Videos

00:01
Welcome back to Callahan’s
00:02
Corner where you ask the
00:03
questions. We have some live
00:04
right here on Facebook. So, one
00:05
of the biggest topics in
00:06
Facebook around the service
00:09
industry has been Employee
00:10
Accountability and DESIRED
00:13
Profits. So, how do we take the
00:14
end goal of DESIRED Profits and
00:16
tie in Employee. Accountability
00:18
and bring them all together.
00:20
Well, what I’m going to dive
00:21
into today in Callahan’s
00:22
Corner. This edition when I
00:23
open up the screen is how to
00:24
actually do just that. It’s a
00:25
lot of companies including my
00:26
own wanted to or actually we
00:28
did institute a piece rate
00:29
basis more otherwise known as
00:32
pay for performance in some
00:33
circles but basically, this
00:34
piece rate pay system pays the
00:36
Employee based on the budgeted
00:38
hours and drives Accountability
00:42
with a quality standards. So,
00:44
I’m going to show you how to
00:44
set the foundation of pieces up
00:46
for success and then eventually
00:48
be able to institute this piece
00:49
rate pay system or pay for
00:51
performance but this was
00:51
instrumental in my business
00:53
because what it did is it it
00:54
went in and changed the culture
00:56
of the business. So, the
00:58
employees that we had were
00:58
there for the right reason.
00:59
They weren’t there forever.
01:01
Just trying to keep 40 hours of
01:03
a pulse to get the overtime.
01:05
Now, obviously with Peace
01:06
Raider pay performance. if
01:07
you’re doing it correctly, you
01:08
are going to pay the overtime.
01:09
They’re not looking to avoid
01:10
that but what you’re doing is
01:12
really stacking your Employee
01:13
bench to be on the same team as
01:15
the management. So, no longer
01:17
was the owner of the business
01:18
manager bumping heads with the
01:21
crews saying, you gotta pick
01:21
up. you gotta go fast. You
01:22
gotta go fast. I’d like to call
01:24
it the Wendy’s Frosty Effect on
01:25
a hot day like today up in New
01:26
York that crew might be driving
01:28
halfway across town to get that
01:28
Wendy’s because it’s hot out
01:30
and let’s face it. Well, this
01:31
frosty are damn good but we
01:33
don’t want our employees, our
01:34
team members doing it because
01:35
what that’s doing is eroding
01:36
our bottom line profits. So, we
01:39
need to be able to look at
01:40
certain things such as your
01:41
labor cost effect, labor and
01:42
labor burden on job sites and
01:45
your drive time or non billable
01:47
cost effective at your shop and
01:48
drive time and then we can
01:49
educate them and make better
01:51
decisions but when we either
01:52
pay or their performance into
01:55
equality standard with the work
01:57
they’re doing, that’s where the
01:59
magic happens. So, long story
02:01
short in my business, probably
02:04
about 1516. Years ago, we
02:06
brought in a consultant and at
02:08
this point, I was still on the
02:10
crew for at least half the time
02:11
and with the consultant said,
02:13
is that our crews were only
02:15
about 70% efficient and and I
02:18
said, hey, you you gotta be
02:19
crazy. I’m on these crews
02:20
sometimes but the crazy thing
02:22
is is the gentleman would live
02:23
in a few percent was absolutely
02:25
correct. So, we invested the
02:27
money in getting this piece
02:29
rate pay system with budgeted
02:30
times all set up and
02:31
accountability and then, I’m
02:32
going to show you how we built
02:32
up on that theory and really
02:35
took it to the next level for
02:36
accountability and clarity and
02:37
transparency throughout the
02:39
organization but the main
02:40
takeaway here is we were
02:41
building out an extra twelve to
02:43
$1300 per lawn mowing crew a
02:46
week which was literally
02:47
straight bottom line profit
02:49
without adding extra piece of
02:50
equipment or employees. So,
02:51
this is really important
02:52
whether you’re looking to do
02:53
piece rate or you’re just
02:55
creating Accountability and
02:57
transparency and you want to
02:58
hit your desired profit so you
02:59
can track it daily and weekly
03:01
and we can get our employees to
03:01
have some buying and
03:04
accountability with quality
03:05
standards and then at least
03:07
once, if not, twice a year, we
03:08
can go in ‘cuz some of the jobs
03:10
we’re doing aren’t hitting our
03:11
hourly goals right off the bat
03:12
and some are. So, you may have
03:14
some jobs that are making $100
03:15
an hour and you may have some,
03:16
they’re only making thirty or
03:17
forty but if our goal is fifty,
03:19
we need a non emotional way to
03:20
raise those prices up to bring
03:23
the losers up. So, what you’re
03:24
going to find is in that
03:26
process, you may have a couple
03:27
of lines that you’re going to
03:28
cut through the beginning of
03:29
the year through say July and
03:30
you’re losing $20 every time
03:32
cut the lawn. So like literally
03:34
be easier quicker just to drop
03:35
a $20 bill off the front step
03:36
and we’ll go on your way. So,
03:38
why would you continue that
03:39
bleeding or pain for another
03:41
three to 6 months based on your
03:42
your area and your seasonality?
03:44
Why wouldn’t we go with a non
03:45
emotional way to track that?
03:46
So, what we want to do is on a
03:47
daily and weekly basis track on
03:50
average, are we making our
03:51
money and how can we tie the
03:52
employees in? I’m going to show
03:53
you how to do that in a minute
03:54
and then once or twice a year,
03:56
we want to run a report or take
03:58
a look at things in a certain
04:00
way to be able to raise your
04:00
prices to on average to get
04:03
your hourly revenue goal. So,
04:04
what I find on Facebook and a
04:06
lot of the groups that
04:07
literally drives me me nuts now
04:09
that I’ve been on both sides of
04:10
this equation is a lot of
04:11
people are saying, hey, I’m
04:12
going to raise my prices
04:12
because of gas or inflation by
04:15
three to 5% across the board
04:17
every year or I’m going to
04:18
raise my lawn mowing visits
04:19
five or $6 a cut across the
04:21
board but really what you’re
04:22
doing there is you’re
04:23
alienating your most profitable
04:25
clients. So, the accounts that
04:26
are making $100 an hour and if
04:27
your goal is only fifty, you’re
04:29
making double of what you
04:29
should be making your goal and
04:31
you’re going out and raising
04:33
their price. What you’ve done
04:33
is inadvertently take your most
04:35
profitable clients and got them
04:37
and potentially, it’s causing
04:38
them to shop your pricing and
04:40
shop your service as well. The
04:42
losers where you’re losing
04:43
fifteen to twenty bucks a cut
04:44
on and believe me, I’m sure
04:45
everybody has one in there and
04:47
it’s it’s it’s bound to happen.
04:51
We need to raise those up but
04:52
what you’re doing is when you
04:54
raise the prices on the losers,
04:55
you’re probably not raising it
04:57
enough and those people already
04:58
know they’re getting a smoking
04:59
deal. So, they’re going to stay
05:00
with you because they’re still
05:01
getting a good deal and most
05:03
likely, those problem
05:05
customers, the ones that keep
05:06
playing, you have to go back.
05:07
They’re causing a headache and
05:08
stress at night. Those
05:10
traditionally find when we run
05:11
these reports not emotionally
05:12
are the clients that are
05:13
literally you’re losing money
05:15
on and you’re spending all the
05:16
extra time and what it’s doing
05:17
is taking away from the most
05:18
profitable You should be going
05:20
out and spending the extra time
05:23
taking the garbage cans up to
05:24
their house. Whatever that is
05:24
because our goal is fifty.
05:26
We’re making 100. Let’s spend a
05:27
few extra minutes and just wow
05:28
them and keep them happy. So,
05:30
I’m going to dive in and open
05:31
the screen up and show you how
05:32
to actually track your
05:33
accountability for your
05:36
employees. team. Buy and
05:37
DESIRED Profits and how to set
05:38
the foundations for pay for
05:40
performance or as I call it
05:41
peace rate and this is
05:42
something we did in my company
05:43
for seven or 8 years with great
05:45
success. Now, you gotta check
05:46
with each state and how you do
05:47
it. You need to pay your
05:48
overtime It needs to be at
05:50
least a minimum of time and a
05:51
half on minimum wage but my
05:53
goal is to get my employees
05:55
more than they would be making
05:56
with the regular wage with time
05:58
and a half across the board.
05:59
So, most of our team members
06:01
are making Twenty-two to $2500
06:03
a year or a season more than
06:05
they would have with the time
06:06
and a half and that was another
06:07
way to buy in the buy in.
06:08
Before we get to that, we gotta
06:09
sit lay down the foundation.
06:10
So, I’m going to show you here
06:11
in a second comments or
06:14
questions. Absolutely. Drop
06:15
them in the live viewing or the
06:17
recorded version. I’ll keep an
06:17
eye on this for Twenty-four to
06:19
48 hours. So, some of you may
06:21
have seen this chart before but
06:24
I’m going to really kind of put
06:25
some sheds, some light on it
06:26
based on the time of season
06:27
that we’re in and how do we go
06:28
in and create accountability
06:30
through profitability and
06:31
quality. So, the first thing
06:33
that we are looking at here is
06:34
I want to go in and put the
06:37
budget of time. So, it doesn’t
06:38
matter if you’re using a
06:39
software platform or not. This
06:41
is something that we’ve
06:41
prebuilt out. So, if you’re
06:42
like, hey Mike, this looks
06:43
great. I don’t have the time.
06:45
Build this but I really like
06:46
the idea of this. Let me know.
06:48
We have this built out. So, it
06:49
emails out a form. You fill out
06:51
the form and it kicks all the
06:52
data in here and you get the
06:53
daily and weekly results and
06:54
the numbers. I’m going to show
06:55
you how to use it. So,
06:56
absolutely take, I’m lifting
06:57
the hood on what we’ve built
06:58
for people but go ahead and
07:01
manipulate this and build it
07:02
yourself. This is the key to
07:02
Accountability and in my
07:04
opinion. So, let’s just say
07:05
this crew was budgeted for 18
07:09
hours. So, it’s a two-man crew.
07:12
We have a total of 18 hours
07:14
budgeted. Okay. We’re going to
07:15
go in and say they got to the
07:17
shop and this is key. It’s not
07:18
when they start the first job.
07:18
It’s when is your payroll
07:19
liability starts. 7 AM We are
07:22
paying them for the drive time
07:23
and everything except that
07:24
maybe the state mandated breaks
07:26
but this is where a lot of
07:27
companies will look at it and
07:28
say, hey, we’re really doing
07:29
good. We’re 80% efficiency.
07:31
That’s all we need. Well, I’m
07:32
going to tell you right now at
07:33
least in my opinion, telling
07:35
your employees that you only
07:35
need to hit 80% efficiency is
07:37
probably going to be the first
07:38
and last mistake you make
07:39
because you’re setting the
07:40
precedent that they only have
07:41
to give 80% not 100%. So, I’m
07:43
going to show you how to hit
07:44
100% efficiency and track it
07:45
each and every time here. So,
07:47
start time is 7 AM and we’ve
07:51
automated all this to report as
07:52
well but I really, honestly, if
07:53
you’ve watched the videos, I
07:55
love to automate everything. I
07:56
like the manual version of this
07:57
because it causes you to feel
07:59
the wins and losses and pains
08:00
of this. So, 7 AM to, let’s
08:01
just say 5 PM. If math serves
08:04
me correctly today, that is
08:06
going to be 10 hours and let me
08:10
fix that in here. So, you or
08:13
your office or even your
08:14
virtual assistant. So, a lot of
08:15
our clients work with pink
08:17
collar and they actually fill
08:18
this out for them and then, the
08:19
owner gets the daily and weekly
08:21
reports. So, it’s really huge
08:22
even if you don’t have time to
08:24
do this yourself. So many
08:26
organizations be doing this.
08:26
So, like I said, platform
08:28
independent. We can do this.
08:29
We’ve automated it through
08:30
service autopilot. We have this
08:32
standalone option. If you’re
08:33
using service autopilot to
08:34
track and automate this as
08:35
well. So, I’ve got 10 hours.
08:37
Let’s say we got a half hour
08:38
lunch for you guys. We can put
08:40
put our crew members names
08:41
there in the automated report
08:42
that would automatically merge
08:43
and we got a Two-man crew What
08:45
happened here? Just on this 1
08:46
day is I’ve got gross hours of
08:48
20 hours and I’ve got 1 hour of
08:50
lunch. So, half hour times two
08:51
guys, my work hours, my payroll
08:54
liability from shop to shop
08:55
minus lunch is 19 hours. Okay?
08:58
So, we budgeted. we give him
09:00
eighteen that number up here.
09:01
So, we are are literally 1 hour
09:04
over budget So, let’s imagine
09:07
that you are breaking even at
09:09
forty bucks an hour. That is
09:10
cost you an extra $80 of
09:12
expense just on that 1 day. So
09:13
you kind of start backing these
09:14
numbers and you can kind of see
09:15
the the pain of that now where
09:18
I say that it’s probably not a
09:20
good idea to tell your crews
09:21
they have, they have to get 80%
09:22
efficiency because of that
09:23
billable drive time or shop
09:25
time. Let’s figure all those
09:26
budgeted times in there
09:27
including drive time and non
09:28
billable time and create 100%
09:30
efficiency. So, we’re 1 hour
09:31
over budget right now. So, the
09:33
sheet here, you can see spells
09:35
out 94%. So that’s an easy
09:38
conversation. So, how do we get
09:39
Employee Accountability into
09:40
the system? Well, we go to the
09:42
guys and girls on the crew and
09:43
say, hey with your quality
09:45
standard plus a minus system
09:47
based on compliments
09:47
complaints. I’ll get that but
09:48
let’s just talk about
09:49
accountability for production.
09:51
First, you only gave 94% today.
09:54
So, that’s an easy conversation
09:55
to talk to one of my crews or
09:57
put on a big dry erase board or
09:59
TV in the shop. It doesn’t
10:00
matter if you’re budget of 50
10:01
hours or 5 hours this week.
10:02
It’s the same percentage. It’s
10:04
apples to apples. You do not
10:06
want to show all the crews the
10:07
budgeted hours that each one
10:08
work that’s going to create
10:10
animosity. If it’s too hot,
10:10
they’re going to **** they got
10:12
too many hours. If it’s cold
10:13
out and they want to make
10:14
money, they’re going to they
10:15
didn’t get enough hours but a
10:16
percentage is a non amo
10:18
standard with a plus and minus
10:19
system for accountability and
10:21
quality. I’ll talk about the
10:22
quality in a minute. Easy
10:23
conversation here though. Hey,
10:25
Dave and Joe, you only gave 94%
10:27
today with the quality
10:28
standard. You didn’t do your
10:30
job. Very, very easy
10:34
conversation and everybody can
10:35
recognize that even our
10:36
bilingual teams that spoke
10:38
mostly Spanish understood that
10:39
very simply. It was a basic
10:40
number. Let’s change that
10:42
eighteen to nineteen. So they
10:43
did it in 19 hours. We gave
10:44
them 19 hours to do it. That
10:45
number goes up to efficiency
10:49
Once again, very easy
10:50
conversation. Hey, you guys
10:51
gave 100% today and you hit the
10:53
quality standard. You did your
10:55
job. You hit the hit the total.
10:57
Now, let’s say we gave them 20
10:59
hours. and
11:07
did it in nineteen. So, they
11:08
were 1 hour under budget. So,
11:10
it’s 105%. So, technically,
11:11
they were 5% under the budget
11:13
in time they needed to be at
11:15
but now I can tell the guys and
11:16
girls, hey, you gave 105% with
11:18
a quality standard that was
11:20
acceptable. You kicked butt.
11:20
You did a great job and now we
11:22
have public Accountability. So,
11:23
how we’re going to track this
11:24
is in these times going each
11:26
and every day and we know the
11:27
total number for each crew.
11:28
This is crew number one. we’ve
11:31
got crew number two. They
11:33
failed miserably. They’re at
11:35
67% but let me tell you when we
11:36
go in and we worked with
11:37
hundreds of businesses doing
11:39
this over the last three to 4
11:40
years as well as my own
11:41
business seven Business is a
11:43
million and beyond. If you’re
11:44
not doing this, you’re missing
11:47
the boat. This was instrumental
11:48
in my business after we broke a
11:49
million really before we hit a
11:50
million and if you’re looking
11:51
to scale a million with
11:52
predictable Profits,
11:53
Accountability in my opinion,
11:55
you really need to be doing
11:55
this process. So, if you don’t
11:56
have time to build it out, drop
11:58
me a message. I can show you
11:59
how we do this and automate
12:01
this to you and it’s
12:01
Accountability. So, if you
12:04
don’t do your homework by 2,
12:05
PM, the system will Email or
12:07
text message you. If you don’t
12:08
do it by 5 PM, it’ll Email and
12:09
text message message you. So,
12:10
it’s key performance
12:10
indicators, KPI. Plus,
12:12
Accountability. It’s not only
12:13
that enough to do and build
12:14
this but you need to do it
12:15
daily and weekly. So, we built
12:17
Accountability into the system.
12:18
So, we’ve got crew, one, two,
12:21
so on. So, we’re tracking each
12:23
crew individually so we know
12:25
wins and losses on each crew.
12:26
What you’re going to find is
12:27
that you’ve got certain crews
12:29
that are literally carrying
12:30
your company on their back and
12:31
you got other crews that are
12:33
literally bleeding you dry. So,
12:35
honestly, in my company when
12:37
the the guy running my business
12:38
blew out his Achilles tendon
12:39
and I was actually working and
12:40
filling this out and track
12:42
every day, there’s a video of
12:43
me running around like a wet
12:45
dog like literally in the
12:46
headline of the video is I
12:47
failed my team but it was so
12:49
painful to see the budget at
12:51
times floating around that 65
12:53
to 67% that it forced me to get
12:56
out of that crew and retrain
12:58
that crew because there was no
12:58
one else to do it because the
12:59
main person who did it out
13:00
injured but this is the idea we
13:02
want to be able to track the
13:03
wins and losses every day and
13:04
every week on average are we
13:07
making money on average? what
13:08
based on our desired goal and
13:09
at the end of the year, how
13:11
much money we need to raise or
13:13
keep the prices based on each
13:15
exact count because they’re
13:17
even in this one here where
13:17
we’re beating the budget of
13:19
time. I will guarantee you
13:19
there’s a just defined winners
13:21
and losers. So, we need to go
13:22
out and be able to track that.
13:23
Not emotionally. Let’s not
13:24
raise the price by three to 5%
13:26
or charge an extra five to $6 a
13:28
cut guys, we’re we’re we’re
13:30
hurting ourselves and we’re
13:31
hurting our most profitable and
13:33
loyal clients by doing such.
13:35
So, as you can see, we’ve got
13:36
multiple crews here
13:37
potentially. So, what you have
13:38
is your daily for each crew and
13:39
your weekly and then you have a
13:42
running average here on the
13:43
left of how many minutes are or
13:45
how many hours over under your
13:46
as a a company as a whole. So,
13:49
in this fictitious example, the
13:50
company right now for the first
13:51
day of the week is over budget
13:53
4.3 hours. Now, I’ve got which
13:55
crews winning and losing and as
13:57
a company as a whole on
13:59
average, are we over under
14:00
budget? So, this is how we’re
14:01
going to track this now, we
14:02
talk about quality. How do we
14:04
do quality with this process?
14:06
So it’s going to be a
14:06
combination of plus and
14:08
minuses. So, I’m going to
14:08
recommend defined amount of
14:12
quality control internally for
14:14
you, a manager, somebody to go
14:15
out and have certain criteria
14:16
was the weed wacking done is it
14:19
is are the beds a weed free
14:20
appearance If it’s a landscape
14:22
maintenance but in mowing
14:24
proper weed, wacking clippings
14:25
are out of the beds, no clumps
14:28
and stick edging looks good.
14:29
You have some like AA scale
14:31
that you’re going to do so it’s
14:32
not emotional. A one to ten or
14:33
one to five scale. So you’re
14:34
going to go out and sample five
14:36
or six accounts each and every
14:38
every week for each crew and
14:39
then any compliments or
14:41
complaints will come in as a
14:42
plus or minus and if there’s
14:43
damage, it may be a double
14:44
minus You gotta define a
14:46
system. It’s going to take too
14:47
long to get the exact process
14:48
we did in my company but you
14:49
get the idea. So, you’ve got a
14:51
production standard and a
14:53
quality standard and the whole
14:54
idea is to get them to beat the
14:55
budget of time with that. that
14:59
process with the quality
15:01
standards. So, if you’re on a
15:02
performance or piece of a pay
15:03
system, this crew is getting
15:05
paid for the 20 hours while
15:07
they only work nineteen. So,
15:08
each guy or girl would pick up
15:09
a half hour of extra pay that
15:10
they didn’t really work.
15:11
They’re getting the job done
15:13
with a quality standard. That’s
15:14
the accountability. That’s how
15:15
now we’re on the same team and
15:17
how can I help my team members
15:18
be more efficient with a
15:20
quality standard to go out and
15:21
crush those goals. That’s
15:23
that’s the key right there.
15:24
Production with quality now on
15:26
average are we making money and
15:27
budgeting time for and as a
15:29
company, as a whole. Now,
15:30
second part of the equation
15:32
here is we gotta pull out all
15:34
the data. So, Twenty-five or
15:36
thirty cuts for lawn mowing.
15:37
Let’s say for each crew and for
15:41
each client, I’m sorry. So,
15:41
pull out your twenty or thirty
15:42
visits for each service. for
15:45
each client and we’re going to
15:46
go in and take a look at this
15:48
here. So, we’ve got the price
15:49
per cup was $54.28. A lot of
15:52
people say, hey, Mike, we’re
15:53
looking at this. Is that
15:54
include tax? No, we we must
15:56
have lost money and not hit our
15:57
hourly goal on this account.
15:58
So, we raised it to the Penny
16:01
5428. So, based on our start
16:03
and stop times, we have actual
16:06
revenue per man hour So, on
16:09
average, we were averaging
16:11
$57.30. If our desired goal is
16:14
sixty and we’re $2.70 the good,
16:16
then we don’t have to raise the
16:18
Or actually, I’m sorry, we’re
16:19
$2 and seventy sets lower than
16:22
our goal so we’re not hitting
16:24
it. We’re making 5730 on
16:25
average and this will be over
16:26
Twenty-five or thirty cuts but
16:27
if we plug in $60 an hour, we
16:30
need to raise the price. $2.56
16:32
without a motion. So no longer
16:33
we raise as a percentage across
16:35
the board or X amount of
16:36
dollars per visit. We are only
16:38
raising the clients that the
16:40
average to the penny that we
16:42
need to hit our hourly goals.
16:43
So, let’s just say our goal is
16:44
55 Christ doesn’t go up this
16:47
count now is a winner. So, we
16:49
can go out and not emotionally
16:50
raise those prices and have a
16:52
very candid conversation with
16:53
the client. Why are we raising
16:54
your prices or not raising your
16:56
prices and now we’re only
16:58
raising let’s say the bottom
16:58
five to 10% like Jack Welch GE
17:01
when we could turn that over
17:02
and fix that very easily but
17:02
then when you get rid of the
17:05
least profitable clients, you
17:06
replace them with more
17:07
profitable clients. Your bottom
17:09
line profits continue to go up.
17:10
So, industry averages for
17:12
profit margins for the lawn
17:13
care and landscape maintenance
17:15
which is about four to 6%. last
17:16
time I checked in my opinion,
17:18
if you’re not really making
17:18
double digits, 10% or greater,
17:20
it’s not worth being in
17:21
business or taking your trucks
17:22
out but how do how do companies
17:25
take those marginal values of
17:27
five to 6% and we’re seeing
17:28
some twenty to 25% net. They’re
17:31
systematically raising the
17:32
prices on the losers and they
17:33
tracking it and raising the
17:35
prices twice a year. Middle of
17:37
July is the best time to raise
17:38
the prices. If you’re losing
17:39
money, you’re saving a half a
17:40
year of loss and when you raise
17:43
the price, there’s a good
17:44
chance your competitors aren’t
17:45
going to return the calls or
17:46
even get them an estimate.
17:48
You’re good. They’re not going
17:50
at it. We have done this and
17:51
raise prices twelve to fifteen
17:53
bucks on accounts that we
17:54
didn’t realize they had Maybe
17:56
put a fence gate and that was
17:56
smaller or planted a whole
17:58
bunch of different landscapes.
18:00
The client didn’t say anything
18:01
but we knew on this report that
18:03
something had changed either
18:04
the guys were do in it or
18:06
conditions at the side of
18:06
change and they were conditions
18:08
of the site at that size
18:09
business. We didn’t realize
18:10
that the guys didn’t
18:12
communicate which they
18:13
should’ve but this allowed us
18:14
to go in and raise the price
18:15
and salvage that account and
18:17
the profitability halfway
18:18
through the So, the main thing
18:20
is that we want to look at
18:21
Accountability with DESIRED
18:23
Profits and let’s align them in
18:25
a parallel run. The company
18:27
employees together. So, we need
18:28
to raise our prices to the
18:29
penny. each year, July and
18:31
November and December and we
18:33
need to have some kind of KPI
18:34
key performance indicator with
18:36
accountability and track the
18:38
budget of time versus the
18:39
actual time and be able to have
18:41
accountability on the shop
18:43
whether they give 100% 105% or
18:45
90% and anything below 100.
18:47
They didn’t hit their budget of
18:48
time. anything 105 is the 5%
18:51
under budget but those are very
18:53
visual things with a plus and
18:54
minus for internal and external
18:56
quality control that will drive
18:58
Accountability and Profits
18:59
throughout your business for
19:00
the rest of the year and the
19:02
years to come. So, hopefully
19:05
you take this. This is really
19:06
lifting the hood how we do it,
19:08
Build it out yourself if you
19:09
don’t have time or don’t want
19:10
to do it, hit me up or hit
19:13
Dylan on the Simple Girl team
19:14
and this is something that we
19:15
can help you with no matter the
19:16
software program you’re using
19:17
if you’re using autopilot. We
19:19
have automated reports and no
19:20
matter the program you’re
19:22
using, we can go out and drive
19:24
a automated response where you
19:26
can plug it into this format
19:28
through a form with
19:30
accountability and if you don’t
19:32
do your homework or someone in
19:33
your team or virtual assistant
19:34
does do homework by 2 PM and 5
19:36
PM, it sends you a text or an
19:37
Email saying, hey, get your
19:38
homework done, 5 o’clock, you
19:40
haven’t done your homework or
19:40
get your homework done but
19:42
that’s going to hold you
19:43
accountable because we need to
19:43
look at it each day and then
19:44
the following Monday, we need
19:46
to look at the previous week so
19:47
we know we’re at so we know
19:49
where we’re going. So, comments
19:51
and questions, drop them below.
19:52
Callahan’s Corner. You ask the
19:53
questions. We have some live
19:54
right here on Facebook,
19:56
Employee. Accountability with
19:57
DESIRED Profits and how do we
19:59
align the management team with
20:01
your labor team and dry
20:03
predictable Profits. Labor is a
20:05
tough thing right now but I’ll
20:05
tell you folks if you can
20:06
change the culture where you’re
20:08
your production team and your
20:09
management team are on the same
20:11
page and we’re driving to put
20:12
more money and less headache on
20:14
your field staff, This is the
20:16
key to rate or pay performance
20:19
system. I’ll see you again
20:20
tomorrow. Callahan’s Corner
20:21
where you ask some questions.
20:22
We answered live

