The 4 Leadership Hats Every Business Owner MUST Wear

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All right, so every home service business can be broken into three parts.
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And first off, regardless of whether you're doing $3,000 per month or you're doing $200,000 per month, it is broken into these three categories.
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I look at sales, we get the work.
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Operations, we do the work.
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And admin, we get paid for the work.
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And so regardless of whether you have a $3 million business or a $5 million business, or you're just getting started, ultimately, those are the three major functions of a home service business.
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I have to get the work, do the work, and get paid for the work.
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Very simply throughout the entire book.
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I break this down in a bunch of detail because to give blanket advice to every single size business in home services is borderline crazy because what I would say to someone that's building a $3 million business or is trying to build a $10 million business or is at $3 million in revenue now is very different than I would tell someone to do if they're doing $300,000, $500,000, $600,000 in annual revenue.
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That leads me to the four leadership hats.
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So inside the book, and what we're going to be talking about today is breaking up the four leadership hats that you are going to wear as you build a $3 million business.
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So from zero to $3 million in annual revenue, these are the hats that you're going to wear.
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First off, solo operator.
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Second, working GM.
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All right, don't get hung up on the GM thing.
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We'll get to that in a second.
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But ultimately, this role, you are still out in the field doing the work.
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Hence, the working GM.
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Full-time GM.
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Full-time GM.
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All right.
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And we're going to talk about each and every one of these levels.
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The main hallmark of this one is you aren't doing operations anymore.
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You're mostly doing sales and other admin.
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Sorry, really just sales is remain focus and priority at the full time GM level.
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GM Plus, at this level, we are no longer doing sales, operations, or admin.
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We have now moved into the role of leading the team, and we have managers in place for sales, operations, and admin.
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Now, if you look at these four leadership hats, I like to pair it up with sales, operations, and admin.
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And you'll see throughout a lot of the book that there's actually in the bottom right-hand corner, there's this little graph that I constantly refer back to
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to make sure you know, hey, where are we at in terms of which of the four leadership paths are we covering?
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And are we going over sales, operations, or admin?
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So you know throughout the book you can just turn to any page and be like, oh, right now we're talking about sales for a business as a solo operator.
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Okay, now these four leadership paths, each of them are going to experience sales, operations, and admin very differently.
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I know that today I'm speaking mostly to business owners.
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Okay.
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And so your hat that you wear as a leader is going to correspond with the type of thing that you're doing in the business when it comes to sales operations and admin.
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If you're a solo operator, you're doing everything.
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You're doing the estimate sales.
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You're doing the work itself operations.
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And you're also doing admin.
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You're answering the phone, you're doing emails, et cetera.
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You're doing all three of those things.
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Sales, operations, and admin.
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As you start to progress into a working GM size of business, now we're usually going to go find someone to pick up the phone, do some email, do some admin and clerical work for us.
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And we're gonna focus most of our time on operations and sales.
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As I move into full-time GM,
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Now I'm going to hire someone to go be my operations manager.
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I'm mostly just doing sales.
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And then as I go into GM plus, i.e.
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I have a manager for all three of those.
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I'm out of daily operations.
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So in my opinion, when I think about a full time GM, when I'm mostly just doing sales and I've delegated admin and operations, that's when I am off the truck.
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And this is what a lot of people aspire to be.
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And that's why a million dollars is kind of like the number people put on that.
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That's generally when you can get off the truck and start focusing just on growing the business and getting more work, i.e.
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sales.
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If you want to have the business run without you, you're likely going to need to find a manager for all three of those roles.
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So when you go on vacation for two weeks, sales still happen?
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Yeah.
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You get estimates out.
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Operations still happen.
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The jobs get done.
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And admin still happens.
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The phone gets answered.
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Emails get answered.
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Text messages get answered.
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So as you progress through these leadership paths, you're going to be moving up the value chain from answering the phone to doing the work and then eventually just doing sales and then eventually just leading the team.
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And failing to move up the ladder of value when it comes to admin and then operations and then sales and then eventually leading the team is what keeps most home service business owners broke.
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And I talk about the 4L framework, the reason why your business stops growing.
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It's one of four things.
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It's either going to be liquidity, a lack of liquidity, a lack of leads, a lack of labor, or a lack of leadership.
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The reason I called it the leadership hats
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And the reason I was really, when I was originally writing the book, I was thinking I would actually need to create a different book for all four of these people.
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Because I was like, the 4L framework actually looks different for very different when I am a solo operator.
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What does leadership mean?
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What does leadership mean when I only have one or two employees?
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What does leadership mean when I have 30 or 40 or 50 employees?
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Very different.
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And so originally I was thinking I'll have to write four different books.
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And I'd say, hey, based upon your revenue size or number of employees that you're managing, go read this book.
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Instead, we create the leadership hats.
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And that's what they are.
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The solo operator, the working GM, full-time GM, and the GM Plus model.
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Now, quick note, you do not need to hire a general manager.
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When I say working GM, when I say full-time GM, when I say GM+, everyone thinks immediately that they need to go hire a general manager.
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The owner can wear the GM hat.
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The GM is just the leader of the organization.
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They're the person where the buck stops with them.
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They're the person that is likely leading the vision of the company.
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They're making sure they keep everyone accountable, whether they are middle management or technicians that they are managing.
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The GM is the leader of the organization.
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Now, you can have an owner above a GM.
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Okay, but that would be down the road when you're doing multiple locations.
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For now, the vast majority of people have one location.
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You will serve as a working GM.
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You will serve as a full-time GM.
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You will be a GM plus.
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These are simply labels I have ascribed so that whether you're doing multiple locations or you're doing one large location, the GM sticker label, the leadership hat, still applies.
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So let's go through the four different leadership hats and kind of break down the general revenue ranges I see.
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Now, when I wrote the book, I almost stopped writing it because it almost became impossible to make this useful across different services.
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Like if I just go from, let's just call it window cleaning to then concrete, immediately these numbers are all over the place.
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Because one employee and you doing concrete, you could literally make $500,000 a year or excavation.
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And you think about complex services, even inside the green industry, like mowing grass versus installing pavers.
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You're going to make way more revenue per employee on the paver side than mowing grass.
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Maybe not profit, maybe harder to scale, but from a revenue per employee perspective, way more on pavers.
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So I was originally like this really kept me from almost writing the book because I want to be prescriptive, but I didn't want to throw in anyone into the wrong doing the wrong thing simply because I put these revenue ranges on here.
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So these are revenue ranges.
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And I think that it probably encompasses 90 percent of home services inside the book.
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I actually put a list of home services at the very end of services that I would recommend not following the copy and paste method.
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All right.
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There's actually a list of them I have made.
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But 95%, 99% of people on this call today fall into these ranges and should follow the copy and paste millionaire method.
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So solo operator, zero to $250,000 in annual revenue.
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Absolutely, there are industries, even ones that don't have a lot of product costs that do $200,000 plus in annual revenue with no employees.
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All right, you're a solo operator, you're doing sales, operates in admin, you're doing everything, you have no employees.
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Now, as soon as you hire one person,
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You are no longer a solo operator.
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Hence, the word solo is no longer correct for you.
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We are moving to the working GM.
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The working GM is typically going to be doing between $250,000 and $750,000 in annual revenue.
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Usually under a million dollars.
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One to eight employees.
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Now, why did I use the eight employees?
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Because when you look at leadership styles and you look at leadership training, almost always six to eight employees or six to eight team members is what really is manageable for one person.
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Now, you might be a unicorn or you might find a unicorn that can manage 15 or 20 people, but it's very rare.
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And I would actually still build the business in a way.
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That would not require unicorns because finding a unicorn is very hard and very expensive.
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So I want to try to build a business that if I'm not there, the business can still run.
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Not just in operations, but I mean literally if I need to replace myself to go start other businesses, to move across the country because of a family emergency, because I want to start a second location, whatever it might be.
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I need someone else to be able to run that.
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And if it's really hard to find them and very expensive, I just locked myself into this business.
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Those are the golden handcuffs that many people feel when they're in that six, seven, $800,000 range or they start to go above that, a million, million one, million two, and they're managing everything.
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And the business cannot run without them.
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They can't find anyone that would be able to replace them in the business.
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And they feel the golden handcuffs because no one else can do your job.
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And if you found them, you would have to pay them as much as you're making.
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Because they have the skill of an entrepreneur.
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They have the skill of starting things.
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They have the skill of leading people.
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And that person is going to be very expensive.
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So working GM, $250,000 to $750,000 in your revenue.
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Full-time GM.
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This is three-quarters of a million, so $750 to $1.5 million.
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between five and 15 employees.
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Again, this is ranging because of the different services that you're going to offer across the board, all the different industries.
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Now, if you look at the turnaround show, and I have the exact stat inside the book, but if you look at the turnaround show, the majority of people that we actually go help on the turnaround show are inside of this range.
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Why?
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Because this is the second wilderness of profitability, usually around a million to a million three employees.
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is where people start having a second wilderness of profitability.
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What is a wilderness of profitability, you ask?
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It's the same or similar thing that you experienced when you went from a solo operator to a working GM.
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Because when you were a solo operator, you were super efficient, you made very good profit margins, and you contributed to the revenue of the business because you were in operations.
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As you move to working GM, less of your time is spent in operations and more is spent managing the team, doing sales, doing admin, doing things that are not actually producing revenue.
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And so back here in the working GM phase, a lot of people experience financial pressure between $250,000 and $500,000 in annual revenue.
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This is the first wilderness.
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This is why you'll see people that will get their first employee.
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Things are going good.
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But they get second, a third.
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They start going $300,000, $400,000, $500,000 in annual revenue.
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And all of a sudden, they realize they're making just as much money now as they were when they were solo.
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And so there's a wilderness of profitability, typically between $250,000 and $500,000 in revenue, because that's the time you spend less time doing the work, operations, and more time doing sales or admin, i.e.
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overhead.
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So you just took your most efficient, profitable employee, you.
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And you became an overhead expense to the business instead of actually bringing in real revenue.
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And so that's why we have a wilderness of profitability many times between $250,000 and $500,000 in annual revenue.
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Fast forward to what we've already been talking about.
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The full-time GM has a similar wilderness, generally between a little after 1 million.
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Why?
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They start getting above 8 employees, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 employees.
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They're starting to get a million, million one, million two in revenue.
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And what happens is now...
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None of their time is spent out in the field.
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And they have to go hire an operations manager and an office manager and upgrade their shop space.
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And now their insurance is quite a bit higher because they have all these trucks and equipment.
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And all of a sudden they have, again, a profit wilderness.
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Because if you hire, if you hire one person and let's just say you pay them a regular salary, let's just call it 70 grand.
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In our state, literally, we can't even pay people less than 80 grand on salary next month.
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Yeah, January 2026.
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We can't pay people less than 80.
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Let's just assume 70 grand as a broad average.
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Now, by the time you include benefits, by the time you include some bonuses, by the time you include taxes, we're looking at 100 grand.
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cost to the business, to hire a really good operations manager.
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That $100,000, let's assume you're 25% profitable, means you have to generate $400,000 in annual revenue to cover their $100,000 of salary.
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Because they're straight overhead.
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They don't produce revenue like your team members out in the field.
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And you need them to grow.
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They are vital.
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They're very experienced.
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They typically are the highest paid.
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You need them to continue growing.
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However...
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There's a huge drop in profit margin, profit percentage.
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And you see this wilderness happen over and over again.
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And this is why we see cash crunches happen.
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All right.
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When we look at the 4L framework, let me actually try to find the picture for you guys.
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When you look at the 4L framework, everyone thinks that as you grow the business, you get to the next level in the 4Ls.
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And that's true.
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Every time you grow the business, you will get to the next constraint.
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So if I have a bunch of liquidity and I'm going to go out and get a bunch more leads, right?
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Awesome.
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Fantastic.
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Super excited for you.
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All of a sudden you have so many leads.
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Then what happens?
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You need more labors.
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And then when you get a bunch of labors, guess what you need?
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You need more leadership.
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And that's what's happening at the full-time GM level is you have to go higher leadership for the very first time.
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And because of that, this is the part that most people miss.
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And I'm literally cannot find it in my book.
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That's pretty, pretty embarrassing.
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But the 4-0 framework, the next part people forget about is after leadership,
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There's still going to be a liquidity crisis.
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Why?
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Because I have straight overhead.
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I'm adding to hire these great leaders.
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And when I hired these great leaders as straight overhead, I now go right back to the next L of the foil framework, which is leadership.
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It's a circle.
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It keeps going.
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And so because of this, at this size, usually right around a million dollars is when people feel this massive cash crunch as they need to hire an operations manager.
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They need to hire a full-time person in the office.
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And they see the profit wilderness happen.
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5 to 15 employees.
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All right.
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The GM Plus model.
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If you're continuing to grow, now you're at $1.5 million, typically to $3 million in annual revenue.
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Now, if you go beyond $3 million, I do talk about that.
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organizational structure, usually that means you're just starting to add middle level management.
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So assistance to your office manager, assistance to your operations manager, and assistance or estimators to your sales manager.
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That's generally what happens once you cross $3 million.
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But
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But when we talk about the GM Plus model inside the book, mostly what we're referring to is $1.5 to $3 million in annual revenue.
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And dependent on your industry and your seasonality, you're going to usually have between 10 and 30 employees.
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If you have a struggle with having an off season in your business and your revenue is dropping a lot for three or four months out of the year, like a lot of home service businesses, I created a special workshop.
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It's completely free.
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You can scan the QR code here or just go to mikeandies.com slash workshop.
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And it's three to four hours of content where you'll be able to figure out the five solutions to make sure that the winter or your off season doesn't take your business.
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All right.
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Now, what I want to do today is I want to go through each of the four leadership paths because at the end of each of the chapters, I break down the checklist of what you should be doing if you are a solo operator.
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So let's go ahead and you guys can bring it to me full screen.
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And I'm going to go through these right from the book's checklist.
