Brother QUITS and his Landscape Business CRASHES!

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Spring rush, my brother just quit.
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Now I'm in the hospital with his emergent surgery.
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I'm still thinking, I can still go to work tomorrow.
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I just won't sleep today.
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It's fine.
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Today, we're in Texas, visiting Efren from Native Scenery Landscapes.
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I wish I had, like, structure.
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This is not what I envisioned when I first started doing this.
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That means I need to fix it now, because it's going to break.
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Give my language, but it's kind of a show.
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I think it's getting worse.
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Efren made over $380,000 in revenue last year.
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This year, my goal is $450,000.
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I would tell people, yeah, I'm going to landscape, and they're like, what?
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What's wrong with you?
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You're in all these different spots and it's working.
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You're profitable enough.
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He wants to grow the business past $500,000, but he can't figure out how.
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I don't want to grow it with a broken system and everything falls and crashes.
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My whole identity has become this, which is cool, I thought, but no, it's not.
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I'm just kind of driving this with my eyes closed.
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He spends his day jumping from task to task without any clear direction or priority.
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I can't imagine my dad working like this for 30 years by himself.
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Going on seven years of chaos, I've frankly had enough.
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He's at the bar, so I can't complain until my year 25.
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Do you have email coming to your partner now?
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I do, yeah.
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And when I open the app, I get an anxiety attack.
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Well, these guys just showed up yesterday and I have a whole setup.
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What are we doing wrong?
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This is the Business Turnaround Show.
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My name is Mike Andes.
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I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care.
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We have over 175 locations around the world.
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And I travel the country fixing struggling businesses.
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I just didn't have the clarity on where to start.
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If you do all of those things in the next six weeks, we'll be in a good spot.
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This is perfect.
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This is exactly what I need.
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Our goal is to give Efren a strategy to turn around the company in the next six weeks.
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Any family business is tough when you take it over from your dad or whatever.
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So it's a very interesting dynamic that now his dad works for him.
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That's always tough, honestly.
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But then it sounds like there's been more of an issue with his brother.
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and kind of those expectations from a family business perspective.
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This beautiful Texas weather.
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We're supposed to be the one with all the rain.
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We started from you today.
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How's it going, Mike?
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My name is Efren Loyola, and I'm the owner operator of Native Scenery Landscapes.
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We provide what I consider small-scale projects, mulch installation, plants, gravel,
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This is a nice little shop space.
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I saw it actually on your Instagram.
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Yeah, so as you see, this is our workspace and we have plenty of space.
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And I say that because our previous spot sucked.
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It was expensive.
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We started at my parents' house.
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After two years, we went to the storage space, kind of sort of more central.
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And it was nice.
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It was like a garage like this with an office space.
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And I was like, oh, this is great.
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But it turned out it was just expensive and not usable.
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But we were stuck there for three years.
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And what do you have to pay for this area?
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700, 750.
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Okay.
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To give you some context, I was paying $2,000 for three years over there.
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Where's?
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For my office space that wasn't insulated, so you can imagine in the summer.
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Oh my goodness.
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My brother, myself, we would go and, it was in the summers, we would go and mow lawns with my dad.
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That's all it really was, was mowing lawns.
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Sometimes he would have these clients where he just kind of goes there all day and does more of like just groundskeeping, general stuff.
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My brother and I would go and we're like eight or 19, 10 years old.
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And I didn't think anything of it because I'm like 10 years old.
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Yeah.
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My brother was always so 40.
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He's like, man, this sucks.
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And I'm like, this is fun.
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A lot of times when you have a generational business, the challenging part is the person that gets handed off to never built the company.
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They weren't the founder and that they're given the responsibility of the CEO.
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And it's rare that you have a random kid of an owner that is a good CEO material.
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Like maybe they are, but it's rare that they are actually the best candidate for that job because they're not the founder.
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So if you look at the whole business, what percentage of it is you think mowing, landscaping, and then the other, which would be like irrigation and weed control?
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Yeah, 75% lawn service.
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Got it.
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Kind of break the other three.
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Well, maybe another.
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Then projects and then we control audits are like the small two ones.
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10-15% Yeah, but I would say if I had to guess on like margin was in profitability and their higher profitable Right.
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services.
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And you're doing all of it.
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I just haven't built- Scaled it up.
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Okay.
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Like a system around it.
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Okay.
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And that's what I'm working on.
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They might not have the cultural kind of vision for the business or like what the vision for what the brand should be.
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Or they just, a lot of times you'll burn through employees because they don't have the ability to like attract people to what they're trying to do.
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But also there's people like Efren that take over the business and then things go super successful and just you double or triple the business.
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Most of the time, because you take on technology and you upgrade the tech stack of what you're working with.
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I just feel, I see the end result of potentially retiring my parents and having something sustainable long-term and it may work out, may not, but so far it's been working out and yeah.
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Did you work for your dad before taking it over then?
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So he's been doing that for as long as I remember.
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Okay.
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Mowing lawns and he's always been like a one man crew.
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Go back to work and help my dad.
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Like I said, he's working by himself.
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He's getting older.
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Seven years ago is when I came on.
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I'm like, I initially just came on just to help.
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And I was in between, transitioning between careers.
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And once I started helping, I was like, why are we doing this like the hardest way possible?
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Why don't we make things easier?
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And seven years later, now I'm here.
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We're still here.
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Oh wow.
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Let me introduce you to my dad.
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He's the guy that started it all.
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This is my dad, Efren Sr.
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When did he start it?
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Like 20 years ago?
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So I'm 34, so when I was like one or two,
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It was when he started mowing.
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It has a sense of like a means of an income.
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Really?
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His full-time thing?
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Mm-hmm.
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I can't imagine my dad working like this for 30 years by himself.
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And I'm over here like year eight and I'm like crying.
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He's at the bar so I can't complain until my year 25.
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That's when I'll think about giving up.
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25 years later, I was in between careers, you could say.
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A registered nurse actually.
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So it's kind of super random.
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People always ask me, I was like, how the hell did you end up here?
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When I was working at the hospital, I would tell people, yeah, I'm going to Lensky.
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And they're like, what's wrong with you?
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And, but it's like, cause all that background I told you, it's just what I know.
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And it's just very natural to me.
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I went back home to kind of revaluate my life.
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Like, what do I want to do next?
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So I started helping my dad out again.
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He's getting older.
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I feel a sense of pride that me, my dad, and my brother did this together.
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I started first and maybe two years later.
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Yeah, I was working security at the time.
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And then he told me about the company.
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I pretty much jumped off board around like 2019.
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Yeah, about two years ago.
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Yeah, it's been on ever since.
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Then eventually we branded ourselves, or I branded us.
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So I'm like 100% owner of this company of Native Scenery Landscapes.
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Doing so, we kind of grandfathered in that clientele list.
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Fast forward to now, we manage about 50 clients or so.
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And we're just building sort of kind of these different departments of our business.
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And one thing, one of the big things I noticed at that time, every day we're out here, there's two or three new companies I've never seen before, lawn service-wise.
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I mean, some of these things are like my dad's original tools from like 25, 30 years ago.
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And I'm seeing these guys pull up in like new trucks, completely wrapped, these new skags.
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And I'm like, what are we doing wrong?
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Like, well, these guys just showed up yesterday and I have a whole setup and I'm like, what's going on?
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And that's when I started kind of just learning more about business, just on my own.
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And once you open that can of worms, it's never ending.
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Seven years later and I'm still here learning
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I mean, I reached out to y'all, so.
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There's still plenty more to learn.
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So you saw this car already.
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This is our daily driver.
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We have our utility trailer in the back.
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This is our big boy here.
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So when we do projects, exactly.
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Our dump trailer.
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I bought this pre-COVID.
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So since then, it's, I think, tripled in price.
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I got lucky there.
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All my irrigation stuff's in here.
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And that's really helped in optimizing and just being efficient.
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And then how much of your week has you spent doing irrigation in terms of actually in the field doing that?
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Since I've had this,
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I will say, yeah, like 10 hours.
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And it can easily double, triple.
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Just I haven't really leaned into it.
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Because since I'm the only one doing that, if I do that full time, nothing else.
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In regards to like backend stuff.
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Admin and everything.
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This and the weed control stuff.
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I want them to be big, equal parts of the business, just like everything else.
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I like for everything to be kind of equal in regards to lawn service, projects.
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and then irrigation weed control.
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Just having it diversified, I think it makes sense to me.
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Yeah, no, it's good.
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I'm leaning more towards sort of like a full property maintenance type of company.
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So lawn service, my irrigation, my weeds, planting.
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Oh, guess what?
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We do all that stuff in house.
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It seems to be very profitable.
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So you're in this limbo of like, I know I need to work on the business, but I can't afford to work on the business, so I'll stay in the business.
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So the only way to really navigate that is either A, work 20 hours a day to try to do both, or you gotta kinda get a short-term step back, profitability-wise, so you can focus on growing the business.
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So like scaling that side, do you eventually need to hire someone for those?
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Because like obviously, like you said, if you're doing more of that, then you can't be doing the rest of the business.
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So what's your kind of long-term plan on that side?
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In general, what would be to systematize some of these departments, I guess you want to call them.
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Yeah.
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Like you said, I can't go out there and put down the fertilizer.
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I also want to kind of build the system.
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Like I can be in it and I'm working at the same time.
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He's still producing revenue and that's where he's going to hit a challenge right now is if he wants to grow the business, it'll require more of his time to not be in the field.
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However, by not being the field, it's probably going to take away all his most profitable labor, which is irrigation and weed control.
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That's what he's been doing.
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I don't want to grow it with a broken system and everything falls and crashes.
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This year my goal is 450.
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Last year we did 380.
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There's four of them, including the owner.
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And if they can do 450, 480 this year, like that makes checks out.
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I'm gonna say 315.
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The year before that, 220, so big jump there.
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Got it.
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And then 220, 2019 is about around 200, I think kind of floated.
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Got it.
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So we've always sort of grown.
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I feel like we're now, we're just, I'm just kind of driving this with my eyes closed.
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I kind of know what I want, but I don't have like these top things where I should work on these things to really take me to that next level.
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We'll try to figure it out.
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Yeah, for sure.
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I wanted to just take a second to show you how it's all.
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This is where we started.
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This is where my dad started.
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This is where we worked out of.
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This is where I grew up.
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This is my home and this is where my dad worked his business.
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So every morning we would just come out through here.
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This is what my dad built a long time ago.
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This is kind of the original shop.
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That's awesome.
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Since then we've sort of transitioned out to now the storage and now my dad just kind of uses this too for his own stuff.
236
00:10:02.420 --> 00:10:09.583
So then you're here usually most of the day and then you kind of, you'll take the afternoon and head out with like irrigation, chemicals, stuff like that then?
237
00:10:09.723 --> 00:10:10.925
Yes, if I plan it out that way.
238
00:10:11.185 --> 00:10:17.573
The ideal day is go to the storage, get the guys ready, and touch on anything that we need to touch on.
239
00:10:17.693 --> 00:10:21.618
I'll come here, catch up on emails or just quotes I need to work on.
240
00:10:21.858 --> 00:10:23.140
Just kind of back in admin stuff.
241
00:10:23.260 --> 00:10:24.261
I wish I had like,
242
00:10:25.082 --> 00:10:25.583
structure.
243
00:10:25.923 --> 00:10:26.143
Right.
244
00:10:26.263 --> 00:10:28.165
And this is like Monday, Tuesday, Thursday.
245
00:10:28.185 --> 00:10:28.885
This is what I'm doing.
246
00:10:28.905 --> 00:10:35.190
And the other day I'm doing this like now it's sort of seems to be up in the air, kind of juggling different things depending on the week.
247
00:10:35.491 --> 00:10:35.751
Got it.
248
00:10:35.951 --> 00:10:41.936
What's the next thing for you, in your opinion, to like either delegate or get rid of so you can continue to scale a business?
249
00:10:42.137 --> 00:10:45.678
I feel like I'm missing systemization and organization.
250
00:10:45.798 --> 00:10:51.859
I'd hate to kind of get influx of marketing or sales or leads when I don't have any way of organizing it.
251
00:10:51.879 --> 00:10:53.039
It'll just add to the chaos.
252
00:10:53.479 --> 00:10:56.100
Going on seven years of chaos, I've frankly had enough.
253
00:10:56.280 --> 00:10:58.680
My life has completely just only become this.
254
00:10:58.720 --> 00:10:59.901
This is my whole identity now.
255
00:11:00.581 --> 00:11:01.721
And I don't like that.
256
00:11:01.741 --> 00:11:02.241
I'm married.
257
00:11:02.281 --> 00:11:03.121
I recently got married.
258
00:11:03.141 --> 00:11:03.941
I want to have family.
259
00:11:03.981 --> 00:11:05.942
I want to just be able to do other things.
260
00:11:06.902 --> 00:11:09.024
other than just worry about emails and clients.