00:02
Welcome back to the Essay
00:03
Weekly Talk Show. your host
00:04
Mike Callahan here once again,
00:06
bringing you knowledge from
00:08
service industry professionals
00:10
like myself or service industry
00:12
professionals. So, here at the
00:13
SA Weekly Talk Show, I’m going
00:14
to lift the hood of creating
00:17
training systems for big
00:19
profits and Predictable
00:21
Profits. So, it’s not only
00:22
enough to create those bottom
00:23
line profits. We actually want
00:25
to have Predictable Profits
00:26
through Predictable. So,
00:28
standard operating procedures
00:30
So, how do we go out and train
00:32
our field staff and our office
00:34
staff for proper operating
00:36
procedures that are going to
00:38
net result into BIG Profits.
00:40
So, I’m going to dive in and
00:41
show you what we’ve done in my
00:43
company. specifically inside
00:46
service autopilot and one other
00:47
platform that is a learning hub
00:49
that we built to do online
00:51
video training. In addition, as
00:52
a added bonus for anybody in
00:54
the lawn care industry, I’m
00:55
going to go over a way that you
00:57
can break down potentially how
00:58
you go in up your crew. So, how
01:02
many people here watching if
01:03
you put a comment in the live
01:04
or public area is when you’re
01:06
mowing crew goes out, your
01:07
fertilization crew or pretty
01:09
much any crew for that matter.
01:10
I’m going to give you a lawn
01:10
mowing example but do we have a
01:12
particular place they park?
01:13
There is a reason why they park
01:15
at a certain spot and what is
01:17
the procedure for the weed wack
01:18
and the stick edging the
01:19
blowing and the mowing. Where
01:20
does it start? Where does it
01:22
stop it? How do we start
01:22
eliminating five or 6 minutes a
01:25
job or an hour and start to
01:28
drive bottom line profits so
01:28
it’s not enough to set up
01:31
pricing with budgeted time but
01:33
we also need to have a process
01:34
and procedure inside the office
01:36
as well as well inside the
01:38
field to train the process and
01:41
continue the process because
01:43
the budgeted time and the
01:43
prices are only as good as the
01:45
teams in the field actually
01:47
follow a process and procedure
01:49
to hit those budget in time
01:50
with the quality constraints.
01:51
So, we’re going to dive in,
01:52
lift the hood, and show you how
01:54
this all can be done inside
01:56
your service business. So,
01:57
comment or questions live or
01:59
recorded version. Put them in
02:00
there. I’ll be watching this
02:01
for the next Twenty-four to 48
02:03
hours as we always do but essay
02:05
Weekly Talk Show, bringing your
02:07
knowledge from seven figure
02:08
business experts like myself.
02:11
So, here we go and without any
02:12
further delay, we are going to
02:14
pop open and take a look at
02:15
this. So, first thing that we
02:16
are going to be looking at is
02:18
inside service autopilot for
02:20
what we’ve done is created
02:24
Workflow
02:25
Training. So, this is
02:26
actually a service autopilot
02:27
for so we’ve got Thirty-six
02:29
videos in six modules in essay.
02:32
We were unable to actually have
02:34
testing in here. So, we are
02:34
going to show you another
02:36
option that we did to evolve
02:38
into even a higher level
02:39
training. Then, we’re also
02:40
going to show you how we
02:41
utilize this service autopilot
02:43
forms not only for training in
02:44
the office but actually going
02:47
into the field. So, this is
02:49
literally right out of
02:49
Callahan’s Lawn Care where I
02:51
made training videos for every
02:53
piece of equipment in every
02:55
service we did. So now, all the
02:56
training and everything was not
02:58
in my head it was now in the
02:59
software and we can run our new
03:01
applicants through the mobile
03:03
app or in the computer through
03:06
the training for the software.
03:07
So, this is all natively built,
03:10
functionality wise inside
03:11
service autopilot, no extra
03:13
cost. You can build this
03:14
yourself but basically, what
03:15
we’ve got is we’ve got a lawn
03:16
mowing video and then my other
03:18
one was literally how to use a
03:20
line trimmer. So, we went
03:21
through the process and
03:22
workflow that I’m going to be
03:24
going in when we dial into this
03:25
map of our test here of where
03:29
do we park the truck. How do
03:30
you determine where you park
03:31
the truck? Where does the weed
03:32
wacking start and end? What’s
03:33
the workflow? Where does the
03:35
mower start ending? And where
03:36
does the blowing start in? So,
03:38
I’m going to go in and show you
03:39
how we can actually create a
03:40
video to teach this and I’m
03:43
going to give you a high-level
03:44
overview of kind of what was in
03:45
that video and how we actually
03:47
did it inside my company. So,
03:49
without any further delay,
03:51
we’re going to kind of dive
03:53
into some different options
03:54
that you can do inside your
03:55
service business, utilizing
03:57
some of the tools and inside
03:57
service autopilot. So, the
03:59
first thing that we went into
04:00
here is under
04:04
the forms here. We tackled the
04:06
office Training first. So, that
04:07
was the biggest pain point when
04:08
we had new admin as we continue
04:10
to grow or if you’re using a
04:11
virtual assistant, this is a
04:13
great way to create a concise
04:15
training videos for your
04:16
virtual assistant so you don’t
04:16
have to be on the hook every
04:18
time you have a new assistant
04:19
come online or a new office
04:20
admin but the idea is they
04:22
would fill it out. first name,
04:24
last name, Email. This is
04:25
automated so we get an Email or
04:26
text message that they need to
04:27
fill out module one and watch
04:29
it and literally inside the
04:31
form click the video. and
04:35
literally go. So, we’re going
04:37
into lead acquisition via the
04:39
website or office. We
04:40
understand what’s going on. The
04:41
next one is lead source
04:43
tracking. We’ve got referral
04:44
tracking. So, how did they hear
04:46
about us? Client acquisition
04:47
commercial or residential
04:48
property levels and billing
04:51
details and the sixth and final
04:52
video in this installment here
04:54
is the gear icon. What’s under
04:55
it and how does it work? You’ll
04:56
notice these videos through
04:58
multiple trial and error in
05:01
this process or between one and
05:03
3 minutes. Ideally, the first
05:04
video is about 30 minutes and
05:05
it goes high level overview.
05:07
So, what we’ve done here is
05:08
built modules with six videos
05:11
each inside service autopilot
05:13
that we will run our new
05:14
administrative staff through
05:15
for consistent training. So, at
05:18
that point, we went to the next
05:20
level and I’m going to jump
05:21
into the Simple Growth Learning
05:22
Hub as a certified adviser of
05:24
service autopilot. So, what
05:25
we’ve done is taking that
05:26
content we made there and now
05:28
updated it and put it into this
05:30
learning hub that we built.
05:31
Now, this learning hub is
05:32
mirroring exactly what we’ve
05:34
built inside service autopilot.
05:36
So, if you’re building this
05:37
yourself, I think the best
05:38
place to start is probably
05:39
right inside service autopilot
05:41
in the forums and this is
05:42
exactly how we did it for many
05:43
years in my business utilizing
05:44
these forms No extra cost
05:47
inside service autopilot but
05:48
we’re taking that knowledge. Si
05:50
in your head and disseminated
05:52
across the organizations. Now,
05:54
every time we have a new
05:55
administrative staff join the
05:56
business owner is not on the
05:58
hook to train them for the next
05:59
two to 3 weeks, we we send them
06:00
to the video training automated
06:03
through the process and side
06:04
service autopilot and then we
06:07
follow up with live one to one
06:09
or virtual training now with
06:10
COVID. So, what we’ve done is
06:12
taken this and now to give you
06:13
a peak under the hood. we’ve
06:14
gone in and a overview video
06:17
probably with complete crazy
06:19
COVID hair locked in my
06:21
basement last year, we have an
06:23
overview video. We show them
06:24
how to actually use the course.
06:26
So, if you’re building this
06:27
out, this is probably best
06:28
practice and we have the
06:31
overview of the service
06:33
autopilot workflow. So, what is
06:35
it look like? So, if you are
06:36
like me, when I first bought
06:37
the platform, I ran to billing
06:39
and scheduling because I need
06:40
to get paid and I needed to get
06:42
the work done but
06:44
unfortunately, when you do
06:45
that, you are in and missing
06:49
all the foundational pieces.
06:51
So, in the first 30 minute
06:53
video training here in the
06:54
overview area just like it was
06:57
in the service, autopilot forms
07:00
Here we are going in and giving
07:03
them a high-level overview of
07:04
the system from lead
07:06
acquisition through billing,
07:07
scheduling fulfillment in the
07:09
correct order and then once we
07:10
have that order, we’re going to
07:12
dive into the overview and dial
07:14
in to the specific pieces how
07:16
they build on top of each
07:17
other. So, we’re going to build
07:18
a foundational understanding of
07:19
the software and this is how
07:21
we’re getting people off the
07:22
street within seven days. I’ve
07:24
never seen the software and up
07:25
and running. Almost 100%
07:27
efficiently. So, you can do
07:28
this too in your business and
07:29
I’m going to show you. this is
07:31
how we did it in mind but
07:32
basically, we went in to lead
07:34
source track and referral track
07:35
and commercial versus
07:36
residential. So, same exact
07:37
thing. We built an essay. We
07:39
went a little bit deeper here
07:41
but the video plays live here
07:43
and like I said, they’re
07:44
anywhere from three to a minute
07:46
3 minutes to a minute long.
07:47
Same exact thing we built out
07:49
right inside service autopilot.
07:50
This is the ideal first step
07:52
and if you take it to the next
07:53
level, the reason why we took
07:55
it to the next level is we
07:56
weren’t able to automate the
07:57
testing inside Esa. So, We went
07:59
in and use the quizzes feature
08:02
here and we had six questions
08:06
that have to get 100%, right to
08:07
get to the next level. So, do
08:09
you need to select a cellphone
08:10
carrier If you are using
08:12
two-way texting and
08:13
automations, which is false. It
08:16
is a legacy feature. So, the
08:18
idea is we run them through
08:19
some knowledge and if they get
08:21
the question wrong, we did the
08:22
same exact thing here inside
08:24
service autopilot far as
08:26
actually I take that back. We
08:27
do have the skill review
08:28
testing. So, this is a new
08:29
updated version. So, we did
08:31
build the actual testing inside
08:35
SA as well. and a memory series
08:38
will be built built in over in
08:39
the learning hub to have more
08:40
analytics of tracking but
08:42
basically, you can do this
08:43
testing inside essay as well
08:45
and if you don’t get 100% based
08:46
on the logic in the automation,
08:48
you can drive them back to the
08:49
beginning and when they get it
08:51
wrong, we actually provide
08:53
supplemental information. Oh,
08:53
this is what you answered but
08:54
this is why you should answer
08:56
this. So, the idea is we’re not
08:57
going to force them to keep
08:58
going back and guessing we’re
08:59
going to go in and give them
09:00
the data and knowledge of the
09:02
that they should have retained
09:03
the first time around for the
09:04
videos to understand it. So,
09:05
we’re going to give them a
09:07
foundational flow of this. So,
09:08
right inside service autopilot
09:10
in the Vtwo. You can do it in
09:11
Vthree now four We’ve created
09:14
six videos in each of six
09:16
modules complete with testing
09:18
on each video. So, this is what
09:20
I would recommend Office
09:21
Training. First, we want to
09:23
standardize that operating
09:24
procedure, how we enter leads
09:25
in how we collect client lead
09:27
sources, How do we estimate how
09:28
do we follow up all the way
09:29
through building a fulfillment
09:31
and running credit cards. we’re
09:32
going to stand. That is a
09:33
process with an online
09:34
automated video training
09:36
series. So, with the simple
09:38
growth level three automations,
09:39
we include all of this right in
09:41
here but by all Jump right in
09:44
and this will definitely help
09:47
you along your way but we’ve
09:49
invested the time to do it.
09:50
These are most of the videos
09:52
from my my company that ended
09:54
up selling. Harold wants to
09:56
Know, Will there be a replay
09:57
recording of this? If so, where
09:59
are we posting that? It’s going
10:00
to be on the Service Autopilot
10:01
Facebook page as well as the
10:02
Simple Growth page on Harold.
10:04
If you’re looking for it, I can
10:05
tag and put it in the SA
10:07
Facebook group as well but good
10:09
to see you brother on on the
10:11
I’d say Weekly talk show. So,
10:12
first thing is we’re building
10:13
out our office video training
10:15
and essay forms complete with
10:17
training and this is what we do
10:19
in our sales level. Three
10:20
automations by Simple Growth is
10:21
a certified adviser. Now, next
10:24
step is once we automated that
10:26
in my business, we realize it
10:27
works so good for the office.
10:29
Why not take this out and
10:30
automate it in the field. So,
10:32
what we did is did the same
10:34
exact thing with testing. Now,
10:36
this is just a kind of example
10:38
but you can see where the
10:40
questions would start to go in
10:40
here again but literally, if
10:42
you look at this here, we go in
10:47
and the video is going to show
10:49
you the video target. So, what
10:52
parts of the equipment, the
10:54
equipment techniques, and what
10:57
is your Pp, your personal
10:59
protective equipment. So, these
11:00
are the things that we are
11:00
going to require for our
11:02
handbook in here. So, we’re
11:03
going to go in and review that
11:05
and then, we actually demo all
11:07
the Deadman switches, all the
11:09
different things that are in
11:10
there and as you go in, I
11:13
actually eventually jump on
11:15
this mower. So, we’re actually
11:16
going in and then eventually,
11:19
Training the skill set how to
11:22
actually go out and do the
11:23
mowing. You’ll notice we’re
11:25
going in. We’re doing three
11:26
point turns. We’re not turning
11:27
the grass up and we’re turning
11:29
away from the landscape beds.
11:30
We’re teaching them all the
11:30
different ways and things they
11:32
need to know to be able to use
11:34
this mower. So, this is the
11:37
methodology that I would
11:38
recommend. Now, if you’re
11:39
wondering like how did you go
11:41
out and do this? Believe it or
11:43
not, first of all, I recommend,
11:45
don’t do this. Don’t do this at
11:46
your own home. Find some do it
11:49
because your neighbors will
11:50
think you’re crazy but
11:50
customers will let you do this
11:52
at their house but what you
11:53
really need is a smartphone, a
11:55
wireless mic that ties in your
11:57
smartphone and a quick thirty
11:58
or $40 tripod from Amazon. You
12:00
don’t need anything special and
12:01
you can record it, believe it
12:03
or not, that wireless mic. if
12:04
the the audio is on works
12:05
great. What we’re doing is
12:06
we’re going in for every
12:07
service and every piece of
12:08
equipment we’re building these
12:10
over, you know, a three to 4
12:11
month period. It doesn’t all
12:13
have to happen but literally, I
12:14
blocked out 2 days and made
12:15
most of the videos in my
12:16
company. So, here’s a lawn
12:17
mowing And we have the line
12:22
trimming example as well. So,
12:24
proper use of weed wacker and
12:26
training system and I’m going
12:26
to talk about here a little bit
12:28
later in the video once I go
12:30
through this methodology how do
12:32
we go in and park and set up
12:34
for success but I’m literally
12:35
going over the the protective
12:36
equipment and the things that
12:38
are needed going to show in the
12:40
proper technique how to hold
12:41
the line trimmer especially up
12:43
north. We don’t stick edge. We
12:44
still want to hit those hard
12:46
surfaces. A 90° angle and and
12:49
here that uses a weed wacker
12:51
with line trim would probably
12:52
relate to this new employees if
12:54
they don’t have any experience
12:55
will struggle, how to actually
12:58
set up the line trimmer spool
13:02
as well as the spring and some
13:03
of the attachments. So, I went
13:05
through in the video and
13:06
actually demoed how to actually
13:08
not only trim but how to
13:11
actually get the line in the
13:13
trimmer spool and get it in
13:15
there for success. That’s
13:17
always a big big problem when
13:18
you’re bringing to somebody
13:19
that doesn’t have experience
13:20
and if you look at it here,
13:21
I’ve got that little wireless
13:23
mic in there and now, we’re
13:26
going in and I’m modeling it
13:27
and then I’m moving it as I
13:29
pause the video, I’m moving the
13:31
tripod around. So, I actually
13:33
go, I believe in this video all
13:35
the way around the whole entire
13:37
property and you can actually
13:40
see it here. This is one of the
13:42
older Callahan trucks here.
13:44
Probably took a little snow
13:45
plow beating but this is the
13:46
video that I literally made
13:48
from my actual company here.
13:50
Callahan’s Lawn Care and I had
13:51
one of the backup trailers and
13:52
some backup equipment there.
13:54
So, the other things are in the
13:55
field during the day obviously.
13:56
So this can be done. It doesn’t
13:59
take a lot of time but it will
14:01
return
14:04
You know the the value to Xs
14:08
Harold says his his signals
14:10
choppy. Can I get access?
14:13
through from simple Growth.com?
14:16
Yeah, Harold, hit us up. We can
14:17
definitely hit you up. This is
14:18
more about content and how to
14:19
build it yourself but if you
14:20
need some help as a certified
14:22
adviser, we can definitely help
14:23
you as well but the idea is
14:24
we’re going in. We’re going to
14:25
build this out. I recommend
14:26
getting a pad of paper, Write
14:28
down all the services and the
14:28
things you need to talk about
14:29
doing it on the fly is probably
14:32
not the best bet but just some
14:33
great example here of how we
14:36
could we could do this. We’re
14:37
talking about around the
14:38
trimming around this this pole
14:41
here. I actually scalp it down
14:43
and looked at it and said,
14:44
okay, this is what you should
14:46
do and this is what you
14:46
shouldn’t do. So, this is some
14:48
of the training that I learned
14:49
when we had a staff at H two B
14:51
workers from Guatemala, Mexico,
14:53
My my my my Spanish was no
14:55
bueno. So, it was helpful for
14:58
me to be able to visually show
15:00
the guys that this is what you
15:01
should do and this is what you
15:02
shouldn’t do No matter the
15:05
language barrier or HBA, normal
15:08
worker like that resonated with
15:09
everybody. So, it was modeling
15:12
what you should do but also
15:13
modeling what you shouldn’t do
15:14
and saying this is what not to
15:16
do as well. So, some tips on
15:17
those videos as well how you
15:19
want to do this but you know,
15:21
not not get on here and just
15:22
making this up. I’ve got the
15:23
Callahan’s Lawn Care shirt
15:24
right on here and and this is
15:26
this is what we did. This is
15:27
how we built a turnkey training
15:29
system. took the videos and
15:31
then drove them into those
15:31
service autopilot form the
15:33
office as well with training
15:36
and then with simple growth, we
15:37
wanted some more analytics of
15:39
who had been through and be
15:40
able to do online certificates
15:42
and kind of reward people. So,
15:43
that’s why we built an
15:45
additional mirroring package
15:47
right here in the Simple Growth
15:49
Learning Hub but by all means,
15:50
I mean, this is, this is it and
15:52
this video is probably five or
15:54
6 years old. So, this is not
15:55
something new that you just
15:57
knew an essay. you can do this
15:58
and have been able to do this.
15:59
Most people just are unaware of
16:01
it. So, based on that, I would
16:05
start with the office or in the
16:06
field either way but we want to
16:07
go in and just like we did in
16:09
the beginning of the video,
16:11
video targets. So, learning
16:12
objectives and then, if there’s
16:15
any PPE, or personal protective
16:16
equipment, we probably want to
16:17
have that scroll down in there.
16:19
So, we’re reinforcing what’s in
16:21
your handbook. So, as an added
16:23
bonus, something that a lot of
16:25
people find helpful when we get
16:29
into something that we call a
16:31
deep dive where people used to
16:32
fly to New York but now, we
16:34
virtually do them where we
16:35
basically sit virtually need a
16:36
need for 2 days and we help you
16:37
build out based estimating
16:40
system. A lot of times like 20%
16:42
of those calls or those and
16:45
those service autopilot deep
16:47
dives by simple growth is that
16:51
we set up the estimate process
16:52
but the employee per say or
16:55
even the business owner are not
16:57
setting a standardized
16:58
operating procedure to create
16:59
Predictable results to follow
17:00
through on the estimating
17:01
process. So, it’s not enough
17:02
just to create an estimate
17:04
process and budget time but you
17:05
need to have a process that
17:06
creates predictable outcomes to
17:07
hit those Time to beat him with
17:10
a quality constraints. So, what
17:11
I’m going to go here is kind of
17:12
dive into this but if you’re
17:15
looking at this house here and
17:16
you were to pull up, let’s say
17:18
you’re not stick edging just
17:19
to, there’s a way to approach
17:20
this but let’s just say no
17:21
stick edging at all. So, this
17:22
is a very basic example but if
17:25
you’re pulling up to this house
17:26
here, would you be parking with
17:29
these two cars are here or here
17:31
Now, don’t worry about the
17:32
neighbors parking in front of
17:34
their house or anything like
17:35
that but How would you train
17:38
your crew per se? where to park
17:41
each and every time. So, if
17:43
you’re watching live, feel free
17:45
to put your your comments or
17:47
questions in there. but the way
17:49
we approach it and this may not
17:50
be for everybody is what we did
17:53
is that if you’re looking at it
17:54
and I’m standing up here and I
17:55
had this this, you know, maybe
17:56
the pen and the this was my
17:58
weed wacker handle here. So, if
18:00
it’s going to the left or if
18:02
it’s going to the right, how do
18:04
we
18:07
How
18:07
do we account for that? So,
18:09
to the right or to the left and
18:11
when we’re looking at that,
18:12
that is the key. So, is
18:14
traditionally, there’s only one
18:15
person on the crew holding the
18:16
weed wacker or at least in our
18:18
scenario, traditionally, the
18:19
crew leader and the mower and
18:21
the technician ran the weed
18:23
whacker. Now, you may switch
18:25
back and forth and that’s fine.
18:26
No worries but what we’re
18:27
looking is how do we
18:29
standardize the workflow and
18:32
optimize it based on the weed
18:33
wacker holding it left or
18:35
right? So, whatever time where
18:37
the head is handed the head of
18:40
the weed wacker is pointing.
18:41
So, if you’re holding it this
18:42
way, the weed wacker head to
18:43
the left. If you’re holding it
18:44
this way, it’s to the right.
18:46
So, let’s just say we’re going
18:48
to the left where the weed
18:49
wacker holding it and the
18:50
head’s to the left as you’re as
18:52
you’re looking at this. So, how
18:53
do you go out and use that
18:56
information to standardize
18:57
where you park each and every
18:58
time for the job? Well, this is
19:00
how I’d recommend doing it. So,
19:01
I’m not going to park out front
19:03
but I’m going to park right
19:04
here. I’m going to park to the
19:05
left hand side So, if the weed
19:07
wacker heads to left, we park
19:08
on the left of the property. If
19:09
it’s on the right, we park on
19:10
the right right of the
19:11
property. So, we’re going to
19:12
play on this one. It’s to the
19:14
left. We’re going to go in and
19:15
park right here. Reason being
19:18
is when we’re going to tackle
19:19
the weed wacker and blowing
19:20
first and then we’ll tackle the
19:21
mowing and are going to
19:22
correspond for streamline
19:24
process and this is how we
19:25
shave five to 10% off every
19:26
time to build bottom line
19:29
profits with Predictable
19:30
quality control. So, we’re
19:32
going to park right here and
19:33
now, what’s going to happen is
19:35
the weed wacker is going to get
19:36
off and literally flip that
19:38
weed wacker just like we showed
19:40
in the video here. and we went
19:44
through and showed them that we
19:46
would flip it on a 90° angle.
19:48
okay? So, that’s going to be a
19:50
basically the equivalent of a
19:51
stick edge and when we do that,
19:53
we’re going to go ninety here.
19:55
So, across up the driveway,
19:57
down the sidewalk across the
19:58
sidewalk, down the other side
19:59
of the sidewalk and up the
20:00
driveway. Now, we’re going to
20:03
flip that head and go all the
20:06
way around the house and the
20:07
beds flip it back on a ninety
20:10
down the driveway down the
20:11
sidewalk cross it the sidewalk
20:14
down here and all the way
20:16
across. Now, what we’ve done is
20:18
covered all of our basically
20:21
ninety 90° angling and we’ve
20:23
gone all the way around the
20:23
house. So, Carlos on my team
20:26
would say, you can’t break
20:26
break the snake or you can’t
20:27
break the hose. Whatever it is,
20:29
it’s streamlined. You can’t
20:30
bounce all over the place even
20:32
if there’s a tree right here in
20:34
the middle, we’re not going to
20:35
grab it especially in the
20:36
beginning of trainees, we’ve
20:38
systematized it Now, we’re
20:40
we’ve ended here so we’ve come
20:42
up and around up and around the
20:45
Down the sidewalk down the
20:46
sidewalk. Down and back. Now,
20:48
at this point, we’re going to
20:49
go in, grab anything in the
20:52
middle up and around this fence
20:54
line. If there’s a play set or
20:55
something back down, I’m going
20:56
to grab that pole and then
20:58
boom, I’m back at the truck.
21:00
So, what I’ve done is I’ve
21:01
eliminated any waste and
21:03
potentially somebody jumping
21:05
back and forth traditionally,
21:07
if there was a shed in the back
21:08
corner of the yard or a play
21:09
set or something, those are the
21:10
things that are going to be
21:11
missed but we’ve created a
21:12
predictable system. So the guy
21:13
now on the mower, potentially
21:16
the crew leader overall
21:17
responsible for the quality is
21:19
He’s on the mower. He’s going
21:21
to be able to see where they
21:22
potentially may be missing some
21:24
of these spots, Okay, now,
21:26
we’re back at this fictitious
21:27
truck. We’re going to grab the
21:29
blower and we’re going to go
21:30
back and blow just like this
21:33
here. We’re probably going to
21:34
blow off the whole driveway,
21:35
pushing everything this way and
21:36
then, we’re going to go back up
21:37
and around the house sidewalk.
21:43
I’m sorry. Sylvia here and then
21:45
we’re going to walk up and
21:47
around and grab anything else
21:50
like a place or anything like
21:51
that. Any clumps. Boom and
21:52
we’re back at the truck. So,
21:54
we’ve done a streamline that as
21:56
well. Now, if it’s a larger
21:58
home and you got two 60s, maybe
21:59
that guy’s jumping on a mower
22:00
but traditionally, most of your
22:02
posts, size stamps, you’re up
22:04
to about eight to 1012 thousand
22:06
square feet ballpark. you got
22:06
one mower and one weed wacker
22:08
traditionally. So, by the time
22:10
the guy’s done blowing, that’s
22:12
mower probably coming on. He’s
22:13
picking the trailer gate up.
22:14
We’re in the back of the truck
22:15
and dropping it on. Now, the
22:16
cool thing is even if he gets
22:19
done blowing a little bit
22:19
before the guy mowing The guy
22:22
mowing is going to be turning
22:23
away from the heart of the
22:26
house and blowing the clippings
22:29
in. So, there shouldn’t be any
22:30
clippings on the side of the
22:31
side of the house or the beds
22:32
if the mower is doing his job.
22:34
So, getting into the mowing,
22:35
how do we standardize that for
22:37
Predictable results? So, the
22:38
way we did it is we went in and
22:41
if the guy weed whacking was
22:42
starting here and he’s going
22:44
around up and around here We
22:48
don’t want them both starting
22:50
out here. So, the mower would
22:51
traditionally come over here.
22:52
He’s going to hit the bottom,
22:53
the top, and the side of the
22:55
house and he’s also going to be
22:56
hitting the side of the house
22:57
here. So, the sides and the
23:00
front of the house are mowed
23:01
first and then we go to the
23:03
back and we’re going to be
23:04
going in and going in and
23:08
turning this way here and we’re
23:10
pointing the grass out. So,
23:12
he’s ending here and coming
23:13
back down and then he’s coming
23:15
back down. The guy blowing his
23:16
traditionally going to be
23:17
ending just about the same time
23:19
and he can blow off any grass
23:20
that got on here from maybe wet
23:21
tires in the spring. So, the
23:24
idea is we’re setting a
23:24
standardized operating
23:26
procedure for the weed wacker
23:27
to streamline so things aren’t
23:28
missed and we’re hitting the
23:30
front and sides of the house
23:31
first with the mower because
23:33
we’re assuming the guy weed
23:35
wacking is going to get done
23:36
first and now all the debris on
23:38
the driveways, sidewalks and
23:39
gutters are is already taking
23:40
care of like that’s there and
23:42
we can blow off. We’re not
23:44
going to have to do double the
23:45
work. We’re creating a
23:46
standardized operating
23:47
procedure that we can train to
23:48
and our production rate based.
23:49
That’s the main system is going
23:50
to be consistent enough to feel
23:52
that bottom line savings effect
23:55
but if you’re looking, if
23:57
you’re, if you’re wasting five
23:58
to 7 minutes an hour with a
24:01
two-man crew, that’s a huge,
24:02
huge thing. So, if you’re
24:04
looking at it, Let me just pop
24:06
a calculator real quick. So,
24:07
let’s just say we’re losing 6
24:09
minutes. So, six divided by
24:12
sixty is .1 Times Two guys on
24:15
the crew and we work 8 hour a
24:19
day. So, it’s 1.6 hours a day
24:22
times 5 days a week. That’s 8
24:24
hours a week that we’re losing
24:25
inefficiency just by saving 6
24:27
minutes a day in inefficiency
24:29
and just this process right
24:31
here will eliminate five to 6
24:32
minutes in an hour Easy. It’s
24:35
actually eliminated more in my
24:36
business and then if we
24:37
multiply that by let’s just say
24:39
a 32 week season it’s hours of
24:43
saved inefficiency just by
24:45
saving those five or 6 minutes
24:46
a day. So, let’s just say we’re
24:47
breaking even at Thirty-six
24:49
bucks an hour. That’s 9002 9216
24:52
$9216 of bottom line profit by
24:55
just standard this system but
24:57
it’s not enough to just show
24:58
it. We need to train it through
24:59
the videos.
25:04
and then reinforce it with
25:06
testing and that was the secret
25:08
to success to standardize
25:10
something just as simple as the
25:12
lawn mowing. Now, there’s other
25:13
tips and tricks for pruning,
25:15
mulching, and other things like
25:16
that. I’m not going to get in
25:17
today but we literally went
25:18
through and standardized that
25:19
operating procedure and created
25:21
a system even when you’re
25:22
mulching around little bushes.
25:24
if you weren’t blowing it in,
25:25
we weren’t dumping the
25:27
wheelbarrow and moving it
25:28
around there. We had a process
25:29
for bulk mulch to get around
25:32
those bushes without making a
25:33
mess. Now, bag mulch is a
25:34
little bit different when we
25:35
use that but the idea is create
25:38
a time in motion. Study on it,
25:41
standardize it, create a video,
25:42
create testing, and then have
25:43
your quality control manager or
25:45
your business owner go through
25:47
and double check and reinforce
25:49
with some positivity. So,
25:50
you’re stopping at the job with
25:51
a box full of Gatorades or
25:52
cooler Gatorades some
25:55
popsicles, whatever that is,
25:56
make it a positive interaction.
25:58
and use it as a retraining and
26:01
reinforcement tool but the main
26:03
thing we gotta take what’s in
26:04
your head and we gotta build it
26:05
into these forms video training
26:07
for the in the office with
26:12
testing. Comment your
26:14
questions. Leave them below
26:15
essay, Weekly Talk show coming
26:17
back at you with training
26:19
systems for profits and
26:22
Predictable Profits through
26:23
video training systems and
26:25
testing all built out inside
26:27
service autopilot forms with
26:30
testing comments. Questions
26:32
drop below. Appreciate you
26:33
Harold checking it out and I
26:34
will repost this video a little
26:36
bit later today. The girl team
26:37
will actually inside the Essay
26:38
user group as well as through
26:41
the simple growth outlets. So,
26:43
we’ll see you again SA Weekly
26:43
Talk Show one M Eastern 12. PM
26:46
Central. Mike Callahan, your
26:47
host helping you create
26:50
Predictable business systems
26:52
inside your business. by seven
26:54
figure business owners that
26:56
have used service autopilot in
26:57
their business and have figured
26:58
out the way to streamline your
27:00
workflow and not just have
27:01
features and functions but
27:02
create a predictable workflow
27:04
for standardized operating
27:05
procedures. BIG Bottom Line
27:07
profits and if you’ve been
27:08
watching Callahan’s Corner or
27:10
work on it, Wednesdays where we
27:12
go in as Michael Gerber says,
27:14
you how to work on it and not
27:16
in it. The big theme lately is
27:18
going in organizing, and
27:22
dominating and that’s going to
27:23
be a reoccurring theme here.
27:24
The Essay Weekly Talk show and
27:26
some of the videos I do as well
27:27
as our guests, we’re going to
27:28
help you organize, automate,
27:30
and dominate your market. We’ll
27:32
see you again next week. 1 PM
27:33
Eastern 12 PM Central, Mike
27:34
Callahan with the SA Weekly

