30 Year Old CEO Running a $60M Lawn Care Business

Is this gonna be the intro? Yeah, it is gonna be the intro. All right, we are headed to the airport, and today I'm taking you behind the scenes of a turnaround show. We're gonna be traveling across the country helping struggling businesses. On this episode, we are helping a cleaning business that does how much in revenue? $2.3 million in revenue. And then a permanent lighting business that does like $3 million in annual revenue. So stick along for the ride. We're gonna be flying, we're gonna be driving, we're gonna be helping these business owners, and we'll show you behind the scenes.

Fires all around, no idea how I'm gonna provide for my family that I just relocated. You have like 500 100% annual churn. Something's broken that needs to be fixed.

All right, we landed in Chicago. It's an absolute zoo here. Headed to dinner. On the flight, I built a little tool called instantmowingquote.com. Go check it out. I've been working on it the past couple weeks. It's pretty cool. But for now, barbecue is on the agenda. All right, Terrell, we met up here in Chicago. I guess we're now in Indiana, right? Indiana. Got our barbecue situation on. Let's go. I'm trying to vlog more of this trip. All right, let's do it.

Yeah.

Okay, so we just wrapped up barbecue, but AI makes you feel smart because it lets you run scripts and see a bunch of text in different colors. So that's what's happening right here as we are eating barbecue. All right, Terrell, what's the main focus on the turnaround trip? Work as a team. Good framing for our editors.

Framing is important.

Make the owners feel comfortable being on set. All right, we made it to the hotel. Going to Chicago, landed at the hotel. We're about to do what we call our— what's called pre-coaching interview. I basically look over the numbers that are— that Brianna got from the owner: profit and loss statement, balance sheet, etc. But before we go into that, because Terrell's next door, he'll be coming over the camera. Let me go over a low-calorie option for your dessert. So this is faguet. I think I said it right. Faguet. We call it fage because just, it just, if you don't think that says fage in English, I don't know what you're on. Then this is Catalina Crunch. It's really pretty low calorie and you just take these little bad boys, like little guys, scoop it in it to win it. 80 calories for this thing, 110 calories for a half cup of this. Under 200 calories, very filling, lots of protein. All right, so everyone that's subscribed to the Mike And Bree Vlogs, I know you've been thinking these hard-hitting questions like, I wonder if that Yellow Pelican case works. Well, it does. It works fantastically. I didn't fill it with all my stuff. It's actually filled with a bunch of gear. Because it's great at carrying gear. And I love this thing. It is extremely expensive. It was like $400. However, it is yellow— huge points. And two, it's massive. In fact, usually it ends up in the oversized luggage, or sometimes it does. But 10 out of 10 recommend. If you travel a lot, use a Pelican. Nothing inside ever breaks. All right, we got to the hotel. It is the night before we go visit John from Club Clean. I'm gonna look at his website, look at the numbers, and see his application video for the first time. And then tomorrow morning we'll head over.

I love, you know, what you guys are doing to, you know, just help service businesses think the way they need to and set themselves up for success.

All right, so $2.4 million at peak, 56 employees. It's relatively a low dollar amount per year per employee, but cleaning is generally that way. And that is maybe you get $60,000, $70,000 per year per employee. In most home services, I'm trying to get over $100,000 per employee out in the field.

All right, here's the voice recap for John Torres with Club Clean. He has a massive, about $2.2 to $2.3 million cleaning business out in Indiana. It also sounds like he's more of a ghost owner in the sense that he put other leaders in place to kind of be able to take care of the business. From the way he talked, it sounds like he's a pastor, or at least a preacher at his church.

So a ghost owner, I love it. I think you meant like absentee, right? Yes. Okay, all right, you need a ghost.

He really tries to optimize at least the weekends for being completely out of the business and just focusing on what he feels led to. The things he wants to get—

Man, this guy's got a lot on his plate. So he's a pastor, he's an ex-professional baseball player, and he runs a $2.3 million cleaning business. So anytime an owner is absentee, it takes a whole nother level of leadership skills because you're not there to lead by example. And so someone that can have a really good business that's leading by example in the field or even in the office every day for the crew to be able to see them. As soon as you're absentee, you have to depend on a completely different set of skills. You have to lead through other managers that are in person, or you have to lean on communication, for example, like Zoom or other formats besides just seeing people and talking to them. So it's a very different skill. But I'm really interested to see the labor percentage. And so what we will be digging in tomorrow is when you have 50 to 60 employees assuming they're all W-2s and you have only $2.4 million in revenue, we're running like, we're skating either part-timers, 1099s, or we are very thin margins. But what can we do to make sure that he's able to lead the company and take it to the next level? Because $2.5 million sounds good, but he obviously wants to go past $10 million. So what's the unlock? What's the constraints holding business back from doing exactly that?

