Fixing 10 Businesses in 10 Days ($1.3M Turf Company)
This is a vlog-style YouTube episode in which Mike Andes and his crew travel by RV to Kansas to assess and begin turning around a lawn irrigation and fertilization business owned by Olen (Wetlands/Irrigation and Turf). The company does roughly $1.2–1.5M revenue but carries large debt (reported over $300k) and experiences severe winter seasonality (revenue drops 80–90%), creating cash-flow risk that could sink the business without rapid action. The episode mixes on-site interviews, financial figures, and travel/vlog footage.
Chapters
I'm driving this RV from Raleigh, North Carolina to Bellingham, Washington. Our goal is to turn around 10 businesses in the next 10 days. My question is, what are you doing?
You know, my written goal is 20 million.
Even if everything goes smoothly, I just want you to not have that pressure. And I know that's hard to hear. All of that can be accomplished without franchising. My name is Mike Andes and I travel the country fixing struggling businesses. And today I'm taking you behind the scenes as we take this RV and do just that.
Oh, no. Oh.
That was a long day of driving. We're. I'm in for three long driving days. Today was nine hours of driving. Tomorrow is eight hours. The next day is eight hours.
Oh my God. Did we drive past it?
It's 41 minutes for.
We drove past it.
Yeah, the like trailers and stuff. I bet that's it. All right. So I, I talked to the attendant over there. We have to move.
Dang. We're halfway.
Before.
They've been struggling financially. In 2023, they really hit rock bottom and had to do like an entire restructuring of the entire business.
My name is ol Andrew. I'm 34 years old. I'm married and have a four year old daughter. I have a lawn irrigation fertilization business.
That.
15 years and that's, you know, we normally do it around 1.2 million the last three, two, three years.
And it takes us till August to kind of really get out of that and start.
Monday, we were running two hours late. Tuesday, we were running three hours late.
What are your thoughts so far?
Well, there's problems in like every area of the business. Really, really bad. Seasonal issues in the winter. You lose so much money in January, it's crazy.
And we probably did 10, $12,000 of rework for free. But it wasn't the only issue. I mean, you were still seeing it previous months, so yeah, that was concerning. Like what kind of systems we need to get in place to make sure that those numbers stay where they need to be.
Does GPS say over here?
Yeah, it says it was like just that building right behind us.
Which address did you go to?
We arrived at the wrong spot. Google Maps was England or something. Not a 40 minute difference. Okay, could have been worse.
He's negative. Ca.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Owes money to family, credit cards, equipment loans, the state for state sales tax.
That's not good.
Even if we fix things and you put every single dollar of profit towards the debt, it'll take them several years to dig out without immediate Action goes under. This off season in January and February, he loses so much money and he drops revenue by like 80, 90%. So you can't. You.
When.
When you have a bunch of debt and a bunch of fixed expenses, you can't afford to have an off season simply because your payments still keep coming out and you have higher fixed expenses. So you've got to get revenue up during the off season. So if he can't do that.
He won't make it. This.
And will you jump out with Francis.
And get him all mic'd up and.
Say hi and then I'll bounce around and come out with Mike in a minute?
Who needs a mic? Is there a general manager?
No, I think it's just you.
Hello. Hi. Olen.
Yes.
Nice to meet you.
How's it going, sir?
How you doing? Francis.
Nice to meet you, Francis. Nice to meet you.
Welcome here, guys.
Welcome to Kansas.
Thank you.
Resonates with your. You know, I know my.
Yeah, exactly. That's pretty good. Well, Frank, we get to go through Mike.
Yes, sir.
So this office right now.
Is our turf manager office, but we don't really have a full time turf manager. This is a kind of our little meeting room, conference room in here. Season out of this building. And then we kind of official move in.
January, February 22nd.
Very cool.
And is this your.
Do you own this one?
Yeah. Okay.
And then, you know, we just did that kind of just continued to grow. The irrigation thing, it was kind of what we were known for.
I said, well, if you look at the weather, we got like 60 chance of rain.
And.
Yeah.
So I was like, ah, yeah, there's two days, you know, if it does that, we can't have that revenue.
So I just want to make sure that that pressure doesn't, you know, there's very.
Almost no businesses that we've ever been to where the owner is a pessimist. You can't be because, like, you're going to a horrible situation where you're gonna have no money for multiple years and you're gonna just hear, no, no, no, no, no. And you have to, like, push. You have to see the light at the end of the tunnel and be like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, there's so much opportunity here. That's what he said over and over. Amen.
It's like, it's such a big amount of even doing the map. It's more like, turn this around and.
It'Ll take three years and get this debt manageable to where the overhead's not crippling and or like the fixed expenses of the debt payments. It's like it's still a long road. It's difficult. Like I just want you to not have that pressure.
Yeah.
