Latest / Home Service Millionaire with Mike Andes / He’s Being Left Stranded With 200 Customers

Transcript

He’s Being Left Stranded With 200 Customers · Home Service Millionaire with Mike Andes

• 0:00
  This year we peaked at six full time employees.
• 0:02
  I will potentially next year be stuck with zero people having 200 weekly mowing customers, plus landscaping, plus everything else.
• 0:12
  I mean, just being transparent, like we can barely get them to get the right equipment from the shop.
• 0:18
  So at the top of their list each day, it has every piece of equipment that they need and still it gets missed.
• 0:24
  Do you have a good credit score?
• 0:27
  I don't have a credit card yet.
• 0:28
  I just turned 18.
• 0:29
  Honestly, I've never had this much money in my life.
• 0:31
  And I just don't want to spend like crazy amount without knowing exactly what's going to happen.
• 0:35
  Right?
• 0:36
  This video is a raw and authentic Q&A that I had with home service business owners that are going through a really hard time.
• 0:42
  For example, one of them, his entire crew is leaving the next few months, and he's going to have to hire a completely new team.
• 0:49
  And we've got another one.
• 0:50
  He has a bunch of money for marketing, but he doesn't know where to spend it.
• 0:53
  There's a bunch of great questions.
• 0:54
  Hopefully there's some good rider downers.
• 0:56
  Let's go ahead.
• 0:57
  and roll the tape.
• 0:59
  I've had pretty much the same set of guys since I started five years ago.
• 1:03
  I've added one every single year pretty much.
• 1:06
  This year we peaked at six full-time employees.
• 1:09
  Two of them went back to college already, so they were
• 1:13
  very seasonal, but two of them now have entertained the idea of like branching off and like doing their own thing, which I fully understand and hiring them originally, I never expected them to stay forever.
• 1:25
  And another one of my employees, my brother.
• 1:27
  So he has his own vision and like he wants to do his own thing.
• 1:31
  Point being, I will potentially next year be stuck with zero people having 200 weekly mowing customers plus landscaping plus everything else.
• 1:43
  So if you were in that position and you had nobody and you had to go through a crazy hiring frenzy to hopefully get somebody reliable, what would you do?
• 1:52
  Well, that's really what's happening right now with the vlogs.
• 1:56
  Like when I'm out here in Texas, right?
• 1:57
  I'm trying to hire people super fast.
• 1:59
  We're going to turn on the budgets.
• 2:01
  I would follow along what I'm doing.
• 2:02
  I will say this.
• 2:04
  First off, question.
• 2:06
  Are you like me in that you worry about stuff?
• 2:09
  Absolutely.
• 2:11
  So you are worried about something six months from now that you will absolutely figure out.
• 2:18
  because all it requires is a system to hire people.
• 2:21
  You just haven't had to create the system yet because people have stuck with you.
• 2:24
  If you scale large enough, eventually people leave and eventually you have to replace them.
• 2:27
  You'll have to create the system regardless of if it's this year, next year, the year after that, if you're gonna keep scaling.
• 2:32
  And so I would just be very focused on what do I do when I have more work than my crew can perform?
• 2:38
  Oh, I hire people.
• 2:39
  How do I hire people?
• 2:40
  How do I put the job ad up?
• 2:41
  What's the video interview process like?
• 2:43
  What's the onboarding process look like?
• 2:44
  Because getting four to six people, you can absolutely do that in four weeks.
• 2:49
  It's just a function of, it seems daunting now.
• 2:51
  I will all say none of them have left yet.
• 2:54
  So you are worrying about something that is far off in the future.
• 3:00
  And the bigger you get, the bigger that boogeyman is going to get.
• 3:03
  And so I always assume that people will leave and I will need a system to make sure I can replace them.
• 3:10
  And so I would be spending all that worry time and it's like, I do the same thing.
• 3:13
  Middle of the night.
• 3:14
  I can't sleep.
• 3:15
  I'm worrying about stuff.
• 3:16
  What I do, let's go fix it.
• 3:17
  Okay.
• 3:17
  Let's make the job ad better.
• 3:19
  Let's make sure there's automation set up or use Claude or chat to beauty.
• 3:22
  Make sure that every time they, they do an indie application, I am firing off a message, I have a video interview process.
