A $1M Business Won't Fix a Broken Owner

We're like halfway through the process of acquiring another company.

Bro, with great prejudice, don't do it.

Don't do it.

Don't do it, bro. That's a horrible deal. Today we're in Pennsylvania.

You're in rural PA right now.

We're visiting Jacob from Greener Concepts.

I have a good amount of debt, $280,000 in debt.

Last year his landscaping business did over $1 million in revenue.

I didn't think I would get here this fast. And when I hit the million, it like didn't feel like anything.

We always talk about in the turnaround show, it's like there's so much pain. They have no money in the bank. There's all this debt. We got to turn them around. I think from a financial perspective, it's doing good. Oh, I'm killing it. This is the 2.0 version. I was like, this is the psychological stress that comes with a larger business.

I don't think I'm a good manager. When I like fire somebody I don't trust, which I just did, so I'll probably put a lock on it. They've stole from me, they've lied to me, they've taken advantage of me. Back wheels lifted and it crashed into a $7,000 mailbox.

Because I'm a pathetic leader and no one wants to work for me.

It's like I have leadership problems. I know.

And there still needs to be a turnaround. There still needs to be a change of the mindset of the owner to be able to get to the next level, which is so frustrating.

You're nickel and diming the role that doubles and triples I don't think I've ever heard him say that ever on any turnaround show I've ever watched. I hate all of that, what you just said.

This is the Business Turnaround Show. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care and HomeWorks Software. I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. You are hating the business that you also are pouring so much into.

See you later. I'm just— I'm done with this. There was people on the team that I should have fired. Sometimes you just get burnt and you got to smile through the pain, I guess. There are some days last year I didn't want to go up to the shop. It's like I I have the leadership problem.

Right.

You know, we're not, we're not like changing the world. Mike is, he's here helping me.

Our goal is to give Jacob a strategy to turn around the company in the next 6 weeks. Basically what gets us from $1 million to $3 million is these 4 things.

You know what? If I hit $1.5, I will have a cigar and I'll send it to you. Does that sound good?

Yep. Alright.

Hey Mike, this is Jacob from Greener Concepts.

I run a snow and landscaping business up here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

We do about $1 million in revenue with 7 employees, 8 if you count myself, though I'm not really in the field. We're growing at such a fast speed that a lot of the cash that I have goes out the door and gets spent on ads or gets spent on equipment. There's always areas for improvement, but I think a lot of my struggle is with my leadership. We have at least 5 complaints every week, and I feel like I'm constantly putting out fires. I'm constantly frustrated with the guys.

This is an interesting one because, um, it's rare that they admit that it's operational faults. Usually it's like other stuff, but operation— they're in 5 complaints a week.

A lot of this year has been extremely frustrating and diminishing, and I think that is kind of being pushed onto the employees because of how I'm carrying it. And also, you know, a lot of that time I was overworked.

Yeah. So when you're going from $750,000, $800,000 typically in annual revenue and you're going into $1.5 million, that's when you have to add mid-level managers because you can't— you're starting to— he's starting to feel the bumping up against that 6, 7, 8 employee marker, which is easier to manage for one person. When you start getting above that, you need mid-level managers. You need someone else to handle operations, admin, sales, etc. And so usually to do that, you have this wilderness of like right around that million. That's why a lot of times people on the turnaround chart are around a million dollars because they've extended past the point of 6, 7, 8 employees that the owner is managing and they really need management, but they can't afford it. And so that's why a lot of times it's like, if you're going to get past a million, make sure you can get past 1.5 pretty fast, even if towards 2, because otherwise you can't afford the managers that are necessary to manage the team.

And that's difficult when you have 7 people None of them are crew leaders is really, I'm finding it difficult. I also need crew leaders in place who actually will do the work like it needs to be done.

I'd really like him to nail it before he scales it and figure out some of these operational things before trying to pour more gasoline on it, whether it be an acquisition, whether it be growth, continue to grow. But the next constraint inside the 4L Framework, once you get a bunch of leads, is labor. And so he has basically migrated to the next constraint, which is finding good talent, training them, creating standard operating procedures, having high quality standards, making sure there's pay for performance, making sure there's yellow slip system. That's all part of finding, attracting, and retaining great laborers. And then the next stage of leadership will be you got to go find managers, and that's the next constraint in the 4L Framework, which is leadership. All right, we're going to sleep, wake up in the morning, go check out Greener Concepts.

What's up, Jacob? Hey, man, how's it going?

Good, man. This is a great spot you got.

Yes, thanks for coming, dude. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm Jacob. I'm the owner of Greener Concepts and this is our shop space. We got all this space out here. We rent from a golf course and there's probably, we probably have an acre of use out here.

So this is like a golf course.

This is a golf course.

So do you rent from them?

Yep, $3,000 a year.

A year? This is $3,000 a year and you get to park all this stuff?

Yep, but we're running out of room. I would ideally like something like a 2-stall to put, to pull trucks in if I can.

That's cool. Yeah. Do you get this too? No, I wish.

But like, we don't have any water here. Like, we only have one electrical line going down to the box. So like, that's all we got. So that's like the golf course's employees and their maintenance shed. Like, they have all their greens mowers, fairway mowers all parked in there. So like, I just have this little tiny shack. But it works for what we have. This is basically all we got. The only issue I have, and I waste a lot of material, we don't have heat. So we had a ton of like liquid chemicals. Oh, really? All wasted. Just in your first season?

$1,000. No, every season.

I don't have anywhere to put them. Where to put it, and I don't want to bring it in my house.

So could you not have like the electricity, like have like a heater in them or anything? No.

Yeah, this is all— this is our fertilizer, and we normally have 4 or 5 pallets stacked with stuff in here, but we don't, uh, we didn't get our order in yet. It's not delivered yet.

I try to get us what we need and try to use it all by the end of the season.

But what happened, especially the last 2 years, is the guys don't do what they're supposed to and they don't actually spray when they're on the sites. Got it. They don't use what they're supposed to. And then these are all of our mowers. These are the best. Grandstand Is the best mower I've ever used. You can do anything on them.

Isn't it kind of like, this is like the work area that like, do you have shop meetings in here and stuff like that?

