He's Ready to QUIT His $1.3M Landscape Business

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Every day you break yourself, you're just like, all right, you just got to get through the day and just put out as many fires as you can and then just go home and just chill out like I don't want to keep living like that anymore.
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Still feel like you're behind.
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You come in the weekends, you still feel like you're behind.
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You can only feel like that for so long.
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Today we're in Illinois visiting Matt from Brooksdale Landscaping.
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Is it a people problem?
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Is it a leadership problem?
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Is it just like a direction problem?
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Like, like what is it?
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I think we can actually build something that will last.
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You're going to quit this business by a death of a thousand cuts of not wanting to be here?
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I would say it's definitely to 100% burnout.
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Last year he did $1.3 million in revenue, but he has fallen out of love with the business.
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It's just kind of crazy, you know, kind of nuts.
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Yeah, I think it's only up from here.
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And we're having to work more and more than we ever had to.
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Like, why am I in our balance sheet trying to figure out what's wrong when we have a bookkeeper?
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You fell out of love with the business.
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Yep.
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And as soon as I hear an entrepreneur fell out of love with the business, if they don't change you, it's in two or three years, the business is gone.
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I'm just so exhausted.
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He's on the treadmill of growth with no finish line in sight.
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Maybe sell a portion of it, sell some of it to some of the guys.
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It's a great day at Brookdale, I mean, I like it.
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Some of the guys have been here for eight years.
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That's where a lot of the pressure's coming from.
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Kyle's left college for it, he left college for it.
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I was just trying to go to college.
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I chose this because I think we really have a good opportunity here.
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A lot of pressure doesn't come without its weight.
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That risk is proportionate with the size that that business will probably become.
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And so if you play it safe your whole life, you'll probably have a small business.
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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 and Homework Software.
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I travel the country fixing struggling businesses.
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It changes everything in the business.
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It's hard.
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Our goal is to give Matt a strategy to turn around the company in the next six weeks.
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All right, we have flown into Chicago.
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We're at the hotel the night before.
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We're gonna go visit with Matt Baker.
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I'm gonna watch his application video and look over some of his numbers.
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Hi, my name's Matt Baker, and I run Brookdale Landscaping.
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We do landscaping primarily mulch installations, some mowing, and then we're known for our holiday light displays.
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We do commercial displays throughout the winter.
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Interior displays, Christmas tree rentals, high-end decor, decorated garland, so that
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Okay, we have already heard like technically 10 different businesses.
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Having a $1.3 million business, I would rather him have a $500,000 annual revenue business, but he just does the Christmas lights.
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I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is going to be a lot of disorganization and lack of systems, not because of his problem as much as he has so many different services.
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Our annual revenue last year was $1.3 million.
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This year expected to be around $1.4 million.
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I wouldn't say we have too many financial struggles, maybe just me spending too much or...
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maybe too much on marketing, we don't need to, and stuff like that.
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Alright, so two big hallmarks of a business that is around 1.2, 1.3 million dollars revenue.
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It's stalled, it's growth, and at the same time, the entrepreneur's adding services and spending a bunch of money on marketing.
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This is usually a business that is very difficult to systematize and it's proven by the fact that it stopped growing.
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The 1.3, 1.4 million is this year, but it grew really, really fast because he added a bunch of services and spent a bunch of money on marketing.
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But eventually if you don't keep the customers and it's not recurring and you're spread thin with all the different services, it usually plateaus around this size.
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We have 12 employees.
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It's just a lot for being 25.
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I'm kind of curious like how you handle that.
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We have Lori who's in the office.
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We have Leslie who does admin for the Whiteville side.
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My mom does accounts payable and accounts receivable.
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And then we have Paul who's like my right hand man who does all the estimates and kind of runs the crew.
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Five overhead people.
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Okay, here we go.
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Admin wages.
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For admin wages right now, they're paying $178,000.
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That's just payroll, let alone not tax.
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So like, let's just call it 225,000.
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That's like over 15% of their revenue is being spent just on the wages
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for the office and admin we're really struggling with processes so in the beginning the business was about getting new clients you know marketing providing good quotes communication and now the business is about leadership structure processes workflows standard operating procedures and really struggling to streamline everything i'd like to love my business again right now it's
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I'm pretty burnt out.
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Just we're really struggling with the structure and being fair to everyone.
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It's been really challenging.
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And you can see the guys getting frustrated because they feel like we're not doing our part.
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It's a little disorganized.
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Because there's so many added steps and complexity when you've added all these extra services.
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And I know his intentions are good.
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He wants to keep his crew busy year-round.
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But a lot of times people jump to adding new services to fill their off-season when they could just...
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push through what's hard and that is selling more and better to your existing customers for the services you already sell.
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And so I'm going to guess I'll be pushing that very heavily and five admin people or five overhead people to 12 people total.
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That's a lot of people in the office and a lot of times you get a lot of bloat in the admin or overhead positions when you don't have simplified services.
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That same size business could run with one person in the office if they were doing one thing, but now you have this
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1.2, 1.3, 1.4 million dollars, and five people overhead, it's because he has all these other services.
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We've got a great crew.
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Some guys have been with me since high school.
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I would love to talk with you, pick your brain, and hear how you could help us and make sure that we can grow, because right now we just can't grow, and the guys want a career.
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Whoa, hi, how's it going?
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Good, how are you?
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Good, what was your name?
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I'm Laurie.
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Laurie and Mike, good to meet you.
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Hi Mike, nice to meet you.
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Hi, I'm Laurie.
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I do anything related to coordinating.
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Paul arranges the schedules, I communicate that information out.
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Hey Mike, Paul.
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Hey Paul, good to meet you man.
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Yeah, nice to meet you.
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Absolutely.
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It's always dynamic, cause like, you're the owner.
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Yeah.
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Are you basically the ops manager?
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Yeah, I'd say so.
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Part owner, operations manager, whoever needs to be some support to keep things going.
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Matt kind of operates the office.
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He steers the boat and I'm kind of rowing it.
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How much does this cost?
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The shop space with the warehouse and everything?
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This unit is like 280,000.
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Oh, you bought the unit?
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Yeah.
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Smart, okay, cool.
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So most of the storage is actually for the light side of things.
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Yeah, not much for landscaping.
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Yeah, you started with the lights.
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What year was that?
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2012.
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Oh wow.
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You started with the lights back then?
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Yeah.
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When did you add the landscaping in?
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Oh sorry, so the light show was 2012.
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It was like a light show.
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Okay.
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It wasn't like for customers, it was like for me.
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Oh, okay.
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And I started mowing lawns when I was 12.
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Let's just take it back a little bit.
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I'll try and keep it short.
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So I never intended it for any of this.
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This never was my intention.
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It all started to fund a holiday light show that I started when I was 12.
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It was a neighborhood light show, it was like my hobby.
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Christmas lights are my hobby.
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And to do the show you needed money, because all the equipment, lights are expensive.
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And I...
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started mowing lawns.
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I didn't want to work at McDonald's.
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I knew I could make more of my name's grass Then I could bring McDonald's to fund this light show then people started coming to the show and saying oh You have a landscape business.
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Well, could you come to our lights?
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I'm like, yeah, sure So the business grew as this light show grew and so right now it's still about 60% landscaping 40% lights from a revenue perspective and
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Right around there, yeah.
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Yeah, maybe getting closer to 50-50, but yeah.
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So lights is really the thing that's growing more right now.
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Yeah.
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Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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I think Lightville grew like 30-something percent last year, and landscaping was like 15%.
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And so in the beginning, it was fun because it was like us chasing the client, commercial clients, coming up with something unique, sourcing unique trees, giving that level of attention to detail.
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Like we didn't have much pressure because there wasn't that much staff here, and there wasn't that much overhead.
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It was really fun up to about $800,000 in revenue.
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The holiday lighting really grew when he came on, when we rebranded to Lightville, which was 2020.
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Kind of it's been the key.
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Like, he's been able to, like, sell the work and, like,
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have that role and then I would be able to just make sure it got done.
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And so like it was kind of flexible, right?
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Like I can come in and I can work on all these quotes.
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I could, you know, tell these clients like, hey, we have this rock product, this mulch product, and we have, you know, this tree.
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And I could sit down with the client and create really cool contracts that fit their needs and really cool displays.
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Well, now we've grown.
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Obviously that doesn't work because it's, you know, you got to be simple and streamlined.
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And so they're wanting like a unique display.
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I'm like, I don't have the time for it.
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We can't change the display at all.
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It's got to be the same.
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There's just no way I can source new decor for you at all.
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I just don't have the time.
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So I think I've gotten further away from the reason why I love this so much because it's gotten bigger.
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Kind of like to your point, now that we've grown, that's so complex.
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We haven't been able to take on new displays or anything like that because I'm so overwhelmed and bogged down that I can't, I just can't.
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It's part of the reason why I'm here is because before it was to build a business that creates the coolest, the hottest place, we have all this unique decor.
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Now that it's grown, it's like, well, that's not working.
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It's not working because we can't even take on the displays that are
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are calling us.
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So like the holiday lighting season has started.
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I'm like, we're in the thick of it right now.
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I mean, we've, and the reason why I'm a little frustrated right now is because our ideal client that we've been trying to, I mean, we'll work, you know, past three years for, but now they're coming to us.
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And like, we've had hotels in Rosemont with like $16,000 budgets.
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We even had a city with a $40,000 budget for a big Christmas tree.
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And one proposal working on it, it's
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It's a $60,000 light show tree for a city fountain plaza.
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These are all jobs that we've been working so hard to get.
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And here they are, and I don't even want to deal with any of them because I'm so bogged down and everything else is going on.
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We're passing up the opportunities we've all been working hard for the past three years.
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They're right in front of us, literally right now.
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And I can't even get to them because I'm just so exhausted.
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It's crazy because these are the jobs that we've been wanting forever.
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Like, you know, these are it.
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They're right in front of us and we're so exhausted to even deal with it.
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And so what's the goal of the business?
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I know like in your application video, it was kind of like you fell out of love with the business.
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It feels like it's going to become cumbersome as you've grown.
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But like when you look at the business, what's the goal of the company?
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I would say to grow sustainably.
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Right.
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So like be able to grow without like just exhausting yourself.
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and so it's just leading to a lot of burnout because every day you're just spitting out fires when it's like, well man, we have all these people here and I can't actually do the work that I need to do or like to do because you're just putting out fires every day and so yeah, I would say it's definitely to 100% burnout.
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The guys used to work here just for a job, right?
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It was like their summer job, it was like their high school job, whatever and now it's changed so like they want a career and they're actually looking to us for a career.
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We really like our team, we really like our guys, we want to make sure that
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Everyone's taking care of them, ourselves, everything.
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So growing there so that they can have a career and then maybe that we,
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I don't need to be as in the weeds and I can, you know, put more of my creative energy into the business.
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Maybe sell something to some of the guys.
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I mean, some of the guys have been here for eight years.
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What about you, Kyle?
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How long have you been working here?
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In the meantime, this will be my third year, but as long as we're working with Baker, I've worked for about eight years.
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Well, I started working with Matt back in high school.
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It's a good career.
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I enjoy working out here.
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We used to...
