Biggest Mistakes... Starting My Lawn Care Business

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. And today we are going to be talking about the three, no, the four biggest mistakes I made in my landscape and business when I first started. Knowing what I know now, what would I have done differently? That's what we're talking about today. And before we get into today's show, a big thank you to today's sponsor and a sponsor of landscape business course. And that is Jobber. If you haven't already, go to get jobber.com im andys one of the things that I love about Get Jobber and some of the feedback I've been getting from the users is that the mobile app is so well integrated with the desktop and the online version. And so what that allows you to do is have employees that are on the app in the field. It syncs immediately to you in the office. And so you're able to get live data on where they're at in terms of time tracking, invoicing and making sure that you track the time of your employees to make sure that you know exactly if you're ahead of time or behind time on every single job and you know when to raise prices and when to lower prices. So if you haven't already, check out getjobber.com im andys a n-e s that's my last name. Check it out. You get a free trial now and then for the first six months of using the software, 20% off. I promise you, you'll love it. Check it out today. All right. Now, today we are going to be talking about what I would have done differently when I started. So I started mowing when I was 11. So it's like almost 13 years ago. So I've been doing this for a long time. What would I do differently if I knew everything I know now? And I would have been able to know all the systems that I know now, seeing all The P&Ls that I've seen over the past few years from listeners and things. And what would I have changed, implemented, made different back when I started? That's what we're going to be talking about. And I want to invite you before we get into today's show, to a webinar we're having this Saturday. And the topic of the webinar is going to be how to get past a million dollars in revenue in your business. Last week we had a great webinar on how to get past $500,000 in revenue. But what gets you to 500,000 in revenue will not get you to a million in annual revenue. And so we're going to be talking about the things you must do in your business to get to that seven figure point and get beyond it. And so I'd really encourage you to come to the live webinar. I can answer your questions and really specifically answer your individual questions about the subject matter. So I'd love for you to be there. Landscapebusinesscourse.com right there webinar and you can sign up right from there. So I'd really love to see you there. It's this coming Saturday. This coming Saturday, 4pm Pacific Time. So for most of you it's in the evening on a Saturday. You have no excuse not to be there. So I'd love to see you there live. And so I can answer all of your questions in the webinar now. Now I'm gonna go over the four things that I would change. My biggest mistakes. What did I do when I started that I wish I could have changed, made different and would have got me bigger, faster, more efficiently and made more money? If I would have known these things back then, number one thing is I would have focused on small residential properties and I would have bought maybe 10 turn larger mower to do the larger properties. So in my market most of our jobs could be done with a 21 or a 30 inch mower. Maybe a 30. I do not. I went out and bought a 52 inch mower when it was maybe being used on one out of eight of my properties. First starting out, I should have just focused on the seven out of eight properties that I just need to push more for and forgone the massive expense of a big zero turn mower which would have also eliminated a need for a trailer. And so I would have been able to do a trailerless setup. I would have spent that $10,000 in marketing which would have got me a whole lot more clients. And.

Seven out of eight clients I could just use the push mower. As I grew, I probably would have got a zero turn, but I would have made sure that that zero turn mower was on a route that I used just for the large properties. Much more efficient. Would have increased the efficiency of using that piece of equipment and made it more worthwhile instead of buying four zero turn mowers for all of my crews like when I first got started. So that was the first thing I would change. I'd focus just on residential, small residential, upscale neighborhoods. Seven out of eight of them I'd be able to do with push mower. So I'd either not Worry about the eighth one. Just say, sorry, can't work on your property, it's too big. Or give them a price that would actually substantiate me. Push mowing, half an acre or an acre that or I would get one zero turn mower and I would use it only for say one day a week at the beginning, but just do the zero turn mowing jobs, just the larger properties, right? And then as that would scale out, I would have ended up getting one whole crew just to do the larger properties while everyone else used push mowers with no trails on that trailer. List setup, that's the first thing I would have done. The second thing I would have done is not have expanded the number of services as fast as I did. So I wouldn't have gotten to landscaping as fast. I wouldn't have gotten to grading and excavation or artificial turf or tree services really fast like I did. I wouldn't have tried to do any of those things. We actually scaled back some of the services now that we provide at Augusta because we are focused on simplification and we're not so interested now in massive growth. So the local shop in Bellingham, they mostly have cut out some of the ancillary services to really focus on five or six that we're really, really good at. And if I could do it all over again, like I said, I would have started on just the mowing and I would have simplified, simplified, simplified until I got to like half a million six hundred thousand revenue, then maybe I would have started adding some landscaping, maybe got a dump trailer, put some bigger equipment like skid steer, track load or stuff like that. But if I could do it all over again, I would have reduced the number of services to simplify the business model. And that leads to a massive why? And that is if you simplify the business model with the number of services that you provide, you can hire a lower level.

