WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.091 --> 00:00:06.012
Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes and today we're talking to Joel Heck, who's an owner of Augusta Lawn Care out in Colorado.
2
00:00:06.332 --> 00:00:07.353
And he has two locations.
3
00:00:07.853 --> 00:00:09.793
And one location is around $550,000.
4
00:00:09.813 --> 00:00:11.114
He just put it into profit mode.
5
00:00:11.374 --> 00:00:17.575
And he's recently started a second location that's doing around $50,000 in annual revenue, just getting started with about 40 customers.
6
00:00:17.955 --> 00:00:25.837
He does a great job, around $100,000 in revenue just on Christmas lights, but he's really trying to figure out how to manage his managers.
7
00:00:26.197 --> 00:00:38.081
how to be a great regional manager, and also how to give them feedback when he sees certain things that they're doing that might not be exactly correct, and he doesn't want to come across as overbearing or put them off with his feedback.
8
00:00:38.341 --> 00:00:44.623
So this is going to be really beneficial if you have general managers or managers of any sort that report to you and you want to give them feedback.
9
00:00:44.783 --> 00:00:46.424
Let's go ahead and roll the tape.
10
00:00:47.104 --> 00:00:49.725
Lafayette's doing around $5.50 this year.
11
00:00:52.669 --> 00:00:54.270
What's the other one?
12
00:00:54.290 --> 00:00:54.750
Broomfield.
13
00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:56.170
Yeah, Broomfield.
14
00:00:56.430 --> 00:00:58.210
That one's making like $50,000 this year.
15
00:00:58.730 --> 00:00:59.351
Kind of brand new.
16
00:01:01.431 --> 00:01:04.531
This year's first year of profit at Lafayette.
17
00:01:05.032 --> 00:01:07.072
Second quarter profit sharing happened.
18
00:01:07.852 --> 00:01:09.592
Expecting good ones in Q3 and Q4.
19
00:01:09.992 --> 00:01:13.013
Third year of business, so kind of right on track.
20
00:01:13.533 --> 00:01:15.833
Don't know how much working capital you have, but you're going heavy in Christmas lights.
21
00:01:15.853 --> 00:01:17.694
Turned to try to add $100,000 in Christmas lights.
22
00:01:17.714 --> 00:01:18.214
$400,000.
23
00:01:19.583 --> 00:01:22.784
40K in working, fantastic.
24
00:01:23.404 --> 00:01:24.404
Cool, anything else?
25
00:01:24.424 --> 00:01:26.104
We've already talked, I went to a shop space.
26
00:01:26.124 --> 00:01:29.205
Well, actually I had a new question as we were kind of talking here.
27
00:01:30.165 --> 00:01:43.908
I think one of the biggest issues is, maybe it's just this kind of season because of the baby I wanted to be home, a fear of having to go back in the field because the manager doesn't work out.
28
00:01:44.895 --> 00:01:47.637
We do the weekly scorecards, I've done them for over a year now.
29
00:01:49.838 --> 00:02:03.426
How do you, I guess, give negative feedback, or you know there's issues, how do you kind of work with your manager to point them out, get them on board with fixing them, improving performance?
30
00:02:04.493 --> 00:02:16.122
Like how do you have that conversation and kind of what's the plan, the pip that you may have to do to improve performance or say we got to do something different?
31
00:02:20.443 --> 00:02:23.586
I will say pips are like a 20% chance of working.
32
00:02:24.406 --> 00:02:27.349
Usually when you give someone a pip, it's kind of like the way of saying you're fired.
33
00:02:27.609 --> 00:02:28.650
To most people, that's how they hear it.
34
00:02:29.471 --> 00:02:33.454
I have had some pips work, and people make a radical change, but it's very rare.
35
00:02:33.974 --> 00:02:39.319
So I am much more now of the opinion, like, I'm either going to fire this person, or I think –
36
00:02:39.819 --> 00:02:42.802
Sometimes pips have been helpful when someone comes out of a life circumstance.
37
00:02:42.882 --> 00:02:45.745
It has negatively impacted their professional performance.
38
00:02:46.105 --> 00:02:49.389
And I need the pip to kind of like, hey, just FYI, you're not up to standard.
39
00:02:49.409 --> 00:02:50.730
Can you kick it back into gear?
40
00:02:53.453 --> 00:02:54.914
One thing I would really lean into is...
41
00:02:55.790 --> 00:02:58.893
talk to a coach and be like, hey, my GM has had this problem.
42
00:02:58.993 --> 00:03:02.076
I'm going to have him book a call with you, and I kind of need to go over these things.
43
00:03:02.597 --> 00:03:04.418
Like the indirect approach, right?
44
00:03:04.438 --> 00:03:16.129
That's the nice thing about Augusta is like I've had that before too, where like, hey, I want my GM to hear this, and so I'm going to slide some notes to the coach, and then they're hearing from someone else.
45
00:03:18.612 --> 00:03:21.175
The thing that is the easiest is when it's metric-based.
46
00:03:21.776 --> 00:03:23.418
They're not hitting the number of budget hours per week.
47
00:03:23.498 --> 00:03:25.741
They're hitting growth metrics.
48
00:03:26.042 --> 00:03:27.163
Those are the easiest things to do.
49
00:03:27.363 --> 00:03:34.833
But sometimes if your base pay is high enough for a general manager, they don't really care because they're happy with $70,000 a year.
50
00:03:35.806 --> 00:03:42.635
Um, so what we've done, my locations is when we give them an on target earnings, that is actually the standard.
51
00:03:43.155 --> 00:03:46.579
Anything below that becomes a, like a derogatory remark.
52
00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:48.422
So when I say, Hey, your base is 70.
53
00:03:48.602 --> 00:03:51.565
You're on, you should have 105,000 based on on target earnings.
54
00:03:51.766 --> 00:03:53.888
If you make 103, that's like, you need not do good.