00:02
Welcome back to Callahan’s Corners where you ask the

00:05
questions. We have some live right here on Facebook. Well,

00:08
got a really good question. Was answered or asked in a Facebook

00:11
group about owner or business owner burnout. Um so, I’m going

00:15
to open up my phone here and actually read the question. So,

00:19
um it was it a uh contractor’s group. So, this is applicable

00:23
to any service business but the the question itself kind of hit

00:26
home because I’ve been here several times. Uh so, how do

00:28
you deal with burnout? I’m finding it harder and harder to

00:31
get out of bed each and get to work Coming off the winter

00:34
season. I’m always excited and ready to work but by July,

00:37
that’s all gone. I’d start, I’ve still got another 3 months

00:41
of mowing to do. So, it’s interesting. Um Anthony here

00:45
made a comment and I don’t disagree with Anthony’s comment

00:48
but I’m going to kind of give you the four maybe five things

00:51
that I recommend to avoid owner burnout and how to actually go

00:55
in and get over this hump. Um so after scaling two seven

00:59
figure businesses, trust me, I’ve been here more than a few

01:02
times. Um so, there’s certain things that I’ve learned on my

01:05
own as well as having mentors and going and doing some

01:08
research. I’m going to break this down for you but uh

01:10
Anthony’s response, I I guess I don’t totally disagree with

01:13
this. He says, it’s because you’re stagnant in your comfort

01:16
zone. Do something crazy like expand your company to a point

01:19
where you can work on the business instead of work in it.

01:21
Well, uh II think before you go to expand that business when

01:27
you’re burned out, that’s not going to be the ultimate

01:29
answer. Because I’ve done that. We’ve gone out and we’ve gone

01:32
out and grown by fifty or 100% um year after year and simple

01:36
growth and just doing that isn’t going to stop the

01:40
burnout. Actually, sometimes that will accelerate the

01:42
burnout um especially if you don’t have the right key people

01:45
on your team or processes or systems. So, the first thing

01:49
I’m looking at here is building a team. We need to build a team

01:53
to delegate. So, I don’t know Um if John’s question here, if

01:57
he is an owner operator, if he has a team a small team but I

02:02
guess it really doesn’t matter where you’re at. If you’re a

02:05
solo entrepreneur or a company that owns multi-million burnout

02:09
for the owner is a real thing. So, the first thing I’m going

02:12
to think about is building a team. Now, if you’re a solo

02:16
entrepreneur in the field, doing everything you may think

02:17
about, well, Mike, how would I build a team? Well, if you’re

02:21
not building an internal team that you are utilizing a field,

02:24
we’re in the office, I’m going to recommend building a team of

02:28
virtual assistants. So, going in and getting a bunch of

02:31
people to take some of the things off your plate that you

02:33
just are going to cause burnout or you’ll never get to if

02:35
you’re burned out. So, that would be handling a virtual

02:39
assistant like a pink collars or hiring a CPA, and a

02:42
financial accountant to make sure that these certain things

02:45
are being taken care of. The the bill, the scheduling, Um so

02:49
on a high level, that’s what we’re talking about. Building a

02:51
team that can support you but really that’s not going to help

02:53
the burnout. So, what I’m going to recommend is for simple

02:57
things that you can do immediately to Alleviate

03:00
owner’s burnout. The first one is going in and literally

03:03
blocking out your schedule. So, if you are not using G Suite

03:06
for business, I recommend getting G Suite for business.

03:09
It’s going to be able to get you a web-based domain Email.

03:11
So, Mike at Simple Growth Systems.com um but it’s going

03:15
to give you better email deliverability but what also G

03:18
Suite for Business is going to do is get you access to AG

03:23
Suite calendar. So, whether you have one person on your team

03:25
just being you or 100 people on your team, you can have access

03:29
to these calendars of your team members but what I’m going to

03:32
recommend just for today’s talk is blocking out certain things

03:35
in your day throughout the week that are for you. So, you may

03:39
block out time to get your **** done. You may be blocking out

03:42
time for equipment maintenance. You may be blocking out time to

03:45
go over your financials. Whatever those things are but

03:48
within those blocks, we need to block out time for you to

03:52
either work or relax or reset and we also need to block in

03:56
some time for you just literally to do nothing but

04:00
focus on the strategy and the vision of the business because

04:05
that time, whether you’re reading or out for a walk or

04:08
whatever that is, that can be just as important, if not more

04:10
important than actually going out in the field or managing

04:12
the guys and girls in the field doing the work. So, we need to

04:14
go out and block your schedule. So, um tip number one is block

04:18
your schedule in G Suite um for business blocks or if you’re

04:23
using another calendar program, we need to block out the time

04:25
you’re working in the business on the business Most

04:28
importantly, in the time that you’re resetting from the

04:31
business, you gotta guard those blocks uh with your life or if

04:34
your admin is there, those blocks are not to be touched in

04:37
unless absolutely needed and it has to have prior approval but

04:41
I’m in my schedule. I’ve got times on Tuesday, Thursday

04:43
where I block out strategically. So, I am not

04:46
getting burned out Next step number two is no matter the

04:51
size of the business, we need to figure out how to go in and

04:53
spend a little time upfront, how to organize the business,

04:57
and then automate the business and eventually, we can use that

05:00
system to go out and dominate your market but the main thing

05:03
is we want to go in and organize all the systems and

05:06
processes. The three main areas we want to look at right off

05:08
the bat are our sales and marketing systems. So,

05:11
basically, sales systems, we want to automate and organize

05:14
our employee system. So, employee recruiting, training,

05:17
and onboarding and then the third is have something I call

05:20
repetitive tasks All the daily, weekly, monthly coeur d’alene

05:23
annually things. So, burnout will happen when you having

05:27
these repetitive tasks and use the business owner have to go

05:31
out and tell everybody what to do. So, it’s time to handle the

05:35
accounts receivable. It’s a time to go out and sharpen the

05:37
lawn mower blades. It’s time to do equipment maintenance. It’s

05:40
time to do the estimate and if you as the business owner have

05:43
to tell everybody what to do, when to do it, how to do it,

05:45
and if it’s not getting done, you have to follow back up.

05:47
That is going to be a key source of burnout and

05:51
frustration. So, what we want to do is block our schedule and

05:54
step number two is and then automate our sales. employee

05:59
and repetitive task systems. So, all the mundane and

06:03
repetitive things that are burning you out right now will

06:05
come to an end or get significantly better Next

06:09
thing, tip number three is we want to go in and within

06:14
blocking that schedule. If you don’t have someone to do this

06:16
for you but a virtual assistant would be a great option or your

06:20
internal office staff is we want to track our KPIs, our key

06:23
performance indicators, and Tip number three, you might say,

06:27
well, Mike, that’s adding more work to my plate. Why would I

06:29
want to do that? I’m I’m worried about burnout. Well, a

06:31
lot of times burnout and frustration is having the lack

06:35
of in your business and knowing what’s going on. So, is it cash

06:40
flow? Is it the amount of jobs? Is it cancellation not knowing

06:43
what’s going on can lead to frustration and burnouts? We

06:46
want a clear picture of our key performance indicators. So, the

06:50
main things that I’m going to be looking at are going in is

06:53
how many clients do we have How many clients have cancelled and

06:57
what are our net new clients. So, we’re looking at client

07:00
acquisition and retention and satisfaction all in one KP.

07:05
Second one is going to be financial KPIs. So, account

07:10
receivable and accounts payable. We need to go in and

07:12
build a budget and we need to track at least on a weekly

07:15
basis how much people owe us. How much is current, How much

07:19
is past due from one to 30 days? thirty-one to 6061 to

07:23
ninety, and ninety plus. So, we’ve got our KP. We’ve got our

07:27
financial money. KPIs. So, people start owing us money and

07:30
things start spinning out of control That’s going to cause

07:33
burnout and stress. So, you want to have an idea on that as

07:35
well and then your third KP, I’m going to leave that open

07:38
for you. Um there’s a lot of things you can do but I

07:41
recommend only three main drivers that we’re focusing on.

07:44
So, what it depending on what point of your business, what’s

07:48
going to drive you strategically to the next step

07:51
where you want to go um but sales and customer retention is

07:55
probably definitely be one in financials as a second. The

07:57
third, you’re going to figure out what that is um and I’ve

08:00
got some ideas around that but I’m going to leave that one

08:03
open up to you. What is the main thing that’s stressing you

08:05
out? You want clarity on to avoid that burnout Now, we

08:09
block the schedule. We’ve organized and automated it and

08:12
we’ve tracked the KPIs that are going to give you clarity. So,

08:16
the next thing logically is we need to take a freaking

08:20
vacation. Sounds crazy. How do we take a vacation in the

08:23
middle of the season? Well, I will tell you whether it’s a

08:26
long weekend. I’m recommending a whole week if you can do it,

08:28
if you’re not in the field still doing the work, we to go

08:31
out and block out a vacation and I will tell you that some

08:34
of the biggest wins in my business have come when I’ve

08:38
actually disconnected from the business for five to 7 days or

08:40
10 days um because once you reset as a business owner, even

08:45
if you’re sitting by the pool, having a cocktail, the mind

08:48
starts working but what you can do and you’re you start

08:52
thinking about the strategic things, the strategy, and the

08:55
visionand that’s what a business owner is supposed to

08:57
You set the vision and you set the strategy and hire a

09:01
team to implement it. Whether it’s subcontractors, internal

09:03
employees, virtual assistants but your job as a business

09:07
owner is to set the vision and the strategy to that vision but

09:10
if we’re in the grind day to day burned out, it’s not going

09:13
to happen. So, yes, I suggest you take at least a three,

09:17
probably a full week vacation if we can and block it out and

09:21
right here, I’m telling you right now, this phone will be

09:24
the detriment of that vacation. So, when I used to go on

09:27
vacation in the early days before I became disciplined and

09:31
build a team that could fully run the business is I literally

09:34
took my phone. If we’re going to a hotel and locked it in the

09:38
safe and literally and once I put it in there, I actually had

09:42
my wife put the code in there so, I wasn’t tempted to do it

09:44
with the keypad and I could not get into that safe unless it

09:47
was an emergency and if there was an emergency, my crew

09:51
leader and the guy running the company had my wife’s cellphone

09:54
and he would call her directly but that forced me to

09:57
disconnect. So, the thing is if you can afford to do it for

10:01
that blacked out time, whether it’s an hour, hour and a half,

10:03
do it throughout the week. Disconnect from the phone and

10:07
use that strategy or that break to really disconnect and focus

10:11
on the strategy of your vision or have a mental reset um but

10:15
without doing such, you will burn out and you continue to

10:17
burn out. So, the main idea here is the top four things we

10:21
need to block our our schedule to protect ourselves and block

10:24
our schedule for the things that have to get done so we

10:26
know when they’re going to get done and it’s not stressful

10:29
We’re going to organize and automate. We’re going to look

10:31
at our KPIs. That’s going to be our our customer numbers, our

10:34
sales retention, and cancellations. Second, KPI is

10:37
going to be our financials. Third one is going to be

10:39
whatever you decide to go strategically to grow to that

10:43
business, to the next level, that clarity um to be able to

10:46
see everything on a daily and weekly basis is going to make

10:48
you less stressed. Um we’re going to hopefully start eating

10:51
healthy and working out. I’m preaching to the choir here.

10:54
I’m trying to get back in the gym a little bit Um in the

10:56
fourth is take a vacation 3 days if you can. at a minimum,

11:01
I’m recommending seven to 10 days. Take your cellphone, put

11:04
it in the hotel safe, and do not answer that phone unless

11:08
it’s emergency and if you have a friend or a spouse with you

11:10
or girlfriend, have that phone number, their phone given to

11:14
whoever’s in charge and they call only if it’s an emergency.

11:17
That way, you are not tempted to start checking your Email

11:21
and you’re not returning phone calls and you’re not getting

11:24
back into. that because what you’ll find a lot of times is

11:26
when you get back is you’re actually the bottle of growth.

11:28
You’re you’re actually implement. You’re hindering the

11:31
growth of your business and you trying to micromanage

11:34
everything is really causing all the stress and burnout. So,

11:37
I will tell you after scaling two seven figure businesses,

11:40
these are just a few of the takeaways but if the business

11:42
owner is not going to take care of themselves and take time to

11:45
themselves and focus on the strategy and vision and focus

11:49
on blocking the schedule going out and automating the

11:52
business. So, what should happen always happen without

11:54
them. The KPIs, key performance indicators, and taking you’ll

11:59
be stuck in a perpetual state of in and out of burnout in the

12:02
final closing thought here is if you are burned out or you

12:05
feel burned out, coming in, reset now because the biggest

12:09
issue and especially in a seasonal service business is

12:12
that you’re fixed in general ministry of overhead. Your

12:15
expenses are all being recovered from March or

12:17
February depending where you’re at in the country up through

12:20
the end of November to December. what you’re going to

12:23
see is the end of September beginning of October, you’ve

12:25
recovered of those fixed costs. So, your cost of doing

12:30
business, your overhead is already recovered. So, anything

12:32
you can push and drive extra profitable sales at the end of

12:36
the year and Q four our bottom line profits and just like this

12:40
gentleman’s question, he’s burned out. So, by the time you

12:43
get to get to the fall, you foot off the gas pedal and

12:45
you’ve literally lost out on the majority of the profits.