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So this kind of consolidates a lot of elements from the book in the form of a checklist, in the form of a checklist of things
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Usually there's like 12 to 15 checklist items.
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So first thing for the solo operator, that's what we're talking about right now.
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First thing is we're going to raise prices to a simple formula.
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And that is hourly rate and materials.
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Okay.
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You can get very complicated with your pricing.
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At the end of the day, I have an hourly rate, and I have a whole bunch of materials that go into it.
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You're like, well, what about all the other cogs?
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Yes, there are subcontractors.
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Yes, there are other expenses, such as rental of equipment.
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There are other things that go into quote-unquote materials.
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But the vast majority of us, we have an hourly rate for labor,
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We sell labor and then we have a whole bunch of other stuff we got to add materials, equipment rental, uh, you have dump fees, et cetera, hazardous waste fees, et cetera.
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Keep it very simple.
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Um, I see so many people listening to someone who is running a $50 million, a hundred million dollar business that is doing things with their pricing.
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And they think that that's what I need to do.
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No, that's what you need to do.
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If you're running a $50 million business.
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you need to be doing is getting estimates out to your customers much faster and not trying to be so precise and getting out your calculator and having spreadsheets and doing all sorts of matrices and you have this complex algorithm and it's taking you three four five days to get the quote back to the customer you are losing way more customers than if you just use a very simple formula which is my hourly rate
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How long do I think it's going to take?
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That's my budget hours.
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Multiply by my hourly rate.
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That's how much I'm charging for labor.
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And I'm going to add a bunch of materials into that, along with things like equipment rental and other supplies.
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All right, the other thing that we're going to be doing here, we're going to stop running the business out of your head.
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And you're going to install HomeWorks software, home.works.
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So...
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I saw this the other day on Facebook, and someone was kind of bragging about the fact that they still do their estimates by hand.
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And I'm not going to lie, their penmanship was fantastic.
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They still did old-fashioned, like, 8.5x11 notebook, and they would write out the entire estimate by hand.
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And I was like, surely people in the comments are going to be like,
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What are you serious?
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But no, everyone was supporting them.
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And I get it.
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I get it.
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Everyone's gone very techie and AI and software.
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And it's like, oh, this is refreshing.
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I get that.
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But what I care about is the business owner.
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I like I'm happy you're serving your customers and they like your handwriting.
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That's awesome.
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But I care about what happens in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years of you doing this work yourself and being on every single job site.
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What happens to you and what happens to your family when you can't do that anymore?
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Right.
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And so that's why I believe that software is required.
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That's why we started Copilot, now HomeWorks.
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That's why we started it.
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Because software is the easiest way to have things copied and pasted.
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It's the easiest way for things to be replicated over and over and over the same way.
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Because it's an algorithm.
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It's literally a piece of code that keeps running.
295
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It's an algorithm.
296
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Not unlike having a team member or a piece of paper that can get ate by a dog, an estimate that can get lost in the mail, a check that can get lost.
297
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I don't want to rely on that.
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I want to rely on something that works every single time.
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There's predictability and it's consistent.
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That's why I talk about software.
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That's why we started Copilot.
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And I'll talk more about that later.
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Number three, we're going to collect deposits before starting jobs.
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Like this is really basic.
305
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If this is really basic to you, it is likely that you are not a solo operator.
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We'll get to your stage.
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Don't worry.
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But you can't get on a job site, especially larger job sites, and put in labor, materials, time, all of these things, planning goes into this job, and you have no money.
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No one's giving you any money.
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You have all these expenses.
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You paid thousands of dollars for material, hundreds of dollars for equipment rental, and you don't have any money yet.
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And you're going negative on every single job from day one.
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And then you're hoping they pay you 30 or 60 days later, and you make some profit.
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Right?
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I need to cover my cost of goods prior to starting the job, so I never go in the red.
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This is what leads to a lot of cash flow problems for home service businesses, is we don't do this.
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If you just collect enough revenue prior to the job starting, that allows you to cover your cost of goods sold.
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That's your direct labor.
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As a solar operator, you don't have a lot of direct labor.
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Materials, subcontractors, anything else that's direct labor, I need that covered before the job starts.
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And the reason I put this as a checklist item for a solo operator is because since you don't have labor, you make sense of not collecting deposits.
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You're like, well, you know, it's just I'm going to work on the weekend.
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I'll get the whole job done on the weekend.
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It's only a couple thousand dollars.
325
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I don't want to slow this down.
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I need the job.
327
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I need to make some money.
328
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Okay, I'll get the job started right away.
329
00:21:49.337 --> 00:21:51.039
Forget about sending the check for the deposit.
330
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We'll collect after.
331
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And you're doing it in the name of good customer service, what the customer wants.
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No, no.
333
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You got to collect the deposit before the job starts.
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At least 50%.
335
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At least cover your cost of goods sold.
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Now, if you're doing massive projects, for example, roofing, foundation repair, if you're doing tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, there are some states that are going to require you can only collect, like, say, 20 or 30% before.
337
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And that's fine.
338
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But I want you to cover as much as possible before the job starts.
339
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And if you are in a state that requires, say, only 30% on larger projects, etc.
340
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Great.
341
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30% before and after day one, I'm going to collect the other 20%.
342
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I'm going to collect more as soon.
343
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Like these are progress payments.
344
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As a big project goes on, I want to collect enough money so I never go red.
345
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I never go negative on cash flow for that specific one project.
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This is how you grow yourself out of business.
347
00:22:42.114 --> 00:22:51.038
This is how you grow yourself into bankruptcy by big projects and big jobs that you never collected a deposit on because you went red.
348
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You put money into the job via labor, materials, subcontractors, supplies, rental equipment, all of this stuff you poured into the job.
349
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And then either, like, let's hopefully they pay you down the road.
350
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But even if they do pay you immediately when the job is done, you had a point in time when you went negative for that project.
351
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You had negative cash flow.
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All right, number four.
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The solo operator checklist.
354
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There's leadership hat number one.
355
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Track time on every job.
356
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Right?
357
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Very basic.
358
00:23:22.318 --> 00:23:24.699
Again, if you think this is basic, you're probably not a solo operator.
359
00:23:25.079 --> 00:23:31.500
If you're not tracking time on every single job, you do not know if you are making money.
360
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If you do not know you are making money, let me save you the time.
361
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You are not making money.
362
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It's as simple as that.
363
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Every single job, I'm going to have budget hours versus actual hours.
364
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In other words, how long do I think the job is going to take?
365
00:23:48.663 --> 00:23:50.543
And then how long do the job actually take?
366
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You must track this.
367
00:23:52.456 --> 00:23:54.517
I don't care if this is a 20-minute job.
368
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I don't care if this is a 20-day job and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
369
00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:04.021
I am tracking budget hours versus actual hours.
370
00:24:05.121 --> 00:24:07.102
It's the only way to know if you should raise prices.
371
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It's the only way to know if you're really making money on a job is to track budget hours versus actual.
372
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And to be able to refine your estimating process and your pricing system, you need to know, are we actually accurate on the budgeted hours?
373
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Number five, we're going to send 100% of estimates to your CRM.
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No verbal pricing.
375
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Again, if this seems simple to you, you are probably not a solo operator.
376
00:24:32.070 --> 00:24:42.520
But if you are sending verbal commitments or text messaging customers a price and it's not documented inside of your CRM, we are going to have big problems.
377
00:24:43.586 --> 00:24:45.547
And it's not that right now you feel that pain.
378
00:24:45.647 --> 00:24:49.690
And I'm sure someone in the comments right now is like, I do all my estimates in person.
379
00:24:49.710 --> 00:24:50.631
I just tell the customer.
380
00:24:50.691 --> 00:24:54.874
I write it out by hand or I send them a text message all the time and it seems to work fine for me.
381
00:24:55.434 --> 00:24:55.815
You're right.
382
00:24:56.255 --> 00:24:56.976
It will work for you.
383
00:24:57.356 --> 00:25:00.578
But the whole reason we're talking about this is to build a $3 million business.
384
00:25:01.979 --> 00:25:04.281
And you're not going to build a $3 million business doing that.
385
00:25:05.858 --> 00:25:17.588
And so create the discipline and the skills and the habits now that will allow you to get there so you don't have to unwind bad behavior and bad habits when you're at a million, when you're at 1.5 million.
386
00:25:17.828 --> 00:25:25.174
And a lot of what you see on the turnaround show is business owners that never instituted these basics when they were small.
387
00:25:25.434 --> 00:25:29.038
And now at a million in revenue, they still aren't sending their estimates through software.
388
00:25:29.918 --> 00:25:31.400
They still aren't tracking their time.
389
00:25:32.476 --> 00:25:34.117
They still don't have a pricing formula.
390
00:25:34.137 --> 00:25:42.302
Like do these things basic now so that as you scale, you'll be able to grow without breaking.
391
00:25:42.622 --> 00:25:48.226
Next on the checklist for the solo operator is we're going to follow up three times on every estimate.
392
00:25:50.227 --> 00:25:51.387
You're like, but I'm going to annoy them.
393
00:25:52.188 --> 00:25:53.489
Okay, let's get this really straight.
394
00:25:54.549 --> 00:25:57.371
A customer called you or sent an estimate request for them.
395
00:25:57.991 --> 00:25:59.332
They need service done.
396
00:26:00.393 --> 00:26:01.834
Why do you think they're calling you?
397
00:26:02.685 --> 00:26:04.206
Why do you think there's so many requests for it?
398
00:26:04.506 --> 00:26:06.347
It's not to get an estimate.
399
00:26:07.908 --> 00:26:09.229
It is to solve a problem.
400
00:26:10.289 --> 00:26:12.811
And the problem is they need this problem solved.
401
00:26:13.191 --> 00:26:16.853
Whether it be installing something, removing something, fixing something, maintaining something.
402
00:26:17.073 --> 00:26:18.154
They need something done.
403
00:26:18.174 --> 00:26:18.914
They have a problem.
404
00:26:19.415 --> 00:26:23.437
You are doing them a service by solving a problem.
405
00:26:24.217 --> 00:26:27.820
Until you have solved that problem, you have not served them.
406
00:26:28.760 --> 00:26:30.341
Like, oh, they called and they got an estimate.
407
00:26:30.381 --> 00:26:31.742
I'm just waiting for them to get back.
408
00:26:32.781 --> 00:26:33.922
What kind of customer service is that?
409
00:26:34.082 --> 00:26:35.504
You haven't solved their problem.
410
00:26:35.784 --> 00:26:41.190
In fact, you actually took their time and energy to go onto your website, call you.
411
00:26:41.350 --> 00:26:45.394
They had to do all this stuff that did nothing to solve their problem.
412
00:26:45.935 --> 00:26:52.842
Until they say yes, until they have a card on file, an deposit paid, and money has been transacted, you have done nothing for them.
413
00:26:53.663 --> 00:26:55.305
And so out of a matter of principle...
414
00:26:56.081 --> 00:26:57.541
Follow up until they say yes.
415
00:26:58.362 --> 00:26:59.862
And if they say no, that's fine.
416
00:27:00.222 --> 00:27:02.523
I will stop annoying you the minute you say no.
417
00:27:03.003 --> 00:27:07.804
If you found another contractor, if you think I'm too expensive, if you need to talk to your spouse, I don't care.
418
00:27:08.204 --> 00:27:12.405
I just need to know because I care about you and I want to solve your problem.
419
00:27:12.665 --> 00:27:24.088
And until that problem is solved, if I actually care about you, I will relentlessly make sure that I follow up with you and make it as easy as possible for you to solve that problem that you have at your property.
420
00:27:25.535 --> 00:27:27.976
If you actually believe that, you'll follow up way more.
421
00:27:29.316 --> 00:27:37.378
The next thing is, a lot of people have too much fear that they aren't the actual correct or best option for the customer, and that's why they don't follow up.
422
00:27:37.898 --> 00:27:38.738
Well, I don't want to be pushy.
423
00:27:39.598 --> 00:27:44.919
If you actually cared about the customer, and you actually believed you were the best option for them, you would push.
424
00:27:47.280 --> 00:27:52.501
The reason many of us don't follow up is because we don't actually believe we're the best option for the customer.
425
00:27:54.537 --> 00:27:57.678
You're like, well, I'm not really the cheapest.
426
00:27:57.758 --> 00:27:58.939
I'm kind of more expensive.
427
00:27:59.519 --> 00:28:02.940
That doesn't mean you're not the best option for that customer.
428
00:28:03.280 --> 00:28:11.744
If they were going after the bargain basement prices, if they're going after cheapos, they wouldn't have gone to your website that looks super professional, was built by Home Service Web Design, and...
429
00:28:13.075 --> 00:28:16.098
They know they're not getting the cheapest price in town when they call you.
430
00:28:16.358 --> 00:28:17.059
They know that.
431
00:28:17.319 --> 00:28:19.661
When they see a wrap truck, what do you think goes through their mind?
432
00:28:19.921 --> 00:28:23.885
Do you really think they're going to, they think you're going to compete with the $20 guy down the road?
433
00:28:24.085 --> 00:28:27.889
But in your mind, you're comparing yourself to the $20 guy down the road.
434
00:28:29.367 --> 00:28:41.281
But they contacted you where you say you have reviews and you're licensed and insured and you have a great looking website and it's mobile friendly and it loads fast and it looks good and your trucks are wrapped and you have uniformed employees and you have great social media.
435
00:28:41.541 --> 00:28:48.409
And so why are you comparing yourself in your mind to the lowest competitor in your market?
436
00:28:49.265 --> 00:28:54.773
on one thing, price, when there are a litany of other things the customer cares about.
437
00:28:55.534 --> 00:29:01.242
Like the fact that they don't want to see that they don't want their neighbors to see crummy contractors in their yard.
438
00:29:01.623 --> 00:29:04.567
They want people that are professional and uniform and have wrap trucks.
439
00:29:05.188 --> 00:29:14.110
They don't want their neighbors and the people from their HOA and the people that attend their golf club seeing people smoking and with no shirt on, music blasting in their backyard.