• 3:29
  so that i get videos so i can be running these all the time and not wasting my time with in-person interviews and i'm not showing up they go through a video process i only get the top two or three percent i interview them even if i don't have like i'd be doing this tomorrow if i was you like well six months from now get in the habit because like there there's going to be times you hire people and they're going to start in three or four months i just did it yesterday we hired someone's going to start in three months from now
• 3:52
  And so, um, just be honest on the job ad in the interview process that, Hey, like we're hiring for January, we're having for February, we're having for March, and then you just have a staggered step up into your spring rush to where this is no longer a problem.
• 4:05
  That was going to be my next question is like, we have like a month and a half left.
• 4:09
  So should I start hiring?
• 4:11
  Because I'm still going to need more people next year regardless.
• 4:14
  So I should probably start that process now instead of waiting until every single other lawn service company is trying to hire these same exact people.
• 4:23
  So when do you project either A, people leaving and you needing employees, or just Spring Rush?
• 4:27
  When does that timeline look like?
• 4:29
  It's gonna be April.
• 4:30
  All of them?
• 4:30
  Is that when you're gonna need all of them in April?
• 4:33
  So the two that are here now, I'm not sure.
• 4:35
  We need to have that conversation because I'm not sure where they stand.
• 4:38
  But regardless, still in April, I will need at least two more people on top of them.
• 4:43
  Yep.
• 4:44
  So I think I would stagger it.
• 4:46
  So for example, you can do like one person end of February, couple in March, couple in April.
• 4:51
  So that way you don't have a whole bunch of newbies.
• 4:53
  That's what you're also afraid of.
• 4:55
  And so I would stagger it.
• 4:57
  I would start running ads in January saying, hey, I'm hiring for in February.
• 5:03
  People are willing to wait four to six weeks.
• 5:04
  The best employees have a job.
• 5:06
  They're not unemployed.
• 5:07
  And so typically they will go out and get interviews.
• 5:11
  You will offer them a job five weeks from now, six weeks from now, eight weeks from now.
• 5:15
  And they're like, great.
• 5:16
  I will go six more weeks, give my two weeks notice, and I will hop on your job.
• 5:19
  That's what the best employees do.
• 5:20
  The worst employees are the ones who are unemployed and they're willing to take anything tomorrow.
• 5:25
  So like both of my employees that we hired yesterday here in this local area, both have jobs.
• 5:30
  Both have to give their two weeks.
• 5:31
  One of them starting in three months.
• 5:32
  The other one starting in two weeks because he's going to give his two weeks notice today.
• 5:36
  Right.
• 5:36
  Those are the best employees.
• 5:37
  And then I have the conversation with those two guys in a very positive manner, which is like, Hey guys, I totally love the fact that you guys are going to go do your own thing.
• 5:43
  I love to know when I can just make sure we're covered on the team side, but if there's anything I can do, if there's services you don't do that, they're going to offer, like just be on their good side.
• 5:52
  Don't let it end sour.
• 5:54
  Cause they could take your customers and get ugly.
• 5:57
  Right.
• 5:57
  Right.
• 5:58
  No.
• 5:58
  And they're great people and they, they will be honest with me too.
• 6:01
  So,
• 6:03
  That's good to know, though.
• 6:04
  I'm going to get rolling on that.
• 6:05
  Thank you.
• 6:07
  You got it.
• 6:08
  Next week, I talk a little bit in the vlogs about how I'm doing my hiring process, and hopefully it helps a little bit.
• 6:13
  You'll see the onboarding training, but you'll also see the Indeed ad, the video interview stuff, so we can weed it down pretty quickly.
• 6:21
  And then I would also offer them referrals.
• 6:24
  We offer $3,000 if someone refers someone, and then they stay for 90 days.
• 6:29
  And that's mostly because it saves me off a ton of time for interviewing, Indeed ads, that whole thing.
• 6:34
  And anyone they bring in, guess what they really want to make sure it happens?
• 6:37
  They stay for 90 days.
• 6:38
  So they're checking in on them.
• 6:39
  There's like you got your vicarious, you know, little trainer behind their ear all the time.
• 6:44
  And that's what you want.
• 6:46
  Good deal.
• 6:47
  Thank you, Mike.
• 6:47
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:48
  Yeah, I had a question about pricing and packaging stuff.
• 6:52
  So because of a lot of the work I'm doing is very different every single place.
• 6:56
  I'm working with like two rhododendrons might look the same, but take a completely different amount of time because they have other problems.
• 7:03
  I was curious if you have advice on how to set up pricing for that kind of thing.
• 7:07
  Christian had suggested having a package where it's like the large rhododendron package and it's just...