12:49
you’re going to make all the profits you could make. So, I

12:51
want to see you go out and break some comments on this

12:54
whether it’s live recorded, get a hold of you, calendars. Block

12:57
your schedule. I want you to organize and automate it. I

13:00
want you to check your KPIs, or clarity. So, there’s less

13:02
stress and I I want you to take a vacation and if you’re

13:05
watching this recorded, if you haven’t taken a vacation,

13:08
commit to yourself, write down. Hey, Mike. I’m doing a 4 week

13:11
vacation or I’m doing a week vacation. I’m doing it a long

13:13
weekend and let’s hear about it. I want to see publicly

13:17
commit to taking some time off to reset and put the phone in

13:20
the hotel safe wherever you’re going and let your team have a

13:24
contact that’s with you. if it’s an emergency, We’ll see

13:26
you again at Callahan’s Corner. Great question. We’ll see you

13:28
again tomorrow. Callahan’s Corner US Questions. We have

13:31
some live right here on

00:00
mike callahan here with a pre-submitted
00:02
question on one of the facebook groups
00:03
talking about
00:04
hiring a new administrator so i’m not
00:06
sure if this hire was a first hire
00:08
for an administrative position or maybe
00:10
the 15th higher but there was some key
00:12
questions that they asked i want to dive
00:14
into them
00:15
quick summary before i dive into the
00:17
actual questions if you’re watching live
00:18
if you just make a note in the comments
00:20
here to let me know that the audio is
00:21
okay
00:22
the video before this the audio was a
00:24
bit choppy but far as office admin
00:26
success
00:27
main thing is a person wanted to know if
00:30
they should lock down their computer so
00:33
what if the admin
00:34
or someone stole the computer next was
00:36
how do they block certain sites and what
00:38
was best recommendation on that
00:40
to make sure when the employee was using
00:42
and not using the computer how do they
00:44
get
00:44
the actual tracking of their job hours
00:47
and uh thanks harold appreciate the
00:49
audio is great um
00:51
and a couple other questions i’ll dive
00:54
into but basically the first one i want
00:55
to tackle is
00:56
when we hire an office administrator
00:58
either post or like during covid times
01:00
as we’re making this video here
01:02
um we may have a remote worker which
01:04
adds a whole other level of complexity
01:06
so i’m going to answer this question as
01:07
if
01:08
we have someone physically in the office
01:09
and remotely um
01:12
so the first thing is they wanted to
01:13
know when the individual clocked in and
01:16
clacked out so most
01:17
cloud-based crms are going to have a
01:20
office time clock feature i recommend
01:21
using those there’s one built in
01:23
to most the cloud-based crms that was
01:25
what i would recommend if not we want to
01:27
make a google sheet
01:29
and have them physically type in their
01:30
start and stop times with break
01:32
now along the lines of google uh if you
01:35
haven’t heard of g suite or google suite
01:36
for business highly recommend it
01:38
and that’s going to dovetail perfectly
01:40
into the next question they submitted
01:42
so they said how do we basically control
01:44
the equipment or the i
01:46
the computer if there’s theft well first
01:48
thing if you’re doing a hiring right you
01:50
shouldn’t be worrying about your admin
01:52
stealing your computer
01:53
but as we’re working remotely or we’ve
01:55
got guys and girls in the field with
01:57
chromebooks doing estimates
01:58
theft is a big uh concern in my in my
02:01
opinion we want to protect that
02:02
intellectual property
02:04
so what we’re going to do is recommend
02:05
that going out for the cost and
02:08
pretty much the ease of use
02:11
and everything else chromebooks are
02:13
ideal
02:14
so along with the chromebook g suite you
02:16
can go in and actually have
02:18
administrative rates of that machine
02:20
we’re not doing it for big brother yes
02:21
you can log in you can see what they’re
02:23
looking at what time they’re active
02:24
but the idea here is actually if someone
02:26
breaks into a house or apartment or a
02:28
truck
02:28
estimate truck or estimate vehicle we
02:30
can go in and securely lock down that
02:32
machine
02:33
and actually wipe the data so your
02:35
intellectual property is safe
02:37
i think that if you’re worried about
02:39
your admin stealing the computer in your
02:41
information then
02:42
um we need to get to a level of
02:44
delegation or maybe we’ve hired the
02:45
wrong individual
02:47
next question along those lines was the
02:49
general lady also wanted to know
02:51
what’s the best practice for limiting
02:52
the amount of sites that they can
02:54
actually
02:54
engage with well i’m going to recommend
02:57
you don’t do that but what you’re going
02:58
to do
02:59
is talk to a industry professional like
03:02
jason
03:02
copp at kincaid to actually build out
03:06
an employee handbook your employee
03:07
handbook should spell out very
03:09
uh clearly what is acceptable not
03:11
acceptable for work use on your computer
03:14
and what kind of sites they should not
03:15
be looking at as far as adult
03:17
sites so we want to spell that out but
03:19
similar
03:20
when you’re in college or high school
03:22
and you’re going in and doing a research
03:23
project
03:24
someone in tech decided there was
03:26
certain websites or certain types of
03:27
websites that fell underneath an
03:29
umbrella that you couldn’t get to
03:30
well we don’t want to cause that issue
03:32
that we may have all saw in school we’re
03:33
going to do a research project and the
03:35
sites are blocked you can’t get to them
03:37
in our business we want to have all the
03:38
sites wide open we got to trust and
03:40
enable that admin because really they’re
03:42
your eyes and ears in your central
03:44
information hub so maybe you’re doing
03:45
chemical mixing ratios maybe you’re
03:46
looking up something social media
03:49
state laws for pesticide applications
03:50
whatever that is
03:52
we don’t want to restrict their ability
03:53
to actually support you and your team
03:55
by limiting the website so i would say
03:57
leave it wide open have a very candid
03:59
conversation
04:00
through the onboarding process as well
04:01
as have it documented in your handbook
04:03
so you’re covered
04:04
and if that does come up now there is
04:06
some repercussion and you have legs to
04:08
stand up but if you don’t explain
04:10
and talk about what’s acceptable not
04:12
acceptable and don’t have it in a
04:13
handbook it’s going to be tough to
04:14
enforce that that may not be grounds for
04:16
dismissal
04:17
if this individual is doing this going
04:20
into the next question was
04:22
should they install cameras or ring a
04:24
ring system in the office
04:26
to make sure the individual is actually
04:27
there working and doing what they should
04:29
do
04:30
i know a lot of business owners that
04:31
have camera systems in there it’s okay
04:33
for security but if your reasoning
04:35
is to make sure they’re there working
04:36
when they should be working
04:38
i don’t recommend it i don’t recommend
04:40
it at all uh big brother and honestly if
04:42
you’ve got
04:42
if you’re a male business owner and you
04:44
have female staff that’s kind of the
04:45
creepy factor as well
04:47
in my opinion so basically
04:50
what i’m going to recommend is let’s
04:52
drive this new administrator
04:53
in um and actually talk about what’s ex
04:57
like what they should be doing for their
04:59
jobs i recommend if you’ve seen in my
05:00
videos talking about the big three those
05:02
are your strategic objectives for that
05:03
position
05:04
so as this individual comes in and you
05:06
train them sit down with them
05:07
and create a strategic objective the big
05:09
three that they’re accountable for that
05:11
drives your strategic goals
05:12
so off the top of my head the big three
05:14
for an office admin would be returning
05:16
all phone calls and emails
05:17
in a certain time so they’re gonna
05:18
report out on that each day so emails
05:20
maybe are being responded
05:22
four or five times a day we’re checking
05:23
that inbox um and maybe
05:26
finishing their tickets or to-do’s the
05:28
tasks that are being assigned
05:29
and documenting them and then maybe the
05:32
third one
05:32
is um going out getting that whole
05:36
cadence together for you
05:38
just for accountability but whatever
05:40
those three are they need to track
05:41
there is going to be some down time in
05:43
your business it’s it’s just gonna
05:45
happen
05:45
there’s gonna be times when that admin
05:46
has nothing to do so why not create a
05:49
google sheet
05:50
or a google doc that shows all the
05:52
things they could be doing
05:53
when their strategic objectives aren’t
05:55
being hit so they’re not answering the
05:56
phone they’re not returning emails
05:58
they’re not checking over to invoices
05:59
they’re not scheduling they’re not
06:00
billing
06:01
the main course stuff what i recommend
06:03
is having going into a
06:04
software crm similar like service
06:07
autopilot we can go into your client
06:08
screen and click on all the houses
06:09
around
06:10
your current client and create a
06:11
marketing database this is what we did
06:13
um to actually go out and dominate a lot
06:15
of the neighborhoods and we’d actually
06:16
have them go in and measure the online
06:18
properties and create
06:19
property specific pricing for the
06:21
services that we can measure online
06:23
and then when it became marketing time
06:24
we had a database that was qualified
06:26
with pricing that we went out so
06:28
there are some things that this
06:29
individual can be doing to drive bottom
06:31
line profits down the line
06:33
but if you leave it up to their own
06:34
devices and there’s nothing else to do
06:35
and you haven’t told them what to do
06:37
that’s where it’s going to get
06:38
interesting because they are going to be
06:39
hopping on the websites you don’t want
06:40
them to do
06:41
they’re going to get disengaged and
06:42
they’re going to get lazy so bring the
06:44
right individual in
06:45
tie them into your goals for your
06:47
business from day one
06:48
create ownership for those and give them
06:51
the roadmap for success
06:54
outside of their core responsibilities
06:55
if there’s nothing else to do so
06:57
hopefully that helps
06:58
but i don’t recommend being big brother
07:01
uh kind of getting creepy
07:02
and watching your employees through a
07:04
ring or a computer
07:05
to make sure they’re clocking in and
07:07
clocking out uh if you’ve hired the
07:08
right individual
07:09
that should not be an issue and if you
07:11
have those issues coming up if you can’t
07:13
coach them up you need to coach them out
07:14
so slow to hire quick to fire even the
07:16
hard labor times that we’re in right now
07:18
hopefully that helps um and that
07:22
google suite or business for uh google
07:24
business
07:25
is the way to go because that’s going to
07:26
give you the control and now you’ve got
07:27
a central place for all your documents
07:29
and as you add and subtract people from
07:31
your team those documents and
07:32
emails can all be forwarded and shared
07:34
and unshared very quickly
07:36
so um hopefully that helps but yeah
07:38
don’t
07:39
don’t restrict the person down and limit
07:41
their ability to help you
07:43
by restricting their computer down um
07:46
and basically watching via the
07:48
camera because as the business owner
07:49
your goal is to be the visionary and the
07:51
strategic the strategy person
07:53
uh if you’re wasting your time trying to
07:55
babysit a admin
07:56
remotely you’re in trouble the other
07:58
thing too is when you bring this new
08:00
admin in you need to be able to train
08:01
them you need to spend two to three
08:02
weeks with them
08:03
what we’ve built is an automated video
08:05
training series of 36 videos and six
08:07
modules with testing
08:08
that went from lead acquisition through
08:10
estimate scheduling billing fulfillment
08:12
everything from front to back and we
08:14
supplement that with the virtual or
08:16
in-person knee to knee but don’t expect
08:18
you can just throw somebody in an office
08:19
if they’ve had administrative
08:21
experience not using the software that
08:23
you use or the process of systems that
08:25
you have in your business
08:26
and think they’re going to be successful
08:27
you will be setting them up for failure
08:29
and i’ve done this in the early years
08:30
and learned my lesson so if you’re
08:32
bringing a new admin you or the manager
08:34
need to go in and spend the time
08:35
to make them successful and dial in
08:37
what’s
08:38
accepted and not acceptable and have
08:41
them report out daily
08:43
uh each day what they do for their
08:44
strategic objectives the big three and
08:46
then every monday
08:47
they’re going to give you a week in
08:48
review so you’ll know what’s getting
08:50
done and not getting done
08:51
based on those big three don’t make it
08:53
more than three because it will not be
08:55
trackable and it’ll be too much work
08:56
we’ve tried that before
08:57
three is the magic number so comments
08:59
questions leave them below uh we’ll see
09:01
you again tomorrow on callahan’s corner
09:02
we ask questions we have some live right
09:04
here on facebook