55
00:03:54.649 --> 00:03:56.910
Like the location should be improving.
56
00:03:57.250 --> 00:04:00.251
Like especially in your profit mode, you're raising prices, like things are becoming more efficient.
57
00:04:00.911 --> 00:04:07.113
And so I would really get clear with what on-target earnings are and then what on-target metrics are.
58
00:04:07.813 --> 00:04:13.555
So like, hey, this location should be improving efficiency score because we raised prices and your budget hours went up.
59
00:04:14.532 --> 00:04:23.098
So getting really clear about what on target is, it becomes a whole other issue when they see that they're not performing in a metric and then they don't care.
60
00:04:23.638 --> 00:04:24.799
That's what I'm usually going to fire someone.
61
00:04:25.379 --> 00:04:26.960
Or I'm going to gracefully let them go.
62
00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:28.021
And I've done that recently.
63
00:04:28.301 --> 00:04:32.123
It's like, hey, it's a function of, hey, they're not hitting it, and they don't seem to really care about that.
64
00:04:32.664 --> 00:04:37.667
And I see it as a problem in three months from now, but they're looking at the bottom line and like, oh, it's great.
65
00:04:38.547 --> 00:04:39.588
And I know what's about to come.
66
00:04:39.648 --> 00:04:41.990
So that's when you just gracefully let someone go.
67
00:04:43.170 --> 00:04:47.153
And the simpler you can make their position, the easier it is to backfill that.
68
00:04:48.433 --> 00:04:50.655
Managing a manager, you're not there with them every day.
69
00:04:50.695 --> 00:04:51.915
Like they might be with a field tech.
70
00:04:52.376 --> 00:04:56.518
And so you're kind of hearing, you're seeing the metrics, but you're also hearing what they say.
71
00:04:56.758 --> 00:05:04.723
And so it seems like they're doing things that they should be doing and earnestly trying, but they're just not getting their results.
72
00:05:06.123 --> 00:05:09.345
It's just like, sorry, I don't know what's going on, but we're not getting the results.
73
00:05:09.485 --> 00:05:10.206
We still have to leave.
74
00:05:10.386 --> 00:05:12.267
Or like, how do you handle kind of that?
75
00:05:12.788 --> 00:05:16.010
Yeah, so I try to have an upfront conversation with them.
76
00:05:16.030 --> 00:05:21.253
Like, hey, if you don't hit these metrics on the scorecard, kind of a red, yellow, green is sometimes helpful.
77
00:05:21.934 --> 00:05:23.114
Say, if it's not green, it's a problem.
78
00:05:24.115 --> 00:05:25.996
I expect you to come up with a solution.
79
00:05:27.017 --> 00:05:29.879
And then you will run it by me in our meeting, and then you will execute.
80
00:05:30.719 --> 00:05:36.082
And so if they don't see certain things as a problem, that's when the metrics can usually give them, hey, this is a problem.
81
00:05:36.463 --> 00:05:38.424
But if they can't identify the solution, I'm going to fire them.
82
00:05:39.202 --> 00:05:45.405
Because the role of a manager is to create solutions, not to come to you and be like, I don't know what's going wrong.
83
00:05:46.246 --> 00:05:47.567
They're the closest one to the fire.
84
00:05:47.607 --> 00:05:51.589
They should be able to know why efficiency is down, why close rate is down, et cetera.
85
00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:53.150
And if they can't, they're not a manager.
86
00:05:54.210 --> 00:05:58.633
We can use the numbers to identify the problem, but if they cannot identify the solution, they are not a manager.
87
00:05:59.785 --> 00:06:07.947
And honestly, it comes down to the whole notion of if I had five locations, I cannot be the person everyone just comes to with their problems.
88
00:06:08.367 --> 00:06:09.467
It's not working, I don't know why.
89
00:06:09.787 --> 00:06:11.867
Then you're not up for this position.
90
00:06:13.228 --> 00:06:21.609
And that's why a lot of times I see churn in the first couple managers, is because it sometimes takes a while to realize early on that this person is great at execution.
91
00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:24.630
They just stink at figuring out what solutions are.
92
00:06:25.583 --> 00:06:27.064
So problems are very easy to identify.
93
00:06:27.084 --> 00:06:27.804
We don't need scorecards.
94
00:06:28.044 --> 00:06:30.266
They're great at executing, but they never come up with solutions.
95
00:06:30.286 --> 00:06:30.686
So what do they do?
96
00:06:30.706 --> 00:06:33.067
They come back to me like, I don't know why we're not profitable.
97
00:06:33.087 --> 00:06:34.108
I don't know why the close ratio is not.
98
00:06:34.128 --> 00:06:36.790
If they can't come up with a solution, I got to let them go.
99
00:06:37.930 --> 00:06:47.876
Especially because when you have three, four, or five locations, if you have four general managers that can only identify problems and execute, you will just become the constant errand boy of like, OK, you need to solve this.
100
00:06:47.896 --> 00:06:48.997
And here's how you fix the close.
101
00:06:49.437 --> 00:06:50.998
They need to be able to come up with solutions.
102
00:06:52.419 --> 00:07:05.903
And that's very difficult because you can get a working GM, especially if location is really simplified, to kind of operate at a decent margin and do pretty good without coming up with a lot of solutions because there's not a lot of problems.
103
00:07:06.543 --> 00:07:12.505
But as you begin to scale and you become less and less involved, there will be problems like employee problems, HR problems, PR.
104
00:07:13.005 --> 00:07:13.785
That stuff happens.
105
00:07:14.245 --> 00:07:15.045
Customer complaints.
106
00:07:15.246 --> 00:07:16.506
They'll need to come up with solutions.
107
00:07:17.106 --> 00:07:22.171
And if they're not a solution, if they can't come up with a solution, and I'm going to come up with it all the time, I'm going to fire them.
