Welcome to our 5 year anniversary episode. We want to thank all of you loyal listeners that have been with us over the last many years. If you decide to listen to episode 1 you will learn about my dad and me and, hopefully, hear how far we have come for our production of the show. I always like to have a special guest on our anniversary episode and this year is no different.
Our guest today is Mike Andes who asked how he can make franchising great for his system. His solution? He decided to take everything most people in his industry hate about franchising and change it. If you are new to franchising or thinking about it, this episode provides you with a unique way to think about how to franchise your business.
TODAY'S WIN-WIN:
Religiously survey your franchisees and act on it to support your franchisees.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- Episode #1: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/tom-dufore-jr-how-to-survive-in-an-ultra-competitive-industry-for-48-years/
- You can visit our guest's website at:
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:
- https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
- Connect with our guest on social:
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeAndes/videos
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themikeandes/
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mikeandes?lang=en
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themikeandes/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeandes/
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Mike is the founder of Augusta Lawn Care, a home service franchise that has scaled to over 150+ locations across the U.S., Canada, and Australia. His mission? To transform the blue-collar business landscape and help small business owners achieve financial freedom and sustainable growth.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.
The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any business decisions. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host, Big Sky Franchise Team, or our affiliates. Additionally, this podcast may feature sponsors or advertisers, but any mention of products or services does not constitute an endorsement. Please do your own research before making any purchasing or business decisions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply your Success podcast,
where each week, we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, tom Dufour, ceoof Big Sky Franchise Team, and
I'd like to welcome you to ourfive-year anniversary episode,
and I wanna thank all of youloyal listeners that have been
(00:22):
with me and with us over thelast many years.
And, if you recall, our veryfirst show was the day after
Father's Day and our firstinterview was with my dad.
Now, if you're new to us, Iinterviewed my dad originally as
a practice interview and Idecided to keep it.
After I realized that I wouldbe launching the podcast right
(00:45):
after Father's Day, I thought,boy, what a great way to do that
.
If you decide to listen back toepisode one, you'll learn about
my dad and me and hopefullyhear how far our show has come
from episode one to today, atepisode 262 for our five-year
anniversary.
Now, as part of our anniversarycelebration, I always like to
(01:05):
interview a very special guest,and this year is no different.
Our guest today is Mike Andes,who asked how he can make
franchising great for his system.
His solution Well, he decidedto take everything most people
hate about franchising andchange it.
So if you're new to franchisingor thinking about franchising
(01:29):
your business, this episode isfor you.
Now.
Mike is the founder of AugustaLawn Care, a home service
franchise that is scaled to over150 locations across the United
States, canada and Australia.
His mission To transform theblue-collar business landscape
and help small business ownersachieve financial freedom and
(01:49):
sustainable growth.
You're gonna love thisinterview, so let's go ahead and
jump right into it.
I'd love for you just to start,maybe talking about your
business and what you do.
What led you to start thinkingof expanding and eventually
franchising?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah.
So when it comes to lawn care,like you mentioned, it's a
relatively simple service.
It's one of the lowest barrierto entry jobs slash businesses
you can get started in.
And so a lot of times peopleare like why in the world do you
franchise a lawn care business?
And so the reason I actuallydid was way back when I started
my lawn care business, I was 11years old.
I mowed grass just so I couldpay my way through college.
I started my lawn care businessI was 11 years old, mowed grass
(02:26):
just so I could pay my waythrough college.
I started college when I wasreally young.
I was 13 years old and I wentto pre-med, thought I was going
to become a doctor, ended updropping out of medical school
and the only thing I knew how todo was mow grass.
So started Augusta Lawn Care.
That was a little over 10 yearsago now, about five years into
(02:50):
it we did prior to that I got ina workplace accident underneath
a dump truck, got sucked upinto the PTO, ended up in the
hospital and in that kind ofmend period a couple of weeks of
not being able to work Irealized my business had no
systems, no procedures.
It was built on me being thereevery single day.
I was literally FaceTiming mycrew from the hospital bed,
showing them the next project.
And so the next couple of weeks, as I was on the mend, just
like, really started to thinkthrough what are the systems and
procedures required to run abusiness that does not rely on
me working 80, 90 hours a week.
And I started just sharing thaton YouTube and made
(03:10):
landscapebusinesscoursecom,which is free, and just started
sharing my story Like here's thesystem I'm changing.
I'm changing how I pay my guys,no longer by an hour, it's by
based upon performance.
Now I make estimate videos so Idon't have to go to the job
site and show the crew a jobonce I've done the estimate All
these systems in the businesswhen I started to realize that
people didn't listen.
They didn't listen because theylooked to me as like a content
creator, a consultant, someonethat makes videos, whatever.
(03:32):
But what I wanted was to changethe level of professionalism in
the landscape industry and Ijust didn't see anyone doing it
and for me it was frustratingbecause I saw what it did for me
and my business.
In two years after institutingpay for performance, I went from
working 80, 90 hours a week inthe business and hardly making
any profit, not being able toafford raises for the crew or
benefits or anything to.
Two years later I took $280,000in distributions from that same
(03:56):
location and went there for twomeetings a week, and so I knew
what it could do for me.
And it was so frustrating thatwhen I share that story with
other people on YouTube andpodcast, no one listened, and so
I figured the only way toactually see the change I wanted
was to be on the same team asthem, have brand equity, that we
were together in this together,and that's why we franchise and
I had already been a franchiseeat Anytime Fitness and seen the
(04:18):
power of systems and having5,000 locations and the power of
the software that they canbuild together, and I would only
do the same thing for the lawncare industry.
And so then there's just amatter of like hey, let's take
everything that people hateabout franchising and just do
the opposite.
So we don't charge a royalty,the initial fee can get refunded
back to the owner as long asthey stay inside the systems for
five years, and then the 3Fprogram is a franchise fee
(04:40):
forgiveness program If you workas a lawn care technician out in
the field for two years you canjoin the franchise for free.
We just try to go through everysingle aspect that I as a
franchisee had trouble with.
And then I interviewed over 50other franchisees from other
home service franchisors beforestarting the franchise and say
what's your pain points?
What do you not like?
And a big one is like theroyalty, because as you get a $2
(05:00):
million business, I'm nowpaying way more on royalties
than I was when I was 100 or200,000 in the revenue.
And yet I know the systems, Iknow the procedures, I know how
this is supposed to operate now,and so just trying to do what
was right by the owner, that'sreally been our focus from day
one.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
That is phenomenal with what you're describing, and
I just want to unpack what yousaid a little bit because
someone who might listen in andsay, wait a minute, you give the
franchise fee back, noroyalties.
How in the world do yougenerate revenue as a franchisor
to support that system?
So how do you manage that asthe franchisor?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Our franchise, the give back program, for example,
where they get the franchise feeback, basically after five
years they can roll that initialfee into another location, or
they can wait till the end oftheir term 10 years and just get
the cash back, like literally acheck back to them, and they
just have to follow threesystems pay for performance,
they have to wrap their truckscorrectly and have to do open
book management with their teamto be able to share the numbers
(05:54):
with their team.
As long as they do those threethings, they'll get the money
back, and so I.
My incentive in this case is tokeep them in business, because
they're going to get, they'repaying a flat monthly fee of
$1,600.
So, like I, just need to keepthem in business, that's my
objective, whereas when, whenthere's a royalty structure in
(06:14):
place, I find that the franchiseor has perverse incentive to
inflate top line revenue.
So encourage people to spendoverspend on marketing,
overspend on salespeople,overspend on salespeople,
overspend on a lot of aspects,because they're just trying to
inflate top line revenue.
They don't care about thebottom line profit.
And so another thing that I wasreally adamant about, too, is
like allowing people to leavethe franchise at any time with
their customers for no penalty.
(06:35):
And no one does that, and Iunderstand why because it's like
it's freaky.
But bottom line is like itforces us, as the franchisor, to
constantly improve the systems,constantly offer more value,
constantly offer more trainingand support and serving the
owners.
And so that is.
It's not easy, it's verydifficult to run a system where
(06:55):
people can leave at any time andtake their business elsewhere,
especially in a low barrierentry market like lawn care.
But it keeps us honest andultimately building a franchise.
I think the number one thingthat keeps this industry really
held back is we build businessesand franchise ores build the
business in a way to sell it toprivate equity or a five, maybe
a 10-year term.
But if you were building thatbusiness over the course of 100
years, if you were actuallyasking yourself, what does this
(07:17):
business look like in 100 years?
You would structure itdifferently.
You'd go slower, you wouldlisten a lot more, you'd think
about the owners a lot more.
You'd think slower, you wouldlisten a lot more.
You'd think about the owners alot more.
You'd think about the brandreputation in 20 or 30 years
from now.
And that's really why I think somany franchisors fail why so
many don't get to 100 locationsand that vast majority of them
will never become profitable,because you usually have to get
over 100 locations to becomeprofitable.
And I really hate the fact thatthe franchisor world gets such
(07:40):
a bad rap.
When world gets such a bad rap,when I think franchising is a
beautiful thing in terms offollowing systems, having
support, having backend, theability to be able to use common
practices and use acrosshundreds of locations and then
just follow the system and avoidall the pitfalls, I love it.
But there are so many badactors when it comes to
franchisors.
There are so many people thatjust think that they can
franchise their system.
They don't support theirfranchisees, they take a royalty
off the top without giving thesupport required to actually be
(08:03):
successful and it gives a badrap to the industry,
unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's completely spot on and it's something that
we even share and talk oftenwith our clients in the capacity
and summarizing this in the waythat we say it Essentially, as
long as you keep asking how areyou helping your franchisees
grow their business, make itmore profitable essentially
helping them accomplish theirgoals how can you help your
franchisees grow their business,make it more profitable
essentially helping themaccomplish their goals, how can
you help your franchisees first,and then the follow up is well,
(08:32):
how does that help me as thefranchisor?