Yeah. So there's, there's like maybe 4 yards of mulch in that dump trailer. So like mainly just focus on cleanup, weeds, pre-emergent, and if you can get to it, have 2 people start edging the beds and stuff so you can, when you come back tomorrow, I can get a truckload delivered. Need this for the back, back of the property. He's got, uh, forsythia. That's pretty much it. They mean business. Yeah, they get Yeah, not every day is like this. It's a little disorganized right now, but, um, like, we just put— we bought 3 enclosed trailers cuz I'm running out of room. We have 6 machines now, so I'm trying to just keep them in that instead of having everything in here. One of them I actually bought off of the guy I use for trees. He's a tree removal service, but he, uh, he's going bankrupt, so he's kind of trying to liquidate some of his assets. Yeah. And so this one here is, is, uh, this is his, but he only drove it like 300 miles. So for $6,000, I was like, yeah, I'll take it. And I buy everything in cash. I could never finance an enclosed trailer. I don't know. Just doesn't make sense.

But how, how, how many years has it been since you started?

Like 4 years now? 4 years. This is our 5th spring.

So last year was a big year though, cuz you went basically 2024 was like just over half a million. Last year you're over a million. So basically double. Mm-hmm. And was that mostly like commercial big contracts joining or—

No, so when I first started we did $80,000 and I was just like around here. Second year we did $242,000 and I went into the higher net worth area, Cranberry. Last year I dialed in on trying to package the service so that I only took people who would buy every single thing we did, or at least 3 services. So like that went from our annual valued customer was spending $2,500, it jumped to like $4,200, $4,300. And now this year our average customer is paying like 6 grand a year. So like, that's how we've been able to scale so fast. This is one of our nicer, like, bigger— we have a lot of just people in this neighborhood, and the average customer in here is paying us like $7,500 a year to do everything. And then we typically— they're always wanting something done or removed and enhanced. So then like, this guy spent $8,000 for trees to go down the backside because he's got a retention pond down there. So we did that for him.

So when something— when like a lead comes in for those, are you going to the property assessing like all the different Services. Got it. So a little longer sales cycle.

It's— yeah, it's a little tenuous, but I don't know how to simplify that. Like, I have to, because we're doing— the stuff we're doing is a lot more involved. So like, the one they're going to now is a residential account, and it— they pay us like $40 grand a year on top of— they pay us per hour for the fall cleanup because it's so big. My whole goal on a customer, and everyone's goal honestly, is I want to increase the annual value of them as much as possible. Some of A lot of them get capped because they just don't have the money to pay for all of it. But when you're in these kinds of neighborhoods, they have the money. This is where we try to market our services. My goal is to have less customers but make more on them. I want to have a relationship with them. I think it's easier for them to say yes, and then I upsell them constantly through the summer to get projects and stuff. So that's how I keep the landscape crew busy.

So basically, you require like mowing, maintenance, treatments. What else do you require them to do?

So our base package is mowing, bed maintenance, weeding, and then their turf care. And then they can add mulch, fall cleanup, aeration, overseed, flea and tick. And then if they want the whole shebam, they can take everything. And then we also upsell them. I always try to give them something else to buy. So if they buy everything, well then we also have annual flowers that we'll install. The super, the people who don't have so much money they don't know what to do with, they'll typically buy that. But you gotta give them something else to buy, you know? Like this one, we put these trees all the way down both sides. It was like $16 grand and we got their, the full maintenance. So that first year they paid like $36,000 off of one door hanger. And then we upsold them again the following year. And then we upsold them again, or we renewed them 3 years. So it's like, they've paid me $50,000, $55,000 off of one door hanger. That's crazy.

And then you recently got all, do you upgrade their trucks all like in the last year or so?

No, first year I had a 2008 Ford F-150, the frame cracked on it. So then I bought a, the 2013 is behind, it's hiding.

It's so ugly.

But That one still runs somehow. But then I bought one new one, and then I bought the next year two new ones, and then I bought the next year two more new ones. And then this year I'm trying to stop the growth because I can't— like, I'm doing everything still. So I'm just like, let's dial it back. And I bought a dump truck this year. So like, I'm done. I'm done this year. I hope he doesn't rail into me about my— I have a good amount of debt. I won't lie. But all of the debt I have is on vehicles that we use on a daily basis. Like, it's vehicles and our mowers. So I'm hoping he does them now. We got like, I don't know, $200,000, $280,000 a day, I'd say. But we're running $1 million. I think that's a good trade-off. 20%. We'll see.

And so are you managing like the phone still?

Literally everything inside of a business that you can think of, I am managing.

So like when you say like, hey, I'm not growing this year, it's really more just like you're hitting the capacity of like I can't take more of that.

Yeah, I'm hitting capacity. Like, we're realistically probably going to make 1.25 to 1.5. Yeah, like without even trying. Yeah, but I don't have anybody to help me, like really. I have a mentor that helps me, but he's doing— he's busy as it is. But we're trying, like I have to get an operations manager. We only have 2 applicants that are qualified. I offered the operations manager position to an existing employee. We need an operations manager, and I offered it to one of the guys. Carter was He was the first one you met. Who's this? This is Carter. He's not— he's the one that doesn't like being on camera too much, but that's Carter. I offered it to him, uh, and he said no, and he's going to work somewhere else. I'm losing him, and then I had to fire somebody, and we have 1,500, I think, or maybe it's 1,700 hours of spring cleanups to do with 5 people, and I need an operations manager. And I'm still doing it like everything. I'm like 8 guys short.

8 guys short?

Maybe 8, yeah.

So you have like 5 or 6 right now then?

Yeah, because I would ideally want— I have 5. I would say 5 guys short.

Okay.

But you got to hire like half and then fire half, you know what I mean? If I don't hire anybody, we are booked with 2 guys doing spring cleanups until the end of June. I just don't know what to do from here. Like, I feel like I'm like I'm trapped a little bit, you know?

All right, well, hey, I know we're freezing, so like let's close up and I guess we'll meet back at the office.

This cool?

Is it pretty secure here? Never have problems?

No, I never have problems. That's good. Every once in a while I'll lock it, especially when I like fire somebody I don't trust, which I just did, so I'll probably put a lock on it.

Good stuff, dude. I love that blackboard, I guess. Yeah, dude, that's cool. So this is where you hang out most the time?

Yep, this is where I work mostly, 14 hours a day. Let's go.

