$54,000 in Monthly Lawn Care Revenue in Half a Year! (Chuck Fought)

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes, landscape businesscourse.com and today we have a very special episode again here of Roundup. A couple of you've been asking if you could hear from other participants and people that work with me directly from Augusta Lawn Care. So today I'm really happy we're gonna have our first general manager on the show. And then next week, I'll probably have Lee from the local shop, who's kind of worked from the field to an estimator to an office person and really going to be like, kind of give you some good perspective, I think. So. Really fortunate and happy to get that started. Let's address the first that I am not the studio. This is a green screen. This is not anything you've ever seen before. It's not a new office or anything like that. But let's go ahead and get started. Without any further delay, let's go ahead and bring in Chuck from our Mooresville, North Carolina, location. Chuck, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it.

Hey, no problem, Mike. I appreciate it.

Well, so I, first of all, I want to. Wanted to kind of just. I know most people obviously don't know who you are on the channel, but I wanted to kind of introduce you and what you were doing before you even started doing Augusta Lawn Care in general, what were doing and a little bit just kind of how you got into things.

All right. Yeah. So I'm Chuck, obviously, the general manager here in Mooresville. So I'm originally from Ohio. I've never lived in Mooresville up until when I took this job with Mike in January, which at first was.

Which at first was a handicap. Remember that?

It was. It definitely was. So before I took this position, I originally started at 20 years old. Right before I turned 21, I started with the state of Ohio Department of Corrections. So pretty much everything I've known in my adult life was centered around law enforcement, corrections, things like that. So I did. I was an officer for a long time. I worked in the offices. My last position was I was a financial supervisor in the business side of it, trying to get away from just the crazy schedule, the nights, the weekends, the, you know, 24 hours of overtime a week that they would mandate us to third shift. I have a young family, you know, I am married with my wife Brooke, and then I have two young boys that are 7 and 9. And I missed a lot of their stuff early. So on the side, I had started landscaping. In 2010, I started Chuck's Yard Care. Very simple. Not a whole lot did it for a Season, maybe two, wasn't, you know, profitable all over Columbus, which is a major market, huge area, but I didn't have a zone. I didn't really know much, you know, at that time. I'm, you know, 24, 25 years old, just mowing grass. So I did that. And then in 2018, I stepped away from the state of Ohio, gave all of that up. Me and my wife. Sold our house, traveled for a year and bought a camper. Sold every other possession other than what we could fit in a couple coats in her grandma's basement. Traveled along. And then in May. Yeah, May of 2019, we stopped in Charleston, South Carolina. And then I started. Fought for Lawns, which is another landscape company in Charleston, South Carolina. Loved it. Told Brooke, this is eventually, this is what I will do long term. But we didn't know how that would play out. We got it up to. My last month was August of 2019. Got it up to it was either 85 or 80900 for the month in revenue by myself.

I had pretty much did all the mowing myself four days a week. Tried to do some projects, things like that, while also staying in a campground, because we were, you know, obviously in an RV until we could decide, are we staying, are we going, all of that stuff. So I did all that and then decided some things happened personally with our family. My father was diagnosed with heart failure, and then her grandfather has dementia. So we decided, you know what? Let's go home for a little while. So we did that. And of course, what do I know? With an easy job, easy money, I go back to security, that kind of stuff. So I became a regional manager for a private security company and then saw your YouTube ad for looking for general managers, not knowing where they were. So I told my wife, I said, hey, don't think I'm crazy, but watch this video, because I like doing different things. So she. She's. It's another one of my ideas. We're gonna do this. We're gonna. Always trying to find something to do on my own, be a business owner, that kind of thing, which this kind of wasn't that, but it's turning into be that because of the, you know, the 3F program.

So did that. So she watched. It was like, okay, you're gonna get a salary. We're gonna relocate south back to the Carolinas, where we loved it. So that's kind of where we ended up. And now we worked through it. It was, you know, had two locations that weren't Charlotte, you know, in the Charlotte area. And then I ended up working out, you know, mysteriously through God's ways that we have now this location here. And yeah, now we're in Mooresville, North Carolina.

That's awesome. I wanted to kind of speak to someone maybe listening isn't necessarily going to go own their own business and they perhaps have a family, they need a little more stability.

Just kind of speak to the fact like you kind of did it one way, which is doing on the side, you know, kind of doing it by yourself, that sort of thing. And then you've also done more of a general manager kind of using the structure of another company to kind of grow into you owning your own business. Can you kind of speak to those. And what would you say to someone that's kind of thinking about. But they, they do need that solid paycheck and they necessarily can't take a massive, you know, hundred thousand dollar risk on trying to scale something and not making profit right away.

Yeah. So honestly, that's the only reason we took this job ultimately was we had a steady paycheck, there was a steady income. You know, I am a salary employee. So in the spring rush, when we're working till dark, it is what it is. And in the winter time, when, you know, we are in that transitional zone, so we do have winter work, it didn't snow at all. January, February, March here, there was no snow. So we will have work here in the winter. And you know, if there's not a ton of work, I still get paid the same. So it's very nice to have that with a family to be able to then say, hey hon, I want to do landscaping, but what's the way to do it here? This was a perfect example for us to do it. And I think if you get with the right company and personally with me, I've loved every minute of Augusta. There's ways to promote and that I think that's what kind of highlights Augusta from other companies, especially talking to my guys and different. And my brother worked for a major, major brightview. So he worked back in the day. He became an arborist to quit because they worked him to death and everything. And there really wasn't the promotion. There was just kind of do what you can, come in work, here's your paycheck and we'll see you later. So the culture at Augusta is great for an employee. So, you know, we do have the, you know, the two year program. You work for Augusta for two years and you can move up and promote to an estimator, to a general manager. Or if you want to go, you know, start and run your own, you can and not have the franchise fee. So I think that, you know, Augusta builds that whichever direction you want to go, you can ultimately do that. And I think that that's a fantastic thing and a great thing. It was amazing for me because it gave my. I'm a little more of a risk taker. That's just what it is. My wife is not. So it's got to be. She's a planner. I. I could tell you everything we're going to do this weekend, next week.

