Consulting Call: Marines to Lawn Care Business Owner - Ep.26

Hey everyone, this is Mike Andes and you're listening to episode 26 of the Business Bootcamp podcast. A lot of really good feedback from last week's episode with Vince. People liking the long form audio of a call that I had. So if you haven't listened to that, you'll enjoy that. I wanted to complement that with another consulting call that I have. I have a lot of these, but I wanted to cherry pick this one because I'm someone that hasn't started their business yet. And so if you're wanting to start your business in the lawn care landscaping industry, this one's gonna be really good for you. If you already experienced, already have years of experience. Last week we had an episode with Vince, who had 11 years of experience. So today we'll be hearing from Eric. Eric got called in and has been a podcast listener in the past and had some questions. He got back from the Marines last August, I believe it was, and he is going to now start his lawn care and landscaping business in April. So I think it'll be really good content and I hope you get something out of it. I'm gonna go right into it. I'm gon pretty much our whole conversation. So it's a little over an hour. But I think a lot of the questions he asked, everything from taxes to how to set up his business, we give really specific numbers on what you should be shooting for in your first, second and third year, a lot of which corresponds to the course that we do and kind of the layout for that. And we talk about startup costs, we talk about your salary in year one, two and three and really dive deep into some of the numbers. And so I think it'll be good for everyone out there. And so sit back and I hope you like this one.

So I, I was in the military. I was with the Marine Corps, stationed in Hawaii for the past four years and got out in August, came back here to Omaha, Nebraska and even while I was in the Marine Corps, I wanted to come back and start a landscaping business, something I've always wanted to do. So it's not just something that, you know, out of nowhere came up.

So yeah, I got back here and just started right away with a landscaping company. Like I got back Saturday, I flew in and that Monday I had, I was, I showed up at 7am and started working for a company here. And it was basically just I wanted to see the inside workings of a landscape business and.

Just learn as much as I could because I knew getting back in mid August, there was a short season Season's usually over here mid November to end November. And so just wanted to cram as much knowledge and training as I could possibly get because I knew I wanted to start up this spring. So did that. Did quite a few side jobs. I'm pretty lucky. My wife's parents, they're from Omaha and they're pretty well connected, which I think is going to be a huge benefit going forward. And it was a huge benefit this fall. It enabled me to get a lot of side jobs and kind of begin that creating that client base and start networking a little bit to get my name out there. And so that really helped out. But yeah, just been.

Basically just trying to get as much information and getting everything set up this winter.

So you still working for that other landscaping company then right now?

No, they actually, the guy that owned it, he, he let everybody go. It was like December 1st, we had a pretty mild winner or a slow start to winter here. And so everybody was around till December 1. And he actually met with me, he wanted to speak with me. He has two full time supervisors, really good dudes. And one of them was like, hey, he's gonna, Matt's is named the boss or the owner of this company. And he's like, hey, he's going to want to talk to you about putting you on full time and just because he's been really impressed with your work. And I mean, and that was one thing I noticed right away, and I guess it was a real shock to me is to see the work ethic of.

A lot of younger, well, even younger, older, doesn't matter. Just people in this industry, they get jobs, they, they seem to feel entitled to do whatever they want and.

Just terrible work ethic and you know, unprofessional. Just don't just that attitude of they don't care, they just, they want to get a paycheck for a few weeks and then they won't show up and then they'll be back. Yeah, you know, so basically, yeah, he offered me a job, a full time position and I told him that, you know, I was just honest with him. I was like, look Matt, you know, I, I appreciate the offer but.

You know, this is a goal of mine, has always been to start my own, my own business. And you know, I told him I appreciate the opportunity but I had to go on my own. So.

Okay, so you're not working for him then right now you're just, you're just kind of getting ready for the spring?

Yep, yep.

When do you guys start mowing or like, like the words, the growing season.

Kind of start there around like April 1st. I know a lot of guys start like spring cleanups and dropping pre emergent stuff, you know, mid March to late March. So probably in the next month is when guys get, get going here.

So, so what's kind of your, your strategy to get clients going like for, for the spring, like going into April? What's like in the, in March? What are you kind of planning on doing? Do you have that already in place?

Right. So like right now I'm sitting by my computer trying to build a website, which I'm, I'm not the most tech savvy person but. So there's that. But like I said, my wife's parents, they're pretty well connected. They, they live in like a middle class neighborhood. And that's the one thing about Omaha, it's growing and there's a lot of like out in west Omaha. There's a lot of good middle income, upper middle income neighborhoods. And.

So I think I have a huge advantage with.

My parents and their network. And just being doing those side jobs this spring or last fall really helped kind of I guess create. I mean I've only got like five or six people right now.

Yeah.

That say, hey, we want you to provide us services this next year. So. So I'm really small right now, but I know just talking with people, I guess they say, you know, if you do it right, you, you can build up a clientele pretty quick.

So do you have, do you have like, or do you have any dependence or like do you have big expenses at all like a house or anything like that?

Well, yeah, that's my wife and I just bought a house two months ago.

Okay.

She's got a really good job.

She.

Yeah. So I'm really fortunate that she works full time. Our health insurance, everything, you know, that's taken care of. We just to talk some numbers like we came out of the military and I, I knew I wanted to.

Start this landscaping business. I knew we need some money and down payment on a house and everything. But we saved up quite a bit of money. So we've got about.

60 grand stashed away, but 20 of that's in on some investments that I really don't want to touch. And then.

I just, and this might have been kind of stupid, but I bought a truck because I hadn't had a car. My dad sold me his old Chevy Silverado, but It's got like 220,000. That's where I use this wall. Yeah, I bought that from him for 2500. But I just bought a truck for 28 grand, financed the whole thing. It's a Dodge 3 quarter ton.

Okay.

I might be kicking myself for that one, but.

I wanted something reliable and I guess. And that's another question. It's just, you know, equipment. I just talking with some different people, they always suggest, you know, when it comes to equipment, like it's all right if it's used, but make sure it's, you know, quality used.

Yeah. So like yes, like first, like I'll just address that one right now. So like first of all, it's really nice that your, your wife has the job and you have a little bit of a safety net because even that first year, as you grow, like straight up and honest is you rarely will make a dollar in that time because all the money is going back into the business. You're gonna make profit, but you're usually going to put it back in the equipment and you'll grow in the business. Year two is where you're going to see really good growth and you'll start, you know, you'll be able to hire someone, things like that. Then year three, that's when like you can expect to be able to take a really good salary. And so like that's sort of the framework we use in the course. But as far as like your equipment, like I think just like what you email me even to your head's in the right place. And that is I would worry less about equipment and less worry about website and all of that. And I'd focus 100% on sales. And so like, and like the business structure and how you are creating the business model. And not so much like in our industry, like you talked about employees being a certain way. The same thing goes for like business owners. Everyone's like, what kind of mower do you have? What kind of truck do you have? Like all this stuff. And when people start talking about that, I'm just like, it's not what brings money to the bottom line and not what help you grow. Like, obviously you gotta maintain your equipment, you gotta have good equipment, you gotta have good trucks. And that's all important. But I get way more inspired, like way more enthusiastic about like, how are you hiring people, how are you training them, how are you getting, how are you scaling the business? And equipment will never scale the business for you. It's essentially just you have to have it in order to fulfill the sales that you've promised customers. And so that's the first thing I would say. And so but you mentioned that in your administrative side of it. You already mentioned that in your email. So I think your head's in the right place as far as the business aspect is so much more important. And I think a lot of the problems with, in our industry is people get like, romanticize about, like, the equipment and, you know, their truck and their logo and their website, and it's like, wait a second, like, is this all driving sales? And so I think that that's, that's the reason, like, the first question I asked you is, you know, what, what's your sales plan? Like, how are you going to get started? Is because that is, like, I didn't ask, you know, what type of equipment right up front or anything like what type of truck, because really, when it comes down to it, that stuff will take care of itself if you have the sales to back it up. Like, if you get 100,000 in sales this first year.