So I looked at like the profit and loss statement, the balance sheet website, all that stuff last night. Truck loan, truck loan, truck loan, truck loan, truck loan, mower loan, mower loan, mower loan, truck loan, truck loan. Okay, he says he's operating at $170,000 in net profit, but a lot of that could get wiped out just by paying down $200,000 worth of debt. So we'll open up the financials and see what that looks like. He's got $280,000 in long-term liabilities, and other sort of stuff is short-term, so like some credit cards, but that's just little stuff. $17,000 in short-term liabilities. It's all small stuff. It's basically $300,000 in debt right now in the business. A lot of truck debt, which is fine. If you have a million-dollar business and he's been able to 10x the business in the past few years, he needs trucks, he needs equipment. So it sounds like he's really put a lot of debt on the business, but you need your cash to be spending on marketing and hiring and shop space and all the other overhead. To be able to 10x the business in a few years. So let's look at this website because he said we built this and he said it's one gift to them.

We've 1100x'd, 1100% our growth from 4 years just from— honestly, a lot of it has to do with the website. A lot of our work comes from the website. And so I wanted to thank you personally. I wanted to thank Tori. I want to thank the Lawn Care Web Design team for just doing an outstanding job. I get constant compliments from clients and prospects about the website, and it's just a— it brings us in so much business.

Hey, Lawn and Landscaping Services in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. Beautiful website. Now, in a little insider knowledge here is I talked to our web team and they just talked to him a couple weeks ago. They said he's thinking about rebranding the business. I usually don't think that's a great idea, and I wouldn't worry about rebranding. No, no.

What if I already got the new logo and everything?

I just feel like the Greener Concept logo is very feels commercial and very, very professional. And nothing against squirrels, nothing against mascots, but it clashes. I— he needs to choose one or the other. I feel like that the squirrel says maintenance and residential, and Greener Concepts says design-build and commercial. And so these are two very conflicting brands, and I don't know if changing the brand is going to do enough, like it's going to change enough for him.

We're doing like $1 to $2 million, $3 million homes in higher-end commercial spaces, right? We're doing landscape management, we're not doing lawn care.

I agree.

So this kind of screams We mow grass.

I agree.

I don't like it, and it's just, I think it maybe is just I matured a little bit and I'm like, all right, let's just do a redirection here. I'm not really messing with the logo. This looks like, it looks like clipart to me. That's why I'm changing it, because like, yeah, the, the squirrel's cool for grass, like, okay, but now we're getting into, we're playing with big players now, and it's, I don't think it's applicable anymore.

I just don't think it's the highest leverage thing.

No, and I'm not focused. I'm like, I'm, that's not taking my time right now.

Yeah, I wouldn't do any, I wouldn't do that yet. I'm not doing it yet. No, no, no, I'm not doing it yet. Yeah, I like the, I like the new brand. It's cool. I just think that like you have all the wraps, you have such high level, like, do we need that? Will that triple the business?

No, no, it's not changing dramatically, but it's changing. Just not yet.

The 4L framework shows why every home service business stops growing. It's either a lack of liquidity, a lack of leads, a lack of labor, or a lack of leadership. Right now there's no lack of liquidity. There's a couple hundred thousand dollars of cash in the bank. I think from a financial perspective, it's doing good.

Oh, I'm killing it.

When it comes to leads, I don't really see that as a constraint to growth either, because he has so much work coming in right now, he's not even answering the phone and he can't get back to leads and they're months booked out. The leads part also not a constraint. Like leads are coming in.

No, cash leads. Fine.

Yeah. A lot of this has to do with the fact that he got a great website from Lawn Care Web Design a few years ago and has allowed them to grow very quickly.

That's probably the biggest— the web design team is probably the biggest uh, growth mechanism that we've had, to be honest. Um, we get leads pouring into that website.

But the real constraint in the 4L framework that Jacob's butting his head up against and running into constantly is he can't keep good workers, and he's realized that he has a lack of leadership skills, and he's got to develop those if he's going to take the business from $1 million to $3 million in annual revenue. Right now, where do you see the problems when it comes to the labor side? Is it just the manager issue or is it a matter of like team culture? Where are the kind of constraints right now?

The employees are very young, like that, uh, 21 under.

All of them? All of them. Really? All of them.

They're like 20, 21.

Okay. How old are you?

24.

Okay.

My youngest is 19. I feel like I have to watch or make sure they're doing everything correctly? We have to be careful where we're putting snow. Do not plow something just because it's not convenient for you to get in there. Like, we have to get into spaces and stuff. They won't try to cut corners, but they will evidently. And that again, it probably just falls on my ability to make sure they're crystal clear on what they're supposed to be doing.

You handle all admin, is that correct?

Everything.

Is there no admin help whatsoever?

None. Okay.

And why haven't you solved that first? When it comes to delegating in a business, as you grow, we have 3 departments of a business. Sales, operations, and admin. I typically want to delegate admin because the easiest and the lowest leverage task in the business. Answering the phone, doing texts, emails, is it the easiest to find someone to replace you doing it?

What, I don't know, like the things we're doing, it's not, I can't justify paying someone a salary to do that. Like it's just not, it's not that many hours.

Right. You know? If you looked at admin, like what's the stuff you do right now? What are the things that like takes your most time?

We're including sales in that, right?

No sales differently. Sales being like you go and visit the customer, take that off the plate. Like in terms of admin, I'm talking email, estimates, invoicing, scheduling, routing, email, text, answering the phone.

Pro, I don't even know.

To get a business to $100,000 in annual revenue, you just have to be good at doing the work, the actual physical labor, being a solo operator out in the field. And then you gotta learn the new skill of teaching other people to do the work. And that's a whole nother ballgame that allows you to get to $1 million in annual revenue. But right now that's where Jacob's at because the The last step to get to $3 million, $5 million, $10 million and beyond is leadership. And that's the skill that Jacob doesn't have yet. And that's why he's so frustrated with his team. He knows how to do the work. He knows how to teach other people how to do the work, but then leading other managers that will teach his laborers how to do the work, that's where his current constraint lies. Once you pass a million, like the thing that gets you from a million to $3 million is going to be finding a solid admin person and a solid operator. Operations person. From a cash perspective, you can afford both of those. And I would say I would start with admin. And even though it seems contrary, like I have operations problems, if you had less admin, you would have more time for operations. As the business grows past $1 million, typically that's when I'm looking for an operations manager. Everything with doing the work, I want to be able to delegate so I can focus on sales. Focusing on just sales will usually get a business to $3 million in home services. But you've got to delegate in that order because this is the lowest leverage task and the next highest leverage task, and then the highest leverage task of sales. And if you grow past $3 million, whether it be multiple locations or one big organization, eventually you become the CEO and you actually go hire someone to do the sales and do the estimates for you. If you had less admin, you would have more time for operations.

