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The greatest risk is that something would happen to John.
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John needs to move.
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There's a life event.
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Something doesn't work out.
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And so you do everything possible to make sure that the incentives of that person are aligned with the business objectives.
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Here's just who I need to fill that gap.
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Go find them.
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So you can do this too.
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Ultimately, I have one swing.
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And that's the part that's actually my biggest fear when you publicly state something like this is I got one swing in spring rush to get there.
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That'll be the hardest part.
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You could have a killer business, just be going 100 miles an hour, everything's working, but then you run out of money.
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Because like, oh crap, that little cost problem.
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The first time I said this, yeah.
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Right now, my budget is 130,000.
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That assumes that I get there in six months.
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I've never ran a location where the technicians take the trucks home.
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I've also never ran a location that uses vans.
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We've always used pickup trucks.
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I think all of it comes down to confidence in your numbers.
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The reason I can say it publicly is because I can run the math.
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If you just know the basic numbers, you can forecast much better.
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Hey, everybody.
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Welcome back.
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Mike, how's it going?
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Fantastic.
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I'm not in the studio today.
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You have an edge on appearance.
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Where are you?
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Michigan, doing a turnaround.
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Okay.
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All right.
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How long have you been there?
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Just 24 hours.
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So to turn around is like fast.
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It just move, move, move.
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So the other day I was in a different state.
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Are you heading home after this?
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Yeah, tomorrow.
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Yep.
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All right.
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Fantastic.
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All right.
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If you've been listening to us for a while, you know that Mike is moving to Texas for a period of time.
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And he's going to show everyone how to build a business from zero to $1 million.
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And the stated goals within a year, I believe that to be accurate.
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Yep.
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And I think we've talked about this before.
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I think it's super interesting.
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And I wanted to make the theme today, everything about how do you do that?
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Because that's a big goal.
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I got to imagine you don't think it'll necessarily be perfectly easy.
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Would you agree, Mike?
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Or do you like, I have no concern?
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I thought I thought the question, the docket though, there was one part where it was like, it will not go as planned, period.
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I'm like, wow, that seems very definitive.
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Well, I wanted to get you thinking about that question.
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So yeah, I mean, if I was putting it out there that, hey, I'm going to a new city, I'm going to build a $1 million business in one year, I'd be like, golly, I hope I can do this.
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So I mean, not easy.
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And so I think it is an awesome topic for anyone that is...
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has the desire to do such a thing, or you've got a business and you're, it doesn't matter what number you're at, 500,000, a million bucks, five million bucks.
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How do you add a million in revenue in a year?
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So this is a, that's going to be the theme of everything I wanted to talk to Mike about today.
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And I've given him some heads up on the question so he could give these a little bit of thought.
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That's what we're always referring to when we say the docket.
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So I want to talk through this.
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And as you hear Mike talk about it and I ask him questions and,
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We'll just make this a conversation.
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Think about how you'd apply it to your business.
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You'll hear him say, this is what I'm going to do, or here's how I'm thinking about it, or here's what I'm not sure about yet.
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Think about those types of things as you think about your business.
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That's what I'm hoping to get out of this.
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And so that's the gist of what we're talking about.
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But before we do that, I guess I kind of know what you're working on this week.
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It sounds like a turnaround.
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Anything else you got going on or is it a continuation of last week?
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Yeah.
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It's actually got a whole bunch of MCP and API stuff.
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So yeah, it's getting released by the time this comes out, it'll be released.
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And we just kind of, we try and the hardest part has been just like, how do we describe this in an easy way and package it correctly?
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So we're actually likely rolling it out under, cause it's actually two very different things.
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API is very different than MCP.
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And so we're trying to, we're likely branding it as like homeworks agents and then homeworks connect.
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And really just trying to create the differentiation because a lot of people will just say, there's other softwares that have APIs.
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Very few home service softwares have an API and an MCP.
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And so we're trying to differentiate the fact that this is actually two very different things.
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And so we've been working a bunch on kind of the go-to-market strategy and the packaging around that.
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So that will be out by the time this is released.
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Okay, fantastic.
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And what about you?
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What have you been working on?
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Well, a continuation of last week, which was sort of everything pest control.
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That's what I mentioned last week.
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So it's everything around marketing across different channels, the offers, the USP, the copy, acquisition and expansion.
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So it's all of it.
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But frankly, for the first...
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three days of this week.
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I haven't even touched it.
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I've been moving projects ahead inside the business.
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So we've got copy projects, design projects, data projects.
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We've got all these projects running that generally involve me, someone else that's on the team, and maybe contractors.
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And so it's been all about... And it's Steven who's on the team.
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It's been all about moving everybody forward and keeping them all working.
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And that seems to have consumed
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my days so far.
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I'm still the bottleneck in almost everything because I've got the vision for where we're going and I want to keep my finger on the copy.
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So anyway, that's where we're at right now.
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Did I mention that copywriting book from Sugarman?
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Did I ever mention that to you?
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I think it's like principles of copywriting or something like that.
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From way, way back?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So Sugarman was a massive copywriter back in the day, responsible for all kinds of stuff.
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I've read his book, but I'll bet it's been 20 years.
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I don't know if that's the same book, but yeah.
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No, I don't remember you mentioning it so...
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It's excellent.
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Yeah, I read it a couple years ago, and then like you said, there's all these projects.
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I'm coming up to one though where I'm really looking forward to, and that's just a lot of copy of what we're using on Augusta Changing.
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Because we really heavily indexed towards SEO and AEO and like optimization, but like there's also, you gotta balance it with like copy.
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And so, yeah, it's old, old book.
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And I actually love those books.
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The old ones where it's like, okay, this,
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This is timeless because it's still relevant today and it's more about human psychology and sales.
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And so that project is soon approaching.
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I'm actually looking forward to it.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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He was considered one of the best.
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He was a direct response copywriter, highly cited.
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Even when I was paying attention to that stuff back in the day, he was older at that point.
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So I think he's passed away, I think, some time ago, but I may be mistaken.
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So, yeah, very successful.
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All right.
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So...
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I want to talk through this whole idea of you coming to Texas and starting from zero.
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And I know if I remember correctly, your general concept is you've just got to get here and figure some stuff out and spend a little time here and understand the market.
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Is that accurate?
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Yeah.
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The challenging part is like, I'm going to be showing up there end of September.
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And that's kind of the tail end of the market.
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We have about six to eight weeks where I can still get customers for a decent CAC from what I can tell.
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Um,
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And so it's a lot of this learning so that when spring rush comes, I can go all in.
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And yeah, so a lot of learning in the first little bit, because I've never
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done a long care business in Texas.
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And so I will have to learn.
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And that's where I obviously have to lean a lot on my operations person to be able to give me that feedback that I can learn faster.
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But ultimately I have one swing.
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And that's the part that's actually my biggest fear when you publicly state something like this is I got one swing in spring rush to get there.
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And that'll be the hardest part.
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Yeah.
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So we'll probably talk about that later, but to continue sort of setting this up.
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And again, I want to encourage anyone's listening that's not going to do the same services as Mike's going to talk about.
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This applies to everybody and everything if you're in home services.
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So you're thinking lawn mowing.
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I see that.
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Well, I know you're thinking lawn mowing is the basis.
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You also said, if I remember correctly, you're going to do fertilization weed control.
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Yep, just those two services.
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Just two.
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Okay, perfect.
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All right, so that's sort of the setup here.
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And so the way I want to approach getting started with this is I know you got to figure out the market.
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There's a lot of question marks.
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How do you think about...
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what feels like the fundamentals?
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Like I kind of know this is going to work.
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I've got hundreds of franchisees.
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I've seen this game over and over again.
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We've been in different markets.
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Here's the tried and true.
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So when you come out swinging, what would you say are the hands down three biggest acquisition levers you're going to use or means of acquiring clients?
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Yeah, so what's funny is you just mentioned like this is agnostic to industry and I scanned quickly what my answer to this question was and you're 100% right.
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This does not matter what industry, if I was trying to build a business, I was trying to build it fast,
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And I was trying to build it where I could leave it within a matter of several months.
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This is exactly the same thing, no matter what industry.
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So the first is finding a killer GM.
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And you've said it before, like you've made this thing, like, are they a killer?
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And I think that was really the...
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It is the underlying theme.
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If you're not going to be the operator in the business, you have to find someone that's just an incredible operator.
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Ideally, someone that has already managed more technicians than what you're going to ask them to do.
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And so I am only asking someone to get to about eight technicians and then be able to move on.
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but the individual I've hired, John is his name.
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He's managed more than 20 technicians working for the city.
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And also, when it comes to a killer GM, for myself being the fact that my weakest link is I don't have...
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local experience i need someone that has roots in the local area and so he's been there for 20 years and very tenured with the current his previous employer and it's like i look for that a lot when i'm looking for someone like i'm gonna be gone i need this person to be established here want to stay here already have their family here and have a lot of experience in this area that like is my weakest part which is i have no idea what i'm walking into when i talk about texas um and so
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If someone's looking for a killer, Jim, one of the biggest hallmarks for me is all of their questions revolving around operations.
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Like if you're hiring someone for admin, you want their questions to kind of revolve around admin and like what kind of phone system?
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Well, when it comes to operations, when all the questions are, how are we hiring?
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What's our base pay going to be?
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How is it going to work with the equipment, the vans?
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What's the maintenance?
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That is when I'm like, yes, I found my person.
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And so I interviewed, man.
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probably almost 100 people, all digitally, and then narrowed it down to finally then coming out and visiting with John and his wife and making that decision to hire him.
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So that's the first thing is like, find a killer GM.
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Did you find him on Indeed, LinkedIn?
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How'd you find him?
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Ran ads on Indeed to, then we use a video platform to be able to then screen them.
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And then I did videos, interviews with quite a few.
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And then eventually I narrowed it down to him.
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In terms of acquisition, to answer your question directly, the second thing I listed was,
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really establishing as quickly as possible what my customer action cost is on Facebook and Google, and then just starting to refine that over the winter.
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And it's going to be challenging because I know I'm going against the tide of demand as I'm in like October, November, December, but I can refine it.
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And that's why I encourage anyone if you're starting a business, like, instead of trying to do 30 things, like, I know enough about Facebook and Google to know, like, we can, we can do well, and just refining it.
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So like,
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split testing, what works better than another?
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What happens if I change the copy?
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What happens if I change the offer?
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What happens if I change the picture?
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What happens if I use video?
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What happens if I say the name of the neighborhood versus not like, these are all little things that you can just keep tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.
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And if you give me 12 to 14 months or 12 to 14 weeks, I think we can refine enough for one spring rush hits.
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I know I have a method that works.
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And so just establishing that, I think a lot of people test so many things.
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They really, it's hard to do lead attribution.
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They don't get clear numbers.
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They don't really have confidence that this is how much I spend to get a customer.
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And so I've just got to establish that first and foremost.
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But Facebook and Google will be where I spend probably 95 plus percent of our marketing budget.
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And when you say Google, are you talking LSA and Google ads?
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Well, by that time, it will be the same thing.
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Yes.
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But yeah, I would include both of those in there.
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I'm obviously trying to max out LSA as it currently stands in its format.
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Once it goes into PMAX or Performance Max inside Google Ads, we have a lot of experience, fortunately, using PMAX, and we don't think it's actually going to change a lot for our workflow.
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So it won't change much.
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Now you'll be able to max more on the PMAX budget.
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When you think about LSA, will you run LSA?
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There's not really a listing for fertilization weed control.
234
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So you're just going to buy lawn mowing leads.
235
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Is that the idea?
236
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And then crease the gears for the cross-elm.
237
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Okay.
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And then on the Google ad side, I assume you'll run ad copy for both services and buy all kinds of keywords.
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Yeah, it's going to be like gateway service for mowing.
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We can get a way lower customer acting cost typically.
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That being said, I'm really interested to see how it works more like December and January when the grass is not growing, but there might be weeds.
242
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So that's, again, something I have to learn.
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where I might pivot towards some more fertilization type of ads.
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But generally speaking, I can get a Mowen customer much cheaper and then either on our instant quote forms or just after the sale, try to sell them the second service.
245
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When you're doing Google Ads, do you create...
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different landing pages for the different keywords or do you just drive everybody to the same landing page for mowing or for fertilization?
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We control.
248
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How do you think about that kind of stuff?
249
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We usually just do it to one.
250
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Mostly because I have seen the juice being much more on how I'm setting up the campaign instead of where they're going.
251
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And I can see some results when we've changed out landing pages, but more if I just optimize my campaign, whether it be on Facebook or Google, where I'm driving has usually lower returns of the time that I spent on creating better creative or testing different creative or focusing on PMAC specifically.
252
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You can do images and do video now on YouTube.
253
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And so usually I find more juice to squeeze there, but we are not doing landing pages.
254
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We just drive them to our main website.
255
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From there, they can choose different services on instant quote form.
256
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And so in the past, I probably would have done different landing pages.
257
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And we did have, we still do have landing pages where on every site you can make a different like landing page form type situation.
258
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Yeah.
259
00:14:25.331 --> 00:14:28.373
But now we have where they can choose multiple services from the same form.
260
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And so we just drive them to our main website.
261
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It also helps with just getting a lot of traffic to your site for retargeting.
262
00:14:35.037 --> 00:14:41.881
And so there's several reasons why sometimes I was just, I'm willing to put some money into it, drive a lot of traffic, and then retarget them afterwards.
263
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Because retargeting is where I can really get a great customer acquisition cost.
264
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And so they're just slightly interested in click on my ad.
265
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Then I go after them hardcore later on.
266
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I can call them out a little bit better because I know they've at least visited the site.
267
00:14:53.650 --> 00:15:04.485
So just to make sure I'm understanding, you're saying that in the past you've driven some of your traffic straight to a landing page, but the returns for the effort haven't necessarily been there.
268
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So you just spend all your time on the front end, getting the creative, the ad, everything right to even get them to click.
269
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Is that what you're saying?
270
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Yeah.
271
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Mostly the real reason though is we recently made it where on the instant quote form, they can choose more than one service.
272
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Right.
273
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In the past, they choose one.
274
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There was like an upsell kind of like at the end.
275
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Whereas now, right from the get, they can like, I want mowing and fertilization and immediately just shows the prices for both.
276
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And so the flow is now where I'm confident I can just drive traffic all in one spot.
277
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And then that way too, if someone clicks on the ad, they don't want fertilization, they might still accept my mowing or vice versa.
278
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If I'm advertising a different service, I've found when I do landing pages for a specific service, it does do better, but I also am losing out on the occasional person that might not accept that service, but they'll accept another one.
279
00:15:50.840 --> 00:15:54.922
But because my, I'm so focused on this funnel, I lose out on that, that free lead.
280
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Yeah.
281
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I'm curious about this.
282
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And I ask for everybody listening, but also for myself, because I don't know where the diminishing returns on this are.
283
00:16:04.319 --> 00:16:15.707
But I will say with absolute certainty in the service autopilot world, if I was going to drive you from an ad, and that ad was something around hypothetically estimating,
284
00:16:16.772 --> 00:16:21.894
And I drove you to a landing page that matched exactly the thing you just cared about estimating.
285
00:16:21.934 --> 00:16:29.656
So when you Google search for estimating software, you see an ad for estimating software, you click on the ad, you end on a landing page.
286
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The headline is estimating software.
287
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It's like, this is exactly what I'm looking for.
288
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And so, but I've not tested in this world to know how relevant that is.
289
00:16:39.141 --> 00:16:44.063
So example, fertilization weed control, you search on weed control, you don't search on fertilization weed control.
290
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Am I better off just throwing you to a page that shows fertilization weed control?
291
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Now, maybe my form presents alternative options, but I don't have the answer.
292
00:16:52.569 --> 00:16:54.730
That's why I was curious if you had any data on that.
293
00:16:55.274 --> 00:16:57.294
Yeah, we used to do quite a bit of this a year ago.
294
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But once we changed the form, we stopped.
295
00:17:00.535 --> 00:17:11.358
And honestly, I 100% guarantee you're right, that like one service, whatever you're saying in your ad, if it ties to the next page and it's that service only, you are gonna have a better return.
296
00:17:14.098 --> 00:17:21.160
Typically, the cost in building out all of those is high enough to where it's just like, just spending more money on ads and you'll be fine.
297
00:17:21.760 --> 00:17:30.555
That being said, with AI, this is definitely more of a topic of like, well, can I spin up 10 of these different landing pages now in a matter of a day and drive differently?
298
00:17:31.377 --> 00:17:32.198
Certainly an option.
299
00:17:32.699 --> 00:17:32.959
Yeah.
300
00:17:33.480 --> 00:17:33.701
So...
301
00:17:34.653 --> 00:17:38.496
Also, the other part of it is with our instant quote form, we can capture abandoned carts.
302
00:17:39.036 --> 00:17:43.359
So if someone just starts the form, even if they see the price and bounce, I can capture that data.
303
00:17:43.900 --> 00:17:47.162
And so that is- You need an email address though, correct?
304
00:17:47.382 --> 00:17:49.043
You need them to at least have given you that.
305
00:17:49.464 --> 00:17:50.785
Or phone number, one of the two.
306
00:17:50.845 --> 00:17:51.585
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
307
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They have to have one of those two things.
308
00:17:53.146 --> 00:17:56.449
And so that allows us to be able to remarket to them.
309
00:17:56.489 --> 00:18:00.692
So driving to another form or other forms that might not have that same ability-
310
00:18:01.518 --> 00:18:02.640
I usually don't get as many leads.
311
00:18:02.900 --> 00:18:04.563
And again, I'm just like maximizing for these.
312
00:18:04.603 --> 00:18:05.464
I'm driving a lot of traffic.
313
00:18:05.544 --> 00:18:10.431
I understand there's gonna be a lot of inefficiencies when you're trying to spend so much on marketing.
314
00:18:11.212 --> 00:18:12.134
There's gonna be inefficiencies.
315
00:18:12.454 --> 00:18:15.679
And I think you, I think the right thing for all of us to do is say,
316
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inefficiencies are fine.
317
00:18:17.981 --> 00:18:23.405
Let them happen because otherwise we're going to spend our wheels on lots of low value things.
318
00:18:24.005 --> 00:18:27.928
Again, back to my point, I know it works, but is it worth the effort?
319
00:18:28.429 --> 00:18:29.329
It might not be worth the effort.
320
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That's why I'm curious what you were seeing in the data.
321
00:18:31.691 --> 00:18:32.511
I'll retest it.
322
00:18:32.531 --> 00:18:34.053
I'll test it for myself at some point.
323
00:18:34.333 --> 00:18:38.456
I'll probably test it more on pest control than I will on say fertilization weed control.
324
00:18:38.476 --> 00:18:40.897
Like on pest control, maybe I can hit on
325
00:18:41.778 --> 00:18:42.458
they saw a roach.
326
00:18:42.618 --> 00:18:47.360
They're searching for roaches or they're searching for wasps or something like that instead of just saying generic pest control.
327
00:18:47.721 --> 00:18:51.302
That's where I would probably start my test because that's a different emotional reaction.
328
00:18:51.682 --> 00:18:57.785
A roach is a different emotional reaction than say an ant versus termites that might cost me tremendous amounts of money.
329
00:18:58.265 --> 00:19:01.787
And so, that's where, whether or not that's accurate, that's how I think about it.
330
00:19:02.047 --> 00:19:02.247
So...
331
00:19:02.427 --> 00:19:02.567
Yeah.
332
00:19:02.767 --> 00:19:07.613
And just to be clear, in case someone clicks on an ad, I will likely do split tests of different landing pages.
333
00:19:07.953 --> 00:19:16.182
It just my effort will probably be 5% towards that versus 95% towards different creative and adjusting very like the iterative process.
334
00:19:16.563 --> 00:19:21.168
And ultimately, when you're trying to grow quickly or in general, any business, we have to we have there's trade offs.
335
00:19:21.648 --> 00:19:36.063
And so if I'm going to spend a whole bunch of time around landing page optimization and getting the button in the right spot, I'm a little further down the funnel, which is after the click I'm optimizing, I'll likely spend just most of my time on top of the funnel and optimizing clicks to that landing page.
336
00:19:36.724 --> 00:19:39.546
Yeah, and I think that's an absolutely critical thing.
337
00:19:40.396 --> 00:20:06.953
point to be making and for people to understand if you kind of think about from the moment miss smith at her house says oh my gosh i need this weed control weed problem solved to the moment she actually buys in that funnel there are all these steps and certain of those certain steps will generate you way more roi than others and so how do you think about stack ranking the 90 things you could potentially do and think about and just work on the few and that's what we're you know that's what you're saying that's how i'm hearing it
338
00:20:07.345 --> 00:20:09.065
And I would say too, leaning into your strengths.
339
00:20:09.226 --> 00:20:12.667
Like if you're great at web design, maybe landing pages is a thing to do.
340
00:20:12.707 --> 00:20:22.289
If you're great at vibe coding landing pages and like you love split testing where the buttons are and what the text says and to copy and the offer, then maybe that's something to do.
341
00:20:22.969 --> 00:20:27.791
We have a unique advantage on the front and the creative side by having a media team in Augusta.
342
00:20:27.811 --> 00:20:29.211
So like, that's why I'm focusing.
343
00:20:29.231 --> 00:20:35.873
I'm just like leaning into my strength, knowing that there's going to be inefficiencies, but if I try to do all of it, nothing ends up happening.
344
00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:36.699
Yeah.
345
00:20:37.260 --> 00:20:40.042
A minute, a few minutes back, you mentioned YouTube.
346
00:20:40.202 --> 00:20:46.326
So when you talk about Facebook and Google, are you buying ads on YouTube or Display Network?
347
00:20:46.367 --> 00:20:48.468
Or what were you referring to when you said YouTube earlier?
348
00:20:49.029 --> 00:20:49.189
Yeah.
349
00:20:49.209 --> 00:20:52.671
So in Google, there's what's called Pmax or Performance Max.
350
00:20:53.192 --> 00:20:56.034
And that includes video, display and search.
351
00:20:56.674 --> 00:21:00.797
And so display being usually display banners, their images, essentially.
352
00:21:01.318 --> 00:21:03.880
And so most people, when they think of Google ads, they think of search.
353
00:21:05.313 --> 00:21:13.776
The problem with search is you're 100% relying on someone with intent to buy, which is why we all love Google, because people are literally looking for your keyword.
354
00:21:14.476 --> 00:21:24.138
That being said, you can also show that same person that searched for that term a video or a banner in the places that they are doing their business online.
355
00:21:24.818 --> 00:21:30.360
And so whether they're watching a YouTube video or they're scrolling through a news site, I want to show up to them if they've searched certain keywords.
356
00:21:31.072 --> 00:21:37.878
And so it is a typically a lower quality lead than someone literally searching your keyword.
357
00:21:38.358 --> 00:21:40.400
Because they're not looking right now for the thing.
358
00:21:40.420 --> 00:21:40.940
They're not active.
359
00:21:41.080 --> 00:21:41.661
Exactly.
360
00:21:42.021 --> 00:21:45.504
And so you are absolutely going to usually have a higher customer acquisition cost.
361
00:21:46.044 --> 00:21:49.347
But it's also a place where I can deploy more capital towards.
362
00:21:49.867 --> 00:21:52.830
And again, the strategy I'm using is not the most efficient.
363
00:21:53.210 --> 00:21:55.792
I'm not going to be trying to optimize my customer acquisition costs.
364
00:21:55.812 --> 00:22:04.498
I'm going to be optimized for number of customers and how fast I can get them in the funnel, which means I will likely have an inflated CAC of probably 100% more than I would like.
365
00:22:05.158 --> 00:22:12.783
But I have to get the budget in, and I'm going to deploy it towards places like Pmax instead of just search, where I'm limited by how many people are searching in my local area.
366
00:22:14.063 --> 00:22:18.506
but you tend to find the video display network that all is absolutely worth it.
367
00:22:18.546 --> 00:22:21.148
Is it worth it in a normal business where you're worried about CAC?
368
00:22:21.568 --> 00:22:26.412
Or are you only using that strategy right now where you're less concerned with CAC and you're more concerned with speed?
369
00:22:26.922 --> 00:22:31.984
It's the number one thing that we are very pro on in Augusta Leads right now is optimizing Pmax.
370
00:22:32.424 --> 00:22:33.985
Google is putting a lot of attention on this.
371
00:22:34.285 --> 00:22:36.346
Obviously, they're moving LSA into the platform.
372
00:22:36.986 --> 00:22:39.947
And so they are doing a better and better job.
373
00:22:40.147 --> 00:22:43.469
Because like display network used to be one of those things you turn off on Google Ads.
374
00:22:43.789 --> 00:22:46.550
It was trash leads, horrible locations.
375
00:22:47.010 --> 00:22:50.972
But if you have the right negative keywords, which means it doesn't show up in certain spots.
376
00:22:51.372 --> 00:22:56.234
If you have a... Can you elaborate just a bit on negative keywords, just for those that don't know?
377
00:22:56.594 --> 00:22:56.874
Totally.
378
00:22:56.894 --> 00:23:04.220
So for example, I want to, my, my keyword that I want to show up for might be lawn care or landscaping or, uh, pest control or whatever it might be.
379
00:23:05.061 --> 00:23:08.864
My negative keywords might be, I do not want to show up for hardscaping.
380
00:23:09.004 --> 00:23:11.286
I do not want to show up for landscaping.
381
00:23:11.386 --> 00:23:13.608
I do not want to show up for paver patios.
382
00:23:13.688 --> 00:23:16.029
I do not want to show up for, here's a good one.
383
00:23:16.490 --> 00:23:23.215
Uh, lawn care equipment store or lawn care, uh, fertilization, like fertilizer supplier.
384
00:23:26.192 --> 00:23:28.958
Negative keywords are just as important, and then to the same
385
00:23:29.813 --> 00:23:33.994
way you put in which URLs in the display network that you want to show up on.
386
00:23:34.254 --> 00:23:36.374
And you can put in the ones you don't want to show up on.
387
00:23:36.654 --> 00:23:44.676
And you don't want to be showing up in front of a nine year old on a gaming site, you know, someone playing Minecraft, like they're not going to buy your lawn care service or whatever service you're buying.
388
00:23:45.136 --> 00:23:48.996
And so any children's site, gaming site, you can just get rid of all those.
389
00:23:49.096 --> 00:23:52.197
And we've just compiled over the years, like 16,000 sites.
390
00:23:52.217 --> 00:23:53.297
Like we don't want to be on them.
391
00:23:53.537 --> 00:23:55.298
We know we get bad leads from them.
392
00:23:55.578 --> 00:23:57.698
And so as we've gone through time, we're just like,
393
00:23:58.202 --> 00:24:00.283
get them off, don't show them on the display network.
394
00:24:00.683 --> 00:24:03.925
And so we've been able to get it where we really like Pmax.
395
00:24:03.985 --> 00:24:09.327
Like even three years ago, I wasn't a huge fan, but Google's putting a lot of attention on it.
396
00:24:09.467 --> 00:24:11.708
It just takes a lot more effort because you need creative.
397
00:24:12.229 --> 00:24:14.650
It's not like I can just throw keywords at it and throw budget.
398
00:24:15.010 --> 00:24:15.870
That used to be how it is.
399
00:24:16.170 --> 00:24:20.773
And now with all the AI features that you can enable, you can waste money so fast on Google.
400
00:24:20.913 --> 00:24:22.293
It's crazy.
401
00:24:22.974 --> 00:24:23.694
And yeah,
402
00:24:24.617 --> 00:24:25.997
So I'm just leaning to my strength.
403
00:24:26.217 --> 00:24:27.298
We have Augusta Leads.
404
00:24:27.638 --> 00:24:28.578
They know what's going on.
405
00:24:28.678 --> 00:24:34.360
And I will let some of the other chips fall where I'm not going to go after squeeze the last 5% or 10% out of it.
406
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:38.421
Actually, I know you were going to go somewhere else, but I want to stay here for just a moment.
407
00:24:38.741 --> 00:24:40.261
So talking about the creative.
408
00:24:40.361 --> 00:24:46.383
So if you think about where the person is in the funnel, you know, the awareness versus I'm ready to buy.
409
00:24:48.624 --> 00:24:53.505
And you think about Facebook as being very different than lawn mowing company near me.
410
00:24:54.595 --> 00:24:57.678
the creative that you work on and you test on Facebook.
411
00:24:57.718 --> 00:25:03.803
So somebody that wasn't looking for you, doesn't care about you, just wants to drink their coffee right now and, and browse Facebook.
412
00:25:04.624 --> 00:25:11.429
Do you find that some of that creative that works on Facebook can be taken to be, can be used as creative on Facebook,
413
00:25:12.390 --> 00:25:17.975
for ads, not, not search, but for the visual ad on Facebook, YouTube, you're saying, yeah.
414
00:25:18.015 --> 00:25:18.255
Yes.
415
00:25:18.535 --> 00:25:18.816
Yeah.
416
00:25:18.836 --> 00:25:24.841
Like pretty much always our pictures and videos that we use just have to be reformatted in terms of sizing.
417
00:25:25.381 --> 00:25:27.784
Uh, but we use pretty much the same, uh, creative.
418
00:25:27.844 --> 00:25:36.451
I will also say it is insane to me how demographic geographically dependent, which creative works.
419
00:25:38.032 --> 00:25:38.513
It's insane.
420
00:25:39.748 --> 00:25:47.094
And so we have certain trends that we see across all of Augusta, but many times someone like this one stinks and it's just crushing.
421
00:25:47.395 --> 00:25:57.183
So you have to test and that will be like, that's why I'm not going in with too many preconceived ideas of like, well, I'm going to like definitely make 20 different versions with different neighborhood names.
422
00:25:57.464 --> 00:25:58.525
Like, yes, I could do that.
423
00:25:59.005 --> 00:26:03.149
We've seen that not work as much as just saying the county name and then it is able to get more traffic.
424
00:26:03.449 --> 00:26:04.470
It gets like so.
425
00:26:05.338 --> 00:26:22.907
I think for anyone, just don't hear one thing I say or anyone says, I'm like, oh, that's what I have seen this be so geographically dependent of like pictures versus video, whether they have a flag or whether they don't, whether you show an employer, whether you don't, whether you show before and after versus just the after, like there's, there's so many variables.
426
00:26:23.207 --> 00:26:33.572
And I, I can't, I really get frustrated when people give like definitive, you should do this on social media ads specifically, because I've just seen it the same ad.
427
00:26:34.262 --> 00:26:36.144
do really good and really bad in two different markets.
428
00:26:36.624 --> 00:26:39.587
And so I just put it as an asterisk next to everything I'm saying.
429
00:26:40.487 --> 00:26:41.568
Yeah, that's fantastic.
430
00:26:41.909 --> 00:26:44.150
So I don't know if you'll remember where you were going earlier.
431
00:26:44.170 --> 00:26:48.374
I made you pause and describe negative keywords.
432
00:26:49.115 --> 00:26:51.717
So you were working through, do you remember where you were going to continue on?
433
00:26:52.250 --> 00:27:01.158
Yeah, like beyond beyond Google and Facebook, I think the only really other strategy from a, at the beginning, especially is just like making sure we're ranking organically.
434
00:27:01.538 --> 00:27:05.141
And you had a great video on this is like, how do you get customers for $0?
435
00:27:05.442 --> 00:27:14.870
It's like the basics, like make sure you're in all the different listing sites, make sure you're getting reviews, make sure you're like, from day one, I'll be asking reviews, like every single lead.
436
00:27:15.850 --> 00:27:19.953
And we won't be doing any in-person estimates, so it'll have to be all through automation.
437
00:27:20.233 --> 00:27:28.298
But we found that you can actually get usually quite a few good reviews, even if you just ask customers when they have accepted an estimate, before services even started.
438
00:27:28.698 --> 00:27:32.661
And then what we usually ask for is like, hey, can you review how the process of getting started?
439
00:27:32.941 --> 00:27:33.881
How was the call?
440
00:27:34.162 --> 00:27:35.342
Was it, were they friendly?
441
00:27:35.783 --> 00:27:36.503
Was it fast?
442
00:27:36.863 --> 00:27:39.625
And so if you prompt them a little bit, you can get the reviews.
443
00:27:40.165 --> 00:27:44.388
And we don't even have to like say, hey, you're first lawn free, we don't do that.
444
00:27:44.948 --> 00:27:46.489
And you will still get a lot of them.
445
00:27:46.850 --> 00:27:51.573
And so it's been really, really, um, that's been the focus to make sure that organically we're ranking well.
446
00:27:52.314 --> 00:28:04.783
And we have obviously a big advantage with the domain authority of Augusta to be able to rank very quickly, but I'm still making sure like every dot of the I is and T is crossed in terms of doing the basics of organic.
447
00:28:05.504 --> 00:28:09.347
Will you do anything other than digital or is it pretty much what you said?
448
00:28:10.362 --> 00:28:12.423
Unless I get there and I hit a massive roadblock.
449
00:28:12.543 --> 00:28:16.925
So three years ago, I did North Carolina, and I was in the middle of the summer.
450
00:28:17.005 --> 00:28:21.487
It was like super hot, and it was kind of past the growing season.
451
00:28:21.647 --> 00:28:28.670
We were not as good at Google and Facebook in terms of ads, and so I went much more door hangers, yard signs, holding a sign on the side of the road.
452
00:28:28.890 --> 00:28:31.291
I was also trying to show like getting started with very little.
453
00:28:31.351 --> 00:28:35.273
So my marketing budget, I think, was like three to four grand, if I remember correctly.
454
00:28:35.293 --> 00:28:35.873
Okay.
455
00:28:36.415 --> 00:28:40.598
I will spend that per day in some days of the spring rush here.
456
00:28:40.978 --> 00:28:44.180
And so it's just a very different playbook and you can spend a lot more.
457
00:28:44.760 --> 00:28:49.963
And I don't have to worry about the deployment of like physical things like postcards or.
458
00:28:50.044 --> 00:28:50.644
Hey, I got to work.
459
00:28:50.744 --> 00:28:53.085
Yeah, it's just it's literally just complicated.
460
00:28:53.245 --> 00:29:03.572
And so the cat is probably better if I did door hangers like I know enough about the cat that we could probably get away to beat out my Google and Facebook if I'm pouring a lot of money into it because there's diminishing returns.
461
00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:08.643
but I'm not going to go train people on door hangers and all the rest of it.
462
00:29:09.103 --> 00:29:09.344
Right.
463
00:29:10.184 --> 00:29:14.728
Anything else that you know, for a fact you'll do when you spin this up?
464
00:29:15.728 --> 00:29:16.469
Ooh, that's tough.
465
00:29:17.169 --> 00:29:19.131
Um, not, not besides run ads.
466
00:29:19.711 --> 00:29:19.912
Okay.
467
00:29:20.192 --> 00:29:20.412
Uh,
468
00:29:21.115 --> 00:29:22.336
I have a great GM, John.
469
00:29:22.396 --> 00:29:22.976
Shout out, John.
470
00:29:23.496 --> 00:29:32.241
And then really a lot of testing around onboarding training and even our equipment setup is some stuff that I've always wanted to test for Augusta.
471
00:29:32.561 --> 00:29:36.544
And specifically vans and vans going home with the technicians.
472
00:29:37.024 --> 00:29:37.204
Yep.
473
00:29:37.604 --> 00:29:37.804
Okay.
474
00:29:37.904 --> 00:29:38.905
We've talked about that before.
475
00:29:39.571 --> 00:29:40.792
And all of these things might not work.
476
00:29:40.953 --> 00:29:41.893
I just want to be very clear.
477
00:29:42.014 --> 00:29:42.274
Yeah.
478
00:29:42.334 --> 00:29:50.762
Like that, that's the hard part about making content is like, I'm trying to call my shot, but on that, on the other hand, I'm going to this very much open-minded, the fact, like I might test something, it might not work.
479
00:29:50.802 --> 00:29:51.563
We will have to pivot.
480
00:29:52.203 --> 00:30:03.374
And I think that's the part that as much as it's sometimes a humble pie, it's also like, it's the realities of business for anyone that does watch of like, you will have to change and you will think something is true and it will not be true and you'll have to adjust.
481
00:30:03.843 --> 00:30:11.149
It also makes it super interesting and people can see like there's almost more value in it not completely working to see how you adjust.
482
00:30:11.189 --> 00:30:19.856
Like hypothetically, you hit 600,000 and it was way harder, but we get to see that it's like, oh, wow, this thing didn't work.
483
00:30:19.896 --> 00:30:25.460
So here's the way he thought about engineering a solution to it and still getting to a really amazing number.
484
00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:28.542
So I think it's of great value even if you don't nail the number.
485
00:30:28.762 --> 00:30:29.163
Hope you do.
486
00:30:30.508 --> 00:30:44.811
So if somebody came to you in that market you're going to be serving and they said, hey, I've got 100 accounts I'd like to sell you, and you look at those accounts and they're priced generally about how you would price them, would you buy accounts?
487
00:30:45.992 --> 00:30:49.433
So I'm not going to in this test specifically.
488
00:30:50.333 --> 00:30:59.095
And if I was to, and just to provide someone that might be thinking about doing something like this or starting on buying and acquiring, like...
489
00:31:00.228 --> 00:31:02.029
I don't rarely see these work out well.
490
00:31:03.330 --> 00:31:08.653
And I think that there is so much content about buying businesses.
491
00:31:08.693 --> 00:31:12.895
I think we've talked about this before, but it is way harder than it sounds.
492
00:31:13.996 --> 00:31:18.598
And I think it is completely overblown about how easy it is.
493
00:31:19.118 --> 00:31:21.660
Also a lot of times finding a good deal, right?
494
00:31:21.700 --> 00:31:23.521
Like if I was, if I was going to do this,
495
00:31:24.180 --> 00:31:26.101
and I was going to get a small operator.
496
00:31:26.781 --> 00:31:28.742
I would just be buying in their accounts, essentially.
497
00:31:29.102 --> 00:31:32.484
I'd be looking at my customer acquisition cost, which I would establish, and then I'd go out to buy.
