Coaching Call: How to Make Your Landscape Company More Profitable! (Max from Grandiflora)

Everybody?

Yep. In the bottom left hand corner. There you go.

There we go.

Nice.

Okay, cool.

I'm really sorry about being late. I apologize. I have these back to back and someone went over.

I can imagine. No problem. I imagine.

Cool. Well, you're probably. You're probably in the deluge of rain as well, like we are.

We were last week, actually. It's cloudy out, but with the patch of blue and.

Clear, but cold for the next three days and then rain for another week.

Oh, yeah, there you go. Yeah, we were pouring this morning, but somewhat similar climates as you.

Pacific Northwestern. Yeah, I think you've got it a little. A little bit worse than Portland just by a few days. From what I've heard of rain every year.

Yeah, just a few. So cool. So I got your form read through that. But yeah, kind of tell me a little bit where you're at in terms of when you started the business. And I know you said between 100 and 500,000 revenue, but kind of just going to give me a little context. That'd be great.

Yeah, for sure. First, I just want to say thanks a lot for doing this. I'm really excited because I've been following you literally for years on YouTube. I think probably since you first started the channel. I think it was the podcast first and then YouTube.

Yep, yep.

Yeah. So I started. I was reading the podcast or I listened to the podcast for a long time and then when you transitioned to YouTube.

Started watching all those. So, I mean, I pretty much watch all the videos as they come out.

Pretty cool.

So it's cool to be able to talk to you.

So what we're at basically right now is 320,000 for this year and 330,000 for last year.

This year has been crazy for so many reasons. Between Covid just decimating our spring, mostly because I didn't hire up until May. I had one crew member until May this year and normally by March, April I would have had four. So a relatively small company.

This year has been crazy divorce as well. So this, I mean, it's just been an emotional roller coaster.

And really feeling like I wasn't able to focus on the business as much as I could.

And so for 2021, I'm really just wanting to reinvent the business that, you know, that marriage was definitely incredibly challenging. And in hindsight, you know, we've been together since I was 20, so 13 years and.

We just didn't know each other well enough and know ourselves well enough when we got married and we just drifted apart big time to Where, I mean, our personalities were just not. I mean, it was just not working. So this year was largely consumed with, like, having to make that decision and after trying to keep things together for five years. So the reason this is important is literally feel like for the last five years, all of my emotional and mental energy has been consumed in trying to make the marriage work. And the business was really just suffering and my personal finances suffered a lot.

So 2021 is going to be the first year, really, in my adult.

Life where I feel like I could put the type of.

The type of energy and drive into the business that I've always wanted to. So that's the goal for next year.

I did. So I'm a member of the landscape business course. And I watched over the last three days, I just crammed pretty much all of the Landscape Summit 2019. And then I have implemented P4P in a rudimentary way.

Two months ago, I'm realizing now I should have. I should have finished watching the. The course. I should have watched all the videos before I did that.

Because there are definitely some things in there that would have been good to know. One of them is.

How.

How to calculate your labor. Like that. That formula for calculating the labor revenue versus, let's see, what was it? Labor revenue versus labor cost. So how much. If you take all everything else away, how much you know you've actually got? It's like 56% for this year. And last year it wasn't as much, but for this year it's high.

And.

So that's something that'll have to change to make P4P sustainable. And I know efficiency will be a huge part of that. I know that you really, really push efficiency. And that's something that this year I'm really focused on. I am completely taken out of the field because of this.

So I crushed. Yeah, it's gonna be five months before I'm back to what they say is a new normal. I crushed three fingers. I was changing the brakes on one of our work trucks, and the jack failed. And as I was reaching in to put the safety jack in the secondary safety jack, for just a split second, I moved my hands under the brake rotor. And at that very second of me, like, literally, it would have only gone under, like, this fast. But at that very second, the brake rotor failed and crushed my three fingers. £3,000.

Thankfully, it was on gravel.

Yeah, it was on gravel. And I'm just. I mean, I'm just counting myself as incredibly blessed. Like, I don't know why this happened. But I will just consider it a blessing that my joints were spared. So literally, I'm not even kidding. My. If it was forward just a quarter of an inch, my second joint or the last joint would have been destroyed on these three fingers if it was back or chopped them off if it was on concrete. But if it was back a half inch, then the second joint would have been destroyed and not cool. So it was right. I mean, it was right in between those joints. So if this kind of thing was going to happen, this is like the ideal way.

Least you're looking at it a good way. I guess I try.

Yeah. I'm really working. Yeah, I've kept a pretty good attitude, but I'll never be able to make a full fist like that again. But at least I should be able to kind of go like this, they said.

Yeah, yeah.

So there'll be some stiffness. I'll have full weight bearing and everything. But this is the first time where I'm truly. I'm out of the field. Like, this is what you've been saying for years about, like, the reason for creating systems in your business. And I remember hearing this like three or four years ago or something like that where you were talking about, you know, what if something happens to you? Or. Actually, I bought your book to the.

Zero turn. Yeah, zero turn, too. And that, you know, injury is in that book as well. So this really drives at home, where I've got five. I've basically have six months where I can't work in the field in the wintertime. We're used to me being out in the field with everybody doing specialty services like irrigation. An arborist, too. So tree climbing is traditionally a big part of our winter. That's done.

I mean, I can't even. I can't hold anything right now. So thankfully, I've got two great crew leaders who are holding everything together beautifully.

And this will be the first winter, too, where I'm trying to keep more than one or two people on. So I've got four people out in the field this winter, and so far we're doing okay because we still have some really big landscape projects. So that's. I mean, I could say a lot more, but that's kind of the gist of the background. This year's been crazy between Covid divorce.

And this and broken fingers and the fact that you're in Portland and Covid. So, my goodness, it's been fun. Hey, I guess 2021 can only get better.

Yeah, I agree.

Cool. Cool. So do you guys have some Specific questions you want to jump into? Yeah.

So the doozy is.

I have always.

Your model is very much based around systematizing and this was driven home in the course big time. That systematizing and implementing systems so that you don't have to be present. The way that I have done the business so far has been almost the exact opposite in a lot of ways. Not necessarily on purpose, but just because of the nature of my interests in the work. I'm a highly plant oriented person. Like I'm a horticulturist at heart.

My main interest is in the design installation.

Of really high end, gorgeous landscapes. I don't know if you've been to our website, but you can kind of see some of our projects on that. Yep.

It's not. It's not something that's easily systematized and it does need people that have a pretty decent amount of skill to be the crew leaders. It wouldn't really work to have the flat hierarchy that you do at Augusta because we really rely on the crew leaders that have a lot of knowledge. But it's made me realize that I'm really tied to the business.