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play hockey back in high school, that's how I met him.
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Awesome.
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It's been a fun ride, lots of ups and downs.
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Well, this would be my fourth year doing landscaping.
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I've been doing landscaping ever since I got out of high school.
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To be honest with you, I just really like what I do.
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I think we could actually build something that'll last here at Brookdale.
224
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It's a nice break from the landscaping.
225
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We would go over to Lightville and then vice versa.
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The reason I love working at Brookdale is I love the boys, you know, got a good boss, you know, got a good manager.
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The team is amazing.
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It's a great group of people to work for and with.
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I've always been good friends, so I've always been happy and excited to see him grow what he's built, and I'm happy to contribute to it.
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It's my second home, basically.
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It's a great day at Brookdale.
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I mean, I like it.
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I love seeing the guys come in all enthusiastic after a day's work.
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They're covered in mulch head to toe, and they're all grinning, you know?
235
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And it's just fascinating to see who smiles the most when they walk in that door.
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That's where like a lot of the pressure's coming from is because they want this career, they're staying.
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Like, Kyle's left college for it, he left college for it, Zach left college for it.
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I mean, that's where a lot of this is coming from, I would say.
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I was just trying to go to college, figure out a career.
240
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I chose this because I think we really have a good opportunity here to build a company and make a lot of people happy.
241
00:12:17.343 --> 00:12:19.286
It's not just like Matt's hobby anymore.
242
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He could play with lights and
243
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do a crazy treat for someone, right?
244
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Like, no, it's a business and people depend on it.
245
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And I think that's where the growth is really coming down from.
246
00:12:27.334 --> 00:12:29.035
It's also where the pressure comes from, too.
247
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It's a lot of pressure, you know, looking at us to figure it out.
248
00:12:33.359 --> 00:12:38.263
And we're OK with that, but it doesn't come without its weight.
249
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Yeah, like I don't think we're going to solve that today, but like I definitely think having some thought around that is important because otherwise you're just on this treadmill.
250
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It really goes nowhere.
251
00:12:46.545 --> 00:12:46.965
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
252
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And it's like, well, why grow?
253
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Does it actually serve the required?
254
00:12:50.826 --> 00:12:56.427
Like if the goal is to just have a career for the team, well, we could just make this really profitable, give them a piece of profit sharing.
255
00:12:56.727 --> 00:12:59.228
Giving equity gets really messy, but like profit sharing.
256
00:12:59.908 --> 00:13:01.829
making sure like Paul has incentive.
257
00:13:01.989 --> 00:13:08.292
So if you wanna take a week vacation, like you know it's being ran well, you've reduced the services, you cut out the complexities.
258
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Like we can create systems all we want or just cut out the things that are causing problems.
259
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A lot of times I see the first three, four, five years of business being where you are constantly sacrificing in order to be able to invest back into the business.
260
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But once the business has got to a certain point and he's already doing 1.3 million in revenue,
261
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If you can no longer see how sacrificing for the business helps you personally, you start to resent the business.
262
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It's like your slave master.
263
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It tells you what to do, when to wake up, how hard to put effort.
264
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It has always told you what to do and has constrained you from doing what you love.
265
00:13:40.747 --> 00:13:49.770
And so when I look at all the services you offer, like the fastest way to make this business where you don't feel like there's a lack of systems is just cutting out complexity.
266
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the myriad of services being added.
267
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Residential, commercial, project mowing, like you got everything.
268
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And so if you looked at each of those individual sectors, what I would call services or businesses of themselves, you got businesses that are doing 150 to 200,000, some businesses doing 300,000, like you got
269
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eight businesses jammed into this one thing.
270
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Even multiple DBAs jammed into this thing, multiple websites jammed into this thing.
271
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Being clear about like, okay, if my goal is I wanna love this business, what does that business look like?
272
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And then trying to chart towards that is really important.
273
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Otherwise we're just like, well, we're kind of trying to grow sustainably, but we also don't wanna be running a chicken without a head.
274
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Then we also wanna be servicing our team and giving them a career and potentially letting them own the business.
275
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So like having clarity would be helpful.
276
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You still feel like you're behind no matter what.
277
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It's like every day you brace yourself.
278
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You're just like, all right, you just gotta get through the day and just put out as many fires as you can and then just go home and then just chill out.
279
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Like I don't want to keep living like that anymore.
280
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Leaving every day late, you still feel like you're behind.
281
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You come in the weekends, you still feel like you're behind.
282
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And I'd really like to shake that feeling because you can only feel like that for so long.
283
00:14:56.635 --> 00:15:02.017
Anytime in any relationship that you love something or someone, you will deploy discretionary effort.
284
00:15:02.317 --> 00:15:10.180
And in order for this business to go to one point, from 1.3 million to beyond, three million plus, he's gotta have discretionary effort and he's gotta love the business again.
285
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And you will never love the thing that you feel you have served and is not giving back to you in any way, shape or form.
286
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And I know when you've grown as quickly as you have and you're as young as you are, it's like, well, I don't really know what I want.
287
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That's okay.
288
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I think as you get where you want to become a great leader, having a vision that you can actually rally people around is really useful.
289
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Sure, 100%.
290
00:15:31.358 --> 00:15:33.521
Yep, that's my weak point for sure.
291
00:15:33.741 --> 00:15:34.962
Me being young is more mental.
292
00:15:35.002 --> 00:15:35.783
It's more like personal.
293
00:15:37.625 --> 00:15:42.228
Then really business, like with me being my age and everything, like it's just a lot.
294
00:15:42.248 --> 00:15:42.968
It's really draining.
295
00:15:43.008 --> 00:15:44.469
So like I'm losing touch with friends.
296
00:15:45.110 --> 00:15:46.370
Weekends, I'm exhausted.
297
00:15:46.390 --> 00:15:49.773
You can't really relate to anyone because no one like no one gets it, right?
298
00:15:49.793 --> 00:15:58.738
Or like you're and just the responsibility, you know, so like I noticed it just sounds so dumb, but there was a day off maybe in March where all the guys went skiing.
299
00:15:59.058 --> 00:16:01.680
February, some of the guys went out to Colorado to take a skiing trip.
300
00:16:01.800 --> 00:16:06.083
You know, there's really no income being made, but we still, you know, all hang out as a group and stuff like that.
301
00:16:06.103 --> 00:16:06.583
I'm like, okay.
302
00:16:06.783 --> 00:16:10.626
Oh shit, like, I love to go skiing, but I'm drowning in paperwork, you know?
303
00:16:10.726 --> 00:16:13.908
Or like, my friends live in the city, they'll get a day off at work randomly, right?
304
00:16:14.108 --> 00:16:20.333
And that's a day to do stuff around the house, to take a walk, to go to the beach, like just to be a kid, be a 20-year-old.
305
00:16:20.373 --> 00:16:22.094
I've been at this since I was like 12, right?
306
00:16:22.134 --> 00:16:25.336
So a day off with no one in the office to me seems like a day to get a lot of stuff done.
307
00:16:25.376 --> 00:16:27.738
Like, I couldn't imagine being at the beach right now.
308
00:16:27.978 --> 00:16:33.202
I think that's more like the age thing kind of I'm struggling with a little bit more.
309
00:16:33.462 --> 00:16:35.924
Like FOMO maybe, like yeah.
310
00:16:36.204 --> 00:16:38.146
I think it's also the thing that you crave though.
311
00:16:38.526 --> 00:16:40.788
Because like the thing that you hate doing is getting in the weeds.
312
00:16:41.468 --> 00:16:43.610
Zeroing out though, like what's the mission of this business?
313
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Why do we exist?
314
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Why are we growing?
315
00:16:45.392 --> 00:16:46.612
Why are we adding this sector?
316
00:16:46.633 --> 00:16:54.839
Why are we, like that would probably be the thing that also gives you a lot more discretionary effort in that area versus like, we're gonna go get some more lights clients.
317
00:16:54.859 --> 00:16:56.100
You're like, okay, cool.
318
00:16:56.300 --> 00:17:00.101
I think a lot of entrepreneurs are in an abusive relationship with their business.
319
00:17:00.401 --> 00:17:02.022
The business has always told them what to do.
320
00:17:02.562 --> 00:17:05.803
It has always taken away from them and it has never given anything to them.
321
00:17:05.883 --> 00:17:09.824
And for that, the entrepreneur resents the business and that's what keeps it from growing.
322
00:17:10.044 --> 00:17:11.484
So then how do you find your North Star?
323
00:17:11.504 --> 00:17:14.265
Like how do you, because there's obviously like a million different countries you go.
324
00:17:14.285 --> 00:17:15.746
How do you find, like how do you figure it out?
325
00:17:15.846 --> 00:17:16.446
Like how do you...
326
00:17:17.188 --> 00:17:28.496
Yeah, like the thing that stands out to me when I look at like your application video, like what you were saying, is you like either directly or implicitly said like you fell out of love with the business.
327
00:17:29.036 --> 00:17:34.620
And as soon as I hear an entrepreneur fell out of love with the business, if they don't change you, then in two or three years the business is gone.
328
00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:41.301
because eventually your attention goes to something else, and then all of a sudden the team starts to fall apart.
329
00:17:41.441 --> 00:17:48.742
Eventually you find something else, your passionate love, all your attention is on it, your love is towards it, and then the business goes to the wayside.
330
00:17:49.222 --> 00:17:55.903
And so when you're leading a team that you care about, I think to be a good steward, it's like let's make sure that I do have clarity.
331
00:17:56.424 --> 00:17:58.404
And a lot of times it's just like, it's really simple.
332
00:17:58.484 --> 00:18:01.604
The number one thing we gotta do is make sure you stay loving the business.
333
00:18:01.784 --> 00:18:04.345
The only way to fail in business is to quit.
334
00:18:05.045 --> 00:18:12.229
And so when I look at the entrepreneur, the person that owns 100% of the equity, if they quit, everything else is gone.
335
00:18:12.310 --> 00:18:15.051
The employees don't have a job, customers aren't served.
336
00:18:15.291 --> 00:18:22.176
And so instead of going after these other details, I'm going at the heart of the issue, which is we've gotta keep the head of the entrepreneur and the business owner in the game.
337
00:18:22.336 --> 00:18:34.083
And so sometimes taking a step back, staying in profit mode, not growing the business, or focusing on the areas of the business that you actually are passionate about, keep your head in the game long enough so you don't quit when the times get hard.
338
00:18:34.223 --> 00:18:38.284
The overarching cloud over the business is that if you don't like it, eventually this business will not work.
339
00:18:38.345 --> 00:18:39.845
It doesn't matter how much money, it doesn't matter.
340
00:18:39.865 --> 00:18:43.907
Like if you don't love the business, eventually it will show up on the P&L.
341
00:18:44.007 --> 00:18:51.549
I think part of it too is like you've hit this plateau again, like you grew very quickly, and then now you're at 1.3, 1.4, the business looks very similar.
342
00:18:51.849 --> 00:18:55.711
It's not like you're having new problems, new things to work on, it feels redundant.
343
00:18:56.191 --> 00:18:59.234
And you're hitting your head up against the wall of like, I don't have systems in this department.