498
00:31:32.504 --> 00:31:41.007
And I'd just be really honest, I show all my ads, I show everything, I show all my leads, I show all my customers, like, this is my cost per lead, and here's my cost, customer acquisition cost.
499
00:31:41.548 --> 00:31:44.429
I'm willing to pay this much per customer you give me.
500
00:31:45.129 --> 00:31:49.351
And I'll take the risk on that they turn as long as you let me confirm pricing.
501
00:31:50.413 --> 00:32:17.885
um that's usually how i do approach a smaller operator uh if they're a mid-sized operator i might use something like seller discretionary earnings which um for those that might not know it's like not ebitda so ebitda gets fancier for bigger businesses typically where the owner is not involved but if they if the operator is still in the business seller discretionary earnings is where you take the net income and then you add back the owner's compensation any interest uh any non-cash expenses like depreciation add it back in
502
00:32:18.565 --> 00:32:22.648
And then I'm going to remove the cost of hiring a general manager to replace them.
503
00:32:23.469 --> 00:32:29.234
And then I just apply an industry standard multiple on it, usually two to four X in home services.
504
00:32:30.195 --> 00:32:41.204
So for example, if they had $100,000 of net profit that they have, and then they took $80,000 of the salary, plus they had $40,000 of depreciation and one-time expenses.
505
00:32:41.224 --> 00:32:42.124
Okay, that's $220,000.
506
00:32:42.164 --> 00:32:45.367
And they're like, well, it's going to cost me a hundred grand to get a GM in here.
507
00:32:45.767 --> 00:32:46.888
So that would put me at $110,000.
508
00:32:48.531 --> 00:32:50.353
$1,000 of seller discretionary earnings.
509
00:32:50.773 --> 00:32:57.299
Then I would just multiply that by, I just show them like, this is two to four X. I think you're a 2.4 based upon this industry.
510
00:32:58.040 --> 00:33:01.143
And I'm going to offer you 2.4 times $110,000.
511
00:33:01.443 --> 00:33:07.409
That's probably what I do is if I was trying to do an acquisition of a midsize company where there was an owner operator and they had a good brand.
512
00:33:07.689 --> 00:33:12.554
I didn't really want the brand, but I was just buying the business, but I'm not going to be buying any accounts.
513
00:33:13.515 --> 00:33:13.715
Yeah.
514
00:33:15.617 --> 00:33:18.101
My experience with the accounts has been similar to yours.
515
00:33:18.161 --> 00:33:19.283
We've bought some...
516
00:33:19.343 --> 00:33:21.787
It's been a long, long time since we bought any accounts.
517
00:33:21.827 --> 00:33:23.469
And they've always been small little deals.
518
00:33:24.090 --> 00:33:25.553
Even if the pricing is right...
519
00:33:28.271 --> 00:33:36.673
And even if they'll sell them to me for what my client acquisition cost is, it's just still more difficult because they never picked me in the first place, meaning that account never picked me.
520
00:33:37.133 --> 00:33:42.894
So as soon as you buy the accounts, like, well, maybe as the homeowner might be, well, like maybe I should look around.
521
00:33:42.974 --> 00:33:46.135
I didn't choose CityTurf or whomever the company is.
522
00:33:46.195 --> 00:33:54.737
And so you have to go through the whole education process, the win them over process, all the communications, like, ah, this just feels way more difficult than just getting our own accounts.
523
00:33:55.337 --> 00:33:59.598
So the way I tend to think about it personally is it's the strategy used for speed.
524
00:34:00.058 --> 00:34:07.919
Like you're already spending so much money in digital ads, maybe even offline print ads.
525
00:34:08.019 --> 00:34:10.520
You're putting money everywhere, trying to grow as fast as you can.
526
00:34:10.540 --> 00:34:12.660
It's like, how do I juice this thing even more?
527
00:34:13.060 --> 00:34:19.241
If you're at that place, that's when maybe the pain of acquiring accounts or other businesses starts to make sense.
528
00:34:19.301 --> 00:34:23.002
But if you aren't even doing that, it's like, it's probably not even worth it.
529
00:34:23.182 --> 00:34:24.442
It's been my experience.
530
00:34:25.243 --> 00:34:25.463
Yeah.
531
00:34:25.523 --> 00:34:33.454
And a lot of times too, even with, to that point, what I usually come back to is like, well, maybe getting set up new clients, you've made it too hard.
532
00:34:33.674 --> 00:34:38.440
Like if you required to roll a truck, well, yeah, now it takes a lot longer to grow your business.
533
00:34:39.221 --> 00:34:40.703
If you had to roll a truck for every new lead.
534
00:34:41.703 --> 00:35:10.377
um and you're you know have a 40 close rate and now you have three four sales people well yeah now buying accounts does buy you speed my question is though like with instant quotes or over the phone estimates or maybe you get someone to be able to fill in part-time during the busy season to take more calls so that you can answer more calls like i should be able to get as many leads as possible and drive them through an efficient system that puts a turn of lead into a customer and so a lot of times even the argument around speed it's like
535
00:35:11.237 --> 00:35:12.178
Speed compared to what?
536
00:35:12.198 --> 00:35:16.401
Like I can put ads up tomorrow and I can put a lot of budget into it.
537
00:35:16.881 --> 00:35:31.873
And as long as I don't have a bottleneck around getting them from a lead to a customer, I don't have a big, long sales process and meeting the customer and a lot of costs and admin and salaries, then I should still go towards getting the customer myself.
538
00:35:32.694 --> 00:35:32.914
Yeah.
539
00:35:33.294 --> 00:35:33.394
Yeah.
540
00:35:33.494 --> 00:35:34.215
I agree with that.
541
00:35:36.121 --> 00:35:42.944
But it would be very fun just for the sake of online social media that if I was a little bit shorter of a million, just go buy the last few.
542
00:35:43.205 --> 00:35:44.645
That would really make people mad.
543
00:35:44.825 --> 00:35:46.086
You'd get people all worked up.
544
00:35:46.386 --> 00:35:47.427
You'd be a giant... Yeah.
545
00:35:47.707 --> 00:35:49.708
You'd scam them.
546
00:35:49.748 --> 00:35:50.208
Exactly.
547
00:35:52.069 --> 00:35:56.091
Do you meet many franchisees or other business owners that buy accounts?
548
00:35:56.131 --> 00:35:57.492
How often is this even a thing?
549
00:35:59.073 --> 00:35:59.673
I would say...
550
00:36:00.944 --> 00:36:06.090
maybe once or twice a month inside of Augusta, someone will put on the mastermind and like they'll put the numbers and things.
551
00:36:06.751 --> 00:36:18.065
And I would say I have seen, okay, to my knowledge, I have seen one acquisition that was over a million dollars and it went well.
552
00:36:19.001 --> 00:36:21.725
And I think he would be satisfied and happy.
553
00:36:22.225 --> 00:36:23.627
There was definitely a lot of learning.
554
00:36:23.827 --> 00:36:25.830
There was a lot of meshing with the other owner.
555
00:36:26.250 --> 00:36:32.337
And I actually had him speak at our last year just because it was the first time that size got integrated.
556
00:36:32.638 --> 00:36:33.298
And he learned a lot.
557
00:36:33.359 --> 00:36:34.320
It was trial by fire.
558
00:36:35.041 --> 00:36:35.241
Um...
559
00:36:36.007 --> 00:36:41.029
but very rarely, and it's happening less and less now because we are getting better and better at knowing our CAC.
560
00:36:41.449 --> 00:36:46.211
If you know your CAC, very rarely spending $500 per client makes sense.
561
00:36:46.871 --> 00:36:59.936
And the stories of those acquisitions going bad where someone pays $1,000 or $2,000 per recurring customer and then half of them not being there in six months, that circulates enough to where people really put pause on it.
562
00:37:01.617 --> 00:37:01.977
And so
563
00:37:02.849 --> 00:37:09.994
I'm sure I'm making a lot of enemies with people saying that we underbidded them when we make offers, but it's just, it rarely works out.
564
00:37:10.674 --> 00:37:12.195
It's not underbidding.
565
00:37:13.196 --> 00:37:15.577
This is the number that we as a company can pay.
566
00:37:16.298 --> 00:37:19.319
I'm not telling you it's the greatest number you could possibly get.
567
00:37:19.339 --> 00:37:20.700
There may be a better deal for you.
568
00:37:20.760 --> 00:37:21.281
Go get it.
569
00:37:21.681 --> 00:37:26.744
But if you don't find a better option to take care of your accounts, we're here for you, but this is all we can pay.
570
00:37:27.024 --> 00:37:28.585
That's, to me, the presentation.
571
00:37:28.966 --> 00:37:30.887
It's not, you're not screwing anybody.
572
00:37:30.907 --> 00:37:31.007
Yeah.
573
00:37:31.367 --> 00:37:36.389
I think the more you know your numbers, the more that comes across as genuine instead of as a sales pitch.
574
00:37:36.409 --> 00:37:44.852
Like if you know your customer action costs and you can show them and that's like I mentioned if I was buying a smaller operator, I would show them this is how much I spend on my Facebook ads.
575
00:37:44.872 --> 00:37:45.772
Here's how many leads I got.
576
00:37:46.012 --> 00:37:47.072
Here's how many to become customers.
577
00:37:47.092 --> 00:37:48.713
This is what I pay to get a customer.
578
00:37:49.093 --> 00:37:50.353
I'm willing to spend that with you.
579
00:37:51.674 --> 00:37:54.495
And maybe there's a small premium in terms of speed, but usually I say,
580
00:37:55.151 --> 00:37:59.337
There's a small premium I'm paying by the fact that if I have to adjust prices, I'm going to lose some people.
581
00:37:59.697 --> 00:38:02.541
And so that's the premium I'm willing to pay if I'm going to acquire an account.
582
00:38:03.242 --> 00:38:03.442
Yeah.
583
00:38:04.564 --> 00:38:08.309
So I believe you said your ops guy that you hired, his name's John.
584
00:38:08.449 --> 00:38:09.050
Is that accurate?
585
00:38:09.450 --> 00:38:09.690
Okay.
586
00:38:09.730 --> 00:38:12.434
So John's going to be part of the team.
587
00:38:13.626 --> 00:38:14.626
here in the local area.
588
00:38:14.726 --> 00:38:15.867
You're going to be here local.
589
00:38:15.927 --> 00:38:19.108
So there's going to be actions and activities you're personally doing.
590
00:38:20.069 --> 00:38:30.472
And one advantage you have is that you will have a support team behind you that will be a little different for Bob that just started today and has never done this before.
591
00:38:30.493 --> 00:38:31.913
So you got a little bit of an advantage there.
592
00:38:32.353 --> 00:38:41.657
And I thought it would be interesting to kind of talk through a little bit of what you'll personally be doing and also a little bit around who...
593
00:38:42.766 --> 00:38:47.690
behind the scenes will be assisting you and what kinds of things will they be doing?
594
00:38:47.770 --> 00:38:55.596
And the idea of this one is it helps anybody listening who wants to add a million dollars a year revenue to say, Oh, these are gaps.
595
00:38:55.636 --> 00:38:58.158
Like, Oh, I, it's like, I can't just run Google ads.
596
00:38:58.218 --> 00:39:02.882
I can't just run Facebook ads for thousands of dollars a day and solve this problem.
597
00:39:02.902 --> 00:39:09.787
There's like these other little holes that have to be filled to make this whole machine run, such as you got to actually talk to the people, convert to people, uh,
598
00:39:10.167 --> 00:39:14.552
you know, so can you talk a little bit in whatever order you want to?
599
00:39:14.572 --> 00:39:17.735
And I'll ask you questions around who's going to be behind the scenes.
600
00:39:18.195 --> 00:39:19.697
What will they be doing specifically?
601
00:39:19.757 --> 00:39:21.679
And then also what will you be doing?
602
00:39:22.499 --> 00:39:22.680
Yeah.
603
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:26.764
And I, I'll, I'll try my best in the videos when I'm making them to make it very clear.
604
00:39:26.784 --> 00:39:26.904
Like,
605
00:39:28.281 --> 00:39:31.384
The Mike Andy's channel is there, but like this has nothing to do with me.
606
00:39:31.664 --> 00:39:34.827
This will only work because of the community and the people involved.
607
00:39:35.027 --> 00:39:35.567
I will be there.
608
00:39:35.587 --> 00:39:37.109
I will be orchestrating.
609
00:39:37.129 --> 00:39:38.170
I will have the camera on me.
610
00:39:38.450 --> 00:39:41.473
But like it'll be because of the people that are making this happen.
611
00:39:41.493 --> 00:39:48.339
So like very first, though, in terms of making it happening and making sure that this works, this experiment, number one is Brianna.
612
00:39:48.559 --> 00:39:49.079
So that's my wife.
613
00:39:49.620 --> 00:39:49.800
Um...
614
00:39:50.587 --> 00:39:56.591
I really tried to stay as neutral as possible on the idea once it was presented till she actually wanted to go.
615
00:39:56.611 --> 00:39:58.672
Presented it to her first?
616
00:39:58.712 --> 00:40:00.053
Yeah, 100%.
617
00:40:00.293 --> 00:40:01.574
Like, no one knew about it.
618
00:40:02.134 --> 00:40:05.956
Yeah, nothing floated to any other team member or leadership team.
619
00:40:06.477 --> 00:40:08.618
Because, like, if I don't have her support, like, it just...
620
00:40:09.318 --> 00:40:10.698
There's just no point in even trying.
621
00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:21.502
And so once she was on board, and because it's gonna be a lot of travel, because I'm still flying back and forth for like training, conferences, turnaround shows, like lots of stuff, I'm still traveling.
622
00:40:21.582 --> 00:40:23.262
I'm not gonna be there the entire time.
623
00:40:23.682 --> 00:40:24.983
Every single month we're traveling.
624
00:40:25.523 --> 00:40:27.344
And so she was the first person I talked about.
625
00:40:27.404 --> 00:40:28.044
She got on board.
626
00:40:28.124 --> 00:40:29.724
Once she was on board, then I proceeded.
627
00:40:30.865 --> 00:40:35.886
The second, the kind of second group that I would say is like the backend support would be Augusta leads.
628
00:40:36.006 --> 00:40:36.767
I mentioned them already.
629
00:40:37.547 --> 00:40:38.447
It's a huge advantage.
630
00:40:38.767 --> 00:40:41.248
I'm not going to try to cower away from the fact that they have a huge advantage.
631
00:40:41.928 --> 00:40:43.089
They will run all the ads.
632
00:40:43.289 --> 00:40:44.269
They will manage them all for me.
633
00:40:44.289 --> 00:40:45.550
They'll optimize them for me.
634
00:40:45.930 --> 00:40:49.171
I pay $7,000 a year for all the digital stuff.
635
00:40:49.571 --> 00:40:51.732
And that's very discounted because it's part of Augusta.
636
00:40:51.892 --> 00:40:52.612
So we have the bulk.
637
00:40:53.393 --> 00:40:54.373
everyone's doing the same ad.
638
00:40:54.393 --> 00:40:55.635
So like we can make this happen.
639
00:40:56.195 --> 00:40:57.036
And that's a huge advantage.
640
00:40:57.056 --> 00:41:00.779
We have the knowledge of all the locations, all their ad performance, what works, what doesn't.
641
00:41:01.180 --> 00:41:03.382
So I'm not really starting from zero.
642
00:41:03.722 --> 00:41:04.323
And this is why.
643
00:41:04.923 --> 00:41:07.526
I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to set you up with this question.
644
00:41:07.586 --> 00:41:12.210
It's more of helping people understand, like you just gave a clue.
645
00:41:12.290 --> 00:41:12.490
Okay.
646
00:41:12.510 --> 00:41:13.851
Like, so if I'm going to do this,
647
00:41:14.472 --> 00:41:19.654
and I want to go fast, I probably won't know everything I need to know to manage all my own Google ad stuff.
648
00:41:19.674 --> 00:41:21.975
So, okay, I need to find somebody to help me with that thing.
649
00:41:22.275 --> 00:41:23.796
That's what I'm trying to surface here.
650
00:41:24.256 --> 00:41:28.038
I'm not, I'm not trying to call you out on this thing and say, this ain't legit.
651
00:41:28.078 --> 00:41:28.758
This isn't right.
652
00:41:28.778 --> 00:41:29.238
Yeah.
653
00:41:29.398 --> 00:41:32.500
Especially if you're new to a market, like you just don't know what you don't know.
654
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:39.963
And so, and even if you want to grow fast, like if you haven't done something before, leaning on people who have done it before is just like such a hack.
655
00:41:40.402 --> 00:41:43.883
And so the $7,000 for the whole year, it's Facebook and Google ads.
656
00:41:44.283 --> 00:41:48.984
So it'd be like getting an agency or someone that has to do this for you, help you spin up your SEO.
657
00:41:49.484 --> 00:41:53.886
They'll need a little more lead time than you guys will need because you've got a more established domain.
658
00:41:54.146 --> 00:41:55.506
You know exactly what to do.
659
00:41:55.806 --> 00:41:59.167
If you go hire a company, they're going to need to learn your business, going to need to learn your market.
660
00:41:59.447 --> 00:42:00.788
So they'll need a little more lead time.
661
00:42:01.008 --> 00:42:04.771
That's an advantage you have there, but they could hire an SEO company to help them.
662
00:42:04.891 --> 00:42:07.614
And I'm stating this so you can agree or disagree.
663
00:42:07.974 --> 00:42:13.598
Then they can hire maybe that very same company or a different company that focuses on managing digital spend.
664
00:42:13.859 --> 00:42:17.602
The Google ad, the Facebook ad, maybe those should be two different companies.
665
00:42:18.122 --> 00:42:20.144
Maybe they could be the same company depending on their...
666
00:42:20.824 --> 00:42:46.929
area of expertise i'll add one more uh maybe that company has the expertise to do copy and creative maybe they're like nah better at managing and you need to still find somebody that's good at copying creative to help you so that's that's how i'm kind of thinking about this is how you could replicate what mike's doing to go have his the equivalent of his back and team help you get there fast yeah anything you agree or disagree with that no 100 and i also say don't
667
00:42:47.609 --> 00:42:50.833
don't fall into the trap that you need to hire a full-time position for this.
668
00:42:52.195 --> 00:42:55.839
This is where everyone thinks they need to own their IP or they need to own the way they do ads.
669
00:42:55.859 --> 00:42:57.380
It's like, no, just go get an agency.
670
00:42:58.221 --> 00:43:02.586
The turnaround we were on today, we'll probably do like $250,000 to $300,000 in annual revenue.
671
00:43:02.847 --> 00:43:04.689
And she has hired a marketing person.
672
00:43:04.709 --> 00:43:05.450
I'm like, hmm.
673
00:43:06.467 --> 00:43:07.088
Oh, gee whiz.
674
00:43:07.228 --> 00:43:12.352
If you just took half that salary and put it towards an agency, you'd have a much more qualified person running your ads.
675
00:43:12.913 --> 00:43:15.355
And you only have a little bit of money.
676
00:43:15.395 --> 00:43:16.776
So how good could the person be?
677
00:43:17.236 --> 00:43:18.197
The person may be a killer.
678
00:43:18.217 --> 00:43:18.637
I don't know.
679
00:43:18.677 --> 00:43:18.898
But...
680
00:43:19.697 --> 00:43:22.520
Odds are not because you don't have a lot of money.
681
00:43:22.961 --> 00:43:25.103
I think just being humble enough to like, I don't know everything.
682
00:43:25.123 --> 00:43:26.805
So I'm going to have to lean on all these people.
683
00:43:26.825 --> 00:43:30.229
And if I'm going to go fast, I'm going to have to pay for it because I can learn all these.
684
00:43:30.249 --> 00:43:31.430
And yes, you can learn how to run ads.
685
00:43:31.450 --> 00:43:32.552
You can learn how to build your website.
686
00:43:32.572 --> 00:43:33.833
You can learn to do a lot of things.
687
00:43:34.374 --> 00:43:39.900
But if you're going to go fast, usually renting it from someone else to build the enterprise is the faster move.
688
00:43:40.840 --> 00:43:41.120
Okay.
689
00:43:41.380 --> 00:43:41.660
So yeah.
690
00:43:41.700 --> 00:43:42.320
So, okay.
691
00:43:42.340 --> 00:43:49.562
So people kind of know SEO, ad management, maybe some help with creative because even if you think stuff, yeah, yeah.
692
00:43:49.842 --> 00:43:51.603
You might think, well, I'll just do all that myself.
693
00:43:51.843 --> 00:43:52.223
Will you?
694
00:43:52.263 --> 00:43:53.363
Cause this is going to be a lot.
695
00:43:53.463 --> 00:44:03.185
Like if you want to add a million in revenue or go from zero to a million in a new business, there's so many other things that are going to be so distracting and pull you in so many different places.
696
00:44:03.265 --> 00:44:06.746
This is where it's like, well, you might say I could do the creative myself.
697
00:44:07.246 --> 00:44:09.627
You probably shouldn't try cause it won't really happy.
698
00:44:09.647 --> 00:44:09.707
And
699
00:44:10.807 --> 00:44:10.987
Nick.
700
00:44:11.427 --> 00:44:11.608
Okay.
701
00:44:11.628 --> 00:44:12.929
So we've sort of established that.
702
00:44:12.969 --> 00:44:20.014
What are some other things that, uh, that you guys kind of already have built that somebody else is going to have to spin up to be able to do this?
703
00:44:20.534 --> 00:44:20.674
Yeah.
704
00:44:20.814 --> 00:44:25.758
Ultimately I say this all the time, like a location when you're not, there's an owner, 100% depends on the GM.
705
00:44:25.858 --> 00:44:35.105
And so the fact that we have the franchise to support like all the coaches, Nick, who's the regional manager to support that GM gives them a better likelihood of succeeding.
706
00:44:35.724 --> 00:44:42.266
And so whether it be the dashboards and all the numbers being done for them, like there's so many things being done for him.
707
00:44:43.126 --> 00:44:48.047
The QuickBooks department, the command center, like his phones are being answered for him, like all of these things.
708
00:44:48.107 --> 00:44:54.369
And again, like if you're going fast, you just want these things taken off your plate because you can only focus on a few things at a time.
709
00:44:55.009 --> 00:44:58.850
And ultimately my main job here is support my general manager when I'm there.
710
00:44:59.190 --> 00:44:59.471
That's it.
711
00:45:00.171 --> 00:45:04.872
Like everything else will be taken care of by other people that are hired to do their job.
712
00:45:05.483 --> 00:45:12.106
And whether it be an agency or the websites or answering the phone or doing email or running payroll, like that's not the highest value task in any business.
713
00:45:12.146 --> 00:45:15.808
And I'm trying to get away from like my experiment and more general advice.
714
00:45:15.848 --> 00:45:22.732
Like if you're growing fast, there's only a few key things that actually matter out of the 300 things that you could be doing.
715
00:45:23.292 --> 00:45:33.938
And so the less you can do of the 295 lower things and just focusing on the five, if you're trying to go fast, you will hire those things out and you're okay with taking the hit on the, and you don't need to know everything.
716
00:45:34.058 --> 00:45:34.538
You just don't.
717
00:45:35.742 --> 00:45:41.176
When you say, I'm going to support my GM, that's going to be my biggest function, biggest number one goal.
718
00:45:41.337 --> 00:45:42.339
Describe what that means.
719
00:45:43.507 --> 00:45:49.589
So we kind of have a 120 day, four month handoff when a new location gets started.
720
00:45:50.049 --> 00:45:55.831
And it's essentially just falls into the category of do it for them, do it with them, and then supervise.
721
00:45:56.471 --> 00:46:07.314
And so that allows me the opportunity that if anything would happen, because life comes up, if something ever happened to John, I would still have time to get that other person, a secondary person through those four months.
722
00:46:08.012 --> 00:46:20.238
And so that would be something that a lot of this, the whole reason I'm doing this is like, I can talk about theoretically all the time based upon me seeing statistical differences between different locations.
723
00:46:20.278 --> 00:46:22.319
And we've seen now 200 plus locations.
724
00:46:22.953 --> 00:46:25.094
But me doing it and documenting it is so important.
725
00:46:25.234 --> 00:46:34.578
And the reason I believe this is because when we did 2023 and I started from zero, I just basically got the first month, the first like 20 or 30 customers, it was just getting it off the ground.
726
00:46:34.958 --> 00:46:43.562
But like to this day, I believe we're known for door hangers because in that video, in that series, I ran like half a marathon doing five, 600 door hangers a day.
727
00:46:43.982 --> 00:46:44.823
I was just doing door hanging.
728
00:46:44.923 --> 00:46:45.183
Oh yeah.
729
00:46:45.203 --> 00:46:46.284
Like I was just doing over.
730
00:46:46.665 --> 00:46:48.386
And from then, like the owners got it.
731
00:46:48.446 --> 00:46:49.187
They saw the math.
732
00:46:49.227 --> 00:46:50.128
We started running the numbers.
733
00:46:50.188 --> 00:46:51.469
Everyone started iterating on it.
734
00:46:51.890 --> 00:46:59.517
And so what I want to happen is whether it be people watching the videos or inside Augusta is being able to take what I'm doing at a much larger scale and going fast.
735
00:46:59.537 --> 00:47:02.620
I'm like, Oh, he didn't worry about learning how to run the Facebook ad.
736
00:47:03.156 --> 00:47:04.277
He got an agency to do it.
737
00:47:04.557 --> 00:47:07.160
He had someone else answer the phone and they're not gonna be as good as him.
738
00:47:07.660 --> 00:47:09.862
And he had someone else run the payroll and he's not as good as him.
739
00:47:10.803 --> 00:47:11.544
But it doesn't matter.
740
00:47:11.564 --> 00:47:13.446
I just need to support my general manager.
741
00:47:13.586 --> 00:47:15.127
That's the only thing I'm there for.
742
00:47:15.708 --> 00:47:21.093
And so I hope he feels that support so that when I leave, he can continue with the vision of the company.
743
00:47:21.793 --> 00:47:28.876
And I hope that that comes across to anyone that's trying to build a seven-figure or eight-figure business quickly is you can't do everything.
744
00:47:28.896 --> 00:47:32.198
You will have to let things fall through the cracks, and you cannot pinch pennies.
745
00:47:32.418 --> 00:47:37.480
You cannot be the maniacal boss that sees every single detail and then go in a hundred different directions.
746
00:47:37.500 --> 00:47:42.282
You'll have to just focus on these are the two or three major things, and everything else just has to fall by the wayside.
747
00:47:43.229 --> 00:47:46.032
But when you say support, are you talking coaching?
748
00:47:46.333 --> 00:47:49.637
Are you talking, hey, let me show you what's worked within our organization.
749
00:47:49.657 --> 00:47:51.699
Here are some things to try and you demonstrate it.
750
00:47:52.700 --> 00:47:54.422
Is that essentially what you're saying?
751
00:47:55.063 --> 00:47:56.865
Or is he saying, hey, I need help with this.
752
00:47:56.885 --> 00:47:58.827
I'm not sure what to do or what are...
753
00:47:59.749 --> 00:48:03.473
I think it's the proximity of seeing his performance and then giving him reinforcements.
754
00:48:04.024 --> 00:48:07.505
And so if I was not there, I could have a weekly call with him.
755
00:48:07.545 --> 00:48:08.766
I could have a monthly call with him.
756
00:48:09.266 --> 00:48:12.867
But when I am actively with him and like, oh, hey, say this slightly differently.
757
00:48:13.107 --> 00:48:17.569
Hey, when we did onboarding next time, address this topic a little differently with the team.
758
00:48:17.969 --> 00:48:21.270
Hey, when you, when we did like the, the feedback loops are faster.
759
00:48:21.811 --> 00:48:28.073
And so I believe that someone can learn so much faster just by decreasing the time between
760
00:48:28.830 --> 00:48:31.031
hearing what needs to be done and taking action.
761
00:48:31.551 --> 00:48:34.232
And if someone doesn't know what to do, they won't take action.
762
00:48:34.632 --> 00:48:41.375
And the delay until the next time I give them a feedback, like, hey, you should change this, or a coaching call, or even a mastermind that we do daily.
763
00:48:41.935 --> 00:48:44.036
But the closer I can get to that feedback loop, the better.
764
00:48:44.096 --> 00:48:46.897
And so what I'm looking for in a general manager is someone who can take that feedback.
765
00:48:47.403 --> 00:48:48.284
and can execute on it.
766
00:48:48.364 --> 00:48:51.346
And that's someone who's really strong at operations and is humble enough to learn.
767
00:48:52.007 --> 00:49:00.033
And that will be my main focus, is getting really fast feedback loops to John so that he can excel very quickly and then establish and just keep growing.
768
00:49:01.974 --> 00:49:07.959
If John were to not make it, like it doesn't work out with John for whatever reason, how fast do you think you'd know in a role like this?
769
00:49:09.040 --> 00:49:09.460
Three days.
770
00:49:10.421 --> 00:49:10.841
Three days.
771
00:49:11.382 --> 00:49:11.582
Yeah.
772
00:49:11.902 --> 00:49:16.886
And so I think the hiring process needs to be slowed down
773
00:49:17.793 --> 00:49:24.578
And the reason I'm confident won't happen in three days is because I've spent so much time on the hiring and getting to know the person.
774
00:49:25.718 --> 00:49:29.080
So many different aspects of making sure, like just slow down.
775
00:49:29.141 --> 00:49:35.004
Like anytime stuff is done fast, like if God forbid something happened to Johnny, he had to move away, for example, and I had to find someone else.
776
00:49:35.305 --> 00:49:38.987
What would be demonstrated in the videos is how slow I will then find the next person.
777
00:49:40.152 --> 00:49:44.494
And, um, that would definitely put a strain on the 10 hour per week limit for sure.
778
00:49:44.815 --> 00:49:47.296
But, but, um, Back to my strategy.
779
00:49:47.756 --> 00:49:48.016
Yeah.
780
00:49:48.036 --> 00:49:48.196
Yeah.
781
00:49:48.376 --> 00:49:56.361
Like I think hiring really slow and like, I went out and visited him and his wife and took him out for dinner and flew out there with Brianna so that my wife can be her wife.
782
00:49:56.661 --> 00:49:56.861
Yeah.
783
00:49:57.141 --> 00:49:57.701
Or his wife.
784
00:49:58.201 --> 00:49:59.522
Like these are the little things.
785
00:49:59.882 --> 00:50:05.025
And, uh, it was a weeks of back and forth and videos back and forth and questions.
786
00:50:05.065 --> 00:50:08.147
And here's what the strategy is and what poke holes in this, what are your questions?
787
00:50:08.527 --> 00:50:08.647
And.
788
00:50:09.467 --> 00:50:11.069
That's the part that I think some people miss.
789
00:50:11.249 --> 00:50:14.653
And so therefore they do find out in the first few days, oh, someone's a bad fit.
790
00:50:15.354 --> 00:50:24.805
And so in terms of my confidence in John, like I would not be doing this if I didn't have 100% confidence in him, but life does happen.
791
00:50:25.318 --> 00:50:26.619
It just does stuff happens.
792
00:50:26.659 --> 00:50:30.141
And so, uh, if that were to happen, then we'd have to pivot and we have to find someone else.
793
00:50:30.881 --> 00:50:32.882
Uh, and we would, the show must go on.
794
00:50:33.302 --> 00:50:33.442
Yeah.
795
00:50:33.862 --> 00:50:34.043
Yeah.
796
00:50:34.103 --> 00:50:35.443
Literally the next day.
797
00:50:37.244 --> 00:50:38.885
Well, it'll make for good drama if that happens.
798
00:50:38.905 --> 00:50:39.425
Hopefully not.
799
00:50:39.865 --> 00:50:40.146
All right.
800
00:50:40.226 --> 00:50:46.189
So if, so you'll start mowing in call it March.
801
00:50:46.209 --> 00:50:46.769
Yeah.
802
00:50:47.108 --> 00:50:49.529
depending on when you start spinning up fertilization.
803
00:50:49.569 --> 00:50:54.032
Well, there's other things you could potentially do, but the real mowing season is going to start in March.
804
00:50:54.992 --> 00:50:59.094
Real weed control season starts whenever because there are pre-emergence and things like that.
805
00:50:59.234 --> 00:51:03.176
And in our market, you generally see most of the weeds start pop.
806
00:51:03.276 --> 00:51:08.299
But February is the prime selling is when you can start selling fertilization weed control.
807
00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:09.519
It's easier to sell.
808
00:51:09.539 --> 00:51:10.240
Let's put it that way.
809
00:51:11.140 --> 00:51:12.241
You can start selling it before.
810
00:51:14.003 --> 00:51:16.664
But people are seeing more weeds in February.
811
00:51:16.684 --> 00:51:19.144
And so that's when it works better to sell.
812
00:51:19.324 --> 00:51:19.524
Okay.
813
00:51:20.724 --> 00:51:22.185
How do you guys think about staffing?
814
00:51:22.905 --> 00:51:27.026
When you get there, you and John are working on the business.
815
00:51:27.586 --> 00:51:31.886
And will you wait till February to start staffing mowing?
816
00:51:31.906 --> 00:51:35.487
Will you start... How do you think about backing into getting enough team members?
817
00:51:35.927 --> 00:51:39.328
Because you've got... You're also doing something else that most people...
818
00:51:40.048 --> 00:51:41.070
don't do or struggle with.
819
00:51:41.090 --> 00:51:42.933
And that's because you're going to be moving fast.
820
00:51:42.953 --> 00:51:43.774
You have to balance.
821
00:51:44.054 --> 00:51:45.937
You have to almost predict to a little degree.
822
00:51:45.957 --> 00:51:47.399
I think I'm going to bring in this many clients.
823
00:51:47.439 --> 00:51:48.621
I'm probably going to need this many people.
824
00:51:48.641 --> 00:51:50.805
I'm going to get this many people ready in advance.
825
00:51:50.825 --> 00:51:54.651
That's the thing so many people forget about when they're thinking about growth.
826
00:51:54.671 --> 00:51:54.851
They're
827
00:51:55.832 --> 00:51:59.014
I think we can grow by 700,000 next year.
828
00:51:59.094 --> 00:52:06.557
And they think about the marketing function, but they don't think about the hiring function, the training function, the management function, the everything else.
829
00:52:07.038 --> 00:52:10.619
So how will you be thinking about that approaching this?
830
00:52:11.300 --> 00:52:13.441
Yeah, the biggest advantage I have here is
831
00:52:14.176 --> 00:52:17.717
that I do know relatively what the customer cost is in that market.
832
00:52:18.517 --> 00:52:21.318
We have two locations that are 45 minutes from there.
833
00:52:21.838 --> 00:52:23.038
So that gives me a good idea.
834
00:52:23.058 --> 00:52:27.100
Again, some good research with AI, you can get pretty close.
835
00:52:27.420 --> 00:52:33.101
But specifically because I have seen ads performance within a decent radius of that market.
836
00:52:33.481 --> 00:52:39.543
So I take that and then I start putting against what we see when people start spending more on a platform.
837
00:52:39.883 --> 00:52:48.165
And because there is diminishing returns, you're not going to get $40 customer acquisition costs and then go dump $2,000 a day on Facebook ads and expect $40 per customer.
838
00:52:48.285 --> 00:52:49.025
It's not happening.
839
00:52:49.425 --> 00:52:50.526
It would likely triple.
840
00:52:51.186 --> 00:52:53.586
And so, um, depending on the size of your market.
841
00:52:53.906 --> 00:53:04.389
And so, because my market is relatively small, you know, a hundred to 200,000 people, I can't dump tons of money on and just expect it to not have huge diminishing returns once I hit a certain level.
842
00:53:05.122 --> 00:53:07.764
And so that's the thing that we're forecasting.
843
00:53:08.044 --> 00:53:10.926
It's like, okay, we have seen certain sizes of markets.
844
00:53:11.347 --> 00:53:13.008
We have seen certain customer equity costs.
845
00:53:13.528 --> 00:53:16.811
And then let's try to be conservative with how much that's going to actually be.
846
00:53:16.851 --> 00:53:17.351
Let's okay.
847
00:53:17.651 --> 00:53:19.893
If it's double the customer cost, can I still hit the target?
848
00:53:20.313 --> 00:53:31.642
So in all reality, the reason I can be confident with the $1 million is because I can project that number out with a lot of confidence, assuming nothing operationally goes wrong, going back to the importance of the general manager.
849
00:53:32.200 --> 00:53:36.907
Because if that stays intact, I have done the due diligence to know, okay, this is what I'm pretty confident I can hit.
850
00:53:37.407 --> 00:53:39.070
I'm going to use this as my assumption.
851
00:53:39.210 --> 00:53:42.795
And I'm going to backfill with how much I have to spend on marketing to be able to then
852
00:53:43.593 --> 00:54:02.541
do that much work how many trucks and how many employees do i need to hire and so it's just a backwards math starting with customer action cost how many customers what's my annual customer value that's how much revenue i get to so there it is and that's why i actually have to add in fertilization weed control is because the mowing side i would not get there
853
00:54:03.261 --> 00:54:10.525
with the level of content I wanted to, as well as the fact that during the off season, it is something I can still kind of sell, especially during February.
854
00:54:11.105 --> 00:54:19.049
And so those are the two reasons I actually added that back in because I can spend more on CAC if my annual customer value is a lot higher because I have a second service.
855
00:54:19.789 --> 00:54:28.113
And so in terms of hiring, we're going to immediately get three vans and immediately be hiring within the first week or two of you meet there.
856
00:54:29.433 --> 00:54:34.257
I assume your $1 million goal is based on run rate, not actual revenue for the year.
857
00:54:34.718 --> 00:54:35.218
Yep.
858
00:54:35.358 --> 00:54:36.639
I'll be tracking recurring revenue.
859
00:54:36.659 --> 00:54:40.042
So like monthly recurring revenue, I have to have what, 84,000 or whatever it is.
860
00:54:40.583 --> 00:54:45.247
And so if you do the math, okay, like let's say there's $200 per month per customer.
861
00:54:45.667 --> 00:54:47.749
So $200 divided out by 84,000, that's for 400 customers.