• 7:12
  that's a set price and you estimate the time and then you can move the price around as you figure out how long it takes um give a suggestion um on how to basically not work like you like you said not work your shirt off your back but um but still you know have that work well are you doing this on a recurring basis these cleanups or is it one-time jobs this time of year it's one-time jobs but it's going to be a recurring basis for a lot of clients are you visiting the properties prior to the job yes generally okay um
• 7:42
  Have you ever tried using budget hours?
• 7:45
  I've tried to.
• 7:46
  I haven't really figured that out super well yet.
• 7:48
  Okay.
• 7:49
  And so when you say a large rhododendron versus a smaller rhododendron, for example, in your mind, are you doing dollars and cents or saying that will take an hour, that will take 30 minutes?
• 8:00
  It's on time, yeah.
• 8:01
  Yeah.
• 8:01
  So I think you, I would highly recommend using budget hours.
• 8:03
  The reason is because it's customizable to whatever's on the property.
• 8:07
  Because you might have three rhododendrons that didn't get trimmed for three years being very different than the one that got trimmed last year.
• 8:13
  And so the reason I say this is because everyone usually goes to plant size.
• 8:18
  But the problem is when you hand this to an estimator or even when you're doing it, it takes you longer to count the stinking bushes than just be like, how long will this take?
• 8:26
  It'll take us six hours.
• 8:30
  Yeah.
• 8:31
  And what this does too, is it allows, it keeps your crew, your crew be kept honest.
• 8:37
  You know, you or the estimator will be kept honest by the crew.
• 8:40
  Cause they'll be, they'll get to the job like, boss, this is at least 10 hours.
• 8:43
  What are you talking about?
• 8:44
  Right.
• 8:44
  And so there's this good healthy tension.
• 8:46
  So if you ever hand off estimating, but honestly, I feel, I find people that do like by the bush or size of bushes.
• 8:53
  And then there's like 20 different types of bushes on a property.
• 8:55
  So like, I've got to have this huge rate matrix.
• 8:58
  By the time they just figure that all out,
• 9:00
  They could have just walked off the property and said, we will do this in eight hours.
• 9:04
  And so I would encourage budget hours because even like small, medium and large, well, what about medium, small?
• 9:09
  Like it's just medium.
• 9:11
  So like versus just looking at the property, you've done this long enough, you know almost usually within 10% of how long the job's gonna take because you're not doing like custom stuff every time.
• 9:20
  It's just different.
• 9:23
  I would strongly recommend trying to do budget hours because also then on homeworks, when they clock in and out, they can see budget hours versus actual, the crew can and kind of gauge whether or not they're being efficient.
• 9:32
  And then down the road, you could do P4P, which would be the ultimate.
• 9:37
  Right.
• 9:37
  But for now, if you just started getting in the habit of any budget hours, your crew would start keeping you honest and you'd be able to know, okay, the last 50 jobs, how many of them were we over budget hours?
• 9:45
  How are we under?
• 9:46
  Okay, we're basically right on the nail, like 50-50.
• 9:49
  Great.
• 9:49
  That means I can do P4P because I'm accurate enough to where I could pay them based upon budget hours.
• 9:54
  So when they show up at the job and it says six budget hours, if they get done in four, they get paid six, for example.
• 9:58
  Right.
• 9:59
  Right.
• 9:59
  Sweet.
• 10:00
  Thank you.
• 10:00
  So our business is growing super fast, which is one of the main reasons why we wanted to go ahead and get on board with HomeWorks.
• 10:10
  I think it'll open up like a lot of time that we're spending right now with manual processes and
• 10:15
  dealing with some of the issues we're having with employee communication and stuff like that.
• 10:21
  But one of the things that we want to really start doing is more incentivizing of our employees.
• 10:29
  Right now, we're...
• 10:31
  We have a few things that we're doing.
• 10:32
  We're matching tips.
• 10:35
  So if they get tipped on a job, we match it.
• 10:38
  That's been fine.
• 10:39
  And then also, if they're able to land us a new customer, they'll get commission and stuff like that.
• 10:46
  But I know when Christian was doing the walkthrough and the demo, he was showing us the different ways that you can upsell within HomeWorks.
• 10:59
  So I guess my question is like, what's the best way, like the easiest, like first step to getting into the, the P4P stuff.
• 11:09
  Oh, wow.
• 11:09
  We jumped all the P4P.
• 11:10
  Okay.
• 11:11
  Yeah.
• 11:11
  We're here.
• 11:12
  Are we wanting to talk about upsells or do you talk about paper performance?