Whereas oftentimes foundersstart with the I want to serve
and help my franchisees, butover time that gets converted
and it starts switching to say,well, how can I, as the
franchisor, start making moremoney?
And when that's first, that'sthe beginning of the end,
because you're going the wrongdirection at that point.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, and I think, honestly, people can say
whatever they want, but if youlook at the franchise disclosure
document, it'll tell youwhether or not they care about
their franchisees.
And so, for me, I want to makesure that if I got hit by a bus
tomorrow, that no one could undothe culture that we wanted to
have and, from the onset, ofputting the owners first.
And so, if you actually careabout your franchisees, you will
put it in legal writing.
You will have a franchiseadvisory council set up.
(09:14):
You will have the ability forpeople to outvote you.
You will have the ability forpeople to leave.
You will have all of thesethings.
You won't be penalizing themfor every little thing.
We don't have a renewal fee.
We don't have a lot of thesethings, because if it's in
documentation, regardless ofwhat happens to me, or I change
my mind tomorrow, or I sell aprivate equity, it can't change.
And so you show me yourfranchise disclosure documents.
I'll tell you the true valueyou put on your franchisee and
(09:35):
whether or not you actually lookto them as a partner instead of
a customer.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Amazing focus that you have there and a commitment
really to your franchisees andwhat they're looking to do.
Well, one of the things youtalked about is this pay for
performance that you have inplace, and that's one of the
three requirements that you havein order for the franchise fee
to be returned at the end of the10 years.
Talk a little bit about whatthat is in an industry and just
in general, where hourly pay,salaries and things are very
(10:06):
common.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, like in a nutshell, if I'm explaining to
someone, p for P is essentiallythe harder you work, the more
money you make.
And all it is is they get apercentage of the labor revenue
they earn for the business.
That's their wages.
And how is that compliant?
Well, we're still making surethey get at least a base pay and
it's going to be above minimumwage.
They're still going to getovertime, but if they're earning
enough for the business,they'll make substantially more
(10:28):
on pay for performance.
And so what this does is alignthe incentives of the owner and
the employee, because right now,if you're paying someone by the
hour, the longer the job takes,the more money they make,
whereas for you, if you're doinga bid on a job, the shorter the
job takes, the more money youmake as an owner.
And so that's why there's thisinherent friction between owner
and employee is because we havedifferent incentives which we
(10:50):
want.
One person wants to go faster,the other one wants to go slower
by having people pee.
You basically say hey, look, aslong as this job gets done to
the customer satisfaction and asquickly as possible, everyone
makes more money.
So now we're all talking thesame language.
Now is it easy.
No, the reason we pay hourly isbecause it's simple and it's
lazy.
You just literally clock in andout At the end of the week, you
multiply that by a certainhourly rate and you give someone
(11:12):
a paycheck.
It's a lot more difficult tosay okay, there's hourly rates,
that we have to calculate howmuch you earn each day.
We have manual deductions Ifyou go too fast.
You create yellow slips orcallbacks If you lose a customer
, if you have a non-revenueproducing tasks like sharpening
the blades or changing the oilthese things all have to be
accounted for.
What happens if you have areally good employee with a
(11:33):
brand new employee that'sgetting trained?
Well, this person is going toslow this one down.
How do we account for that?
So, yeah, there's a lot ofvariables that have to be
figured out.
We've created software just soit could make it work, but
ultimately it comes down to ifyou want your employees to think
like owners, they need twothings they need to be paid like
an owner, that's paid forperformance and the information
of an owner, and that is openbook management.
And so, in our opinion, inorder for us to change the level
(11:55):
of professionalism in thelandscape industry, where the
stereotype is it's a two orthree month stint job, summer
job, it's.
You show up, you're smoking,some guy's smoking, music
blaring not in a uniform, not ina nice truck, like.
If we're going to change thatperception, it starts with the
employee and giving them theinformation and the composition
that owner has.
And if you're complaining, andyou're in the labor industry,
about the fact that you can gettwice as many jobs in a day,
(12:20):
you're way more like an ownerand you're getting compensated.
You have the information of anowner and if you give those
things to your team, there's ahigher likelihood that they will
treat it like their own.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
As you incorporated these models into your own
original operating location andthen with franchisees as they
start incorporating this.
What have you found to be maybesome of the challenges or
common roadblocks that folks seewhen implementing this type of
a pay for performance error?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, you got to have accurate pricing.
You got to have accurate budgethours and the jobs, because if
the crew's getting paid apercentage of that revenue but
you're way inaccurate some jobsare way over, some are way under
they're going to getdiscouraged.
You need full transparency.
A lot of people are like oh,I'm going to do P4P, but then
they won't share the numberswith their team, so their team
doesn't trust them, and so it'simperative that everyone is
(13:07):
above base pay on P4P.
In other words, they'reactually there's motivation to
make more money than whatthey're guaranteed at their base
wage.
That way, when they actuallymake a mistake and there's a
callback, there's money on thetable to take out of.
So, for example, if someonebacks up over a mower and cause
a $200 damage case, well, ifthey have $500 on this week's
paycheck as a bonus on P4P, that$200 is coming out of that $500
(13:29):
.
And so now there's a culture ofaccountability within the team.
They have to go fix their ownmistakes.
I'm not going to run around andfix all their mistakes.
If they made a mistake and theywere going too fast on cause
they're trying to beat the clockand make more money on P4P,
that's fine.
They're going back and fixingthe skin mark from the mower.
They're going back and talkingto the customer, and so it's
just putting accountability backto the frontline team members
and allowing them to win or losebased upon their own
(13:51):
performance.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
When you first started implementing this, as
you talked about the transitionof your own business after the
accident and the injury andrecovery and kind of recognize
what you did you started makingsome of these changes For the
staff that stayed around.
How did you see that impactthem?
Or even with some of yourfranchisees and the staff that
they bring on?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Very quickly you learn who your lowest performers
are.
They're the ones who complain.
Now, all of a sudden, they'rethe ones that all the high
performers don't want to workwith.
So low performers will getsniffed out of the system very
quickly, because most timespeople don't want to be that guy
and rat out all their employees, their fellow or coworkers that
are taking longer lunch breaks,slacking off, stopping at every
(14:33):
gas station.
They don't want to be thatperson.
However, if it affects theirpaycheck, no, they're going to
care.
And so if you're on a crew withsomeone, now all of a sudden
their performance actuallyaffects your paycheck, because
together as a crew, you make acertain amount of revenue and
you get a cut of that together.
And so now, all of a sudden,your lowest performers will not
last.
It really does shed away B andC players, people that are money
(14:55):
motivated.
They love it, they're willingto work harder, longer hours,
they're willing to push throughand they think like an owner,
which usually means when someoneimplements, about 20% of the
workforce is going to leave.
They don't like it.
They don't like being pushed.
They're used to being able tosap the clock and take long
lunch breaks and stop at everygas station and they're not
motivated by money, but whatusually happens?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
we see about 20 to 30% increase in efficiency and
so the rest of the team is ableto pick up their slack.
You basically get the sameamount of work done with just
less employees.
Now, one of the things youtalked about early on is that
you started sharing thisinformation originally through
social media, where you, justbefore you started franchising,
you just wanted to share it andhelp raise the standard of the
industry at large.
Talk about your use andincorporation of social media.
I think a lot of times, ownersand founders, they're scared to
(15:40):
start incorporating or using it.
They don't know where to start.
They don't know like why wouldI even do this?
How's this going to help mybusiness?
Talk about how you used it andmight address some of those
questions.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah.
So to be clear, if you have alocal business, like a lawn care
business, and you have nointention of, you know, making
making impact or franchising orgetting into the content game,
making content on YouTube orsocial media is not going to
help your local business.
It's just not.
The target audience for YouTubeis the entire world.
You might serve 10 or 15,000customers in your local area, so
getting views is not going tobe super beneficial.
(16:12):
It's probably going to be morebeneficial that you do direct
response marketing in your localmarket and spend your time and
attention doing that.
That being said, when I madevideos to start off, I knew that
if I would have had a familyindependence and I would have
gotten that accident, I wouldhave gone bankrupt.
Otherwise, I was in a veryfortunate circumstance to be
able to be living at home, nothave a lot of financial
obligations, and I was able toget through that tough time.
(16:34):
But most people would have gonebankrupt and that's why so many
businesses fail in thisindustry and home services in
general and most businesses ingeneral.
Honestly, small businesses iseverything's hinging on the
owner and I wanted to build abusiness that could run without
me, could have systems in placethat, regardless of their local
or it's on the other side of thecountry the business runs, and
(16:54):
then I really own a business andnot a job.
I, the business runs, and thenI really own a business and not
a job.
I wanted to give that to otherpeople because I knew that there
was plenty of other people that, in my scenario, would have
gone bankrupt.
There would have been a lot ofpain.
I knew what bankruptcy had doneto my family when I was growing
up and the pain that caused, andso I was just sharing videos
like, hey, this is what I'mdoing and this is what I'm
thinking is going to work, andlike here's the results of my
Facebook ads.
And I was just sharinginformation.
(17:14):
It was only after a couple ofyears of that where I'm like
okay, I'm going to have a newfranchise, I'm going to take
this content thing reallyseriously.
Now In 2020 is when I got myfirst full-time editor, and then
since then it's scaled up to.
The team is now like 10 to 12people.
We do tons of content on allplatforms.
