"You don't need Augusta." - Episode 025
A podcast episode (Mike Andes with a co-host) discussing product and operations updates (Copilot software, Zapier integration, dispatch/customers redesigns), hiring philosophy for developers (flexibility and creative freedom), and trade-offs around speed of execution (example: RingCentral decision). The conversation shifts to franchise strategy for Augusta—who benefits from joining (early-stage, multi-location ambitions) vs. the 'gap' of established single-location owners—and operationalizing coaching, scorecards, and lead filtering. Later topics include creator reputation management (Meet Kevin controversy), beliefs about family giving (protect downside, not give upside), and brief personal notes (caffeine, golf).
Chapters
All right, dude, another pod.
Another pod. How's it going, kid? Man, welcome back to the C suite, unfiltered. I always forget to say this at the beginning, like. And subscribe.
Okay.
Yeah, Just trying to get it out there a little bit more. How was your last week?
It's good.
It was good.
It was somewhat exhausting. Why exactly was that? I probably haven't been sleeping as much as should be, but it was overall pretty good.
Yeah.
Copilot was going pretty smooth. We finally got things back on track there. Got the test server back up. April was rocky because we lost quite a few users mid April when we were having some struggles. But we got Zapier integrated now. This week, the dispatch board is getting redesigned, the customer page is getting redesigned. So there's a bunch of cool stuff, and we're moving fast. We're really finding our groove. And so I'm really debating whether or not I keep getting more developers. And so. We'll see. I would like to get one or two more, whether or not we can afford it. We'll see. But I don't want to get too many because it slows us down. So there's a guy that's worked at Oracle for seven years. I'd like to get. He'd be good. And it's amazing. Even George was like, dude, why do people leave Oracle to come work for us? I'm like, they just want the flexibility and the permission to go do stuff instead of being like, red tape. And like, oh, you get this one part of a big project. With Copilot.
The benefit of working as developers, like, hey, here's a feature. Figure it out. Do it. Here's what I'm thinking. Go.
Yeah.
And that's. I think there are a lot of developers. That's the kind of freedom they want to see. And so that's why they potentially give up more on the money side for that flexibility.
And this is from an outsider perspective, looking in, I don't know the tech side as much, but in my mind, a developer is like a creator. They want to have a little bit of creative space to build, design and test things and break things. So you're giving them a little bit more freedom. That's just my thoughts on it.
Yeah. Like, basically how. Yeah, like, one day I'll. I'll. When I. When I feel like I'm good at this, I'll make a video about it. But, like, I'm probably couple years away from me, I'll say, like, I've done something cool, but, like. Like, my Big thing is we, when we have a feature or a bug, we don't give them the parameters too much. We let them have a little more flexibility and creativity. And sometimes that means that in UAT and you, which is like the testing phase, the testing server, we got to kick stuff back to the developer. Like, that doesn't work, but what it also does is sometimes it leaves it open to where like, some of the times they show you something like, dude, that's brilliant. And that's happened a couple times. And so from those experiences, I've learned, like, let the developers have the freedom, they'll enjoy working more, and they won't feel like they're in this box of, like, pounding out code and very stringent guidelines. And it just means more testing. And, and that's why, like, in. In mid April, we had a lot of problems, is because we weren't. We didn't have the testing server set up yet, but it's been really, really good. So time, time, time, time clocks are getting redone this coming week too. So we're moving so fast. Like, if you look at last week's 7:47 update, which is like our weekly Saturday at 7:47am update, if you look at just that update, we did more in that update in one week than most CRMs in a month or even potentially a quarter. And so I think that pace is still increasing. And I think in, like, two months, we're going to be at the point where, like, we are producing features so efficiently and fast just because the team's getting more cohesive, we're getting better systems in place. And so I'm looking forward to it. Kind of like what we did with Command center this past year in terms of just getting better at departments and standardizing things and systems. Like, we're just working on all that stuff inside Copilot now.
Yeah. So, anything. Any fun new developments from Copilot?
The Zapier integration is huge. So, like, today we started making workflows for people to use.
Cool.
One of them is, like, in your Facebook messenger, you can get the information. It creates the lead inside of Copilot. If it's a new lead, like, if they don't exist, it'll create. If it does, if they do exist, it'll basically say like, hey, we'll get back to you kind of thing. There's another one you can use calendly. Integrate that with Copilot. So that way from your. Your homepage, you can literally schedule an estimate. And it'll only schedule if there's availability in your calendar. And the reason it knows that is because the integration with Google Calendar Ye so you integrate copilot with Google Calendar. Google Calendar talks to to calendly and then you can literally have people book their estimates with you in person based upon your schedule. So you can put parameters how far a lot of other cool stuff.
I think people will overlook the value of that. Having been an estimator for a company that did a 1.5 million in annual revenue, the amount of time I waste on the phone with clients, meeting them, talking to them, going back to a job site, planning the job, getting the job done versus now they can literally go online, book an appointment, you meet them once crew goes out, gets the job done, you've just cut out a massive amount of waste with that integration. That's sweet.
And I think too with even big design build projects, it's not a bad idea for that calendar integration to actually be a.
Like a project consultation. So if you're doing $50,000 $100,000 projects, you don't want to go out and visit the customer and spend two hours learning about what they want to do. Have a 15 minute Zoom call.
Right.
Everyone's used to that. And so I actually think that's the biggest use of case of it for, for mostly like smaller projects and recurring maintenance. You either want to do it over the phone or you want to do a drive by. Right. Whereas with big, big projects, the time of an estimate or going out there that has excavation experience, grading construction is probably 150 to $200 an hour.
Yeah, totally.
And you're going to spend an hour just getting their concepts and walking their property and them doing some sketches, hear their life story. Hey, hey, look. We do a free 15 minute Zoom consultation and then we charge a $500 design fee. Right. Or whatever. Right. Your company. That makes a lot of sense to me.
Totally.
