Evan Carmichael breaks down how to build a service business, from low-cost entry to scaling. He stresses the need for a clear message that separates you from competitors, over-delivering on service, and understanding what customers really need. Growth options include hiring staff, franchising, productizing, or creating educational content.
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How to build a successful service-based business. I got this question from Gonzo— love that name— Gonzo Marino on my YouTube channel. Thank you guys, love you guys. Wrote in to say, can you do a video on businesses that do service? I own a lawn service business in my 5th year. I'd like to hear from someone of your input on my line of business. This is a great question, and I love entrepreneurs who start off as service-based businesses and And so to really answer this question, we have to look at the life cycle of your company. If you are first starting out, a service-based business is a great way to go because there's almost no cost. The thing that kills entrepreneurs at the start is cash flow. You run out of cash and you have to go back and get a job. So conserve your cash. Stop spending money. If you have a service-based business, you're trading your time for money. And so you have the time and you're going to get the money. I don't want you making huge investments into anything. When you're first starting up. Build around your customers and grow from there. So if you're starting a lawn care company, try not to go out and spend a ton of money, right? You don't need an office, you don't need fancy vehicles, you don't need fancy equipment and fancy marketing. Just enough to get you started, to get your, your business off the ground, okay? If your longer-term goal is to have products, that's great, but start with a service because it gets you close to your customers and it brings money in the door. You gotta start making some cash. So now we're gonna start our service-based business. You have to figure out what kind of business you're gonna be in and what's gonna make you different. Okay, so Gonzo here is in the lawn service business. What Gonzo didn't tell me was what makes him different. There's a ton of lawn service companies, right? I can go walk down my street, look at any of the telephone poles, and I'll see tons of ads for people offering to cut my grass. In the summer and shovel my snow in the winter. Tons of these guys. What makes you different? What makes you stand out? What do you believe in? Why should I buy from you? Why should I hire you? What's so great about the experience I'm gonna get with your business versus doing it myself, hiring my next-door neighbor's kid, or hiring a different company? You gotta have that, and when you're talking about your business, you gotta put it in your messages too. You gotta put it here. You gotta tell me why you're different. Phone just shut off— not that you are just a lawn care company, right? That's gotta be in here. Now you've been in business for 5 years, so there's something, something that's right, right? You keep doing this, there's something you're doing that's right. Once you get a customer, you've got to service them, right? You're in a service-based business. You need to provide great service to your customers. You gotta care about them. You gotta give them something that they want to tell their friends about. You need to be remarkable. Again, something that people want to make a remark about? What is that for your business? Because people are hiring you to cut their grass, to rake their leaves, to shovel their snow. All that's great, but they have other problems. They have other deeper problems that they need help with that you could help them solve that your competition isn't doing. Dig in there. Get to know your customers. Get to know their problems, their pains, and help them solve it. And if it's just you, then you're out talking to your customers and you're providing the best service possible and you're fast in your response time and you're going always over and above the call of duty to provide great service for them. And if you brought on a team, then they have to be able to do the same thing and they're professional and courteous and, you know, can answer questions for the customers and they know what they're doing. But you have to have something that's different. Right? Something that gives people a reason to keep coming back and hiring you and to keep telling their friends about you. One thing I found— so if we're talking about the lawn care industry, when I had my first place, I used to have a— you know, I lived with my parents for a while, then I had a basement apartment in an area, and then I had a townhouse, and then I eventually built my own house from scratch. Before I built my house, in my basement apartment and in my townhouse, and in the condo before that, I never had to worry about my lawn. It was always taken care of. Then I had my house and I had a lawn. I had to worry about this thing. And a lot of people don't know enough about lawns, and I was worried, how do I fertilize, and how short do I cut the grass, and how much do I need to water it, and do I use seed, do I use sod, all of that stuff. And I ended up hiring a company that had a clear, simple-to-follow maintenance program, and they came in and did the feeding and the cutting and everything I needed done, and they explained it to me in simple English language, and they made it convenient for me. And so I hired that company, and I told my neighbors about this company. They made my life easier. Why wouldn't I talk about them? They were remarkable. So how can you do something similar to really stand out? Because most people in that business are not super professional. They don't have big ambitions. It's a guy on a lawnmower. Right, that's who you're competing against. So you need to have something to stand out against the college kid who has a lawn mower and he cuts lawns for $20 on the side every weekend, right? That's what you gotta show, a little more professionalism and more service for your customers. That's all the early stage lifecycle of your business. Now it depends on how far you really want to grow, why you're starting this, and what you hope to accomplish, what kind of impact you want to have on your community and, and education for lawn care maintenance. Like, why did you start this business? I still have no idea. What are you passionate about? That's gotta shine through. If you wanna make this thing bigger, it's hard to scale a service-based business. It's a lot harder than a product. You can do it, you can franchise it, you can hire more people, but you're still trading your time for money. So do you want this to be bigger? Do you want this to grow franchise? Do you want this to grow bringing on a bigger team? Do you wanna stop trading your time for money and start building products and educational series for people on how to manage their own lawns? Or how to train people, other landscapers, to build their own business, right? There's a lot of opportunities for growth that's not always gonna rely on you just trading your time for money by cutting people's grass. But you gotta want it. You wanna want to build something bigger. It's not necessarily for everybody. You have to decide in your heart if that's the right thing for your business or not. At the core of all of this, for everybody who is starting up, I love the service-based business idea again because there's limited cash flow going out and there's lots of cash flow coming in. That's a good way to start a business, but it's a service-based business, so you have to find ways to service your customers. Overdeliver like crazy on your service and your service business will grow. Believe. If you guys like this video, please give it a thumbs up below. I'll do more for you and I want to hear what you have to say. Please leave a comment underneath. You have a question, leave it below. I'll make a video response for you. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.