862
00:54:53.444 --> 00:54:56.466
I didn't even, I just was waiting on you to answer.
863
00:54:56.686 --> 00:55:01.528
Something like 400 to 500 recurring customers, if that's their average monthly ticket.
864
00:55:01.909 --> 00:55:04.170
That being said, we're not going to be able to hit that, likely.
865
00:55:04.630 --> 00:55:07.452
$200 is higher for those two services that I think I can achieve.
866
00:55:07.932 --> 00:55:15.636
And so it is likely that we'll have to hit, based on projections, somewhere between 550 and 700 recurring customers.
867
00:55:15.896 --> 00:55:18.358
Depends on my hit rate on fertilization weed control.
868
00:55:18.918 --> 00:55:19.078
Yep.
869
00:55:20.672 --> 00:55:21.893
I think you can hit this number.
870
00:55:22.373 --> 00:55:27.555
I know a number of people have spun up contractor-based businesses just mowing and have hit that number.
871
00:55:27.755 --> 00:55:27.936
Yeah, so.
872
00:55:27.956 --> 00:55:30.377
I'll be honest, like there's already owners in Augusta that have done this.
873
00:55:30.717 --> 00:55:31.297
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
874
00:55:31.317 --> 00:55:33.378
They just came in with a lot more capital, right?
875
00:55:33.398 --> 00:55:34.859
So they immediately hit the ground running.
876
00:55:35.119 --> 00:55:36.640
They had a couple hundred thousand dollars.
877
00:55:36.740 --> 00:55:37.920
They spent a large budget.
878
00:55:37.940 --> 00:55:38.881
So it's been done.
879
00:55:39.221 --> 00:55:40.342
I want to document it.
880
00:55:40.622 --> 00:55:45.807
And my hope is that this becomes the standard for Augusta, but also that the playbook for someone that wants to grow faster.
881
00:55:45.847 --> 00:55:50.332
And it's not like, well, if I want to start a longer business or any home service, you don't need to go start doing the work.
882
00:55:50.412 --> 00:55:53.314
I will not pick up a tool at all throughout this entire event.
883
00:55:53.695 --> 00:55:54.736
And like, that's part of the challenge.
884
00:55:54.756 --> 00:55:55.877
Like I can't pick up the tools.
885
00:55:56.397 --> 00:56:03.122
And so I do believe that this also raises the level of professionalism because we get investor types that are going to come in.
886
00:56:03.142 --> 00:56:04.143
They're going to pay higher wages.
887
00:56:04.604 --> 00:56:05.885
They're going to be more professional.
888
00:56:05.985 --> 00:56:10.368
They're going to pay for agencies and for office staff or people to be answering the phone.
889
00:56:10.628 --> 00:56:12.410
And so I don't think it's a bad thing for the industry.
890
00:56:12.430 --> 00:56:17.994
And I would like to have an alternative for some people that might be watching content that all you see is people mowing grass.
891
00:56:18.434 --> 00:56:20.136
And that will not be these videos.
892
00:56:20.156 --> 00:56:23.979
It'll be a lot of whiteboard strategy, mapping, stuff on AI, showing the screen.
893
00:56:24.219 --> 00:56:25.540
It's going to be a lot of strategy.
894
00:56:26.160 --> 00:56:28.120
Uh, and so I hope to show that angle.
895
00:56:28.861 --> 00:56:33.562
Yeah, I think it, I think it demonstrates a lot of it for the audience who will never do any kind of business with you.
896
00:56:33.702 --> 00:56:39.763
It demonstrates how could they do this for themselves for the person that's like, Hey, maybe I want to be part of the Augusta world someday.
897
00:56:40.103 --> 00:56:41.483
What would my experience look like?
898
00:56:41.543 --> 00:56:42.403
How could we get there?
899
00:56:42.483 --> 00:56:43.784
Like, how would they help me get there?
900
00:56:44.604 --> 00:56:50.325
And so there's a, there's a lot of different things that are shown here that are of value that in a whole lot of different ways.
901
00:56:50.805 --> 00:56:54.846
When you think about, and I'm about to ask a question that I don't know if you can.
902
00:56:55.786 --> 00:56:59.309
I don't know much about franchising, so I don't know if you could legally answer it.
903
00:56:59.449 --> 00:56:59.949
I have no idea.
904
00:57:00.890 --> 00:57:08.115
If you were to think about this as an investment, let's say you made me think of this because you said investor.
905
00:57:08.556 --> 00:57:22.206
So as an investor, if I could write a $300,000 check and buy $150,000 a year in profits and get my money back in two years, that's like an interesting math equation right there.
906
00:57:22.946 --> 00:57:25.068
So is there any kind, again,
907
00:57:25.268 --> 00:57:30.052
don't know what you're allowed to say, or maybe you answer it from non Augusta franchise terms.
908
00:57:30.652 --> 00:57:33.295
What do you think it would cost to spin up a million in revenue?
909
00:57:33.335 --> 00:57:44.184
What do you think a million, if I was the investor, not the guy running it, I guess I'm kind of involved in, if all I have is a GM, but what do you think profit could be on something like this?
910
00:57:44.204 --> 00:57:45.425
Can you even answer that question?
911
00:57:45.885 --> 00:57:46.365
Yeah, I can.
912
00:57:46.405 --> 00:57:48.887
So we, as of last year, we have our item 19.
913
00:57:48.907 --> 00:57:49.768
So we disclose all this.
914
00:57:50.289 --> 00:57:51.049
So it's on the website.
915
00:57:51.069 --> 00:57:51.630
It's all public.
916
00:57:52.010 --> 00:57:52.310
Okay.
917
00:57:52.871 --> 00:57:53.111
So,
918
00:57:54.388 --> 00:58:02.815
I would say if someone's going to grow at the speed that I am going to, it's be what we call an executive level, which is you have to have $500,000 of net worth.
919
00:58:03.215 --> 00:58:05.317
You have to have that – I shouldn't even say net worth.
920
00:58:05.357 --> 00:58:07.419
I should say capital to spend.
921
00:58:07.839 --> 00:58:09.421
Now, will you spend $500,000?
922
00:58:09.741 --> 00:58:10.021
No.
923
00:58:10.301 --> 00:58:14.585
But if you're trying to grow to a million in the first year and then likely keep that kind of growth rate –
924
00:58:15.166 --> 00:58:17.006
I don't want you going this with 60 or $70,000.
925
00:58:17.026 --> 00:58:17.367
I don't.
926
00:58:18.427 --> 00:58:22.588
And so I'm going to be trying to be really realistic when I'm making the videos about like, here's what I'm spending on marketing.
927
00:58:22.748 --> 00:58:23.308
It's a lot.
928
00:58:23.708 --> 00:58:26.749
And the customer cost is not going to be low because I'm spending a lot of money.
929
00:58:27.049 --> 00:58:27.229
Yeah.
930
00:58:27.329 --> 00:58:30.730
And I'm trying to while I'm spending a lot of money, trying to figure out what's working, what's not.
931
00:58:31.250 --> 00:58:38.792
And so I would personally say if someone was trying to get from zero to a million, I would be having at least 150 to $200,000 of cash ready to deploy.
932
00:58:41.471 --> 00:58:47.280
And I would personally, like from a franchise perspective, we're looking for over $500,000 that you have access to.
933
00:58:47.500 --> 00:58:56.373
So even if you were getting some like 300,000 of debt, 200,000 cash, we have seen 100% a huge indicator of success.
934
00:58:56.413 --> 00:58:57.795
It's just, do you have access to capital?
935
00:58:58.427 --> 00:59:03.531
Because if things are going really well, you can still run out of money and fail.
936
00:59:04.292 --> 00:59:14.381
And the worst thing that happened is you run out of cash because you grew so fast and everything was going so well and you run out of money in your first off season because you haven't established your off season yet.
937
00:59:16.282 --> 00:59:26.611
So having enough capital is something that we, I've always had a deep passion for people with less money, but I consistently see them come in to Augusta specifically, I would say a broad stroke for business is like,
938
00:59:27.411 --> 00:59:29.275
If you're going to grow fast, you need capital.
939
00:59:31.475 --> 00:59:41.677
Your point about the investor type is definitely a big reason why, from the franchise perspective we're doing this, is I want to show that your return on invested capital is better inside this than other mechanisms.
940
00:59:42.097 --> 00:59:44.838
Whether it be you're comparing a Taco Bell or you're comparing something else.
941
00:59:45.038 --> 00:59:56.180
If you're going to start a longer business and start doing door hangers, you can't compare that investment to starting a gym or a fast food restaurant or another franchise that costs $800,000 or a million dollars to start.
942
00:59:56.220 --> 00:59:57.300
You can't even compare the two.
943
00:59:57.904 --> 01:00:05.270
And so I want to be able to take more of the approach of like, if you're an investor and you have the capital, here's the alternative way to use home services to scale quickly.
944
01:00:06.470 --> 01:00:12.175
Do you think this is like a 200,000 in spend kind of scenario on marketing to get to a million?
945
01:00:12.195 --> 01:00:14.737
Do you have like some guesstimate you're coming in with?
946
01:00:15.237 --> 01:00:16.158
This is the first time I've said this.
947
01:00:16.318 --> 01:00:16.658
Yeah.
948
01:00:16.878 --> 01:00:18.499
Right now, my budget is 130,000.
949
01:00:18.519 --> 01:00:19.160
Oh, okay.
950
01:00:19.180 --> 01:00:21.462
A little less than I would have.
951
01:00:21.522 --> 01:00:24.704
I have not done the math, but I would have guessed a little higher for going this quick.
952
01:00:25.324 --> 01:00:25.525
Yeah.
953
01:00:28.013 --> 01:00:28.973
that I get there in six months.
954
01:00:29.613 --> 01:00:30.033
Okay.
955
01:00:30.093 --> 01:00:31.874
Get to your number in six months?
956
01:00:32.134 --> 01:00:33.214
I think I can get there in six months.
957
01:00:33.294 --> 01:00:33.874
That's my goal.
958
01:00:34.174 --> 01:00:35.615
What month will you deploy the spend?
959
01:00:36.015 --> 01:00:36.415
Do you know?
960
01:00:36.515 --> 01:00:37.215
You may not know yet.
961
01:00:37.575 --> 01:00:38.495
All in the first six months.
962
01:00:39.236 --> 01:00:41.296
Yeah, but you're going to be there in September.
963
01:00:41.356 --> 01:00:43.597
So starting from September to the end of spring.
964
01:00:44.157 --> 01:00:44.437
Correct.
965
01:00:44.477 --> 01:00:47.878
I'm only there six months, and the publicly stated goal is one year.
966
01:00:47.898 --> 01:00:49.798
I'm going to try to get there by the time I leave.
967
01:00:50.565 --> 01:00:53.666
So everyone that heard that can just exit that off of their memory.
968
01:00:53.706 --> 01:00:55.667
It's going to be a year long before I hit the goal.
969
01:00:55.947 --> 01:00:56.267
Yeah.
970
01:00:56.308 --> 01:01:03.050
But as like the last to get me from like 99 percentile to 100 was like, okay, I'll make it a year, but I'll plan for six months.
971
01:01:03.451 --> 01:01:08.973
And so my goal is that by the time I leave April 20th, we've hit over the 84 monthly recurring revenue.
972
01:01:09.953 --> 01:01:11.994
Towards the end of April is when it slows.
973
01:01:12.114 --> 01:01:13.655
Mid-May is when it really slows.
974
01:01:14.175 --> 01:01:14.335
Yeah.
975
01:01:14.855 --> 01:01:15.116
Okay.
976
01:01:15.576 --> 01:01:18.297
And then how many trucks will that be till you hit a million?
977
01:01:19.235 --> 01:01:21.956
A lot of it depends on my penetration rate with fertilization.
978
01:01:21.996 --> 01:01:25.217
And I am strictly guessing on that, to be honest with you.
979
01:01:25.718 --> 01:01:29.679
And so I have a pretty good idea of how many technicians we need, how many vans we would need.
980
01:01:29.699 --> 01:01:32.580
That basically be a full location, which for us is six to eight technicians.
981
01:01:33.020 --> 01:01:38.322
But I don't know what rate I'm going to be able to get from lawn care into fertilization.
982
01:01:38.362 --> 01:01:39.163
I don't know that number.
983
01:01:39.443 --> 01:01:42.444
And that's going to really hinge what that looks like.
984
01:01:43.204 --> 01:01:46.225
A typical person running a million dollar lawn mowing business.
985
01:01:46.265 --> 01:01:47.606
How many trucks is that?
986
01:01:49.023 --> 01:01:50.904
It depends on the market and the factors I know.
987
01:01:50.924 --> 01:01:54.447
Yeah, if you're doing double trucks, if you're doing like two employees, we're going to do solo routes.
988
01:01:54.847 --> 01:01:55.068
Okay.
989
01:01:55.088 --> 01:02:03.414
So, but like for us, we can get there with seven, six to eight technicians, which would be six to eight trucks, which is very capital intensive.
990
01:02:03.494 --> 01:02:05.555
I think someone that was like, hey, I have less money.
991
01:02:05.575 --> 01:02:06.056
Okay, great.
992
01:02:06.076 --> 01:02:07.377
You'll double up your employees.
993
01:02:07.857 --> 01:02:08.417
Yeah, exactly.
994
01:02:08.798 --> 01:02:08.978
Yeah.
995
01:02:09.258 --> 01:02:09.478
Okay.
996
01:02:09.618 --> 01:02:14.382
That just, I'm asking, just kind of gives you an idea of the math behind an investment like this.
997
01:02:14.462 --> 01:02:14.882
And then...
998
01:02:17.212 --> 01:02:18.813
because you brought up the word investor.
999
01:02:19.074 --> 01:02:23.137
So very interesting.
1000
01:02:23.337 --> 01:02:26.439
What do you think the selling window tends to be in a lot of markets?
1001
01:02:26.820 --> 01:02:31.704
So lawn mowing, fertilization, this one's a little more specific to these servers.
1002
01:02:31.724 --> 01:02:32.524
Let's use lawn mowing.
1003
01:02:33.718 --> 01:02:39.043
In most US markets, because you have a lot of experience, is that typically a two-month, like prime selling window?
1004
01:02:39.063 --> 01:02:42.066
Like this is what makes or break the year kind of thing.
1005
01:02:42.727 --> 01:02:46.730
Are we talking it's normally a 60-day, 90-day window, 120?
1006
01:02:46.911 --> 01:02:49.273
Do you have any number that's pretty typical?
1007
01:02:49.753 --> 01:02:52.175
Most markets are between 70 and 90 days.
1008
01:02:52.556 --> 01:02:56.820
We have, though, a few in the transition zones where they have kind of a double spring rush.
1009
01:02:57.535 --> 01:03:05.479
So they'll have a little bit of a rush in like March when you have some cold season grasses, but then like warm season, all of a sudden they have like a July rush when it gets hot.
1010
01:03:05.899 --> 01:03:09.922
So like, for example, I'm thinking of Charlotte, North Carolina, some markets like that.
1011
01:03:09.962 --> 01:03:15.304
They have kind of a double whammy when the different type of grasses start coming up.
1012
01:03:15.625 --> 01:03:20.707
But in general, we call spring rush pretty much March, April, May, June, somewhere in there.
1013
01:03:20.867 --> 01:03:21.648
Across the country.
1014
01:03:22.228 --> 01:03:22.388
Yeah.
1015
01:03:22.908 --> 01:03:23.349
Makes sense.
1016
01:03:24.268 --> 01:03:28.929
Earlier, you were talking about, you made brief mention of being known as the guy that did door hangers.
1017
01:03:29.229 --> 01:03:29.789
Didn't know that.
1018
01:03:30.810 --> 01:03:32.310
Tell me a little bit about door hangers.
1019
01:03:33.550 --> 01:03:38.512
Like from this vantage, from the view of, it sounds like they worked really well for you.
1020
01:03:38.572 --> 01:03:40.772
What are your top three or four learnings?
1021
01:03:41.232 --> 01:03:44.973
It's been forever, but I did door hangers in a major way in the early days.
1022
01:03:45.533 --> 01:03:48.294
Door hangers and SEO built the business in the early days.
1023
01:03:48.754 --> 01:03:52.455
And so what, tell me some of your biggest learnings on door hangers.
1024
01:03:53.700 --> 01:03:53.960
Yeah.
1025
01:03:54.040 --> 01:03:57.522
So first off, very, very time, time sensitive.
1026
01:03:58.362 --> 01:04:01.503
So like you have to hit them when they're pain, there's pain.
1027
01:04:01.703 --> 01:04:07.206
And if you put that door hanger saying that, you know, there's a lot of this translates from every door, dark mail or any mail.
1028
01:04:07.266 --> 01:04:10.067
It's like they're getting that in the mailbox.
1029
01:04:10.287 --> 01:04:15.529
And if there's not pain the next day, if it's sunny, everything could change.
1030
01:04:16.049 --> 01:04:16.249
Yeah.
1031
01:04:16.629 --> 01:04:17.870
And so, uh,
1032
01:04:18.667 --> 01:04:22.869
The size of testing is the part that I've seen the most important.
1033
01:04:23.209 --> 01:04:26.371
Because if you test out 100 door hangers, you're probably not going to get a customer.
1034
01:04:26.831 --> 01:04:30.913
Or you could get a false positive and get three and think that, oh my word, I only get 20,000 of these.
1035
01:04:31.293 --> 01:04:32.934
So test size is important.
1036
01:04:33.354 --> 01:04:37.056
And then if you're going to compare – this is the hardest part with door hangers or mail in my opinion.
1037
01:04:37.656 --> 01:04:44.680
Is because it's so dependent on timing, you really can't compare this week to next week or this month to next month.
1038
01:04:45.192 --> 01:04:48.855
you have to wait one year to really get a solid split test.
1039
01:04:49.416 --> 01:04:54.740
That's why I love social, is because I can just flop them like A, B, C, D test, like so fast.
1040
01:04:55.301 --> 01:04:59.705
Whereas with Sprint, to get a real test, you have to test year over year.
1041
01:05:00.325 --> 01:05:03.828
And most people, I have hardly seen anyone have the patience to do that.
1042
01:05:04.609 --> 01:05:07.952
And so that'd be the first thing is like testing, I see most will do it really wrong.
1043
01:05:08.112 --> 01:05:09.333
They'll hear someone like me say,
1044
01:05:10.028 --> 01:05:11.871
door hangers and go to a thousand of them and put them out tomorrow.
1045
01:05:11.891 --> 01:05:14.374
I'm like, wait, well, spring rush was three months ago.
1046
01:05:15.035 --> 01:05:18.340
And I know in your market it works, but you're three months late to the party.
1047
01:05:19.282 --> 01:05:20.463
So timing with the first one.
1048
01:05:20.544 --> 01:05:24.850
And then the second one is just refining your pricing strategy.
1049
01:05:25.562 --> 01:05:28.565
And we have found door hangers to be really good at entry level.
1050
01:05:28.865 --> 01:05:29.987
Get your foot in the door.
1051
01:05:30.287 --> 01:05:32.289
You're not going to be a premium price.
1052
01:05:32.669 --> 01:05:39.916
And so we get plenty of hate because people will snap photos of our door hangers at a $39 or $49 per cut price.
1053
01:05:40.457 --> 01:05:41.558
But we know we can get in.
1054
01:05:41.758 --> 01:05:44.781
We know that within three months, we can get that price back to what it might need to be.
1055
01:05:45.462 --> 01:05:46.323
And people don't leave.
1056
01:05:47.096 --> 01:06:10.657
and we can also sell them to other services and so when you look at it's a gateway it's get your foot in the door it's not going to be perfectly accurate because we give a price on that door hanger uh then that is when it can be a really good tool then there's so many little optimizations like do you have a qr code do you have them right on the door hanger do you have them text it to you do you have them send a picture via email like all these little other things and uh
1057
01:06:11.513 --> 01:06:12.234
It's just trial bear.
1058
01:06:12.274 --> 01:06:14.076
It's literally the same thing as any other ad platform.
1059
01:06:14.096 --> 01:06:16.898
You've got to keep testing and then making little refinements.
1060
01:06:16.938 --> 01:06:23.365
And most of us do not have the patience because they jump to another ad platform or like the next shiny thing that you or I or someone else is talking about.
1061
01:06:23.905 --> 01:06:27.489
Yeah, I definitely don't think most people should be messing with print.
1062
01:06:27.969 --> 01:06:32.213
I like door hangers the most for the small.
1063
01:06:32.433 --> 01:06:35.817
Again, I haven't done door hangers in years, but the way I think about it right now is
1064
01:06:37.176 --> 01:06:42.863
is I like them most for the guy that has a bunch of time and not a lot of money and not a lot of clients.
1065
01:06:42.903 --> 01:06:44.265
Like, what else am I going to do with my time?
1066
01:06:44.345 --> 01:06:45.066
Go get clients.
1067
01:06:45.086 --> 01:06:46.227
Like, that's the only thing that matters.
1068
01:06:46.567 --> 01:06:49.431
It's that thing they can go do themselves.
1069
01:06:49.471 --> 01:06:50.332
And I like that.
1070
01:06:51.373 --> 01:06:53.135
We know you love door knocking after last week.
1071
01:06:53.195 --> 01:06:53.616
Let's go.
1072
01:06:54.617 --> 01:06:55.877
Yeah, love it.
1073
01:06:55.897 --> 01:07:03.760
And so, but the print will, could just, can just spread, especially mail, can just wipe you out financially really quick.
1074
01:07:04.040 --> 01:07:05.260
And it can be a big setback.
1075
01:07:05.301 --> 01:07:16.744
So I consider the mail to be highly risky, a very advanced late stage strategy in the business, but it's got power, but it's, you gotta be ready to use it.
1076
01:07:16.804 --> 01:07:18.285
And a lot of work has to go into it.
1077
01:07:18.365 --> 01:07:18.625
So yeah.
1078
01:07:20.442 --> 01:07:23.603
On the door hangers, do you ever have problems?
1079
01:07:23.663 --> 01:07:25.384
Again, haven't been in door hangers forever.
1080
01:07:25.964 --> 01:07:28.685
Do you get many bad reviews because of putting out door hangers?
1081
01:07:29.285 --> 01:07:30.566
Not a whole lot, honestly.
1082
01:07:30.586 --> 01:07:30.726
Okay.
1083
01:07:31.126 --> 01:07:33.467
And usually two things have happened.
1084
01:07:33.647 --> 01:07:37.628
One, a lot of them can get the reviews taken down because we haven't actually done service for them.
1085
01:07:39.049 --> 01:07:41.070
If you just say, hey, this was never a customer of mine.
1086
01:07:41.130 --> 01:07:41.790
They haven't been.
1087
01:07:41.830 --> 01:07:42.930
They're not even in our database.
1088
01:07:43.270 --> 01:07:44.971
So a lot of times Google actually take those reviews down.
1089
01:07:45.966 --> 01:07:54.954
The second thing is our responses to those reviews are actually, like I like those negative one star reviews because that's where customers are going to look.
1090
01:07:55.555 --> 01:07:59.519
They're not looking at the thousand five stars, they're looking at the few one stars.
1091
01:08:00.179 --> 01:08:02.441
And if the only response to me to
1092
01:08:04.030 --> 01:08:08.131
The only negative response about my business is the fact that I'm trying to go out and get more business.
1093
01:08:08.711 --> 01:08:13.572
I think that a high-quality customer usually is okay with it, depending on my response.
1094
01:08:13.952 --> 01:08:16.293
So usually our response is, like, you've got to be professional.
1095
01:08:16.513 --> 01:08:18.914
You don't let their attacks hinder you.
1096
01:08:18.934 --> 01:08:20.114
Like, just be professional.
1097
01:08:20.494 --> 01:08:23.235
Apologize if needs be, depending on the circumstance.
1098
01:08:23.935 --> 01:08:27.356
And especially if they're, like, going after, like, you don't know how to solicit.
1099
01:08:27.756 --> 01:08:32.597
Am I really in the nitty-gritty details of, like, canvassing versus soliciting in a Google review response?
1100
01:08:32.877 --> 01:08:33.117
No.
1101
01:08:33.738 --> 01:08:40.922
And so I'm just trying to make my review response what I would want my future customer to see.
1102
01:08:41.682 --> 01:08:46.545
And I believe if you're professional and someone's like, Hey, they're just trying to get, they're trying to get ahead.
1103
01:08:46.565 --> 01:08:48.226
They're trying to promote their business.
1104
01:08:48.466 --> 01:08:50.227
They're super professional and apologetic.
1105
01:08:50.267 --> 01:08:54.070
If they made someone mad, I think that's actually a good thing for the brand.
1106
01:08:54.750 --> 01:08:54.910
Yeah.
1107
01:08:55.851 --> 01:08:56.411
All right.
1108
01:08:56.431 --> 01:08:57.632
Some stuff's going to go wrong.
1109
01:08:58.532 --> 01:08:59.253
It's not going to work.
1110
01:09:00.817 --> 01:09:01.978
Who knows what it's going to be.
1111
01:09:02.478 --> 01:09:04.059
But again, you've been doing this a while.
1112
01:09:04.079 --> 01:09:05.259
A lot of franchisees.
1113
01:09:05.299 --> 01:09:12.503
What are, if this doesn't go to plan and you're just guessing, what do you think a few of the off the rails kind of things could be?
1114
01:09:13.064 --> 01:09:16.666
So, by the way, I made sure I did not use AI in this whole thing today.
1115
01:09:16.746 --> 01:09:19.867
I want to make sure these are authentic and real from what actually I felt.
1116
01:09:20.588 --> 01:09:21.208
So, all right.
1117
01:09:21.328 --> 01:09:24.610
So, first off is scaling ads will be harder than just increasing the budget.
1118
01:09:25.252 --> 01:09:27.053
Like it's easy to just throw money at a problem.
1119
01:09:27.613 --> 01:09:31.575
And every time that is a mentality of mine, it's never worked like, Oh, the throw money at it.
1120
01:09:32.015 --> 01:09:36.778
Meaning it doesn't bring you in much additional traffic or it doesn't bring much additional conversion.
1121
01:09:37.018 --> 01:09:38.979
Now your tax just going up or what do you mean?
1122
01:09:39.259 --> 01:09:41.860
Usually the law of diminishing returns is understated.
1123
01:09:42.741 --> 01:09:48.283
And so it's like, well, it worked great when I was spending a hundred dollars a day, but will it work if I spent a thousand dollars a day?
1124
01:09:48.664 --> 01:09:48.904
Right.
1125
01:09:49.044 --> 01:09:51.365
And so I think that's the first, uh,
1126
01:09:52.073 --> 01:10:19.368
area it could break the second thing you think it could break is if i the first is like i've never run a location that the crews take their trucks home and so for each of these areas i'm mentioning i'm obviously doing my best to facilitate this not happening so i'm calling people i'm talking to other owners and gust other owners outside of augusta like they've done this model but like i've never ran a location where the technicians take the trucks home i've also never ran a location that uses vans we've always used pickup trucks
1127
01:10:20.082 --> 01:10:23.324
And so another variable... Vance work.
1128
01:10:23.924 --> 01:10:24.405
Yeah, let's go.
1129
01:10:24.485 --> 01:10:25.025
I just tell you.
1130
01:10:25.145 --> 01:10:25.706
I just tell you.
1131
01:10:26.306 --> 01:10:26.626
Thank you.
1132
01:10:26.666 --> 01:10:27.287
I appreciate that.
1133
01:10:27.447 --> 01:10:28.707
Also, shout out to Jonathan.
1134
01:10:28.727 --> 01:10:30.148
I don't know if this was ever caught on tape.
1135
01:10:30.228 --> 01:10:30.829
I don't think it was.
1136
01:10:31.069 --> 01:10:35.572
But Jonathan actually mentioned my market to me as a great market.
1137
01:10:35.892 --> 01:10:36.812
I've never said, yeah.
1138
01:10:36.972 --> 01:10:38.634
I told you where I would go if it was me.
1139
01:10:38.654 --> 01:10:40.335
Swipe and deploy.
1140
01:10:40.455 --> 01:10:41.575
Also, it was out of your market.
1141
01:10:41.615 --> 01:10:42.176
I'll be honest.
1142
01:10:42.236 --> 01:10:43.136
It was out of your market.
1143
01:10:43.196 --> 01:10:45.438
I really didn't want to start in your market.
1144
01:10:45.518 --> 01:10:46.218
I really didn't.
1145
01:10:46.638 --> 01:10:47.219
I was like...
1146
01:10:48.040 --> 01:10:54.005
So what I hear when you say this, I want to first perfect it so that when I come into your market, you'll really feel it.
1147
01:10:54.966 --> 01:10:55.607
Now we're talking.
1148
01:10:55.647 --> 01:10:56.227
Now we're talking.
1149
01:10:56.267 --> 01:10:57.969
It just gives us more time to prepare.
1150
01:10:58.049 --> 01:10:58.530
That's right.
1151
01:10:58.550 --> 01:10:58.750
Right.
1152
01:10:58.810 --> 01:11:01.452
Make sure we get all the bad reviews out and then we'll attack.
1153
01:11:01.553 --> 01:11:02.213
We'll be ready.
1154
01:11:02.233 --> 01:11:02.874
We'll be ready.
1155
01:11:04.555 --> 01:11:06.577
But yeah, I've never done the van thing.
1156
01:11:06.938 --> 01:11:12.303
I think I also likely underestimate how fast I can learn the market.
1157
01:11:13.188 --> 01:11:38.690
um and how i can deal with these two major variables which is the vans and them taking the vehicles home i really have the one at bat like the one spring rush and so i think i underestimate because i've told every owner ever it takes a few spring rushes to really figure out what that demand curve looks like and i'm walking to this without that so that's where um this is my last point is like where could it likely break and it all ties back to this is like
1158
01:11:39.757 --> 01:11:42.817
The only thing that can really derail it is something happening to John.
1159
01:11:43.788 --> 01:11:45.109
I thought that's what you were saying.
1160
01:11:45.349 --> 01:11:45.570
Yeah.
1161
01:11:45.790 --> 01:11:45.990
Yeah.
1162
01:11:46.470 --> 01:11:48.312
So, um, again, you just try it.
1163
01:11:48.352 --> 01:11:50.973
You do your very best to guard against all those things.
1164
01:11:50.993 --> 01:11:56.457
You make sure that city turf isn't, you know, trying to come along and recruit away your general manager, things like that.
1165
01:11:57.178 --> 01:12:01.561
Um, but yeah, you know, banners out next to the road.
1166
01:12:01.901 --> 01:12:02.382
Let's go.
1167
01:12:03.342 --> 01:12:05.324
If we do it, I'll only make your videos more interesting.
1168
01:12:05.684 --> 01:12:09.727
You're like, you write down that name, John, like, Hey, I will now target Johns in that area.
1169
01:12:09.847 --> 01:12:10.487
And let's go.
1170
01:12:10.507 --> 01:12:11.308
Yeah.
1171
01:12:11.548 --> 01:12:11.728
Yeah.
1172
01:12:11.888 --> 01:12:14.149
Tiffany, I've already been having dinner with him and his wife.
1173
01:12:14.169 --> 01:12:14.609
That's right.
1174
01:12:14.649 --> 01:12:15.509
That's right.
1175
01:12:16.849 --> 01:12:18.129
That was a joke for everyone.
1176
01:12:18.170 --> 01:12:19.870
That was just a joke.
1177
01:12:20.210 --> 01:12:24.791
I don't even know who this guy is.
1178
01:12:25.391 --> 01:12:28.192
But ultimately for all of those things, it's a matter of pivoting.
1179
01:12:28.552 --> 01:12:32.553
And I think for anyone listening, there's going to always be reasons when you go faster, they increase risk.
1180
01:12:33.173 --> 01:12:33.653
And so...
1181
01:12:34.680 --> 01:13:03.335
the greatest risk is that something would happen to john john needs to move there's a life event something doesn't work out um and so you do everything possible to make sure that the incentives of that person are aligned with the business objectives and this is where i see the breakdown of most of the time when people are trying to scale quickly or trust a general manager is are their incentives whether it be pay their time with their family like everything you need to know everything about them to make sure it's aligned with the business objectives if you're going to put that much confidence in one person yeah
1182
01:13:04.543 --> 01:13:08.067
You mentioned a concern around Vans.
1183
01:13:08.127 --> 01:13:10.170
What is it that you're worried about with Vans?
1184
01:13:10.190 --> 01:13:10.971
What comes to mind?
1185
01:13:10.991 --> 01:13:13.874
I know it's new, but what do you think could be the problem?
1186
01:13:14.835 --> 01:13:15.836
Mostly just as new.
1187
01:13:16.697 --> 01:13:18.119
Okay.
1188
01:13:18.379 --> 01:13:19.240
It's what you don't know.
1189
01:13:19.500 --> 01:13:21.523
It's not that there's something you're worried about.
1190
01:13:22.087 --> 01:13:22.347
Yeah.
1191
01:13:22.647 --> 01:13:22.927
Yeah.
1192
01:13:23.047 --> 01:13:24.208
And there's owners inside Augusta.
1193
01:13:24.228 --> 01:13:29.431
So I've watched the videos, I've picked their brains, I've talked to probably 10 or 15 other owners that do vans.
1194
01:13:29.991 --> 01:13:34.213
And so I'm confident, but it's just another thing I have not done myself.
1195
01:13:34.613 --> 01:13:35.633
And rightly so.
1196
01:13:35.834 --> 01:13:36.054
Okay.
1197
01:13:36.114 --> 01:13:37.174
What about taking it home?
1198
01:13:37.214 --> 01:13:37.814
What have you heard?
1199
01:13:37.854 --> 01:13:38.735
What's the concern there?
1200
01:13:39.483 --> 01:13:41.784
We had like a whole episode on this before.
1201
01:13:41.964 --> 01:13:44.986
And so I'm betting that it is a recruiting tool.
1202
01:13:45.366 --> 01:13:46.666
Yeah.
1203
01:13:47.307 --> 01:13:48.287
I don't think there's a question.
1204
01:13:48.647 --> 01:13:48.928
Yeah.
1205
01:13:49.148 --> 01:13:50.368
And so I'm betting on that.
1206
01:13:50.528 --> 01:13:55.811
I think there's liability around people, you know, taking your customers because they're going to be on the same route all the time.
1207
01:13:57.071 --> 01:14:01.513
You're doing work outside of work hours, but there's things you can do to mitigate these things.
1208
01:14:01.934 --> 01:14:03.234
And so there's pros and cons to it.
1209
01:14:03.614 --> 01:14:10.117
And I'm banking on the fact that retention is the number one secret weapon of every great home service business.
1210
01:14:10.417 --> 01:14:15.840
And one of the things that I don't think you talk enough about is just how long your technicians, a lot of them have been at CityTurf.
1211
01:14:16.240 --> 01:14:16.740
Oh, yeah, yeah.
1212
01:14:17.141 --> 01:14:21.064
And that is a secret weapon, whether it be a management, but even technician level.
1213
01:14:21.524 --> 01:14:23.465
And so I want to demonstrate that.
1214
01:14:23.966 --> 01:14:28.449
And when when we hit the goal, it'll be back to me being able to say this is why.
1215
01:14:28.649 --> 01:14:32.252
And one of them will be you make certain sacrifices and you trust your people.
1216
01:14:32.532 --> 01:14:33.833
And yes, you've got to figure out other systems.
1217
01:14:33.853 --> 01:14:39.317
Like, yes, we'll have a video and tracking a little bit more and there'll be some logs and pictures and videos and forms they got to fill each day.
1218
01:14:39.757 --> 01:14:42.559
And it'll be a little more difficult to make sure we do some quality control.
1219
01:14:42.579 --> 01:14:45.201
Like those things will happen, but it's at the expense
1220
01:14:45.721 --> 01:14:48.584
or for the expense of having better retention.
1221
01:14:49.284 --> 01:14:51.766
And I want to emphasize those things a lot.
1222
01:14:52.567 --> 01:14:52.747
Yeah.
1223
01:14:53.027 --> 01:14:55.690
I think it's a huge value add to be able to take your truck home.
1224
01:14:56.010 --> 01:14:59.313
I assume you guys have GPS units on all the trucks.
1225
01:14:59.413 --> 01:15:04.417
And will you, like one of the things we used to let people take them home, we were, they were geofenced.
1226
01:15:04.477 --> 01:15:06.839
So we knew if they moved on the weekends and things like that.
1227
01:15:07.500 --> 01:15:10.122
So will you basically say, hey, once it's home, it's home.
1228
01:15:10.923 --> 01:15:13.064
You could drive to and from work, but you can't take it to,
1229
01:15:14.002 --> 01:15:15.063
the bar on Saturday.
1230
01:15:15.283 --> 01:15:16.683
I'm sure you guys are going to do that.
1231
01:15:17.043 --> 01:15:17.204
Yeah.
1232
01:15:17.224 --> 01:15:17.824
A hundred percent.
1233
01:15:17.924 --> 01:15:18.704
Just tailgating.
1234
01:15:18.784 --> 01:15:19.605
I got the man.
1235
01:15:19.725 --> 01:15:21.966
When we see it on the news, I'm like, ah, I got you.
1236
01:15:22.166 --> 01:15:24.647
A police, a police chase.
1237
01:15:26.248 --> 01:15:27.248
Might be good marketing.
1238
01:15:27.468 --> 01:15:31.490
That ramp come down out of the back of the car comes flying out while they're driving down the highway.
1239
01:15:31.550 --> 01:15:31.971
Car swerve.
1240
01:15:31.991 --> 01:15:32.091
Yeah.
1241
01:15:32.191 --> 01:15:32.451
Yeah.
1242
01:15:32.471 --> 01:15:33.011
Let's go.
1243
01:15:33.351 --> 01:15:33.912
Could be good.
1244
01:15:34.452 --> 01:15:35.012
All right.
1245
01:15:36.113 --> 01:15:36.573
Okay.
1246
01:15:36.613 --> 01:15:40.835
So, uh, I think that was all your, anything, nothing else comes to mind that you're really overly concerned about.
1247
01:15:41.420 --> 01:15:41.840
Not really.