And so I actually think that's going to be really cool. But those are just two there's literally it is nuts what you can do. So like we're having it where if you had a big company, 30, $40 million and you have departments, sales department, customer service department, mechanic department. Now when things come in, it can slack them based upon their Slack channel and notify certain people based upon certain triggers. So for example, if it's a new lead and it came through that Facebook messenger, now that Slack channel for sales gets notified. Right. There's just so many cool things you can do. So sweet. The world is kind of your oyster was zapier and there's a couple element integrates with them and synced up but they don't give very good guidelines and actual workflows on how to use it. They just say hey, we're integrated with Zapier. Great, okay. Well they leave it up to the user to figure out Zapier and that's a whole nother software. So what we're going to hopefully do is give the recipes for like at least 20 or 30 of these different type of integrations and I think it's just me nuts, so I'm looking forward to it. That combined with, with the sequence automation which is also coming out this week. Nice dude. I'm pretty excited. I generally believe sequence automations will be up there with like the best of the best when it comes to automations and we'll keep building on it. So that's really cool.
Is Zapier, do they have a parent company?
I don't know. I don't know.
Just interested because I feel like almost like I never heard of them years ago and now they're everywhere. They're pretty new. They're not a startup by any means.
Obviously you probably only heard about them because we've been going into software more.
Right.
Because every software developer knows about Zapier and it has for probably five years. Yeah, it was like it's always been like that bridge between all the softwares and it's genius idea but it's been around for a long time because I remember even six, seven years ago when I flew out and met with Patrick, they were already using that year to do a lot of stuff. And now, now that I'm like in the Zapier game. The media team has Zapier so we're using it for a bunch of stuff. We're integrating with our notion account to like notify people of certain projects and where things are at.
Notifying myself. So I still send videos to every single customer buy something so like that I can make that way efficient though instead of having to go to Shopify like now the email, I can tap on their email and immediately be recording like there's some cool stuff we can.
That's really cool. I like that. Changing gears a little bit on your other other channel. The Mike Andy show recently talked about speed, speed, speed of execution.
Oh, oh wait, let me, let me quiz you. Yeah, I was talking about in the video. Do you know what I was talking about?
No, I don't. That's one to go after this. You don't but if it has to.
Oh wait, because you never Heard the other side of the story.
I never did.
Ah, okay. Well, if I say it, you'll. You'll probably. It'll probably might fill in the gap of why I changed my mind. Because in your mind, it's going to seem like I changed my mind.
Okay.
Because I was going one direction, like 100%. Then someone else kind of got, like, was like, slowing it down. So I just said. I just caved in.
Should we give context if people have not seen that video.
Okay, okay, okay. You go ahead. You go ahead.
If people have not seen the video on the Mike Andy Show Channel, you basically were talking about speed of execution and how a lot of successful businesses, if it's not an irreversible decision, they make as many decisions as they can to move as quickly as they can to progress the company as quickly as they can. And you said you wanted to make a decision that heavily affected a certain department, and someone within that department, a leader in that department, gave a lot of pushback. So that's. And then you decided, no, we aren't executing this decision. Correct.
Yeah. Yeah. Let me see how I can say this without getting to the phone.
Yep.
Bellingham support.
Oh.
Ah, okay.
So we were going to do rc.
Okay.
And then, remember, I switched it just like. And said, hey, this is going to happen, and just told them to set it up. The ring Central would have been the faster way to do it because they're already familiar with that interface. Right. But that department was giving me pushback. So I said, it's not worth struggling over this.
Why were they giving pushback?
They were trying to say it was outside the systems. I was trying to say it is kind of out of the systems, but I just need this for one year. And it's the fastest thing because it would save the general managers time from having to learn a new software. And so I was like, look, this is a temporary thing. Just push this through for me, please. Yeah, there's not gonna be any change of workflow. It really isn't outside the systems. It's just a matter of I'm paying it for it either at Command Center. I'm paying for it at the Bellingham job. It's coming outta my pocket.
Right.
So they were like, it's still kind of like mixing the two. So I was like, okay, I definitely see that point. But it was a matter of, like, I was trying to save the general manager's time from having to think about another software program. Right.
Anyways, I'm confused as to why it would affect it we'll talk about. Yeah, yeah. I guess we don't have to get into it. I'm just. I guess I don't see the other side of the argument.
Yeah.
I also don't even see why there was a disagreement. But that's like. I just like, it's not about the person. I don't even know honestly who the person is. It's more just. I don't even understand what the counter argument is to you just saying, hey, just push this through. I know it's temporary.
There is valid arguments. Is that even from a business perspective, it was better like, we're saving more money now doing or day. And so there's valid business sense to it. And I had already kind of thought that one through, though. It was like the time. I extrapolated the time. I was like $240, I was going to say, over the course of a year. I was like, yes, that is the better business decision. It's worth me right now trying to save Dylan and April, who are like, you know, under massive amounts of pressure from spring rush and working weekends to just save them a few hours.
Totally.
And so that was my thought process.
Yeah.
When. When I realized that I was going to take an hour or two hours of combined time of manager's time to. To make that push that thing through, I was like, ah, no, no, no, no. Yeah, well, there's a role with whatever.
Fair enough. All right, cool. Well, interesting speed of. Speed of execution. I don't know. I think that's one of the things that I've always loved at Augusta, but some people don't like that. And you, as the CEO now have to, like, adapt kind of how you do things in a way.
Well, the objective doesn't change. The fact is that if. If speed is really what my main. My North Star is, I won't allow that to actually like, because speed is what I'm focused on. That's why I would just relent and let that happen. Because the savings of time for Jill and April was less than the time of my time and other managers time to push the objective thing through. So, like, that's when, like, small things like that unfortunately eat a lot of small businesses for lunch and eats everyone's time up. It's like, what kind of, you know, phone am I going to use? What kind of like, tires am I going to have? What kind of brakes and like, fuel and when it doesn't matter, it is the matter. Flip a coin.
Yeah.
And so in that scenario, it's like, I'LL decide what the coin is going to be simply due to the fact that, like, I don't want any sort of friction. Like, this is move, keep moving. Yeah.
Sometimes I use that tactic a little bit on a sales call or an introductory call at Augusta when people are like, really trying to push a little bit against, like, it can't be as good as you say it is, you know, joining Augusta. And then they ask me very like, tactile questions and I'm like, we've done this over 100 times. Just flip a coin and they're like. And it's almost like selling them on the confidence that like, those questions don't even matter right now. You need to focus on X, Y and Z. Join Augusta. Then we can worry about all the stuff you have questions on later because it just doesn't matter. Right. It's like speed.