440
00:29:14.310 --> 00:29:15.570
So they're willing to pay more.
441
00:29:15.811 --> 00:29:25.273
But you, because you think that it's too expensive compared to the lowest price competitor in your market, you stop following up with them because you don't want to be pushy.
442
00:29:27.353 --> 00:29:27.813
News alert.
443
00:29:28.374 --> 00:29:30.234
They haven't opened up your email yet.
444
00:29:32.374 --> 00:29:33.995
They haven't even seen your price.
445
00:29:35.223 --> 00:29:37.246
And yet we think that we can't follow up.
446
00:29:37.767 --> 00:29:38.688
We don't want to be pushy.
447
00:29:39.149 --> 00:29:40.150
We want to be respectful.
448
00:29:40.571 --> 00:29:42.253
And here's breaking news.
449
00:29:42.874 --> 00:29:48.182
Less than 50% of people, if you're emailing them a quote, less than 50% of people are opening it up.
450
00:29:50.832 --> 00:29:52.613
That's why we send text messages from HomeWorks.
451
00:29:53.054 --> 00:29:58.899
Because I know that immediately my open rate goes from about 35% to 40% all the way up to 98%.
452
00:29:59.579 --> 00:30:10.468
Before I let my general managers spend a single dollar on advertising, Facebook, Google, door hangers, whatever, I'm making sure they send a text and email to all of my customers using HomeWorks.
453
00:30:10.728 --> 00:30:17.994
That's the CRM we use to text all of our customers a season-specific offer during our off-season to fill our schedule.
454
00:30:18.334 --> 00:30:28.497
I go over all of this in the copy and paste millionaire, but right now you can actually go to homeworks home dot works, and you can get free texting unlimited until July 1st, 2026.
455
00:30:29.197 --> 00:30:32.298
So there's one little thing you could do to follow up is send them a text message.
456
00:30:35.418 --> 00:30:36.599
Well, what if there's a landline?
457
00:30:36.779 --> 00:30:39.960
What if they, you know, I didn't get their phone number before the number is wrong.
458
00:30:40.740 --> 00:30:40.960
Great.
459
00:30:42.048 --> 00:30:44.730
That's when you're going to do a little digging and find out what their real number is.
460
00:30:45.110 --> 00:30:47.572
You can use county assessor's office.
461
00:30:47.712 --> 00:30:49.013
You can figure out who owns the property.
462
00:30:49.233 --> 00:30:49.953
Get their number.
463
00:30:50.233 --> 00:30:52.255
Look it up and call them.
464
00:30:52.835 --> 00:30:57.058
I'm going to call, email, and text message every single person a minimum of three times.
465
00:30:57.858 --> 00:30:58.999
We do not need more leads.
466
00:31:00.020 --> 00:31:01.421
We need to fix our sales process.
467
00:31:02.341 --> 00:31:10.887
And we're so concerned about getting more leads in the top of the funnel instead of just focusing on the leads that are in the funnel and they're leaking out of the funnel every single day because of all these leaks.
468
00:31:11.829 --> 00:31:13.730
Like we did, they didn't even see the estimate.
469
00:31:14.630 --> 00:31:15.191
That's crazy.
470
00:31:15.791 --> 00:31:18.592
Okay, next up on the checklist for the solo operator.
471
00:31:19.373 --> 00:31:22.394
I want you to get 30 Google reviews as fast as possible.
472
00:31:23.255 --> 00:31:25.096
Also respond to the reviews when they come in.
473
00:31:25.116 --> 00:31:28.738
Okay, and don't get people to lie and say that they did service for you.
474
00:31:28.758 --> 00:31:35.161
If you're going to get reviews from family or friends, tell them to review you as the owner, your character, your personality.
475
00:31:35.941 --> 00:31:37.662
Don't tell, don't have them lie about what they did.
476
00:31:37.862 --> 00:31:39.423
You know, you did not do in their property.
477
00:31:40.020 --> 00:31:45.082
Next up on the checklist for the solo operators, book yourself out two to three weeks in the future and then hire an employee.
478
00:31:45.382 --> 00:31:49.083
That's when you get to migrate and move out of being a solo operator is when you hire someone.
479
00:31:49.444 --> 00:31:51.884
So I'm trying to book myself out as fast as possible.
480
00:31:51.904 --> 00:31:55.866
I'm not worried as much about my profit margin when I'm a solo operator.
481
00:31:55.966 --> 00:31:57.246
I'm trying to grow past the stage.
482
00:31:58.167 --> 00:32:01.068
And so I'm trying to get two to three weeks out, booked out in the schedule.
483
00:32:01.468 --> 00:32:05.269
And then what you can do, let's just say, for example, right now, end of this month.
484
00:32:05.970 --> 00:32:06.690
It's four weeks from now.
485
00:32:07.888 --> 00:32:09.649
I booked myself out for the rest of this month.
486
00:32:10.269 --> 00:32:14.652
And then what I can start doing is booking jobs as if I have an employee starting next month.
487
00:32:15.712 --> 00:32:17.973
You're like, but that means I have to sell twice as much work.
488
00:32:18.073 --> 00:32:18.574
Exactly.
489
00:32:19.014 --> 00:32:25.877
And so you have to have the confidence that you're able to generate enough leads, close enough jobs to be able to fill your schedule, but also one other person.
490
00:32:26.198 --> 00:32:34.302
The big scary jump from solo operator to a working GM is the fact that you produce twice as much budget hours and labor to be able to get completed.
491
00:32:34.922 --> 00:32:36.363
Twice as many jobs have to get accepted.
492
00:32:37.743 --> 00:32:43.345
Next on the checklist for the solo operator, you're going to open a separate business checking account.
493
00:32:43.945 --> 00:32:45.126
So you're not commingling funds.
494
00:32:45.986 --> 00:32:49.768
We cannot commingling funds and then have a $1.5 million business.
495
00:32:50.128 --> 00:32:52.449
And three or four years later, someone's suing us.
496
00:32:52.809 --> 00:32:57.711
And sure enough, it was from several years back when your business checking account was actually your personal bank account.
497
00:32:57.811 --> 00:32:59.431
And you're just commingling funds all the time.
498
00:32:59.992 --> 00:33:03.653
Separate, you know, separate between the business and your personal expenses.
499
00:33:04.355 --> 00:33:09.280
All right, last on the checklist for the solo operator is pay yourself a set weekly draw.
500
00:33:09.641 --> 00:33:11.363
Stop draining cash randomly.
501
00:33:12.424 --> 00:33:18.811
If you're looking at the bank balance of the business and the determining factor of how much money you take out of the business, we have a problem.
502
00:33:19.552 --> 00:33:20.413
We have a problem, Houston.
503
00:33:21.443 --> 00:33:37.096
This will lead to chaotic spending personally based upon how the business is doing versus having a budget personally because you have a set amount coming from the business to you and then being disciplined in your personal spending the same way you're trying to be disciplined in the business spending.
504
00:33:37.816 --> 00:33:41.179
Again, my recommendation, that's the checklist for the solo operator.
505
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:42.180
Let's move on.
506
00:33:43.161 --> 00:33:45.122
to the working GM.
507
00:33:45.142 --> 00:33:49.284
All right, so working GM is the next leadership hat inside the book.
508
00:33:49.324 --> 00:33:51.466
We got another checklist to go over.
509
00:33:52.386 --> 00:33:57.509
These are gonna cover all departments, sales, operations, and admin, what we should be doing at the working GM size.
510
00:33:58.530 --> 00:34:02.252
Number one, we're gonna film estimate videos for every job.
511
00:34:03.319 --> 00:34:13.947
Okay, as of yesterday, inside of HomeWorks, you can now attach the videos directly to a visit or a property inside of the FieldForce mobile app.
512
00:34:14.848 --> 00:34:20.913
Then, right from your office, pull that video up and move it to a visit or put it wherever you download it, send it to someone if you need be.
513
00:34:21.602 --> 00:34:22.562
You don't need to use WhatsApp.
514
00:34:22.602 --> 00:34:24.043
You don't need to use Google Drive anymore.
515
00:34:24.103 --> 00:34:25.164
You don't need to use YouTube.
516
00:34:25.184 --> 00:34:30.426
You can do it right from HomeWorks, right inside the FieldForce mobile app that's connected directly inside the software.
517
00:34:30.946 --> 00:34:40.371
Now, the reason to do this is because right now, if you're at $300,000, $400,000 in annual revenue, you have like one, two, maybe three projects a week.
518
00:34:40.791 --> 00:34:48.655
It doesn't seem like a big hassle to go to each job each morning and show your crew or your employee what they should be doing for the day.
519
00:34:49.868 --> 00:34:52.089
The problem is it doesn't scale.
520
00:34:52.689 --> 00:34:58.130
And so what I'm trying to do with these checklists is get you to change your behavior now so that your business can grow without hitting a bottleneck.
521
00:34:59.091 --> 00:35:04.052
The bottleneck came for me when we were doing around $900,000 to a million dollars in annual revenue.
522
00:35:04.632 --> 00:35:10.554
And every single morning, I was driving around for two to three hours from going from one side of my service area to the other to the other.
523
00:35:10.814 --> 00:35:15.015
I had three, four projects that I would need to walk through with my crew every morning.
524
00:35:15.455 --> 00:35:16.657
And just show them the job.
525
00:35:17.118 --> 00:35:18.339
They had the estimate notes.
526
00:35:18.780 --> 00:35:19.621
Maybe looking at those.
527
00:35:19.641 --> 00:35:21.484
But then I would just walk them around the job.
528
00:35:21.724 --> 00:35:22.946
10, 15, 20 minutes.
529
00:35:23.607 --> 00:35:30.096
Inevitably, Miss Sally would come out of the house and want to talk to the person that she's already met.
530
00:35:31.006 --> 00:35:32.948
That was me because I was the estimator.
531
00:35:33.248 --> 00:35:34.069
So I was the estimator.
532
00:35:34.089 --> 00:35:35.870
So they, they like, Oh, I know Mike.
533
00:35:36.131 --> 00:35:37.091
They came out and talked to me.
534
00:35:37.392 --> 00:35:42.997
Well, that's really difficult now for my crew because anytime something bad happens on the, on the job site, guess who they want to talk to?
535
00:35:43.257 --> 00:35:44.178
They want to talk to Mike.
536
00:35:45.119 --> 00:35:48.462
So it prevented my crew from taking accountability and ownership of the job.
537
00:35:49.102 --> 00:35:49.222
And,
538
00:35:50.063 --> 00:35:53.786
Furthermore, wasted two to three hours of my morning every single day.
539
00:35:54.287 --> 00:35:56.529
So what we started doing is doing staggered start times.
540
00:35:56.909 --> 00:36:00.813
6 o'clock, 6.30, 7 o'clock, 7.30, 8 o'clock for our entire cruise.
541
00:36:01.113 --> 00:36:04.236
So like the early guys, I'd go show them the job.
542
00:36:04.256 --> 00:36:05.917
I'd come back to the shop, show the next crew.
543
00:36:06.137 --> 00:36:07.098
Then I'd drive the next job.
544
00:36:07.118 --> 00:36:08.019
They would have met me there.
545
00:36:08.259 --> 00:36:10.281
And then usually the maintenance crew would start last.
546
00:36:10.301 --> 00:36:13.804
So that way the project crews could be loading up and everything without them in the way.
547
00:36:14.945 --> 00:36:15.446
Sounds cool.
548
00:36:15.466 --> 00:36:16.286
And so you're like, wait a second.
549
00:36:16.366 --> 00:36:16.627
Do...
550
00:36:17.250 --> 00:36:17.991
Why are we doing this?
551
00:36:18.632 --> 00:36:19.113
Why not?
552
00:36:19.133 --> 00:36:27.204
You know what's crazy is then all of a sudden Miss Sally talks to me for 20 minutes and my crew at the second job is sitting there waiting for 20 minutes on me.
553
00:36:27.725 --> 00:36:29.368
Sitting there twiddling their thumbs because they don't know what to do.
554
00:36:29.508 --> 00:36:30.109
They're waiting on me.
555
00:36:32.336 --> 00:36:35.737
So now what we're going to be doing at this size of business is working gym.
556
00:36:35.757 --> 00:36:41.318
We're going to record what the scope of work is for the job before we leave the estimate.
557
00:36:41.738 --> 00:36:45.018
We're going to attach that directly inside of homeworks to that meeting.
558
00:36:45.659 --> 00:36:49.839
Once it's there and it's attached to the property, I can move it wherever I want from inside of their profile.
559
00:36:50.639 --> 00:36:58.261
And if the job gets accepted down the road, I will pop that video right onto that job for the crew to be able to see the video and their notes together.
560
00:36:59.184 --> 00:37:00.005
I don't need to show up.
561
00:37:00.765 --> 00:37:02.607
When they show up, they know exactly what to do.
562
00:37:02.907 --> 00:37:07.431
They don't have to forget materials or supplies because they didn't really see the scope of work beforehand.
563
00:37:07.451 --> 00:37:09.173
They were able to watch the video the night before.
564
00:37:09.893 --> 00:37:15.218
These are the type of things that will allow the working GM size of business to continue to scale.
565
00:37:16.535 --> 00:37:18.575
Next up, use the yellow slip system.
566
00:37:19.396 --> 00:37:21.856
It's an accountability system for callbacks and errors.
567
00:37:22.456 --> 00:37:25.717
In other words, you don't want to be running around fixing everyone's problems.
568
00:37:25.757 --> 00:37:29.958
Now, when I make videos about this, I have made some shorts about the yellow slip system.
569
00:37:30.618 --> 00:37:35.679
I get roasted, roasted online because the vast majority of people aren't business owners.
570
00:37:35.940 --> 00:37:46.182
I understand the vast majority of people have never hired anyone and they don't know what it's like when you have 10 or 15 employees and your entire day is spent doing quality control.
571
00:37:47.713 --> 00:37:49.374
Your entire day, I know what it's like to be here.