And I can't continue to work out in the field if I want to make the income goals. So I do like actually being able. Like it's always been my dream to invest in real estate similar to like what you're doing now. It's what I'd hoped to do over the last decade, but my ex wife and I could never get on the same page about finances. I'm a spender, She's a very much. I'm a saver, she's very much a spender. And the financial stress of just completely disagreeing about finances, I basically, in order to cover the expenses that she felt that we needed, I needed to pull every cent out of the business. So I was never able to like, my advertising budget has been next to nothing for years. So this will be the first year where I'm actually spending more than like two grand on advertising.

And I'm just realizing I feel like I'm stuck in a rock between a rock and a hard place because I've built a business where it requires these specialty. You know, it's a specialty service kind of business where.

I can implement a lot of systems and we can get a lot of efficiency, but it's not going to be like Augusta where we can have somebody come in and be trained up and profitable within a week or two.

And I've kind of been wondering if I made the right Choice. Because if what I really want is financial independence and security and to not constantly be tied to the business working 60, 70 hours, weeks, I don't mind doing that. But I would like to not absolutely have to as well. I haven't taken a vacation in years.

So this year it's all about recalibration for me. And I was just wondering if, I mean, I know that this is not your specialty, but I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts as to.

How to go or resources as far as how to go about a company like mine where we do like high end, like what we've been trying to get into is high end landscape design and installation. I mean, we do stuff like. I don't know if you can see it. I printed out and laminated a bunch of these after because we're making these binders now for systematizing materials. I figure we can do high end work, but at least let's system, you know, let's put systems in place for that high end work so people can make quick decisions. You can kind of see like this patio. Like these are the kind of patios we do that are just, you know, more intricate.

Yep.

Than a typical patio. And we use higher end materials. Stuff you can't ever find at a big box store.

Yep.

And the thing, it's a culture thing too, because my crew, that's what they love about the company. They want to work for a company that's doing this kind of thing, higher end work. So it would like for me to go into something that's more easily systematized or, or streamlined. It would be a total about face of the business.

Yep.

So I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. But yeah.

So like, you know, there's, you know, really like two or three things I think about. First off, you know, the realization too is like, hey, if I'm not gonna be in the field and not doing what I love to do, which is like the landscaping and the design side of things, it's like, do I just want to run a systems oriented only business? Like just do more recurring services? Do I want to. And that's a decision you can make. But then the next phase, like, okay, kind of what you've already started doing, that is more trying to standardize what you do inside of those large projects. Right. So for example, like you could literally go down to like, we only do two different types of pavers, we only do two different types of wall blocks. Like really trying to standardize that way.

And, or, or you do neither of those things, and you just jack your prices up to the point where. Where it makes sense. And you don't have to get 50 guys on the field or even 10. You could stick with three or four guys in the field, but because you're charging 30% more now, it becomes economically viable.

That was the other question. Thank you. Because I actually written that down here. That was the other question is basically, I've realized, like, I'm charging the same rates as Augusta, and yet what we.

Do, I need. I need highly experienced, like, really conscientious horticulturalists to work, because we do, like, the kind of. We do plant designs where Sometimes there's like 30 species on our website. That video that plays in the background, that was a 1500 plant installation of, like, a meadow.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Oregon City.

Yeah. And so those are the kind of projects we're increasingly going into. And that's what the crew is passionate about.

Mm.

So I'm realizing that I am gonna start having to charge a kind of premium. Like my. My average hourly is gonna have to go to be like 100 or 120 or something and just sell based on the artistry of it.

Yeah. Like, you either. You either gotta go really specialized and charge a premium, or you go general and you do volume. Right. And, you know, especially, like, the bottom line is don't do it because you're crew. Like, you gotta build the business around what you want. Right. And so, but if you're passionate about that same thing, I think you can definitely do it. You've got to charge for it, though. And $100 is what you need to be charging if you need horticulturalists or arborists to be on your crew, where you have to be licensed to do a lot of the stuff that you're doing. Like, you should not be charging what a landscaping company does. Right. And I would stress that big time on your website in terms of, like, that you're a horticulturalist. And, you know, even if you say high end, like, design, build, firm. Right. And you're not focused on landscaping, you're really focused on high end sustainable horticultural design projects. Like, that's a totally different market. Right. And, you know, then you can charge, you know, a premium for that or. Or you stay where you're at, but then you really need to systematize things to where you don't have to be there.

Yep.

Yeah.

And I've realized that I used to put fine landscaping on our website, but I took that offer just for SEO purposes. Because I was wondering like huh, I wonder how that's gonna.

And some people think when you put fine. That that you're. You only do small stuff. I've seen that a few times. We do like would you find work? It's like, okay, do you do like weeding and you know, trimming bushes? Only what we're, you know, I've heard, I've seen that too. But really if you're doing holder cultural and you're really focusing on like agronomy, like those sort of using that terminology and pitching yourself as a completely separate than landscaping. Because anyone can be landscaping. You just got to pull weeds, rake a bed out, plant a bush. Like but if you're really focused on the horticultural and like the plants and irrigating those plants and like really in depth stuff, you got to like make sure that is the presentation and not like a landscaping company.

No, that makes sense. And I guess and the website used to show that more but I've streamlined it more just because I've been trying to get more of the recurring revenue. But I think we should have, we should show on the website that we do those recurring services. Because I do, I want to get two or three crews where they're. It's just mowing, even just for recession proofing. I mean I went through 2008. I was young, but I went through 2008. I remember what happened and the install jobs just took a total dive. But the mowing and stuff kept going.

So yeah, that makes sense. And I guess, yeah, it's just, it's a judgment call. It's what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about the horticultural work and.

All the artistry surrounding that. It's just that I also can't be the one who's always doing it. Which is fine because it's actually, it's been easier for me to find people that are interested in the high end work than it is to find people just do general, general labor.

So yeah, even if you really position it like hey, we do you know, grand of flora mowing and horticulture, right. Like if I'm looking, if I'm a high end client looking for a company to install my, my design, like I'm gonna, I'm expecting to pay someone more literally if I'm hiring a horticulturalist versus a landscaper. Right. And so if you really pitch yourself as like, hey, we do mowing or we do maintenance and then we do horticulture and really pitching, hey horticulture, we're gonna be expensive. You're looking at you're gonna probably charge for consultations and using that sort of as the model and especially if you're passionate about it. I would charge for those consultations because that's taking your time but it kind of is an outlet for you. Yep, perfect. And so you're only gonna get those really high end, you know, they won't, they're willing to pay a lot those type of clients. And I would keep moving up that consult fee to weed out the people you don't want.

