Consulting Call: How to Get Out of the Field - Ep.25

Hey everyone, this is Mike Andes and you are listening to landscape businesscourse.com podcast. Let's start off today with a couple announcements and we're jumping into the longest podcast episode I have ever created. And I wasn't going to put this up. I juggled around if I should cut little parts out and things like that, but I figured, you know what, let's just do it raw. Some of you won't like it because it's so long, so. And some of you will think it's a little bit too slow. So you'll want to probably put your podcast on like 2 times or 1.5 times to listen to it faster. That's okay. And so I'll introduce what I'm going to be doing talking, who I'm going to be talking to in just a second. But let me just start off with a couple announcements. First of all, if you don't actively have a smartphone or something that you're listening to the podcast on and you want to listen to it online, you can, it's@podcastlandscapebusinesscourse.com so podcast.landscapebusinesscourse.com and I also put a blog post on there. So if you like text, I put pretty much everything we talk about on the podcast into a nice text form and you can listen, read the blog and get the content there. So podcast.landscapebusinesscourse.com, another announcement is that I am now giving away free 30 minute phone calls.

I don't know how long I'm gonna.

Be able to do this and if I'm gonna be able to do it at all come March and the spring when we get really busy with the landscaping business. But for now, at least, like when I'm doing. If you're listening to this in the next few weeks, at least for now, I'm going to offer 30 minute phone calls to anybody that is a landscaper and wants to start or grow their business. And today we're gonna listen to a very long phone call that came from a podcast listener. His name is Vince. He has a business and he is in his 50s and is wanting to essentially get out of the field and really make a real business. He's been working in the field for 11 years, growing up a good sized business, but really wants to take it big. And so he's wanting to become part of the course, landscape business course and really make more systems in his business. So today he had emailed me and asked if we could jump on the phone or something at the time I was at my computer and it was like 7pm So I was like, you know what, let's just call him. So I called him on my phone, but I had my Skype open and it was recording. So I recorded the whole thing and I asked him if we could play it. So that's what we're gonna be listening today. However, if you want your own personal one on one phone call with me 30 minutes and just go to landscapebusinesscourse.com fill out the information and then we'll set up a time. So when you fill out the information, all I'm getting is your email. And I will email you back essentially just saying, hey, give me three times that work for you. And then we'll try to figure out a time I can Skype or phone call you. And obviously, you know, I can answer all your questions about the course. What it includes, what's covered in the course. By the way, we just uploaded or started upload the employee training guides and video series. Now your new hires can watch that. Last week we uploaded exactly step by step on how to create a Facebook ad and target it correctly for landscapers. Like lots of that stuff. Like next week we have our job fair that we have at our office on how to attract good talent. And so I'm gonna video that as I do the presentation and everything for our potential hires. And I'm going to video that and give that to the course. Stuff like that. Like we continually are adding to it. And in the summer, the course members only are going to have a webinar live with me and we can go over stuff and work through each other's problems. So there's a lot of value on the course and I can answer all your questions on that on the phone call. But I can also answer any other questions, like how your marketing plan is going to be for 2017, how to go like Vince is trying to do. Go from working out in the field to where you are finally working on the business and working in sales and marketing and all of that. So I would love to talk with you. Obviously it's. I am trying to promote the course. However, as you'll see today when he talks about the course, like it's not all about selling the course. For me, when I'm on the phone with you guys, it's 100% value for you. And I think it just. And honestly, it's purely a sales tactic in one way. Like, I'm totally honest with you. And that is if I approach it like a sales call, I It's not going to work. But if I approach it as 100% giving value and this works for you guys. When you go out to the field and you're trying to sell a client or customer or a commercial client, like if you go into it trying to get something out of it, you're probably not going to get anything out of it. If you go into it trying to provide them value, give them consultation on their property and really give, give, give you will get in return.

Doing right thing is always the right thing. And so regardless of whether or not you buy the course, I want to hop on the phone with you, work through any problems you might be having or difficulties, or if you've plateaued or if you're just starting out, whatever it is, go to landscapebusinesscourse.com fill out the information, then I will send you a schedule thing and you can send me a couple times. I'll work for you and we'll figure it out. So today though, the podcast is like an hour and a half, two hours. I don't know, it's long, really long. And so it won't be that I can't do that for everyone. But Vince was special because he was probably what I thought was interesting about today's podcast is Vince is in his 50s and really he doesn't have any option to stay in the field. A lot of times I get 20 and 30 year olds and it's harder for them to work on the business because they actually have the option of it in 10, 15 years still being working out in the field. Whereas Vince, if he wants to continue his business, he needs to figure this out. Like he needs to figure out how to hire young guys and we talk about that today, like how to hire these young guys. Should you charge them salary or I mean pay them salary or should you pay them by the hour? Why is it so hard to get guys that are in their 20s? And how to attract those sort of people and how to deal with people that want 25 bucks an hour when you can only afford 15 an hour. So we talk about all of that today. You'll find sometimes I seem a little bit repetitive or it seems like he's going a little bit slower, I'm going a little bit slow. And, and that's just because the nature of both of our conversation styles and him being a little bit older, things like that. But that's totally fine. But just keep in mind, you might want to skip some things or just put, like I said, where you're hearing this. At two times speed or something like that. So without any other delay, let me go ahead and roll this. This is a phone conversation we had. You'll notice in the middle, it'll kind of break out and we start the conversation again because my cell phone lost service and I had to call him back. So you'll find probably three quarters of.

The way through if you listen to.

This whole thing, that it kind of is weird because it seems like we just started the conversation and that's because my phone dropped out. But we will see you in a couple hours.

You know.

I think I'm pretty much doing the right way, but I'm. My business is a small business and it is expanding and growing each year.

It's just, you know, are some things that I need to learn and I need to know better way to do things that I think that there may be some areas that I need help in.

To better, you know, to better understand and probably to better manage my, my business. So my wife is my, you know, she's my, my partner. So she manages all the, basically the paperwork and things and you know, of that nature and make sure everything is in order.

And I'm more of the management side of it and make sure, you know, things are done right. I am on the jobs with the guys and I, and you know, being a businessman yourself, it's okay to do that, but I think I'm tying up way too much of my time on the jobs and, and I, and you know, as well as I do, when you have to tie up as an owner more of your time on the jobs, it's, it's not a good thing.

Right.

Right. You know, so I think I need to focus my, my time more on the back end with, you know.

Bringing in work. Right.

So I don't know, I mean, I, I'm interested in your help and, and I don't know if I understood your. I saw partial partially your video and again, I'm not real familiar with all that stuff that, you know.

High tech, you know, computer things. Yeah, I am computer, but I'm not too, you know, technical when it comes into all that. So.

I do do all, I do do all the advertising or for our business and we do well and if, I don't know if you got my, my website.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

Okay. I get a lot of business through Google and if you go on Google and you look us up, you'll see all the reviews we get from customers. We are highly, highly recommended and we do extremely Good work. So, you know, it's not acceptable to me to do sloppy or bad work and I want to make sure that all of our customers are extremely happy. I'm very, very, you know, clear about that. It's not acceptable for people to do, you know, sloppy work or, you know, work that's just not acceptable. So all those reviews, you'll basically, if you read some of them from Google, just type in JD Lawn Care, Wayne, Illinois and we should pop up there. We're up on the top of Google section.

I basically did all that on my own. Nobody helped me do it. It's just basically from day one, I had communication with my customers and asked them that if they were happy with our service, please give us some feedback. So that way, you know, that'll help us in the future, you know, for other people, not only us, for other customers as well, to know what kind of service we provide. So by doing that.

I think that has helped us immensely bring in more customers because a lot of our customers are happy with our service and they do leave reviews about us when we're done. So.

Again, all that, all those reviews are by the customers and I think that's what's bringing in a lot of the, you know, the, the new customers. Right, right. So you know what? I need help, I think, and you could probably tell me as we go here.

I don't know, you're, Is there a fee for your, you know, for your help along the way here I saw was like 600 and something bucks and then $500 off if we do something.

Yeah, yeah. So like essentially, essentially that's the course. But like, don't worry about that. Like, I'm always open to help you however I can. Essentially the course is more or less, it's very much like a step by step for three years of, you know what, what I did essentially to get to where I am in creating systems and things like that to get out of the, like, the main thing with the bit with the course is to get out of the field. But like, don't worry about that for now. Like just I want to, you know, help you whatever I can, regardless of whether or not you're in the course.

So like, again, I would definitely, I mean, if you help me along here, it sounds like you, you have a little, you know, a lot more experience on the back end. And that's what I think I may need your assistance or your help with. And if you help me and I see that what you're, you know, what you're telling Me and what, what we're doing is, is really. We're benefiting off of them. We're doing well with. I have no, no problem compensating you for your time and for your, you know, teaching, you know, what I need to do. So I just want to, I just want to make that clear with you. I don't expect you to, you know, to give me your time.

And feel that I'm not gonna, you know, I don't feel that you should be compensated for that, so.

Well, I appreciate it. I appreciate that. But like. So a couple questions I would have for you, like, just real quick, just kind of. So I kind of had a better idea of where you're coming from. Like, how long have you been in business, Vince?

Well, we've been in business since, oh, six.

Okay.

So, so. And for, I would say the first.

First few years were rough because I had, again, Mike, I had to figure all this stuff out. And I started as you did. I think you said you started just by pushing little residential mowers on small properties and that's how you started. Well, that's pretty much how I started. Same way I started out real small and I knew nothing about, you know, all what's, what's involved.

Yeah.

So I, I basically learned. I learned from, from other people. I learned from talking to other workers. I learned from talking to other business owners. But you know, as well as I do, you can only get so much information out of them.

Right.

They're busy and, and they don't really tell you some things, but they don't tell you the insights of what really needs to be done because obviously they don't want you, you know.

Yeah.

They don't want you interfering or taking away work from them.

Right, right.

So.

But I, we're doing well and I think we can, we, we can definitely reach that million dollar margin. But I feel like I'm in a what And I can't get, I can't get out of it because I'm doing. Feel like I'm doing some things wrong and I need to tweak those areas to, to get out of that and to move, you know, move forward.

So has your revenue the past couple years kind of plateaued?

No, it's going, it goes up, as I said, each year goes up. It keeps increasing, but small, small increments.

Okay. And as far as just, just like a rough, rough number. Like nothing, no specifics. But like as far as your net profit margin, like, obviously regardless of what you make in sales, but like when you Pull that home. What percentage of your sales is kind of net profit? Do you know that number? Like rough estimate?

I don't know off the top of my head, I can tell you this.