108
00:07:22.591 --> 00:07:32.201
OK. And so when you look at Nick, Lee, and Liz in Augusta, the thing that you ask them, I never tell them what to do.
109
00:07:32.481 --> 00:07:33.202
I never manage them.
110
00:07:33.482 --> 00:07:35.003
I never ask them hours.
111
00:07:35.264 --> 00:07:41.490
The reason is because they have proven to me that if there is a problem, they know the solution before I come up with one, and then they're already executing on it.
112
00:07:42.334 --> 00:07:44.156
And so that's a sign of a great manager.
113
00:07:44.216 --> 00:07:54.984
Someone that, when they come to you with a problem, they have already identified a solution, and either running it by you, and most of the time what I then do as time gets on and they have proven to me that they can find solutions, is I tell them to execute before talking to me.
114
00:07:55.905 --> 00:07:57.006
That gives them a lot of confidence.
115
00:07:57.726 --> 00:08:02.891
And then the goal is that you never have to be there because they can go through that process without your input.
116
00:08:04.908 --> 00:08:06.129
hard to find general managers like that.
117
00:08:06.169 --> 00:08:12.434
That's why it takes a few times to find a good general manager because it's so easy to find someone who does good in the field.
118
00:08:12.454 --> 00:08:13.355
Like, oh, they can execute.
119
00:08:13.695 --> 00:08:13.955
Great.
120
00:08:14.236 --> 00:08:20.120
But if they can't identify a problem and then figure out the solution on their own, you're just the constant, like, jumping in person.
121
00:08:20.681 --> 00:08:22.062
Or the person that you're like, what?
122
00:08:22.102 --> 00:08:22.883
Are they not going to see this?
123
00:08:22.903 --> 00:08:25.825
Like, did you not see that they're sitting there for 20 minutes before that?
124
00:08:26.205 --> 00:08:27.767
And that's very aggravated.
125
00:08:29.008 --> 00:08:32.250
And whenever I've felt that way, that general manager usually doesn't end up lasting.
126
00:08:33.353 --> 00:08:35.835
And it usually shows up in the numbers like a few months later.
127
00:08:35.975 --> 00:08:40.878
A lot of the concepts that I'm talking about with Joel and the owners of Augusta are all contained inside of this book.
128
00:08:40.979 --> 00:08:41.779
I just released it.
129
00:08:42.259 --> 00:08:51.086
Copy-based millionaire home service blueprint to make $3 million with multiple locations like Joel is doing or growing one location with mid-level managers.
130
00:08:51.406 --> 00:08:52.747
Go check it out and we'll see you there.
131
00:08:53.608 --> 00:09:00.833
After two and a half years of being in operation, I find hiring and training just be...
132
00:09:02.085 --> 00:09:05.508
difficult and it kind of goes back to our conversation earlier about white collared versus blue collared.
133
00:09:06.348 --> 00:09:16.696
Whereas for me, in my experience, kind of self-taught online training, kind of repeatable things like that make sense to me.
134
00:09:16.897 --> 00:09:18.998
And I tried to implement that into my business.
135
00:09:19.018 --> 00:09:20.539
I don't think it's worked out that great.
136
00:09:22.121 --> 00:09:31.188
It seems like, and I hear from other companies that kind of the hands on training, the face to face, the show review, tell show review kind of process is the way to go.
137
00:09:33.068 --> 00:09:38.298
How do I make that a repeatable process for my manager?
138
00:09:38.318 --> 00:09:41.845
Like teach my manager to teach people to do that.
139
00:09:41.965 --> 00:09:42.847
And like, especially,
140
00:09:44.456 --> 00:09:52.961
kind of more abstract things like team policies and kind of things that you should be looking out for as opposed to just like here's how you mow.
141
00:09:53.021 --> 00:10:03.507
How do you make that more, make that repeatable and make sure that actually gets done, especially when a manager is like their hair's on fire because we're overworked, understaffed, and there's problems going on?
142
00:10:04.307 --> 00:10:08.849
That part is the hard part because if everything's going well, that's when it's like, okay, great.
143
00:10:08.869 --> 00:10:10.630
We're going to have day one and day two.
144
00:10:10.650 --> 00:10:11.490
They learn these things.
145
00:10:11.510 --> 00:10:13.051
We have a trainer that signs off of them.
146
00:10:13.091 --> 00:10:18.533
The trainer is incentivized in the second paycheck of the trainee based upon if they hit above base pay.
147
00:10:18.933 --> 00:10:20.134
That's when everything's going well.
148
00:10:20.374 --> 00:10:21.595
That's not how the real world works.
149
00:10:21.615 --> 00:10:22.775
The real world works.
150
00:10:23.015 --> 00:10:27.957
You've got four new hires because you're in the middle of spring rush, and you need tons of budget hours done.
151
00:10:27.977 --> 00:10:29.018
You just need hands on job.
152
00:10:29.898 --> 00:10:31.520
And so that is the challenging part.
153
00:10:31.660 --> 00:10:39.727
I think that's why I don't recommend putting a general manager in a location until it's in profit mode and actually profit mode, which is like, we are raising prices only.
154
00:10:39.767 --> 00:10:44.691
We are not getting more customers because there's less likelihood of hair on fire.
155
00:10:45.472 --> 00:10:53.259
The only hair on fire situation happens is if they miscalculate demand for Spring Rush and they have like two or three people leave at the same time.
156
00:10:54.099 --> 00:10:55.080
Which can still happen.
157
00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:01.142
But I much more tend to think this is a feature, not a bug of the industry.
158
00:11:01.842 --> 00:11:09.906
And to counteract it, I simply build the business in a way that when I hand it off to a general manager, they don't have to worry about it.
159
00:11:10.306 --> 00:11:12.507
Because the hardest part about Spring Rush is when you're growing.