261
00:11:09.184 --> 00:11:16.631
I've been in this long enough to now see patterns and trends and what has really gone to the wayside is my own personal life.
262
00:11:16.751 --> 00:11:17.892
Like I said, I recently got married.
263
00:11:18.132 --> 00:11:19.253
I didn't do any more hobbies.
264
00:11:19.353 --> 00:11:20.234
I don't hang out.
265
00:11:20.554 --> 00:11:24.117
And that allows me to kind of like refresh myself to continue doing business.
266
00:11:24.277 --> 00:11:25.518
So if I cut that out of my life,
267
00:11:26.339 --> 00:11:27.540
My business time is now limited.
268
00:11:27.820 --> 00:11:29.501
So I need to just get that back.
269
00:11:29.901 --> 00:11:33.543
My whole identity has become this, which is cool, I thought, but no, it's not.
270
00:11:34.363 --> 00:11:36.664
It just needs to be a part of my life, not my entire life.
271
00:11:36.844 --> 00:11:38.265
My wife is very patient.
272
00:11:38.285 --> 00:11:41.747
I don't know, there comes a point where it's like, come on, what are we doing here?
273
00:11:42.147 --> 00:11:44.709
All right, so you've probably seen me use the 4L framework a little bit.
274
00:11:44.729 --> 00:11:45.129
I love that.
275
00:11:45.329 --> 00:11:45.869
Okay, cool.
276
00:11:46.009 --> 00:11:51.292
The 4L framework identifies the four reasons why every single business will stop growing.
277
00:11:51.332 --> 00:11:55.935
These four constraints are liquidity, leads, labors, and leadership.
278
00:11:56.115 --> 00:11:59.617
A lack of any one of those things can cause the business to stop growing.
279
00:11:59.677 --> 00:12:03.940
From a liquidity perspective, the business looks relatively profitable from what I can see.
280
00:12:04.420 --> 00:12:06.421
And you've been able to take a decent paycheck.
281
00:12:06.881 --> 00:12:09.943
Is there cash crunches that I am not seeing?
282
00:12:10.043 --> 00:12:12.044
I think off the top of my head, one of them was our rent.
283
00:12:12.504 --> 00:12:15.105
It was a huge thing that we would deal with all the time.
284
00:12:15.125 --> 00:12:15.945
The $2,000 a month.
285
00:12:16.025 --> 00:12:16.326
Yeah.
286
00:12:16.526 --> 00:12:19.127
And then also having storage because there wasn't enough space in one spot.
287
00:12:19.147 --> 00:12:20.127
And that was like three years long.
288
00:12:20.307 --> 00:12:23.469
The more recent, I think it was how I'm paying guys in regards to payroll.
289
00:12:23.689 --> 00:12:25.749
It's like, I don't know what way is best.
290
00:12:25.769 --> 00:12:26.890
So we've tried different things.
291
00:12:27.210 --> 00:12:31.751
At a certain point, I was just paying guys just to kind of be around because I didn't know what else to do.
292
00:12:31.831 --> 00:12:33.912
This is not what I envisioned when I first started doing this.
293
00:12:34.152 --> 00:12:34.952
I wanted freedom.
294
00:12:35.192 --> 00:12:38.373
I wanted the ability to be there for my friends and family.
295
00:12:39.013 --> 00:12:42.954
And yeah, where I was headed was the opposite of that.
296
00:12:43.134 --> 00:12:47.795
It's just that whole little time frame, which is the accumulation of everything kind of going bad.
297
00:12:48.616 --> 00:12:49.316
No systems.
298
00:12:50.056 --> 00:12:51.516
Everything being like last minute.
299
00:12:52.016 --> 00:12:53.217
I'm stuck in one spot.
300
00:12:53.417 --> 00:12:59.198
Like it just all kind of came crumbling down I think I've narrowed that down more almost similar to what I think you do.
301
00:12:59.338 --> 00:13:03.119
I'm paying them based off our budgeted scheduled hours So there's eight hours.
302
00:13:03.139 --> 00:13:03.859
I'm paying them eight hours.
303
00:13:04.279 --> 00:13:07.300
If they finish at six, they're still getting paid eight So that's basically a day rate.
304
00:13:07.320 --> 00:13:08.500
Is that kind of what you're using right now?
305
00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:12.921
Uh, yeah, kind of just but also kind of based on what the day is, right?
306
00:13:13.061 --> 00:13:16.182
I feel like that's lessened the bleed in regards to any kind of bleeds that I'm aware of
307
00:13:16.456 --> 00:13:18.797
So from a debt perspective, is there any debt in the business right now?
308
00:13:18.877 --> 00:13:20.498
The only thing is one truck, $24,000.
309
00:13:20.699 --> 00:13:22.580
And that's the landscape truck, I assume.
310
00:13:22.620 --> 00:13:24.821
That's my own personal truck, which I use for landscape.
311
00:13:24.861 --> 00:13:25.802
Right, okay.
312
00:13:26.002 --> 00:13:31.525
And then in terms of cash, usually I'm trying to hit like about one month worth of revenue, which in this case you're probably around
313
00:13:31.965 --> 00:13:32.786
40,000.
314
00:13:33.166 --> 00:13:35.368
Are we at that level in terms of cash in the bank right now?
315
00:13:35.388 --> 00:13:35.448
35.
316
00:13:35.488 --> 00:13:37.449
Okay, so it's healthy enough.
317
00:13:37.469 --> 00:13:42.293
Yeah, there are three reasons why I don't see liquidity as the big constraint for the growth of the business.
318
00:13:42.353 --> 00:13:45.395
First off, we have about a month's worth of revenue in the bank.
319
00:13:45.856 --> 00:13:47.657
Secondly, we don't have a lot of debt.
320
00:13:47.817 --> 00:13:49.879
He only has a small loan on one of the trucks.
321
00:13:49.999 --> 00:13:52.080
And third, Efren doesn't have a lot of overhead.
322
00:13:52.100 --> 00:13:54.282
He doesn't have a fancy office space with utilities.
323
00:13:54.602 --> 00:13:59.346
And he's recently been able to downsize his shop space from 2000 a month all the way down to 700.
324
00:13:59.946 --> 00:14:03.888
Really, there's not much of a liquidity, you know, I don't see that as a huge constraint.
325
00:14:04.068 --> 00:14:04.549
Okay.
326
00:14:04.589 --> 00:14:10.052
As long as someone's making, has a one month of revenue in the bank, I'm like green lights to grow and we keep moving forward.
327
00:14:10.112 --> 00:14:14.834
Now the next constraint of growth, since we've addressed the fact that liquidity is not the problem, is leads.
328
00:14:15.035 --> 00:14:17.076
And ultimately leads will solve everything.
329
00:14:17.116 --> 00:14:22.839
It'll force the business to grow if tons of people are banging down the door saying they need services.
330
00:14:22.979 --> 00:14:25.020
The next like constraint is usually, well, I need more customers.
331
00:14:25.460 --> 00:14:28.282
And right now from what I'm hearing, you're like, hey, I'm pretty confident,
332
00:14:28.682 --> 00:14:33.947
If I can just not have to do all this admin work and not be out in the field, I can go get more leads, i.e.
333
00:14:34.067 --> 00:14:36.869
also upsell my existing customers more services.
334
00:14:36.909 --> 00:14:37.370
Yes, that's right.
335
00:14:37.530 --> 00:14:40.612
In terms of your current website, did you build that or it looks really good?
336
00:14:40.732 --> 00:14:41.793
Been there, done that with the website.
337
00:14:41.933 --> 00:14:43.535
I started doing it myself.
338
00:14:43.775 --> 00:14:44.416
This sucks.
339
00:14:44.436 --> 00:14:45.176
I don't know what I'm doing.
340
00:14:45.416 --> 00:14:45.617
Yeah.
341
00:14:45.637 --> 00:14:46.577
So I had that one built.
342
00:14:46.698 --> 00:14:46.998
Okay.
343
00:14:47.138 --> 00:14:48.119
Three, four years ago.
344
00:14:48.239 --> 00:14:48.439
Okay.
345
00:14:48.519 --> 00:14:50.341
I've started from doing it myself.
346
00:14:50.621 --> 00:14:50.741
Right.
347
00:14:50.881 --> 00:15:19.153
you got squarespace or whatever and do things you know like oh it looks pretty good but it sucks but you don't know that because you're the one doing it but it's been outdated and i kind of lost contact with the guy that made it i was taking advice from a professional but like it didn't work out that's a big lesson you learn when you're doing business it's it takes multiple iterations i see your show and i really like your mindset behind the website how it should look feel and you sold me on that so i've actually a couple weeks ago now i signed up for the website design
348
00:15:19.353 --> 00:15:19.633
Okay.
349
00:15:19.694 --> 00:15:20.915
So that's getting built as we speak.
350
00:15:21.096 --> 00:15:21.436
Oh good.
351
00:15:21.757 --> 00:15:24.320
And Mike just is speaking my language here.
352
00:15:24.921 --> 00:15:26.484
He's speaking what I'm thinking.
353
00:15:26.504 --> 00:15:27.825
I'm like, this just only makes sense.
354
00:15:28.066 --> 00:15:29.889
I'm really excited to see how it turns out.
355
00:15:30.169 --> 00:15:33.995
It's only been about probably two, three weeks since we initially sent over everything.
356
00:15:34.315 --> 00:15:39.858
Another opportunity when it comes to leads in the 4L framework for native scenery landscapes is their website.
357
00:15:39.918 --> 00:15:44.440
And the website actually looks pretty decent, but it was built a long time ago and there's not been a lot of updates.
358
00:15:44.540 --> 00:15:48.061
There are URLs that are missing, pages that are missing, there's scripts that are missing.
359
00:15:48.282 --> 00:15:51.303
It's a very slow site, even though it looks half decent.
360
00:15:51.443 --> 00:15:57.286
That's why it's so important to keep your website updated, constantly change the pictures, the video, and make it seasonally relevant.
361
00:15:57.566 --> 00:16:00.107
During the middle of winter, I'm not going to be pitching mowing.
362
00:16:00.448 --> 00:16:03.429
During the middle of spring rush, I'm not gonna be pitching winter services.
363
00:16:03.529 --> 00:16:05.930
And so constantly making updates to a site is very important.
364
00:16:05.950 --> 00:16:18.637
And this is why I'm so happy that Efren has reached out to Tori and the team at Longcare Web Design, where we actually help build the site and keep it updated on an ongoing basis for search engine optimization, as well as the actual design of the website.
365
00:16:18.697 --> 00:16:23.864
The reason I think I'm really happy you're thinking about now is once you fix the other things, this will become a constraint.
366
00:16:23.884 --> 00:16:24.705
Yes, exactly.
367
00:16:24.805 --> 00:16:31.114
In part, if you had 20 leads coming in today, you would be forced to like, oh, I have to get an office person.
368
00:16:31.414 --> 00:16:33.157
I have to focus on just doing the sales.
369
00:16:33.457 --> 00:16:35.700
Oh, I can't even do the irrigation and the chemicals.
370
00:16:35.880 --> 00:16:56.479
because i have 20 leads today ultimately like if you have enough leads you can raise prices and if you raise prices you then have the capital to be able to spend more money in marketing hire more people solve other problems in the business so really money solves everything but usually you make more money if you have so many leads that you literally will indiscriminately raise prices
371
00:16:56.859 --> 00:17:00.781
Everyone always says like, ah, this isn't a problem because like they feel busy.
372
00:17:01.481 --> 00:17:05.863
But ultimately, if we delegate a whole bunch of other things in the business, it would become the constraint.
373
00:17:06.363 --> 00:17:13.165
And also, if you had five times as many leads, you would immediately have to figure out delegation and systemization of everything else.
374
00:17:13.346 --> 00:17:15.086
Him saying that was not, I didn't expect that.
375
00:17:15.106 --> 00:17:17.187
That seems counterintuitive to me, right?
376
00:17:17.207 --> 00:17:18.428
Because I'm like looking the opposite.
377
00:17:18.488 --> 00:17:19.428
I want to relieve pressure.
378
00:17:19.608 --> 00:17:26.438
And so I don't think leads is the current constraint, but just know it will become the constraint as you continue through this.
379
00:17:26.498 --> 00:17:27.600
Like continue growing.
380
00:17:27.620 --> 00:17:33.468
As things get organized and structured, streamlined, yeah, we are gonna need that flow of leads.
381
00:17:33.749 --> 00:17:34.069
Totally.
382
00:17:34.550 --> 00:17:43.077
Yeah, so if you think about like a funnel, if you have certain bottlenecks in the funnel, there'll be backups of fluid if you're pouring water through.
383
00:17:43.477 --> 00:17:49.222
And sometimes we as business owners are good at dealing with pain, and so we'll deal with a little bit of a bottleneck and we'll be fine.