572
00:37:49.794 --> 00:37:54.578
Your entire day is fixing the irrigation head that got messed up, the windshield that got broken.
573
00:37:55.038 --> 00:37:56.599
Oh, so-and-so knit a skid mark.
574
00:37:56.619 --> 00:37:58.600
I'll take seed and soil over there.
575
00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:02.963
And now that hour-long drive because of traffic and an hour back and then I'm late.
576
00:38:04.104 --> 00:38:06.926
That is you fixing the mistakes of your crew.
577
00:38:08.108 --> 00:38:08.809
Over and over again.
578
00:38:09.089 --> 00:38:12.532
And people in the comments are always like, well, that's what leadership is, is you've got to fix them.
579
00:38:12.632 --> 00:38:17.717
No, what leadership is, is allowing your team to grow and get to the next stage of their career and gain skills.
580
00:38:18.838 --> 00:38:22.862
Not babysitting them to when they make a mistake, you go fix every single little thing.
581
00:38:25.004 --> 00:38:28.107
And furthermore, if they do a great job, I'm going to pay them extra.
582
00:38:28.127 --> 00:38:30.750
And we'll talk more about that in just a moment.
583
00:38:31.814 --> 00:38:35.396
Next up, oh wait, yellow slip system, just in case you don't know what it is.
584
00:38:35.996 --> 00:38:38.637
If someone calls in and they're complaining, I'm not going to go fix it.
585
00:38:38.898 --> 00:38:40.138
I'm going to write out a yellow slip.
586
00:38:40.578 --> 00:38:47.882
It's going to go next to where the keys, end of the day, everyone goes to the keys and hangs up the keys, and they're going to see a yellow slip, and they're going to see the name of the person that did it.
587
00:38:48.122 --> 00:38:48.763
And what happened?
588
00:38:48.883 --> 00:38:50.724
And what the customer was complaining about?
589
00:38:50.964 --> 00:38:52.966
And within 48 hours, they have to go fix that yellow sub.
590
00:38:52.986 --> 00:38:54.026
They have to take it off the board.
591
00:38:54.367 --> 00:39:01.432
And usually the next morning or that evening, they're going to go back to the property, communicate with the customer, fix the problem, have the customer sign off on the yellow sub.
592
00:39:01.652 --> 00:39:05.815
That yellow sub comes back to that same board and is going to be talked about at the next team meeting.
593
00:39:07.677 --> 00:39:09.578
This ensures accountability for the job.
594
00:39:09.678 --> 00:39:14.482
This is the extra two seconds it takes to look back at a job site and be like, did everything go smoothly?
595
00:39:14.502 --> 00:39:14.802
Okay.
596
00:39:15.753 --> 00:39:15.973
Cool.
597
00:39:16.314 --> 00:39:18.776
Oh, no, I forgot to pick up my piece of equipment.
598
00:39:19.276 --> 00:39:20.818
Oh, no, I forgot to trim that bush.
599
00:39:20.978 --> 00:39:22.499
Oh, there's a skid mark.
600
00:39:22.579 --> 00:39:24.941
I should go ahead and rake that out, blow it out, maybe put some seed down.
601
00:39:25.302 --> 00:39:31.547
These are the little things that prevent you from running around like a chicken without a head all day long fixing the mistakes of your crew.
602
00:39:31.967 --> 00:39:34.169
And there needs to be upside if they do a good job.
603
00:39:34.470 --> 00:39:36.111
I'll talk more about that in just a minute.
604
00:39:37.292 --> 00:39:42.397
All right, next on the checklist for the working GM, we're going to train crews to run jobs without you present.
605
00:39:43.338 --> 00:39:50.845
Because if you have to be on every single job and you're starting to go from $250,000 to $750,000 in annual revenue, it ain't going to work.
606
00:39:52.266 --> 00:39:52.947
It might work at $250,000.
607
00:39:54.867 --> 00:39:55.668
You know, you're the hero.
608
00:39:55.708 --> 00:39:56.548
You know how to do the jobs.
609
00:39:56.568 --> 00:39:57.529
You're on every single job set.
610
00:39:57.549 --> 00:39:57.970
Let's go.
611
00:39:58.490 --> 00:40:01.273
But at 750, you can't keep juggling everything.
612
00:40:01.773 --> 00:40:04.115
And you can't do it profitably because you're straight overhead.
613
00:40:04.135 --> 00:40:06.517
And you can't spend time running around every single job set anymore.
614
00:40:06.537 --> 00:40:08.198
You're going to have to train your crew.
615
00:40:08.218 --> 00:40:14.984
There's a lot of times we have to kind of clear the board, reset training and onboarding, make sure there's systems in place for making sure team members are trained up.
616
00:40:15.825 --> 00:40:18.507
Next up, number four on the working GM checklist.
617
00:40:18.527 --> 00:40:20.269
This is, if you're following on, page 75 of the book.
618
00:40:22.980 --> 00:40:26.461
We are going to route jobs and schedule using a CRM calendar.
619
00:40:26.561 --> 00:40:28.241
No more whiteboards or sticky notes.
620
00:40:28.961 --> 00:40:34.682
If you're seeing the turnaround show, there was a business that was doing like $1.5, $1.7 million in annual revenue.
621
00:40:35.062 --> 00:40:41.663
And still, how estimates were accepted was the admin lady would print off the estimate that was accepted and put it up on the board.
622
00:40:41.683 --> 00:40:50.885
And it was like this giant Kanban system of estimates accepted, estimates in progress, estimates that were sent but still pending.
623
00:40:52.258 --> 00:40:53.639
Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.
624
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:55.780
I was like, well, how does this work?
625
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:56.480
It's like, what happens?
626
00:40:56.660 --> 00:41:01.423
Like, who determines when the pending estimates go off the board?
627
00:41:01.463 --> 00:41:02.443
It's like, well, when it fills up.
628
00:41:02.483 --> 00:41:09.207
Like, if I run out of space to put more estimates and people haven't responded back to me for a few weeks, I just, you know, I just read their paper and then it's done.
629
00:41:10.122 --> 00:41:12.805
Okay, we should not be doing that.
630
00:41:13.085 --> 00:41:14.126
We should be routing jobs.
631
00:41:14.286 --> 00:41:16.969
So if you have recurring jobs, we're using a routing software.
632
00:41:17.750 --> 00:41:24.356
If you are using projects, we're going to make sure you use budget hours to appropriately schedule them on the calendar.
633
00:41:24.716 --> 00:41:31.203
This is why inside of HomeWorks, when you're on the weekly view or the monthly view, you're going to see budget hour capacity.
634
00:41:31.803 --> 00:41:33.206
And how many budget hours are recurring?
635
00:41:33.446 --> 00:41:34.928
How many budget hours are one-time jobs?
636
00:41:35.108 --> 00:41:39.174
So you can very quickly glance at your calendar, know exactly where you can afford to fit jobs.
637
00:41:39.495 --> 00:41:41.458
And if you go over your capacity, it turns red.
638
00:41:41.578 --> 00:41:43.761
So it's like, hey, no more job in the schedule.
639
00:41:45.203 --> 00:41:45.985
We're over capacity.
640
00:41:47.223 --> 00:41:53.344
We need that for projects, and we also need to be able to route jobs for recurring using a routing software.
641
00:41:53.444 --> 00:41:58.486
Number five, on the working GM checklist, we're going to create estimate templates inside of our CRM.
642
00:41:58.766 --> 00:42:02.567
We're not going to create custom quotes every single time.
643
00:42:03.607 --> 00:42:05.867
Remember, we are trying to systematize our business.
644
00:42:06.027 --> 00:42:11.829
And to systematize our business, we're going to do things that are simple and things that are not complex.
645
00:42:12.669 --> 00:42:12.929
Cool.
646
00:42:13.769 --> 00:42:16.570
We are also not going to do things that are custom.
647
00:42:17.542 --> 00:42:19.203
We're going to do things that are standardized.
648
00:42:19.903 --> 00:42:21.324
So we want simple and standardized.
649
00:42:23.165 --> 00:42:28.887
Therefore, I am not going to create a custom worded estimate for every single quote that I send out.
650
00:42:29.127 --> 00:42:38.632
I'm going to have templates that I can copy and paste in or drag and drop or whatever from my software to be able to have a reasonable enough template of the estimate notes.
651
00:42:39.032 --> 00:42:41.173
So I don't spend an hour typing them all up.
652
00:42:42.205 --> 00:42:51.132
We were able to, when we did, back when we did paver patios, excavation, putting greens, the whole nine yards, we had templates that we could still make a $50,000 job.
653
00:42:51.632 --> 00:42:55.035
The estimate quoting process still only took three to five minutes.
654
00:42:55.435 --> 00:43:02.241
Because like, okay, great, put that big chunk of text in here with all the exact verbiage, basically a start to finish of exactly how the job was going to roll.
655
00:43:02.581 --> 00:43:05.083
And then we're going to change three or four things that the customer wanted adjusted.
656
00:43:05.423 --> 00:43:10.386
Or how many yards of material or how many pallets of sod were coming in.
657
00:43:10.466 --> 00:43:11.086
Whatever it might be.
658
00:43:11.306 --> 00:43:14.849
We're changing out a few little things and that's all that's required to be able to get the quote out.
659
00:43:15.109 --> 00:43:17.530
So I'm creating those templates at the working GM size.
660
00:43:18.331 --> 00:43:21.693
We're going to fire poor performers quickly and stop carrying dead weight.
661
00:43:22.554 --> 00:43:26.176
A lot of times, nice people at the working GM size stall out.
662
00:43:27.116 --> 00:43:28.998
Simply because they don't fire poor performers.
663
00:43:29.807 --> 00:43:32.410
It is your job to fire people that are low performers.
664
00:43:32.990 --> 00:43:33.931
And it stinks.
665
00:43:34.091 --> 00:43:34.912
I hate firing people.
666
00:43:35.493 --> 00:43:38.276
As the business has grown, I now have operations people in all the businesses.
667
00:43:39.357 --> 00:43:40.078
And they do the firing.
668
00:43:40.138 --> 00:43:41.739
Because I hate firing people.
669
00:43:42.200 --> 00:43:45.423
I always held on to people way too long before firing them.
670
00:43:46.564 --> 00:43:47.225
But here's what's crazy.
671
00:43:48.206 --> 00:43:50.749
I never fired one person that I regretted doing it afterwards.
672
00:43:50.789 --> 00:43:51.990
Not one single time.
673
00:43:52.745 --> 00:44:03.287
Every single time I or any of my managers have fired someone within about a week or two after initial, you know, there might be her feelings or friendships that people had, etc.
674
00:44:03.568 --> 00:44:05.668
But after a week or two, it's like, oh, my goodness, that's so much better.
675
00:44:06.308 --> 00:44:11.169
And you also hear all the stories of what they were actually doing on the clock.
676
00:44:12.129 --> 00:44:14.070
Always amazing how those come out after they were fired.
677
00:44:15.366 --> 00:44:17.008
So you've got to fire poor performers quickly.
678
00:44:17.028 --> 00:44:18.089
It's like cutting out a cancer.
679
00:44:18.349 --> 00:44:24.455
Do I want to cut off my arm because there's a huge tumor that's growing and metastasizing inside my body?
680
00:44:24.876 --> 00:44:25.056
No.
681
00:44:25.756 --> 00:44:28.339
But I must do that in order to preserve the rest of the body.
682
00:44:28.659 --> 00:44:30.081
Because then my other arm is going to get affected.
683
00:44:30.101 --> 00:44:30.641
And my legs.
684
00:44:31.022 --> 00:44:31.642
And my chest.
685
00:44:31.722 --> 00:44:32.123
And my head.
686
00:44:32.223 --> 00:44:33.504
And I'm going to eventually die.
687
00:44:33.805 --> 00:44:37.088
And so a business that doesn't cut out the cancers in the organization eventually dies.
688
00:44:38.629 --> 00:44:39.050
Full stop.
689
00:44:41.245 --> 00:44:50.588
Okay, next up on the checklist for the working GM, we're going to document your top five admin tasks and delegate to a virtual admin or seasonal office staff.
690
00:44:51.128 --> 00:44:55.669
So the things that are taking your time, I will save you some time by telling you what those things are.
691
00:44:56.349 --> 00:45:00.730
Number one, if they interrupt you while you're working, delegate it.
692
00:45:01.150 --> 00:45:03.671
At this size, the working GM size, $250,000 to $750,000 in annual revenue.
693
00:45:03.831 --> 00:45:06.732
You're like, oh, no, no, no.
694
00:45:07.092 --> 00:45:09.813
I'm going to go out and I'm going to delegate and find an estimator.
695
00:45:10.975 --> 00:45:12.797
No, that's the highest leverage task in the business.
696
00:45:12.958 --> 00:45:15.701
And 99% of the time, the entrepreneur is the best salesperson.
697
00:45:16.682 --> 00:45:20.867
And so I'm going to delegate the lowest leverage task first, admin.
698
00:45:21.889 --> 00:45:23.931
And that's where I'm at as the work at the working GM size.
699
00:45:23.971 --> 00:45:27.175
I'm trying to do this in a way that I don't need a full-time office person.
700
00:45:27.315 --> 00:45:28.377
I can't afford it.
701
00:45:29.450 --> 00:45:31.331
I can't afford the shop space for them to be in.
702
00:45:31.551 --> 00:45:32.051
Is it nice?
703
00:45:32.131 --> 00:45:32.371
Yes.
704
00:45:32.431 --> 00:45:32.891
Is it great?
705
00:45:32.931 --> 00:45:33.692
Is it more custom?
706
00:45:33.972 --> 00:45:36.132
Can I get everything the way I just want it?
707
00:45:36.833 --> 00:45:37.613
How I want it done?
708
00:45:37.673 --> 00:45:38.533
How I want the phone answered?
709
00:45:38.573 --> 00:45:39.494
Is it easier to manage them?
710
00:45:39.534 --> 00:45:39.794
Yes.