344
00:18:59.375 --> 00:19:06.623
And you will likely not grow past 1.4, 1.5 without a huge amount of stress on yourself or you changing the business.
345
00:19:06.703 --> 00:19:12.289
And so I don't want you to keep beating your head up against this because you're like, man, I hit 1.3, then 1.4, then 1.4, then 1.6.
346
00:19:12.549 --> 00:19:14.672
I'm hitting my head up against this and eventually like, all right, forget this.
347
00:19:15.772 --> 00:19:17.133
Yeah, no, you're right on, yeah.
348
00:19:17.313 --> 00:19:22.177
Yeah, because you're 25, you're 26, like lots of opportunities will come your way.
349
00:19:22.537 --> 00:19:28.602
You will have another love in your life, whether that be a girl, whether it be another business, whether it be an opportunity, whether it be an investment.
350
00:19:28.962 --> 00:19:35.247
And if you hate this business, because after three years of beating your head up against 1.4, 1.5, and you're doing stuff all day long that you hate doing,
351
00:19:36.785 --> 00:19:37.686
You're going to leave.
352
00:19:37.726 --> 00:19:38.006
Yeah.
353
00:19:38.787 --> 00:19:42.630
And so, like, the ultimate insurance for this business is make sure you love the business.
354
00:19:42.790 --> 00:19:49.556
I think the big question is when I'm 30, am I going to look back and be stoked that it gave my business my all?
355
00:19:49.656 --> 00:19:52.598
Put me in a spot that other people may not necessarily be in?
356
00:19:52.838 --> 00:19:58.263
Or am I going to look back when I'm 30 and be like, man, I missed out on all the social interactions, making friends, traveling.
357
00:19:58.803 --> 00:20:03.207
moving around, trying different things, kind of being like a free spirit in my 20s.
358
00:20:03.527 --> 00:20:07.531
And I think that's just kind of like the question that I've been trying to answer over these years.
359
00:20:07.771 --> 00:20:10.273
This doesn't like relate to this, but I just got like entrepreneurial questions.
360
00:20:11.314 --> 00:20:13.256
What I'm blown away with you is how do you
361
00:20:13.896 --> 00:20:16.999
How did you, like you have the bookkeeper, which I'm on the wait list, right?
362
00:20:17.099 --> 00:20:25.789
So like, how did you say, hey, I want to start this bookkeeping service and then hire a bookkeeper and know how to hire a bookkeeper, what to offer and then grow it, even if we didn't have like all the customers.
363
00:20:25.809 --> 00:20:27.631
Like how do you, like command center, right?
364
00:20:27.651 --> 00:20:29.633
How did you figure out like, hey, I want to do this command center.
365
00:20:29.813 --> 00:20:41.218
Command Center is the centralized office or admin that we have for Augusta Lawn Care, where we have over 80 agents that were answering phone calls, doing texts, doing email, running payroll, all the admin related tasks.
366
00:20:41.258 --> 00:20:48.342
So the business owner, especially when they're first getting started and growing quickly, so they can focus on sales and operations instead of admin.
367
00:20:48.422 --> 00:20:55.505
When they're a million dollar business, maybe they'll get an office manager, but I don't want them when they're first getting started, figuring out how to do admin and email and answering the phone.
368
00:20:55.865 --> 00:20:57.146
That's what Command Center exists for.
369
00:20:57.306 --> 00:21:00.449
How do you just figure out like the structure and everything behind all the different things you do?
370
00:21:00.590 --> 00:21:04.073
You just start and then you constantly ask the customer how you can serve them better.
371
00:21:04.233 --> 00:21:07.056
Any things that you mentioned, I still have plenty of problems to work on.
372
00:21:07.237 --> 00:21:11.061
Our number one value is constant improvement for the reason of like, I know when I start, I will not be perfect.
373
00:21:11.181 --> 00:21:14.464
And so my only focus is what's the pain point of the customer and I'll solve it.
374
00:21:14.584 --> 00:21:17.968
And it will take you a long, like the bigger the business gets, the longer it takes to solve each problem.
375
00:21:18.308 --> 00:21:19.349
This is just a curiosity.
376
00:21:19.689 --> 00:21:22.710
When you started your home service website company, how did you start this?
377
00:21:22.730 --> 00:21:24.471
Did you find a web designer?
378
00:21:24.711 --> 00:21:33.575
A lot of those departments, those ancillary things I've started, is I wanted to afford a killer, but I couldn't afford them, so we offered the service ancillary to be able to subsidize their cost.
379
00:21:33.735 --> 00:21:36.537
Did you have to take a financial hit in the beginning to do that?
380
00:21:36.877 --> 00:21:39.358
And you were just comfortable taking that financial hit because you knew down the road?
381
00:21:39.578 --> 00:21:40.598
because it aligned with the why.
382
00:21:40.838 --> 00:21:43.439
Like the why was big enough for me to realize I needed those components.
383
00:21:44.339 --> 00:21:47.940
Adding the software is like the worst three years of my life, like trying to get this up.
384
00:21:48.160 --> 00:21:51.281
But I know in the long run, I need the software for the franchise.
385
00:21:51.501 --> 00:21:53.401
And so like, that's why knowing the why is so important.
386
00:21:53.421 --> 00:22:02.404
Cause like when you want to quit, when there's issues out towards you, when it's sucking money out of your pocket like crazy, when you see no evidence of success, you have to have something to fall back on.
387
00:22:02.484 --> 00:22:07.965
For every business I've ever started, and that exists today, there's a period of time where I wanted to quit.
388
00:22:08.505 --> 00:22:13.610
For the franchise, it now has over 200 locations, we do $75 million in revenue this year.
389
00:22:14.051 --> 00:22:17.535
But when we were at 90 locations, we weren't making any money.
390
00:22:17.635 --> 00:22:19.016
I was pouring money back into the business.
391
00:22:19.036 --> 00:22:20.498
We were negative profit.
392
00:22:20.698 --> 00:22:24.062
And I was living in the office, in the closet, so that we could do that.
393
00:22:24.582 --> 00:22:26.223
and I didn't have hot water.
394
00:22:26.663 --> 00:22:28.924
I had to go next door to be able to take showers at the gym.
395
00:22:29.384 --> 00:22:30.004
That was not fun.
396
00:22:30.504 --> 00:22:31.985
The media side, same thing.
397
00:22:32.145 --> 00:22:40.728
I did five years of making content on YouTube before I made a single dollar on YouTube ads or making any dollars from courses or whatever.
398
00:22:40.848 --> 00:22:42.369
When it came to the software side,
399
00:22:43.249 --> 00:22:50.634
The first year we grew a bunch, a ton of bugs got in, and I spent days sometimes without sleeping because of all the problems and the pressure I was going through.
400
00:22:51.074 --> 00:22:56.458
Every single one of those, within about two to three years after that low point is when I'm so glad I pushed through.
401
00:22:56.498 --> 00:23:00.880
Now, when it comes to the franchise, the software, the media, why did I push through in those low moments?
402
00:23:01.021 --> 00:23:05.003
It was because my why propelled me and pulled me to get past those times.
403
00:23:05.463 --> 00:23:09.306
And the why was, I wanna change the level of professionalism in a landscape industry.
404
00:23:09.426 --> 00:23:10.387
And I'm going to need media,
405
00:23:11.087 --> 00:23:14.029
I'm gonna need software, I'm gonna need the franchise to do that.
406
00:23:14.570 --> 00:23:20.914
And so it wasn't ever an option to quit during those low moments because my why pulled me past those hard times.
407
00:23:21.154 --> 00:23:26.898
Yeah, so the reason for asking is because in February we go negative, right, because we have all this overhead but there's no revenue.
408
00:23:27.379 --> 00:23:32.762
So you're like negative like 26, 30 thousand dollars and you're like wow, like Jesus, it's really worth it.
409
00:23:32.802 --> 00:23:34.844
And I'm like man, this is just like one business, right?
410
00:23:34.864 --> 00:23:36.805
Imagine like with you with multiple.
411
00:23:36.905 --> 00:23:39.307
So yeah, I was just curious about how you stomach all that.
412
00:23:39.387 --> 00:23:42.648
Well, like the size of your risk will correlate with the size of your goals.
413
00:23:43.288 --> 00:23:48.030
And so like, you know, I lose hundreds of thousands of dollars a week when we were in the middle of stuff with software.
414
00:23:48.210 --> 00:23:52.231
And like as the product looks the worst, you're dumping more and more money into it and investing more and more.
415
00:23:52.512 --> 00:23:55.953
So like that risk is proportionate with the size of that business will probably become.
416
00:23:57.113 --> 00:23:59.414
And so if you play it safe your whole life, you'll probably have a small business.
417
00:24:01.072 --> 00:24:07.217
So solving the biggest constraint in the business, the biggest problem, is always on the other side of that moat is the castle.
418
00:24:07.818 --> 00:24:10.600
And so if you're able to figure out how do I get revenue in February?
419
00:24:11.120 --> 00:24:12.481
Oh, I can pull demand forward.
420
00:24:12.501 --> 00:24:14.943
I can make offers to my existing customers and pull them.
421
00:24:15.203 --> 00:24:18.826
That's the thing no one does, but it's also the thing that unlocks the most profitable business.
422
00:24:19.547 --> 00:24:20.568
Absolutely.
423
00:24:20.628 --> 00:24:25.452
How many times has your why changed with Augusta Lunker, like the North Star?
424
00:24:26.973 --> 00:24:27.233
None.
425
00:24:27.833 --> 00:24:33.614
Like it was mostly because after I got in the accident, it was a function of I was very clear I wanted to help other people not get in that same situation.
426
00:24:34.374 --> 00:24:41.856
That focus for me on the media side, like the franchise was realizing that no one listens to the content unless I compete with them.
427
00:24:42.456 --> 00:24:47.817
And so now with 200 locations, I compete with most landscaping companies and now they'll listen, right?
428
00:24:47.857 --> 00:24:54.158
And so we can see directly when we go into a new location that P4P, for example, people will start adopting it in that area.
429
00:24:55.358 --> 00:24:59.581
because they see, oh, Augusta moved in, I've gotta start paying my guys that way of doing profit sharing or whatever.
430
00:24:59.961 --> 00:25:02.983
So that's how we have the impact on the industry, but it all ties up to that.
431
00:25:03.163 --> 00:25:06.025
Every business stops growing for one of four reasons.
432
00:25:06.345 --> 00:25:11.028
It's either a lack of liquidity, a lack of leads, a lack of labor, or a lack of leadership.
433
00:25:11.588 --> 00:25:13.069
I call this the 4L framework.
434
00:25:13.570 --> 00:25:19.473
And right now, I'm really going to zero on what are the opportunities in each of these categories to be able to grow the business.
435
00:25:19.553 --> 00:25:21.635
From a liquidity perspective, I don't see any problem with the business.
436
00:25:22.676 --> 00:25:24.438
You have plenty of cash reserves.
437
00:25:24.538 --> 00:25:26.560
You have a decent enough profit margin.
438
00:25:27.221 --> 00:25:30.705
I don't, one thing you mentioned in your application video is you spend a lot on marketing.
439
00:25:31.546 --> 00:25:33.609
I said, I saw 20,000 last year in marketing.
