The Confession Booth With Mike Andes | Episode 1

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Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes.
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Today we are doing a call-in show, but we are putting a little twist on it.
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We're calling this The Confession Booth.
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And so if you have a question and you don't want anyone to know who you are, this is the call-in show for you.
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And so we already have a few people in the waiting room here on the live stream.
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But the objective here is, I know we have this little funny catchphrase of spill tea anonymously.
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And that's really what the objective is.
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When you call in.
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You're just going to be in the queue.
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You'll hear a beep if you're the next one in.
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And your voice will be garbled up.
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So we'll use AI to scramble your words in terms of, no one will be able to know who you are.
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I will not say the first three numbers of your phone number.
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So no one will know who you are.
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Don't say your business name.
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You don't need to say your name.
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You don't need to share anything that you don't want said.
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But it will be anonymous.
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And so the objective here is I have seen lots of call-in shows.
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I've been a part of call-in shows where I ask questions, but it's challenging because you're trying to synthesize it through the fact that there's interpersonal relationships between employees, customers, your family, and you know that they're going to potentially see this or hear this, and sharing some information could get you in trouble with them.
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And so by anonymizing this, our hope is that we can actually deal with some harder problems that you might not ever talk about on a live show or bring up on a regular Q&A.
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So we are going to have the live call in show be much more anonymous.
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So your name will not be mentioned.
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Your phone number will not be mentioned.
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You don't need to mention your business name.
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You do not need to mention your name.
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Nothing, nothing like that.
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The phone number here is 361-733-3332.
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And we got a few people in the waiting room already.
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So if you do call in, just hold on.
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You'll be able to hear my voice and you'll be able to hear the live stream.
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And then when you are live in the waiting room, you'll hear a beep and you'll be able to start sharing your, let's just call it confessions.
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Okay, so without any further delay, let's go ahead and bring in the first caller.
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I will not be saying their first few numbers of their phone call.
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So first caller, go ahead.
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Hello?
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Hello?
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Can you hear me?
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Yes, I can.
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Okay.
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Thank you.
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So, yeah, I'm just calling in.
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We run a long-term business.
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And I don't know, like...
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We scaled up to like just over a million the year before.
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Was that 2025?
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Yeah, yep.
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And this year, like we're shooting below that.
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I don't think we'll make it back up to a million this year.
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Probably we're only gonna hit like 800, maybe 850, that's how snow goes.
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But I wanted to just ask you, cause like,
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Even though we've we've we're expecting less revenue this year like it's just been so hard personally with with how it's scaled up and I don't know there's just been a lot of like drama With like me and my family we're trying to balance like the business and then home like you do you have any advice on that?
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I
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So what specifically, like when you say there's drama at home, is it, is it your spouse?
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Is it kids?
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Like what's going on?
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Like, this is kind of why we have the show.
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So.
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Yeah.
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Well, I mean, I would say it's between me and my wife.
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Like I'm just, I'm working so much on the business, um, because it's just, you know, it takes up a lot of my time and.
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Like there's just been a lot between like she worked in the office with me for a while, but then like she had to step out.
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We had to get a part time person in here just because it was too much for both of us to be in this all the time.
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And how long ago did she step out?
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Oh, she, she stepped out like two years ago.
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Okay.
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So this year, the revenue dropped in from $1 million to $850,000.
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Do you think that's a result of you being distracted with everything going on at home?
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Or is that some other force that we're not talking about, like marketing or crew members or some other issue?
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No, I do think that's on me.
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I think that I'm a little distracted.
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I'm just, you know, I'm trying to get home and, like, be there for dinner and, like,
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We have kids, so I try to make it to their games, but yeah, it's just, it's hard to do both.
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And even though we've like, we've tried to scale back a little, it's just, I don't know if we've gotten any less busy.
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That makes sense.
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So when she stepped out of the office, was it because of friction because the two of you or was it because of financial issues?
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Uh, I mean, there's, I would say we just didn't work good together.
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Uh, yeah.
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I would just say that we didn't work good together and it just, you know, you'd like, it was just work at home and work in the office.
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We just like, we just couldn't get away from it, you know?
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So I, I, yeah.
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So it's like, how, how many years have you been married by the way?
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Yeah, we're going, we're going on six years now.
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Okay.
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So, what is she expecting to change?
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Like, I'm assuming the business has grown a lot and a lot of your time and attention is on that.
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Now she's wanting you to focus back on the family, spending time with them.
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Has it been, like, a matter of, as you've grown, it's always been like the carrot is, like, just a little further and you've been growing, growing, growing, and now this year kind of hit, like, is she threatening to leave or?
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No, it's just so, it's,
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Yeah, I guess, like, as it's been growing, like, we just expected this thing, you know, we could grow it up.
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We were trying to get to a million in revenue.
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We hit that.
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And then we were expecting to be less involved in, you know, the day-to-day, have a few team members that could, like, step in and take things on.
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But it just seems that, like, as we've kept growing, like, when we hit the 500, hit a million, it was just.
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more work.
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It was just, you know, like it, it never got to where we could like step away from the business.
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We couldn't go on vacation.
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Okay, so I agree with you that right now the stuff at home is probably the thing distracting you from the business.
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But I think when you solve the business problem so that you can have more bandwidth at home.
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And so I'm going to work backwards because I'm sure there's a lot of other things with the personal relationship and the marriage that we haven't talked about that would probably be better with, you know, some sort of counselor or therapist or something like that.
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But like, let's start with the business.
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The reason you're spending so much time working inside the business and feel like you can't get home and can't get time off after so many years of building this thing is I'm going to go out on a limb and say, you're working crazy hours right now.
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Like sun up to sun down, seven days a week.
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Yeah.
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Is that the thing that gets her mad?
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Is that the thing that makes her frustrated?
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I mean, definitely like,
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There's there's there's weeks that are slower, but I mean, especially now with the being spring rush like it's just We've gotten so busy and it's just hard to find enough people that are trained up to fill the schedule So I end up having to jump in here and there and then I got estimated afterwards So yeah
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Okay, so I think the first thing I would want to establish with her is what does success look like for her?
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Because otherwise, I feel somewhat nebulous in terms of what we're chasing.
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Like, is it the fact that she wants you off by five?
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Is it the fact she doesn't want you working on the weekends?
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We need rules of engagement.
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And so, like, for my wife and I, we created what we called the Constitution.
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That's when we first got married after it was like, hey, we had our vows.
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But, like, here's the things that we expect from each other.
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And I would recommend getting really clear on this so then you actually have a goal to push towards instead of just being like, I need to work less because it's a slippery slope into you resenting her and her resenting the business.
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And so I would first have a conversation with her.
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So I'm gonna put wife convo.
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And it's a matter of what does success look like?
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And that is, do I need to be at home for dinner?
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And what time is that?
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Do I need to be off on Saturdays and Sundays?
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What is the thing that she's trying to solve for?
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Like right now I've heard, like she wants more time with you.
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She wants you home, more present, et cetera.
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But try to get definition around that because then what we're gonna do is we're gonna go raise prices and stop chasing growth.
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And correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to assume the year before a million, like 2022, 2023, 2024, I'm going to guess you were growing very quickly.
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What were the years of revenue from 2022 to 2024?
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I mean, I guess.
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Yeah, it was a big year.
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We picked up a few trucks, and we probably went from like $500, maybe $600, up to that kind of million-dollar mark.
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Yeah, so you've been in growth mode, and growth mode puts strain on every system of the business.
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It sucks cash, and it also puts a lot of demands on you as the owner to be there at the size of business.
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And so I would highly recommend getting off that treadmill.
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And the reason that you feel like this is a down year is because you've gone down 15% in revenue, but that's because of the distraction of what's at home.
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And to solve what's at home, we need to be able to have more bandwidth.
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And in order to have more bandwidth, you likely need an operations manager.
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You need someone like the unlock from you going from, let's just call it from a growth perspective, 1 million to 3 million is finding someone that's good at operations so that you're not fighting fires with your crew and with bad new customers and jobs that go south.
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And so right now, how much would you, how much would you have to pay?
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Do you think for an operations manager in your market, would you have to pay 80, 90 grand?
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What do you think you have to pay?
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Yeah.
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I mean, at least 80 grand.
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Okay.
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At least.
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Let's just call it 80 grand, okay?
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So we're going to go and we're going to get an ops manager, and we're going to assume they're going to cost $80,000.
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Now, here's the thing.
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How are we going to afford that?
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You're going to raise prices by 15%.
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And if you raise prices by 15% on $850,000, you will pay for this operations manager.
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Okay.
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And so first we have to get clarity around what is the goal?
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Is it time off at a certain time of day?
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Is it getting home and having supper?
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Is it getting to the kids' events?
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Is it having the weekend off?
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We have to establish that so that when you create the job description for your operations manager, you actually incentivize you not being called after a certain time, you not being drawn into a project on the weekend.
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that is in the job description.
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It's tied likely to their incentives.
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So their base pay might be 80, but they can earn 90 if your phone is not ringing after a certain time, for example.
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And all of this is going to be paid because you're gonna raise your prices.
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Now, the reason that you haven't raised prices is because you've been chasing growth.
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and you've been in growth mode for so long that you can't even fathom the thought of raising prices and potentially hurting top-line revenue.
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But ultimately, this whole business, 100% of it is in jeopardy if this goes wrong.
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Because if, and this is like, this is why the confession booth is like, literally this is why it's this.
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The fact of the matter is if this issue that's currently happening at home spirals into more than what it currently is, which is a little bit of friction.
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And like, but her having to leave the business.
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And then if she ever left you, you get 50% of the business walking out the door.
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And it's likely going to tear this whole thing down in a court.
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And in a legal dispute.
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And I'm protecting it against that.
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So we are prioritizing...
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the personal relationship.
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It's already hurt the business by 15%.
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And so if you're afraid of raising your prices and losing 10 or 15% of your customers, like, you know, news alert, you've already lost 15% of your revenue because of the issues at home.
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And so I would highly recommend having the conversation with your wife, determining what success looks like, asking for four to six weeks of grace, and then giving her the plan of I'm going to go hire an operations manager and raise my prices.
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And you will lose some customers, but I promise you the current trajectory of losing 15% year over year because you are personally tapped out and you don't have the support of your spouse, which is...
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Probably going to lead to even a lower year in 2027 if this continues it's gonna get worse Let alone putting the risk of losing all of it if this really spirals out of control We have to prioritize that first.
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So I appreciate you calling in I think for anyone listening Now being married for just about like a year and a half it it is incredible the Delta of Discretion or effort that I can put towards work when what's going on at home We're good and so even though the business is
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the beneficiary of the stress.
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It is the beneficiary of all of this downstream distraction.
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It is just showing what's at home.
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And so we have to get the support of your spouse.
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I can't stress this enough.
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I know most of my audience is young guys.
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Having the support of your significant other, whether it be girlfriend, wife, et cetera, is everything.
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And so if you optimize for that,
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A lot of times the business will take care of itself because now there's, it is so powerful when your spouse is telling you, get out there and go and pushing you onto the field versus trying to pull you off.
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And a lot of times that is because you have not aligned the incentives of the business growing with what they want.
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And for a lot of us guys, I'm talking to you for a second, not myself specifically, my goals are to grow the business.
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My goals are to build the company, grow top line revenue, make more money.
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She could care less.
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And so whoever this was just called me, I'm going to go on a limb and say, your wife isn't any more proud of you at a $500,000 revenue business compared to a million dollars compared to 5 million.
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She just wants you to be at home.
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And so we have to make the business growing align with I will be at home.
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And for a lot of us, it's this constant carrot of like, well, if we just grow one more year, if we can just get one more truck, if I can just get, if I can just add this new service, I'm going to go into this new area, if I can just figure out this marketing channel.
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And so your spouse gets worn out year after year after year of constantly being told it's about to come.
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And the reason it's about to come always is because you're on the growth treadmill.
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And so get off of it by raising prices and being like, maybe an 800,000, 900,000 annual revenue business is actually what you need to serve you and your family the most.
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Not a $5 million business.
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That's fine.
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If you could take $850,000, raise your prices, and I happen to believe you probably won't lose as many customers as you think, you're going to raise it on existing customers, you're going to raise it on recurring customers, you're going to raise it on existing prices for projects upcoming.
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If you do that, you could afford a very qualified operations manager.
206
00:15:24.916 --> 00:15:31.743
$80,000 base, I would put that ramped up to $100,000, and those incentives would be tied around profitability, and then them not calling you.
207
00:15:32.583 --> 00:15:33.664
You're like, I can't afford that.
208
00:15:34.224 --> 00:15:35.466
You're going to raise prices.
209
00:15:35.546 --> 00:15:40.710
And if you raise prices by 15% on a million-dollar business, that's $150,000.
210
00:15:40.990 --> 00:15:47.096
You will afford the operations manager and have extra profit left over.
211
00:15:47.156 --> 00:15:48.697
All right, we got callers coming in.
212
00:15:48.757 --> 00:15:51.860
Next caller is live.
213
00:15:51.880 --> 00:15:52.460
Welcome to the show.
214
00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:53.241
Thank you for coming on.
215
00:15:54.602 --> 00:15:55.023
This is fun.
216
00:15:55.203 --> 00:15:55.543
Hey, Mike.
217
00:15:55.563 --> 00:15:56.544
Thanks for having me on.
218
00:15:56.964 --> 00:15:57.665
Yeah, what's up?
219
00:15:59.393 --> 00:16:05.636
Yeah, so I'm having a little bit of a problem with my business, my family's business.
220
00:16:05.736 --> 00:16:12.539
My father, he started a landscaping and hardskeeping company about 22 years ago.
221
00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:25.985
I grew up around the business and about five years ago, I joined on as an operations manager to kind of take over the operations role for my father as he was trying to transition into retirement.
222
00:16:26.424 --> 00:16:34.027
And, you know, our initial plan was five years ago was to have him kind of step back from the operations role and have me step in.
223
00:16:34.728 --> 00:16:41.691
But it's just been a little bit hard as I feel like I've had the title of operations manager, but he hasn't given me any of the responsibility yet.
224
00:16:42.490 --> 00:16:50.415
You know, when people, when our employees come to, when they have any questions, they always go to my father instead of coming to me.
225
00:16:50.455 --> 00:16:54.597
And I feel like I just have the title, but not actually any of the responsibilities.
226
00:16:54.637 --> 00:17:04.423
So trying to get your advice into, you know, what I can do to kind of step more into the operations role itself in terms of responsibilities and not just have the title there.
227
00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:13.647
Okay, so just so I'm on the same page, when you started with your dad, how long have you been in the business, like working in the company?
228
00:17:15.328 --> 00:17:18.090
Yeah, so full-time I've been working in the company about five years.
229
00:17:18.531 --> 00:17:18.951
Okay.
230
00:17:19.251 --> 00:17:23.174
Obviously, I grew up around the company, but full-time it's been about five years here.
231
00:17:23.795 --> 00:17:28.919
Okay, and did you immediately start with the title of operations manager or did you start out in the field with the crew?
232
00:17:28.939 --> 00:17:29.099
Okay.
233
00:17:30.914 --> 00:17:36.796
Started out in the field and then kind of worked my way up after about two years there into the operations manager title.
234
00:17:37.196 --> 00:17:40.997
Okay, and why does your dad think he needs an operations manager?
235
00:17:41.017 --> 00:17:42.597
Like he's ran it for 22 years the way it is.
236
00:17:42.957 --> 00:17:46.018
Has it grown a bunch or is it just like, he wants out of the business?
237
00:17:46.038 --> 00:17:47.538
Does he want to hand this off to you one day?
238
00:17:47.598 --> 00:17:49.979
Like, why is he even bringing you up in this role?
239
00:17:51.710 --> 00:17:59.016
Yeah, so the original plan was to bring me up in this role so that way my father would eventually step out of the company.
240
00:17:59.136 --> 00:18:05.401
But he just has been having a really hard time letting go of the operations inside of the ball.
241
00:18:06.162 --> 00:18:12.347
He's looking to retire and just be an owner of the business and not actually be involved in the day-to-day.
242
00:18:12.387 --> 00:18:16.450
But he's been doing it so long, it's been hard on him to actually take that step.
243
00:18:17.767 --> 00:18:18.087
Okay.
244
00:18:18.928 --> 00:18:22.733
And when you say, like, is he, are you guys stepping on each other's toes a lot?
245
00:18:22.793 --> 00:18:26.738
Is he coming in and like, when you say something, is he going and telling the crew something else?
246
00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:29.642
Or is he like checked out of the business?
247
00:18:29.702 --> 00:18:31.705
Like what's his involvement in the day-to-day?
248
00:18:33.387 --> 00:18:36.631
Yeah, he's still very, very involved in the day-to-day.
249
00:18:37.293 --> 00:18:40.715
He does go kind of behind our back and like talk to the crew.
250
00:18:41.456 --> 00:18:44.337
Like if I'll say something, you know, he'll kind of say something else.
251
00:18:44.458 --> 00:18:46.359
Not necessarily always intentionally.
252
00:18:46.739 --> 00:18:49.481
Sometimes he doesn't realize that I've kind of told the crew something.
253
00:18:49.541 --> 00:19:01.788
But yeah, he oftentimes, he's very involved in the day-to-day still, even though he said to me five years ago that he's trying to step out and have me step in, but it just hasn't been happening.
254
00:19:02.897 --> 00:19:05.859
Okay, so first off, do you have any equity in the business?
255
00:19:06.039 --> 00:19:09.662
Or is this 100% him and he's just like, hey, down the road, I will hand it off to you?
256
00:19:11.543 --> 00:19:13.065
Yeah, no equity currently.
257
00:19:13.145 --> 00:19:15.867
It's him and then down the road, he wants to hand it off.
258
00:19:16.027 --> 00:19:18.108
That's the ultimate goal that we're trying to work towards.
259
00:19:18.609 --> 00:19:22.952
Okay, so you're working towards it, but do you guys have any actual plans for this?