Yeah. So, yeah, like, yeah. Selling the franchise is interesting, man. I've been thinking about recently, like the objective objection that you get and stuff. Like, honestly comes down to one question. It's like, if you want to build one location really big.
Over the next 10, 15 years, you do not need Augusta. You just don't.
Yeah.
I think you join Augusta for what? Two things. One is like cutting out a lot of the initial bumps and then secondarily is to be able to duplicate it and not have to be in the place of managing managers because the systems are set to where if a GM goes out, like, typically what happens when someone gets a general manager? They are out of the business until that GM goes out.
Right.
And then the next thing you know, they're in back in the business for one to two years, finding, training and getting that person, next gm, up to speed. So you're not really out of the business. You're crossing your fingers and hoping someone.
Stays and sometimes fixing all the things that the previous GM did wrong.
Right, Right. And so, yeah, there's. Because they're not accountability. They're not anyone. Yeah. And so I think that like, in my mind, I'm just really. Because like, people always online saying it's like it's a scam. So I, I just really have come to piece of the fact it's like, it's not for everyone. And what I'm doing like in North Carolina, I just know isn't possible without the franchise model. I have coaches in place, I have training for my GMs in place. I have people on the back end. I'm literally like right now getting this, getting my south park getting started, like command center set up my QuickBooks account, they set up my payroll account. My website's up and running. I have a phone number. Like, I spent less than 10 minutes on all of that, maybe 20. And so that's where the power of it is, is the initial start, I would say, like that first year or two, and then it is post first location. And I think that's the part that even now we're starting to hit up and against people that have been in the system for three or four years, or they have a business that is already doing seven, 800, a million plus, and it's like, well, what that gap. There's a gap there where you don't need the franchise much. There really is. And that's why a lot of people would. Would question people as to why they should join Augusta if they already have 6, 700,000 in revenue. Because they're in the gap, that gap between like, from 0 to 500,000. I think we offer a lot of help to speed someone through those. Those issues and those problems and scale them up from 500,000 to like 2 million. And anyone that's doing one location, there's a gap where we don't. You don't need us very much.
Right.
Because you probably have your own office by that point, if you've already grown to that size. And so the question is, why do you need to guess? It's only if you're going to duplicate and step out of the business 100% and focus on growing the people exclusively and you don't show up to the office, you have GMs that if they fall out, you send another one to training and they come back and they're ready to pop into the system. And so, yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot.
Yeah. I think that gap, too, is also, like, typically just from a statistical standpoint, if you're at that, you know, 600, 700, 800,000 in annual revenue, you've probably been in business more than five years. So statistically speaking, you're a very successful small business owner. Like, if you can make it past five years as a small business owner. So I had a guy a week or two ago. It's interesting. Bring this up. The whole introductory call of me explaining what Augusta was was him, like, telling me why his business didn't need Augusta. And I'm like, what? You booked the call? Like, I don't. I'm not. I was like, that's great. Like, I just poured the sugar on. I was like, that's great. Oh, you' you're like, your profits. That. That's fantastic. You've been doing this how many years? That's great. You only work 40 hours a week, and you have a life outside of your business. That's great. Like, I just poured on the sugar. Cause it's like, you're clearly successful, and yeah, as of this second, you don't really need us. But do you want to scale up? Do you want a general manager? Do you want this thing to run on systems? Do you want a retirement plan? And then you might want to look into a franchise. Right. It's just interesting. That gap theory does make a lot of sense, though.
Like, I look at Anytime Fitness.
No.
We doubled the revenue now since I took over. Um, and it's good because there's really good people in place. But I've had to change the manager there four times. Yeah. And I still, to this day, spend 10 to 15 minutes at a meeting once a week there. And I don't. I wouldn't have. I don't have to be there for that. Like, I do it because just to, like, connect with them. And there's literally three doors over. Right. So it's not that. And so.
But. But I've just seen the power of a franchise. Like, if someone drops out, I'm like, okay, great. Here, watch these videos the next two weeks. Or I ship them out off to, you know, where it is, Minneapolis. And they there for a week and they get trained. And so that. That business now is 20 to 25% profitable. After profit sharing, I hardly do anything. And if I want to just copy and paste that, I could. Or I just leave it and I go to other stuff that is Augusta. Right. And so that's when it's like, very. It's like, why would I ever sell that? Because it produces probably $200,000 in distributions to myself, and I don't hardly spend any time. And that's what I want to build for Augusta. Like, there's nothing like that in the landscaping industry. Like, you just don't talk to owners that have multiple locations, multiple general managers, regional managers, and they can go away from their business and it work just fine. That has real enterprise value. Right. What doesn't have enterprise values? You with a really solid, awesome gm. Because guess what happens if you try to sell that business or if you look at the valuation of your company? It all hinges on one person staying. Because they don't. If they leave, the next question from any investor is going or potential buyer is going to be, what next? Like, who's the person that fill their gap. Yep. And so there's too many businesses, even businesses are doing 1, 2, 3 million dollars in revenue that still hinge on great people. And although great people makes things easier, they are not as dependable as systems because systems are, are interchangeable people, they get hit by a bus tomorrow, if they have a life changing event, they get married and want to move to this other country, you're toast, you're done. And so then it comes right back to a system. Well, if everything was hinging on someone working 65, 70 hours a week and knowing everything in the business, your. Your business value is down to zero. Yep. It is worth cash and asset value. That's it. And so.
Yeah, so I've been thinking about a lot. Just like the reason I've been thinking about is because like I'm gonna go to June, I'm gonna be doing this for the franchisees to show them from 0 to 30 days exactly how we scale it up and like massive loads of action. And the only work I do in the field will be for the camera because like, it's not how you grow a business fast.
Right.
And so.
I'll be doing that. And I just know that we're gonna sell tons of. There's gonna be a ton of interest, I should say. And like you've noticed over the past month, lots of interest does not mean lots of. We've been rejecting more franchisees than ever because the channel's grown and there's way more inbound leads and now we just start weeding them out. And so we haven't even sold very more than usual, if not less.
Yeah.