I just started doing that where we were at like 80 an hour for, for landscape design and then I realized that's how much we charge for mowing. Like we. So now it's 150 for landscape design and consultation and people don't bat an eyelash. That's the crazy thing I think about all the lost revenue and I mean the years of study of all these things. We are a licensed landscape contracting company and irrigation and low voltage lighting. So we. Irrigation is, I'm actually passionate about irrigation. It really interests me but again I'm the only one that knows how to do it in depth, so. And yet these higher end clients expect that we'll be able to do irrigation. So it's like it's a double edged sword. I've thought about let's, hey, let's just get rid of it. But companies around here, the really good ones are charging 135 to 150 an hour for irrigation. So I mean at that point on P4P I can afford to pay somebody like 40 or $50 an hour to do irrigation and then it becomes super worth it for someone to learn it. So I feel like we're probably gonna have to keep irrigation and other things just to be able to serve the client base that we are trying to increase.

And this is that slippery slope why eventually we just cut it off. Right? Because we were doing the same thing. Okay, well if we're gonna do, you know, $70,000 paver patios, we now we're getting a lot of people asking for walls and if we're doing walls and we get people asking for turf and then we got. So that's where it becomes just like this slippery slope. Now it's like how do you get four people if you're going to hire four people to know all this stuff? Right? Because like just having four people to know all of those different categories well is either A, you're going to pay them $40 an hour or B, you're never going to be able to find Them, right? Because they're gonna go start their own thing. Like, if they know all of those things, they're probably gonna go start their own business, right? And especially when it's more of a consult type of business, that specialty, and they see you getting $150 for a console fee, like, why not just go do it their own if they know how to do it, you know? And so I know that's something I've always thought, too, that's a slippery slope. And I know people have made it work, but especially when you're staying small, to be able to get someone that knows all those things. Like, for example, let's say you got one guy knows the irrigation, let's say besides you, right? You have one guy that really knows the irrigation, and you start doing all these big projects. Well, if no one else knows, if he leaves, okay, now what? Either A, you're in the field, or B, you're going to go out and spend whatever it takes to find somebody, right? And that person can be very difficult to find. And so that's the vulnerabilities that are difficult, difficult. And that's the part where it's just like, eventually you try to balance it, like, okay, I'll do the irrigation. I'll try to train everyone else on these other standardized products and things that we're going to install. That is going to work if you're doing only three or four people. But again, as you've seen, like an injury that wipes you out from doing irrigation, right? Or you need someone at least with you to do the work, right? So that's kind of the challenging part, and it's just really deciding what you want. But. But if you can charge a premium, like you said, you can pay your guys substantially more. It's still, though, a vulnerability of, you know, as you pay someone more and more in landscaping, the vulnerability of them leaving is actually higher. So.

Yeah, I've thought about that, and.

Part of me I've thought about, well, what if I just.

Created a really good core group of subcontractors who are like. Like there's irrigation guys around here, which is one. It's just him and a helper, kind of like a. Like a small plumbing operation, and we just get a good relationship where they come in and they do our irrigation. I won't make as much in house, but the freedom of that could be really worth it. And if we just focus on planting, anybody can be taught how to plant really well, but we can still charge that premium for the whole package of the whole landscape coming together through our design and not be quite as vulnerable to, like, to needing to have a crew that knows how to do irrigation, retaining walls, etc. I mean, part of printing all these guys out, all these laminated sheets is like, we can still do the higher end work, but we're gonna streamline it to where we're only using. There's three pavers and three wall blocks, and that's all that we use. And they. Generally speaking, they're what everybody's chosen every time anyway. Yeah. So that way I'm like, I love what you said about don't give them the Belgard calendar or catalog. Don't do that. I've in there. I've got all the catalogs over there on a shelf. No more. The other thing. Let's see. I made a list of things here. I watched your Zero Turn series. I thought I'd watched all of them, but then over the weekend. I mean, I've had a lot of time to.

But the. Let's see.

One thing I realized is the. There are guys. So here. Yeah, the Illinois video. So you went and talked to the couple in Illinois. They bought that acreage plus that huge pole barn for 100,000. You know, you and I, like Mike, we're both Pacific Northwesterners. That probably blows your mind when you think about that. Like, we wouldn't be able to touch that for a second. And yet they're charging 60 an hour from what they said and 80 on mowing. And I was wondering what your opinion was. This is what I wanted to ask you directly, is what your opinion is on that. Because they're in Illinois where the cost of living is just a fraction, but they seem to be. But they're charging. On your recommendation, they're charging your northern Washington rates.

How much do you think that that should factor in? Like, here I am in Portland housing. I've watched it. Unfortunately, I don't own real estate yet. I could have. Finances have been handled differently by me for the last five years. You know, water under the bridge. But.

Our real estate market, similar to Seattle and the whole area has just skyrocketed. I mean, I've seen how I used to be able to get a house for 200,000 here. That was halfway decent. Those same houses are 420,000. And I've watched that happen over the last decade. And yet then here's people in Illinois who are charging the same rates that I am for mowing and general landscaping. How do you think that we should factor this in going forward? Like, are you going to start raising your prices to account for that, or do you think that there really is still that ceiling where people won't accept more?

So two things. So in terms of when it comes to real estate versus, like, long, you got to remember there's two different businesses altogether, right? So I really feel like they're uncorrelated. Some people are like, okay, well, If I have $100,000, you know, pole barn that I can buy, like they did, for example, you know, that means that I'm gonna have to charge way less. It doesn't necessarily work like that because it's two different businesses, right? So. And the other thing is, too, when we talk about hourly rates, it really comes down to your efficiency, right? If you're really ultra efficient, you can charge a higher rate due to the fact that you get more done per hour, right? And so I've seen people that. That they only do $60 an hour or $50 an hour, but because they're so incredibly lean and they only charge, you know, their base pay is 10 or $12 an hour, they can make it work, right?

In terms of.

I guess that's the confusion. So I guess, and maybe to clarify, because I don't think I was clear enough.

You have to pay people a base rate of 18, but in Illinois, it might be like 12.

And. And yet they're still charging the same amount. So they're actually making more on that difference. And I guess because of the cost of living is what I'm thinking. Like, real estate and landscaping are definitely very different, but, like, for me, I have to make a lot more money to be able to afford to buy any real estate. So that's what I'm thinking. Like, but in Illinois.