What if I told you I hate operations?

Okay. And do you enjoy admin?

I like doing the work. I like doing the work, but I hate managing the people doing the work. It angers me.

Valid, okay. Hey, it's like, alright, hey, thank you for being honest, okay. Ops makes me mad.

It's not the fact that I don't like managing them. I'm not good at it. Like if I have too much access, I have too much empathy for them. I don't say anything when they show up late, you know. So me managing them is not, it's, I'm not good at it at all. Obviously to some extent they wouldn't be here if they didn't at least like me. If I, you know, if I was a dick, they definitely wouldn't be here. I think they're just young, and I haven't been able to communicate effectively and be completely clear on what I'm expecting of them. And so then that kind of leads to them eluding certain tasks or roles or responsibilities that they should be doing and they know they should be doing. And they're like, well, he's not really going to find out because he's so busy, and it's probably not that big of a deal. The other problem is I have no benefits. Either. So like, that's a big attraction to getting somebody, getting an admin person.

They, they run payroll. And furthermore, almost— what are you using right now for payroll?

QuickBooks.

You can get benefits in 24 hours. So like, if you're getting operations and an admin person, you say, hey, by the end of 2026, we're going to have these things installed.

Okay.

And when you do that, it's likely that those people are the ones that are going to afford and want to help them. Benefits or whatever else you offer. And like 401(k), for example, you don't have to do matching. It can be like $10 a month just to set up the plan for everyone. And it's all through QuickBooks. Like, you can just— I'm gonna ask for 401(k). Like, they have all their vendors in there. But again, like, an admin person will do this for you. Like, you're being overwhelmed by something that is literally a couple buttons away. I know, but it's just because you're also juggling sales and operations. An admin person would just be like, okay, here's the premiums, here's different options, here's different plans we can offer. That's the type of thing that an admin person does though. Here's the 3 plans, everyone. They explain it to everyone. You just need to sign up. Here's the link. Put it in the team chat. Sign up by this date. Open enrollment. Like, they'll do all that for you.

Yeah, like, I hate meetings. I hate all that what you just said.

Yeah, and that's why, like, that's why it's like when someone's like, I gotta add benefits, I'm like, okay, that's, that's a few buttons.

It really is. Yeah, it is.

And so it's just you hate doing it. And so what really turned, like, what lights you up? Like, what do you like doing?

I like closing deals.

Yeah, so that's— you got to focus on everything on sales. And so I would do an audit like your entire day and think about every single thing you do and put it into: is this sales, is this operations, or is this admin? In 12 to 24 months, the goal is the only thing you do is sales. Anything with getting work, leads, marketing, all that stuff, that's what you're good at. That's what you love to do. Upsells, campaigns, that's you. We've got to fill these two roles though before that because you do not have the bandwidth bandwidth to do more sales because you're answering the phone, worried about QuickBooks, and you're also managing the team and getting frustrated by them.

I'm gonna have to get used to not working as much.

No, you're gonna have less frustration and you have time to go do the thing you love, which is sales.

But like, that doesn't take that long.

No, right now you're saying no, it's not taking long.

We just missed 3 new leads, bro. Score installations, real simple stuff, like they're not doing anything major. Things are going to be healthy. He's okay with that?

Yeah, he completely understood all that.

I feel like I should take this one.

We just need to change your ringtone to like, hire an admin.

The other guy that called me did just email me though, so that's a good thing. He did go to the website and then emailed me. Good thing, good thing.

We could have closed him on the phone.

We could have closed the deal on the phone.

How can I be a good leader to my crew when constantly every few minutes my phone is ringing and I'm changing changing what I'm focused on to be a phone call, an email, a text. The ability to do time blocks only comes when I've delegated these lower-level tasks like admin and operations so he can focus on sales and he can focus on being a good leader for the organization.

The other thing, the other major player here is that we're in, uh, we're like halfway through the process of acquiring another company. Why? They have, well, the main attraction to it to it is it's a facility. They have a facility, 10 acres. It's $1.4 million—

million revenue, or you're buying it for $1.4 million?

It's revenue. Their SDE is $350,000, so they added the owner's salary back into it. 9 employees.

So they're not making any money, basically. And how much are you paying for it?

I haven't offered anything yet.

Oh, so we're not halfway through a deal.

All we got to do is give them the What's your offer gonna be? So they have all old trucks. They're asking $300,000 for the land. They were asking $1.5 million total for the business, but we're gonna offer them probably $8 million for the whole thing.

And then you're gonna have to go spend $300,000 or $400,000 on revamping the trucks.

Why? 'Cause he's got— he's in a market that I'd like to be in. The majority of his customers are maintenance, so that's what I want. It's 65% recurring.

Bro, with great prejudice, don't do it.

Don't do it.

Don't do it. Don't do it. That's a horrible deal. If you pay $500,000 for that business, you're paying 2x on profit. That's more like realistic.

I think so too.

Also, the assets aren't worth very much.

Nope. So I'm going to have to buy all new trucks.

So your attention will be split.

But the other constraint here is I'm running out of room at my shop. I cannot grow anymore.

Great. So let's build— Let's make this business run without you so you can go spend some time on that. Like, what do you want, more problems? You're just gonna have a whole bunch of more problems. Why are we thinking about an acquisition right now when we've got to first nail this model? We've gotta figure out sales, operations, and admin. Every business has it. We gotta get the work, do the work, and get paid for the work. Get rid of the acquisition. That would just compound the problems. And a lot of times when we run up against obstacles or we plateau in the business, we immediately think about acquisitions 'cause it's a quick, easy way to grow the business. When in reality, it would just compound problems he's facing when it comes to the leadership constraint in the business. And it would probably throw under the bus all the liquidity and leads and all the work he's done a really good job at building currently at Greener Concepts. You would get to $2.5 million in 2 years without taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars. And there are other properties that you can buy for $400,000 or $500,000, like whatever they're wanting for the land.

