Why YOU Should STOP Mowing

I think where a lot of us kind of fall into a trap, we see these people that work for us. They do a good job out in the field and they crush it. Just because they're a hard worker out in the field doesn't mean that they're going to be a good manager. You just want to make sure that their personality and skill set will do well. Otherwise you're kind of setting them up for failure. Are they constantly growing? Are they improving themselves? Are they helping other team members? That showcases to me who the leader is in the room.

As quickly as you could tell me, give me like a quick rundown of maybe some SOPs and checklists I could use with my GM them and maybe any kind of like quick tips you could think off the top of your head that you could share with me about that, like context I'm bringing in. So Gabe, this week has been kind of. I've been training him to be a manager. I'm kind of letting him like manage the location as well with me. Kind of like watching over a shoulder. So like doing that, I'm realizing, oh crap, there's like a lot of holes in my business actually, like this is good. I'm figuring it out. But I love having like a friend like you and Sam as a coach to like tell me so I can make the process quicker. So maybe you can help with that.

Yeah. As far as like SOPs go, you just want to break it down for every single role that they're going to be doing. They obviously already know how to mow, they probably know how to do application, they know how to do landscape. So you don't really have to worry too much on that. Things that they're really going to have to learn is going to be doing estimates. So drive by estimates. The other thing that they're really going to have to learn is like how to schedule and dispatch. So like building some kind of one page sop around that is really crucial and then also creating some kind of checklist. So end of day, like what, what does the routine look like? The key, got to scrub the dispatch board, send out anything you know, pertaining that's important. Checklists are really good for a GM because you can kind of give them that. I would also look at like creating some kind of order of prioritization. Building some kind of GM training I think is very important. So that way you can kind of like, instead of just throwing them into the fire of like, hey, you're going to take over my role. You kind of like really get them the the mindset, right? Like what is the goal, what is the mission? What are we trying to do here? Get them really aligned. Now we didn't do that for our even second, third or even fifth gm but, but we are finally getting like more dialed in. We're putting people. We finally have a GM training built out. When you build these SOPs, I would recommend one page. Keep it very simple, very like the least amount of text possible on the sop. Also incorporating some kind of video training in there so you can have a link like here's how to schedule. Okay. Have a four minute loom video of you doing a scheduling and like assigning crews to individual teams. Right.

Question on that. Sorry, sorry to stop you. Where do you keep this videos? I've just been putting like a link in connecteam under like a general manager folder. Is that fine or.

Yeah, you can connect Team is really like easy, easily accessible for like field people that are on mobile devices. We do it on that and one and a OneDrive. So we created a administrative account for OneDrive and then we give access to the GMs. Also rule of thumb, because I know you're doing multiple locations, I would not assign the individual an email, I would assign the location an email because they're, they're going to change, people are going to leave, people are going to move up, get promoted, whatever. It's way easier to plug somebody into the system if you just have like a Aubrey location Gmail if that makes sense. We kind of ran into that issue in the beginning. We were like assigning like first out last name emails and then like when the person left it was like well they carry all the credentials and all the emails are going to their email. So just have location emails or GM location emails. It's much, much faster, much more streamlined. A good sop, one page, the least amount of text possible. Bold, put emojis in there, make it fun instead of just an essay looking SOP video links if possible. So like for us we have a, like Larissa just built a drive by estimate. So we have a link in there that takes them all to the, the templates to get the templates, you know, so you'd have a separate page for that just to kind of keep things concise and everything. And then ideally if you could have like some kind of checklist in there where once they get used to the job or for example sometimes I have to cover down for my office manager and like dude, I haven't run payroll in like probably four months. Like I, I sometimes forget how to do it. You know what I mean? Because I do so much other things. So just having like a really clear, concise checklist of like either at the top or the bottom for as like a refresher for someone that's like done this before. They just need to like core stuff like check this, do this, do this, do this. Just to make it easy.

Okay, cool. So yeah, it sounds like these are things that I have started on. But I like what you said though, a lot. Like making it simple, making it one page, making it interesting. You're giving me an idea of like I could just have that SOP sheet in Connecteam like I normally do and just put links in it. If it like pertains to that, that's good. You're giving me good ideas.

Yeah. And you can even tap into Copilot Academy that they're building out. I know they have some training videos on that. Like for example, we're building an SOP for the GMs right now as far as like scheduling and dispatching. Copilot Academy has a really good 11 minute video. It is a little bit longer than I would like, but for a brand new GM to really understand the dispatch board and all of the different features and the highlighting and the check boxes, like, I think it is important that they watch that to get the full scope of the capabilities of the software. As much as I kind of want to keep it simple because people fall sleep halfway through the videos. But yeah, you can tap into that so you don't always have to create the videos. You could just go to Co Pilot Academy, find the right ones and kind of plug it there to make it a little easier.

That's so true. You said Co Pilot Academy.