Right now. It's anywhere between, it could be anywhere between 15, 20. Okay, 30,000amonth.

Okay.

Which is, which is I, compared to what you were saying, I feel like that that's nothing because you were talking about making a hundred thousand a month. And that to me is an extremely large amount of money.

Right, I totally agree. And first off, let me say like, you know, I was in your position literally just a couple years ago. So don't like, don't feel like it's bad. And I even know like your first few years, you, you're not gonna necessarily. I didn't even make a penny off my company for a year and a half, so that's all understandable. And as far as making 15 to 30amonth in gross even you have stuff to work with and you have areas. Even if someone made $30,000 a month like gross, they can still, you could still easily net a six figure income for yourself. And so it just all about creating the systems in the business so that you can get out of the business. And I think just from talking with you, your biggest, the way you're gonna grow your business is getting out of the field and working really on the sales aspect and then getting. But when you do that, you gotta have the systems in place for the people to get on board and fill the positions that you're currently juggling trying to manage the jobs and things. And so I think that's, you're kind of at the place where you kind of either go big or you stay where you're at. You could stay kinda where you're at now, be in the field sometimes kinda juggle all the different balls or if you're gonna make the jump. And this is where like this is what most people in our industry come up to is they come up to this place and then they either stay where they're at now or they go for the $100,000 marker or can scale it up right?

And there's no right or wrong, it's not wrong to stop where people are at making 15 to 30,000amonth in gross revenue and you know, making 80, 70,000amonth, I mean a year for themselves. Like there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to grow, if you want to get a system in place for hiring and getting other people to do the things you're doing now, and you really want to scale it up. That's when it really becomes a business and you have to step away from it a little bit more as like just a service. And you're used to being out in the field and doing the work yourself. And so it's a mindset shift really to step into the, really the minds of an owner. And not just an owner that pushes a lawnmower, but now is running an organization, working on the team and really think of it as a scalable operation and not just where you're getting paid by the hour.

Right, right. I have, just so you know, I have a 2015 dump truck.

Okay.

So I mean I have all the necessary means of making this more than what it is. Right. I have a trailer, I have a 2016, 16 foot trailer. I have equipments, I have the grant, I have the stand ons, I have the sit down 60 inch John Deere mowers, I have the 30, 32 inch, the 54 inches, the 30 inch Commercial Exmark mower, residential mowers. I have everything. Weeders, trimmers, I have everything. Right. And my, my equipment's not crap. It's good equipment. All my guys that help me out, they think, you know, they come to me and then they're like freaked out by, you know, the equipment, how, how good and how nice I keep my equipment and keep things working and they're not beat up and junk. You know what I'm saying?

Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Like, like the thing, yeah, the thing is about the equipment and things. A lot of people will put a lot of emphasis on equipment. And if you go on YouTube and watch a lot of videos from landscapers and things, it's a lot about equipment. But to be perfectly honest, Vince, when I talk to companies and we go through the course and things, very small percentage of our time is spent on even those things. I'm not saying that's wrong or anything. I'm just saying that really, if you're gonna scale up, it's really all about the business and the systems part of it. And obviously you gotta have the right equipment and you got to have the budgeting in place for those things. But like really when the difference between someone that is going to be in the field and you know, they, they're very in tune many times with equipment and the way they're doing their, their work and techniques on how to do certain things within the business.

It'S a big mindset shift to step out of that and really where instead of you start like, I'm not saying this is bad. Instead of you talking about your mate, your equipment, you start talking about your profit and loss, and you start talking about how you're advertising and the way that you market to new customers. Right. Like, that's what's gonna make the business go from 15 to 30,000 to 100,000. Right. And so I'm not reprimanding you for talking about your equipment. Like, that's super important. But I think a lot of times in order to grow, we gotta focus on sales and. And we have to focus on the business aspect and then creating the systems for maintenance on equipment and creating systems in place so that when we get new equipment, how that all works. Right. And so I think that that's a big mindset. It's hard. It's a tough one. And a lot of people, like I said, they either stop now and just kind of stay small, or if they can get over that hump, then they can go after what they want.

Right. Well, I'm definitely, you know, I'd like to do that. I mean, I don't want to stay where, you know, I'm at. I want to. I'd like to get a nice crew going, maybe one, possibly two, if that would be nice.

Do you have employees?

Now, the other thing is that I wanted to talk to you about. You know, I get guys that, you know, I run ads on. Indeed. And I get, you know, applications, I interview. And I get these guys that want to work, and then they either they don't pan out.

They. They, you know, they are either late, they don't show up, they miss a day, or I get guys that, you know, are, you know, pretty. I mean, when I was a younger guy and I used for jobs and look for work, and when I used to, you know, the owners used to tell me, or managers used to tell me how much they were paying an hour. I didn't, you know, I figured, hey, I got to start from the bottom and I got to work my way up. Right. Well, I find these guys that want these jobs, and you can probably tell me if I'm doing something wrong. I feel that I'm paying them more than. More than a reasonable amount or a competitive amount, I should say. Because again, I talk to these other landscape companies and they're telling me that they're paying less than what I'm paying. Right. So that's the part that don't get. I pay anywhere between 13 and $15. Right. And. And these guys that come on, they want like 20, $25, and my wife is like, what are these guys? Crazy? You know, And I mean, I didn't even make that when I first started a job. I had to start from the bottom and work. So I don't know what you pay your guys or if you think I'm in line or I'm out of line or, you know, maybe you can tell me that part if I'm doing it wrong or if I step it up a little bit more than guys would, you know, I don't know. This is where, this is where the problem falls in because I feel that I'm paying them the right and fair market value salary.

Yeah.

You know, like, even I told, I told a couple guys talked and they said that they want to come and work for us this year. And I kind of picked up their brain a little bit and I said, well, what do you, you know, do you first, I have any experience? They said, no, they don't have really any experience in the lawn care landscape. And I didn't hold that against them. I said, okay. He said, which I thought was good for him. He said, but I am a very fast learner and I am a very hard worker. So I would, I took that, you know, with a grain of salt and I said, okay, well, that at least he, you know, sounds like he's, you know, aggressive. He's not a person that's lazy or a person that wants them, you know?

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, he, he was, you know, he said he's got, he's a family man. He's got, he's got a family and he's got kids and, you know, he's looking for, you know, at least a couple hundred dollars a day.

And to me, I don't know if that, to me, that seems a little high.

Right.

Maybe you could tell me if that's, you know.

Would you pay a guy just coming aboard with no experience$200 salary a day? Would you do that?

Well, so I don't know. Right. Yeah. So this is the, you know, age old question of a, do you hire someone that is super experienced for the 20 or $25 an hour, or do you hire someone for 15 or 12 and then train them up? Right. And so the big thing, first of all, I'll tell you right off the bat, when we hire, they know that they get $14 an hour starting, they get $15 an hour after the first month. So we have a month trial. And so if they're working out and they able to go on their own crew after one month they go to $15 an know that they're getting between one and two dollars an hour increase every single year. So it's something for them to stay on long term. Because I know first of all that a dollar an hour is really just staying up with inflation. And that if, if I'm going to be investing them in education and teaching them new equipment and teaching them how to manage or do estimates or whatever it is, that they're going to become worth more. And so the thing I would focus on too, Vince, is a lot of times this is what I've found out literally just in the past year. And that is people, when they come on, especially in our industry, we're talking about people that usually don't have a whole lot of college education, they don't have a lot of technical education. They're really just at first, when we start hiring them, they're just laborers. And so.

What you want to do.

Is essentially offer them things beyond just money.

So if they are coming on to your crew, especially if it's someone like.

A family guy, he's looking for somewhere.

That he can grow and make a.

Career out of it.

And so what I would do, and this is what we're really focusing on right now, is really pitching them on the company as a whole. So, like right now, how we're doing our employment is we have a job fair. And so when we put out our Craigslist ads and newspaper ads, we direct people to our website, they fill out a form like a small application, just so we can kind of get an idea. They can just fill out a quick questionnaire. And then when they fill it out, we get that and then we invite them to the job fair. So our job fair is February 7th. We have it at our office. And essentially during that time, what you're essentially wanting to do, because a lot of times, and what you're doing right now, like on your website and things, is they send you some sort of information, like the resume or something like that to your email. And then from that you might create an interview. And then it kind of goes from there, or you just say, hey, let's try it out, see if it works. So what I really believe is that if you as the employer invest more up front into them, you're going to see the ones that are just in it for the short term or going to bail on you or aren't worth it, they're going to get out because they realize that you mean real business and you want someone for the long haul. And so what we're doing is having this job fair. At the job fair, I'm talking about all the requirements that the job is going to like, the different positions that we have open, what the positive parts are. So I'll talk about how we want to grow. I'll literally show them what our history has been, what our growth pattern is, what our plans are for the next 24 months. We want to create a second shop and all these different things. And so I really want to onboard them, not just onto the job, but really buy them into the company because I want someone long term. And so in doing that, in that first part of the job fair, I'm talking about our business, talking about what we're doing, what our plans are. So then they start to buy into that and it's gonna get rid of the people that they start thinking, oh, I only want this for like three or four months. Like you're gonna get rid of them. And then actually at the end of that job fair, I will say, I'll actually say things. Like, I'll actually say things to discourage them from getting the job, which is like, hey, we're gonna be working out in the rain. It's gonna require sometimes working 12 hours a day. It might be weekends. Occasionally it's gonna be cold. Like, all these things that would kind of snuff out the people that I don't even want. And even on the initial application that they submit to the office online, like, we don't want smokers.

We don't.