440
00:25:33.629 --> 00:25:34.290
Is that accurate?
441
00:25:34.890 --> 00:25:35.171
Yeah.
442
00:25:35.311 --> 00:25:35.651
Okay.
443
00:25:35.731 --> 00:25:36.032
All right.
444
00:25:36.272 --> 00:25:37.634
And what are you spending that on right now?
445
00:25:38.275 --> 00:25:39.536
We haven't done any marketing this year.
446
00:25:39.636 --> 00:25:44.619
There's a few in there, but that was like for the website or like stuff like Google has done we paid from last year.
447
00:25:44.639 --> 00:25:46.581
But no, like paid ad strategy right now?
448
00:25:46.801 --> 00:25:47.301
No, no.
449
00:25:47.321 --> 00:25:51.484
Okay, and is that because you have constraints around the crew?
450
00:25:51.624 --> 00:25:54.726
Is it because you have constraints around the office space, the admin, what's the constraint?
451
00:25:54.746 --> 00:25:56.407
Why aren't you like, grow this thing to the moon?
452
00:25:56.467 --> 00:25:56.968
Great question.
453
00:25:57.008 --> 00:26:03.572
So because when we, like last year, we were spending money on ads, he could get to the request right away and make sure that that customer was heard.
454
00:26:03.852 --> 00:26:04.573
Now, pfft.
455
00:26:04.693 --> 00:26:15.941
He's on the field and I've been bogged down that a question comes in from paid ads, like they might, you know, they're not getting that service as quickly as possible and so then you're wasting your money because they're just going to whoever they got to first.
456
00:26:16.201 --> 00:26:22.206
I feel like we waste money on marketing because we just can't get to, we can't service the leads as quickly as we need to.
457
00:26:22.446 --> 00:26:27.870
But we'd like to be able to do that again, but he needs to be available to go take that estimate as quickly as possible.
458
00:26:28.150 --> 00:26:32.392
Got it, so you're doing estimates and you're also managing the crew day to day.
459
00:26:32.592 --> 00:26:34.133
So you have to balance those two things.
460
00:26:34.213 --> 00:26:36.374
Right now, management of the crew is essentially a full-time job.
461
00:26:36.995 --> 00:26:39.316
We don't have time to go get to leads that are coming in.
462
00:26:39.476 --> 00:26:39.856
Exactly.
463
00:26:40.116 --> 00:26:43.038
I'd say, like right now, a lot of my time is in the field.
464
00:26:43.698 --> 00:26:49.641
and I'm kind of pulled away from booking the schedule, doing estimates, I'm kind of dropping the ball in that sense.
465
00:26:49.901 --> 00:27:01.486
I'll work a full day in the field, and I'll come back and I'll have all these clients that responded to me or asking for work or looking for estimates on this, and so it's hard for me to stand on top of everything.
466
00:27:02.226 --> 00:27:08.129
And right now I feel like I'm dropping the ball a little bit on that sense, and so that's what I really want to work on.
467
00:27:08.249 --> 00:27:10.550
So working on training up the
468
00:27:11.107 --> 00:27:14.108
the field staff to be pretty strong where I don't need to be out there.
469
00:27:14.929 --> 00:27:21.991
And I know for like, I feel comfortable that they'll get all the scheduled work done every day and the weeks, you know, revenues hit.
470
00:27:22.252 --> 00:27:27.834
And I can go service the estimates and start filling the schedule for, you know, the next month and taking care of things.
471
00:27:28.235 --> 00:27:30.457
And what does chaos look like for those guys?
472
00:27:30.477 --> 00:27:33.820
Like when you say, hey, I'm managing them, you're not out there doing the work.
473
00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:37.844
Is it like stuff going wrong, mistakes happening, equipment failure?
474
00:27:38.084 --> 00:27:40.587
What are you like, what's the firefighting look like?
475
00:27:40.747 --> 00:27:50.156
I would say more so of just getting like just an extra hand on site, just getting the job done and getting everything done without the day going super long.
476
00:27:50.677 --> 00:27:51.838
And then also being
477
00:27:52.693 --> 00:28:07.385
more of like a detail oriented, pointing out little things that I notice, like say, they don't pull all the little picky weeds, little mulch on top of it, like being out there to reiterate those things and you kind of get a feel for how it's going firsthand.
478
00:28:07.625 --> 00:28:08.425
Good morning.
479
00:28:08.786 --> 00:28:09.186
Good morning.
480
00:28:09.586 --> 00:28:11.668
May was a really good month for us.
481
00:28:12.068 --> 00:28:16.089
A lot of things I liked, and some areas I would like to see some improvement.
482
00:28:16.329 --> 00:28:19.670
The client communication reviews have been really well.
483
00:28:19.890 --> 00:28:21.111
A lot of clients are really stoked.
484
00:28:21.231 --> 00:28:24.092
They're also noticing, Kyle, I think you're talking to the clients, ringing the bell.
485
00:28:24.672 --> 00:28:25.832
They are loving that.
486
00:28:28.473 --> 00:28:31.315
All right, let's have a great, great tour in one weekend time.
487
00:28:31.635 --> 00:28:34.456
It's summer, it's the weather's gonna get a little warm.
488
00:28:34.717 --> 00:28:35.677
Pack plenty of waters.
489
00:28:35.717 --> 00:28:39.059
We'll do our best to bring cool drinks to the job sites.
490
00:28:39.079 --> 00:28:45.043
So a lot of, like, fine details of training, end of day, you're having to help them wrap things up.
491
00:28:45.063 --> 00:28:48.725
It's like, hey, this job's gonna go to seven unless you go there and get done by six.
492
00:28:48.765 --> 00:28:49.045
Yep.
493
00:28:49.365 --> 00:28:51.806
And kind of like delegate tasks.
494
00:28:52.106 --> 00:28:54.448
Say the job's wrapping up and we have a crew of eight guys.
495
00:28:54.508 --> 00:28:55.888
We really don't need eight people there.
496
00:28:55.928 --> 00:28:58.750
So three people can go start the next job or something.
497
00:28:58.810 --> 00:29:02.691
And that doesn't really happen unless I'm kind of pushing that forward.
498
00:29:03.152 --> 00:29:05.153
And why does a job go over that long?
499
00:29:05.253 --> 00:29:07.094
Is it just like the job was misquoted?
500
00:29:07.454 --> 00:29:08.774
The budget hours are inaccurate.
501
00:29:08.814 --> 00:29:09.835
They got behind.
502
00:29:10.175 --> 00:29:14.417
Like, what's the reason that you're getting pulled or you're pulling eight guys to a job that should have three?
503
00:29:14.597 --> 00:29:18.881
Usually we need all eight, it's more of having eight solid guys.
504
00:29:19.181 --> 00:29:27.748
So we lost a couple guys that are with us working on training them up, and so that's kind of pushing things back and just requiring me to go out there.
505
00:29:27.988 --> 00:29:29.610
It's not so much as the quality.
506
00:29:30.871 --> 00:29:33.573
Our field managers are really good at withholding quality.
507
00:29:33.693 --> 00:29:35.495
Any additional notes from field managers?
508
00:29:35.655 --> 00:29:37.376
Anything you want to address within the team?
509
00:29:37.637 --> 00:29:39.338
Two, just the weed whacking.
510
00:29:39.773 --> 00:29:42.595
Make sure to leave back the edges, please, before we start mulching.
511
00:29:42.615 --> 00:29:43.596
Get underneath the plants.
512
00:29:43.956 --> 00:29:45.377
You're not gonna get underneath the plants.
513
00:29:45.937 --> 00:29:48.059
Then don't do the plants.
514
00:29:48.119 --> 00:29:52.482
Going back and redoing stuff and grabbing mulch out of the trailer after you guys have already cleaned up, so.
515
00:29:52.642 --> 00:29:58.226
They got that, but more so just extra hands, just keeping things moving.
516
00:29:58.506 --> 00:30:02.649
My eye pulled in the field right now more is just to keep the days from going super long.
517
00:30:02.830 --> 00:30:04.271
The guys work really well.
518
00:30:04.451 --> 00:30:05.772
It's just, it's like short-handed.
519
00:30:05.852 --> 00:30:08.313
But you like hiring people and recruiting.
520
00:30:09.354 --> 00:30:13.038
And so finding people I'm gonna guess seem is not a huge problem.
521
00:30:13.178 --> 00:30:13.439
No.
522
00:30:13.679 --> 00:30:16.622
It's training them, getting them up to a certain level of competence.
523
00:30:16.862 --> 00:30:17.063
Yep.
524
00:30:17.263 --> 00:30:21.788
Yeah, and then also they, so like one, I'll give you an example.
525
00:30:21.808 --> 00:30:25.011
We had one guy, he came on board, I knew this was gonna be an issue, but I didn't address it.
526
00:30:25.071 --> 00:30:26.873
He was a shoe detailer.
527
00:30:27.153 --> 00:30:28.074
And we told him that
528
00:30:29.735 --> 00:30:31.416
or like shoe cleaner, whatever.
529
00:30:31.456 --> 00:30:33.678
He called him a shoe detail cobbler.
530
00:30:34.158 --> 00:30:37.379
And so we told him that, hey, like we are known for our attention to detail here.
531
00:30:37.880 --> 00:30:46.244
And he was like, we didn't, but we didn't give him an example of what our attention to detail is because in his line of world, his attention to detail is microscopic, right?
532
00:30:46.864 --> 00:30:52.927
We had to let him go because he would spend an hour, you know, with one wheelbarrow where the other guys have moved 26 wheelbarrows each, right?
533
00:30:52.967 --> 00:30:54.728
We was like, well, you're hiding from my attention to detail.
534
00:30:55.309 --> 00:30:55.509
Well,
535
00:30:56.589 --> 00:30:58.771
You know, not that level of attention detail.
536
00:30:58.791 --> 00:31:03.514
So I was like, okay, wait, we gotta show these guys what we actually expect and we can't assume anything.
537
00:31:03.554 --> 00:31:05.096
I think that's where we're struggling.
538
00:31:05.276 --> 00:31:07.737
I have a really famous saying, it's called double cheesing.
539
00:31:08.218 --> 00:31:11.861
And it's like when you're double working, you know, he was a big double cheeser.
540
00:31:11.881 --> 00:31:17.765
So he would like really take his fine time trying to spread the mulch, you know, almost like he was spreading concrete.
541
00:31:17.785 --> 00:31:19.206
You know, he wanted it nice and flat.
542
00:31:19.386 --> 00:31:26.954
You know, he was just kind of double-cheasing on that, you know, while you had everybody else, you know, halfway done with the property, you know, because he would just really take his nice time, you know, which is nice.
543
00:31:26.974 --> 00:31:40.908
But at the end of the day, you know, you kind of got to get the ball rolling a little bit, you know, especially if you got your other guys, you know, really pushing and, you know, you're on the same bed, spread it on your hands and knees for 15, 20 minutes, you know, it takes up some time and just wasn't a good fit, you know, but.
544
00:31:42.091 --> 00:31:43.092
It happens.
545
00:31:43.813 --> 00:31:45.315
You gotta pick up the guy.
546
00:31:45.335 --> 00:31:49.000
You're never gonna know until you pick him up, you know, hire him, give him a chance.