160
00:11:12.827 --> 00:11:22.512
Because if you grow by 50% compared to last Spring Rush, that's another truck, two or three more employees, way more difficult to manage, versus just being like, it's the same as last year in terms of trucks and employees.
161
00:11:22.812 --> 00:11:24.713
We're just raising prices to increase revenue.
162
00:11:25.954 --> 00:11:31.939
And so that's why I'm a huge fan of getting it there first, actually having a year of it being in that profit mode, and then handing it off.
163
00:11:32.359 --> 00:11:42.968
So I think next year it'll be a lot easier for your Lafayette location, not because the general range has been longer, simply due to the fact that it's actually going to be in profit mode compared to the year prior.
164
00:11:43.849 --> 00:11:46.871
So if you did 550 this year, it's probably 650 or 7 next year.
165
00:11:47.152 --> 00:11:50.755
That's easier than making realistically a 50% or 60% jump this past year.
166
00:11:52.408 --> 00:12:01.553
So I always think of it like it's a feature, not a bug, and I'm going to just make sure I build the business in a way that when I hand it off to GM, the likelihood of the hair on fire thing happens less frequently.
167
00:12:01.953 --> 00:12:04.835
I also like to reduce the budget hour capacity of my team.
168
00:12:05.575 --> 00:12:13.240
So if you can get them, like right now, if you're, say, scheduling for 30 budget hours, bringing that down to 28 or 27 dramatically decreases the chance of hair on fire.
169
00:12:14.020 --> 00:12:18.031
So when my locations get into profit mode, before I hand it off, I just ask all the GMs.
170
00:12:18.051 --> 00:12:21.641
I'm like, I want you to run everything at 27 to 28 budget hours per week or even less, like 25.
171
00:12:22.895 --> 00:12:25.156
The reason is because there will be one or two people that will call out.
172
00:12:25.536 --> 00:12:26.276
That always happens.
173
00:12:26.356 --> 00:12:29.777
And also, if one or two people leave, they'll still be able to make it.
174
00:12:30.357 --> 00:12:32.878
So I'm much more like, and I know I'm leaving some margin on the table.
175
00:12:32.918 --> 00:12:40.860
I'm probably leaving 2% margin, so like an extra 15, 20 grand of payroll a year, by them being a little overstaffed.
176
00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:43.541
And some people will leave because they're only getting 35 hours in a week.
177
00:12:44.941 --> 00:12:47.202
But my objective is that we never have hair on fire.
178
00:12:48.635 --> 00:12:52.936
I want my GMs to be able to go on a one-day vacation at least during the middle of spring rush.
179
00:12:53.156 --> 00:12:57.138
To do that, though, they have to have everyone under capacity and overhire.
180
00:12:57.878 --> 00:13:07.921
And I'm okay with giving some margin up by them training people earlier in February so that way when they go into March, April, May, June, that there is less hair on fire.
181
00:13:07.941 --> 00:13:11.762
Because the hair on fire part aside, how can I –
182
00:13:14.893 --> 00:13:19.675
train GMs to be trainers or train them to train a trainer to be a trainer.
183
00:13:19.695 --> 00:13:30.678
That's the part that I kind of, cause one I'm not there so I can't, or maybe that's the problem is I should be there when they're training someone so I can give feedback as they're giving feedback.
184
00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.500
Or if I'm not there, kind of how do I make sure that they're doing a quote unquote good job with that?
185
00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:36.360
Yeah.
186
00:13:36.380 --> 00:13:43.443
Like I think one way that's really helpful is to do interviews of new employees after their training.
187
00:13:44.604 --> 00:13:45.765
and ask them how to improve it.
188
00:13:46.485 --> 00:13:51.187
So we do this now with all owners that come to Augusta after their training at Augusta.
189
00:13:51.227 --> 00:13:54.609
It's like, hey, why did you not get P4P?
190
00:13:54.909 --> 00:13:59.031
Now we've made basically all that feedback into the six weeks afterwards, those calls.
191
00:13:59.691 --> 00:14:01.352
I would do the same thing with new employees.
192
00:14:01.812 --> 00:14:04.533
So the trainer ranks the trainee, and the trainee ranks the trainer.
193
00:14:05.313 --> 00:14:06.334
And they're like, what are the gaps?
194
00:14:06.354 --> 00:14:07.254
What do you not know?
195
00:14:07.274 --> 00:14:08.155
What do you not feel comfortable?
196
00:14:08.935 --> 00:14:10.457
I do not feel good with the riding mower.
197
00:14:10.657 --> 00:14:11.197
Okay, great.
198
00:14:11.698 --> 00:14:13.219
We know we need to improve that part in training.
199
00:14:13.780 --> 00:14:15.601
So I would survey them.
200
00:14:15.742 --> 00:14:17.623
And then also have them rank your trainer.
201
00:14:17.643 --> 00:14:25.230
Because if you get three new employees for a new GM, for example, and they all rank the GM or survey them as poor trainer, they never told me what to do.
202
00:14:25.250 --> 00:14:27.673
They just threw me out there, and we got all sorts of yellow slips.
203
00:14:28.453 --> 00:14:29.795
That's a huge red flag to me as an owner.
204
00:14:30.035 --> 00:14:30.135
Wow.
205
00:14:30.585 --> 00:14:30.805
Right?
206
00:14:31.006 --> 00:14:34.570
So I would create an automation inside Copilot based upon their start date.
207
00:14:35.110 --> 00:14:40.457
I would do like a four-week, six-week, eight-week on like, hey, you could change it however many.
208
00:14:40.477 --> 00:14:41.458
Like Google Forms are great.
209
00:14:41.938 --> 00:14:45.563
And just be like, hey, based upon so far at Augusta, what's your experience with training?
210
00:14:45.763 --> 00:14:47.245
What about your general manager, direct report?
211
00:14:47.485 --> 00:14:48.346
And that's coming straight to you.