The $28,000 truck will kind of take care of itself. That being said, your first year, if I was you, I would be happy with anything over 30,000 in sales. If you're going full time right off the bat, I think you could easily do 50,000. But as far as people who've done the course and people I've worked with, 30,000 is what people usually do if they're doing kind of like part time, 30, 40 hours a week on the side. So I think if you're 100% committed and it's nice that you kind of have your wife to cover basic expenses, her job, then I think you could easily do 50. And usually year two is when you see your big growth. So you'll jump up to almost 200,000 that second year. And so you're kind of like, you're probably thinking, like, how does he get these numbers? It just like, just from the people I've worked with, I've done a lot. And so those are kind of things. If people follow the business model and if they have a really clear vision of the business and don't worry about so much like, all the other little stuff like equipment and all this stuff, and they focus on creating the systems and scaling it, you can scale it really quickly. And so a lot of times the problem is people get really discouraged after the first year. So I know I didn't put on the podcast, but like, there was someone I called the other day, and.

He just finished his first year and he did like 26 or 27,000 the first year. And so he was just really discouraged. But literally within the past two or three weeks that he's been working on his marketing, he's almost doubled how many lawn clients he has in his second year. So your second year is when you'll really see traction because you'll get to know a lot of how to sell and how to pitch to customers and all of that. And even in your email you talked about maybe not knowing some of the things about certain types of soft scapes or hardscapes. That's another thing. I wouldn't worry about that. You know enough as far as just working in the field to be confident in those things. And don't feel at first that you need to do hardscaping and patios and fences. Don't worry about that. I'd go for recurring revenue. So I'd be going, if I was you, I'd be going after the, the low hanging fruit, which is people who want their lawn mowed every week. And it's nice for you too because you get income on a steady basis. You know how much money you're making every single week. And it's a little bit less hit and miss. Like my cousin for instance, he lives in Ohio, he does only hardscaping cause he went to school for design in landscape architecture. And so he'll get like a $20,000 job, but then not make another sale for another two months. Right. And so that's just not sustainable. It's not scalable. And so I really push to do is that first year, don't focus on the heart. Like the hardscaping stuff, it'll come to you. And like the tree trimming, it'll come to you. The cleanup, they'll come to you. I focus on that first year recurring revenue, making sure you get as many clients. Like I'd be shooting if I was you, I'd be shooting for 30 clients. First year that you get on weekly or bi weekly schedule. And so go ahead.

So you think like 30 would be a good number.

That'd be a good number. So I hit, I hit 28 in my first year. And that was, I was kind of working part time because I was doing a fitness trainer my first year to cover my living expenses. But like if you're going full time, I think you can easily hit that 30 marker. And if you have, if your parents are connected, you already have five or six people. Like there's little things like you can do. Like it really comes down to how much, you know, money and time you want to put into this. Like cold calling is not dead. It still works in Our industry, like, if you want to go knock on doors, those are the cheap ways of doing things. Then, you know, you could do mailers, you can do postcards, you can do door hangers. Like, it all gets. Comes down to one thing, and that is, like, how much work are you willing to put in and what I would do if I were you. My biggest regret, Eric, that first year was in March, not putting enough time and effort into it, because I was. Because that's especially when it comes to mowing. It's that one month, one or, you know, four to six weeks, where you got to put, like, all of your marketing dollars and energy and just work like crazy. Knocking on doors, doing every, like, grinding. And then you'll get the benefits the rest of the year. The last thing you want is in, like, June, July. This is what happened to me in my first year. I was like, man, I'm doing good. But, like, how much more I could be doing if I would have really grinded those four to six weeks in March. And so, like, even right now, our company, everyone, even though there's not a whole lot of work that we're doing as far as. Cause right now we're covered in two feet of snow. But, like, we're still like 100% marketing because we know, like, the next four to six weeks are super important. So we're doing, like, we're making these packets for. Because now we're going into our fourth year. And so we're doing now focusing on things like commercial and big install jobs because it just evolved. And so now, like, we're making these business introduction packets for property management companies and for commercial properties. And so gonna be like, today I made a video for a property management company. They want to sign almost $200,000 worth of work to us. And so that's just growing the company and scaling up. But the thing is, it all comes back to, like, that one, like the video I made today.

That lead came from us taking cookies and these informational packets to probably 40 different commercial clients, potential clients. And they're the only people that got back to us.

Like, we probably in one of your podcasts, that that was a marketing technique that you're gonna try. So.

Yeah, and I haven't, like, I originally, like, if you were talk to me a week ago, I would have said, man, that would. That was kind of disappointing because we didn't get a whole lot of feedback. But then literally a few days ago, we get this call. The CEO flew in and wanted to meet with me, and he Said, hey, like we've tried to do this in house, we've tried to have six or seven different vendors, and we'd really like to just give you all the business. And so those things will come up in the future. And the thing is, it's all about being patient. Like that first year, like, I can guarantee you if you call me in 11 months from now, you're gonna be kind of second guessing yourself. You're gonna be kind of like, I don't know if the winter is really sparse that first year because you're not doing snow removal. You don't have a lot of 12 month contracts that are commercial. And so it can get a little bit tough, you know, December, January, and so. But if you go into it like long term. And that's why, like for the instance, the course, it's a three year program because they give people steps for three years. Because that first year, like, I can give everyone plenty of help on starting up, but it takes a lot of guts to get through second that first, second and third year. And then you kind of start to see the results. And so.

Like, as far as. I'm just kind of looking through some of the stuff you wrote down here, but like, the biggest thing I would say is I wouldn't worry so much about what you don't know. Like, be really honest with clients. If you tell someone that you don't know something, it means that if you, what you do tell them you do. Like, they're gonna say they know that you know that. Right. And so be open, honest with people. Like my first year, I had no idea what I was doing on some stuff like tree trimming. I didn't know what primary tertiary, like, like, I didn't know types of plants. I didn't know the difference between like a rhododendron and a high hydrangea. And like, I didn't know times of year. So I would just tell them that obviously if I think I could research it, I'm gonna tell them I'm gonna commit, I'm gonna, you know, say I can do the job and go figure it out. Like, there's a whole lot you can learn online. But like, you, you probably have the skills to do a lot of like 90% of the work. And that is, you know, mowing lawns, cleaning out beds, more the labor end of things. And, and really honestly, Eric, like, we're going back to those roots as far as our business. So we kind of started to get into installing excavation and then I'm kind of Pulling back from that because I'm finding out it's harder to scale, that it's harder to find because you're depending on skills of people. And those people are going to cost more once they leave. It's harder to fill their spot. And so we're really trying to create a scalable business that can do, you know, grow really big. And in order to do that, we're trying to make it where we can train people that don't have a huge amount of skills. And so it's not a bad thing. And the thing too is, honestly we're trying to do this too now is find subcontractors. Like, if people want me to do a $50,000 landscape, great, I'm gonna sub out 90% of it and just make 20% net profit and not do any of the work. I'll just oversee it. And people are okay with that. We tell people that we mark it up 25%, but they're okay because they realize they don't have to meet with all the contractors for the fencing and for the deck and for, you know, the pond and the irrigation. And so you can like, literally I've met contractors that have switched out of landscaping into literally just contracting where they go out, they find the jobs and then they contract it out. So I wouldn't worry about the stuff you don't know. Just take what you do know and just, you know, build the business around that. And really what it's going to come down to, like I said, is sales. And so the next four to six weeks I'd get, if I was you, I'd really get focused on what your plan is, what your numbers you want to hit, how you're going to do that. Whether it be a fair or door to door or cold calling or business cards or asking for referrals from those five or six people, or you know, making connections, walking to businesses, asking, you know, like property management companies, by the way, like, like if you're trying to go after commercial jobs, it's actually the property management companies you're going after. It's not like the businesses. Like if you just walk into businesses, they're going to be, they're like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about. And so, so little things like that. And literally it's amazing. Cause there's one contract like we just kind of stumbled in today. It's a huge opportunity. It's just gotta be patient for those, those aren't gonna come around the first couple years.