00:00
You’re listening to the Simple Growth Podcast, the show that
00:03
helps business owners get their life back. Here’s your host,
00:07
Mike Callahan. Welcome back to the SA Weekly Talk Show. your
00:11
host Mike Callahan here once again, bringing you knowledge
00:16
from service industry professionals like myself for
00:18
service industry professionals. So, here at the SA Weekly Talk
00:22
Show, I’m going to lift the hood of creating training
00:25
systems for big profits and Predictable Profits. So, it’s
00:29
not only enough to create those bottom line profits. We
00:32
actually want to have Predictable Profits through
00:35
Predictable Sop standard operating procedures. So, how
00:38
do we go out and train our field staff and our office
00:42
staff for proper operating procedures that go are going to
00:46
net result into BIG Profits. So, I’m going to dive in and
00:49
show you what we’ve done in my company specifically inside
00:53
service autopilot and one other platform that is a learning hub
00:56
that we built to do online video training. In addition, as
01:00
a added bonus for anybody in the lawn care industry, I’m
01:03
going to go over a way that you can break that potentially how
01:06
you go in and set up your crew. So, how many people here
01:10
watching if you put a comment in the live or public area is
01:13
when your mowing crew goes out or your fertilization crew or
01:16
pretty much any crew for that matter? I’m going to give you a
01:18
lawn mowing example but do we have a particular place they
01:21
park is a reason why they park in a certain spot and what is
01:24
the procedure for the weed wacking, the stick edging, the
01:27
blowing, and the mowing. where does it start? Where does it
01:29
stop and how do we start eliminating five or 6 minutes a
01:32
job or an hour and start to drive bottom line profits. so
01:37
it’s not enough to set up pricing with budgeted time but
01:40
we also need to have a process and procedure inside the office
01:43
as well as well inside the field to train the process and
01:48
continue the process because the budgeted time and the
01:51
prices are only as good as the teams in the field actually
01:55
follows through a process and procedure to hit those budgeted
01:57
time with a quality constraints. So, we’re going to
01:59
dive in, lift the hood and show you how this all can be done
02:03
inside your service business. So, comment or questions in
02:06
live or recorded version. put them in there. I’ll be watching
02:09
this for the next Twenty-four to 48 hours as we always do but
02:12
SA Weekly Talk Show bringing your knowledge from seven
02:15
figure business experts like myself. So, here we go and
02:19
without any further delay, we are going to pop open and take
02:22
a look at this. So, first thing that we are going to be looking
02:25
at is inside a service autopilot form. What we’ve done
02:29
is created workflow Training. So, this is actually a service
02:34
autopilot form. So, we’ve got Thirty-six videos and six
02:38
modules in SA we were unable to actually have testing in here.
02:42
So, we are going to show you another option that we did to
02:45
evolve into even a higher level training. Then, we’re also
02:48
going to show you how we utilize these service autopilot
02:50
forms not only for training in the office but actually going
02:54
into the field. So, this is literally right out of
02:57
Callahan’s Lawn Care where I made training videos for every
03:01
piece of equipment in every service we did. So, now, all
03:04
the training, everything was not in my head. It was now in
03:07
the software and we could run our new applicants through
03:10
mobile app or in the computer through the training for the
03:14
software. So, this is all natively built functionality
03:18
wise, inside service autopilot. No extra cost. You can build
03:21
these yourself but basically, what we’ve got is we’ve got a
03:24
lawn mowing video and then my other one was literally how to
03:27
use a line trimmer. So, we went through the process and
03:30
workflow that I’m going to be going in when we dial into this
03:33
map of our test client here of where do we park the truck? How
03:38
do you determine where you park the truck? where does the weed
03:40
wacking start and end? What’s the workflow where does the
03:42
mower start and end and and where does the blowing start
03:45
and end? So, I’m going to go in and show you how we can
03:47
actually create a video to teach this and I’m going to
03:51
give you a high-level overview of kind of what was in that
03:53
video and how we actually did it inside my company. So,
03:57
without any further delay, we’re going to kind of dive
04:00
into some different options that you can do inside your
04:03
service business, utilizing some of the tools inside
04:05
service autopilot. So, the first thing that we went into
04:08
here is under the forms here. We tackled the office Training
04:14
first. So, that was the biggest pain point when we had new
04:16
admin as we continue to grow or if you’re using a virtual
04:19
assistant, this is a great way to create concise training
04:22
videos for your virtual assistant so you don’t have to
04:24
be on the hook every time you have a new assistant come
04:27
online or new office admin but the idea is they would fill it
04:30
out. First name, last name, Email, This is automated. so we
04:33
get, we need Email or text message that they need to fill
04:35
out module one and watch it and literally inside the form, they
04:39
could click the video and literally go in. So, we’re
04:44
going in through lead acquisition via the website or
04:47
office. We understand what’s going on. The next one is lead
04:50
source tracking. We’ve got referral tracking. So, how did
04:53
they hear about us? client acquisition commercial versus
04:56
residential property levels and billing details and the sixth
04:59
and final video in this installment here is the gear
05:02
icon. what’s under it and how does it work? You’ll notice
05:05
these videos through multiple trial and error in this process
05:09
are between one and 3 minutes. Ideally, all The first video is
05:12
about 30 minutes and it goes high level overview. So, what
05:15
we’ve done here is built six modules with six videos each
05:19
inside service autopilot that we will run our new
05:22
administrative staff through for consistent training. So, at
05:25
that point, we went to the next level and I’m going to jump
05:28
into the Simple Growth Learning Hub as a certified advisor of
05:32
service autopilot. So, we’ve done is taken that content we
05:34
made there and now updated it and put it into this learning
05:38
hub that we built. Now, this learning hub is mirroring
05:41
exactly We’ve built inside service autopilot. So, if
05:44
you’re building this yourself, I think the best place to start
05:46
is probably right inside service autopilot in the forms
05:49
and this is exactly how we did it for many years in my
05:52
business. Utilizing these forms at no extra cost inside service
05:55
autopilot but we’re taking that knowledge silo in your head and
05:59
disseminating across the organizations. Now, every time
06:01
we have a new administrative staff join the business owner
06:05
is not on the hook to train them for the next two to 3
06:07
weeks, we we send them to the video training automated
06:10
through the process inside service autopilot and then we
06:15
follow up with live one to one or virtual training now with
06:18
COVID. So, what we’ve done is taken this and now to give you
06:21
a peek under the hood. we’ve gone in and created a overview
06:24
video probably with complete crazy COVID hair locked in my
06:29
basement last year. we have an overview video. We show them
06:32
how to actually use the course. So, if you’re building this
06:35
out, this is probably best practice and we have the
06:38
overview of the service autopilot workflow. So, what is
06:42
it look like? So, if you were like me, when I first bought
06:45
the platform, I ran to billing and scheduling because I need
06:48
to get paid and I needed to get the work done. Unfortunately,
06:52
when you do that, you are going in and missing all the
06:57
foundational pieces. So, in the first 30 Minute video training
07:01
here in the overview area just like it was in the service
07:05
autopilot forms here. we are going in and giving them a
07:11
high-level overview of the system from lead acquisition
07:14
through billing, scheduling fulfillment in the correct
07:17
order and then once we have that order, we’re going to dive
07:20
into the overview and dial in to the specific pieces how they
07:24
build on top of each other. So, we’re going to build a
07:26
foundational understanding of the software and this is how
07:28
we’re getting people off the street within seven to 10 days
07:31
of never seeing the software and up and running almost 100%
07:35
efficiently. So, you could do this too in your business and
07:37
I’m going to show you this is how we did it in mind but
07:40
basically, we went in to lead source tracking referral
07:43
tracking commercial versus residential. So, same exact
07:45
thing we built in SA. We went a little bit deeper here but the
07:50
video plays live here and like I said, they’re anywhere from
07:52
three to a minute 3 minutes to a minute long. Same exact thing
07:56
we built out right inside service autopilot. This is the
07:59
ideal first step and if you take it to the next level, the
08:02
reason why we took it to the next level is we weren’t able
08:04
to automate the testing inside SA. So, we went in and use the
08:09
quizzes feature here and we had six questions that have to get
08:15
100% right to you get to the next level. So, do you need to
08:17
select a cellphone carrier if you are using two-way texting
08:20
and automations which is false. It is a legacy feature. So the
08:26
idea is we run them through some knowledge and if they get
08:28
the question wrong, we did the same. Exact thing here inside
08:31
service autopilot far as actually take that back. We do
08:35
have the skill review testing. So, this is a new updated
08:37
version. So, we did build the actual testing inside SA as
08:42
well and if members series, we built it over in the learning
08:47
hub to have more analytics of tracking but basically, you can
08:50
do this testing inside Esa as well and if you don’t get 100%
08:53
based on the logic and the automation, you can drive them
08:57
back to the beginning and when they get it wrong, we actually
08:59
provide supplemental information of this is what you
09:02
answered but this is why you should answer this. So, the
09:04
idea is we’re not going to force them to keep going back
09:06
and guessing we are going to go in and give them the data and
09:09
knowledge of they should have retained the first time around
09:11
from the videos to understand it. So, we’re going to give
09:13
them a foundational on flow of this. So, right inside service
09:17
autopilot in the Vt two. you can do it in V three now forms.
09:21
We’ve created six videos in each of six modules complete
09:25
with testing on each video. So, this is what I would recommend
09:29
Office Training. First, we want to standardize that operating
09:31
procedure how we enter leads in how we collect client lead
09:34
sources. How do we estimate how do we follow up all the way
09:37
through building a fulfillment and running credit cards. We’re
09:39
going to standardize that process with an online
09:42
automated video training series. So, with the simple
09:45
growth level three automations, we include all of this right in
09:48
here but by all means, jump right in and this will
09:54
definitely help you along your way but we’ve invested the time
09:58
to do it. These are most of the videos from my my company that
10:02
ended up selling Harold wants to Know. Will there be a replay
10:05
recording of this? If so, where are we post? It’s going to be
10:07
on the Service Autopilot Facebook page as well as the
10:10
Simple Growth page on Harold. If you’re looking for it, I can
10:13
tag you and put it in the SA Facebook group as well but good
10:17
to see you brother on on the I say Weekly Talk Show. So, first
10:20
thing is we’re building out our office video training in Essa
10:23
forms complete with training and this is what we do in our
10:27
sales level. Three automations by simple growth as a certified
10:30
adviser. Now, next step is once we automated that in my
10:34
business, we realized it works so good for the office. Why not
10:37
take this out and automate it in the field? So, what we did
10:40
is did the same exact thing with testing. Now, this is just
10:44
a kind of example but you can see where the questions would
10:47
start to go in here again but literally, if you look at this
10:51
here, we go in and the the video is going to show you the
10:58
video target. So, what what parts of the equipment, how
11:01
properties equipment techniques and what is your Pp, your
11:06
personal protective equipment. So, these are the things that
11:08
we are going to require per our handbook in here. So, we’re
11:11
going to go in and review that and then we actually demo all
11:15
the dead man switches, all the different things that are in
11:17
there and as you go in, I actually eventually jump on
11:22
this mower. So, we’re actually going in and then eventually
11:27
Training the skill set how to actually go out and do the
11:31
mowing. You’ll notice we’re going in. we’re doing three
11:34
point turns. We’re not turning the grass up and we’re turning
11:36
away from the landscape beds. We’re teaching them all the
11:38
different ways and things they need to know to be able to use
11:41
this mower. So, this is the methodology that I would
11:46
recommend. Now, if you’re wondering, Mike, how did you go
11:49
out and do this? Believe it or not, first of all, I recommend,
11:52
don’t do this. Don’t do this at your own home by somewhere else
11:57
to do it because your neighbors will think you’re crazy but a
11:59
customers will let you do this at their house but what you
12:01
really need is a smartphone, a wireless mic that ties in your
12:04
smartphone and a quick thirty or $40 tripod from Amazon. You
12:07
don’t need anything special and you can record it. Believe it
12:10
or not, that wireless mic if the audio is on works great.
12:13
What we’re doing is we’re going in for every service and every
12:15
piece of equipment. we’re building these over, you know,
12:18
a three to 4 month period. It doesn’t all happen to happen
12:21
but literally, I blocked out 2 days and made most of the
12:23
videos in my company. Here’s a lawn mowing example and we have
12:27
the line trimming example as well. So, proper use of weed
12:32
wacker and training system and I’m going to talk about here a
12:35
little bit later in the video. Once I go through this
12:37
methodology, how do we go in and park and set up for success
12:42
but I’m literally going over the protective equipment and
12:45
the things that are needed going to show in the proper
12:48
technique how to hold the line trimmer especially up north. We
12:51
don’t stick edge. We still want to hit those hard surfaces at a
12:54
ninety-degree angle and anybody here that uses a weed whacker
12:58
with line trimmer probably relate to this new employees if
13:01
they don’t have any experience will struggle, how to actually
13:05
re set up the line trimmer spool as well as the spring and
13:11
some of the attachments. So, I went through in the video and
13:14
actually demoed how to actually not only trim but how to
13:18
actually get the line in the trimmer spool and get it in
13:23
there for success. That’s always a big big problem when
13:26
you’re bringing new somebody on that doesn’t have experience
13:28
and if you look at it here, I got that little wireless mic in
13:32
there and now we’re going in and I’m modeling it and then
13:36
I’m moving it. as I pause the video, I’m moving the tripod
13:40
around. So, I actually go, I believe in this video all the
13:43
way around the whole entire property and you can actually
13:48
see it here. This is one of the older Callahan trucks here.
13:51
Probably took a little snowplow beating but this is the video
13:54
that I literally made from my actual company here, Callahan’s
13:58
Lawn Care and I had one of the backup trailers and some backup
14:01
equipment there. So, the other things are in the field during
14:04
the day obviously. so this can be done. It doesn’t take a lot
14:07
of time but it will return
14:11
you know, the the value ten X Harold says his signal is
14:18
choppy. Can I get access through Si from simple
14:22
Growth.com? Yeah, Harold hit us up. We can definitely hit you
14:25
up. This is more about content and how to build yourself but
14:27
if you need some help as a certified adviser, we can
14:30
definitely help you as well but the idea is we’re going in.
14:32
We’re going to build these out. I recommend getting a pad of
14:35
paper. Write down all the services and the things you
14:36
need to talk about. doing it on the fly is probably not the
14:40
best bet but just some great examples here of how we can we
14:44
can do this. We’re talking about around the trimming
14:47
around this this pole here. I actually sculpt it down and
14:51
looked at it and said, okay, this is what you should do and
14:53
this is what you shouldn’t do. So, this was some of the
14:56
training that I learned when we had a staff H two B workers
14:59
from Guatemala, Mexico, My my my my Spanish was no bueno. So
15:04
it was helpful for me to be able to visually show the guys
15:07
that this is what you should do and this is what you shouldn’t
15:11
do and that no matter the language barrier or H two B or
15:15
normal worker like that resonated with everybody. So it
15:18
was I modeling what you should do but also modeling what you
15:21
shouldn’t do and saying this is what not to do as well. So,
15:24
some tips on those videos as well how you want to do this
15:27
but you know, not not getting on here just making this up.
15:30
I’ve got the Callahan’s Lawn Care shirt right on here and
15:33
this is this is what we did. This is how we built a turnkey
15:36
training system, took the videos and then drove them into
15:39
those service autopilot forms the office as well with
15:43
training and then with simple growth. we wanted some more
15:45
analytics of who had been through and be able to do
15:48
online certificates and kind of reward people. So, that’s why
15:51
we built an additional mirroring package right here in
15:55
the Simple Growth Learning Hub but by all means, I mean, this
15:58
is, this is it and this video is probably five or 6 years
16:02
old. So, this is not something new that you just knew in Esa.
16:05
you can do this and have been able to do this. Most people
16:07
just are unaware of it. So, based on that, I would start
16:12
with the office or the field either way but we want to go in
16:16
and just like we did in the beginning of the video video
16:19
targets so learning objectives and then If there’s any PPE, or
16:23
personal protective equipment, we probably want to have that
16:25
scroll down in there. So, we’re reinforcing what’s in your
16:29
handbook. So, as an added bonus, something that a lot of
16:32
people find helpful when we get into something that we call a
16:38
deep dive where people used to fly to New York but now, we
16:41
virtually do them where we basically sit virtually, meet a
16:44
need for 2 days and we help you build out a production rate
16:47
based estimating system. A lot of times like 20% of those
16:51
calls or those interactions in those service autopilot, deep
16:54
dives by simple growth is that We set up the estimate process
17:00
but the employees per se or even the business owner are not
17:04
setting a standardized operating procedure to create
17:07
Predictable results to follow through on the estimating
17:09
process. So, it’s not enough just to create an estimate
17:11
process of budget time but you need to have a process that
17:13
creates predictable outcomes to hit those budgeted times or
17:16
meet them with a quality constraints. So, what I’m going
17:19
to do here is kind of dive into this but if you’re looking at
17:23
this house here and you were to pull up, let’s say you’re not
17:26
stick edging just to take, there’s a way to approach this
17:28
but let’s just say no stick edging involved. So, this is a
17:30
very basic example. If you’re pulling up to this house here,
17:35
would you be parking where these two cars are here or here
17:39
Now, don’t worry about the neighbors parking in front of
17:42
their house or anything like that but how would you train
17:46
your crew per se where to park each and every time. So, if
17:51
you’re watching live, feel free to put your your comments or
17:54
questions in there but the way we approached it and this may
17:58
not be for everybody is what we did is if you’re looking at it,
18:01
I’m standing up here and I had this this, you know, maybe the
18:05
the this was my weed whack handle here. So, if it’s going
18:08
to the left or if it’s going to the right, how do we, how do we
18:15
account for that? So, to the right or to the left and when
18:18
we’re looking at that, that is the key. so is traditionally
18:22
there’s only one person on the crew holding the weed whacker
18:25
at least in our scenario. Traditionally, the crew leader
18:27
Ra the mower and the technician ran the weed whacker. Now, you
18:32
may switch back and forth and that’s fine. No worries but
18:35
what we’re looking is how do we standardize the work flow and
18:39
optimize it based on the weed whacker holding it left or
18:43
right. So, whatever time where the head is handed, the head of
18:47
the weed whacker is pointing. So, if you’re holding it this
18:49
way, the weed whacker heads to the left. if you’re holding it
18:52
this way, it’s to the right. So, let’s just say we’re going
18:55
to the left where the weed wacker is holding it and the
18:58
heads to the left as you’re as you’re looking at this. So, how
19:01
do you go out and use that information to standardize
19:04
where you park each and every time for the job? Well, this is
19:07
how I recommend doing it. So, I’m not going to park out front
19:10
but I’m going to park right here. I’m going to park to the
19:13
left hand side. So, if the weed whacker heads to left, we park
19:16
on the left of the property. If it’s on the right, we park on
19:18
the right of the property. So, we’re going to play on this
19:21
one. It’s to the left. We’re going to go and park right
19:24
here. Reason being is and we’re going to tackle the weed wacker
19:27
and blowing first and then we’ll tackle the mowing and
19:29
they are going to correspond for streamline process and this
19:32
is how we shave five to 10% off every time to build bottom line
19:36
profits with Predictable quality control. So, we’re
19:39
going to park right here and now, what’s going to happen is
19:42
the weed wacker is going to get off and literally flip that
19:46
weed wacker just like we showed in the video here.
19:51
And we went through and showed him that we would flip it on a
19:55
90° angle. Okay? so that’s going to be basically the
19:58
equivalent of a stick edge and when we do that, we’re going to
20:01
go ninety here. So, across up the driveway down the sidewalk
20:05
across the sidewalk down the other side of the sidewalk and
20:08
up the driveway. Now, we’re going to flip that head and go
20:12
all the way around the house and the beds flip it back on a
20:17
ninety down the driveway down the sidewalk, cross it up down
20:22
the sidewalk down here and all the way across. Now, what we’ve
20:25
done is covered all of our basically 90° angling and we’ve
20:30
gone all the way around the house. So, Carlos and my team
20:33
would say you can’t break break the snake or you can’t break
20:36
the hose. Whatever it is, it’s streamlined. You can’t bounce
20:38
all over the place. So, even if there’s a tree right here in
20:41
the middle, we’re not going to grab it especially in the
20:43
beginning of training. So, we’ve systematized it Now,
20:47
we’re we’ve ended here so we come up and around up and
20:51
around the house, down the sidewalk, down the sidewalk
20:55
down and back. Now, at this point, we are going to go in,
20:58
grab anything in the middle up and around this fence line. If
21:02
there’s a play set or something back down, I’m going to grab
21:04
that pole and then boom, I’m back at the truck. So, what
21:08
I’ve done is I’ve eliminated any waste and potentially
21:12
somebody jumping back and forth traditionally if there was a
21:15
shed in the back corner of the yard or a play set or
21:17
something. those are the things that are going to be missed but
21:19
we’ve created a predictable system. So the guy now on the
21:22
mower pet The crew leader overall responsible for the
21:26
quality is while he’s on the mower, he’s going to be able to
21:29
see where they potentially maybe missing some of these
21:32
spots. Okay, now, we’re back at this fictitious truck. We’re
21:35
going to grab the blower and we’re going to go back and blow
21:39
just like this here. We’re probably going to blow off the
21:42
whole driveway, pushing everything this way. Then,
21:44
we’re going to go back up and around the house sidewalk. Oh,
21:51
I’m sorry. So, yes here and then we’re going to walk up and
21:54
around and grab anything else like a place or anything like
21:58
that. Any clumps, Boom and we’re back at the truck. so
22:02
we’ve done a streamline that as well. Now, if it’s a larger
22:05
home and you got two 60s, maybe that guy’s jumping on a mower
22:08
but traditionally, most of your poster size stamps you up to
22:11
about eight to 1012 thousand square feet bumper. you got one
22:14
mower and one weed whacker traditionally. So by the time
22:17
the guy’s done blowing, that mower is probably coming on.
22:20
He’s picking the trailer gate up or the back of the truck and
22:22
dropping it on. Now, the cool thing is even if he gets done
22:27
blowing a little bit before the guy mowing. the guy mowing is
22:30
going to be turning away from the part of the house and
22:35
blowing the clippings in. So there shouldn’t be any
22:37
clippings on the side side of the house or the beds if the
22:40
mower is doing his job. So, getting into the mowing, how do
22:43
we standardize that for Predictable results? So, the
22:46
way we did it is we went in and if the guy weed whacking was
22:50
starting here and he’s going around up and around here We
22:56
don’t want him both starting out here. So, the mower would
22:58
traditionally come over here. He’s going to hit the bottom,
23:01
the top, and the side of the house and he’s also going to be
23:04
hitting the side of the house here. So the sides and the
23:07
front of the house are mowed first and then we go to the
23:11
back and we’re going to be going in and going in and
23:16
turning this way here and we’re pointing the grass out So he’s
23:20
ending here and coming back down and as he’s coming back
23:23
down, the guy blowing his purchase traditionally going to
23:25
be ending just about the same time and he can blow off any
23:28
grass that got on here from maybe wet tires in the spring.
23:31
So, the idea is we’re setting a standardized operating
23:33
procedure for the weed wacker to streamline so things aren’t
23:36
missed and we’re hitting the front and sides of the house
23:39
first with the mower because we’re assuming the guy weed
23:42
wacking is going to get done first and now all the Des on
23:46
the driveway, sidewalks and gutters are is already taken
23:48
care of like that’s there and we can blow it off. We’re not
23:51
going to have to do double the work. So, creating a
23:53
standardized operating procedure that we can train to
23:56
and our production rate based estimating system is going to
23:58
be consistent enough to feel that bottom line savings effect
24:02
but if you’re looking, if you’re if you’re wasting five
24:05
to 7 minutes an hour with a two-man crew, that’s a huge
24:10
huge thing. So, if you’re looking at it, let me just pull
24:14
up a calculator real quick. So, let’s just say we’re losing 6
24:17
minutes. So, six divided by sixty is .1 Times two guys on
24:23
the crew and we work 8 hour a day. So it’s 1.6 hours a day
24:30
times 5 days a week. That’s 8 hours a week that we’re losing
24:33
an inefficiency just by saving 6 minutes a day and
24:36
inefficiency and just this process right here will
24:39
eliminate five to 6 minutes an hour easy. It’s actually
24:42
eliminated more in my business and then if we multiply that by
24:46
let’s just say a 32 week season. that’s 256 hours of
24:51
saved inefficiency just by saving those five or 6 minutes
24:54
a day. So, let’s just say we’re breaking even at Thirty-six
24:56
bucks an hour. That’s $9216 of bottom line profit by just
25:03
standardization this system but it’s not enough to just show
25:06
it. We need to train it through the videos
25:11
and then reinforce it with testing and that was the secret
25:15
to success to standardization. Something just as simple as the
25:20
lawn mowing. Now, there’s other tips and tricks for pruning
25:22
mulching, and other things like that. I’m not going to get into
25:24
today but we literally went through and standardized that
25:27
operating procedure and created a system even when we’re
25:30
mulching around little bushes. If you weren’t blowing it in,
25:33
we weren’t dumping the wheelbarrow and moving it
25:35
around there. We had a process for bulk mulch to get around
25:40
those bushes without making a mess. Now, bagged mulch is a
25:42
little bit different. We use that but the idea is create a
25:45
time in motion study on it, standardize it, create a video,
25:50
create testing, and then have your quality control manager or
25:53
your business owner go through and double check and reinforce
25:56
with some positivity. So, you’re stopping at the job with
25:58
a box full of Gatorades or cooler full of Gatorades, some
26:02
popsicles, whatever that is, make it a positive interaction
26:06
and use it as a retraining and reinforcement tool but the main
26:10
thing is we gotta take what’s in your head and we gotta build
26:13
it into these forms. video training for the field in the
26:18
office with testing comments or questions. leave below SA
26:23
Weekly Talk Show coming back at you with training systems for
26:27
big profits and Predictable Profits through video training
26:32
systems and testing. all built out inside service autopilot
26:37
forms with testing comments. Questions dropped below.
26:40
Appreciate you Harold checking that out and I will repost this
26:42
video little bit later today or the simple growth team will
26:45
actually inside the SA User group as well as through the
26:49
simple growth outlet. So, we’ll see you again. SA Weekly Talk
26:52
show 1 PM Easter, 12 PM Central, Mike Callahan, your
26:55
host helping you create Predictable business systems
26:59
inside your business by seven figure business owners that
27:03
have used service autopilot in their business and have figured
27:06
out the way to streamline your workflow and not just have
27:09
features and functions but create a predictable workflow
27:11
for standardized operating procedures. BIG Bottom Line
27:15
profits and if you’ve been watching Callahan’s Corner or
27:18
work on it Wednesdays where we go in as Michael Gerber says
27:22
and show you how to work on it and not in it. The big theme
27:25
lately is going in organizing, automating, and dominating and
27:30
that’s going to be a reoccurring theme here on the
27:32
SA Weekly Talk Show. As some of the videos I do as well as our
27:35
guests. We’re going to help you organize, automate, and
27:37
dominate your market. We’ll see you again next week. 1 PM
27:40
Eastern 12 PM Central, Mike Callahan with the SA Weekly
27:43
Talk Show. If you like this show, you might want to check
27:47
out our resources at WWW dot start simple Growth.com While
27:52
you’re there, enter to win an estimator. Chatbot Mike
27:56
Callahan is available for private coaching.