260
00:19:23.172 --> 00:19:24.573
Do you have a timeline?
261
00:19:24.673 --> 00:19:25.714
Is it like 2030?
262
00:19:26.014 --> 00:19:29.617
Or is this just like, hey, down the road, at some point you'll get the business?
263
00:19:31.689 --> 00:19:39.072
We were hoping that it would be by now that I would have fully stepped into the operations role and being able to lead the teams and the crews.
264
00:19:39.092 --> 00:19:40.272
But that hasn't happened.
265
00:19:40.872 --> 00:19:47.435
The crews too, when they have any sort of questions, if there's any question that comes up on a job site, they always just go straight to him instead of going to me.
266
00:19:47.515 --> 00:19:49.636
And that's been kind of a key issue.
267
00:19:49.696 --> 00:19:56.558
I just feel like I have the title, but I don't actually have the responsibilities and the values of being a leader yet in the company.
268
00:19:57.199 --> 00:19:57.399
Right.
269
00:19:57.419 --> 00:19:57.599
Okay.
270
00:19:58.199 --> 00:19:58.979
And what was the revenue?
271
00:19:59.039 --> 00:19:59.599
I missed that part.
272
00:19:59.619 --> 00:20:00.980
How much revenue are you guys doing a year?
273
00:20:02.846 --> 00:20:04.107
Oh yeah, we do about 1.4.
274
00:20:04.147 --> 00:20:06.068
Last year we did about 1.4 per year.
275
00:20:06.088 --> 00:20:07.048
Okay.
276
00:20:08.049 --> 00:20:08.309
All right.
277
00:20:08.329 --> 00:20:08.689
A million.
278
00:20:08.709 --> 00:20:09.709
A million.
279
00:20:10.350 --> 00:20:12.471
Okay, so I would highly recommend...
280
00:20:14.441 --> 00:20:22.727
I feel like your dad, if you guys had talked about it and you guys had agreed that, hey, we want to buy this time, 2026-ish, have you taken the business over.
281
00:20:22.847 --> 00:20:27.070
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's also frustrated that it's not happening.
282
00:20:27.610 --> 00:20:29.171
And he might not be voicing that.
283
00:20:29.572 --> 00:20:36.857
He might actually be somewhat thinking the exact – he could very well be on the next line of this being like, I can't get this handed off to my kid.
284
00:20:37.337 --> 00:20:40.680
And so I would highly recommend having more role clarity.
285
00:20:41.240 --> 00:20:48.104
Right now, he is kind of jumping in, as he probably has for the past 22 years, between sales, operations, and admin.
286
00:20:48.545 --> 00:20:50.166
But he's asking you to do operations.
287
00:20:51.246 --> 00:20:59.852
And if you're the operations manager, and yet when your crew has a question or wants something, they come to you, you say something, and then they just go to someone else.
288
00:21:00.512 --> 00:21:02.893
Like, there's no real clarity.
289
00:21:02.913 --> 00:21:05.955
And at 1.4, this will keep you at this size forever.
290
00:21:06.576 --> 00:21:09.858
Because he's still the hub that everything is tied to.
291
00:21:10.522 --> 00:21:12.024
the crew, decisions from you.
292
00:21:12.064 --> 00:21:15.447
I'm guessing he doesn't let you make decisions autonomously.
293
00:21:15.867 --> 00:21:20.512
And so I would highly recommend sitting down with him and be like, hey, dad, there are three departments in every business.
294
00:21:20.572 --> 00:21:21.493
Sales, get the work.
295
00:21:21.673 --> 00:21:22.774
Operations, do the work.
296
00:21:23.034 --> 00:21:24.296
Admin, get paid for the work.
297
00:21:24.836 --> 00:21:28.119
We've got to figure out all the things that you do and I do every single day
298
00:21:29.470 --> 00:21:30.892
and put them into these buckets.
299
00:21:31.392 --> 00:21:38.378
And if it's going to be a split 50-50, we've got to determine who's taking over and their name is next to that role in the business.
300
00:21:39.019 --> 00:21:47.487
And so, for example, for me, when it comes to operations, my first question is, when someone wants to call out or calls in sick, for example, who do they contact?
301
00:21:47.947 --> 00:21:49.629
And that is the operations person.
302
00:21:50.089 --> 00:21:51.670
The person that gets contacted when...
303
00:21:52.291 --> 00:21:53.652
the crew's not showing up.
304
00:21:53.692 --> 00:21:55.333
And at 1.4, that's not multiple people.
305
00:21:55.493 --> 00:21:59.436
That's likely supposed to be you in terms of getting the work done, because it affects you.
306
00:21:59.656 --> 00:22:00.737
It doesn't affect getting more work.
307
00:22:00.957 --> 00:22:02.098
It doesn't affect getting paid for the work.
308
00:22:02.118 --> 00:22:05.260
It affects you getting the work done with your crew.
309
00:22:06.260 --> 00:22:18.293
And so I would take everything you do in a day, everything he does in a day, and then just put it up on a wall and be like, okay, sticky notes for every single one, we're gonna organize it in a sales operation anadmin, and we've gotta determine who's doing what.
310
00:22:18.413 --> 00:22:19.875
Like right now, do you do estimates at all?
311
00:22:19.915 --> 00:22:22.698
Are you just out in the field with the crew getting the jobs done?
312
00:22:25.101 --> 00:22:25.321
Um,
313
00:22:26.050 --> 00:22:26.971
I'm just with the crew.
314
00:22:26.991 --> 00:22:28.452
I've done a couple estimates.
315
00:22:28.772 --> 00:22:38.699
I've also tried to raise prices for a couple of our customers, but my father, he just went behind my back and apologized to all the clients that I tried raising the prices on.
316
00:22:38.719 --> 00:22:44.303
We've been kind of blending heads in terms of the actual operations a little bit because essentially...
317
00:22:44.866 --> 00:22:50.027
He's very old school in the way that he runs the company, and I'm trying to modernize it a little bit.
318
00:22:50.107 --> 00:22:53.868
But yeah, I'm still doing some estimates as well there.
319
00:22:54.289 --> 00:22:56.529
Okay, yeah, so I would have this conversation with him.
320
00:22:56.909 --> 00:23:02.771
Even the fact that raising prices is a two-person decision in this company at this size,
321
00:23:03.651 --> 00:23:04.292
isn't necessary.
322
00:23:04.732 --> 00:23:06.574
Getting paid for the work is an admin's role.
323
00:23:07.014 --> 00:23:11.679
So whether you have an office manager or you have... That has nothing to do with operations.
324
00:23:12.059 --> 00:23:15.563
And so I would focus on getting role clarity between these three departments.
325
00:23:15.983 --> 00:23:19.827
Now, when you have a five, 10, $20 million business, this starts to get sectioned off.
326
00:23:20.287 --> 00:23:29.378
and outbound sales, inbound sales, operations starts looking very different based upon certain types of services, admin starts having different sectors of accounts payable, payroll, et cetera.
327
00:23:29.639 --> 00:23:36.587
At your size, it's likely that this is a one person job for sales, a one person job for operations, and a one person job for admin.
328
00:23:37.128 --> 00:23:43.670
and we got to get clear in terms of all functions of the business and then assign that function to a role.
329
00:23:44.090 --> 00:23:52.412
And right now, when I hear there are price increases that we are having disagreements over, I hear probably your dad that usually does estimates over here.
330
00:23:52.852 --> 00:23:54.753
I see the operations manager over here.
331
00:23:54.933 --> 00:23:58.814
And of course, we're going to have disagreement because no one's clear on who's responsible to get paid.
332
00:24:00.257 --> 00:24:02.479
And so I would have this conversation.
333
00:24:02.579 --> 00:24:03.560
I'd get role clarity.
334
00:24:03.660 --> 00:24:09.606
I remember doing this and I was stepping all over the toes of my office manager at the time, which was Liz.
335
00:24:10.226 --> 00:24:15.591
And we had a three hour conversation and we wrote down the 40, 30 or 40 things that I did every single day.
336
00:24:16.272 --> 00:24:17.433
and we just started delegating it.
337
00:24:18.233 --> 00:24:24.798
Everything from opening up the gate in the morning to opening up the shop, unlocking it, at the end of the day, who would close up the cash register.
338
00:24:25.198 --> 00:24:28.620
Every single thing I did, we just listed it off and then just started delegating it.
339
00:24:28.720 --> 00:24:35.305
And it had to fall into these buckets of sales, operations, and admin because otherwise I was in the email, she was in the email.
340
00:24:35.785 --> 00:24:37.947
She was answering the voicemail, I was answering the voicemail.
341
00:24:38.547 --> 00:24:40.128
then customers get contacted twice.
342
00:24:40.248 --> 00:24:44.551
Then I get frustrated because I'm out doing estimates and I'm also in the email inbox responding to people.
343
00:24:44.791 --> 00:24:46.212
You have to have role clarity.
344
00:24:46.573 --> 00:24:54.778
Otherwise, it will inevitably create friction inside the relationship, whether it's father, son, whether it's spouses, whether it's just coworkers and employees.
345
00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:59.542
If you don't have role clarity, especially at $1.4 million, it will not grow.
346
00:24:59.642 --> 00:25:04.365
And furthermore, you will just constantly be colliding into each other throughout all functions of the business.
347
00:25:05.726 --> 00:25:08.088
What type of customers you get is one person's responsibility.
348
00:25:09.222 --> 00:25:10.203
I don't need to be bouncing.
349
00:25:10.223 --> 00:25:14.425
It slows the whole organization down when I can't just make decisions as a salesperson.
350
00:25:14.805 --> 00:25:22.689
Operations, I shouldn't be bringing three people in about the fact that someone is late to work or is going to get a performance improvement plan or that a customer's job went south.
351
00:25:23.430 --> 00:25:26.351
A customer's job going south is the last thing you want your salesperson to hear.
352
00:25:27.032 --> 00:25:28.273
Your admin doesn't need to deal with it.
353
00:25:28.373 --> 00:25:30.614
That's an operations manager's job.
354
00:25:31.578 --> 00:25:42.661
And so having role clarity, and it's likely that underneath each of these, there are 10 to 20 different tasks that just need to have clarity of who's responsible for what and then putting the name of the person that is responsible for these three functions.
355
00:25:43.221 --> 00:25:52.663
Now, if you're a smaller business and not doing 1.4 million, whoever that was calling, if someone else is listening, and you're doing 300,000, 400,000, you're not going to have one person for each of these.
356
00:25:52.963 --> 00:25:57.344
But as you grow the business, especially past a million, we have to have role clarity.
357
00:25:57.764 --> 00:25:59.845
Otherwise, it's just constant war with each other.
358
00:26:00.145 --> 00:26:02.008
because we're stepping on each other's toes all the time.
359
00:26:02.549 --> 00:26:08.077
Your office and admin person is trying to be in the email and answer voicemail, but you're bouncing in there on the weekend messing them up.
360
00:26:08.998 --> 00:26:10.520
And you're supposed to be focused on getting more jobs.
361
00:26:11.882 --> 00:26:13.544
You're supposed to be focused on training the crew.
362
00:26:14.525 --> 00:26:25.432
And so if you're smaller than 1.4, I'm gonna first delegate this task, admin, then I'm gonna delegate operations, and then as I pass that 1.4, 1.5 million, then I focus just on sales.
363
00:26:25.952 --> 00:26:29.074
But just make sure that when you delegate it, you really actually let it go.
364
00:26:29.575 --> 00:26:32.497
You're not bopping in on the email on the weekend, you're not checking the voicemail.
365
00:26:33.358 --> 00:26:36.940
When you hand off operations, you don't do what the father of whoever just did this.
366
00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:38.640
Like, oh, I want you to be an operations manager.
367
00:26:38.861 --> 00:26:40.061
See how discouraged his son is?
368
00:26:40.081 --> 00:26:43.002
Like, if you, again, I'm just trying to make this relevant to everyone else listening.
369
00:26:43.303 --> 00:26:48.305
If you have an operations person or a general manager and they're responsible for the crew, don't go around their back.
370
00:26:49.628 --> 00:26:58.435
If an employee comes to you after you know they just got an answer from the GM or from the operations manager, you back up your operations manager and tell them to go back to the operations manager.
371
00:26:58.815 --> 00:27:01.577
And you say, hey, did you already run this by so-and-so, the operations manager?
372
00:27:01.837 --> 00:27:02.257
Oh, yeah, okay.
373
00:27:02.358 --> 00:27:03.699
Whatever they say, I'm going with it.
374
00:27:04.219 --> 00:27:05.620
And you say, well, what if I want to add to it?
375
00:27:06.080 --> 00:27:07.001
What if I actually disagree?
376
00:27:07.381 --> 00:27:10.504
It doesn't matter because as soon as you inject and you jump,
377
00:27:11.204 --> 00:27:16.986
out of your role at this size of business and you jump into operations, you have handicapped forever your operations person.
378
00:27:17.446 --> 00:27:30.171
And that is far more detrimental, handicapping another role inside the organization, far more detrimental to the business and the growth of the business and the culture of the business compared to like one job, one customer, one instance going wrong.
379
00:27:30.552 --> 00:27:39.315
You can always go behind a closed door and talk to your operations manager, but don't have the people that are reporting to them come around them to you and then you give a different answer.
380
00:27:40.315 --> 00:27:41.857
Very detrimental to the culture of the business.
381
00:27:42.838 --> 00:27:44.199
I'm absolutely in love with the show.
382
00:27:45.040 --> 00:27:47.763
All right, we got more people in the, oh yes, thank you.
383
00:27:47.943 --> 00:27:48.524
I appreciate that.
384
00:27:49.485 --> 00:27:57.754
If you want me to come out to your business and do this in person, and you don't mind, like right now this is anonymous on the, what's this show called?
385
00:27:58.435 --> 00:27:59.176
The show is called the,
386
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:01.481
I'm already blanking.
387
00:28:01.541 --> 00:28:02.142
Confession booth.
388
00:28:02.162 --> 00:28:02.983
This is the confession booth.
389
00:28:03.003 --> 00:28:04.125
Thank you, Jace, in the back room.
390
00:28:04.505 --> 00:28:12.256
This is the confession booth, but if you don't mind it being more public, I will come out in person, see your operations, and actually do all of this with you.
391
00:28:12.877 --> 00:28:15.521
You can apply on the turnaround show right here.
392
00:28:16.422 --> 00:28:18.283
Go down in the description of this video.
393
00:28:18.303 --> 00:28:18.963
There is a link.
394
00:28:19.443 --> 00:28:20.163
Takes you five minutes.
395
00:28:20.203 --> 00:28:20.844
I'll come out in person.
396
00:28:20.864 --> 00:28:21.864
It's completely free.
397
00:28:22.824 --> 00:28:29.387
But if you would like me to see more in depth of your actual operation with your team, how you do things, I'm happy to come do it.
398
00:28:29.767 --> 00:28:30.387
Just apply.
399
00:28:30.427 --> 00:28:31.508
It takes you literally five minutes.
400
00:28:31.528 --> 00:28:32.368
You submit a quick video.
401
00:28:32.668 --> 00:28:34.769
We have filled both spots in May.
402
00:28:34.869 --> 00:28:37.710
We now have a couple spots in June coming up.
403
00:28:38.170 --> 00:28:38.510
All right.
404
00:28:38.650 --> 00:28:41.251
Let's go ahead and go to our next caller.
405
00:28:41.271 --> 00:28:42.652
We've got a few more in the waiting room.
406
00:28:42.672 --> 00:28:43.732
Thank you all for being patient.
407
00:28:44.413 --> 00:28:44.813
You're on.
408
00:28:44.853 --> 00:28:45.213
You're live.
409
00:28:45.253 --> 00:28:45.573
Go ahead.
410
00:28:47.534 --> 00:28:48.455
Hey, Mike, how you doing?
411
00:28:48.735 --> 00:28:49.355
Good, how you doing?
412
00:28:49.375 --> 00:28:51.176
Thanks for coming on.
413
00:28:51.236 --> 00:28:52.197
Welcome to the confession booth.
414
00:28:52.217 --> 00:28:55.238
Doing well, thanks for asking.
415
00:28:55.558 --> 00:28:56.959
Good to be here, good to be here.
416
00:28:57.419 --> 00:29:00.621
I have a pool cleaning and maintenance company.
417
00:29:01.962 --> 00:29:04.403
We do around $620 a year.
418
00:29:04.423 --> 00:29:10.446
You know, I got around six techs, and I got a dispatcher and admin person.
419
00:29:10.526 --> 00:29:11.587
Wait, is that two people?
420
00:29:11.607 --> 00:29:12.707
Things are going pretty smooth.
421
00:29:12.827 --> 00:29:15.369
The admin person, do they dispatch just one person?
422
00:29:16.901 --> 00:29:18.062
ONE PERSON, ONE PERSON.
423
00:29:18.082 --> 00:29:18.962
YEAH, SORRY ABOUT THAT.
424
00:29:19.943 --> 00:29:26.068
YEAH, SO ESSENTIALLY, YOU KNOW, WE'VE BEEN HAVING SOME SLIP-UPS DUE TO QUALITY, AND
425
00:29:27.261 --> 00:29:32.843
Primarily, I try to put some things in place to kind of tighten everything up.
426
00:29:33.083 --> 00:29:38.265
And I have a senior tech pushing back pretty hard against me.
427
00:29:38.505 --> 00:29:40.265
He's been with us for about four years.
428
00:29:40.305 --> 00:29:41.366
He's a great guy.
429
00:29:41.746 --> 00:29:43.066
The guys really love him.
430
00:29:43.526 --> 00:29:47.488
But I'm thinking he's kind of doing some shady stuff behind my back.
431
00:29:48.368 --> 00:29:48.788
Like what?
432
00:29:51.149 --> 00:29:55.010
Well, last week I found out he was texting some customers.
433
00:29:55.695 --> 00:29:59.096
saying if they ever need anything changed.
434
00:30:03.317 --> 00:30:03.817
Do we lose him?