1248
01:15:42.101 --> 01:15:42.241
No.
1249
01:15:42.281 --> 01:15:42.561
Yeah.
1250
01:15:42.901 --> 01:15:43.102
Yeah.
1251
01:15:43.562 --> 01:15:43.762
Yeah.
1252
01:15:43.782 --> 01:15:44.463
You've done this enough.
1253
01:15:45.084 --> 01:15:45.324
All right.
1254
01:15:45.424 --> 01:15:49.227
So we didn't really talk about this before.
1255
01:15:49.908 --> 01:15:55.994
Are you building the exact same kind of business that a typical Augusta franchisee would build?
1256
01:15:56.034 --> 01:15:57.656
Are you going to go bigger?
1257
01:15:57.856 --> 01:15:59.037
What's your thinking here?
1258
01:15:59.750 --> 01:16:05.417
Yeah, so the exact same model, just first location, six to eight technicians will get us around to that million dollar marker.
1259
01:16:05.918 --> 01:16:12.225
And then John will find, I'll assist him finding a general manager for that location, and then he'll move the next location over.
1260
01:16:12.766 --> 01:16:17.552
And so I'm not 100% what that second one's going to look like, but that would be the model is just.
1261
01:16:18.082 --> 01:16:19.823
build the same thing again.
1262
01:16:20.323 --> 01:16:21.483
Our objective is once a year.
1263
01:16:21.703 --> 01:16:27.786
So essentially what I'm doing the first year, I want to do it again next year and again the year after that, and just kind of copy and paste at that same pace.
1264
01:16:28.086 --> 01:16:34.308
If someone wanted to go faster, you could do two, like you could, but I'm going to do one a year.
1265
01:16:34.508 --> 01:16:35.068
That's kind of my goal.
1266
01:16:36.089 --> 01:16:41.131
And is it tend to be, how do you guys think about the terror?
1267
01:16:41.151 --> 01:16:42.751
So for you, how do you think about
1268
01:16:48.279 --> 01:16:49.079
population?
1269
01:16:49.159 --> 01:16:50.840
Is it a certain number of zip codes?
1270
01:16:51.761 --> 01:16:51.901
Yeah.
1271
01:16:51.921 --> 01:16:53.882
So we make sure at least a hundred thousand people.
1272
01:16:54.402 --> 01:16:58.084
And then we generally are having a, between a three and a five mile radius.
1273
01:16:58.304 --> 01:17:00.285
So I think mine's like three and a half or four miles radius.
1274
01:17:00.785 --> 01:17:11.850
And so I will be able to service, uh, have I said this publicly or I haven't said my territory name publicly, but the area that I'm servicing, it's going to make sure it covers that area.
1275
01:17:12.611 --> 01:17:16.072
Um, and, and I think inside my territory is about 120 to 130,000 people.
1276
01:17:17.795 --> 01:17:18.656
Within five miles?
1277
01:17:19.496 --> 01:17:20.236
It's like three and a half.
1278
01:17:20.316 --> 01:17:21.077
I got a little smaller.
1279
01:17:21.597 --> 01:17:21.857
Okay.
1280
01:17:22.217 --> 01:17:22.337
Yeah.
1281
01:17:22.357 --> 01:17:24.218
If we have a hundred thousand people, we're pretty confident.
1282
01:17:24.338 --> 01:17:32.022
Assuming that the location can bear it, meaning the financials of the demographic I'm going after is in there.
1283
01:17:32.802 --> 01:17:33.723
We feel pretty confident.
1284
01:17:34.432 --> 01:17:39.774
I know you've said before you like this, or at least this is how I've heard it, GM with eight trucks.
1285
01:17:40.535 --> 01:17:42.095
Is that remembered accurately?
1286
01:17:42.115 --> 01:17:42.535
Six to eight.
1287
01:17:42.555 --> 01:17:43.556
Six to eight technicians.
1288
01:17:43.776 --> 01:17:44.016
Yeah.
1289
01:17:44.036 --> 01:17:50.199
And that usually can get them between $800,000 to a million dollars in revenue once they've gone into profit mode.
1290
01:17:50.639 --> 01:17:57.722
And then the objective there is just as much recurring as possible and raising prices instead of getting more trucks and equipment.
1291
01:17:58.027 --> 01:17:58.708
That's my question.
1292
01:17:58.748 --> 01:18:07.221
So if this location were to support 16 trucks, would you say, no, no, we're just going to become a little bit more expensive and keep it to a certain size?
1293
01:18:08.058 --> 01:18:09.339
Correct, or break it off.
1294
01:18:09.760 --> 01:18:10.500
Or I'd break it off.
1295
01:18:10.540 --> 01:18:16.886
So there is an opportunity on the south side I could break down a part of it if it ever did grow that fast.
1296
01:18:17.486 --> 01:18:24.152
Generally though, when we run the math, breaking it off, you'd rather just go into profit mode and raise prices and you'll make just as much profit.
1297
01:18:24.192 --> 01:18:24.773
Yeah, yeah.
1298
01:18:25.053 --> 01:18:32.300
Yeah, and this is like back to what we've talked a lot about is like going big or just doing these smaller locations.
1299
01:18:33.200 --> 01:18:36.061
I think that going big in this market could actually work 100%.
1300
01:18:37.481 --> 01:18:38.882
Obviously, you're close by.
1301
01:18:38.922 --> 01:18:42.002
So you can grow a big business in a singular location.
1302
01:18:43.103 --> 01:18:50.265
The reason I'm doing it is in part for the content and for the people that are gonna follow the model that aren't in that side of the market.
1303
01:18:50.745 --> 01:18:59.927
But also it is because I see so many people build a three, four, $5 million business, and they're just on this constant five, 10 year treadmill of grow, grow, grow, and they never make it profitable.
1304
01:19:00.507 --> 01:19:06.307
And so I believe a forcing function, even in a market like near Dallas, where I could do that is
1305
01:19:07.606 --> 01:19:34.057
um breaking off that section it's profitable i'm not raising prices i'm optimizing it and i move on to the next million and then the next million in revenue and then i know when i have a three or four or five million dollar business it's all profitable and there's not like this big moment of reckoning where i realize i have this machine that is sucking cash and not actually profitable and none of the math works and so um i'm sticking up very closely to like what we call the copy and paste method instead of augusta and just copying those
1306
01:19:34.707 --> 01:19:34.967
Okay.
1307
01:19:35.087 --> 01:19:35.547
Makes sense.
1308
01:19:35.767 --> 01:19:38.729
How, what kind of facility do you run a business like this out of?
1309
01:19:39.309 --> 01:19:41.710
Well, uh, my objective is nothing.
1310
01:19:42.330 --> 01:19:43.050
Um, okay.
1311
01:19:43.110 --> 01:19:43.511
Oh, right.
1312
01:19:43.531 --> 01:19:44.071
Yeah.
1313
01:19:44.111 --> 01:19:44.551
Yeah.
1314
01:19:44.571 --> 01:19:44.891
Yeah.
1315
01:19:44.911 --> 01:19:45.131
Yeah.
1316
01:19:45.331 --> 01:19:45.491
Right.
1317
01:19:45.511 --> 01:19:45.611
Yeah.
1318
01:19:45.631 --> 01:19:50.513
So the general manager will have a van that is exactly the same as the crew, but we'll kind of serve as the service station.
1319
01:19:51.054 --> 01:19:54.175
That being said for chemicals, there might be, have to be some storage.
1320
01:19:54.675 --> 01:20:01.240
So that's something that will be, and then as we would do locations down the road, like, well, where do we strategically place those?
1321
01:20:01.500 --> 01:20:05.543
Do we need one or two as we expand service area and into new locations?
1322
01:20:05.983 --> 01:20:14.549
So that's like the one asterisk, but we're pretty confident there's enough space for six to eight technicians that I have one van that's kind of the warehouse.
1323
01:20:15.200 --> 01:20:17.161
So where do you sharpen blades?
1324
01:20:17.281 --> 01:20:19.481
Where do you store backup equipment?
1325
01:20:20.062 --> 01:20:20.842
Things of that sort.
1326
01:20:21.262 --> 01:20:22.402
In that GM's van.
1327
01:20:22.923 --> 01:20:23.023
Okay.
1328
01:20:23.203 --> 01:20:25.624
And so there would be a backup of every piece of equipment.
1329
01:20:25.644 --> 01:20:27.904
So if something goes down, he can go out, switch it out.
1330
01:20:28.024 --> 01:20:32.246
He would then be taking that to a dealer or whatever it might be.
1331
01:20:32.686 --> 01:20:34.166
And then same thing with blade sharpening.
1332
01:20:34.707 --> 01:20:35.507
We want them to be as...
1333
01:20:36.627 --> 01:20:37.508
independent as possible.
1334
01:20:37.568 --> 01:20:39.630
So like those be mounted inside of the trucks.
1335
01:20:39.910 --> 01:20:45.294
There's still a weekly gathering point for the vans that we're planning right now, where they do meet up once a week.
1336
01:20:45.534 --> 01:20:49.157
It'd just be like, you'd go to a Walmart or a Lowe's and just everyone back up your trucks.
1337
01:20:49.478 --> 01:20:50.398
Let's do inspections.
1338
01:20:50.539 --> 01:20:51.339
Let's do blitz.
1339
01:20:51.359 --> 01:20:51.740
Exactly.
1340
01:20:51.760 --> 01:20:53.661
Distribute new stuff, supplies, et cetera.
1341
01:20:53.981 --> 01:20:56.584
Does the GM sharpen blades for people and things like that?
1342
01:20:57.428 --> 01:20:58.468
Or do they sharpen their own?
1343
01:20:58.488 --> 01:20:59.069
Like, how do you think?
1344
01:20:59.089 --> 01:21:01.990
I was just like such a minor little detail, but I'm curious now.
1345
01:21:02.550 --> 01:21:06.552
We want to make the technicians as responsible as possible for what they have on their truck.
1346
01:21:06.872 --> 01:21:12.054
I believe that a lot of even like damaged equipment, blades not being sharpened.
1347
01:21:12.114 --> 01:21:16.156
All of that is because we share stuff in our teams and there's no accountability.
1348
01:21:16.176 --> 01:21:21.458
It's harder to pin down who necessarily didn't sharpen the blades when there's been 10 different people who use that mower.
1349
01:21:21.698 --> 01:21:22.659
Who's responsible for that?
1350
01:21:22.999 --> 01:21:25.280
Versus like everything on your van is your responsibility.
1351
01:21:25.640 --> 01:21:33.302
And so it's, there's certain standards of like each day submitting what was done to your equipment, making sure it was cleaned, et cetera.
1352
01:21:33.662 --> 01:21:48.866
And those are things that like John is refining in terms of like, what's his process he wants for those vans and even like a mowing truck versus or mowing van versus a chemical van, very different in terms of what process for quality control of just the, the equipment is going to be taking place.
1353
01:21:49.446 --> 01:21:49.706
Okay.
1354
01:21:50.306 --> 01:21:52.187
Has John already started or is he?
1355
01:21:53.490 --> 01:21:54.111
Coming soon.
1356
01:21:54.531 --> 01:21:58.395
He starts in two weeks for owner training.
1357
01:21:58.415 --> 01:21:59.376
He'll be flying out.
1358
01:21:59.857 --> 01:22:00.097
Okay.
1359
01:22:00.457 --> 01:22:01.058
Very interesting.
1360
01:22:02.299 --> 01:22:06.584
What else do you think in this whole thing you're about to do?
1361
01:22:06.904 --> 01:22:10.708
What else do you think people should know or would be interesting or a value to them?
1362
01:22:11.328 --> 01:22:14.592
I think all of it comes down to confidence in your numbers.
1363
01:22:14.612 --> 01:22:14.832
Yeah.
1364
01:22:15.821 --> 01:22:20.342
The reason I can say it publicly is because I can run the math and I do know enough about my customer records and costs.
1365
01:22:20.542 --> 01:22:22.202
I know the cost of the vans.
1366
01:22:22.222 --> 01:22:23.903
I know what I'm going to have to spend on employees.
1367
01:22:23.923 --> 01:22:27.283
Like if you just know the basic numbers, you can forecast much better.
1368
01:22:27.844 --> 01:22:29.884
Most people do not know their customer records and costs.
1369
01:22:29.984 --> 01:22:30.504
They just don't.
1370
01:22:30.664 --> 01:22:37.645
Like we've just seen so many times people come in and they tell me a number and I'm like, okay, show me your financials and show me your reports from Facebook ads and Google ads.
1371
01:22:37.665 --> 01:22:39.066
And it's like you're not even close.
1372
01:22:39.086 --> 01:22:41.906
Like you're three or four times more what you think it is.
1373
01:22:46.531 --> 01:22:47.593
it's just not going to end well.
1374
01:22:48.274 --> 01:22:51.940
And so I have been extremely blessed with Augusta Leeds.
1375
01:22:52.200 --> 01:22:55.726
It is 100% the secret weapon behind all of this to have the confidence that,
1376
01:22:56.369 --> 01:22:59.831
what my customer action cost going to be, knowing that we can pivot and adjust and change.
1377
01:23:00.391 --> 01:23:03.993
And so for anyone else, like, oh, it's like, go find an agency.
1378
01:23:04.053 --> 01:23:05.514
They do this all the time.
1379
01:23:05.534 --> 01:23:08.095
That's exactly how I would hope people hear this.
1380
01:23:08.115 --> 01:23:11.477
Like, the idea is not to like say, oh, this isn't fair.
1381
01:23:11.517 --> 01:23:12.458
So this doesn't count.
1382
01:23:12.518 --> 01:23:16.200
The idea is to say, here's just who I need to fill that gap.
1383
01:23:16.240 --> 01:23:16.860
Go find them.
1384
01:23:17.040 --> 01:23:18.001
So you can do this too.
1385
01:23:18.301 --> 01:23:18.501
Yeah.
1386
01:23:18.541 --> 01:23:18.701
Yeah.
1387
01:23:18.901 --> 01:23:21.903
And I hope that people realize how little, how few things I'll do there.
1388
01:23:22.387 --> 01:23:23.830
Like I'm not going to be doing a lot.
1389
01:23:23.910 --> 01:23:28.438
It's a focusing on the top three or four things that will really change the direction of the business.
1390
01:23:28.458 --> 01:23:29.360
And I see so many people,
1391
01:23:30.085 --> 01:23:36.587
get stuck in operator mode and never be able to build a two, three, four million dollar business because they're just stuck in like every detail they've got to be in their hands on.
1392
01:23:36.988 --> 01:23:38.748
Every little thing's going to be perfect and it doesn't.
1393
01:23:39.188 --> 01:23:45.311
You got to focus on getting more jobs, getting the crew to do those jobs and making sure the work they do is high quality.
1394
01:23:45.411 --> 01:23:48.332
If those three things are happening, you got yourself a good home service business.
1395
01:23:48.732 --> 01:23:49.892
Yeah, that's good advice.
1396
01:23:50.412 --> 01:23:54.714
The place you two are going to be living, did you just find it on Airbnb or what'd you do?
1397
01:23:55.272 --> 01:23:56.113
Yeah, yeah.
1398
01:23:56.153 --> 01:24:01.076
So, yeah, so all of this part is like, I have my wife for six months over there, right?
1399
01:24:01.096 --> 01:24:04.678
So like, everything is kind of like what she needs and wants, I'm all on board.
1400
01:24:05.178 --> 01:24:09.080
And so part of it is like, where we're staying is very central to several things.
1401
01:24:09.240 --> 01:24:14.143
One, my territory, two, Dallas downtown, and then a couple other towns up north.
1402
01:24:14.183 --> 01:24:14.984
We were like McKinney.
1403
01:24:16.245 --> 01:24:16.645
And so...
1404
01:24:17.936 --> 01:24:19.157
It's very central to all of that.
1405
01:24:19.197 --> 01:24:21.939
Within 25 minutes, we can kind of get to everything we want to go to.
1406
01:24:22.919 --> 01:24:25.981
And so that's where we narrowed it down there.
1407
01:24:26.501 --> 01:24:32.965
And then, yeah, Airbnb, when you're looking for six months, not a lot of options.
1408
01:24:33.425 --> 01:24:33.766
Yeah.
1409
01:24:33.886 --> 01:24:35.667
So we were kind of stuck with a certain spot.
1410
01:24:35.707 --> 01:24:38.668
We weren't like thrilled with the house, but we just made do.
1411
01:24:39.129 --> 01:24:42.831
Did you look at it in advance or you're just going to hope it's good?
1412
01:24:43.553 --> 01:24:43.773
Oh, no.
1413
01:24:44.034 --> 01:24:44.294
Yeah.
1414
01:24:44.414 --> 01:24:44.674
Oh, yeah.
1415
01:24:44.694 --> 01:24:45.135
We went there.
1416
01:24:45.155 --> 01:24:45.495
Yeah.
1417
01:24:45.575 --> 01:24:47.497
Okay.
1418
01:24:47.537 --> 01:24:48.638
Like, trust me, honey.
1419
01:24:48.698 --> 01:24:49.599
It's a great place.
1420
01:24:49.779 --> 01:24:50.119
Okay.
1421
01:24:50.240 --> 01:24:52.302
You know, we showed up.
1422
01:24:53.263 --> 01:24:55.244
We met the owners, did a walkthrough the whole night.
1423
01:24:55.264 --> 01:24:55.445
Okay.
1424
01:24:56.145 --> 01:24:58.988
I rent homes and sometimes they're very expensive.
1425
01:24:59.068 --> 01:25:01.871
And whether it's expensive or not, it doesn't really matter.
1426
01:25:01.931 --> 01:25:05.314
But you really hope you're going to get what you think you're going to hope.
1427
01:25:05.394 --> 01:25:05.855
And so...
1428
01:25:06.667 --> 01:25:08.968
That was some really good Photoshop.
1429
01:25:09.048 --> 01:25:09.949
Exactly.
1430
01:25:10.089 --> 01:25:11.970
So that's why I was curious because you're committed.
1431
01:25:12.290 --> 01:25:13.511
It's not like a week here.
1432
01:25:13.531 --> 01:25:14.131
You're committed.
1433
01:25:14.151 --> 01:25:16.452
So I was curious how you're doing this.
1434
01:25:16.492 --> 01:25:16.693
Cool.
1435
01:25:16.973 --> 01:25:17.233
All right.
1436
01:25:17.353 --> 01:25:26.658
So let's end with, of everything you've talked about today, if you could give those listening a next, if they want to implement,
1437
01:25:28.150 --> 01:25:36.614
If they want to implement something and just go faster, build a better business, based on what you've talked about, would you have a next action to leave them with today?
1438
01:25:39.435 --> 01:25:42.096
I think the theme has actually been kind of our own customer acquisition cost.
1439
01:25:42.296 --> 01:25:43.577
Like figure out what that number is.
1440
01:25:43.917 --> 01:25:44.958
Like I know it sounds simple.
1441
01:25:44.978 --> 01:25:46.138
We talk about it all the time.
1442
01:25:46.178 --> 01:25:52.241
But I just, I have, we've done over 110, almost 120 turnarounds.
1443
01:25:52.621 --> 01:25:55.462
And I have met three of them that know their customer acquisition cost.
1444
01:25:56.043 --> 01:25:56.523
Actually know it.
1445
01:25:57.528 --> 01:26:02.532
And so I think you and I talked to a lot of higher operators like this is common.
1446
01:26:02.952 --> 01:26:03.853
It doesn't happen.
1447
01:26:04.334 --> 01:26:05.515
It's even not coming.
1448
01:26:07.976 --> 01:26:09.578
I was given the benefit of the doubt.
1449
01:26:09.598 --> 01:26:10.478
No, no, no.
1450
01:26:10.539 --> 01:26:12.240
All of JP's friends have everything perfect.
1451
01:26:12.380 --> 01:26:13.161
OK, so.
1452
01:26:13.941 --> 01:26:14.121
No.
1453
01:26:14.442 --> 01:26:14.782
No.
1454
01:26:15.457 --> 01:26:17.698
But yeah, just know your customer action costs.
1455
01:26:17.818 --> 01:26:33.507
I think that like we talked about last week about knowing your cogs, the advantage of AI to be able to put, put all your data in from Facebook and where you're running Google ads and show it where like at the very least have a custom field or some sort of dropdown where you're getting your customers to be able to run a porn.
1456
01:26:33.527 --> 01:26:34.988
Like, are they coming from Facebook?
1457
01:26:35.008 --> 01:26:35.989
Are they coming from Google?
1458
01:26:36.009 --> 01:26:38.430
Do they see my trucks to know where to deploy the money?
1459
01:26:38.450 --> 01:26:44.954
Um, but the very, uh, best, I would have a customer action costs by service and by month.
1460
01:26:45.596 --> 01:26:48.738
to know when to spend the money and on what services you should be promoting.
1461
01:26:50.139 --> 01:26:51.660
Yeah, that's good advice.
1462
01:26:51.720 --> 01:26:52.700
CAC would have been mine.
1463
01:26:52.720 --> 01:26:58.484
I didn't know what you were going to say today, but as we were talking, my brain's processing, okay, what's my next action going to be?
1464
01:26:58.804 --> 01:27:01.866
And there was very much that theme, and I think it's a great place to start.
1465
01:27:01.886 --> 01:27:06.149
And I'd also just remind those that are listening, maybe even rewind in...
1466
01:27:07.128 --> 01:27:16.051
or however you're listening to this, when you talked about how the CAC can allow you to predict so many different things, that was very valuable.
1467
01:27:16.531 --> 01:27:22.053
And it's another argument for why CAC should be the one, but I'll go a different direction because you used CAC.
1468
01:27:22.153 --> 01:27:35.878
And I would say kind of similar to what I just said, it's this idea that we all, here we are in whatever, August, it's not gonna be long before we all start dreaming about next year, next year's gonna be better, next year's gonna be different.
1469
01:27:36.838 --> 01:27:40.280
And we do our little planning thing and we make up a number.
1470
01:27:40.300 --> 01:27:41.541
This is how much I'm going to grow.
1471
01:27:41.981 --> 01:27:45.183
And for most people, I've been included in this.
1472
01:27:45.503 --> 01:27:47.224
You make up the number and then you don't hit the number.
1473
01:27:47.664 --> 01:27:49.325
Like, well, why don't you hit the number?
1474
01:27:49.385 --> 01:27:51.506
A lot of it's because CAC's an example.
1475
01:27:51.546 --> 01:27:56.929
But the other is, it's just saying that we're going to grow by this amount of revenue is like,
1476
01:27:57.709 --> 01:27:59.190
it's like 5% of the puzzle.
1477
01:27:59.231 --> 01:28:10.361
The real puzzle is now backing into who are we going to need to hire, what trucks we're going to need to buy, what equipment we're going to need to buy, how far in advance of the Facebook ads going live.
1478
01:28:10.381 --> 01:28:12.583
Do we need to work on the creative?
1479
01:28:12.823 --> 01:28:14.464
You've got to set all the dates.
1480
01:28:14.504 --> 01:28:15.866
This is when the ad needs to drop.
1481
01:28:15.906 --> 01:28:18.508
This is when we think we'll have the next 100 clients.
1482
01:28:18.528 --> 01:28:21.891
This is when the truck and the equipment need to be rolling with the people in the truck.
1483
01:28:21.911 --> 01:28:22.732
And you have to back
1484
01:28:23.152 --> 01:28:28.034
all those dates up and start working those initiatives weeks and months in advance.
1485
01:28:28.074 --> 01:28:33.817
And the reason we never hit, not we never, but oftentimes we don't hit our numbers is because we didn't do that part.
1486
01:28:34.437 --> 01:28:37.439
The stating of the goal is the easiest, funnest part.
1487
01:28:38.519 --> 01:28:40.660
The hitting the goal- I think a $5 million business in 12 months.
1488
01:28:42.562 --> 01:28:46.307
And so, but if you don't back into it, then you don't understand when it needs to start.
1489
01:28:46.327 --> 01:28:47.870
You don't even understand what it's going to cost.
1490
01:28:48.571 --> 01:28:57.283
And so, and then to your point, you could have a killer business, just be going a hundred miles an hour, everything's working, but then you run out of money because like, oh crap, that little cost problem.
1491
01:28:57.784 --> 01:29:00.906
So that, that will be my next action item to leave you with.
1492
01:29:01.426 --> 01:29:05.369
Second to the CAC ideas, you're not going to dial in your CAC number immediately.
1493
01:29:05.609 --> 01:29:07.090
It's like our ask.
1494
01:29:07.110 --> 01:29:08.051
I think you'd agree, Mike.
1495
01:29:08.071 --> 01:29:09.652
It's like, can you just start working on this?
1496
01:29:09.892 --> 01:29:11.633
Can you really understand this number?
1497
01:29:11.653 --> 01:29:15.075
And can you start thinking about the number and just be collecting the data?
1498
01:29:15.356 --> 01:29:17.997
Can you, there's some things you're going to need to do to collect the data.
1499
01:29:18.017 --> 01:29:22.480
And once you got the data, you're going to, you're starting to get pretty close to being able to report that number.
1500
01:29:22.560 --> 01:29:23.821
So any last words?
1501
01:29:24.181 --> 01:29:26.163
And just to back up what you said there, like,
1502
01:29:26.783 --> 01:29:38.760
I haven't talked a ton about what I'm doing on the show for next year, but there's like probably 15 to 20 strategy documents, probably hundreds of pages, and there's like,
1503
01:29:39.590 --> 01:29:40.930
lots of people's eyes on it.
1504
01:29:41.050 --> 01:29:46.372
There's a lot of thought that goes in these things as much as it'll seem like we showed up and like we hit the ground running.
1505
01:29:46.592 --> 01:29:53.793
It's like, no, no, like all the things that JP just mentioned has been thought out in depth, whether it be customer question costs, what's the lifetime of that?
1506
01:29:53.833 --> 01:29:58.875
What is our turn going to be if I'm in a new market and I might not be servicing the customer at the highest level?
1507
01:29:58.935 --> 01:30:01.075
I can't just like pull a number out of thin air.
1508
01:30:02.195 --> 01:30:04.696
How many lawns can someone actually get done in a week?
1509
01:30:04.956 --> 01:30:05.176
Well,
1510
01:30:05.832 --> 01:30:08.118
Can I get that higher if I give them a van to take home?
1511
01:30:08.399 --> 01:30:10.143
These are all the little details you have to keep –
1512
01:30:12.137 --> 01:30:36.452
um playing with and so if you have an idea for next year and you're a lot of times you got through spring rush it's now august september you're like okay i breathe now i can start thinking about next year like i encourage you this is the time to do it is not next january february march right before spring rush it is you got to start thinking through looking back at historical data what was my customer action cost when did i spend money did i spend all my marketing budget when my customer action cost was the highest because no one needed my service and i was just slow
1513
01:30:37.072 --> 01:30:38.293
how do I prevent that from happening?
1514
01:30:38.393 --> 01:30:43.635
Like strategy is the name of the game once capital is abundant.
1515
01:30:44.215 --> 01:30:53.438
And so this is like what JP's talking about with AI, for example, is like, you know, you can have all the answers in the world, but if you don't have a good strategy, it doesn't matter.
1516
01:30:53.919 --> 01:30:57.220
And so have a good strategy going next year and don't let it just all be numbers.
1517
01:30:58.523 --> 01:30:59.123
Fantastic.
1518
01:30:59.163 --> 01:30:59.923
I think we'll wrap it there.
1519
01:30:59.943 --> 01:31:00.323
Wait a second.
1520
01:31:00.503 --> 01:31:01.884
I have one final thing.
1521
01:31:02.084 --> 01:31:02.444
Okay.
1522
01:31:02.604 --> 01:31:05.784
Since you took away my cold open that I love so dearly.
1523
01:31:05.804 --> 01:31:07.385
I'm not taking it away permanently.
1524
01:31:08.785 --> 01:31:11.265
I'm jumping right in today to see what people think.
1525
01:31:11.545 --> 01:31:12.045
I understand.
1526
01:31:12.065 --> 01:31:12.586
I understand.
1527
01:31:12.626 --> 01:31:14.206
Now, I'm going to share something.
1528
01:31:14.646 --> 01:31:14.926
All right.
1529
01:31:15.186 --> 01:31:16.486
I just wanted to welcome you.
1530
01:31:16.726 --> 01:31:17.166
One second.
1531
01:31:17.566 --> 01:31:20.387
I wanted to welcome you to the YouTube community.
1532
01:31:20.627 --> 01:31:20.867
All right.
1533
01:31:21.007 --> 01:31:22.607
Now you are a professional influencer.
1534
01:31:22.627 --> 01:31:23.387
Can you see my screen?
1535
01:31:23.928 --> 01:31:25.208
I see you and not me.
1536
01:31:25.248 --> 01:31:26.068
I don't see anything else.
1537
01:31:26.308 --> 01:31:27.590
You don't, oh, come on, you gotta zoom out.
1538
01:31:27.610 --> 01:31:30.053
You gotta get something to where you can see my whole screen.
1539
01:31:30.354 --> 01:31:31.095
Okay, hold on, hold on.
1540
01:31:31.115 --> 01:31:31.816
Give me a second here.
1541
01:31:32.517 --> 01:31:36.042
Since you're going to bring something up, I'm gonna say, well, oh, okay, hold on.
1542
01:31:36.082 --> 01:31:36.803
Almost, ah, ah, ah.
1543
01:31:38.438 --> 01:31:39.078
Let's go.
1544
01:31:39.098 --> 01:31:43.099
This is what we call a professional YouTuber right here.
1545
01:31:43.139 --> 01:31:43.879
Look at this guy.
1546
01:31:43.999 --> 01:31:54.742
So JP had his photo shoot and he gets me the feeling that I have to go through of looking at a camera and doing stupid faces like this all day long.
1547
01:31:54.982 --> 01:31:57.222
Yeah, this is my cup of tea right here.
1548
01:31:58.483 --> 01:31:59.343
I love this stuff.
1549
01:32:01.644 --> 01:32:07.286
I saw those photos and I was like, oh man, the degrading that he was going through in his mind is so good.
1550
01:32:07.486 --> 01:32:08.146
So awesome.
1551
01:32:08.166 --> 01:32:08.406
Yeah.
1552
01:32:08.446 --> 01:32:08.806
Loved it.
1553
01:32:09.146 --> 01:32:11.847
Actually, since you brought something else up, I'll say, say one thing.
1554
01:32:11.887 --> 01:32:17.749
So last Wednesday after we did our deal, actually, let me put you back up on my screen so I can actually look at you.
1555
01:32:18.029 --> 01:32:18.309
All right.
1556
01:32:18.589 --> 01:32:23.090
So, uh, we, uh, I went to dinner with a buddy who's actually in your group.
1557
01:32:23.610 --> 01:32:24.431
Uh, his name's EJ.
1558
01:32:24.951 --> 01:32:25.651
Oh yeah.
1559
01:32:25.711 --> 01:32:26.091
Yeah.
1560
01:32:26.431 --> 01:32:28.012
So EJ has a Tesla.
1561
01:32:28.032 --> 01:32:28.212
Yeah.
1562
01:32:29.073 --> 01:32:33.317
And so we, last week we were talking about robotic mowers and drones and self-driving cars.
1563
01:32:34.297 --> 01:32:39.161
Have you been in a, you might have, have you done the self-driving in a Tesla recently?
1564
01:32:39.642 --> 01:32:40.342
No, not recently.
1565
01:32:40.703 --> 01:32:41.083
Man.
1566
01:32:41.463 --> 01:32:42.064
I've heard it's good.
1567
01:32:42.744 --> 01:32:45.727
I feel better about my predictions.
1568
01:32:46.728 --> 01:32:53.293
I've been in, I've been in two Teslas previously doing self-driving and I'm like, eh, it's choppy.
1569
01:32:53.333 --> 01:32:55.134
They make last minute decisions.
1570
01:32:55.395 --> 01:32:57.016
I just, it's like, okay, cool.
1571
01:32:57.076 --> 01:32:57.456
Someday.
1572
01:32:57.476 --> 01:32:57.917
Yeah.
1573
01:32:58.297 --> 01:33:02.281
So after EJ and I had dinner, I drove the car.
1574
01:33:02.301 --> 01:33:03.141
I didn't drive anything.
1575
01:33:03.242 --> 01:33:04.002
I never touched it.
1576
01:33:04.803 --> 01:33:09.147
And we went all over side streets, freeways, all kinds of stuff.
1577
01:33:10.048 --> 01:33:10.608
Phenomenal.
1578
01:33:11.289 --> 01:33:13.351
I mean, they have stepped up the game.
1579
01:33:14.191 --> 01:33:18.154
So it won't be long until your vans are going to be self-driving.
1580
01:33:18.774 --> 01:33:20.796
I thought you were going to say you're about to go get a Tesla.
1581
01:33:21.096 --> 01:33:21.876
No, no, no, no.
1582
01:33:21.976 --> 01:33:24.458
I want a manual car, stick shift, and a big engine.
1583
01:33:24.478 --> 01:33:29.441
You don't want the neighbors seeing a Ferrari and a Tesla in the same driveway.
1584
01:33:29.461 --> 01:33:30.522
Come on now.
1585
01:33:30.702 --> 01:33:33.124
I have to say, I was really impressed.
1586
01:33:33.184 --> 01:33:33.984
It's really cool.
1587
01:33:34.044 --> 01:33:37.727
But if I didn't care about cars, I'd own a Tesla maybe.
1588
01:33:37.807 --> 01:33:38.147
Yeah.
1589
01:33:39.377 --> 01:33:42.258
It's really cool, but I prefer to drive my car.
1590
01:33:42.778 --> 01:33:43.278
Oh, man.
1591
01:33:43.378 --> 01:33:44.419
Anyway, I just had to tell you.
1592
01:33:44.439 --> 01:33:46.780
I was like, golly, they have stepped up their game.
1593
01:33:46.960 --> 01:33:49.021
That thing was fantastic.
1594
01:33:49.141 --> 01:33:49.941
I see the crossover.
1595
01:33:50.281 --> 01:33:51.661
You're stepping up your YouTube game.
1596
01:33:51.862 --> 01:33:53.982
Tesla stepping up their full self-driving game.
1597
01:33:54.563 --> 01:33:55.063
It's beautiful.
1598
01:33:55.483 --> 01:33:56.343
I'd rather be Tesla.
1599
01:33:57.944 --> 01:33:58.504
Better game.
1600
01:33:59.344 --> 01:34:01.085
Wasn't it awkward, though, taking those photos?
1601
01:34:01.105 --> 01:34:01.205
Yeah.
1602
01:34:02.125 --> 01:34:03.006
Oh yeah, it's terrible.
1603
01:34:03.026 --> 01:34:03.466
I hate that stuff.
1604
01:34:03.486 --> 01:34:04.326
It's so horrible, isn't it?
1605
01:34:04.386 --> 01:34:05.107
I hate that.
1606
01:34:05.207 --> 01:34:06.748
I hate that so much.
1607
01:34:06.968 --> 01:34:08.949
There's a reason I have no headshots.
1608
01:34:09.009 --> 01:34:13.651
The one time I got the headshot thing done, it was for like a service auto pie conference.
1609
01:34:13.711 --> 01:34:16.373
It's that blue shirt picture I took.
1610
01:34:16.393 --> 01:34:19.714
That one time I used it, I'm like, please don't use that picture anymore.
1611
01:34:19.855 --> 01:34:25.237
I'm going to make a website just with these thumbnails just to make sure they rank well on Google.
1612
01:34:25.678 --> 01:34:27.499
I'm killing the share link right now.
1613
01:34:27.759 --> 01:34:28.939
You probably already downloaded them.
1614
01:34:29.019 --> 01:34:29.740
So yeah, yeah.
1615
01:34:30.362 --> 01:34:30.763
Anyway.
1616
01:34:31.105 --> 01:34:31.426
All right.
1617
01:34:31.727 --> 01:34:32.269
Good seeing you.
1618
01:34:32.289 --> 01:34:33.374
Have fun in Michigan, right?
1619
01:34:33.635 --> 01:34:34.518
Michigan, that's where you're at?
1620
01:34:34.538 --> 01:34:34.840
All right.
1621
01:34:34.920 --> 01:34:35.281
Have fun.
1622
01:34:35.683 --> 01:34:36.145
Take care, brother.
1623
01:34:36.406 --> 01:34:36.988
See you next week.
1624
01:34:37.310 --> 01:34:37.671
You as well.
1
00:00:00.278 --> 00:00:02.259
The greatest risk is that something would happen to John.
2
00:00:02.299 --> 00:00:02.820
John needs to move.
3
00:00:02.840 --> 00:00:03.700
There's a life event.
4
00:00:03.740 --> 00:00:04.741
Something doesn't work out.
5
00:00:05.781 --> 00:00:11.065
And so you do everything possible to make sure that the incentives of that person are aligned with the business objectives.
6
00:00:11.245 --> 00:00:13.246
Here's just who I need to fill that gap.
7
00:00:13.286 --> 00:00:13.786
Go find them.
8
00:00:14.066 --> 00:00:15.027
So you can do this too.
9
00:00:15.347 --> 00:00:16.428
Ultimately, I have one swing.
10
00:00:16.448 --> 00:00:24.232
And that's the part that's actually my biggest fear when you publicly state something like this is I got one swing in spring rush to get there.
11
00:00:24.292 --> 00:00:25.073
That'll be the hardest part.
12
00:00:25.393 --> 00:00:30.156
You could have a killer business, just be going 100 miles an hour, everything's working, but then you run out of money.
13
00:00:30.376 --> 00:00:32.317
Because like, oh crap, that little cost problem.
14
00:00:32.557 --> 00:00:33.798
The first time I said this, yeah.
15
00:00:33.978 --> 00:00:36.299
Right now, my budget is 130,000.
16
00:00:36.519 --> 00:00:38.480
That assumes that I get there in six months.
17
00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:41.402
I've never ran a location where the technicians take the trucks home.
18
00:00:41.902 --> 00:00:44.283
I've also never ran a location that uses vans.
19
00:00:44.663 --> 00:00:46.063
We've always used pickup trucks.