547
00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:53.806
Right now when you're bidding on the project, I'll talk about landscaping for now, because lights is a little bit of a different beast.
548
00:31:54.207 --> 00:31:57.351
But for the landscaping side, do you use budget hours?
549
00:31:57.852 --> 00:31:59.273
How are you bidding the jobs?
550
00:32:00.108 --> 00:32:00.908
This is our subject.
551
00:32:00.928 --> 00:32:03.089
I would like to.
552
00:32:03.370 --> 00:32:07.111
I think our vision maybe sometimes isn't clear on different topics.
553
00:32:07.592 --> 00:32:11.253
And before it was fine because it was just me, him, and you know, some- Small crew.
554
00:32:11.293 --> 00:32:16.236
It was small crew, but now that there's more people involved, we might not be seeing everything, it's really driving everyone nuts.
555
00:32:16.936 --> 00:32:22.820
because they, like the way he will say to handle a certain situation might be different than the way I would say to handle a certain situation.
556
00:32:22.940 --> 00:32:32.646
So if you go to a job, or I guess you go to a job, and you're looking for mulch and salt, is it like, okay, I think it's gonna take X amount of yards and X amount of hours, is that essentially, how does it work now?
557
00:32:32.806 --> 00:32:35.948
Purely, depends on the service I'm quoting.
558
00:32:35.968 --> 00:32:37.849
For mulch, it's purely yards.
559
00:32:38.289 --> 00:32:40.290
Okay, how many yards and multiply it by a dollar amount?
560
00:32:40.590 --> 00:32:40.790
Yeah.
561
00:32:40.830 --> 00:32:42.991
The crew though is not using any sort of budgeted hours.
562
00:32:43.271 --> 00:32:47.632
Like they're not saying, hey, this job is allocated eight hours a day, six hours, four hours.
563
00:32:47.852 --> 00:32:53.814
Some jobs, if it's one that's quoted by hours, we'll put in like this is estimated for blank amount of hours.
564
00:32:53.874 --> 00:32:57.215
And that kind of gives them like a mindset to kind of shoot in between.
565
00:32:57.295 --> 00:33:01.557
But we don't like structure out the day like this should take this long, it should take that long.
566
00:33:01.657 --> 00:33:01.897
Okay.
567
00:33:02.077 --> 00:33:02.557
Yeah, it's funny.
568
00:33:02.697 --> 00:33:06.578
I actually think having paid for performance actually solves your leads problem.
569
00:33:06.918 --> 00:33:14.800
Because right now, when you're putting a job on the schedule, the crew is essentially incentivized to take as long as possible because they make more money.
570
00:33:15.380 --> 00:33:19.160
There is no incentive to do this faster, do it efficiently, or make sure there's no mistakes.
571
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:19.781
Because why?
572
00:33:20.121 --> 00:33:21.301
Paul's come clean up our mess.
573
00:33:22.041 --> 00:33:24.041
And it's not a matter of them doing a bad job.
574
00:33:24.061 --> 00:33:29.623
It's a matter of making an environment where they actually want the job done efficiently and to a high quality standard.
575
00:33:30.103 --> 00:33:31.463
And right now, there's no incentive for that.
576
00:33:32.103 --> 00:33:35.126
Like the longer they clock in, the more money they make.
577
00:33:35.506 --> 00:33:38.348
And so like, yeah, the job will go until six or seven o'clock because they make more money.
578
00:33:38.808 --> 00:33:39.749
They're now in overtime.
579
00:33:40.330 --> 00:33:43.792
And so you'll go protect them because you're like, I don't want to work in overtime this week.
580
00:33:44.393 --> 00:33:46.675
When in reality, they could have got the job done faster.
581
00:33:47.155 --> 00:33:50.538
Like they didn't really need the 45 minute break four times throughout the day.
582
00:33:50.798 --> 00:33:58.124
A lot of people wonder why I'm so passionate about pay for performance or P4P and why I created it, why I wrote the book, why we have all the free training, why I created the software.
583
00:33:58.704 --> 00:33:59.645
It saved my business.
584
00:33:59.825 --> 00:34:05.810
And after I had the workplace accident and got caught underneath a dump truck because I didn't have systems in my business, it was the first thing that I implemented.
585
00:34:05.930 --> 00:34:15.057
And the next year, I went from being unprofitable to making over $280,000 in owner's distributions from the same business with less employees out in the field.
586
00:34:15.517 --> 00:34:21.263
And that's why I'm so passionate about making sure that this fundamental system of P4P is implemented in every business.
587
00:34:21.543 --> 00:34:26.549
Yeah, I kind of think that we have our crews kind of special in that sense.
588
00:34:26.609 --> 00:34:29.552
Maybe I'm just totally blind on this, but...
589
00:34:32.715 --> 00:34:40.480
The crew leader's been with us for a while now and very trustworthy, and they don't, like our crew guys put their phones in the truck, put their heads down at work.
590
00:34:40.500 --> 00:34:42.101
Like they are hard workers.
591
00:34:43.002 --> 00:34:44.683
That is an issue with the newer guys.
592
00:34:44.943 --> 00:34:52.649
And they even bring it up that the newer guys are, you know, taking much longer lunch breaks than what's typical here or lollygagging or whatever.
593
00:34:52.809 --> 00:34:54.930
But like our core group of guys, like they're phenomenal.
594
00:34:54.950 --> 00:34:57.252
Like we haven't had to worry about any of that with them.
595
00:34:57.552 --> 00:35:01.613
What you want to do, though, is create a culture where those people are incentivized and make more money.
596
00:35:01.973 --> 00:35:09.516
The new guy either gets flushed out within a week because no one wants to work with them, or they rise the occasion and stop being the person that's dragging them back.
597
00:35:09.656 --> 00:35:14.637
This business was built on my gut and then having those good guys in the field, right?
598
00:35:14.657 --> 00:35:17.918
And that's not sustainable because your business is built on systems, not...
599
00:35:18.018 --> 00:35:18.699
Just a few guys.
600
00:35:18.739 --> 00:35:19.239
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
601
00:35:19.259 --> 00:35:20.280
A few solid core groups.
602
00:35:20.580 --> 00:35:34.290
And you can keep those solid core group of guys, but what you don't want to do, the most discouraging thing for them is to put losers with them that are not incentivized, that churn out fast, that are not trained, that don't care about the quality of the lyrics, that don't care about how fast they go, and they're over here just hustling.
603
00:35:34.570 --> 00:35:38.993
And I would like to make sure they get paid more than a few dollars more per hour than the person who's lallygagging.
604
00:35:39.113 --> 00:35:42.735
And so that's where, like, the pay for performance part, as much of it is, well, I trust my team.
605
00:35:42.835 --> 00:35:43.296
I do too.
606
00:35:43.716 --> 00:35:53.843
But the minute I walk out of here and then hire five people that I've never met before because someone else hires them, I need to make sure everyone's talking, like, walking the same beat of the same drum, which is we're efficient and high quality.
607
00:35:53.963 --> 00:35:55.384
And pay for performance will help do that.
608
00:35:55.444 --> 00:35:57.985
And the bigger thing is not so much the efficiency part for you.
609
00:35:58.025 --> 00:36:01.648
It's actually the fact that it is very hard to schedule.
610
00:36:02.622 --> 00:36:04.524
when no one cares about the budget hours.
611
00:36:04.864 --> 00:36:21.561
I remember before we had P4P, that year, being so frustrated because I knew there were people on my team that were making one or $2 more per hour than someone else, but they were probably producing two to three times more profit for the business because they were efficient and they were constantly hustling.
612
00:36:21.921 --> 00:36:23.403
And I'm like, this is not fair.
613
00:36:23.784 --> 00:36:29.211
And then someone else come along and ask for a raise and they deserved it, but I couldn't afford it.
614
00:36:29.251 --> 00:36:30.193
We weren't making any money.
615
00:36:30.213 --> 00:36:37.443
And I said, there's got to be a way where based upon how hard you work and how much money you make this business, that's what determines how much I pay my employees.
616
00:36:37.543 --> 00:36:39.284
They're like, well, I'll work 40, 50 hours a week.
617
00:36:39.304 --> 00:36:39.764
I'll get paid.
618
00:36:40.145 --> 00:36:41.505
They don't care how long the job takes.
619
00:36:42.386 --> 00:36:43.587
It's very hard to schedule.
620
00:36:43.627 --> 00:36:48.009
And so you're going to have downstream effects of like not being able to hand off admin stuff and scheduling.
621
00:36:48.029 --> 00:36:52.552
And it's going to be hard for him to even schedule like estimates because he doesn't know how the jobs are going to finish at the end of the day.
622
00:36:52.732 --> 00:36:56.394
Whereas when you have budget hours and your crew knows budget hours and they're getting paid based on that.
623
00:36:56.434 --> 00:37:00.697
When you pay someone based on how long the job's going to take and how long it should take, they always get it done on that.
624
00:37:01.138 --> 00:37:03.318
There's no like, oh, we're working till nine o'clock tonight.
625
00:37:03.338 --> 00:37:08.359
It doesn't happen because like everyone knows this job is 48 hours, there's four people in the job.
626
00:37:08.459 --> 00:37:09.879
We're gonna be there for a day and a half.
627
00:37:09.899 --> 00:37:15.640
Like it's very regimented and you can schedule weeks in advance of knowing exactly which day we're gonna be on the schedule at someone's property.
628
00:37:15.740 --> 00:37:17.081
So I'm, yeah, I'm fully agree.
629
00:37:17.101 --> 00:37:22.942
Like I've been wanting to do budget hours for a while now, but I haven't been able to come with the system to create those budget hours properly.
630
00:37:22.962 --> 00:37:24.522
So how do you?
631
00:37:24.602 --> 00:37:26.102
You're doing it now, just in a different way.
632
00:37:26.402 --> 00:37:30.463
Right now you're like, hey, we have this flat kind of dollar per cubic yard for mulch.
633
00:37:30.983 --> 00:37:34.406
And it kind of, we just move the number up if we think it's to be harder access.
634
00:37:34.606 --> 00:37:35.486
I just wanted to find that.
635
00:37:35.827 --> 00:37:41.331
I wanna be, okay, instead of just having this flat rate per cubic yard, I want you to say, what are our costs?
636
00:37:41.611 --> 00:37:42.592
Mark up the costs.
637
00:37:42.932 --> 00:37:50.718
So instead of charging $100 per cubic yard, let's, for being installed, let's just charge $50 per cubic yard to cover our costs and have material markup.
638
00:37:51.018 --> 00:37:52.339
And then, that'll be our materials.
639
00:37:52.879 --> 00:37:54.160
And then we'll have budget hours.
640
00:37:54.560 --> 00:37:57.322
And we charge a certain rate per hour of work.
641
00:37:57.342 --> 00:37:59.064
So let's just say it's 120 bucks an hour.
642
00:37:59.084 --> 00:38:00.345
Okay, it's eight hours.
643
00:38:01.385 --> 00:38:06.748
$960 of labor, it's 10 yards of mulch, that's 60 bucks a pop, $600 of materials.