435
00:30:05.958 --> 00:30:06.638
I think we lost him.
436
00:30:09.219 --> 00:30:12.160
Oh, you can call back in, see if we can catch him.
437
00:30:12.520 --> 00:30:15.781
Okay, so while, let's try to get him back on, if we can.
438
00:30:16.601 --> 00:30:22.582
Okay, so we have a pool business that's doing $620,000, has six technicians, one admin person.
439
00:30:22.602 --> 00:30:24.223
Sounds like we have a rogue employee.
440
00:30:25.984 --> 00:30:26.844
Let's try to get him back in.
441
00:30:26.864 --> 00:30:33.347
I don't know who that was, obviously, but if you guys can get him back in, I'd like to just continue, so it doesn't break up the show.
442
00:30:35.228 --> 00:30:35.548
Okay.
443
00:30:36.709 --> 00:30:38.590
Are they back in the show here?
444
00:30:38.790 --> 00:30:39.671
Can we pull this one in?
445
00:30:42.852 --> 00:30:43.212
No.
446
00:30:44.253 --> 00:30:46.794
Okay, well, hopefully whoever that was can call back in.
447
00:30:48.475 --> 00:30:49.055
Okay, is that it?
448
00:30:50.376 --> 00:30:50.656
Hello?
449
00:30:50.976 --> 00:30:51.376
Can you hear me?
450
00:30:51.577 --> 00:30:52.217
Is this the pool man?
451
00:30:54.738 --> 00:30:55.199
Check one, two.
452
00:30:55.219 --> 00:30:55.979
This is not the pool man.
453
00:30:55.999 --> 00:30:56.720
This is the grass man.
454
00:30:57.581 --> 00:30:57.841
It is?
455
00:30:57.942 --> 00:30:58.222
Okay.
456
00:30:58.302 --> 00:30:58.602
All right.
457
00:30:58.843 --> 00:31:00.224
Well, we'll come back to the pool man.
458
00:31:00.845 --> 00:31:01.245
Go ahead.
459
00:31:01.285 --> 00:31:01.826
Welcome to the show.
460
00:31:01.846 --> 00:31:02.627
Thank you for coming on.
461
00:31:07.172 --> 00:31:07.452
Hey, Mike.
462
00:31:07.472 --> 00:31:08.793
This is... Can you hear me?
463
00:31:08.953 --> 00:31:09.374
I can hear you.
464
00:31:09.394 --> 00:31:09.794
Am I the right one?
465
00:31:09.935 --> 00:31:11.056
You don't have to say your name, though.
466
00:31:11.076 --> 00:31:11.436
You're good.
467
00:31:11.777 --> 00:31:12.137
All right.
468
00:31:13.118 --> 00:31:14.099
I ain't gonna say my name.
469
00:31:15.099 --> 00:31:16.020
Here's what I'm going through.
470
00:31:16.300 --> 00:31:20.303
I have gone through two general managers in the last six weeks.
471
00:31:20.943 --> 00:31:22.845
Both of them started the season with us.
472
00:31:23.225 --> 00:31:24.205
Excellent employees.
473
00:31:24.406 --> 00:31:28.808
I asked for a year-long commitment from them because we were going to take on some large contracts.
474
00:31:29.909 --> 00:31:35.633
Both of them gave that, and then within four weeks of each other, so they're quitting and going off to do something else.
475
00:31:36.454 --> 00:31:40.156
And so that means I am looking at stepping back into the field specifically
476
00:31:40.841 --> 00:31:45.923
And I'm curious, what can I cut out so that my business does not suffer so much?
477
00:31:45.983 --> 00:31:51.845
We do mowing, we do fertilizer, weed control, and then we make a little bit of money on the upsells and other services.
478
00:31:52.465 --> 00:31:57.687
But if I can no longer be in the office selling those on a regular basis, the upsells are going to suffer.
479
00:31:58.408 --> 00:31:59.368
What is my solution?
480
00:31:59.388 --> 00:32:03.730
And the other thing is, how can I stop losing general managers at such a great speed?
481
00:32:04.610 --> 00:32:04.870
Okay.
482
00:32:05.050 --> 00:32:10.092
Are these two different locations or did you burn through one GM, hire another one and burn through them?
483
00:32:12.548 --> 00:32:16.090
Burns threw one GM and hired another one.
484
00:32:16.190 --> 00:32:21.754
And then he, two weeks after taking on the GM position, said he's going to be leaving here after a number of weeks.
485
00:32:22.275 --> 00:32:22.535
Okay.
486
00:32:22.915 --> 00:32:26.958
And again, this is anonymous, but like, did they say why they're leaving?
487
00:32:26.978 --> 00:32:30.260
Or are they just like, hey, I got another job, and they didn't really give you anything clear?
488
00:32:32.478 --> 00:32:34.860
The first one said, hey, there's no future in grass cutting.
489
00:32:35.540 --> 00:32:41.003
There's no future in lawn care, which tells me that I didn't do a great job painting the vision for him.
490
00:32:41.023 --> 00:32:46.967
The second one really has not given a reason as to why he's leaving.
491
00:32:48.388 --> 00:32:49.649
Okay.
492
00:32:49.889 --> 00:32:53.992
So two things I would do is whenever someone says there is no future,
493
00:32:55.893 --> 00:32:58.495
I love the fact that you took ownership of like the hiring process.
494
00:32:58.895 --> 00:33:04.138
The other part of it is though, like you've technically won that game of, because you've got them on board.
495
00:33:04.579 --> 00:33:06.540
So there's hiring, then there's onboarding.
496
00:33:06.860 --> 00:33:10.662
And I think what you're currently struggling with is the onboarding ramp.
497
00:33:11.283 --> 00:33:16.766
And so there needs to be career progression once someone is inside of a role that does seem monotonous.
498
00:33:16.926 --> 00:33:23.170
And for example, when it comes to home services, I'm assuming like managing like six, 10 employees, how many are they managing?
499
00:33:25.533 --> 00:33:27.174
He's managing six employees, yes.
500
00:33:27.454 --> 00:33:39.801
Yeah, so like when you're managing six guys and you're doing the type of services you are, there's not a huge amount of variety and newness between days in the week or weeks in the month.
501
00:33:40.181 --> 00:33:45.805
And so it can very much become like their first couple of weeks they realize, oh, this is gonna be the same thing all the time.
502
00:33:46.585 --> 00:33:49.768
So the first thing I would do is reset expectations during the hiring process.
503
00:33:49.948 --> 00:33:56.174
Most of the time when someone leaves in the first few weeks is a mismatch of expectations versus reality.
504
00:33:56.975 --> 00:34:05.322
And that could be expectations around the compensation, that could be expectations around their role, that it could be expectations of what their day-to-day looks like.
505
00:34:05.843 --> 00:34:11.388
And so getting really clear with the expectations of what the job actually feels like is important.
506
00:34:11.888 --> 00:34:18.450
This is why for us, a lot of times when I hire GM, I want them in the field for at least a year before I move them up into management.
507
00:34:18.810 --> 00:34:22.231
The challenging part, sometimes you can have an excellent manager that doesn't wanna be out in the field.
508
00:34:22.991 --> 00:34:27.513
At six technicians, I need my guy, my general manager, okay with being in the field a little bit.
509
00:34:28.193 --> 00:34:31.334
And so I would reset expectations during the hiring.
510
00:34:31.494 --> 00:34:31.754
Go ahead.
511
00:34:34.155 --> 00:34:35.575
Both of them have been in the field.
512
00:34:35.755 --> 00:34:39.216
One was in the years for five years before he became the general manager.
513
00:34:39.556 --> 00:34:41.557
As I started, he was one of my first hires.
514
00:34:42.408 --> 00:34:44.269
Uh, and the other one has been in the field for two years.
515
00:34:44.329 --> 00:34:46.569
So I, they, they know what they're getting into.
516
00:34:46.589 --> 00:34:49.430
They're a working GM alongside myself.
517
00:34:50.070 --> 00:34:56.572
I just couldn't handle all the employees phone calls and doing sales and, you know, client calls as well.
518
00:34:57.012 --> 00:35:02.334
So I was trying to, I guess, technically you could call them an operations manager over a GM, right?
519
00:35:02.934 --> 00:35:03.074
Yeah.
520
00:35:03.094 --> 00:35:06.635
Like, um, but I was trying to get them more into the GM role where they handled sales and stuff.
521
00:35:07.151 --> 00:35:07.431
Got it.
522
00:35:07.992 --> 00:35:08.633
I will say this.
523
00:35:09.433 --> 00:35:10.655
This could actually be the reason then.
524
00:35:11.115 --> 00:35:22.007
If you're pushing someone to do sales and they've been in the field for five years, they almost always will push back because they're so used of, and obviously for five years as they've been in the field, they're okay with the work.
525
00:35:22.968 --> 00:35:29.374
If you're pushing them to do something that's completely out of their wheelhouse and makes them super uncomfortable, that's when they're just like, I can't do this.
526
00:35:30.158 --> 00:35:38.787
And they might not say that to you, but it's fact that for five years, they're okay with the, quote, monotony of doing the actual physical labor.
527
00:35:39.829 --> 00:35:45.735
When you put in front of them the progression to have to do sales or the office and admin work, they've never done that before.
528
00:35:46.275 --> 00:35:49.859
And so I really like the idea of, like, this is more of an operations manager role
529
00:35:50.819 --> 00:35:51.939
And you don't have to do sales.
530
00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:53.440
You don't have to do admin.
531
00:35:54.020 --> 00:36:00.962
That might mean down the road, you hire virtual admin, or you take on sales, or you try to automate more of your sales, especially around pools.
532
00:36:01.322 --> 00:36:02.302
Sorry, it's not pools, sorry.
533
00:36:02.762 --> 00:36:09.004
Especially around, like, if you do fertilization, lawn care, you can get a lot of this to be like, instant quote, over the phone estimates.
534
00:36:09.424 --> 00:36:13.125
I would push that really hard so that you don't require them to have to do sales.
535
00:36:17.713 --> 00:36:25.717
What should I be in the fact that both of these fellows are leaving that uses up my queue of solid people to put into that role.
536
00:36:26.117 --> 00:36:28.098
So obviously I will have to step back in.
537
00:36:28.579 --> 00:36:31.360
What should the business look like for the rest of the year?
538
00:36:31.380 --> 00:36:32.580
Yeah.
539
00:36:32.641 --> 00:36:33.401
Can you convince them?
540
00:36:33.421 --> 00:36:35.102
Can we just focus on mowing and fertilizer we control?
541
00:36:35.362 --> 00:36:35.562
Right.
542
00:36:35.582 --> 00:36:38.203
Can you convince them to stay on as technicians or they're gone?
543
00:36:38.223 --> 00:36:38.603
They're gone.
544
00:36:42.005 --> 00:36:43.249
They're gone.
545
00:36:43.510 --> 00:36:47.785
One of them's committed to another project that starts August 1st.
546
00:36:49.312 --> 00:36:52.656
I think for now, I would definitely hire technicians.
547
00:36:54.297 --> 00:37:00.243
I would make sure that you step into the role of GM, which is doing operations and sales for the time being.
548
00:37:00.744 --> 00:37:07.972
I would focus, if you have to cut anywhere, yes, I would focus on the recurring revenue side to prevent you from having to be in operations as much.
549
00:37:08.572 --> 00:37:11.555
Because operations with one-time projects is far more intense.
550
00:37:12.696 --> 00:37:18.942
I would then start restructuring the business to automate sales as much as possible and automate admin as much as possible.
551
00:37:18.962 --> 00:37:21.724
I get it off the plate of the future leader of the business.
552
00:37:22.264 --> 00:37:25.127
Because I happen to believe you're really solid leading your crew.
553
00:37:25.747 --> 00:37:28.670
And it's evidenced by the fact that you had someone stay with you for five years.
554
00:37:30.088 --> 00:37:37.250
What is happening though is they're being brought into a quote, GM role, and they are feeling like they should be getting an easier job, it should be better.
555
00:37:37.611 --> 00:37:40.752
And then they're hitting with the reality of, you gotta pick up the phone and do upsells.
556
00:37:41.192 --> 00:37:45.173
You gotta go do estimates, you gotta meet and talk to customers, and that's something they are not comfortable with.
557
00:37:45.933 --> 00:37:52.855
You gotta pick up the phone, to some of them, it's a lot more scary than going back to a customer's house after a yellow slip or a callback.
558
00:37:55.596 --> 00:37:57.337
Right, that makes sense.
559
00:37:58.230 --> 00:38:13.221
I know it's not a fun one, but I think after you take a step back, you put yourself back in the operations and sales side of things and get some solid technicians out in the field, I would just focus on a year of how do I simplify this business?
560
00:38:13.702 --> 00:38:16.484
How do I make sure that as much as possible is recurring?
561
00:38:17.104 --> 00:38:24.050
If I do that, I can then make sure that the sales and the admin is more streamlined that can be farmed out, delegated, or put online.
562
00:38:24.790 --> 00:38:26.551
via instant quotes or over-the-phone estimates.
563
00:38:27.032 --> 00:38:33.277
And then I'd be taking one of my technicians and moving them to a role where most of their job is managing the team.
564
00:38:33.457 --> 00:38:36.339
Because that's something that is very hard to automate.
565
00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:39.581
No one wants to have their one-on-one meeting with a robot or with AI.
566
00:38:39.761 --> 00:38:40.922
They want to have a manager.
567
00:38:41.503 --> 00:38:47.768
And so you're trying to replace yourself there, but you're also asking them to do sales and admin, which they are not comfortable with.
568
00:38:48.408 --> 00:39:02.911
And so I do not require, when I have built a location and I'm handing it off to a GM, I do not want them to have to switch from doing the work to selling tons of jobs, doing follow-up phone calls, because the likelihood of them going and doing their own thing, they're entrepreneurial.
569
00:39:02.951 --> 00:39:08.793
If they can do that, if they can start up and spin up a business and grow it fast, that's a very, very talented, very expensive person.
570
00:39:09.313 --> 00:39:17.195
If I can build a location, though, to the point where it's mostly recurring revenue, I'm able to get sales basically automated or over the phone, and then get sales.
571
00:39:18.875 --> 00:39:22.276
I admin to be farmed out, delegated, hired elsewhere.
572
00:39:22.636 --> 00:39:25.136
Then their main job is to manage the team.
573
00:39:25.616 --> 00:39:27.977
Hire, train, and make sure the work gets done.
574
00:39:28.217 --> 00:39:28.797
Operations.
575
00:39:29.297 --> 00:39:33.638
And I wanna keep them out of sales and admin as much as possible, because they're not comfortable with it.
576
00:39:34.138 --> 00:39:39.039
And if you're going to go out and try to find someone that's good at sales, operations, and admin, you're looking for a unicorn.
577
00:39:39.339 --> 00:39:40.839
And they exist, they're just expensive.
578
00:39:40.859 --> 00:39:41.899
You're gonna have to pay six figures.
579
00:39:42.499 --> 00:39:46.800
You're gonna have to pay six figures for someone that can grow a business, that can,
580
00:39:47.887 --> 00:39:55.170
get all the crew online and you never answer a phone call, and admin to also make sure that emails are being handled, payroll is being handled.
581
00:39:55.310 --> 00:39:57.471
If they're gonna manage all of that, it's a very expensive role.
582
00:39:57.991 --> 00:40:02.153
And so I love the idea of having career progression for your technicians to move into a general manager.
583
00:40:02.673 --> 00:40:05.994
Once they're there, I need more career advancement.
584
00:40:06.254 --> 00:40:09.435
So you're like, well, what if they want to be able to do sales and admin down the road?
585
00:40:09.756 --> 00:40:12.517
I want this GM starting out here on level one,
586
00:40:13.398 --> 00:40:17.900
And then maybe after six months, after a spring rush, they go to level two.
587
00:40:18.940 --> 00:40:21.801
Maybe after an off season of being profitable, they go to level three.
588
00:40:22.081 --> 00:40:28.483
And each of these could unlock more compensation, but at least have a different stage or career progression for this GM to move up into.
589
00:40:28.764 --> 00:40:30.484
And maybe they even want to do sales one day.
590
00:40:30.724 --> 00:40:32.365
Maybe they want to start their own location for you.
591
00:40:32.685 --> 00:40:35.846
Maybe they would like to figure out admin and how this all works.
592
00:40:35.886 --> 00:40:37.927
Great, that would just be down the road.
593
00:40:38.467 --> 00:40:44.149
And what's happening is we are throwing them in at stage one with sales, operations, and admin far too soon.
594
00:40:44.169 --> 00:40:46.530
And it puts them out of their comfort zone and they're bailing.
595
00:40:46.890 --> 00:40:52.093
When in reality, if they stay with you for another five years, they might actually be able to do that for you down the road.
596
00:40:52.253 --> 00:40:58.795
But right now, their expectations of what a GM looks like is very different than what the actual job description is once they get started.
597
00:40:58.815 --> 00:41:02.877
Because you're expecting them to do sales and admin and that makes them very, very uncomfortable.
598
00:41:03.257 --> 00:41:08.480
And so either A, you simplify the business and you try to get sales and admin off of their plate so they can just focus on operations.
599
00:41:09.020 --> 00:41:14.944
Or you get them started and then you slowly bake those other aspects into the business as you back up.
600
00:41:15.805 --> 00:41:16.665
There's no right or wrong.
601
00:41:16.825 --> 00:41:17.626
Either one of those will work.
602
00:41:18.586 --> 00:41:22.188
Did we get the, okay, I think this is the pool guy is coming back.
603
00:41:23.649 --> 00:41:24.390
I think this is the caller.
604
00:41:24.530 --> 00:41:26.431
Caller, is this pool man?
605
00:41:26.451 --> 00:41:26.711
Yeah.
606
00:41:28.782 --> 00:41:30.124
Yeah, hey, hey, can you hear me?
607
00:41:30.284 --> 00:41:30.544
Yes.
608
00:41:30.925 --> 00:41:32.767
Okay, can you bring us back up to speed?