I'll get out of the car, I'll greet John, we'll go set up for coaching, establish where that is, then Mike comes and greets them.

And do your pre-coaching interview? You guys do pre-coaching interview, right? Yeah. Yeah, cool. And then just text me or whatever when you're— I'm ready to come in. All right, come grab me. Yeah, then, then the cameras are set up, I can walk right in and get started. Straighten up. How's it going? Mike, what's up, man? John, good to see you, man. This is a cool house to meet you in person. Yeah, 1870. Hi, Frankie. Good to meet you. 1870, mercy. Yeah, I got a house— my first house I ever remodeled was like I had 19 2011. Oh wow. And so we've touched every, every part of it, part of this house. I would probably align those like stage 1, stage 2, stage 3 of your career map. So that way in the meeting you're like, hey, like, are we falling behind a little bit? How do we get your next stage? If you're going from $14 to $18 an hour, of course, of 3 years, for example, their first one could be a 25-cent bump, then it's a 50-cent bump, then it's a 75-cent bump, there's a dollar bump, and then the next one's like a dollar and a dollar. Like, you could really make it ramp it up because what's not showing up on the P&L right now is the cost of churn. At the employee level. And I think we could talk a lot about quality control and the systems and what we call yellow slips callbacks. That all kind of gets solved when you just have employees that have been around for a long time. They know the sites like the back of their hand. They start to pick up on things.

They go through it quicker. They know what doors to look behind. Just all the nuances that someone just needs to be around long enough to find out or figure out.

What you can do is tie your stages for them to move up into to tangible things like reviews, like upsells. These are things that are really tangible. It's hard to be like, have a good score or have good quality. You got to make it really specific. So we have like number of reviews, number of upsells, like all the little things that, you know, if someone does, they're doing a good job. All right. Turnaround 1 coaching is in the books. We got to go back and shoot what we call the 4L framework and Mike Minutes, where I do kind of the post-op review of what happened and kind of recap some elements. And since the business is doing okay, it's profitable, it's growing $2.4 million in revenue. But the ability to retain team members. They're only keeping team members for 2 months on average. If we can just get that to 6 or 8 months, that whole business will be completely way better. And so it's a culture, it's a hiring, it's a training, really it's onboarding problem that we were facing, which is very different than a lot of the turnarounds where it's a huge amount of capital constraints, debt. They can't get leads, they can't grow. And so I think it's a relatively easy fix, but when you're dealing with 60, 70 people, Also, things get complicated and it's harder to lead. And so we'll definitely see in the next 6 weeks if they can turn things around. All right. This is the setup. We're doing Mike Minutes and the 4L Framework on this beautiful bridge. It's extremely windy out here. Terrell, how was this day so far? The turnaround? Great. It was great. All right, let's do this thing. How to wash something, how to vacuum, how to clean is a technical skill. And that is important in training. And it's very easy when you have quality control issues or you have complaints to think, oh, we need to do more technical training. But honestly, If they just spent 20, 30 minutes at the beginning of a 3-day training session and focus on the goals of the employee and why we do what we do, if that was answered, I believe there'd be a whole lot better quality output from the training that ensues over the next 3 days.

My new favorite thing to do in the gym is to use my voice and basically vibe code stuff. So in the past, if I had an idea or something for the designers or the engineers, it was like, well, let me sketch out my iPad or try to like make a Loom or voice note. Now with vibe coding and AI, I can basically build a mockup of it that actually works, and then the hard part which you still need engineers for, is like security, databasing, load speed. What happens when you put 1,000 people on the website or 1,000 people on that feature versus just me on my one device? But now instead of just listening to stuff at the gym, I can just whisper to this phone and vibe code stuff, put together stuff, debug stuff.

Pretty cool. Alright, we just crushed a workout here at Anytime Fitness. Uh, nice thing about Anytime Fitness is there's thousands of clubs around the world. You're basically always within 10 to 15 minutes of one. This one was 10 minutes away from our hotel. So StairMaster leg day. What'd you work out? Upper body. Hey, I know, check this out. Look at this overachiever. Who works out 46 times in a month? Oh, it's just inefficient. All right, I don't know how this is gonna work, but we're gonna try it out. We're taking Phage yogurt protein fit pack, putting Core Power in. I drank half of the Core Power and then I put all the Phage in Just tons of protein goodness, Regis.