711
00:45:39.914 --> 00:45:40.834
If they're in person, yes.
712
00:45:41.834 --> 00:45:46.076
But I'm usually going to do a virtual assistant or pay some sort of answering service.
713
00:45:46.456 --> 00:45:57.320
A seasonal office staff member is great if they can work for you during spring rush for four months when you're completely bogged down with phone calls, text messages, emails, anything that interrupts you throughout your day you want to delegate at this time.
714
00:45:57.500 --> 00:46:01.903
One of the biggest benefits of joining Augusta Lawn Care is that you get access to Command Center.
715
00:46:02.343 --> 00:46:08.326
Command Center is going to do a lot of admin tasks for you, like answering your phones, answering your email, and even running payroll.
716
00:46:08.747 --> 00:46:17.412
If those things off of your plate would allow you to grow your business more, go check out AugustaLawnCareServices.com slash franchise and see if it'd be a good fit for you.
717
00:46:17.472 --> 00:46:19.013
The reason is because there's switching costs.
718
00:46:19.413 --> 00:46:21.975
Every single time you're out in the field or doing estimates, i.e.
719
00:46:21.995 --> 00:46:25.477
doing sales and operations, and a phone call comes in, that's admin.
720
00:46:25.717 --> 00:46:28.699
It's a lower leverage task that's interrupting you from higher leverage tasks.
721
00:46:29.519 --> 00:46:31.000
Good idea to not let that happen.
722
00:46:31.641 --> 00:46:32.841
Also, there are switching costs.
723
00:46:33.121 --> 00:46:43.468
When you go from working to answering the phone call to then doing an estimate with Mr. Jones, and then all of a sudden you get an email, and then you get a complaint, an online review, and then you're going back to Mrs. Sally Jr.'s because the irrigation thing broke.
724
00:46:43.808 --> 00:46:44.809
This chaos...
725
00:46:45.802 --> 00:46:49.525
is caused for all the switching that's happening in your day.
726
00:46:49.805 --> 00:46:57.532
And the reason you feel like a hamster on a wheel is because you're just switching from operation to sales, sales to admin, admin to sales, sales, operations, you're all throughout the day.
727
00:46:58.192 --> 00:46:59.713
And that's fine as a solo operator.
728
00:46:59.733 --> 00:47:01.055
That's what you're supposed to be doing.
729
00:47:01.075 --> 00:47:11.303
But at working GM, we have to start delegating the lowest leverage of those tasks, which is usually admin and usually the thing you're not good at.
730
00:47:13.158 --> 00:47:20.304
The first things I want to delegate in any business and things I'm not good at, the things that suck energy from me and things that are the lowest leverage.
731
00:47:21.465 --> 00:47:22.746
An admin is the lowest leverage.
732
00:47:22.826 --> 00:47:29.552
And for most entrepreneurs, most entrepreneurs, they're better at sales than they are admin stuff and keeping things organized and keeping track of QuickBooks.
733
00:47:29.693 --> 00:47:31.434
All these things they stink at.
734
00:47:32.135 --> 00:47:33.035
So don't do those.
735
00:47:33.296 --> 00:47:35.017
Just focus on being a better salesperson.
736
00:47:35.297 --> 00:47:37.820
Focus on being a better manager of your team on the field and operations.
737
00:47:38.928 --> 00:47:40.770
Okay, so we're going to delegate those things.
738
00:47:41.110 --> 00:47:42.611
Two more on the working GM checklist.
739
00:47:42.911 --> 00:47:45.053
We're going to hit 50% of revenue from recurring work.
740
00:47:45.713 --> 00:47:47.255
Again, I believe in recurring work.
741
00:47:47.615 --> 00:47:49.717
I like one-time jobs just as much as the guy next to me.
742
00:47:50.077 --> 00:47:55.681
I also look at who got impacted and scared out of their mind when COVID happened, and for two weeks everyone shut down.
743
00:47:55.781 --> 00:47:57.123
It was the guys with the big projects.
744
00:47:58.764 --> 00:48:01.766
All of a sudden their backlog going from six months to six hours.
745
00:48:03.508 --> 00:48:03.828
Overnight.
746
00:48:05.291 --> 00:48:06.011
I don't want that to happen.
747
00:48:06.291 --> 00:48:13.393
I think I lost my location maybe 1%, not even 1%, because it was like two people.
748
00:48:14.093 --> 00:48:18.514
So like a quarter percent of our recurring customers canceled when COVID happened.
749
00:48:20.315 --> 00:48:21.175
I like recurring revenue.
750
00:48:22.215 --> 00:48:25.136
It's something that doesn't leave tomorrow if I leave the business.
751
00:48:25.576 --> 00:48:26.356
It still keeps coming in.
752
00:48:26.436 --> 00:48:28.077
I don't have to keep getting more jobs.
753
00:48:28.477 --> 00:48:33.118
I can actually go on a vacation, not do any sales, and revenue still comes in.
754
00:48:34.009 --> 00:48:35.570
That's the kind of business that you can eventually leave.
755
00:48:35.951 --> 00:48:37.772
It's the kind of business that will give you ultimate freedom.
756
00:48:38.093 --> 00:48:48.041
And the vast majority of us got into this whole thing of business to become free from time schedules, from having other people tell us what to do, to be able to do things that we want.
757
00:48:48.221 --> 00:48:48.722
And yet...
758
00:48:49.895 --> 00:48:56.078
And yet, because we don't have enough recurring revenue and we're going after big projects from one to the next to the next, we're in this constant hamster wheel.
759
00:48:56.178 --> 00:48:59.219
And instead of getting freedom, we get the exact opposite of freedom.
760
00:48:59.459 --> 00:49:00.820
Bondage to our business.
761
00:49:01.620 --> 00:49:08.883
Doing all the sales, making sure all the projects, moving materials and equipment, and then making sure when our admin person's out, like, oh, we're going to answer the phone calls.
762
00:49:08.903 --> 00:49:11.544
And we'll jump back in and like, it's chaos.
763
00:49:12.865 --> 00:49:13.125
Okay.
764
00:49:14.546 --> 00:49:20.891
Last on the checklist for the working GM, take a set salary and reinvest remainder into marketing and growth.
765
00:49:21.411 --> 00:49:28.476
I put this here because a lot of times I see people start buying a bunch of equipment this size because now they can kind of justify it due to the fact they have multiple crews.
766
00:49:31.058 --> 00:49:32.759
You can buy trucks and equipment tomorrow.
767
00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:39.705
Every single person here with a credit card, assuming your balance is high enough, your limits are high enough, you can go buy a truck tomorrow.
768
00:49:40.426 --> 00:49:42.490
Assuming your credit score is decent, you can go buy a truck tomorrow.
769
00:49:42.510 --> 00:49:44.334
If you don't have cash, you can go buy a truck tomorrow.
770
00:49:45.176 --> 00:49:45.576
Here's the thing.
771
00:49:46.619 --> 00:49:47.560
Anyone can do that.
772
00:49:48.001 --> 00:49:51.468
Which means buying more trucks and equipment doesn't add value to your business.
773
00:49:52.562 --> 00:49:53.603
It just gets you more trucks and equipment.
774
00:49:53.623 --> 00:49:56.445
It's just a tool to get the work done.
775
00:49:56.945 --> 00:50:00.968
And the reason we buy the truck and equipment is to be able to get more work done.
776
00:50:01.268 --> 00:50:03.570
And the reason we get more work done is because we have customers.
777
00:50:04.190 --> 00:50:05.431
And we have contracts.
778
00:50:05.952 --> 00:50:07.053
And we have contacts.
779
00:50:07.353 --> 00:50:10.175
And we have people that we do business with.
780
00:50:11.436 --> 00:50:12.697
That is how you build a business.
781
00:50:12.777 --> 00:50:14.318
That's where you get real enterprise value.
782
00:50:14.658 --> 00:50:15.919
Not in buying more trucks and equipment.
783
00:50:16.219 --> 00:50:19.802
And that's why at this size, I encourage you to spend the money that you do have...
784
00:50:22.319 --> 00:50:27.783
on marketing and advertising and a better website and wrapping your trucks because that ultimately will get you more leads.
785
00:50:28.223 --> 00:50:30.705
That'll ultimately be the thing that grows the value of the business.
786
00:50:31.025 --> 00:50:34.707
Buying more trucks and equipment is required to be able to fulfill on the work that you sell.
787
00:50:35.848 --> 00:50:38.370
But if you have all the trucks and equipment in the world, you do not have a business.
788
00:50:38.510 --> 00:50:39.751
You have a bunch of trucks and equipment.
789
00:50:41.412 --> 00:50:43.473
All right, the full-time GM.
790
00:50:43.553 --> 00:50:46.035
This is the third leadership hat that we talk about.
791
00:50:46.055 --> 00:50:49.317
This is on page 101 inside of the book.
792
00:50:49.337 --> 00:50:49.577
Okay.
793
00:50:50.747 --> 00:50:51.427
First on the checklist.
794
00:50:51.447 --> 00:50:52.908
This one's pretty, pretty small.
795
00:50:53.709 --> 00:50:54.309
Only six things.
796
00:50:54.630 --> 00:50:56.671
Full-time checklist, full-time GM checklist.
797
00:50:57.131 --> 00:51:04.276
Number one, build an SOP, that's Standard Operating Procedure Library for sales, operation, and admin.
798
00:51:04.416 --> 00:51:07.899
I'm going to make sure it's digital and repeatable.
799
00:51:08.379 --> 00:51:12.342
So you can do screen recordings for admin very easily.
800
00:51:13.291 --> 00:51:15.593
operations, I'm going to have a checklist for new hires.
801
00:51:15.773 --> 00:51:18.014
I'm going to have, what are they doing on day one, day two, day three?
802
00:51:18.314 --> 00:51:19.535
What are they doing in orientation?
803
00:51:20.336 --> 00:51:24.298
If orientation is here's your shirt, there's Bob, Bob will tell you what to do.
804
00:51:24.458 --> 00:51:25.159
Jump in the truck.
805
00:51:25.719 --> 00:51:29.141
If that's your orientation at this size, we got to solve that.
806
00:51:29.622 --> 00:51:34.125
We got to create operating procedures, standard operating procedures for sales.
807
00:51:34.925 --> 00:51:36.506
operations and admin, right?
808
00:51:36.526 --> 00:51:50.333
So admin digital, I'm going to make sure that I'm usually doing screen recordings for every little thing they do from routing to scheduling to billing to sending out automations to doing the QuickBooks, checking the email, doing the technology, all of those things I'm going to do screen recordings for.
809
00:51:51.033 --> 00:51:52.554
operations, I'm going to have checklists.
810
00:51:52.574 --> 00:51:59.639
Typically I'm going to have some training videos, not too many because music field technicians don't like sitting down for videos for days on end.
811
00:52:00.059 --> 00:52:01.340
I have an orientation process.
812
00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:02.561
I'm going to have a hiring process.
813
00:52:02.841 --> 00:52:05.763
I'm going to have, how do I screen applicants out, et cetera.
814
00:52:06.907 --> 00:52:08.028
All of that, the full-time GM.
815
00:52:08.648 --> 00:52:11.349
And then for the sales side, I'm also going to have systems and procedures.
816
00:52:11.809 --> 00:52:12.810
Standard operating procedures.
817
00:52:13.470 --> 00:52:16.952
If I'm doing a door hanger, how many door hangers per hour should I be putting out?
818
00:52:17.392 --> 00:52:19.313
What kind of houses should I be putting door hangers on?
819
00:52:19.793 --> 00:52:21.214
These are all standard operating procedures.
820
00:52:21.614 --> 00:52:24.135
Where do I write the number on the instant quote price?
821
00:52:24.615 --> 00:52:25.816
What templates do I use?
822
00:52:26.116 --> 00:52:29.338
These are all things that a salesperson should have, and you're building a SOP.
823
00:52:29.358 --> 00:52:30.798
You're like, well, I'm still doing sales.
824
00:52:30.838 --> 00:52:32.199
I'm a full-time GM.
825
00:52:32.279 --> 00:52:33.179
Aren't I doing all the estimates?
826
00:52:33.219 --> 00:52:33.700
Yes, you are.
827
00:52:34.420 --> 00:52:36.964
But I'm trying to get it to where you can hand this off.
828
00:52:37.985 --> 00:52:41.931
In order to build a business that runs without you, you need to have systems that run without you.
829
00:52:42.452 --> 00:52:43.734
You're like, oh, great, find great people.
830
00:52:44.175 --> 00:52:44.515
I agree.
831
00:52:45.557 --> 00:52:48.641
It's easier to find A-talent
832
00:52:50.212 --> 00:53:00.080
and train them up to be A players with systems, than it is constantly looking for unicorns that are one in a bajillion that can just create the business for you.
833
00:53:00.240 --> 00:53:01.761
Like, well, I have all these leads coming in.
834
00:53:01.981 --> 00:53:04.403
I have no idea how to do pricing, no idea how to do sales, but like we're growing.
835
00:53:04.924 --> 00:53:10.328
If you're gonna go try to find someone to replace you doing that without systems, guess what you're gonna be trying to find?
836
00:53:11.169 --> 00:53:12.390
An entrepreneur like you.
837
00:53:13.628 --> 00:53:16.010
So it's very likely you will probably hire your competitor.
838
00:53:16.490 --> 00:53:17.551
Someone's going out of business.
839
00:53:17.812 --> 00:53:19.773
Yeah, let's definitely hire that guy.
840
00:53:20.214 --> 00:53:22.115
The guy that ran the business into the ground.
841
00:53:22.556 --> 00:53:27.680
But that's the only type of person that can run your sales system because you don't have any standard operating procedures.
842
00:53:27.960 --> 00:53:32.564
You don't have any sort of automation that tell them, hey, you call them after 24 hours.
843
00:53:32.744 --> 00:53:33.725
You call them after three days.
844
00:53:33.905 --> 00:53:34.786
You call them after seven days.