Yeah, it's quite the productionnow.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
One thing I was thinking about for your business
in any of the types of tradeshome services, commercial
services oftentimes they'rehighly fragmented, where you
have a lot of independents andmom and pop operators and as you
have expanded your franchise,are you looking primarily for a
startup kind of a traditionalfranchisee that comes in and
(17:57):
maybe has no experience in yourindustry?
Are you working with existinglandscapers or lawn care
companies that might be cominginto your business?
Talk about how you've addressedthat situation.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, it's a pretty good split of, like people just
starting out, never been in theindustry before, seeing this as
an investment opportunity,getting out of there nine to
five, and then the other halfbeing existing businesses in the
lawn care and landscapingindustry that realize that they
need systems in place so theycan run the business without
themselves being there all thetime.
They want multiple locations,they want the support for their
general managers, regionalmanager and having the back end
(18:31):
of their office this is ourcommand center behind me
answering phones, et cetera.
So it's kind of a 50-50 split.
And there's businesses thathave joined that are already
doing over a million dollars inrevenue in the lawn care
industry that want to join andagain it's incentivized actually
heavier for them because theystill pay $1,600 a month.
Doesn't matter if you pay $2million in annual revenue or
(18:52):
$200,000.
You're paying the same amountper month.
So it actually makes more senseeven for people that are larger
to be joining.
So we've kind of seen a 50-50split of both and I think as we
go up market in other words weare increasing like our capital
requirements to join we will seeprobably more and more existing
owners switch over because thenetwork of the brand just gets
stronger.
So step back for a second.
(19:14):
So on the media team, we have alawn care web design and home
service web design.
We build websites for people inthis industry so we can see all
the data there For Augusta LawnCare and this is the advantage
of general joining a franchiseis you have search engine
optimization and you have Googleauthority to your domain.
So when we start a new location,usually within a week or two,
(19:42):
we're on the first page ofGoogle, whereas when we build
sites for our clients that areindependent, it can take three
to six months.
This is the type of advantageof joining a franchise and
having a bunch of locations, etcetera.
I can kind of see thedifference between an
independent versus a franchisein that regard.
So some people are just like,hey, I'd rather just shortcut
the whole six month thing, hopinto the franchise, get leads
much faster.
I don't want to have to buildan office, I don't have to go
find a shop space to rent.
I'll just have command center,do my stuff when I have it, when
I.
If I want a general manager torun the location for me, I don't
(20:03):
want to have to train them, Iwant to send them here.
You guys train them in a week.
You guys do the support on amonthly coaching call.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So it just you know about some of the growth and
franchisees coming on board withthe 50-50 split of someone
that's existing in the space andsomeone that's new in startup,
made me think back to a commentyou said earlier about thinking
100 years from now and settingthe business up and the
franchise up from there.
I guess I'd be curious just toask, as you've been growing
(20:33):
through franchising, where haveyou started?
How many units are you up to?
What's your goal?
Or, as you start thinking andhave been planning for maybe a
hundred years out from now,Right now we're at 170 locations
.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I think we need to get to about a thousand
locations in order to have theimpact we want on the industry.
And then when I say that islike when we start competing in
a market, that's when we seeother competitors start to
change their behavior.
Because if we answer our phone24-7, if we go into a market and
all of a sudden the customerexpects that now all the
competition has to match it orthey have to get better.
Just the same way, like Amazoncame along, they're doing
two-day shipping, free returns.
That wasn't a thing 20, 30years ago, and so people either
(21:09):
adapted to it and now everyoneWalmart, et cetera has to do it
or they died.
And so our way of changing thelevel of professionalism in the
industry is changing theexpectation of the customer so
that our competitors has tochange and adapt the standards
we have.
They have to pay theiremployees based on performance,
because now the employees wantthat, or they're going to go to
Augusta.
You know the customer isdemanding the fact that, hey,
you got to answer your phonebecause, like they're going to
(21:30):
be answering it 24 7 and give meinstant pricing over the phone.
Our goal is just to get to athousand locations.
I think by doing that we'll beable to have enough penetration
in the market to be able to havethe impact we want.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Changing gears a little bit, was this seven
stages of business wealth thatyou talk about?
So I'd love for you to justtalk through that and talk
through those stages.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I think a big part of a franchise is having
frameworks so that when thingshappen in the business
inevitably there's going to bechallenges and hurdles that
you're not left guessing.
You're like, oh man, am Idifferent, am I strange, am I
weird?
I think that's the reason for alot of times people quit is
because they feel like they'renot capable of getting to the
next stage of growth, they'renot capable of getting through
the obstacle.
And so the nice thing about afranchise is you see the same
(22:10):
people using the same systemsevery single time and you start
to see patterns, and so what wetry to do is just create
frameworks around the patternswe see every single time.
So, like I know, from zero to ahundred thousand, these are the
things you're going to befeeling from a hundred thousand
to 200,000.
These are the things you'regoing to be feeling from 200,000
to 500,000.
Here's what the business isgoing to look like, here's the
struggles you're going to haveand here's how you're going to
overcome them.
And so, when we are aresuccessful in their first
(22:45):
location, they want multiplelocations and they got multiple
locations.
They want to keep movingforward.
They might want to invest inreal estate.
They might want to invest inthe stock market.
We want to actually facilitatethem.
Investing in other businesses,other ventures, is investment.
So so, for example, this Julywe have the seven figure club.
If you have over a milliondollars in revenue, you come out
for a retreat.
We do a day long.
And we're talking about thingslike B corps, we're talking
(23:06):
about ESOPs, we're talking abouttax planning, we're talking
about real estate investments,stock portfolio stuff, because
we're trying to just overallincrease the wealth of the owner
.
And so, instead of just lookingat like, oh, we want to have a
successful lawn care business,it's like how do we holistically
think about how do we makethese people rich?
And that is like the frameworkI look through, because if I'm
going to think that way afterfive or 10 years, I need to give
(23:27):
them like what's the next stage?
Like I want to invest in realestate.
Okay, great, how do you do that?
Okay, should I do an Airbnb soI can get accelerated
depreciation?
What does it mean to be a realestate professional so I can get
much better tax?
Can my spouse do that so I'mable to get those same benefits?
These are the type of thingsthat we actually still want to
give the education to the owners, and I would challenge
franchisors to thinkholistically about the wealth of
(23:49):
your owners instead of justlike, oh, my job is to give them
a successful business.
They did not come to youbecause they wanted a great
painting business or they wanteda great sub sandwich business.
They came to you because theywanted to make a lot of money.
They wanted to build wealth fortheir family, and there's
reasons as to why they want thatwealth, whether it be sending
their kid to college, gettinganother house, being able to
retire early, get out of a nineto five, and so build the
franchise around that, like makethem more money and then they
(24:12):
can do whatever they want withthe money.
I don't care less, but I justknow, if I can make them more
money and then build theirwealth, that they'll be able to
do stuff more with their life,and I believe that that money
will be used well.
And so we've really tried tofocus on like what are the seven
stages of someone?
Going from 500,000 in annualrevenue is the first step all
the way to the last step, whichis diversification as stocks,
real estate, et cetera.
In between that there's a lotof steps, and one of them is
(24:34):
like multiple locations havingfinding a general manager.
These are different stages, theas you move, you know making
one location successful is great.
Then how do I actuallysystematize and get a general
manager in place so it runswithout me?
Then how do I copy and pastethat model?
And then how do I actuallystart diversifying other asset
classes that are going to bemuch more tax advantaged is
really the seven stages ofwealth.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
This is something, then, that you share and use as
a framework within yourfranchise network, as a kind of
a training system or platform.
Is that what I understand?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
are talking inside the franchise.
We all talk the same language,like if someone says they're in
profit mode, I immediately knowokay, they're not buying trucks,
they're not hiring employees,they are just simply raising
prices whenever they hitcapacity.
I know that, and the way I willtalk to them is very different.
If someone says they're ingrowth mode, because I know they
are going lower in price,they're trying to increase their
close ratio, they're trying towin every single job, they're
probably spending money onmarketing, and so it's a
different way of cutting out somany variables.
(25:38):
When you save a term, when youhave, hey, I'm in this stage of
growth, oh, I immediately haveall common rules that we all
agree to, and that is thelanguage by which we can speak
and get over a lot of hurdlesthat otherwise are make it
(26:04):
difficult to communicate.
Like if for me to be able tosmile and immediately you know
I'm happy, that is a rule thatwe now have ascribed to, that If
I smile, we can both assume Iam happy.
If I say I am in growth mode,we can assume all of these other
things, because we're in thiscommunity and we've adhered to
this certain language, and sothat's kind of how I think about
community building in general.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
You've provided so many great, just pieces of
information, nuggets, wisdom infranchising.
I feel like you've alreadyanswered this question, but I'm
going to ask it anyway.
Is we will help companieslaunch and go into franchising
as a franchisor business andwork with a lot of emerging
franchise brands.
So what advice would you giveto an emerging franchise brand,
(26:47):
knowing what you know now?
What advice might you give tosomeone as they're kind of
launching into this franchiseworld?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
If you're starting, I have a really clear path to 100
locations.
It's really difficult to beable to support the franchisees
at the level required and beprofitable when you have five,
10 locations.
You just can't give them thesupport they need with the money
you're making back from them.
And so we had a very clearhere's how we're going to get to
100.
And we got a gun for it and itwas like I live in the closet of
(27:15):
the office just so we couldconserve cash for three years
getting to a hundred locationsso we could become profitable.
We didn't have outside funding.
If you have outside funding,maybe you can cut a few little
corners and that's helpful, butif you're trying to bootstrap,
it's going to be really, reallydifficult for the first few
years.
Once you come to terms withthat, then it's a me, a leg up
in terms of what I wanted.