384
00:17:49.342 --> 00:17:54.426
One way to really accentuate though and identify the bottleneck is just dump more in the top.
385
00:17:54.906 --> 00:18:02.497
And so a lot of times when you dump more leads on something, you immediately, you can like, oh, like this is a constraint because I will never be able to process this many leads.
386
00:18:02.637 --> 00:18:09.988
And so, especially in a business like his where he's been working off of most of his referrals and in, you know, upselling his existing customers,
387
00:18:10.168 --> 00:18:13.950
You pour a whole bunch of new customers in that funnel and all of a sudden like, oh my word, I need someone to answer the phone.
388
00:18:14.270 --> 00:18:14.630
Oh my goodness.
389
00:18:14.650 --> 00:18:15.890
Like I can't get to all these estimates.
390
00:18:15.910 --> 00:18:16.410
Oh my goodness.
391
00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:17.871
Like I'm getting all these irrigation leads.
392
00:18:17.911 --> 00:18:19.432
Maybe I can't do the irrigation myself.
393
00:18:19.552 --> 00:18:22.633
And so you identify the constraints many times by like testing it.
394
00:18:22.653 --> 00:18:32.557
So even in software, we will put 10 times the amount of traffic on the site in order to be able to identify where are the bottlenecks, where are the breakage points, where are the weak points of the software.
395
00:18:32.777 --> 00:18:33.937
The same thing is true in business.
396
00:18:34.117 --> 00:18:35.658
In my opinion, lead solve everything.
397
00:18:36.018 --> 00:18:36.859
It pushes you.
398
00:18:37.099 --> 00:18:37.399
It does.
399
00:18:37.620 --> 00:18:38.480
Forces growth.
400
00:18:38.741 --> 00:18:39.221
Exactly.
401
00:18:39.321 --> 00:18:40.462
The website will be improved.
402
00:18:40.622 --> 00:18:40.822
Yeah.
403
00:18:40.942 --> 00:18:44.525
Then it's a function of like, right now we have never done any sort of marketing.
404
00:18:44.606 --> 00:18:47.448
It's always been a matter of upselling our existing customers.
405
00:18:47.508 --> 00:18:48.429
Yeah, it's this.
406
00:18:48.509 --> 00:18:50.290
It's our branding in a sense.
407
00:18:50.430 --> 00:18:51.451
It's our word of mouth.
408
00:18:51.632 --> 00:18:53.994
But no, like X amount of dollars goes into it.
409
00:18:54.694 --> 00:19:09.518
marketing and this is what we got like that's never happened which is fine which is fine because i don't think we've even squeezed the juice out of our existing customers i agree right you've been focused on this you have not actually even like pitched irrigation to some of them or like chemical weakened yeah because you're like i don't really have the time to do that i gotta do this yeah they just ask i'm like yeah i do it yeah
410
00:19:10.178 --> 00:19:19.422
So really, I believe right now, we go from 380 to 600 by simply you focusing on upselling higher margin services.
411
00:19:19.842 --> 00:19:22.143
There's one thing that we wanna focus on first, and that is upsells.
412
00:19:22.483 --> 00:19:28.705
Those are the customers that are already inside their database, they're already serving their property, but he hasn't even told them about WeControl.
413
00:19:28.985 --> 00:19:31.647
He hasn't even told them about the fact that they do irrigation.
414
00:19:31.887 --> 00:19:33.828
And these are their highest margin services.
415
00:19:34.168 --> 00:19:39.711
And so we want to focus on telling our customers via text, email, and phone calls that, hey, there's not just mowing that we do.
416
00:19:39.731 --> 00:19:43.753
We do these other services and we can increase the lifetime value of the customer.
417
00:19:44.014 --> 00:19:51.178
And if they're spending $1,000 a year, if we can get that $2,000 a year, we can effectively double the size of the business without any new customers.
418
00:19:51.358 --> 00:19:54.480
The low-hanging fruit is from a leads perspective, we've got to get more upsells.
419
00:19:55.320 --> 00:19:59.650
And that's going to be the higher margin services of irrigation and weed control.
420
00:20:00.793 --> 00:20:04.554
And so right now customers might call, hey, I have this problem.
421
00:20:04.574 --> 00:20:05.434
You're like, I can fix this.
422
00:20:05.474 --> 00:20:05.975
No problem.
423
00:20:06.015 --> 00:20:06.915
And you got an irrigation job.
424
00:20:07.395 --> 00:20:13.497
Have we done any sort of campaigns or email or text blasts to our existing customers around those services?
425
00:20:13.777 --> 00:20:13.957
No.
426
00:20:14.077 --> 00:20:24.260
By increasing his lead flow using his website, as well as increasing the upsells to his existing customers, I think that the business could literally double without spending a single dollar on marketing.
427
00:20:24.280 --> 00:20:25.380
So like that's a little hanging fruit.
428
00:20:25.700 --> 00:20:31.285
I think we go from, you know, $380 last year to $500 just by you being able to focus on that.
429
00:20:31.545 --> 00:20:32.186
That's a great idea.
430
00:20:32.206 --> 00:20:37.230
You know, I've done, I've signed up to other companies' newsletters and they'll send like seasonal things.
431
00:20:37.410 --> 00:20:38.331
And I'm like, this is a great idea.
432
00:20:38.351 --> 00:20:40.412
Sometimes I'll print them out so I can copy them for later.
433
00:20:40.633 --> 00:20:41.413
This is a great idea.
434
00:20:41.573 --> 00:20:46.197
And so that's essentially what Mike's talking about is having these seasonal kind of reminders, awareness.
435
00:20:47.278 --> 00:20:49.820
Because it's not always at the top of mind for clients.
436
00:20:49.900 --> 00:20:52.302
And that's what we're here for, to take care of these needs.
437
00:20:52.482 --> 00:20:59.567
When it comes to labor, the third constraint inside the 4L framework, I need Efren to understand where he's actually spending his time right now.
438
00:20:59.707 --> 00:21:05.011
From a labor perspective, I know you're paying kind of like by the budget hours, slash how much work is getting done.
439
00:21:05.051 --> 00:21:09.054
Right now you have your dad, you have your brother, and then you have Ricardo, who's been with you for a few years.
440
00:21:09.274 --> 00:21:10.415
My brother quit.
441
00:21:11.115 --> 00:21:12.196
week two of Spring Rush.
442
00:21:12.556 --> 00:21:12.917
This year?
443
00:21:13.177 --> 00:21:14.158
Yeah, this year.
444
00:21:14.238 --> 00:21:14.918
My brother left.
445
00:21:15.319 --> 00:21:18.702
It, I mean, it was already pressure and then my brother leaving, it just doubled it.
446
00:21:18.782 --> 00:21:23.206
Like a few months ago, I did quit for a month because I didn't know if I wanted to do this anymore.
447
00:21:23.226 --> 00:21:23.926
I didn't even get me started.
448
00:21:23.946 --> 00:21:25.688
He quit week two of Spring Rush.
449
00:21:25.788 --> 00:21:29.191
When that happened, it forced me to go and do hiring.
450
00:21:29.231 --> 00:21:30.712
Forgive my language, but it was kind of a show.
451
00:21:30.832 --> 00:21:33.455
Mind you, Spring Rush, my brother just quit.
452
00:21:33.995 --> 00:21:35.677
Now I'm in the hospital with his emergency surgery.
453
00:21:36.297 --> 00:21:39.542
And like I said, I have projects in the schedule with already deposits ready to go.
454
00:21:39.722 --> 00:21:42.165
I'm still thinking, I can still go to work tomorrow.
455
00:21:42.185 --> 00:21:43.007
I just won't sleep today.
456
00:21:43.027 --> 00:21:43.387
It's fine.
457
00:21:43.407 --> 00:21:45.129
Because it's like, you get all kinds of people.
458
00:21:45.190 --> 00:21:47.152
And it's just so much, so time consuming.
459
00:21:47.293 --> 00:21:48.034
I'll get applicants.
460
00:21:48.074 --> 00:21:49.596
Two weeks later, I'm trying to interview them.
461
00:21:49.816 --> 00:21:50.437
They already got a job.
462
00:21:51.418 --> 00:21:53.079
And I was like, yeah, I'm not coming on Monday.
463
00:21:53.340 --> 00:21:54.320
And I'm like, what do you mean?
464
00:21:54.360 --> 00:21:55.141
You're not coming on Monday.
465
00:21:55.281 --> 00:21:56.222
But anyway, he's here.
466
00:21:56.362 --> 00:21:57.103
So it worked out.
467
00:21:57.243 --> 00:21:58.364
So that just went to hell.
468
00:21:59.044 --> 00:22:01.966
My brother ended up coming back and sort of kind of saved the day.
469
00:22:02.026 --> 00:22:03.287
And for now, we've been good.
470
00:22:03.508 --> 00:22:04.889
So we're kind of back to where we were.
471
00:22:04.929 --> 00:22:06.350
We're not maxed out on our work.
472
00:22:06.370 --> 00:22:09.112
We can probably add in 30 more hours per week of work.
473
00:22:09.132 --> 00:22:10.493
Friends and family say, you just need to hire, hire.
474
00:22:10.533 --> 00:22:11.414
But hire for what?
475
00:22:11.554 --> 00:22:12.154
To do what?
476
00:22:12.355 --> 00:22:12.515
Right.
477
00:22:12.635 --> 00:22:13.976
Like, I'm not just going to have a body here.
478
00:22:13.996 --> 00:22:15.317
I need to have direction.
479
00:22:15.517 --> 00:22:19.000
It seems counterintuitive, but the reason that you don't feel that pain is because you don't have enough leads.
480
00:22:19.400 --> 00:22:27.427
You can't afford to go out and hire an office person, but you also need to go get some estimates, and you also need to be doing irrigation and weed control.
481
00:22:27.447 --> 00:22:29.728
You're in all these different spots, and it's working.
482
00:22:29.748 --> 00:22:31.550
You're profitable enough.
483
00:22:31.650 --> 00:22:33.732
That seems counterintuitive to me, right?
484
00:22:33.752 --> 00:22:34.993
Because I'm looking at the opposite.
485
00:22:35.033 --> 00:22:35.993
I want to relieve pressure.
486
00:22:36.694 --> 00:22:40.957
But it makes sense, and I'm glad that he brought that up or saw that.
487
00:22:41.998 --> 00:23:04.946
uh because i do understand how that would work it's i'm creating pressure on this side to force me on that end because yeah left to my own device i would just sit on it and not do anything but if i'm forced to just like with the first time i tried hiring i did it because i was forced to i could have done it at any point but no i did it when i absolutely needed someone today yeah right sometimes you gotta be forced so yeah that's great insight and then uh
488
00:23:05.995 --> 00:23:06.655
It makes a lot of sense.
489
00:23:06.876 --> 00:23:12.179
Can we get systems on the admin side so that we can spend a little bit more time on the sales side?
490
00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:14.820
And then that way we actually push irrigation.
491
00:23:15.401 --> 00:23:20.724
Because right now, I don't believe I'm gonna convince you to get an office person and you go do more estimates.
492
00:23:20.744 --> 00:23:22.125
We don't even have enough leads to do that.
493
00:23:22.545 --> 00:23:25.407
But what we could do is you focus more upselling irrigation
494
00:23:25.924 --> 00:23:30.085
doing $120 an hour task and delegating a $20 an hour task.
495
00:23:30.145 --> 00:23:31.846
Because it sounds like a decent trade to me.
496
00:23:31.866 --> 00:23:33.426
Yeah, it's just kind of math at that point.
497
00:23:33.466 --> 00:23:34.887
It just makes so much sense.
498
00:23:35.067 --> 00:23:37.988
Then the thing is like, well, what about all these other things I got to get done throughout the day?
499
00:23:38.388 --> 00:23:40.609
That's the part that we can delegate out, right?
500
00:23:40.629 --> 00:23:46.610
So from a labor perspective, I actually think then this becomes admin delegation.
501
00:23:47.831 --> 00:23:51.332
Because in my opinion, this, as cool as it is,
502
00:23:52.150 --> 00:23:53.171
Not a good use of your time.
503
00:23:53.191 --> 00:23:55.152
Especially when you know you can go out and make $120.
504
00:23:55.192 --> 00:23:55.392
Sure.
505
00:23:55.612 --> 00:23:56.133
No, I agree.
506
00:23:56.253 --> 00:23:57.434
I do feel when I'm here, I'm lost.
507
00:23:57.454 --> 00:23:58.294
What am I doing?
508
00:23:58.314 --> 00:23:59.155
This is not what I'm made for.
509
00:23:59.255 --> 00:24:10.302
Delegate and systematize that admin role and have that completely, not completely, but like really off my shoulders to the point where I'm like not like my, I don't have my phone and someone else has that.
510
00:24:10.762 --> 00:24:14.885
And if I'm not looking at my emails, I mean, that right there is such a huge game changer.