20
00:00:46.243 --> 00:00:49.524
I think all of it comes down to confidence in your numbers.
21
00:00:49.704 --> 00:00:52.145
The reason I can say it publicly is because I can run the math.
22
00:00:52.225 --> 00:00:55.066
If you just know the basic numbers, you can forecast much better.
23
00:00:55.086 --> 00:00:55.746
Hey, everybody.
24
00:00:56.066 --> 00:00:56.586
Welcome back.
25
00:00:57.027 --> 00:00:57.627
Mike, how's it going?
26
00:00:57.647 --> 00:00:58.727
Fantastic.
27
00:00:58.747 --> 00:00:59.687
I'm not in the studio today.
28
00:01:00.047 --> 00:01:01.828
You have an edge on appearance.
29
00:01:04.409 --> 00:01:04.849
Where are you?
30
00:01:05.609 --> 00:01:06.789
Michigan, doing a turnaround.
31
00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:07.650
Okay.
32
00:01:07.850 --> 00:01:08.070
All right.
33
00:01:08.090 --> 00:01:08.730
How long have you been there?
34
00:01:09.558 --> 00:01:10.538
Just 24 hours.
35
00:01:10.558 --> 00:01:11.839
So to turn around is like fast.
36
00:01:11.859 --> 00:01:13.759
It just move, move, move.
37
00:01:13.859 --> 00:01:16.040
So the other day I was in a different state.
38
00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:17.381
Are you heading home after this?
39
00:01:17.681 --> 00:01:18.221
Yeah, tomorrow.
40
00:01:18.401 --> 00:01:18.581
Yep.
41
00:01:19.121 --> 00:01:19.381
All right.
42
00:01:19.421 --> 00:01:19.961
Fantastic.
43
00:01:20.942 --> 00:01:21.222
All right.
44
00:01:21.302 --> 00:01:26.823
If you've been listening to us for a while, you know that Mike is moving to Texas for a period of time.
45
00:01:27.564 --> 00:01:33.185
And he's going to show everyone how to build a business from zero to $1 million.
46
00:01:33.405 --> 00:01:37.647
And the stated goals within a year, I believe that to be accurate.
47
00:01:37.907 --> 00:01:38.047
Yep.
48
00:01:38.787 --> 00:01:40.848
And I think we've talked about this before.
49
00:01:40.868 --> 00:01:42.029
I think it's super interesting.
50
00:01:42.949 --> 00:01:46.912
And I wanted to make the theme today, everything about how do you do that?
51
00:01:47.012 --> 00:01:48.533
Because that's a big goal.
52
00:01:49.473 --> 00:01:52.675
I got to imagine you don't think it'll necessarily be perfectly easy.
53
00:01:53.475 --> 00:01:54.516
Would you agree, Mike?
54
00:01:54.556 --> 00:01:56.617
Or do you like, I have no concern?
55
00:01:56.697 --> 00:02:01.660
I thought I thought the question, the docket though, there was one part where it was like, it will not go as planned, period.
56
00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:03.261
I'm like, wow, that seems very definitive.
57
00:02:05.847 --> 00:02:07.768
Well, I wanted to get you thinking about that question.
58
00:02:07.888 --> 00:02:16.910
So yeah, I mean, if I was putting it out there that, hey, I'm going to a new city, I'm going to build a $1 million business in one year, I'd be like, golly, I hope I can do this.
59
00:02:16.930 --> 00:02:19.491
So I mean, not easy.
60
00:02:19.651 --> 00:02:24.333
And so I think it is an awesome topic for anyone that is...
61
00:02:25.675 --> 00:02:33.740
has the desire to do such a thing, or you've got a business and you're, it doesn't matter what number you're at, 500,000, a million bucks, five million bucks.
62
00:02:33.760 --> 00:02:35.481
How do you add a million in revenue in a year?
63
00:02:35.941 --> 00:02:40.203
So this is a, that's going to be the theme of everything I wanted to talk to Mike about today.
64
00:02:41.224 --> 00:02:44.926
And I've given him some heads up on the question so he could give these a little bit of thought.
65
00:02:45.046 --> 00:02:47.067
That's what we're always referring to when we say the docket.
66
00:02:47.708 --> 00:02:49.449
So I want to talk through this.
67
00:02:49.549 --> 00:02:52.831
And as you hear Mike talk about it and I ask him questions and,
68
00:02:53.959 --> 00:02:55.600
We'll just make this a conversation.
69
00:02:55.961 --> 00:02:57.722
Think about how you'd apply it to your business.
70
00:02:57.742 --> 00:03:03.306
You'll hear him say, this is what I'm going to do, or here's how I'm thinking about it, or here's what I'm not sure about yet.
71
00:03:03.686 --> 00:03:06.348
Think about those types of things as you think about your business.
72
00:03:06.368 --> 00:03:08.049
That's what I'm hoping to get out of this.
73
00:03:08.750 --> 00:03:10.751
And so that's the gist of what we're talking about.
74
00:03:10.771 --> 00:03:14.334
But before we do that, I guess I kind of know what you're working on this week.
75
00:03:14.394 --> 00:03:15.915
It sounds like a turnaround.
76
00:03:15.935 --> 00:03:19.057
Anything else you got going on or is it a continuation of last week?
77
00:03:19.077 --> 00:03:19.257
Yeah.
78
00:03:19.402 --> 00:03:22.225
It's actually got a whole bunch of MCP and API stuff.
79
00:03:22.325 --> 00:03:25.928
So yeah, it's getting released by the time this comes out, it'll be released.
80
00:03:26.088 --> 00:03:31.853
And we just kind of, we try and the hardest part has been just like, how do we describe this in an easy way and package it correctly?
81
00:03:31.913 --> 00:03:36.257
So we're actually likely rolling it out under, cause it's actually two very different things.
82
00:03:36.478 --> 00:03:38.199
API is very different than MCP.
83
00:03:38.760 --> 00:03:44.545
And so we're trying to, we're likely branding it as like homeworks agents and then homeworks connect.
84
00:03:45.308 --> 00:03:51.954
And really just trying to create the differentiation because a lot of people will just say, there's other softwares that have APIs.
85
00:03:52.374 --> 00:03:56.838
Very few home service softwares have an API and an MCP.
86
00:03:57.238 --> 00:03:59.960
And so we're trying to differentiate the fact that this is actually two very different things.
87
00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:04.524
And so we've been working a bunch on kind of the go-to-market strategy and the packaging around that.
88
00:04:04.664 --> 00:04:06.946
So that will be out by the time this is released.
89
00:04:07.326 --> 00:04:08.227
Okay, fantastic.
90
00:04:08.487 --> 00:04:08.947
And what about you?
91
00:04:08.967 --> 00:04:09.648
What have you been working on?
92
00:04:10.642 --> 00:04:14.706
Well, a continuation of last week, which was sort of everything pest control.
93
00:04:14.726 --> 00:04:16.287
That's what I mentioned last week.
94
00:04:16.307 --> 00:04:25.095
So it's everything around marketing across different channels, the offers, the USP, the copy, acquisition and expansion.
95
00:04:25.115 --> 00:04:26.617
So it's all of it.
96
00:04:27.337 --> 00:04:28.879
But frankly, for the first...
97
00:04:29.947 --> 00:04:30.888
three days of this week.
98
00:04:30.908 --> 00:04:31.888
I haven't even touched it.
99
00:04:33.690 --> 00:04:36.672
I've been moving projects ahead inside the business.
100
00:04:36.692 --> 00:04:39.975
So we've got copy projects, design projects, data projects.
101
00:04:39.995 --> 00:04:47.661
We've got all these projects running that generally involve me, someone else that's on the team, and maybe contractors.
102
00:04:47.701 --> 00:04:50.403
And so it's been all about... And it's Steven who's on the team.
103
00:04:50.603 --> 00:04:54.165
It's been all about moving everybody forward and keeping them all working.
104
00:04:54.185 --> 00:04:55.466
And that seems to have consumed
105
00:04:56.527 --> 00:04:57.368
my days so far.
106
00:04:57.388 --> 00:05:04.214
I'm still the bottleneck in almost everything because I've got the vision for where we're going and I want to keep my finger on the copy.
107
00:05:04.374 --> 00:05:06.296
So anyway, that's where we're at right now.
108
00:05:07.197 --> 00:05:09.939
Did I mention that copywriting book from Sugarman?
109
00:05:10.159 --> 00:05:11.080
Did I ever mention that to you?
110
00:05:12.457 --> 00:05:15.598
I think it's like principles of copywriting or something like that.
111
00:05:15.738 --> 00:05:16.558
From way, way back?
112
00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:17.139
Yeah.
113
00:05:17.559 --> 00:05:17.819
Yeah.
114
00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:22.160
So Sugarman was a massive copywriter back in the day, responsible for all kinds of stuff.
115
00:05:22.621 --> 00:05:25.702
I've read his book, but I'll bet it's been 20 years.
116
00:05:25.722 --> 00:05:28.222
I don't know if that's the same book, but yeah.
117
00:05:28.242 --> 00:05:29.623
No, I don't remember you mentioning it so...
118
00:05:30.303 --> 00:05:30.824
It's excellent.
119
00:05:31.064 --> 00:05:35.286
Yeah, I read it a couple years ago, and then like you said, there's all these projects.
120
00:05:35.586 --> 00:05:41.910
I'm coming up to one though where I'm really looking forward to, and that's just a lot of copy of what we're using on Augusta Changing.
121
00:05:41.930 --> 00:05:50.735
Because we really heavily indexed towards SEO and AEO and like optimization, but like there's also, you gotta balance it with like copy.
122
00:05:51.275 --> 00:05:53.556
And so, yeah, it's old, old book.
123
00:05:53.596 --> 00:05:55.417
And I actually love those books.
124
00:05:55.457 --> 00:05:56.798
The old ones where it's like, okay, this,
125
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This is timeless because it's still relevant today and it's more about human psychology and sales.
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And so that project is soon approaching.
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I'm actually looking forward to it.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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He was considered one of the best.
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He was a direct response copywriter, highly cited.
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Even when I was paying attention to that stuff back in the day, he was older at that point.
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So I think he's passed away, I think, some time ago, but I may be mistaken.
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So, yeah, very successful.
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All right.
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So...
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I want to talk through this whole idea of you coming to Texas and starting from zero.
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And I know if I remember correctly, your general concept is you've just got to get here and figure some stuff out and spend a little time here and understand the market.
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Is that accurate?
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Yeah.
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The challenging part is like, I'm going to be showing up there end of September.
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And that's kind of the tail end of the market.
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We have about six to eight weeks where I can still get customers for a decent CAC from what I can tell.
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Um,
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And so it's a lot of this learning so that when spring rush comes, I can go all in.
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And yeah, so a lot of learning in the first little bit, because I've never
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done a long care business in Texas.
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And so I will have to learn.
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And that's where I obviously have to lean a lot on my operations person to be able to give me that feedback that I can learn faster.
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But ultimately I have one swing.
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And that's the part that's actually my biggest fear when you publicly state something like this is I got one swing in spring rush to get there.
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And that'll be the hardest part.
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Yeah.
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So we'll probably talk about that later, but to continue sort of setting this up.
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And again, I want to encourage anyone's listening that's not going to do the same services as Mike's going to talk about.
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This applies to everybody and everything if you're in home services.
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So you're thinking lawn mowing.
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I see that.
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Well, I know you're thinking lawn mowing is the basis.
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You also said, if I remember correctly, you're going to do fertilization weed control.
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Yep, just those two services.
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Just two.
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Okay, perfect.
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All right, so that's sort of the setup here.
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And so the way I want to approach getting started with this is I know you got to figure out the market.
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There's a lot of question marks.
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How do you think about...
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what feels like the fundamentals?
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Like I kind of know this is going to work.
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I've got hundreds of franchisees.
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I've seen this game over and over again.
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We've been in different markets.
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Here's the tried and true.
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So when you come out swinging, what would you say are the hands down three biggest acquisition levers you're going to use or means of acquiring clients?
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Yeah, so what's funny is you just mentioned like this is agnostic to industry and I scanned quickly what my answer to this question was and you're 100% right.
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This does not matter what industry, if I was trying to build a business, I was trying to build it fast,
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And I was trying to build it where I could leave it within a matter of several months.
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This is exactly the same thing, no matter what industry.
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So the first is finding a killer GM.
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And you've said it before, like you've made this thing, like, are they a killer?
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And I think that was really the...
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It is the underlying theme.
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If you're not going to be the operator in the business, you have to find someone that's just an incredible operator.
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Ideally, someone that has already managed more technicians than what you're going to ask them to do.
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And so I am only asking someone to get to about eight technicians and then be able to move on.
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but the individual I've hired, John is his name.
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He's managed more than 20 technicians working for the city.
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And also, when it comes to a killer GM, for myself being the fact that my weakest link is I don't have...
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local experience i need someone that has roots in the local area and so he's been there for 20 years and very tenured with the current his previous employer and it's like i look for that a lot when i'm looking for someone like i'm gonna be gone i need this person to be established here want to stay here already have their family here and have a lot of experience in this area that like is my weakest part which is i have no idea what i'm walking into when i talk about texas um and so
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If someone's looking for a killer, Jim, one of the biggest hallmarks for me is all of their questions revolving around operations.
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Like if you're hiring someone for admin, you want their questions to kind of revolve around admin and like what kind of phone system?
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Well, when it comes to operations, when all the questions are, how are we hiring?
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What's our base pay going to be?
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How is it going to work with the equipment, the vans?
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What's the maintenance?
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That is when I'm like, yes, I found my person.
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And so I interviewed, man.
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probably almost 100 people, all digitally, and then narrowed it down to finally then coming out and visiting with John and his wife and making that decision to hire him.
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So that's the first thing is like, find a killer GM.
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Did you find him on Indeed, LinkedIn?
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How'd you find him?
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Ran ads on Indeed to, then we use a video platform to be able to then screen them.
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And then I did videos, interviews with quite a few.
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And then eventually I narrowed it down to him.
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In terms of acquisition, to answer your question directly, the second thing I listed was,
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really establishing as quickly as possible what my customer action cost is on Facebook and Google, and then just starting to refine that over the winter.
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And it's going to be challenging because I know I'm going against the tide of demand as I'm in like October, November, December, but I can refine it.
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And that's why I encourage anyone if you're starting a business, like, instead of trying to do 30 things, like, I know enough about Facebook and Google to know, like, we can, we can do well, and just refining it.
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So like,
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split testing, what works better than another?
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What happens if I change the copy?
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What happens if I change the offer?
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What happens if I change the picture?
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What happens if I use video?
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What happens if I say the name of the neighborhood versus not like, these are all little things that you can just keep tweaking and tweaking and tweaking.
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And if you give me 12 to 14 months or 12 to 14 weeks, I think we can refine enough for one spring rush hits.
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I know I have a method that works.
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And so just establishing that, I think a lot of people test so many things.
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They really, it's hard to do lead attribution.
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They don't get clear numbers.
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They don't really have confidence that this is how much I spend to get a customer.
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And so I've just got to establish that first and foremost.
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But Facebook and Google will be where I spend probably 95 plus percent of our marketing budget.
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And when you say Google, are you talking LSA and Google ads?
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Well, by that time, it will be the same thing.
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Yes.
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But yeah, I would include both of those in there.
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I'm obviously trying to max out LSA as it currently stands in its format.
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Once it goes into PMAX or Performance Max inside Google Ads, we have a lot of experience, fortunately, using PMAX, and we don't think it's actually going to change a lot for our workflow.
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So it won't change much.
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Now you'll be able to max more on the PMAX budget.
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When you think about LSA, will you run LSA?
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There's not really a listing for fertilization weed control.
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So you're just going to buy lawn mowing leads.
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Is that the idea?
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And then crease the gears for the cross-elm.
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Okay.
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And then on the Google ad side, I assume you'll run ad copy for both services and buy all kinds of keywords.
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Yeah, it's going to be like gateway service for mowing.
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We can get a way lower customer acting cost typically.
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That being said, I'm really interested to see how it works more like December and January when the grass is not growing, but there might be weeds.
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So that's, again, something I have to learn.
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where I might pivot towards some more fertilization type of ads.
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But generally speaking, I can get a Mowen customer much cheaper and then either on our instant quote forms or just after the sale, try to sell them the second service.
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When you're doing Google Ads, do you create...
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different landing pages for the different keywords or do you just drive everybody to the same landing page for mowing or for fertilization?
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We control.
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How do you think about that kind of stuff?
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We usually just do it to one.
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Mostly because I have seen the juice being much more on how I'm setting up the campaign instead of where they're going.
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And I can see some results when we've changed out landing pages, but more if I just optimize my campaign, whether it be on Facebook or Google, where I'm driving has usually lower returns of the time that I spent on creating better creative or testing different creative or focusing on PMAC specifically.
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You can do images and do video now on YouTube.
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And so usually I find more juice to squeeze there, but we are not doing landing pages.
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We just drive them to our main website.
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From there, they can choose different services on instant quote form.
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And so in the past, I probably would have done different landing pages.
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And we did have, we still do have landing pages where on every site you can make a different like landing page form type situation.
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Yeah.
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But now we have where they can choose multiple services from the same form.
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And so we just drive them to our main website.
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It also helps with just getting a lot of traffic to your site for retargeting.
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And so there's several reasons why sometimes I was just, I'm willing to put some money into it, drive a lot of traffic, and then retarget them afterwards.
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Because retargeting is where I can really get a great customer acquisition cost.
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And so they're just slightly interested in click on my ad.
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Then I go after them hardcore later on.
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I can call them out a little bit better because I know they've at least visited the site.
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So just to make sure I'm understanding, you're saying that in the past you've driven some of your traffic straight to a landing page, but the returns for the effort haven't necessarily been there.
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So you just spend all your time on the front end, getting the creative, the ad, everything right to even get them to click.
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Is that what you're saying?
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Yeah.
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Mostly the real reason though is we recently made it where on the instant quote form, they can choose more than one service.
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Right.
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In the past, they choose one.
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There was like an upsell kind of like at the end.
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Whereas now, right from the get, they can like, I want mowing and fertilization and immediately just shows the prices for both.
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And so the flow is now where I'm confident I can just drive traffic all in one spot.
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And then that way too, if someone clicks on the ad, they don't want fertilization, they might still accept my mowing or vice versa.
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If I'm advertising a different service, I've found when I do landing pages for a specific service, it does do better, but I also am losing out on the occasional person that might not accept that service, but they'll accept another one.
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But because my, I'm so focused on this funnel, I lose out on that, that free lead.
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Yeah.
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I'm curious about this.
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And I ask for everybody listening, but also for myself, because I don't know where the diminishing returns on this are.
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But I will say with absolute certainty in the service autopilot world, if I was going to drive you from an ad, and that ad was something around hypothetically estimating,
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And I drove you to a landing page that matched exactly the thing you just cared about estimating.
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So when you Google search for estimating software, you see an ad for estimating software, you click on the ad, you end on a landing page.
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The headline is estimating software.
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It's like, this is exactly what I'm looking for.
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And so, but I've not tested in this world to know how relevant that is.
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So example, fertilization weed control, you search on weed control, you don't search on fertilization weed control.
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Am I better off just throwing you to a page that shows fertilization weed control?
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Now, maybe my form presents alternative options, but I don't have the answer.
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That's why I was curious if you had any data on that.
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Yeah, we used to do quite a bit of this a year ago.
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But once we changed the form, we stopped.
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And honestly, I 100% guarantee you're right, that like one service, whatever you're saying in your ad, if it ties to the next page and it's that service only, you are gonna have a better return.
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Typically, the cost in building out all of those is high enough to where it's just like, just spending more money on ads and you'll be fine.
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That being said, with AI, this is definitely more of a topic of like, well, can I spin up 10 of these different landing pages now in a matter of a day and drive differently?
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Certainly an option.
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Yeah.
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So...
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Also, the other part of it is with our instant quote form, we can capture abandoned carts.
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So if someone just starts the form, even if they see the price and bounce, I can capture that data.
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And so that is- You need an email address though, correct?
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You need them to at least have given you that.
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Or phone number, one of the two.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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They have to have one of those two things.
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And so that allows us to be able to remarket to them.
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So driving to another form or other forms that might not have that same ability-
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I usually don't get as many leads.
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And again, I'm just like maximizing for these.
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I'm driving a lot of traffic.
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I understand there's gonna be a lot of inefficiencies when you're trying to spend so much on marketing.
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There's gonna be inefficiencies.
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And I think you, I think the right thing for all of us to do is say,
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inefficiencies are fine.
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Let them happen because otherwise we're going to spend our wheels on lots of low value things.
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Again, back to my point, I know it works, but is it worth the effort?
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It might not be worth the effort.
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That's why I'm curious what you were seeing in the data.
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I'll retest it.
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I'll test it for myself at some point.
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I'll probably test it more on pest control than I will on say fertilization weed control.
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Like on pest control, maybe I can hit on
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they saw a roach.
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They're searching for roaches or they're searching for wasps or something like that instead of just saying generic pest control.
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That's where I would probably start my test because that's a different emotional reaction.
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A roach is a different emotional reaction than say an ant versus termites that might cost me tremendous amounts of money.
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And so, that's where, whether or not that's accurate, that's how I think about it.
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So...
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Yeah.
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And just to be clear, in case someone clicks on an ad, I will likely do split tests of different landing pages.
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It just my effort will probably be 5% towards that versus 95% towards different creative and adjusting very like the iterative process.
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And ultimately, when you're trying to grow quickly or in general, any business, we have to we have there's trade offs.
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And so if I'm going to spend a whole bunch of time around landing page optimization and getting the button in the right spot, I'm a little further down the funnel, which is after the click I'm optimizing, I'll likely spend just most of my time on top of the funnel and optimizing clicks to that landing page.
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Yeah, and I think that's an absolutely critical thing.
337
00:19:40.396 --> 00:20:06.953
point to be making and for people to understand if you kind of think about from the moment miss smith at her house says oh my gosh i need this weed control weed problem solved to the moment she actually buys in that funnel there are all these steps and certain of those certain steps will generate you way more roi than others and so how do you think about stack ranking the 90 things you could potentially do and think about and just work on the few and that's what we're you know that's what you're saying that's how i'm hearing it
338
00:20:07.345 --> 00:20:09.065
And I would say too, leaning into your strengths.
339
00:20:09.226 --> 00:20:12.667
Like if you're great at web design, maybe landing pages is a thing to do.
340
00:20:12.707 --> 00:20:22.289
If you're great at vibe coding landing pages and like you love split testing where the buttons are and what the text says and to copy and the offer, then maybe that's something to do.
341
00:20:22.969 --> 00:20:27.791
We have a unique advantage on the front and the creative side by having a media team in Augusta.
342
00:20:27.811 --> 00:20:29.211
So like, that's why I'm focusing.
343
00:20:29.231 --> 00:20:35.873
I'm just like leaning into my strength, knowing that there's going to be inefficiencies, but if I try to do all of it, nothing ends up happening.
344
00:20:36.519 --> 00:20:36.699
Yeah.
345
00:20:37.260 --> 00:20:40.042
A minute, a few minutes back, you mentioned YouTube.
346
00:20:40.202 --> 00:20:46.326
So when you talk about Facebook and Google, are you buying ads on YouTube or Display Network?
347
00:20:46.367 --> 00:20:48.468
Or what were you referring to when you said YouTube earlier?
348
00:20:49.029 --> 00:20:49.189
Yeah.
349
00:20:49.209 --> 00:20:52.671
So in Google, there's what's called Pmax or Performance Max.
350
00:20:53.192 --> 00:20:56.034
And that includes video, display and search.
351
00:20:56.674 --> 00:21:00.797
And so display being usually display banners, their images, essentially.
352
00:21:01.318 --> 00:21:03.880
And so most people, when they think of Google ads, they think of search.
353
00:21:05.313 --> 00:21:13.776
The problem with search is you're 100% relying on someone with intent to buy, which is why we all love Google, because people are literally looking for your keyword.
354
00:21:14.476 --> 00:21:24.138
That being said, you can also show that same person that searched for that term a video or a banner in the places that they are doing their business online.
355
00:21:24.818 --> 00:21:30.360
And so whether they're watching a YouTube video or they're scrolling through a news site, I want to show up to them if they've searched certain keywords.
356
00:21:31.072 --> 00:21:37.878
And so it is a typically a lower quality lead than someone literally searching your keyword.
357
00:21:38.358 --> 00:21:40.400
Because they're not looking right now for the thing.
358
00:21:40.420 --> 00:21:40.940
They're not active.
359
00:21:41.080 --> 00:21:41.661
Exactly.
360
00:21:42.021 --> 00:21:45.504
And so you are absolutely going to usually have a higher customer acquisition cost.
361
00:21:46.044 --> 00:21:49.347
But it's also a place where I can deploy more capital towards.
362
00:21:49.867 --> 00:21:52.830
And again, the strategy I'm using is not the most efficient.
363
00:21:53.210 --> 00:21:55.792
I'm not going to be trying to optimize my customer acquisition costs.
364
00:21:55.812 --> 00:22:04.498
I'm going to be optimized for number of customers and how fast I can get them in the funnel, which means I will likely have an inflated CAC of probably 100% more than I would like.
365
00:22:05.158 --> 00:22:12.783
But I have to get the budget in, and I'm going to deploy it towards places like Pmax instead of just search, where I'm limited by how many people are searching in my local area.
366
00:22:14.063 --> 00:22:18.506
but you tend to find the video display network that all is absolutely worth it.
367
00:22:18.546 --> 00:22:21.148
Is it worth it in a normal business where you're worried about CAC?
368
00:22:21.568 --> 00:22:26.412
Or are you only using that strategy right now where you're less concerned with CAC and you're more concerned with speed?
369
00:22:26.922 --> 00:22:31.984
It's the number one thing that we are very pro on in Augusta Leads right now is optimizing Pmax.
370
00:22:32.424 --> 00:22:33.985
Google is putting a lot of attention on this.
371
00:22:34.285 --> 00:22:36.346
Obviously, they're moving LSA into the platform.
372
00:22:36.986 --> 00:22:39.947
And so they are doing a better and better job.
373
00:22:40.147 --> 00:22:43.469
Because like display network used to be one of those things you turn off on Google Ads.
374
00:22:43.789 --> 00:22:46.550
It was trash leads, horrible locations.
375
00:22:47.010 --> 00:22:50.972
But if you have the right negative keywords, which means it doesn't show up in certain spots.
376
00:22:51.372 --> 00:22:56.234
If you have a... Can you elaborate just a bit on negative keywords, just for those that don't know?
377
00:22:56.594 --> 00:22:56.874
Totally.
378
00:22:56.894 --> 00:23:04.220
So for example, I want to, my, my keyword that I want to show up for might be lawn care or landscaping or, uh, pest control or whatever it might be.
379
00:23:05.061 --> 00:23:08.864
My negative keywords might be, I do not want to show up for hardscaping.
380
00:23:09.004 --> 00:23:11.286
I do not want to show up for landscaping.
381
00:23:11.386 --> 00:23:13.608
I do not want to show up for paver patios.
382
00:23:13.688 --> 00:23:16.029
I do not want to show up for, here's a good one.
383
00:23:16.490 --> 00:23:23.215
Uh, lawn care equipment store or lawn care, uh, fertilization, like fertilizer supplier.
384
00:23:26.192 --> 00:23:28.958
Negative keywords are just as important, and then to the same
385
00:23:29.813 --> 00:23:33.994
way you put in which URLs in the display network that you want to show up on.
386
00:23:34.254 --> 00:23:36.374
And you can put in the ones you don't want to show up on.
387
00:23:36.654 --> 00:23:44.676
And you don't want to be showing up in front of a nine year old on a gaming site, you know, someone playing Minecraft, like they're not going to buy your lawn care service or whatever service you're buying.
388
00:23:45.136 --> 00:23:48.996
And so any children's site, gaming site, you can just get rid of all those.
389
00:23:49.096 --> 00:23:52.197
And we've just compiled over the years, like 16,000 sites.
390
00:23:52.217 --> 00:23:53.297
Like we don't want to be on them.
391
00:23:53.537 --> 00:23:55.298
We know we get bad leads from them.
392
00:23:55.578 --> 00:23:57.698
And so as we've gone through time, we're just like,
393
00:23:58.202 --> 00:24:00.283
get them off, don't show them on the display network.
394
00:24:00.683 --> 00:24:03.925
And so we've been able to get it where we really like Pmax.
395
00:24:03.985 --> 00:24:09.327
Like even three years ago, I wasn't a huge fan, but Google's putting a lot of attention on it.
396
00:24:09.467 --> 00:24:11.708
It just takes a lot more effort because you need creative.
397
00:24:12.229 --> 00:24:14.650
It's not like I can just throw keywords at it and throw budget.
398
00:24:15.010 --> 00:24:15.870
That used to be how it is.
399
00:24:16.170 --> 00:24:20.773
And now with all the AI features that you can enable, you can waste money so fast on Google.
400
00:24:20.913 --> 00:24:22.293
It's crazy.
401
00:24:22.974 --> 00:24:23.694
And yeah,
402
00:24:24.617 --> 00:24:25.997
So I'm just leaning to my strength.
403
00:24:26.217 --> 00:24:27.298
We have Augusta Leads.
404
00:24:27.638 --> 00:24:28.578
They know what's going on.
405
00:24:28.678 --> 00:24:34.360
And I will let some of the other chips fall where I'm not going to go after squeeze the last 5% or 10% out of it.
406
00:24:35.000 --> 00:24:38.421
Actually, I know you were going to go somewhere else, but I want to stay here for just a moment.
407
00:24:38.741 --> 00:24:40.261
So talking about the creative.
408
00:24:40.361 --> 00:24:46.383
So if you think about where the person is in the funnel, you know, the awareness versus I'm ready to buy.
409
00:24:48.624 --> 00:24:53.505
And you think about Facebook as being very different than lawn mowing company near me.
410
00:24:54.595 --> 00:24:57.678
the creative that you work on and you test on Facebook.
411
00:24:57.718 --> 00:25:03.803
So somebody that wasn't looking for you, doesn't care about you, just wants to drink their coffee right now and, and browse Facebook.
412
00:25:04.624 --> 00:25:11.429
Do you find that some of that creative that works on Facebook can be taken to be, can be used as creative on Facebook,
413
00:25:12.390 --> 00:25:17.975
for ads, not, not search, but for the visual ad on Facebook, YouTube, you're saying, yeah.
414
00:25:18.015 --> 00:25:18.255
Yes.
415
00:25:18.535 --> 00:25:18.816
Yeah.
416
00:25:18.836 --> 00:25:24.841
Like pretty much always our pictures and videos that we use just have to be reformatted in terms of sizing.
417
00:25:25.381 --> 00:25:27.784
Uh, but we use pretty much the same, uh, creative.
418
00:25:27.844 --> 00:25:36.451
I will also say it is insane to me how demographic geographically dependent, which creative works.
419
00:25:38.032 --> 00:25:38.513
It's insane.
420
00:25:39.748 --> 00:25:47.094
And so we have certain trends that we see across all of Augusta, but many times someone like this one stinks and it's just crushing.
421
00:25:47.395 --> 00:25:57.183
So you have to test and that will be like, that's why I'm not going in with too many preconceived ideas of like, well, I'm going to like definitely make 20 different versions with different neighborhood names.
422
00:25:57.464 --> 00:25:58.525
Like, yes, I could do that.
423
00:25:59.005 --> 00:26:03.149
We've seen that not work as much as just saying the county name and then it is able to get more traffic.
424
00:26:03.449 --> 00:26:04.470
It gets like so.
425
00:26:05.338 --> 00:26:22.907
I think for anyone, just don't hear one thing I say or anyone says, I'm like, oh, that's what I have seen this be so geographically dependent of like pictures versus video, whether they have a flag or whether they don't, whether you show an employer, whether you don't, whether you show before and after versus just the after, like there's, there's so many variables.
426
00:26:23.207 --> 00:26:33.572
And I, I can't, I really get frustrated when people give like definitive, you should do this on social media ads specifically, because I've just seen it the same ad.
427
00:26:34.262 --> 00:26:36.144
do really good and really bad in two different markets.
428
00:26:36.624 --> 00:26:39.587
And so I just put it as an asterisk next to everything I'm saying.
429
00:26:40.487 --> 00:26:41.568
Yeah, that's fantastic.
430
00:26:41.909 --> 00:26:44.150
So I don't know if you'll remember where you were going earlier.
431
00:26:44.170 --> 00:26:48.374
I made you pause and describe negative keywords.
432
00:26:49.115 --> 00:26:51.717
So you were working through, do you remember where you were going to continue on?
433
00:26:52.250 --> 00:27:01.158
Yeah, like beyond beyond Google and Facebook, I think the only really other strategy from a, at the beginning, especially is just like making sure we're ranking organically.
434
00:27:01.538 --> 00:27:05.141
And you had a great video on this is like, how do you get customers for $0?
435
00:27:05.442 --> 00:27:14.870
It's like the basics, like make sure you're in all the different listing sites, make sure you're getting reviews, make sure you're like, from day one, I'll be asking reviews, like every single lead.
436
00:27:15.850 --> 00:27:19.953
And we won't be doing any in-person estimates, so it'll have to be all through automation.
437
00:27:20.233 --> 00:27:28.298
But we found that you can actually get usually quite a few good reviews, even if you just ask customers when they have accepted an estimate, before services even started.
438
00:27:28.698 --> 00:27:32.661
And then what we usually ask for is like, hey, can you review how the process of getting started?
439
00:27:32.941 --> 00:27:33.881
How was the call?
440
00:27:34.162 --> 00:27:35.342
Was it, were they friendly?
441
00:27:35.783 --> 00:27:36.503
Was it fast?
442
00:27:36.863 --> 00:27:39.625
And so if you prompt them a little bit, you can get the reviews.
443
00:27:40.165 --> 00:27:44.388
And we don't even have to like say, hey, you're first lawn free, we don't do that.
444
00:27:44.948 --> 00:27:46.489
And you will still get a lot of them.
445
00:27:46.850 --> 00:27:51.573
And so it's been really, really, um, that's been the focus to make sure that organically we're ranking well.
446
00:27:52.314 --> 00:28:04.783
And we have obviously a big advantage with the domain authority of Augusta to be able to rank very quickly, but I'm still making sure like every dot of the I is and T is crossed in terms of doing the basics of organic.
447
00:28:05.504 --> 00:28:09.347
Will you do anything other than digital or is it pretty much what you said?
448
00:28:10.362 --> 00:28:12.423
Unless I get there and I hit a massive roadblock.
449
00:28:12.543 --> 00:28:16.925
So three years ago, I did North Carolina, and I was in the middle of the summer.
450
00:28:17.005 --> 00:28:21.487
It was like super hot, and it was kind of past the growing season.
451
00:28:21.647 --> 00:28:28.670
We were not as good at Google and Facebook in terms of ads, and so I went much more door hangers, yard signs, holding a sign on the side of the road.
452
00:28:28.890 --> 00:28:31.291
I was also trying to show like getting started with very little.
453
00:28:31.351 --> 00:28:35.273
So my marketing budget, I think, was like three to four grand, if I remember correctly.
454
00:28:35.293 --> 00:28:35.873
Okay.
455
00:28:36.415 --> 00:28:40.598
I will spend that per day in some days of the spring rush here.
456
00:28:40.978 --> 00:28:44.180
And so it's just a very different playbook and you can spend a lot more.
457
00:28:44.760 --> 00:28:49.963
And I don't have to worry about the deployment of like physical things like postcards or.
458
00:28:50.044 --> 00:28:50.644
Hey, I got to work.
459
00:28:50.744 --> 00:28:53.085
Yeah, it's just it's literally just complicated.
460
00:28:53.245 --> 00:29:03.572
And so the cat is probably better if I did door hangers like I know enough about the cat that we could probably get away to beat out my Google and Facebook if I'm pouring a lot of money into it because there's diminishing returns.
461
00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:08.643
but I'm not going to go train people on door hangers and all the rest of it.
462
00:29:09.103 --> 00:29:09.344
Right.
463
00:29:10.184 --> 00:29:14.728
Anything else that you know, for a fact you'll do when you spin this up?
464
00:29:15.728 --> 00:29:16.469
Ooh, that's tough.
465
00:29:17.169 --> 00:29:19.131
Um, not, not besides run ads.
466
00:29:19.711 --> 00:29:19.912
Okay.
467
00:29:20.192 --> 00:29:20.412
Uh,
468
00:29:21.115 --> 00:29:22.336
I have a great GM, John.
469
00:29:22.396 --> 00:29:22.976
Shout out, John.
470
00:29:23.496 --> 00:29:32.241
And then really a lot of testing around onboarding training and even our equipment setup is some stuff that I've always wanted to test for Augusta.
471
00:29:32.561 --> 00:29:36.544
And specifically vans and vans going home with the technicians.
472
00:29:37.024 --> 00:29:37.204
Yep.
473
00:29:37.604 --> 00:29:37.804
Okay.
474
00:29:37.904 --> 00:29:38.905
We've talked about that before.
475
00:29:39.571 --> 00:29:40.792
And all of these things might not work.
476
00:29:40.953 --> 00:29:41.893
I just want to be very clear.
477
00:29:42.014 --> 00:29:42.274
Yeah.
478
00:29:42.334 --> 00:29:50.762
Like that, that's the hard part about making content is like, I'm trying to call my shot, but on that, on the other hand, I'm going to this very much open-minded, the fact, like I might test something, it might not work.
479
00:29:50.802 --> 00:29:51.563
We will have to pivot.
480
00:29:52.203 --> 00:30:03.374
And I think that's the part that as much as it's sometimes a humble pie, it's also like, it's the realities of business for anyone that does watch of like, you will have to change and you will think something is true and it will not be true and you'll have to adjust.
481
00:30:03.843 --> 00:30:11.149
It also makes it super interesting and people can see like there's almost more value in it not completely working to see how you adjust.
482
00:30:11.189 --> 00:30:19.856
Like hypothetically, you hit 600,000 and it was way harder, but we get to see that it's like, oh, wow, this thing didn't work.