I wanted a franchise advisorcouncil, I wanted to be able to
(27:39):
leave at any time, I didn't wanta royalty, I didn't want a
renewal fee, all these sorts ofthings.
And then I would say, once youhave franchisees, religiously
survey them and ask them whatyou can do better and track
every single thing in terms oftheir satisfaction.
If you make them happy, theywill sell franchises for you.
We don't run a ton of ads.
I don't do a whole bunch Likeliterally this shirt in my
(28:03):
YouTube videos is the extent ofour advertising and that is like
people just eventually will seethat on my shirt and they'll go
look it up and they get intothe funnel.
But the reason for that isbecause the owners, they believe
in it.
Our MPS score last quarter was71.
Pretty good, but it's gone.
It's been a long, long trail ofgetting that up because when we
(28:23):
first started is low and yousurvey and you ask them like
what can we do better?
Okay, so what do you like aboutthis?
Do you like this Having surveys?
Like survey them so much andthen take their feedback and do
it and like prove to them afterevery survey here's all the
things that you said that weneed to improve, and three
months later, here's everythingthat we did and now more like
what's next?
And that's how you increaseyour net promoter score, mps
(28:43):
score, and that's how you getfranchisees to start selling for
you.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's great advice and real quick for someone who
listens and say well, what's anMPS?
I mean, what's that acronym?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, so it's a range from negative 100 to positive
100.
And zero would mean thateveryone is like neutral about
your brand.
If it's positive, it means thatthere are more promoters than
detractors inside of yourbusiness, and so it's a very
quick and easy way to be able toknow what is the customer
satisfaction.
And so, like I thinkChick-fil-A is like 67.
You got like Apple is somethinglike 50 something, so like it's
(29:16):
kind of all over.
And then you have, like some ofthe most happy I think, amazon.
Amazon's pretty high up there.
But it's a kind of a metric andthe question that is asked is on
a scale of one to 10, howlikely are you to refer XYZ
service to your friends andfamily?
It's across the board.
That is the net promoterquestion.
And so if someone scores six orbelow, they're considered a
(29:38):
detractor, they're actuallytaking away from the brand,
they're considered a negative.
If they're a seven or eight,they're neutral, they don't do
anything.
You basically would be stuck atzero.
And then if you have peoplethat are a nines and tens, those
are people that are promoters,and that's when you have a plus
number.
So it's a really nice way to beable to, across businesses,
across industries know whatcustomer satisfaction is.
(29:58):
So, like at Copilot CRM, whichis the software side, we do the
net promoter score as well.
We know what that is and I canactually compare, like the two
businesses and be like, okay,one's in software, one's in
franchising, but I can stillknow like the general
satisfaction of the customer.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Mike.
For someone who's listening inhere is a boy.
I love the message Mike'ssharing.
I'd love to learn more.
Get in contact with him.
What's the best way for someoneto reach out to you or get in
touch with your business?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
YouTube we do a ton of stuff on YouTube.
Every week I go fly out tocompanies and we try to turn
them around If they'restruggling.
We do it for free, we justrecord it, and so probably
really beneficial of your homeservices.
Mikeandyscom I have freecourses, so I like once I did my
MBA.
I actually made a whole courseon the MBA.
That is good for smallbusinesses.
It's all free on there.
And then, if you like books,there's a book too.
(30:44):
It's free on my podcast, butyou can buy it on Amazon.
Yeah, so just go tomikeanniescom.
There's a ton of stuff on there.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Excellent.
Well, Mike, this is the time inthe show and we ask every guest
the same four questions.
And the first question we askis have you had a miss or two on
your journey and something youlearned from it?
Yeah, so like.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
The most recent one is last year.
We launched software that wehave available to public as well
as our franchisees, and ittripled in size in a matter of a
couple of months in terms ofnumber of members, entered
massive bug hell with spammersget into the system and start
spamming emails and textmessages.
Everything started to break.
I'm just trying to rebuild itand we kind of just getting back
on track now.
So that's been a uh, quite thelearning curve.
(31:20):
You know, the level of talentand skill required in terms of
engineers has been the skillI've been learning like
attracting really greatengineers, certainly at L, in
the past couple of years.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Let's take a look on the flip side.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
uh, when a highlight Honestly, the net promoter score
is the most top of mind becauseliterally yesterday it came out
.
It means a lot to me that theowners are seeing the
improvements and that over thecourse of that year or two we've
almost doubled that by justfocusing on them, surveying them
, improving systems and thesoftware and the coaching
program and all these thingsthey're trying to do, and so it
(31:52):
means a lot to me.
That's definitely the most topof mind win.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
For folks who are familiar with the Net Promoter
Score, the number you're at istremendous.
It is a very high number anddifficult to reach.
You're working hard on behalfand you're working hard for your
system.
Absolutely Well, let's talkabout a multiplier.
The name of the show isMultiply your Success.
Have you used a multiplier togrow yourself personally,
professionally or any businessyou've run?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Even last year, when I go back to my L, you know, in
the software side of things, Ithink a big part of that was not
reaching out and havingnetworks of people that had done
that before and so not being inthe right rooms, whether it be
conferences, masterminds,coaching, et cetera.
I'd always been very cheap.
Like you know, I was raisedwithout a lot of money and, like
even when we go to thefranchise, like I was being very
cheap.
I had to cut so many quartersin terms of, like, living in the
(32:39):
closet and doing stuff likethat, but then you would get to
a certain level.
You have to realize that you'vegot to pay money to be able to
shortcut, uh, the amount ofskill that's required to stay up
with the business, because youjust simply cannot learn every
single thing yourself, and ifyou are, it's going to take a
long time.
And so when the business grew sofast with the software side, I
realized this massive skill gapI should have for a long time
beforehand, but ended up havingto learn the fact that I can go
(33:02):
get these skills, I can learnthese things from coaches,
masterminds, getting in theright rooms, and, yes, that's
going to cost me money, and sofor a while, like, my living
expenses were far less than whatI was paying in coaching, but
it was the thing that wasrequired for me to get to the
next level, and so the sooneryou can do that, the better.
I think that overcoaching isactually a bigger problem,
though, counter to that, and asgetting so many how to's and
what I should do next instead ofjust going on implementing.
(33:24):
So there's a balance there, butI certainly was indexing far
too much and like just head downdoing the work, versus like
looking up and like, oh, someoneelse has done this before, I
can unlock these secrets fromthem, and so I would certainly,
as soon as you can afford it,try to unlock those secrets from
people who have already madethose mistakes.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
The final question we ask every guest is what does
success mean to you?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Contentment.
When I went to Africa, I waswith a bunch of the orphans, and
over there you just realizethat we would give them a little
bubbles or a soccer ball andthey'd be busy all day long, and
they just throw it out of theirmind.
And these are kids that wereabandoned by their parents day
long and they just throw it outof their mind.
And these are kids that wereabandoned by their parents.
One was thrown inside of a firewhile one was thrown off of a
train, and yet they would justthrow it out of their mind.
And so after that I was 18 andI went there, I just realized
(34:06):
that like hey, success and moneyis cool, but the standard at
which I am quote unquotesuccessful is when I'm content,
and that for some people thatcan be billions of dollars and
they are not content andtherefore I have not.
I do not see them being assuccessful, and so that that
benchmark has served me well.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Mike, thank you so much for a fantastic interview,
and let's go ahead and jump intotoday's three key takeaways.
So takeaway number one is whenMike talked about when he said
let's take everything thatpeople hate about franchising
and change it.
And so for him, he got rid ofroyalties and has the give back
program and all of these otherthings that he decided to change
(34:43):
.
And really the takeaway is notthat he's changing all of these
things specific for his business, it's that he thought about
what is the problem, what arethe challenges, what causes
friction or challenges betweenfranchisors and franchisees,
especially in his specificindustry, and he decided to make
a change to that or to create asolution.
(35:05):
So the takeaway is what can youtake and apply to your
franchise organization?
Takeaway number two is when hetalked about the seven stages of
business growth, and this iswhere he has found consistent
patterns with his franchiseesand has these various stages,
these seven stages, and he hasfound common problems in each of
(35:26):
those stages for thefranchisees that are in those
areas and so they have specificsolutions for those franchisees.
So to me, the takeaway is whatare those stages for your
franchise system?
And if you don't know, startlooking back.
There's likely some evidence orinformation that you can pull
from to build out your ownstages to improve your
(35:49):
franchisee support.
Takeaway number three is whenhe talked about his multiplier,
and his multiplier was when herealized that he had to go out
and learn from professionalscoaches, consultants and he said
as soon as you can afford it,you need to start pursuing that
or going after that.
And he said he found that hewas being cheap by not attending
(36:11):
conferences or joiningmasterminds or hiring quality
consultants.
So I think that's a greatlesson to help accelerate your
growth and you can likelyeventually learn a lot of these
things, but what's the cost oftime to you in that regard?
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
(36:34):
So today's win-win came fromwhen he talked about the advice
he would give to an emergingfranchise brand and he said it's
hard to provide support.
But what he decided to do is totake action and create a survey
to survey his franchisees andlisten to what they say.
Don't just take that survey andlet it sit and do nothing with
(36:58):
it.
Rather, take the survey, theinformation, and be thoughtful
and considerate with it, and tostart implementing that.
And for them internally he usesa net promoter score, along
with the other information theyshare, and I'm certain that it
is a win for him as thefranchisor, there's a win for
the franchisee and, for sure,there is a win for the customer
(37:21):
and the staff and the team ofeach of those organizations.
So I just think it's a great,great little nugget and little
takeaway that's easy toimplement.
You think about the cost ofimplementing it?