511
00:24:14.905 --> 00:24:15.665
It just frees up.
512
00:24:15.846 --> 00:24:18.988
I feel like it'll free up half my brain to do other things.
513
00:24:20.008 --> 00:24:27.155
Uh, so I would say that's probably the number one thing is admin role taking it off me and that's someone's responsibility now.
514
00:24:27.795 --> 00:24:29.717
And all I'm doing is kind of like overseeing it.
515
00:24:29.777 --> 00:24:35.302
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with choosing a certain size of business and then being profitable at it as long as it serves your goals.
516
00:24:35.622 --> 00:24:44.931
The reason I did not hamper down the fact that he could just optimize the current business, make it more efficient in sales operations and admin, tighten up his schedule, do some time blocking because I felt like
517
00:24:45.291 --> 00:24:47.473
it was sucking the life out of him to do admin.
518
00:24:47.693 --> 00:24:49.614
And he would just much rather be doing other things.
519
00:24:49.754 --> 00:24:53.497
And even the fact that like him saying like, he gets anxiety every time he opens his email inbox.
520
00:24:53.577 --> 00:24:59.421
If you grow the business by 20 or 30%, it's just gonna get 20, 30% more anxiety and more problems and more issues.
521
00:24:59.701 --> 00:25:06.506
My objective is to give that role to someone that loves opening an email, loves categorizing things, loves checklists.
522
00:25:06.806 --> 00:25:09.048
That might not be his strength, but it's someone else's strength.
523
00:25:09.248 --> 00:25:10.769
And what's cool is there's people who like,
524
00:25:11.269 --> 00:25:11.970
It's the opposite.
525
00:25:12.030 --> 00:25:13.111
They could never do irrigation.
526
00:25:13.131 --> 00:25:14.133
They could never lead a team.
527
00:25:14.153 --> 00:25:15.214
They don't have anything that lands in.
528
00:25:15.474 --> 00:25:20.120
But they step in here and be like, oh yeah, I'll just change this and make this better and improve this and make this way better.
529
00:25:20.340 --> 00:25:27.849
If you just spend that time upselling and doing irrigation weed control, let alone sales and hiring and everything else, if you just did that, you would be able to add another $100,000 for revenue.
530
00:25:28.510 --> 00:25:29.430
Yeah, exactly.
531
00:25:29.590 --> 00:25:39.773
And so putting them in a role where they're going to succeed and then allowing him the time to go focus on something else that he will also succeed in, which in this case is first off operations, doing more of the work that's really profitable.
532
00:25:40.013 --> 00:25:45.955
And then down the road, sales, leading the team, hiring, which I actually think he's going to do a really good job at when the time comes for that.
533
00:25:45.995 --> 00:25:52.357
From an admin perspective, before we talk about the system of it, is there anyone that immediately is jumping in your mind like, oh, yeah, they can do my admin right tomorrow.
534
00:25:52.377 --> 00:25:54.917
Is there someone already that like has helped a little bit?
535
00:25:54.937 --> 00:25:56.278
We're starting to do a current team or?
536
00:25:57.058 --> 00:25:58.419
or just people you know.
537
00:25:58.640 --> 00:26:03.845
I've always thought about like, oh my wife or I have a cousin that he's a little younger than me.
538
00:26:03.905 --> 00:26:06.647
He's asked me about stuff like that.
539
00:26:06.748 --> 00:26:08.890
My hesitation always been like, I don't even know what I would give you.
540
00:26:09.350 --> 00:26:11.472
How can I hand something off when I don't even know what I'm doing?
541
00:26:11.492 --> 00:26:13.174
I'm like, yeah, I kind of do this and I kind of do that.
542
00:26:13.494 --> 00:26:14.015
Take care of it.
543
00:26:14.535 --> 00:26:14.975
I'm like, what?
544
00:26:14.995 --> 00:26:16.156
This is what I would recommend doing.
545
00:26:16.216 --> 00:26:18.178
I would do a time audit for a week.
546
00:26:18.478 --> 00:26:21.019
I wanna know everything you're doing every 15 minutes.
547
00:26:21.240 --> 00:26:22.921
It's a pain in the butt to do a time audit.
548
00:26:23.141 --> 00:26:23.841
I've done it twice.
549
00:26:23.861 --> 00:26:25.402
I've done it Thursday night, I'm like, this is so funny.
550
00:26:25.482 --> 00:26:25.943
It hurts.
551
00:26:26.703 --> 00:26:31.166
So you could scan it into your phone or I did it just with paper because then it's actually really painful.
552
00:26:31.186 --> 00:26:35.429
But then what you start to realize is like, oh, I spent 15 minutes answering one email.
553
00:26:35.789 --> 00:26:41.093
Okay, I spent another 15 minutes literally just waiting on the crew to get back to a job site and drop something off.
554
00:26:41.453 --> 00:26:43.915
Like, you start to see all these massive holes in your day.
555
00:26:44.055 --> 00:26:50.260
Every 15 minutes, having an alert go off and you have to like write down what you're doing and then categorizing that in terms of is that sales operations or admin?
556
00:26:50.580 --> 00:26:52.582
That's extremely time consuming.
557
00:26:52.982 --> 00:26:56.725
But what it does is open your eyes to how long you're wasting time waiting for someone.
558
00:26:57.005 --> 00:27:01.669
You are randomly looking at your inbox and there's no emails waiting for an email.
559
00:27:01.829 --> 00:27:03.550
Looking at your phone and scrolling on social media.
560
00:27:03.570 --> 00:27:05.791
There's so many different wastes of time throughout our day.
561
00:27:05.851 --> 00:27:12.194
And you can become 30, 40% more efficient just by squeezing the time out of the eight hours or 10 hours or 12 hours that you're working.
562
00:27:12.314 --> 00:27:16.816
Also, what you start to realize is like, oh my word, I'm switching different tasks throughout the day a bazillion times.
563
00:27:16.836 --> 00:27:17.756
There are switching costs.
564
00:27:17.836 --> 00:27:22.078
I would take three colors and I just be like, okay, so these are my time log.
565
00:27:22.418 --> 00:27:27.480
Okay, these admin, these were sales, these were operations.
566
00:27:27.520 --> 00:27:30.662
And I just break it all into sales, operations and admin.
567
00:27:31.282 --> 00:27:32.942
Those are the three functions that you're serving right now.
568
00:27:32.962 --> 00:27:34.983
You're doing some sales, some estimates, et cetera.
569
00:27:35.163 --> 00:27:37.443
You're doing some operations out in the field, doing of the work.
570
00:27:37.764 --> 00:27:38.744
And then you're doing some admins.
571
00:27:39.104 --> 00:27:39.564
Anything here?
572
00:27:39.604 --> 00:27:43.405
There's 10, 15, 20 seconds associated with this, like, focus on this thing.
573
00:27:43.445 --> 00:27:44.385
Okay, now I'm switching to this thing.
574
00:27:44.405 --> 00:27:45.565
Now I'm switching to this thing.
575
00:27:45.605 --> 00:27:55.988
The more times you do that, and all of a sudden that 15, 20 seconds becomes a real meaningful part of your day and can absolutely be more prioritized, more time blocked, and then just be more efficient.
576
00:27:56.308 --> 00:27:59.349
And that's, like, the next level of entrepreneurship is, like, I need to do more work,
577
00:28:01.209 --> 00:28:01.609
I'm doing.
578
00:28:01.750 --> 00:28:09.538
I want to know what percentage of my day am I doing these things knowing that right now this is your lowest leverage task.
579
00:28:10.218 --> 00:28:15.764
This is your next highest leverage and this eventually will be your highest leverage.
580
00:28:15.784 --> 00:28:20.208
So you're doing all this admin work that is probably on average $25 per hour tasks.
581
00:28:21.990 --> 00:28:27.252
If you go out and do operations, right now, you would earn a hundred plus dollars per hour.
582
00:28:27.692 --> 00:28:28.432
So it makes sense.
583
00:28:28.472 --> 00:28:30.893
We should be moving from out admin to operations.
584
00:28:30.913 --> 00:28:31.613
It pays for itself.
585
00:28:31.714 --> 00:28:33.794
And down the road, once you get a bigger team, you start to grow.
586
00:28:33.834 --> 00:28:36.895
And now you've hired out people to do irrigation and weed control.
587
00:28:37.195 --> 00:28:39.596
Now sales starts to become like a $200 an hour task.
588
00:28:39.956 --> 00:28:40.196
Yeah.
589
00:28:40.737 --> 00:28:49.980
So doing the time audit and categorizing it into sales operations and admin, I think just gives me a framework to really try again and just succeed at it this time.
590
00:28:50.282 --> 00:28:53.585
And I would make a list in addition to your time model of just like the random tasks you're doing.
591
00:28:54.106 --> 00:28:54.806
I check the bank.
592
00:28:54.947 --> 00:28:55.908
I cash checks.
593
00:28:56.128 --> 00:28:57.089
I open up the email.
594
00:28:57.229 --> 00:28:58.070
I check the phone.
595
00:28:58.090 --> 00:28:59.951
Like, just make a list of them all.
596
00:29:00.072 --> 00:29:03.855
And then I've got to create a system so that someone else, I give this to someone else and they're like, do it.
597
00:29:03.975 --> 00:29:08.340
That's kind of been one of the issues I've been having is these random tasks.
598
00:29:08.600 --> 00:29:10.302
It seems kind of off, but you're saying that just...
599
00:29:11.105 --> 00:29:37.075
what people do you know one person will do check the mail check or check the p.o box answer the email follow up on this quote and like just they're so random but i guess they're all well going back to like your education like is like nursing like there's one time you're going to be cleaning someone's instruments another one you're taking their blood pressure another like it seems random you're 100 but every time you walk into that room there's a checklist every single time you're signing off on things there's a process in place to organize the madness
600
00:29:37.555 --> 00:29:41.676
Otherwise it would be madness if every time you just walked in a patient's room and he's like, yeah, help them.
601
00:29:41.836 --> 00:29:43.177
He's like, whoa, whoa, I need records.
602
00:29:43.517 --> 00:29:44.557
I know who did what.
603
00:29:44.757 --> 00:29:46.258
I know what was administered at what time.
604
00:29:46.278 --> 00:29:48.498
Like that's what we need to do for the business.
605
00:29:48.758 --> 00:29:48.998
I see.
606
00:29:49.139 --> 00:29:52.379
So when someone walks in here, they know, okay, I have X amount of emails.
607
00:29:52.740 --> 00:29:55.180
Okay, I immediately know these ones I can put aside.
608
00:29:55.500 --> 00:29:56.641
Which ones are actually important?
609
00:29:56.881 --> 00:29:58.201
What tasks are most important?
610
00:29:58.241 --> 00:30:00.022
And then which is the checklist I work through.
611
00:30:00.362 --> 00:30:00.622
Okay.
612
00:30:00.862 --> 00:30:00.982
Right?
613
00:30:01.002 --> 00:30:03.783
So like right now, you are doing the checklist.
614
00:30:03.803 --> 00:30:06.004
You're just kind of like randomly, it's all in your head.
615
00:30:06.384 --> 00:30:08.465
I need to figure out what's the most important thing when you walk in here.
616
00:30:09.065 --> 00:30:13.427
Like, okay, is it first, I need to make sure that emails are checked, see if there's any fires.
617
00:30:14.087 --> 00:30:14.428
Exactly.
618
00:30:14.468 --> 00:30:15.328
Great, that's number one.
619
00:30:15.808 --> 00:30:20.430
Two, check the voicemail in case there's anyone that needs to change their schedule for today, so I can notify the crew.
620
00:30:20.530 --> 00:30:22.851
Step three, are there any overdue payments?
621
00:30:22.871 --> 00:30:27.453
Like, you just start creating a checklist of all the things you're doing, but you need to rank them in priority.
622
00:30:28.153 --> 00:30:30.598
Well, interesting, I created this issue that was non-existent.
623
00:30:30.899 --> 00:30:33.304
Me thinking like, no, these things are too random for one person to...
624
00:30:34.255 --> 00:30:35.235
Dude, it's too random.
625
00:30:35.375 --> 00:30:39.076
But you're right, as a nurse, you walk in, you're doing the blood pressure, but also cleaning the room.
626
00:30:39.136 --> 00:30:42.296
They're two random things, but it all within the same scope of work.
627
00:30:42.476 --> 00:30:42.696
Yeah.
628
00:30:42.916 --> 00:30:45.177
So yeah, that did completely clear it up for me.
629
00:30:45.297 --> 00:30:48.897
When I'm doing coaching, I'm always trying to look for like, where's the unlock and I wasn't getting it.
630
00:30:49.038 --> 00:30:53.238
And so I felt like I was sporadically hitting him at a bunch of different points and it wasn't clicking.
631
00:30:53.338 --> 00:30:55.439
And so I always go back to what can they recognize?