1
00:00:00.091 --> 00:00:06.012
Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes and today we're talking to Joel Heck, who's an owner of Augusta Lawn Care out in Colorado.
2
00:00:06.332 --> 00:00:07.353
And he has two locations.
3
00:00:07.853 --> 00:00:09.793
And one location is around $550,000.
4
00:00:09.813 --> 00:00:11.114
He just put it into profit mode.
5
00:00:11.374 --> 00:00:17.575
And he's recently started a second location that's doing around $50,000 in annual revenue, just getting started with about 40 customers.
6
00:00:17.955 --> 00:00:25.837
He does a great job, around $100,000 in revenue just on Christmas lights, but he's really trying to figure out how to manage his managers.
7
00:00:26.197 --> 00:00:38.081
how to be a great regional manager, and also how to give them feedback when he sees certain things that they're doing that might not be exactly correct, and he doesn't want to come across as overbearing or put them off with his feedback.
8
00:00:38.341 --> 00:00:44.623
So this is going to be really beneficial if you have general managers or managers of any sort that report to you and you want to give them feedback.
9
00:00:44.783 --> 00:00:46.424
Let's go ahead and roll the tape.
10
00:00:47.104 --> 00:00:49.725
Lafayette's doing around $5.50 this year.
11
00:00:52.669 --> 00:00:54.270
What's the other one?
12
00:00:54.290 --> 00:00:54.750
Broomfield.
13
00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:56.170
Yeah, Broomfield.
14
00:00:56.430 --> 00:00:58.210
That one's making like $50,000 this year.
15
00:00:58.730 --> 00:00:59.351
Kind of brand new.
16
00:01:01.431 --> 00:01:04.531
This year's first year of profit at Lafayette.
17
00:01:05.032 --> 00:01:07.072
Second quarter profit sharing happened.
18
00:01:07.852 --> 00:01:09.592
Expecting good ones in Q3 and Q4.
19
00:01:09.992 --> 00:01:13.013
Third year of business, so kind of right on track.
20
00:01:13.533 --> 00:01:15.833
Don't know how much working capital you have, but you're going heavy in Christmas lights.
21
00:01:15.853 --> 00:01:17.694
Turned to try to add $100,000 in Christmas lights.
22
00:01:17.714 --> 00:01:18.214
$400,000.
23
00:01:19.583 --> 00:01:22.784
40K in working, fantastic.
24
00:01:23.404 --> 00:01:24.404
Cool, anything else?
25
00:01:24.424 --> 00:01:26.104
We've already talked, I went to a shop space.
26
00:01:26.124 --> 00:01:29.205
Well, actually I had a new question as we were kind of talking here.
27
00:01:30.165 --> 00:01:43.908
I think one of the biggest issues is, maybe it's just this kind of season because of the baby I wanted to be home, a fear of having to go back in the field because the manager doesn't work out.
28
00:01:44.895 --> 00:01:47.637
We do the weekly scorecards, I've done them for over a year now.
29
00:01:49.838 --> 00:02:03.426
How do you, I guess, give negative feedback, or you know there's issues, how do you kind of work with your manager to point them out, get them on board with fixing them, improving performance?
30
00:02:04.493 --> 00:02:16.122
Like how do you have that conversation and kind of what's the plan, the pip that you may have to do to improve performance or say we got to do something different?
31
00:02:20.443 --> 00:02:23.586
I will say pips are like a 20% chance of working.
32
00:02:24.406 --> 00:02:27.349
Usually when you give someone a pip, it's kind of like the way of saying you're fired.
33
00:02:27.609 --> 00:02:28.650
To most people, that's how they hear it.
34
00:02:29.471 --> 00:02:33.454
I have had some pips work, and people make a radical change, but it's very rare.
35
00:02:33.974 --> 00:02:39.319
So I am much more now of the opinion, like, I'm either going to fire this person, or I think –
36
00:02:39.819 --> 00:02:42.802
Sometimes pips have been helpful when someone comes out of a life circumstance.
37
00:02:42.882 --> 00:02:45.745
It has negatively impacted their professional performance.
38
00:02:46.105 --> 00:02:49.389
And I need the pip to kind of like, hey, just FYI, you're not up to standard.
39
00:02:49.409 --> 00:02:50.730
Can you kick it back into gear?
40
00:02:53.453 --> 00:02:54.914
One thing I would really lean into is...
41
00:02:55.790 --> 00:02:58.893
talk to a coach and be like, hey, my GM has had this problem.
42
00:02:58.993 --> 00:03:02.076
I'm going to have him book a call with you, and I kind of need to go over these things.
43
00:03:02.597 --> 00:03:04.418
Like the indirect approach, right?
44
00:03:04.438 --> 00:03:16.129
That's the nice thing about Augusta is like I've had that before too, where like, hey, I want my GM to hear this, and so I'm going to slide some notes to the coach, and then they're hearing from someone else.
45
00:03:18.612 --> 00:03:21.175
The thing that is the easiest is when it's metric-based.
46
00:03:21.776 --> 00:03:23.418
They're not hitting the number of budget hours per week.
47
00:03:23.498 --> 00:03:25.741
They're hitting growth metrics.
48
00:03:26.042 --> 00:03:27.163
Those are the easiest things to do.
49
00:03:27.363 --> 00:03:34.833
But sometimes if your base pay is high enough for a general manager, they don't really care because they're happy with $70,000 a year.
50
00:03:35.806 --> 00:03:42.635
Um, so what we've done, my locations is when we give them an on target earnings, that is actually the standard.
51
00:03:43.155 --> 00:03:46.579
Anything below that becomes a, like a derogatory remark.
52
00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:48.422
So when I say, Hey, your base is 70.
53
00:03:48.602 --> 00:03:51.565
You're on, you should have 105,000 based on on target earnings.
54
00:03:51.766 --> 00:03:53.888
If you make 103, that's like, you need not do good.