Very low cost, but it's thecommitment to do it and it's
going to hold you accountable asa franchisor to provide better
support and service to yourfranchisees.
So really, really great, mike.
(37:43):
And so that's our episode today.
Folks, thank you, thank you.
Thank you again for being ourloyal listeners all these years.
If you have not subscribed toour podcast, please make sure
you do so.
Please give us a review andremember if you or anyone you
know might be ready to franchisetheir business or take their
franchise company to the nextlevel, please connect with us at
(38:04):
BigSkyFranchiseTeamcom.
Thanks for tuning in and welook forward to having you back
next week.
Welcome to the Multiply your Success podcast,
where each week, we helpgrowth-minded entrepreneurs and
franchise leaders take the nextstep in their expansion journey.
I'm your host, tom Dufour, ceoof Big Sky Franchise Team, and
I'd like to welcome you to ourfive-year anniversary episode,
and I wanna thank all of youloyal listeners that have been
(00:22):
with me and with us over thelast many years.
And, if you recall, our veryfirst show was the day after
Father's Day and our firstinterview was with my dad.
Now, if you're new to us, Iinterviewed my dad originally as
a practice interview and Idecided to keep it.
After I realized that I wouldbe launching the podcast right
(00:45):
after Father's Day, I thought,boy, what a great way to do that
.
If you decide to listen back toepisode one, you'll learn about
my dad and me and hopefullyhear how far our show has come
from episode one to today, atepisode 262 for our five-year
anniversary.
Now, as part of our anniversarycelebration, I always like to
(01:05):
interview a very special guest,and this year is no different.
Our guest today is Mike Andes,who asked how he can make
franchising great for his system.
His solution Well, he decidedto take everything most people
hate about franchising andchange it.
So if you're new to franchisingor thinking about franchising
(01:29):
your business, this episode isfor you.
Now.
Mike is the founder of AugustaLawn Care, a home service
franchise that is scaled to over150 locations across the United
States, canada and Australia.
His mission To transform theblue-collar business landscape
and help small business ownersachieve financial freedom and
(01:49):
sustainable growth.
You're gonna love thisinterview, so let's go ahead and
jump right into it.
I'd love for you just to start,maybe talking about your
business and what you do.
What led you to start thinkingof expanding and eventually
franchising?
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah.
So when it comes to lawn care,like you mentioned, it's a
relatively simple service.
It's one of the lowest barrierto entry jobs slash businesses
you can get started in.
And so a lot of times peopleare like why in the world do you
franchise a lawn care business?
And so the reason I actuallydid was way back when I started
my lawn care business, I was 11years old.
I mowed grass just so I couldpay my way through college.
I started my lawn care businessI was 11 years old, mowed grass
(02:26):
just so I could pay my waythrough college.
I started college when I wasreally young.
I was 13 years old and I wentto pre-med, thought I was going
to become a doctor, ended updropping out of medical school
and the only thing I knew how todo was mow grass.
So started Augusta Lawn Care.
That was a little over 10 yearsago now, about five years into
(02:50):
it we did prior to that I got ina workplace accident underneath
a dump truck, got sucked upinto the PTO, ended up in the
hospital and in that kind ofmend period a couple of weeks of
not being able to work Irealized my business had no
systems, no procedures.
It was built on me being thereevery single day.
I was literally FaceTiming mycrew from the hospital bed,
showing them the next project.
And so the next couple of weeks, as I was on the mend, just
like, really started to thinkthrough what are the systems and
procedures required to run abusiness that does not rely on
me working 80, 90 hours a week.
And I started just sharing thaton YouTube and made
(03:10):
landscapebusinesscoursecom,which is free, and just started
sharing my story Like here's thesystem I'm changing.
I'm changing how I pay my guys,no longer by an hour, it's by
based upon performance.
Now I make estimate videos so Idon't have to go to the job
site and show the crew a jobonce I've done the estimate All
these systems in the businesswhen I started to realize that
people didn't listen.
They didn't listen because theylooked to me as like a content
creator, a consultant, someonethat makes videos, whatever.
(03:32):
But what I wanted was to changethe level of professionalism in
the landscape industry and Ijust didn't see anyone doing it
and for me it was frustratingbecause I saw what it did for me
and my business.
In two years after institutingpay for performance, I went from
working 80, 90 hours a week inthe business and hardly making
any profit, not being able toafford raises for the crew or
benefits or anything to.
Two years later I took $280,000in distributions from that same
(03:56):
location and went there for twomeetings a week, and so I knew
what it could do for me.
And it was so frustrating thatwhen I share that story with
other people on YouTube andpodcast, no one listened, and so
I figured the only way toactually see the change I wanted
was to be on the same team asthem, have brand equity, that we
were together in this together,and that's why we franchise and
I had already been a franchiseeat Anytime Fitness and seen the
(04:18):
power of systems and having5,000 locations and the power of
the software that they canbuild together, and I would only
do the same thing for the lawncare industry.
And so then there's just amatter of like hey, let's take
everything that people hateabout franchising and just do
the opposite.
So we don't charge a royalty,the initial fee can get refunded
back to the owner as long asthey stay inside the systems for
five years, and then the 3Fprogram is a franchise fee
(04:40):
forgiveness program If you workas a lawn care technician out in
the field for two years you canjoin the franchise for free.
We just try to go through everysingle aspect that I as a
franchisee had trouble with.
And then I interviewed over 50other franchisees from other
home service franchisors beforestarting the franchise and say
what's your pain points?
What do you not like?
And a big one is like theroyalty, because as you get a $2
(05:00):
million business, I'm nowpaying way more on royalties
than I was when I was 100 or200,000 in the revenue.
And yet I know the systems, Iknow the procedures, I know how
this is supposed to operate now,and so just trying to do what
was right by the owner, that'sreally been our focus from day
one.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
That is phenomenal with what you're describing, and
I just want to unpack what yousaid a little bit because
someone who might listen in andsay, wait a minute, you give the
franchise fee back, noroyalties.
How in the world do yougenerate revenue as a franchisor
to support that system?
So how do you manage that asthe franchisor?
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Our franchise, the give back program, for example,
where they get the franchise feeback, basically after five
years they can roll that initialfee into another location, or
they can wait till the end oftheir term 10 years and just get
the cash back, like literally acheck back to them, and they
just have to follow threesystems pay for performance,
they have to wrap their truckscorrectly and have to do open
book management with their teamto be able to share the numbers
(05:54):
with their team.
As long as they do those threethings, they'll get the money
back, and so I.
My incentive in this case is tokeep them in business, because
they're going to get, they'repaying a flat monthly fee of
$1,600.
So, like I, just need to keepthem in business, that's my
objective, whereas when, whenthere's a royalty structure in
(06:14):
place, I find that the franchiseor has perverse incentive to
inflate top line revenue.
So encourage people to spendoverspend on marketing,
overspend on salespeople,overspend on salespeople,
overspend on a lot of aspects,because they're just trying to
inflate top line revenue.
They don't care about thebottom line profit.
And so another thing that I wasreally adamant about, too, is
like allowing people to leavethe franchise at any time with
their customers for no penalty.
(06:35):
And no one does that, and Iunderstand why because it's like
it's freaky.
But bottom line is like itforces us, as the franchisor, to
constantly improve the systems,constantly offer more value,
constantly offer more trainingand support and serving the
owners.
And so that is.
It's not easy, it's verydifficult to run a system where
(06:55):
people can leave at any time andtake their business elsewhere,
especially in a low barrierentry market like lawn care.
But it keeps us honest andultimately building a franchise.
I think the number one thingthat keeps this industry really
held back is we build businessesand franchise ores build the
business in a way to sell it toprivate equity or a five, maybe
a 10-year term.
But if you were building thatbusiness over the course of 100
years, if you were actuallyasking yourself, what does this
(07:17):
business look like in 100 years?
You would structure itdifferently.
You'd go slower, you wouldlisten a lot more, you'd think
about the owners a lot more.
You'd think slower, you wouldlisten a lot more.
You'd think about the owners alot more.
You'd think about the brandreputation in 20 or 30 years
from now.
And that's really why I think somany franchisors fail why so
many don't get to 100 locationsand that vast majority of them
will never become profitable,because you usually have to get
over 100 locations to becomeprofitable.
And I really hate the fact thatthe franchisor world gets such
(07:40):
a bad rap.
When world gets such a bad rap,when I think franchising is a
beautiful thing in terms offollowing systems, having
support, having backend, theability to be able to use common
practices and use acrosshundreds of locations and then
just follow the system and avoidall the pitfalls, I love it.
But there are so many badactors when it comes to
franchisors.
There are so many people thatjust think that they can
franchise their system.
They don't support theirfranchisees, they take a royalty
off the top without giving thesupport required to actually be
(08:03):
successful and it gives a badrap to the industry,
unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's completely spot on and it's something that
we even share and talk oftenwith our clients in the capacity
and summarizing this in the waythat we say it Essentially, as
long as you keep asking how areyou helping your franchisees
grow their business, make itmore profitable essentially
helping them accomplish theirgoals how can you help your
franchisees grow their business,make it more profitable
essentially helping themaccomplish their goals, how can
you help your franchisees first,and then the follow up is well,
(08:32):
how does that help me as thefranchisor?
Whereas oftentimes foundersstart with the I want to serve
and help my franchisees, butover time that gets converted
and it starts switching to say,well, how can I, as the
franchisor, start making moremoney?
And when that's first, that'sthe beginning of the end,
because you're going the wrongdirection at that point.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, and I think, honestly, people can say
whatever they want, but if youlook at the franchise disclosure
document, it'll tell youwhether or not they care about
their franchisees.
