was like, so?

Like.

Well, I was like, so, Sam, what do you want me to say about that? Like, am I okay to say that? Like, what is okay?

And I was like, we're just gonna go for it. Like, so.

I feel like lots of people struggle with that. So.

Yeah.

No, but I respect you tremendously for that. And even just in general, any turnaround because you're at your lowest moment and you're having all this stuff. There's a thousand other people that just have too much pride that will watch this video and hopefully be helped and that the friction between two happens in everyone. Like, every relationship has this to some degree, especially when you're growing. And so thank you for.

Being vulnerable and open about that stuff.

Thanks for spending time to come and help us. We really appreciate it when you like when she message, was it you that messaged us? I was like, yes, we needed this. You were praying for it. So thank you for coming to help us.

And like again, like I'll just say this today something bad will happen and you'll get dragged in the field. You'll be long like something that's gonna happen. That's why I'm thinking 6 months and 12 months because like you're gonna feel bad when that happens. But now we have a plan in place. We just need execute on these few things. And so in the micro, we're gonna fail. Both of us, right? As partners, as getting home on time, we will fail in the short term. But in the long term, we need to hit these benchmarks.

Yeah, that was an interesting one.

Any immediate thoughts after it? I thought it was pretty crazy like when they, they actually separated for a bit because of it. So when that happens, that's when you're like, okay, this is like we need to deal with this is like number one problem. And then the fact like she hears all the problems and then basically has to put that on his plate, which then causes her pain because she doesn't get to see him and then also causes the business to lose money. It's like a wham wah wah, like beating her up. And then his pressure of like having trying to provide is brutal. So knowing that he's not like meeting her needs at the same time, it's brutal. So that was good. It just goes to show like how much like a personal, like your personal relationship just so important. I liked how too. It was like, it was very linear. It was like fix admin, then you can fix operations allowing you go to sales. So like lowest leverage to highest leverage. And like how that is what grows the business. We didn't even talk about like marketing strategy, website leads. It's just like just by the owner being able to focus on the higher leverage task, the business will organically grow.

We've actually paid off all the credit card debt except for cars. We have our cars. But that was a big relief for us because that was there for a while. We do have a truck that just broke down though, so.

So we're gonna have to go. Yeah, we're having to get a new.

Engine, so pay 23,000 for that one. But it's definitely better and we feel a little bit in a better spot financially because we now have cash in the bank. It's weird, but we didn't have cash in the bank for three or four months, five months, somewhere around that.

I think we might come up just a little shy. Like, 580 is probably where we'll end for the year, but we'll get close to the 600. He recommended a rebrand. Emma's happier with that than, like, the day that we got married.

Like, she's.

She's stoked.

Not true.

She's stoked about the rebrand.

She thinks it looks awesome. So we completely rebranded our company. We got our new logo, our new brand image, our new website. New email address is something he wrote on here, too. We have a DBA of powerhouse removal and demolition instead of powerhouse floor removal.

The website went live last week. We've already got a couple leads from it. And one of the guys, he didn't have to ask, like, hey, do you just do floor removal and stuff? So it was perfect and, like, saved us a lot of time. Officially hitting the ground with copilot on the 12th, which is just going to help with videos and pictures with the client portal, especially with all the restoration companies we work with. Instead of having to, like, send them the pictures and videos individually, like, they'll just have direct access to all of that information that they need. All the information is going to be on there, especially with, like, the roles. What sales is over, what admin is over, what operations is over, and all the documents that they need, all the videos for the SOP videos that they need, like, there. It's all right there in the portal. And so we've. We spent the better half of, like, what, I guess last month creating that.

We're now on Grasshopper. Like, they can call straight into there, and then they can reach both Sam and I, but it's kind of like more of a central spot. And so we're not having to communicate between the two. We know where Call notes on Copilot is going to help a lot with that, too.

There's not, like, a lot of communication.

That has to happen between us. We could just like, check those two spots and be able to know all the information.

The hardest suggestion that Mike gave was, like, letting him go was hard. Then he was like, hey, guys, like, I'm actually moving back to the States. Like, can I work? And we're like, yeah, you can.

Like, so he's working on our crew again.

Yes, he is part of the team, but he's not. He's not virtual, so the whole down thing probably won't work out. And. Hey, buddy. So he Lives like an hour away in the north. And so like the commute. He was just. His wife's going to school up north for family. He's like, I would love to do it, but he's actually looking for a job right now just to make life easier for him. So that didn't work out in that regard. But this guy who's the virtual assistant, Ronald, he was with us for like two years. We've talked to him a little bit about it, training him and moving him up into that role, which we're kind of waiting for Dallin to get the new jobs so we can bump Ronald up to the crew lead position and then start training him more for an operations. When I step fully out of operations in the next six months, I had Chad GPT just scrub the Internet for all restoration and remodel companies that I can just be calling. And then we're trying to get the best out of the BNI group that.

We'Re part of because we're doing copilot. I've had to change like literally everything that I do, so I've been learning a lot. So we're, we're doing really well with it. I'd say we're, we're getting there. We're on track for the six months to hiring a new admin.

I may have had to call her out once or twice. I was like, hey, you promised. You promised six months.

We watched the video that you guys put out about the vlog one and where Mike says that and like now everybody knows.

So.

So we're holding her accountable.

It's been hard. Honestly, it's been hard because I stepped away for four months. Having to go back in was actually really hard and nerve wracking and it still is every day. Like we. I'm like, I can do this, I can do this. But it does give me like a light at the end of the tunnel. So. And I'm shooting, I'm holding to it like we. I am done in six months.

I'm done.

So it's been good and it's kept me going. Like my gannies told me I have to stay for six months.

So I have to.

So, yeah, that's what I'm doing. We're going to Banff in June, right?

I think that's what it comes out to be.

Yeah, June or June or something like that. Somewhere around there. So we're excited. Yeah, it'll be good for us.