She likes to have things planned. But I've come to love that, and I like that. So it's nice to know, okay, I have a paycheck, but we're taking a big risk to go do this new job, this new career in a new state, a new city. I have no idea. These people down here are completely different. Are they going to be the same or, you know, or is it going to be same climate? You know, so there was some research that went into it, but with us, the. The safety net of I have a paycheck was there was great. Now let's go and actually focus on the business, growing it, whether it's, you know, buying this, which is the goal, or starting my own in another location. If that changes down the road, you know, I could do that factor or just stay a general manager. Those avenues are there, and I think for somebody as an employee, that's what is great about this company is there, the paths are clear. It's just, what do you want to do? Do you want to go in entrepreneurship? I have a guy now that I think eventually he's talked about owning, but he also has talked about being a general manager because of the security that goes along with it, and he likes that. So there are just so many different avenues that you can go, like I said, to promote to an estimator, to go to an office manager or general manager or be an owner and not have that heavy burden of, well, I got other franchise fees to get that, and you don't have those. You still have your initial startups or equipment, things like that, but you don't have to worry about the big upfront fee and the different things that Augusta provides for you, I think outweighs any other company.

So when it comes to, you know, what you've done, even the past, I guess, February, so we're looking at six months now. And, you know, I think a lot of the success you've had is attributed to the fact that you had experience coming into Augusta when it came to hiring and managing people. And like I've always said, you know, getting to 500,000 in annual revenue is going to be around if you can sell, and then getting beyond that's going to be, can you manage people? And I feel like that's probably your strong suit in terms of managing people hiring. You know, really just looking at someone saying, like, are they going to be a good person to work with all the rest of it. Can you speak to that in terms of drawing on that experience that you've had in a past as a manager for someone that's potentially wanting to get in the business for themselves? But they're. They're kind of questioning whether or not they really do have those skills required to hire, you know, manage money, all the rest of it. Maybe they do have some of the flaws on the sales side, but they do have skills. And I feel like, you know, looking at your. Your track record the past six months, taking, you know, now to over 50,000amonth in revenue, so quickly becoming profitable within four or five months, which our goal is six, and you did it in four or five. Can you speak to that experience that you've had in the past and how that helped you, whether it be as a general manager or as an owner down the road for someone that potentially might have some corporate experience and background?

Yeah, definitely. So, you know, like I said previously, I hadn't been a supervisor, so I managed a small office of four people with the state of Ohio. But then when I went into the private security for them, it was another franchise national company, similar to Augustine. Like I said, franchises. I had two markets, one that had about 20, 25 employees, and then the other market in Cincinnati, because I was from Columbus, the market in Cincinnati was 30 to 40, depending upon the season. So I could be anywhere from 45 to 65 employees at any given time. Hiring, you know, firing.

Didn'T really do so much of the financials, but I had that before because we had an office lady and they kind of handled their own money, but I did that with the state of Ohio. So there's a lot that kind of goes into it, but I think there's enough support from Augusta or anything you can learn. You can learn how to mow grass like that. You can YouTube how to lay stripes. And, you know, most of the time, your customers, they honestly don't care about your stripes. They just want their grass mowed, show up, mow the grass, do your job. As far as hiring and things like that, that Stuff you can learn as you go, but a lot of it can just be common sense. So if you come in and you treat people right and you explain to them and you kind of, you know, we had a couple of complaints. We didn't have any. Like, all. All month of June, we had probably two, maybe three the whole month. We've had three or four this week alone. You know, and yellow slips, as you call them, you know, and damage cases or what, you know, whatever it is. And, you know, it's just telling them how to fix it, but then also then remind them of the good stuff. So, hey, look, we've been crushing it. Don't let this one thing kill you. But we got to improve our, you know, our edging or our weeding and. Or want to be careful of. Watch for sprinkler heads, whatever it is. So it's a. It's a little bit of that. But I mean, it's really just a lot of common sense of teaching people, you know, how to kind of just take ownership of all of their things. And it makes my job as a general manager, you know, that much easier, you know, and pay for performance is. It has its downsides because guys rush, but then it also has the upside of they slow down. Because I got one guy, he hates going back to Frog. He hates damage claims because he's all. He's money hungry, but you tell him. And now he's slowed it down and he hasn't got a complaint for probably the whole month. And he wasn't one of the ones that got the complaints. So, like, he realized, hey, I can run through and I'm still gonna make great money, but I need to slow down a little bit so that I don't miss things and I don't rush things. So there is some managing people, and that's where we're starting now. The guys have been with a little bit longer. I had to get. I've weeded through some employees. You know, I fired two people this season already.

But it's really. It's honestly not a hard thing if you use common sense and just kind of talk to people in a respectful way and just, you know, like, for this, because I just treat it as my own. If you take ownership as an. As a manager and say, you know what? I'm going to treat this if it's my money, if it's my equipment, if it's my business, and then you treat your employees the kind of the same way, like if I was this guy mowing grass because I get out and get dirty with them. I mow grass with them and do treatments with them, Lay mulch and all that stuff. How do. How would I want to be viewed? How would I want to, you know, to take care of equipment? You got to show them kind of the same thing. So kind of show them by doing is the really how I feel you should do it.