609
00:41:32.787 --> 00:41:34.429
I don't know if you dropped out or what happened there.
610
00:41:36.352 --> 00:41:37.012
Yeah, so sorry.
611
00:41:37.072 --> 00:41:38.775
I was going through some service there.
612
00:41:38.815 --> 00:41:44.862
But, yeah, like I said, I really think something shady is going on behind my back.
613
00:41:46.568 --> 00:42:00.862
Just last week, I found out that the senior tech had been texting customers from a personal phone, and he's been basically telling them if anything ever changes that he's there for them.
614
00:42:01.362 --> 00:42:06.787
And, you know, believe it or not, two of the younger guys were saying they might leave with them.
615
00:42:07.808 --> 00:42:09.710
So I'm just, you know, I'm...
616
00:42:10.830 --> 00:42:12.932
I don't know what to do, Mike.
617
00:42:13.352 --> 00:42:20.416
I'm scared about firing the tech because I'm scared some of the guys are going to run off with him and start their own thing.
618
00:42:21.236 --> 00:42:22.437
Like I said, he's a great guy.
619
00:42:22.457 --> 00:42:23.758
He's been around for four years.
620
00:42:23.838 --> 00:42:27.580
It's kind of hit me out of the blue, and I'm just wondering what to do.
621
00:42:28.380 --> 00:42:33.783
So for your pool business, the $620,000, is that almost all recurring revenue, like cleaning?
622
00:42:33.983 --> 00:42:36.925
Or do you do installs and repairs as well?
623
00:42:37.826 --> 00:42:38.446
A little bit of both.
624
00:42:38.955 --> 00:42:42.436
No, we're strictly just a pool cleaning and a maintenance company.
625
00:42:42.456 --> 00:42:42.856
That's it.
626
00:42:42.876 --> 00:42:43.557
That's all we do.
627
00:42:44.117 --> 00:42:44.377
All right.
628
00:42:44.557 --> 00:42:47.698
So if someone, if an employee is, have you confronted him about this?
629
00:42:47.778 --> 00:42:52.660
Or is this just like you've heard about it from customers or like another crew member tattled on him?
630
00:42:55.216 --> 00:42:59.618
Well, you know, I've heard it from a couple of other guys.
631
00:42:59.638 --> 00:43:17.548
I obviously don't want to say too much, spill the beans out there or throw anybody under the bus, but, you know, I've heard it from one of my guys that, you know, he's been kind of looking around, and, you know, I've actually gotten a message the other day from another customer just, you know, letting me know that, you know,
632
00:43:17.988 --> 00:43:26.576
He's been reaching out and he gave them their personal number and that he's been there if they ever need any extra side work or anything like that.
633
00:43:26.997 --> 00:43:30.720
Okay, so we are going to prepare for war on this one.
634
00:43:31.641 --> 00:43:37.387
When someone's doing that, they're basically preparing to tear down the business and they're going to potentially take some of your team.
635
00:43:39.053 --> 00:43:40.134
We're past reconciliation.
636
00:43:40.154 --> 00:43:41.894
This is past, let's have a conversation.
637
00:43:42.315 --> 00:43:45.256
We are going to prepare to let these people go, i.e.
638
00:43:45.276 --> 00:43:46.657
this one lead, all right?
639
00:43:46.917 --> 00:43:50.678
Now, we have this asterisk next to these other two team members.
640
00:43:52.399 --> 00:43:53.820
First, what is he saying?
641
00:43:54.760 --> 00:43:56.401
To poison these guys, what is he saying?
642
00:43:57.602 --> 00:44:00.523
The lead technician, is he telling these guys something weird?
643
00:44:02.716 --> 00:44:11.105
Well, basically what happened is, you know, like I said, whenever I called previously, we've been getting some, you know, quality complaints more or less.
644
00:44:11.185 --> 00:44:20.795
And I put a couple of things, you know, in process there, like, you know, say, for example, I put in a, you know, a.
645
00:44:25.343 --> 00:44:32.249
I DID SAY NO CASH SIDE WORK AFTER I GOT THAT TEXT MESSAGE.
646
00:44:32.649 --> 00:44:34.951
I DIDN'T POINT HIM OUT OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.
647
00:44:35.331 --> 00:44:36.892
I SAID NO CASH SIDE WORK.
648
00:44:37.293 --> 00:44:40.055
AND THEN I ALSO SAID NO SKIPPING STOPS.
649
00:44:40.535 --> 00:44:42.577
HE KIND OF PUSHED BACK HARD ON THAT.
650
00:44:42.777 --> 00:44:46.019
HE SAID THAT HE'S BEEN WITH THE COMPANY FOR FOUR YEARS.
651
00:44:46.120 --> 00:44:47.921
HE DOESN'T FEEL LIKE I TRUST HIM OR THE GUYS.
652
00:44:47.941 --> 00:44:49.502
AND I THINK HE'S BEEN WITH THE COMPANY FOR FOUR YEARS.
653
00:44:49.582 --> 00:44:50.443
HE DOESN'T FEEL LIKE I TRUST
654
00:44:50.684 --> 00:44:52.649
You know, and that's kind of where it all went down.
655
00:44:53.669 --> 00:45:09.340
Okay, so like I do think that, you know, if we replay this, how we position some of these changes to the system of the biz, maybe we could have positioned that slightly different to the team and explain to them the why of why the GPS is important, why tracking things inside software, etc.
656
00:45:09.780 --> 00:45:10.460
That's important.
657
00:45:10.481 --> 00:45:11.741
That's a part of running a business.
658
00:45:12.042 --> 00:45:14.443
We've crossed that line and now you have someone sour against you.
659
00:45:14.463 --> 00:45:15.504
We've got to get the cancer out.
660
00:45:15.864 --> 00:45:20.948
The longer the cancer stays in, the more of these technicians he's going to pull away and potentially put the business at risk.
661
00:45:21.508 --> 00:45:27.433
And so if I was you, I'd be trying to find a replacement for not just this person, but probably one other technician.
662
00:45:27.673 --> 00:45:32.157
Now, the good news is you've got three technicians that sound like they've not really been poisoned by this guy.
663
00:45:33.058 --> 00:45:37.642
So I would be as fast as possible looking to hire two technicians.
664
00:45:38.262 --> 00:45:40.104
If you hired two techs.
665
00:45:43.980 --> 00:45:48.584
If you had these guys in your back pocket, you would immediately fire this person knowing you can get the work done.
666
00:45:49.025 --> 00:45:57.013
Now I understand he's like your top performer, he's been with you for a while, but when a culture has a cancer, you cut the cancer out and the rest of the organisms thrives.
667
00:45:58.053 --> 00:46:02.956
And so I have seen it time and time again where I go into a bad culture or a culture in a cancer in our organization.
668
00:46:03.416 --> 00:46:06.518
You cut out the cancer and all of a sudden everyone gets like 30% more efficient.
669
00:46:07.058 --> 00:46:14.803
Because all of a sudden they don't have to spend all their discretionary effort towards rumors and saying stupid stuff about each other or about the boss or about customers.
670
00:46:15.043 --> 00:46:18.025
There's not this underlying tension of what's happening inside the company.
671
00:46:18.065 --> 00:46:19.005
Is my job even safe?
672
00:46:19.365 --> 00:46:21.166
So like you have to get rid of the cancer.
673
00:46:21.306 --> 00:46:21.847
You have to.
674
00:46:22.507 --> 00:46:28.130
Now, you're not doing it and you haven't done it so far because you're afraid that if you do that, you're not going to get the work done.
675
00:46:28.871 --> 00:46:30.251
The good news is you have recurring revenue.
676
00:46:30.311 --> 00:46:32.252
You don't have one-time projects that are time-sensitive.
677
00:46:33.073 --> 00:46:36.535
And so I would highly recommend you fire this person.
678
00:46:37.670 --> 00:46:38.611
There's no conversation.
679
00:46:39.371 --> 00:46:40.612
They've already talked to customers.
680
00:46:40.632 --> 00:46:41.713
They're souring the culture.
681
00:46:41.954 --> 00:46:44.155
We need the cancer out as fast as possible.
682
00:46:44.456 --> 00:46:48.019
We have never fired someone where I'm like, man, I wish we wouldn't have fired them.
683
00:46:48.379 --> 00:46:51.101
There's never been a time six months later, like I wish I had them back.
684
00:46:51.782 --> 00:46:55.965
So go hire the two technicians, tell them, hey, I'm starting you on this date.
685
00:46:56.165 --> 00:46:59.008
So like today's May 4th, you're starting, what is it?
686
00:46:59.468 --> 00:47:01.930
May 18th or 20th, give them two weeks.
687
00:47:02.150 --> 00:47:03.091
This is the date you're starting.
688
00:47:03.552 --> 00:47:06.034
And then you're gonna fire this person right before that.
689
00:47:07.038 --> 00:47:15.487
And if you have to let this person go before that, at least you know very shortly you're getting these two technicians to be able to get enough labor force to get the jobs done.
690
00:47:17.689 --> 00:47:19.030
Does that sound like something you can do?
691
00:47:19.050 --> 00:47:20.472
Yeah, I just... Go ahead.
692
00:47:22.013 --> 00:47:30.636
I just don't know if I should give it a little bit of time as far as a buffer to when I should fire him or should I let him go immediately?
693
00:47:30.676 --> 00:47:38.418
Because like I mentioned before, I mean, I got two guys that potentially might leave with him and I'm just trying to figure out, do I do it now or later?
694
00:47:38.478 --> 00:47:39.558
I just kind of feel stuck.
695
00:47:39.719 --> 00:47:42.339
Look, I'm on board with cutting this guy today.
696
00:47:42.819 --> 00:47:43.540
I'm on board with that.
697
00:47:43.840 --> 00:47:50.742
The problem is if these two guys leave with him, half of your labor force is gone and you will likely have a huge detriment to the business.
698
00:47:51.470 --> 00:47:52.950
Now, I'm a fan of that.
699
00:47:53.471 --> 00:47:57.872
As I've done more firing, I have seen time and time again, that ends up actually being the best move.
700
00:47:58.232 --> 00:48:04.974
I also am hearing you, and the reason why you haven't done this already because you know you need to do it, is because you're afraid that you're not gonna get the work done.
701
00:48:05.815 --> 00:48:12.577
And so I'm trying to straddle both by saying, go hire the technicians, have them ready to go, and then go fire the person.
702
00:48:14.768 --> 00:48:17.029
Because I would say no matter what, you need to fire them.
703
00:48:17.209 --> 00:48:19.310
If it's today or in two weeks, you've got to fire them.
704
00:48:19.750 --> 00:48:24.953
But I happen to believe you won't fire them today because you're afraid they're going to take two other guys and now you're stuck with three technicians.
705
00:48:25.333 --> 00:48:30.115
If you think you can limp this business along for two weeks with you and three technicians, I would do it today.
706
00:48:30.956 --> 00:48:32.256
You have to cut the cancer out.
707
00:48:35.958 --> 00:48:37.899
All right, that sounds good, y'all.
708
00:48:38.705 --> 00:48:41.469
it's going to be a tough one, but I believe I can do it for sure.
709
00:48:41.489 --> 00:48:43.011
All right, brother, best of luck to you.
710
00:48:43.031 --> 00:48:43.773
I appreciate you.
711
00:48:44.474 --> 00:48:45.936
All right, we got another caller coming.
712
00:48:45.996 --> 00:48:47.418
First off, love the show.
713
00:48:47.478 --> 00:48:48.760
Thank you to everyone's called in so far.
714
00:48:49.000 --> 00:48:53.747
We got a few more callers in the queue, but if you would like me to come out in person, please,
715
00:48:54.467 --> 00:48:57.308
This QR code or down in the description of this video, there's a link.
716
00:48:57.688 --> 00:48:58.688
You can submit a quick video.
717
00:48:58.728 --> 00:49:00.589
I'll come out in person and do all of this.
718
00:49:00.989 --> 00:49:04.710
Now, the confession booth that we have today is completely anonymous.
719
00:49:04.750 --> 00:49:05.650
Your name will not be said.
720
00:49:06.210 --> 00:49:07.111
You don't have to say your name.
721
00:49:07.131 --> 00:49:09.091
You don't have to say anything.
722
00:49:09.111 --> 00:49:10.532
I'm not saying your phone number when you come on.
723
00:49:10.892 --> 00:49:11.652
It's the confession booth.
724
00:49:11.672 --> 00:49:17.173
But if you don't mind me coming out in person with a camera, I highly recommend it.
725
00:49:18.054 --> 00:49:18.714
But for today...
726
00:49:19.775 --> 00:49:20.275
Sorry guys.
727
00:49:21.056 --> 00:49:22.757
The confession booth, this is the number to call.
728
00:49:23.338 --> 00:49:24.119
We are live.
729
00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:25.840
Let's go ahead and talk to the next caller.
730
00:49:26.021 --> 00:49:27.342
You'll hear the beep when you come in.
731
00:49:27.362 --> 00:49:29.084
Welcome to the show.
732
00:49:29.104 --> 00:49:29.864
Thank you for coming on.
733
00:49:32.687 --> 00:49:33.228
Hello, hello.
734
00:49:36.200 --> 00:49:42.161
Hey, so I operated a landscaping company for about two, three years.
735
00:49:42.181 --> 00:49:43.941
I was just around 100,000 a year.
736
00:49:44.401 --> 00:49:47.082
And then in March, I purchased another one.
737
00:49:47.582 --> 00:49:50.462
And so the revenue of the one I purchased is around 500.
738
00:49:51.323 --> 00:49:52.623
And so it's a big jump.
739
00:49:53.143 --> 00:49:59.764
The problem I'm running into is I had to use up basically the rest of my cash to put the down payment down.
740
00:50:00.144 --> 00:50:02.365
We're owner financing half of it.
741
00:50:02.445 --> 00:50:04.645
I put up half of it and
742
00:50:05.714 --> 00:50:12.399
We bill out once a month for all of our services, and then it takes, I mean, another six weeks for us to get paid.
743
00:50:12.459 --> 00:50:16.862
We're about two months in, and me and my brother purchased it with me.
744
00:50:18.002 --> 00:50:18.963
We haven't paid ourselves.
745
00:50:18.983 --> 00:50:20.504
We've just been barely making payroll.
746
00:50:20.824 --> 00:50:22.305
But on paper, we're very profitable.
747
00:50:22.826 --> 00:50:28.129
So I'm wondering, my question to you is, would it make sense for me to try and go to –
748
00:50:29.568 --> 00:50:35.612
like automatic payments made weekly and try and ask the clients if they want to do that.
749
00:50:36.212 --> 00:50:38.893
And if so, when's too early for me to do that?
750
00:50:38.913 --> 00:50:48.279
Because I'm worried about with the transition of purchasing this company, if I start changing so much up right away, they're just going to be scared and I'm going to lose a lot of clients.
751
00:50:48.939 --> 00:50:49.199
Got it.
752
00:50:49.480 --> 00:50:53.662
Okay, if you don't mind me asking, what's the monthly payment on the acquisition for the owner of finance?
753
00:50:56.086 --> 00:51:03.874
So with the company and the shop that we're in, the guy that we purchased from owns the shop and he's renting it to us.
754
00:51:04.154 --> 00:51:07.037
We're looking at around $18,000 to $22,000.
755
00:51:07.057 --> 00:51:08.739
$1,000 a month?
756
00:51:11.001 --> 00:51:12.803
Yes.
757
00:51:12.823 --> 00:51:16.147
So $18,000 to $22,000 per month as part of the owner finance deal.
758
00:51:18.493 --> 00:51:18.693
Yes.
759
00:51:19.194 --> 00:51:19.474
Got it.
760
00:51:19.774 --> 00:51:24.077
And when you pay that, cause that's like a big chunk of your revenue.
761
00:51:24.577 --> 00:51:27.539
Are you able to make like profit after that?
762
00:51:27.620 --> 00:51:28.980
Like you're saying you're profitable on paper.
763
00:51:29.281 --> 00:51:31.682
I'm assuming that's because this payment- We're about 20,000
764
00:51:33.233 --> 00:51:38.539
20,000 a month is about what we're profiting after making our payroll and making our debt payments.
765
00:51:38.579 --> 00:51:40.241
We've got about 20,000 left over.
766
00:51:40.581 --> 00:51:43.504
But it's just, I mean, it's all accounts receivable.
767
00:51:43.744 --> 00:51:44.005
Okay.
768
00:51:44.245 --> 00:51:44.465
Okay.
769
00:51:44.625 --> 00:51:46.207
So this is simply a cash flow problem.
770
00:51:46.768 --> 00:51:49.651
And right now, are you mostly doing residential or commercial?
771
00:51:49.671 --> 00:51:49.891
Yeah.
772
00:51:52.238 --> 00:51:52.878
It's all residential.
773
00:51:53.439 --> 00:51:59.122
So, um, yeah, I would definitely switch to much faster than six weeks to pay.
774
00:51:59.563 --> 00:52:05.506
Cause right now, if you're profitable after paying $18,000 a month in owner financing, you're running a really good operation.
775
00:52:05.766 --> 00:52:09.229
How much longer does this, like the payment's going to be like another couple of years?
776
00:52:11.930 --> 00:52:13.631
We should be debt free in about three years.
777
00:52:14.392 --> 00:52:14.512
Okay.
778
00:52:14.532 --> 00:52:15.552
That's been, that's quite a while.
779
00:52:15.592 --> 00:52:15.833
Okay.
780
00:52:16.253 --> 00:52:16.953
So, whoa.
781
00:52:17.033 --> 00:52:17.294
Okay.
782
00:52:17.474 --> 00:52:18.875
That's probably, you buy it for like 350,000.
783
00:52:22.064 --> 00:52:22.264
Yeah.
784
00:52:22.624 --> 00:52:22.804
Yeah.
785
00:52:22.864 --> 00:52:23.085
Okay.
786
00:52:24.185 --> 00:52:24.425
Okay.
