This is a transcript of Mike Andes' franchisee training lecture about the growth stages for a lawn care/landscaping business, covering four revenue bands (0–100k, 100k–200k, 200k–500k, 500k–1M+) and the typical owner role, operational characteristics, and required systems at each stage. Andes emphasizes starting with maintenance services to scale, hiring sequence (hire people before buying trucks), the need to simplify services and build repeatable systems to scale beyond small, equipment-heavy design-build operations, and that small efficiency gains at higher revenue yield large dollar impacts.
Owner still in the field doing most work; business has a second truck and a first full-time employee (one truck, two-man band).
Owner remains involved in every estimate and sale; growing employee base ('like an octopus' with tentacles tying back to owner).
Owner becomes a full-time estimator and begins working on the business rather than in it; focus on systems and efficiency.
Chapters
Mo lawns did that. No, we gotta have these bad boys right here. Okay. We gotta have Mr. Caterpillar if you're gonna be going out in the. Can you believe this?
All right, so today is day one of the franchisee training. So just getting everything set up here. What you're going to be seeing right now is the first kind of lecture of the training process where we talk about stages of growth. So you go through stage one where 0 to 100,000 annual revenue all the way up to a million plus and beyond. So hopefully something that's helpful for you. Stay for the first couple hours and then probably tomorrow you'll see more training. Thanks, guys. So this is the one part of the weekend where we're going to read. So I apologize, but I'll try to make it somewhat entertaining based upon the revenues that you're having, what issues you're going to face, what doubts you're going to have, what you're going to ask me. This is going to answer all the questions that will be asked. It basically should, but it won't.
All right, so first stage of growth, 0 to 100,000 revenue. This is annual revenue. So the role of the owner here is that the owner's doing everything. Okay. What the business looks like is you're a one man show. You're doing everything in the business. Usually this is operated out of a garage or a local storage facility. It seems like a hassle now, but don't make bad habits or use your head as your CRM. Stage number two. So this is 100,000 to 200,000 role of the owner. Still doing everything at this point in the field, but you have a second truck and an employee. What the business looks like is you now have 20 to 30 regular mowing customers and get cleanups to fill your schedule. You start to get two to three weeks booked out. This is when you go and get a full time employee. This is that first person. You are a one truck, two man band. But you know that will change soon because you are getting very busy again. Notice I got employee, then went out and bought a truck. I did not go buy trucks and then go hire people. Right.
Stage number three, revenue is now between 200 and 500,000. You are like an octopus. Every tentacle is an employee but at the end of the day they tie back to you. You are still involved in every estimate and every sale. Leads are starting to flow in and you get overwhelmed with new work. Sometimes you know you are going to need systems to continue growth. You want to speed through this phase as fast as possible. It's like the wilderness of landscapers. You either grow past it or you stay below it. Next stage is revenue is 500 to a million now. Now you're full time estimator, that's the role of the owner. You're beginning to work on the business instead of in it at this point. So again we're doing 500 to a million in revenue at this point. A 1% increase in efficiency will result in thousands of dollars savings. So it is worth thinking about your systems and processes and refining elements of the company that may be inefficient due to the rapid growth.
So let me make a quick point here in terms of being big and yet you need to be design, build and go a big caterpillar to be a big company. Let me make a few points here. First of all, name three five star Michelin restaurants. Just name three of them to me. Okay, now name three fast food restaurants with thousands of locations all across the country. The reason why the first one you don't hardly know about is because they're very few and far between. They don't have multiple locations, they don't have thousands of locations. You talk about McDonald's, Burger King, taco Bell, you can name a whole plethora of fast food ones. Cause they simplified their processes and, and they have systems in place to scale and grow their business. Name one design build company that's publicly traded. The only one you can name is Brightview. And they do a mostly maintenance like. The reason all of this, the reason, the reason all of this. I'm saying this is because it's easier to get started with maintenance. You do not need massive equipment. Yes, if you want to do paver patios and walls and big hardscaping projects, it's there for you. You can make a lot of money. But, but to scale that to the point where you're not hauling around equipment to your job sites, materials selling jobs every day and you actually have a team, you have multiple locations. That's only possible if you simplify services, you simplify your overhead and you create systems for your team to actually succeed within and not where you're always involved every single day of the operation. So congratulate people like this on their five star Michelin restaurant. I will continue building McDonald's.
So whether it be I'm talking to someone just getting started or someone that's done, you know, seven figures in their long care business, these are the things I see over and over and over again at these different stages of growth, it's universal. It's like as I've worked with more and more lawn care, landscaping companies, these are the issues they face, these are the questions they have. So I hope that by having that, you kind of like, okay, I, I'm not the only one. This is regular, this is normal to be feeling this way at this size of business and realize that your problems and the issues and the questions and the doubts you have change as the business grows. So I hope it was helpful, maybe soothing to you if you've had those thoughts, you've had those questions and just keep going, just keep going to the next stage, keep growing the business, making it more systems oriented, make it more efficient, make it more profitable. Thanks, everyone. We'll see you tomorrow. See you tomorrow again here tomorrow. Hey, what's Mike here? If you're part of the 10% of people who actually got to the end of the video, congratulations. And also you should definitely make sure you follow me on TikTok and Instagram. Always posting there every single day. And we actually show the prices of jobs that we do in short form videos, so check it out.