By they.

By.

Six of those properties, one of that same property.

Sorry, I lost it for a second. I lost it for a second. I heard what you're saying, though.

It would be $600,000 to buy that same property here in Portland, like, anywhere, even in the rural areas, easily. And so. And yet they're charging the same amount. So, I mean, they could buy, like, their dollar goes six times further in real estate.

And people probably make less there, too, because the minimum wage and everything. So, I mean, here we have to pay people more, so we're making less on the difference, and we have to pay out of our ears for real estate. And I'm just wondering, like, how. How you factor that in personally or would recommend that I factor that in as a fellow Northwesterner, that we're dealing with these Crazy real estate prices.

Well, the thing is with real estate is like it moves in proportion, right? So if they, if their value goes up 10% on that a hundred thousand dollars property, they're going to make their value went up ten grand. Whereas if, yes, we have to pay a lot more for our real estate, but if our real estate goes up 10%, we're going to now make $60,000, right? So that's why people always get confused about when it comes to real estate kind of going on divergence here. But like in terms of real estate, like, oh, I should buy like in Ohio where I can get like a 5 plex for like $15,000. Like it's nothing, right? It's great. But the value of real estate is usually coming down to appreciation over the long term, right? If you're holding it for not just doing cash in terms of cash flow for multifamily, or if you're buying, for example, like them again, they could double the cost of that land. Like the land could double over the next 10 years and they're gonna make a hundred grand. You buy land in Portland that doubles, you're making $600,000, right? So real estate types.

But I get what you're saying in terms of like no prices for labor versus, versus, you know, the cost of.

Something like real estate, but then that initial. So that totally makes sense for that percentage differential. But then the initial cost of getting into real estate in the first place is a lot more for us here. Like, like if I, if I lived in Illinois and was able to charge the same rates I am now, I would be able to save up to buy real estate outright way faster than I could here. So like, by that same logic, it makes me feel like, like my mowing rate should be 120,000 or I mean 120 an hour. And my, my landscaping rate should be like 90. But, but we couldn't, I don't think we can get away with it.

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree in terms of that specifically.

But yeah, even, even for real estate, for example, you got to keep in mind, yes, your initial is going to be more, but your month to month, like if you look at the cost of what they're paying, say per month on a mortgage versus you, minus your appreciation, that's where things start to get more level. But yeah, you're right in terms of initial, like say 25% down, you know, there you're looking at 20 or 30 grand. Here you're looking at a couple hundred thousand, right? And that's the Barrier.

Yeah, yeah, it just takes ages. It's going to take me ages. Well, it feels like it's going to take me ages to get there anyway.

Yeah. And to keep in mind too, when people say like they charge 60 or 80 or whatever, that is their target price. Right. So if someone's not hitting budgeted hours consistently, what they're actually making could be significantly less. So when people say like, oh, this is my hourly rate, if you're not charging by the hour, which most people don't, they charge by the job. If you're not hitting budget hours, you're not actually hitting that. Right. So keep that in mind too. Like for even us, like we say hey, we're X amount per hour, but I know that four out of five times we're beating budgeted hours. So like our actual rate is probably 10, $15 more per hour.

Does that make sense?

Sure. Yeah. No, that's, yeah, I could see that.

And the other question I had is I'm kind of, part of me has thought about just having two businesses like, like that I actually just create a separate business that is just all the recurring stuff that I could just automate and then I have this hyper focused small company that does the really high end stuff. Obviously that would mean more, more work for me.

But that thought has crossed my mind. Or we just have two really robust separate divisions within Grand A Flora. Do you have any thoughts on that? I mean would that, do you think that that would just be more headache than it's worth?

Yeah. Your size of business is not worth to create a separate entity. Even if you look at just the cost and the headache of starting another llc, start another website. Like you have inherent efficiencies and economies of scale when you keep things together. Right. So even like crew members, you can move them kind of like from right now from one to the other based upon where the work is at. Right. You can share trucks, things like that. You know, you need another website. You have to, you have to do another tax return. Like all that starts to add up. It makes sense conceptually from a branding standpoint. But until you're large, like multimillion dollars in revenue, keeping stuff together is usually the best thing.

Yeah, it makes grandiflora means great flowers in Latin. And so like one of our things, like our landscape designs are loaded with pollinator friendly flowers and like, like flower bombs. I mean it's like, like the stuff that most people do not have, may have maybe never even seen before.

And.

Like these huge meadows is what we're trying to focus on like large scale planting installations. But granite floor doesn't really translate. Like it doesn't sound like a mowing company. You know, like if I want, if I want to do the recurring services, like it's, it's plant related but it's not, it's not something I could brand as just the recurring, you know, services.

Yeah, but I think like even on your website, your trucks, you can make it very distinct. Like hey, we do there's grand to Flora Mowing and Grand of Flora horticulture. Right. And trying to create that distinction, you know, you do different colors. For example, you could do green for the lawn care, you could do say purple for the whole horticulture or whatever it is. Right. And you try to keep it like on your website you need a green and a purple and like you really have very distinct in your trucks. Like things like that you could probably do that way because they'll feed each other too. Right. Like someone who does, you know, horticulture, they're going to want you now to maintain and mow and do all the maintenance. Right.

So yeah, that's true. Okay. I like that idea that creating a really, a separate branding within the company that demarcates that. That's cool. Speaking of the website and looking at it, was there anything that just jumped out at you that you think should.

Change, honestly, the website or the logo? The logo I think could probably convey what you do a little bit better. And this could possibly be the fact that I have a local store, mom and pop shop that's called Grand a Flora that is more like gift shop stuff and you know, they sell flowers and things like that. I think you could probably tie in your logo, modernize it and then tie in about the mowing or lawn care, however you want to word that and the.

Horticulture and make that actually part of the logo. Possibly that's just an idea because when I looked at your front page, like your very first page, minusing the video and stuff, which I think is awesome, that video is awesome. The big logo, like your second page, if you scroll down a little bit that big, like just your big logo, I'm not sure what you do basically. Right. Because grand of Flora could be a gift shop. It could be high end design build, it could be where you sell flowers, it could be a nursery. So I would try to either tie in the back end, like if you're tied, if you really like that design of the logo, just basically use the words of like Grand Flora mowing and horticulture. But if you, if you aren't tied to the word or to the design aspect, I would, I would think about trying to use some sort of modern. Like even if you did like say, I said, I say green, I'm going to draw it. It's my head.

If you had like a green and a purple or green and blue, whatever, like green, blue would work in terms of like the horticultural and the lawn care and then break that up somehow with the, the word of Granda Flora or even like Granda and flora, whatever it is.