And in your market like you. You really scale it relatively quickly in terms of size and just revenues and getting it to profitability so quickly. And we spent probably about 5 to $6,000 less than we usually would on a corporately location to get it to that point. Talk to me kind of though about some of the hurdles in doing that. We skilled relatively quickly. There was a lot going on. You had to juggle, whether it be hiring, finding the work for those people. What were some of the obstacles or things you had to learn in the past six months?

Yeah, so first the work was easy to find. Like the work is here now. It's slowed down this month, but a lot of that, you know, people are on vacations, spending tons of money to go out of town. You know, you see all the reports of people spending tons of money on travel now and hotels and things like that. So it slowed down and I'm not so worried about that. But the work was easy. The work was here. You just had to show up and do it. Now finding the people in the beginning, I found everybody I needed. We were good. I lost a guy. Then I had to find the right guy. So weeded through them. But like, as you said, like we. We started in February. I went to training the first week of February, came back, it was me and one truck. That was it. And we bought another truck to have a mowing setup. So then we had mo set up with trailerless.

And then, you know, if everybody wants to know, Mike does run mowerless setups even in his corporate stores with zero turns.

Trailerless. Trailerless trailer list.

That's what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, no trailerless setup. So we run a 48 inch standard beat in the back of a 1500 pickup. We. We now have two of those setups plus our. We always call the guys call it the landscape truck because it's the one that we hook up to the dump trailer. And then we have an estimate car now. So it. And we started nothing to where then, you know, basic. No revenue to where we started with Some, I think $11,000 to end February. 15,000 something like that. I have to like look to where now we 54000 last month and we just. We keep gaining mowing customers so is kind of growing and progressing. The honestly the biggest hurdle was getting our equipment. We or I ordered an edger attachment for the steel combi system on the 111 combi and I think the end of March and I just got it at the beginning of June for a straight shaft edger. Like that's crazy to me.

Yeah.

So but that's just kind of how everything goes. So getting the equipment has been a problem. Getting some supplies like mulch.

One of our suppliers that we consistently use that has the best price they ran out of brown mulch. Well brown we we use a ton of mulch here and pine needles. Then the pine needle guy caught fell out. He ran out. So then I was having to call down into Charlotte and a lot of guys didn't want to come up to Charlotte because we're about 20, 25 minutes outside of Charlotte and they just didn't want to bring the supplies up here. The orders were too small or whatever it was. So that that became a problem. It really was just a big supply issue. And then honestly not knowing the market. Not knowing the market was probably the biggest hurdle that I came across from start to finish. I didn't know pricing. I had no idea you know what they were gonna pick is acceptable. And that was really kind of the people here are very. You're either because it's a smaller town, it's like 40000 people but. And I want to say smaller town but to me that's a little bit of a smaller town. But it still has that the older Mooresville people and the newer Mooresville people. So learning the pricing the customer just this market was really my biggest struggle. My wife will tell you I complain like hey these people do this but these people do this and they don't like me because I'm. One guy called me a Yankee because I'm from the north. Like it was just like it was just a different market. But I, I feel like I've kind of gotten the pricing dialed in. What's acceptable for certain.

Areas of town I guess you would say because Mooresville really is divided up in two separate markets. How I kind of treat it. There's the more affluent side that's closer to the lake and you know multi million dollar homes that you know are. We're mowing you know today we mowed our a new client. It's a three million dollar house and then you go to the other side and it's five Acres and a hundred thousand dollar house. So they, they want different things. You know, the farm people just mow, go and get out of here and leave me alone kind of thing. They don't, they're not real picky. The other side is every blade of grass has to be perfect edges crisp, you know, that kind of thing. So it's just learning the, the wants and the needs of the market that's really been the biggest struggle here in Moore's on now we honestly could use.

More work for, for someone that might be watching that is, is a manager or is a number two or trying to support their owner or maybe one day wants to own their business, but currently is an employee. What would you say to them? Has been some of the things that you've had to, you know, adapt to or have been challenging that the fact that you aren't the owner, whether it be dealing with employees or customers or even just the expectations of somebody else. Has there been areas where that's been difficult at certain times or areas that you could kind of point someone the right direction if they're wanting to eventually own. But right now they're currently as an employee.

Yeah. So that, honestly, that's a hard one because you give me a lot of freedoms to do as I feel I should because I do treat it as my business. I do everything that I would, you know, if I would. I'm not gonna go buy something that I wouldn't buy on my own if it wasn't my money. So that one kind of tricky. Sometimes the hardest thing is because I'm not the owner, I can't make, I don't say legal decisions, but insurance, you know, we have insurance issues or banking issues or like I, yes, I have access to everything. Like I have complete. I can do all the stuff. But then there's times where they said, well, you need to be this or we need to speak the mic or we got. And I can't do those things. And it does slow me down where I'm like, hey, let's get it, let's do it, let's finish it. I don't have time to deal with this. Let's, let's just move. I can't then it's not that it takes you long, but it's still not something that I'm thinking about. Let's do it and move on.

That's probably, that's probably that biggest challenge there is. Just trying to stay on task when there are some things I have to wait for. But you give me pretty good freedom to do what I need to do.

You there, Chuck?

Yeah, I'm here.

Sorry, that was on my end. I don't know what happened.

Oh, man.

So, but you. You were saying kind of about the legal side. That was kind of the challenge, the biggest challenge.