As we're getting more and more leads. So I've been thinking about, okay in June, like how do I make sure that I don't bury us in leads that are all interested in joining Augusta only for the people that are in the gap. The 500,000 to 1.52 million one location, them joining and realizing I don't need you or then secondarily getting people at zero and like super enthused and they just become a bunch of work and like super hard. And they're not good at system. They don't know how to manage, they don't have any idea how to sell. And a lot a lot of stress on us. And so yeah, I just been thinking about like, who's the ideal candidate who works well for Guest Nation outside of obviously intangibles of what you screen for on the sales call, there's like they'd be a Good fit for gustination.
Are you going to do a coaching call with me?
For what?
In June?
That would be like, that would be like, just for the YouTube. Cuz like you taught me how to do coaching. Like you built.
As long as we could keep a straight face the whole time, I think we could do.
I think it'd be, I think for the YouTube, it'd be kind of interesting.
Yeah.
Like, even if it's just five minutes.
Yeah. @ least go through the coach. I don't really want the coaching card to be.
Shown. Oh, that's.
True. But we could, we could talk about.
It.
Yeah. It's just one of those things, like, it's not like, it's like super like secret, top secret. It's just a matter of like, it is.
Ip. I will say this one thing that I, that I do. If it's a good sales call, it's a good introductory call. If I have a good coaching call card that's waiting to go out, I'll be like, yeah, so this is, this is how they're like, well, what kind of support is the coaching call? What's that look like? Are they with Mike? And I'm like, no, sadly they're with me. Sorry, you have to talk to me. And then I'm like, but this is a coaching call card. And usually the reaction is like, oh, yeah, like that's, that's a lot of.
Info. Two things. Yeah. And yeah, I know how you do it too. You don't show it too closely. Yeah, no.
Yeah. And we're making some big changes even this coming week probably to this coaching card because it can be improved, I think, and just allowing more subjective disciplining. Grading. We think about rolling on grading, prodding. Yeah. So it's good though. I think some people learn better by someone, a coach pushing them and other people learn better by a coach. Like encouraging and you know, being their cheerleader and, or potentially screaming in their face, but in a positive manner. And other people, like, I want tactical, like tell, tell me what I need to do different. So if, if you give me an A minus, the first thing I'm thinking is like, well, why is it not an A? Well then now you have to back it up. Yeah. And so I think that'll be really good challenge for you as coaches as well as good for the franchisees to get like subjective things on things like leadership, time management, time management, stress.
Stuff like.
That. Yeah, I love.
It. Scheduling, routing. Like it's tough in a coaching call now or a scorecard, I should say From a numbers perspective, to say, like, you stink at scheduling, bro. Yeah, right. That can be said in, like, the cult in the Notes from a.
Coach. Yeah, I like that. It'll be interesting. I'm excited for the.
Changes. Yeah, well, we'll see what the franchise advisor council says, because I put a vote right before.
This. They're blowing it up right now. I want to switch it.
Up.
Okay. So your. Your.
Peer. My.
Peer. Your YouTube.
Peer. Meet.
Kevin. Meet.
Kevin. I wouldn't call him my.
Peer. No, no, he's your.
Peer. No, he's far above.
Me. Oh, you're both on YouTube. He's my peer. Joe Rogan's my peer. White guys with.
Podcasts.
He. I was talking to one of the franchisees, Ryan Payne, and he said that he watched. He. He watches. He listens to most videos and podcasts in the background, like, the Mastermind and stuff, but there's a couple podcasts that he watches. Joe Rogan and the.
Seas. We don't. There we go. Thank you, Ryan. Thank.
You. Oh.
Man. I wear that as badge of.
Honor. I'm glad I remember that you brought it.
Up. The joke. Yeah, I know. I'm not an idiot. I know everyone's here for Mike, but I'm bringing sides of Mike out that you guys don't get. A.
So. Well, everyone comes to Joe Rogan, too, but then they happen to have some flavor with.
It. I'm doing my job. Who's the guy? Ice Coffee Hour. The. The host. Like, that's kind of. No, no, no, no. The. The guy that sits next to him. It's not.
Jack.
Jack.
Jack. Jack.
Yeah. Yeah, dude. Cool.
Guy.
Yeah. That's kind of the vibe I'm going for. It's like, you're the gram. I'm Jack. Like, I work for you, but I'm trying to bring a different side of you because Jack runs the Iced Coffee.
Hour. Like, that's 50% of the revenue, which is.
Our. Which is our star agreement. I love on. Have you seen Caleb Hammer on YouTube? He's a personal finance.
Guy. Oh, I saw him. Went on his channel. Jack broke down his budget and stuff. I didn't watch it, but I saw the.
Headline. Yeah, if you're in your 20s, go watch that episode, Caleb Hammer interviews Jack from the Iced Coffee.
Hour. Because Caleb Hammer's like, personal finance. Really? Like, on the personal finance. I'm not.
Business. Yeah, it's all personal finance. And he's just like, no holds barred, like, very unfiltered. Like, dude, you're spending too much at Starbucks. Like, this is dumb. He's like, you're spending too much in and out. In and out's trash anyways. Like, it's funny. Yeah. But it's also very helpful personal finance. I was like, well, Jack's young. He's successful. He's making six figures. Like, I could probably learn something from this. And Jack's doing well, man. So anyways, he's doing.
Good. He. He admitted the other day to having, like.
Four or five hundred thousand dollars on one of the podcasts. If you run the math of what he said, it was no, 600,000, because they were talking to somebody. I forget who. And they've said he could get. He could afford a $2.4 million investment in real estate using that as down payment. So he is like 600 grand cash. So good for.
Him. Yeah, he's got a lot. He's.
Got. I'd say two or three years ago, he was probably making 40 grand. 50.
Grand. Yeah. So he first started for Graham, and he actually. On the.
Podcast. Oh, he shows all this.
Stuff. Yeah. On the podcast he did with Caleb Hammer. He did. He. He had a selfie video of him when his. When he first broke $100,000 in a year, like, in pay. And he was, like, super motivated. And I was like, that's really cool. Like, I resonate with that. Like, hitting, like, those milestones and now.
Seeing. Remember when you got.
That? I mean, it was last year. So if we want to go totally unfiltered. Yeah. Last year would have been the first year I broke six.
Figures. Did you track it or you just, like, just end of the year, W2, you're like, Hey, I hit.