632
00:30:55.739 --> 00:31:00.399
And if you went for four years and got your bachelor's in science and nursing and then did nursing for several years, you are in that world.
633
00:31:00.439 --> 00:31:03.440
So I just stepped back to what was familiar to him
634
00:31:03.820 --> 00:31:05.101
And that's what was his aha moment.
635
00:31:05.181 --> 00:31:08.624
First, when you create the demand, so you get convinced that I have to delegate this.
636
00:31:09.004 --> 00:31:17.591
Then we have to create systems around that admin side using our task list, using checklists, and literally just keep thinking about, okay, as a nurse, what did I do?
637
00:31:17.831 --> 00:31:18.872
What did I prioritize?
638
00:31:19.132 --> 00:31:21.814
What is the measurement of success as an admin person?
639
00:31:22.155 --> 00:31:23.396
And then you create those benchmarks.
640
00:31:23.596 --> 00:31:23.836
Okay.
641
00:31:23.996 --> 00:31:28.418
And then it's a function of, okay, now I've got the checklist, I've got to train someone to do this.
642
00:31:28.538 --> 00:31:31.659
I'm going to make a video, screen recording, of every single task.
643
00:31:31.759 --> 00:31:36.360
And these are one to four minute videos of every single one of the tasks you just wrote down.
644
00:31:36.500 --> 00:31:39.681
How to do your email, how to send out invoices, how do you do scheduling.
645
00:31:39.741 --> 00:31:43.683
It sounds to me like Ricardo down the road will probably become more of an operations manager.
646
00:31:44.783 --> 00:31:48.884
making sure the crews are set up in the morning, making sure the equipment is ready to roll, etc.
647
00:31:48.964 --> 00:31:49.384
I can see that.
648
00:31:49.464 --> 00:31:50.985
He can grow into that role.
649
00:31:51.005 --> 00:31:56.886
And that's what eventually you will be able to hand more and more operations to him so you can move into sales.
650
00:31:57.166 --> 00:32:01.467
Just unlocking upsells will create so much pressure, you will be forced to get an admin person.
651
00:32:01.867 --> 00:32:05.628
I would like, though, that when that happens, we have systems in place to be able to delegate it.
652
00:32:05.688 --> 00:32:07.068
We're able to hand it off to someone else.
653
00:32:07.268 --> 00:32:09.809
That gives me the confidence to just jump into it.
654
00:32:10.009 --> 00:32:11.289
And you don't think about that initially.
655
00:32:11.349 --> 00:32:14.370
In the beginning, it's like, I mean, you listen to all the, like, the,
656
00:32:16.472 --> 00:32:19.434
motivational whatever, podcast videos.
657
00:32:19.534 --> 00:32:22.257
It's like, how long can you sprint without knowing the, whatever?
658
00:32:22.477 --> 00:32:25.680
How long can you hold your breath?
659
00:32:25.700 --> 00:32:27.081
Carry the boats or whatever the .
660
00:32:27.161 --> 00:32:30.084
And it's like, man, it's been seven years, man.
661
00:32:30.204 --> 00:32:31.265
I need some help.
662
00:32:33.307 --> 00:32:35.008
How much longer can I hold my breath for?
663
00:32:35.088 --> 00:32:35.969
How much longer can I sprint?
664
00:32:35.989 --> 00:32:38.191
I've been out 100% for the last five years.
665
00:32:38.691 --> 00:32:41.133
And that's what I felt alone in.
666
00:32:42.245 --> 00:32:49.009
I feel like everything I saw around me was like, yeah, I'm year three and I have 15 employees and this and that and I'm working to gross three million dollars.
667
00:32:49.029 --> 00:32:50.630
I'm like, what am I doing wrong?
668
00:32:50.671 --> 00:32:54.833
I'm like double that amount of time and I have nothing even close to this.
669
00:32:55.514 --> 00:32:56.554
So it does make you feel alone.
670
00:32:56.774 --> 00:32:59.676
But that's like, you know, that's looking at life through an Instagram filter.
671
00:32:59.696 --> 00:33:01.558
So it's hard to know what's real, what's not.
672
00:33:02.138 --> 00:33:02.898
That's their story.
673
00:33:02.918 --> 00:33:04.540
That's their whatever.
674
00:33:05.040 --> 00:33:08.862
I have to focus on mine and what I can do, you know, my variables.
675
00:33:11.490 --> 00:33:13.951
compare my life to someone else's life.
676
00:33:13.971 --> 00:33:15.031
Who knows what their upbringing was?
677
00:33:15.071 --> 00:33:21.753
And it just, so I kind of come back to that and it kind of helps me be a little bit more patient.
678
00:33:22.513 --> 00:33:27.374
It is literally a function of like, okay, I walk in the door and I am like, okay, email.
679
00:33:27.935 --> 00:33:28.095
Yeah.
680
00:33:28.555 --> 00:33:28.775
All right.
681
00:33:29.275 --> 00:33:30.795
And then what does that entail?
682
00:33:31.095 --> 00:33:32.196
A lot of things, right?
683
00:33:32.216 --> 00:33:33.596
We got to organize the email.
684
00:33:33.956 --> 00:33:35.617
We got to archive emails.
685
00:33:35.957 --> 00:33:38.578
We have to address and respond to emails.
686
00:33:38.818 --> 00:33:39.558
So each of these,
687
00:33:40.535 --> 00:33:41.217
are going to be videos.
688
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:42.339
Right?
689
00:33:42.981 --> 00:33:44.665
So it's like, okay, here's your checklist.
690
00:33:47.464 --> 00:33:49.024
And then here's your video training.
691
00:33:49.645 --> 00:33:56.126
And you're gonna make it a Loom account or Google Drive and just literally have folders of, okay, email, number one, so here's how I organize it.
692
00:33:56.166 --> 00:33:57.366
It could be a 60 second video.
693
00:33:57.406 --> 00:34:01.787
Like right now, it can't just be, I opened that one, I already addressed that one.
694
00:34:02.027 --> 00:34:03.728
No, it's like, we have a folder for archived.
695
00:34:04.208 --> 00:34:05.648
We have a folder for completed.
696
00:34:05.708 --> 00:34:07.109
We have a folder for all the payment ones.
697
00:34:07.809 --> 00:34:09.269
There has to be a system in place.
698
00:34:09.869 --> 00:34:13.170
And so you're gonna make this list and it's gonna be 30 to 50 things.
699
00:34:13.630 --> 00:34:17.131
And then you're gonna have to ask yourself, okay, reasonably which one can he handle?
700
00:34:17.811 --> 00:34:18.051
True.
701
00:34:18.331 --> 00:34:21.393
I know the client, the rapport and the history.
702
00:34:22.713 --> 00:34:23.334
He doesn't.
703
00:34:23.394 --> 00:34:27.135
So it's like you prioritize based on like that knowledge of that specific client.
704
00:34:27.275 --> 00:34:32.257
Or not because let's assume for a moment that no one else will ever know the customers the way you do.
705
00:34:33.018 --> 00:34:36.319
And so they will always do a lesser job than you.
706
00:34:36.379 --> 00:34:37.040
100% of the time.
707
00:34:37.080 --> 00:34:42.482
There will be times that if you have your cousin or anyone else in admin, they will answer the phone wrong.
708
00:34:42.742 --> 00:34:43.523
They will say something wrong.
709
00:34:43.543 --> 00:34:45.844
You're like, oh, that one customer doesn't like that said that way.
710
00:34:45.884 --> 00:34:46.985
Or they want it this way.
711
00:34:47.005 --> 00:34:47.865
They don't like weekly.
712
00:34:47.885 --> 00:34:48.986
They like biweekly.
713
00:34:49.006 --> 00:34:49.786
You're going to have that.
714
00:34:49.947 --> 00:34:54.409
I know I need to delegate admin so I can focus on doing more operations.
715
00:34:54.429 --> 00:34:55.230
I understand what you're saying.
716
00:34:55.370 --> 00:34:55.590
Okay.
717
00:34:55.690 --> 00:34:57.671
And the same thing will happen with Ricardo down the road.
718
00:34:58.012 --> 00:35:01.974
If you start handing more operations stuff off to him, like, oh, it should have been done that way.
719
00:35:02.655 --> 00:35:03.435
But who cares?
720
00:35:03.595 --> 00:35:04.836
I'm focused on sales now.
721
00:35:05.396 --> 00:35:09.599
And so as I delegate things, I'm okay with like 80, 90% of what they could have done myself.
722
00:35:09.779 --> 00:35:10.500
I see, okay.
723
00:35:11.020 --> 00:35:15.564
Also, I'm gonna set them up for success with, hey, here's the checklist, here's the video training on how to do it.
724
00:35:15.744 --> 00:35:19.006
You don't wanna tie the incentive or like their paycheck to watching the videos.
725
00:35:19.366 --> 00:35:20.768
Cause that's not actually the outcome you want.
726
00:35:20.808 --> 00:35:22.609
You wanna tie the incentive to the outcome.
727
00:35:22.649 --> 00:35:28.233
The outcome is, I don't want voicemails, I want every call answered, I want emails processed in a timely fashion.
728
00:35:28.474 --> 00:35:32.417
So then I create success metrics around that and those metrics are the thing I incentivize.
729
00:35:32.697 --> 00:35:38.001
So for example, whether it be bonusing, like giving them the carrot, hey, if there's no voicemails this week, you'll get X amount of a bonus.
730
00:35:38.301 --> 00:35:43.125
Or just saying in order to retain your job, if this metric is not above this, we got a problem.
731
00:35:43.265 --> 00:35:46.327
Determining the success metrics and being clear on those is important.
732
00:35:46.367 --> 00:35:48.849
And are those the actual success metrics for that role?
733
00:35:49.149 --> 00:35:55.734
And that's what I tied back to him and said, like these are the things that if you just knew them, you wouldn't be questioning whether or not they're doing a good job.
734
00:35:55.774 --> 00:35:59.536
Like for my team on the field, I'm just looking at budget hours and their actual hours.
735
00:35:59.556 --> 00:36:00.697
Like what's their efficiency score?
736
00:36:00.737 --> 00:36:02.038
Budget hours divided by clocked hours.
737
00:36:02.138 --> 00:36:07.582
If I know that number and I also know that they're not getting a bunch of yellow slips and callbacks, that's all I need to know.
738
00:36:07.642 --> 00:36:10.704
Those are the success metrics I need to know that they're doing a good job.
739
00:36:10.724 --> 00:36:14.886
For a salesperson, it might be their close ratio or the dollar per hour that they're selling at.
740
00:36:15.146 --> 00:36:23.250
These are the type of things that if you create success metrics for a department, you don't need to micromanage them and you're not always wondering and looking over their shoulder, are they actually doing their job?
741
00:36:23.270 --> 00:36:25.451
Because the success metrics tell you that story.
742
00:36:25.531 --> 00:36:36.877
There should theoretically be no excuse for your cousin or anyone else doing admin to ever say, I don't know how to do this because you have created a checklist and then you have created, hey, here's the prioritization and here's the success metrics.
743
00:36:37.377 --> 00:36:37.557
Right?
744
00:36:37.857 --> 00:36:40.458
So the other thing we haven't talked about is prioritization.
745
00:36:41.179 --> 00:36:42.779
Or it, I can't spell it.
746
00:36:43.159 --> 00:36:43.880
Prioritization.
747
00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:47.961
And then I'm going to have my success metrics, right?
748
00:36:48.402 --> 00:37:00.287
So the success metrics for an admin person are going to be things like all the phone calls are answered, all the voicemails are responded to, all the emails are responded within 24 hours, and then I have success metrics.
749
00:37:00.307 --> 00:37:04.949
So checklists with training, priorities, so which of these do I do first?
750
00:37:06.427 --> 00:37:07.368
and then success metrics.
751
00:37:08.368 --> 00:37:15.192
If you create those for each of those things, you should be able to literally hand someone a folder of videos and be like, go.
752
00:37:15.372 --> 00:37:16.393
I see, interesting.
753
00:37:16.613 --> 00:37:18.854
Now that just allows autonomy.
754
00:37:19.434 --> 00:37:21.336
And like, let's see if we can do this.
755
00:37:21.476 --> 00:37:25.678
And what's crazy is you do this without hiring someone else and probably get 30% more efficient admin.
756
00:37:25.878 --> 00:37:28.119
You're like, oh, my checklist said I should be doing this right now.
757
00:37:28.740 --> 00:37:31.301
Instead of right now, you feel like you're just kind of firefighting at the beginning.
758
00:37:31.361 --> 00:37:32.602
There is no process for it.
759
00:37:33.182 --> 00:37:39.003
The big thing is, yes, you having insights to one customer today will serve them better.
760
00:37:39.543 --> 00:37:45.265
But if you take out the natural extreme of this business growing by double or triple, you will not be able to do that.
761
00:37:45.425 --> 00:37:47.005
You will not be able to handle this many emails.