00:00
mike callahan back with a quick video i
00:02
had a question submitted as it’s getting
00:04
time
00:04
into the year where people are skipping
00:07
services so some of the areas of the
00:08
country
00:09
uh extreme heat waves slash drought and
00:12
a lot of the lawns are starting to slow
00:13
down and become dormant in some areas so
00:16
question was how do i go out and handle
00:17
skips um
00:19
basically uh sent in by the client so
00:23
what we did in my company is we actually
00:24
created a
00:25
terms of service so it doesn’t
00:26
necessarily have to be a contract but
00:28
what it does is spells out that
00:30
any cancellated or canceled service
00:33
or skipped within 24 hours of the actual
00:36
scheduled day
00:37
was a 50 charge so if the client calls
00:40
and says hey skip the lawn this week
00:42
it’s burned out it’s dry doesn’t need to
00:43
be cut
00:44
we would charge 50 of the cut so if it
00:46
was a 50 cut we would charge the
00:48
customer 25
00:49
now you may ask how did you do that how
00:51
did you get away with that well
00:53
it was simple we didn’t over book our
00:54
schedules and it was up front in the
00:56
estimate so
00:57
basically anytime you skipped your
00:58
service if it was within 24 hours
01:01
prior to the scheduled day it was a 50
01:04
cut that way allowed us not to over book
01:05
our schedules
01:06
do a quality job and keep that spot
01:09
reserved
01:09
in the schedule for the client now if
01:12
they canceled or skipped
01:13
when we showed up to the house or before
01:15
the 24-hour period it was 100
01:17
charge so if we went out and dispatched
01:19
those crews and they’re on their way or
01:21
the guys were counting on those hours
01:22
we needed to be fair to the guys and
01:24
girls on those crews so we would charge
01:26
100
01:27
of the cut even if they skipped it uh in
01:29
the early days we would make judgment
01:31
calls on lawn mowing so if it looked
01:34
burned out we would skip it but the
01:35
problem was
01:36
when we did that sometimes we were all
01:38
the way across town only for one day
01:40
and as we skipped i think we’re doing
01:42
the client a um
01:43
a good basically let’s say they had a
01:46
graduation party here as we’re getting
01:47
into graduation season maybe they didn’t
01:49
care
01:49
if the lawn really didn’t need to be cut
01:51
or not they wanted it really cleaned up
01:52
and manicured for the party
01:53
so we’d have to pay the crew to drive
01:55
all the way across town again for that
01:56
one lawn to get into shape for that
01:58
party and come all the way back so
02:00
what we did is we left the cancellation
02:02
or skip request up to the client
02:05
prior to 24 hours was it 50 charge based
02:08
on
02:09
um what they were paying so 50 cut
02:12
they’d pay us 25 bucks that would cover
02:13
a fixed and variable cost
02:15
and a minimum profit margin since we
02:17
weren’t allocating that extra overhead
02:18
out there
02:19
and we did not make the decision for
02:21
them they had to do it in either writing
02:23
or an email
02:24
uh text was fine in the office with two
02:26
of texting and if they did it prior to
02:28
the mowing uh
02:29
24 hours or less we charged 100 of the
02:31
mowings that 50 mowing would be billed
02:32
out at 50 bucks
02:34
but we did this and we were able to do
02:35
this and be one of the first people in
02:36
our market to really
02:37
do this with any success is we
02:39
communicated and showed the benefit of
02:41
what’s in it for them why paying the 50
02:45
for the mowing was actually a benefit
02:46
and not a negative and that was the fact
02:48
that we didn’t overbook our schedules we
02:49
did quality work and that saved their
02:51
spot
02:52
in the schedule for that season and the
02:54
upcoming season unless they changed
02:55
their minds so that gave them the
02:57
security of
02:58
a professional that wasn’t rushed and
02:59
they had their vip
03:01
reserve spot in the schedule so
03:03
hopefully that helps answer that
03:04
question how to handle skip
03:06
cancellations
03:06
from your client base during the drought
03:08
season and the heavy stress season of
03:10
the lawns that’s coming in right now
03:11
in most of the parts of the u.s and
03:13
canada callahan’s corner you ask the
03:15
questions we have some live right here
03:16
on facebook any comments questions
03:17
please drop below and i’ll be back again
03:18
tomorrow with another pre-submitted
03:20
question