Something that kinda hits you in the face, you're like, oh my word, this is amazing. But if you build the business from the beginning, like you're scaling it up for a million dollar company, that's what's gonna be successful. Like the problem is, and this is what's so hard for a lot of people that start the course. For instance, they're like, well, I don't need to do this or have this hiring system or focus on my system for how I schedule and route jobs. I don't need to focus on that because right now it's just me or maybe one other guy. And the problem with that is eventually you've got then switch your business from little guy to big guy. And it's just so much better if you build it right from the foundation, create correctly, and like right from the get go, you have the systems in place, you have the training in place. Like you, like right from when I started my company, Eric, I was thinking, okay, how am I going to train my guys to do exactly what I'm doing? How am I going to make this repeatable? How is this like thinking constantly, how do I hire people for the position that I'm doing right now? And I think that's what makes has made it so scalable. And that's what I really suggest you do is like, don't be thinking about this like, oh, if I can make 30 or 50 grand this year, thinking like down the road, like in three years, I want to be making a million. And then you'll change how you totally think. You'll start thinking like in terms of dozens of customers instead of one or two and you'll start your macro. And so that's something that, you know, I think you have it like being in the Marines and having that kind of system. You're used to following systems and, and by the way, thank you so much for your service. But you're used to following the systems and following how to do things. And so I think if you create those systems for the people that you hire in year two, right from the get go, that's what's going to make you successful. Because honestly, I imagine you probably don't want to be the guy out there working for the next 10 years, eventually you want to run in the business.

Yeah, and that's I guess my focus right now. And that's something I.

I'm concerned about right now. Like I said, you know, not knowing stuff and everything, it's just, and I totally agree with you on that stuff. It makes sense because I do, I Want to, I want to create an image and a.

I guess a, like you said, I want to stick with those or get those long clients because I want that reoccurring service and from them I can build off of that.

Exactly.

I love the idea of having, okay, I know I have, you know, going into next fall I'm, I'm going to start sitting down and going, okay, for the start of 2018, I know I have, you know, 30 guaranteed lawns or reoccurring customers that I have these add on services. Okay, this is my projection. Now I can start forecasting for, you know, okay, now I can afford an employee because I'm going to have this much money coming in guaranteed. And then, then kind of off of those lawn care clients. Then I can kind of build off or build into the hardscapes, the, you know, the add on services where that money hopefully, you know, that's almost like a, like a bonus. It's like, okay, this is awesome. Now I'm starting to take that money and reinvest it back into employees or equipment or marketing. And I know that at the end of the week, at the end of the month, at the end of the quarter, I have this much money coming in. Because this is a reoccurring customer, right?

Totally. And like, and the thing too is that first year and you're getting those recurring clients, you're gonna get a lot of the like in the course we have four positions that a business owner wants to be in. Number one is year one. That's when you're the laborer, you're doing all the work yourself. Year two is when you start hiring people. You're still kind of in the field but you really want to focus on being an office manager. So you're doing like all the sales, you're doing, you know, emails, like all that stuff. Year three, you go to estimator. And so I'm just finishing up my third year in my new company and so like my main role is estimating. I already hired an office manager. She takes care of, you know, all of the administrative aspect of things. Then year four, what I'm going to now is CEO. And so that's when you hire out the estimator role. And so the big thing is like you don't want to get romantic about the work you're doing. So a lot of times what happens is year one people get really finicky about how the lawn is done. And that's really good. You want high quality work, great customer service, you want customers to be Thrilled with the work you do, that's fine. But the problem is people then fail to move on and they get romantic about how the work is completed instead of how the business is run. And so they'll fail to make the step, which is get a second truck, get an employee and start scaling the business. And that's when you'll see your growth. Like you won't see the growth in year one. It's year two when you start hiring people that you'll start thinking, oh, I actually have something special here. And I'd say like 80% of the people in our industry, Eric, don't make the step. Or they make it and then they take it back because it starts to freak them out because, oh, now I'm getting complaints. Or now they start to feel like they don't have the control. And so that's why it's so important to create the systems for those people that come on in year two. So right from the get go they know what is expected and you can replicate yourself in the field. But like we've kind of been like 30, like kind of high level here. But like let me dig deep with you before you finish up. But like like on pricing, do you have pricing down or like what are you trying to charge right now?

Well, actually that was, I.

I have a set. And that was another thing I wanted to kind of talk about was like profit margins.

Yeah.

Like in your first, second, third year. Like if you, if those change, if you adjust those. And so right now, the way I'm going into this.

I don't want to do a lawn for under $40. And that's like a, you know, quarter, quarter acre lawn. Like I don't want to go under 40. When I, you know, I had my, my mother in law, she had like four or five different landscaping companies. She gave him a call and got bids from them. I don't know if that's a nice.

Thing to do, but it's awesome. Hey, I did the same thing cuz like, sorry to digress but like my brother and I, we started when we were like really young, like 10 years ago. And the first thing we did is my mom called like several of like the big landscaping companies because we had no idea what to charge. Right. And so it was a good, it was a good frame of reference though. Right? Just kind of know where you're at in the market and then you know what kind of where you're at.

Yeah. And no. And all these companies were right around the same. So that made me feel really good knowing, okay, this is kind of the. The area where I can fluctuate in. And if, you know, I know if I'm charging this much and I go to a customer and say this is what the price is going to be, and they try to, you know, haggle me down or whatever, I'm going to, you know, that's one thing I got to. I want to do with my businesses. Look, it's. It's $40 minimum. You know, that's a firm, you know, I'm happy to, you know, add on other services or, you know, it's basically one of those things. I'm going to be providing the quality of work that you'll appreciate, you know, my work and professionalism. And it'll be worth the $40 versus going to the guy, you know, with, you know, just by himself, he's not licensed, no insurance, and he's doing it for 35 or 30 or whatever. And.

Right.

So that's kind of how I'm going into it is I want to set kind of a pre. And that's another thing is like, my profit margin. I want to make sure that.

You know, I'm doing this for the right reasons, which is to become a successful business financially. And without kind of sticking to a set desired profit margin, I feel that you could quickly start to, you know, give in to people's demands. And before you know it, you're at the end of the year, you're like, I didn't make any money and I was working my tail off. And.

You know, I just don't want to get into that. And a lot of the customers around here, I feel they have no problem. They would rather spend the extra money on quality work and reliable work versus, you know, saving a few bucks and hiring somebody that's not very reliable or doesn't do very good work.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Like, as far as profit margins, like, I was just in a seminar a couple weeks ago with probably 50 or so landscape business owners. And so we asked how what pray pools profit margin were and.

Excuse me. And so less than 10% of the people in that room had profit margins over 20%.

You've got to have over 20%, in my opinion. Like, are these.

Are these guys, like, doing over a million a year?

No. No. So these ones ranged probably, I'd say the median, like, the middle was prob. Like most of them were in the 3 to $500,000 range. And like, this is the thing, though. So like you talked about first, second, third year. So first year like, when you're making, like, you're out there by yourself, you don't have any labor costs, you don't have L and I. You don't have insurance for employees. Like, your profit margin is going to be like 60, 70%. And that's why so many people will retreat back to being a solopreneur is because they're like, it's so much more profitable in their mind.

