In this podcast episode, speaker A (Mike Andes) discusses the emotional roller‑coaster that home‑service business owners experience as their companies scale from $100k to multi‑million dollars. He introduces a framework that views owners’ feelings on a continuum from deep gratitude and love for the business to a desire to abandon it. The tipping point for quitting occurs when the pull of fear and failure outweighs the pull of clear, compelling goals. Andes argues that making those goals larger and more vivid—through a three‑year “vivid vision”—creates a stronger magnetic force that keeps owners in the game. He also shares a practical recommendation for the optimal size of a home‑service operation (6‑8 technicians, $800k‑$1M revenue, 20‑30% profit) that aligns with most owners’ personal happiness. Throughout, he promotes the Home Service Boardroom community and its Course 3, which helps entrepreneurs craft their vivid vision and scale from $1M to $10M. The episode blends personal anecdotes of moments when he wanted to quit with actionable advice on goal‑setting, vision‑crafting, and aligning business size with life goals.
Chapters
I want to talk about how to deal with stress. And if you have a home service business, whether you are at $100,000 in annual revenue or you're doing multiple millions of dollars in annual revenue, there's been times that you want to quit. There's been times that you want to throw in the towel. There's times that you think about going back and getting a job, or you think about going to a new industry or in some way, shape, or form quitting. And so I want to talk about how I've dealt with this. I don't think this is the right way to deal with it. I think that everyone has to cope with stress and stressors in their life and things that are happening. However you need to cope with that to get through and not quit, there is no right or wrong. But I want to give you the frame that I've always used because there have been many times throughout my journey that I've wanted to quit. Recently, I made a video about the 6 different times throughout my career specifically that I can put my finger on and say during that low moment, I wanted to just throw in the towel and stop doing the franchise, stop doing media, stop doing the software. And I'm glad today that I did not. And so I want to walk through the framework that I use to get through stressful times or times when I want to quit. And hopefully it is helpful for you. And I would be very interested down below how you deal with fear, stress, times when you want to give up so that it is helpful for everyone. How I think about it, though, is there's like this range of emotions that we all have towards our business. One day you love it. You wouldn't You would rather do nothing else. And if someone gave you $1 million or $10 million or $100 million, you don't care because you love the business. You love the people, you love your employees, you love your customers, you love the progress, you love the feeling of progress that you're making in the business. And you would do nothing in terms of selling no matter what the price was given to you. Some days you feel that way. And the sense of accomplishment and you're able to be reflective and like, man, I have come so far. I am so thankful. I am so blessed. I am so grateful for all these things that have been given to me. I'm thankful for the money. I am thankful for the team. I am thankful for the customers. I'm thankful for the equipment. I'm thankful for the vehicles. And then there's other days on the other side of the spectrum that you would give it all away at the flip of a coin for $0.10. Like, if someone would just take this off my hands because the customer's complaining, employees disgruntled, a customer leaving bad reviews online, bad things are happening in the business constantly, things are breaking. There's low cash flow. bad profit margins in the business, and you would just give the business away for basically nothing. And I believe that every single day we wake up and we have emotions because we're humans. We are somewhere on that continuum of, I would never give this thing away. I am so grateful. I am so blessed. I am so happy. And over here, I want— I am so stressed out in my mind, I would just rather give up and give this business away for free to anyone that would take it off my hands. And so I think of it as a range, and I think the time that we want to quit Is when the desire to give up and throw in the towel is greater than our goals that are pulling us in the direction of staying in the game. And so on this side of being so elated and happy and so thankful, the reason that I feel that way many times is because I feel like I'm making progress towards my goals. I'm moving in this direction. And when that that pull towards your goals becomes less than the inevitable pull towards mediocrity and quitting and failure, that's when you just want to give up. That's when you— so giving up happens when the fear of failure is greater than the pull that you have towards your goals. And I think that the fix to this is to simply— because a lot of people are like, well, you should fix the business. Yes, you can. I think though that your goals and And the vision that you have for where you want to be, what you want to achieve, what you want the business to become, what you want your life to become, those goals becoming very clear and/or larger is the thing that keeps you in the game. Because as your business grows, you're going to get closer and closer to your goals. And this is where some people get complacent and they're like, well, I'm doing pretty good and I just don't feel like getting out of bed today. And for a lot of people, they're like, Seriously, you're so soft. Like, I am over here struggling at $100,000, can't get leads, can't get employees, and you're at $1 million and you're saying you don't feel the desire to get up and get after it? When in reality, it's because that million-dollar business owner is potentially so close to their goals of what they set out, or they've passed $1 million. They don't really have much to do. Guys are out in the field working, but they haven't clearly identified what the goal of the business is for them, what the mission, what the purpose. Why do they keep going to work? And every single time I've ever wanted to quit, it's because I've gotten closer and closer to this middle ground of fear of failure, wanting to just throw in the towel, and the goals that are pulling me in this other direction. And I'm moving more and more towards this side. And so if you're in that place, reiterating the goals that you have, getting clear on what those goals are, and then potentially even making those goals bigger. so that the pull towards them becomes greater. The interesting thing about goals I have found, and you've probably heard this from other entrepreneurs, is the bigger they are, they cause you to think differently and they cause you to usually increase your motivation. And the way that you have to attack the problems in your day-to-day changes when the size of your goals are bigger. And so, for the person that has a million-dollar business but can't get the motivation or lacks the motivation to get out of bed and get after it, it's very likely they have either came so— they're likely the Wealthiest person they know. They're the only business owner in their family. They are super successful to everyone around them. And the delta, the difference between where they're at today and their goals is murky. It's like, I don't really know where I'm going. What's the reason why I'm waking up every single day and dealing with all these problems and issues when, like, I don't even know if I want to grow the business? Like, all this extra liability and now I'm getting lawsuits and more and more customers leaving. All of these things are happening in the business and they have gotten so close to their goal. That it doesn't actually pull them to continue growing the business.