00:00
Welcome back to work on it
00:02
Wednesday. Mike Allen here with
00:03
Dylan Rothenberg of the Simple
00:05
Grow Team. helping you work on
00:07
your business, not in it just
00:08
like Michael Gerber. So, one of
00:09
the things we’re diving into
00:11
today on Workout It Wednesday
00:13
is the key KPI is the key
00:15
performance indicators that you
00:16
should be looking at in your
00:17
business for success now and
00:20
success in the future. So,
00:22
Dylan, thanks for joining me
00:23
again on Wednesday here and a
00:25
lot of people rave reviews
00:26
about workout at Wednesday
00:27
because we are actually
00:28
breaking down what we’ve done
00:29
in both of our seven figure
00:31
businesses and what is
00:32
important to look at what’s
00:34
important to work on and what
00:36
is the end goal and how to
00:38
avoid those hurdles of growth
00:39
all along the way? Well, I’ll
00:42
trying to find employees to
00:43
train employees and do
00:44
everything else in between. So,
00:46
without any further delay, I’m
00:47
going to pop the screen open
00:48
here and we will take a look at
00:52
it here. Yeah, let’s do it.
00:56
Alright, So, I’ll let you leave
00:57
brother and I’m sure I will
00:59
chime in. Probably, we’ll talk
01:00
right over the top as usual.
01:02
So, what happens That sounds
01:04
good. That sounds good. Yeah, I
01:06
know. it’s a hot topic
01:08
especially being midseason with
01:09
a lot of the lawn care guys and
01:11
girls but it’s easy to get
01:13
pretty head down in the
01:14
business and just like be like,
01:15
I think I’m doing good. I hope
01:17
I’m doing good. I got some
01:18
money in the bank. It’s kind of
01:20
nice when someone can come in
01:21
and just tell you the numbers
01:23
that you should be reviewing,
01:24
you know, on a weekly or at
01:26
least a monthly basis and once
01:28
you have the system set up to
01:30
do so, it doesn’t take more
01:33
than a couple of minutes to
01:34
look at this number and you’re
01:34
going to know if you’re off
01:35
base and then it requires some
01:38
further attention or if that
01:39
number looks pretty good and
01:41
and the data source is
01:42
accurate, then really, you
01:44
know, you got a pretty sound
01:45
business Now, I’m I definitely
01:49
love a lot of the sales staff
01:51
stats or I can nerd out on that
01:52
all day but a lot of people
01:57
that we help with especially in
01:57
the the service autopilot
01:59
community. They’re really
02:01
unclear of a lot of their sales
02:02
numbers. So, if you’re having
02:05
any type of sales issues, you
02:07
know, the first thing you gotta
02:08
be looking at is is what
02:10
percentage are you actually
02:11
converting and you know, if
02:13
you’re using a CRM, this is a
02:14
very, very easy number to pull
02:16
but even if you’re using like
02:17
pen and paper, it’s not
02:19
impossible to pull. It’s
02:20
literally the number of quotes
02:21
that you’ve sent out or sorry,
02:24
the number of courses that
02:24
you’ve won divided by the total
02:26
number of quotes that you’ve
02:28
sent out. Alright? So, very,
02:30
very simple calculation and and
02:31
the 50% number kind of gets
02:33
thrown around quite a bit that
02:35
you want to be ideally
02:36
converting 100% of your quotes
02:38
but if you’re converting 100%,
02:40
you know, you’re you’re
02:41
probably priced a little bit
02:42
too low. So, there is kind of a
02:43
fine line between winning too
02:44
many quotes and leaving a
02:47
little bit of profit on the
02:48
table. Interesting. So, what
02:51
you’re talking about is a
02:51
conversion from somebody who
02:52
hits your website, calls your
02:54
office. it’s a bot or something
02:55
like that on social media or
02:56
text us in and then it
02:58
percentage that converts into
03:00
an actual client. Yes, exactly.
03:04
So, if we’re going out across
03:06
multiple marketing sources, why
03:07
this would be important is if
03:08
we’re going out and scaling the
03:09
business. Now, if we have
03:10
historical numbers, it’s really
03:12
becoming a math game. So, if I
03:13
put X amount of flyers here, X
03:16
amount and Facebook X amount
03:17
here on average, these
03:18
percentage to convert across
03:20
each lead source and become a
03:22
client Yeah, 100% and it’s
03:25
funny that you say lead sources
03:27
because that is This is kind of
03:31
the next topic. So, the the
03:32
conversion percentage great on
03:34
a high level, right? You want
03:35
to know what kind of high
03:36
level, okay? we’re we’re
03:37
winning 50% of our quotes that
03:39
that that that’s great to know.
03:40
You can kind of have a little
03:42
bit more of a predictable sales
03:43
flow and and budget knowing
03:45
that you close 50% of all
03:47
estimates that you get and like
03:48
Mike said, you can kind of work
03:49
backwards and say, well, how
03:50
many marketing pieces or how
03:52
much marketing do I need to do
03:54
to you know, if you want to get
03:56
100 new clients this year and
03:58
you’re your closing percentage
03:59
is 50% well then we need to
04:01
generate 200 opportunities,
04:03
right And you know, if you if
04:03
you send a thousand postcards,
04:06
Let’s say and only 10% or or 1%
04:09
of people get back to you.
04:10
Well, these are all just data
04:11
figures that you can kind of
04:13
work backwards and say, well,
04:13
we’re going to to send out
04:14
maybe it’s 25 thousand
04:16
postcards to get enough people
04:18
requesting a quote so that we
04:19
can close 50% of those and
04:21
reach our sales goal but like
04:24
you said, not all marketing
04:26
sources are 100% equal You need
04:30
to be tracking what percentage
04:31
of your leads are actually
04:33
coming from each one of these
04:35
marketing sources and then,
04:37
almost more importantly, what
04:38
percentage of those leads from
04:39
each marketing source are
04:41
actually converting into
04:42
clients because it’s it’s great
04:43
to say, yeah, we got 10
04:45
thousand leads from Facebook
04:46
but if 0% of them actually
04:49
converted into a client you
04:51
know, maybe they’ll convert in
04:51
the future but really we we
04:53
kind of want to live in the
04:54
moment here and get some
04:55
concrete sales today.
04:57
Essentially, all those
04:58
Feel-good likes really don’t
04:59
mean anything at the end of the
05:00
day, it’s all about dollars in
05:01
and dollars out. So the funny
05:03
thing is I haven’t seen this so
05:04
I’m going to let you go I have
05:05
a feeling I know your next
05:06
slider too but I think this is
05:09
really important. So, I think
05:10
lead sources you need to be
05:11
tracking in my opinion, the
05:13
paid sources but also the quote
05:16
unquote non paid sources as far
05:18
as like client referrals and
05:20
people referring as well as
05:23
people seeing your truck or
05:23
your crews out in the field
05:25
because technically, you’ve got
05:26
that truck or car wrapped
05:28
probably or loaded up. There is
05:30
a cost to that but there are
05:32
lead sources that are going to
05:33
come off of those that will
05:34
convert higher or lower based
05:36
on the actual lead source
05:37
itself. So yeah, great work.
05:39
I’m kind of curious to see what
05:39
your next slide is. I’m not
05:40
really prepared today So, yeah,
05:42
I think I know where you’re
05:44
going and I might have missed
05:45
that one but there there’s
05:46
going to be a couple main KPIs
05:47
that I was going to ask you at
05:48
the end of just like, you know,
05:49
what what did you use in
05:51
Callahan’s and and what are you
05:51
kind of thinking in the back of
05:53
your mind? High level at simple
05:54
gross that that we can we can
05:55
definitely chat about too but I
05:57
think before we go over to the
05:59
sales here quick, let’s just
06:00
let’s just pause on lead source
06:03
for a second. I think I know
06:04
where you’re going to go. Maybe
06:05
I was going maybe we’ll wrap on
06:06
it it together. So once we’ve
06:07
got that we’ve got those dollar
06:09
amounts in track per campaign
06:10
how much we’re spending for
06:12
each marketing campaign. each
06:13
flyer and campaign. What is the
06:15
cost per client on average, a
06:19
client acquisition cost. So,
06:21
how much is it costing you to
06:22
get the client? So, you may be
06:24
looking at it like, wow,
06:25
HomeAdvisor is like a really
06:26
cheaply that cost me thirty
06:27
bucks. like, we should just
06:28
triple down on HomeAdvisor but
06:31
the second part of that is that
06:32
client lifetime value. So, is
06:35
it a 225 dollar lead
06:37
acquisition cost? It’s a
06:38
lifetime value is only worth
06:40
250 Bucks where you may have
06:41
150 $150 client acquisition
06:44
cost on a flyer Facebook but
06:45
you’ve got client lifetime
06:49
value. So, you kind of gotta do
06:51
the math back and forth to see
06:52
which one of those you want to
06:53
double down on and you may want
06:55
to spread it across all of them
06:56
and now, I’m not emotionally.
06:57
You may know what the client
06:59
lifetime and revenue that’s
07:00
generating in there. Yeah,
07:03
exactly and another major one
07:04
that II missed out here which
07:06
ties directly into the lifetime
07:08
value is just the overall
07:10
customer churn, Right? A lot of
07:12
people that we’re dealing with,
07:13
you know, my my previous
07:15
company included II know it’s
07:16
yours as well. We’re growing
07:18
really quick and often A lot of
07:21
the focus can just be on
07:22
growing the sales and
07:23
everything like that. Well,
07:24
it’s of no value to you. If you
07:25
grow 100% and then you lose,
07:28
you know, everything that you
07:29
grew by clients churning out
07:32
through the through the back
07:33
door. It’s coming to the top of
07:34
the funnel. There’s new ones
07:35
and the old ones are popping
07:36
out the bottom So we need to
07:37
have that balance to keep an
07:38
eye on that. I couldn’t agree
07:39
more. Exactly. So, just having
07:41
a pulse on those numbers. It
07:42
doesn’t need to be this big
07:44
complex system. You know, if
07:45
you’re using a CRM of course
07:46
that can be tracked but even if
07:47
you’re not just okay if
07:50
cancelled this month. That’s
07:51
not inherently good or bad.
07:53
That might be a 50% decrease
07:55
from last June or you may have
07:58
had no cancels in June. So,
08:00
this is kind of a number that
08:01
you need to keep a pulse on and
08:02
just say like are my overall
08:04
cancellations as a percentage.
08:06
I’m going down or going up and
08:08
just having a really basic
08:09
pulse on that. It’s going to be
08:11
huge, right? These are these
08:13
are numbers that are crucial to
08:14
the success of your business.
08:17
So, the next one here is just
08:21
people can look at the sales
08:22
number and they can say, hey,
08:23
we’re we’re growing quick but
08:24
II. think I really, really
08:26
important. One to be looking at
08:27
is just how are we doing? So,
08:30
let’s just look at May that
08:31
just passed as an example. How
08:33
did we do this? May versus how
08:35
did we do last May? Yes,
08:38
looking at the aggregate of the
08:39
sales numbers is is obviously
08:41
important but you want to be
08:42
comparing apples to apples and
08:45
your sales are going to be
08:46
somewhat cyclical even if you
08:47
have a 12 month out of the year
08:48
business. right? So, you don’t
08:51
just want to have 100 thousand
08:54
per month sales goal. That’s
08:56
probably not going to be 100%
08:58
accurate. There’s going to be
08:59
dips in it where it might be
09:00
150 thousand in sales in May
09:03
but then it might be 50
09:05
thousand in June or whatever
09:07
that looks like you just want
09:08
to have accurate sales numbers
09:10
that you’re forecasting and
09:12
comparing to. Yeah, I love the
09:14
fact that you mentioned
09:15
seasonality because all of us
09:16
even in home cleaning your lawn
09:17
care pest control, there’s
09:18
going to be some seasonality so
09:19
we need to put that in there
09:20
and especially like even around
09:22
holiday seasons that may be
09:23
good or bad depending on the
09:24
service industry you’re in but
09:25
we need to be going in that YOY
09:27
is year over year comparison.
09:30
So, we need to go year after
09:30
year and compare them. So, if
09:31
you’re in QuickBooks, we can do
09:34
a previous year comparison in a
09:37
cure basis. I recommend and
09:38
then we want to go to percent
09:39
change in the dollar change.
09:42
You can actually look what you
09:42
did in 2020. 2021 and really
09:45
get a benchmark. So you’ll
09:46
start to see if you look year
09:48
after year. There are some
09:49
definite trends in most
09:50
markets. Well, pretty much all
09:51
it’s not going to recommend. So
09:52
that that’s that’s good stuff.
09:54
they’re doing. Yeah. Yeah. for
09:57
sure. And if you’re kind of
09:57
like you mentioned, QuickBooks,
09:59
we mentioned, you know, CRM we
10:01
mentioned maybe pen and paper.
10:03
Yes, this might be coming from
10:04
different sources and if you’re
10:05
thinking like I don’t really
10:06
have the time to do this, you
10:07
know, this is something that
10:09
once explained to an admin
10:10
staff or someone else you have
10:12
helping you at your company,
10:13
you know, even a virtual
10:14
assistant. these are numbers
10:15
that they could be pulling and
10:17
compiling for you on a monthly
10:19
basis and you meet with them
10:20
for five or 10 minutes and and
10:21
review those numbers but you
10:23
know that they need to be
10:24
useful numbers of course and
10:25
they need to be numbers that
10:26
make So, when you see them, you
10:30
can make decisions off of them.
10:32
I know Lori from our team
10:33
always says like, yes, I can
10:34
get you this data but what are
10:37
you going to do with it? Is it
10:38
actually going to be something
10:39
that’s useful to you and you
10:40
can actually make a decision
10:41
and and it’s going to change
10:41
the way you’re doing things now
10:43
So, that’s that’s something to
10:45
keep in mind as well. Now, this
10:48
this ties in a little bit to
10:49
the webinar we’re going to be
10:51
doing tomorrow and we’re going
10:52
to be going into the major
10:54
depth with this but daily You
10:56
know, you gotta be finding the
10:58
time to look at your numbers on
11:00
a daily basis. This is
11:02
literally the lifeblood of your
11:03
business. If these jobs are
11:05
profitable or not, if if you’re
11:08
dealing with labor in any way,
11:09
shape, or form, you know,
11:10
that’s going to be the major
11:13
factor here. If these jobs are
11:14
getting done in a timely
11:16
manner. So, basically, the
11:18
daily budgeted time over under
11:21
is just a simple check under
11:22
our report. If you’re using a
11:24
CRM to see the times that I set
11:27
up for budgeted hours. So, if
11:29
if we’re estimating a job, it
11:31
should take about 1 hour. Well,
11:32
in reality, how much time did
11:35
that actually take? So, you
11:36
know, if it took 50 minutes,
11:38
great. You know, we’re we’re
11:39
actually basically, we still
11:41
have time in the budget but if
11:43
all of a sudden that Job took 2
11:44
hours. Well, your job probably
11:47
just cost you money Yeah and I
11:50
think as you’re diving into it,
11:51
Dylan, I don’t know if you can
11:52
apply it a little bit already
11:54
but kind of just specifically
11:56
dialing into it’s not just the
11:57
budgeted time on the specific
11:59
jobs we also want to track the
12:00
non mobilization. So, like
12:03
literally your shop time, your
12:05
drive time. So, like the way we
12:06
did it at my company, really is
12:10
what we did is I got a piece of
12:11
paper. I don’t know if you’ll
12:12
be able to see it but
12:13
basically, when we started at
12:15
Job, A and went to Job B, the
12:19
clock actually started ticking.
12:20
So, you’re going to you go.
12:22
that clock is starting to tick
12:23
a job B. So, if you’ve got a 30
12:27
minute job budget at a job, B,
12:30
you’re going to take your 30
12:31
minute, starts clicking when
12:32
you leave Job A now where it
12:34
gets interesting is if you’ve
12:35
got two people on that crew or
12:36
truck that thirty it now
12:38
becomes 15 minutes and you’ve
12:40
gotta cover that drive time.
12:42
So, what we’re finding most
12:43
service businesses is a
12:44
two-person crew is going to be
12:45
optimal maximum size unless
12:47
you’re one or two properties
12:48
the whole time because if you
12:49
have an 8 hour a day and you’ve
12:51
got just 1 hour of just
12:53
mobilization, that’s a whole
12:54
extra hour time. Say like
12:58
thirty-six bucks an hour break
12:59
even that’s an extra $36 a day
13:02
of expense that’s basically
13:03
being eroded from the profit.
13:05
So, you really need to go in
13:06
and figure out what’s that non
13:08
billable mobilization and work
13:10
with financial expert and build
13:12
that into your hourly rates.
13:13
You’re on average, you’re
13:14
covering that throughout your
13:15
whole business but yeah, the
13:16
daily budget of time over and
13:17
under is huge and that that
13:19
builds transparency with your
13:20
team. So, you got a dry erase
13:22
board or TV in the shop and
13:24
you’re showing them hopefully
13:26
what they’re doing and building
13:27
a friendly competition with
13:29
quality for a week
13:30
accountability Yeah, so you’re
13:32
you’re basically saying
13:33
obviously the more guys on a
13:35
crew, the more windshield time
13:37
you’re going to have and Yeah,
13:39
you definitely gotta be
13:40
tracking that drive time
13:42
because that you know,
13:43
Thirty-six $36 per day. Let’s
13:45
say that you’re wasting
13:47
windshield time actually might
13:47
be fairly low. Oh yeah. It’s
13:49
significantly low. I mean, it’s
13:50
it’s we see 222 and a half
13:52
hours of non no mobilization.
13:54
Usually an average of most
13:55
companies we work with. The
13:56
other interesting thing is
13:57
like, so let’s just say we’re
13:58
doing a mulch installation job
14:00
where we’re going to pick up
14:01
materials at the nursery design
14:03
and build like a lot of
14:03
companies aren’t taking in
14:05
account for the extra two to
14:07
three guys on the truck when
14:08
they’re going to the nursery
14:09
and sitting in line for a half
14:10
hour and then driving from
14:11
their shop to the nursery to
14:13
the job. So, after that first
14:15
or have a preloaded maybe the
14:16
night before when you go to do
14:18
that job, if you need another
14:19
five or six yards of mulch, you
14:20
got a two or three man crew.
14:22
Those other two guys should
14:23
really be spreading and