I think that would convey that message that you might want to convey which is that separate delineation between the two. But that's the only thing. Like I thought the website looked good. Like overall, like the video in the background looks great.

I would like to see a estimate form. However, I also realize that you're more high end and you don't want the volume. You're trying to. Actually you want someone to look through your website and then fill out a contact form. And like that process weeds out some people.

But overall I like it.

I like contact form on the bottom of a lot of the different pages. On a lot of the pages at the bottom there's a contact form and then there's a contact us page. But yeah, the front page I don't think has the contact form got it. Yeah, but yeah, the logo was a, it was a choice between. I thought about doing something more very modern. But then also 70% of our market are the calls that we get are women over 50 and 60. And so like going with something that's kind of more European and timeless looking was kind of a judgment call in that regard.

Yeah, because that was a tricky one. And also deciding to go with Granite Flora LLC instead of just Granite Flora Landscapes or granite flora like grandiflora.com was taken by a nursery in Italy. So we had to do grandifloragardens.com and that the name came about because we really wanted to focus on gardens at the time. And we still do. But that's why the URL is that.

What if you took out the LLC part in the logo and just made that the mowing and horticulture.

Yeah, I could see that the LOC doesn't. It doesn't necessarily need to be in the logo.

Yeah, like originally I, I did the same thing when I first started out. I put LLC in there. But honestly it just screams you're really small. Because you know, if you have to put like you're basically telling everyone your entity type. Right. It's like saying, yeah, you know, you can, you could say corp, Right. If you did a corporation, you could do s out like sole proprietor sp. Like you could do like anything. Right. So I think the llc, if you put made that part. Even if you extended the logo a little bit more and did like grand floor mowing and horticulture, I think that would be cool.

I could see that.

But yeah, like, I originally did the same thing. I put LLC in mine because literally, honestly, because I saw another local company put LLC on theirs and I begin to grow and be like, okay, they have two trucks. That's why they have llc. Right. So at first it offers legitimacy and then eventually you kind of outgrow it. And I think you can lean on the word grand floor in terms of branding plenty, you know, in terms of your trucks and logo and things like that.

Yeah, cool. No, I appreciate that. Yeah. And the, I think.

In watching the videos and I'm going to be at the virtual conference too. I signed up for that. I signed up for that when it was still going to be in person. That was such a bummer.

I know.

I was going to get out of town. Yeah. So close. I was going to just drive one of the vans up and like sleep in a van.

But the. It was going to be the only thing I've done all year to like get out of town. But it'll be, it'll be cool. I'll be set up in my office here. I've got a nice little setup.

You can get more comfortable on. Zoom.

Yeah, yeah. But one of the things I really, really took away from, on top of all the P4P advice, one of the things that I really took away from watching the 2019 conference recordings was just streamlining, like, and I realized that I could actually. Even while keeping with the high end work that we try to do, there's still a lot of streamlining that can be done, whether it's only offering certain pavers or.

Even creating different planting packages. Because one, one way that I thought, like, okay, pollinator friendly landscapes are really popular here. And like, the idea, like, as a landscape designer, I drive through most neighborhoods and I look at the landscapes and I just think, like, oh, no, they could be so much. Like, we could, we could live in a civilization where there's just insane beauty everywhere if people just knew how to do it. And so I thought like, we could create different packages or templates that I would call flower bombs or something and there would be like three packages to choose from that we could just market to regular suburban neighborhoods that would just dramatically increase their curb appeal.

And that that would be a good way to kind of streamline and focus.

The work and make it more scalable while still doing the things that my crew and I love to do. So I think that is going to be a focus for next year.

And even if creating videos around it. Yeah, no, totally. And even, even if you did like say, for example, you had flower bombs, you had like pollinator population. I wrote a couple down, like pnw, something like a Pacific Northwest kind of look. And then you had three or four, right. Then what you could do is inside of each of those, do like a good, better, best model. So for example, you could say, hey, you know, you like the flowering bombs package? Here's the pictures. You like this, okay? Now have different price points inside it, like three different price points. And each one have the number of plants that come with it, the yardage of material that comes with it. And then literally you could take like say if you took three different designs, and then inside of those, you had three different packages of size, right? Because you're going to have a $4,000 one, you're going to have a $15,000 one, whatever it might be. And then literally you take that template, knowing how long it takes to plant certain plants, etc. And then you can literally like, hey, this is about 15 grand for our mid sized package of the pollinator population. And you're going to get pictures. You know, pictures are here and then maybe you edit it slightly with the amount of mulch or compost they want and really, you know, lean down the amount of time it takes for you to like put together how many plants and put together how many of this type and this one and how many yards. Whereas it gives up these packages and you know, how many budget hours are already budgeted into them for P4P. And then it's a matter of just modifying those slightly and then they have a really good price point and you don't have to spend all your time creating specific estimates.

Yeah, exactly. That's. I think that's going to be really key for this year, is doing that kind of thing and like spending my downtime while my paw is healing.

I've got a lot of downtime I could spend on that type of thing to really go into the year strong in that regard.

Even if you like a 5,000, $10,015,000 option for all three designs, right?

Yeah.

And then if someone's way over the top, you're doing a $40,000 project you can add on to it. But that's a general like, hey, here's kind of like what the package include, you know, 10 lavenders, 10 of this, 14 of these, 18 of these, here's some pictures. And then if you know, if you have a bigger space, if you have a bigger property, maybe want the mid sized package. Right. So I think that would be interesting. And then you already know the budget hours for each package in terms and that's really the only thing that's doing is trying to streamline the estimate process.

Yep. Yeah, that sounds great.

Yeah. And speaking of streamlining, I'm looking at, I know I've only got a few minutes, but.

Looking at trying to build for some reason it's always been.

I've always had this thing around building up advertising. I think because money has always been so scarce for me. Like I have this scarcity concept which I don't. Is not really gonna be the case anymore going forward, which is new to me. And so like I can actually afford to spend on advertising. So I mean if we're, if we're trying to get, just for revenue purposes, personal income, building the business and whatnot, if we're trying to get two crews next year rolling full time just on maintenance, what do you think would be the best way for me to spend my time and money right now with what you're seeing results wise with your advertising, to just get those, to just get those clients in? Because right now we only have one day. We went down from three full days of maintenance to only one day, full day of maintenance for one crew.

That because winter, just because this year you just haven't focused on it as much.