787
00:52:24.545 --> 00:52:26.786
So you might have overpaid a little bit, but the fact is.
788
00:52:26.866 --> 00:52:27.987
It came with equipment.
789
00:52:28.107 --> 00:52:28.907
It came with equipment.
790
00:52:29.528 --> 00:52:31.008
It was about $90,000 worth of equipment.
791
00:52:31.208 --> 00:52:31.468
Okay.
792
00:52:31.829 --> 00:52:32.049
Okay.
793
00:52:32.069 --> 00:52:32.869
So I was leaving that out.
794
00:52:33.029 --> 00:52:34.530
That's why it was a good deal.
795
00:52:34.990 --> 00:52:37.271
As far as the client base, the equipment came with it.
796
00:52:37.291 --> 00:52:38.332
That's why it was so much higher.
797
00:52:38.592 --> 00:52:38.832
Okay.
798
00:52:39.152 --> 00:52:44.575
And so if you change today, the payment terms from, Hey, we send you an invoice and you pay us for the next four to six weeks.
799
00:52:44.955 --> 00:52:47.856
If you send everyone an email today saying, Hey, card is on file required.
800
00:52:48.336 --> 00:52:51.418
Why do you think that would get everyone up in arms about that?
801
00:52:53.772 --> 00:52:57.194
So our client base is a lot of older people.
802
00:52:57.374 --> 00:53:01.897
Most of them are retired and it's a lot of like retired communities.
803
00:53:01.937 --> 00:53:11.362
So, so many of them so far, we're about two months into this and just explaining that we bought the company to them has been confusing and they've been struggling with the idea.
804
00:53:11.402 --> 00:53:12.823
We haven't lost any clients.
805
00:53:13.683 --> 00:53:17.045
Luckily I had done some contracting for this guy for about a year before.
806
00:53:17.085 --> 00:53:17.926
So they know my face.
807
00:53:19.397 --> 00:53:23.619
But they're just, they're still already just getting confused enough with us taking over.
808
00:53:23.899 --> 00:53:31.182
And so I'm worried that if I did start trying to change the billing process, we're just going to have people like, oh, it's too confusing for me.
809
00:53:31.222 --> 00:53:31.962
I'll find someone else.
810
00:53:33.002 --> 00:53:33.222
Yeah.
811
00:53:33.262 --> 00:53:40.085
So I think the same way that you probably feared the confusion around changing the name of the business or did you even change the name or just like, Hey, new ownership.
812
00:53:41.685 --> 00:53:41.985
We did.
813
00:53:42.266 --> 00:53:43.306
Yeah.
814
00:53:43.326 --> 00:53:46.307
So the same way that even just that was so much.
815
00:53:46.746 --> 00:53:51.127
Right, but ultimately, I agree with this so much in explaining to customers, 100%.
816
00:53:51.687 --> 00:53:52.567
You didn't lose anyone.
817
00:53:53.008 --> 00:53:55.468
So I think the same thing is going to happen when it comes to payment terms.
818
00:53:55.868 --> 00:53:56.969
It is going to confuse some people.
819
00:53:57.549 --> 00:54:00.569
I don't think you're going to lose anyone over it if you handle it correctly.
820
00:54:00.889 --> 00:54:09.532
And I think even though they were confusing, if you went and did this acquisition again, you probably would have handled it slightly differently how you talk to customers about the acquisition.
821
00:54:09.972 --> 00:54:14.833
You're going to take everything you learned from that, and now you're going to communicate to the customers about payment terms.
822
00:54:15.734 --> 00:54:18.635
And so you're not going to just be like, it's required tomorrow.
823
00:54:18.855 --> 00:54:21.135
You're going to actually pitch this as a very positive thing for them.
824
00:54:21.815 --> 00:54:25.656
Hey, we've had a lot of feedback from customers that it's tough to like get the check in the mail.
825
00:54:26.356 --> 00:54:28.017
They are living in a secondary house.
826
00:54:28.037 --> 00:54:28.897
They live out of town.
827
00:54:29.257 --> 00:54:30.297
We're making this easy.
828
00:54:30.837 --> 00:54:35.218
You can now go to this link, put your card information on file, and we'll charge you automatically.
829
00:54:35.538 --> 00:54:37.339
When we create the invoice, you'll just get a receipt.
830
00:54:38.499 --> 00:54:43.340
I think if you do that correctly with a text and an email, you'll probably get 40 to 50% of people signing up.
831
00:54:44.331 --> 00:54:47.932
That would probably be enough to help solve the problem, but I would love to see it 100%.
832
00:54:47.992 --> 00:54:53.313
And if you do this with a lot of violence, like how many customers do you have?
833
00:54:53.333 --> 00:54:54.713
Like total recurring customers?
834
00:54:57.034 --> 00:54:57.454
About 80.
835
00:54:58.054 --> 00:54:58.294
Great.
836
00:54:58.934 --> 00:55:07.756
I think if you took one week and called all these clients or visited them in person, you could get this to 100% compliance without losing a single customer.
837
00:55:08.783 --> 00:55:18.547
And so if the entire weight of the business right now on your shoulders is accounts receivable, and that's the constraint to the business, get violent with it, and you just need to talk to, let's just call it 15 customers a day.
838
00:55:19.327 --> 00:55:35.753
If you talk to 15 customers a day, and you're in person, hey, get the card now, I'll go ahead and put it on your file, we'll charge it automatically, no more do you have to write checks, don't worry about, we're gonna cover the processing fees, go ahead and take that L for now, that's not a big deal, because down the road we're gonna hit capacity and raise prices, I'm not worried about the 3%.
839
00:55:36.633 --> 00:55:40.736
Just get the card on file and now you're in person so they're not worried about security and all this stuff.
840
00:55:41.196 --> 00:55:42.718
Just do it in person or over the phone.
841
00:55:42.938 --> 00:55:46.200
If you do 15 clients a day, you'll solve this problem in 24 hours.
842
00:55:46.240 --> 00:55:51.084
And I believe it'll be the same way that happened with the acquisition, which is you will lose zero clients.
843
00:55:51.284 --> 00:55:52.885
To some, it might seem confusing.
844
00:55:53.126 --> 00:55:58.870
But for the vast majority of us, like Layla Hormuzi says, fear is a mile wide and an inch deep.
845
00:55:59.230 --> 00:56:04.658
And so it seems horrible and it seems difficult, but at the end of it, this is the unlock to solving the business.
846
00:56:04.878 --> 00:56:14.552
And by the way, if you can just hold on for three years, which you can do if you have good cash flow, but you can't if you have no money in the bank, you can run out of oxygen and go bankrupt with a profitable business that's growing fast.
847
00:56:14.912 --> 00:56:17.113
And so to prevent that, we've got to fix this problem.
848
00:56:17.173 --> 00:56:18.214
It is the constraint to the business.
849
00:56:18.514 --> 00:56:29.500
And if you can survive for three years, which I don't know about this acquisition, $350,000 and a $500,000 annual revenue business, even with $90,000 equipment, $18,000 is a lot for most people.
850
00:56:29.860 --> 00:56:32.101
They would be suffocating 100% of the cash of the business.
851
00:56:32.322 --> 00:56:37.644
The fact that you're able to pay that and still be profitable on paper just means we've got to fix the cash flow problem.
852
00:56:37.885 --> 00:56:41.707
And if we do that, we unlock a really solid business in three years that you own.
853
00:56:41.827 --> 00:56:42.007
So...
854
00:56:42.447 --> 00:56:43.087
Excellent job.
855
00:56:43.107 --> 00:56:44.408
Don't know how you are pulling that off.
856
00:56:44.748 --> 00:56:45.549
Fantastic work.
857
00:56:46.369 --> 00:56:47.029
Next caller.
858
00:56:47.049 --> 00:56:49.230
I'm not going to say where you're coming in from, but you heard a beep.
859
00:56:49.270 --> 00:56:49.630
Go ahead.
860
00:56:52.092 --> 00:56:54.093
Mike, this is actually Miguel.
861
00:56:54.133 --> 00:56:54.573
How are you?
862
00:56:55.033 --> 00:56:55.293
Good.
863
00:56:55.393 --> 00:56:57.114
You don't have to say your name, but there it is.
864
00:56:57.174 --> 00:56:58.074
Miguel, welcome to the show.
865
00:56:58.515 --> 00:56:58.775
I know.
866
00:56:59.895 --> 00:57:01.196
It's all good.
867
00:57:01.316 --> 00:57:03.557
This is a healthy question for the most part, I would say.
868
00:57:04.077 --> 00:57:06.879
So I'm in the point we've been in business almost 24 years.
869
00:57:06.899 --> 00:57:07.999
We're a printing company.
870
00:57:09.120 --> 00:57:11.201
And right now I'm in the point we have
871
00:57:12.773 --> 00:57:14.194
Four people in customer service.
872
00:57:14.814 --> 00:57:15.895
One of them is part-time.
873
00:57:16.636 --> 00:57:19.097
And then we got a graphic designer and a production person.
874
00:57:19.618 --> 00:57:31.325
So what I'm debating right now is I'm the best one, obviously, at sales because I'm the business owner and we're working on the better process, sales process for our employees.
875
00:57:31.826 --> 00:57:35.108
So what I'm debating on is should I hire a customer
876
00:57:36.768 --> 00:57:41.256
an assistant so I can do more sales so I don't do a lot of the small tasks?
877
00:57:41.997 --> 00:57:50.552
Or should I look for a manager or an assistant manager with the potential of helping me run the shop?
878
00:57:51.953 --> 00:57:53.875
So I would ask what is that?
879
00:57:53.895 --> 00:57:54.776
That's kind of what I'm debating.
880
00:57:54.916 --> 00:57:55.237
Totally.
881
00:57:55.337 --> 00:58:00.562
Like no matter what you do right now in terms of delegation, Miguel, it gives you more time to do higher leverage tasks.
882
00:58:01.143 --> 00:58:09.152
And so the best way to delegate, in my opinion, is rank all the things you're currently doing from lowest leverage to highest leverage.
883
00:58:09.812 --> 00:58:13.376
Getting more sales is probably the highest leverage thing in the business for you right now.
884
00:58:14.217 --> 00:58:17.979
anything besides that would be a target for delegation.
885
00:58:18.499 --> 00:58:22.421
Now, I believe there are probably some tasks you do that you could hand off to these admin folks.
886
00:58:23.022 --> 00:58:23.842
You just got to delegate it.
887
00:58:24.182 --> 00:58:25.703
You got to create a system and hand it off.
888
00:58:26.504 --> 00:58:36.689
And so I think a lot of times we jump to like, I've got to get an operations manager, I've got to get some manager versus just like, oh, there are like 12 tasks I do just because that I could just hand off.
889
00:58:36.709 --> 00:58:38.030
Man, I'm getting such a bad connection, Mike.
890
00:58:38.430 --> 00:58:38.850
Oh, you are?
891
00:58:39.550 --> 00:58:40.651
Can you guys hear me well?
892
00:58:40.811 --> 00:58:41.752
I can hear you really good.
893
00:58:41.812 --> 00:58:42.332
Can you hear me?
894
00:58:44.835 --> 00:58:45.896
Yeah, I know.
895
00:58:46.356 --> 00:58:47.156
Might be on your end.
896
00:58:47.216 --> 00:58:48.397
I don't know if you can't hear me there.
897
00:58:48.417 --> 00:58:49.178
Okay.
898
00:58:49.378 --> 00:58:52.880
Well, I think the recording will definitely help, at least so far.
899
00:58:53.200 --> 00:58:54.020
I'm going to drop the call.
900
00:58:54.080 --> 00:58:54.961
I'll just try to call back.
901
00:58:55.081 --> 00:58:55.381
You're good.
902
00:58:55.441 --> 00:58:55.741
You're good.
903
00:58:55.821 --> 00:58:56.962
It just sounds robotic.
904
00:58:57.823 --> 00:58:58.223
That's weird.
905
00:58:58.583 --> 00:58:59.644
Shouldn't sound robotic on their end.
906
00:58:59.704 --> 00:59:00.984
Should only sound robotic on our end.
907
00:59:01.425 --> 00:59:06.487
But, yeah, so in the printing business, even though it's not home services, it's still the same thing.
908
00:59:06.507 --> 00:59:08.729
You got sales, you got operations, and you got admin.
909
00:59:09.109 --> 00:59:13.672
And I believe that right now, Miguel, his size and doing very well...
910
00:59:14.632 --> 00:59:19.535
probably is doing, I'm just going to make this up, 60% of his day is probably doing sales.
911
00:59:20.315 --> 00:59:24.218
I would go ahead and guess that 30% of his day is doing operations.
912
00:59:24.738 --> 00:59:27.900
And I would assume, I'm just going to guess, 10% of his day is doing admin.
913
00:59:28.500 --> 00:59:32.623
And so yes, he could get an assistant to help him with sales.
914
00:59:33.572 --> 00:59:34.153
He could do that.
915
00:59:35.033 --> 00:59:40.278
I first, though, want to delegate all the lower leverage tasks in the business, which is admin and operations.
916
00:59:40.659 --> 00:59:49.207
If right now he's doing $100 per hour task in sales, I want to hand off anything I can go out and delegate by hiring someone for $50 an hour or $30 an hour.
917
00:59:52.897 --> 00:59:53.297
in admin.
918
00:59:53.798 --> 00:59:59.801
Now, everyone also thinks, the other question Miguel had asked is like, hey, can I just go get an operations manager?
919
01:00:00.441 --> 01:00:05.404
Yes, that would give you 30% of your day back, but before I do that, I want to make sure I get this.
920
01:00:05.824 --> 01:00:16.910
This is the easiest low-hanging fruit in the business, which is the low-leverage task that I'm gonna guess is things like checking the mail, opening up the office,
921
01:00:18.415 --> 01:00:25.202
adjusting the thermostat, getting coffee, filling up the fridge, ordering things from Instacart to fill up for the office team.
922
01:00:25.523 --> 01:00:29.266
These are little things, I'm not saying Miguel specifically does this, but I believe that many of us
923
01:00:30.485 --> 01:00:36.970
could simply ask ourselves, what am I doing, the 40, 50 things I'm doing in a day, and I think some of them are really low-hanging fruit to get delegated.
924
01:00:37.590 --> 01:00:47.877
And do this first, because this is likely no extra cost, not a lot of systems building, no time of Miguel to be able to hand this off to his existing team that's doing admin.
925
01:00:48.538 --> 01:00:50.719
And then I go after operations.
926
01:00:51.680 --> 01:00:54.782
Also, usually easier to find an admin person compared to operations.
927
01:00:55.402 --> 01:01:01.105
Also, usually easier to find an operations person, especially if you're doing work, like operations out in the field, like the printing.
928
01:01:01.985 --> 01:01:06.207
Usually easier to find that person than a rainmaker like Miguel is in sales.
929
01:01:06.988 --> 01:01:08.008
It's easier and cheaper.
930
01:01:08.368 --> 01:01:12.150
And so this is the way I want to delegate all aspects of the business.
931
01:01:12.590 --> 01:01:14.792
Admin, operations, and then sales.
932
01:01:15.432 --> 01:01:17.293
All right, next call is coming in.
933
01:01:19.408 --> 01:01:19.808
You're live.
934
01:01:19.848 --> 01:01:20.929
Welcome to the confession booth.
935
01:01:20.949 --> 01:01:21.649
Thanks for coming on.
936
01:01:23.910 --> 01:01:24.850
Hey, how are you?
937
01:01:25.110 --> 01:01:25.370
Good.
938
01:01:25.430 --> 01:01:25.711
Good.
939
01:01:25.791 --> 01:01:26.271
Can you hear me?
940
01:01:28.732 --> 01:01:29.272
Yes sir.
941
01:01:29.292 --> 01:01:30.152
Can you hear me?
942
01:01:30.172 --> 01:01:30.913
I absolutely can.
943
01:01:30.953 --> 01:01:31.353
Go ahead.
944
01:01:33.594 --> 01:01:33.894
Yep.
945
01:01:33.954 --> 01:01:38.316
So I just, so I live in Mount Juliet, Tennessee.
946
01:01:38.356 --> 01:01:41.857
Right now I got about, I got five guys that work for me full time.
947
01:01:42.584 --> 01:01:44.345
We got two different crews that worked.
948
01:01:44.425 --> 01:01:51.427
We got long-term crew and they cut 143 yards weekly with two guys.
949
01:01:51.567 --> 01:01:54.728
And then I got the landscape crew that landscapes every day.
950
01:01:56.249 --> 01:02:00.490
Um, and my question is, which I have tons of different questions.
951
01:02:01.371 --> 01:02:03.751
I'm at the point, I believe that I can grow more.
952
01:02:04.192 --> 01:02:05.392
We bought another truck.
953
01:02:06.513 --> 01:02:08.134
And I just bought it a couple months ago.
954
01:02:08.194 --> 01:02:11.997
I got a good deal on like two Azuzu trucks for one price.
955
01:02:12.097 --> 01:02:13.518
I went ahead and got both of them.
956
01:02:13.758 --> 01:02:16.380
That truck's sitting right now.
957
01:02:16.700 --> 01:02:22.344
I run so much getting materials and stuff like that for this landscape crew.
958
01:02:23.325 --> 01:02:25.926
And we do a lot of like retaining walls and stuff.
959
01:02:26.487 --> 01:02:28.828
And in the beginning, I was like, I'm just going to keep it simple.
960
01:02:29.529 --> 01:02:34.072
I'm just going to do nothing but maintenance and stay away from all the hardscapes and stuff like that.
961
01:02:34.883 --> 01:02:38.726
And I started growing more into the hardscapes as we got better at landscaping.
962
01:02:39.286 --> 01:02:42.108
And then now, at this point, I'm, like, pushing back.
963
01:02:42.468 --> 01:02:50.353
It's like I almost just want to go all in, all residential lawn care and do away with all the big stuff.
964
01:02:50.493 --> 01:02:55.296
Is that just because it's dragging you back into the field?