Yeah, that's the challenge. Because like I said, the. The insurance is the banking information. That's the stuff that, you know, that is hard getting the vehicles registered. You know, like, I don't know how to register a car here, but once we figured it out somewhere. But I still needed you to help me with that aspect of it, you know, so that. That's kind of the issue, Mikey, there.

Yeah, I am sorry. I don't know what's up. It just keeps blanking out. But I can hear you.

Gotcha. Okay. Yep. So it's just one of those things.

Maybe my question a bit then to someone that, like, sorry, now we're all delayed. Fun stuff. But anyways, kind of pivoting my question a little bit towards them, maybe towards an owner that is thinking about having a general manager or a number two or someone to run their location. What would you say to them in terms of empowering? Because a big part of what I do and that is like, find someone good and just trust them 100%. And if they mess up, like, hey, you know, you gave them all the tools and resources and let them kind of die on their own sort and not micromanage. What would you say to that? To someone who's potentially someone in my shoes, looking for someone like yourself? Because in my opinion, attracting great people, part of that is like, let them go do their thing. Like, don't get in their way and maybe start talk a little bit to that in terms of giving someone some suggestions if they were looking for a general manager.

Yeah. So you've got to have that trust. And, you know, my previous position as the regional manager, I had, you know, we did $900,000 in revenue, two offices, all of these different things, but yet I didn't have a simple company credit card to buy things I like to buy. I had to call them. They would Amazon it to me. But then every other decision within, like, that was literally the only thing I didn't do. I had to call the insurance guy to add them. I had like, all these different things, but yet I couldn't buy paper. So, like, it was a little bit frustrating. So what now, like, you have, to me personally, that kind of is, I don't want to say a deal breaker, but if you want, like you said, good People to treat things like it is theirs, then you have to give them that kind of power and that freedom. So if you want to hold things back, well, I'm not giving you my all if I don't have your own. So to me that you have to be able to trust the people to do those things. And I would think you would know pretty quickly from conversations and how the business is kind of going if things are doing right, you know, looking at bank accounts or just growth or however you would gauge it on, you know, as the owner. But if you don't give people that freedom, like you said, to kind of hang themselves because I mean, you're gonna know you. But to me, you gotta trust them to do that job. And if, if they're right for the position, you'll know pretty quickly, I think. But if you don't, then they're gonna think you don't trust them. Which then is just a domino effect down the line of issues.

In terms, in terms of hiring, how have things been there? I know we kind of were having struggles and then we had the whole labor shortage.

And then, you know, we were considering raising base pay. Like talk me through that. I know at one time we were like, you're, we were very concerned about how much we were spending and just trying to find good people. How has that evolved over the past few months?

So, you know, I hired my first employee, which I had high hopes for. But then I'm a big attitude person. Like I explained earlier in the thing, I can teach anybody to mow grass and weedy and do all of that mess. But if you have a terrible attitude, I got nothing for you. We are a team and that's just how things are going to be. So I had to get rid of him probably within first month, month and a half, but, but dude could mow some stripes. He was great, real good technicality wise, you know, on the equipment, but just was not a good fit for the culture that we're trying to build here. But then got a new guy in, hired him on a part time basis. So I've been able to find some people and I say part time, but the Guy works at 10, comes in at 10 and works till 7 or till 5. So he's still putting in 7 hours. He's just not coming in at 7:30 when we do. And then we just hired another guy because I had to fire a guy because again, his attitude is all off. Things like that. I'll fire you in a heartbeat for that. I don't have a Problem at all getting rid of you if you're just not going to fit with all of the guys.

I don't bid a job that I wouldn't do. So don't, don't complain about it. I mean, we all gripe a little bit like, man, this job's hot, it sucks, whatever, but I'm not gonna bid it if you. If I wouldn't be out there with you guys doing it. So. And I tell them all this when we interview. So we've gotten rid of people, the two people, because of that kind of stuff. Just, just mow the grass and do what we're supposed to. I'll be right there with you and let's have a good time and do what we need to do to work so we can all go home. Not just go home when you want to go home. So, you know, that, that it was, it was a struggle to find that when we were at that point to find the, the part time guy and I went into the field a little bit more. I kind of pulled out of the field a little bit more and then kind of went back into it and then trying to stabilize that a little bit. Where we were, it was a transition between the spring rush and the summer. Where do we get another person? Do I go into the field a little bit more? So I would mow two or three hours a day with the guys. So we did that. We ended up. I did that for a little bit. And the guy, because he was kind of slacking a little bit, not really pulling his weight with the rest of the crew. We need to get rid of him and hire somebody else in here. But now I think we've got a decent setup with the crew we have. It's just kind of making it work schedule wise with the part time guy, because his schedule Mike, he goes to school, he just got out of the army, so we may look for another person. But I was a little stressed about the amount of money we were spending on hiring. You know, paying 21 for an applicant for indeed. You know, whatever. I think it got up. It might have got up to $23 per applicant from indeed. You know, that says they had a year of experience mowing grass and it was helping their grandfather mow his house.

