Mike AndesFounder, Augusta Lawn Care and Homeworks · Founder of Homeworks and Augusta Lawn Care

BRAIN INJURY Creates CHAOS in Her $100K Landscaping Business

20 Sept 2026 · 2 min

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1:40

In this episode of the Business Turnaround Show, host Mike Andes travels to Michigan to work with Crystal, the owner of Grounds to Gardens, a landscaping company that generated about $96,000 in revenue last year. Crystal suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a 2016 car accident, which left her with severe headaches, spasms, emotional and mental fatigue, and limited reserve. Four years after the accident she launched the business, but it now runs on five part‑time technicians, leading to daily operational chaos, high turnover, and burnout. Mike identifies the biggest risk as Crystal quitting due to exhaustion. He outlines a six‑week turnaround plan that avoids drastic growth: (1) improve lead conversion by focusing on 18 qualified leads, (2) hire full‑time, more reliable technicians, (3) implement time‑blocking to reduce scattered effort, and (4) adopt on‑site selling at higher price points with an expected 80‑90% close rate. The goal is to stabilize operations, increase profitability, and prevent burnout.

Chapters

I'm here and I have no idea what I'm doing.
Ultimately, the biggest risk to this business is you quitting just simply because of burnout.
The accident happened in 2016. These flare-up situations, they can be pretty intense.
You see all the struggles. You can see the pain in trying to manage a company by yourself.
I really want to make this work, and I've put everything into it. Today we're in Michigan visiting Crystal from Grounds to Gardens. Like, you're just running around fighting fires because there are a bunch of part-timers that don't know what's going on. It's like, Crystal, Crystal, Crystal, Crystal.
She has a lot of ideas for where the company can go, and I think it's easy to, like, get carried away.
She started the landscape business this 4 years ago after being in an accident where she suffered a traumatic brain injury.
My head bashed into the car seat. After a brain injury, you don't have like reserve anymore. Crippling body spasms, emotional reserve, vomiting, spiritual reserve, mental reserve, severe headaches.
Things that you have done like having 5 part-time technicians does not help. Last year she made $96,000 in revenue, but she has 5 employees And chaos happens every single day. How far are you usually booked out? I'm not exactly sure.
But when you have people leaving and coming, it does create a more unstable environment.
This is the Business Turnaround Show. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care and HomeWork Software. I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. Our goal is to give Crystal a strategy to turn around the company in the next 6 weeks. The reason it's, it's not big changes is because I'm not asking you to go out and triple the business. Yeah, I don't want you to. Like, I think if you take these 18 leads, we close 'em at a higher rate, we'll be more profitable. I think if we get better technicians that are more full-time, it'll settle you a little bit more. If we time block correctly, you won't feel as scattered. And I think if we sell on site, even with the higher price, we'll still convert 80, 90% of people.