Yeah, they get the overhead or something.

Right. And. Yeah, because the overhead is just gonna go up. Right. So then, you know, second year, you're gonna be like 30, 40%. That's the big reduction. But that's also when you're gonna see like five times growth. Third year, that's when you're. You're gonna be like 30%. And that's when you. That's when the systems are gonna start taking place. Like, do you have a pricing system? Right. And. And so, like, when it comes to, you know, profit margin year three and beyond, you've got to be over 20%, in my mind, because you got to have money to grow. And so a lot of people say, well, I have, you know, 20% and I have 10% margin. But they're looking at, okay, I made a million bucks last year, and then I brought a home $100,000 paycheck, and we had a 10%. But the reality of it is you need. You're not growing at all because you're not investing back into the business. And so, like, you gotta have over 20% even as you grow and scale up if you wanna continue to grow. And the bottom line is, like, it's good where you're at as far as how you wanna price and things like, you wanna be the premium service. You wanna be the one that's gonna charge a little bit more. But then people know that they're gonna have premium. The best employees that are trained have uniforms, the trucks are clean, the equipment's new. You know, they don't have people smoking and short in their backyard. Like, so you're wanting to go after that type of client because they're the ones who you can have the higher profit margin, have more money to invest in the business and scale up. That's not easy because it's not easy to find the good employees. It's not easy to create the systems, to train them. It's not easy to continually be getting good equipment and making that right. But I would focus. I'd tell anyone in this industry to focus on becoming the premium brand charging premium prices, because those premium Customers stay with you longer too. The people that are price shopping, the people that are looking for the discount, the ones that are gonna try to haggle you down, they're not gonna be good customers. They're not gonna stick with you for years. The one every, like our, our best paying clients, the ones that we probably overcharge a bit, are the ones that are most loyal to us because they're the people who are willing to pay extra for the high value that for, though, for the, when they call the office, they're gonna get a response. If they email us, they're gonna get a response within an hour if they want some extra work done. Like all, like, they know that our crew is communicating with our office staff via the CRM system. And like all of that. And so they, they, they, they put more value on that than a few extra dollars. And so like, as far as like say a cleanup though, what would you charge? Like, how do you, if you went to a cleanup right now for like a spring cleanup, how are you going to look at that and kind of cost estimate?

I do 50 bucks an hour. And then the materials or anything that I buy or have to install on their place, I do a 30% markup on materials.

So do you tell them that number or how do you.

No, I, I give them, I give them a straight. This is what it's going to cost to do the job.

Okay?

I mean, I don't break anything down. I say, this is what it's going to cost.

Okay, that's good. That's good. Like so, because like most people in your shoes, they're trying to, they're thinking like 30, $35 an hour. And I'm always screaming at them saying you can raise your prices. Because if you're like $30 and under, once you hire someone, this is the problem. People say, well, I can make $30 an hour pushing a lawnmower. Great. And they're so excited about that. But the problem is as soon as you hire someone, that money is wiped out. By the time you take a $15 an hour employee pay their taxes, so that's $20 an hour. Then $10 an hour sucked up in gas, equipment, insurance, overhead, you're at zero at 30, right? So that's how you have to think about it. And that's why I tell everyone, if you're under 40, you've got to raise your prices. So if you're already at 50, that's really good, like how we did it. And you'll see people say, well, excuse me, Your overhead grows as you grow your business, and that's true. But if you're creating systems and you're making a really great value for your customers, as you grow, you can increase your prices. So, like, our first year, when I was by myself, I was only charging 40 an hour. So kudos to you. But, like, now we're up to 80 bucks an hour for our mowing crew, and then they'll make sometimes up to 100 if they're doing landscaping. Obviously, you know, our overhead has grown. We have bigger trucks, we have bigger trailers, bigger equipment. Like, all that's involved, however we. You're gonna. If you. If you create the brand correctly, as you get into those bigger services, as you get more people, you can increase your price, right? And so if you're at 15 right now, that's great. And it's all about creating the systems. It's pretty easy when it comes to lawn mowing, because you'll go to a lawn, you're like, okay, I'm gonna charge, let's say, 60 bucks an hour just to make it simple. And this is gonna take me 35 minutes to mow, you know, right away, that's $35 per cut. And let's say that's weekly. And if they go BI weekly, it's 40. So that way you can kind of maintain your margin if they go bi weekly. And so you want to make sure you have a system in place, though. So it's not like you just show up at the job and it's like, oh, this is gonna be 50 bucks. Like, if you know that, okay, I'm charging this much per hour. And then you'll get better at determining how long a lawn takes to mow. And so you'll be literally walk on a job. Like, I'm at that place now where I can walk on a job and almost have it down to the minute, what it would take for someone to mow the lawn by the time you do the edging, the blowing and all that. And so that's when you get really detailed, and your profit margin will get really repetitive. This is the problem in our industry. Some people will make a whole bunch of money on one job, and then they'll lose money on another job, and then they'll really do really good for one month, and then they'll really bad the next month. And what'll happen is they'll hit a month where their cash flow dips. Like they got a piece of equipment, and then they have a job. They lose a bunch of money on and literally that will put them out of business. And so what you want to do is have you know that every single job you're making a certain profit margin and you can depend on that. And if you have recurring revenue coming in, you can essentially forecast your entire year in advance and know how much money you're getting, when you're going to buy equipment, when you're going to grow, when you're going to get another employee, when you're going to get another truck. And that's so valuable if you can think long term like that.

Right. Cool. Yeah, I know, I know we're running a little long on time.

No, it's good because. It's good because my three o', clock, he was, he was an hour, so don't worry.

Oh, sweet. Just like a couple questions that, yeah. Put up in my mind. So do you, do you pay yourself like a salary then or how does that work with. How do you know how much to invest into the business and how much do you know to. I guess, I mean, because ultimately what I want is, you know, my wife, she doesn't want me. Like this fall I was, I was working from 6:30am Till, you know, 7:00pm I was doing that and I'd go do side jobs all night, you know, and I told her too, you know, these first few years, that's what it's gonna kind of be. You know, I want that too. I do. I, you know, I embrace that challenge. And yeah, you know, I, if it was easy, everybody would do it.

Yeah.

But I also want to have a balanced life and I want to be able to say, hey, babe, cheer. This is what I will bring home. Or how do you, how's that work out? Like, this is what I'm going to make as far as this is what we have to spend on our personal lives.

Right? Yeah. So, like, I'm going to throw numbers at you. Like, obviously I'm just throwing numbers because from what, you know, I've done and what has gone on the course as far as, like, averages. So I'll throw the numbers and then I'll give you the fine print. And so, like, the numbers for me and what we really teach in the course is first year, I say it's going to be a wash. You're probably going to end up. If you make 30 or 40, I think you're going to do 50. If you're going full time right off the bat, like, I think you'll do 50, to be honest, Eric, as far as. Yep.

Real quick, you say, like 50, like what balance is that between lawn care and landscaping?

You're gonna do about 75% mowing of that will be income from mowing, or 60 to 70% will be mowing. The rest is gonna be cleanups and maybe one or two like landscaping, ish jobs like mulch, things like that. But most, that's gonna be your mowing. Because most of the other hard people just aren't gonna trust you. You don't have enough, you know, before and after pictures. You don't have the experience. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. So like that's year one, I'd say, I say it's a wash. But if you do 50, I'd say you could. Let's say 25 of that is going to be gross profit margin. I would put that back in the business. Whether that be paying down the truck or getting, you know, paying off the equipment that you can get financed for zero percent, like, whatever it is. And then year two, like I'd be shooting for 200. Like we got to 200. And that's when I went full time and got another employee, like got the second truck again. That's a big risk.