So then you interview them and that really honestly becomes a waste of time because as you guys know, we. We don't have a shop. Like, we don't have an office where people can come in. So it was, come meet us at our, you know, our lot and we'll talk about it. But we're outside and in the spring it rains a ton and like torrential rain, you know, it's not like the Seattle kind of drizzle all the time. It's just it pours. So, you know, we found a Starbucks or a little coffee shop and we'd meet and kind of talk or whatever. But you know, that takes time. And then you get frustrated because I just spent 190 on seven applicants that were horrible. You know, the quality of applicant that was the biggest issue with the quality of applicant was bad in the spring, weeding them out to find a good one that would stick around. And we did talk about, you know, we had the discussion about raising base pay and then, you know, doing all that stuff. But we're still competitive pay wise this year. Now next year it may be a different story, but this year, you know, we pay 15 an hour plus P for P bonuses and we're competitive on the higher end. For most companies. There's a couple that have raised it, but I mean, they don't pay bonuses, they don't pay profit sharing, which is a huge incentive. The guy should get it on the next one next quarter. So they're pretty, they're pretty pumped about that because we've hit, you know, we're going to hit profit this month again for the second month in a row. So that like they're seeing those things and now they're seeing the profit when I show them. That keeps the guys that we have here as the. On the retention side, which is big. So that, that's what I've really kind of focused on. I have two guys, they're my core guys. Let's retain them, I think is just as important as trying to find good help, you know, from the outside. Let's focus on the retention. And that's kind of what I've done with them, is kind of, they're kind of my trendsetters, I guess you would.

Call them in terms of kind of like your target customer there in Mooresville. Obviously there's like you said, the more the affluent side and there's just no other part of town where it's not, you know, expensive housing, things like that. I think at first two we were kind of talking about, you know, the fact that there are customers who don't have full service, they don't have an immaculate lawn and that it's no less of a service to them just to mow their lawn, mow, blow and go. And at first that was a little bit more of a question mark. For you, how has that evolved over the past few months? Have you got more of a certain type of customer as the brand has started to evolve? And, and what was that kind of transition in your mind? Like, just like, hey, like, if the money's green, I'm going to take it. And I don't need to necessarily have the best looking houses in the neighborhood.

Yeah. So in the beginning I was a little more, I don't want to say picky because I took every estimate we would, that would come in. But I personally, as just a personal thing, I wanted the greenest lawns, you know, the best looking straight, like, best yards in, in Mooresville and all of this. And then I slowly did learn, okay, there are different customers in this area.

And really just kind of, I'm okay with that. Like, if it's grass, I'll know it. I don't care. There's a lot of. We have two different types of grass here. We have fescue and Bermuda. One school season, one's warm season. And people think you don't have to mow Bermuda. Well, yes, yes, you do. It's hot now and it's really growing. But they still want to do bi weekly. So I've had to adjust kind of my expectations. But on the flip side, I was just telling the guys today, our last, I think three mowing customers have all been multimillion dollar homes close to the lake. So we're starting to kind of grow in that area where we didn't have a single property on the other side of, on the, what I call the more affluent side. But Mooresville really is kind of split by Freeway. Interstate 77 kind of splits us in half. And that's how we mow. We mow two days on one side, two days on the other side. And our customers have really leveled out to where it's pretty similar hour mowing hours on each side, but. And they're totally different. But we're starting to grow on the more affluent side just because of the brand recognition, the market saturation. They see us running up and down. There's one road that goes down by. It's one of Trump's golf courses. It's only, it's one road down and one road back. It's like 15 miles long. And it's the point it goes out and we're starting to get more and more properties on that road and they're starting to see us all the time. And, you know, people at the gas station stopping the guys asking about the ramp rack and man, I see 10 trucks? No, we have three. You know, and they think we have so many because they just see us everywhere now. And I think that's starting to kind of build that clientele base for us to where now we're at 170 reoccurring customers. And we weren't when we started, obviously. So it's really grown. It's just now we're starting to get some of the bigger customers, the more affluent customers that are seeing. You know, one of the biggest comments I get from customers is I love the communication that I receive and I love how your guys all look the same in their clean cut. You know, we, we don't smoke. None of our guys smoke. They don't have cigarettes hanging out of their lip and shirt sleeves cut off and gym shorts on which you see a lot of. So we kind of keep the appearance and professionalism pretty high. And you know that, that has come across as pretty important on that more affluent side because they don't want some, you know, Joe Blow looking homeless guy wandering around on their multi million dollar property. So it's kind of built up that side a little bit. But I have no issues with the normal, it's just a normal size, you know, kind of normal neighborhoods. You just get a lot of the farm people that just, hey, just mow my grass and see you later and I'll pay the bill at the end of the month.

So talk to me a little bit about just kind of your. The past six months. I know someone like yourself. Someone like myself, we're pretty impatient in terms of, you know, we want stuff done now and we want the business done, you know, quickly. We want profitable tomorrow and we're go getters in that regard. Kind of talk to me a little bit about kind of the trusting of the processes over the past six months and knowing that like, hey, like if I keep doing this, it's going, there's going, it's going to work out, this is going to become profitable. Because at first, no, seeing 20, $30,000 losses on a month can be a little bit nerve wracking.

I've talked about growth sucks cash and we knew that. But kind of talk to me about that patience element in terms of wanting to grow, wanting to be profitable, then not seeing it fast enough, not getting employees when you needed them, things like that.

Yeah. So I will tell you that it drove me crazy because I want to be profitable. To me that if you're profitable, that's success.