They have to have a clean driving record. Like, if they can't submit that with those checked off, it's essentially eliminating a large amount of people that are going after these labor positions that are just bottom feeders, and I hate to use that term, but that's really what they're trying to apply to a hundred different places and hope that one or two pick them up and that they can just kind of hang out for a while. Right? And so I really believe that if the employer shows that they mean business, that the employees, the quality of the employees and the longevity that they stay with your company is increased big time. And so the whole part of that is, you know, you got to have the system in place. So now, now once they're onboarded for us, for instance, so at that job fair, then they, we have a sign up sheet. They can sign up for an interview and usually a couple days after. And then I make a decision over the weekend, and then the next week they start training. And I don't just throw them out into a crew and say, alright, let's try you out. I want them to feel like I'm investing time and energy into them and it really, that's what's gonna come back to you. If I just throw them out and say, hey, let's try this out. That's the mentality that they're gonna kind of have towards me, right? Like they're just gonna try my company out. I want to show to them that I am invested in them long term and that I really care about them. And so even the part about the pay increases, they know that their pay is going to increase with the company as it grows. They gotta see, they have to see the link between, alright, the company is successful and then their pay is gonna increase. A lot of times employees don't see that link and so they'll get discouraged and leave after a year because they don't see, okay, my success and my pay isn't correlating with the success of the company. If they can see the correlation though, they want your company to succeed. And so even after you hire them, there's gotta be now a system in place to get them on board, get on the teams. Like we have video training, that's part of the core stuff. But like we have video training just to train them how to do certain things, like functions of the job, everything from maintenance on equipment to like theory of fertilization and trimming trees, like all that stuff. But then they gotta really buy into the company. So they'll spend a day with me and we'll talk about where the company's going, what their position are, what they're responsible for, who they're responsible to, like who's gonna be checking up on them. And like after, after that first few days of training and they've literally filled out an application, they've come to a job fair, they've had an interview, they've had three days of training. And so they know that I'm fully invested in their long term success at the company. And so going forward they know who to report to. They know what they're gonna be measured up against. Like we have weekly meetings. At those meetings we're gonna talk about the things that we did good that week, the things we did bad. And so they'll constantly know where they're at. They will never have to guess as to if they're doing well at their job. And so like, in short, I think if you read that email, you obviously, you know that people are really what's gonna be the asset of your company as you grow. And so if like a lot of people invest a lot in equipment or they invest a lot in trucks and their shop or whatever, but they'll fail to invest in their people. And I feel like that's why we have such big turnover in our industry and why so many people are constantly trying to look for new, fresh faces in their company is cause we don't take the talent that's with us and foster it for growth. And so, so like, I like if, if you haven't employed, you know, more people, like on a long term basis, it's tough. Like the first couple are super hard.

To get people on board.

You're. You kind of are. Yeah, like, like the, like the first one's gonna be hard. And like the thing is that first one's super important because the second guy is gonna follow the first guy and.

The third guy is gonna follow the second guy.

And so if you can get a really good core group of two or three, that's when you can really start to grow. So like we got there last year, we had four people full time, and now this, like now that in the past years when we've been able to really scale up because now I have, you know, my main few guys that can train other people and know what's going on, but they also know that they're in this for the long haul because they know where the company's going to. And so a lot of times, like if you know where you, if you want to get to 100,000 and you know how many trucks you want to have and what kind of how many clients you like, share that with the guys, like literally before they even come onto the job, like, show them that this company is going to grow. And as you grow with us, you're going to see your pay increase, you're going to see your skills increase. And you've got to be able to back that up obviously in the future. But I think a lot of times hiring quality people is less to do with how much money because like what they're doing wince is there are there if you're getting bottom feeders, they are applying to a hundred different places, telling them all that they want $20 and seeing who comes back at 17 or 18 and they're just gonna try to take the best job that they can find and then they're gonna get fired from that job and do the same thing next year. And so what you want to do is get the guy that's willing to take less but knows that he's gonna grow with the company. He's gonna get educated in hardscaping or learning new equipment or managing or how to deal with people. And so a lot of times you're gonna be looking for the people that really can't go to college or university. Like, the guys just out of high school or even just out of college that need a job they want to grow with. Like, I look for people that want to be at the company at least three years. And I know, like, obviously if someone gets sick or something, a calamity happens, I'm gonna let them go. But when they come into the application, they know that we're looking for people at least three years.

And this is a huge thing. If you can get people. As soon as you get people in the field that you've trained and you feel confident that they're gonna do good work, your business will take off. Like, we went from within one year, we went from where you're at to 70,000amonth. And now, just because that's when I went full time out of the field and into estimating, working on sales and creating in the team. And that's. That's the huge step, right? That's the huge step. That's so hard.

Right?

And I think that's where a lot of my problem, you know, the problem I'm having, I think I could get there. I do believe that because just based on, you know, the feedback and if you. If you get a chance and you're able to look at some of those reviews, I think you'll.

Yeah, I did. Yeah. I lid.

Oh, you. The reviews.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really good job on. On Google. You did a Great job. There's 39 of these. Really good.

Thank you. So I worked very hard, you know, as well as I do on. On that, and it didn't happen overnight, but. And I'm still plugging away. The only thing is, Mike, is what's happening is I'm getting. Getting extremely burnt out, right. And. And. And. And, you know, I can't. We can't do that as.

We have to. I have to. It's very crucial. And this year I talked to my wife, you know, I said, you know, we got it. You know, I. I hate to sell the business because it's a good business. And I think if we get a position where we're comfortable and we. We can provide other people jobs and, and, you know, they can support their families, and we can. We can obviously, you know, be lucrative as well.

And it'd be a good business. To keep growing, you know? Right. But I need some help in these areas, in these gray areas.

And how old, how old are you, Vince? How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?

50. So like, like you don't want to be in the field for the next 10 years, you know? No, like you, you know so much about the industry, Even you know, 2006, you've been in it for 11 years. Like you can't downplay that, right? Like you have the experience. And at your age, I really feel like your growth and the highlight of your company and is going to be in the future when you, when you learn, you know how to get out of the business, out of the working aspect and into the more the business aspect. Because you've nailed, you've nailed, like I look at your reviews, you've nailed the work part. You've killed it, right? You know how to do lawn, you know how to do the landscaping. You got that down. And I think you actually more than you even think have the business aspect down. But what you've got to kind of do, like perfectly honest and just talk, like real talk is you got to kind of let go of the work aspect now from a physical standpoint, you know, you can't do it for 10 more years.

You're gonna have to learn to get, you know, pass that off. And first of all, like let me, you know, just, you know, say props to you for listening to someone's a whole lot younger than you and telling you that, I'm telling you that. But like on the other hand, like you gotta get the 20 year old somethings and get them energized in your business and tell them that they have a future and that you're not gonna sell the business in two years and then they're out of a job. And I think if you're committed, if you're all in, they're gonna see that. And I don't, I don't, I don't doubt that you are all in. With 39 reviews and a lot of things, stuff I've read, you're all in on the work aspect right now. And so what I would suggest, like how many more weeks do we have till you guys start mowing?

Well, March is the first pre emergent lawn treatment that goes down in March, right? The March, we start putting down the first application. So for customers, not everybody, but you know, majority of the customers. And then April, the first week of April, we, you know, start the mowing season.

So you, so really you got all of February to try to try to create a system that's gonna get like one to two guys on board that's gonna do the work part for you. And at first, at first, this is the scary part, at first, like for the. Until June, July, you're gonna have a reduction in what, how much money you're bringing home because you got to pay these guys.

But this is the kicker, is if you can get through those first few months, the time that in those months that you spent out in the field getting new jobs, you're gonna see your revenue kick up like crazy. Like, you will increase it by 25, 30% just within four or five months of you being out working on sales. And when I say that right now you're taking phone calls between jobs, you are doing it at night, you're doing emails at night, you're trying to correspond with your wife. Like, if Vince was out, you know, if you're out there actively going after the jobs, imagine how many more jobs you'd have. And so I think the hard. This is the risk part, though, you know, three or four months of taking a little bit less net income because you got to take their salary out of it, which might be 4,5000, maybe even $6,000 a month to hire two guys. But this is the kicker, is that right now you've got to be figuring that out, because you got a month before you start, and that means you got a month to find people, hire them, train them, get them ready to go. But this is the thing. You either gotta be one way or the other. Either you're gonna be staying where you're at now, doing this for a few more years, maybe taping it down to your tire or till you sell the thing, or you gotta be, okay, I'm gonna be in this for 10 years, and I'm gonna focus more on the business aspect. Like, literally, this is the hard part. This will be the hardest part for events. If you go down this road, and that is in March, when you start getting busy and you're getting new jobs and you're starting to like, wow, this is really great. I'm getting more work. And then what you're gonna start getting is complaints from the customers that used to give you five star reviews.

Like that. That's the hardest part. It's not even getting the people on board and training them. Like, I'm confident you can do that. Cause you know these things. And so, like, for me, I'm trying to, like, make these videos for tutorials for people and stuff, because, like, for training their people, because I don't have the time to train them. You have a next month to do that. So I'm confident that you can train them correctly. What you got to kind of come grips with, though, is that come March, March, April, May, you're gonna start getting complaints. And the reason for that is because regardless of how good your employees are, they're not going to do as good work as you do. Like, I can promise you that, because you have 11 years of experience. I'm seeing all the reviews. I see what people say about Vince, and then I have to say, is someone that's going to get 12, $15 an hour, which you. That's what you want to pay them, are they going to do the exact same type of work?

And, like.

That'S what I'm afraid of, Mike. That's what I'm afraid of. But you're telling me, correct me if I'm wrong. So what you're saying is, once I get away, break away from being on the field, and these guys are doing the work, the ratings are gonna drop?

Yes, absolutely. They're gonna drop. They're gonna drop if you don't respond correctly. So this is the thing. What this is. This is what this is. Like, I've had this conversation with other people. They go for it, and then when they get the people complaining or saying, hey, they forgot this, or they didn't trim this tree correctly, or they knocked this over when they're mowing, and then they go into defensive mode, like, oh, this. Because you start to feel a little bit out of control, because you used to be at every single job, knowing every single customer, and now your reputation's on the line with your guys. And so a lot of times, people will retreat back to where you're at now, and they'll be just. And that's not a bad thing. It just. For some people, that's what they want, more control. They want to be doing the work themselves. And that's not a bad thing. This is the thing, though. If you want to grow, you're going to have to realize that that's going to happen now. And once you accept that, now it's about creating a system, creating a way of doing things within your business to minimize those complaints, minimize the problems that happen on the job, and then have a system in place. So when they do come in, you resolve them and make them raving. Customers that will go post online and say how amazing your customer service is, not so much how good your work was, but, like, for instance, like the other day, we did a cleanup for a big residential client.

He called.

I mean, he left an email. We got the office this morning. Office manager said, hey, you need to look at this. He was not happy with the work. So what did we do? We literally immediately called. We called in a manager that had worked on the job, and he went there literally within an hour, talked to him, did the work, finished it up. It took like 20 or 30 minutes more, and it was a full day job, but it only took 20 or 30 more minutes. And that customer is more happy now than he was last year when we did the exact same work and he didn't have a complaint. But you've got to have the systems in place, right? So, like, get the email, address it right away, know exact. And the thing, too is you're gonna have to make sure you have margin for an employee and have margin for. For like a profit margin for paying them, but then also paying for the things they break and having to go. Like, it cost us money to go back today and pay that manager and pay the extra expenses. So another aspect is, like, are you charging enough so that you can go hire someone and you can get more equipment when you need to grow? Right? So, like, just real quick question. Like, do you kind of have an hourly rate? You kind of base everything off of.