• 11:16
  Well, I guess they are two separate things, but like, can you use upsells as pay for performance?
• 11:23
  I would not.
• 11:24
  Okay.
• 11:24
  Okay.
• 11:25
  So this is the incentives.
• 11:26
  That's what you're trying to work on.
• 11:27
  So yeah, incentive.
• 11:29
  Yeah.
• 11:29
  Let's start with upsells because I do think the ultimate version of incentives is pay for performance.
• 11:33
  Right.
• 11:34
  Right.
• 11:34
  I also think it means changing your whole business model, which I don't know if you're ready for yet, but we'll get to it.
• 11:39
  So let's first off, we'll start with the upsells.
• 11:41
  So
• 11:42
  what I would recommend is instead of giving them commission on jobs, because that means that's a lot of manual work on your part of like tracking which ones and then like, okay, is the first job?
• 11:52
  What about the one that happens the week after?
• 11:54
  Right.
• 11:54
  Do they get residuals?
• 11:55
  Like it gets really painful.
• 11:57
  So how we've always done it inside of the mobile app on Fieldforce, they can click an upsell and then you get to determine what upsells are available to them, like what services.
• 12:07
  And then what you can do is either a allow them to automatically text or email clients
• 12:12
  Most of the time, I don't allow my techs to do that because I don't want them sending the same one five times to the customer.
• 12:17
  But when they tap on it, it will then put a little handbag on the dispatch board.
• 12:21
  And when you're doing your end of day, you can see all of the upsells that were recommended and then actually see if you want to send it to the customer.
• 12:28
  What we tell our guys is, hey, all you got to do is tell us the upsell either in the dispatcher notes or just tap the button that says upsell.
• 12:36
  They need mulch, but then also attach a video.
• 12:39
  Because if I have that video inside homework, you can right click on the video, the thumbnail, copy link, and then text it to the client.
• 12:46
  The highest upsell rate acceptance rate that we have is when we take that video from the technician and be like, hey, Mr. Jones, you must mow on your property, but I noticed you needed some mulch.
• 12:54
  Here's a video where it's all bare.
• 12:56
  That video attached via link on a text
• 12:59
  crushes because they know it's personalized.
• 13:02
  And so it takes maybe a couple minutes from my GM at the end of the day, just to look through those, which ones do I actually want to send, grab the videos, send to the client.
• 13:10
  How we do it is just $50 per customer that accepts an estimate.
• 13:15
  no matter how, like no matter the dollar amount of the estimate, it's still 50 bucks across the board.
• 13:21
  Yes, the reason we do that, because it's, first off, easier in terms of admin than tracking a job, doing commission, the whole nine.
• 13:27
  Secondly, the whole reason I'm doing this incentive is for them to think like an owner which is on the property looking for ways to sell more work.
• 13:34
  I'm not so concerned.
• 13:35
  Well, they only sold like an extra $150 of work and I'm giving them 50 bucks.
• 13:39
  That's crazy.
• 13:40
  No, I don't really care on that one because they're going to do it on the next time they're there in like 20 minutes.
• 13:46
  I'm more concerned about them just constantly thinking about how to make more money on all the jobs and solving more problems with the customer.
• 13:52
  It also makes your service way more sticky.
• 13:54
  I just want to keep it as simple as possible though.
• 13:57
  Gotcha.
• 13:58
  Okay, that's helpful.
• 14:00
  And then if you're willing to move into P4P, which is the ultimate incentive for them to be efficient and increase quality, that would require making sure everything's on budget hours, make sure that they're clocking out in every job.
• 14:11
  And so are you already using budget hours?
• 14:15
  I mean, we're using like a hodgepodge of systems, so like our guys aren't necessarily aware of the budgeted hours.
• 14:24
  But they are, you know, they're clocking in and out, we could we could figure it out.
• 14:27
  Like if they're we do figure out if they're operating like within the budgeted hours, but we don't share that information with them at this time.
• 14:35
  Oh, interesting.
• 14:36
  Okay.
• 14:36
  Can I ask why just out of curiosity?
• 14:40
  I mean, just being transparent, like we can barely get them to get the right equipment from the shop.
• 14:47
  So I don't we don't really want to break their brains by, you know, doing budget hours.
• 14:52
  Budget hours.
• 14:53
  And when you say like they can barely get is it a matter of them being inefficient in the field when you say that?