55
00:03:54.649 --> 00:03:56.910
Like the location should be improving.
56
00:03:57.250 --> 00:04:00.251
Like especially in your profit mode, you're raising prices, like things are becoming more efficient.
57
00:04:00.911 --> 00:04:07.113
And so I would really get clear with what on-target earnings are and then what on-target metrics are.
58
00:04:07.813 --> 00:04:13.555
So like, hey, this location should be improving efficiency score because we raised prices and your budget hours went up.
59
00:04:14.532 --> 00:04:23.098
So getting really clear about what on target is, it becomes a whole other issue when they see that they're not performing in a metric and then they don't care.
60
00:04:23.638 --> 00:04:24.799
That's what I'm usually going to fire someone.
61
00:04:25.379 --> 00:04:26.960
Or I'm going to gracefully let them go.
62
00:04:27.280 --> 00:04:28.021
And I've done that recently.
63
00:04:28.301 --> 00:04:32.123
It's like, hey, it's a function of, hey, they're not hitting it, and they don't seem to really care about that.
64
00:04:32.664 --> 00:04:37.667
And I see it as a problem in three months from now, but they're looking at the bottom line and like, oh, it's great.
65
00:04:38.547 --> 00:04:39.588
And I know what's about to come.
66
00:04:39.648 --> 00:04:41.990
So that's when you just gracefully let someone go.
67
00:04:43.170 --> 00:04:47.153
And the simpler you can make their position, the easier it is to backfill that.
68
00:04:48.433 --> 00:04:50.655
Managing a manager, you're not there with them every day.
69
00:04:50.695 --> 00:04:51.915
Like they might be with a field tech.
70
00:04:52.376 --> 00:04:56.518
And so you're kind of hearing, you're seeing the metrics, but you're also hearing what they say.
71
00:04:56.758 --> 00:05:04.723
And so it seems like they're doing things that they should be doing and earnestly trying, but they're just not getting their results.
72
00:05:06.123 --> 00:05:09.345
It's just like, sorry, I don't know what's going on, but we're not getting the results.
73
00:05:09.485 --> 00:05:10.206
We still have to leave.
74
00:05:10.386 --> 00:05:12.267
Or like, how do you handle kind of that?
75
00:05:12.788 --> 00:05:16.010
Yeah, so I try to have an upfront conversation with them.
76
00:05:16.030 --> 00:05:21.253
Like, hey, if you don't hit these metrics on the scorecard, kind of a red, yellow, green is sometimes helpful.
77
00:05:21.934 --> 00:05:23.114
Say, if it's not green, it's a problem.
78
00:05:24.115 --> 00:05:25.996
I expect you to come up with a solution.
79
00:05:27.017 --> 00:05:29.879
And then you will run it by me in our meeting, and then you will execute.
80
00:05:30.719 --> 00:05:36.082
And so if they don't see certain things as a problem, that's when the metrics can usually give them, hey, this is a problem.
81
00:05:36.463 --> 00:05:38.424
But if they can't identify the solution, I'm going to fire them.
82
00:05:39.202 --> 00:05:45.405
Because the role of a manager is to create solutions, not to come to you and be like, I don't know what's going wrong.
83
00:05:46.246 --> 00:05:47.567
They're the closest one to the fire.
84
00:05:47.607 --> 00:05:51.589
They should be able to know why efficiency is down, why close rate is down, et cetera.
85
00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:53.150
And if they can't, they're not a manager.
86
00:05:54.210 --> 00:05:58.633
We can use the numbers to identify the problem, but if they cannot identify the solution, they are not a manager.
87
00:05:59.785 --> 00:06:07.947
And honestly, it comes down to the whole notion of if I had five locations, I cannot be the person everyone just comes to with their problems.
88
00:06:08.367 --> 00:06:09.467
It's not working, I don't know why.
89
00:06:09.787 --> 00:06:11.867
Then you're not up for this position.
90
00:06:13.228 --> 00:06:21.609
And that's why a lot of times I see churn in the first couple managers, is because it sometimes takes a while to realize early on that this person is great at execution.
91
00:06:22.129 --> 00:06:24.630
They just stink at figuring out what solutions are.
92
00:06:25.583 --> 00:06:27.064
So problems are very easy to identify.
93
00:06:27.084 --> 00:06:27.804
We don't need scorecards.
94
00:06:28.044 --> 00:06:30.266
They're great at executing, but they never come up with solutions.
95
00:06:30.286 --> 00:06:30.686
So what do they do?
96
00:06:30.706 --> 00:06:33.067
They come back to me like, I don't know why we're not profitable.
97
00:06:33.087 --> 00:06:34.108
I don't know why the close ratio is not.
98
00:06:34.128 --> 00:06:36.790
If they can't come up with a solution, I got to let them go.
99
00:06:37.930 --> 00:06:47.876
Especially because when you have three, four, or five locations, if you have four general managers that can only identify problems and execute, you will just become the constant errand boy of like, OK, you need to solve this.
100
00:06:47.896 --> 00:06:48.997
And here's how you fix the close.
101
00:06:49.437 --> 00:06:50.998
They need to be able to come up with solutions.
102
00:06:52.419 --> 00:07:05.903
And that's very difficult because you can get a working GM, especially if location is really simplified, to kind of operate at a decent margin and do pretty good without coming up with a lot of solutions because there's not a lot of problems.
103
00:07:06.543 --> 00:07:12.505
But as you begin to scale and you become less and less involved, there will be problems like employee problems, HR problems, PR.
104
00:07:13.005 --> 00:07:13.785
That stuff happens.
105
00:07:14.245 --> 00:07:15.045
Customer complaints.
106
00:07:15.246 --> 00:07:16.506
They'll need to come up with solutions.
107
00:07:17.106 --> 00:07:22.171
And if they're not a solution, if they can't come up with a solution, and I'm going to come up with it all the time, I'm going to fire them.