762
00:37:47.025 --> 00:37:48.665
You will not be able to handle this many estimates.
763
00:37:48.845 --> 00:37:50.306
You will not be able to handle this many phone calls.
764
00:37:50.746 --> 00:37:54.006
And so sometimes think about the end game asking, like, will this system break?
765
00:37:54.307 --> 00:37:56.267
And like, oh, so that means I need to fix it now.
766
00:37:56.627 --> 00:37:57.467
because it's going to break.
767
00:37:57.708 --> 00:38:02.830
And in you doing all of this yourself and doing the irrigation and the weed control, not gonna work in a million dollar business.
768
00:38:04.291 --> 00:38:04.431
No.
769
00:38:04.672 --> 00:38:06.012
No, I mean, I was coming in blind.
770
00:38:06.032 --> 00:38:07.453
I mean, I don't know, I've never done anything like this.
771
00:38:07.673 --> 00:38:08.374
I don't know, nothing.
772
00:38:09.134 --> 00:38:10.815
And like, but like I said, I'm not scared of anything.
773
00:38:11.415 --> 00:38:13.897
I've seen the other turnaround shows, it's like, yeah, I don't do a hit piece or anything.
774
00:38:13.937 --> 00:38:15.057
So it's like, I think we're fine.
775
00:38:15.438 --> 00:38:16.558
And at the same time, what would they say?
776
00:38:16.578 --> 00:38:17.259
I have nothing to hire.
777
00:38:18.998 --> 00:38:23.402
So I think y'all are extremely personable, and that helps a lot.
778
00:38:23.942 --> 00:38:24.843
This is low-hanging fruit.
779
00:38:25.144 --> 00:38:26.224
We're going to delegate admin.
780
00:38:26.305 --> 00:38:26.585
It's great.
781
00:38:26.605 --> 00:38:27.546
We use the time audit.
782
00:38:27.786 --> 00:38:30.008
We are then going to do these three things, which is checklist.
783
00:38:30.388 --> 00:38:31.970
Now I'm going to ahead myself, but here we go.
784
00:38:32.450 --> 00:38:33.091
Checklist.
785
00:38:35.813 --> 00:38:38.655
Then we're going to do a prioritization.
786
00:38:40.297 --> 00:38:44.781
And then we're going to do success metrics.
787
00:38:46.997 --> 00:39:01.996
prioritization you mean by like this task ahead of this task correct because what's really annoying is when you give someone here's a checklist of all the stuff you need to get done and they're like yeah I got all the invoices sent out couldn't quite get to the email today and you're like what
788
00:39:03.037 --> 00:39:05.038
Mr. Jones was freaking out this morning at 6 a.m.
789
00:39:05.058 --> 00:39:06.119
He didn't respond to him.
790
00:39:06.819 --> 00:39:07.259
Right?
791
00:39:07.399 --> 00:39:13.603
So the reason is because like, for example, using the nursing analogy, there's times you didn't get to clean the floor because there were people bleeding out in the ER.
792
00:39:13.683 --> 00:39:14.263
Yep, exactly.
793
00:39:14.543 --> 00:39:15.864
And so I need to focus on the ER.
794
00:39:15.964 --> 00:39:17.625
Don't worry about that petty little thing.
795
00:39:17.805 --> 00:39:21.667
But the admin person you hire will not know what is petty versus what is high priority.
796
00:39:22.127 --> 00:39:23.768
And so you're going to give them a prioritization.
797
00:39:24.388 --> 00:39:27.730
And that's just through time they pick up on those.
798
00:39:28.666 --> 00:39:29.927
No, that is through you telling them.
799
00:39:30.087 --> 00:39:30.587
You do this first.
800
00:39:30.607 --> 00:39:35.229
I'm saying after I tell them through time, I'm assuming they just learn how I learned.
801
00:39:35.249 --> 00:39:36.070
They would get better, yes.
802
00:39:36.090 --> 00:39:36.850
That's how you learned.
803
00:39:36.890 --> 00:39:39.051
But again, we don't have six years to get them efficient.
804
00:39:39.131 --> 00:39:39.731
Fair, yeah.
805
00:39:39.791 --> 00:39:42.893
It took us six years to figure all these current processes.
806
00:39:42.913 --> 00:39:43.913
We do not have six years.
807
00:39:43.993 --> 00:39:44.974
We have like six days.
808
00:39:45.114 --> 00:39:45.334
Yes.
809
00:39:45.494 --> 00:39:46.014
My kind of...
810
00:39:47.815 --> 00:39:52.716
helped me kind of reset my mind in regards to a timeframe, in regards to hiring.
811
00:39:52.756 --> 00:39:55.497
I'm over here thinking like, oh yeah, it'll take a month or a couple months.
812
00:39:55.897 --> 00:39:58.798
It's like, no, it's hire, teach, six days.
813
00:39:59.998 --> 00:40:00.438
Get it done.
814
00:40:00.458 --> 00:40:03.038
And I'm like, oh, I mean, yeah, ideally I would love that.
815
00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:07.499
So, but I guess in our head, we think it's gonna take so much longer because it's taken me seven years to get here.
816
00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:10.440
So if I do you in three months, that's perfect.
817
00:40:10.680 --> 00:40:12.661
Like, no, that's too much.
818
00:40:13.101 --> 00:40:14.041
We need to do this fast.
819
00:40:14.781 --> 00:40:18.064
So I kind of resetting my expectation with that.
820
00:40:18.444 --> 00:40:20.506
Also, it's just going to turn things around a lot faster.
821
00:40:20.626 --> 00:40:24.210
Fortunately, admin tasks are relatively simple as long as you make them simple.
822
00:40:24.510 --> 00:40:24.670
Yeah.
823
00:40:24.770 --> 00:40:30.115
And then what's going to happen as you start training someone, you're realizing, oh, my estimates are an absolute guessing game.
824
00:40:30.616 --> 00:40:30.916
They are.
825
00:40:31.376 --> 00:40:31.556
Great.
826
00:40:31.576 --> 00:40:32.958
Then I create a system around that.
827
00:40:33.138 --> 00:40:37.742
But that's a higher leverage task, sales systems, than me answering the phone right now.
828
00:40:39.130 --> 00:40:40.433
And so that's a good problem to have.
829
00:40:40.453 --> 00:40:43.539
It's like, okay, now I have time because he's handling the email and he's handling the phone.
830
00:40:43.920 --> 00:40:45.823
I'm going to create a better pricing system.
831
00:40:45.863 --> 00:40:49.731
When I look at a job and I make a video and I put the notes together, I follow a certain system.
832
00:40:50.352 --> 00:40:50.573
Yeah.
833
00:40:51.040 --> 00:40:53.581
Right now we don't even have the time to think about that because you're answering phone calls and emails.
834
00:40:53.721 --> 00:40:54.381
That's exactly right.
835
00:40:54.601 --> 00:40:54.781
Right?
836
00:40:54.881 --> 00:40:56.522
So like, yes, we could figure out a pricing system.
837
00:40:56.702 --> 00:40:57.662
I think that's a great thing.
838
00:40:57.922 --> 00:40:59.502
But right now I need you to get time.
839
00:40:59.562 --> 00:41:00.703
I think you will figure that out.
840
00:41:01.063 --> 00:41:02.703
Talk to ChatDVT, listen to the content.
841
00:41:02.783 --> 00:41:04.304
You will be able to come up with a pricing system.
842
00:41:04.524 --> 00:41:06.584
But right now we're just focused on all this firefighting.
843
00:41:06.824 --> 00:41:07.365
Yeah, that's great.
844
00:41:07.405 --> 00:41:08.085
Low-level tasks.
845
00:41:08.105 --> 00:41:08.765
This is perfect.
846
00:41:09.045 --> 00:41:11.186
I mean, I knew my issue wasn't necessarily leads.
847
00:41:11.206 --> 00:41:15.467
It was like, we're digging down to admin now being like the low-hanging fruit almost.
848
00:41:16.307 --> 00:41:17.388
That's going to be allowed.
849
00:41:17.488 --> 00:41:22.374
It's almost like that first block to build on, which will just free up the rest of my things.
850
00:41:22.674 --> 00:41:22.934
Yeah.
851
00:41:23.034 --> 00:41:28.080
And the reason I talk about the lead so much is because you're in this weird spot where you can't afford what I'm talking about.
852
00:41:28.100 --> 00:41:28.240
Sure.
853
00:41:28.560 --> 00:41:32.184
So I need to push you to the point where like, okay, we were going to do like 600,000 this year.
854
00:41:32.624 --> 00:41:34.687
I definitely need someone to do admin for me.
855
00:41:34.707 --> 00:41:34.867
Yeah.
856
00:41:35.227 --> 00:41:35.487
Right.
857
00:41:35.967 --> 00:41:36.187
Cool.
858
00:41:36.248 --> 00:41:38.809
We'll come back to the kind of a six week plan and some of the action items.
859
00:41:38.949 --> 00:41:41.790
But in terms of leadership, what do you feel as a leader is the lack?
860
00:41:41.890 --> 00:41:43.731
A leadership in regards to my own leadership.
861
00:41:43.831 --> 00:41:45.391
What is that disconnect?
862
00:41:45.411 --> 00:41:47.672
Because that was something that you mentioned in your application video.
863
00:41:47.772 --> 00:41:52.214
In regards to business leadership, scaling, having a team, managing.
864
00:41:52.435 --> 00:41:53.455
I never seen that.
865
00:41:53.475 --> 00:41:54.996
I've never I don't know what that looks like.
866
00:41:55.416 --> 00:42:00.398
And you can look at videos online, but it's different versus having like very visceral in around you.
867
00:42:00.638 --> 00:42:05.565
I feel that I've always just kind of freestyled or guessed and tried different things over the years.
868
00:42:05.765 --> 00:42:11.554
I just feel like I'm just kind of pulling it in the air for lifelines to try to figure out what works and what doesn't.
869
00:42:11.654 --> 00:42:15.960
The last L in the 4L framework and the last constraint that we're gonna talk about is leadership.
870
00:42:16.040 --> 00:42:20.061
And right now, Efren hasn't really shared the vision of the company with the team.
871
00:42:20.201 --> 00:42:23.122
And furthermore, he doesn't really know what the future of the company is.
872
00:42:23.462 --> 00:42:27.643
He hasn't got a clear goal or vision for what that's going to look like in the next few years.
873
00:42:27.843 --> 00:42:31.764
Right, sometimes it's just a matter of knowing like uncertainty of what the future looks like.
874
00:42:32.264 --> 00:42:37.785
So like how I kind of look at any business as we've already mentioned, like sales, operations, and admin.
875
00:42:38.205 --> 00:42:45.367
Right now, if we put like the name of who's managing these things, it is Efren.
876
00:42:47.041 --> 00:42:48.764
Ephraim and Ephraim.
877
00:42:49.085 --> 00:42:54.976
As the business scales, what you'll end up doing, you'll find a manager for sales, a manager for operations, and a manager for admin.
878
00:42:55.217 --> 00:42:59.164
And then you will become an actual CEO.
879
00:43:00.110 --> 00:43:00.270
Right?
880
00:43:00.450 --> 00:43:08.595
That's now really where it's focusing on strategy, hiring, you're thinking about the next level, another location, pricing increases, et cetera.
881
00:43:08.975 --> 00:43:11.276
Right now you are all these four things and that's fine.
882
00:43:11.316 --> 00:43:12.957
And your side of the business, that's very normal.
883
00:43:12.977 --> 00:43:13.117
Yeah.
884
00:43:13.457 --> 00:43:22.142
But the reason people stall out here is because going from passing 500,000, you usually need to start replacing yourself somewhere in the business below operations many times.
885
00:43:22.622 --> 00:43:29.310
You'll have different departments or divisions, like irrigation division, weed control division, crews, et cetera.
886
00:43:29.410 --> 00:43:33.514
Right now, what I'm asking you to do is replace Efren as the admin manager.
887
00:43:33.534 --> 00:43:35.937
As the business grows, you get seven, 800,000.
888
00:43:36.337 --> 00:43:39.981
The next thing that's probably gonna happen is you're gonna replace yourself on the operations level.
889
00:43:40.221 --> 00:43:43.265
So now everyone reporting each morning is probably gonna talk to Ricardo.
890
00:43:43.765 --> 00:43:43.965
Right.
891
00:43:44.205 --> 00:43:52.351
And that also might mean him having to do like some ESL or some other form of figuring out how do I delegate things to him so he can take those over.
892
00:43:52.411 --> 00:43:52.811
Right.
893
00:43:53.391 --> 00:43:55.853
That's probably going to be like a one, two years from now.
894
00:43:56.614 --> 00:43:59.155
And then eventually once you crash like million, million, two.
895
00:43:59.455 --> 00:44:03.338
And if you still want to grow the business, eventually you'll replace yourself as the sales manager.