644
00:38:06.828 --> 00:38:11.030
I had $600 of materials, 800 and whatever I said, of labor, boom, there's your bid.
645
00:38:11.210 --> 00:38:13.951
They also looked at jobs like, they said 16 budget hours of this?
646
00:38:14.211 --> 00:38:15.492
Dude, we'll do this in five.
647
00:38:16.132 --> 00:38:17.753
And it'll get paid 50 bucks an hour for that day.
648
00:38:18.547 --> 00:38:19.367
Yeah, that's cool.
649
00:38:19.708 --> 00:38:20.348
That's really cool.
650
00:38:21.229 --> 00:38:29.873
And so now the goal is like, I get the job, I'm looking for areas to make this faster and make it more efficient, not just be like, eh, if I don't get it done, Paul's gonna come bail me out at the end of the day.
651
00:38:29.993 --> 00:38:35.577
We've actually tried to dabble it with the guys in the past, and like really only one seemed interested, the others seemed a little standoffish.
652
00:38:36.137 --> 00:38:42.300
And so I know it's the right call because I'm always worried about labor exceeding our allocations, right, budget.
653
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:46.683
So like I know it's the right call, and I know it's what we need to do, and I'd feel much better about this business.
654
00:38:47.303 --> 00:38:48.564
if everyone was aligned.
655
00:38:48.824 --> 00:38:55.807
I'm just nervous about taking the time to implement it, the feedback, and just kind of going through all the growing pains of implementing something like P4P.
656
00:38:56.047 --> 00:39:05.992
Like if you're doing a plant job, you're putting, you have your plant markup, and then you have your labor, and it's not the whole job, it's just, they're getting 33% of labor revenue.
657
00:39:06.012 --> 00:39:07.533
Of labor revenue, got it.
658
00:39:07.693 --> 00:39:15.296
And that's why they look at budget hours, because okay, 10 budget hours, okay we make $100 per hour, that's $1,000 for this company, I make 33% of that, we're making $333 today.
659
00:39:16.697 --> 00:39:21.320
What profit margin are you seeing a lot of home services businesses running?
660
00:39:21.620 --> 00:39:23.802
Like for like general maintenance, mulch?
661
00:39:24.142 --> 00:39:26.143
Unfortunately, mostly like zero.
662
00:39:26.744 --> 00:39:27.084
Really?
663
00:39:27.144 --> 00:39:30.986
But yeah, like the average home service business is still single digit profit margins.
664
00:39:31.146 --> 00:39:33.068
And so you can get above 20.
665
00:39:33.248 --> 00:39:39.852
But if the reason it doesn't is because all of a sudden, if labor is 60, 70 percent of my revenue, I'm not making money.
666
00:39:39.972 --> 00:39:45.813
And so that's why if you look at last year and you just take how much you paid in wages, look at your labor revenue and figure out, oh, it's like 40%.
667
00:39:45.853 --> 00:39:47.494
Okay, that's not so bad.
668
00:39:47.554 --> 00:39:49.914
If I gave 35%, I know I'd be better off.
669
00:39:50.114 --> 00:39:52.755
And so when a crew member makes 50 bucks an hour, I don't care, let's go.
670
00:39:52.775 --> 00:39:53.835
Because it's still 35%.
671
00:39:53.855 --> 00:39:54.975
Yeah, it's locked.
672
00:39:55.335 --> 00:39:57.716
And so now when you look at a job, you know the profit margin before you start.
673
00:39:57.756 --> 00:40:01.777
Because you know the cost of materials and you know the cost of your labor, assuming they beat budget hours.
674
00:40:01.937 --> 00:40:04.598
And that's why you want them to be making more than base pay.
675
00:40:04.838 --> 00:40:06.338
You want them hitting budget hours.
676
00:40:06.598 --> 00:40:08.419
Okay, if you don't mind, I don't want to stay off track.
677
00:40:08.519 --> 00:40:08.860
You're fine.
678
00:40:08.980 --> 00:40:11.281
But this brings to one of the questions I had for you.
679
00:40:11.561 --> 00:40:16.745
And I've heard you mention in one of your videos about admin should be no more than 10% of revenue.
680
00:40:16.865 --> 00:40:21.808
But how do you justify or know when to go over that percentage?
681
00:40:21.828 --> 00:40:22.829
Because you know you're growing.
682
00:40:22.849 --> 00:40:29.693
So in the beginning, you hire an admin person that you may not need right now, but you know in three months you will.
683
00:40:29.753 --> 00:40:31.635
So your numbers are skewed.
684
00:40:31.695 --> 00:40:32.595
How do you handle that?
685
00:40:32.635 --> 00:40:35.037
Are you always like, it's 10% or I'm not hiring anyone?
686
00:40:35.383 --> 00:40:41.625
You know, grow sucks cash, and I allowed 15% for all admin-related stuff.
687
00:40:41.645 --> 00:40:46.366
That includes my rent, my shop space, the wages, which is the biggest part of it.
688
00:40:47.547 --> 00:40:48.247
10% is good.
689
00:40:48.667 --> 00:40:53.509
5% is lethal, but you're only going to get to 5% to your point when you're not growing super fast.
690
00:40:53.829 --> 00:40:55.209
You're not spending much money on ads.
691
00:40:55.229 --> 00:40:56.550
You're very much in profit mode.
692
00:40:56.790 --> 00:40:58.610
You've cut out all the services that are not recurring.
693
00:40:58.630 --> 00:41:00.931
Like, that's very, very low.
694
00:41:01.451 --> 00:41:10.016
And so I would not take that benchmark as gospel as much as I want it to be as low as possible, but I understand that I will need more admin if I'm growing.
695
00:41:10.136 --> 00:41:12.057
And now if it's 25%, we have a problem.
696
00:41:12.197 --> 00:41:12.477
Sure.
697
00:41:12.897 --> 00:41:15.238
But I would not look at the gospel truth.
698
00:41:15.379 --> 00:41:21.822
I would just look as a benchmark because I've seen companies that do 20% an admin and they still make 20% profit, but they're HVAC companies.
699
00:41:21.962 --> 00:41:23.764
So they're charging 250 bucks an hour.
700
00:41:23.864 --> 00:41:33.453
I've also seen the opposite when it comes to cleaning, where they have a 5% because there's not a lot of admin, it's all commercial cleaning, and they still have no profit margin because their labor is 70% of their revenue.
701
00:41:33.893 --> 00:41:37.817
So it's a decent rule of thumb, but I would not stick to that.
702
00:41:38.097 --> 00:41:44.140
I mean, even, and it sounds so silly, but I just want to question that from Mike, and I'm on his bookkeeping wait list.
703
00:41:44.160 --> 00:41:45.200
We're on a third bookkeeper.
704
00:41:45.400 --> 00:42:00.908
Start off great, but then just slowly, I think this is one of your questions too, then they'll slowly just kinda like go into the shadows and things start getting missing or not doing something properly or whatever, and it's just really frustrating because once again, we have more people now, and we're having to work more and more than we ever had to, like why am I,
705
00:42:01.708 --> 00:42:04.452
Why am I in our balance sheet trying to figure out what's wrong when we have a bookkeeper?
706
00:42:04.592 --> 00:42:10.440
Or why am I trying to get payment from a customer when we have someone that's supposed to be following up with invoices?
707
00:42:11.101 --> 00:42:16.929
Or why am I calling a commercial client to get their LIFO contract approved when we have someone?
708
00:42:17.790 --> 00:42:19.011
that is supposed to be handling this.
709
00:42:19.091 --> 00:42:24.874
So clearly there's something I'm doing wrong with that, which I'm trying to figure out what it is.
710
00:42:25.274 --> 00:42:30.037
There's a lot of crossover and it needs to be simplified.
711
00:42:30.057 --> 00:42:31.598
So I'll give you just another prime example.
712
00:42:31.638 --> 00:42:33.359
So sometimes he'll do an estimate, right?
713
00:42:33.919 --> 00:42:35.100
And he'll send the estimate out.
714
00:42:35.500 --> 00:42:39.962
And then the question comes back to Lori about his estimate, it goes to Lori.
715
00:42:40.243 --> 00:42:44.565
Well then he had to run out on the field to go take care of the guys and we gotta get back to the customer.
716
00:42:44.585 --> 00:42:46.066
So then I'll respond to the customer.
717
00:42:46.346 --> 00:42:47.626
How are you seeing that message?
718
00:42:47.787 --> 00:42:49.627
Glory forwards it to me because he's out in the field.
719
00:42:50.307 --> 00:42:53.248
Okay, yeah, that's just role delineation, right?
720
00:42:53.428 --> 00:42:55.429
Like right now you guys are doing everything together.
721
00:42:56.229 --> 00:42:57.410
Are you doing estimates or are you not?
722
00:42:58.070 --> 00:42:58.850
Are you doing estimates?
723
00:42:58.870 --> 00:42:59.911
Are you doing operations?
724
00:43:00.471 --> 00:43:08.934
Who do I contact from the admin perspective when there's a problem with admin, when there's a problem with operations, the crew, there's a yellow slip, like having clear routing.
725
00:43:08.954 --> 00:43:13.395
Like that's why making the admin your router is important because then they have to know who do I contact.
726
00:43:13.695 --> 00:43:15.916
And if there's an hour delay because he's busy, that's fine.
727
00:43:16.677 --> 00:43:18.078
We never cross roles.
728
00:43:18.538 --> 00:43:25.781
I think that's also where the burnout is coming from, is because we're trying to build it so that people have clear roles and not wear many hats.
729
00:43:26.021 --> 00:43:31.064
We're still wearing a bazillion hats when we're supposed to be getting away from that.
730
00:43:31.104 --> 00:43:34.626
And we should, you know, so how, yeah.
731
00:43:34.746 --> 00:43:35.546
Where's the disconnect?
732
00:43:36.106 --> 00:43:40.568
This is where we're really struggling with, I would say, now is,
733
00:43:42.615 --> 00:43:44.039
the delegation of those tasks.
734
00:43:44.300 --> 00:43:50.196
What's the workflow that you built so that everything works flawlessly together and people may not be in the same room?
735
00:43:50.684 --> 00:43:55.787
Yeah, so that's the hardest part about Command Center because you have 80 plus agents doing 200 locations, right?
736
00:43:56.047 --> 00:44:01.390
So every single time there's like, something falls through the cracks, how can we solve this without changing everything?
737
00:44:01.410 --> 00:44:07.814
So for example, in the case of the payment thing, you just make a system that when payment comes in, the minute it comes in, it must be recorded.
738
00:44:08.234 --> 00:44:09.355
It doesn't sit on your desk for an hour.
739
00:44:09.515 --> 00:44:12.457
Also, we just don't take checks because then it is instant.
740
00:44:12.777 --> 00:44:12.977
Right?
741
00:44:13.277 --> 00:44:22.424
So like there's certain systems that instead of like, I'm going to create the system around like, OK, when a check is here, then we have this Slack channel, then I have this auto, versus like we don't accept checks.
742
00:44:22.644 --> 00:44:30.169
So sometimes you just can eliminate a whole like, I need to create SOPs for this, versus like, can we just take this out completely and remove the variable?
743
00:44:32.038 --> 00:44:32.679
That's awesome.