14:24
cleaning up that job site while
14:25
the one guy goes and picks it
14:27
up and brings it back. So,
14:28
you’re you’re taking two thirds
14:29
of that non billable drive time
14:31
and minimizing it. So those are
14:31
like the silent killers that
14:33
when we’re so busy, we don’t
14:35
track them but then we see
14:37
people come back to us and
14:38
like, you know, September,
14:39
October and like Mike like
14:40
we’re we’re we’re really
14:42
crushing. We’re hitting these
14:42
budgeted times on a daily basis
14:43
on job. What’s going on with
14:47
the financial number? But when
14:49
you dive in to like a service
14:50
autopilot, you have a drive
14:52
time costing a factor, not
14:54
available costing effect based
14:55
on the particular guys with
14:56
labor and labor burden and it
14:58
clearly defines like, yes, you
14:59
are winning on the job.
15:00
Everything else is literally
15:02
destroying your profitability
15:04
so that that’s important to
15:05
track that daily and weekly for
15:06
sure. Yeah II see a lot of
15:09
people doing that too where you
15:10
know, they’re they’re charging
15:11
a delivery fee because they
15:13
gotta go and get the materials
15:13
but the delivery fee definitely
15:16
does not take into account, you
15:17
know, anything going wrong. You
15:19
know, they have they have to
15:20
stop somewhere and get gas.
15:21
whatever that is and it’s
15:22
sometimes like 2020 Bucks. I
15:24
just want to maybe talk on
15:26
twenty bucks for for a delivery
15:27
charge. Well, like you said, if
15:29
if it takes 30 minutes and all
15:31
of a sudden you got three guys
15:32
on that crew 30 minutes there,
15:33
30 minutes back maybe you know,
15:36
fifteen extra minutes of of
15:37
just doing who knows what all
15:39
of a sudden that adds up very
15:40
very quickly. Yeah it’s it’s
15:43
going to be almost three
15:44
additional hours that you
15:45
didn’t put in a job. I think
15:46
so. So if you’re looking three
15:48
yards of mulch installation.
15:49
Well, on average, it takes
15:51
about an hour per yard to
15:52
install it. So, you got a 3
15:53
hour budget. You need to
15:54
account for the other 3 hours
15:55
of screwing around. everything
15:56
else during the day. So, that
15:58
that seems to be the silent
15:59
killer that we see if you don’t
16:01
track it and realize it if you
16:02
realize it in the moment, you
16:04
can make some course
16:05
corrections but if you’re
16:06
looking at this November,
16:07
December, it’s too late like
16:09
you’re done Yeah and and
16:12
volume. obviously, you want
16:14
profitable volume but volume
16:15
does cure lot of things in that
16:18
regard, right? If you had a
16:19
massive dump trailer where you
16:20
can load up a bunch of yards of
16:22
mulch and that drive time
16:24
essentially in effect could be
16:26
spread out between, you know,
16:27
that that load up time and and
16:29
all that can be spread out
16:30
between four or five mulch jobs
16:32
and all of a sudden that that
16:34
fact is way less and then the
16:36
same thing with lawn mowing
16:37
too, right? If you’re driving
16:38
15 minutes to every job, half
16:41
of your day is going to be
16:42
driving versus you you park in
16:43
a neighborhood and you can bang
16:44
out, you know, 2020 job or
16:46
whatever that might be. Yeah.
16:48
And it’s interesting. So, like
16:48
as you’re talking about that,
16:50
just kind of a pro tip. So,
16:51
like getting back to the mulch
16:52
example because a lot of this
16:54
stuff can actually be
16:55
eliminated. So, when you’re
16:56
tracking this daily, it causes
16:58
you to actually look at it in
16:59
creative ways because it’s it’s
17:00
a it’s a pain point that you
17:02
may have a hard time overcoming
17:03
with your pricing in your
17:04
market. So, what we did is we
17:05
went to Lowe’s and Home Depot,
17:07
pitted them against each other
17:08
and in the spring and late
17:10
spring, they always run the
17:11
like Ninety-seven a bag of
17:13
mulch If you buy like six bags.
17:14
So what we did went to the pro
17:16
desk and I went to the pro pro
17:19
desk manager and said, listen,
17:19
we’ll we’ll commit to buying a
17:21
tractor trailer, full worth of
17:22
bagged mulch. They don’t make
17:24
you sign anything. They don’t
17:25
hold you to it but we were able
17:28
to get our bagged premium
17:29
mulch. I think in a dollar 90.7
17:30
a bag and then we went to him
17:33
and said, well, listen, can you
17:34
guys handle the delivery? So,
17:36
we actually dialed it to, I
17:37
believe that a few years ago,
17:39
it was $10 per delivery. It
17:41
didn’t matter if it’s two bags
17:42
or whole tractor trailer but we
17:44
did want an HOA that was 187
17:46
yards. I think 185 yards of
17:48
mulch with bag mulch. They
17:49
staged all the pallets in front
17:51
of all the units. We cut 2 days
17:52
of labor off with a submarine
17:54
man crew and the clean up was
17:55
like nonexistent and and the
17:58
client saw it as a higher
17:59
perceived value because it was
18:00
bagged mulch like was it was it
18:02
probably not but perception was
18:03
was wow we’re getting premium
18:05
mulch for a really good price
18:08
but where I’m going with this
18:09
is now you may not need that
18:10
dump truck or the dump trailer.
18:11
You can have a Ford Ranger, a
18:13
real small Chevy pickup pickup.
18:16
Two-wheel Drive, southern
18:17
model. It has some wheelbarrows
18:19
and blowers and some brakes in
18:20
there and not have to have a
18:22
sixty or $70000 vehicle. So,
18:25
now, you can have four or five
18:26
crews doing the same amount of
18:27
work and have it drop shipped
18:29
and staged the day before so
18:31
that there’s there’s some
18:32
creative ways once we look at
18:33
the daily times when you’re not
18:35
hitting them or you’re hitting
18:36
them like you can say, okay,
18:37
how can we creatively resolve
18:39
the issues because we’re making
18:40
great money on site but the
18:42
overhead of this machine, this
18:44
big dump truck and kind of a
18:46
couple of guys who was killing
18:47
us. So, if you’re not looking
18:48
at it, Don’t start thinking
18:49
outside of the box. how to
18:50
creatively overcome that. So,
18:52
just kind of a pro tip that we
18:53
did and I know quite a few
18:54
companies still doing it. So,
18:56
Lowe’s and Home Depot, you want
18:57
to talk to the pro desk? not
18:59
the Garden Center pro desk from
19:00
what I understand gets paid on
19:02
AA volume, not a profit
19:04
percentage. So, they’re willing
19:05
to take a loss on the product
19:06
just to get their bonuses. So,
19:09
pretty cool. Wow. Yeah, That’s
19:10
like the definition of work
19:13
smarter and not harder. That’s
19:15
and potentially cutting out
19:16
some trailer and truck costs.
19:18
That’s that’s huge. Yeah, it’s
19:20
kind of something cool that I
19:21
actually learned from Garrett
19:22
Matthews. I gotta give credit
19:22
where credits due the Southern
19:23
Boys pretty smart when it comes
19:26
to make it work. Yeah, for
19:29
sure. Next one here, we don’t
19:30
need to spend much time on it
19:31
but yes, you can. You can look
19:34
very granular, Have the daily
19:35
numbers and you you don’t want
19:37
to, you know, dismiss a day
19:38
that’s unprofitable. Obviously,
19:40
you want to look at that a
19:41
little bit further but hey,
19:42
they could just be having an
19:43
off day too. You know, our
19:45
market was huge. Some sometimes
19:47
it would literally be pouring
19:49
rain in one section of it and
19:50
snowing in the winter and and
19:52
other times there be no
19:53
precipitation, right? So, this
19:55
obviously affect the the
19:58
efficiency on some of these
19:59
days. So, it is nice to look at
20:01
things in an aggregate and say,
20:03
how do they actually perform in
20:04
the week, right? If you don’t
20:06
want to necessarily be
20:07
bickering over your guys about
20:09
being a little bit less
20:09
efficient on 1 day if they
20:11
absolutely crushed it on the
20:12
week, right? So so looking at
20:15
things as a whole II think is
20:17
probably actually almost more
20:19
valuable in the long run but
20:21
you do need to have a pulse on
20:22
the daily numbers for sure. I
20:23
love it. Yeah. Yeah. So that
20:26
one obviously pretty self
20:27
explanatory there. We don’t
20:28
need to spend much time here.
20:30
We’ll be hitting more of that
20:31
on the webinar tomorrow night.
20:32
I believe at 8 PM Eastern but
20:33
the the idea is like when you
20:35
look at that weekly thing,
20:36
we’re going to dive into that
20:37
tomorrow night. really lift the
20:38
hood and dial into it but
20:39
you’re going to find you got
20:39
crews that are crushing it for
20:41
you and you got other ones that
20:42
are bleeding you dry and
20:43
they’re just hiding behind the
20:44
scenes. Keep that pulse to 40
20:46
hours. So, we’re going to show
20:47
you on that webinar how to
20:49
really dial in and understand
20:51
that and be able to actually
20:54
use that data and work with
20:56
your teams for a productive but
20:58
efficient conversation to get
21:00
them back on track and we’re
21:01
going to coach them up or well,
21:03
we just might have to coach him
21:04
out. You never know. Yeah,
21:06
yeah. There’s a fine line
21:07
between, you know, obviously
21:09
you want peak performance and
21:11
efficiency but people can get
21:13
pretty pretty. I don’t know
21:16
what the word is but a little
21:17
bit antsy when you’re you’re
21:18
riding them a little bit too
21:19
hard on on just like peak
21:21
performance 24/7 there are
21:22
going to be oh they’ll get
21:23
sloppy. they will get sloppy.
21:25
I’ve seen both ends and we’ll
21:26
talk about that tomorrow night
21:28
too for sure. No for sure. So,
21:30
this isn’t necessarily maybe
21:32
something that’s ingrained in
21:34
the CRM whatever CRM, you might
21:37
be using if your payroll is in
21:39
there, of course, you know, it
21:41
would be but something that
21:43
people don’t necessarily have a
21:44
huge pulse on. Yes, we’re we’re
21:46
calculating the drive time and
21:47
all that but what’s the
21:49
percentage of actual time that
21:51
you’re paying people for or
21:53
sorry that they’re actually
21:54
working like kind of billable
21:56
hours to to some degree versus
21:59
the actual payroll hours that
22:00
you’re paying them basically,
22:02
the end of the week, right?
22:04
Because yes, you know, you
22:04
could be tracking tracking,
22:06
drive, time and service
22:07
autopilot. You could be trying
22:08
to track everything but
22:10
sometimes little things will
22:12
get missed and really what
22:13
you’re actually paying them for
22:14
that that gross payroll amount.
22:16
however many hours are actually
22:17
getting paid for. It is a very
22:19
valuable number that you need
22:20
to be tying back into some of
22:22
the performance data here to
22:24
make sure that it is 20% of our
22:27
week, you know, just kind of
22:29
fudged and and that’s loading
22:30
time and shop time and gas time
22:32
and once have a baseline for
22:35
that. Maybe. maybe 20% is the
22:37
number. Then, you can start
22:38
looking at ways like Mike said
22:40
with the the mulch example but
22:43
maybe it’s something II know
22:44
you’ve spoken about this before
22:46
many times where the guys are
22:49
near one job, they’re going to
22:50
a gas station and all of a
22:52
sudden that that quick little
22:53
fill up or bathroom break is is
22:55
a thirty-minute break that that
22:56
really wasn’t scheduled. So,
22:58
all these little things can be
22:59
looked at once you know how
23:01
much efficiency are we losing
23:03
in a week so things like that
23:06
you can look at for that
23:07
specific scenario would be
23:07
well, maybe if you’re using the
23:08
gas as an excuse. Maybe we
23:11
actually get some fuel tanks on
23:13
site and the second stop of the
23:15
day isn’t the gas station and
23:16
you know, Tim Horton’s and you
23:18
know, 30 minutes of unavailable
23:20
time. I don’t know about them
23:22
tidbits, brother. I want to cut
23:23
up the Timmy stop but you know,
23:24
those can be expensive. We had
23:26
a guy who was costing him about
23:28
$1500 in additional paper
23:30
performance pay, just stop at
23:31
Dunkin’ Donuts each day. So,
23:33
we’ll we’ll dive in a little
23:34
more of the math on that
23:35
tomorrow night but that was
23:36
that was an eye-opener to the
23:38
individual because at that
23:38
point he was getting paid by
23:39
the budget of time not the
23:42
actual time and I wanted to
23:42
make more money and he just
23:43
couldn’t understand why he
23:44
wasn’t hitting his numbers like
23:45
everybody So, we use the GPS in
23:47
the truck to kind of figure out
23:48
what was going on and lo and
23:50
behold, it was at the Dunkin’
23:51
Donuts stop that was crushing
23:52
him. Put him right in the
23:54
traffic. Yes. No, that’s that’s
23:57
huge. So, these are just kind
23:58
of a variety of KPI is that you
24:00
need to be thinking about but
24:01
really what you want to do is
24:03
kind of bundle this to some
24:04
type of document. If it’s all
24:06
in your CRM great. These are
24:07
just going to be reports that
24:08
you’re kind of looking at but
24:10
the more important thing is not
24:11
having the report that you
24:14
know, you can go and access is
24:14
do you actually have a pulse to
24:16
be looking at these numbers? Is
24:18
it weekly, is it monthly Do you
24:20
actually have something blocked
24:20
out in your calendar It says,
24:22
no matter what else is going
24:23
on, I’m going to take 5 minutes
24:25
and look at these numbers and
24:26
make sure that my business is
24:28
on track and this probably
24:30
isn’t the totality of all the
24:31
ratios and and you know, KPIs
24:34
that you need to be looking at
24:35
but this is definitely a good
24:36
start and if there’s any other
24:39
other key ones that people want
24:40
us to dive into a little bit
24:41
deeper, you know, you can put
24:42
it in the in the in the
24:43
comments or any major ones that
24:44
you think we missed but this is
24:46
I think is a great starting
24:48
point and obviously we’re going
24:49
to dive into things quite a bit
24:50
deeper tomorrow Yeah, I know.
24:52
Great, great work on this deal
24:53
and I think that I mean to be
24:54
transparent just for simple
24:55
growth. I was on QuickBooks
24:57
online before a team call at
24:58
eleven and I was running the
25:00
stats mid mid month. How much
25:01
we had to hit for the next 15
25:03
days and I was also looking at
25:06
the budget first so setting up
25:09
a budget and QuickBooks desktop
25:11
or online so maybe that I’m one
25:12
of these working on Wednesdays.
25:13
We can actually go in into one
25:15
of my Quickbooks account and
25:17
actually show you how to build
25:18
out a budget but that’s huge
25:19
because now when we go in
25:21
QuickBooks. We actually have a
25:23
budget. and based on the actual
25:25
numbers that are happening, we
25:26
can run those comparisons and
25:27
there actually is some good,
25:29
great data in there So, that
25:31
that’s a key but I think if you
25:33
are going to go down that road
25:35
with the budgeting and
25:36
Quickbooks, have a have a talk
25:37
with your accountant to make
25:38
sure they’re talking contractor
25:39
accounting, not accountant,
25:41
accounting talk because the way
25:43
they’re going to approach
25:45
certain things and track it is
25:46
going to be for a tax purpose
25:48
and not necessarily how you’re
25:50
going to look at it as a daily
25:51
or weekly or monthly or
25:52
quarterly cadence for profit
25:55
loss. So, those are the major
25:57
things you want to look at
25:58
because your accountant could
25:59
be accelerating the
26:01
depreciation. So, it looks like
26:02
you made more or less than you
26:03
actually did. It could be
26:04
looking at a cash basis when
26:06
you actually got paid not when
26:07
the the actual revenue was one
26:09
and sold. So, those are some
26:11
things we want to look at and
26:12
then probably the last one is
26:15
going in and for I was going
26:20
with this one but basically
26:21
going in and track any of the
26:25
the reoccurring subscriptions
26:27
or like services as far as like
26:28
lawn mower and fertilizing.
26:30
what is the reoccurring remedy
26:32
that goes pretty much forever
26:33
to the cancel and then, what’s
26:35
the one time revenue?
26:36
Obviously, the value of your
26:37
business, the longevity of the
26:39
business is going to be based
26:40
upon the reoccurring than the
26:43
one time and then the third
26:45
stat, there is the expansion of
26:46
the upsell. So going in and
26:48
raising that client value
26:50
systematically through an
26:51
upsell process the way we do in
26:52
the automation. So, Dylan. Any
26:54
clues and thoughts here before
26:55
we wrap it up? I know I gotta
26:56
get on a training call with
26:58
another client here in a few
27:00
minutes but things have been
27:01
rocking and rolling and I think
27:02
it’s important that we take the
27:05
time to work on it and help
27:05
other people work on it on
27:06
Wednesdays here. So, I can’t
27:08
wait til next week and tomorrow
27:09
night, I’m going to get some
27:10
rest. We got a big night ahead
27:11
of us for the KPI webinar and
27:14
job costing that we’re going to
27:16
be doing at 8 PM Eastern. Yeah
27:18
and if anybody is did not
27:21
receive an Email from me
27:21
regarding that and they’d like
27:23
access to the webinar, you can
27:25
definitely reach out to me,
27:26
Dylan DILL, AN at Simple Growth
27:30
Systems.com but otherwise,
27:31
yeah, just just make sure
27:33
you’re spending whether you
27:34
started out at 2 minutes a
27:36
month, whatever that might be
27:37
block or 2 minutes and and put
27:39
together even some of these
27:41
KPIs that we’re talking about
27:42
in a Google sheet and start
27:44
tracking them on a monthly
27:45
basis and that’s that’s really
27:46
where you gotta start and it’ll
27:47
evolve from there. Love it.
27:49
I’ll see you tomorrow night
27:50
work on it Wednesdays we’ll see
27:51
everybody else and it doesn’t
27:53
attend tomorrow night. You’re
27:53
going to miss out if you don’t.
27:55
Next Wednesday, I’m working on
27:56
Wednesdays and we’ll post on
27:57
Facebook about what we’re going
28:00
to be diving into. If you have
28:00
any comments or questions in
28:02
the library, recorded version,
28:03
pop in or a topic you’d like us
28:04
to cover on work it work on it
28:06
Wednesday. It’s a mouthful
28:08
Wednesday brother. Alright, I
28:08
will see you tomorrow night.
28:11
Alright, take care. Alright,