Wage earner, you can hire someone with less skill. So it's easier to find those people. It's harder to find people that know all about hardscaping and landscaping and tree work and operation of equipment. Like they're gonna, they're gonna be more expensive, harder to find in this labor economy. And then it leads to a whole bunch of other things because you have to buy more equipment when you start to diversify your services, which lowers profitability and increases overhead. So I would have reduced the number of services that I was providing from the day one. The third thing is I would have created systems earlier in the business model. Obviously you don't know what you don't know. So when I was younger, I couldn't have done this, but if I could do it all over again. 11, what is it? No, 13 years ago. If I could go back 13 years in time and redo everything that I've done, I would figure out systems sooner so that when I did the work, they were profitable jobs. They were estimated based upon a system. They were budgeted on a certain system. The budgeted hours were on a system. The way that we installed the work and managed the jobs were on a system. The way that we dispatched and routed the jobs was on a system. The way that we paid our employees was on a system. Like, I would have had systems in place so that when we did a bunch of work and as we were scaling up and growing and everything, you know, when you start growing, everyone's like, oh, you're super successful and you're so amazing and you know that like you're not making very much money. And so I would have had systems in place if I could change it all and had like a magic ball, I would change it so that I could have the systems in place at the beginning. And so when I actually was growing, I was actually profitable and not just really wasting money on trying to figure things out. Alright, the third thing. Oh, sorry, that was the third thing. The fourth thing. Well, really, so number three was creating systems earlier so that I could be consistently profitable. Right. Because when you're first starting out because you don't have systems, some jobs you make a bunch of money, others you lose. Sometimes you make a little bit, it's all over the place. And so I want the consistency of profitability. We weren't losing money overall. Overall we were doing pretty good in profit margin wise. But I didn't want to lose money on any job. Like to this day, I do not want to have a single job where we lose money. And so that consistency is only provided by having a system in place that predicts accurately the number of hours.

Accurately predicts the number of yards of material, accurately predicts the amount of people that should be on that job. So those systems, having those in place. And when you have those systems in place, you can add value to the customer. And I wish I could have added more value to those customers because that leads into number four, which I would have charged more on my hourly rate. So having those systems in place, yes, it makes you more consistently profitable, but it also adds value to the customer because when you have systems for follow up and systems for marketing and systems for making sure that you stay in contact with all your customers with an email newsletter. When you have all those systems, you generate better value for the customer. That Leads to my fourth thing is I would have charged at least $50 per man hour from day I was charging like 35. And then within a year I went to 40. And then by year two, I was at 50. By the end of year two, I was at 50. Right from day one I should have been at least 50 bucks an hour because I was the owner out in the field working. And I shouldn't have been like, oh well, I can make the problem that most people fall into when they first get started is you could a, make $20 an hour going and working for someone else, or b, they're like in their mind, well, I could make 20 working for someone else or I could make 35 working for by myself instead of for somebody else. And they think, oh, the 35, so much better. But they forget to take into account all the overhead, all the expenses, the gas, the insurance, the licensing, all of that other stuff. And all of a sudden 3540 is literally making nothing. And so I would have charged at least $50 per hour from day one. And I would have had a little that would have given bit more margin to spend a little bit more marketing, which would have made, I would have been able to iron out my marketing systems a little bit faster, which probably would have cut a couple years off of my growth trajectory if I would have had that extra margin from day one. So this is a shorter video, but I wanted to get these four points across for you. If you're just starting, you can cut all this out. You don't have to do all these mistakes. I started when I was 11 years old. What would I have changed? I would have focused on residential small customers and I would have only purchased a zero turn once I had enough of those larger properties to actually keep it busy full time as I started adding more crews. So maybe I would have had like three mowing crews that were trailerless setups, push mower only. And I would have had one with a zero turn that would just do the larger properties. The number two thing is I would have reduced the number of services and simplify, simplify, simplify the business. Not just from the services standpoint, just so many different things in the business. Simplifying the equipment, simplifying the amount of services, simplifying the marketing, simplifying the website. I just would have simplified everything and thus would have made me more profitable. The third Thing is, I would have had the systems in place back then. If I could do that now, if I could take what I know now and apply the systems back then, I would have had a more consistent profit margin and I would have been able to create better value to the customer. Therefore, leading to the fourth thing I would have changed, which I would have charged at least $50 per man hour instead of trying to go like 30 to $40 per man hour. The thing was, a lot of times I was just literally making stuff up. I did not have a system for estimating and just pulling numbers out of thin air. And like, oh, well, you know Mr. Jones, I did his property for 1,000. This one's a little bit bigger. So like, this cleanup should be like maybe 1,200. Or looking at someone's property and be like, Well, I charge $25 per cut for Sally Jr. Down the street. So Sally Sr. Her house is a little bit smaller. So maybe I'll do like $20. And just making stuff up, not having a system, not knowing profit margins, like, that's the things I would have changed. And those are the things that could have got me to where I am now and cut a couple years out in the process. So those are the things I would have changed. I'd love to see you on the webinar this Saturday, 4pm Pacific Time. Just go to landscapebusinesscourse.com webinar and we're gonna talk about how you can get to a seven figure business and hopefully cut out some of these mistakes in the process. I'm Mike Andes. You're listening to Landscape Business Course. Until next time. Be great. Cause nothing else pays.