It. No, I. Yeah, I 100 tracked.
It. That's cool.
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's awesome. Well, no, it wouldn't have been last year. It would have been 2021. I was thinking, like, I thought for 2021, actually now. You know what? Let's go full unfiltered. Actually, I got paid less last year than two years ago. Yeah. But the reason is. Is because profit sharing for when I ran Bellingham shop hit. So profit sharing hit, and then it crossed over with commissions. So 2021 was huge. And then 2022, technically, I went.
Down, but I'll take that.
Stink. I don't.
Care. This year we can make up with.
Sales. Yeah, dude. It does not bother me at all. But, yeah, I would say breaking, I think just as like, a employee starting at an entry level job. You hired me at 14 an.
Hour. Was it.
Really? And then Being able to break six figures is, like. It's pretty cool accomplishment. It felt really cool. So I bought a.
House. You know, that's a good trajectory. What, that 14 an hour. To hit that, you need to be hitting 50 an hour. So basically, you quadrupled your income in five.
Years. Well, that would have been three and a half.
Years. That's good, dude. That's.
Good.
Well, yeah, it was this and now. Hey, sell a couple hundred franchisees this year.
Dude. Come on.
Now. Yeah, no, it's cool. And I like to try to tell that story to people. Like, no. Like, I started at 14 an hour, and now base pay at Bellingham is 18 an hour with P4P. And I started 14 hour, and you were like, yeah. And if. If you, like, show up and work hard for six months, I'll go with the 15. But you'll give me all my bumps early. All right. Anyways, meet Kevin. That's where we're.
At. Typically, though, I find income comes in jumps. So I'm the same way for two or three years. I'll be about the same, and then something will switch. Right? So I've been the same for probably two, three years. I expect copilot to be the thing that takes me up next in, like, a year or two. Because, like, there's only so much you can make. Even the franchise, it's like, well, every dollar I'm going to get over a certain level, like, is going back into something. But then eventually, that engine that you keep pouring into just pops. Right? And for you, it's like the skills that you're getting, right? So all the skills that you're kind of, like, just funneling back and, like, sales. Sales. I know it gets redundant, but eventually that leads into probably, like, a sales manager or when. When we get a gazillion leads. And what I've always talked about, I believe we will hockey stick the growth. You'll be ready for it, and then that's when you'll take the next step. Yeah, just. Just hypothesizing the.
Sizing. Well, okay, now, well, let's put me, Kevin, on the back burner, because I did have a thought process.
Recently. How did we go from meet Kevin to.
This? Because then I started talking about Jack from the iced coffee hour, and then I got into personal finance and his trajectory. My trajectory parallels. I'm a couple of years behind you, Jack. I was looking up, like, Harvard business school online. Do you think there would be any value in me taking some of their more corporately geared courses as we become more of like hates in corporate America, but you know what I mean.
Like self enrichment and like personal 100%. Yeah, yeah. Like from, from like a. Is this going to be super useful? Like I think that you in a per, per unit hour of time would get more out of podcasts and.
Books. That's.
Fair. Because like it's like, do I learn from someone that has been a career, almost a politician, but career.
Academic?
Yeah. And even at Harvard they have usually the best. The best. But even them, they maybe did business for 10 or 15 years and educating for the past 20 or 30 and they're tenured professors. And the question is, do you learn from them or do you learn from literally the best minds in the world that are writing books today and podcasting today? I have a hard time thinking that per unit hour is worth more to go to.
Harvard. Yeah, I think that's where we differ though because I, I feel like I am good with traditional educational systems, like very structured learning. A to be stackable skills. Right. That sort of learning A, B, C. It's true. And then you go, and then you go to d, you know, 101, 202. And I think I consume a ton of content and I consume a lot of books, like a lot of Audible books, a lot of leadership books, a lot of business books. But I think for me, I almost want to work on my corporate stackable skills. Like they have a, they have a 12 week course when I was looking at was like more on corporate business analytics. Right, right. And I was like, that's the stuff where I feel like I could learn, get some stackable skills as we grow. Augusta. To understand large scale business analytics, not just someone's profit loss statement of a half a million dollar company. That's easy to.
Read. Yeah, yeah. For you. You learn well, better that.
Way.
Yeah. Like for me when I was in doing my MBA stuff like for me it was like, yes. I would look into the board, like okay. And then the first thing I'd do is like I'd be pulling out P L's. Yeah, right. I'm like, okay, like how does that tribute this? Because like I'm, I'm not going to be IBM, I'm not going to be Apple, I'm not going to be Chevron. So like I don't need to know this stuff. But I do. What I do need to know is how does it apply to like my franchisees like now, today franchisees and my business and like you know, 50 million and below and most of what's taught in those companies is you're talking billions when the vast majority of what we need to know is under 50 million. And anything above 50 million, you would literally be outsourcing and buying people that have done this their whole life and are okay at doing billions. Like if, if you, if you, if we become billion dollar company, there's higher value tasks than learning business analytics. That's fair because like your pay grade at whatever you'd be doing is higher than I can go hire the best of the best business analytics person. Yeah, right. So that's the part where I'm always like, for example, I was going to go back and jump into code. When we were. I knew copilot was coming along, I was like, okay, dude. Like I could, if I just sleep a couple hours less than night, I could do like just get back into code and learn PHP at the language. And then MySQL is our database. So I was gonna jump into it and I was like, man, I could totally do this or I could do a boot camp. So I was thinking like a six week boot camp. I just like drown myself in code for six weeks and then come out stronger. And I definitely think there would be value to copilot if I did that. However, the question is, how much does it cost me to hire someone that has done that for 20 years and is extremely proficient in it? Probably less than 100 grand a year. Probably 80 grand a year. And so that's one thing that is a bad business decision as much as I think it would be good in the short term.
So. So for me in my role, would you say it's better for me to invest in sales, leadership.
Management?