Yeah, they're. They're re. They're rebuilding the. The. It used to be Co Pilot University, I think, but they're re rebuilding it. It's called Co Pilot Academy. You have to create an account to get in on it, but it's all free.

Okay, I'll. I'll definitely use that then.

Just.

I don't have to make a thousand videos for certain things to make videos. One page SOPS emojis make it fun. They don't fall asleep midway sign emails to location name like, okay, let's say you take a new person in at the beginning, right in your situation. Brand new. They've already been in the company. They know how to mow. And day one, what are we focusing on for gm? Training. Training with them. Can you break that down?

Yeah. So day one for us, like, like real day one, or I should say day zero. We're putting them through a full day of GM training. So what this consists of is two PowerPoint slides. So the first one goes over like kind of like a 30,000 foot view of like the, like, like the GM position. And like what is like what what success looks like in that? A lot of it is mindset. You know, we talk a lot about the mindset of a gm and then in the second slide deck you, we go very, very tactical, like do this, don't do this. And then that, that's where we get kind of really deeper into the weeds of things. And then at the end of that we have them take an exam. And so you know, they have to get, there's 75 questions on it. They have to get a 70% of high or higher to pass. So we gotta make sure these people are paying attention during the training. And then after that, as far as like the actual kind of like right seat, left seat goes from a pure speed standpoint I would kind of carve it out one at. So I wouldn't like just give them all the sops at once. Like I would kind of chip away at it. Like on the first day we're going to focus on like scheduling and dispatching. Now they're going to shadow the gm. That is something that, that we do is have them like actually shadow all day the, the one of the main location GMs. And so that way they can kind of see what the process kind of looks like. But as far as like actually doing things. Yeah, I mean there's a lot. Cause you got to get the account set up, you got to get them access to things. So it's a little bit of a process. But yeah, I would hand them the SOP and say here, read through this and then when you're done watch, you know, watch the videos. Once they get through that one page, SOP on like how to schedule and dispatch, then we're gonna, we're gonna practice, we're gonna, we're gonna dispatch and schedule the next two or three days so they can get some repetitions and get some practice under their belt. Is. Is. Is what I would do.

I like that.

And, and you said take an exam. So do you also have them take an exam before becoming a gm just to like these certain things in them check out before actually moving them into that role?

No, a lot of that is just identifying skill sets and understanding people and like where they will excel. I think where a lot of us kind of fall into a trap is like, we see these people that, you know, work for us and they do a good job out in the field and they crush it and they're really hard workers. But, like, just because they're a hard worker out in the field doesn't mean that they're going to be a good manager. And so really identifying that talent and understanding that the person that you're plugging into the manager role, you just want to make sure that their personality and skill set will do well. Otherwise, you know, you're kind of setting them up for. For failure. But yeah, I mean, obviously, as long as they're doing the big three well, that. That's like the minimum requirement. And then it's like, are they. Are they constantly growing? Are they improving themselves like through conversation? Are they helping other team members? That's also a good sign is like, you know, when another team member comes in and says, hey, where's the rakes at? And then that person says, oh, it's in the back on the corner. Make sure you grab it. Don't grab the green ones, grab the red ones. Right. Like when you and I don't have to say that, that, that showcases to me who the leader is in the room. You know what I mean? Who can help the other crews and stuff like that. So, yeah, we don't really do like a test, a pretest.

Five years ago, I was out in the field every single day, knocking on doors, pushing mowers and bootstra scrapping my.

Business from the ground up.

Today I am not in the field and rarely ever in the office. I work on the business and not in it. And that didn't happen by luck. We put the systems in place and now we're handing them over to you. Inside our school community, you will gain.

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Okay, I like this, man.

I'd love to like go more in.

Depth with you at some time.

Maybe we could do that in like.

January when we all meet up on the conference.

Yeah, dude, that'll be fun. That'll be very fun.

Cool. I've got a lot of great ideas and things that you've given me now.

So I guess roles and responsibilities, like our businesses are very, very similar, as you know. I guess besides like dispatching and estimating, I mean, obviously there's hiring, firing, managing. Is there anything else that should be their duties?

I think the training is what is very important to make sure that they understand KPIs they understand what churn is, they understand attrition, they understand lifetime value of a customer. Like, like these are key things that we as owners need to be good stewards of to make sure that we're educating the GMs properly as we set them up for success. So that way they understand how to read a P L and can explain what cogs are. You know, I think there's more to it than just kind of plugging. Plugging someone in. I mean scheduling and dispatching honestly is pretty easy to teach somebody doing drive by estimates is pretty easy. You kind of just give them the templates and they've already done the work anyway. So like they, they know kind of how much budget hours each job is going to be in the, in the material included. Yeah, I mean outside of that, it's just, it just really getting them plugged into the systems. Obviously the weekly KPI coaching is like crucial if you know, if you don't have a plan for that, I would definitely prepare for that. That that's how you really know if the GM is on track or on pace of being successful or not. When you, when you do plug them in there. I think dialing in those KPIs each week that you're studying and you're looking into to make sure that they're doing their job whether you're there or not is, is very, very important. I also think, I also think creating fireable offenses like a clear expectation of what you expect. Like I expect this amount of budget hours to be completed each week even though you still have now more responsibility of doing drive bys, of doing schedule, hiring and fire, doing one on ones with the, with the crews like there, there's more to it. Right. But you still need to have clear expectations and they need to understand those. And so that way when they are failing you can hopefully coach them up properly to get them up to speed on that stuff quicker. So yeah, I would say that that's probably one of the biggest ones. You got to dial in the weekly and it won't be dialed in the first week or month or even six months. You're going to probably kind of tweak it, learn from it and you'll get better depending on the location.