845
00:53:34.926 --> 00:53:35.767
You call them after 10 days.
846
00:53:35.907 --> 00:53:36.728
You make this offer.
847
00:53:36.908 --> 00:53:39.310
Here's the five things that you say on the follow-up phone calls.
848
00:53:39.570 --> 00:53:40.391
Here's what the text message is.
849
00:53:40.611 --> 00:53:41.391
Here's what the emails say.
850
00:53:41.591 --> 00:53:42.652
Here's what you don't say.
851
00:53:42.912 --> 00:53:44.012
Here's what you do say.
852
00:53:44.292 --> 00:53:45.793
Here's what a good close rate is.
853
00:53:45.833 --> 00:53:46.993
Here's what a bad close rate is.
854
00:53:47.293 --> 00:53:53.315
This is a standard operating procedure that you need to have for sales, operations, and admin at this size of business.
855
00:53:53.635 --> 00:53:56.476
Full-time GM checklist, page 101.
856
00:53:57.017 --> 00:54:01.038
We're going to automate invoicing, billing, and collections inside of HomeWorks.
857
00:54:01.972 --> 00:54:08.017
Okay, inside of HomeWorks, you can set up to where it automatically creates an invoice, daily, weekly, monthly, et cetera.
858
00:54:08.517 --> 00:54:16.223
You can have it where it automatically bills, charges the customer, their card on file, or their bank account on file, daily, weekly, or monthly.
859
00:54:16.263 --> 00:54:18.565
You can just set it up one time in the settings, done forever.
860
00:54:19.125 --> 00:54:25.667
As long as you complete jobs correctly, as long as at the end of the day, you kind of do end of day, make sure everyone clocked their jobs, completed them.
861
00:54:25.887 --> 00:54:26.667
Oh, this one they skipped.
862
00:54:26.727 --> 00:54:26.967
Great.
863
00:54:27.167 --> 00:54:28.028
We won't be billing them.
864
00:54:28.088 --> 00:54:28.528
Fantastic.
865
00:54:28.828 --> 00:54:35.930
As long as you just make sure things are straight and organized, you should allow for automated billing and automated invoicing to happen.
866
00:54:37.151 --> 00:54:44.853
Little side note, if you're doing daily billing where you're charging them every single day, do not send them an email with a receipt every single time.
867
00:54:45.920 --> 00:54:49.921
Have them have a customer portal login where they can go see all of their payments in one spot.
868
00:54:50.202 --> 00:54:57.844
The reason I don't want to be sending an invoice receipt every single time I charge their card is, number one, it reminds them of a recurring service that I have.
869
00:54:58.345 --> 00:55:01.706
And the more times I remind them, the more likely they're going to churn and cancel service.
870
00:55:01.986 --> 00:55:08.248
Secondly, more importantly, is I do not want them to get fatigued from my marketing messages, which are going to happen once a month.
871
00:55:08.268 --> 00:55:11.089
I'm going to send a mass text or mass email from HomeWorks.
872
00:55:11.549 --> 00:55:12.510
And when I do that...
873
00:55:13.487 --> 00:55:19.809
I do not want them to be in the habit of archiving all messages from my business because they're used to just seeing receipts.
874
00:55:20.870 --> 00:55:25.912
No one looks at a receipt, especially when it's the exact same amount every single week.
875
00:55:27.312 --> 00:55:28.013
So don't send them out.
876
00:55:28.873 --> 00:55:29.833
Have it where there's a login.
877
00:55:30.053 --> 00:55:31.654
If they call in, they say, hey, I want to see that.
878
00:55:31.714 --> 00:55:31.934
Great.
879
00:55:32.314 --> 00:55:33.735
Let me go ahead and text that right to you.
880
00:55:34.095 --> 00:55:34.575
Here's a link.
881
00:55:34.695 --> 00:55:34.995
Boom.
882
00:55:35.015 --> 00:55:36.496
They can open it up, see all their payments.
883
00:55:36.576 --> 00:55:37.296
Okay, fantastic.
884
00:55:37.316 --> 00:55:37.916
Thank you so much.
885
00:55:39.257 --> 00:55:39.597
Let's go.
886
00:55:40.740 --> 00:55:44.801
Okay, next up on the docket for the checklist for the full-time GM.
887
00:55:45.781 --> 00:55:53.023
We're doing pay for performance, scorecards, and efficiency tracking across all crews.
888
00:55:53.123 --> 00:55:57.645
It's kind of a good idea if the thing that you're selling, in this case, in home services, we are selling labor.
889
00:55:58.785 --> 00:56:02.466
If you're going to sell labor, it's a good idea to know if you're being efficient at selling it.
890
00:56:03.446 --> 00:56:10.108
Because ultimately, all of home services is boiled down to if you take an hour's worth of labor, whether it be you or an employee,
891
00:56:10.748 --> 00:56:19.012
You add supplies, materials, training, experience, etc., equipment, and you charge them more for it.
892
00:56:19.072 --> 00:56:22.374
So I take $20 per hour of labor that I'm paying an employee.
893
00:56:22.654 --> 00:56:23.635
I give them training.
894
00:56:23.655 --> 00:56:24.415
I give them a uniform.
895
00:56:24.435 --> 00:56:25.156
I insure them.
896
00:56:25.196 --> 00:56:30.639
I give them a whole bunch of experience on a piece of equipment, and then they get the equipment and the trucks and everything there.
897
00:56:30.719 --> 00:56:30.959
Great.
898
00:56:31.599 --> 00:56:37.022
I can now charge, because I've added this value to this equation, I can now charge $100 per hour to the customer.
899
00:56:38.153 --> 00:56:43.017
So if that labor that we're charging per hour for, ultimately, is like, oh, I don't charge by hour.
900
00:56:43.037 --> 00:56:43.797
I charge about the job.
901
00:56:45.058 --> 00:56:47.880
It still takes a certain function of hours to get the job done.
902
00:56:48.461 --> 00:56:53.204
And so if you're not efficient at producing the product, i.e.
903
00:56:53.244 --> 00:56:59.069
this end result of labor being efficient, it's probably not a good idea to not know that number.
904
00:56:59.629 --> 00:57:00.970
You should track efficiency scores.
905
00:57:01.291 --> 00:57:02.752
I very rarely use the word should.
906
00:57:03.492 --> 00:57:03.953
I'm going to say it.
907
00:57:04.633 --> 00:57:06.535
You should track efficiency scores.
908
00:57:07.333 --> 00:57:07.753
Mind-blowing.
909
00:57:08.113 --> 00:57:10.655
Home services, the thing that we sell is time.
910
00:57:10.855 --> 00:57:14.436
You should probably make sure you're tracking how efficient your crew is.
911
00:57:14.616 --> 00:57:15.197
How do I do that?
912
00:57:15.517 --> 00:57:17.838
Budget hours divided by clocked hours.
913
00:57:18.318 --> 00:57:26.482
So if the job was eight budget hours, estimated to take eight hours, and it took 10 hours, eight divided by tenths, 80% efficiency.
914
00:57:27.347 --> 00:57:36.292
In other words, 20% of their day was doing unproductive things like driving, loading up, doing meetings, having lunch break, whatever it was.
915
00:57:37.052 --> 00:57:38.853
That was part of the clocked hours.
916
00:57:39.293 --> 00:57:41.555
And we'll talk more about what a good efficiency score is.
917
00:57:41.795 --> 00:57:47.038
But at this size, we should definitely be tracking it and giving them a piece of the action if they're really efficient.
918
00:57:47.698 --> 00:57:51.000
Because who cares what my efficiency scores unless you tie my pay to it.
919
00:57:51.600 --> 00:57:56.022
So if you can tie the compensation of your team to their efficiency, all of a sudden it matters.
920
00:57:56.362 --> 00:57:58.323
All of a sudden you'll see the needle start to move.
921
00:57:59.684 --> 00:57:59.984
All right.
922
00:58:00.444 --> 00:58:03.746
Checklist item on the full-time GM size.
923
00:58:04.687 --> 00:58:05.747
Reduce service menu.
924
00:58:06.527 --> 00:58:08.749
Standardize offerings and cut complexity.
925
00:58:09.969 --> 00:58:12.611
The fastest way to grow revenue in any home service business.
926
00:58:14.752 --> 00:58:15.332
Add service.
927
00:58:17.120 --> 00:58:17.900
Add service area.
928
00:58:19.241 --> 00:58:22.241
The least profitable way to grow revenue in a home service business.
929
00:58:23.822 --> 00:58:24.522
Add services.
930
00:58:25.462 --> 00:58:26.262
Add service area.
931
00:58:28.643 --> 00:58:29.383
Here's what's crazy.
932
00:58:29.663 --> 00:58:33.184
You will always prove me wrong when I say you should not add that service.
933
00:58:33.524 --> 00:58:33.844
You know why?
934
00:58:33.864 --> 00:58:36.065
Because if you add the service, you will add more revenue.
935
00:58:36.365 --> 00:58:36.905
Guaranteed.
936
00:58:38.542 --> 00:58:42.345
And I say, I don't think you should really expand another five or 10 miles on that service area.
937
00:58:42.445 --> 00:58:42.866
And you do it.
938
00:58:42.886 --> 00:58:43.226
Guess what?
939
00:58:43.506 --> 00:58:46.309
You will prove me wrong because you will get more revenue.
940
00:58:46.329 --> 00:58:48.090
It's the easiest way to grow revenue.
941
00:58:48.571 --> 00:58:59.781
And for that reason, people wake up with a three, five, $10 million business serving massive service areas, doing 10, 15, 20 different services and realizing they have a horrible business they can't hand off to anyone.
942
00:59:01.334 --> 00:59:07.205
And for that reason, at the full-time GM size, that's again $750,000 to $1.5 million in A&M revenue.
943
00:59:07.546 --> 00:59:09.690
I'm going to standardize my offerings and cut complexity.
944
00:59:11.809 --> 00:59:18.733
Next, last on the checklist for full-time GM, we're going to get 75% of revenue to recurring maintenance services.
945
00:59:19.474 --> 00:59:21.715
Again, I am trying to build a business that runs without me.
946
00:59:22.215 --> 00:59:26.138
I am not trying to build a very expensive job.
947
00:59:26.538 --> 00:59:28.339
All right, last, GM Plus.
948
00:59:28.619 --> 00:59:36.204
This is when you're between $1.5 million in annual revenue and $3 million in annual revenue and typically having between 10 and 30 employees.
949
00:59:36.744 --> 00:59:37.485
Here's the checklist.
950
00:59:37.565 --> 00:59:42.308
This one gets a little bit lengthy because this is now when we're stepping out of daily operations.
951
00:59:42.848 --> 00:59:48.412
First up, we're going to promote leaders into managers and we're going to develop a leadership bench.
952
00:59:49.233 --> 00:59:55.658
All right, this is why we had the stages of success, 21 stages of success at Augusta is to turn technicians all the way to owners.
953
00:59:56.078 --> 01:00:01.502
And in that period, my only goal is to get them to the next stage, turn my technicians into great managers.
954
01:00:02.583 --> 01:00:04.904
Number two, on the GM checklist, GM plus, sorry.
955
01:00:04.924 --> 01:00:05.145
Sorry.
956
01:00:06.282 --> 01:00:09.204
Cross-train your admin staff to eliminate key man risk.
957
01:00:09.704 --> 01:00:10.145
Okay.
958
01:00:11.325 --> 01:00:18.070
As you start getting into 1.5, a plus million revenue, you're going to start getting into second or third person in the office.
959
01:00:18.650 --> 01:00:20.191
You got to have them cross-trained.
960
01:00:20.852 --> 01:00:26.575
Now, in the book, I talk about when you start developing a command center and you're after 3 million, you start doing the exact opposite.
961
01:00:26.595 --> 01:00:27.236
Would you start...
962
01:00:27.716 --> 01:00:29.998
creating pockets that do certain things.
963
01:00:30.098 --> 01:00:34.683
For example, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, HR, answering the phones.
964
01:00:34.863 --> 01:00:37.065
These are all different departments as you scale much larger.
965
01:00:37.826 --> 01:00:43.090
Again, people hear me say that second part on podcasts sometimes, and they take it like, I'm gonna hire three people.
966
01:00:43.391 --> 01:00:46.494
One's like, whoa, you're doing $700,000 in revenue.
967
01:00:46.734 --> 01:00:48.576
Hiring three people in the office is the wrong move.
968
01:00:49.276 --> 01:00:53.140
At this size, 1.5 million, as you cross this, you need more than one person.
969
01:00:54.354 --> 01:01:01.296
And by the way, if your spouse is doing all of your admin work and they're the only one that knows how to do it, you have very much key man risk.
970
01:01:02.377 --> 01:01:02.637
Okay.
971
01:01:04.217 --> 01:01:13.340
If you have multiple people now in the office after you've crossed 1.5 as you're going to 3 million, I need my people in the office to know how to do everything, 20 or 30 tasks typically.
972
01:01:14.484 --> 01:01:18.111
Because I can't have one person gone for a week and just no one answers the phone.
973
01:01:18.532 --> 01:01:19.213
Oh, yeah, yeah.
974
01:01:19.493 --> 01:01:20.495
Sally does the payroll.
975
01:01:20.616 --> 01:01:22.760
So when Sally's out of town, payroll doesn't go through.
976
01:01:22.920 --> 01:01:24.102
Good luck keeping your team.
977
01:01:25.048 --> 01:01:32.596
And so if you're going to really delegate to people, you need them cross-trained so that if someone leaves, at least someone knows how to go log into QuickBooks and run payroll.
978
01:01:33.397 --> 01:01:33.797
At least.
979
01:01:34.158 --> 01:01:38.523
Or have – this is why I'm a huge fan of having other services do that sort of thing for you.
980
01:01:38.563 --> 01:01:46.852
This is why we have home service CPA to do payroll, do your bookkeeping, do your taxes, because I really don't want to train that to someone.
981
01:01:47.352 --> 01:01:50.676
And I don't want that to be the level of skill required to be my admin person.