• 14:59
  no it's like they can't they don't follow instructions uh okay okay no i guess hey i get it um this is when i always ask like what can we do about it right because in my opinion the reason they don't get the equipment is because they're not incentivized for it they're getting if they're being paid by the hour and they forget something in the shop they make more money if they forget stuff at the shop because they can drive back in an ac vehicle and pick up that equipment midday it's a nice little break for them
• 15:23
  For sure, yeah.
• 15:24
  So I do think P4P is the ultimate fix here because all of a sudden they figure out to get all their equipment.
• 15:30
  They figure out to look at all their jobs before they leave the shop to make sure that if there's one of the jobs that need the hedge trimmer, we have it.
• 15:39
  Right.
• 15:39
  Because they know driving back doesn't make them any more money.
• 15:42
  Yeah, that's a great point.
• 15:44
  Yeah, I mean, we even, like, at the top of their list each day, it has every piece of equipment that they need, and still it gets missed.
• 15:52
  So would you say the first step for, like, the P4P stuff is really incorporate, like, the budgeted hours and go from there?
• 15:59
  And what's nice is in homework, like, you could throw it in, and they wouldn't even know.
• 16:02
  Because what's going to happen, they're just going to see a little timer on the bottom of each job that shows budget hours with a little thermometer that fills up as time goes on.
• 16:09
  And like, that's all that would change.
• 16:10
  You don't even have to show pricing if you don't want to at the beginning.
• 16:13
  But then you're gonna get a really good idea of who is the most efficient, which jobs are underpriced, like all the other stuff.
• 16:20
  And down the road, you could run P4P.
• 16:23
  Which is now, now it's like, hey guys, let's play that thing of the budget hour thing.
• 16:27
  You want to beat that now because you're getting paid a percentage of revenue.
• 16:30
  Meaning if you beat that, you're making more money.
• 16:33
  One last question on that piece.
• 16:34
  Because I will say like they are, when they get on a job, they're very efficient, almost like to a fault where they miss things.
• 16:40
  How do you manage that?
• 16:43
  Yep, because now if they miss things, that's a yellow slip.
• 16:46
  That's a callback.
• 16:47
  And they have to go back to that property.
• 16:48
  And when they go back to a property on a callback, there is no more revenue being generated.
• 16:53
  So they're not making any more money on P4P.
• 16:56
  So now all of a sudden, they'll do really good walkthroughs with the client.
• 17:00
  If the client's not home, they'll make a video and attach it to the job as proof that the job was done according to scope.
• 17:06
  And all of a sudden, these things just happen because they're incentivized to do so.
• 17:10
  Got it.
• 17:10
  Okay.
• 17:10
  Thank you.
• 17:12
  And especially if you find that they're really efficient on the job, and they're just not efficient around everything, like driving, shopping in the morning, forgetting equipment, stopping 500 times at gas stations, that's when P4P can almost immediately get 25 to 30% more efficient.
• 17:27
  Because they just randomly figure out how to like pack a lunch, fuel up at the end of the day, remember their equipment, read their job notes.
• 17:33
  Like they figured out because now they can make an extra $5 or $10 an hour if they do it.
• 17:38
  You're happy to pay it because you're like, hey, if you can produce 30% more labor revenue, I am happy to pay.
• 17:43
  Right.
• 17:44
  Right.
• 17:44
  Exactly.
• 17:45
  Yeah.
• 17:45
  It sounds like you're pretty close because you already kind of know your budget hours or you think you can get there pretty quick.
• 17:49
  Yeah.
• 17:49
  But most people, that's the hard part.
• 17:51
  So if you can figure that part out, I think you're 90% of the way there.
• 17:54
  I would just start putting budget hours on every single job.
• 17:57
  And also, even before you start paying them based upon it, what you'll find is they'll start complaining to you like, hey, I can never hit budget hours on a job because they just like to see them beating budget hours.
• 18:06
  And then those are the customers you just know they raise prices on.
• 18:10
  Some people have been asking me, how do you get on these calls where you can ask me questions?
• 18:13
  This is for all the new members of HomeWorks.
• 18:16
  So if you join HomeWorks, you can actually get your first month completely free if you use the coupon code TX26 when you're checking out.
• 18:25
  And then also, we will give you five onboarding calls as well as this call with me completely for free.
• 18:30
  We'll import all of your data, all your customer information, and then you get your second month free as long as you show up to the onboarding calls.
• 18:37
  So two free months.
• 18:38
  It's a limited time only.
• 18:40
  TX26 at checkout.
• 18:41
  And we'll see you inside Homeworks.
• 18:42
  And I'll see you on the call.
• 18:43
  Hey, Mike.