That's. I mean, I do. I kind of use. I use a. I use a chart, and I don't know if it's a good chart, but I use a chart. Maybe you can tell me, too. That's another area that I need to.

I need a better system or a better idea how to.

Price my jobs right and did the jobs. I don't know if I'm. I mean, I think I'm doing it okay. I may be a little under. I may be a little over.

Would you say. Would you say you're like 40 an hour, 50 an hour? Just kind of ballpark.

An hour? Yeah. What do you think you're charging per.

Hour for the customer? Like what? I charge them for our work, right?

Yeah, just kind of on average. Yeah.

Well, I mean, if. If.

If we're to do like, for instance, like any sort of yard work, it's. It's. I charge 185 for two guys.

Okay.

An hour, 25.

Two guys.

So 185 for two guys per hour. So what that means is I charge them, you know, regardless. You know, whatever they need done, they need trimming. You know, some of these companies, they'll charge $200. They'll charge $300. They'll charge $500 to do the truck trimming. Whatever I do, if they. If a customer comes to me and says, vince, I want to. I want to clean up all these bushes, I want all the beds cleaned, I need you to do some edging. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I told. I found straight out it's 185 an hour for two guys. And whatever you need done, they'll. They'll take care of it. So.

Well.

Let me say, like, Vince. Let me say, Vince, like, first of all, kudos to you because you have so much room there to hire people. You have so much room there even for, like, if that was. If that figure was. This is the truth. I've seen figures less than half of that for two guys an hour. So you have the margin there. Like, you're right where I'm at right now. You're probably even a little bit. Even more than we're at. Right? So the reason I asked that. And it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing that you've been able to charge that kind of money and get good work. Right.

I have to, Mike. I noticed. See, this is the thing. This is. And I just. And I tell you, I'll just. I'll just backtrack a little bit for you. I. I wasn't doing that. Right. I wasn't doing that.

A couple years ago.

Yeah.

Because. And I think I might have been hurting myself all this time, but I don't think too bad. But maybe. Maybe I was in the ball, the ballpark. Maybe I was under sometimes. But, you know, we do. We, you know, have to do to sometimes get the job and, you know, pay the guys and make a little bit of a profit. So.

I just. I noticed that the prices that I've been charging just. It wasn't. It wasn't.

Enough. Wasn't enough.

So. And again, I talked to some other. Some other people, some other companies, and finding out what they charge was. Was a lot more than what I was charging, I'm like, wow. And people. People paying that? He's like, yeah, they have no problem paying that. Right. You know, so. So I figured, you know what? I'm. I'm just gonna start charging an hourly rate for two guys, and it's gonna be, you know, higher. And I'm gonna start at 185 an hour. Some people are freaked out by it. Some people are like, Wow, 185. I'm like, well, yeah, yeah. You know, I think that's I think that's a very fair price for two guys. One hour. You know, if it takes us an hour to trim these shrubs, that's very cheap.

Yeah.

If you have a. If you have a lot of landscaping that needs a lot of attention and there's a lot of time involved, that's a lot of expense, a lot of time. I have to, I have to cover my overhead, my expense, my labor, my, my insurance, fuel. I have to cover a lot of expense. So, you know, some of these customers, you know as well as I do, they find these guys that tell them that they'll. They'll do all this work that may be a couple hours worth of work. They'll do it for, you know, a hundred dollars or fifty bucks or something crazy.

Yeah.

And I tell them, well, God bless you. You know, if you can get it done for that, you know, I go ahead and do it. But one, one word of caution to you. I would be, you know, be a little concerned on the price because something is not right and, you know, the cheap is not always good. So I just tell them just, you know, if you decide to go with them, just be very cautious because I just think that you're not going to be happy with. You might be happy with the price, but you might not be happy with the workout or the outcome of the service. So. Right. And then some people, they don't care. They don't care if it's 50 bucks. They're gonna go for the $50 guy. Other people that have a little night to home or they want to make sure that you're gonna do good work. And I think that's where we come in, because they know, they read our review, they read about us, and they, they, they rather have somebody that charges a little more and, and is known for the work that they do, and they don't have a problem paying 300 bucks to have their yard look nice.

Right.

You know.

So that's where I'm at right now. I'm at 185 an hour for any, you know, any kind of yard work.

Aerating, obviously, is priced depending on how big the yard is. Aeration.

Do you guys do mowing? Do you guys do mowing, Vince, or just landscaping?

We do everything.

Okay.

Everything.

So do you, when you're mowing, what, what do you think your rate is then? Like as far as. If a lawn takes 40 minutes, are you charging like $40 or like $60?

That's another thing, Mike, maybe you can tell me for, for a quarter acre yard, just a standard Yard. Yeah, I refute, I refuse to do. And I, and I know there's a lot of guys out there who do it and I don't care, but I refuse to do any yards at $25 an hour. Now you, you can tell me if that's wrong. A long way to think or it's not. But any, any yard that's a quarter acre, small yard, it's $35, right?

Yep. And so, yeah, like I, I agree with you wholeheartedly. And so first of all, like, let me say this. Like, I believe that if you're doing mowing and you're doing under $30 an hour, you're gonna fail as far as landscaping long term. You're gonna hit a bump in the road. You're gonna, there's gonna be economic contraction, you're gonna, there's no margin there to get new equipment, to invest in people, to make a real company. So if you're, if you're charging under 30 an hour for mowing, you're gonna fail. That's my opinion. I'll tell you now, right? Like, I'll tell you now, like on the course, I tell people they gotta start at 40 if they're under that and then they gotta work up to 60 by year three. So like right now, like perfectly honest, we're at 80.

Per hour of mowing, per man, per man hours. 80. But this is the thing, half of that isn't just the fact that we charge a lot, it's the fact that we have systems. Like obviously you gotta have good equipment, but then you gotta like, you gotta have, we time track all of our jobs. Like we know to the minute and to the penny what we make on every single job, the moment they leave the job. So they punch in, they punch out, they know they time track it all. So like we know if a job takes, you know, if it's a 40 minute lawn, then it's got to be, we've got to be charging $50 for that lawn. And so when you're estimating, so this is the thing that you got to realize is that we're selling time. We're in the service based business. All we're doing is selling time. Yes, we have products like mulch or we haul debris away. So those are other things. But when it comes down to we're selling time. So the basic equation is, alright, I've got to take away someone's employee, like my employee cost, and then I've got to make anything over that is essentially just, you know, money. It's income and then you have overhead, right? And then what's left out of that is going to be your profit. I'm looking at your numbers, Vince, and I say there's plenty of room for profit. And so when I'm looking at your numbers, I say this is someone that can grow. If that number was under 100, I'd be saying that right now. You need to scale up your, like, charge more until you have a customer base that's like, still, like, you're super busy and you're charging the over 150 an hour for those two guys. Or when it's mowing, like, if you, if you're charging 30 an hour, like, I need to see you at 40 before you have any way of. Because once you hire someone, like, you might charge them, you might pay them 15 bucks an hour, but then once you have payroll taxes and l and I like, you're at 20, all right, then you have gas, then you have overhead, then you have equipment costs. Like, that's why there's no way possible to have a legitimate company that's licensed, bonded, insured, has good equipment, has good customer service and charge less than 30 an hour. There's literally no way. And so when people talk about estimating some people will charge by the square foot or by the acre or something like that, what I found to be so much more better is when you go to a job right now, Vince, you can pretty much look at the job and pretty much know, like almost the minute, how long it would take on a regular basis to mow the lawn. Like, you can probably go and say, alright, this is gonna take between 40 and 45 minutes, what we do. So this is what I would suggest. You know, you get that hourly rate that you want for mowing. Let's say it's $60 an hour just to use a round number. And then you go to a job and you say, okay, that's gonna take 40 minutes to mow. If I did on a weekly basis, that take 40 minutes to mow, you know right away that you're going to charge $40 an hour. I mean, sorry, $40 per cut. Like, I never charge by the hour. Never ever do what we charge by the hour. It's always by a package. So what you've got to do is, you know, package your services for landscaping. Like, and we'll get into that a little bit. But like, what I'm saying is, like, you go to that job, it's 40 minutes, you know, right away. Since your hourly rate is $60 that you got to charge $40 an hour, $40 for per mow. Then what we do is we give them the option of weekly and bi weekly prices. So their bi weekly price is going to be 25% more, which is going to be $50. So when we send them the estimate, they have two options. They have $40 a week for a regular service for mowing, or bi weekly, they can go for 50. And that way if they switch to bi weekly during the summer or when it stops growing very much, even though the volume of work will go down, your profit margin will stay up. Because now they're on a different schedule and they understand that. It's kind of like if people ever kick back on that, you just say, hey, it's like when you go to a store and it's like, buy two, get one free. It's the same concept. The more work we're giving, the more of a discount we can give to you. And so you can even just say, hey, you get a $10 discount if you do this weekly instead of bi weekly, however you want to pitch that. But the whole concept is that you're selling time. And if you don't know what you're making on every single job per hour, like your, your costs are all based upon hour. Once you start hiring people, like the cost of them being on the job, you're paying them by the hour. You're paying for gas and equipment. And then if you take equipment, you can break it down to how much your overhead is for that piece of equipment per hour. Like, so all of your expenses are on a per hour basis. So for you just to go to a job and say, kind of just eyeball things is isn't a system, right? You gotta have a system. You gotta know what you're making on every job. And so if I know that my costs are gonna be $30 an hour, and I can charge $60 an hour for mowing, and then I know, okay, I have 50% margin to work with. That 50% margin has got to fund all your overhead.

When you expand and need new equipment, when you want to invest in your people and educate them, like all that's what that 50%'s got to go to. And a lot of people will say, oh, I'm making 50% net profit. But like, no, if you want to grow, you're gonna have to reinvest that money and you're gonna have to mark use that money for marketing. You have to train your people better. So like, that's the difference between trying to pull every penny out of your business and then just scaling it and using that money to grow.

And you're on the right track.

You're on the right track like the. What you're charging right now. You're in a perfect place to grow. If you are getting too many calls for you to service and you're starting to feel like you're kind of overwhelmed, you can't get to all the work, this is the perfect time when you start hiring people. Perfect time.

I am. That's the problem. And I lost. I could tell you I probably lost, I would say anywhere between.

Maybe 50 grand, which is a lot of money. Yeah, I. I probably lost maybe 50 grand worth. And it could have been. It could even be possibly a little bit more of work last year because I was. I just could not.