Yep. So that's when I hired my first person was June of my second year. And so after that, that's when you start to see the growth. Because now, like he can work with one on one truck, you can work on another truck. And if you have the, if you created the pricing system correctly, you should be making the same amount of money as you were, like for yourself. Pl. Whatever he is getting, minus obviously his overhead. So that's a really lucrative part, is the last part of the second year. The problem is you got to kind of do a capital investment beginning of the second year. Right. With a new truck, new trailer, more like, like a whole nother setup, essentially. And so that's really like year number one. All the money you do make, like let's say you, you know, get out 20 grand is really going to be spent going into the. Exactly in year two because you're going to have to get another truck and stuff. Right. And that's, that's where you're, that's where your wife is going to be questioning you a lot is year two going into the spring because you'll start to get a whole bunch of sales, but you won't have really cashed in on that year yet because it'll be like May, June, and you'll start to see you're really busy. You get another guy you get another truck and trailer, but it doesn't seem like you're bringing anything home. But this is the deal. So end of year two, you start to actually see money coming in and that's really good. And so like year number two, end of year number two, you can usually take like 800 to $1,000 in salary each week. That's doable. And the thing is, you're not gonna have enough in the winter to sustain that usually because you're still gonna wanna be growing for year number three. And so year number three is where people get their solid salaries if they want a solid salary. So most of the course members have a solid 52 week salary at $1,000 to $2,000 per week in that third year. And so that is, it's the same thing though, Eric. Like if you want to grow your business super fast, it's like, how much do you want to put in? And so if, but the thing is, if you got to get your wife on board and she needs a kind of a deadline, you can say, hey, like, stick with me for 24 months, stick with me for 36 months, and by that time I'll have X amount per week in salary.

Right?

And until that time you just put everything back in. Right. And, and so like right now, like, I'll be honest, like for me, like last year I took a 2k per week salary, but this year, like I could have taken it up to three or four, but I'm like, you know what, we're gonna put every, like I cut mine back to a thousand because I know I need 300k at the end of this year to create a second shop. Like we're gonna buy land, like the whole bit, right? And so it's the same thing that like I'm wanting to scale it up, but I don't have a wife and I don't have a family like I have to provide for. And so obviously it's, it's all about, that's way more important to provide for them and make sure they're, you know, feeling confident in you and everything like that. And so, but that's kind of like the numbers that I've seen. And it's really just a breakdown of how much like it comes down to one thing and it's sales. Like at the end of the day, if you're willing to get uncomfortable with like whether it be doing anything to get new jobs, you'll be, you'll be amazed at how fast you can grow your business. Like if you would have Told me if you would have told me three years ago when I started my business. Like, because I started way back when, when I was a little kid, but I scaled it up. Like I got serious three years ago. If you were told me that I was gonna be doing, you know, 100k in sales this month, you know, three years ago, like I would have said, you're crazy. But like, and it wasn't anything magic that I did or anything. It's nothing like that. It's all just if you focus on the business aspect and not so much on the work aspect, because if you focus on the business aspect, you focus on the systems, you create the systems that make sure the work gets done, but focus on getting more business. Like if you made a hundred, like I said before, if you make a hundred thousand this year, it's gonna solve a lot of these other problems we're talking about, you know, and if you make, if you keep the business growing, it's gonna solve the, like you're gonna be able to hire better people because you'll have more money. And so like if you're trying to get people at eight, nine dollars an hour, it's gonna be hard to find some good people. But if you're able to have the sales coming in to where you raise your prices. Cause it's just like the funnel of so many people. And so you know what, Instead of charging 50, we're gonna charge 60 an hour. And so now that can I. Cause you're so busy and then when you do that, you're able to, you have extra profit margin to give someone 15 bucks an hour, you know, and so like for us, we start everyone at 15 bucks an hour. They know they're gonna get at least a $1 raise every year. Most of them get two or three. And so they know right from the get go that this is a company that's gonna grow fast. They have room to grow in it. And they are used of seeing systems in place to where they know they're gonna get somewhere. And so like if you can think long term like that and be thinking like, okay, this is where I want to be, whether it be $1,000 at the end of start of year three. Like I'd shoot for that if I realistic $1,000 salary per week starting year three. So that's like probably May 1, 2020.

So when you say per week, are you, you forecasting out 52 weeks or are you forecasting out just.

No, I'm. That's forecasting out the whole 52 weeks, because like, honestly, you could probably take like, you could take 2000 for 40 weeks if you wanted. But like, I'm just talking about like, if you want like a solid. You know what's amazing too, Eric? It really helps when people take a salary out of their business in their mind, because it makes you step out of the idea that like, the harder I work, the more I make. Cuz not like that. As you, as you begin to grow the business, it's more about what systems have I created, who am I hiring? Like, is everyone on board? And it's less about like, how many hours did I work today? There's days I work 12 hours and I'm grinding and I'm doing like stuff in the business and I'll make less than like days where I'm podcasting or at home doing stuff because the systems are in place. Right. And so like, it's hard for people to snap out of that though, of like, oh, I got to work like 80 hours a week. And that's true at the first when you're out doing the work because the more you work, the more you'll make. But eventually you've got to step out of that role and be like, okay, I'm taking a salary. And so no matter what, you're making the same amount every, like, technically coming to your, coming to your residence, that salary and then everything what will keep, will keep you driving is, you know, that everything over that you can put back into the business.

Yep.

Yeah.

I mean that's. And that's where I want to get is, you know, that's, that's the ultimate reason for having a business is eventually getting to the point where you can step away from the business and it's still making you money. So like, I could say, hey, you know, to my wife, let's, let's take a week vacation, you know, at the end of October or whatever. And I know that I can step away and I have people that I can trust to take care of and manage and, and I can come back a week later and step right in and nothing is skipped a beat or nothing's. Nothing's changed. And.

Yeah, and that's why though, like, year one is tough because you really can't do that until the winter because as soon as you stop working, the money stops coming in. Right. And so that's when it's like when you hit winter, it's nice to get away and everything. And then you'll come back and you'll have like two months where there's Not a lot of money coming in, and you get discouraged. Like, I can tell, like, it's gonna happen, but, like, as long as you keep thinking long term and, you know, spend every minute you can trying to get more sales during that time, you'll see in year two, the really, the fruits of your labor. Like, what's nice, Eric, is right now you're calling me two months before you start mowing. Start mowing. Like, you have eight weeks, like seven, eight weeks here, right? So if I were you, like, when we get off this call in the next few days, I'd get really focused on number one. The numbers that you want to hit for this year, you should be writing down. What do you want? Gross? How many now, if you're going to do gross, how many clients do you need every week to be mowing? You know, then, like, break it down. Like, I have on my wall exactly what we're gonna do, like, on our wall at the office in a year. We know in 2017, we want X amount of customers. Like, everyone in the organization knows those goals. And so if I were you, I'd get off do that. Then you gotta figure out how you're gonna do that. Like, okay, if you want 50 clients this year, where's the first 10 coming from? Where's the next five? You know what? And then what are the strategies to get there? And then. Then you got to go do it. You know what I'm saying? And so a lot of times it's easy to strategize, make the goals. People stop there and they think it's gonna come to them, like some law of attraction thing. Like, you're gonna have to go out and grind. But I think you got like, seven, eight weeks. You really don't have a whole lot better stuff to do, you know?

Right, Exactly. Like, okay, yeah. I mean, I. I guess because I've been trying to, you know, I. Over the last. Over the last year, I've been, you know, forecasting different years and what. What I want as far as, like, my revenue goals and everything. And I guess I. I find it so hard, especially, you know, the first year, not even starting yet. It's just like, where do you start?

Yeah.