• 18:44
  So my question to you is through scholarships, personal investments, and saving up.
• 18:48
  I have $30,000 in cash available to spend right now.
• 18:53
  So what percent should I allocate this for different categories to grow it as fast as possible while maximizing ROI?
• 19:00
  My goal is a million in three years, 10 to 20 million in 10 years.
• 19:04
  And like, I know I got to spend on a hiring post marketing equipment, but I don't want to waste it on one category.
• 19:09
  I have no living expenses.
• 19:12
  Um, so I can like spend it all right now.
• 19:15
  Do you know what your customer averaging cost is or not yet?
• 19:18
  Yep.
• 19:18
  Yep.
• 19:19
  What is it?
• 19:20
  It's about 30 to 40.
• 19:22
  On what channel?
• 19:24
  yard signs like general marketing we haven't really done online ads okay and when did you do the yard signs throughout the whole year i just keep them up as like sales persons pretty much is that 30 to 40 cost per lead or is that per new customer per customer okay so theoretically even if that doubled to 60 cost per lead for example
• 19:48
  That's technically 500 customers if you spent 30 grand on it.
• 19:51
  Yeah.
• 19:51
  So I would 100% play the arbitrage game if that customer acquisition cost is true.
• 19:56
  I would make sure it's being tracked.
• 19:58
  The other part of this is the reason it's $30 to $40 is because you're doing the labor of installation, which I'm fine with, as long as you got time.
• 20:04
  So let's hustle.
• 20:06
  I would just double down on that.
• 20:07
  If you're getting customers for $30 to $40, I would do as many yards as possible until that math breaks.
• 20:13
  Because at the end of the day, spending $30,000, you can go buy a truck tomorrow and your business will be worth exactly the same as today because you just convert cash into rust and a piece of metal.
• 20:23
  Anyone can do that.
• 20:24
  If you went and got 500 customers over the next few months, you would have a business that's probably doing a million dollars in revenue.
• 20:30
  and a business that is a million dollars revenue, you can go finance equipment if you need to.
• 20:35
  So I would just recommend, if that is your number CAC, and I would track it, make sure that is.
• 20:40
  Like, theoretically, you're probably more like 60 to 70 because you're doing the labor right now.
• 20:46
  But hey, if you wanna go put yard signs out every single night for the next four months and you can make that math work, keep going.
• 20:53
  But if your CAC is actually 30 to $40, I'd spend all of it on marketing.
• 20:58
  That's the short answer.
• 21:00
  All of it on marketing.
• 21:01
  Okay.
• 21:01
  Because I was just thinking like, if I spend $20,000, I have 20,000 yard signs and I just put them all out.
• 21:10
  Like, what about allocating, like give like a rule for like equipment versus hiring Indeed versus like marketing, like percent sort of.
• 21:17
  Equipment produces no value, right?
• 21:19
  So tomorrow, tomorrow you bought a $30,000 truck.
• 21:22
  If you look at the net worth of the valuation of your business, it would be worth $30,000.
• 21:27
  The same way as today, because you have $30,000 of cash, you just take the asset of cash and turn it into a truck.
• 21:33
  If you went out tomorrow, though, and magically did the same thing and got 500 customers.
• 21:37
  And that was like, let's just call it $800,000 of annual recurring revenue, your business is probably worth $400,000.
• 21:45
  And so the enterprise value would have 10X from 30 grand to 400 grand.
• 21:49
  So that's why customers and contracts is what builds enterprise value, not buying more trucks.
• 21:55
  Anyone can go buy more trucks.
• 21:56
  As long as you have money, you can go buy trucks.
• 21:57
  That's why there's no enterprise value associated with going out and buying more trucks.
• 22:01
  I would 100% spend as much as you possibly can, assuming the math doesn't break, which means if you put out 100 yard signs and you're like, well, I paid $3,000, $4,000 in yard signs and I was able to bring in 100 customers or whatever it might be, great.
• 22:16
  If you go out and put a 10,000 or whatever it is, if you 10X that, does the math break?
• 22:22
  That might happen.
• 22:23
  You might boil the puddle.
• 22:25
  Um, which market are you in?
• 22:28
  Sort.
• 22:28
  Oh, like residential.
• 22:29
  Yeah.
• 22:30
  No, where, where are you located?
• 22:32
  Uh, GTA greater Toronto area.
• 22:34
  Oh, how in your service area, how many, what's your population?
• 22:38
  Uh, I don't know.
• 22:39
  We're just like general suburbs, but there's a, there's a lot.