And when you see a $35,000 loss for the month of March or, you know, like it. It kind of embrace your spirit a little bit. Especially because I do get profit sharing, you know. So then I just think, man, what, that's money I'm losing and that, you know, but that also helps that ownership side of it of it. I got some skin in the game essentially, you know, So I, I have that drive because I get part of those profits, I get a portion of those, and the guys get a portion of that profit. It makes us kind of work a little bit harder and start thinking, hey, how do we be a little bit more efficient here, how do we get a little more efficient there? How do we fix this or that or whatever, you know, and, and we've learned different ways to kind of do all this and different things. So it's kind of worked out. But you know, it, I'm telling you it ain't. It ate me up in the beginning. It really bothered me because I, I am kind of goal driven where I am very impatient. Why are we not making profit now? Why is the money not here? Why is, you know, the revenue not where it's at, things like that. But then to see a small profit. But the last month was a smaller profit. This month should be a little bit bigger than last month. And it slowly, progressively will get bigger and better, you know, and the guys will get better at the mowing and different things. You know, the guys. One guy I had, he did all construction on landscape, hardscaping, patios, things like that. Hadn't done the mowing at all. Well, now he had, you know, now he has. So he's much quicker and much more efficient and has learned shortcuts and things like that. So it's a time thing. But my wife will tell you I'm not very patient. So it was definitely a struggle. But now seeing that hard work is paying off, like, hey, we're profitable in four months, like February we started and really call it maybe the 10th, is when I got back from Seattle from Bellingham there and did the first estimates and had 11. It's 11 or 18. I can't remember what it was for the end of that month. And then, because we think we got a huge like ten thousand dollar project before, before February ended landscape project, but then had that and it's, you know, March, April, May and boom, May we made a profit and June we're gonna make a profit. So it's just. And then on top of, you know, I'm relocating and doing this. So it's just, you know, one of those things like man, it should already be here. And it wasn't. But it came quicker than the six months, which I was like, okay, take a deep breath. It'll be six months. Ended up being four, which, you know, not a lot. Kind of strokes the ego a little bit and says, okay, hey, we're doing it right, and the guys are working hard, and those long hours were worth it to kind of get in there and, you know, hey, we made it in four months. We're ahead of the game, so we're doing something. Clearly, that is right as. As you.

You kind of have now we've shifted being profitable. And, you know, you start looking forward to. Okay, like, next year now, really, you know, wanting to.

Own the place. Obviously, I, you know, you know, what's so special about you and a great general manager is that they do treat it like their own from day one. But as you now kind of evolved from, hey, I'm figuring stuff out to now you're perfecting it, getting a team together. What's your mindset like now as you start shifting towards, you know, UF program to actually own the thing? What. What's that mentality? Like, what are you. What kind of are your goals for the rest of 2021, 2022, to really hone it to exactly the way you want it.

Yeah. So, like, originally, you know, I went. My wife's my best friend. So it was just at length. I was just. Just talking to her, you know, today. Then I think she probably got annoyed with it how many times I have plans in this, and we're doing this and goals and things like this. And, you know, really, it just comes down to this year was all about learning. I need to learn the market. I need to learn the clients. I need to learn the grass growth, you know, periods. I knew in Columbus, Ohio, we were mowing the first week of April. Well, here it's the first week of March. Now Bermuda, I now know is later. It's the middle of April. It doesn't even start growing. I have Bermuda at the home that we're renting right now. You know, so it's. It's totally different. So it's just learning to say, what is fall cleanup gonna look like? What is the summer gonna look like? And I think that's what kind of gives this whole thing. Suddenly, me relocating, becoming a general manager and not being the owner yet is I get to learn all of this stuff where I don't have as big of a risk as per se you do as an owner here in a new market. I can kind of learn and kind of teach myself as I go and pick these things up. Now, long term, like this, like this year, my goal is to hit $300,000 in revenue. I think we're going to be close. I keep hearing that the fall is a very big time around here with all the leaves and aerations and things like that. So I'm hoping to hit, you know, we've already surpassed like I think 150 for the season. If I can get to 300, that's my goal. And it's pretty tough goal in the first year that, but I think I can do it. So if we get to that, that is my goal. And then next year will be let's kind of get it more efficient where we can. But there's no taking our foot off the pedal because then I want to hit half a million next year. So just continue to keep pushing the pedal and pushing the envelope and growing to where then I'm either purchasing in that 2, 3, 4 year, depending upon, you know, how everything goes with growth and all that good stuff, because I still have a family, you know, at this point. They love Mooresville. We love it down here. But realistically, they are the driver to a lot of the decisions in our household. Now, thankfully, they love everything there is about Mooresville, so I don't see it a problem. The goal still is to buy and purchase long term, but there's. You still have to kind of look through and feel and make sure everything's good long term. But for this year, that would be the goal. This year is just keep feeling things out. Accept the bumps and the bruises, own the bumps and the bruises if they're created by us because we will have mistakes and things that do happen. I'm still learning command in the new programming with service autopilot and my, my kind of role with that. But, man, there's just. There's. Right now, I don't see anything stopping the growth continuously. At least a 50 growth every single year.

Well, I'd be very surprised if you were under 300 this year.

We're not even halfway through your 150. You're gonna kill it. You're gonna kill it.

You're gonna do 400 easily.

Well, then, then we'll be all right.

But I just fear we'll double it. Right now we're like 150, so we'll double it. The fall we have people are, you know, familiar with this area, but we're right kind of at the foothills of the mountain. So there's tons of trees. And these people like to pay for services. So that's where we come in. We'll clean it up.

Last question for you, Chuck. Kind of piggybacking on some stuff we already talked about, but kind of having that mentality that even though you aren't the only, you treat it like your own. You know, I've been the same way. Even when I was a trainer, anytime fitness, I always was thinking, like when I came in, like, what would I do if I was the owner? And then little did I know down the road I would actually buy that company. But what would you say to someone that is an employee, whether in the field, an office manager, an estimator, just getting started, mowing lawns if they're not an owner? 1 out of 100 of the people listening to my podcast are in that role, usually just getting started, but maybe they've been around. They're an office person. They are a general manager. What would you say to them in terms of their mindset as an employee but thinking about ownership down the road, what should that be? Whether it be learning, whether it be exploring and kind of having that latitude of lower risk. What would you say to them to learn now before they own their own business?