483
00:30:19.896 --> 00:30:25.460
So here's the way he thought about engineering a solution to it and still getting to a really amazing number.
484
00:30:25.960 --> 00:30:28.542
So I think it's of great value even if you don't nail the number.
485
00:30:28.762 --> 00:30:29.163
Hope you do.
486
00:30:30.508 --> 00:30:44.811
So if somebody came to you in that market you're going to be serving and they said, hey, I've got 100 accounts I'd like to sell you, and you look at those accounts and they're priced generally about how you would price them, would you buy accounts?
487
00:30:45.992 --> 00:30:49.433
So I'm not going to in this test specifically.
488
00:30:50.333 --> 00:30:59.095
And if I was to, and just to provide someone that might be thinking about doing something like this or starting on buying and acquiring, like...
489
00:31:00.228 --> 00:31:02.029
I don't rarely see these work out well.
490
00:31:03.330 --> 00:31:08.653
And I think that there is so much content about buying businesses.
491
00:31:08.693 --> 00:31:12.895
I think we've talked about this before, but it is way harder than it sounds.
492
00:31:13.996 --> 00:31:18.598
And I think it is completely overblown about how easy it is.
493
00:31:19.118 --> 00:31:21.660
Also a lot of times finding a good deal, right?
494
00:31:21.700 --> 00:31:23.521
Like if I was, if I was going to do this,
495
00:31:24.180 --> 00:31:26.101
and I was going to get a small operator.
496
00:31:26.781 --> 00:31:28.742
I would just be buying in their accounts, essentially.
497
00:31:29.102 --> 00:31:32.484
I'd be looking at my customer acquisition cost, which I would establish, and then I'd go out to buy.
498
00:31:32.504 --> 00:31:41.007
And I'd just be really honest, I show all my ads, I show everything, I show all my leads, I show all my customers, like, this is my cost per lead, and here's my cost, customer acquisition cost.
499
00:31:41.548 --> 00:31:44.429
I'm willing to pay this much per customer you give me.
500
00:31:45.129 --> 00:31:49.351
And I'll take the risk on that they turn as long as you let me confirm pricing.
501
00:31:50.413 --> 00:32:17.885
um that's usually how i do approach a smaller operator uh if they're a mid-sized operator i might use something like seller discretionary earnings which um for those that might not know it's like not ebitda so ebitda gets fancier for bigger businesses typically where the owner is not involved but if they if the operator is still in the business seller discretionary earnings is where you take the net income and then you add back the owner's compensation any interest uh any non-cash expenses like depreciation add it back in
502
00:32:18.565 --> 00:32:22.648
And then I'm going to remove the cost of hiring a general manager to replace them.
503
00:32:23.469 --> 00:32:29.234
And then I just apply an industry standard multiple on it, usually two to four X in home services.
504
00:32:30.195 --> 00:32:41.204
So for example, if they had $100,000 of net profit that they have, and then they took $80,000 of the salary, plus they had $40,000 of depreciation and one-time expenses.
505
00:32:41.224 --> 00:32:42.124
Okay, that's $220,000.
506
00:32:42.164 --> 00:32:45.367
And they're like, well, it's going to cost me a hundred grand to get a GM in here.
507
00:32:45.767 --> 00:32:46.888
So that would put me at $110,000.
508
00:32:48.531 --> 00:32:50.353
$1,000 of seller discretionary earnings.
509
00:32:50.773 --> 00:32:57.299
Then I would just multiply that by, I just show them like, this is two to four X. I think you're a 2.4 based upon this industry.
510
00:32:58.040 --> 00:33:01.143
And I'm going to offer you 2.4 times $110,000.
511
00:33:01.443 --> 00:33:07.409
That's probably what I do is if I was trying to do an acquisition of a midsize company where there was an owner operator and they had a good brand.
512
00:33:07.689 --> 00:33:12.554
I didn't really want the brand, but I was just buying the business, but I'm not going to be buying any accounts.
513
00:33:13.515 --> 00:33:13.715
Yeah.
514
00:33:15.617 --> 00:33:18.101
My experience with the accounts has been similar to yours.
515
00:33:18.161 --> 00:33:19.283
We've bought some...
516
00:33:19.343 --> 00:33:21.787
It's been a long, long time since we bought any accounts.
517
00:33:21.827 --> 00:33:23.469
And they've always been small little deals.
518
00:33:24.090 --> 00:33:25.553
Even if the pricing is right...
519
00:33:28.271 --> 00:33:36.673
And even if they'll sell them to me for what my client acquisition cost is, it's just still more difficult because they never picked me in the first place, meaning that account never picked me.
520
00:33:37.133 --> 00:33:42.894
So as soon as you buy the accounts, like, well, maybe as the homeowner might be, well, like maybe I should look around.
521
00:33:42.974 --> 00:33:46.135
I didn't choose CityTurf or whomever the company is.
522
00:33:46.195 --> 00:33:54.737
And so you have to go through the whole education process, the win them over process, all the communications, like, ah, this just feels way more difficult than just getting our own accounts.
523
00:33:55.337 --> 00:33:59.598
So the way I tend to think about it personally is it's the strategy used for speed.
524
00:34:00.058 --> 00:34:07.919
Like you're already spending so much money in digital ads, maybe even offline print ads.
525
00:34:08.019 --> 00:34:10.520
You're putting money everywhere, trying to grow as fast as you can.
526
00:34:10.540 --> 00:34:12.660
It's like, how do I juice this thing even more?
527
00:34:13.060 --> 00:34:19.241
If you're at that place, that's when maybe the pain of acquiring accounts or other businesses starts to make sense.
528
00:34:19.301 --> 00:34:23.002
But if you aren't even doing that, it's like, it's probably not even worth it.
529
00:34:23.182 --> 00:34:24.442
It's been my experience.
530
00:34:25.243 --> 00:34:25.463
Yeah.
531
00:34:25.523 --> 00:34:33.454
And a lot of times too, even with, to that point, what I usually come back to is like, well, maybe getting set up new clients, you've made it too hard.
532
00:34:33.674 --> 00:34:38.440
Like if you required to roll a truck, well, yeah, now it takes a lot longer to grow your business.
533
00:34:39.221 --> 00:34:40.703
If you had to roll a truck for every new lead.
534
00:34:41.703 --> 00:35:10.377
um and you're you know have a 40 close rate and now you have three four sales people well yeah now buying accounts does buy you speed my question is though like with instant quotes or over the phone estimates or maybe you get someone to be able to fill in part-time during the busy season to take more calls so that you can answer more calls like i should be able to get as many leads as possible and drive them through an efficient system that puts a turn of lead into a customer and so a lot of times even the argument around speed it's like
535
00:35:11.237 --> 00:35:12.178
Speed compared to what?
536
00:35:12.198 --> 00:35:16.401
Like I can put ads up tomorrow and I can put a lot of budget into it.
537
00:35:16.881 --> 00:35:31.873
And as long as I don't have a bottleneck around getting them from a lead to a customer, I don't have a big, long sales process and meeting the customer and a lot of costs and admin and salaries, then I should still go towards getting the customer myself.
538
00:35:32.694 --> 00:35:32.914
Yeah.
539
00:35:33.294 --> 00:35:33.394
Yeah.
540
00:35:33.494 --> 00:35:34.215
I agree with that.
541
00:35:36.121 --> 00:35:42.944
But it would be very fun just for the sake of online social media that if I was a little bit shorter of a million, just go buy the last few.
542
00:35:43.205 --> 00:35:44.645
That would really make people mad.
543
00:35:44.825 --> 00:35:46.086
You'd get people all worked up.
544
00:35:46.386 --> 00:35:47.427
You'd be a giant... Yeah.
545
00:35:47.707 --> 00:35:49.708
You'd scam them.
546
00:35:49.748 --> 00:35:50.208
Exactly.
547
00:35:52.069 --> 00:35:56.091
Do you meet many franchisees or other business owners that buy accounts?
548
00:35:56.131 --> 00:35:57.492
How often is this even a thing?
549
00:35:59.073 --> 00:35:59.673
I would say...
550
00:36:00.944 --> 00:36:06.090
maybe once or twice a month inside of Augusta, someone will put on the mastermind and like they'll put the numbers and things.
551
00:36:06.751 --> 00:36:18.065
And I would say I have seen, okay, to my knowledge, I have seen one acquisition that was over a million dollars and it went well.
552
00:36:19.001 --> 00:36:21.725
And I think he would be satisfied and happy.
553
00:36:22.225 --> 00:36:23.627
There was definitely a lot of learning.
554
00:36:23.827 --> 00:36:25.830
There was a lot of meshing with the other owner.
555
00:36:26.250 --> 00:36:32.337
And I actually had him speak at our last year just because it was the first time that size got integrated.
556
00:36:32.638 --> 00:36:33.298
And he learned a lot.
557
00:36:33.359 --> 00:36:34.320
It was trial by fire.
558
00:36:35.041 --> 00:36:35.241
Um...
559
00:36:36.007 --> 00:36:41.029
but very rarely, and it's happening less and less now because we are getting better and better at knowing our CAC.
560
00:36:41.449 --> 00:36:46.211
If you know your CAC, very rarely spending $500 per client makes sense.
561
00:36:46.871 --> 00:36:59.936
And the stories of those acquisitions going bad where someone pays $1,000 or $2,000 per recurring customer and then half of them not being there in six months, that circulates enough to where people really put pause on it.
562
00:37:01.617 --> 00:37:01.977
And so
563
00:37:02.849 --> 00:37:09.994
I'm sure I'm making a lot of enemies with people saying that we underbidded them when we make offers, but it's just, it rarely works out.
564
00:37:10.674 --> 00:37:12.195
It's not underbidding.
565
00:37:13.196 --> 00:37:15.577
This is the number that we as a company can pay.
566
00:37:16.298 --> 00:37:19.319
I'm not telling you it's the greatest number you could possibly get.
567
00:37:19.339 --> 00:37:20.700
There may be a better deal for you.
568
00:37:20.760 --> 00:37:21.281
Go get it.
569
00:37:21.681 --> 00:37:26.744
But if you don't find a better option to take care of your accounts, we're here for you, but this is all we can pay.
570
00:37:27.024 --> 00:37:28.585
That's, to me, the presentation.
571
00:37:28.966 --> 00:37:30.887
It's not, you're not screwing anybody.
572
00:37:30.907 --> 00:37:31.007
Yeah.
573
00:37:31.367 --> 00:37:36.389
I think the more you know your numbers, the more that comes across as genuine instead of as a sales pitch.
574
00:37:36.409 --> 00:37:44.852
Like if you know your customer action costs and you can show them and that's like I mentioned if I was buying a smaller operator, I would show them this is how much I spend on my Facebook ads.
575
00:37:44.872 --> 00:37:45.772
Here's how many leads I got.
576
00:37:46.012 --> 00:37:47.072
Here's how many to become customers.
577
00:37:47.092 --> 00:37:48.713
This is what I pay to get a customer.
578
00:37:49.093 --> 00:37:50.353
I'm willing to spend that with you.
579
00:37:51.674 --> 00:37:54.495
And maybe there's a small premium in terms of speed, but usually I say,
580
00:37:55.151 --> 00:37:59.337
There's a small premium I'm paying by the fact that if I have to adjust prices, I'm going to lose some people.
581
00:37:59.697 --> 00:38:02.541
And so that's the premium I'm willing to pay if I'm going to acquire an account.
582
00:38:03.242 --> 00:38:03.442
Yeah.
583
00:38:04.564 --> 00:38:08.309
So I believe you said your ops guy that you hired, his name's John.
584
00:38:08.449 --> 00:38:09.050
Is that accurate?
585
00:38:09.450 --> 00:38:09.690
Okay.
586
00:38:09.730 --> 00:38:12.434
So John's going to be part of the team.
587
00:38:13.626 --> 00:38:14.626
here in the local area.
588
00:38:14.726 --> 00:38:15.867
You're going to be here local.
589
00:38:15.927 --> 00:38:19.108
So there's going to be actions and activities you're personally doing.
590
00:38:20.069 --> 00:38:30.472
And one advantage you have is that you will have a support team behind you that will be a little different for Bob that just started today and has never done this before.
591
00:38:30.493 --> 00:38:31.913
So you got a little bit of an advantage there.
592
00:38:32.353 --> 00:38:41.657
And I thought it would be interesting to kind of talk through a little bit of what you'll personally be doing and also a little bit around who...
593
00:38:42.766 --> 00:38:47.690
behind the scenes will be assisting you and what kinds of things will they be doing?
594
00:38:47.770 --> 00:38:55.596
And the idea of this one is it helps anybody listening who wants to add a million dollars a year revenue to say, Oh, these are gaps.
595
00:38:55.636 --> 00:38:58.158
Like, Oh, I, it's like, I can't just run Google ads.
596
00:38:58.218 --> 00:39:02.882
I can't just run Facebook ads for thousands of dollars a day and solve this problem.
597
00:39:02.902 --> 00:39:09.787
There's like these other little holes that have to be filled to make this whole machine run, such as you got to actually talk to the people, convert to people, uh,
598
00:39:10.167 --> 00:39:14.552
you know, so can you talk a little bit in whatever order you want to?
599
00:39:14.572 --> 00:39:17.735
And I'll ask you questions around who's going to be behind the scenes.
600
00:39:18.195 --> 00:39:19.697
What will they be doing specifically?
601
00:39:19.757 --> 00:39:21.679
And then also what will you be doing?
602
00:39:22.499 --> 00:39:22.680
Yeah.
603
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:26.764
And I, I'll, I'll try my best in the videos when I'm making them to make it very clear.
604
00:39:26.784 --> 00:39:26.904
Like,
605
00:39:28.281 --> 00:39:31.384
The Mike Andy's channel is there, but like this has nothing to do with me.
606
00:39:31.664 --> 00:39:34.827
This will only work because of the community and the people involved.
607
00:39:35.027 --> 00:39:35.567
I will be there.
608
00:39:35.587 --> 00:39:37.109
I will be orchestrating.
609
00:39:37.129 --> 00:39:38.170
I will have the camera on me.
610
00:39:38.450 --> 00:39:41.473
But like it'll be because of the people that are making this happen.
611
00:39:41.493 --> 00:39:48.339
So like very first, though, in terms of making it happening and making sure that this works, this experiment, number one is Brianna.
612
00:39:48.559 --> 00:39:49.079
So that's my wife.
613
00:39:49.620 --> 00:39:49.800
Um...
614
00:39:50.587 --> 00:39:56.591
I really tried to stay as neutral as possible on the idea once it was presented till she actually wanted to go.
615
00:39:56.611 --> 00:39:58.672
Presented it to her first?
616
00:39:58.712 --> 00:40:00.053
Yeah, 100%.
617
00:40:00.293 --> 00:40:01.574
Like, no one knew about it.
618
00:40:02.134 --> 00:40:05.956
Yeah, nothing floated to any other team member or leadership team.
619
00:40:06.477 --> 00:40:08.618
Because, like, if I don't have her support, like, it just...
620
00:40:09.318 --> 00:40:10.698
There's just no point in even trying.
621
00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:21.502
And so once she was on board, and because it's gonna be a lot of travel, because I'm still flying back and forth for like training, conferences, turnaround shows, like lots of stuff, I'm still traveling.
622
00:40:21.582 --> 00:40:23.262
I'm not gonna be there the entire time.
623
00:40:23.682 --> 00:40:24.983
Every single month we're traveling.
624
00:40:25.523 --> 00:40:27.344
And so she was the first person I talked about.
625
00:40:27.404 --> 00:40:28.044
She got on board.
626
00:40:28.124 --> 00:40:29.724
Once she was on board, then I proceeded.
627
00:40:30.865 --> 00:40:35.886
The second, the kind of second group that I would say is like the backend support would be Augusta leads.
628
00:40:36.006 --> 00:40:36.767
I mentioned them already.
629
00:40:37.547 --> 00:40:38.447
It's a huge advantage.
630
00:40:38.767 --> 00:40:41.248
I'm not going to try to cower away from the fact that they have a huge advantage.
631
00:40:41.928 --> 00:40:43.089
They will run all the ads.
632
00:40:43.289 --> 00:40:44.269
They will manage them all for me.
633
00:40:44.289 --> 00:40:45.550
They'll optimize them for me.
634
00:40:45.930 --> 00:40:49.171
I pay $7,000 a year for all the digital stuff.
635
00:40:49.571 --> 00:40:51.732
And that's very discounted because it's part of Augusta.
636
00:40:51.892 --> 00:40:52.612
So we have the bulk.
637
00:40:53.393 --> 00:40:54.373
everyone's doing the same ad.
638
00:40:54.393 --> 00:40:55.635
So like we can make this happen.
639
00:40:56.195 --> 00:40:57.036
And that's a huge advantage.
640
00:40:57.056 --> 00:41:00.779
We have the knowledge of all the locations, all their ad performance, what works, what doesn't.
641
00:41:01.180 --> 00:41:03.382
So I'm not really starting from zero.
642
00:41:03.722 --> 00:41:04.323
And this is why.
643
00:41:04.923 --> 00:41:07.526
I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to set you up with this question.
644
00:41:07.586 --> 00:41:12.210
It's more of helping people understand, like you just gave a clue.
645
00:41:12.290 --> 00:41:12.490
Okay.
646
00:41:12.510 --> 00:41:13.851
Like, so if I'm going to do this,
647
00:41:14.472 --> 00:41:19.654
and I want to go fast, I probably won't know everything I need to know to manage all my own Google ad stuff.
648
00:41:19.674 --> 00:41:21.975
So, okay, I need to find somebody to help me with that thing.
649
00:41:22.275 --> 00:41:23.796
That's what I'm trying to surface here.
650
00:41:24.256 --> 00:41:28.038
I'm not, I'm not trying to call you out on this thing and say, this ain't legit.
651
00:41:28.078 --> 00:41:28.758
This isn't right.
652
00:41:28.778 --> 00:41:29.238
Yeah.
653
00:41:29.398 --> 00:41:32.500
Especially if you're new to a market, like you just don't know what you don't know.
654
00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:39.963
And so, and even if you want to grow fast, like if you haven't done something before, leaning on people who have done it before is just like such a hack.
655
00:41:40.402 --> 00:41:43.883
And so the $7,000 for the whole year, it's Facebook and Google ads.
656
00:41:44.283 --> 00:41:48.984
So it'd be like getting an agency or someone that has to do this for you, help you spin up your SEO.
657
00:41:49.484 --> 00:41:53.886
They'll need a little more lead time than you guys will need because you've got a more established domain.
658
00:41:54.146 --> 00:41:55.506
You know exactly what to do.
659
00:41:55.806 --> 00:41:59.167
If you go hire a company, they're going to need to learn your business, going to need to learn your market.
660
00:41:59.447 --> 00:42:00.788
So they'll need a little more lead time.
661
00:42:01.008 --> 00:42:04.771
That's an advantage you have there, but they could hire an SEO company to help them.
662
00:42:04.891 --> 00:42:07.614
And I'm stating this so you can agree or disagree.
663
00:42:07.974 --> 00:42:13.598
Then they can hire maybe that very same company or a different company that focuses on managing digital spend.
664
00:42:13.859 --> 00:42:17.602
The Google ad, the Facebook ad, maybe those should be two different companies.
665
00:42:18.122 --> 00:42:20.144
Maybe they could be the same company depending on their...
666
00:42:20.824 --> 00:42:46.929
area of expertise i'll add one more uh maybe that company has the expertise to do copy and creative maybe they're like nah better at managing and you need to still find somebody that's good at copying creative to help you so that's that's how i'm kind of thinking about this is how you could replicate what mike's doing to go have his the equivalent of his back and team help you get there fast yeah anything you agree or disagree with that no 100 and i also say don't
667
00:42:47.609 --> 00:42:50.833
don't fall into the trap that you need to hire a full-time position for this.
668
00:42:52.195 --> 00:42:55.839
This is where everyone thinks they need to own their IP or they need to own the way they do ads.
669
00:42:55.859 --> 00:42:57.380
It's like, no, just go get an agency.
670
00:42:58.221 --> 00:43:02.586
The turnaround we were on today, we'll probably do like $250,000 to $300,000 in annual revenue.
671
00:43:02.847 --> 00:43:04.689
And she has hired a marketing person.
672
00:43:04.709 --> 00:43:05.450
I'm like, hmm.
673
00:43:06.467 --> 00:43:07.088
Oh, gee whiz.
674
00:43:07.228 --> 00:43:12.352
If you just took half that salary and put it towards an agency, you'd have a much more qualified person running your ads.
675
00:43:12.913 --> 00:43:15.355
And you only have a little bit of money.
676
00:43:15.395 --> 00:43:16.776
So how good could the person be?
677
00:43:17.236 --> 00:43:18.197
The person may be a killer.
678
00:43:18.217 --> 00:43:18.637
I don't know.
679
00:43:18.677 --> 00:43:18.898
But...
680
00:43:19.697 --> 00:43:22.520
Odds are not because you don't have a lot of money.
681
00:43:22.961 --> 00:43:25.103
I think just being humble enough to like, I don't know everything.
682
00:43:25.123 --> 00:43:26.805
So I'm going to have to lean on all these people.
683
00:43:26.825 --> 00:43:30.229
And if I'm going to go fast, I'm going to have to pay for it because I can learn all these.
684
00:43:30.249 --> 00:43:31.430
And yes, you can learn how to run ads.
685
00:43:31.450 --> 00:43:32.552
You can learn how to build your website.
686
00:43:32.572 --> 00:43:33.833
You can learn to do a lot of things.
687
00:43:34.374 --> 00:43:39.900
But if you're going to go fast, usually renting it from someone else to build the enterprise is the faster move.
688
00:43:40.840 --> 00:43:41.120
Okay.
689
00:43:41.380 --> 00:43:41.660
So yeah.
690
00:43:41.700 --> 00:43:42.320
So, okay.
691
00:43:42.340 --> 00:43:49.562
So people kind of know SEO, ad management, maybe some help with creative because even if you think stuff, yeah, yeah.
692
00:43:49.842 --> 00:43:51.603
You might think, well, I'll just do all that myself.
693
00:43:51.843 --> 00:43:52.223
Will you?
694
00:43:52.263 --> 00:43:53.363
Cause this is going to be a lot.
695
00:43:53.463 --> 00:44:03.185
Like if you want to add a million in revenue or go from zero to a million in a new business, there's so many other things that are going to be so distracting and pull you in so many different places.
696
00:44:03.265 --> 00:44:06.746
This is where it's like, well, you might say I could do the creative myself.
697
00:44:07.246 --> 00:44:09.627
You probably shouldn't try cause it won't really happy.
698
00:44:09.647 --> 00:44:09.707
And
699
00:44:10.807 --> 00:44:10.987
Nick.
700
00:44:11.427 --> 00:44:11.608
Okay.
701
00:44:11.628 --> 00:44:12.929
So we've sort of established that.
702
00:44:12.969 --> 00:44:20.014
What are some other things that, uh, that you guys kind of already have built that somebody else is going to have to spin up to be able to do this?
703
00:44:20.534 --> 00:44:20.674
Yeah.
704
00:44:20.814 --> 00:44:25.758
Ultimately I say this all the time, like a location when you're not, there's an owner, 100% depends on the GM.
705
00:44:25.858 --> 00:44:35.105
And so the fact that we have the franchise to support like all the coaches, Nick, who's the regional manager to support that GM gives them a better likelihood of succeeding.
706
00:44:35.724 --> 00:44:42.266
And so whether it be the dashboards and all the numbers being done for them, like there's so many things being done for him.
707
00:44:43.126 --> 00:44:48.047
The QuickBooks department, the command center, like his phones are being answered for him, like all of these things.
708
00:44:48.107 --> 00:44:54.369
And again, like if you're going fast, you just want these things taken off your plate because you can only focus on a few things at a time.
709
00:44:55.009 --> 00:44:58.850
And ultimately my main job here is support my general manager when I'm there.
710
00:44:59.190 --> 00:44:59.471
That's it.
711
00:45:00.171 --> 00:45:04.872
Like everything else will be taken care of by other people that are hired to do their job.
712
00:45:05.483 --> 00:45:12.106
And whether it be an agency or the websites or answering the phone or doing email or running payroll, like that's not the highest value task in any business.
713
00:45:12.146 --> 00:45:15.808
And I'm trying to get away from like my experiment and more general advice.
714
00:45:15.848 --> 00:45:22.732
Like if you're growing fast, there's only a few key things that actually matter out of the 300 things that you could be doing.
715
00:45:23.292 --> 00:45:33.938
And so the less you can do of the 295 lower things and just focusing on the five, if you're trying to go fast, you will hire those things out and you're okay with taking the hit on the, and you don't need to know everything.
716
00:45:34.058 --> 00:45:34.538
You just don't.
717
00:45:35.742 --> 00:45:41.176
When you say, I'm going to support my GM, that's going to be my biggest function, biggest number one goal.
718
00:45:41.337 --> 00:45:42.339
Describe what that means.
719
00:45:43.507 --> 00:45:49.589
So we kind of have a 120 day, four month handoff when a new location gets started.
720
00:45:50.049 --> 00:45:55.831
And it's essentially just falls into the category of do it for them, do it with them, and then supervise.
721
00:45:56.471 --> 00:46:07.314
And so that allows me the opportunity that if anything would happen, because life comes up, if something ever happened to John, I would still have time to get that other person, a secondary person through those four months.
722
00:46:08.012 --> 00:46:20.238
And so that would be something that a lot of this, the whole reason I'm doing this is like, I can talk about theoretically all the time based upon me seeing statistical differences between different locations.
723
00:46:20.278 --> 00:46:22.319
And we've seen now 200 plus locations.
724
00:46:22.953 --> 00:46:25.094
But me doing it and documenting it is so important.
725
00:46:25.234 --> 00:46:34.578
And the reason I believe this is because when we did 2023 and I started from zero, I just basically got the first month, the first like 20 or 30 customers, it was just getting it off the ground.
726
00:46:34.958 --> 00:46:43.562
But like to this day, I believe we're known for door hangers because in that video, in that series, I ran like half a marathon doing five, 600 door hangers a day.
727
00:46:43.982 --> 00:46:44.823
I was just doing door hanging.
728
00:46:44.923 --> 00:46:45.183
Oh yeah.
729
00:46:45.203 --> 00:46:46.284
Like I was just doing over.
730
00:46:46.665 --> 00:46:48.386
And from then, like the owners got it.
731
00:46:48.446 --> 00:46:49.187
They saw the math.
732
00:46:49.227 --> 00:46:50.128
We started running the numbers.
733
00:46:50.188 --> 00:46:51.469
Everyone started iterating on it.
734
00:46:51.890 --> 00:46:59.517
And so what I want to happen is whether it be people watching the videos or inside Augusta is being able to take what I'm doing at a much larger scale and going fast.
735
00:46:59.537 --> 00:47:02.620
I'm like, Oh, he didn't worry about learning how to run the Facebook ad.
736
00:47:03.156 --> 00:47:04.277
He got an agency to do it.
737
00:47:04.557 --> 00:47:07.160
He had someone else answer the phone and they're not gonna be as good as him.
738
00:47:07.660 --> 00:47:09.862
And he had someone else run the payroll and he's not as good as him.
739
00:47:10.803 --> 00:47:11.544
But it doesn't matter.
740
00:47:11.564 --> 00:47:13.446
I just need to support my general manager.
741
00:47:13.586 --> 00:47:15.127
That's the only thing I'm there for.
742
00:47:15.708 --> 00:47:21.093
And so I hope he feels that support so that when I leave, he can continue with the vision of the company.
743
00:47:21.793 --> 00:47:28.876
And I hope that that comes across to anyone that's trying to build a seven-figure or eight-figure business quickly is you can't do everything.
744
00:47:28.896 --> 00:47:32.198
You will have to let things fall through the cracks, and you cannot pinch pennies.
745
00:47:32.418 --> 00:47:37.480
You cannot be the maniacal boss that sees every single detail and then go in a hundred different directions.
746
00:47:37.500 --> 00:47:42.282
You'll have to just focus on these are the two or three major things, and everything else just has to fall by the wayside.
747
00:47:43.229 --> 00:47:46.032
But when you say support, are you talking coaching?
748
00:47:46.333 --> 00:47:49.637
Are you talking, hey, let me show you what's worked within our organization.
749
00:47:49.657 --> 00:47:51.699
Here are some things to try and you demonstrate it.
750
00:47:52.700 --> 00:47:54.422
Is that essentially what you're saying?
751
00:47:55.063 --> 00:47:56.865
Or is he saying, hey, I need help with this.
752
00:47:56.885 --> 00:47:58.827
I'm not sure what to do or what are...
753
00:47:59.749 --> 00:48:03.473
I think it's the proximity of seeing his performance and then giving him reinforcements.
754
00:48:04.024 --> 00:48:07.505
And so if I was not there, I could have a weekly call with him.
755
00:48:07.545 --> 00:48:08.766
I could have a monthly call with him.
756
00:48:09.266 --> 00:48:12.867
But when I am actively with him and like, oh, hey, say this slightly differently.
757
00:48:13.107 --> 00:48:17.569
Hey, when we did onboarding next time, address this topic a little differently with the team.
758
00:48:17.969 --> 00:48:21.270
Hey, when you, when we did like the, the feedback loops are faster.
759
00:48:21.811 --> 00:48:28.073
And so I believe that someone can learn so much faster just by decreasing the time between
760
00:48:28.830 --> 00:48:31.031
hearing what needs to be done and taking action.
761
00:48:31.551 --> 00:48:34.232
And if someone doesn't know what to do, they won't take action.
762
00:48:34.632 --> 00:48:41.375
And the delay until the next time I give them a feedback, like, hey, you should change this, or a coaching call, or even a mastermind that we do daily.
763
00:48:41.935 --> 00:48:44.036
But the closer I can get to that feedback loop, the better.
764
00:48:44.096 --> 00:48:46.897
And so what I'm looking for in a general manager is someone who can take that feedback.
765
00:48:47.403 --> 00:48:48.284
and can execute on it.
766
00:48:48.364 --> 00:48:51.346
And that's someone who's really strong at operations and is humble enough to learn.
767
00:48:52.007 --> 00:49:00.033
And that will be my main focus, is getting really fast feedback loops to John so that he can excel very quickly and then establish and just keep growing.
768
00:49:01.974 --> 00:49:07.959
If John were to not make it, like it doesn't work out with John for whatever reason, how fast do you think you'd know in a role like this?
769
00:49:09.040 --> 00:49:09.460
Three days.
770
00:49:10.421 --> 00:49:10.841
Three days.
771
00:49:11.382 --> 00:49:11.582
Yeah.
772
00:49:11.902 --> 00:49:16.886
And so I think the hiring process needs to be slowed down
773
00:49:17.793 --> 00:49:24.578
And the reason I'm confident won't happen in three days is because I've spent so much time on the hiring and getting to know the person.
774
00:49:25.718 --> 00:49:29.080
So many different aspects of making sure, like just slow down.
775
00:49:29.141 --> 00:49:35.004
Like anytime stuff is done fast, like if God forbid something happened to Johnny, he had to move away, for example, and I had to find someone else.
776
00:49:35.305 --> 00:49:38.987
What would be demonstrated in the videos is how slow I will then find the next person.
777
00:49:40.152 --> 00:49:44.494
And, um, that would definitely put a strain on the 10 hour per week limit for sure.
778
00:49:44.815 --> 00:49:47.296
But, but, um, Back to my strategy.
779
00:49:47.756 --> 00:49:48.016
Yeah.
780
00:49:48.036 --> 00:49:48.196
Yeah.
781
00:49:48.376 --> 00:49:56.361
Like I think hiring really slow and like, I went out and visited him and his wife and took him out for dinner and flew out there with Brianna so that my wife can be her wife.
782
00:49:56.661 --> 00:49:56.861
Yeah.
783
00:49:57.141 --> 00:49:57.701
Or his wife.
784
00:49:58.201 --> 00:49:59.522
Like these are the little things.
785
00:49:59.882 --> 00:50:05.025
And, uh, it was a weeks of back and forth and videos back and forth and questions.
786
00:50:05.065 --> 00:50:08.147
And here's what the strategy is and what poke holes in this, what are your questions?
787
00:50:08.527 --> 00:50:08.647
And.
788
00:50:09.467 --> 00:50:11.069
That's the part that I think some people miss.
789
00:50:11.249 --> 00:50:14.653
And so therefore they do find out in the first few days, oh, someone's a bad fit.
790
00:50:15.354 --> 00:50:24.805
And so in terms of my confidence in John, like I would not be doing this if I didn't have 100% confidence in him, but life does happen.
791
00:50:25.318 --> 00:50:26.619
It just does stuff happens.
792
00:50:26.659 --> 00:50:30.141
And so, uh, if that were to happen, then we'd have to pivot and we have to find someone else.
793
00:50:30.881 --> 00:50:32.882
Uh, and we would, the show must go on.
794
00:50:33.302 --> 00:50:33.442
Yeah.
795
00:50:33.862 --> 00:50:34.043
Yeah.
796
00:50:34.103 --> 00:50:35.443
Literally the next day.
797
00:50:37.244 --> 00:50:38.885
Well, it'll make for good drama if that happens.
798
00:50:38.905 --> 00:50:39.425
Hopefully not.
799
00:50:39.865 --> 00:50:40.146
All right.
800
00:50:40.226 --> 00:50:46.189
So if, so you'll start mowing in call it March.
801
00:50:46.209 --> 00:50:46.769
Yeah.
802
00:50:47.108 --> 00:50:49.529
depending on when you start spinning up fertilization.
803
00:50:49.569 --> 00:50:54.032
Well, there's other things you could potentially do, but the real mowing season is going to start in March.
804
00:50:54.992 --> 00:50:59.094
Real weed control season starts whenever because there are pre-emergence and things like that.
805
00:50:59.234 --> 00:51:03.176
And in our market, you generally see most of the weeds start pop.
806
00:51:03.276 --> 00:51:08.299
But February is the prime selling is when you can start selling fertilization weed control.
807
00:51:08.559 --> 00:51:09.519
It's easier to sell.
808
00:51:09.539 --> 00:51:10.240
Let's put it that way.
809
00:51:11.140 --> 00:51:12.241
You can start selling it before.
810
00:51:14.003 --> 00:51:16.664
But people are seeing more weeds in February.
811
00:51:16.684 --> 00:51:19.144
And so that's when it works better to sell.
812
00:51:19.324 --> 00:51:19.524
Okay.
813
00:51:20.724 --> 00:51:22.185
How do you guys think about staffing?
814
00:51:22.905 --> 00:51:27.026
When you get there, you and John are working on the business.
815
00:51:27.586 --> 00:51:31.886
And will you wait till February to start staffing mowing?
816
00:51:31.906 --> 00:51:35.487
Will you start... How do you think about backing into getting enough team members?
817
00:51:35.927 --> 00:51:39.328
Because you've got... You're also doing something else that most people...
818
00:51:40.048 --> 00:51:41.070
don't do or struggle with.
819
00:51:41.090 --> 00:51:42.933
And that's because you're going to be moving fast.
820
00:51:42.953 --> 00:51:43.774
You have to balance.
821
00:51:44.054 --> 00:51:45.937
You have to almost predict to a little degree.
822
00:51:45.957 --> 00:51:47.399
I think I'm going to bring in this many clients.
823
00:51:47.439 --> 00:51:48.621
I'm probably going to need this many people.
824
00:51:48.641 --> 00:51:50.805
I'm going to get this many people ready in advance.
825
00:51:50.825 --> 00:51:54.651
That's the thing so many people forget about when they're thinking about growth.
826
00:51:54.671 --> 00:51:54.851
They're
827
00:51:55.832 --> 00:51:59.014
I think we can grow by 700,000 next year.
828
00:51:59.094 --> 00:52:06.557
And they think about the marketing function, but they don't think about the hiring function, the training function, the management function, the everything else.
829
00:52:07.038 --> 00:52:10.619
So how will you be thinking about that approaching this?
830
00:52:11.300 --> 00:52:13.441
Yeah, the biggest advantage I have here is
831
00:52:14.176 --> 00:52:17.717
that I do know relatively what the customer cost is in that market.
832
00:52:18.517 --> 00:52:21.318
We have two locations that are 45 minutes from there.
833
00:52:21.838 --> 00:52:23.038
So that gives me a good idea.
834
00:52:23.058 --> 00:52:27.100
Again, some good research with AI, you can get pretty close.
835
00:52:27.420 --> 00:52:33.101
But specifically because I have seen ads performance within a decent radius of that market.
836
00:52:33.481 --> 00:52:39.543
So I take that and then I start putting against what we see when people start spending more on a platform.
837
00:52:39.883 --> 00:52:48.165
And because there is diminishing returns, you're not going to get $40 customer acquisition costs and then go dump $2,000 a day on Facebook ads and expect $40 per customer.
838
00:52:48.285 --> 00:52:49.025
It's not happening.
839
00:52:49.425 --> 00:52:50.526
It would likely triple.
840
00:52:51.186 --> 00:52:53.586
And so, um, depending on the size of your market.
841
00:52:53.906 --> 00:53:04.389
And so, because my market is relatively small, you know, a hundred to 200,000 people, I can't dump tons of money on and just expect it to not have huge diminishing returns once I hit a certain level.
842
00:53:05.122 --> 00:53:07.764
And so that's the thing that we're forecasting.
843
00:53:08.044 --> 00:53:10.926
It's like, okay, we have seen certain sizes of markets.
844
00:53:11.347 --> 00:53:13.008
We have seen certain customer equity costs.
845
00:53:13.528 --> 00:53:16.811
And then let's try to be conservative with how much that's going to actually be.
846
00:53:16.851 --> 00:53:17.351
Let's okay.
847
00:53:17.651 --> 00:53:19.893
If it's double the customer cost, can I still hit the target?
848
00:53:20.313 --> 00:53:31.642
So in all reality, the reason I can be confident with the $1 million is because I can project that number out with a lot of confidence, assuming nothing operationally goes wrong, going back to the importance of the general manager.