• 22:42
  It's a big huge.
• 22:43
  So you might not boil the puddle.
• 22:44
  You might just keep running this math.
• 22:47
  Um, and you doing the labor of installation.
• 22:49
  I just keep doing that.
• 22:50
  Um, do you have a good credit score?
• 22:55
  uh i don't have a credit card yet i just turned 18. cool yeah i get a credit card just to start building credit yeah paid off every single month um mostly that way if you actually can play this math i would spend all your cash on the door the door the yard signs and then you can finance the equipment that being said i would also try to figure out a way to up to sell customers something within 30 days that covers their cac
• 23:20
  because if you only you only need to make let's call it a hundred dollars of revenue um let's call it 200 revenue be safe you make 200 per customer in the first 30 days because if you can do that and have a credit card you just keep getting customers on the credit card and then paying it off within the first 30 days um so i'd be trying to get to that as soon as possible by getting the credit card establishing your credit and then you could always finance stuff down the road but your cash position shouldn't even go down if you can get a customer and make 200 in the first month
• 23:48
  So whether it be a cleanup, whether it be a package you sell annually, if you can get recouped the customer acquisition costs in the first three days and pay it off on a credit card, you're good.
• 23:59
  But that's the thing though.
• 23:59
  My CAC isn't too accurate.
• 24:00
  It was only done like over a year and like, I'm still like, it's like exponential growth right now.
• 24:05
  And I don't want to spend it all because honestly, I've never had this much money in my life.
• 24:09
  And like, I just don't want to spend like a crazy amount without knowing exactly what's going to happen.
• 24:13
  Right.
• 24:15
  As you grow your business, this will constantly be the case.
• 24:17
  And as you'll have more money and more problems and more people that you're responsible for, if you're continuing to grow, that will always be true.
• 24:24
  So that can never be the deciding factor as to what is right and wrong in terms of decision-making.
• 24:28
  It's either I spend this money on equipment that makes no enterprise value, or I keep playing this customer acquisition cost that currently is working, and I figure out an offer that I can recoup that customer acquisition cost immediately.
• 24:38
  So you never go negative on your cash flow.
• 24:41
  You should have $30,000 next month to be able to get 20 customers.
• 24:44
  and spend money on CAC.
• 24:46
  Now, the thing that you just said is very important.
• 24:48
  I was like, I just, I haven't, I don't have a huge sample size.
• 24:51
  Figure out what your CAC is.
• 24:52
  Because that's the math as to what, if you would have told me, hey, I'm spending $200 per customer.
• 24:57
  I'm like, OK, that's not a great CAC.
• 24:59
  It's going to take you six months to recoup the customer acquisition cost.
• 25:01
  Let's not keep scaling that.
• 25:02
  Let's slow down a little bit.
• 25:05
  So I would just keep doing what you currently know is working until it breaks, which I would call it breaking when you're paying over $200 customer recording costs.
• 25:13
  Well, if it's 30 or 40, you keep playing that game until the gig is up.
• 25:19
  Okay.
• 25:21
  Okay, so just take the risk to spend it all, right?
• 25:24
  Pretty much.
• 25:24
  No, I wouldn't spend all of it.
• 25:26
  I would probably spend, let's call it $1,000 to $3,000 on more yard signs.
• 25:31
  I would track how many leads come in, track how many customers come in, and see what your actual customer acquisition cost is now.
• 25:37
  And it's like, well, it's still $30 or $40.
• 25:39
  Great, let's go get $5,000 worth of door hangers.
• 25:42
  I would not spend all of it tomorrow on yard signs.
• 25:46
  Okay, sweet.
• 25:47
  Thanks.
• 25:48
  Yeah, man.
• 25:49
  Good work.
• 25:50
  So I'm getting to the point where we're starting next year.
• 25:53
  I'm going to have to hire new employees where I can't be there to train them, you know, with them all day.
• 26:01
  And I'm trying to get footage so I can make training videos.
• 26:04
  I'm just wondering if you have any recommendations on what the best way is to train new guys.
• 26:10
  Technicians?
• 26:11
  Technicians?
• 26:13
  Yeah, yeah.
• 26:14
  So, well, mostly for just lawn mowing, that kind of stuff.
• 26:20
  Yeah, so I would ask, and you could talk to AI, like, hey, this is my problem.
• 26:26
  I want you to help me create a training manual.
• 26:30
  I believe stuff that is soft skills, vision of the company values, how to make more money, how to do upsells, all that stuff, video training inside of a classroom, broken into segments that the general manager goes over with them during their onboarding day.