But the land, there's 10 acres with facility. That's what I'm gonna offer first.

Just the land.

Just the land.

Yeah, so we buy the building.

I wanna buy the land.

Yeah, don't worry about the business.

Not about the business.

No, the business is trash.

It's horrible.

Yeah, so don't touch it. It's gonna take all of your time, energy, and what it does is it just replaces the most important thing you should be doing. Yeah. 'Cause like, what's worse than having a $1.1 million business that doesn't have systems is having a $3 million business that doesn't have systems. And a whole bunch of broken trucks.

So that's why it's like on the back burner.

No, no, it's not on the burner.

It's not on the burner at all.

Throwing it off the burner.

Okay, throw it off.

It's trash. It's a toxic asset. If you want to buy the land, I give you approval on that. Just do it. You have— you could literally buy the thing with almost cash. Like, don't do that because you would run out of cash, but like, you could definitely put a 30-40% down on it and take this money that you're gonna cash down. Yeah, get down to $150,000 for the bank, or in the business account. Take the other money, you could put a 40% down payment on that thing.

Yeah, because looking at his numbers and stuff, I'm like, dude, you're not really running a good business.

I mean, you only know half of it. Numbers always hide, like, literally 90%.

Like, I'm not running a good business, but like, you're definitely not. You have all old vehicles.

Yeah, just wait till it doubles. Like, it would, it would be chaos for you if you have problems and anxiety over right now. You should just wait. I'd break, probably. It's horrible, dude.

So I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to.

Fantastic.

I just wanted your opinion on it.

All right, so 6-week plan is like throw it off the back. Throw it off the back. Exactly. Good this. The thing that Jacob has done in the past, which is work hard, work 14, 16-hour days, is actually hurting him from growing the business in the future. And the identity that we have as business owners, as a solo operator, as a, as a manager, we actually have to let those things go so we can embrace the future of being a better leader and working on ourselves and developing our sales ability to get past $1 million and grow towards $3 million. And also, it allows your organization to be able to move people up inside the company instead of just, just having you and a bunch of technicians. They can actually become an estimator, they can become an office person. They can become an operations manager or a crew leader. Growing a business is one of the most unselfish things you can do if you're giving back to your team, because it gives them the ability to move up inside the organization without having to leave.

Yeah, so there are some days last year I didn't want to go up to the shop because I was just so pissed off about stuff. Yeah, like, you guys have been doing these yards for 2 years now. Like, why are we getting complaints on them? This should be completely automatic for you. And like, just, there were certain times where morale was definitely low. Yeah, because there was people on the team that I should have fired and I didn't because we had so much— we were already over hours on everything on a daily basis that we needed, we needed people to get the work done. There's a guy, it's an employee, but he was all through this process I found out he was saying things behind my back and he stole a couple times off of me on my card. He's, he was driving my trucks without asking me. And the one, the last thing that set me off is the last snow event we had. He has to drive 30 minutes to get here. I can see where and when they clock in. So he lied to me again, uh, and he also lied where he clocked in because when I seen him clock in, he clocked in at my house. So like, he clocked in to get paid to drive to work. So that's kind of what set me off. Like, dude, you know what, see you later. I'm just— I'm done with this. I'm done you taking advantage of me. He was telling everyone that I was a multimillionaire and I'm a piece of for, you know, sometimes you just get burnt and you gotta smile through the pain, I guess.

And it's easier for an operations manager to say, hey, these are the systems, these are the processes, and help toe the line.

Yeah.

Versus you as the owner who is making the ultimate call.

Yeah.

Like, I want you to be able to create the system and the SOP, and then someone else hold them accountable to it.

Yeah.

Right? So, okay. It's very rare that I tell someone to do operations first.

That's what I mean. I— you need a, you need a certain type of personality, I think, to do operations.

Yeah, well, you need a certain type of personality to work with the technicians, but an operations manager is the liaison between you and them, and they also have to work well with you.

Yes.

And so the challenging part is it— with an operations manager is you need someone opposite of you to handle them.

Exactly.

But someone opposite of you will usually grind against your gears.

—But it normally works. It normally works well.

Sometimes. It's also tough. It's also like there's a lot of friction between you and them sometimes. And so finding that right person, 'cause like your personality will grate someone that is much more like they want systems, they want procedures, et cetera. That's what you need though to manage a team. Right? And so like the same frustration you have right now with your technicians is what you will feel with an operations manager.

The other issue is like we need more candidates to apply. And that's the other big issue. Ideally, you want somebody with landscaping experience to do that role because they need to have a lot of knowledge on things. You know, if I hired an operations manager that was in a manufacturing facility, that's a completely different role than a landscaping company. So I don't know what I'm gonna do, dude. Pray. That's what I'm gonna do.

The nice thing is you're competent in that person to hold them accountable, and you're dealing with a level of an experienced, skilled individual. Yeah, there's more maturity there.

Hopefully, hopefully. Hopefully. Hopefully.

Let's hope. Yeah. Okay, so I'm still gonna say get an admin person first.

Aw, dude.

Because here's the thing, I think, like, when I look at your business, you don't have a cash problem. No problem with liquidity, we're well over a month in revenue. Leads, you're telling me there's no problem. I can see on the website they're pouring in pouring in. And like, you're basically saying like, we're trying not to grow. So like, not a problem. The labor constraint is actually a problem with leadership. It's backfilling. So because we have a problem with leadership, which you've self-identified, which like, kudos to you for being self-aware on that.

Oh no, I know I have a problem.

So I'm cool with that. Yeah. That's causing the issue with the labor. And a lot of times if you have a problem with leadership, you'll only be able to hire people younger than you. It is a leadership constraint. And I don't say that lightly, 'cause like, I know what it's like to be 21, 22, 23, and only be able to hire people younger than me. And then realizing it's because I'm a pathetic I'm a bad tech leader and no one wants to work for me.

Yeah, it's like I have the leadership problem.

Right, and so that, doing the work on yourself will do two things. One, you'll be able to find other leaders that want to work underneath you and be mid-level managers. And two, there'll be laborers and leaders that are willing to work for you even though they're 20 years older than you.

And I don't know how, I don't know how to go about that. That's where I'm struggling. Okay, alright. Like that is exactly where I'm struggling.