Yeah. Like, I mean, I don't know. Am I gonna hit, you know, is it going to be awesome? And I hit a hundred thousand dollars in sales. And you know, what if. What percentage of that is gonna be profit? Or am I just gonna be struggling and only hit 20,000, 30,000?

Okay, so this is what. This is where I would put Your goals then make it to where it feels just a little bit out of your reach. So if you think you can get 20,000 in your sleep, don't put it at 30. But if you think a hundred thousand is like way out of your ballpark, let's do 80, you know. So like I would tell you, if you were starting this kind of a more of a part time basis, I would say 30, 200, 500, that's 30 the first year, 200 the second year, 500 the third year. But if you're going in this full time, I think you can easily do 40, 40 to 50 that first year.

Sweet.

Like especially that we're talking two months in advance. I started that first year when I made 30. The month that I was supposed to be like, was mowing the week I bought my equipment. So you got time. And so I really, really feel if you're 100% in that, you can get the 50 if you really put in the work. But I'd say, hey, 200 the second year, 500 the next year. And like right now you think looking at 200, like, there's no way, how can I double or quadruple going from 50 to 200. Like just wait until next spring when you have 40 clients that you can get referrals from that have been sharing your name, people have been seeing your truck with your logo. Just wait. That's when you start getting people calling you, right? And so even the website you gotta make that just really just for when people hear about you, they can go online and just verify that you exist and stuff. But then in year two, you'll start getting some trickle of people actually calling you from that because their friends will mention it, they'll go online, Google you and find you, right? Like now for us, we don't do a whole lot of print advertising and things. Like we're number one in Google. You know, we have YouTube videos. We do a lot of this like guerrilla marketing where we like do stuff like printing off things for property management companies and doing some free work for like the city. Like weird stuff like that. Like it's total different now because now we have 300 people a day looking at our website. Whereas my first year I was happy if I got like three or four. And so it's a lot of eyeballs and it's all about scalability time. Obviously there's an investment in your website and you're gonna spend time on making that. And there's certain things to do to get it better in Google. Cause like now for us, our website, we pay, I don't know, like maybe $30 to maintain it every month and we get huge amounts of traffic. Right. That first year we didn't really make a whole lot from the website, like a few contact forms, people get the email and phone number. So like that's valuable. But like this, like when you, once you've committed to it for a few years that you start getting people coming to you instead of you having to reach out. But it's that. Go ahead, go ahead.

Well, I was just gonna say it's like you, like you mentioned and that's kind of my, you know, my mindset right now is I'm not doing these things expecting to get huge amounts of traffic, you know, with the website with, you know, I got business cards coming, I got, you know, I'm gonna put decals on my truck and you know, I'm doing all this stuff with a long term projection, thinking, okay, you know, I understand that this may not be profitable right now, but I'm investing for the future. And I guess that's, and I know you've mentioned this throughout your podcast too, is when you have that mindset of I'm not doing this for today, I'm doing it for two, three, five, ten years down the road. Because that way when that time comes where like you just mentioned, you know, in three years, hopefully my website is drawing in most of my, I won't have to go door to door. My website, which I know how to run and how to efficiently with, you know, Google and SEO and all that stuff, which I really don't understand, but I can get into that later. But you know, hopefully I have a basic understanding authority in place because I took the time early on to, you know, to do those steps and now I'm able to really reap the benefits of that down the road. Totally mentioned that in your other podcast. And that that's something I've really taken away is just always be thinking not about the here and now, but down the road.

Yeah. Like over the course, the next seven or eight weeks, like I'd really budget out your time on what you want to work on. So I give it, you know, maybe, maybe three or four hours a week you got to work on the website. You know, three or four hours you're gonna go door to door. Three or four hours you're gonna go hand out business cards. Three or four hours a week you're gonna go to businesses and hand out business cards like you're asking, call for referrals. Or ask friends, like, whatever it is. And I'd really budget that out, because I think you'll look back in August, September this year, and based upon how hard you work, the next six or seven weeks is what, you know, if you're gonna be hitting 40 and 50, you're gonna be at 20 and 30.

Right. Okay.

Well, sorry. Go on.

No, I was just gonna say, like, just from my experience of, like, talking with people who just about to start, like, I think, you know, with this already, but, like, a big thing is getting your wife on board.

Yeah. And. And she, like, I'm really fortunate. And I guess that's. Like, I mentioned, like, her having this job, and she understands that it is gonna be a difficult. You know, it's not gonna be the smoothest road. There's going to be challenges. There's going to be, you know, arguments, fights, financial issues. And I. I think she's on board with that.

And it's just. What, you know, it comes down to me maintaining that. That positive mindset that, you know.

Like you mentioned, you know, I probably will get discouraged. And I. I appreciate you telling me that, because that, you know, when somebody says, look, it's gonna suck at times, it's gonna be like, what the hell am I doing? Like, is this the right move? Like, I appreciate hearing that, because I know when that time comes, I'll be like, all right. You know, Mike mentioned this, and he's been in business. He says, you know, put your head down, get through it, and, you know, there's light at the tunnel. And so. Yeah, that's good to hear that. You know, I love when I hear other businesses and guys that have been successful in this say, yeah, it sucks at times in a struggle because that. That kind of makes it real. And, like, okay, they get it.

But it's totally worth it, you know, Like. Like, it is, man. Like, three years later, it just. It's. It's a dream. Like, I grind every day, but, like, I have to look back and think, you know, three years ago, like, I wasn't. Like, I would not have had time to do the podcast, talk to people. Like, you have a course, like, all that. If I wouldn't have, you know, made the company. And so, like, it's totally worth it, man. The time you have, you'll be able to create. And, like, the thing, like I was saying about your wife, too, like, if you can get her on board, like, as far as even, like, your projections, what you want to be hitting, and if she can see some traction, that first Couple years, like, hey, he's hitting his goals in those first couple years. And she can be confident. Year three, you know, you're going to be bringing money home and things. Like it's a huge, huge motivator for you too. And, and if she can be, you know, the last thing you want is where that's dragging you down. You want it more like she's your cheerleader, kind of like, you know, like go, go out there and kill it, Eric. And so yeah, like I'd be really open with her, what your goals, projections are and what you kind of expect to be bringing home at those times a year and all of that. And you know, I wish you all the best for sure.

Sweet. One last quick question I got for you.

Oh yeah, for sure. No, you're good.

Taking this much time. But so commercial. I, I, right before I joined the Marine Corps, I worked for a property management company. Okay. Commercial property management. Really big in Lincoln Town, next to Omaha. And I feel like I have a really good. Because I, I left, I worked there for four years doing like their property maintenance and you know.

Yeah, I felt like I left with a really good, you know, friendship and connection with two of the managers. And also here in Omaha, my father in law is really, really good friends with a huge property management. He's the CEO of this huge property management company. And I guess my question is, my first year of business, do I need to be worrying about or do I need to invest my time or money into commercial properties or what's the best step?

Getting your foot in the door. And because I don't want to overwhelm myself, I guess I don't want to get to the point where I overstep and you know, I agree to do a huge property and I'm just like, I don't have the equipment, the time. How do you know when to take that step?

So I was gonna say like the logical answer that I would usually say to people is no until you said your, your father in law is the CEO of a, of a management company.

Oh no, no, no. He's a really good friends.

Gotcha. Okay, I got you. Okay, okay, okay. I was gonna say he's like, hey man, you gotta hand me some contracts.

Okay.

Like, like, okay. So usually this is what I'd say. I would say don't focus on the first year. I'd go residential, I'd go recurring. Because those, those commercial contracts, number one, they want wholesale pricing because their jobs are bigger. You're gonna be competing with the big guys. You're gonna be competing with the guys who have the big equipment, can do it twice as fast as you.