I could not get to these other people that were calling for.

For service. Right. I just couldn't do it. And so, you know, my problem again is I have. I have a few guys. I have, like, actually, I have four very interested parties that want to work this year.

I think. And you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think right now to bring them in is too early. But I did tell them that come March, I will want to get together and have them fill out a application and bring in their resume. They. I think I do. I might even have their resume. But to bring in their resume and we can sit down and talk and then, you know, if.

If. If everything sounds good, then we can. We can get them started and. And go from there and tell them a little bit about us and whatnot, like you said. Yeah. And how we're growing and things of that nature. The only thing is, the other thing is this, Mike. I don't have probably a facility. Facility like yours. I don't know if that was your facility there that was on the video.

Right.

But if I don't have anything like that. Again, we're very small. I have a yard that I rent.

From a guy that he rents space to several different companies. So we have a small. We have a small area in there which we rent space from. Yeah. And so that's about all I have. I don't have, like, an office or anything like that. So.

Yeah, but that's fine, you know, that's fine. Like, I was in the same spot three years ago. We rented from, like, a warehouse place, and we just stored all our stuff inside. And so you don't have to be fancy. Like, don't worry about being the fancy part. Like the video Is nice like that I had like we had a whole camera crew and everything. And we have an office. Yes. And we have a couple acres where we have all the trucks and trailers. Like, like we were more set up. Right. But like it don't, don't feel bad about that. And it's not a negative thing when, if you have, if you had a job fair the last week of February and you had those four guys show up or try to get eight for all, like try to get more like if you can create it so when they show up, they're like, wow, this is like people want to work here. If there's eight guys that show up and you know, you know going into it, you're only going to hire two. But, but out of the eight, you're going to be lucky if two of them are good. So what you got to do is, you know, go, go for eight of them. You know, get set up. Even if it's in your little shop there with just your trailer behind you and a laptop with a quick slideshow. Show them what the, where the company is, where it's been, what it's going to do and just be vulnerable. Hey, I'm getting older. I can't be in the field. I want to scale this business up. I'm looking for people to partner up with, not with getting equity and things. But I need people that are invested in the company long term and want to grow with us. And that in five, ten years from now, that can be my right hand man, that can be training that wants to be in a management position. And you're going to get rid of the guys who don't want to be there for more than just the summer. And so, and you're gonna get the real. The guys that are gonna be with you and they're gonna stick with you. Right. Like if you just. And what I would do if I were you, like personally just give you hardcore, you know, kind of things is if you did that last week of February, I'd try and then you did some interviewing, like give them 15 minute slots, the next day they can fill out if they want. I'd say only four of them even, you know, come to the interview. Cause they're gonna get scared that this guy's like, he means business. If four of them show up now you got two, now you got 50% chance. You gotta get two of these guys. And so then what I would do if I were you, I'd say, okay, I'm gonna hire one for March, the first week of March, and that's the first week of mowing. You are gonna be with them the entire week. You're gonna see how they work, you're going to show them everything, you know, absolutely everything. By the end of that week, they're gonna have a pretty good grasp about how to do the work in the field. Then week two or week three, you should be on the second guy and you should have already offered him a job, say, hey, we're gonna start second or third week and I just gotta train the first guy. I'm gonna get you on board and then do the exact same thing for him. You know, get with him for an entire week and work with him or all three of you together. And that's the only way you're gonna kinda be able to take what your work, your experience and your knowledge and your work ethic and how good you do your jobs and really embred it into those first couple guys. That's why I say be with them for a week or two. And even going forward, even that first year, you're still probably gonna be on jobs sometimes you're still gonna be, you know, still with them quite a bit. Like, don't think it's gonna be like you got a clear cut step out of the business. That's probably not gonna happen. That's probably next year, to be honest with you. Like 2018 is probably when I say, okay, Vince, now you have two guys that are solid for a year, let's get two more and let them train them. And now you are a hundred percent, like, literally you cannot touch the company in the field. So like, my guys know that if they see me working in the field that the company's not moving forward. Like they know that. I tell them. So, like part of this, as you get employees and you're wanting to lead and you know where you want your company to go, part of it is just being from a vulnerable and very honest position with the guys, like where you're at, where you want the company to go, what your weaknesses are, what your strengths are, and then just saying like, hey, I want everyone's strengths in this organization to be highlighted and I want everybody within the organization to be in the right place on the bus so this company goes forward. And so if that means you being out of the field, if that means someone likes landscaping more than mowing, whatever that is, as long as you have the open lines of communication, they'll know that when they see Vince raking out of bed that the company isn't growing. It's not going towards its goal, which is this amount of customers or this customer satisfaction rate, or we're trying to get us a shop, an actual place where we can, you know, be proud of next to a road. Like, if they have those goals in mind and then they see that, you know, what they're doing is making us the company. You, Vince, like, everyone's going towards that. That's what's going to create camaraderie and people are staying with you long term. Right. And so.

The other whole aspect of this, Vince, is you don't hire anyone. You'd start charging 250, and you essentially just start making higher profit and you stay small. Right? So there's a balance, because you're not necessarily gonna make more money in 2017 by doing this, but in 10 years, if you continue this path, you have maybe six, seven, eight guys, several crews, and you won't have to be out in the field. And at 60, you're not gonna want to be out in the field. But if you can have a company that you've grown and you've developed talent and you have the managers in place, I promise you that's gonna look, that's gonna be real nice financially, and it's gonna be real nice just knowing you have dependable income coming in and you can start creating systems for. Even to replace parts that you're doing, like estimating and going after marketing and things like that. So I would say, just from what I, you know, we talked for the past hour like that, you have the margin, your prices are good, so I wouldn't think you have enough margin to hire people. So the more that, when I see a company like this, I always tell the owner, go for more sales. Because if you're charging that kind of money, your guys could really mess up. Like, if they had to do the job twice, you'd still break even. And if you can do that, then you can grow. So what you kind of got to get over is you're going to have the complaints, you're going to have the callbacks more.

It just.

It's just part of the game. But if you can, if you have the margin, if you have the systems in place to train these people, it is feasible. And I think, especially at your age, Vince, this is a big decision of whether you go if you're gonna be this for 10 or 15 years, or you're gonna just kind of stay small for five more years, right? And I think it's a big decision, and really neither way is right or wrong. I Think it's something you have to talk about. You're the wife, because you know she's gonna have to be just as involved. It's gonna take a lot of time for you. It's gonna be stressful when you get callbacks and you get complaints and you gotta train people like, hey, you did this wrong. You gotta work on this. And it's gonna take, you know, learning how to lead people instead of just doing it yourself. Because it's really easy when something goes wrong, especially if it's a customer, you know, for a long time for you to be like, oh, okay, I'll be right there, or like, I'll come fix it. But that's not like long term team growth, right? And so it takes a completely different mindset, a completely different mind shift to stop thinking of like, you're gonna fix everything to where you're gonna teach other people within the organization to grow and lead and fill the spots that you as Vince the owner, have been doing for so long and that they become responsible for those things.

And that's scalable. That's scalable. Cause now you're scaling a system and a business and you're not trying to scale a person. Like there will never be 15 or 10 or 15 Vinces that you can hire that you can't think of yourself as, you know, you're not gonna find someone like you. What you have to do is it won't. So you have to get the systems in place though, to train people to where they can become like you and they can do things the way you would do them. And so it's all about the systems, all about the training, and it's all about, you know, you're gonna have to sacrifice in 2017 a little bit if you want to do this for 10 or 15 years. But I promise you, if you started this this year, you'd probably take home the same amount as you did last year as far as what you bring home to the table. But by the end of this year, I would say you're probably making 45,000amonth, right? Like between 30 and 45,000amonth. And then next year, next year when you go full time sales, watch your business really take off, that's the year when you'll be like, wow, why didn't I do this in 2010? Right.

And so that's why I see, I see a call in a year from now when you're hiring your third and fourth guy and you're like, last year was really hard, but I'm So glad I did it.

Right. Well, what do you think? I mean, okay, moving forward. I appreciate that, all that information. You know, again.

There'S, there's so much to take in and I guess, you know, a little at a time.

Yeah.

These, these guys, I mean, where do I.

You know, as far as pay, pay scale on these guys?

Yeah.

You know, they want a thousand dollars a week, right. You know, 200. 200 a day salary.

And you know, I don't, I don't have a problem doing salary because I'm just gonna work them as much as I can. Right. You know, to get, to get as much as I can out. As much work as I can out, you know, done for the day. You know, obviously, if they're hustlers and they're hard workers and they, they finish early. Good, you know, God bless them, then, you know, then they, they had a lucrative day themselves. So, you know, I'm okay with that. I'm looking for guys that do good work and our hustlers, you know, work hard and, and if they're, you know, if they move in a timely fashion, that's great.

But what do you, are your thoughts as far as, you know, these guys telling me, you know, that this is what they'd like to make an hour, I'd like to be at. You know, these guys claim they work right now in the winter, they work for a moving company. Okay.

They, they deliver furniture, right. And you know, they're, they're, they're Spanish guys, right? And, and they, they seem like very hard workers. They speak very well English.

And I'd ask them this question, I'd ask them this question, Vince, I'd say in five years, do you still want to be moving furniture? Because that's all they'll be doing in five years. Whereas if you come on with JD Lawn care, you could be managing, you could have it, you could be an estimator, you could actually have a career. And in 10 years, 15 years, when you have kids, like you're talking to the employee now, when you have kids, do you really want to be coming back home with a hurting back because you did furniture all day. That furniture job is a dead end job. The job you're offering, job I'm offering here at T. J.D. lawn Care, Landscaping and snow removal services is a long term career choice. I'd say that number one. And number two, Vince, I'd say this. And that is my generation, like millennials, we are super impatient. Super impatient. So what you were talking about is totally right. You're used of when you came out of school, you were willing to start at the bottom and work your way to the top. And that's the way it was in your generation. My generation is super, super impatient. And so what we think is we can get a job and suddenly be making 25, 30 an hour. We can be making 60, 70 grand a year right off the bat. And what those people will do, they'll spend five years going job to job to job figuring it out before they realize that that's just not reality. And so what you have to do, really, Vince, is say, this is what I'm willing to pay. And tell them that before they even come to you, because then you won't even attract those guys. But I'll also say this, Vince, those guys know that they'll probably only get 14 or 15 an hour, but they're throwing the bait out. But if you up front say, hey, we're starting at 14 an hour. If you work out next year, you're making 16 an hour. If you work out after that, you're gonna be making 18 an hour every year, you're gonna increase. If you say right up front, $14 an hour. If they think they deserve 20, if they really think that, they won't even apply. If they don't think that, which I think this is more of the case, that they know they're only worth the 14 or 15 an hour, they will apply for you in hopes that they can stay on for a couple years and get up to that $20 an hour. What you have to do is show them the light that they're gonna get there, because that's what they want. The millennial, they want the 20, the $25 an hour. What you have to do is show, hey, I'm not gonna keep you at 16 for the rest of your life. If you work out.