Yeah, I think I'm not to say it's bad. And definitely enrichment and like a core component that would add to your repertoire of skills that would absolutely be valuable. It's just. And I'm not, you know, so I'm not saying you should not do those things, but I just think in terms like the skills that I'm learning, are they something that I can purchase for a lower pay grade than I'm at or what I attained to have when I graduate from it. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I've said this on the pod before, but like I like to, you know, normalize things that we know we're good at. Right. There's nothing wrong with saying things you're good at. But I noticed a massive jump in some of my leadership skills just from a voice message I sent a franchisee who's Dealing with a very difficult situation. Anytime. This is for the franchisees listening. Anytime I send you a voice message with direct advice for your business, I re. Listen to it multiple times because I want to make sure I'm giving you the best advice I can. And usually if you get one voice note for me and then follow up text, it means I don't love what I said the first time. And so that's me, like, honing that skill. And I sent one. It was five minutes long. I was. While I was driving home, I was like, that was a really long message. I listened to it two or three times and I was like, that shows a lot of growth that I've had in that leadership category of making hard decisions with employees. It was employee related. And I'm like, I've had a lot of experience with employees. Now I manage managers and it's honing that management leadership skills that you can't learn that in a classroom. But it's hard. Managing people is so.
Hard.
Yeah. But it's.
Fun.
Yeah. Meet.
Kevin.
Yeah. Let's jump back to this. Talking about people, talking about.
Relationships. I was just going to say.
I feel like you had something in.
The. I was just thinking, like, I don't have. I don't have a lot of. Of pride in how we run the companies in terms of organization. I think there's always better companies that will be better than organization and systems and stuff like that.
I think the part that I kind of fantasize about is being known for management being just like, lethal killers when it comes to business. Or it's like, if there's a. If there's a problem, it's like, they'll figure this out. And like, there's not even a question. Like, there's certain, like, special forces, for example, where it's like, if you are in a bind, you just call these people and like, the problem, as big as it is, it just gets solved. And they just usually are so tactical and they've worked so well together that, like, they didn't just kind of crush anything. Right. And so my thought is like, if we can develop that in something like Augusta and Copilot, it's like, whatever that team is, like, I'd want to be known as like, the company, like the people you pull in when everything is like, falling apart and like, you really need something and you need a solution and the dollar amount doesn't matter. You get. You get these people involved. Cool. And that's when you start having, like, mergers happening. Right. So, like, you know, our Competition. When they see that happening behind them, they're like, okay, they're eating us for lunch. And do we A, try to fight them and we're going to lose? Like, let's us all agree on that matter. Or B, do we just basically relinquish what we have for some sort of nominal value? And that gets very interesting. Yeah. And so that's when you can start. Like right now everyone's like, you know, freaking out because, like we have home service, EPA and longer web design and lawn care media and the franchise. Like all these parts right now, co pilot and P4P software. Dude, just wait until like we buy out manufacturers and we have the entire thing top to bottom. Yeah, like when I can control the. The product, the supplies, every single part of the unit metrics from labor to backend support. Yeah, Command center. Like, dude, I'm telling you, it's going to be a lot of fun. And so I think by developing a team that is cohesive and that people kind of fear from, from a competitive standpoint is when the people will literally give you their company. Because, like, if we fight, we'll drive this company to zero. Or we can sell while we still have some value. And that's when you. When, if we will go public, you take that cash and you start buying. Yeah, baby, let's.
Go. Now, see, that sounds.
Fun.
Anyway. That sounds way more.
Fun.
Fantasizing. Yeah, no, no, that's keyword is fantasizing. I like that. I'll go down that rabbit hole. That was much more exciting than Harvard business courses online, which I have been.
To. Meet.
Kevin. Meet Kevin. We're getting into this because it is an interesting topic. So I do want to. Want to, you know, end the pod with this discussion here. So he got on some heat recently. This is a week ago. I took the screenshot the day of it happened. So he posted a video. And in the video, did you screenshot.
It? I screenshot it.
Too. Yeah, yeah, it's right here on the screen. I'll put it up, I'll read the whole thing. But he basically posted a video, and within the.
Video. Oh, wait, wait. Sorry. The reason I screenshot it is because I thought he was gonna take it down. Oh, you're saying you screenshot just now for the.
Pod? No, I screenshot it right.
Away. I did.
Too. I didn't think he was gonna take it down, but as soon as.
I saw it, I was like, I thought he was gonna take it.
Down. We gotta talk about this on the.
Pod. Okay, go ahead.
Cuz. It was juicy. No, you're good. So in a video, he talked about how his mom lives paycheck to paycheck. Okay? And he got dragged. And true YouTube fashion, right? Just like Mr. Beast is getting dragged for saving.
People'S eyesight and hearing.
Amputees. I don't even. It doesn't even. Anyways, so he gets. He gets dragged in the coals. So he makes a post on YouTube. I'll put it up, but I gotta. I want to read. I'll read parts of it. I don't want to read the whole thing, but I'll put it up on the screen so you can see it. He said, ugh, this is very frustrating. Some are mad. My mom lives paycheck to paycheck. They say I'm greedy. You have a jet and your mom lives paycheck to paycheck. Face palm. I bought my mom a $700,000 house. And so Callum provided. I did the same for my dad. She chose a different life in the last three years. And then he lists all these things that he's done. And then he says, people's assumptions are so wrong sometimes. There's more to family relationships and happiness than money. And despite my best efforts, I cannot solve problems between my mother and other family members. Money doesn't solve everything. So what was your initial reaction after seeing.
That? I like the last line, because I. That I think was his motive is like, hey, like, money doesn't solve everything. There's still family issues and everything. I don't like the thought of giving excuse or.
Feeling like you're accountable to your audience in that regard. If someone recoils or something negative about me, I don't care. Now, when I say that.
That came out wrong. It's not that I don't care. It's a matter of I want to get to the place where I care less because I know that's my truest self. And that's how a creator usually is. The most successful is when they just be themselves. Because the only thing that makes them unique. If you start listening to everyone's advice, you'll basically become the mean. Right? If you listen to both sides that are pulling you in directions that are extreme, you eventually become normal, average, which means you are not going to do well. That's why most people take off. They hear criticism, and then because the criticism pulls them back towards average, they end up becoming. And no one cares about.
Them. They become.
Bland. Yeah. And so this is what I did based upon this. This post, and not necessarily because of this post. I shouldn't say that, but the same day I took down you bought your mom house, I took down every video that I've talked about.
Tigran. Okay.
Interesting. You didn't know.
That. I did not know that. No.