Because I know what that's like and it's no fun. No. Well, it's like I heard someone say like the greatest form of optimism is having a kid because you have to believe that the future is going to be good enough for them to be able to survive. And so I think the same thing about entrepreneurship. It's like the most optimistic thing to start a business. This because like the chances are so slim that it's actually going to survive. Whoa, that's crazy.
That might be in your best what I've heard.
Okay, you got the preamble like juggling a little bit. I know. I've been there and I hate it. I'm just sorry for you. I'm really am like it's.
Well, I appreciate everything that you have done amazing things for the industry. I mean at least anybody that pays attention of just fixing those kind of things that when it was yeah, this year, I would say the turn point a lot of ways for me on the seasonality thing was doing that exercise and taking my next lowest order and replacing my worst quarter. And I'm like, we would double profitability if we didn't lose money. And all of a sudden the light bulb was like, okay, this is the last year that we're left off the gas.
$16,000 credit card $3,000 credit card $3,001 personal loan $7,000 personal loan.
Accounts payable of vendors 27,000 EIDL loans 134,000 loan from his brother is 50,000 truck payments 105,000. Mercy goodness, we have a lot.
Payroll came around and cle like we didn't have money for the materials, for vendors, for anything else. And so it was kind of a hard wake up there. They looked, they pulled our line. They deemed it substandard, which means that our bank couldn't loan us any more money.
And how much were you paying on that analysis must be payments wise.
The debt payment itself between it would probably be 6, 5 to 6,000. It forced us to really look at the business. You know, it closed that spigot which had probably been too easy for me to go to in the past of just the bank would just loan me a little more. We'd do a little operating loan, line of credit, something to kind of make up for, you know, a business loss somewhere.
He does have an office lady Stacy that runs admin and scheduling and can do over the phone estimates for fertilization. Just like measuring the property and like that's their rate. And then they have an office person as well for irrigation and then like the customer relationships. His overall goals back in the day before you got hit with like reality here was to go to like $20 million location. That's like full home service, that's pest control, maintenance, construction is like the one stop shop to manage like the wealthier.
Properties in their area.
He still would be interested in building to that side, that scale. You know, he's looking at like three locations. He thinks he could do another location this year.
Yeah, I want to grow more. You know, I built this shop in mind of doing probably 10 million out of this location. You know my written goal is 20 million. And I know that's kind of a random number, right? Everybody likes a big number. We've kind of stalled out around 1.2, 1.5.
I guess I'm an optimist but like dude, if I was in that position I would sleep.
Cuz like I was thinking like the, my Mount Vernon location at Peak they have about seven, eight employees, usually about five or six and they'll do one, 1.1 million, 1.2 million. And they have a storage container and $500 a month in shop rent. That's crazy. That's crazy, dude.
I would, I would.
Yeah, okay.
The 5, 600, they get the discount until the end of December. Even though we'll continue.
Why would not be prices there?
We raised how much last time?
So this last, this last year, that prepayment injection of cash kept us through.
That to a difficult time, which is January fairly hard.
Business is on Track to make $1.5 million this year, but has over $300,000 of debt. His bank account is in the negative. Last, last offseason he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. If that happens again, this business will go under.
Ominous. Today we're in Kansas visiting Olin from wetlands, irrigation and turf.
Business is on Track to make $1.5 million this year, but has over $300,000 in debt.
The business is on track to make $1.5 million.
No, there's something cursed about this street. I'm telling you.
It's pretty normal Havana, I have to say.
Let me redo that.
The grass does look nice if they actually take care of it. Oh yeah.
It'S so funny. In our area chemicals are so less common. We just don't have as many like crazy weeds. What's Mike and he's back studio And I wanted to make sure that everyone that's watching the vlog signs up for the event that we're having on Black Friday. Click the link below or go to mikeandy.com black Friday and sign up for a free training that I'm doing for everyone that's watching the vlog. We had it limited to 500 spots. We've now surpassed that. And so I'm extending it out to 500. I expect by the end of the vlog series that we're going to fill that up. So please go to mikeandys.com Black Friday there's been things I've been working on for over five years that I'm going to be sharing with you, and I think it'd be really valuable. Please make sure you save your spot. It is going to get filled up again. Go to mikeandy.com black Friday and register today.
Last night, we stayed at the nicest RV parking spot situation. Shout out to Love's Love's rv. It's RV Stop.
That's what it's called.
Yeah.
Has like, a dog, a pet thing. The grass is fertilized and irrigated. Every single stall has a nice light. It was great.
The showers were super nice.
Their showers. Whoa, whoa. Incoming dish soap flying. Okay. The showers were pretty fantastic. Not gonna lie. The best, probably the best public restrooms I've ever seen my life. Very clean. Would you agree, Francis?
I agree.