If I can put you on your own crew, or you can manage a crew, or you can start doing estimate or management, you're gonna work up to that. And that's what you need to show them at that first encounter is like, hey, this isn't a dead end job. This isn't a moving furniture job. This is a company that's gonna grow in an organization that wants you to succeed and that you can do this for the rest of your life if you want to be in this, in 100%. And so another thing real quick, Vince. When companies start out, I never suggest them to do salary. This is just personal opinion. The reason is because it makes you less worried about efficiency. So if you're hiring someone for a day's worth of work for 200 bucks, essentially, you have that entire day. Whereas, like, for me, right now, if I'm paying someone, say, 18 bucks an hour, it's in my best interest to make sure that they are fueled up, that they are on the go, that we time track, that we cut all of the waste out of our day. And so I feel that that's the way a company should be run, and I feel that that's a lean model that's gonna be successful, and it's gonna inbreed in them, that that's what's important to you, because if you don't embreed in them, you are all about efficiency. And we ask this question every month at our team meeting. How can we save 10 minutes on our crew, on our schedule? And so you'll be amazed how creative your guys will get. Like, oh, we could fill up the trucks the day before. Like, the new one we're just implementing now is when we. When they come back and dump all the clippings out of their truck, they got to get the trailer ready for the next day so that within five minutes of them clocking in the next day, they're already in the truck and on their way. Because it's a proven fact that the guys will hook up and get ready faster at the end of a day than at the beginning, because at the end of the day, they want to get home. So, like, all of these things, inbreeds, within your culture and your company of efficiency and being able to get places quick, not taking 20 minutes at the gas station to go to the bathroom and get a drink, you know, and so my opinion. This is totally my opinion. I've seen the salary thing work, but in my opinion, with a small business, and when you're getting the first few guys, you want them to be obsessed with efficiency, where, like, everything they see, they start to think like you, because that's. You're getting paid on efficiency, regardless of how you cut and slice and dice it. Even if you're paying a salary, you're getting paid on efficiency, right? And so if you can get them to think like that, that becomes a win win. Like, they begin to start to think, go ahead, go ahead.

No, no, I was just gonna. I don't mean to interrupt you, but don't you think, Mike, that too. Because I've had. I've had a couple guys that were. Were doing this, and it was obvious to me, because they had a really bad habit, and they're no longer, you know, obviously with me, but they had a really bad habit. And I noticed this being with them every time we got in the truck. I used to. I would catch them looking at the time, right? They look at. They would look at their watch, their phone, whatever. Yeah, okay. And. And I never said a word and never said a peep. But I was. I'm very conscious of, you know, I know everything and I see everything, and they know that. They know that I see everything. I could be in the. I could be. And I. And I kid you not. And they don't know how the hell I hear things, but I could be in the front of a house and they're in the back, and I could literally hear if something happened in the backyard from the front yard.

Yeah.

And. And, and it's amazing. And, you know. You know, when you're doing this for so long, you just pick up on these things. So, you know, I get the mower back, and I'll find out something's damaged. I'll find out they got a flat tire, and then I'll say, well, that was the noise in the back of the yard. They must have ran something over, you know, and, you know, anyways, I. I didn't mean to get off the idea here, but they. They, you know, these guys, some guys, they think, you know, I'm stupid or I don't. I'm not onto these things. So they check the time. You know, you get guys that drag their feet. You know, you get guys that.

And I don't know, I just noticed these things, right? You know, instead of, like, when they're coming back to the truck and they're gathering all the, you know, the rakes, the garbage. The garbage cans and things of that nature, they'll. They'll bring back, you know, just, you know, maybe the rakes. And then in the. In one hand, and then in the other hand, they got nothing. And then they'll leave the garbage can in the back or on the side of the house, and then they just bring the rakes. And, you know, and I. And I say to myself, I don't always say, you know, I won't say it to them because I don't want to upset or get anybody, you know, agitated. But maybe, you know, my wife tells me you should. You should say something. But, you know, again, I don't want to cause friction. So, you know, I'll say to myself, why. Why don't they grab the garbage can, you know, while they're. While they're walking to the truck. So that way it's not another trip or if they can carry something to the truck without making an additional trip. You know, the. In other words, I find that pain. Guys by the hour, they tend. They tend to slack. Right. Or they. They tend to. Any way they can manipulate the time or they can drag their feet or they can. And I catch it. I catch them. I catch a lot of guys doing it. Not everybody, but a lot of guys that, you know.

Right.

Do that. So do you. I mean, what you're telling me is you find it better to pay hourly rather than in salary, where I. I mean, you. You might be right. I don't disagree with you, but I think I was going to approach it differently this year.

Yeah.

And maybe if. If I bring on a couple guys, pay him salary this way. If these guys happen to be like that, where these other two guys, you know, I noticed were. Were. Were milking the clock. In other words.

You know, constantly looking at how much time they're consuming through the day, and if they need to slow down or if they need to speed it up, you know, they wanted. In other words, they wanted to make so much per day.

Right.

So.

Yeah. Like, this is the thing. Yeah.

Don't you think if I were to pay them salary, don't you think that you might get a little more out of them or they might hustle a little bit more, knowing that, hey, you know, I want to. I want to try to get this, you know, this done so we can get home to our family versus paying them hourly and. And them saying, well, this today is going to take 12 hours. And, you know, at.

You know, at 14, $15 an hour, I don't know what that comes off to the top of my head, but Versus paying them a flat fee.

Right.

You know what I'm saying?

Totally. Yeah. Like, so, like, first of all, there's no right or wrong on this one. Everyone's done it both ways and been successful. I'll tell you the two things, though. The reason why I don't do salary, number one, they're gonna do it faster. But are they gonna do a good job? So if they make a mistake and they got to go back to that job the next day, they're still. You're still paying those guys. So if they get done in four hours and you may. And they make 200 bucks, now they're making 50 bucks an hour. All of a sudden, you know, then you have to send them back the next day because they did something wrong or they broke something, and now you're paying out of pocket for it. So you're incentivizing to go fast. But is it the quality work? Like, will you get more callbacks? Will you get things that are broken? Will they try to cut corners? And all of those things are. Yes, because people are going to do what's in their best interest and they're trying to get just human nature. You are trying to grow the business. So you are looking for efficiency. You are looking to try to save money and make more money. They're just trying to make more money themselves. So they're looking out for them. What you have to do, what you have to do is make your goals and their goals align. And that is by getting them on board with the business and not just themselves. And that's the big difference between being an employer and being a leader. If you're going to employ people, they're going to punch a clock. They're going to be looking at the time. They're not going to be looking for ways to improve. They're not going to run to go get things because they're just an employee. But if they are bought, if they buy into you and they buy into the company and they buy into the growth and the mission and the goals of the company and they realize that they're going to be here a long time and that you, if they put, if they go running for something instead of walking, that it's going to somehow drive them a little bit close to that goal. That's what becomes valuable.

And the easy way. This is what I always ask people when they say they're going to their salary, are you taking the easier route? And the reason that I say that is because you're charging someone hourly. Like I said, if you're paying someone hourly, you want efficiency. And in order to create efficiency, you, you've got to be constantly looking for systems and procedures and making sure everyone's on the same page.

And there's like, it's super efficient, right?

That takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of upfront planning.

It takes a lot of making systems.

Creating tutorials, a lot of training.

But it's also a lot salary is the easy way. You pay them a certain amount every day and then they're kind of responsible.

To get things done.

I find sometimes. Yes, yes, you're saying follow through.

True.

I find, I find a lot of times owners trying to do is give over the work someone and back when, when, when no, no employee, employee is going to like, you got to, got to get involved You've got to got up training and give them.

Efficiently and you got to get by by you and the company.

Right?

So right first, first week when you're training like that and I'm training guys, guys, the first couple with them, with them, I'm not, I'm not just, I'm talking, talking about what we want, we want to do where I them going. I talk about challenge life like how, how to grow with the company and I talk about other people in the company. I get integrated into the culture so that when we hit a hard time or we hit a time like hey guys, you really need to buckle down this month or else like we're not.

Going to get to our goal like price. Right now we want to be having.

A second shop down in Bellingham similar.

To what we have now down in Bellingham, which is like 30 minutes away. It's going to take about $300,000 in cash to get by the property, build it up, make all like the big shop, 40 by 60 shop. Like that's going to take a bunch of money. All the guys know that number and they know that this whole year we're like 100% committed to making that happen. And in order to do that, they no longer to have to grow. We're going to have to get more employees. That means they're going to be training people. That means they're going to have to like we're looking for ways to cut costs and all of these things and they buy into it and you'll know within a month. And I know this is what you think. You're not seeing the buy in right now. You're seeing the guys that are wanting to punch the clock. And I promise you just changing that to salary won't change that fact. They're still looking out for their salary, right? They still just want to make the money and, and they want to go through the day as fast as possible. So then this is what happens when you go to salary. It switches from going from efficiency. Now you've got a lord over them and say you did bad job here, you messed this up, you cut this corner. So you almost have to pick your poison. Are you going to go after them for efficiency or are you going to go after them for trying to cut corners? Because that's what they're going to do if you pay them salary. So neither way is wrong and it's just which way are you more willing to go after and be really proactive about?

So it's better, you think it's better Just to keep them at an hourly rate.

I think it's more advantageous because you are charging by the hour. When it comes down to it, that's the way you're estimating. So it's a whole lot easier to calculate your costs.

If you were charging people by the day. Like you're. Okay, you know what, we're gonna, you, we charge a thousand dollars per day. It doesn't matter if it takes us two hours or 10 hours. We're gonna charge you $1,000. Like the customer a would probably never accept that. Number two, if that's what you were doing, then I would say, hey, charge out, charge by the salary. I mean pay salary. Because that's the way you're charging, like that's the way you're billing out people. And so if you. Go ahead.

No, no, I was just gonna say. So what do you think, Mike? I should. I mean, being these guys, these. Both of these guys want to come and work for me. Okay. And they want, they want to be at at least $200.