849
00:53:32.200 --> 00:53:36.907
Because if that stays intact, I have done the due diligence to know, okay, this is what I'm pretty confident I can hit.
850
00:53:37.407 --> 00:53:39.070
I'm going to use this as my assumption.
851
00:53:39.210 --> 00:53:42.795
And I'm going to backfill with how much I have to spend on marketing to be able to then
852
00:53:43.593 --> 00:54:02.541
do that much work how many trucks and how many employees do i need to hire and so it's just a backwards math starting with customer action cost how many customers what's my annual customer value that's how much revenue i get to so there it is and that's why i actually have to add in fertilization weed control is because the mowing side i would not get there
853
00:54:03.261 --> 00:54:10.525
with the level of content I wanted to, as well as the fact that during the off season, it is something I can still kind of sell, especially during February.
854
00:54:11.105 --> 00:54:19.049
And so those are the two reasons I actually added that back in because I can spend more on CAC if my annual customer value is a lot higher because I have a second service.
855
00:54:19.789 --> 00:54:28.113
And so in terms of hiring, we're going to immediately get three vans and immediately be hiring within the first week or two of you meet there.
856
00:54:29.433 --> 00:54:34.257
I assume your $1 million goal is based on run rate, not actual revenue for the year.
857
00:54:34.718 --> 00:54:35.218
Yep.
858
00:54:35.358 --> 00:54:36.639
I'll be tracking recurring revenue.
859
00:54:36.659 --> 00:54:40.042
So like monthly recurring revenue, I have to have what, 84,000 or whatever it is.
860
00:54:40.583 --> 00:54:45.247
And so if you do the math, okay, like let's say there's $200 per month per customer.
861
00:54:45.667 --> 00:54:47.749
So $200 divided out by 84,000, that's for 400 customers.
862
00:54:53.444 --> 00:54:56.466
I didn't even, I just was waiting on you to answer.
863
00:54:56.686 --> 00:55:01.528
Something like 400 to 500 recurring customers, if that's their average monthly ticket.
864
00:55:01.909 --> 00:55:04.170
That being said, we're not going to be able to hit that, likely.
865
00:55:04.630 --> 00:55:07.452
$200 is higher for those two services that I think I can achieve.
866
00:55:07.932 --> 00:55:15.636
And so it is likely that we'll have to hit, based on projections, somewhere between 550 and 700 recurring customers.
867
00:55:15.896 --> 00:55:18.358
Depends on my hit rate on fertilization weed control.
868
00:55:18.918 --> 00:55:19.078
Yep.
869
00:55:20.672 --> 00:55:21.893
I think you can hit this number.
870
00:55:22.373 --> 00:55:27.555
I know a number of people have spun up contractor-based businesses just mowing and have hit that number.
871
00:55:27.755 --> 00:55:27.936
Yeah, so.
872
00:55:27.956 --> 00:55:30.377
I'll be honest, like there's already owners in Augusta that have done this.
873
00:55:30.717 --> 00:55:31.297
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
874
00:55:31.317 --> 00:55:33.378
They just came in with a lot more capital, right?
875
00:55:33.398 --> 00:55:34.859
So they immediately hit the ground running.
876
00:55:35.119 --> 00:55:36.640
They had a couple hundred thousand dollars.
877
00:55:36.740 --> 00:55:37.920
They spent a large budget.
878
00:55:37.940 --> 00:55:38.881
So it's been done.
879
00:55:39.221 --> 00:55:40.342
I want to document it.
880
00:55:40.622 --> 00:55:45.807
And my hope is that this becomes the standard for Augusta, but also that the playbook for someone that wants to grow faster.
881
00:55:45.847 --> 00:55:50.332
And it's not like, well, if I want to start a longer business or any home service, you don't need to go start doing the work.
882
00:55:50.412 --> 00:55:53.314
I will not pick up a tool at all throughout this entire event.
883
00:55:53.695 --> 00:55:54.736
And like, that's part of the challenge.
884
00:55:54.756 --> 00:55:55.877
Like I can't pick up the tools.
885
00:55:56.397 --> 00:56:03.122
And so I do believe that this also raises the level of professionalism because we get investor types that are going to come in.
886
00:56:03.142 --> 00:56:04.143
They're going to pay higher wages.
887
00:56:04.604 --> 00:56:05.885
They're going to be more professional.
888
00:56:05.985 --> 00:56:10.368
They're going to pay for agencies and for office staff or people to be answering the phone.
889
00:56:10.628 --> 00:56:12.410
And so I don't think it's a bad thing for the industry.
890
00:56:12.430 --> 00:56:17.994
And I would like to have an alternative for some people that might be watching content that all you see is people mowing grass.
891
00:56:18.434 --> 00:56:20.136
And that will not be these videos.
892
00:56:20.156 --> 00:56:23.979
It'll be a lot of whiteboard strategy, mapping, stuff on AI, showing the screen.
893
00:56:24.219 --> 00:56:25.540
It's going to be a lot of strategy.
894
00:56:26.160 --> 00:56:28.120
Uh, and so I hope to show that angle.
895
00:56:28.861 --> 00:56:33.562
Yeah, I think it, I think it demonstrates a lot of it for the audience who will never do any kind of business with you.
896
00:56:33.702 --> 00:56:39.763
It demonstrates how could they do this for themselves for the person that's like, Hey, maybe I want to be part of the Augusta world someday.
897
00:56:40.103 --> 00:56:41.483
What would my experience look like?
898
00:56:41.543 --> 00:56:42.403
How could we get there?
899
00:56:42.483 --> 00:56:43.784
Like, how would they help me get there?
900
00:56:44.604 --> 00:56:50.325
And so there's a, there's a lot of different things that are shown here that are of value that in a whole lot of different ways.
901
00:56:50.805 --> 00:56:54.846
When you think about, and I'm about to ask a question that I don't know if you can.
902
00:56:55.786 --> 00:56:59.309
I don't know much about franchising, so I don't know if you could legally answer it.
903
00:56:59.449 --> 00:56:59.949
I have no idea.
904
00:57:00.890 --> 00:57:08.115
If you were to think about this as an investment, let's say you made me think of this because you said investor.
905
00:57:08.556 --> 00:57:22.206
So as an investor, if I could write a $300,000 check and buy $150,000 a year in profits and get my money back in two years, that's like an interesting math equation right there.
906
00:57:22.946 --> 00:57:25.068
So is there any kind, again,
907
00:57:25.268 --> 00:57:30.052
don't know what you're allowed to say, or maybe you answer it from non Augusta franchise terms.
908
00:57:30.652 --> 00:57:33.295
What do you think it would cost to spin up a million in revenue?
909
00:57:33.335 --> 00:57:44.184
What do you think a million, if I was the investor, not the guy running it, I guess I'm kind of involved in, if all I have is a GM, but what do you think profit could be on something like this?
910
00:57:44.204 --> 00:57:45.425
Can you even answer that question?
911
00:57:45.885 --> 00:57:46.365
Yeah, I can.
912
00:57:46.405 --> 00:57:48.887
So we, as of last year, we have our item 19.
913
00:57:48.907 --> 00:57:49.768
So we disclose all this.
914
00:57:50.289 --> 00:57:51.049
So it's on the website.
915
00:57:51.069 --> 00:57:51.630
It's all public.
916
00:57:52.010 --> 00:57:52.310
Okay.
917
00:57:52.871 --> 00:57:53.111
So,
918
00:57:54.388 --> 00:58:02.815
I would say if someone's going to grow at the speed that I am going to, it's be what we call an executive level, which is you have to have $500,000 of net worth.
919
00:58:03.215 --> 00:58:05.317
You have to have that – I shouldn't even say net worth.
920
00:58:05.357 --> 00:58:07.419
I should say capital to spend.
921
00:58:07.839 --> 00:58:09.421
Now, will you spend $500,000?
922
00:58:09.741 --> 00:58:10.021
No.
923
00:58:10.301 --> 00:58:14.585
But if you're trying to grow to a million in the first year and then likely keep that kind of growth rate –
924
00:58:15.166 --> 00:58:17.006
I don't want you going this with 60 or $70,000.
925
00:58:17.026 --> 00:58:17.367
I don't.
926
00:58:18.427 --> 00:58:22.588
And so I'm going to be trying to be really realistic when I'm making the videos about like, here's what I'm spending on marketing.
927
00:58:22.748 --> 00:58:23.308
It's a lot.
928
00:58:23.708 --> 00:58:26.749
And the customer cost is not going to be low because I'm spending a lot of money.
929
00:58:27.049 --> 00:58:27.229
Yeah.
930
00:58:27.329 --> 00:58:30.730
And I'm trying to while I'm spending a lot of money, trying to figure out what's working, what's not.
931
00:58:31.250 --> 00:58:38.792
And so I would personally say if someone was trying to get from zero to a million, I would be having at least 150 to $200,000 of cash ready to deploy.
932
00:58:41.471 --> 00:58:47.280
And I would personally, like from a franchise perspective, we're looking for over $500,000 that you have access to.
933
00:58:47.500 --> 00:58:56.373
So even if you were getting some like 300,000 of debt, 200,000 cash, we have seen 100% a huge indicator of success.
934
00:58:56.413 --> 00:58:57.795
It's just, do you have access to capital?
935
00:58:58.427 --> 00:59:03.531
Because if things are going really well, you can still run out of money and fail.
936
00:59:04.292 --> 00:59:14.381
And the worst thing that happened is you run out of cash because you grew so fast and everything was going so well and you run out of money in your first off season because you haven't established your off season yet.
937
00:59:16.282 --> 00:59:26.611
So having enough capital is something that we, I've always had a deep passion for people with less money, but I consistently see them come in to Augusta specifically, I would say a broad stroke for business is like,
938
00:59:27.411 --> 00:59:29.275
If you're going to grow fast, you need capital.
939
00:59:31.475 --> 00:59:41.677
Your point about the investor type is definitely a big reason why, from the franchise perspective we're doing this, is I want to show that your return on invested capital is better inside this than other mechanisms.
940
00:59:42.097 --> 00:59:44.838
Whether it be you're comparing a Taco Bell or you're comparing something else.
941
00:59:45.038 --> 00:59:56.180
If you're going to start a longer business and start doing door hangers, you can't compare that investment to starting a gym or a fast food restaurant or another franchise that costs $800,000 or a million dollars to start.
942
00:59:56.220 --> 00:59:57.300
You can't even compare the two.
943
00:59:57.904 --> 01:00:05.270
And so I want to be able to take more of the approach of like, if you're an investor and you have the capital, here's the alternative way to use home services to scale quickly.
944
01:00:06.470 --> 01:00:12.175
Do you think this is like a 200,000 in spend kind of scenario on marketing to get to a million?
945
01:00:12.195 --> 01:00:14.737
Do you have like some guesstimate you're coming in with?
946
01:00:15.237 --> 01:00:16.158
This is the first time I've said this.
947
01:00:16.318 --> 01:00:16.658
Yeah.
948
01:00:16.878 --> 01:00:18.499
Right now, my budget is 130,000.
949
01:00:18.519 --> 01:00:19.160
Oh, okay.
950
01:00:19.180 --> 01:00:21.462
A little less than I would have.
951
01:00:21.522 --> 01:00:24.704
I have not done the math, but I would have guessed a little higher for going this quick.
952
01:00:25.324 --> 01:00:25.525
Yeah.
953
01:00:28.013 --> 01:00:28.973
that I get there in six months.
954
01:00:29.613 --> 01:00:30.033
Okay.
955
01:00:30.093 --> 01:00:31.874
Get to your number in six months?
956
01:00:32.134 --> 01:00:33.214
I think I can get there in six months.
957
01:00:33.294 --> 01:00:33.874
That's my goal.
958
01:00:34.174 --> 01:00:35.615
What month will you deploy the spend?
959
01:00:36.015 --> 01:00:36.415
Do you know?
960
01:00:36.515 --> 01:00:37.215
You may not know yet.
961
01:00:37.575 --> 01:00:38.495
All in the first six months.
962
01:00:39.236 --> 01:00:41.296
Yeah, but you're going to be there in September.
963
01:00:41.356 --> 01:00:43.597
So starting from September to the end of spring.
964
01:00:44.157 --> 01:00:44.437
Correct.
965
01:00:44.477 --> 01:00:47.878
I'm only there six months, and the publicly stated goal is one year.
966
01:00:47.898 --> 01:00:49.798
I'm going to try to get there by the time I leave.
967
01:00:50.565 --> 01:00:53.666
So everyone that heard that can just exit that off of their memory.
968
01:00:53.706 --> 01:00:55.667
It's going to be a year long before I hit the goal.
969
01:00:55.947 --> 01:00:56.267
Yeah.
970
01:00:56.308 --> 01:01:03.050
But as like the last to get me from like 99 percentile to 100 was like, okay, I'll make it a year, but I'll plan for six months.
971
01:01:03.451 --> 01:01:08.973
And so my goal is that by the time I leave April 20th, we've hit over the 84 monthly recurring revenue.
972
01:01:09.953 --> 01:01:11.994
Towards the end of April is when it slows.
973
01:01:12.114 --> 01:01:13.655
Mid-May is when it really slows.
974
01:01:14.175 --> 01:01:14.335
Yeah.
975
01:01:14.855 --> 01:01:15.116
Okay.
976
01:01:15.576 --> 01:01:18.297
And then how many trucks will that be till you hit a million?
977
01:01:19.235 --> 01:01:21.956
A lot of it depends on my penetration rate with fertilization.
978
01:01:21.996 --> 01:01:25.217
And I am strictly guessing on that, to be honest with you.
979
01:01:25.718 --> 01:01:29.679
And so I have a pretty good idea of how many technicians we need, how many vans we would need.
980
01:01:29.699 --> 01:01:32.580
That basically be a full location, which for us is six to eight technicians.
981
01:01:33.020 --> 01:01:38.322
But I don't know what rate I'm going to be able to get from lawn care into fertilization.
982
01:01:38.362 --> 01:01:39.163
I don't know that number.
983
01:01:39.443 --> 01:01:42.444
And that's going to really hinge what that looks like.
984
01:01:43.204 --> 01:01:46.225
A typical person running a million dollar lawn mowing business.
985
01:01:46.265 --> 01:01:47.606
How many trucks is that?
986
01:01:49.023 --> 01:01:50.904
It depends on the market and the factors I know.
987
01:01:50.924 --> 01:01:54.447
Yeah, if you're doing double trucks, if you're doing like two employees, we're going to do solo routes.
988
01:01:54.847 --> 01:01:55.068
Okay.
989
01:01:55.088 --> 01:02:03.414
So, but like for us, we can get there with seven, six to eight technicians, which would be six to eight trucks, which is very capital intensive.
990
01:02:03.494 --> 01:02:05.555
I think someone that was like, hey, I have less money.
991
01:02:05.575 --> 01:02:06.056
Okay, great.
992
01:02:06.076 --> 01:02:07.377
You'll double up your employees.
993
01:02:07.857 --> 01:02:08.417
Yeah, exactly.
994
01:02:08.798 --> 01:02:08.978
Yeah.
995
01:02:09.258 --> 01:02:09.478
Okay.
996
01:02:09.618 --> 01:02:14.382
That just, I'm asking, just kind of gives you an idea of the math behind an investment like this.
997
01:02:14.462 --> 01:02:14.882
And then...
998
01:02:17.212 --> 01:02:18.813
because you brought up the word investor.
999
01:02:19.074 --> 01:02:23.137
So very interesting.
1000
01:02:23.337 --> 01:02:26.439
What do you think the selling window tends to be in a lot of markets?
1001
01:02:26.820 --> 01:02:31.704
So lawn mowing, fertilization, this one's a little more specific to these servers.
1002
01:02:31.724 --> 01:02:32.524
Let's use lawn mowing.
1003
01:02:33.718 --> 01:02:39.043
In most US markets, because you have a lot of experience, is that typically a two-month, like prime selling window?
1004
01:02:39.063 --> 01:02:42.066
Like this is what makes or break the year kind of thing.
1005
01:02:42.727 --> 01:02:46.730
Are we talking it's normally a 60-day, 90-day window, 120?
1006
01:02:46.911 --> 01:02:49.273
Do you have any number that's pretty typical?
1007
01:02:49.753 --> 01:02:52.175
Most markets are between 70 and 90 days.
1008
01:02:52.556 --> 01:02:56.820
We have, though, a few in the transition zones where they have kind of a double spring rush.
1009
01:02:57.535 --> 01:03:05.479
So they'll have a little bit of a rush in like March when you have some cold season grasses, but then like warm season, all of a sudden they have like a July rush when it gets hot.
1010
01:03:05.899 --> 01:03:09.922
So like, for example, I'm thinking of Charlotte, North Carolina, some markets like that.
1011
01:03:09.962 --> 01:03:15.304
They have kind of a double whammy when the different type of grasses start coming up.
1012
01:03:15.625 --> 01:03:20.707
But in general, we call spring rush pretty much March, April, May, June, somewhere in there.
1013
01:03:20.867 --> 01:03:21.648
Across the country.
1014
01:03:22.228 --> 01:03:22.388
Yeah.
1015
01:03:22.908 --> 01:03:23.349
Makes sense.
1016
01:03:24.268 --> 01:03:28.929
Earlier, you were talking about, you made brief mention of being known as the guy that did door hangers.
1017
01:03:29.229 --> 01:03:29.789
Didn't know that.
1018
01:03:30.810 --> 01:03:32.310
Tell me a little bit about door hangers.
1019
01:03:33.550 --> 01:03:38.512
Like from this vantage, from the view of, it sounds like they worked really well for you.
1020
01:03:38.572 --> 01:03:40.772
What are your top three or four learnings?
1021
01:03:41.232 --> 01:03:44.973
It's been forever, but I did door hangers in a major way in the early days.
1022
01:03:45.533 --> 01:03:48.294
Door hangers and SEO built the business in the early days.
1023
01:03:48.754 --> 01:03:52.455
And so what, tell me some of your biggest learnings on door hangers.
1024
01:03:53.700 --> 01:03:53.960
Yeah.
1025
01:03:54.040 --> 01:03:57.522
So first off, very, very time, time sensitive.
1026
01:03:58.362 --> 01:04:01.503
So like you have to hit them when they're pain, there's pain.
1027
01:04:01.703 --> 01:04:07.206
And if you put that door hanger saying that, you know, there's a lot of this translates from every door, dark mail or any mail.
1028
01:04:07.266 --> 01:04:10.067
It's like they're getting that in the mailbox.
1029
01:04:10.287 --> 01:04:15.529
And if there's not pain the next day, if it's sunny, everything could change.
1030
01:04:16.049 --> 01:04:16.249
Yeah.
1031
01:04:16.629 --> 01:04:17.870
And so, uh,
1032
01:04:18.667 --> 01:04:22.869
The size of testing is the part that I've seen the most important.
1033
01:04:23.209 --> 01:04:26.371
Because if you test out 100 door hangers, you're probably not going to get a customer.
1034
01:04:26.831 --> 01:04:30.913
Or you could get a false positive and get three and think that, oh my word, I only get 20,000 of these.
1035
01:04:31.293 --> 01:04:32.934
So test size is important.
1036
01:04:33.354 --> 01:04:37.056
And then if you're going to compare – this is the hardest part with door hangers or mail in my opinion.
1037
01:04:37.656 --> 01:04:44.680
Is because it's so dependent on timing, you really can't compare this week to next week or this month to next month.
1038
01:04:45.192 --> 01:04:48.855
you have to wait one year to really get a solid split test.
1039
01:04:49.416 --> 01:04:54.740
That's why I love social, is because I can just flop them like A, B, C, D test, like so fast.
1040
01:04:55.301 --> 01:04:59.705
Whereas with Sprint, to get a real test, you have to test year over year.
1041
01:05:00.325 --> 01:05:03.828
And most people, I have hardly seen anyone have the patience to do that.
1042
01:05:04.609 --> 01:05:07.952
And so that'd be the first thing is like testing, I see most will do it really wrong.
1043
01:05:08.112 --> 01:05:09.333
They'll hear someone like me say,
1044
01:05:10.028 --> 01:05:11.871
door hangers and go to a thousand of them and put them out tomorrow.
1045
01:05:11.891 --> 01:05:14.374
I'm like, wait, well, spring rush was three months ago.
1046
01:05:15.035 --> 01:05:18.340
And I know in your market it works, but you're three months late to the party.
1047
01:05:19.282 --> 01:05:20.463
So timing with the first one.
1048
01:05:20.544 --> 01:05:24.850
And then the second one is just refining your pricing strategy.
1049
01:05:25.562 --> 01:05:28.565
And we have found door hangers to be really good at entry level.
1050
01:05:28.865 --> 01:05:29.987
Get your foot in the door.
1051
01:05:30.287 --> 01:05:32.289
You're not going to be a premium price.
1052
01:05:32.669 --> 01:05:39.916
And so we get plenty of hate because people will snap photos of our door hangers at a $39 or $49 per cut price.
1053
01:05:40.457 --> 01:05:41.558
But we know we can get in.
1054
01:05:41.758 --> 01:05:44.781
We know that within three months, we can get that price back to what it might need to be.
1055
01:05:45.462 --> 01:05:46.323
And people don't leave.
1056
01:05:47.096 --> 01:06:10.657
and we can also sell them to other services and so when you look at it's a gateway it's get your foot in the door it's not going to be perfectly accurate because we give a price on that door hanger uh then that is when it can be a really good tool then there's so many little optimizations like do you have a qr code do you have them right on the door hanger do you have them text it to you do you have them send a picture via email like all these little other things and uh
1057
01:06:11.513 --> 01:06:12.234
It's just trial bear.
1058
01:06:12.274 --> 01:06:14.076
It's literally the same thing as any other ad platform.
1059
01:06:14.096 --> 01:06:16.898
You've got to keep testing and then making little refinements.
1060
01:06:16.938 --> 01:06:23.365
And most of us do not have the patience because they jump to another ad platform or like the next shiny thing that you or I or someone else is talking about.
1061
01:06:23.905 --> 01:06:27.489
Yeah, I definitely don't think most people should be messing with print.
1062
01:06:27.969 --> 01:06:32.213
I like door hangers the most for the small.
1063
01:06:32.433 --> 01:06:35.817
Again, I haven't done door hangers in years, but the way I think about it right now is
1064
01:06:37.176 --> 01:06:42.863
is I like them most for the guy that has a bunch of time and not a lot of money and not a lot of clients.
1065
01:06:42.903 --> 01:06:44.265
Like, what else am I going to do with my time?
1066
01:06:44.345 --> 01:06:45.066
Go get clients.
1067
01:06:45.086 --> 01:06:46.227
Like, that's the only thing that matters.
1068
01:06:46.567 --> 01:06:49.431
It's that thing they can go do themselves.
1069
01:06:49.471 --> 01:06:50.332
And I like that.
1070
01:06:51.373 --> 01:06:53.135
We know you love door knocking after last week.
1071
01:06:53.195 --> 01:06:53.616
Let's go.
1072
01:06:54.617 --> 01:06:55.877
Yeah, love it.
1073
01:06:55.897 --> 01:07:03.760
And so, but the print will, could just, can just spread, especially mail, can just wipe you out financially really quick.
1074
01:07:04.040 --> 01:07:05.260
And it can be a big setback.
1075
01:07:05.301 --> 01:07:16.744
So I consider the mail to be highly risky, a very advanced late stage strategy in the business, but it's got power, but it's, you gotta be ready to use it.
1076
01:07:16.804 --> 01:07:18.285
And a lot of work has to go into it.
1077
01:07:18.365 --> 01:07:18.625
So yeah.
1078
01:07:20.442 --> 01:07:23.603
On the door hangers, do you ever have problems?
1079
01:07:23.663 --> 01:07:25.384
Again, haven't been in door hangers forever.
1080
01:07:25.964 --> 01:07:28.685
Do you get many bad reviews because of putting out door hangers?
1081
01:07:29.285 --> 01:07:30.566
Not a whole lot, honestly.
1082
01:07:30.586 --> 01:07:30.726
Okay.
1083
01:07:31.126 --> 01:07:33.467
And usually two things have happened.
1084
01:07:33.647 --> 01:07:37.628
One, a lot of them can get the reviews taken down because we haven't actually done service for them.
1085
01:07:39.049 --> 01:07:41.070
If you just say, hey, this was never a customer of mine.
1086
01:07:41.130 --> 01:07:41.790
They haven't been.
1087
01:07:41.830 --> 01:07:42.930
They're not even in our database.
1088
01:07:43.270 --> 01:07:44.971
So a lot of times Google actually take those reviews down.
1089
01:07:45.966 --> 01:07:54.954
The second thing is our responses to those reviews are actually, like I like those negative one star reviews because that's where customers are going to look.
1090
01:07:55.555 --> 01:07:59.519
They're not looking at the thousand five stars, they're looking at the few one stars.
1091
01:08:00.179 --> 01:08:02.441
And if the only response to me to
1092
01:08:04.030 --> 01:08:08.131
The only negative response about my business is the fact that I'm trying to go out and get more business.
1093
01:08:08.711 --> 01:08:13.572
I think that a high-quality customer usually is okay with it, depending on my response.
1094
01:08:13.952 --> 01:08:16.293
So usually our response is, like, you've got to be professional.
1095
01:08:16.513 --> 01:08:18.914
You don't let their attacks hinder you.
1096
01:08:18.934 --> 01:08:20.114
Like, just be professional.
1097
01:08:20.494 --> 01:08:23.235
Apologize if needs be, depending on the circumstance.
1098
01:08:23.935 --> 01:08:27.356
And especially if they're, like, going after, like, you don't know how to solicit.
1099
01:08:27.756 --> 01:08:32.597
Am I really in the nitty-gritty details of, like, canvassing versus soliciting in a Google review response?
1100
01:08:32.877 --> 01:08:33.117
No.
1101
01:08:33.738 --> 01:08:40.922
And so I'm just trying to make my review response what I would want my future customer to see.
1102
01:08:41.682 --> 01:08:46.545
And I believe if you're professional and someone's like, Hey, they're just trying to get, they're trying to get ahead.
1103
01:08:46.565 --> 01:08:48.226
They're trying to promote their business.
1104
01:08:48.466 --> 01:08:50.227
They're super professional and apologetic.
1105
01:08:50.267 --> 01:08:54.070
If they made someone mad, I think that's actually a good thing for the brand.
1106
01:08:54.750 --> 01:08:54.910
Yeah.
1107
01:08:55.851 --> 01:08:56.411
All right.
1108
01:08:56.431 --> 01:08:57.632
Some stuff's going to go wrong.
1109
01:08:58.532 --> 01:08:59.253
It's not going to work.
1110
01:09:00.817 --> 01:09:01.978
Who knows what it's going to be.
1111
01:09:02.478 --> 01:09:04.059
But again, you've been doing this a while.
1112
01:09:04.079 --> 01:09:05.259
A lot of franchisees.
1113
01:09:05.299 --> 01:09:12.503
What are, if this doesn't go to plan and you're just guessing, what do you think a few of the off the rails kind of things could be?
1114
01:09:13.064 --> 01:09:16.666
So, by the way, I made sure I did not use AI in this whole thing today.
1115
01:09:16.746 --> 01:09:19.867
I want to make sure these are authentic and real from what actually I felt.
1116
01:09:20.588 --> 01:09:21.208
So, all right.
1117
01:09:21.328 --> 01:09:24.610
So, first off is scaling ads will be harder than just increasing the budget.
1118
01:09:25.252 --> 01:09:27.053
Like it's easy to just throw money at a problem.
1119
01:09:27.613 --> 01:09:31.575
And every time that is a mentality of mine, it's never worked like, Oh, the throw money at it.
1120
01:09:32.015 --> 01:09:36.778
Meaning it doesn't bring you in much additional traffic or it doesn't bring much additional conversion.
1121
01:09:37.018 --> 01:09:38.979
Now your tax just going up or what do you mean?
1122
01:09:39.259 --> 01:09:41.860
Usually the law of diminishing returns is understated.
1123
01:09:42.741 --> 01:09:48.283
And so it's like, well, it worked great when I was spending a hundred dollars a day, but will it work if I spent a thousand dollars a day?
1124
01:09:48.664 --> 01:09:48.904
Right.
1125
01:09:49.044 --> 01:09:51.365
And so I think that's the first, uh,
1126
01:09:52.073 --> 01:10:19.368
area it could break the second thing you think it could break is if i the first is like i've never run a location that the crews take their trucks home and so for each of these areas i'm mentioning i'm obviously doing my best to facilitate this not happening so i'm calling people i'm talking to other owners and gust other owners outside of augusta like they've done this model but like i've never ran a location where the technicians take the trucks home i've also never ran a location that uses vans we've always used pickup trucks
1127
01:10:20.082 --> 01:10:23.324
And so another variable... Vance work.
1128
01:10:23.924 --> 01:10:24.405
Yeah, let's go.
1129
01:10:24.485 --> 01:10:25.025
I just tell you.
1130
01:10:25.145 --> 01:10:25.706
I just tell you.
1131
01:10:26.306 --> 01:10:26.626
Thank you.
1132
01:10:26.666 --> 01:10:27.287
I appreciate that.
1133
01:10:27.447 --> 01:10:28.707
Also, shout out to Jonathan.
1134
01:10:28.727 --> 01:10:30.148
I don't know if this was ever caught on tape.
1135
01:10:30.228 --> 01:10:30.829
I don't think it was.
1136
01:10:31.069 --> 01:10:35.572
But Jonathan actually mentioned my market to me as a great market.
1137
01:10:35.892 --> 01:10:36.812
I've never said, yeah.
1138
01:10:36.972 --> 01:10:38.634
I told you where I would go if it was me.
1139
01:10:38.654 --> 01:10:40.335
Swipe and deploy.
1140
01:10:40.455 --> 01:10:41.575
Also, it was out of your market.
1141
01:10:41.615 --> 01:10:42.176
I'll be honest.
1142
01:10:42.236 --> 01:10:43.136
It was out of your market.
1143
01:10:43.196 --> 01:10:45.438
I really didn't want to start in your market.
1144
01:10:45.518 --> 01:10:46.218
I really didn't.
1145
01:10:46.638 --> 01:10:47.219
I was like...
1146
01:10:48.040 --> 01:10:54.005
So what I hear when you say this, I want to first perfect it so that when I come into your market, you'll really feel it.
1147
01:10:54.966 --> 01:10:55.607
Now we're talking.
1148
01:10:55.647 --> 01:10:56.227
Now we're talking.
1149
01:10:56.267 --> 01:10:57.969
It just gives us more time to prepare.
1150
01:10:58.049 --> 01:10:58.530
That's right.
1151
01:10:58.550 --> 01:10:58.750
Right.
1152
01:10:58.810 --> 01:11:01.452
Make sure we get all the bad reviews out and then we'll attack.
1153
01:11:01.553 --> 01:11:02.213
We'll be ready.
1154
01:11:02.233 --> 01:11:02.874
We'll be ready.
1155
01:11:04.555 --> 01:11:06.577
But yeah, I've never done the van thing.
1156
01:11:06.938 --> 01:11:12.303
I think I also likely underestimate how fast I can learn the market.
1157
01:11:13.188 --> 01:11:38.690
um and how i can deal with these two major variables which is the vans and them taking the vehicles home i really have the one at bat like the one spring rush and so i think i underestimate because i've told every owner ever it takes a few spring rushes to really figure out what that demand curve looks like and i'm walking to this without that so that's where um this is my last point is like where could it likely break and it all ties back to this is like
1158
01:11:39.757 --> 01:11:42.817
The only thing that can really derail it is something happening to John.
1159
01:11:43.788 --> 01:11:45.109
I thought that's what you were saying.
1160
01:11:45.349 --> 01:11:45.570
Yeah.
1161
01:11:45.790 --> 01:11:45.990
Yeah.
1162
01:11:46.470 --> 01:11:48.312
So, um, again, you just try it.
1163
01:11:48.352 --> 01:11:50.973
You do your very best to guard against all those things.
1164
01:11:50.993 --> 01:11:56.457
You make sure that city turf isn't, you know, trying to come along and recruit away your general manager, things like that.
1165
01:11:57.178 --> 01:12:01.561
Um, but yeah, you know, banners out next to the road.
1166
01:12:01.901 --> 01:12:02.382
Let's go.
1167
01:12:03.342 --> 01:12:05.324
If we do it, I'll only make your videos more interesting.
1168
01:12:05.684 --> 01:12:09.727
You're like, you write down that name, John, like, Hey, I will now target Johns in that area.
1169
01:12:09.847 --> 01:12:10.487
And let's go.
1170
01:12:10.507 --> 01:12:11.308
Yeah.
1171
01:12:11.548 --> 01:12:11.728
Yeah.
1172
01:12:11.888 --> 01:12:14.149
Tiffany, I've already been having dinner with him and his wife.
1173
01:12:14.169 --> 01:12:14.609
That's right.
1174
01:12:14.649 --> 01:12:15.509
That's right.
1175
01:12:16.849 --> 01:12:18.129
That was a joke for everyone.
1176
01:12:18.170 --> 01:12:19.870
That was just a joke.
1177
01:12:20.210 --> 01:12:24.791
I don't even know who this guy is.
1178
01:12:25.391 --> 01:12:28.192
But ultimately for all of those things, it's a matter of pivoting.
1179
01:12:28.552 --> 01:12:32.553
And I think for anyone listening, there's going to always be reasons when you go faster, they increase risk.
1180
01:12:33.173 --> 01:12:33.653
And so...
1181
01:12:34.680 --> 01:13:03.335
the greatest risk is that something would happen to john john needs to move there's a life event something doesn't work out um and so you do everything possible to make sure that the incentives of that person are aligned with the business objectives and this is where i see the breakdown of most of the time when people are trying to scale quickly or trust a general manager is are their incentives whether it be pay their time with their family like everything you need to know everything about them to make sure it's aligned with the business objectives if you're going to put that much confidence in one person yeah
1182
01:13:04.543 --> 01:13:08.067
You mentioned a concern around Vans.
1183
01:13:08.127 --> 01:13:10.170
What is it that you're worried about with Vans?
1184
01:13:10.190 --> 01:13:10.971
What comes to mind?
1185
01:13:10.991 --> 01:13:13.874
I know it's new, but what do you think could be the problem?
1186
01:13:14.835 --> 01:13:15.836
Mostly just as new.
1187
01:13:16.697 --> 01:13:18.119
Okay.
1188
01:13:18.379 --> 01:13:19.240
It's what you don't know.
1189
01:13:19.500 --> 01:13:21.523
It's not that there's something you're worried about.
1190
01:13:22.087 --> 01:13:22.347
Yeah.
1191
01:13:22.647 --> 01:13:22.927
Yeah.
1192
01:13:23.047 --> 01:13:24.208
And there's owners inside Augusta.
1193
01:13:24.228 --> 01:13:29.431
So I've watched the videos, I've picked their brains, I've talked to probably 10 or 15 other owners that do vans.
1194
01:13:29.991 --> 01:13:34.213
And so I'm confident, but it's just another thing I have not done myself.
1195
01:13:34.613 --> 01:13:35.633
And rightly so.
1196
01:13:35.834 --> 01:13:36.054
Okay.
1197
01:13:36.114 --> 01:13:37.174
What about taking it home?
1198
01:13:37.214 --> 01:13:37.814
What have you heard?
1199
01:13:37.854 --> 01:13:38.735
What's the concern there?
1200
01:13:39.483 --> 01:13:41.784
We had like a whole episode on this before.
1201
01:13:41.964 --> 01:13:44.986
And so I'm betting that it is a recruiting tool.
1202
01:13:45.366 --> 01:13:46.666
Yeah.
1203
01:13:47.307 --> 01:13:48.287
I don't think there's a question.
1204
01:13:48.647 --> 01:13:48.928
Yeah.
1205
01:13:49.148 --> 01:13:50.368
And so I'm betting on that.
1206
01:13:50.528 --> 01:13:55.811
I think there's liability around people, you know, taking your customers because they're going to be on the same route all the time.
1207
01:13:57.071 --> 01:14:01.513
You're doing work outside of work hours, but there's things you can do to mitigate these things.
1208
01:14:01.934 --> 01:14:03.234
And so there's pros and cons to it.
1209
01:14:03.614 --> 01:14:10.117
And I'm banking on the fact that retention is the number one secret weapon of every great home service business.
1210
01:14:10.417 --> 01:14:15.840
And one of the things that I don't think you talk enough about is just how long your technicians, a lot of them have been at CityTurf.
1211
01:14:16.240 --> 01:14:16.740
Oh, yeah, yeah.
1212
01:14:17.141 --> 01:14:21.064
And that is a secret weapon, whether it be a management, but even technician level.
1213
01:14:21.524 --> 01:14:23.465
And so I want to demonstrate that.
1214
01:14:23.966 --> 01:14:28.449
And when when we hit the goal, it'll be back to me being able to say this is why.
1215
01:14:28.649 --> 01:14:32.252
And one of them will be you make certain sacrifices and you trust your people.
1216
01:14:32.532 --> 01:14:33.833
And yes, you've got to figure out other systems.
1217
01:14:33.853 --> 01:14:39.317
Like, yes, we'll have a video and tracking a little bit more and there'll be some logs and pictures and videos and forms they got to fill each day.
1218
01:14:39.757 --> 01:14:42.559
And it'll be a little more difficult to make sure we do some quality control.
1219
01:14:42.579 --> 01:14:45.201
Like those things will happen, but it's at the expense
1220
01:14:45.721 --> 01:14:48.584
or for the expense of having better retention.
1221
01:14:49.284 --> 01:14:51.766
And I want to emphasize those things a lot.
1222
01:14:52.567 --> 01:14:52.747
Yeah.
1223
01:14:53.027 --> 01:14:55.690
I think it's a huge value add to be able to take your truck home.
1224
01:14:56.010 --> 01:14:59.313
I assume you guys have GPS units on all the trucks.
1225
01:14:59.413 --> 01:15:04.417
And will you, like one of the things we used to let people take them home, we were, they were geofenced.
1226
01:15:04.477 --> 01:15:06.839
So we knew if they moved on the weekends and things like that.