965
01:02:57.277 --> 01:02:58.038
Yes, exactly.
966
01:02:58.578 --> 01:02:58.858
Got it.
967
01:02:59.379 --> 01:03:00.680
And what's keeping you from doing that now?
968
01:03:00.780 --> 01:03:04.302
Is it making up a big chunk of your revenue, like 60% of revenue is landscaping?
969
01:03:06.582 --> 01:03:08.242
Yeah, it's a big chunk of it for sure.
970
01:03:08.542 --> 01:03:14.283
So we did, we, we, on the residentials, it brings in about 18 to $19,000 a month.
971
01:03:15.324 --> 01:03:21.845
And then we gross, we, we, I made $250,000 this year.
972
01:03:23.305 --> 01:03:31.747
Um, so, and the thing about the residential is I like it just brings in so much landscaping by having so many residential people.
973
01:03:32.087 --> 01:03:32.287
Yep.
974
01:03:32.677 --> 01:03:34.578
You know, I've always thought, should I go commercial?
975
01:03:34.678 --> 01:03:41.363
But I don't want to go commercial because I feel like if I have commercial, I'm not going to get all those landscape jobs as well.
976
01:03:41.783 --> 01:03:44.706
So it's like I'm back and forth, like, which way do I need to grow?
977
01:03:45.126 --> 01:03:47.848
You know, we're doing well.
978
01:03:48.168 --> 01:03:50.289
I just, I just like, you know, I don't know.
979
01:03:50.309 --> 01:03:53.592
Should I just step back and go to the basics?
980
01:03:53.632 --> 01:04:01.998
Just trimming shrubs, mulching, pulling weeds and keep it at that and do away with like these fancy retaining wall designs and stuff like that.
981
01:04:02.731 --> 01:04:09.816
French trains and thawed and all that stuff and just do away with that stuff and really just hammer in on the small maintenance.
982
01:04:10.717 --> 01:04:14.100
So I don't think it's... Because my mowing crew... Go ahead.
983
01:04:16.021 --> 01:04:22.106
My mowing crew, they go Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday, and I don't have to do a thing, right?
984
01:04:22.166 --> 01:04:25.108
As long as I make sure all the equipment's maintained and...
985
01:04:25.597 --> 01:04:30.100
have their schedules ready and stuff like that, make sure the customers are happy when they're calling.
986
01:04:30.120 --> 01:04:32.602
If they have a problem, we address it very easy.
987
01:04:33.423 --> 01:04:36.385
But on the other side, the landscaping, it takes a lot more effort.
988
01:04:37.186 --> 01:04:37.366
Yeah.
989
01:04:38.026 --> 01:04:42.149
Yeah, like, I don't think this is a function of one or the other.
990
01:04:42.489 --> 01:04:45.572
I don't think you can say I'm going all in on mowing or I'm going all in on landscaping.
991
01:04:45.872 --> 01:04:46.873
I like having both.
992
01:04:47.878 --> 01:04:53.441
I think that you will get more choosy with the type of one-time projects that you take on when you don't need the work.
993
01:04:53.841 --> 01:04:54.422
Here's what I mean.
994
01:04:55.242 --> 01:05:03.547
I will look at your entire year, and I would say, okay, this is December, this is January, all right, this is July in the middle of the year.
995
01:05:04.147 --> 01:05:07.229
I'm going to determine for every single month of the year,
996
01:05:08.645 --> 01:05:10.246
What services am I focused on?
997
01:05:10.926 --> 01:05:19.349
Let's just say for example, that we know that, okay, Spring Rush, we have a lot of mowing and we're gonna get a whole bunch more of these mowing jobs.
998
01:05:19.869 --> 01:05:24.551
But then we know that after it gets warm, it starts to be where we don't get a lot of mowing jobs.
999
01:05:24.971 --> 01:05:27.412
This would be a great place to be able to put some of those projects.
1000
01:05:27.952 --> 01:05:33.894
And any jobs that are gonna come in, these one-time projects, I'm going to sell them into these months.
1001
01:05:34.514 --> 01:05:34.734
All right.
1002
01:05:34.974 --> 01:05:39.737
And then I might get, you know, a month into the fall, for example, where I can go out and still get some more recurring mowing customers.
1003
01:05:40.658 --> 01:05:46.201
But when I'm focused on the recurring jobs, I'm not also slotting in all of these projects.
1004
01:05:46.801 --> 01:05:54.966
I'm going to sell these one-time projects to my existing customers and upsell them during times of the year when I'm slower.
1005
01:05:55.826 --> 01:05:56.747
That could be your off-season.
1006
01:05:57.883 --> 01:06:01.325
That could be your winter, that could be your summer, depending on what type of grass you have.
1007
01:06:01.766 --> 01:06:10.872
But I've got to determine which months of the year am I focused on recurring jobs and my existing customers, and what time of the year am I open to doing on projects?
1008
01:06:11.052 --> 01:06:17.037
Because I guarantee you, when there are tons of yards pouring in like Spring Rush, that's when you're tempted to do the whole mowing thing.
1009
01:06:17.797 --> 01:06:24.900
When there is no more mowing grass because there's a drought and the grass hasn't grown and everyone's canceling or going to biweekly, that's when you're happy you have projects.
1010
01:06:25.581 --> 01:06:33.724
And so instead of thinking I've got to like shift from one to the other and like, oh, my word, I have too much mowing and I'm overwhelmed with work to now like, oh, my word, I don't have enough work.
1011
01:06:33.784 --> 01:06:37.086
Instead of that, I'm just going to determine which months of the year do I focus on recurring.
1012
01:06:37.926 --> 01:06:39.907
and which months of the year do I focus on one time.
1013
01:06:40.527 --> 01:06:55.574
And I'm gonna make sure that when I focus on recurring jobs, all these customers, because now if instead of 140, I had 200 yards, I happen to believe that if I upsell them, when I get slower, I'll fill in these gaps of the year just fine.
1014
01:06:56.075 --> 01:06:56.215
And,
1015
01:06:56.655 --> 01:07:10.068
I'll probably be selling them the type of jobs that I want because I'll promote one-time jobs or cleanups or smaller projects that I know I can do without me getting involved with things like drainage, where every single job looks different.
1016
01:07:10.769 --> 01:07:13.311
Right now you're doing those because you're using those to...
1017
01:07:14.032 --> 01:07:14.713
Build revenue.
1018
01:07:14.893 --> 01:07:16.514
You're keeping your landscaping crew busy.
1019
01:07:16.794 --> 01:07:19.316
And I think that instead of like, it's got to be immediately.
1020
01:07:19.616 --> 01:07:20.477
Just shift over time.
1021
01:07:20.777 --> 01:07:21.837
Right now it's 60-40.
1022
01:07:22.378 --> 01:07:23.799
Maybe it goes to 50-50 this year.
1023
01:07:24.039 --> 01:07:27.381
And then next year it's 60% maintenance and 40% projects.
1024
01:07:27.762 --> 01:07:30.984
But the way you get there is when the going is good.
1025
01:07:31.584 --> 01:07:32.145
Spring rush.
1026
01:07:32.905 --> 01:07:35.047
You've got to make a determination what you're focused on.
1027
01:07:35.447 --> 01:07:41.071
And if your focus is I want to build recurring revenue, I'm only going to sell recurring revenue during that time.
1028
01:07:42.471 --> 01:07:52.915
And this is why most people will never build the recurring revenue enough to really, they can jump into it for the majority of the revenue is because they try to do both projects and recurring during this time.
1029
01:07:52.935 --> 01:07:59.757
They're overwhelmed and they stall the amount of recurring customers they take on because they're so busy trying to stay up with all the projects.
1030
01:07:59.977 --> 01:08:00.217
Why?
1031
01:08:00.237 --> 01:08:07.400
Because they've, we've all bought into this logic that first come first serve estimates is somehow equitable and fair.
1032
01:08:07.480 --> 01:08:08.161
and democratic.
1033
01:08:08.461 --> 01:08:13.765
When in reality, based upon the service, I will determine when that job goes on the schedule.
1034
01:08:13.985 --> 01:08:18.368
And how far I'm booked out is completely dependent on what type of service you're asking me for.
1035
01:08:18.689 --> 01:08:28.356
If it's in the middle of spring rush, and I have 30 leads a day coming in for mowing and projects, five of them, let's just say five of them are projects, 25 of them are recurring.
1036
01:08:28.776 --> 01:08:29.017
All right?
1037
01:08:29.117 --> 01:08:30.278
You're like, how far are you booked out?
1038
01:08:30.538 --> 01:08:35.662
Well, for these guys, these projects, I'm two months booked out.
1039
01:08:37.095 --> 01:08:40.926
because I'm not doing any more work that's one-time projects until July.
1040
01:08:41.608 --> 01:08:44.276
Whereas these bad boys, I'll get you on this week.
1041
01:08:46.481 --> 01:08:52.503
And so what so many of us have done is like, well, you have capacity, you have time on the schedule, you should be putting these projects.
1042
01:08:52.643 --> 01:08:53.203
No, I'm not.
1043
01:08:53.743 --> 01:08:57.824
There's certain times of the month where I'm going to focus on recurring work because that's what I really want to build.
1044
01:08:58.064 --> 01:08:59.605
That's the recurring revenue.
1045
01:08:59.705 --> 01:09:02.806
That's the quality of revenue that I would rather focus on.
1046
01:09:03.086 --> 01:09:12.749
And so the whole objective of building a high quality revenue business, the challenging part becomes when you're getting leads from both projects and recurring, one-time jobs and recurring,
1047
01:09:13.409 --> 01:09:21.372
maintenance for commercial and for residential, and you've gotta be the filter to determine what gets through when times are busy, because you can't service everyone.
1048
01:09:21.692 --> 01:09:23.833
If you service everyone, that's when you feel burnt out.
1049
01:09:24.173 --> 01:09:35.938
That's when you feel like you're running around like a chicken without a head, going after all these projects and getting all the stuff set up and all the materials and all the rest of it, because you're focused on this, when you should be just mining this recurring work while the going is good.
1050
01:09:38.119 --> 01:09:39.219
Next caller is coming in.
1051
01:09:39.999 --> 01:09:40.660
Welcome to the show.
1052
01:09:40.700 --> 01:09:41.440
Thank you for coming on.
1053
01:09:43.994 --> 01:09:44.874
Hey Mike, can you hear me?
1054
01:09:45.074 --> 01:09:45.434
I can.
1055
01:09:45.454 --> 01:09:46.134
Can you hear me okay?
1056
01:09:48.155 --> 01:09:48.375
Yeah.
1057
01:09:48.575 --> 01:09:49.155
Let's rock and roll.
1058
01:09:49.175 --> 01:09:50.075
What can I do for you?
1059
01:09:50.095 --> 01:09:57.017
So I am, I am 16 and my business is under my dad's name until I'm 18.
1060
01:09:57.037 --> 01:09:58.477
I'm fully licensed and insured.
1061
01:09:58.937 --> 01:10:08.199
I have two Skag stand on mowers and I want to know, I have about 19 clients, six of those being bi-weekly.
1062
01:10:08.219 --> 01:10:10.780
I want to know how can I scale my business?
1063
01:10:11.651 --> 01:10:18.515
more with, because I have no driver's license because I'm behind schedule on that.
1064
01:10:19.296 --> 01:10:22.958
How can I scale my business more having no license?
1065
01:10:22.978 --> 01:10:24.439
Like I have a 16-foot trailer.
1066
01:10:24.479 --> 01:10:25.920
My dad drives me around, et cetera.
1067
01:10:26.460 --> 01:10:35.106
What are some things I can do to have more revenue based off of just mowing and slightly landscaping?
1068
01:10:35.586 --> 01:10:37.547
Is there any reason you cannot get your license?
1069
01:10:37.727 --> 01:10:40.729
You're in the confession booth, so you don't have to worry about people knowing who you are.
1070
01:10:42.648 --> 01:10:48.989
So in Indiana, you cannot get your license until you're like 16 to 90 days.
1071
01:10:49.009 --> 01:10:54.070
And you have to, uh, so you have to finish 30 hours, which I'm actually on my computer working on right now.
1072
01:10:54.090 --> 01:10:56.611
So there's 30 hours of online training you have to finish.
1073
01:10:57.171 --> 01:10:59.331
And then you have to do six drives with an instructor.
1074
01:10:59.911 --> 01:11:01.852
I can't get my license until July.
1075
01:11:02.352 --> 01:11:05.452
And the driving academy is about booked up until mid June.
1076
01:11:05.812 --> 01:11:07.413
And they're telling me I won't get it on time.
1077
01:11:07.433 --> 01:11:09.153
So I might not get it until August.
1078
01:11:09.975 --> 01:11:10.255
Okay.
1079
01:11:10.575 --> 01:11:11.416
Why do you have to wait till July?
1080
01:11:11.436 --> 01:11:12.876
Is it because you just turned 16?
1081
01:11:15.217 --> 01:11:17.278
I turned 16 in April.
1082
01:11:19.359 --> 01:11:21.399
Oh, did you say you're 15 or you are 16?
1083
01:11:23.360 --> 01:11:24.881
I just turned 16 in April.
1084
01:11:24.901 --> 01:11:25.061
Yeah.
1085
01:11:25.401 --> 01:11:25.661
Got it.
1086
01:11:26.041 --> 01:11:28.622
So 90 days past April is May, June, July.
1087
01:11:28.642 --> 01:11:28.802
Okay.
1088
01:11:28.822 --> 01:11:29.082
Got it.
1089
01:11:29.122 --> 01:11:30.263
So July is the earliest.
1090
01:11:30.623 --> 01:11:35.345
Now, can you book your appointment for your license now or do you have to wait the 90 days and then book?
1091
01:11:37.560 --> 01:11:43.805
So you have to finish the 30 hours of the online driving academy, and then you can start booking your six drives.
1092
01:11:43.945 --> 01:11:46.567
And then once you pass all those, that's when you can get your license.
1093
01:11:47.307 --> 01:11:49.989
Yeah, like I'm a big fan of being violent with this.
1094
01:11:50.009 --> 01:11:52.712
Like, yes, we could do workarounds of how to grow this business.
1095
01:11:53.092 --> 01:11:55.313
But ultimately, you getting your license is the big unlock.
1096
01:11:55.854 --> 01:11:59.457
And so 30 hours, yes, we can look at that as like, that's a long time.
1097
01:11:59.497 --> 01:12:02.319
That's also, if you really got ruthless with this, two days.
1098
01:12:04.340 --> 01:12:04.580
Right?
1099
01:12:05.160 --> 01:12:08.061
And then booking the six- They limit you to three hours a day.
1100
01:12:08.521 --> 01:12:09.301
Okay, so 10 days.
1101
01:12:09.321 --> 01:12:11.742
So that's like 10 days to three hours a day.
1102
01:12:11.882 --> 01:12:12.122
Cool.
1103
01:12:12.362 --> 01:12:17.404
So that's the only thing we do from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. every day is those three hours.
1104
01:12:17.744 --> 01:12:19.384
So in 10 days, that would be completed.
1105
01:12:19.985 --> 01:12:23.626
Now the six drives, are those hard to get to?
1106
01:12:23.666 --> 01:12:27.587
Like, or who, is there a backup of those, those six drives?
1107
01:12:29.696 --> 01:12:31.918
Yeah, so I just called them about an hour ago.
1108
01:12:32.238 --> 01:12:34.340
They're booked out until late June.
1109
01:12:34.500 --> 01:12:44.309
So they said that I won't get my license July 1st, and they're not sure because school's getting out soon how, like, booked up they're going to be past that.
1110
01:12:44.649 --> 01:12:51.214
So if I don't get it done now and start scheduling my drive, then it'll be, like, late August before I ever get it.
1111
01:12:51.455 --> 01:12:51.715
Got it.
1112
01:12:51.935 --> 01:12:55.978
So we're going to do it in 10 days, and we're going to beat before this end of school.
1113
01:12:56.679 --> 01:12:58.620
So 10 days, we finish the 30 hours.
1114
01:12:59.160 --> 01:13:04.242
We immediately schedule the drives so that we can get our license.
1115
01:13:06.203 --> 01:13:07.264
Immediately.
1116
01:13:07.584 --> 01:13:18.449
Again, we could talk about all ways of getting around this and trying to get your dad to drive you around or how do you get better route density and doing door hangers or customers of your existing customers, upselling your existing... We could talk about all that.
1117
01:13:18.769 --> 01:13:20.630
Delivery of materials so you don't have to drive.
1118
01:13:21.210 --> 01:13:22.010
We could talk about that.
1119
01:13:22.030 --> 01:13:25.812
I just want you to get your license as fast as possible so we stop doing workarounds.
1120
01:13:27.531 --> 01:13:27.931
Make sense?
1121
01:13:28.351 --> 01:13:37.314
Yeah, that's what I've been told by all of the local lawn care guys is once I get my license, that's gonna be like the top thing for my business.
1122
01:13:37.494 --> 01:13:41.295
And I have a pretty good reputation around my neighborhood.
1123
01:13:41.315 --> 01:13:44.075
I've started to pick up a few commercial accounts outside.
1124
01:13:44.095 --> 01:13:45.156
And it's,
1125
01:13:47.293 --> 01:13:48.454
My dad drives me around.
1126
01:13:48.474 --> 01:13:50.735
I just bought a brand new 16-foot trailer.
1127
01:13:51.035 --> 01:13:58.240
Like, I'm really trying to do this after high school, but I agree with you there that my license is going to be the biggest part of it right there.
1128
01:13:58.500 --> 01:13:59.120
Yeah, absolutely.
1129
01:13:59.281 --> 01:13:59.941
You know what to do.
1130
01:13:59.961 --> 01:14:02.843
I would just be violent with getting the 30 hours done.
1131
01:14:02.923 --> 01:14:03.683
That's 10 days.
1132
01:14:04.184 --> 01:14:06.225
Everyone makes big things out of little things.