Mind you, he has a cup available.

No, we need to go on the road. We gotta go to the airport. So then you close it up. I haven't done this before. I'm making it sound like I've done this before.

That texture's gotta be diabolical.

Okay, let's see. Does this work apart? Tastes like chocolate beige.

It doesn't taste clumpy at all, or it's not clumpy.

Now, the crème de la crème, Catalina Crunch. Inside, this is insane situation. This is the real deal. It's 42 grams. And the phage is probably under like 20, 10.

Did you put the whole thing in?

Um, no, like two-thirds. And then all of this Catalytic Crunch, which is straight protein, whey protein essentially. Okay, take all this.

It's gonna get so soggy.

Oh no, I'm gonna chug it. Chug it, okay.

Just created a new job: protein bartender.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend it unless you want to have 100 grams of protein in one sitting. It tastes exactly like you would expect 100 grams of protein would taste.

You're gonna gas up the whole plane.

All right, we are once again up at the butt crack of dawn. This is the second turnaround, also known as day 4. Sunday, Monday, today is Wednesday. Okay, so this business has— that did $3.5 million in annual revenue, and I have a feeling a lot of their current troubles actually come down to just some of the personal stuff that the owner's gone through. He's gone through a lot. Um, as a kid, he unfortunately, he was kidnapped and then also his wife went through a lot of stuff. And so he's been 5 months away from the business and had to have his managers run it, which is good that it survived. However, it sounds like there's quite a bit of trouble with the managers and he's been firing them. So interesting to see what happens. It's a permanent lighting business, so they don't just do Christmas lights. You can use it for like game days, Halloween, Easter, all sorts of events. But Ben had to get a workout in. Non-negotiable. So we're going to the gym and then we're gonna be headed to turnaround number 2. Alright, so slight change of plans. We were headed to the shop space for today's turnaround, and it turns out they recently had a fire at the office, so everything is a mess. Nothing really— no one's really working, and a lot of the machinery they use to manufacture lights is all hidden by everything they've moved away from the fire area. So Terrell's ahead of us, he's at the shop space, he'll get as much footage as he can, but there's no one even working, so we're gonna go just meet them at their house and do the coaching there. So slight change of plans, but for now we are not going to LA Fitness, but we are going to TF Supplements. We'll see if it's good. We gotta get ourselves a smoothie while we wait for them to get back to their house. All right, quick update: we went to the supplement place. Note to self, supplement place usually doesn't have fresh smoothies, they have powdered smoothies. And when I saw the smoothie machine was essentially like looking like a self-serve ice cream machine You know it ain't good. It didn't smell good either. It smelled like plastic and powder, not green and protein and whole foods. So what do we get? Where are we going now, Bana?

Uh, Green Monkey.

That sounds much more down our aisle. Green and monkey business. That's what we up to. And then we gotta get a coffee shop so we can start working since we're now delayed.

The green one's good?

Both of them.

You would think they'd be opposite.

Yeah, we got protein, we got spinach. Life is good, you know. Great customer service. Guy was happy, giving me nutrition facts, give me samples. He was jazzed up and loving life. The last place, we couldn't even get a hello from the guy. Just saying. I would hire that guy on the spot. He'd be a great command center agent. He's happy, loving life, informative, trying to get us on a QR code, upselling us. Giving us samples. He's a one-man shop situation. And even while we're there, the blender broke. It literally blew up inside of the little cage thing. He handled it like a pro. Yeah. Yeah. So, if you want to be really gangster about this, I would also split test it with the phone. So you have the ads coming in and just split it between this one goes to VSL and a landing page. This one goes to call now. Uh, come this way for me. All right, the kiddos all getting babysat today. We have an outfit. I've been begging for a nanny for the last 2 years. Oh really? And Haley's sister just came down, so she's nannying for us. Oh, is that before we start hiking? Yes. All right, turnaround 2 is in the book, at least the coaching is. We have not come to the skatepark for funsies, but we are going to be doing the Mike Minutes and 4L framework here at the park.

Contrary to popular belief, we do not shred very well.