So first learn the business side. Like, you have to learn the marketing. You have to learn. Like I was just telling my wife today, we did the next door local deals in the spring and every person I asked, it was YouTube or Google. So I stopped doing the next door for a little bit recently I started knock. Not knocking on doors, but hanging door hangers. I'd have an hour. I did this. Okay, I don't want to just drive around. Let me go just hit the street with some door hangers. When I did an estimate, like, little stuff like that. We're going to go back to next door. So you have to know. Okay, it didn't work in the beginning, but marketing, it slowed down. So let's go ahead and start it back up. Let's try the next door thing. Let's. Let's do different things. So I never would have thought about that before, but I started watching different people on, on YouTube, watching you and Jonathan and turf pro. I know we talked about. He, he's like my other YouTube guy that I like to watch because it's business oriented. Anybody can mow grass. You have to like and you have to get out of that field worker's mindset. I'm gonna come in here, collect this paycheck and mock grass. No, take a little bit of Ownership on your job go above and beyond. Think about it from the client's perspective. And I, I didn't know, I didn't think about that. And when I worked with the state of Ohio, because I was an officer and you know, I was, you haven't.

Become the governor, so it wasn't like anything.

I didn't care, you know, it was, yeah, it wasn't that. It was a paycheck. Now it's take a little pride in yourself. You know, as a field worker, as an employee. This is me speaking as an employee. You have to take pride in yourself. Look presentable. Don't come in looking like a soup sandwich and your shirt untucked and all goofy looking like you take a little bit of pride in yourself and your, your bosses. And I, I've always been promoted, but I've always taken pride the way I look to do my job. Come in, be on time every time. Like, that's the biggest, like one of my pet peeves with my guys is your attitude and your attendance. The rest of it we can teach, but I, I can't teach you how to be on time. I can't teach you to be a good person like that. That's the thing. And, and if you, you know, to an employee, if you are late all the time, fix that. That will, like, that will hold weight with your boss more than anything in the world. If you're on time and you have a good attitude, if you're slow, that's okay. We can speed it up. My part time guy just got out of the army, very slow, but he was on time every time, always dressed right, and now he's one of my best employees. He's very meticulous. His quality normally is always good. So it like, I can work and teach, but I can't teach you to be on time and I can't teach you to be good. So that, that to me is if you can be on time, have a good attitude, start doing that and learn the business side. Because if you start showing that initiative of, hey, I want to learn the financials, I want to learn how to market, I want to learn how to grow, I want to learn how to advertise those types of things. And, and then on the flip side, as a field worker, think of it, what do I need to do to make this client happy? Does it take two extra minutes to be a little careful around the gutter? Well, yes, because I'm going to charge you however much money out your P4P if you blast through that gutter and you rip it off the side of their house, which has happened, you know, so slow down and save 30 seconds to not cost yourself an hour the next day to go fix it or whatever it is. So think of it from a client's perspective on the, on the work side of it. Okay. What would the client want to see, you know, when they walk out their back door, you know, with their kids or whatever? They don't want to see grass all sloppy looking. So just take a little bit of that ownership side of it and pride in your work, your pride in your appearance. And I think that'll. That'll say, that'll speak volumes to your manager, whether it's, you know, a shift manager, an owner, or, you know, general manager or whatever.

Awesome. Cool. Well, before I let you go, I just wanted to say thank you. Obviously, you know, it's very recognizable in the chat, obviously. And that is that you are an incredible. I call, you know, you're a general manager employee. But like, I just want to say thank you. Like you done an amazing job. And really being the, you know, part of that first group of out of state general managers for me is somewhat nerve wracking in terms of, you know, just saying, hey, go for it. And then I show up one time and the first time we met was actually at training.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Like on the flip side, can we have a little Q and A with Mike?

Yeah, go. Go for it.

So like, you know, because I only knew of you from YouTube and then we had, you know, our couple zoom calls or whatever. So you're hiring a manager from across the country. Like you live in Seattle and you know Bellingham, but I always say Seattle because it's the closest major city and we live all the way on the other coast pretty much. How do you hire somebody that you expect to run a multi million dollar business? You know, here's the bank account, here's the keys of the car. Do what you need to do with essentially one phone call. How, how does that work? Like, what's your mindset?

Yeah, like, you know, two things. First of all, it makes it easier when the money that you are putting into the business, you could lose. Right. It wasn't like my last dollar was going towards someone I didn't know.

Right.

So that definitely is a huge benefit. I can't say that you can. If I had a hundred thousand dollars and my last dollar, I could just be like, hey, go for it. Right. I would probably be much more involved at that point. So that's the first caveat. The second thing is trust for me is huge. I know trust to verify, people say. But, like, for me, it's like, I want to trust someone to the point where they do feel like they own it. They can. Like most people, from customer standpoint and the employees, immortal, I would say, think you're the owner and wouldn't think anything otherwise. And so if I want you to have that mentality, I have to treat you that way. And that is, like, if you bring, you know, hey, should we buy something? The first thing I'll do is, like, well, what do you think? Because, like, that's the only thing I really care about. And so in terms, I'm a big into trust. We, you know, we. We had had one general manager that started, and then it wasn't like I fired him, but he quit just because he had other family obligations. But it was only a couple of weeks into things. And so that one kind of hurt because it was like, man, we just got started. I got everything registered. It was, for me, the time involved, right. In getting someone trained and all the rest of it. But I think I just default more towards trust. And then I kind of let someone prove me wrong.