744
00:44:32.959 --> 00:44:38.185
Is your command center like the one that's relaying that message to the customer explaining like, hey, we don't take checks?
745
00:44:38.205 --> 00:44:40.127
Like, how does it, what's your process like that?
746
00:44:40.147 --> 00:44:41.729
Yeah, it's just like, hey, this is our process.
747
00:44:41.889 --> 00:44:44.613
Like, honestly, if someone's like, I wanna pay a check, it's like, we don't accept check.
748
00:44:44.893 --> 00:44:46.615
Do you really think they don't have a credit card?
749
00:44:47.216 --> 00:44:47.636
Right, yeah.
750
00:44:47.656 --> 00:44:49.098
They would have died during building.
751
00:44:49.138 --> 00:44:49.318
Yeah.
752
00:44:49.698 --> 00:44:50.319
Right, so like,
753
00:44:51.220 --> 00:44:57.261
I would just, like, you just stick to your system on the upfront versus, let's solve the 20 things that could happen wrong if they send a check.
754
00:44:57.381 --> 00:45:00.882
I would say the hardest thing is things change a lot.
755
00:45:01.102 --> 00:45:02.422
They're rapidly changing.
756
00:45:02.622 --> 00:45:12.464
And so trying to keep up with, we're going to do it this way, and then we're going to do it this way, and you know, and I'm kind of like, okay, what would you like me to do this week?
757
00:45:12.684 --> 00:45:14.485
Just miscommunication is the...
758
00:45:15.285 --> 00:45:24.476
Biggest problem that we usually have, we don't want to come back and do something because we forgot something or something was missed or wasn't communicated correctly.
759
00:45:25.397 --> 00:45:26.638
Those type of changes.
760
00:45:27.018 --> 00:45:34.847
So when I'm the one that's on the phone with the clients, it's like, okay, well, I know I told you this, but now it's this.
761
00:45:36.030 --> 00:45:37.170
So there's that part of it.
762
00:45:37.531 --> 00:45:38.771
It's my credibility.
763
00:45:38.951 --> 00:45:49.074
So how do you, I mean, just kind of going back to the same thing, but how do you ensure then that when a customer calls your command center, right, or works with your estimator this year versus last year, that's the exact same experience?
764
00:45:49.094 --> 00:46:03.338
Because I think part of my frustration right now is I would like that to be this business, but it depends on who you, if you talk to Lori, me or Paul, like his estimates look different than mine, like what Lori might say or the way she responds might be different than the way I respond.
765
00:46:03.378 --> 00:46:04.499
How do you ensure that
766
00:46:05.279 --> 00:46:11.447
Whoever you're hiring is following the exact procedures that you, or standards that you have set up.
767
00:46:11.527 --> 00:46:17.054
Yeah, you can always create ways and guardrails to make sure that happens down the road when you have multiple people, for example, answering the phone.
768
00:46:17.535 --> 00:46:19.838
Or, right now, have 1% answer the phone.
769
00:46:21.475 --> 00:46:25.399
So in your level, it's not a matter of, we need to create a system for this.
770
00:46:25.459 --> 00:46:29.583
It's like, we need to create a constraint that you guys don't answer the phones.
771
00:46:29.943 --> 00:46:39.752
As the business grows, if communication is filtering throughout all levels of the leadership team, you're just gonna be compounding how many times every single customer gets touched.
772
00:46:39.792 --> 00:46:43.376
So if someone has a complaint and it goes to one person, they are the router for
773
00:46:43.656 --> 00:46:45.818
Who should actually this complaint go to?
774
00:46:45.938 --> 00:46:58.569
Not let's all be aware, be problem aware, all give our opinions, and all of a sudden, we're wasting three, four times as much time on that problem compared to just one person knowing about the problem and then finding the solution.
775
00:46:58.889 --> 00:47:06.576
And then what will happen is as you scale, you tell that person in that position, they are responsible to create the SOP to duplicate themselves.
776
00:47:06.856 --> 00:47:08.118
Okay, you want to become an office manager?
777
00:47:08.198 --> 00:47:09.800
Great, we're now at $2.5 million.
778
00:47:10.020 --> 00:47:12.903
We need more people to answer the phone because we're falling behind.
779
00:47:12.923 --> 00:47:14.365
You're going to become an office manager.
780
00:47:14.385 --> 00:47:15.106
Here's your incentives.
781
00:47:15.366 --> 00:47:19.592
In order to get this, you've got to create an SOP for these tasks so you can delegate and give it to someone else.
782
00:47:19.712 --> 00:47:22.115
And now they just copy their skills to someone else.
783
00:47:23.360 --> 00:47:26.921
Not three people, like it's impossible to systematize.
784
00:47:26.981 --> 00:47:35.645
The other part of it is, if there's something that's a challenge that you have to deal with, you put in the time up front to set up the system.
785
00:47:36.105 --> 00:47:41.767
And while that may slow the process down, you've set up the system and now the system runs for you.
786
00:47:42.648 --> 00:47:48.070
So you've saved time here, ongoing, by investing time up front.
787
00:47:48.312 --> 00:47:50.093
Be able to provide the answers.
788
00:47:50.113 --> 00:47:51.734
Because Lori's busy nonstop.
789
00:47:51.754 --> 00:47:55.957
She comes in here Monday morning and leaves Monday evening and just slams.
790
00:47:56.017 --> 00:48:01.701
So I just figured out that aspect of reworking the workflows.
791
00:48:01.721 --> 00:48:05.444
But once it's set up, then you know where you're headed.
792
00:48:06.465 --> 00:48:10.988
And the only thing that complicates that is then if massive changes get thrown in.
793
00:48:11.248 --> 00:48:13.830
Because then now your system's not...
794
00:48:16.887 --> 00:48:24.369
You know, I think maybe she's doing a lot of the scheduling work right now, so if she's more client-focused and Paul handles the schedule, I think I could see that really working really well.
795
00:48:24.569 --> 00:48:28.590
I'm just worried about overloading Lori's workload at the moment.
796
00:48:28.910 --> 00:48:38.413
Make sure she's great, and then as you scale, you say, your job, like part of someone moving up in the next position is their 30, 60, and 90 days is creating the SOPs for someone else to come do their job.
797
00:48:39.210 --> 00:48:39.610
No problem.
798
00:48:39.670 --> 00:48:45.636
Yeah, I think we started doing really well in that crossing rules, and then the workflow started going crazy.
799
00:48:45.736 --> 00:48:53.102
So we lost to employees, kind of needed, and he started picking up things where I was dropping the ball, and I'm coming.
800
00:48:53.503 --> 00:48:54.504
Everyone's kind of everywhere.
801
00:48:54.524 --> 00:48:59.468
Yeah, and you notice I haven't wrote anything down while you've been saying all these things because these are all downstream effects of not having paid for performance.
802
00:48:59.748 --> 00:49:05.112
After our pay for importance discussion, most of the questions I had, I kind of just would answer themselves.
803
00:49:05.132 --> 00:49:12.858
Right, because if you solve that problem, which is a very hard thing, you have to restructure the way you do debt estimates, the way you communicate with your team, the way you talk about compensation, the way you hire.
804
00:49:13.179 --> 00:49:14.300
If you change that, though,
805
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:21.346
Now what happens is less of you out in the field, meaning now you don't have to create a system around how the admin doesn't hear from you for three hours.
806
00:49:21.566 --> 00:49:22.787
So let's not figure that out.
807
00:49:22.827 --> 00:49:26.751
Let's just figure out the fact that why are you gone for three hours and out of touch?
808
00:49:26.951 --> 00:49:30.414
So I don't wanna be on here with the weeds of like, what about this problem?
809
00:49:30.614 --> 00:49:33.077
This is all a downstream effect of this problem.
810
00:49:33.097 --> 00:49:38.462
And that is your crew has no incentive to get the job done fast, efficient, or to a high quality.
811
00:49:38.642 --> 00:49:39.803
It all is still falling on you.
812
00:49:39.903 --> 00:49:41.825
Because if that solves, you get time for estimates.
813
00:49:41.845 --> 00:49:43.447
You get time to be able to respond to admin.
814
00:49:43.467 --> 00:49:45.128
You no longer need to cross over roles.
815
00:49:45.389 --> 00:49:47.831
I happen to believe if you had time on your hands, you wouldn't have to step in.
816
00:49:48.011 --> 00:49:52.836
Yeah, and I think I got to first clean up our services, just clean up the stuff all over the place and just really simplify it.
817
00:49:52.856 --> 00:49:56.159
So that would be a lot easier for her to just take on all client medication.
818
00:49:56.219 --> 00:49:57.280
But yeah, I'm all for it.
819
00:49:57.961 --> 00:50:01.603
having the clients having one phone number to contact, one email, and one person to deal with.
820
00:50:01.723 --> 00:50:03.004
I only have three things for you.
821
00:50:03.164 --> 00:50:03.905
It's really simple.
822
00:50:04.005 --> 00:50:05.265
I think you can do it in the next six weeks.
823
00:50:05.485 --> 00:50:11.129
Implement pay for performance, get videos of all the estimates, attach it to the client's profile so the admin can see it.
824
00:50:11.149 --> 00:50:12.670
That video goes with the crew.
825
00:50:12.950 --> 00:50:16.272
Between the job notes and the video, the crew should be able to do the whole job and not bring you in.
826
00:50:16.552 --> 00:50:18.013
If they do, system failure.
827
00:50:18.173 --> 00:50:18.893
That's like red alert.
828
00:50:19.073 --> 00:50:20.254
If you have to come back on a job site.
829
00:50:20.734 --> 00:50:22.015
If they need clarification, whatever.
830
00:50:22.075 --> 00:50:24.657
It's like I either made the video incorrectly or there's not enough clarity in the notes.
831
00:50:24.797 --> 00:50:26.458
Third thing, centralized comms to admin.
832
00:50:27.158 --> 00:50:31.004
Between those three things, every single other thing you've talked about will get solved.
833
00:50:31.245 --> 00:50:36.954
At our size, how many... Is it reasonable to think that one admin person can handle this or would you need two?
834
00:50:38.336 --> 00:50:41.180
I think right now you have a lot of admin bloat because of a lack of systems.
835
00:50:42.077 --> 00:50:46.440
And so at your size to have as many people in overhead as you do is too many, in my opinion.
836
00:50:46.941 --> 00:50:48.302
I don't think you need to get rid of anyone.
837
00:50:48.322 --> 00:50:52.585
I think you can grow, though, to 2.5 to 3 million without getting any more people if you have systems in place.
838
00:50:53.205 --> 00:50:53.425
Sure.
839
00:50:53.846 --> 00:50:54.106
Right?
840
00:50:54.386 --> 00:51:02.072
And so I believe that right now what you see as efficient, which is them asking you questions, could all be done without that process and get their time back.
841
00:51:02.392 --> 00:51:04.914
You guys are wasting so much time yourself.
842
00:51:05.014 --> 00:51:06.115
You're wasting a bunch of their time.
843
00:51:06.135 --> 00:51:06.455
Yeah.
844
00:51:06.455 --> 00:51:14.318
because they don't know what to do, they're unconfident, they don't know who's contacted them, there's no record, I'm assuming you guys don't keep call notes inside of the account.