This year we got tons of interest in installs and we started working with two landscape architects that have been funneling work to us. But the maintenance I just got, because I didn't spend any on advertising, I got, I lost all organic, almost all organic leads for mowing. Like we got two, we got three requests for mowing this whole year.

In part due to the fact I think that your branding is more leveraged towards the horticultural side. Right. Like if I go to SomethingGardens.com, i'm not expecting mowing. Right. Just because it doesn't scream that to me. And especially your logo, you're definitely going after horticulture and that's fine. It's a matter of like, which one are we going after? Or do we need to create that kind of delineation inside of our branding to make it very clear that we do Mowing as well, right? Because anything like if I'm searching Google and I see I'm searching for mowing and even if you pop up, if it says gardens in it, I'm probably going to skip it because I just think that it's a land, you know, does either landscaping or a nursery or flowers. And so that's why like doing, if you do grand of flora, mowing and horticulture, that brings it into the title, it's on the head of your page, et cetera, that might bring more awareness around it in terms of organic leads like you mentioned. In terms of advertising, like again it comes down to do you want to push mowing or do you want to focus on the landscaping side? Because like if you were doing, if you're doing high end design builds and you're doing high end especially package based work like we talked about, I would recommend doing a door hanger that literally has the three package types that you installed at a local in the in their neighborhood. So for example, if you do the flower bomb mid size package, I would take the flower. I'd have different door hangers for each package or each design type and on the back of that have the three different packages, right? The good, better, best, you name it something, right? And I would take and be like hey, we design, we put this recently at such and such an address in your neighborhood. And I would go put down the door hangers of all those neighborhoods or even if you every door direct mail and just concentrate on that one neighborhood because that's usually how design build sells. Design builds is usually less like oh, I'm just gonna find a good landscaper. Usually they're looking on nextdoor. I would look on, I would be big on nextdoor for your type of horticultural high touch because people are asking for recommendations for your type of work a lot more more than they would for mowing. Mowing is like a commodity, right? Just go on to Google whoever's ranking well you're going to find them some of the best horticulturalists and design build firms won't even rank on Google. But it's because they have these awesome connections. People refer each other and it's much more organic and usually an organic lead for a $40,000 install. It's really complicated and specialized is going to be a better lead than someone who's found you on Google, right? They're not going to use be a specialized. And so I in terms of dollars spent, I'd be looking at local deals on nextdoor and really trying to engage on Nextdoor the most if it's. I know Portland's pretty big into nextdoor, right?

I think so. I mean I know a lot of people that use it.

Yep, yep. I'm pretty confident in that recommendation. Like nextdoor. I know in our area it's big. The eastern west coast are pretty solid on it right now. They're trying to kind of penetrate more internally now. But I did my first dollars and it's cheap, it's cheap to go on local deals on Next door. I wouldn't do sponsorships on local deals. I wouldn't do sponsorships on Next door. The different ad product. I just do local deals and then really trying to build out locally like even your personal kind of profile and talking to people and literally if you went on next Door right now and searched landscaper, you would see 10 people in the past few months have asked for recommendations for a landscaper.

Yeah, okay, that's great. I will check nextdoor out quite a bit more. I have an account but I haven't logged in in ages.

Yeah, like I said like for mowing. Yeah, exactly. You need to create a business page for mowing. People usually search, right. They go into Google and that's where people are winning the game for mowing and maintenance. But for high end design build and especially like where you're starting to buy species of plants and really focus on the pollination, pollinating plants and all that sort of thing, people are looking for recommendations because it's just harder to vet that sort of knowledge on a website. Right.

Our close rate on organic leads is literally like 100%.

Yep, yep. So that, that's, that's where I'd be focusing. Right. It's just like how do I, how do I cultivate more of that one on one, you know, connection with people. People usually talk about their mowing service. Right. Like they don't like oh man, they just mowed my grass is not as. But they will talk about like someone that does a certain type of work that only they do. Right. Like only you focus on that, those type of species and like have that knowledge and so they're more inclined to talk about especially on one time jobs because it's such a big difference like before and afters, things like that.

Yeah. I guess I've always just liked the idea of having the recurring maintenance as a, as a bread and butter kind of thing like keeps keeps things rolling. It's, it's more recession proof the idea of not having any maintenance. You know you got to keep the sales funnel constant. You know, and keeping that pipeline going. I feel like networking with more landscape architects too. Just like networking, networking, networking is going to be big for us.

And even if you, even when it comes to maintenance, like, even if you don't do mowing necessarily, even just, hey, like every single project we install, our goal is to get them on maintenance. And like your whole sales funnel is like, how do we get our $30,000 jobs on $150 per month maintenance? Because if you're the only ones who can install those type of plants, you're probably also the only one that knows how to actually take care of them, deadhead them, trim them up the correct times, all the rest of it. Right. So if I was you, like, if I'm installing, I'm going to focus energy, you know, now that we talk about this at the very end. But like if I was focusing on horticulture, I wouldn't be focused on mowing. I'd be focused on how do I upsell these people on maintenance programs that are weekly, bi weekly, whatever. And by the way, those are really good in terms of year round. Right? Because you do a lot of work in the winter. And again, they're going to be willing to pay a premium price for, for your people who know the installation process, they installed the irrigation, like why would they want someone else to work on the irrigation when you installed it? Right. And I would be looking at your entire like sales process for the initial job as really just a segue to the initial buildup of selling them a maintenance package.

That makes a lot of sense. I've usually tried to do that, but it's been in a really informal way. I think maybe even talking about maintenance at the beginning would make sense. Like.

We were trained to be able to do it.

I would be selling them on their job and I'd be having underneath that a dollar per month and what it includes for maintenance for that package. And again, if you're going to package things, you could literally have the install cost and then monthly maintenance cost.

Yeah, okay, that's great. I'm writing all this down. That makes a lot of sense.

I would track, I would track the most for you if you want to focus more on maintenance is not just sales closed like estimates closed. Like if it's really, really high for you, I'd be focused on what percentage of my one time jobs convert into the monthly recurring services. Right. I'd focus a hundred percent of my time on that. I'd go back first of all to try to get people who've done Work from the past and try to say, hey, you know, here's your prices for recurring maintenance. Like, that's something you could do on your downtime, right? Like, going back the past 12 months. And then, okay, who have we installed? They've probably gone and tried to figure out either A, they've tried to do themselves, or B, they've tried to find another landscaper. It never works out good when someone as specialized as you installs and people like us come along and try to, like, trim the bushes and, like, do things. It never works out well because every plant, you know, they have certain specific requirements, especially if they're imported, especially if they're pollinating. Like, there's total different, you know, requirements. And so you can really sell that. And I would. Every single estimate you do, I would be putting a maintenance price. Like, literally install cost, monthly maintenance price, and you can package that and standardize that across the board.