And so, for me, I want to makesure that if I got hit by a bus
tomorrow, that no one could undothe culture that we wanted to
have and, from the onset, ofputting the owners first.
And so, if you actually careabout your franchisees, you will
put it in legal writing.
You will have a franchiseadvisory council set up.
(09:14):
You will have the ability forpeople to outvote you.
You will have the ability forpeople to leave.
You will have all of thesethings.
You won't be penalizing themfor every little thing.
We don't have a renewal fee.
We don't have a lot of thesethings, because if it's in
documentation, regardless ofwhat happens to me, or I change
my mind tomorrow, or I sell aprivate equity, it can't change.
And so you show me yourfranchise disclosure documents.
I'll tell you the true valueyou put on your franchisee and
(09:35):
whether or not you actually lookto them as a partner instead of
a customer.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Amazing focus that you have there and a commitment
really to your franchisees andwhat they're looking to do.
Well, one of the things youtalked about is this pay for
performance that you have inplace, and that's one of the
three requirements that you havein order for the franchise fee
to be returned at the end of the10 years.
Talk a little bit about whatthat is in an industry and just
in general, where hourly pay,salaries and things are very
(10:06):
common.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, like in a nutshell, if I'm explaining to
someone, p for P is essentiallythe harder you work, the more
money you make.
And all it is is they get apercentage of the labor revenue
they earn for the business.
That's their wages.
And how is that compliant?
Well, we're still making surethey get at least a base pay and
it's going to be above minimumwage.
They're still going to getovertime, but if they're earning
enough for the business,they'll make substantially more
(10:28):
on pay for performance.
And so what this does is alignthe incentives of the owner and
the employee, because right now,if you're paying someone by the
hour, the longer the job takes,the more money they make,
whereas for you, if you're doinga bid on a job, the shorter the
job takes, the more money youmake as an owner.
And so that's why there's thisinherent friction between owner
and employee is because we havedifferent incentives which we
(10:50):
want.
One person wants to go faster,the other one wants to go slower
by having people pee.
You basically say hey, look, aslong as this job gets done to
the customer satisfaction and asquickly as possible, everyone
makes more money.
So now we're all talking thesame language.
Now is it easy.
No, the reason we pay hourly isbecause it's simple and it's
lazy.
You just literally clock in andout At the end of the week, you
multiply that by a certainhourly rate and you give someone
(11:12):
a paycheck.
It's a lot more difficult tosay okay, there's hourly rates,
that we have to calculate howmuch you earn each day.
We have manual deductions Ifyou go too fast.
You create yellow slips orcallbacks If you lose a customer
, if you have a non-revenueproducing tasks like sharpening
the blades or changing the oilthese things all have to be
accounted for.
What happens if you have areally good employee with a
(11:33):
brand new employee that'sgetting trained?
Well, this person is going toslow this one down.
How do we account for that?
So, yeah, there's a lot ofvariables that have to be
figured out.
We've created software just soit could make it work, but
ultimately it comes down to ifyou want your employees to think
like owners, they need twothings they need to be paid like
an owner, that's paid forperformance and the information
of an owner, and that is openbook management.
And so, in our opinion, inorder for us to change the level
(11:55):
of professionalism in thelandscape industry, where the
stereotype is it's a two orthree month stint job, summer
job, it's.
You show up, you're smoking,some guy's smoking, music
blaring not in a uniform, not ina nice truck, like.
If we're going to change thatperception, it starts with the
employee and giving them theinformation and the composition
that owner has.
And if you're complaining, andyou're in the labor industry,
about the fact that you can gettwice as many jobs in a day,
(12:20):
you're way more like an ownerand you're getting compensated.
You have the information of anowner and if you give those
things to your team, there's ahigher likelihood that they will
treat it like their own.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
As you incorporated these models into your own
original operating location andthen with franchisees as they
start incorporating this.
What have you found to be maybesome of the challenges or
common roadblocks that folks seewhen implementing this type of
a pay for performance error?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah, you got to have accurate pricing.
You got to have accurate budgethours and the jobs, because if
the crew's getting paid apercentage of that revenue but
you're way inaccurate some jobsare way over, some are way under
they're going to getdiscouraged.
You need full transparency.
A lot of people are like oh,I'm going to do P4P, but then
they won't share the numberswith their team, so their team
doesn't trust them, and so it'simperative that everyone is
(13:07):
above base pay on P4P.
In other words, they'reactually there's motivation to
make more money than whatthey're guaranteed at their base
wage.
That way, when they actuallymake a mistake and there's a
callback, there's money on thetable to take out of.
So, for example, if someonebacks up over a mower and cause
a $200 damage case, well, ifthey have $500 on this week's
paycheck as a bonus on P4P, that$200 is coming out of that $500
(13:29):
.
And so now there's a culture ofaccountability within the team.
They have to go fix their ownmistakes.
I'm not going to run around andfix all their mistakes.
If they made a mistake and theywere going too fast on cause
they're trying to beat the clockand make more money on P4P,
that's fine.
They're going back and fixingthe skin mark from the mower.
They're going back and talkingto the customer, and so it's
just putting accountability backto the frontline team members
and allowing them to win or losebased upon their own
(13:51):
performance.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
When you first started implementing this, as
you talked about the transitionof your own business after the
accident and the injury andrecovery and kind of recognize
what you did you started makingsome of these changes For the
staff that stayed around.
How did you see that impactthem?
Or even with some of yourfranchisees and the staff that
they bring on?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Very quickly you learn who your lowest performers
are.
They're the ones who complain.
Now, all of a sudden, they'rethe ones that all the high
performers don't want to workwith.
So low performers will getsniffed out of the system very
quickly, because most timespeople don't want to be that guy
and rat out all their employees, their fellow or coworkers that
are taking longer lunch breaks,slacking off, stopping at every
(14:33):
gas station.
They don't want to be thatperson.
However, if it affects theirpaycheck, no, they're going to
care.
And so if you're on a crew withsomeone, now all of a sudden
their performance actuallyaffects your paycheck, because
together as a crew, you make acertain amount of revenue and
you get a cut of that together.
And so now, all of a sudden,your lowest performers will not
last.
It really does shed away B andC players, people that are money
(14:55):
motivated.
They love it, they're willingto work harder, longer hours,
they're willing to push throughand they think like an owner,
which usually means when someoneimplements, about 20% of the
workforce is going to leave.
They don't like it.
They don't like being pushed.
They're used to being able tosap the clock and take long
lunch breaks and stop at everygas station and they're not
motivated by money, but whatusually happens?
Speaker 1 (15:20):
we see about 20 to 30% increase in efficiency and
so the rest of the team is ableto pick up their slack.
You basically get the sameamount of work done with just
less employees.
Now, one of the things youtalked about early on is that
you started sharing thisinformation originally through
social media, where you, justbefore you started franchising,
you just wanted to share it andhelp raise the standard of the
industry at large.
Talk about your use andincorporation of social media.
I think a lot of times, ownersand founders, they're scared to
(15:40):
start incorporating or using it.
They don't know where to start.
They don't know like why wouldI even do this?
How's this going to help mybusiness?
Talk about how you used it andmight address some of those
questions.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah.
So to be clear, if you have alocal business, like a lawn care
business, and you have nointention of, you know, making
making impact or franchising orgetting into the content game,
making content on YouTube orsocial media is not going to
help your local business.
It's just not.
The target audience for YouTubeis the entire world.
You might serve 10 or 15,000customers in your local area, so
getting views is not going tobe super beneficial.
(16:12):
It's probably going to be morebeneficial that you do direct
response marketing in your localmarket and spend your time and
attention doing that.
That being said, when I madevideos to start off, I knew that
if I would have had a familyindependence and I would have
gotten that accident, I wouldhave gone bankrupt.
Otherwise, I was in a veryfortunate circumstance to be
able to be living at home, nothave a lot of financial
obligations, and I was able toget through that tough time.
(16:34):
But most people would have gonebankrupt and that's why so many
businesses fail in thisindustry and home services in
general and most businesses ingeneral.
Honestly, small businesses iseverything's hinging on the
owner and I wanted to build abusiness that could run without
me, could have systems in placethat, regardless of their local
or it's on the other side of thecountry the business runs, and
(16:54):
then I really own a business andnot a job.
I, the business runs, and thenI really own a business and not
a job.
I wanted to give that to otherpeople because I knew that there
was plenty of other people that, in my scenario, would have
gone bankrupt.
There would have been a lot ofpain.
I knew what bankruptcy had doneto my family when I was growing
up and the pain that caused, andso I was just sharing videos
like, hey, this is what I'mdoing and this is what I'm
thinking is going to work, andlike here's the results of my
Facebook ads.
And I was just sharinginformation.
(17:14):
It was only after a couple ofyears of that where I'm like
okay, I'm going to have a newfranchise, I'm going to take
this content thing reallyseriously.
Now In 2020 is when I got myfirst full-time editor, and then
since then it's scaled up to.
The team is now like 10 to 12people.
We do tons of content on allplatforms.
Yeah, it's quite the productionnow.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
One thing I was thinking about for your business
in any of the types of tradeshome services, commercial
services oftentimes they'rehighly fragmented, where you
have a lot of independents andmom and pop operators and as you
have expanded your franchise,are you looking primarily for a
startup kind of a traditionalfranchisee that comes in and
(17:57):
maybe has no experience in yourindustry?
Are you working with existinglandscapers or lawn care
companies that might be cominginto your business?
Talk about how you've addressedthat situation.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, it's a pretty good split of, like people just
starting out, never been in theindustry before, seeing this as
an investment opportunity,getting out of there nine to
five, and then the other halfbeing existing businesses in the
lawn care and landscapingindustry that realize that they
need systems in place so theycan run the business without
themselves being there all thetime.