1133
01:14:06.525 --> 01:14:08.866
30 hours, 10 days, because you only do three hours each.
1134
01:14:09.326 --> 01:14:13.367
I wish really hard that this could be just done in two days, but it sounds like you can't.
1135
01:14:13.387 --> 01:14:16.008
10 days, you're going to schedule all of your drives.
1136
01:14:16.428 --> 01:14:21.049
And in early June, let's hope we can get this business on track and ramp this bad boy.
1137
01:14:21.389 --> 01:14:24.170
You already got 19 clients before you even got your driver's license.
1138
01:14:24.190 --> 01:14:25.830
My friend, you are already winning.
1139
01:14:26.610 --> 01:14:30.411
Next up today, we got another caller coming in live.
1140
01:14:30.972 --> 01:14:31.572
Welcome to the show.
1141
01:14:31.612 --> 01:14:32.372
Thank you for coming on.
1142
01:14:34.338 --> 01:15:01.477
absolutely thank you mike hey so my question is uh basically like what comes first the chicken or the egg right so we do uh fencing here in Rhode Island and we did like 2.5 last year profitability is low we're at eight percent after i pay myself um we're at eight percent so i'm like how do and i know the bottleneck is myself because i run production i'm also the general manager so i'm like i need to hire a production manager
1143
01:15:02.125 --> 01:15:11.432
But if that costs me a good one to do what I do, maybe $80,000, then I don't make enough money as a business.
1144
01:15:11.452 --> 01:15:14.654
So I'm kind of like, what do I do there?
1145
01:15:15.715 --> 01:15:15.955
Okay.
1146
01:15:16.255 --> 01:15:21.159
So right now, if I asked you, what is keeping you from $5 million?
1147
01:15:21.539 --> 01:15:22.760
Is it getting more customers?
1148
01:15:22.840 --> 01:15:24.141
Is it getting more employees?
1149
01:15:24.521 --> 01:15:25.622
What's the current constraint?
1150
01:15:25.642 --> 01:15:25.702
No.
1151
01:15:27.465 --> 01:15:33.449
So the constraint is because we subcontract everything, like I don't want to train new people.
1152
01:15:33.670 --> 01:15:36.652
It's kind of like I'm already like lost that touch.
1153
01:15:36.832 --> 01:15:40.675
So I'm not bringing on new contractors because so many people cheat.
1154
01:15:40.975 --> 01:15:43.937
So we need to babysit them, but I don't have the time to do that.
1155
01:15:44.458 --> 01:15:47.160
So this ops manager would basically babysit the subs.
1156
01:15:47.340 --> 01:15:47.920
Is that correct?
1157
01:15:49.682 --> 01:15:51.323
That's what I'm, yeah, exactly.
1158
01:15:51.523 --> 01:15:51.843
Okay.
1159
01:15:52.043 --> 01:15:54.025
Right now, how much are we spending per year on marketing?
1160
01:15:56.634 --> 01:15:57.134
A hundred.
1161
01:15:57.794 --> 01:15:59.635
Okay.
1162
01:15:59.735 --> 01:16:03.516
If you did not spend that money on marketing, do you think your business would go in half?
1163
01:16:06.877 --> 01:16:07.197
Yes.
1164
01:16:07.677 --> 01:16:07.898
Okay.
1165
01:16:08.118 --> 01:16:09.718
So what are you doing for advertising right now?
1166
01:16:12.379 --> 01:16:13.019
LSA.
1167
01:16:13.459 --> 01:16:16.800
We're the number one Google rated in the States and Facebook.
1168
01:16:17.460 --> 01:16:17.781
Got it.
1169
01:16:17.861 --> 01:16:18.161
Meta.
1170
01:16:18.381 --> 01:16:19.881
How much are you spending on Facebook ads right now?
1171
01:16:22.342 --> 01:16:24.443
About $40,000 a year.
1172
01:16:25.103 --> 01:16:25.363
Got it.
1173
01:16:26.340 --> 01:16:31.786
Okay.
1174
01:16:31.987 --> 01:16:37.993
So $100,000 in ads is generating, let's just call it $1.2 million in annual revenue.
1175
01:16:38.874 --> 01:16:39.755
And so that's a 12.
1176
01:16:39.796 --> 01:16:40.016
2.5.
1177
01:16:40.356 --> 01:16:43.400
Yeah, I know, but I'm assuming half of it's from the ads.
1178
01:16:44.519 --> 01:16:47.300
So if half of that's coming from ads, right?
1179
01:16:47.520 --> 01:16:49.021
And so I'm trying to find the constraint.
1180
01:16:49.081 --> 01:17:00.825
And so I believe that if you can figure out how to spend more on ads and go from a hundred thousand spend to 200,000 and spend, and we fight and we go to, to 5 million, or let's just call it 4 million.
1181
01:17:01.085 --> 01:17:08.248
Cause we figure out how to, you're saying the constraint is you've got to go get an ops manager to manage all these subcontractors and babysit them.
1182
01:17:08.328 --> 01:17:08.808
Is that correct?
1183
01:17:10.734 --> 01:17:11.918
Yeah, yes.
1184
01:17:12.118 --> 01:17:18.215
Right now, how much of your time is spent on sales versus doing this job, operations manager?
1185
01:17:20.385 --> 01:17:22.606
Right now, I do none of the sales.
1186
01:17:22.646 --> 01:17:24.166
I have a sales guy who already does that.
1187
01:17:24.387 --> 01:17:29.468
So I'm focused on operation, and then I'm all, like, CEO-level stuff, too.
1188
01:17:29.628 --> 01:17:29.909
Got it.
1189
01:17:30.369 --> 01:17:32.309
Not much, but... Yeah, no, I get you.
1190
01:17:32.590 --> 01:17:44.714
I happen to believe, though, that if you hire this person for 80K, I understand that right now that's scary because that's going to take you from $200,000 in profit to $120,000 in profit, which starts to get really skinny.
1191
01:17:45.014 --> 01:17:45.694
I understand that.
1192
01:17:46.034 --> 01:17:47.115
And especially with, like...
1193
01:17:47.695 --> 01:17:49.996
the fencing industry, you have a lot of accounts receivable.
1194
01:17:50.897 --> 01:17:52.798
That can be very scary from a cash flow perspective.
1195
01:17:53.358 --> 01:18:02.443
The thing is this you spending now probably unlocking 70 to 80% of your time that you're currently spent doing operations manager for an $80,000 position is a steal.
1196
01:18:03.043 --> 01:18:09.627
You unlocking this person is probably going to put you to 3.5 just by you focusing on stuff other than management of subs.
1197
01:18:12.097 --> 01:18:20.462
Like if you just went, if you just focused on sales and unlocking more opportunities, you would probably take this to 3.5 without increasing your ad budget.
1198
01:18:21.923 --> 01:18:28.928
And so a lot of times it's easy to get wrapped up in the- Should I expect my, should I expect myself to do other production?
1199
01:18:30.747 --> 01:18:38.611
I would say if you're going to do anything in the business, so you're right at the size right before 3 million where I still like to see you in sales.
1200
01:18:39.151 --> 01:18:42.312
Now, before I say that, do you feel like you're not good at sales?
1201
01:18:44.933 --> 01:18:45.754
No, I'm okay.
1202
01:18:45.994 --> 01:18:46.574
Okay, okay.
1203
01:18:46.834 --> 01:18:56.559
So I happen to believe that if you're able to get someone for $80,000 to manage the subs, you focusing what right now is probably 70% of your day, just shift it to sales, that alone will get you to 3.5.
1204
01:18:58.632 --> 01:19:00.093
And if you're like, well, I don't know if we have enough leads.
1205
01:19:00.233 --> 01:19:00.733
Okay, great.
1206
01:19:00.953 --> 01:19:06.935
Let's go ahead and just move your ad spend by 20%, move that to $120,000.
1207
01:19:07.955 --> 01:19:13.737
I happen to believe though, if you, even if you just spent time on sales- Yeah, we'll have the leads.
1208
01:19:13.797 --> 01:19:14.157
Okay.
1209
01:19:14.197 --> 01:19:17.458
We're turning away so many people because of the labor constraint.
1210
01:19:17.979 --> 01:19:21.680
Okay, and is the labor constraint at the sub level or because you can't manage the subs?
1211
01:19:23.549 --> 01:19:24.370
I can't manage them.
1212
01:19:24.470 --> 01:19:24.730
Okay.
1213
01:19:25.291 --> 01:19:28.515
All right, my friend, I promise you, hire an operations manager.
1214
01:19:28.915 --> 01:19:34.742
If you can get them for $80,000, you're gonna have a very short term, like probably 30 days of less profit.
1215
01:19:35.672 --> 01:19:41.760
you focusing on things besides operations is going to unlock this business, I can guarantee you to 3.5.
1216
01:19:42.400 --> 01:19:49.369
And it'll make you more profitable because this $80,000 is basically your ticket to unlocking a million dollars of revenue.
1217
01:19:49.889 --> 01:19:53.934
And if you're doing sub work, I'm gonna guess your 40 to 50% gross profit on that.
1218
01:19:54.575 --> 01:20:01.022
And so you will likely be, I'm going to call it 20 to 30% profit on the extra million dollars in revenue.
1219
01:20:01.362 --> 01:20:07.808
Because the only thing standing between you and that is getting an $80,000 overhead person, which is scary when you have low margins.
1220
01:20:07.929 --> 01:20:08.489
I understand.
1221
01:20:08.950 --> 01:20:15.576
But the next million dollars that you're going to unlock is likely 20 to 30% profit because you already have the leads.
1222
01:20:16.397 --> 01:20:18.299
Leads are not a constraint in the 4.0 framework.
1223
01:20:18.319 --> 01:20:22.462
If leads are not the constraint and you're like, I just got to get labor.
1224
01:20:22.562 --> 01:20:24.644
I just got to get people to do the work, but I can't manage them.
1225
01:20:25.104 --> 01:20:26.405
Now leadership becomes a constraint.
1226
01:20:26.425 --> 01:20:31.570
If you hire that leader, you will likely unlock $1 million of revenue without spending any more money on ads.
1227
01:20:32.250 --> 01:20:36.734
And this $1 billion in revenue doesn't mean you have to go hire, get more trucks, more equipment, more overhead.
1228
01:20:36.934 --> 01:20:39.136
You're just going to make 20% to 30% profit.
1229
01:20:39.416 --> 01:20:43.119
And now this 8% blended will go probably to about 15% profit.
1230
01:20:43.640 --> 01:20:48.183
All of a sudden a 15% margin business on 3.5, you're looking at $400,000 in net profit.
1231
01:20:48.423 --> 01:20:51.006
And that, my friend, is a fantastic business.
1232
01:20:51.346 --> 01:20:54.288
Last call of the day on the confession booth.
1233
01:20:54.629 --> 01:20:55.209
Welcome to the show.
1234
01:20:55.329 --> 01:20:55.990
Thank you for coming on.
1235
01:20:58.091 --> 01:20:58.872
What's up, Mike?
1236
01:20:59.192 --> 01:20:59.733
What's up, brother?
1237
01:21:01.674 --> 01:21:02.394
Nothing, man.
1238
01:21:03.014 --> 01:21:04.375
See you switch to the black shirt.
1239
01:21:04.615 --> 01:21:04.935
Yes, sir.
1240
01:21:04.955 --> 01:21:06.015
I recognize you, man.
1241
01:21:06.095 --> 01:21:07.855
We'll have the yellow shirt on.
1242
01:21:08.075 --> 01:21:09.276
What can I do for you, man?
1243
01:21:09.316 --> 01:21:10.076
I'm glad I cut the line.
1244
01:21:11.896 --> 01:21:13.396
Oh, I don't know, man.
1245
01:21:14.117 --> 01:21:17.037
I have a...
1246
01:21:17.357 --> 01:21:17.837
I've had...
1247
01:21:18.378 --> 01:21:23.339
So basically, I have a... We're doing about... We did about $1.3 million last year.
1248
01:21:24.219 --> 01:21:26.579
Started five years ago from nothing.
1249
01:21:27.900 --> 01:21:29.540
I've had two general managers.
1250
01:21:30.908 --> 01:21:33.849
to help like, you know, because I know I'm the bottleneck of the business.
1251
01:21:34.810 --> 01:21:41.973
But each time I've had both general managers, basically, I've caught both of them stealing from the company.
1252
01:21:44.073 --> 01:21:48.775
So now the company keeps growing and I'm just holding everything together.
1253
01:21:49.596 --> 01:21:57.459
But I feel like I've been burnt so many times that, like, I know I need to hire a GM, someone with the skills,
1254
01:21:58.745 --> 01:22:06.295
The help is, you know, so take some stuff off my plate, but I'm just wondering what is like your vetting system?
1255
01:22:06.335 --> 01:22:07.416
How do you know someone?
1256
01:22:07.917 --> 01:22:13.003
How do you give someone the range and trust that they're not going to be able to steal from you?
1257
01:22:14.102 --> 01:22:14.282
Yeah.
1258
01:22:14.342 --> 01:22:15.983
Like the first thing is incentives.
1259
01:22:16.664 --> 01:22:22.787
And so them stealing from you should hurt them just as much as you, if the incentives are appropriately aligned.
1260
01:22:23.488 --> 01:22:26.390
So let's first start with comp for these GMs.
1261
01:22:26.430 --> 01:22:27.530
Were they base salary?
1262
01:22:27.570 --> 01:22:28.891
Were they profit sharing?
1263
01:22:28.911 --> 01:22:30.352
Were they getting a percentage of revenue?
1264
01:22:30.392 --> 01:22:31.513
What was the comp looking like?
1265
01:22:33.294 --> 01:22:34.815
They were both just salary.
1266
01:22:35.816 --> 01:22:37.857
Was there, was there any upside or incentives?
1267
01:22:41.043 --> 01:22:42.044
Um, no.
1268
01:22:42.344 --> 01:22:42.604
Okay.
1269
01:22:43.064 --> 01:22:43.244
Okay.
1270
01:22:43.524 --> 01:22:48.266
And were these GMs that you hired previously technicians in the business or did you hire them from the outside?
1271
01:22:50.907 --> 01:22:57.349
No, both of them were more like, they both had like that gift of gab.
1272
01:22:57.649 --> 01:23:01.071
They were like good talkers, good salesman type skills, you know?
1273
01:23:01.771 --> 01:23:03.412
And was their role sales based?
1274
01:23:03.532 --> 01:23:06.713
Like was that, was they have to sell throughout the day?
1275
01:23:08.648 --> 01:23:09.728
Yeah, exactly.
1276
01:23:10.089 --> 01:23:13.970
They're used to, their skill sets was more towards sales.
1277
01:23:13.990 --> 01:23:16.331
They weren't really operation guys, you know?
1278
01:23:16.791 --> 01:23:24.234
What if, what if you hired a salesperson and then you, as the business grew past 2 million, you hire an operations person?
1279
01:23:27.975 --> 01:23:32.097
Oh, well, I don't want to hire the salesperson because I kind of want
1280
01:23:33.359 --> 01:23:34.100
I want to do that.
1281
01:23:34.260 --> 01:23:34.680
Okay.
1282
01:23:34.920 --> 01:23:35.441
Yeah, totally.
1283
01:23:35.761 --> 01:23:36.882
So this is what I want that to be.
1284
01:23:37.322 --> 01:23:37.563
Great.
1285
01:23:37.963 --> 01:23:38.904
This is what I would recommend.
1286
01:23:39.064 --> 01:23:40.245
Don't hand off sales yet.
1287
01:23:41.146 --> 01:23:44.388
You're asking them to do a job that is very hard to find.
1288
01:23:44.408 --> 01:23:45.309
Like that's you.
1289
01:23:46.170 --> 01:23:47.531
I want them to do operations.
1290
01:23:47.791 --> 01:23:48.011
Yeah.
1291
01:23:48.492 --> 01:23:49.653
And that is managing the crew.
1292
01:23:51.875 --> 01:23:57.279
Their bonus should be massively tied to the profits of the business or at least the efficiency of the crew.
1293
01:23:57.800 --> 01:23:58.981
Because that's what operations is.
1294
01:23:59.141 --> 01:24:00.722
Doing the work efficiently and profitably.
1295
01:24:01.818 --> 01:24:02.779
you focus on sales.
1296
01:24:03.880 --> 01:24:07.844
As the business gets closer to 3 million, then you can think about hiring someone to do sales.
1297
01:24:08.084 --> 01:24:14.330
But asking a GM right now to do the job that you're really good at is gonna cause frustration for you and for them.
1298
01:24:15.200 --> 01:24:22.946
And if they don't have any incentive for the business doing any better because they only have a base salary, the only way for them to make more money is to steal.
1299
01:24:23.866 --> 01:24:29.931
And as much as that stinks that they have that level of morality, it's just human nature that I feel like I'm entitled to more.
1300
01:24:30.211 --> 01:24:32.953
And if there is no way for me to make more, I will find a way.
1301
01:24:35.915 --> 01:24:36.876
Yeah, that is true.
1302
01:24:37.216 --> 01:24:37.997
I never thought of that.
1303
01:24:39.254 --> 01:24:47.121
And so I would strongly recommend looking at it as, right now you have likely delegated all the admin in the business.
1304
01:24:47.481 --> 01:24:49.744
Awesome, 1.3 million, very good.
1305
01:24:50.344 --> 01:24:54.768
Right now you're doing sales and operations and you're trying to find someone to be this role in between.
1306
01:24:55.469 --> 01:25:01.074
This is why, in my opinion, if you're gonna hire a GM to take over both these things, you gotta keep the business smaller.
1307
01:25:01.094 --> 01:25:01.895
Because at 1.3,
1308
01:25:03.636 --> 01:25:04.777
Sales is a full-time job.
1309
01:25:05.077 --> 01:25:06.238
Operations is a full-time job.
1310
01:25:06.298 --> 01:25:10.422
You are going to what we call the GM Plus model inside the copy and paste millionaire book.
1311
01:25:10.762 --> 01:25:14.745
And now what I want you to do is focus on just finding someone to do the work.