That makes a lot of sense. I'm actually really surprised that I haven't been doing that from the beginning. That makes so much more sense because we could even have different packages. Like, if somebody wants something to be lower maintenance, then we could have that be an option, and then we can adjust the maintenance price in that package accordingly.

Yeah. Wow, that makes a lot of sense.

And even if one of your packages calls for people. Oh, you can always book another one.

Like, if I reschedule one. Okay, cool.

I think after three days. I think after three days you're able to book another one because our scheduling thing has to get reset. But what are they thinking? Oh, yeah, Back to your question or your thing, your idea about the low maintenance. That's a good idea. Because if you have one of your themes, I'd call them themes, and then packages inside of those or designs.

If you had one that was called low maintenance, they would be able to then see that their monthly cost is significantly lower. Right. So if you have the pollinator or the flower bombs one, and it's $290 per month for full service of trimming and all this other stuff, irrigation and all other stuff, then you have a low maintenance package where it's 80 bucks per month. They actually see the value in doing that. Low maintenance package.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, because it's literally right there. They can see the difference in the maintenance cost.

Yep.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Like, I really think you. Let's say you do 20 bigger projects every. Every year. 20, 30 projects. If you can get 15 of those to be on recurring, I'd much rather you be doing that than doing mowing. You don't have to buy mowers, you don't have to worry about any sort of like mowing altogether. You just focus on recurring maintenance for the projects you've installed and then you're going to pick up other ones too. Right. And I like that because your branding in terms of gardens goes along with that. Right. Like your personal gardener, like that's what you become. Right. And so I'd just be making sure it's part of your initial sales process. Like I wouldn't be trying to get people to sign up for a one time job. I'd be like, hey, here's the price for the job and then the monthly recurring after that.

Yeah, that makes so much sense.

And then you only really step back if they like, oh, well, I want to take care of it or what is it if I don't do the maintenance? And honestly, I'd give them a cut, I'd give them a price cut if they take for the recurring maintenance. Okay, you'll get 5% off if you accept the first year of recurring maintenance. For us.

That makes sense. It makes a lot of sense. Especially since, I mean, the landscapes that we design are only going to get more complex with time. And actually the maintenance goes up with time because the plants are now more mature, cutting back all the grasses. And if somebody has 500.

You know, 500 European sedges.

When they're little, you don't even need to cut them back. Now, five years later you've got two dump trailer loads of debris.

Well, this is the beauty because you know that that monthly price that you're going to show them is going to be pretty low, right. On that initial sell. But that's for year one. So year one monthly maintenance cost, boom. You know that in year two, you're going to have to sell them on another package. It's going to be higher. Year five is going to be significantly higher. Right. But they're not going to leave you if they've been with you that long. Right. So you literally, you're going to give a price for the initial install, knowing that that first year is not going to be a lot of maintenance. Like, you know, nothing's gonna really break on the irrigation unless it's really warranty work anyways and you're gonna have to come back and fix it anyways. You know, plants don't need a lot of trimming. You know, they're not gonna have a ton of weeds because you got new mulch or whatever down. So, like, that first year, you can really make that initial cost look really nice. And then each year just have to up, up the price as the plants grow.

I'm writing that down here.

Yeah, because there's a good chance if they have an established lawn or an established landscape, they're paying more than what you're going to charge per month. Because they had a mature landscape and now you're doing a new one. And now they're looking at, oh, this is a great deal, $150 a month. This is a slam dunk. Right. Compared to I was paying 250 before. Right. So you can sell them on that first year, get them set up. And honestly, I wouldn't think it's a bad idea as an option to sell in your first. That first job. Make it where they include your first year of maintenance.

Yeah, that's true. I could just. I could. Yeah.

Stay on the property. Two, you can say, look, when you do this, the reason we do is like, I wouldn't even put as an option. I'd be like, hey, look, when we install projects, we take care of it for the next year. And we do that because we want to make sure all the plants are living, all the irrigation set up correctly. We are able to change anything on the irrigation in terms of zoning. When you're in the summer comes around next year, like.

It cut out for.

Like, I think the last 10 seconds that it cut out.

Okay, sorry. Did you catch what I was saying, though?

No, I. After. For the last 10 seconds, I could tell you're saying something good.

I was just saying, like, I would honestly put the cost of that first year's maintenance into the project. Right. Oh, I heard that part.

Okay. Yeah.

Yep. And the reason for that is because, you know, it's going to be pretty cheap and any issues with irrigation, you're gonna have to fix anyways, even if you didn't do this. But you say, look, this is how you have to sell it. Like, I wouldn't even put an option on the invoice. I would just. Or the estimate. I'd be like, look, all of our projects that we install, that comes with a year of maintenance. Right. Includes your first year of maintenance. And here's the price. You're gonna show them what they're paying extra for. But here's why we do it. All of your plants, we're going to make sure they're living. And most plants, they're going to die. They're going to die in that first year. We're Going to replace them. We're going to make sure that next summer, when your irrigation is really needed, we're going to make sure it's actually zoned correctly. Timers all set up correctly. I would sell that initial $30,000 project with an extra $3,000 worth of maintenance built into it. Right. So I would either do that or I would sell it as a optional. This is the easier sell, an optional monthly price.

You know, from day one.

That makes sense. Yeah. Wow. I had never thought about that before. That makes so much sense.

Because at the end of the day, mowing versus horticulture is a total different business. Right. You're looking at zero turns and sharpening blades and debris and like all this other stuff. Right. That, again, adds complexity. If you want to focus on the horticulture. I just focus on recurring maintenance of those gardens as your focus.

That's something that really. That really got in my mind when I was watching the summit that I've always thought, and I think a lot of people do this in the green industry. We think like in the landscaping industry, there's all these different things that we do, and.

We tend to lump them all together. Oh, can you still hear me?

I can. I have the pinwheel of death on my side. Okay, I can see.

Oh, there you go. There you are. But. So we lump them all together and it's landscaping. But what you said. I remember you said this, I think, on a podcast last year, too. But these are actually totally different companies. An irrigation company that just specializes in that. They're a landscaper in a way, but they are an irrigation company. If you're in hardscaping, you're a hardscaping company. If you're in mowing, you're a mowing company. So, I mean, the simplification of services is something that I've been thinking about so much, and that's part of what really drove this in for me is that I need to figure out how to either streamline enormously or drop certain services because this is too complex.