A day, which you know as well as I do.

I mean, how old, how old are these guys? How old are they?

One of them's gotta be in his.

In his 40s, I would say maybe early 40s. The other guy is in his 20s, like 27.

Yeah, like, I know I'm being like completely.

Stereotypical here, but if you want someone long term, I'd go for the young guys. And it's easy to say that from, because I'm a young guy. But like the reason I would say that is because in 10 years, that 40 year old guy is gonna be older than you are now, you know.

And if you want a manager that's gonna be out in the field. Cause that's what you want your first couple guys to be is the guys that are gonna manage out there, he might not be sticking around and he's gonna obviously, like, obviously if someone's in their 40s and they have a family, they need 20, $25 an hour to get by. What you want is the young guy that's willing to learn. Which by the way, that's the hard thing to find nowadays with these young guys is they want to learn. They're willing to learn, but they're hungry and they don't need a lot of money to provide for a family and they're willing to work weekends and they're willing to put in overtime and they're impressionable because they don't have a bunch of other employers that they've been with before and a bunch of, you know, history. And if you can get the young guy, like right now, like right now. Be perfectly honest, Vince, I'm playing around with the idea because there's two guys that applied to this job fair in February that I want to hire. They're only 16. I'm gonna have to. In order to get them, I'm gonna have to get a special work permit because they're under 18. However. However, the way I'm looking at this is like, okay, these two guys are young by the time they're 18 and get a. Can get a real job, I'll be paying them more than anyone else can and I'll be able to train them with no other employer that's putting their flack or their. How they did things or how they paid people. Like, I'll get them right from the get go. And they're just like wet. There's like wet cement, right? Like the way you impress them, like you pressed on them, they're gonna stay that way. And so I would go for the young guys. Like, I'm gonna be able to. They're only gonna cost me like 12 bucks an hour because they know that they can't do certain things just because of L and I and things. So they're willing to take 12 bucks an hour because that's a whole lot more than they'll make at McDonald's. And so. And if I can pay them 12 this year, 14 next year, and 18 when they turn 18, like, for them, they're gonna be with me at least three years. And when they hit that third year marker and they know where the company is going, why would they go out to get other schooling or go get another job when they know within five years they might be making 25, 30 bucks an hour?

That makes sense.

So, like.

No, I'm sorry. I have one guy that. Now that you kind of bring that to my attention. I have one guy that's finishing school right now. He's going to be out of college. And I do have his number and I do. I did communicate with him. So we are keeping in touch. He did call me, a matter of fact last month to just, just to keep up to date with me and make sure that, you know, he said he's still interested, but he is graduating college with a degree in.

Horticultural.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he is, he is gonna be. He is gonna have a degree in that.

And for someone like that, they're. They're gonna get offers for things that are a little more interesting for Them because they have the degree. Things like arc, like designing things like that. What you gotta do, if you want someone young like that, who, by the way, can be a huge asset to you in the future, once they're trained, if they become a manager and they have that degree behind them, like, they can become huge. Right? What you've got to convey to them and really, really emphasize is, hey, that's where we're going. And if you get in with me now, you can become a manager of a design like a couple other designers. Like, you just got to convey to them that they have a future with you. Instead of going and working for a design firm that's going to be with another 50 other guys and they are never going to go anywhere. There's gonna have the same thing, right? And so. And the other thing, too, you gotta remember, Vince, when you do the hiring, like, you're the employer. Don't let them boss you around like this. Like these young guys, like, I'm a young guy, but like, we. My generation like to just throw out numbers and try to get. See if people's gonna grab. And we. Those aren't the people you want. Right? You gotta be. You are the employer. And part of it, you have to step up and like, this is what we're offering. And, you know, that's a good deal. You know, it's more than average. You know, where the company's going, what their potential could be with their career. Like, if you're confident in that, then you gotta. You gotta express that. Like, don't give that. Don't ask them what they want for as far as money. I wouldn't do that for you. Because then. Then what's gonna happen is. Go ahead. Go ahead.

I'm sorry, Mike. The. The problem is, Mike, that I'm having, and I don't know if you can tell me is I, you know, I'm a very reasonable man. I'm a very reasonable person. I try not to get, you know.

Confrontational.

Yeah. I don't. I try not to get complicated or try not. I try to be fair with everybody, but at the same time, I'm a straight shooter. I don't like to be screwed around. Right? Or I don't like. I don't like anybody that steals or anybody who tries to pull anything. I'm not that kind of a person. So, you know, I don't like that kind of. Those kind of things, but I try to be fair with everybody. And I've been starting, you know, guys out that. That don't have really too much experience, you know, anywhere between 12 and $13. Right. And, and I'm finding that they just, they don't, you know, either they don't, you know, show up or they got excuses.

You know.

They want more money.

You know, it's just crazy. And it's, it's a shock actually to me and my wife that people, that people are, you know.

They'Re, they want more money and they don't have the experience. So that's why I kind of, I brought that to your attention because I didn't know if maybe I was on a line.

No, no, I understand 100%. Like, I know where you're coming from, but this is the thing about we as business owners and self employed people have to understand, especially if you're hiring people, everything within our business is our fault. So if our people are making being out of line or people are being, they're not being fair or like they're asking for too much or they are making mistakes, everything at the end of the day, everything is our fault because we are the business owner. So if we become that way, we're less. If you say everyone else is wrong or the economy is wrong or whatever, we just become victimized. Like we're just, everything is happening to us and we're not intentional and we're not making a difference. So what I would do if I were you and what a lot, like, especially in our industry, this is normal. Because a lot of us as landscapers, we, our profession and how does the work? Really good. We're not really good at leading and we're not very good at the business side of like making a team. And that's not a bad thing. We just got to learn how to do it. And so I would say, like.

I.

Kind of lost my train of thought there.

But like essentially like when it comes, when it comes to hiring people. Oh, sorry. That's what I was gonna say. So instead of being like, like, you gotta take ownership for it, you gotta be okay, why are my people not showing up to work? Why are my people wanting more money? What I would say is maybe, maybe I need to show my commitment to them before I expect them to commit to my company.

I need to commit you up front, show them that you're committed to them by giving them a bunch of training. Like they shouldn't be on the job the first day. They should be, you should be ingraining into their mind. You should be literally telling like after, like this is after an application, after a job fair or something. Of the sort after an interview, okay, now they come on board, now they're hired, okay. They're not right away in the field learning like how to do trimming on someone's lawn that is an actual customer. Like it might mean a day of watching videos or going over certain things, you just telling them about the business. Then it might be you in the truck with them. It might be.

Doing the lawn at a park or even your own house so that you can take the time without being at a customer's house. And they realized the employee will realize, this guy is investing a lot of time and energy into training me and he's not getting anything in return. So you are committing a lot into them. If you just throw them out there and just kind of like cross your fingers, hope they work, that's the level of commitment they're going to show back to you.

Well, how do I, I mean, I don't have, I mean, put yourself in my position now. I don't have, I need two guys to start in April. So I, I, what you're asking me is, you know, not to come and come April to, you know, have these guys thrown out there and doing the work, you know, So I mean, I don't have tapes or video or anything like you're saying to show these guys training or anything like that. The only training scores I would have is for them to come out there on the field.

Right, right, right.

Physically hands on, do, do, watch me or learn, you know, how to do it from someone else. That's the only training that I source that I have. Right.

I don't, I'm not as far advanced as you are as far as on that side of understand.

And that's not bad. That's not bad. That's what we all started. Right? So like, by the way, as part of the course, I do give everyone their employee training. So like all the videos and stuff. But like, that's not a sales pitch. I'm just saying that like, even if you don't have videos, that's fine. Just if you take them in the truck, make it be really clear that this isn't about mowing people's lawns a day. This is about training you and investing in you. And you talk about them and you get really clear about where they're at in their headspace going forward. Like, what are their goals with your company? Like, talk through all that stuff. Get really good to know them while you're in the truck for the week or two or whatever. And then I would do two Also, if you don't want to start, like, I don't like being their first job, being a client. So what I'll do, I'll ask a friend or my own house. I'll bring them here and I'll just work all over my property. Or I'll ask our local park, like, hey, I'll mow your guys entire lawn this week. Don't worry about it. And they'll be like, great, cool. That saves them money. And then I'm like, great, I get an entire area where I can teach a guy how to use a zero turn on a field instead of someone's lawn, where they're gonna tear it all up.

I can bring them here. Yeah, I can bring them here. Do I pay them for that day or no?

Absolutely, because now you're showing commitment. You know what I'm saying? Because now they're gonna look at you, they're gonna say, this guy is spending money on me. He's spending time. He cares about what I'm doing in my life, what my goals are. He's committed to me. And you're gonna see the same commitment come back to you, Vince.

Okay, so bring him. So in other words, I mean, he doesn't have to know that. Whatever. I can bring them here and. And just.

Show them. Tom, this isn't about, you know, this is about training. So we're. Today we're just going to do a training course. We're going to see how you do and show you how to do things, basically.

Yeah. And then everything, everything you just said, minus the part says we're going to see how you do. Because by this time they're on board and they. You're hiring them, you got.

You're.

You're 100. If you said, if you said in the job fair that you want someone long term, when you hire them, you gotta be thinking like, this guy's gonna be with me for five or ten years, right? And so if they see any inclination otherwise, that's when they're gonna be looking for ways to keep a back door open. And they're not gonna be full pot in 100% committed to you.

Okay, so today's gonna be your first day of training.

Exactly. And that's already been after. Like I said, they've applied some sort of a job fair or introduction where there's other people there. Because if people are asking for a whole bunch of money, Vince, but then they come up to a job fair or like just a little meet and greet, whatever you want to call it, you can meet a coffee shop for all I care. Just do a little slideshow for 20, 30 minutes and introduce yourself, the company, where it's going, what your goals are, what the position's gonna be about. And you do all that. Alright, now they've done that. Now they've had an interview, now they're hired. Now you're training them like they're so deep into it already. For them there's no back door now, you know, and so I, that's what I would do. And then if you need to spend a week with them, two weeks within the truck and then go get one more guy and then you're still gonna be in the, in the field 50% of the time checking on them before they do like what, introduce them to landscaping jobs, come back, do a final walkthrough with the customer and the, and the guys before they leave. On the mowing is really what you want to, is the first thing you want to get them to do 100% of. Because it's very systematic, it's very go and stop. And you can create systems a lot easier because it's very repetitive. And so I would try to get the mowing 100% on them in 2017. And the landscaping job, you'd still be there more often because trimming a little more, less systematic a little more. You got to know what you're doing and that's fine. You're gonna want to feel, you're still gonna want to be kind of out there and feeling that, and that's perfectly okay.