They want multiple locations,they want the support for their
general managers, regionalmanager and having the back end
(18:31):
of their office this is ourcommand center behind me
answering phones, et cetera.
So it's kind of a 50-50 split.
And there's businesses thathave joined that are already
doing over a million dollars inrevenue in the lawn care
industry that want to join andagain it's incentivized actually
heavier for them because theystill pay $1,600 a month.
Doesn't matter if you pay $2million in annual revenue or
(18:52):
$200,000.
You're paying the same amountper month.
So it actually makes more senseeven for people that are larger
to be joining.
So we've kind of seen a 50-50split of both and I think as we
go up market in other words weare increasing like our capital
requirements to join we will seeprobably more and more existing
owners switch over because thenetwork of the brand just gets
stronger.
So step back for a second.
(19:14):
So on the media team, we have alawn care web design and home
service web design.
We build websites for people inthis industry so we can see all
the data there For Augusta LawnCare and this is the advantage
of general joining a franchiseis you have search engine
optimization and you have Googleauthority to your domain.
So when we start a new location,usually within a week or two,
(19:42):
we're on the first page ofGoogle, whereas when we build
sites for our clients that areindependent, it can take three
to six months.
This is the type of advantageof joining a franchise and
having a bunch of locations, etcetera.
I can kind of see thedifference between an
independent versus a franchisein that regard.
So some people are just like,hey, I'd rather just shortcut
the whole six month thing, hopinto the franchise, get leads
much faster.
I don't want to have to buildan office, I don't have to go
find a shop space to rent.
I'll just have command center,do my stuff when I have it, when
I.
If I want a general manager torun the location for me, I don't
(20:03):
want to have to train them, Iwant to send them here.
You guys train them in a week.
You guys do the support on amonthly coaching call.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
So it just you know about some of the growth and
franchisees coming on board withthe 50-50 split of someone
that's existing in the space andsomeone that's new in startup,
made me think back to a commentyou said earlier about thinking
100 years from now and settingthe business up and the
franchise up from there.
I guess I'd be curious just toask, as you've been growing
(20:33):
through franchising, where haveyou started?
How many units are you up to?
What's your goal?
Or, as you start thinking andhave been planning for maybe a
hundred years out from now,Right now we're at 170 locations
.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I think we need to get to about a thousand
locations in order to have theimpact we want on the industry.
And then when I say that islike when we start competing in
a market, that's when we seeother competitors start to
change their behavior.
Because if we answer our phone24-7, if we go into a market and
all of a sudden the customerexpects that now all the
competition has to match it orthey have to get better.
Just the same way, like Amazoncame along, they're doing
two-day shipping, free returns.
That wasn't a thing 20, 30years ago, and so people either
(21:09):
adapted to it and now everyoneWalmart, et cetera has to do it
or they died.
And so our way of changing thelevel of professionalism in the
industry is changing theexpectation of the customer so
that our competitors has tochange and adapt the standards
we have.
They have to pay theiremployees based on performance,
because now the employees wantthat, or they're going to go to
Augusta.
You know the customer isdemanding the fact that, hey,
you got to answer your phonebecause, like they're going to
(21:30):
be answering it 24 7 and give meinstant pricing over the phone.
Our goal is just to get to athousand locations.
I think by doing that we'll beable to have enough penetration
in the market to be able to havethe impact we want.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Changing gears a little bit, was this seven
stages of business wealth thatyou talk about?
So I'd love for you to justtalk through that and talk
through those stages.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I think a big part of a franchise is having
frameworks so that when thingshappen in the business
inevitably there's going to bechallenges and hurdles that
you're not left guessing.
You're like, oh man, am Idifferent, am I strange, am I
weird?
I think that's the reason for alot of times people quit is
because they feel like they'renot capable of getting to the
next stage of growth, they'renot capable of getting through
the obstacle.
And so the nice thing about afranchise is you see the same
(22:10):
people using the same systemsevery single time and you start
to see patterns, and so what wetry to do is just create
frameworks around the patternswe see every single time.
So, like I know, from zero to ahundred thousand, these are the
things you're going to befeeling from a hundred thousand
to 200,000.
These are the things you'regoing to be feeling from 200,000
to 500,000.
Here's what the business isgoing to look like, here's the
struggles you're going to haveand here's how you're going to
overcome them.
And so, when we are aresuccessful in their first
(22:45):
location, they want multiplelocations and they got multiple
locations.
They want to keep movingforward.
They might want to invest inreal estate.
They might want to invest inthe stock market.
We want to actually facilitatethem.
Investing in other businesses,other ventures, is investment.
So so, for example, this Julywe have the seven figure club.
If you have over a milliondollars in revenue, you come out
for a retreat.
We do a day long.
And we're talking about thingslike B corps, we're talking
(23:06):
about ESOPs, we're talking abouttax planning, we're talking
about real estate investments,stock portfolio stuff, because
we're trying to just overallincrease the wealth of the owner
.
And so, instead of just lookingat like, oh, we want to have a
successful lawn care business,it's like how do we holistically
think about how do we makethese people rich?
And that is like the frameworkI look through, because if I'm
going to think that way afterfive or 10 years, I need to give
(23:27):
them like what's the next stage?
Like I want to invest in realestate.
Okay, great, how do you do that?
Okay, should I do an Airbnb soI can get accelerated
depreciation?
What does it mean to be a realestate professional so I can get
much better tax?
Can my spouse do that so I'mable to get those same benefits?
These are the type of thingsthat we actually still want to
give the education to the owners, and I would challenge
franchisors to thinkholistically about the wealth of
(23:49):
your owners instead of justlike, oh, my job is to give them
a successful business.
They did not come to youbecause they wanted a great
painting business or they wanteda great sub sandwich business.
They came to you because theywanted to make a lot of money.
They wanted to build wealth fortheir family, and there's
reasons as to why they want thatwealth, whether it be sending
their kid to college, gettinganother house, being able to
retire early, get out of a nineto five, and so build the
franchise around that, like makethem more money and then they
(24:12):
can do whatever they want withthe money.
I don't care less, but I justknow, if I can make them more
money and then build theirwealth, that they'll be able to
do stuff more with their life,and I believe that that money
will be used well.
And so we've really tried tofocus on like what are the seven
stages of someone?
Going from 500,000 in annualrevenue is the first step all
the way to the last step, whichis diversification as stocks,
real estate, et cetera.
In between that there's a lotof steps, and one of them is
(24:34):
like multiple locations havingfinding a general manager.
These are different stages, theas you move, you know making
one location successful is great.
Then how do I actuallysystematize and get a general
manager in place so it runswithout me?
Then how do I copy and pastethat model?
And then how do I actuallystart diversifying other asset
classes that are going to bemuch more tax advantaged is
really the seven stages ofwealth.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
This is something, then, that you share and use as
a framework within yourfranchise network, as a kind of
a training system or platform.
Is that what I understand?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
are talking inside the franchise.
We all talk the same language,like if someone says they're in
profit mode, I immediately knowokay, they're not buying trucks,
they're not hiring employees,they are just simply raising
prices whenever they hitcapacity.
I know that, and the way I willtalk to them is very different.
If someone says they're ingrowth mode, because I know they
are going lower in price,they're trying to increase their
close ratio, they're trying towin every single job, they're
probably spending money onmarketing, and so it's a
different way of cutting out somany variables.
(25:38):
When you save a term, when youhave, hey, I'm in this stage of
growth, oh, I immediately haveall common rules that we all
agree to, and that is thelanguage by which we can speak
and get over a lot of hurdlesthat otherwise are make it
(26:04):
difficult to communicate.
Like if for me to be able tosmile and immediately you know
I'm happy, that is a rule thatwe now have ascribed to, that If
I smile, we can both assume Iam happy.
If I say I am in growth mode,we can assume all of these other
things, because we're in thiscommunity and we've adhered to
this certain language, and sothat's kind of how I think about
community building in general.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
You've provided so many great, just pieces of
information, nuggets, wisdom infranchising.
I feel like you've alreadyanswered this question, but I'm
going to ask it anyway.
Is we will help companieslaunch and go into franchising
as a franchisor business andwork with a lot of emerging
franchise brands.
So what advice would you giveto an emerging franchise brand,
(26:47):
knowing what you know now?
What advice might you give tosomeone as they're kind of
launching into this franchiseworld?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
If you're starting, I have a really clear path to 100
locations.
It's really difficult to beable to support the franchisees
at the level required and beprofitable when you have five,
10 locations.
You just can't give them thesupport they need with the money
you're making back from them.
And so we had a very clearhere's how we're going to get to
100.
And we got a gun for it and itwas like I live in the closet of
(27:15):
the office just so we couldconserve cash for three years
getting to a hundred locationsso we could become profitable.
We didn't have outside funding.
If you have outside funding,maybe you can cut a few little
corners and that's helpful, butif you're trying to bootstrap,
it's going to be really, reallydifficult for the first few
years.
Once you come to terms withthat, then it's a me, a leg up
in terms of what I wanted.
I wanted a franchise advisorcouncil, I wanted to be able to
(27:39):
leave at any time, I didn't wanta royalty, I didn't want a
renewal fee, all these sorts ofthings.
And then I would say, once youhave franchisees, religiously
survey them and ask them whatyou can do better and track
every single thing in terms oftheir satisfaction.
If you make them happy, theywill sell franchises for you.
We don't run a ton of ads.
I don't do a whole bunch Likeliterally this shirt in my
(28:03):
YouTube videos is the extent ofour advertising and that is like
people just eventually will seethat on my shirt and they'll go
look it up and they get intothe funnel.