And you could drop mowing, right. Because honestly, if you already kind of down on mowing in terms of leads and things, I just cut it.

And then that way you're really. Even though you're focusing on more specialized services, you're simplifying, Right. Because now someone who's doing maintenance is not mowing. They're working around the plants that they will need to install. Right. They're working on the same designs that you worked on for the past year, and they're going to start to know them 10 times better and it's going to help them on the install process.

Yep. Yeah. Wow. Lots to chew on and think about. I've got winter to do it, thankfully.

But in a broken crane.

I'm just absorbing so much information between your YouTube. Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, this is a very different winter in that regard. I, you know, something I would love to do is to schedule another call for maybe next week if you're available to just. Do you, do you ever do this where you just go over financials? Because I would just, I would really be interested in just talking to you about like literally just sending you my P and L and then having you look at it and just give me your raw take and then trying to figure out a strategy for more profitability in general next year. Because a lot of my goals are similar to yours as far as like, I would really. I want to invest in real estate. I want to actually buy a shop property. I just am not really sure where to start other than to start paying off debt and stockpiling cash.

The thing is like what we just talked about today.

Like what we talked about today is probably the thing, right? Like everyone, like, yes, you can talk about like management and culture and profit sharing and we're gonna talk a lot about that stuff like this coming summit. But like when you change the fundamental business model, what you're doing, it's such a massive trickle down effect. It'll make P4P easier, you'll be more profitable so you can implement profit sharing. Like when I look at a P L, it hides the business model, right. A lot of times I can see the mistakes, I can see where there's errors, see whether they're way over on labor, whatever it is. But what it hides is the business model, right? And that is really the fundamental thing that you got to change. That's a simplification like we talked about today. If you do that, you, your P and L will look so incredibly different next year because you're not going to even have a mowing division. Right. All of those resources will now be focused on trying to sell more packages of recurring maintenance to people that have really expensive gardens. Right? And so those inherent efficiencies of changing a business model supersede any other efficiency you can make in terms of finances because it just fundamentally changes everything in the business. The type of trucks you need, the $7,000, you know, zero turn, don't need that anymore. Different types of trucks, you don't need things to be hauling around trailers anymore. Like Just. Just totally changes everything.

Yeah, very true. And I guess I would just need to psychologically digest not doing. I'm. I'm so used to doing the mowing. And we used to have a decent mowing route, but between people passing away and moving, we lost like 15 clients, like 20 clients in a year and a half.

So just moving like 40 or 50.

Now.

As far as mowing, we literally, we only have 12.

I mean, like next to nothing. Cut that thing out, man. I wouldn't do it. Or maybe you keep it in order to service the properties that you install. But even that, like, I would. I'd be like hesitant on that. Like, I would say if I was to do mowing on even your. The jobs you install, I would be doing like either push mower only or something very, very simple and not wanting to sell that I'd be trying to sell. Like, you working on plants, irrigation, you know, fertilization of the plants, the trimming of the plants. Like, all of that's where the money's at. Mowing is cheap like it is. You got to scale it. You got to make it super efficient. I'd be focusing on the things that you can charge premium price on higher margin and then just be like, look, we don't mow the lot, but, like, we will take care of everything else. That requires someone who knows what they're doing, right?

And maybe that would be okay. Cause I've just. I've wondered, like, the idea of not being full service has made me a little bit nervous, but. And yet people do it all the time.

There's be like, hey, look, we're going to charge you $280 per month for your full service of everything but your lawn. Go find someone to mow your lawn for $30 a cut, 30 times a year. Let us focus on the things that are like. And if they say, could you mow too? It's like, you don't want us to mow. We are specialized in plants and in horticulture and irrigation. We're going to be too expensive to mow. Go find someone that's going to go like, mow, blow and go. Right. Go find Augusta Lawn Care. They're actually one pretty close to you too.

You got a franchise in Portland now.

Lake Oswego. There's one.

Oh, yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, man, that's been really fun to watch all that roll out. I mean, you just went from like 0 to 60.

You look like that because, you know, all the blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes. But just watching it like that I've watched, you know, on your podcast and stuff, you know, kind of formulating, you know, strategy and whatnot. And then boom, just there's Augusta's all over the place.

Wait another year, brother, we'll be at 100. Let's go.

Yeah, well, that makes a lot of sense.

Oh, I bet. I'm sure.

Sorry.

I'm really looking forward to the conference. That's gonna be a blast. I think you're gonna talk about. Oh, yeah, no, I'm just saying, really looking forward to the conference. That's gonna be awesome.

Totally awesome. So if you do want to book another call, wait like a few days and I think it allows you to get another one. It has to like recycle or whatever. I think it's three days and then feel free. But like, honestly, I. I wouldn't even book if I was you. I wouldn't book one until you've kind of figured out some stuff with the packages. Because I really feel like that's gonna be the biggest ROI above, like, you know, little efficiencies on your P L or advertising. It's gonna be changing the business because, like, if we do a call next week, I'll literally be like, this will all change once you change the business model. Right. So, like, I think, you know, for the best interest.

Yeah, no, that's true.

I would, I would actually like sit down trying to create some of these people packages. Think about what, how many budget hours you'd have on each job, what the cost per package is going to look like, things like that start coming up with how you're going to present that initial. With the initial estimate, how you're going to present recurring services, like come up with that stuff and then if you hit any roadblocks, just let me know.

I appreciate that a lot. Yeah, that sounds great. Oh, one final thought. Have you used sendgem for the. For direct mail?

Yeah, we've tested it out.

Yeah, I like the idea, like the concept. I haven't seen it perform so much better than anything else. Like, I can't like rave about it basically, but we have tested out, we've done where it sends it to customers around ours, things like that, and we've integrated some elements of what they do in our automations, but I haven't seen it be like it's the only thing we should be doing. I haven't seen that.

Yeah, sure. It just seems like easy way to send the mailers out.

Yep, yep. Definitely give it a shot. Like, I'm not against, you know, people testing things out. When we tried it, it wasn't so great that I was like, you have to do this. And then once you count in the factor of, like, the cost of the software and things like that, it's like, okay, like, now it's, you know, and if you're doing higher volume, maybe it makes more sense. But it wasn't like, I. I'm not gonna have it. My top four things we talk about at conference. Let's just say it like that.

Yeah, sure. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure, Max. We'll stay in touch, and then I'll send you a recording, hopefully later today of this call.

Great. Thanks a lot.

All right, brother. Have a good one. Take care.

You too. Bye.

Bye. Bye.