• 26:45
  The other part is hands-on.
• 26:48
  I have very rarely seen video training for field work be successful with technicians.
• 26:53
  They just want to go out and put their hands on the equipment and do the job.
• 26:57
  And even if your videos are more than like 10 or 15 minutes, you lose them.
• 27:02
  And so I would personally say, hey, first two to three hours of onboarding videos, values, how the business got started, how you can make more money here, how you're getting ahead, you know, all these other things, how you ask for time off, that can all be video-based in little segments.
• 27:16
  Then the GM, whoever's managing them, would already know what to say in between each one.
• 27:21
  Then they go out and they spend X amount of hours on the tools with that general manager.
• 27:25
  Okay.
• 27:26
  and so typically this meet requires a day for the tech for the manager what i would then say is how many how much of revenue like this year porter
• 27:35
  I'm 250.
• 27:36
  Yeah.
• 27:36
  So at this point, it's probably one on one down the road as you grow.
• 27:40
  I would recommend getting at least two or three technicians in that cohort of training.
• 27:44
  So that way, if one of them doesn't work out, that another guy didn't show up, like you at least got one guy with your GM getting trained up.
• 27:51
  It's basically one day per really solid technician.
• 27:54
  But that way, all you need to do is create the videos in the segments, give that manual to the GM say, Hey, between these videos, I want you to explain these things.
• 28:03
  And then here's the checklist of things I want you to do out in the field.
• 28:06
  I want them to learn this tool and then this piece of equipment.
• 28:09
  And then I want them to do it.
• 28:11
  And usually like half day soft skills, half day infield training, you got yourself a good technician.
• 28:17
  Okay.
• 28:18
  Okay.
• 28:18
  Perfect.
• 28:18
  Thank you.
• 28:19
  Yeah, you got it.
• 28:20
  And honestly, what I would do is just talk to AI.
• 28:21
  You can just take what I just said here, kind of like throw in there, be like, Hey, I need to know what videos don't even make.
• 28:27
  And I need to know what to tell my general manager to talk about in between the videos.
• 28:30
  Cause if you just have a technician sitting down and watch videos, you're lost them within 20 minutes.
• 28:34
  And so you've got to have like it broken up.
• 28:36
  Typically how I like to do it is like when they get there, we're doing like, don't, this is coming on the vlog again, a week and a half.
• 28:41
  You'll see ours.
• 28:42
  So just,
• 28:43
  You can mimic a lot of it.
• 28:45
  Go out and show them the tools and the vans and the trucks like halfway through to break up the day because sitting technicians for three, four, or five hours and watching videos, you lose them pretty quick.
• 28:57
  One of the questions I have is about guarantees or service guarantees.
• 29:01
  So when upselling or selling something that's a higher ticket item, do you have guarantees that you've used or would recommend using in that space?
• 29:10
  Yeah, so like I'll just use this location for an example.
• 29:13
  We are doing a weed-free guarantee for our weed control package.
• 29:19
  It's basically like, hey, if you do a year's worth of the package, we guarantee there are no weeds.
• 29:24
  And if there is, we'll come back until they're gone.
• 29:26
  like for no extra cost.
• 29:29
  I think it does a couple things.
• 29:30
  Number one, it's going to reduce the apprehension that clients are going to have that maybe you can't do what you say you said you were going to do.
• 29:39
  And so it alleviates that whole notion that you can't do it.
• 29:45
  You say, hey, look, I guarantee it.
• 29:46
  If it doesn't happen, I will just keep coming back and I'll fix it.
• 29:49
  The thing to be careful of is doing guarantees around stuff you can't control.
• 29:53
  So, for example, when it comes to planting, we would never do a guarantee unless we installed the irrigation because it was such a huge variable as to whether or not the plants would actually survive.
• 30:04
  So we actually use the guarantee as a way to upsell people into irrigation.
• 30:08
  Same thing when we do like artificial turf.
• 30:09
  It's like, look, we will guarantee this always looks good.
• 30:12
  And there's never a weed that pops through here and it never discolors.
• 30:15
  But we also have to be on a quarterly cleaning schedule.
• 30:17
  So I usually like to tie guarantees to use it as an upsell.
• 30:21
  All right, everyone.
• 30:22
  Have a fantastic weekend.
• 30:23
  Go forth, crush it.
• 30:24
  We'll see you in homeworks.
• 30:26
  And hope you guys have a fantastic rest of your weekend.