And a lot of times those commercial, especially property management companies, they're on a budget and they're not even make the decision. It's some owner that's on the other side of the country that just wants the numbers to be hit and things to be taken care of. And a large company will do that for them. Whereas with a residential client, you can provide value outside of the service, which is things like professionalism, you know, the way you look and all that good stuff, communication. And so that's easier sell like premium service price, that's easier to do for residential your first year. Now that being said, there are commercial contracts out there where you could make money still. And so it's never a bad idea to go out and try to find some of these property management companies because a lot of these property management companies, they do have residential houses that they manage, like rent out and things, right? So that'll work. Cleanups is a big one you can get from them. And what's really cool about property management companies is once you're in with them, they'll use you. And what I mean by that is like once they see good work and you know, they'll ask for estimates at first. Like now with we have several property management companies that they just tell us to go do the work and then charge us whatever. Like they're not going out and getting estimates for the work. They're not doing anything like that because they just, they've developed the relationship and that's really, really nice. So like, it's never a bad idea to start in year one. The thing is, for people who don't know you, like if you don't have any leverage, which you do because you have some relationships, but like, if you don't have any leverage and they go to your website and they don't see, they see you haven't been in business or maybe it doesn't look as professional as your competitor or you know, your insurance, like you're gonna need. They're gonna require bonding and insurance, which you should get anyways. But like they're gonna requ. They're going to be looking at hard like, okay, if this guy gets hit by a truck, who's going to be mowing next week, you know, and so with a bigger company that, that worry is sort of ironed out. And so you just got to look for ways to sell to them on things other than that you're going to be mowing their lawn. And so if it's communication, if they're picky, if they, whatever it is. And so I wouldn't say not to try. I just wouldn't put most of your time in that bucket right now because they're going to be looking for references. They're going to be looking like, what other apartment complexes do you do? What other commercial properties do you do? And they're also going to be looking for things like irrigation and snow plowing and some of the services you might not offer first year.

Right.

And so it's not that those things are bad, it's just that you're going to need more capital for those. And so year one, I'd focus a lot on smaller properties. You know, your bread and butter is going to be those lawns that are 40 to 50 bucks that you're gonna do every week and if not, bi weekly. And you're gonna get 20 to 35 cuts in a year and you're gonna make 15 to 2,000 off of a client. And they're gonna have the mowing and then try to get upsell. Like if I were you, every single mowing, every single mowing estimate I do, even if they don't ask for it, I'd be looking at their property and then give them an estimate for a one time cleanup. Like all their leaves. And then what I do is try to sell that to them in the winter. So like December, January, when it's not snowing, but like you're not busy, you can go back and start pitching. Like even if you don't even give them the estimate in the estimate, if you have 40 lawn clients that you get this year, I'd go back to every single one in December, knock on the door, ask them how they're doing, say merry Christmas, whatever, and then be like, hey, you need your leaves cleaned up, you need your trees pruned, you know, your mulch might even need some, some more of that. Like, and just upsell. And if you have 40 people, 20 of them are going to take you up on that.

Okay.

And that, that's how you'll fill up your winter.

Right? Okay.

So awesome.

And real quick, do you, you do fertilizing with all yours too?

Yeah, so we don't. Do you mean just like fertilization for the lawn? Yeah, yeah. So we do everything just really out of the bag from like the store. So we have like a treatment program, like different levels of like right now we have treatment programs. So like people can do like a lime, a Moss, a weed and feed and an aeration and that's like a four step package and we have like an eight step package. But like my first year I just, if they, if I saw they had a problem like in their lawn, I'd say, hey, you should get a weed and feed or you know, you're getting some moss, we should put some moss out. And how I would recommend and how we do it in the course is like everything in your pricing should be standardized. So like based upon how we do it is based upon your mowing price. Your fertilization and aeration and all the other stuff with their lawn is already pre calculated. So what that means is like right now our aeration, like core aeration price is three times the cost of a mowing, right? So I don't even need to go to their lawn for an estimate for aeration. If I know we're mowing their lawn for 40 bucks, I know it's going to cost 120 to aerate it, you know, and then our fertilization prices are two times. So a weed and feed on a $40 mowing is going to be 80 bucks. And if it's, if they're 60, if they're an $80 lawn, it's gonna be 160 bucks for that fertilization. And so, and that goes back to your point about, you know, you don't want to have to haggle and like take lower prices. If you have standardized pricing for all of these things, whether it be mowing, whether it be landscaping, like everything is standardized then, you know, like you can go in with confidence knowing what you're charging and people will pick up on it. Like that's why I don't recommend people when they do estimates to give them a price like right then and there. Like if you walk around someone's lawn and then they're like, alright, great. You know, they talk about what they want and you're like, okay, that's gonna cost $40 per mo. In their mind they're like, where did they get that from? And that's when they think, okay, great, I can ask for 35. Or you know, and it's a logical step because well, if you got 40 out of thin air, maybe I can get them down to 30. Right? But that's why I always recommend when you go back to your office and literally as soon as you can, you know, send them a proposal, send them a welcome email with the estimate, explain what's going to be, you know, the things they talked about, you put that in the estimate so they know you're paying attention. They can already see your level of communication, and then it's in writing, it's official, and then you can follow up with them, continue. Like, if you go to an estimate and you say $40, and they're like, no, or that's not gonna work. Like, how do you follow up with that? Right. Whereas if you email it to them and they don't say no, you have every right to, like, call them, go to their house, like, ask them, like, what's up? And it's just way more professional because they won't haggle with you.

Okay.

So some people would say that, you know, you're kind of like, cowering or copping out by saying, oh, you don't want to, say, mention prices. That's true in one regard. I see some people, like, they just, I'll email you an estimate later. But on the other hand, you're gonna be able to track that estimate better because you'll have it in your CRM system. You're gonna be able to follow up with them via email because you'll get their email address, which is important. Down the road, you'll have a mailing list that you can market services to. And it's just way more professional. And so I would recommend that.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. So.

Okay, well, yeah, my guy, you know, I got a million questions, but I. I don't want to take up your time, and I. I've got a lot of information and.

Okay, well, shoot me one more. I got about 10 minutes, so shoot me one more.

Okay, well, I guess my. Another question.

So.

Is it. I mean, should I be thinking about employee the first year, or should I just go in with the mindset saying, this year I'm solo, I'm gonna just focus on, you know, reaching my goals that I made, you know, in March or whatever. And that's what my focus is. And not worry about an employee.

I'd be thinking about. I'd be thinking about and planning for an employee from day one as far as the way you set up your. Your company. But realistically, as far as when you're going to hire someone, I'd be thinking, year two. I would love if June 2017, I get a call from Eric, and he's trying to hire someone because he's super busy. And obviously you just need to make sure the numbers are working. Like, if you're only making 5,000 gross in a month, it's not really logical to be hiring someone, even if you feel like you're working a lot, it's just not working. It's not going to work. And so I don't think that'll happen where you're making 5,000, like, your prices are good enough. But like, what I'm saying is, realistically I'd be thinking year two, but right from the get go, you got to be asking yourself the question of like, how do I train someone? Like, how do I get them to do what I'm doing? And is what I'm doing repeatable? Is it scalable? Because if it's not, someone's gonna join, they're gonna leave. Like, it's gonna be pathetic. And you've kind of seen that before. Okay.

Okay. Another question. If you got a couple.

Yep, yep, yep.

Taxes. How, like when you started out, is it just one of those things? Like, I mean, I got some of it figured out, but you know, you start digging into this stuff and it's, it kind of seems mind boggling. And I, you know, like I got QuickBooks or whatever and.

I'd like to consider myself pretty good with my finances, but at the same time, I don't want to find myself in a situation where at the end of the year I'm like, wait, I owe this much in taxes. Or, you know, I could have wrote that offer, right? Like, what's the learning curve on that? Or how do you.