Yeah, and that constraint will keep you keep you where you're at now, because that's why you're juggling everything yourself, because you don't have any mid-level managers that want to work for you.

I don't know what to do, and it's— it pisses me off that I don't know what to do, because I've gotten to this point that I'm just outworking the— in, you know, my incapabilities. That's why I was like, I don't know if I even deserve for him to come out here, because there's probably someone that could use the help way more than I— than I need it, you know.

We always talk about in the turnaround show, it's like, there's so much pain. They have no money in the bank. There's all this debt. We gotta turn them around. This is the 2.0 version. I was like, no, I have cash. We're good. This is the psychological stress that comes with a larger business. You're past the financial stress, you're past the physical stress, but you've entered psychological stress and there still needs to be a turnaround. There still needs to be a change of the mindset of the owner to be able to get to the next level. As I'm just as passionate about helping someone like Jacob get past that as someone who has a $500,000 revenue business, $300,000 in debt, and no money in the bank. It's still a problem. And no one's gonna feel bad for Jacob 'cause he doesn't have no money in the bank and can't make payroll this week. Everyone's gonna be bagging on him for doing that. Like, "Oh, you just got it so good." No, it's painful to be beating your head up against the wall, working 14 hours a day, and then asking yourself, "Why am I doing this?" And so it's just a different level of stress and different type of stress that comes with a bigger business. Like, that's why, like, that technician that you thought was really good, he's going to concrete. You could absolutely afford to pay him more than whatever he's going to make there as an operations manager. He was— he—

yeah, he was making— he's going to be making like $35 an hour there. I offered him $65K salary plus incentives and distributions.

Is this the main guy? What's his name? Carter. Harder.

He's worth more than that. When I go on Indeed and I see these rules on other companies around me, like, that's what they're paying. So I thought 60-65 is what the, what the rate's going for. So that's why it's at 60-65.

But the best talent have options. Either A, they want better comp, or B, they want brand. Unless they're working for you because they want you on their resume, they want better comp. Like, the best talent— like, the average is 65 $75,000. The best talent can get $75,000 easily. Every single time I've hit a constraint, I'm like, oh, this is a people problem. I've always had to pay up. If you want to go fast, like if you want to take 5 years, you'll slowly do this. You'll get another— eventually someone good on the technical side, one of the techs, you'll eventually move them up slowly. If you want to get to $3 million and not take 5 to 10 years, then it will come down to going and paying up for somebody.

Yeah, but what will he be doing?

Doing? Like, that's the point here. Okay, so what—

how am I going to pay someone $80 to $100K? My mentor is like, don't pay someone $80K a year for operations. And I was even thinking like, dude, they're going to be doing so much, they should be making that.

So this is the thing, right now you're looking at at, let's just say we did $200,000 to $250,000 in profit. If you can take a year where you take half of that, you get from $1 million to $3 million. It's just gonna take a short-term step back on your cash flow and your profit margin to be able to get an admin person and an operations person. You can afford it. By doing that, if you get 2 solid people, you'll get to $3 million. And then you'll focus on the thing that you're good at and you love, which is sales. 'Cause my objective is that you never ever hear about a callback. You never ever, like a salesperson should never hear yeah, about bad things happening in the business, because every time you go on a job, it's in the back of your head.

I don't think I could change his mind though, even if I offered it to him. Yeah, he doesn't like being on camera. He's not a— he's not a camera guy. And that's the one I want as the ops manager.

Carter's the obvious choice for the operations manager role. So yes, we could have a backup plan, but he's the obvious choice. Like, make it happen. And it sounds like he wants to be there, it's just a money thing. And I think actually the part that he's lacking right now to get Carter is clarity around the role. So I think, I think if we're gonna go for Carter, like, you're gonna have to pay more than $65 grand to get anyone for this role. The question is, does Carter have the goods from a talent perspective to be able to fill these shoes? In order for him to even have a shot, we've got to give him a clear role of what that looks like. And right now it's not like, okay, you're an operations manager, and then nothing changes. It would have to be very clear clear what your role is and what his role is.

And I've communicated that, like I've said, you're going to be running day to day.

What's the first thing he's taking off your plate? The day to day. What does that mean?

Like getting the crews what they need on a daily basis in the mornings, getting them loaded, making sure— like he's going to go out and just check on sites and just look at that stuff.

So all of that needs to have very clear expectations. We can't just say day to day. We can't just get the crew going. We can't just say checking sites. We need to say—

That's so boring making those though. I did break it down to him like, these are your responsibilities that you're doing. Hiring, firing, all of this stuff. You're completely tied to financial performance. Is he capable of hiring and firing?

Has he ever done that? Yeah, I wouldn't put hiring and firing on anyone that hasn't done that 100 times. Because you've done it more than him. Yeah, I've barely done it. Right. And I hate doing it.

I literally hate doing it too. Okay, that's why I'm like, you take that, I don't want it anymore.

Yeah, like that's delegation to abdication, right? Like, we do not want to do this, so take this off my plate so I don't have to see it. Yeah, complaints will still happen regardless whether you see them. Yeah, it's more a function of will they be handled better.

Yeah, can he handle it, right?

The good news is you can afford it. I know, I just can't find anybody for them. Well, right now you have Carter, and I actually think that like the advantage you're going to have with Carter is that he likes working for you, and he is going to have to learn operations and how to manage. You will have to learn how to manage a manager, and that will also be a hard skill to attain. I think that him, he will give you more grace if you're also being very honest with him and he's already accustomed to— because see, the problem, if you go hire someone that has all these skills, they're gonna step in and guess who they're not gonna like? You. Hey, because they're gonna like look at you as an incompetent person. Yeah, because they're like, this guy can't even manage his crew because people are running roughshod. Like, the story in their mind is, I'm going I'm fixing a broken business because they have all these problems in operations. Yeah. And now they're telling you what to do and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then there's friction and then you've fired them and all of a sudden you're back, right back in operations. I'm going to speak on his behalf for a second. He is concerned that he's going to accept a role and you're going to step all over his toes. That's what he's worried about because he knows you don't have the system or the role clarity in terms of what he's actually supposed to be doing. Because right now it looks like taking over daily operations operations. What in the world does that mean?

I think it means a lot of different things.