And if they prove me wrong, I'm going to let them go. But someone like yourself, that was so apparently awesome on the zoom calls and had the experience from the business side in terms of hiring and all the rest of it, that's the biggest challenge, especially when you grow quickly, right? When you want to grow really quickly, if the person cannot find people, hire them. And then those employees, I gotta trust that you're gonna treat them correctly. That was the thing I'm looking for. And then even in. During training, even though we had already hired you during training, you're in an interview with me, right? And that is like, how are they receiving this learning? How are they. Are they asking good questions? Are they engaged? And, you know, you obviously were incredible at all those things. And so I knew that when you went back to Moore's vote, you're gonna crush it.

Yeah. Awesome.

And so there.

Good. So last question. So I see a lot when I do watch.

There's. There's your. Your questions. Okay, this.

This is it. So, like, because I do see a lot of times on here comments on our, you know, the franchisee Facebook page, all those things. What do you. Because eventually I do want to be an owner, and I'm kind of grooming one guy to kind of step into the estimator at some point when I do buy I hope that he stays with me, but if he doesn't, he wants to own, then I'm good with that as well. But what are you looking for in leadership positions? Because it might have been Kevin Fairburn one night asked, what are you looking for in leadership to kind of get along? Because most of the people that do watch this are owners themselves already aren't a part of Augusta. So what are you kind of looking for? Because you did have to start it from so far away, kind of. What are you looking for in the leadership role and kind of backgrounds or however you kind of want to explain it?

Yeah. You mean to, like, find a general manager or just leadership in general?

Yeah, leadership for, like, managers. Because a lot of, you know, the goal is ultimately for everybody not to have to work every day in the field.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I think someone that is. Is self improving is huge for me. Right. Whether it be locally employing people out of the field into more management positions or estimators someone wants to improve, is not satisfied with where they're at currently. I think a little bit of that is really healthy. And so, you know, when I'm looking for a general manager, the biggest thing for me is if they're going to treat their people right. That's probably the biggest thing for me. And it's same thing with locally. If there's a manager, an estimated position they're not going to treat and think about other people first. Like, I'm just checked out.

And I think part of it is I live my life for other people. Like, everything I do is for other people. I don't. I'm not very selfish at all. And so I expect the people that I'm going that are going to be close to me, especially if they're going to be dealing with people that are, quote, unquote, my employees. Right. And so the way that I think about my team and the people that I care about, I'm not going to have someone else intermediate between me treat them wrong. And I take it pretty personally. And so for me, like, if a general manager can treat other people really well and think about other people first. And even I still remember in our calls, in our zoom calls that we had before I hired you, like, I'm looking for certain things and that is, you know, how often does this person talk about other people instead of themselves and, you know, talking about other people and their needs instead of their own. And I feel like long term that leader is going to be fine financially. They're going to take care of their people. People are going to want to work for them. They are going to have committed employees that want to see them succeed and want to grow underneath their leadership. And I saw that in you. I see that in the people that I try to promote, because they'll do a good job, they'll eventually win. I truly believe if you think about other people first, and that's genuinely your thought process, you will win in life, both financially, emotionally, you know, all those different elements. And so I saw that in you right from when we did the zoom calls. And someone who's decisive is also a big deal. And I know, you know, a lot of people would question the way that I did hire my general managers relatively quickly. Within a couple days, we had a job offer to you and we were ready to roll. Part of it is, how did you react to that? Right. Because if you, if you don't take it well and you're like, oh, I need to think about it for three months, or like, you know, I need to go up there and visit, can I come say hi for a week and then maybe I'll think about it? Like a lot of that. I understand that thought process, but it's not going to work well in our organization.

Right.

Where there's a lot of change, a lot of growth. Someone like that can't handle that is not going to be able to handle three or four employees brand new in the first month. You know, hiring, you know, getting a new truck and juggling the three employees you just hired, like, they're not going to do well in that position. And so speed for something in, in business is important. And so speed for me is almost a bit of a test is like, how do they react to that kind of decision making process? And for some people it was like, oh, no, no. Like, you know, you're not talking about like this year, you're talking like next year. Like, no, no, we're talking like in a couple weeks you'd be here and training and we'd be rolling. And so, you know, someone like yourself that's hungry, wants to learn, wants to grow, thinks about other people and is not afraid to make decisions quickly is, is a big part of that sort of equation.

Awesome.

Well, thanks, Chuck. I really appreciate you coming on. And again, just congratulations on all your hard work over there. I really look forward to one day when I can say you're an owner and not a general manager. But I really do appreciate all the hard work. And I know it goes with the without saying, but your success there is absolutely attributed to your hard work and what you've done in there, Mooresville. So congratulations.

All right. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate it.

Thanks, brother. Take care.

Yep, thanks. Bye.

All right, everyone, thank you so much for coming on again. Next week we're going to have Lee from the local office who's come right from the field to an estimator to an office manager. He'll be on the next week here of Roundup. But thank you so much for watching. Sorry for that little bit of a blip there on the Internet halfway through. And sorry about a couple rogue commenters on this. This chat. I try to block a few of them. So thank you so much, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. Actually, actually, there's a really cool video coming out in a few minutes that Danny has been working on today, so make sure you check that out. It's about overgrown lawns and if you actually make money mowing overgrown lawns. Alright, guys, we'll see you next time.