Yeah. Took down every video I talked about Tigran because he's gone. Really kind of every video mentioning me, like, showing my pictures up, which is fine. It's okay. I wasn't aware of it until the other day. Someone's like, hey, like, he's mentioning pretty much every video. So I went back to his most recent one. Sure enough, like twice, he like, shows my face. So I'm like, look, that's fine. But I truly believe that small boy stuff, when you have to react to people's criticism, you are playing the small boys.
Game.
Yeah. And so that's the part where. Meet Kevin. I felt like, who cares, man? Like, you've been successful. You're doing great stuff. Like, there's a lot of people that support you. Obviously have one point million subscribers. You have a jet, you're doing a house hack. Like, I mean, I don't necessarily agree with all of that stuff, but, like, you're killing it. Don't. Don't even give them the fuel that. That thought that you think about it. And I don't think about Tigrans thought about me at all. And I'm not going to let anyone even think that that's crossing my mind when I'm making content. Because we will comment sometimes be like, what about T? I'm like, dude, that didn't even cross my.
Brain.
Yeah. And so I just like, I want to distance myself from small boy garbage like that where it's like, based upon what other people think I'm going to. Or say I'm going to react to it. Like, reaction like that to me shows a chink in the armor. That's weakness based upon other people's opinion. You have to make a post about it. Yeah, I don't think that's. I don't. I only. That shows.
Strength. What would you say, though, about responding to comments individually? What's the difference between making the public post versus let's say he got 100 hate comments, probably more. Let's just assume. What's the difference with him between him responding to every single hate comment or posting publicly? Or is there a.
Difference? I would say there is a difference. When you're that size of an audience. It is. There's a difference because you are alienating 99% of the people that support you to go after the 1% of people that are being loud and they're the small majority, small minority that are creating all this noise. That video got 50,000 views or a hundred thousand views and 1% of people. That's a few hundred comments. It will seem like a lot, but it is a small, tiny fragment of your audience and you're gonna take all the time of 99% of people and waste it on the 1% of people. They don't care about you any. They're not buying your products. They're not investing in your stuff. Like let them go do something else. Right. Block them from your channel. That's really affecting you. I know it affects him in his brain too because he turned off comments for a while and he's admitted that like it really does get him down. It's like turn off comments if you need to or delete and block users that are saying really negative stuff if you need to. If you need to. Yeah, but don't respond. 99% of your audience doesn't think that way. And it's showing weakness and that like you're allowing it to get to you. Like focus on just creating more good things that 99% of people enjoy and let the other 1% of do their thing. Yeah, they're not going to buy from you.
Anyways. Yeah. And I think it also shows. Shines light on something negative that maybe his.
Less dedicated fans now see this negative thing brought to.
Light. Which I don't think that's a bad thing. Showing weakness in that regard as a personal like that you have flaws and weakness. Like that's where like me saying like that shows weakness is kind of flawed because I feel like being vulnerable and showing your weaknesses is important. But in this case he's not showing vulnerability and weakness. There's a different way to write this post and that is money doesn't solve all your problems. My mom, I have tried X, Y and Z and still we can't communicate with her. There's fragmented relationships. Money doesn't solve all your problems. That's a different.
Post. I agree with.
That. Very different than there were people that were commenting about me. Like, who cares? Like maybe take the exact same logic of this post and reframe it. That is much more constructive to your 99% of your.
Audiences. Yeah, but he has donated hundreds of thousands of.
Money. I don't like that charities personally. I don't think that's a talking.
Point. I completely. That's. And that's where I guess I said maybe his less dedicated Fans, myself. I subscribe to his.
Channel. You see.
That? I subscribe to his channel. I probably never clicked on that video because it was a clickbaity title. I don't even know what the video is called, but it's very clickbaity. And I will watch him as financial updates and different things that he's up to, but I don't, I do not watch every video. But all of a sudden I see this and I'm like, this is not a great.
Look. It's not a good look.
No. I was like, I don't.
Know. That's why I thought he was gonna take it down. I thought someone else would talk to him and be like, I don't want to do.
It.
Yeah. But again, like when I went on the trip with.
Him.
Because you've.
Met him, you know, there's no one to challenge that, that thought process. I've seen him be self reflective enough to take stuff down. That's why I screenshot it. But in any, like, if I said like, something like that, I would hope that like, you or Liz and Chuck would like, be like, hey, you sure you want to say that? You know, he's actually really good at. This is Brad. Yeah, Brad will call me out and.
Stuff. I like.
That. Yeah, he's done a few times, Got a good filter.
Yeah. What do you think about the, the family side of it? Let's make it a little more personal here. Like, you're obviously a successful businessman. You have access to a lot of money. What do you feel about the whole, you know, like, you should give people in your family a hand up. If you, if you have that much money, like, why aren't you sharing it with the people that are in your life? Like, what's your gut.
Reaction? Yeah, like, I think.
I think if someone's become that successful, so many of your relationships are transactional. You have a lot of employees. The majority of people that I interact with every single day, I pay them. And that's not negative. And to devalue the personal relationships I have with them. But it's a transactional relationship. It was based on that. Right. And so if I wasn't offering $14 an hour, we probably would have never met.
And it's not to devalue those. It's simply to realize that the one thing that family offers is it was not based upon a transaction. Someone made a choice to have you come into the world. And so when you turn that into transactional, I feel like it's a little strange. And that's why I wouldn't want my kids to have a bunch of money. And then in terms of my family.
For me right now it comes down to I protect the downside, but I don't give up side. That's kind of where my head's.
At. Okay. I like.
That. It's like, hey, I will step in and I have done this when people need money on my own accord and without them asking. Right. If they ask zero and nothing's happening. But I'm not going to be like, hey, I'm gonna get you a car and a house and all these other things. And even though I've, I've got people those things. But it's not because of them needing excess. It's because like they were, they were on downside, like they were going to down. I can bring them up, but I'm not into like extravagant stuff. I'll. I'll probably some one did something for my parents. I will definitely, probably do that just because like, like again, like I would be nothing without.
Them. Right, right.