Alright, it's Mike here. We're out in Texas picking up one of the lawn care vans. But I wanted to just stop here in the middle of the video and say, if what I'm saying is true for you and you feel like you don't have clarity on what your goals are, I highly recommend joining Home Service Boardroom. It's a group of million-plus dollar business owners that are really trying to get to the next level and go from $1 million to $10 million, go from one location to multiple locations, getting a general manager. Having the business run without you, having systems in place, compensation models. But most importantly, all of that starts with finding great people by having a vision, a vivid vision that you can cast out in the future to know where you want the business to go so they can fit their own goals and their own dreams inside of that goal. And that's why in course 3 inside of Home Service Boardroom, we actually help you create your vivid vision for the next 3 years of your business. Link is down in the description. Look forward to seeing you inside the boardroom. All right.
And for that person, I would say resetting the goal to something much bigger, much harder, likely having more impact on something other than just dollars and cents in your bank account, because that likely doesn't motivate you anymore. And again, for the person that's just getting started, you're like, oh, that's so bad for them. They have a great business and now they've lost purpose. And I'm just out here trying to get my first few customers. Having clarity on why you do what you do every single day is what gets you through moments when you want to quit. And for the vast majority of us as entrepreneurs, we have not sat down and done the hard work of defining how big of a business do I need to have in order to reach my goals? Because if we, if we do not have the end in mind, if we don't know how big of a business, we are just wandering in the wilderness of, I should grow because I hear that online. I hear people talking about marketing and leads and hiring, and I guess I should just keep growing my business. Why not build a business that serves you? In order for the business to serve you and your goals and your family and the purpose that you have for the business, I need to clearly identify what size of business do I need And in my personal opinion, I think the vast majority of people would be well suited with 6 to 8 technicians, the owner-operator being in daily operations and being able to run a business that is $800,000 to $1 million in revenue, being 20%, 30% profitable. I think it's very doable in home services. And the vast majority of people would actually— it would serve their purpose and it would maximize the happiness that that business brings to them if they just optimize for that. But if you just grow that size of business and you don't really know why, but you just keep growing it through this treadmill that I'm just keep— I add more employees. I keep— I'm supposed to be spending money on marketing. I should have a better website. Like, I should get more trucks. Like, I have all this extra money. Like, maybe I should go get into real estate. But why? And that's why successful business owners will still quit, is because they have no longer defined or have the pull towards their goals in this direction. And one day they just decide, I'm just walking away from it. And so, oftentimes when you're first getting started, you're pushing yourself constantly. Physically, emotionally, financially, you're pushing and you're pushing. And the thing that I hope and desire for every single entrepreneur is that one day your goals are big enough to pull you instead of you constantly pushing yourself to accomplish something. When you wake up out of bed and you don't feel like going to work, but your goals pull you in the direction. Not, I've got to push myself, I've got to make myself, I've got to make this happen, I've got to put more effort and expend more sweat, blood, sweat, and tears into this thing. And trust me, there's a certain period of time when that is required. But the next level that I hope that every entrepreneur can get to is where you've defined what the goal is. How big of a business do I need to build? And then how this is going to directly correlate with the goals that I have for my life. 'Cause the vast majority of business owners, they serve their business. The business does not serve them, their family, their goals, their community. And the reason for that is 'cause we have not clearly defined the mission and why the business exists. Because if we defined that, we would then be able to reverse engineer how big of a business do we actually need to build. And then when it came to the time when there's hard times, Inevitably, regardless of the size of business, every single stage of business I've been at, $100,000, $1 million, $5 million, $10 million, we had $100 million. There are times that you will want to quit. But in those moments, the only reason you will continue going forward is because the goal is that pool is greater than the pool to just throw in the towel. Because the beautiful thing about quitting is you have immediate relief. If you just quit today, all of your problems would go away immediately. But we sacrifice that temporary pleasure and the immediacy of solving the problem in the short term. for the much longer term of the goal. But if we have not clearly defined what that goal is, we— and it's murky and the vision, we don't know what that is even going to look like, what size of business, why we need to build that business to that size. That's when people throw in the towel and that's when they give up.