Yeah, right, right. Everything in Houston is very busy, including this park, so we try to do the Mike Minutes and the 4L framework and the coaching stuff outside just to give it a little more different than just being in studio. And we do it right after we do the coaching. So that way it is still fresh in my mind. But knock this one out and then we will be officially completed the trip. Keep like, by the way, I was speaking— their permanent lighting business made $3 million in revenue last year. I got to ask these questions and dig a little deeper, understand the personal side because it's making them show up as a poor leader. We're going to be behind for a little while. I appreciate everyone hanging out for the turnaround. We just got back in town. I did a caffeinated nap. Let's go. And then went and ran stairs. But I wanted to show you the progress we've made here at the headquarters building. So if you've been watching the channel, a few months ago we moved into a new office space and we have a 4-year lease there. But this is going to be built here in 2026. I want to show you what they did. This is the first week and a half, 2 weeks of construction. We have finally brought in the driveway. This space we bought back in 2020, and we've been getting permitting and wetland mitigation and the stormwater stuff and well work and really just developing the land. And that's really been the bulk of what we've been working on. Uh, it's been really slow process here in Washington State. It's not great for that. However, we were able to get a really good price on the land itself.. And my hope is that we can build a whole campus here because there's 5 acres and there's just lots of space. But this is where the first building is going to go. So they've done a bunch of site prep with a bulldozer. Excavator was in here. They removed a ton of soil. We had to move 2,000 yards of soil back here to be able to get down to the clay. Everything above that was a little bit too topsoily. So we brought in all this much better soil. For the actual concrete pad. So this building is going to be 75 feet wide, 100 feet long, and this is going to be servicing the Bellingham shop. So my Augusta, Long Co-location, the HomeWorks engineering and team that is local, as well as all of the media team and probably like Home Service CPA and Home Service Web Design, everyone like that. Building 2, though, will be done. I hope is— my hope is that we can get Building 2 by the time the— our 4-year lease, the other command center is done. And I believe we can. We've got to do some wetland mitigation because this is all our land back here. And I would love to be able to build out on this space, but there's quite a bit of wetlands. Nice thing is we've done all the hard work of developing the land by just getting one building on this property, building the second, the third, the fourth. It will be relatively cheap compared to the first building because we've done all the land development. So that's where right now you can see here. Let me try to flip this around. You can see we have a lot of the actual structure of the building. It's been sitting here for quite literally years because when we bought the land in 2020, we're like, oh my word, we have all these shortages and backups in the supply chain. So we're like, we should just order everything. And they got, got here and sat here for the past 4 or 5 years. But this is where we're at right now. This is where the driveway will be. There'll be a parking lot here. The well is way in the back, and then there'll be plenty of space for building number 2, which I'm hoping will go right there. Unfortunately, we did have to cut in, like I said, a lot of the soil, and we're going to have to build a landscape wall just as a retention along that back area. However, I happen to know a good landscaping business. Let's go. Thanks for coming along for the turnaround show and for the trip. I appreciate everyone's support. This this building, this headquarters building, and everything we're trying to do is a direct reflection of everyone's support. And if you saw me working on my laptop, my phone throughout this entire week, I know I mentioned it earlier, I've been working a ton at nights and in between every single second, even while I was running stairs today, on an AI tool for the lawn care landscaping industry. And it is completely free. You can go check it out. It's just instantmowingquote.com and hopefully allow you to get some more bids. It's completely free and it is my thank you to this industry for making this possible. I still remember 5 years ago writing down— actually, 6 years ago, writing down in my little journal notebook thing, just wishing that one day I would be able to have the franchise I would be able to— my goal was to turn around struggling businesses that were in the same position as I was back in 2016 when I got stuck underneath the dump truck, caught in the PTO. It almost killed me and I was out for a couple of weeks. And if I would have had a family and kids, it would have definitely bankrupted me. And so the Turnaround Show is basically probably the most manual one by one way of preventing that from happening to other people. My goal by capturing it and making the videos is that other people can watch it and avoid those same problems and fix their own business without me having to come out. And then the software that we built, like HomeWorks, which you can't see because this is active face tracking— HomeWorks is basically trying to take all the concepts that we have inside of the Turnaround Show and all the concepts I talk about in my books and my courses. And my hope is that all the inputs that we have in the software, I can actually just give guidance to everyone that's in the software because all the data's there. And especially with AI, this is absolutely something that we can do in the next several years. And using tools like I'm building here with instantmowingquote.com that, um, utilize AI is a step in that direction. So go check it out. I appreciate you all tremendously, and I'll see you next time.