896
00:44:04.884 --> 00:44:11.108
And so right now, the reason it feels somewhat chaotic is because you're bouncing around from thing to thing to thing to thing to thing.
897
00:44:11.288 --> 00:44:11.968
And that's normal.
898
00:44:11.988 --> 00:44:14.510
You can't afford managers at this size.
899
00:44:14.830 --> 00:44:20.013
Which is why you're asking to push the leads to... Yeah, we're going to try to delegate this admin one first.
900
00:44:20.133 --> 00:44:27.398
And the same thing that we do here, checklists, prioritizing success metrics, is the exact same thing you're going to give Ricardo in a year or two when you start delegating operations.
901
00:44:27.618 --> 00:44:32.341
So the exact same process will be used to delegate operations and eventually sales.
902
00:44:32.861 --> 00:44:38.804
Because in three to four or five years, when you're handing off sales, you're going to actually have a pricing method in place.
903
00:44:39.045 --> 00:44:44.988
You're going to have success metrics of close ratio and what percentage of the people we are upselling, etc.
904
00:44:45.068 --> 00:44:45.628
You'll get there.
905
00:44:45.988 --> 00:44:47.009
Don't worry about it.
906
00:44:47.089 --> 00:44:53.693
Right now, I'm just trying to ask you to let this one thing go and minimize the chaos of you currently hopping around from one to one.
907
00:44:54.833 --> 00:44:58.655
I like the idea long term because it sounds like it's just copy paste.
908
00:44:59.216 --> 00:45:02.277
Once you kind of get this framework figured out.
909
00:45:02.458 --> 00:45:03.198
It's a tough one, right?
910
00:45:03.718 --> 00:45:04.879
It's going through this process.
911
00:45:04.899 --> 00:45:05.799
Create the checklist.
912
00:45:06.140 --> 00:45:07.700
I'm going to create the training videos for them.
913
00:45:07.720 --> 00:45:11.543
I'm going to prioritize them for them so they know what actually they're supposed to be doing today.
914
00:45:11.563 --> 00:45:13.924
Because it gets really frustrating when they work on the wrong thing.
915
00:45:14.504 --> 00:45:16.085
And then third, success metrics.
916
00:45:16.706 --> 00:45:19.227
If you do that for each of these rules, that's how you delegate them out.
917
00:45:19.578 --> 00:45:22.220
You talk a lot about doing videos of the different tasks.
918
00:45:22.360 --> 00:45:24.261
Is that just like your go-to method?
919
00:45:24.281 --> 00:45:26.863
Or is that email also just showing them in person?
920
00:45:26.883 --> 00:45:30.185
Or are you saying video is just better because they can see it again and again and again?
921
00:45:30.205 --> 00:45:35.748
They can see it again because I don't want them to be calling me a week later like, Hey, Efren, the invoice thing.
922
00:45:35.768 --> 00:45:36.689
I remember you showed it to me.
923
00:45:37.069 --> 00:45:38.630
I forget how to send out the invoice.
924
00:45:38.650 --> 00:45:39.271
You're getting ahead of it.
925
00:45:39.531 --> 00:45:39.771
Right?
926
00:45:40.131 --> 00:45:43.773
And then also what will happen, they'll ask you a question a week later.
927
00:45:44.114 --> 00:45:45.074
I don't have a video for that.
928
00:45:46.415 --> 00:45:46.635
Great.
929
00:45:46.655 --> 00:45:47.937
That night, you're making a video for that.
930
00:45:47.957 --> 00:45:49.098
Wow, that's just documenting.
931
00:45:49.258 --> 00:45:55.343
And then when they quit in six months because something in life there happens, you are simply able to copy and paste that to the next person.
932
00:45:55.523 --> 00:45:55.804
Wow.
933
00:45:55.864 --> 00:45:59.687
So the key is having the video instructional system.
934
00:45:59.747 --> 00:46:02.610
It's not a matter of I have to train someone.
935
00:46:02.770 --> 00:46:09.376
It is a function of I have a role, I have a responsibility, I have tasks, I have checklist training and the ability to be able to measure someone's success.
936
00:46:09.616 --> 00:46:11.679
I want my business to be process driven, not people driven.
937
00:46:11.699 --> 00:46:12.720
And right now it's so people driven.
938
00:46:12.901 --> 00:46:13.101
Yeah.
939
00:46:13.281 --> 00:46:13.762
It's focused.
940
00:46:13.822 --> 00:46:16.185
It's the weights on me, the weights on record, the weights on whatever.
941
00:46:16.586 --> 00:46:21.452
But if someone leaves, I can just drag and drop the instructions and they can just pick it up from there.
942
00:46:21.552 --> 00:46:22.133
Oh, that's great.
943
00:46:22.153 --> 00:46:22.313
Yeah.
944
00:46:22.333 --> 00:46:24.577
I'm just excited to get started.
945
00:46:24.737 --> 00:46:25.538
Knock these things out.
946
00:46:25.698 --> 00:46:33.825
Over the next six weeks, our plan for Efren to turn around the business is number one, get the website built from lawn care web design so his website generates more leads.
947
00:46:33.945 --> 00:46:35.306
You have a decent amount of reviews.
948
00:46:35.746 --> 00:46:40.010
I would definitely look into getting automation set up to ask for reviews for Google.
949
00:46:40.070 --> 00:46:41.171
I think you had 28 reviews.
950
00:46:41.451 --> 00:46:41.731
29.
951
00:46:41.911 --> 00:46:42.512
29?
952
00:46:43.272 --> 00:46:44.393
I'd love to see that over 50.
953
00:46:44.513 --> 00:46:46.655
Especially in South Austin, you need that just to start.
954
00:46:46.815 --> 00:46:49.718
So website's gonna be optimized for conversion.
955
00:46:50.018 --> 00:46:54.562
That's really the part that I saw as a lack and I'm glad the team, they'll look at this in terms of,
956
00:46:55.242 --> 00:47:01.485
The S request form being on the homepage, not being on the backend, couple buttons and different scripts that we're being ran.
957
00:47:01.525 --> 00:47:02.446
It'll be improved.
958
00:47:02.466 --> 00:47:05.547
That one's relatively passive because now you have someone else doing it.
959
00:47:05.567 --> 00:47:08.789
The upsells, this is the part we want to get jump on ASAP.
960
00:47:09.029 --> 00:47:13.171
We want to email and text message and or call all of our customers.
961
00:47:13.191 --> 00:47:13.991
You have 50 customers?
962
00:47:14.311 --> 00:47:15.812
You could technically call every single one.
963
00:47:15.832 --> 00:47:16.252
I could, yeah.
964
00:47:16.512 --> 00:47:17.353
I know them by name.
965
00:47:17.693 --> 00:47:18.254
Right, yeah.
966
00:47:18.574 --> 00:47:20.035
Eventually we won't, which is fine.
967
00:47:20.095 --> 00:47:21.476
But for now, let's use it.
968
00:47:21.576 --> 00:47:30.064
The second thing in the six week plan is for Efren to call, text, or email existing customers and upsell them into weed control and irrigation.
969
00:47:30.104 --> 00:47:32.866
Do you have campaigns set up in Jabra for mass email or not yet?
970
00:47:33.478 --> 00:47:36.959
I've never done it, so I don't know if it's already pre-made with everybody's emails.
971
00:47:37.039 --> 00:47:37.159
Right.
972
00:47:37.379 --> 00:47:38.119
I mean, I've never tried.
973
00:47:38.419 --> 00:47:39.480
Okay, so we're going to do...
974
00:47:39.540 --> 00:47:46.141
I'm going to put send weed control slash irrigation upsell.
975
00:47:46.621 --> 00:47:48.542
Stage two of that is offer.
976
00:47:48.742 --> 00:47:49.502
Like make an offer.
977
00:47:49.862 --> 00:47:52.923
So for example, hey everyone, this is the perfect time of year for pre-emergent.
978
00:47:53.822 --> 00:47:54.142
And boom.
979
00:47:54.463 --> 00:47:58.366
And then next month, like, I would create a 12-month calendar for upsells.
980
00:47:58.926 --> 00:48:03.429
So right now I have the six-week plan to send the weed control irrigation upsell to all clients.
981
00:48:03.710 --> 00:48:07.252
But also, it also is a 12-month...
982
00:48:10.100 --> 00:48:32.290
calendar this will be part of his 12-month upsell calendar where every single month we have an offer for our customers to sell them more services would that be like a marketing calendar almost exactly okay right so right now we don't even think about like marketing to cold traffic we're just thinking about how do we market our existing services to our existing clients and how do we get someone from paying a thousand dollars a year to two thousand dollars a year with us
983
00:48:32.750 --> 00:48:34.231
So upsells, super important.
984
00:48:34.251 --> 00:48:40.053
We're trying to get irrigation and weed control specifically because we know it's high margin and it gets you out of doing admin and into operations.
985
00:48:40.333 --> 00:48:48.337
This massive increase in new leads and new jobs coming in could be the pressure that Efra needs to actually force him to delegate the admin role.
986
00:48:48.537 --> 00:48:54.179
So that's gonna lead us into next step, which is we're going to hire admin.
987
00:48:56.054 --> 00:48:58.115
And at first, maybe that's four hours a day.
988
00:48:58.235 --> 00:49:00.877
Um, and you say, Hey, look, I'm in the morning.
989
00:49:00.917 --> 00:49:02.457
I need you to like do these things.
990
00:49:02.658 --> 00:49:02.838
Yeah.
991
00:49:02.878 --> 00:49:03.458
I think we're good.
992
00:49:03.918 --> 00:49:07.060
And then throughout the day, whenever you can get to it, these are the other things I need you to do.
993
00:49:07.160 --> 00:49:17.345
The third thing in the next six weeks is to hire an admin person for that to happen, we've got to create a checklist, prioritize what they need to be doing and create success metrics for that role.
994
00:49:17.565 --> 00:49:22.188
But we've got to hire someone so we can get back in the field doing those high margin tasks.
995
00:49:22.368 --> 00:49:24.471
you are going to feel out of control when you do this.
996
00:49:24.691 --> 00:49:25.011
Definitely.
997
00:49:25.352 --> 00:49:30.998
Once you have defined success metrics, you only need to know that metric in order to be able to know whether or not they're doing their job.
998
00:49:31.018 --> 00:49:32.139
Do you have email coming to your phone right now?
999
00:49:32.260 --> 00:49:34.642
I do, yeah, and when I open it up, I get an anxiety attack.
1000
00:49:34.662 --> 00:49:35.804
Yeah, 100%.
1001
00:49:36.204 --> 00:49:37.666
So no more email on your phone.
1002
00:49:37.826 --> 00:49:44.527
The fourth thing that Efren can do in the next six weeks to turn around the business is get his email off of his personal phone.
1003
00:49:44.967 --> 00:49:46.068
Let the admin handle that.
1004
00:49:46.388 --> 00:49:58.310
And furthermore, that time motion study, number five, I need him to do it so that he can actually prove to himself that this constant back and forth from email to phone to doing work on the field and switching back and forth is causing a lot of wasted time.
1005
00:49:58.550 --> 00:50:03.131
And if he just focused and get that email off of his phone, he'd be able to be much more productive.
1006
00:50:03.351 --> 00:50:06.792
This would reduce the chaos and allow him to focus on growing the business.
1007
00:50:06.812 --> 00:50:07.592
Actually, let's just make a difference.
1008
00:50:07.612 --> 00:50:09.914
part of the six-week plan, no email on phone.
1009
00:50:10.234 --> 00:50:14.797
We can't have no email on phone.
1010
00:50:14.857 --> 00:50:17.219
We don't got time for anxiety every time you pick up your phone.
1011
00:50:17.459 --> 00:50:17.960
No, I agree.
1012
00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:18.820
I know it's like...
1013
00:50:19.180 --> 00:50:24.524
If I can touch on something, I think one of the big things that kind of was a realization for me was
1014
00:50:25.998 --> 00:50:33.604
being too, kind of scared to fail, which is weird, because I try to fail, try to fail on a lot of different things, but for whatever reason, I'm like, I can't pass this on because this isn't perfect.
1015
00:50:34.044 --> 00:50:35.885
This isn't the perfect checklist of things.
1016
00:50:36.546 --> 00:50:38.007
I'm like, well, you figure out as you go.
1017
00:50:39.368 --> 00:50:44.431
Like, for example, taking the email off my phone, I'm like, that seems scary to do, but I'm like, yeah, but you figure it out.
1018
00:50:44.972 --> 00:50:46.433
They miss an email, someone gets mad,
1019
00:50:47.575 --> 00:50:48.796
Well, you figure it out, problem solve.
1020
00:50:48.916 --> 00:50:49.817
It's not the end of the world.
1021
00:50:50.117 --> 00:50:51.538
It's okay if things break a little bit.
1022
00:50:52.179 --> 00:50:58.503
And being okay with that, being okay with that is I think a big breaking point to get to the next level.