108
00:07:22.591 --> 00:07:32.201
OK. And so when you look at Nick, Lee, and Liz in Augusta, the thing that you ask them, I never tell them what to do.
109
00:07:32.481 --> 00:07:33.202
I never manage them.
110
00:07:33.482 --> 00:07:35.003
I never ask them hours.
111
00:07:35.264 --> 00:07:41.490
The reason is because they have proven to me that if there is a problem, they know the solution before I come up with one, and then they're already executing on it.
112
00:07:42.334 --> 00:07:44.156
And so that's a sign of a great manager.
113
00:07:44.216 --> 00:07:54.984
Someone that, when they come to you with a problem, they have already identified a solution, and either running it by you, and most of the time what I then do as time gets on and they have proven to me that they can find solutions, is I tell them to execute before talking to me.
114
00:07:55.905 --> 00:07:57.006
That gives them a lot of confidence.
115
00:07:57.726 --> 00:08:02.891
And then the goal is that you never have to be there because they can go through that process without your input.
116
00:08:04.908 --> 00:08:06.129
hard to find general managers like that.
117
00:08:06.169 --> 00:08:12.434
That's why it takes a few times to find a good general manager because it's so easy to find someone who does good in the field.
118
00:08:12.454 --> 00:08:13.355
Like, oh, they can execute.
119
00:08:13.695 --> 00:08:13.955
Great.
120
00:08:14.236 --> 00:08:20.120
But if they can't identify a problem and then figure out the solution on their own, you're just the constant, like, jumping in person.
121
00:08:20.681 --> 00:08:22.062
Or the person that you're like, what?
122
00:08:22.102 --> 00:08:22.883
Are they not going to see this?
123
00:08:22.903 --> 00:08:25.825
Like, did you not see that they're sitting there for 20 minutes before that?
124
00:08:26.205 --> 00:08:27.767
And that's very aggravated.
125
00:08:29.008 --> 00:08:32.250
And whenever I've felt that way, that general manager usually doesn't end up lasting.
126
00:08:33.353 --> 00:08:35.835
And it usually shows up in the numbers like a few months later.
127
00:08:35.975 --> 00:08:40.878
A lot of the concepts that I'm talking about with Joel and the owners of Augusta are all contained inside of this book.
128
00:08:40.979 --> 00:08:41.779
I just released it.
129
00:08:42.259 --> 00:08:51.086
Copy-based millionaire home service blueprint to make $3 million with multiple locations like Joel is doing or growing one location with mid-level managers.
130
00:08:51.406 --> 00:08:52.747
Go check it out and we'll see you there.
131
00:08:53.608 --> 00:09:00.833
After two and a half years of being in operation, I find hiring and training just be...
132
00:09:02.085 --> 00:09:05.508
difficult and it kind of goes back to our conversation earlier about white collared versus blue collared.
133
00:09:06.348 --> 00:09:16.696
Whereas for me, in my experience, kind of self-taught online training, kind of repeatable things like that make sense to me.
134
00:09:16.897 --> 00:09:18.998
And I tried to implement that into my business.
135
00:09:19.018 --> 00:09:20.539
I don't think it's worked out that great.
136
00:09:22.121 --> 00:09:31.188
It seems like, and I hear from other companies that kind of the hands on training, the face to face, the show review, tell show review kind of process is the way to go.
137
00:09:33.068 --> 00:09:38.298
How do I make that a repeatable process for my manager?
138
00:09:38.318 --> 00:09:41.845
Like teach my manager to teach people to do that.
139
00:09:41.965 --> 00:09:42.847
And like, especially,
140
00:09:44.456 --> 00:09:52.961
kind of more abstract things like team policies and kind of things that you should be looking out for as opposed to just like here's how you mow.
141
00:09:53.021 --> 00:10:03.507
How do you make that more, make that repeatable and make sure that actually gets done, especially when a manager is like their hair's on fire because we're overworked, understaffed, and there's problems going on?
142
00:10:04.307 --> 00:10:08.849
That part is the hard part because if everything's going well, that's when it's like, okay, great.
143
00:10:08.869 --> 00:10:10.630
We're going to have day one and day two.
144
00:10:10.650 --> 00:10:11.490
They learn these things.
145
00:10:11.510 --> 00:10:13.051
We have a trainer that signs off of them.
146
00:10:13.091 --> 00:10:18.533
The trainer is incentivized in the second paycheck of the trainee based upon if they hit above base pay.
147
00:10:18.933 --> 00:10:20.134
That's when everything's going well.
148
00:10:20.374 --> 00:10:21.595
That's not how the real world works.
149
00:10:21.615 --> 00:10:22.775
The real world works.
150
00:10:23.015 --> 00:10:27.957
You've got four new hires because you're in the middle of spring rush, and you need tons of budget hours done.
151
00:10:27.977 --> 00:10:29.018
You just need hands on job.
152
00:10:29.898 --> 00:10:31.520
And so that is the challenging part.
153
00:10:31.660 --> 00:10:39.727
I think that's why I don't recommend putting a general manager in a location until it's in profit mode and actually profit mode, which is like, we are raising prices only.
154
00:10:39.767 --> 00:10:44.691
We are not getting more customers because there's less likelihood of hair on fire.
155
00:10:45.472 --> 00:10:53.259
The only hair on fire situation happens is if they miscalculate demand for Spring Rush and they have like two or three people leave at the same time.
156
00:10:54.099 --> 00:10:55.080
Which can still happen.
157
00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:01.142
But I much more tend to think this is a feature, not a bug of the industry.
158
00:11:01.842 --> 00:11:09.906
And to counteract it, I simply build the business in a way that when I hand it off to a general manager, they don't have to worry about it.
159
00:11:10.306 --> 00:11:12.507
Because the hardest part about Spring Rush is when you're growing.