But the reason for that isbecause the owners, they believe
in it.
Our MPS score last quarter was71.
Pretty good, but it's gone.
It's been a long, long trail ofgetting that up because when we
(28:23):
first started is low and yousurvey and you ask them like
what can we do better?
Okay, so what do you like aboutthis?
Do you like this Having surveys?
Like survey them so much andthen take their feedback and do
it and like prove to them afterevery survey here's all the
things that you said that weneed to improve, and three
months later, here's everythingthat we did and now more like
what's next?
And that's how you increaseyour net promoter score, mps
(28:43):
score, and that's how you getfranchisees to start selling for
you.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
That's great advice and real quick for someone who
listens and say well, what's anMPS?
I mean, what's that acronym?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, so it's a range from negative 100 to positive
100.
And zero would mean thateveryone is like neutral about
your brand.
If it's positive, it means thatthere are more promoters than
detractors inside of yourbusiness, and so it's a very
quick and easy way to be able toknow what is the customer
satisfaction.
And so, like I thinkChick-fil-A is like 67.
You got like Apple is somethinglike 50 something, so like it's
(29:16):
kind of all over.
And then you have, like some ofthe most happy I think, amazon.
Amazon's pretty high up there.
But it's a kind of a metric andthe question that is asked is on
a scale of one to 10, howlikely are you to refer XYZ
service to your friends andfamily?
It's across the board.
That is the net promoterquestion.
And so if someone scores six orbelow, they're considered a
(29:38):
detractor, they're actuallytaking away from the brand,
they're considered a negative.
If they're a seven or eight,they're neutral, they don't do
anything.
You basically would be stuck atzero.
And then if you have peoplethat are a nines and tens, those
are people that are promoters,and that's when you have a plus
number.
So it's a really nice way to beable to, across businesses,
across industries know whatcustomer satisfaction is.
(29:58):
So, like at Copilot CRM, whichis the software side, we do the
net promoter score as well.
We know what that is and I canactually compare, like the two
businesses and be like, okay,one's in software, one's in
franchising, but I can stillknow like the general
satisfaction of the customer.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Mike.
For someone who's listening inhere is a boy.
I love the message Mike'ssharing.
I'd love to learn more.
Get in contact with him.
What's the best way for someoneto reach out to you or get in
touch with your business?
Speaker 2 (30:23):
YouTube we do a ton of stuff on YouTube.
Every week I go fly out tocompanies and we try to turn
them around If they'restruggling.
We do it for free, we justrecord it, and so probably
really beneficial of your homeservices.
Mikeandyscom I have freecourses, so I like once I did my
MBA.
I actually made a whole courseon the MBA.
That is good for smallbusinesses.
It's all free on there.
And then, if you like books,there's a book too.
(30:44):
It's free on my podcast, butyou can buy it on Amazon.
Yeah, so just go tomikeanniescom.
There's a ton of stuff on there.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Excellent.
Well, Mike, this is the time inthe show and we ask every guest
the same four questions.
And the first question we askis have you had a miss or two on
your journey and something youlearned from it?
Yeah, so like.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
The most recent one is last year.
We launched software that wehave available to public as well
as our franchisees, and ittripled in size in a matter of a
couple of months in terms ofnumber of members, entered
massive bug hell with spammersget into the system and start
spamming emails and textmessages.
Everything started to break.
I'm just trying to rebuild itand we kind of just getting back
on track now.
So that's been a uh, quite thelearning curve.
(31:20):
You know, the level of talentand skill required in terms of
engineers has been the skillI've been learning like
attracting really greatengineers, certainly at L, in
the past couple of years.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
Let's take a look on the flip side.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
uh, when a highlight Honestly, the net promoter score
is the most top of mind becauseliterally yesterday it came out
.
It means a lot to me that theowners are seeing the
improvements and that over thecourse of that year or two we've
almost doubled that by justfocusing on them, surveying them
, improving systems and thesoftware and the coaching
program and all these thingsthey're trying to do, and so it
(31:52):
means a lot to me.
That's definitely the most topof mind win.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
For folks who are familiar with the Net Promoter
Score, the number you're at istremendous.
It is a very high number anddifficult to reach.
You're working hard on behalfand you're working hard for your
system.
Absolutely Well, let's talkabout a multiplier.
The name of the show isMultiply your Success.
Have you used a multiplier togrow yourself personally,
professionally or any businessyou've run?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Even last year, when I go back to my L, you know, in
the software side of things, Ithink a big part of that was not
reaching out and havingnetworks of people that had done
that before and so not being inthe right rooms, whether it be
conferences, masterminds,coaching, et cetera.
I'd always been very cheap.
Like you know, I was raisedwithout a lot of money and, like
even when we go to thefranchise, like I was being very
cheap.
I had to cut so many quartersin terms of, like, living in the
(32:39):
closet and doing stuff likethat, but then you would get to
a certain level.
You have to realize that you'vegot to pay money to be able to
shortcut, uh, the amount ofskill that's required to stay up
with the business, because youjust simply cannot learn every
single thing yourself, and ifyou are, it's going to take a
long time.
And so when the business grew sofast with the software side, I
realized this massive skill gapI should have for a long time
beforehand, but ended up havingto learn the fact that I can go
(33:02):
get these skills, I can learnthese things from coaches,
masterminds, getting in theright rooms, and, yes, that's
going to cost me money, and sofor a while, like, my living
expenses were far less than whatI was paying in coaching, but
it was the thing that wasrequired for me to get to the
next level, and so the sooneryou can do that, the better.
I think that overcoaching isactually a bigger problem,
though, counter to that, and asgetting so many how to's and
what I should do next instead ofjust going on implementing.
(33:24):
So there's a balance there, butI certainly was indexing far
too much and like just head downdoing the work, versus like
looking up and like, oh, someoneelse has done this before, I
can unlock these secrets fromthem, and so I would certainly,
as soon as you can afford it,try to unlock those secrets from
people who have already madethose mistakes.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
The final question we ask every guest is what does
success mean to you?
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Contentment.
When I went to Africa, I waswith a bunch of the orphans, and
over there you just realizethat we would give them a little
bubbles or a soccer ball andthey'd be busy all day long, and
they just throw it out of theirmind.
And these are kids that wereabandoned by their parents day
long and they just throw it outof their mind.
And these are kids that wereabandoned by their parents.
One was thrown inside of a firewhile one was thrown off of a
train, and yet they would justthrow it out of their mind.
And so after that I was 18 andI went there, I just realized
(34:06):
that like hey, success and moneyis cool, but the standard at
which I am quote unquotesuccessful is when I'm content,
and that for some people thatcan be billions of dollars and
they are not content andtherefore I have not.
I do not see them being assuccessful, and so that that
benchmark has served me well.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Mike, thank you so much for a fantastic interview,
and let's go ahead and jump intotoday's three key takeaways.
So takeaway number one is whenMike talked about when he said
let's take everything thatpeople hate about franchising
and change it.
And so for him, he got rid ofroyalties and has the give back
program and all of these otherthings that he decided to change
(34:43):
.
And really the takeaway is notthat he's changing all of these
things specific for his business, it's that he thought about
what is the problem, what arethe challenges, what causes
friction or challenges betweenfranchisors and franchisees,
especially in his specificindustry, and he decided to make
a change to that or to create asolution.
(35:05):
So the takeaway is what can youtake and apply to your
franchise organization?
Takeaway number two is when hetalked about the seven stages of
business growth, and this iswhere he has found consistent
patterns with his franchiseesand has these various stages,
these seven stages, and he hasfound common problems in each of
(35:26):
those stages for thefranchisees that are in those
areas and so they have specificsolutions for those franchisees.
So to me, the takeaway is whatare those stages for your
franchise system?
And if you don't know, startlooking back.
There's likely some evidence orinformation that you can pull
from to build out your ownstages to improve your
(35:49):
franchisee support.
Takeaway number three is whenhe talked about his multiplier,
and his multiplier was when herealized that he had to go out
and learn from professionalscoaches, consultants and he said
as soon as you can afford it,you need to start pursuing that
or going after that.
And he said he found that hewas being cheap by not attending
(36:11):
conferences or joiningmasterminds or hiring quality
consultants.
So I think that's a greatlesson to help accelerate your
growth and you can likelyeventually learn a lot of these
things, but what's the cost oftime to you in that regard?
And now it's time for today'swin-win.
(36:34):
So today's win-win came fromwhen he talked about the advice
he would give to an emergingfranchise brand and he said it's
hard to provide support.
But what he decided to do is totake action and create a survey
to survey his franchisees andlisten to what they say.
Don't just take that survey andlet it sit and do nothing with
(36:58):
it.
Rather, take the survey, theinformation, and be thoughtful
and considerate with it, and tostart implementing that.
And for them internally he usesa net promoter score, along
with the other information theyshare, and I'm certain that it
is a win for him as thefranchisor, there's a win for
the franchisee and, for sure,there is a win for the customer
(37:21):
and the staff and the team ofeach of those organizations.
So I just think it's a great,great little nugget and little
takeaway that's easy toimplement.
You think about the cost ofimplementing it?
Very low cost, but it's thecommitment to do it and it's
going to hold you accountable asa franchisor to provide better
support and service to yourfranchisees.
So really, really great, mike.
(37:43):
And so that's our episode today.
Folks, thank you, thank you.
Thank you again for being ourloyal listeners all these years.
If you have not subscribed toour podcast, please make sure
you do so.
Please give us a review andremember if you or anyone you
know might be ready to franchisetheir business or take their
franchise company to the nextlevel, please connect with us at
(38:04):
BigSkyFranchiseTeamcom.
Thanks for tuning in and welook forward to having you back
next week.
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