Right. And then also it's a matter of like I've always said, like philanthropy and giving in general in terms of donations is actually more about what you as a giver get. That's the feeling. Right. And so that's the part that we feel that about Meet Kevin is because he's flexing the thing that he. The joy and satisfaction he gets from giving instead of what he gave. Right. And that's why if you would have reframed that from the perspective of more of his the love for his mother. But that money doesn't solve that. It becomes a very different post. It's because we don't like we. The slimy thing about giving and philanthropy in general is that, you know, the reason that person gave is, is either A, because they it makes you feel good or B, there's tax incentives and nonprofit incentives and all the rest of it. And so what we what that's why people question Mr. Beast and everything too is because like there's that filter that we all run through. And so to see someone genuinely give something without any expectation of things in return, the purest form of that is giving birth to a child. And that's why I think we should respect.
Parents.
Yeah. Is because that, that they aren't. They are guaranteed nothing in return. And so that's where I feel like transacting making that a transactional relationship can be.
Dangerous. Yeah, I like that. I think protect the. What was it? Protect the.
Downside. And I just don't give the Upside, I don't.
Know. I really like that. I think that's. I would have that same philosophy with my family. Obviously, we're in very different positions in terms of access to capital, but I would hold the same position if it were my family. It would just be like, hey, I'm going to protect you from the downside. Like, I don't want you on the street. Like, I got an empty, you know, bedroom in my house. You can always live there if things go horrible. But I'm not going to buy you a really nice house.
Either. Yeah, if I had kids, that's probably the same approach I'd probably take too. It's like, look, I'm never going to let you be.
Destitute.
Right. Even if you're a wreck, I'll make sure you can eat. Yeah. But, like, I'm not going to get you a Lamborghini to drive around while you're a wreck. That's not happening. Yeah, right.
So. Yeah. Yeah. Right on. I love it. Let's wrap it up. Non.
Financial. This is a pretty.
Hypothetical. Like, I feel like we could keep going. I feel like this is a topic we'll probably touch on more in the future. So let's cut it there. Let's go. Not financial advice. What do you got for the.
People? You say something because I have no.
Idea. That's great. I got. Got a thought for the.
People. I got one too. Good.
Great. My thought for the people. Here's my now financial.
Advice. Oh, do we need to clarify what non financial advice is? Yeah, because someone in the comments or you told me a franchisee had question about it. Yeah. Was it in the.
Comments? Yes, it was in the comments. Okay, here's my definition of what not financial advice is not financial advice is not financial advice. But it is.
Advice. Right. Or it is financial advice, but has the disclaimer of this is not financial advice. There you.
Go. And sometimes it's, it's financial advice and sometimes it's just general life advice. That's the whole fun part of.
It. All right, go for.
It.
See, now, now I lost.
Mine. Oh, dude. See, I'll.
Go. I got.
You. Okay, so mine is in the past. I've been having. So I've been. I've been micro dosing on caffeine. Not your face. What? As I was about to say, just caffeine. I was like, if I throw the word microdosing, it'll get his attention. I was like, wait, no, I've been. I've never had caffeine, never had coffee. But the past like two months, I've been. I've been timing it and trying to figure out if something can help. And so just like that lull in the afternoon. And so I've been more stringent about like, I only eat from 12 to 8 now all the time. And then I try to drink caffeine at like 10 o'. Clock. Now the problem is, regardless if you're doing coffee or if you're doing what I've been doing, which is like the ice drinks, which is like no, no sugar, but there's other stuff in there. Artificial flavor, artificial sweetener, not good stuff. So I am going to do caffeine tablets, 50 milligrams a pop on most days. I'll take one and I'll take two. If I'm. If I know I didn't sleep enough last night, which not sleeping enough at this point is anything under 4 hours and 55.
Hours. 50 milligrams is like half a cup of coffee, A strong cup of coffee. Right. So you're basically saying you're gonna have a small cup of.
Coffee. Yeah, pretty much. But without like, there. I think there's other things about like, coffee in terms of acidity and then there's. There's things about like the drinks that I'm having right now with aspartame and sucralose and stuff like that that I want to get away from someone just doing the straight good stuff. Nice slow release.
Baby. I like.
It. It's gonna be good. I'm gonna see how it.
Works. See, I drink coffee for the taste, really, plus the benefit of.
Caffeine. To me, it just literally tastes like muddy water.
Bro. Yeah, it's delicious. I really like.
Caffeine. All right, sorry, go ahead. You know, you're not. Financial.
Advice. I was gonna try to give some financial advice, but now, now I'm not going.
To.
Okay. I mean, most people that listen to this are in the. Our industry, right? So they're probably outside a lot. I was just gonna say get outside more, but if you're in this industry, you're working outside, so maybe not. I've just been trying to get outside more. I cut my grass yesterday. It was Sunday. Let's go, dude. My wife and I, we just like sat in the grass. It was great trying to get that Augusta lawn. You know, I got my own equipment. I don't pay to have people do it.
So. So electric.
Equipment? Yeah, I got the all. All steel electric equipment. Oh, the homeowner stuff. It's. It's really.
Good.
Yeah. I don't see how you could use it for.
Commercial.
Right. But the homeowner stuff's great. Fantastic for a small lawn. So just get outside more. I've also been playing a lot more.
Golf. Oh.
Really? Goals break 90 this.
Year. Oh, good for.
You.
Yeah. Dude, let's.
Go.
Yeah. So they're out in the.
Range. She comes with. Yeah, she wants to learn.
Golf. She drives the.
Cart. She drives the cart. She loves the.
Car. Oh.
Yeah. She brings a book. Oh, it's.
Great. She can probably finish a whole book while you finish 18 or at.
Holes. We usually only play nine. Eighteen's too long, man. It's so long. I. I played 18. Well, I.
Guess.
Yeah. I've probably gone out five or six times and.
Only.
Whoa. This.
Year.
Whoa. Just this year? Yeah, dude, I'm trying to get into. It's fun. But only one of them's been.
18.
Okay. Like, I go and play nine, and if I go, like, usually late in the day, so I can walk it and I can be done in, like, an hour.
20.
Yeah. Like, I'm quick. I'm like, I just want to play. I just want to get out for a nice walk in the sun. Call.
It. Let's.
Go. Maybe I'll go after this. Let's see. Maybe I have.
Time. We're running out of.
Time.
Yeah. Pods.
Over. Pods over. Got.
It. See ya.