Totally. For a great operations person that's systems-driven, the last thing they want is ambiguity and unclarity and a lack of clarity. And so by giving him that, I think that along with a little bit more pay and clarity on profit sharing— like, if you're like, okay, hear me out, I'm gonna pay you more and then I'm gonna give you some profit sharing and it's kind of complicated and you're gonna make about this much versus being like, here's exactly what I need you to do. Here's exactly the task you will take on to make more money. And based upon last year, very simply, here's a percentage that you would have made. Very, very basic. And it's, it's more linear and easier for them to understand. But also it shows that you have put thought into what their role is going to look like and not just throwing them in the deep end. And most operations people, they like checklists, they like systems, they They like processes. They like doing the same thing and optimizing it each time instead of just being like, go figure it out.

Here's the problem though. Here's, here's my mindset issue. I have a survival mind. Like I constantly stress out about not having enough work when I already have too much work to handle. Right. And I always feel like I need more because then I worry the guys aren't going to have hours in the summer. So then I just keep taking the leads.

Okay. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Over. I know, but it's just how my brain works. So how do we, how do we change that? That's why I have so much cash in the bank, because I literally wake up in the morning and I check my bank account even though I know I have money, right? I just, it's, I don't know why my brain's like that, right? Well, what's the objective of the business? I want to obviously keep growing it and make as much money as humanly possible. Why? Why not?

What's the money going to, like, why, why have the money? Like, why you check the money? Financially free. Okay, well, you're financially free, you have hundreds of thousand dollars in the bank, and you can have it now. Okay, so you've been reinforced for that behavior in the past. To get to the next level, that same behavior will keep you from getting there.

But like, I don't know if it's because growing up, like, my mom was in a house she probably couldn't afford, so it's like I paid attention to that kind of stuff, you know what I mean? So like, I'm always making sure I have cushion, and even when I'm overworked, I want the cushion still because it feels like safe, I guess.

I 100% know what you're talking about. We lost our house as a kid, the house that we had always wanted built, dream house, lost it because of overextension. So my same inclination is conserve at all costs, never spend a dollar, like live in, live in the closet kind of thing. Yeah. And one of the biggest things that I heard from my coach, my mentor, was like, that has served you well and you've dug yourself out of poverty using that method, and that same method will keep you from getting anywhere further. And so like that same mentality of I've got to hoard the cash, I can't afford to pay an operations manager more than $34 an hour, okay, I can't delegate my admin, like that same mentality like I need more leads, like you're hoarding leads, it's a waste of money. Like let's go back to the fact like I want more money, you're wasting money because right now you are pouring leads into a broker broken system. When I say broken system, when I pay money for an ad and then a lead comes from it and I don't answer the phone, that's a waste of money. So like convince yourself that running ads right now—

So you're telling me to turn them off in spring rush?

If it's causing you to, you're just like scattered. Like if you solve the Carter issue and the admin problem, I'd go tell you to double your ad spend. You have the cash. Yeah. And now you'd be at, your close ratio would go up, your upsell rate would go up, 'cause you'd have the time to focus on them. But if you're booked out till June, like we can't keep hoarding cash and we can't keep hoarding leads if we think that we're gonna grow the, we need to grow the business. Like right now you have comfort in this too many leads coming in. You found comfort in that because it makes you feel like, hey, I can keep the guys busy and my business is fine.

I can't believe you told me to turn my ads off. I don't think I've ever heard him say that ever. On any turnaround show I've ever watched, I have never heard him say that. I can't, I can't. I mean, you've seen how many calls I've gotten today, and even when we were sitting down there, I've gotten like 6 calls just in that, I don't even know how long he was there for, an hour and a half, 2 hours? Yeah. I can't get to them. That's the biggest problem. I'm spending money on leads and I can't even get to them. I don't know, there's a lot. I think it's more so just psychological warfare for me.

Like, you know what I mean?

I wanna make as much money as I humanly possibly can, but I also want the guys to make as much money as they possibly can here too. I care about the guys first. So it's like, I get stressed out thinking they don't have enough work to do, I need to just backlog leads as much as possible. That's my problem every year. It happens every single year.

Okay, then we're gonna start giving them profit sharing. I do. How much?

$500 every quarter.

For what? What do you mean? $500 per quarter. How is that profit sharing? Well, I give them— that's a bonus. It's a bonus, I guess.

Yeah, you know, not profit sharing.

We're getting a piece of the pie. So the same meeting that you're stepping out of daily ops and you're giving stuff to Carter, you say, hey, a big reason why I started Greener Concepts is because I actually care a lot about you guys. Hey guys, you're now going to get 10% of every dollar that comes into this business and profit. And I'm going to show you the numbers. At the end of the quarter, we're going to take that number and we're going to divide it by how many people have been here the entire quarter. So if you've been here the whole quarter, at the end of the quarter, you're eligible to split 10% of the profits. Okay, really simple. I want the techs to be just as invested in that P&L as Carter. Okay, it'll make his job a lot easier. And if you say, hey, we had 10% of this number at the end of every quarter to whoever was here for the whole quarter, so now you're incentivizing retention. So people that turn out every month, they're not getting profit sharing. They're not getting a random $500 because they joined last week. They have to be there for the quarter. Quarter, and then they get a piece of the action. Carter's pulling for it because he gets 10% of it, and the team's splitting the other 10%. This is how you have a smooth transition to Carter. Hey guys, I— like, the fact that you want to make a bunch of money and you just want to keep them busy and you want them to be more successful, you lean into that if that's true. And I believe it is. The way you said it, I believe you. So profit sharing, it's going to be 10%, and it's gonna be And now you're not gonna have stress around, oh man, I gotta get you guys busy so they can make— no, we're all, we all want the same thing, which is this business to make more cash. And now it's not gonna be $500, it's gonna be $1,000, $1,500 if they were there the whole quarter. People who are turning out, they're not gonna see it, but when they jump in the truck for the first week, the guy next to them just got a $1,500 check.

Yeah, and they're like, you want to stick around this quarter, buddy, for For someone who's on the fence about applying to the show, because they're like, they don't want to expose their issues or shortcomings and stuff like that, what would you tell them? Well, number one, you have to be vulnerable, and you got to be willing to make the changes even though it'll be hard. But getting the clarity on what you need to do and is required of you is definitely worth it and an advantage for the future of any business that you're running. Why do you, why do you do this? Why do you come out and talk to people on your own time?