1312
01:25:15.005 --> 01:25:15.526
Operations.
1313
01:25:16.166 --> 01:25:19.289
But the business is too big for this person to also do sales.
1314
01:25:20.253 --> 01:25:21.374
at this size by themselves.
1315
01:25:22.094 --> 01:25:24.716
And so find someone that will do operations really, really well.
1316
01:25:25.496 --> 01:25:30.999
And then as the business grows to like 3 million, then you can replace yourself at the sales level.
1317
01:25:31.280 --> 01:25:33.781
All right, we got a couple more people just hanging out in the call queue.
1318
01:25:34.101 --> 01:25:36.523
Next caller coming in live, coming in hot.
1319
01:25:36.983 --> 01:25:37.323
Go ahead.
1320
01:25:39.625 --> 01:25:40.425
Hey Mike, how are you?
1321
01:25:40.645 --> 01:25:41.866
Fantastic, what can I help you with?
1322
01:25:43.813 --> 01:25:46.874
So I own a moving company in Toronto.
1323
01:25:46.914 --> 01:25:48.154
Last year I did half a million.
1324
01:25:48.895 --> 01:25:55.016
In September last year I hired a head of sales, you know, in order to just, you know, go past a million dollars.
1325
01:25:55.556 --> 01:25:58.777
But the things turned around and he was not performing at all.
1326
01:25:59.338 --> 01:26:02.458
So my goal is to be to do 1.5 this year.
1327
01:26:02.618 --> 01:26:05.559
So far we have done 200K till date.
1328
01:26:05.719 --> 01:26:07.320
And I fired him this morning.
1329
01:26:07.840 --> 01:26:09.560
It's because he was not performing.
1330
01:26:09.600 --> 01:26:10.741
He was doing less than $20,000 in sales.
1331
01:26:11.921 --> 01:26:14.704
was just managing one guy in terms of sales.
1332
01:26:15.305 --> 01:26:18.608
So I'm a little bit out from sales, not fully.
1333
01:26:18.768 --> 01:26:20.570
I'm doing about 10, 15K on and off.
1334
01:26:21.111 --> 01:26:22.232
I have operations covered.
1335
01:26:22.252 --> 01:26:24.734
I have good guys who are taking care of operations by themselves.
1336
01:26:24.775 --> 01:26:27.938
So I'm not even looking at it because they're fantastic of what they do.
1337
01:26:28.566 --> 01:26:32.309
So my question is like, I'm spending about $5,000 a month in ads.
1338
01:26:32.469 --> 01:26:34.250
I believe it's not a constraint at all for me.
1339
01:26:34.390 --> 01:26:35.951
I'm getting good leads.
1340
01:26:36.172 --> 01:26:40.034
So what can I do to be at 1.5 in this situation?
1341
01:26:40.054 --> 01:26:43.036
I have a couple of people are offshores in Philippines as well.
1342
01:26:43.076 --> 01:26:45.738
So it's a cheap labor and they're also performing really nice as well.
1343
01:26:46.019 --> 01:26:46.199
Yeah.
1344
01:26:46.499 --> 01:26:48.580
So you have delegated admin very well.
1345
01:26:48.801 --> 01:26:49.141
Awesome.
1346
01:26:49.761 --> 01:26:51.382
You said operations is covered.
1347
01:26:51.563 --> 01:26:52.143
No problem.
1348
01:26:52.904 --> 01:26:54.104
Leads, we're fine with.
1349
01:26:54.765 --> 01:26:57.587
And so the thing that gets you to 1.5 is you focusing on sales.
1350
01:26:57.607 --> 01:26:57.747
Yeah.
1351
01:27:00.844 --> 01:27:09.253
And so this head of sales, the reason it didn't work out is because he likely didn't have someone like you showing him exactly what to do to get to 1.5.
1352
01:27:09.473 --> 01:27:18.803
And he's probably not the caliber of person to build your business for you because you're probably not paying him what a head of sales that grows a million dollars of extra revenue does.
1353
01:27:18.963 --> 01:27:20.805
Because if he was capable of that, he'd do it himself.
1354
01:27:22.172 --> 01:27:26.796
And so I think personally, you focusing on sales is going to be the best thing for your business.
1355
01:27:26.816 --> 01:27:31.900
You'll get to 1.5 and then when you're at 1.5, that's when I say you go find someone to do sales.
1356
01:27:34.642 --> 01:27:35.623
Okay, okay.
1357
01:27:35.663 --> 01:27:44.930
So my maximum in a month, in 30 days, my capacity of maximum is doing over 35K, right?
1358
01:27:45.030 --> 01:27:47.092
On top of that, I cannot do anything more than that.
1359
01:27:48.957 --> 01:27:51.519
In order to hit 1.5, I need to do at least 100K a month.
1360
01:27:51.899 --> 01:28:00.945
So that means for other stuff, I have to keep on hiring more people who can do at least 10, 20, 30K in order to fill that $100,000, $120,000 a month gap.
1361
01:28:01.246 --> 01:28:02.386
Do you think that's possible?
1362
01:28:02.466 --> 01:28:03.107
That's reasonable?
1363
01:28:03.207 --> 01:28:04.028
Totally.
1364
01:28:04.468 --> 01:28:07.110
When you say per person, is that per salesperson?
1365
01:28:07.350 --> 01:28:07.530
Yes.
1366
01:28:08.794 --> 01:28:09.014
Yes.
1367
01:28:09.474 --> 01:28:09.755
Got it.
1368
01:28:09.955 --> 01:28:11.536
So this is actually the thing then.
1369
01:28:11.936 --> 01:28:13.777
This is a mismatch of titles.
1370
01:28:14.037 --> 01:28:15.138
This is not a head of sales.
1371
01:28:15.658 --> 01:28:16.699
This is a sales associate.
1372
01:28:17.680 --> 01:28:19.160
You are gonna become the head of sales.
1373
01:28:19.961 --> 01:28:24.584
You will hire sales associates to answer phone calls, sell jobs over the phone.
1374
01:28:24.824 --> 01:28:25.745
Like these are likely
1375
01:28:26.565 --> 01:28:28.447
very low skilled salespeople.
1376
01:28:28.887 --> 01:28:33.390
And if you call them a head of sales, you will overpay and they will be disappointed with the type of work they do.
1377
01:28:33.991 --> 01:28:44.158
You are the head of sales and you're gonna go hire absolute savages that are good at sales associates and you're gonna give them scripts of exactly what to do to be able to sell jobs.
1378
01:28:44.979 --> 01:28:49.201
This person, head of sales, felt like they were walking into a job where they're going to be a manager of salespeople.
1379
01:28:49.641 --> 01:28:52.282
They likely walked in handling most of the sales themselves.
1380
01:28:52.722 --> 01:28:58.085
And so I want you to step back from it instead of being CEO and be head of sales and fill that role.
1381
01:28:58.105 --> 01:29:03.287
The highest leverage role of the business before you step out of operations is I am selling.
1382
01:29:03.887 --> 01:29:31.095
do that and then underneath you create the scripts and the systems that a sales associate much cheaper, much easier to find, much easier to ramp and not expecting this incredible white collar job, that person's going to come get their teeth cut and I guarantee you if you hire three or four or five of them on your way to 1.5, they'll probably be a savage that wants to become the head of sales that replaces you at 1.5 so you can get to 3 million and you step out of being the head of sales.
1383
01:29:31.721 --> 01:29:33.903
All right, next caller, coming in hot.
1384
01:29:34.123 --> 01:29:34.964
Welcome to the show.
1385
01:29:35.144 --> 01:29:35.945
Thank you for coming on.
1386
01:29:38.146 --> 01:29:39.267
Hey Mike, how's it going man?
1387
01:29:39.427 --> 01:29:43.211
Fantastic, what can I do for you brother?
1388
01:29:43.291 --> 01:29:49.776
So I got a tutoring business in Florida and I think we're about to hit our slow season.
1389
01:29:50.657 --> 01:29:58.543
It's very new, I just opened pretty much in December and last month we did about 9K, so we're super small.
1390
01:29:59.564 --> 01:30:00.525
Basically just,
1391
01:30:01.920 --> 01:30:07.566
Uh, calling to get any kind of advice for how you would approach like the slow summer coming up.
1392
01:30:08.767 --> 01:30:15.213
Um, and then, like, I feel like I'm doing the right thing with having contractors as shooters and.
1393
01:30:16.054 --> 01:30:18.457
Just kind of taking a percentage off the top of that.
1394
01:30:18.977 --> 01:30:22.541
Um, just wanted to give your advice over the overall business.
1395
01:30:23.327 --> 01:30:24.587
Yeah, totally.
1396
01:30:24.607 --> 01:30:27.868
So we helped Mathnasium a little bit on one of the turn on shows.
1397
01:30:27.968 --> 01:30:31.869
And so AI is certainly going to be a headwind for your industry.
1398
01:30:31.889 --> 01:30:38.571
But I also believe that it is going to become more important for especially people that are challenged with just sitting in front of a computer.
1399
01:30:38.971 --> 01:30:40.632
AI is not going to be useful for them.
1400
01:30:41.052 --> 01:30:42.134
just in front of a computer and learn.
1401
01:30:42.154 --> 01:30:43.775
So I see a lot of value still.
1402
01:30:44.276 --> 01:30:47.159
I think how you make an offer for your off-scene is really important.
1403
01:30:47.179 --> 01:30:54.268
So when it comes to mowing, for example, we create an offer for the winter when we slow down typically to keep someone's property looking good throughout the off-season.
1404
01:30:54.608 --> 01:30:58.332
Your off-season is the summer months when people are not in school.
1405
01:30:58.773 --> 01:31:00.775
Because they don't have homework that you usually help them with.
1406
01:31:01.356 --> 01:31:06.942
And so what I would do is I would create an offer around increasing, like, for example, the math scores.
1407
01:31:06.962 --> 01:31:09.125
Like, so much of our education system now is on scores.
1408
01:31:09.705 --> 01:31:16.293
You can create an offer around getting people up certain grade levels or scores and guarantee it over the summer.
1409
01:31:17.942 --> 01:31:29.085
And you want to attack the point of greatest pain in this case, which is going to be when they get their report card at the end of this month or next month, and they're like, oh my word, they're falling behind in math.
1410
01:31:29.305 --> 01:31:30.526
They're falling behind in English.
1411
01:31:31.066 --> 01:31:34.987
And then you're gonna create a guarantee around getting them to that next level.
1412
01:31:35.787 --> 01:31:39.228
And the only thing that you're gonna tie that guarantee to is them showing up.
1413
01:31:42.885 --> 01:31:48.367
and what would I guarantee you to maintain grades and then do a money back guarantee?
1414
01:31:49.047 --> 01:31:50.007
Or how would you do that?
1415
01:31:50.347 --> 01:31:56.549
Yeah, personally, I think you can make a money back guarantee around getting them to their adequate grade level or one level higher.
1416
01:31:56.869 --> 01:32:00.270
So for example, my kid's in grade five, they got a decent level.
1417
01:32:00.450 --> 01:32:03.271
I want them to be at grade six level though and get ready for next year.
1418
01:32:03.591 --> 01:32:07.332
I want them to be testing at grade six, going into grade six so they feel a little more accomplished.
1419
01:32:07.732 --> 01:32:09.473
Or they're testing at grade four.
1420
01:32:09.553 --> 01:32:10.473
I'm just making some of this stuff up.
1421
01:32:10.513 --> 01:32:12.754
You know the metrics better in terms of how this is graded.
1422
01:32:13.274 --> 01:32:15.375
But they're testing at math level four.
1423
01:32:15.795 --> 01:32:16.956
They just finished grade five.
1424
01:32:17.436 --> 01:32:18.216
They're going to grade six.
1425
01:32:18.316 --> 01:32:19.417
I know they're going to be left behind.
1426
01:32:20.017 --> 01:32:25.039
You guarantee, hey, by the end of the summer, they're going to run another test and you show what test you're going to run.
1427
01:32:25.579 --> 01:32:27.940
They'll be at grade five level and up to speed.
1428
01:32:28.260 --> 01:32:31.542
And if they're not, and you've showed up every single time, you get your money back.
1429
01:32:32.242 --> 01:32:35.684
The thing is, a lot of people are going to miss one or two, so you could probably disqualify half of them.
1430
01:32:36.084 --> 01:32:42.448
But more importantly, you're going to be able to offer them something that solves their problem and isn't just a supplement.
1431
01:32:42.708 --> 01:32:44.549
I want you to be the surgery, not the supplement.
1432
01:32:44.910 --> 01:32:50.413
The surgeon gets a lot more money than the person getting a supplement for $1 or $2 or $3.
1433
01:32:50.713 --> 01:32:52.174
Just guarantee it happens.
1434
01:32:54.536 --> 01:32:54.776
Okay.
1435
01:32:55.536 --> 01:32:56.737
Yeah, I was thinking about that.
1436
01:32:56.757 --> 01:33:00.459
And then, like, do you think... Because I'm not actually doing the tutoring.
1437
01:33:00.539 --> 01:33:01.900
I'm just contracting...
1438
01:33:02.432 --> 01:33:03.492
all that position out.
1439
01:33:03.572 --> 01:33:11.835
So do you think I should drop the price or talk to my tutors about trying to lower prices as well or just keep them the same or?
1440
01:33:12.636 --> 01:33:14.236
Yeah, I would probably do a two split option.
1441
01:33:14.376 --> 01:33:18.878
So it's like, hey, during the summer, if you want your kid in here, I'm gonna make up a number, don't worry about it.
1442
01:33:19.238 --> 01:33:22.359
It's gonna be $199 per month for three months.
1443
01:33:22.839 --> 01:33:24.119
I'm just making this up, don't worry about it.
1444
01:33:25.180 --> 01:33:30.041
So let's just call it $600 for the summer or you can do a 999 package
1445
01:33:31.818 --> 01:33:36.400
which is going to include some exclusive one-on-one tutoring, and it's going to have the guarantee.
1446
01:33:37.461 --> 01:33:47.905
So I would actually keep this, your current price, so that you're not cutting price on this, but I give you permission to make a lower entry-level offer for people that are just like, well, I'm not going to show up every time.
1447
01:33:48.626 --> 01:33:49.786
The kid's got sports.
1448
01:33:49.806 --> 01:33:51.107
We're going to be away for a few weeks.
1449
01:33:51.147 --> 01:33:51.387
Great.
1450
01:33:51.727 --> 01:33:52.748
We'll put you in this program.
1451
01:33:53.428 --> 01:34:00.735
Let's just call it what you're, you know, a little bit lower than your current prices are, but then have the premium offer that is much more of a one-time thing.
1452
01:34:01.015 --> 01:34:02.856
Like I would not do a monthly on this.
1453
01:34:02.936 --> 01:34:08.581
I would do it's a one-time you pay up front $999, but then you unlock the guarantee.
1454
01:34:08.962 --> 01:34:12.044
Assuming you show up every time and we guarantee they're going to get to this certain level.
1455
01:34:12.265 --> 01:34:15.247
And what's nice about your business is there's metrics.
1456
01:34:15.267 --> 01:34:16.648
Like you can score the kid.
1457
01:34:19.551 --> 01:34:20.011
Right, right.
1458
01:34:20.392 --> 01:34:20.592
Yeah.
1459
01:34:22.275 --> 01:34:29.463
Yeah, that's good and bad because it's also like, you know, they can't measure it either sometimes.
1460
01:34:29.763 --> 01:34:30.864
Yep, no, I get you.
1461
01:34:32.447 --> 01:34:33.888
Cool, hope that helps.
1462
01:34:34.048 --> 01:34:35.668
I think it's mostly about the offer in this case.
1463
01:34:36.108 --> 01:34:40.350
For every business, if you have an off season, it's crippling.
1464
01:34:40.730 --> 01:34:49.293
And whether you are in lawn care and that's your winter or you're in tutoring and that's the summer break for kids when they get off school, we've got to solve that problem.
1465
01:34:49.633 --> 01:35:00.797
And I believe that when someone gets a report card at the end of the season and they realize that their kid is behind, is a great time to sell them a guarantee and make it a premium offer, make it higher cost.
1466
01:35:01.097 --> 01:35:11.002
This is why at HomeWorks, for example, we guarantee someone grows their revenue by 10% and more than 99% of people do because we just make sure they get through onboarding.
1467
01:35:11.022 --> 01:35:12.643
We make sure they use the software.
1468
01:35:12.663 --> 01:35:14.784
And my whole focus is get them to use it.
1469
01:35:15.124 --> 01:35:19.446
And so in this case, your offer is tied to them showing up because you know if they use it, they'll get the result.
1470
01:35:20.929 --> 01:35:21.409
Thank you all.
1471
01:35:21.429 --> 01:35:25.933
This is the very first what we call confession booth.
1472
01:35:25.953 --> 01:35:27.054
Thank you all for showing up today.
1473
01:35:27.074 --> 01:35:30.236
I know there's some more in the call queue, but we will come back.
1474
01:35:30.276 --> 01:35:30.997
We'll do this again.
1475
01:35:31.137 --> 01:35:32.878
If you enjoyed it, let me know in the comments.
1476
01:35:32.938 --> 01:35:35.300
I'd love to know if this is a format you enjoy.
1477
01:35:35.800 --> 01:35:38.563
But if you would like me to come out in person, they'll put it up here.
1478
01:35:38.583 --> 01:35:39.323
There's a QR code.
1479
01:35:39.603 --> 01:35:41.145
Also down in the description is a link.
1480
01:35:41.765 --> 01:35:45.619
And you can apply within a matter of five minutes, and we will fly out in person.
1481
01:35:45.660 --> 01:35:46.503
It's completely free.
1482
01:35:46.563 --> 01:35:47.326
I do all the coaching.
1483
01:35:47.366 --> 01:35:54.532
And the way that we're breaking this down over 10 minutes, I will spend a couple hours with you going in detail for your business to hopefully get it to the next level.