Can you maybe give me a list? Obviously close ratio, labor efficiency, lifetime value of the customer, monthly term. Do you have anything else you can find on this?

Yeah, I think those are great. Obviously number of yellow slips coming down the pipe. You don't really need to. Honestly we don't really track Attrition, we just track yellow slips. Because I know that as long as the yellow slips are under control, the attrition should be fine. So we do yellow slips, close ratio. We do number of customers, we do cash in the bank. So each GM has access to the bank account to see how much revenues in there. If there's ever anything less than one month's revenue, that's a problem. Unless we're like going in the spring rush and like buying trucks and stuff. If you're in a. If it's a gross growth mode location, I would do number of door hangers. So, like, you should have a set number of door hangers that need to go out each week. Yeah, labor efficiency is one. Yeah, I think there's one or two more. I can't, I can't remember them off the top of my head, but those are the main ones. I think there's like seven things we look at each week. And so I think I named like five of them. The last two. I, I can't. I can't quite remember what they are, but I'd say. I'd say those are the big ones for sure. Expose ratio, labor efficiency, yellow slips.

So in the. They bring these numbers to you on Friday, like they have it all completed. They just bring it to you, like.

Yeah, so that's. That was one of the things that I learned in the beginning was like, in the beginning I was putting the scorecards together. And then I quickly realized to do this for five locations is not scalable. How, how it should work is you as the quote unquote owner or regional manager with really the highest leverage task, and your time is the most important in the business. The last thing you want to do is put their data in. So what the meeting should look like is 10 to 15 minutes. Oftentimes I'll do this over Streamyard very quickly, remotely, because sometimes I'm not at the location. If I'm in person, that's great. I walk in 10 to 15 minutes.

If, if I sit down in the.

Meeting and they don't have the data, the meeting does not get conducted. The KPIs need to be filled in prior to me showing up to the meeting. And so I would just make that very clear. And then you step in, you look at the numbers. What we do is a red, yellow, and green process. So green means good, yellow means it's concerning. Red is like, this is very bad. And so each week we will color code the close ratio, labor efficiency, cash in the bank, based on those colors. And if there's anything that is red, I will coach the GM on how to fix it. Oftentimes I will expect that next week when we sit down that that needs to be either yellow or green. I need to see improvement there because it's not, it's not good. It also depends on the gm. If they're a brand new gm, you know, give them a little bit of grace, they're kind of learning. But the last thing you want to see is like consistent reds week in and week out in a, in a, in the same category. If that is the case, I mean, that's, that, that's a good pulse for you to be like, okay, there's a problem here. What's going on? Like, is it the. Is it me? Is it my coaching? Which is where I would start. Like, maybe it's me. I didn't coach them properly on how to fix the close ratio. Let's talk through that. And then, like, maybe it's the process. Like, is it the process? Well, I mean, I got another location that's, that's 45% close ratio. So why, why is this one under, you know, 30. Right. For example, it's the same process at that. So. So that's cool too. When you start to get to two, three locations, you can see the data. Oh, another KPI is personal upsells. We require 15 plus at least a minimum of 15 upsells from a personal up the briefcase on co pilot because we want to continually to drive sales. And so if they're not doing that, to me, that's a problem each week. We're always pushing sales. So that's another KPI that we look at.

Sorry, whenever you say personal upsells, what do you mean by that?

So those are the upsells on the specific visits of the property. So when your crew goes out as an applicator and they're spraying for weeds, are they stopping and looking at the flower beds to see if there's mulch that the customer needs? If the customer needs mulch, then we need to send that customer an upsell on the property. And so what that would look like is you just click the briefcase on copilot. Literally in two clicks, I think maybe three, you can send a personal upsell that basically says, hey Caleb, we were on your lawn today to service the property. We noticed your mulch could use or needs reword it and say needs your mulch. Needs a new, a new layer of mulch. And then it would, it would text the customer while they're at the property. And so that. That is what a personal upsell is. We require a minimum of 15 a week, which is very doable. Like there's no reason. I mean, especially when they have 20. The applicator has 20. 20 stops a day. That's. That's 100 visits out of 100 visits. We need to find 15 things to do additionally to those problems. And that will help keep sales coming in, keep drive by aspects of schedule. Yeah, it drives high conversion because it's a personal upsell.