Yeah, yeah, so, so we use a program called Lawn Pro. And that's, that's, it comes with part of the course. I buy all the students a piece of that just because I think it's so important. Like, QuickBooks is good. It does invoicing really good. It does expense tracking really good. But it doesn't integrate very well. Like, I'm not dissing QuickBooks. Some of my other companies use it, but like for lawn care, it doesn't integrate with your CRM very well. Like with Lawn Pro, you have your customer profile that integrates with your schedule, which integrates with your expenses, which integrates like it's all connected. Invoices, estimates, all connected. And then they have a function where every time in an invoice you've been collecting taxes, like it keeps track of that. So you kind of, kind of know what your tax bill is going to be. Because your first year, they won't require you to pay quarterly sales tax. But eventually once you hit like year two, they're going to ask, they're going to ask for you to start paying quarterly. So you'll need to expect that. Then you have, you know, just your Regular personal income taxes, which you don't really have to worry about till end of year two when you've actually started making money.

But like, it's the same thing, really. It's the same thing. I would worry less about that and more about sales.

Okay.

And like, if you can like people, I always tell people, focus 90% of your time on making money and then the other 10% on saving it, budgeting it, figuring out how it's gonna be spent. Like, focus 90% of your energy and time the top 1 inch of your income statement, which is like net like gross sales. Obviously you're gonna want to make the systems to make sure it doesn't all get siphoned out of your business by the time you get to the bottom of the income sheet. Income, profit, income statement. But like, I just focus on that really, as you grow, it's gonna take care of a lot of the problems or like a lot of the obstacles that you want to, you know, achieve and things.

Right, okay, yeah, that makes sense.

So, but like, yeah, like we use Lawn Pro for that stuff. That's the stuff I always suggest people use until they hit about a million a year. So we just switched over to a much more expensive product. But it's just because now if we're gonna go multi location and have lots and lots of crews, we needed something a little more sophisticated. But like it's really nice Lawn Pro because like you can get.

All the routing, like automatically you put all your schedule in and then it automatically will choose the fastest route for you. Which like, once you start hiring people especially, that's one of like the biggest cost wasters is when they're driving around because you're making $0 and you're burning gas and you're having wear and tear. And so you got to have that efficient route. And like everything when it comes to lawn care is built on one thing, and that is your efficiency is going to equal your profit margin. And so if you're not efficient and if you're not trying to figure out like we ask our team every single month at one of our meetings, how do we save 10 minutes? And so we've inbred this culture of like, where can we save time? Because they know that like the difference between making money and not making money in lawn care especially is literally like 10% of what are you spending your time on? Are you having to stop at the gas station? Are piece of equipment not done like, like maintained correctly. All those little things. For instance, like we just changed our policy where now instead, when the guys come back to the shop, instead of leaving the trailers unhooked and then parking the trucks, now they empty their trucks out and everything, but then hook their truck trailer back on and then park it and get ready for the next day. The reason for that is, is because watch a guy.

Load up a trailer in the morning and It'll take him 15 minutes. If he has to load that trailer up right before he leaves and he wants to get home, he can do it in five.

Exactly.

And so little things like that, it's all about efficiency. So for instance, like what I was talking about, Long Pro, it does the whole scheduling thing, like figuring out your fastest route, and it's essentially the best program, I think, for companies that are under a million dollars. And so that's why we use that one. But QuickBooks does a lot of the same stuff. Really?

Right. Okay. Okay, awesome. Well, yeah, I definitely, I definitely think I'm gonna give the business course a shot.

No, no, no, no. You can't just give it a shot. You gotta go all in if you're gonna do it, man. You're not gonna spend that much money and then just kind of try it out.

Well, no, I mean, I think it's really cool that you're doing this and helping open guys out. And when I, you know, I. Before I, you know, back in Hawaii, when I was researching everything, I was, you know, YouTube in and saw, you know, Keith and Stan and. Yeah, one of those guys. And I was like, oh, that's really cool that, you know, they, they take the time to, you know, help guys out.

Yeah.

Because, you know, guys like me, we. I have so many questions and it's just.

No, like, like the whole reason I made the course, Eric, was when I started three years ago. I still remember Googling landscape business course. That's why I named it that. I still remember looking for something that was step by step and because I saw all those same, like Stan B and B lawn care. What's his face? Top notch lawn care. Like, I know all these guys, right? And I saw like, you can't get tips from all over the place, but I was looking for something that was more like step by step. And the thing is, when you do step by step, and I tell people exactly what to buy, what to spend, how to do their marketing, that's what the course is. But I know that some things aren't gonna be the best, but I'm looking for something that is gonna get someone from point A to point B. And so that's what I was looking for three years ago. And that's why I made the course. Like, hey, this is where you start when you're $15,000 budget starting out. This is where you're going to end up in three years and I'm going to tell you exactly what to do. Right? So I know that sounds like a sales pitch, but like, I'm just saying, like, that's why I made the course.

And well, that's what I mean when I found your podcast, because I was really surprised. I was like, wow, landscape business course, that's, you know, why is it, why wasn't this name used? You know, but that's what. When I started listening to you, that's what one. You know, you seem to have a good grasp on the administrative side of business, which I think is, you know, that's what will make you either successful or ultimately fail. But also you're willing to give out, you know, real numbers. And you know, that's, you go to these like, lawn site and everything and you know, you see guys post and everybody avoids, you know, talking numbers. And to me it's like, well, you know, you can't really get anywhere without actually discussing actual numbers and.

Right.

You know, it, it helps when you actually get a. And you know, I, that's, I think too, like, guys don't have to follow it step by step or, you know, I start, you start with 15,000, I may start with, you know, 20,000 or 10,000 or 5, you know, but guys at least know, okay, they can scale according to, you know, what they have or what, you know, they want to do. And so that's, I really appreciate.

You for that is you actually give out, you know, hard, real life examples. And I guess that's what.

I found appealing to you.

And so that's what it comes down to, right? Like, that's why the reason we're in business is for the money. Like, people think that's a bad thing to say. But like, why else would, you know, we spend so much time and work and like, like people work too hard in this industry to fail. Like, there's a lot of really, like, I meet a lot of land care, like landscaping business owners. Like, people work really hard. They're good people. They're not like, there's, we work too hard to not be making money.

Right?

And so it's like, what's. Yeah, like, even with the guys on YouTube and stuff, like, I know some of them from a number standpoint, they're not doing good. And what's Keeping them afloat is their YouTube and like they making money on that. Right. So that's where like I started YouTube channel and stuff. But I wanted like I focus more on like these calls. I know it's not scalable, I know it's not like the most bang for my buck but like even if people don't buy the course, I just feel like they're gonna get so much more value out of you know, 20, 30 minutes we can actually talk about what they're going through and so, but yeah, if you need anything, by the way, now that I'm thinking about it, before you get the course, let me put in, I want to put in a discount page military so you don't have to do that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm going to. So give me like I'll do it later today. Alright. So I hope you guys got something out of that again. If you would like a 30 minute call, you can get a free one from landscapebusinesscourse.com if you're in the landscaping lawn care industry and you want to talk through some of the issues you're having, if you're just about to start or if you've been it for years and you just kind of feel like you, you plateaued, feel free to do that landscape businesscourse.com also if you haven't already do check out the YouTube channel. Every week I am putting up a vlog up on YouTube about running the business and you kind of see the, some of the behind the scenes get to see my shop and the operation that we're building at Augusta Lawn Care, which is the company that I run for lawn care landscaping. So check that out. Just go search Mike Andy's on YouTube or landscape business Mike Andes and you should find it there. So I'm going to sign off for now. Episode 26 was great. We'll see you next week.