1023
00:50:58.664 --> 00:51:01.646
You could just have it, like I'm assuming when there's a voicemail, it goes on your phone?
1024
00:51:01.766 --> 00:51:01.946
Yeah.
1025
00:51:02.226 --> 00:51:06.009
Yeah, so you could literally just run a filter, like last week, how many missed calls did we have?
1026
00:51:06.029 --> 00:51:06.470
Okay, just mad.
1027
00:51:06.490 --> 00:51:07.610
How many voicemails did we have?
1028
00:51:08.411 --> 00:51:10.733
Every time we miss a call or a voicemail, that's a loss.
1029
00:51:10.753 --> 00:51:11.974
That's something messed up.
1030
00:51:12.354 --> 00:51:12.594
Sure.
1031
00:51:12.634 --> 00:51:19.759
And so I would recommend, even if you have someone working, say, four or five hours a day, I would then incentivize them extra for not having a voicemail.
1032
00:51:20.380 --> 00:51:23.222
Hey, if there's no voicemails for the whole week, you get like $100 extra.
1033
00:51:23.802 --> 00:51:30.987
That way, even if they're off the clock, maybe they'll answer the phone because it's a two-minute call, but you have phone calls getting answered.
1034
00:51:31.107 --> 00:51:31.307
Yeah.
1035
00:51:31.968 --> 00:51:32.508
Wow.
1036
00:51:32.748 --> 00:51:34.870
It's so cool to hear your perspective because...
1037
00:51:36.193 --> 00:51:41.578
Coming from a W2 background, like a structure, you work from this time to this time, and this is your role.
1038
00:51:41.798 --> 00:51:45.442
In business, everything's just, you just make it up from thin air.
1039
00:51:45.502 --> 00:51:56.592
Like this job role, like yeah, in this job, you're gonna work X amount of hours in the morning, X amount of hours in the afternoon, these are the metrics, and it's like, kind of just, when you come from like a corporate job, it's just kind of unheard of, from my perspective.
1040
00:51:56.612 --> 00:51:57.332
Yeah.
1041
00:51:57.432 --> 00:52:00.755
You just made the job from scratch, depending on your needs.
1042
00:52:01.056 --> 00:52:01.276
Yeah.
1043
00:52:01.316 --> 00:52:02.297
And that's cool.
1044
00:52:02.597 --> 00:52:02.857
Yeah.
1045
00:52:02.877 --> 00:52:04.038
To like know that we can do that.
1046
00:52:04.078 --> 00:52:05.599
I guess I just needed to hear it from you.
1047
00:52:05.619 --> 00:52:06.300
Yeah, that's cool.
1048
00:52:06.540 --> 00:52:06.840
I love it.
1049
00:52:06.940 --> 00:52:12.225
Honestly taught or raised to just kind of fall into a role that's being created and we just think that's how it's always been.
1050
00:52:12.925 --> 00:52:20.391
But when you're on this side and more of the architect side, it's like, oh, you're creating something from nothing that fits your needs and your business needs.
1051
00:52:20.451 --> 00:52:22.493
And hopefully someone kind of likes that.
1052
00:52:22.553 --> 00:52:27.537
I say permission, but like kind of hearing Mike talk about that, I'm like, oh, it kind of just gave me that permission to be like, it's not weird.
1053
00:52:27.597 --> 00:52:28.938
I can't create this weird job.
1054
00:52:30.127 --> 00:52:31.708
because that's what I need, the end.
1055
00:52:32.328 --> 00:52:36.671
If you do all of those things in the next six weeks, we'll be in a good spot.
1056
00:52:36.891 --> 00:52:38.692
I think I have the time to do it.
1057
00:52:39.052 --> 00:52:46.417
I just didn't have the clarity on where to start and having like, you know, here I have like one through six steps
1058
00:52:47.197 --> 00:52:49.398
and I'm like a systems guy.
1059
00:52:49.418 --> 00:52:51.179
I'm like, this is perfect, this is exactly what I need.
1060
00:52:51.759 --> 00:52:52.939
I can just kind of knock them off.
1061
00:52:53.500 --> 00:52:57.321
So my hope is that within six weeks, when we talk, I'm like, all right, guess what?
1062
00:52:57.341 --> 00:52:59.182
I got everything done or I'm on the last step.
1063
00:52:59.222 --> 00:53:01.683
Like, yeah, I'm just knocking them down one by one.
1064
00:53:02.143 --> 00:53:04.264
So I see it as completely doable.
1065
00:53:05.622 --> 00:53:06.222
Yeah, exactly.
1066
00:53:06.242 --> 00:53:07.303
So I have the roadmap here.
1067
00:53:07.323 --> 00:53:10.285
I've been looking at it kind of since y'all left.
1068
00:53:10.305 --> 00:53:11.645
I have it up on the wall there.
1069
00:53:11.786 --> 00:53:13.647
That's the first thing I really worked on.
1070
00:53:13.727 --> 00:53:15.187
I've done a time out of it before.
1071
00:53:15.528 --> 00:53:17.469
This is probably the fifth time I've tried to do it.
1072
00:53:17.729 --> 00:53:23.112
But for whatever reason, after speaking with Mike and him also mentioning, like, yeah, it is difficult.
1073
00:53:23.372 --> 00:53:23.972
I'm like, oh, okay.
1074
00:53:23.992 --> 00:53:24.833
Well, if he thinks it's hard,
1075
00:53:25.829 --> 00:53:26.690
then I must be doing it right.
1076
00:53:26.750 --> 00:53:27.950
And I guess it's not just me.
1077
00:53:28.150 --> 00:53:31.352
So after I did it this first time, I did it for seven days straight.
1078
00:53:31.512 --> 00:53:39.657
I was able to really see where I was wasting my time and what kept coming up in regards to like a admin task.
1079
00:53:39.757 --> 00:53:48.902
So after that seven days, I was able to sort of get that list and narrow it down to like two or three different things that I thought, okay, these things I can delegate to a
1080
00:53:49.262 --> 00:54:05.453
an admin personnel and uh which was ended up being my next step so um i actually did delegate the admin stuff to a virtual assistant so she's been on with us now for probably about a month and man i'll tell you right now that's a game changer that
1081
00:54:06.456 --> 00:54:07.577
I mean, I cracked the code.
1082
00:54:08.478 --> 00:54:17.725
That really opened up the floodgates for me to, you know, primarily buy my time back, but then just kind of divert my attention to way more important things.
1083
00:54:17.845 --> 00:54:23.409
So yes, I can safely say that I can check that off my list of, you know, don't look at my emails as often.
1084
00:54:23.809 --> 00:54:30.655
To me, doing the admin stuff is like, I feel like if that was the only thing I did for this year, that was such a game changer because it's allowed me to...
1085
00:54:31.295 --> 00:54:33.936
buy like 15 hours of my time back a week.
1086
00:54:34.336 --> 00:54:36.137
And that's a big chunk.
1087
00:54:36.357 --> 00:54:39.258
And I've been running on a treadmill stage for like seven years at this point.
1088
00:54:39.358 --> 00:54:43.539
So just, I'm still kind of like, I feel like I'm in limbo.
1089
00:54:43.860 --> 00:54:47.581
Like I was living this lifestyle for so long, now that it's different, I'm like, well, what do I do now?
1090
00:54:48.241 --> 00:54:49.522
So I'm still getting used to it.
1091
00:54:49.982 --> 00:54:50.442
But yes,
1092
00:54:51.496 --> 00:54:55.317
The next thing was the website, which I use Long Care Web Design.
1093
00:54:56.037 --> 00:55:00.298
I wasn't necessarily happy with my old website, it just felt a little outdated.
1094
00:55:00.718 --> 00:55:03.158
And I have it now, so it's live now.
1095
00:55:03.798 --> 00:55:07.399
And it's awesome because they have our request form on the website.
1096
00:55:07.599 --> 00:55:11.820
A client can go in, fill it out, and that goes directly to our inbox or jobber.
1097
00:55:12.000 --> 00:55:13.360
And we can just go through a process.
1098
00:55:13.400 --> 00:55:14.680
It's way more streamlined.
1099
00:55:14.920 --> 00:55:16.001
It's just modernized.
1100
00:55:16.021 --> 00:55:17.241
The interface is great.
1101
00:55:18.101 --> 00:55:22.563
Yeah, that's a big check off the list of things to do.
1102
00:55:23.083 --> 00:55:23.924
No complaints there.
1103
00:55:24.304 --> 00:55:26.445
But the next one is, yeah, the upselling the services.
1104
00:55:27.025 --> 00:55:40.592
I think now that I have a lot more clarity on how I want to do it, or just the fact that I have clarity, I have mental bandwidth, I can now say like, hey, let's, how do I build up like a seasonal marketing calendar, if you want to call it that.
1105
00:55:40.792 --> 00:55:46.195
So now that I have this time back, I've really been in, like I was out there today, actually, we had a irrigation,
1106
00:55:46.963 --> 00:55:52.046
quotes that I sent out and they were accepted and we spent the whole day today just getting that done.
1107
00:55:52.627 --> 00:55:57.469
And now I'm kind of learning the process of like how to go about just scheduling my day around that.
1108
00:55:57.850 --> 00:56:02.012
In the past I tried to, but it was always so frustrating because I would get these phone calls or I'm looking at my email because there's something that I have to check.
1109
00:56:02.032 --> 00:56:03.593
Now I like today I spent the whole day doing just purely irrigation work.
1110
00:56:03.613 --> 00:56:04.554
And that's, like I said, that's a game changer.
1111
00:56:04.574 --> 00:56:11.318
And, you know, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like
1112
00:56:11.378 --> 00:56:16.683
I'm really looking forward to just build on that and then build up these departments of irrigation and weed control fertilizer.
1113
00:56:16.863 --> 00:56:24.230
Just kind of implement it into my company so we can sell sort of full service programs versus just the biweekly lawn service.
1114
00:56:24.390 --> 00:56:26.692
Maybe that's why I haven't spent so much time doing the marketing stuff.
1115
00:56:27.053 --> 00:56:32.277
It's because I had been still working in the field just on things that I should have built up and I just haven't had the time to.
1116
00:56:32.578 --> 00:56:36.902
There's days where I'm like, and my alarms are like 520 AM and I'm like,
1117
00:56:37.522 --> 00:56:38.964
You know, actually I can sleep in tonight.
1118
00:56:38.984 --> 00:56:40.865
So I could sleep in there until six.
1119
00:56:42.007 --> 00:56:44.469
I don't have to be at the storage at 6.30 today.
1120
00:56:44.529 --> 00:56:45.530
I can sleep in a little bit.
1121
00:56:45.550 --> 00:56:51.415
So just having that, like a little bit of margin in my life after, like I said, seven years of just creating an operator.
1122
00:56:52.236 --> 00:56:52.416
It's...
1123
00:56:54.032 --> 00:56:58.254
I'm still kind of just soaking it in and appreciating it.
1124
00:56:58.714 --> 00:57:03.755
That weather is how I felt at that time, like physically, mentally.
1125
00:57:04.116 --> 00:57:09.217
Like here in the work chart, I mean in the leadership section, clarity was one that was lacking.
1126
00:57:09.237 --> 00:57:11.178
I didn't really understand what Mike was telling me at the time.
1127
00:57:11.798 --> 00:57:12.539
until later.
1128
00:57:12.859 --> 00:57:19.245
And, you know, I was lacking the sense of clarity, not only for me personally as a business owner and like, what's next?
1129
00:57:19.265 --> 00:57:19.825
What do I do?
1130
00:57:19.865 --> 00:57:24.309
I was just kind of stuck in the hurricane of things that just felt like it was never getting better.
1131
00:57:24.789 --> 00:57:28.272
And in doing so, I was also causing a lot of confusion within my team members.
1132
00:57:28.513 --> 00:57:30.795
They didn't have any clarity within their roles.
1133
00:57:30.935 --> 00:57:34.338
So that's one of the big things, aside from everything else, that I've really been
1134
00:57:35.038 --> 00:57:58.169
spending a lot of time sort of kind of working on is having more clarity for myself in regards to this business now that I have my time back I can spend some time to kind of think and in doing so I really feel a lot more confident in bringing clarity to the guys my brother and Ricardo and in their role so they can really You know take the long care leader and project manager roles and just run with them I've done this before in the past, but it just it feels
1135
00:57:58.449 --> 00:58:02.876
it fell apart because I didn't have anything really set in mind and I was just all over the place.
1136
00:58:03.377 --> 00:58:04.478
I wasn't in the right headspace.
1137
00:58:04.979 --> 00:58:08.364
But now, yeah, I feel just a lot more confident as a business owner.
1138
00:58:09.105 --> 00:58:13.872
And in doing so, like, I think the guys also feel that confidence so they also feel confident in their own roles.
1139
00:58:14.273 --> 00:58:18.720
Not that they have like guidelines and just clarity in general.