Then we came out to wetlands, turf and irrigation, or irrigation and turf. They do around 1.5 million in revenue. They do irrigation, install irrigation and maintenance, and then a bunch of spra and chemicals as well as Christmas lights. And really not a good situation. $300,000 in debt, zero cash in the bank. In fact, the balance sheet I had was negative.
And not good. Not good, not good.
So what do we do?
You turn it around.
Turn it around. The bottom line is if you can only listen to people that look like you, talk like you, and think like you, then you've narrowed your scope of people that can impact Life by like, 99%. Like, they're going to believe the same way as me. They got to dress like me. It's like, look, are we that shallow? Like, you're never going to learn from anyone. It's like, is there parts of someone, like mentors that I have that I'm like, I don't know if I necessarily want that? Yeah. But that doesn't mean they. They can't. I can't learn from them in other aspects.
On the i4G.LT it's just going downhill from here.
Francis.
If you don't like it, that'll kind of hurt my feelings. Because it's mushrooms. You like mushrooms. It's chicken. You ask for more protein. If this doesn't satisfy, you don't know what. William.
As hard as this trip is, it's like it's just all done in one run.
It's like, would we rather do four trips like this every year or do seven or eight.
Weeks trips? You know, just break it down and.
See how much money we save. If any is true.
It's not really the money. It's obviously the time away from the office and like all the breakup of our usual routine.
Y.
Exactly.
Doing that only four times a year versus like almost every month is.
Yeah, we definitely. This is our most expensive trip really today for sure.
But the fact that we get. The fact that we get nine turnarounds and probably like six or seven HSM videos. Yeah, like it's great. I'm a fan. Plus the vlog.
Plus the vlogs.
Technically, yeah, you're right.
Plus nine videos.
So if the vlog does well, maybe we'll do more of these. So maybe you should like subscribe, comment, share.
Watch it twice, just leave it on repeat in your car. Is that AVD average view duration?
Speaking of the vlog, Francis, are we allowed to see some of the vlog too? Question mark.
Today, Tonight, probably Like you have a long drive today, right?
Yep.
Yeah, I'm gonna work on today and then we can watch it. Easy peasy.
Watch. Party.
Face is so funny.
I gotta stick to the bit I already said.
Whoa.
But I feel like another skill that like takes a lot of time. Like when on the turnarounds, be able to identify when there's like a good moment coming up. And I feel like I have 70 accuracy, which is crazy. It's like I. I didn't record the whole thing on the little camera obviously as there's a way smaller SD card. I just like clip here, clip Here, clip here. 30 of them aren't used and then the other 70 are like in here.
I can tell because every time I hear, see, where am I? You know, I'm about to go into the kill.
I think we're. I'm going to start driving now unless anyone has objections, but. Oh, all you don't want to do is while driving. How long do you need?
I don't know. It's like there's eight questions. 10 minutes, probably 20. Okay, I'll go as fast as I can.
10 minutes.
No any other question?
If you say are there any other questions? I'll close your laptop.
Yeah, I'm the fastest. I'm the best. If I can't keep up, I'll just go back. Tell me what the mission is.
Okay, we. We are. We're 20 minutes away from this coffee shop. This might not be. I'm out.
40 because we gotta come back. I think instead we're just gonna go skate over to this memorial park and check it out.
Oh no.
No.
Out.
Good workout.
We finally got Augusta Longare.com.
Nice.
So instead of all the aliases. So now if you like someone sends. I have you@mygandies.com. yeah. Oh, you got it from the guy my gang we've had for ages. Mike Co I got as well.
Yeah. There's no way I can make this turn.
It's amazing to me that you can't drive a dually with a double axle trailer. And yet you can. A 70 year old can hop in a 40 foot RV, not have a CDL and drive it across the country. Insane.
We're in Colorado.
Finally. Dude, if I didn't live in Washington state, I would want to live in Colorado.
For real.
Yeah, this is my first time in Colorado actually.
No way.
What you do bro?
Pov I am right here.
Got to show him all the snacks he ate. Oh, have you shown him at some point?
What?
Have you shown the vlog all the snacks he ate?
No.
His entire rack of Oreos. Whole thing of Chips Ahoy. A whole thing of pretzels.
And we're on day what? Five?
To be fair, I help.
Wait. I ate carrying the boats. Yeah.
What are you talking about? Hold on. I knew I heard that. Just the way box in the middle of the night, 3am.
He has a little fishing mire. He just lowered down above his box bunk bed and just picks up.
RVs for babies.
Zach, can you hold it steady? I'm trying to get some footage, man.
Oh my God.
Stop.
We're more west when the gas price is now 339. Slowly we'll get to 539. Washington. You know Washington state this week is the highest gas prices in the whole country. Yeah, cuz they abduct due tasks.
Yeah.
A bunch of lovebirds. Disgusting.
Not filming it anymore.
You better go right now, bro.
That's not how this works.