I know his pain. I felt it, and I want to be able to solve that for as many people as possible. And I know it's like to not have money. I know it's like to have money like he does, but then feel trapped by the business still and not having an outlet to be able to help other people and it just seems very like a dead end. Like there's no, like, what's the reason for all this now? And it's like, I got out of it. And you notice he said, like, I hit his million-dollar goal.

When I hit a million, I have a goal. Like, I have that little, I would put that on my, above my head. Yeah. Because I lived in the basement and the drop ceiling was lower. Yeah. And I, I just set it there as goals. Yeah. And when I hit the million, it like didn't feel like anything. This is just an obligation. Yeah. Like, that's why. So that's, I guess, my why. It's an obligation. I have to grow, otherwise what's the point?

He hit that goal years before and he felt nothing. And so we put these arbitrary numbers out there and I did the same thing. I'm like, man, I hit a million dollar business, like all my problems will go away. And that was the obligation in me speaking. And like that, like I've gotta do this, I've gotta put pressure on myself. And then you get to that point and realize like there's actually so much more and I wanna achieve more, but now I need to tie it to something a lot more important than just stacking cash in a bank account. Like it's meaningless. And so, you know, being able to do this Turnaround Show is because I have money. And so like spending money on all this and all the team, the video editors, it takes money. And so now I found a reason to make the money so I can go spend it doing this. And whether that be the books or the content on the Turnarounds or the individual owners we try to help, it's, it's my why. So I want, I want to be able to find that why for these owners. And a lot of times it is building a place for your technicians to be able to move up inside the company. And you can't have people move up inside a company that's $200,000 in revenue. It needs to grow. And so it's the reason I started the franchise. I need— I needed my leaders to move into something else. I wanted to create a place where I didn't lose people and I wanted to see them win. And I want these owners to feel that, that there's more than just stacking cash. You are hating the business that you also are pouring so much into, in part because the people that you love and care for, your team, is against you in a lot of different areas. And so this is a good— like, hey, no problem making a bunch of money. If you actually care about your team, 'cause it sounds like that's a huge motivating factor as to why you're hoarding cash and leads, is why don't we give them 10%? Like, I want you to fall back in love with the business, 'cause that's the thing that gets you to $10 million.

It's my responsibility to continue to grow the business. Like, that's— For what? For everybody who wants to work here, and for my family that I will eventually have at some point.

So then you create the path for someone like a Carter for that to be meaningful. Yeah, like, obligation can certainly only kind of give the hard work, kind of that grind mentality to get to a certain place, that many times in the long term will lead to either burnout or people just wondering like, why am I making all of this money? Versus being like, I am responsible for these things, and by being a good steward of them, this result will happen, and this result is meaningful to me. So if the result is like financial freedom, if you want to be able to give back to your team, if you want other people to get to the next stage of their career, if you want to do something for your family, like that's know the why. And if you feel responsible for that, great. If you feel obligated, that a lot of times will lead to burnout in the long term. And so I also, like, you know, I feel obligated in a lot of ways to get out of a certain situation. But he has a million-dollar business, plenty of cash in the bank. We need to move from obligation to responsibility so that we can actually shepherd and steward the people that we're leading to something more than just a whole bunch of leads and cash sitting there doing nothing and actually make it meaningful. Right now, It's you at the top and a bunch of technicians. Mm-hmm. The thing that gets you from 1 million to 3 is building out management and a place for people to start moving up inside the org and getting a piece of the action so that we can all win together. And when you have people winning with you, it's a whole lot more fun than winning alone. A lot of this can be done in 6 weeks. Like, I actually think you can get this done in 6 weeks. I think I can, because we basically have operations for Carter, admin person, profit sharing.

The big portion portion of, of when he came, we talked about Carter. And unfortunately, I still— I gave him that what Mike advised, and he still said no. So I was a little saddened by that. But then we actually promoted somebody else. We did find someone for the operations role. He's starting May 4th. He is 28, so he's a little bit older than one of these guys. He was on the landscaping crew, and he surprised me by his interview. Transitioning him next week. And then instead of an admin person, I actually hired an account manager. So they're going be solely focused on the existing maintenance customers and finding upsell opportunities, dealing with the client relationship, and then I'll just focus on new sales. So I did a little bit more than what he advised. I hired 2 people to be managers, and hopefully what will happen is the account manager will be able to find more proactively than I could, because I think a lot of times last year and this year right now, I'm more reactionary to everything that's going on in the business, like So I'm not going out and seeing customers with the amount of revenue that each customer pays us. Like, we should probably be taking time to go out and see them and try and upsell them on other things and maintain the relationships. And then we did hire someone that was like in their 30s. I had a bad feeling about him when I interviewed him, but I needed, I needed people. And then he tried fighting one of the employees on the first day, so I had to go get get him and take him back to the shop. Yeah, it's kind of nuts. So there's been some things happening this year. Still not getting a lot of luck with the older folks, but there's one sticking around. He's doing pretty good. I have not figured out the profit sharing yet. Once we found these two people— because this, the, the girl that's starting as the account manager, we interviewed her for the ops position. I didn't think she fit the role as an rater, but I really liked her and she had a ton of experience on the sales side and she has a degree in horticulture, so she can do really— she can do a lot of stuff with the enhancement upsells and design work that we do. Let's get the pain over with because it's, it's going to be $130,000 of salary, so— but that should be able to allow me to go out and actually focus on the other things that I to do. I'd rather hire the right person at the wrong time because I have the money to do it than hire the wrong person at the right time, you know? Yeah, I lost Carter, so that's sad. That's, that's very sad. The marketing side, I did stop the Meta ads. I did keep the Google because I want to keep— part of me just can't lose the leads. I don't know what it is, I have to keep them. And I didn't really think I got a lot of leads from the Meta stuff. It just felt like I was just throwing, throwing dollars at something that wasn't converting at all.

Also during coaching, you mentioned that you were a little bit tempted by an acquisition that you're looking at.

Yes. So that is not happening. Um, I wasn't like really interested in it. I kind of just wanted the land. It turns out that he actually came back to me and said, hey, I'm gonna take it off the market. Um, and I think, I guess his sons are gonna be potentially buying it if he retires. So that isn't happening. Absolutely. And say hi to Terrell. He is— I love that dude. He is awesome. Like, he's probably gonna edit this, but he's awesome.