Right?

So like, I know, I know we've said a lot today. Cause like, I kind of gotta go, I have one more call I gotta do. But, but like, I know I've said a lot and so just, I would just kinda think about it, think about those things. And like, I think we've really narrowed it down to the main thing and that is you kind of gotta just make the decision if you're 100% in on going big or if you wanna stay small. And then once you make that decision, if you go forward and you will say, yeah, we're gonna go big and you're 100% in, that will translate to the people you employ. And I think when we talk about employees, I don't even call my people employees. They're team members. And if we can really develop the team mentality within our organization, you're gonna succeed. Because like I talked about in that email, I think you read about people like they are our biggest asset and we should invest in Them and we should treat them like family. And we are a team. And I want my people to. When I say stuff and I say that we're doing certain things and going forward in a certain way, I want them to challenge me. I want them to say, no, there's a better way to do that. And because it shows to me that they are thinking like an owner. They're thinking like someone wants the company to go forward, and they're not just interested in punching a time clock. Right. Go ahead.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So, absolutely. I agree with you. Absolutely. I'm with you on that. I'm open to that as well. And I tell them that, you know, if you have an idea, you know, bring it to the table. I'm. I'm open. I'm open to. I. And if, you know, if your idea is good and it works, I have no problem with, you know. Yeah, so, I mean, I do do that. Do you have. I mean, I don't know what you offer. Like, you said something. You mentioned videos. Right, right. Training videos.

So. So, yeah, I'll give you two different resources. So the first one, if you go to that same website where you filled in your information, there's a button that says podcast. If you click on that, every week I make a podcast a lot about the stuff that we're talking about creating, systems, hiring, and that's all free. Like, everyone on there, there's hundreds of people that listen that every week. So if you just go there, you can listen to those. If you have a phone on like itunes or Google, they have the podcast that's all free. The only thing I charge for is the course. The course is essentially, just essentially all how to create all these systems. So it's like 30 videos, just about every single aspect of your business. And then I give you all of our contracts, our employee agreements. Like, when I hire someone, they. They. It has an entire contract of what they are responsible for and what I'm responsible for, and we both sign it. Like, I'll give you all our marketing material and then in the employee videos, so there's like 30 videos of how to mow a lawn, how to trim a lawn, fertilize, like, all that stuff. But, like, I would, if I were you, I would. I would try to, you know, go on the podcast, listen to that stuff. Like, I'm not. When anyone calls me, I do the same thing. What I'm doing with you now, regardless if you buy the course, I don't care. I want in a year, like, what I get more pride out of is Vince calling me in January 2018 and saying that what we talked about happened and it worked. And so I think we've talked about a lot now. Like if you listen to the course, Vince, what I've been talking about with you now is essentially what we've been Talking about times 10 and exactly like every little aspect of your business from marketing to website design, like all of that. Right? And it'll be a lot of content that you'll stop and you'll listen back for like this conversation. And so I would take just what we've list we've just talked about today, like really high level stuff, like where you want the business to go and how it needs to go. That's the main thing. That's the main thing. I don't care if you buy the course. I'm not just saying that. Like, I really don't. I want you to listen to the podcast. I want you to get good content. I want, I want, I want you to succeed. And so whether or not you get the course, the course is good. The course is everything I wanted three years ago. And I, and that's why I pitch it so hard in like the webinar. If you listen to the webinar, you'll get some more stuff, by the way too. Just, it's an hour and a half of, just a bunch of really good stuff that I share with some of the guys online.

But, but like, don't feel pressured to buy it. Don't buy it because you feel obligated because we've been on the phone. Like, if you get that course, it's gonna be everything we've talked about, really detailed. So systems. I have video on there, how to create Facebook ads, how to. I give you my price sheet on what we charge by the hour for every single thing. Like all of that. And then how to make estimates. Like a system. Everything is about systems in that whole course. How to create an estimating system, how to create a style scheduling system, how to create hiring system, marketing system. And so that's what that's all about. But like, honestly, if you listen to that podcast and you're gonna get so much content and so don't worry about buying the course because you feel obligated. Like if you're gonna buy a course. Great, thank you.

How much? What is, I mean, obviously if it's, if it's gonna help me, Mike, and I can use it, I can use it. It's benefit chill and it's going to teach me some things and I And I can use it, you know, again, don't, don't forget, I do need to. I have to operate the business. So, you know, I, there's only so much time I can, I can skim through this stuff and I hope maybe, you know, along the way, if I have a question or something, I don't know if I'm sure you're going to be busy as well. I can maybe, you know, drop you a call and ask your, you know, ask you a question. I want you to. What are your thoughts on something? I, obviously I don't want to. I don't want, I don't want to spend as much time on the phone with you because I know you're going to be busy as, as I would. I will be as well. But maybe you can tell me, you know, if I run into a situation or if I have an idea about something and you know, I want to ask you if. What are your thoughts on it? Maybe you can tell me, but how much is. If I were to buy the. What you. What you. Yeah, what you have there.

So the employee videos aren't up for another few weeks. So right now that's why it's the $500 off. It's 697. That includes, by the way, we haven't talked about software at all, but that includes a lifetime subscription to a software package called Lawn Pro. So that's going to keep track of like all your scheduling, all your customers. It's essentially QuickBooks, but it has everything for lawn care. So all of your maintenance time, tracking, getting good routes for your lawn mowing, like crews, the routes are all automated. So like all of that's in Lawn Pro. And you get that as part of the package. That's usually $250. And the reason I put that into the course, Vince, is because in the videos or the tutorial of the course, I use that software a lot for scheduling and creating customers and all of that. And so that's why I just figured every single student should have that.

Okay, so it's 697. And like I said, obviously I have to make a living, but like, that's, that's irrelevant to me. I want you to, like, succeed. And regardless of whether or not you get the course, my phone is open to you and email is open to you. And I just want to see you succeed.

Well, I appreciate that, Mike. Yeah, definitely. I, you know, again, I don't, I don't have a problem with, you know, any kind of help that, that, you know, our guidance you give me here that is going to help grow our business. So that's, that's not an issue. I just, I'm the kind of guy that I want to. I want to see if, you know, if this is going to work for us. It's going to, you know, we're gonna move forward and be able to grow. I have no problem with. I won't keep you one. One Just real quick.

Yeah.

Question to ask you. Another concern of mine is when you started or when you were not as.

Large as you are now or even, I mean, for the matter. I mean, now you're pretty. You're pretty established. So obviously you have some sort of insurance for your guys.

Or what. What type, I should say, because I do have, you know, guys that, you know, we do interview, they ask me about insurance. And, you know, right now we don't offer insurance.

Right.

So, so what, how or what did you do as far as offering insurance or did you carry insurance or where did you go for insurance? Or, you know, when you were first starting out, you obviously didn't have the money to.

Pay this, you know, this large.

Amount of money for, you know, coverage for insurance for workers. So how did you, how did you manage that?

That's a big commitment on your end as an employer. So I would say that I want to see the commitment for my employee.

For five years before that's something I'm in.

Interested in doing. And this comes back to the whole point about hiring young guys. They don't really care about that as much. Whereas the guy that has the family needs that just for security and for.

The safety of his family.

So that kind of goes back to that same thing about hiring the young guy.

But on the other hand, it shows your commitment. So it can be a positive way to get people on board. But another thing with insurance and health insurance and everything for your employees is it's so fluctuating. It goes up, it goes down. Who knows what's gonna happen within the next few months even so that's an expense that you don't want to have. That's variable. It goes up, it goes down. You want to keep your cost fixed. And so if that means giving someone two or three dollars more an hour instead, like, if that's a big deal in five years and like I want health insurance, you say, well, you know what, that's great. Let me give you two or three dollars more an hour. And then you just take care of it yourself.

That might be something because it takes the fluctuations out. Like, who knows if it's gonna be twice as expensive next year. Or like with Obamacare, it was 25% increase this year in premiums for us. And so like, if I was you, I wouldn't do it up front. It's a huge commitment on your end and you got to see the commitment from them. If they're asking for it, say, alright, put it in their employee contract that they're gonna get it after two years of concurrent employment with, with your company. And that's something for them to look forward to. And if they start with you, you have a good chance of keeping them for at least two years because they're going for it.

Right, right, right.

It's all about commitment, right? Like the more you show to them, they're gonna show back to you and you should require it from them if you're giving it to them. And a lot of 90% of employers aren't showing the commitment to their employees. I don't think that's gonna be your problem. Think. I think that you're gonna do just fine with, you know, showing that you're committed to them by training them, giving them what they need, being fair. And I think that you're all of that. And so what you're gonna do is kind of crack down and say, hey, I want commitment from these guys. And I'm gonna tell them what I'm gonna start paying them at and I'm gonna tell them that I'm gonna lead them and they're gonna be on, we're gonna be on the same team, but I'm gonna lead. And they, they'll, they'll follow you, I promise you that. So.

Yeah, so you don't off, you.

Don'T offer as well, you don't offer it, but you offer to pay them a little bit more to compensate for purchasing their own insurance.

Yeah. After three years, that's kind of the thing I say to them. I say, hey, I'll do this or I'll give you this extra raise. And so it's totally up to them, right?

Well, that was another question because, because I do get guys that ask that and I, and I tell them the same thing I say, you know, right now, we don't offer, we do not offer, you know, health insurance. You have to provide your own and.

You know, have it, have it on paper though. Have it on paper. Like that employee contract that I was talking about, like that's super powerful because I can tell them they're going to get raises in the future. I can tell them we're going to grow, dah, dah, dah. But if you get them on a contract where it says they're going to get a raise at least a dollar an hour every year and or in two years after concurrent employment, they're going to get health insurance. Like, if you put that in paper that's going, that shows your commitment, they're going to, they're going to be more committed.

So I hope you guys got something out of that. It was a lot of fun talking to Vince and I appreciate him, you.

Know, just sharing, being honest and everything, allowing me to put, put this on here for everyone. And so if you want to talk with me live and in person, just one on one, like I just did with Vince, it's actually gonna make great podcast material anyways, if I'm able to record them. And other people can learn from your mistakes and what you're going through. And so do go to landscapebusinesscourse.com and fill out your information. And I look forward to talking to you, talking through your business, your problems.

Or even your successes, what you've seen, seen his work.

So I look forward to that. And until next time, guys, go out there, be great. We got spring coming up.

It's right around the corner.

Hope you guys are ready to rock it for 2017. We'll see you next time.