Mike Andes on why lawn care owners feel like they're babysitting employees. He runs 40 locations, 30 short-staffed, and says building systems and leadership turns a job into a sellable business instead of just you doing the work.
I stay solo. Ain't got time to babysit. Babysitting is one way to put it. Or the alternative is that you're extremely vulnerable to you ever getting hurt and you never being able to get out of the field or you never being able to grow the business to the point where actually provides wealth for your family or create an asset you can sell. Like, so there's definitely a handoff. You know, there's trade offs. Like, yes, it's very stressful right now to have employees. Trust me, I get it. We have 40 locations, and I'd say about 30 of them are dying for laborers right now. It's stifling our growth. And at the same time, at command center, where we have office people, we can't find people that want to work and we're paying out the nose for them compared to what we used to pay. And it's very, very difficult. I understand that, but I'd rather, in my opinion, you call it babysit. I would say lead. I would rather lead people and have a lot of hard time doing so in comparison to working by myself all the time. And if I break my leg, my income stops. So, yes, there is a trade off there. And back to that point, I had. I had a YouTube poll up, and I found that 60% of the audience watching this right now has under 30 lawns, which basically means part time. Which kind of blew my mind because I really think a lot of my content talks to people who are scaling their business and growing. But 60% is 59%. 59% of our audience has less than 30 lawns, which means they're part time. And I think. I'm not against that. By no means. I think it's great that people can make money on the side with lawn care. That's the beautiful thing about lawn care. It's low barrier to entry. But if someone's really wanting to take this to the next level and grow.
Their company and make it something that is a real asset, something that has.
Systems in place and people in place, it's not easy. That's why 60% of people don't do it. It's not easy. And so to look at someone has a big business has a bunch of employees like, oh, ladies, that's no problem. That simple. Okay, well, they had to do a lot of babysitting. It's not easy. And so I understand why 60% of people don't want to. Hey, what's.
Mike Andes here. Hope you enjoyed that clip.
If you want to watch the full.
Video, the full livestream. Check out the link below. But it's absolutely something that you want to think about when it comes to growing your business is how big do you want it to be? Do you want to have employees? Because yes, you can be solo. And trust me, it's a lot easier in terms of dealing with people and employees who don't show up, employees who are really good and they have to leave because they moved out of town or had some kids. Like that is absolutely a stress and a strain. But there's also downsides of being solo. That's the risk and the vulnerability of.
You getting hit by a bus.
What if you break your leg? You're not going to be able to make any more money and you're putting your family in a vulnerable position if you're the breadwinner and the provider for the home. So there's absolute downsides and upsides to both ways we're being solo or having employees. What determines what you do is what is right for you, what's right for the business, what's right for what you want from the business. If you want freedom, if you want the ability to go on vacation for two weeks and the business still operates, you're going to have to hire employees. If you just hate the thought of dealing with people, you can't. You just can't stand people not showing up to work or being a little bit lazy or having a bad day, and you have to kind of coach them or work through certain things with them. You might want to say so, though, there's no right or wrong. It's a matter of what do you want the business to be? What. What does the business need to become to serve you, your family and your financial picture of the future? And what is going to be the best route? Solo or hiring employees? There's no right or wrong answer. What is right for your business? Comment below. Whether you're solo or you're hiring employees, what's the future of your business look like and what are you doing now in terms of hiring to make sure that future comes to reality?