1227
01:15:07.500 --> 01:15:10.122
So will you basically say, hey, once it's home, it's home.
1228
01:15:10.923 --> 01:15:13.064
You could drive to and from work, but you can't take it to,
1229
01:15:14.002 --> 01:15:15.063
the bar on Saturday.
1230
01:15:15.283 --> 01:15:16.683
I'm sure you guys are going to do that.
1231
01:15:17.043 --> 01:15:17.204
Yeah.
1232
01:15:17.224 --> 01:15:17.824
A hundred percent.
1233
01:15:17.924 --> 01:15:18.704
Just tailgating.
1234
01:15:18.784 --> 01:15:19.605
I got the man.
1235
01:15:19.725 --> 01:15:21.966
When we see it on the news, I'm like, ah, I got you.
1236
01:15:22.166 --> 01:15:24.647
A police, a police chase.
1237
01:15:26.248 --> 01:15:27.248
Might be good marketing.
1238
01:15:27.468 --> 01:15:31.490
That ramp come down out of the back of the car comes flying out while they're driving down the highway.
1239
01:15:31.550 --> 01:15:31.971
Car swerve.
1240
01:15:31.991 --> 01:15:32.091
Yeah.
1241
01:15:32.191 --> 01:15:32.451
Yeah.
1242
01:15:32.471 --> 01:15:33.011
Let's go.
1243
01:15:33.351 --> 01:15:33.912
Could be good.
1244
01:15:34.452 --> 01:15:35.012
All right.
1245
01:15:36.113 --> 01:15:36.573
Okay.
1246
01:15:36.613 --> 01:15:40.835
So, uh, I think that was all your, anything, nothing else comes to mind that you're really overly concerned about.
1247
01:15:41.420 --> 01:15:41.840
Not really.
1248
01:15:42.101 --> 01:15:42.241
No.
1249
01:15:42.281 --> 01:15:42.561
Yeah.
1250
01:15:42.901 --> 01:15:43.102
Yeah.
1251
01:15:43.562 --> 01:15:43.762
Yeah.
1252
01:15:43.782 --> 01:15:44.463
You've done this enough.
1253
01:15:45.084 --> 01:15:45.324
All right.
1254
01:15:45.424 --> 01:15:49.227
So we didn't really talk about this before.
1255
01:15:49.908 --> 01:15:55.994
Are you building the exact same kind of business that a typical Augusta franchisee would build?
1256
01:15:56.034 --> 01:15:57.656
Are you going to go bigger?
1257
01:15:57.856 --> 01:15:59.037
What's your thinking here?
1258
01:15:59.750 --> 01:16:05.417
Yeah, so the exact same model, just first location, six to eight technicians will get us around to that million dollar marker.
1259
01:16:05.918 --> 01:16:12.225
And then John will find, I'll assist him finding a general manager for that location, and then he'll move the next location over.
1260
01:16:12.766 --> 01:16:17.552
And so I'm not 100% what that second one's going to look like, but that would be the model is just.
1261
01:16:18.082 --> 01:16:19.823
build the same thing again.
1262
01:16:20.323 --> 01:16:21.483
Our objective is once a year.
1263
01:16:21.703 --> 01:16:27.786
So essentially what I'm doing the first year, I want to do it again next year and again the year after that, and just kind of copy and paste at that same pace.
1264
01:16:28.086 --> 01:16:34.308
If someone wanted to go faster, you could do two, like you could, but I'm going to do one a year.
1265
01:16:34.508 --> 01:16:35.068
That's kind of my goal.
1266
01:16:36.089 --> 01:16:41.131
And is it tend to be, how do you guys think about the terror?
1267
01:16:41.151 --> 01:16:42.751
So for you, how do you think about
1268
01:16:48.279 --> 01:16:49.079
population?
1269
01:16:49.159 --> 01:16:50.840
Is it a certain number of zip codes?
1270
01:16:51.761 --> 01:16:51.901
Yeah.
1271
01:16:51.921 --> 01:16:53.882
So we make sure at least a hundred thousand people.
1272
01:16:54.402 --> 01:16:58.084
And then we generally are having a, between a three and a five mile radius.
1273
01:16:58.304 --> 01:17:00.285
So I think mine's like three and a half or four miles radius.
1274
01:17:00.785 --> 01:17:11.850
And so I will be able to service, uh, have I said this publicly or I haven't said my territory name publicly, but the area that I'm servicing, it's going to make sure it covers that area.
1275
01:17:12.611 --> 01:17:16.072
Um, and, and I think inside my territory is about 120 to 130,000 people.
1276
01:17:17.795 --> 01:17:18.656
Within five miles?
1277
01:17:19.496 --> 01:17:20.236
It's like three and a half.
1278
01:17:20.316 --> 01:17:21.077
I got a little smaller.
1279
01:17:21.597 --> 01:17:21.857
Okay.
1280
01:17:22.217 --> 01:17:22.337
Yeah.
1281
01:17:22.357 --> 01:17:24.218
If we have a hundred thousand people, we're pretty confident.
1282
01:17:24.338 --> 01:17:32.022
Assuming that the location can bear it, meaning the financials of the demographic I'm going after is in there.
1283
01:17:32.802 --> 01:17:33.723
We feel pretty confident.
1284
01:17:34.432 --> 01:17:39.774
I know you've said before you like this, or at least this is how I've heard it, GM with eight trucks.
1285
01:17:40.535 --> 01:17:42.095
Is that remembered accurately?
1286
01:17:42.115 --> 01:17:42.535
Six to eight.
1287
01:17:42.555 --> 01:17:43.556
Six to eight technicians.
1288
01:17:43.776 --> 01:17:44.016
Yeah.
1289
01:17:44.036 --> 01:17:50.199
And that usually can get them between $800,000 to a million dollars in revenue once they've gone into profit mode.
1290
01:17:50.639 --> 01:17:57.722
And then the objective there is just as much recurring as possible and raising prices instead of getting more trucks and equipment.
1291
01:17:58.027 --> 01:17:58.708
That's my question.
1292
01:17:58.748 --> 01:18:07.221
So if this location were to support 16 trucks, would you say, no, no, we're just going to become a little bit more expensive and keep it to a certain size?
1293
01:18:08.058 --> 01:18:09.339
Correct, or break it off.
1294
01:18:09.760 --> 01:18:10.500
Or I'd break it off.
1295
01:18:10.540 --> 01:18:16.886
So there is an opportunity on the south side I could break down a part of it if it ever did grow that fast.
1296
01:18:17.486 --> 01:18:24.152
Generally though, when we run the math, breaking it off, you'd rather just go into profit mode and raise prices and you'll make just as much profit.
1297
01:18:24.192 --> 01:18:24.773
Yeah, yeah.
1298
01:18:25.053 --> 01:18:32.300
Yeah, and this is like back to what we've talked a lot about is like going big or just doing these smaller locations.
1299
01:18:33.200 --> 01:18:36.061
I think that going big in this market could actually work 100%.
1300
01:18:37.481 --> 01:18:38.882
Obviously, you're close by.
1301
01:18:38.922 --> 01:18:42.002
So you can grow a big business in a singular location.
1302
01:18:43.103 --> 01:18:50.265
The reason I'm doing it is in part for the content and for the people that are gonna follow the model that aren't in that side of the market.
1303
01:18:50.745 --> 01:18:59.927
But also it is because I see so many people build a three, four, $5 million business, and they're just on this constant five, 10 year treadmill of grow, grow, grow, and they never make it profitable.
1304
01:19:00.507 --> 01:19:06.307
And so I believe a forcing function, even in a market like near Dallas, where I could do that is
1305
01:19:07.606 --> 01:19:34.057
um breaking off that section it's profitable i'm not raising prices i'm optimizing it and i move on to the next million and then the next million in revenue and then i know when i have a three or four or five million dollar business it's all profitable and there's not like this big moment of reckoning where i realize i have this machine that is sucking cash and not actually profitable and none of the math works and so um i'm sticking up very closely to like what we call the copy and paste method instead of augusta and just copying those
1306
01:19:34.707 --> 01:19:34.967
Okay.
1307
01:19:35.087 --> 01:19:35.547
Makes sense.
1308
01:19:35.767 --> 01:19:38.729
How, what kind of facility do you run a business like this out of?
1309
01:19:39.309 --> 01:19:41.710
Well, uh, my objective is nothing.
1310
01:19:42.330 --> 01:19:43.050
Um, okay.
1311
01:19:43.110 --> 01:19:43.511
Oh, right.
1312
01:19:43.531 --> 01:19:44.071
Yeah.
1313
01:19:44.111 --> 01:19:44.551
Yeah.
1314
01:19:44.571 --> 01:19:44.891
Yeah.
1315
01:19:44.911 --> 01:19:45.131
Yeah.
1316
01:19:45.331 --> 01:19:45.491
Right.
1317
01:19:45.511 --> 01:19:45.611
Yeah.
1318
01:19:45.631 --> 01:19:50.513
So the general manager will have a van that is exactly the same as the crew, but we'll kind of serve as the service station.
1319
01:19:51.054 --> 01:19:54.175
That being said for chemicals, there might be, have to be some storage.
1320
01:19:54.675 --> 01:20:01.240
So that's something that will be, and then as we would do locations down the road, like, well, where do we strategically place those?
1321
01:20:01.500 --> 01:20:05.543
Do we need one or two as we expand service area and into new locations?
1322
01:20:05.983 --> 01:20:14.549
So that's like the one asterisk, but we're pretty confident there's enough space for six to eight technicians that I have one van that's kind of the warehouse.
1323
01:20:15.200 --> 01:20:17.161
So where do you sharpen blades?
1324
01:20:17.281 --> 01:20:19.481
Where do you store backup equipment?
1325
01:20:20.062 --> 01:20:20.842
Things of that sort.
1326
01:20:21.262 --> 01:20:22.402
In that GM's van.
1327
01:20:22.923 --> 01:20:23.023
Okay.
1328
01:20:23.203 --> 01:20:25.624
And so there would be a backup of every piece of equipment.
1329
01:20:25.644 --> 01:20:27.904
So if something goes down, he can go out, switch it out.
1330
01:20:28.024 --> 01:20:32.246
He would then be taking that to a dealer or whatever it might be.
1331
01:20:32.686 --> 01:20:34.166
And then same thing with blade sharpening.
1332
01:20:34.707 --> 01:20:35.507
We want them to be as...
1333
01:20:36.627 --> 01:20:37.508
independent as possible.
1334
01:20:37.568 --> 01:20:39.630
So like those be mounted inside of the trucks.
1335
01:20:39.910 --> 01:20:45.294
There's still a weekly gathering point for the vans that we're planning right now, where they do meet up once a week.
1336
01:20:45.534 --> 01:20:49.157
It'd just be like, you'd go to a Walmart or a Lowe's and just everyone back up your trucks.
1337
01:20:49.478 --> 01:20:50.398
Let's do inspections.
1338
01:20:50.539 --> 01:20:51.339
Let's do blitz.
1339
01:20:51.359 --> 01:20:51.740
Exactly.
1340
01:20:51.760 --> 01:20:53.661
Distribute new stuff, supplies, et cetera.
1341
01:20:53.981 --> 01:20:56.584
Does the GM sharpen blades for people and things like that?
1342
01:20:57.428 --> 01:20:58.468
Or do they sharpen their own?
1343
01:20:58.488 --> 01:20:59.069
Like, how do you think?
1344
01:20:59.089 --> 01:21:01.990
I was just like such a minor little detail, but I'm curious now.
1345
01:21:02.550 --> 01:21:06.552
We want to make the technicians as responsible as possible for what they have on their truck.
1346
01:21:06.872 --> 01:21:12.054
I believe that a lot of even like damaged equipment, blades not being sharpened.
1347
01:21:12.114 --> 01:21:16.156
All of that is because we share stuff in our teams and there's no accountability.
1348
01:21:16.176 --> 01:21:21.458
It's harder to pin down who necessarily didn't sharpen the blades when there's been 10 different people who use that mower.
1349
01:21:21.698 --> 01:21:22.659
Who's responsible for that?
1350
01:21:22.999 --> 01:21:25.280
Versus like everything on your van is your responsibility.
1351
01:21:25.640 --> 01:21:33.302
And so it's, there's certain standards of like each day submitting what was done to your equipment, making sure it was cleaned, et cetera.
1352
01:21:33.662 --> 01:21:48.866
And those are things that like John is refining in terms of like, what's his process he wants for those vans and even like a mowing truck versus or mowing van versus a chemical van, very different in terms of what process for quality control of just the, the equipment is going to be taking place.
1353
01:21:49.446 --> 01:21:49.706
Okay.
1354
01:21:50.306 --> 01:21:52.187
Has John already started or is he?
1355
01:21:53.490 --> 01:21:54.111
Coming soon.
1356
01:21:54.531 --> 01:21:58.395
He starts in two weeks for owner training.
1357
01:21:58.415 --> 01:21:59.376
He'll be flying out.
1358
01:21:59.857 --> 01:22:00.097
Okay.
1359
01:22:00.457 --> 01:22:01.058
Very interesting.
1360
01:22:02.299 --> 01:22:06.584
What else do you think in this whole thing you're about to do?
1361
01:22:06.904 --> 01:22:10.708
What else do you think people should know or would be interesting or a value to them?
1362
01:22:11.328 --> 01:22:14.592
I think all of it comes down to confidence in your numbers.
1363
01:22:14.612 --> 01:22:14.832
Yeah.
1364
01:22:15.821 --> 01:22:20.342
The reason I can say it publicly is because I can run the math and I do know enough about my customer records and costs.
1365
01:22:20.542 --> 01:22:22.202
I know the cost of the vans.
1366
01:22:22.222 --> 01:22:23.903
I know what I'm going to have to spend on employees.
1367
01:22:23.923 --> 01:22:27.283
Like if you just know the basic numbers, you can forecast much better.
1368
01:22:27.844 --> 01:22:29.884
Most people do not know their customer records and costs.
1369
01:22:29.984 --> 01:22:30.504
They just don't.
1370
01:22:30.664 --> 01:22:37.645
Like we've just seen so many times people come in and they tell me a number and I'm like, okay, show me your financials and show me your reports from Facebook ads and Google ads.
1371
01:22:37.665 --> 01:22:39.066
And it's like you're not even close.
1372
01:22:39.086 --> 01:22:41.906
Like you're three or four times more what you think it is.
1373
01:22:46.531 --> 01:22:47.593
it's just not going to end well.
1374
01:22:48.274 --> 01:22:51.940
And so I have been extremely blessed with Augusta Leeds.
1375
01:22:52.200 --> 01:22:55.726
It is 100% the secret weapon behind all of this to have the confidence that,
1376
01:22:56.369 --> 01:22:59.831
what my customer action cost going to be, knowing that we can pivot and adjust and change.
1377
01:23:00.391 --> 01:23:03.993
And so for anyone else, like, oh, it's like, go find an agency.
1378
01:23:04.053 --> 01:23:05.514
They do this all the time.
1379
01:23:05.534 --> 01:23:08.095
That's exactly how I would hope people hear this.
1380
01:23:08.115 --> 01:23:11.477
Like, the idea is not to like say, oh, this isn't fair.
1381
01:23:11.517 --> 01:23:12.458
So this doesn't count.
1382
01:23:12.518 --> 01:23:16.200
The idea is to say, here's just who I need to fill that gap.
1383
01:23:16.240 --> 01:23:16.860
Go find them.
1384
01:23:17.040 --> 01:23:18.001
So you can do this too.
1385
01:23:18.301 --> 01:23:18.501
Yeah.
1386
01:23:18.541 --> 01:23:18.701
Yeah.
1387
01:23:18.901 --> 01:23:21.903
And I hope that people realize how little, how few things I'll do there.
1388
01:23:22.387 --> 01:23:23.830
Like I'm not going to be doing a lot.
1389
01:23:23.910 --> 01:23:28.438
It's a focusing on the top three or four things that will really change the direction of the business.
1390
01:23:28.458 --> 01:23:29.360
And I see so many people,
1391
01:23:30.085 --> 01:23:36.587
get stuck in operator mode and never be able to build a two, three, four million dollar business because they're just stuck in like every detail they've got to be in their hands on.
1392
01:23:36.988 --> 01:23:38.748
Every little thing's going to be perfect and it doesn't.
1393
01:23:39.188 --> 01:23:45.311
You got to focus on getting more jobs, getting the crew to do those jobs and making sure the work they do is high quality.
1394
01:23:45.411 --> 01:23:48.332
If those three things are happening, you got yourself a good home service business.
1395
01:23:48.732 --> 01:23:49.892
Yeah, that's good advice.
1396
01:23:50.412 --> 01:23:54.714
The place you two are going to be living, did you just find it on Airbnb or what'd you do?
1397
01:23:55.272 --> 01:23:56.113
Yeah, yeah.
1398
01:23:56.153 --> 01:24:01.076
So, yeah, so all of this part is like, I have my wife for six months over there, right?
1399
01:24:01.096 --> 01:24:04.678
So like, everything is kind of like what she needs and wants, I'm all on board.
1400
01:24:05.178 --> 01:24:09.080
And so part of it is like, where we're staying is very central to several things.
1401
01:24:09.240 --> 01:24:14.143
One, my territory, two, Dallas downtown, and then a couple other towns up north.
1402
01:24:14.183 --> 01:24:14.984
We were like McKinney.
1403
01:24:16.245 --> 01:24:16.645
And so...
1404
01:24:17.936 --> 01:24:19.157
It's very central to all of that.
1405
01:24:19.197 --> 01:24:21.939
Within 25 minutes, we can kind of get to everything we want to go to.
1406
01:24:22.919 --> 01:24:25.981
And so that's where we narrowed it down there.
1407
01:24:26.501 --> 01:24:32.965
And then, yeah, Airbnb, when you're looking for six months, not a lot of options.
1408
01:24:33.425 --> 01:24:33.766
Yeah.
1409
01:24:33.886 --> 01:24:35.667
So we were kind of stuck with a certain spot.
1410
01:24:35.707 --> 01:24:38.668
We weren't like thrilled with the house, but we just made do.
1411
01:24:39.129 --> 01:24:42.831
Did you look at it in advance or you're just going to hope it's good?
1412
01:24:43.553 --> 01:24:43.773
Oh, no.
1413
01:24:44.034 --> 01:24:44.294
Yeah.
1414
01:24:44.414 --> 01:24:44.674
Oh, yeah.
1415
01:24:44.694 --> 01:24:45.135
We went there.
1416
01:24:45.155 --> 01:24:45.495
Yeah.
1417
01:24:45.575 --> 01:24:47.497
Okay.
1418
01:24:47.537 --> 01:24:48.638
Like, trust me, honey.
1419
01:24:48.698 --> 01:24:49.599
It's a great place.
1420
01:24:49.779 --> 01:24:50.119
Okay.
1421
01:24:50.240 --> 01:24:52.302
You know, we showed up.
1422
01:24:53.263 --> 01:24:55.244
We met the owners, did a walkthrough the whole night.
1423
01:24:55.264 --> 01:24:55.445
Okay.
1424
01:24:56.145 --> 01:24:58.988
I rent homes and sometimes they're very expensive.
1425
01:24:59.068 --> 01:25:01.871
And whether it's expensive or not, it doesn't really matter.
1426
01:25:01.931 --> 01:25:05.314
But you really hope you're going to get what you think you're going to hope.
1427
01:25:05.394 --> 01:25:05.855
And so...
1428
01:25:06.667 --> 01:25:08.968
That was some really good Photoshop.
1429
01:25:09.048 --> 01:25:09.949
Exactly.
1430
01:25:10.089 --> 01:25:11.970
So that's why I was curious because you're committed.
1431
01:25:12.290 --> 01:25:13.511
It's not like a week here.
1432
01:25:13.531 --> 01:25:14.131
You're committed.
1433
01:25:14.151 --> 01:25:16.452
So I was curious how you're doing this.
1434
01:25:16.492 --> 01:25:16.693
Cool.
1435
01:25:16.973 --> 01:25:17.233
All right.
1436
01:25:17.353 --> 01:25:26.658
So let's end with, of everything you've talked about today, if you could give those listening a next, if they want to implement,
1437
01:25:28.150 --> 01:25:36.614
If they want to implement something and just go faster, build a better business, based on what you've talked about, would you have a next action to leave them with today?
1438
01:25:39.435 --> 01:25:42.096
I think the theme has actually been kind of our own customer acquisition cost.
1439
01:25:42.296 --> 01:25:43.577
Like figure out what that number is.
1440
01:25:43.917 --> 01:25:44.958
Like I know it sounds simple.
1441
01:25:44.978 --> 01:25:46.138
We talk about it all the time.
1442
01:25:46.178 --> 01:25:52.241
But I just, I have, we've done over 110, almost 120 turnarounds.
1443
01:25:52.621 --> 01:25:55.462
And I have met three of them that know their customer acquisition cost.
1444
01:25:56.043 --> 01:25:56.523
Actually know it.
1445
01:25:57.528 --> 01:26:02.532
And so I think you and I talked to a lot of higher operators like this is common.
1446
01:26:02.952 --> 01:26:03.853
It doesn't happen.
1447
01:26:04.334 --> 01:26:05.515
It's even not coming.
1448
01:26:07.976 --> 01:26:09.578
I was given the benefit of the doubt.
1449
01:26:09.598 --> 01:26:10.478
No, no, no.
1450
01:26:10.539 --> 01:26:12.240
All of JP's friends have everything perfect.
1451
01:26:12.380 --> 01:26:13.161
OK, so.
1452
01:26:13.941 --> 01:26:14.121
No.
1453
01:26:14.442 --> 01:26:14.782
No.
1454
01:26:15.457 --> 01:26:17.698
But yeah, just know your customer action costs.
1455
01:26:17.818 --> 01:26:33.507
I think that like we talked about last week about knowing your cogs, the advantage of AI to be able to put, put all your data in from Facebook and where you're running Google ads and show it where like at the very least have a custom field or some sort of dropdown where you're getting your customers to be able to run a porn.
1456
01:26:33.527 --> 01:26:34.988
Like, are they coming from Facebook?
1457
01:26:35.008 --> 01:26:35.989
Are they coming from Google?
1458
01:26:36.009 --> 01:26:38.430
Do they see my trucks to know where to deploy the money?
1459
01:26:38.450 --> 01:26:44.954
Um, but the very, uh, best, I would have a customer action costs by service and by month.
1460
01:26:45.596 --> 01:26:48.738
to know when to spend the money and on what services you should be promoting.
1461
01:26:50.139 --> 01:26:51.660
Yeah, that's good advice.
1462
01:26:51.720 --> 01:26:52.700
CAC would have been mine.
1463
01:26:52.720 --> 01:26:58.484
I didn't know what you were going to say today, but as we were talking, my brain's processing, okay, what's my next action going to be?
1464
01:26:58.804 --> 01:27:01.866
And there was very much that theme, and I think it's a great place to start.
1465
01:27:01.886 --> 01:27:06.149
And I'd also just remind those that are listening, maybe even rewind in...
1466
01:27:07.128 --> 01:27:16.051
or however you're listening to this, when you talked about how the CAC can allow you to predict so many different things, that was very valuable.
1467
01:27:16.531 --> 01:27:22.053
And it's another argument for why CAC should be the one, but I'll go a different direction because you used CAC.
1468
01:27:22.153 --> 01:27:35.878
And I would say kind of similar to what I just said, it's this idea that we all, here we are in whatever, August, it's not gonna be long before we all start dreaming about next year, next year's gonna be better, next year's gonna be different.
1469
01:27:36.838 --> 01:27:40.280
And we do our little planning thing and we make up a number.
1470
01:27:40.300 --> 01:27:41.541
This is how much I'm going to grow.
1471
01:27:41.981 --> 01:27:45.183
And for most people, I've been included in this.
1472
01:27:45.503 --> 01:27:47.224
You make up the number and then you don't hit the number.
1473
01:27:47.664 --> 01:27:49.325
Like, well, why don't you hit the number?
1474
01:27:49.385 --> 01:27:51.506
A lot of it's because CAC's an example.
1475
01:27:51.546 --> 01:27:56.929
But the other is, it's just saying that we're going to grow by this amount of revenue is like,
1476
01:27:57.709 --> 01:27:59.190
it's like 5% of the puzzle.
1477
01:27:59.231 --> 01:28:10.361
The real puzzle is now backing into who are we going to need to hire, what trucks we're going to need to buy, what equipment we're going to need to buy, how far in advance of the Facebook ads going live.
1478
01:28:10.381 --> 01:28:12.583
Do we need to work on the creative?
1479
01:28:12.823 --> 01:28:14.464
You've got to set all the dates.
1480
01:28:14.504 --> 01:28:15.866
This is when the ad needs to drop.
1481
01:28:15.906 --> 01:28:18.508
This is when we think we'll have the next 100 clients.
1482
01:28:18.528 --> 01:28:21.891
This is when the truck and the equipment need to be rolling with the people in the truck.
1483
01:28:21.911 --> 01:28:22.732
And you have to back
1484
01:28:23.152 --> 01:28:28.034
all those dates up and start working those initiatives weeks and months in advance.
1485
01:28:28.074 --> 01:28:33.817
And the reason we never hit, not we never, but oftentimes we don't hit our numbers is because we didn't do that part.
1486
01:28:34.437 --> 01:28:37.439
The stating of the goal is the easiest, funnest part.
1487
01:28:38.519 --> 01:28:40.660
The hitting the goal- I think a $5 million business in 12 months.
1488
01:28:42.562 --> 01:28:46.307
And so, but if you don't back into it, then you don't understand when it needs to start.
1489
01:28:46.327 --> 01:28:47.870
You don't even understand what it's going to cost.
1490
01:28:48.571 --> 01:28:57.283
And so, and then to your point, you could have a killer business, just be going a hundred miles an hour, everything's working, but then you run out of money because like, oh crap, that little cost problem.
1491
01:28:57.784 --> 01:29:00.906
So that, that will be my next action item to leave you with.
1492
01:29:01.426 --> 01:29:05.369
Second to the CAC ideas, you're not going to dial in your CAC number immediately.
1493
01:29:05.609 --> 01:29:07.090
It's like our ask.
1494
01:29:07.110 --> 01:29:08.051
I think you'd agree, Mike.
1495
01:29:08.071 --> 01:29:09.652
It's like, can you just start working on this?
1496
01:29:09.892 --> 01:29:11.633
Can you really understand this number?
1497
01:29:11.653 --> 01:29:15.075
And can you start thinking about the number and just be collecting the data?
1498
01:29:15.356 --> 01:29:17.997
Can you, there's some things you're going to need to do to collect the data.
1499
01:29:18.017 --> 01:29:22.480
And once you got the data, you're going to, you're starting to get pretty close to being able to report that number.
1500
01:29:22.560 --> 01:29:23.821
So any last words?
1501
01:29:24.181 --> 01:29:26.163
And just to back up what you said there, like,
1502
01:29:26.783 --> 01:29:38.760
I haven't talked a ton about what I'm doing on the show for next year, but there's like probably 15 to 20 strategy documents, probably hundreds of pages, and there's like,
1503
01:29:39.590 --> 01:29:40.930
lots of people's eyes on it.
1504
01:29:41.050 --> 01:29:46.372
There's a lot of thought that goes in these things as much as it'll seem like we showed up and like we hit the ground running.
1505
01:29:46.592 --> 01:29:53.793
It's like, no, no, like all the things that JP just mentioned has been thought out in depth, whether it be customer question costs, what's the lifetime of that?
1506
01:29:53.833 --> 01:29:58.875
What is our turn going to be if I'm in a new market and I might not be servicing the customer at the highest level?
1507
01:29:58.935 --> 01:30:01.075
I can't just like pull a number out of thin air.
1508
01:30:02.195 --> 01:30:04.696
How many lawns can someone actually get done in a week?
1509
01:30:04.956 --> 01:30:05.176
Well,
1510
01:30:05.832 --> 01:30:08.118
Can I get that higher if I give them a van to take home?
1511
01:30:08.399 --> 01:30:10.143
These are all the little details you have to keep –
1512
01:30:12.137 --> 01:30:36.452
um playing with and so if you have an idea for next year and you're a lot of times you got through spring rush it's now august september you're like okay i breathe now i can start thinking about next year like i encourage you this is the time to do it is not next january february march right before spring rush it is you got to start thinking through looking back at historical data what was my customer action cost when did i spend money did i spend all my marketing budget when my customer action cost was the highest because no one needed my service and i was just slow
1513
01:30:37.072 --> 01:30:38.293
how do I prevent that from happening?
1514
01:30:38.393 --> 01:30:43.635
Like strategy is the name of the game once capital is abundant.
1515
01:30:44.215 --> 01:30:53.438
And so this is like what JP's talking about with AI, for example, is like, you know, you can have all the answers in the world, but if you don't have a good strategy, it doesn't matter.
1516
01:30:53.919 --> 01:30:57.220
And so have a good strategy going next year and don't let it just all be numbers.
1517
01:30:58.523 --> 01:30:59.123
Fantastic.
1518
01:30:59.163 --> 01:30:59.923
I think we'll wrap it there.
1519
01:30:59.943 --> 01:31:00.323
Wait a second.
1520
01:31:00.503 --> 01:31:01.884
I have one final thing.
1521
01:31:02.084 --> 01:31:02.444
Okay.
1522
01:31:02.604 --> 01:31:05.784
Since you took away my cold open that I love so dearly.
1523
01:31:05.804 --> 01:31:07.385
I'm not taking it away permanently.
1524
01:31:08.785 --> 01:31:11.265
I'm jumping right in today to see what people think.
1525
01:31:11.545 --> 01:31:12.045
I understand.
1526
01:31:12.065 --> 01:31:12.586
I understand.
1527
01:31:12.626 --> 01:31:14.206
Now, I'm going to share something.
1528
01:31:14.646 --> 01:31:14.926
All right.
1529
01:31:15.186 --> 01:31:16.486
I just wanted to welcome you.
1530
01:31:16.726 --> 01:31:17.166
One second.
1531
01:31:17.566 --> 01:31:20.387
I wanted to welcome you to the YouTube community.
1532
01:31:20.627 --> 01:31:20.867
All right.
1533
01:31:21.007 --> 01:31:22.607
Now you are a professional influencer.
1534
01:31:22.627 --> 01:31:23.387
Can you see my screen?
1535
01:31:23.928 --> 01:31:25.208
I see you and not me.
1536
01:31:25.248 --> 01:31:26.068
I don't see anything else.
1537
01:31:26.308 --> 01:31:27.590
You don't, oh, come on, you gotta zoom out.
1538
01:31:27.610 --> 01:31:30.053
You gotta get something to where you can see my whole screen.
1539
01:31:30.354 --> 01:31:31.095
Okay, hold on, hold on.
1540
01:31:31.115 --> 01:31:31.816
Give me a second here.
1541
01:31:32.517 --> 01:31:36.042
Since you're going to bring something up, I'm gonna say, well, oh, okay, hold on.
1542
01:31:36.082 --> 01:31:36.803
Almost, ah, ah, ah.
1543
01:31:38.438 --> 01:31:39.078
Let's go.
1544
01:31:39.098 --> 01:31:43.099
This is what we call a professional YouTuber right here.
1545
01:31:43.139 --> 01:31:43.879
Look at this guy.
1546
01:31:43.999 --> 01:31:54.742
So JP had his photo shoot and he gets me the feeling that I have to go through of looking at a camera and doing stupid faces like this all day long.
1547
01:31:54.982 --> 01:31:57.222
Yeah, this is my cup of tea right here.
1548
01:31:58.483 --> 01:31:59.343
I love this stuff.
1549
01:32:01.644 --> 01:32:07.286
I saw those photos and I was like, oh man, the degrading that he was going through in his mind is so good.
1550
01:32:07.486 --> 01:32:08.146
So awesome.
1551
01:32:08.166 --> 01:32:08.406
Yeah.
1552
01:32:08.446 --> 01:32:08.806
Loved it.
1553
01:32:09.146 --> 01:32:11.847
Actually, since you brought something else up, I'll say, say one thing.
1554
01:32:11.887 --> 01:32:17.749
So last Wednesday after we did our deal, actually, let me put you back up on my screen so I can actually look at you.
1555
01:32:18.029 --> 01:32:18.309
All right.
1556
01:32:18.589 --> 01:32:23.090
So, uh, we, uh, I went to dinner with a buddy who's actually in your group.
1557
01:32:23.610 --> 01:32:24.431
Uh, his name's EJ.
1558
01:32:24.951 --> 01:32:25.651
Oh yeah.
1559
01:32:25.711 --> 01:32:26.091
Yeah.
1560
01:32:26.431 --> 01:32:28.012
So EJ has a Tesla.
1561
01:32:28.032 --> 01:32:28.212
Yeah.
1562
01:32:29.073 --> 01:32:33.317
And so we, last week we were talking about robotic mowers and drones and self-driving cars.
1563
01:32:34.297 --> 01:32:39.161
Have you been in a, you might have, have you done the self-driving in a Tesla recently?
1564
01:32:39.642 --> 01:32:40.342
No, not recently.
1565
01:32:40.703 --> 01:32:41.083
Man.
1566
01:32:41.463 --> 01:32:42.064
I've heard it's good.
1567
01:32:42.744 --> 01:32:45.727
I feel better about my predictions.
1568
01:32:46.728 --> 01:32:53.293
I've been in, I've been in two Teslas previously doing self-driving and I'm like, eh, it's choppy.
1569
01:32:53.333 --> 01:32:55.134
They make last minute decisions.
1570
01:32:55.395 --> 01:32:57.016
I just, it's like, okay, cool.
1571
01:32:57.076 --> 01:32:57.456
Someday.
1572
01:32:57.476 --> 01:32:57.917
Yeah.
1573
01:32:58.297 --> 01:33:02.281
So after EJ and I had dinner, I drove the car.
1574
01:33:02.301 --> 01:33:03.141
I didn't drive anything.
1575
01:33:03.242 --> 01:33:04.002
I never touched it.
1576
01:33:04.803 --> 01:33:09.147
And we went all over side streets, freeways, all kinds of stuff.
1577
01:33:10.048 --> 01:33:10.608
Phenomenal.
1578
01:33:11.289 --> 01:33:13.351
I mean, they have stepped up the game.
1579
01:33:14.191 --> 01:33:18.154
So it won't be long until your vans are going to be self-driving.
1580
01:33:18.774 --> 01:33:20.796
I thought you were going to say you're about to go get a Tesla.
1581
01:33:21.096 --> 01:33:21.876
No, no, no, no.
1582
01:33:21.976 --> 01:33:24.458
I want a manual car, stick shift, and a big engine.
1583
01:33:24.478 --> 01:33:29.441
You don't want the neighbors seeing a Ferrari and a Tesla in the same driveway.
1584
01:33:29.461 --> 01:33:30.522
Come on now.
1585
01:33:30.702 --> 01:33:33.124
I have to say, I was really impressed.
1586
01:33:33.184 --> 01:33:33.984
It's really cool.
1587
01:33:34.044 --> 01:33:37.727
But if I didn't care about cars, I'd own a Tesla maybe.
1588
01:33:37.807 --> 01:33:38.147
Yeah.
1589
01:33:39.377 --> 01:33:42.258
It's really cool, but I prefer to drive my car.
1590
01:33:42.778 --> 01:33:43.278
Oh, man.
1591
01:33:43.378 --> 01:33:44.419
Anyway, I just had to tell you.
1592
01:33:44.439 --> 01:33:46.780
I was like, golly, they have stepped up their game.
1593
01:33:46.960 --> 01:33:49.021
That thing was fantastic.
1594
01:33:49.141 --> 01:33:49.941
I see the crossover.
1595
01:33:50.281 --> 01:33:51.661
You're stepping up your YouTube game.
1596
01:33:51.862 --> 01:33:53.982
Tesla stepping up their full self-driving game.
1597
01:33:54.563 --> 01:33:55.063
It's beautiful.
1598
01:33:55.483 --> 01:33:56.343
I'd rather be Tesla.
1599
01:33:57.944 --> 01:33:58.504
Better game.
1600
01:33:59.344 --> 01:34:01.085
Wasn't it awkward, though, taking those photos?
1601
01:34:01.105 --> 01:34:01.205
Yeah.
1602
01:34:02.125 --> 01:34:03.006
Oh yeah, it's terrible.
1603
01:34:03.026 --> 01:34:03.466
I hate that stuff.
1604
01:34:03.486 --> 01:34:04.326
It's so horrible, isn't it?
1605
01:34:04.386 --> 01:34:05.107
I hate that.
1606
01:34:05.207 --> 01:34:06.748
I hate that so much.
1607
01:34:06.968 --> 01:34:08.949
There's a reason I have no headshots.
1608
01:34:09.009 --> 01:34:13.651
The one time I got the headshot thing done, it was for like a service auto pie conference.
1609
01:34:13.711 --> 01:34:16.373
It's that blue shirt picture I took.
1610
01:34:16.393 --> 01:34:19.714
That one time I used it, I'm like, please don't use that picture anymore.
1611
01:34:19.855 --> 01:34:25.237
I'm going to make a website just with these thumbnails just to make sure they rank well on Google.
1612
01:34:25.678 --> 01:34:27.499
I'm killing the share link right now.
1613
01:34:27.759 --> 01:34:28.939
You probably already downloaded them.
1614
01:34:29.019 --> 01:34:29.740
So yeah, yeah.
1615
01:34:30.362 --> 01:34:30.763
Anyway.
1616
01:34:31.105 --> 01:34:31.426
All right.
1617
01:34:31.727 --> 01:34:32.269
Good seeing you.
1618
01:34:32.289 --> 01:34:33.374
Have fun in Michigan, right?
1619
01:34:33.635 --> 01:34:34.518
Michigan, that's where you're at?
1620
01:34:34.538 --> 01:34:34.840
All right.
1621
01:34:34.920 --> 01:34:35.281
Have fun.
1622
01:34:35.683 --> 01:34:36.145
Take care, brother.
1623
01:34:36.406 --> 01:34:36.988
See you next week.
1624
01:34:37.310 --> 01:34:37.671
You as well.