845
00:51:14.358 --> 00:51:17.120
Like if someone calls you, yeah, you can't do that.
846
00:51:17.180 --> 00:51:18.740
Lori's pretty good at it, I'm not good at it.
847
00:51:18.760 --> 00:51:19.981
Because you're out in the field, right?
848
00:51:20.021 --> 00:51:21.582
That's why you don't- I don't have the time, I can't.
849
00:51:21.602 --> 00:51:23.463
Yeah, don't let you do comms.
850
00:51:23.603 --> 00:51:24.103
Yeah.
851
00:51:24.223 --> 00:51:27.004
Let the office do the admin stuff so they can keep track.
852
00:51:27.244 --> 00:51:31.246
Like we have, over the course of years, we have call notes that are pages long.
853
00:51:31.706 --> 00:51:35.688
But it's searchable database that I can quickly find, oh yeah, two years ago, we did tell them that.
854
00:51:36.248 --> 00:51:38.709
but everything is documented because it's going to the admin.
855
00:51:39.029 --> 00:51:41.649
It's never going to be documented when you're out in the field or doing an estimate.
856
00:51:41.669 --> 00:51:43.390
You're like, you're quickly answering a call from a customer.
857
00:51:43.410 --> 00:51:44.570
You're not going to document that.
858
00:51:44.890 --> 00:51:51.791
And over the six months, if you adopt the systems where these things are, like, notes on the job will happen as a byproduct of doing this.
859
00:51:52.111 --> 00:51:53.912
That's why I'm just trying to chunk this all up.
860
00:51:53.932 --> 00:51:57.812
So if we solve these three things, almost everything we've talked about gets solved.
861
00:51:58.233 --> 00:52:04.934
And everyone will, like, I could create a system around how to make sure your emails get routed to the right person, or just like, why do we have these emails in the first place?
862
00:52:05.746 --> 00:52:08.406
And so I think that's what I'm trying to attack is very much a chunked up problem.
863
00:52:08.566 --> 00:52:14.808
You will have a whole bunch of other problems down the road trying to get these things implemented, but everything you've talked about will be solved by these three things.
864
00:52:14.828 --> 00:52:24.969
Many times the reason a small business stops growing or plateaus is because the entrepreneur is solving the same problem over and over again out of wanting to feel productive.
865
00:52:25.329 --> 00:52:29.030
So the things on their to-do list is a lot of the stuff they keep doing the same all the time.
866
00:52:29.350 --> 00:52:34.771
Instead of focusing on the big problem, the big hairy thing that's gonna take changing the business model,
867
00:52:35.411 --> 00:52:36.932
changing how everything is done.
868
00:52:37.012 --> 00:52:39.973
And right now, for Matt, that's paid for performance.
869
00:52:40.333 --> 00:52:52.537
And we can talk about the systems and the automations and tweaking little things in admin, or we can just attack the big 600-pound gorilla that if he'd spent an entire year focused on, we'd be able to have a huge jump for the business.
870
00:52:53.037 --> 00:53:04.741
But a lot of us will stay where we're currently at because we just enjoy solving problems, and it's easier to keep solving the same problem 100 times instead of focusing on the one big hairy thing that, if solved,
871
00:53:05.281 --> 00:53:06.082
would change the business.
872
00:53:06.462 --> 00:53:18.429
That all goes back to this, and that is the reason those three things need to be done is because you're going to quit this business by a death of a thousand cuts of not wanting to be here, and doing those three things, which will be hard, all three of those will be hard.
873
00:53:19.110 --> 00:53:24.953
If you do them, though, you'll be able to have time to do things that you do love in the business, and if you do things that you love in the business, you won't quit.
874
00:53:25.153 --> 00:53:25.434
You're right.
875
00:53:26.174 --> 00:53:26.694
Absolutely.
876
00:53:27.595 --> 00:53:28.895
Yeah, you're right on.
877
00:53:29.415 --> 00:53:37.178
And so I also think that if you have some time and you get that time back, you will get more clarity as a leader in terms of why does business exist?
878
00:53:37.578 --> 00:53:38.539
What am I doing here?
879
00:53:39.119 --> 00:53:44.241
Like all these existential questions that happen when you're 25, like I understand where I got them all too.
880
00:53:45.301 --> 00:53:46.302
You will have answers for them.
881
00:53:46.662 --> 00:53:46.902
Sure.
882
00:53:47.182 --> 00:53:51.946
And so when it does get hard and you're like, this is a lousy time, you'll push through it because you know why you're doing it.
883
00:53:52.026 --> 00:53:52.266
Right.
884
00:53:52.806 --> 00:53:53.327
Absolutely.
885
00:53:53.367 --> 00:53:54.748
Right now we don't know the size of business we need.
886
00:53:55.268 --> 00:53:57.650
We don't know why this business needs to get any bigger.
887
00:53:58.450 --> 00:53:59.931
We are going to grow sustainably.
888
00:53:59.951 --> 00:54:00.672
Don't know what that means.
889
00:54:01.432 --> 00:54:04.214
These are bundled terms that we have no definition for.
890
00:54:04.234 --> 00:54:04.575
Sure.
891
00:54:04.955 --> 00:54:06.336
Because I want to have good culture.
892
00:54:06.376 --> 00:54:06.976
What does that mean?
893
00:54:07.537 --> 00:54:08.658
Does it mean I have a career progression?
894
00:54:08.678 --> 00:54:10.299
Does it mean I have a certain amount of hourly rate?
895
00:54:10.319 --> 00:54:11.420
Does it mean I can offer benefits?
896
00:54:11.440 --> 00:54:12.320
Like, what does that mean?
897
00:54:13.401 --> 00:54:18.263
But like you can't do that when you're chasing your tail around who's contacting a customer about a wreath that fell off.
898
00:54:18.603 --> 00:54:19.383
I just don't want you to quit.
899
00:54:19.403 --> 00:54:23.825
And I say this because as soon as I say here, I know someone is not loving the business.
900
00:54:24.445 --> 00:54:26.806
Especially you have so much options being so young.
901
00:54:26.826 --> 00:54:30.527
Like you will leave it a heartbeat if you fall in love with something else.
902
00:54:31.127 --> 00:54:32.508
And you fill in the blank of what that is.
903
00:54:32.568 --> 00:54:33.849
It could be a girl on the other side of the country.
904
00:54:33.909 --> 00:54:35.670
Like, I'm moving, right?
905
00:54:35.951 --> 00:54:40.954
I want you to be able to love this business because when you do, you will deploy discretionary effort towards it.
906
00:54:41.315 --> 00:54:47.279
And when I see a business that has grown very quickly and then plateaued, a lot of times the owner has stopped thinking about the business when they're in the shower.
907
00:54:47.519 --> 00:54:49.060
And I don't mean thinking about, like, I need to do the billing.
908
00:54:49.180 --> 00:54:50.782
Like, how do I solve this constraint?
909
00:54:50.962 --> 00:54:51.802
What system can I do?
910
00:54:52.083 --> 00:54:57.447
What can I – what exciting – what gets me excited about this business that has disappeared?
911
00:54:57.587 --> 00:54:58.027
Right?
912
00:54:58.207 --> 00:55:01.408
And I want you to get that back by getting rid of a lot of these things that you currently hate.
913
00:55:08.372 --> 00:55:16.595
Okay, he talked about we didn't have any ad spend, no low speed on getting to the requests, and then no pay for performance.
914
00:55:16.655 --> 00:55:24.879
The biggest things that we've improved since Mike was here was we haven't necessarily done the videos for estimates, but we've really improved the pictures using company cam, the notes.
915
00:55:25.319 --> 00:55:36.048
the measurements and really getting all the details with pictures for the guys and really spend the time to put the notes in company cam so that when they approach the job, it's like all those pictures pull up.
916
00:55:36.088 --> 00:55:37.770
So not quite there at the videos.
917
00:55:37.790 --> 00:55:42.294
I would say the biggest thing, biggest improvement would be the centralized communication to admin.
918
00:55:42.354 --> 00:55:47.698
So rather than the client asking Paul a question and Paul responds, and then they ask Lori a question about scheduling.
919
00:55:47.738 --> 00:55:53.283
And then they might within that timeframe of them asking Lori a scheduling question, then I go back to Paul with something and then Paul forgets to relay that to
920
00:55:53.363 --> 00:55:57.125
Now we're getting better at saying like, hey, give me Lori an email.
921
00:55:57.165 --> 00:55:58.826
That's probably been like one of the biggest approvals.
922
00:55:59.046 --> 00:56:00.606
That's really improved, I would say.
923
00:56:00.887 --> 00:56:02.627
My inbox isn't as full as it used to be.
924
00:56:02.647 --> 00:56:12.092
I think the biggest takeaway I got from Mike is, I always thought that people with very successful businesses, you hear about like SOPs and writing them down and everything like that.
925
00:56:12.212 --> 00:56:13.613
I think that was really constraining
926
00:56:14.534 --> 00:56:16.156
That thought was really constraining.
927
00:56:16.176 --> 00:56:20.761
What I found fascinating with him was he doesn't really get into the nitty gritty of how to do something.
928
00:56:20.861 --> 00:56:24.125
He's just very clear on his expectations and very clear on his goal.
929
00:56:24.225 --> 00:56:32.996
He's very clear on what he expects from his team in certain tasks and doesn't get into the tactical so that he doesn't get a million questions either.
930
00:56:33.296 --> 00:56:34.757
And I thought that was very fascinating.
931
00:56:34.778 --> 00:56:39.722
Probably the biggest takeaway I've gotten from Mike and I would definitely say my communication to everyone has been much better.
932
00:56:39.782 --> 00:56:42.625
And it's been much better in the sense where I'm not telling them exactly how to do something.
933
00:56:42.645 --> 00:56:45.708
I'm telling them the why I want them to do something and the end goal I want of that.
934
00:56:45.728 --> 00:56:49.452
I think that's probably the biggest breath of fresh air I've gotten from all of this.
935
00:56:49.672 --> 00:56:56.399
And I also really, what I noticed with you guys that I'm trying to work on is everyone that I talked to at your company had the same shared mission.
936
00:56:56.459 --> 00:57:01.063
Like they all are all on the same page, they're all on the same team, they all have the same goal, the same value.
937
00:57:01.103 --> 00:57:05.467
So that's another really big takeaway that I'm trying to slowly implement here too.
938
00:57:05.587 --> 00:57:10.111
We did come up with a really good training program that's also very clear before it wasn't clear.
939
00:57:10.211 --> 00:57:15.216
The way Mike communicated and how clear he was was really, really sparked me again.
940
00:57:16.016 --> 00:57:17.378
I was blown away.
941
00:57:18.078 --> 00:57:19.700
So that kind of just like,
942
00:57:20.644 --> 00:57:26.411
Like now I'm really excited with the business because it's more of like upgrading my skill set and not so much about like all the garbage you deal with.
943
00:57:26.431 --> 00:57:37.063
Like that's why I'm kind of like excited again because I feel like we're going into a new phase and we have to, you know, become the person that can operate in the next phase.
944
00:57:37.123 --> 00:57:38.605
So I think that's why I'm like excited again.