160
00:11:12.827 --> 00:11:22.512
Because if you grow by 50% compared to last Spring Rush, that's another truck, two or three more employees, way more difficult to manage, versus just being like, it's the same as last year in terms of trucks and employees.
161
00:11:22.812 --> 00:11:24.713
We're just raising prices to increase revenue.
162
00:11:25.954 --> 00:11:31.939
And so that's why I'm a huge fan of getting it there first, actually having a year of it being in that profit mode, and then handing it off.
163
00:11:32.359 --> 00:11:42.968
So I think next year it'll be a lot easier for your Lafayette location, not because the general range has been longer, simply due to the fact that it's actually going to be in profit mode compared to the year prior.
164
00:11:43.849 --> 00:11:46.871
So if you did 550 this year, it's probably 650 or 7 next year.
165
00:11:47.152 --> 00:11:50.755
That's easier than making realistically a 50% or 60% jump this past year.
166
00:11:52.408 --> 00:12:01.553
So I always think of it like it's a feature, not a bug, and I'm going to just make sure I build the business in a way that when I hand it off to GM, the likelihood of the hair on fire thing happens less frequently.
167
00:12:01.953 --> 00:12:04.835
I also like to reduce the budget hour capacity of my team.
168
00:12:05.575 --> 00:12:13.240
So if you can get them, like right now, if you're, say, scheduling for 30 budget hours, bringing that down to 28 or 27 dramatically decreases the chance of hair on fire.
169
00:12:14.020 --> 00:12:18.031
So when my locations get into profit mode, before I hand it off, I just ask all the GMs.
170
00:12:18.051 --> 00:12:21.641
I'm like, I want you to run everything at 27 to 28 budget hours per week or even less, like 25.
171
00:12:22.895 --> 00:12:25.156
The reason is because there will be one or two people that will call out.
172
00:12:25.536 --> 00:12:26.276
That always happens.
173
00:12:26.356 --> 00:12:29.777
And also, if one or two people leave, they'll still be able to make it.
174
00:12:30.357 --> 00:12:32.878
So I'm much more like, and I know I'm leaving some margin on the table.
175
00:12:32.918 --> 00:12:40.860
I'm probably leaving 2% margin, so like an extra 15, 20 grand of payroll a year, by them being a little overstaffed.
176
00:12:40.940 --> 00:12:43.541
And some people will leave because they're only getting 35 hours in a week.
177
00:12:44.941 --> 00:12:47.202
But my objective is that we never have hair on fire.
178
00:12:48.635 --> 00:12:52.936
I want my GMs to be able to go on a one-day vacation at least during the middle of spring rush.
179
00:12:53.156 --> 00:12:57.138
To do that, though, they have to have everyone under capacity and overhire.
180
00:12:57.878 --> 00:13:07.921
And I'm okay with giving some margin up by them training people earlier in February so that way when they go into March, April, May, June, that there is less hair on fire.
181
00:13:07.941 --> 00:13:11.762
Because the hair on fire part aside, how can I –
182
00:13:14.893 --> 00:13:19.675
train GMs to be trainers or train them to train a trainer to be a trainer.
183
00:13:19.695 --> 00:13:30.678
That's the part that I kind of, cause one I'm not there so I can't, or maybe that's the problem is I should be there when they're training someone so I can give feedback as they're giving feedback.
184
00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:35.500
Or if I'm not there, kind of how do I make sure that they're doing a quote unquote good job with that?
185
00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:36.360
Yeah.
186
00:13:36.380 --> 00:13:43.443
Like I think one way that's really helpful is to do interviews of new employees after their training.
187
00:13:44.604 --> 00:13:45.765
and ask them how to improve it.
188
00:13:46.485 --> 00:13:51.187
So we do this now with all owners that come to Augusta after their training at Augusta.
189
00:13:51.227 --> 00:13:54.609
It's like, hey, why did you not get P4P?
190
00:13:54.909 --> 00:13:59.031
Now we've made basically all that feedback into the six weeks afterwards, those calls.
191
00:13:59.691 --> 00:14:01.352
I would do the same thing with new employees.
192
00:14:01.812 --> 00:14:04.533
So the trainer ranks the trainee, and the trainee ranks the trainer.
193
00:14:05.313 --> 00:14:06.334
And they're like, what are the gaps?
194
00:14:06.354 --> 00:14:07.254
What do you not know?
195
00:14:07.274 --> 00:14:08.155
What do you not feel comfortable?
196
00:14:08.935 --> 00:14:10.457
I do not feel good with the riding mower.
197
00:14:10.657 --> 00:14:11.197
Okay, great.
198
00:14:11.698 --> 00:14:13.219
We know we need to improve that part in training.
199
00:14:13.780 --> 00:14:15.601
So I would survey them.
200
00:14:15.742 --> 00:14:17.623
And then also have them rank your trainer.
201
00:14:17.643 --> 00:14:25.230
Because if you get three new employees for a new GM, for example, and they all rank the GM or survey them as poor trainer, they never told me what to do.
202
00:14:25.250 --> 00:14:27.673
They just threw me out there, and we got all sorts of yellow slips.
203
00:14:28.453 --> 00:14:29.795
That's a huge red flag to me as an owner.
204
00:14:30.035 --> 00:14:30.135
Wow.
205
00:14:30.585 --> 00:14:30.805
Right?
206
00:14:31.006 --> 00:14:34.570
So I would create an automation inside Copilot based upon their start date.
207
00:14:35.110 --> 00:14:40.457
I would do like a four-week, six-week, eight-week on like, hey, you could change it however many.
208
00:14:40.477 --> 00:14:41.458
Like Google Forms are great.
209
00:14:41.938 --> 00:14:45.563
And just be like, hey, based upon so far at Augusta, what's your experience with training?
210
00:14:45.763 --> 00:14:47.245
What about your general manager, direct report?
211
00:14:47.485 --> 00:14:48.346
And that's coming straight to you.