982
01:01:51.096 --> 01:01:56.843
I would rather just have someone else do it so I can focus on how to answer a phone call and how to end up selling the phone.
983
01:01:57.203 --> 01:01:59.766
And when someone has a question about this service, sell them this.
984
01:01:59.906 --> 01:02:02.149
Like, I would rather focus my time and energy on that.
985
01:02:03.810 --> 01:02:11.194
However, at $1.5 million plus in revenue, you have multiple people in the office, and I would recommend you cross-train them to reduce key man risk.
986
01:02:11.814 --> 01:02:15.616
If you do have your spouse in the office, they're going to do a phenomenal job.
987
01:02:15.816 --> 01:02:16.896
Absolutely amazing.
988
01:02:17.256 --> 01:02:19.858
Just make sure they record everything they're doing.
989
01:02:21.018 --> 01:02:31.245
Because what I don't want to happen, and I see this in all sincerity because I see it happen so often, people build very good profitable businesses and their spouse gets pregnant, gets sick.
990
01:02:31.465 --> 01:02:32.565
They have relationship trouble.
991
01:02:32.846 --> 01:02:35.187
There's a little bit of space where they need to spend some time away from each other.
992
01:02:36.268 --> 01:02:38.829
These are periods of time that wipe businesses out.
993
01:02:39.370 --> 01:02:45.313
And no one posts about that on social media or writes a book about what happened in their personal life that caused their business to close down.
994
01:02:45.653 --> 01:02:45.994
They don't.
995
01:02:46.594 --> 01:02:47.474
They'll blame it on the market.
996
01:02:47.494 --> 01:02:50.236
They'll blame it on the economy, employees, etc.
997
01:02:50.576 --> 01:03:01.221
And those are all good excuses because I understand you don't want to bring up the fact that because you had some rocky part in your relationship or someone got sick or there was a miscarriage or some horrible thing happened in life.
998
01:03:02.182 --> 01:03:03.943
I don't want you to lose your business over it.
999
01:03:04.883 --> 01:03:09.888
And these are why I create systems because like I, I see it so often of the time.
1000
01:03:10.788 --> 01:03:23.220
And so anything that right now is your crutch, the thing that you lean on all of your time and energy on any person in your organization that you couldn't work without that the business would fall apart without is a absolute liability to scaling the business.
1001
01:03:24.961 --> 01:03:28.845
Number three on the GM plus checklist, we're going to create manager scorecards, right?
1002
01:03:29.143 --> 01:03:33.405
Okay, so for every single manager, sales, operations, admin, I now have a manager of the department.
1003
01:03:33.665 --> 01:03:35.987
Again, we're $1.5 to $3 million in annual revenue.
1004
01:03:37.628 --> 01:03:40.249
For example, operation, going to be labor efficiency.
1005
01:03:40.269 --> 01:03:41.089
That's our big metric.
1006
01:03:41.129 --> 01:03:43.711
I'm probably going to have five or 10 for each one, but like that's a big one.
1007
01:03:44.011 --> 01:03:46.432
For sales, my close rate, very important.
1008
01:03:46.692 --> 01:03:54.016
For my admin person, there's a lot of metrics here too, like speed to lead, how fast we get in back to quotes, how often we answer on the phone.
1009
01:03:54.176 --> 01:03:55.817
These are all metrics, but I should at least...
1010
01:03:57.243 --> 01:03:59.885
have a few for each of the managers.
1011
01:04:00.265 --> 01:04:02.087
And ideally they're compensated on it.
1012
01:04:02.747 --> 01:04:16.197
I was talking to an owner at Augusta this morning and I said, do they know that we were talking about one of their general managers and, uh, I said, Hey, do they actually even know like what metrics they should be hitting?
1013
01:04:16.217 --> 01:04:17.058
Like, well, generally, yeah.
1014
01:04:17.078 --> 01:04:19.059
Like they get, they get compensated on it, et cetera.
1015
01:04:19.280 --> 01:04:20.300
I said, how about this?
1016
01:04:20.641 --> 01:04:24.083
Create a red, yellow, and green, IE for every one of these metrics.
1017
01:04:24.303 --> 01:04:26.285
If it's red, you're going to get fired.
1018
01:04:26.305 --> 01:04:26.445
Okay.
1019
01:04:27.936 --> 01:04:30.139
And by the way, you don't do this like years into their tenor.
1020
01:04:30.219 --> 01:04:33.463
You do this during the onboarding and training and before they even get hired.
1021
01:04:33.883 --> 01:04:34.784
You set these expectations.
1022
01:04:35.245 --> 01:04:36.647
Okay, red, you're fired.
1023
01:04:37.968 --> 01:04:39.250
Yellow, good enough.
1024
01:04:39.370 --> 01:04:40.271
I'll stay off your back.
1025
01:04:40.551 --> 01:04:41.953
I will not dig into your business.
1026
01:04:43.395 --> 01:04:45.097
Green, you're probably getting bonuses.
1027
01:04:46.462 --> 01:04:46.783
That's it.
1028
01:04:47.544 --> 01:04:53.112
Clear metrics, what success looks like, compensated based upon the success of those metrics and hitting benchmarks.
1029
01:04:53.633 --> 01:04:56.538
Red, for example, let's use close rate for a salesperson.
1030
01:04:56.858 --> 01:04:59.723
If your close rate goes to 20% or below, you're fired.
1031
01:05:01.419 --> 01:05:01.779
Straight up.
1032
01:05:02.739 --> 01:05:08.361
If it's above between 40% and 50%, so let's do it like this.
1033
01:05:08.641 --> 01:05:11.142
If it's under 30%, very bad, you're going to get fired.
1034
01:05:11.162 --> 01:05:12.342
If it's like that for two months, you're gone.
1035
01:05:12.542 --> 01:05:12.742
Red.
1036
01:05:13.282 --> 01:05:16.043
If it's between 30% and 50%, very good.
1037
01:05:16.503 --> 01:05:16.863
Yellow.
1038
01:05:17.363 --> 01:05:19.684
If it's 50 plus, green stars.
1039
01:05:19.724 --> 01:05:24.745
As long as you can have all of your pricing being exactly what I've told you here, and you can use that in your quotes.
1040
01:05:25.045 --> 01:05:27.746
And if you're able to close more than 50%, fantastic.
1041
01:05:28.166 --> 01:05:30.687
Now, would I compensate a sales manager just on close rate?
1042
01:05:30.767 --> 01:05:33.668
No, but that general rule of thumb is important.
1043
01:05:33.968 --> 01:05:36.509
Here's the metric of success, and here's what good looks like.
1044
01:05:36.929 --> 01:05:39.930
Everyone's like, well, I compensate them based upon profit.
1045
01:05:40.210 --> 01:05:52.014
Yes, but they weren't able to connect the dots, that close rate efficiency score, answering the phone on time, responding back to quotes, following up with quotes once you've sent them, actually lead to the profit.
1046
01:05:52.034 --> 01:05:53.275
So what I'm going to do, I'm going to say, hey,
1047
01:05:53.755 --> 01:05:57.459
Your compensation or your profitability, the profitability of this business, you're going to get a piece of it.
1048
01:05:57.499 --> 01:05:57.739
Cool.
1049
01:05:58.260 --> 01:06:00.142
Here's all the metrics that will lead to that.
1050
01:06:00.462 --> 01:06:09.852
And I'm going to create a red, yellow, and green or good, bad, and awesome, red, yellow, green for each of those metrics so that you know where we're standing.
1051
01:06:10.073 --> 01:06:12.095
And I don't have to watch over your shoulder and be a micromanager.
1052
01:06:13.334 --> 01:06:13.674
All right.
1053
01:06:14.295 --> 01:06:17.979
We're also going to next on the checklist for the GM plus size business.
1054
01:06:18.239 --> 01:06:21.662
We're going to establish quarterly profit share or incentive plan for the managers.
1055
01:06:22.103 --> 01:06:27.688
So that profit share or incentive could be based upon the overall profitability of the location.
1056
01:06:28.088 --> 01:06:36.517
It could also be based upon those KPIs, key performance indicators, those metrics that we've identified as the most important for their individual departments.
1057
01:06:36.937 --> 01:06:43.323
Because it might not be super fair to give a percentage of profits to the admin person that answers the phone.
1058
01:06:44.733 --> 01:06:52.519
How do I give them 1.3% and then the other person 2.4% and then my salesperson got 4.8% and then my operation manager will get 6.3%.
1059
01:06:52.599 --> 01:06:54.541
Like that might get a little bit tedious.
1060
01:06:54.861 --> 01:07:05.549
So what you could do, especially if you have admin assistants, et cetera, you could just make the metric that is most important to them that you deem the most important to them as the one that gets incentivized and bonuses.
1061
01:07:05.849 --> 01:07:10.033
Be very careful, very careful because what you incentivize will happen.
1062
01:07:10.935 --> 01:07:12.936
And everything else will seem less important to them.
1063
01:07:13.256 --> 01:07:14.837
So if you're going to be like, well, that sounds like a great idea.
1064
01:07:14.877 --> 01:07:15.297
I'm going to answer.
1065
01:07:15.578 --> 01:07:18.499
I want them to answer every single phone call within three seconds.
1066
01:07:18.639 --> 01:07:19.099
Okay, cool.
1067
01:07:19.540 --> 01:07:19.920
Guess what?
1068
01:07:20.940 --> 01:07:30.706
If you put a compensation plan in place where they're going to make way more money if every single phone call gets answered in three seconds, what's going to happen is they're going to answer every single phone call within three seconds.
1069
01:07:33.067 --> 01:07:36.109
What's not going to happen is everything else that you've asked them to do.
1070
01:07:37.307 --> 01:07:48.452
So don't create perverse incentives when it comes to incentives and profit sharing that would lead a manager to focus all of their time and attention on one thing when you need them to do a whole bunch of things.
1071
01:07:48.652 --> 01:07:50.113
Because I can't put someone in the office.
1072
01:07:50.773 --> 01:07:53.775
Say there's two or three people in the office at this size of this, 2.5 million in revenue.
1073
01:07:54.015 --> 01:07:54.955
I say, your job?
1074
01:07:55.215 --> 01:07:55.816
Answer the phones.
1075
01:07:56.396 --> 01:07:57.577
And I'm going to incentivize you.
1076
01:07:57.917 --> 01:08:02.379
And you start at $18 an hour, but you can make up to $25 an hour if you just answer every single call within three seconds.
1077
01:08:02.919 --> 01:08:08.280
Again, the calls will get answered within three seconds, but they're probably not going to do the other 10 things you're asking them to do.
1078
01:08:08.600 --> 01:08:12.541
And at this size, I need to have them cross-trained in admin.
1079
01:08:13.141 --> 01:08:13.921
That was just an example.
1080
01:08:14.182 --> 01:08:15.142
The same thing is true with sales.
1081
01:08:15.162 --> 01:08:17.362
Like if I just did close rate, guess what's going to happen?
1082
01:08:17.802 --> 01:08:21.883
They're going to get a bunch of jobs sold and they're not going to be profitable.
1083
01:08:22.143 --> 01:08:25.704
And the operations person is going to point at them and say, there's no way I can hit these budgeted hours.
1084
01:08:25.924 --> 01:08:28.925
My efficiency scores are low because you're not putting enough labor hours on these jobs.
1085
01:08:29.505 --> 01:08:35.489
And you're making me look bad and my incentives are going down because I'm incentivized based on efficiency score and you're incentivized based on close rate.
1086
01:08:35.609 --> 01:08:46.677
And so now this is why you have managers inside an organization beating their heads against each other because you've created perverse incentives whereby one person winning on their close rate causes the other person to lose on efficiency.
1087
01:08:48.718 --> 01:08:49.378
All right.
1088
01:08:50.039 --> 01:08:51.580
Next on the checklist for the GM plus.
1089
01:08:53.481 --> 01:08:55.643
We're going to use lead tracking for online ads.
1090
01:08:55.663 --> 01:08:55.763
Okay.
1091
01:08:57.264 --> 01:09:02.305
If you're running Google or Facebook ads and you do not have tracking set up, you are flushing money down the toilet.
1092
01:09:02.925 --> 01:09:04.085
You say, well, I don't really care.
1093
01:09:04.105 --> 01:09:07.086
Like I just, I'll put money in and I'll see how many leads I get.
1094
01:09:07.346 --> 01:09:10.087
And I'll ask them if they came from Facebook or Google, whatever, cool.
1095
01:09:10.727 --> 01:09:14.768
I don't really actually care as much about you knowing where the lead came from.
1096
01:09:15.268 --> 01:09:24.370
I care about the algorithm knowing that that lead actually completed an estimate because a whole bunch of people are clicking on your ad, going to your website and then leaving.
1097
01:09:25.130 --> 01:09:31.295
I want Google or Facebook or whatever platform I'm using to know who actually submitted an request form and got to a thank you page.
1098
01:09:32.496 --> 01:09:34.517
And I'm going to put that tracking code on that thank you page.
1099
01:09:34.697 --> 01:09:45.065
So it talks back via Facebook, pixel, or Google tracking code back to the algorithm and says, Hey, this person, they went all the way through and actually didn't submit an request form.
1100
01:09:45.265 --> 01:09:48.188
I want you to show the ad to more people like that.
1101
01:09:49.028 --> 01:09:51.210
Not the person that clicked, the person that actually submitted a form.
1102
01:09:52.344 --> 01:09:54.785
Create a monthly template for email and text blasts.
1103
01:09:55.325 --> 01:09:58.007
Upsell all your contacts in your homeworks database.
1104
01:09:58.927 --> 01:10:06.591
You will forever be on the treadmill of spending more money on ads if you do not simply take the contacts in your database and sell more to them.
1105
01:10:07.511 --> 01:10:12.814
If all things were created equal and I had this random person walk up to me and say, I own a house in your market.
1106
01:10:13.454 --> 01:10:16.035
And then over here I had someone that I already had their credit card on file.
1107
01:10:16.255 --> 01:10:17.736
I've done service for in the past.
1108
01:10:18.156 --> 01:10:21.538
Who is probably more probable that I will sell them more work?
1109
01:10:22.477 --> 01:10:26.079
Probably the person that already knows, likes, trust me, has given me money in the past.
1110
01:10:26.119 --> 01:10:27.440
I have their credit card on file.
1111
01:10:27.900 --> 01:10:34.384
The likelihood of them doing business with me is much greater than blow schmo glow over here that I don't even know who they are.
1112
01:10:35.745 --> 01:10:45.691
So why in the world do we keep spending money on ads going after cold traffic when there are people inside of our database that we have done service for in the past and we never reach out to them?
1113
01:10:46.652 --> 01:10:47.853
It's crazy.
1114
01:10:48.909 --> 01:10:58.176
Last week at Augusta, my location, within 24 hours of sending out one text message from HomeWorks, one text message, 18 accepted jobs.
1115
01:10:58.196 --> 01:10:59.077
That's within 24 hours.
1116
01:10:59.417 --> 01:11:00.898
Not to say what else happened.
1117
01:11:01.419 --> 01:11:03.841
And there was three of them were occurring and the rest were fall cleanups.
1118
01:11:04.301 --> 01:11:05.702
And I believe it was around $8,000 within 24 hours.
1119
01:11:08.004 --> 01:11:11.065
And he was like, hey, like, if you give me another week, I'm sure I'll double or triple this.
1120
01:11:11.325 --> 01:11:13.265
But I know I just want what happened within 24 hours.
1121
01:11:13.706 --> 01:11:17.386
And just estimate accepted, estimate accepted, estimate accepted, estimate accepted over the course of 24 hours.
1122
01:11:17.867 --> 01:11:18.487
One text message.
1123
01:11:18.507 --> 01:11:20.847
And guess how much it cost him sending it from HomeWorks?
1124
01:11:21.568 --> 01:11:22.028
Zero.
1125
01:11:23.868 --> 01:11:24.228
Zero.
1126
01:11:25.068 --> 01:11:34.351
And yet people spend thousands of dollars on Facebook, Google, yard signs, door hangers, all of this craziness.
1127
01:11:35.855 --> 01:11:38.836
And don't just send a text or an email to their customers saying, hey, do you want more services?
1128
01:11:39.176 --> 01:11:42.536
This time of year is when a lot of people are getting XYZ service.
1129
01:11:43.037 --> 01:11:49.158
And we want to give you priority and make sure that we are going to prioritize our loyal customers.
1130
01:11:50.278 --> 01:11:51.238
Sounds like a good idea to me.
1131
01:11:52.759 --> 01:11:53.139
Okay.
1132
01:11:54.759 --> 01:11:55.239
Let's see here.
1133
01:11:55.279 --> 01:11:58.120
We got next on the GM checklist, GM Plus checklist.
1134
01:11:59.464 --> 01:12:02.785
We're going to standardize our trucks, tools, uniforms, and equipment.
1135
01:12:03.145 --> 01:12:07.186
Notice I didn't say that all the way up until we were at $1.5 million in revenue.
1136
01:12:07.786 --> 01:12:16.508
Worrying and stressing about it, going to Equip Expo and trying to get all of your trucks to look the same, tools, your racks, all of your equipment to be exactly the same.
1137
01:12:16.528 --> 01:12:21.429
Like, oh, no, I can't get the BR-112 because I already got the BR-114.
1138
01:12:23.069 --> 01:12:24.570
And I got everything that has to match.
1139
01:12:24.610 --> 01:12:25.531
Like, I don't care.
1140
01:12:25.591 --> 01:12:26.312
Get the work done.
1141
01:12:26.592 --> 01:12:27.233
Grow the business.
1142
01:12:27.413 --> 01:12:29.795
And at this size, we can start thinking about standardization.
1143
01:12:30.816 --> 01:12:34.218
The reason I say this is because people overthink stuff way too much.
1144
01:12:35.059 --> 01:12:39.263
And they spend money they don't really have on things they don't really need.
1145
01:12:39.803 --> 01:12:46.589
And it is in part because when you're doing $300,000, $200,000 in annual revenue, no one cares if your mowers match.
1146
01:12:47.389 --> 01:12:51.213
No one cares if you're Jeff's GMC versus Silverado's.
1147
01:12:52.169 --> 01:12:57.391
No one really cares if you have an F-250 and an F-350 and they are both F-250s.
1148
01:12:57.951 --> 01:12:58.571
No one cares.
1149
01:12:59.191 --> 01:13:00.632
Customer-wise, no one cares.
1150
01:13:01.052 --> 01:13:06.654
Now, at this size, I want to start standardizing so it's easier to be able to hand off operations and it's easier to manage.
1151
01:13:07.214 --> 01:13:15.237
If I have everything being the same, it's easier to hand off to someone to dispatch when it's like, hey, all the trucks are the same, all the equipment's the same, all the trailers are the same.
1152
01:13:15.897 --> 01:13:17.458
Just go ahead and route based upon budget hours.
1153
01:13:18.018 --> 01:13:21.519
It's a lot harder if I'm like, well, these three different types of truck, they only pull trailers.
1154
01:13:21.559 --> 01:13:22.980
These ones are set up differently.
1155
01:13:23.020 --> 01:13:25.881
And like these have to do this type of service and only so-and-so can drive.
1156
01:13:25.901 --> 01:13:28.062
So the manual transmission, I know what it's like to be there.
1157
01:13:28.262 --> 01:13:28.723
It's horrible.
1158
01:13:29.383 --> 01:13:34.025
At this size though, as I'm starting to hand off all daily operations, I want to be as simple as possible.
1159
01:13:34.645 --> 01:13:42.547
I don't want to have, I want to be able to have like different, like backup tires to all of my trucks, backup tires to all of my mowers, but I only have to buy one tire.
1160
01:13:42.567 --> 01:13:47.889
I don't have to buy one of that because I have all the same mower, all the same truck, all the same trailer, et cetera.
1161
01:13:48.409 --> 01:13:53.751
But I don't focus on that as my most important thing until I'm much larger and I'm getting out of daily operations.
1162
01:13:54.460 --> 01:13:59.062
All right, next on the checklist for the GM Plus, is I'm going to decide between a model.
1163
01:13:59.522 --> 01:14:08.286
Either I'm going to stay with the GM Plus with one single shop and grow well above $1.5 million, all up to $3 million plus, or I'm going to do multi-unit, multiple locations.
1164
01:14:09.107 --> 01:14:16.150
Usually those locations are $800,000, $1 million in annual revenue, and I'm going to just copy and paste that across a service area.
1165
01:14:17.170 --> 01:14:20.132
Next on the checklist, we're going to build an org chart with clear roles.
1166
01:14:20.943 --> 01:14:24.324
So we're going to department managers, assistant managers, and technicians.
1167
01:14:25.105 --> 01:14:30.487
I have a picture of this in the book of what a GM plus organizational chart looks like.
1168
01:14:31.067 --> 01:14:33.788
And the only difference is that you start having assistants.
1169
01:14:34.168 --> 01:14:44.832
Because when you start having 25, 30 employees, you start needing assistants to the operations manager, assistants to your office manager, assistants to your sales manager, estimators.
1170
01:14:46.208 --> 01:14:51.990
And so I've got to have clear org chart, who reports to who and what their roles are.
1171
01:14:52.530 --> 01:14:56.592
How does the office assistant, how does their job differ than office manager?
1172
01:14:56.952 --> 01:14:57.773
Who reports to who?
1173
01:14:58.333 --> 01:14:58.833
All right.
1174
01:15:00.170 --> 01:15:03.232
We're also going to create recruiting and training pipeline.
1175
01:15:03.572 --> 01:15:06.193
So there's an ongoing farm system for future managers.
1176
01:15:06.614 --> 01:15:13.117
So I don't want my operations manager to bail because they have to move across the country for whatever reason, family, et cetera.
1177
01:15:13.437 --> 01:15:18.060
And all of a sudden I'm stuck, me as the owner, jumping back into operations management.
1178
01:15:18.580 --> 01:15:27.765
I need to create a recruitment farm inside my organization that pulls talent up, trains them up, and serves as backups until someone leaves, then they step into that role.
1179
01:15:29.000 --> 01:15:30.152
Creating that redundancy.
1180
01:15:31.079 --> 01:15:31.319
All right.
1181
01:15:31.339 --> 01:15:33.239
A few more GM plus checklist items.
1182
01:15:33.259 --> 01:15:40.441
Number one, or not number one, but just next on the list, shift owners focused to strategy acquisitions, real estate, and capital allocation.
1183
01:15:41.041 --> 01:15:45.722
Notice I didn't talk about that when you're making like 150, 200,000, 300,000, like it doesn't matter.
1184
01:15:46.182 --> 01:15:46.862
Grow the business.
1185
01:15:47.542 --> 01:15:54.884
Don't worry about acquisitions and how you're going to buy your shop space and use that for capital gains and do a section 170 or what's it called?
1186
01:15:55.224 --> 01:15:57.144
Uh, five, uh, mercy, uh,
1187
01:16:02.193 --> 01:16:02.733
What's it called?
1188
01:16:02.793 --> 01:16:03.093
Goodness.
1189
01:16:03.193 --> 01:16:04.154
I just blanked.
1190
01:16:04.194 --> 01:16:05.054
The 531 exchange?
1191
01:16:05.454 --> 01:16:05.754
Whatever.
1192
01:16:05.774 --> 01:16:06.474
You know what I'm talking about.
1193
01:16:07.055 --> 01:16:11.876
Doing real estate and all these sort of things are not going to be the thing that you focus on until this size.
1194
01:16:12.336 --> 01:16:26.461
At this size, when you're out of daily operations, the business is doing 3 million plus in revenue, you focusing on like acquiring a local competitor that outranks you on Google for some random reason because they have the name of the city in their URL and they have like 50 customers and you can buy them out.
1195
01:16:26.821 --> 01:16:28.222
Awesome deal for you to think about.
1196
01:16:28.602 --> 01:16:32.445
Not an awesome deal when you have 20 customers and you're just getting started as a solo operator.
1197
01:16:33.645 --> 01:16:37.388
Okay, next up, we got automate reporting dashboards.
1198
01:16:37.808 --> 01:16:42.451
So now all these reporting dashboards and these KPIs that we talk about need to be automated.
1199
01:16:42.651 --> 01:16:45.873
Your profit and loss statement, the KPIs, the cash flow.
1200
01:16:46.654 --> 01:16:48.335
You can no longer operate on gut feel.
1201
01:16:48.675 --> 01:16:50.716
Like, oh man, I just feel like we're spending too much on fuel.
1202
01:16:51.537 --> 01:16:52.157
Well, how do you know that?
1203
01:16:52.357 --> 01:16:57.540
Like we should have percentages inside of our P&L that tell us like, oh, compared to last year, you're up like 15%.
1204
01:16:59.190 --> 01:17:03.112
Oh, and if I adjust for price of per gallon, it's still like up 15%.
1205
01:17:04.173 --> 01:17:05.673
Okay, that's something I should be looking into.
1206
01:17:05.954 --> 01:17:09.055
So automating the reporting is something that you start thinking about this size.
1207
01:17:09.255 --> 01:17:14.738
So that way you can be away from the business, see a report, and be able to judge the health of the business based upon just the numbers.
1208
01:17:15.339 --> 01:17:21.582
Also, allowing your sales, operations, and admin managers to run the business without you constantly micromanaging or looking over their shoulder.
1209
01:17:22.763 --> 01:17:23.643
I'm not micromanaging.
1210
01:17:24.184 --> 01:17:26.624
I'm just asking them how things are and like, what's going on?
1211
01:17:26.704 --> 01:17:28.545
No, they look at it as micromanaging.
1212
01:17:28.785 --> 01:17:30.606
You're constantly asking them about everything.
1213
01:17:30.906 --> 01:17:31.926
So is that almost done today?
1214
01:17:31.986 --> 01:17:32.867
Okay, is that job good out?
1215
01:17:32.887 --> 01:17:34.207
Okay, yeah.
1216
01:17:34.427 --> 01:17:35.027
Did we do this?
1217
01:17:35.487 --> 01:17:36.608
Like, they're like, oh my word.
1218
01:17:37.748 --> 01:17:39.009
Can I just do my job, please?
1219
01:17:40.569 --> 01:17:42.670
Last on the GM Plus checklist.
1220
01:17:43.534 --> 01:17:47.676
Lock in personal time, vacations without calls, business runs without you.
1221
01:17:48.097 --> 01:17:48.297
Okay.
1222
01:17:49.137 --> 01:17:54.700
At this size, you have to start developing all of these systems to be able to get to the point where you can go on a vacation.
1223
01:17:54.940 --> 01:17:55.721
No one's calling you.
1224
01:17:56.121 --> 01:17:57.902
And you're like, well, I delegated the phone calls.
1225
01:17:58.122 --> 01:18:01.124
But if every single time a customer complains, they're contacting you.
1226
01:18:01.764 --> 01:18:02.925
We don't really have a system.
1227
01:18:03.565 --> 01:18:04.807
We have a stopgap measure.
1228
01:18:05.148 --> 01:18:07.231
We have something that slows down most traffic.
1229
01:18:07.832 --> 01:18:13.222
I want to be able to, by this size of business, make sure I can leave and I don't get texts and emails when jobs go bad.
1230
01:18:13.622 --> 01:18:18.010
I don't get texts and emails when someone needs to get fired because my operations manager does that.
1231
01:18:18.631 --> 01:18:22.417
I don't get texts and calls when a job is underpriced because that's my sales manager's job.
1232
01:18:23.880 --> 01:18:24.160
All right.
1233
01:18:24.260 --> 01:18:27.025
That is it for the checklist of the four leadership hats.
1234
01:18:27.225 --> 01:18:30.872
Solo operator, working GM, full-time GM, and the GM+.