Fixing a Tree & Irrigation Company in 37 Mins (Coaching w/ Mike Andes)

I want to increase the customer value and struggling to come up with ideas on how to get back on their properties more times than once every three years or whatever it is. I've come up with a couple tiered maintenance plans kind of to sell as my idea was. Okay, we'll give you a 30 day warranty on this repair for free or you can sign up on these other packages. And these packages would give you different warranties. Like one was a 12 month warranty if we can come out four times a year. One, and it went all the way up to like a lifetime warranty. And all repairs are covered if we're out there like once a month to check your system over. But is that a good idea to implement something like that or do you have some other suggestion?

So how are you selling? Like, okay, so you're doing a repair at the end of the job. Like hey, if you want me to warranty this bad boy, I'll come every single month and everything will be covered. You will not have to have an unexpected bill ever. Is that kind of the pitch there?

That would be the pitch, yes.

And how did that go? Like what's the close?

I haven't, I haven't implemented it yet. I want to get, I'm working with my lawyer on the contracts right now to get everything set.

Okay. And okay, so first off, I think.

For this coming year.

Okay, fantastic. If you did that one thing this year we're, we're off to the races. Because this is the thing. There's three different types of revenue. There's one time jobs which I'm glad you've stayed, stayed clear of. There is reoccurring jobs. That's usually repairs of any sort because it happens periodically but not consistently. And then re. Recurring revenue which is you're on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Yeah.

So I like the shift towards recurring like you're doing. I really, really think that's a good move. I would not overthink this in terms of contracts. Like I personally, I wouldn't have a lawyer look at it. I would have, you know, put up a chat GPT. I wouldn't even worry about that because you're actually collecting the revenue before the problem exists. So this is what I would propose. And again, I'm not like the best at irrigation. We did a little bit. I'm not the best, but this is what I would recommend. I would do an inspection at the very beginning. I would give them what their repair is going to be.

Right.

I would say, Mr. Jones, this repair can cost you two different prices. One, it can cost you $2,000.

Right.

I'll repair this and we're good to go. Or it's going to cost you 1200. And then what I'm going to do is going to put you on a monthly visit, and I'm going to be coming, and it's going to be $99 per month, for example, and I'm going to inspect everything. I'm going to tweak any of the nozzles. You have a whole list of stuff you're going to do. You knowing that you're going to do all of it in a matter of five minutes. That's one way to do it. And that is what you're going to do is you're actually going to incentivize maintenance. The other way is you actually go the opposite, which is you charge a higher price, and then you give a warranty. I would do lifetime as the only option because it just makes the most sense to people. And then just tie the. The lifetime warranty to say, hey, we do. We need to come for a quarterly inspection. And as long as we do that and you. And you're on that program, everything is covered forever. And the reason you can say forever, Reed, is because people move their houses every eight to ten years.

Yeah.

And. And furthermore, if you do services and you come for, you know, monthly basis or quarterly basis, and you've made a thousand dollars a year on them, and that's what I'd be trying to shoot for is like, how much am I making per year from them? And then just backtracking and like, okay, I could replace their whole system every eight to 10 years if I really had to.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, now it just becomes an annuity. And so I would be. I would be heavily incentivizing current customers in your database to be like, hey, we now have this program. There will be no unexpected bills. You never will have to charge. You know, if you're tired of paying $800 or a thousand dollars because a pipe burst, Forget that. Pay 199amonth and you will never have to think about your irrigation again. I will turn things on. I will adjust things. I will repair things. I will maintain things. I will blow it up. I will start it off. You will not have to think about it. And then I would just pitch that monthly service across the board. And I would be very much willing to read if I was you. Take the risk of even repairing a job and eating the cost of goods sold in order to get them on onto a recurring maintenance package. So let's say there's a job you'd usually charge $500 for. I would. Instead of saying, hey, it's $500, I just, hey, why don't you just get on our 1 99amonth plan? And if you're on that, then. Then everything's covered and the first repair.

Is for free, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

And then I think the thing that you could do in terms of flexibility if you were really concerned about like a faulty system is on your initial inspection, bake that into the price that you offer them. So you could say, hey, this one's messed up. This is like a very complicated system. I know there's gonna be a lot of repairs. Okay, this one might be 299. There's eight different sections and there's. It's all over the place, a big sprawling area. So like you can kind of customize it. But the nice thing is then you have a package that you can go sell. And I would do instant pricing on your website, like have them sign up form, here's the pricing, here's what it's going to cost you. You could do it by zone if you really wanted to. But most people don't know their zones. Just like large, small, and medium. Which one looks like your property? It's price per month.

Right. I have an inspection sheet that I do when I go out to a property. It's. It's broken up by colors and in like, it has like a system health report, it gives how many zones, where each thing is located, what it covers. And then on the flip side of it, there's the recommended repairs that need to be done. And I can put the pricing and all that and everything on it. And so I built my maintenance packages kind of based off of that. So. So it was kind of by the zone. It was a flat fee plus so much per zone. And then like I said, it was a. I think it was a four, four times a year. And then there was a quarterly thing and then the 12 months, a monthly package for that.

So, yeah. So I'm a big fan of this. I'd simplify your pricing. I'd simplify your contract. I would make it a big long contract.

Right.

I make instant pricing from your website. I do door hangers.

In the spring, I had it marked up in four columns.

Let's go.

Let's fit on like an eight and a half by 11. I wanted to laminate it and have it with me in my folder. And I could say hey, here. Here's these four packages that you could choose from for your warranty. And it was all just like right there, easy to see.

And I would put it on your website too, so they can literally click on the one they want and they check out.

So even if you definitely something I'm.

Going to implement, you could take like a jot form. Like it's like eight bucks a month. It's very customizable how you do the design, integrate that directly with the zapier into copilot. So they fill it out, they click on the button they want it, checks them out, and they're in your system. I would eat the cost if I was you of like the being off by a few dollars. Because there will also be people that click on a large property when really they're a medium, or they'll click on medium when they're really a small property. But they think they're average compared to their neighbors. And so the. The actual accuracy of your estimates will usually even out with instant pricing because there will be customers that accept a higher price. And they're willing to do it because they don't want talk to you. They just want it taken care of. And they don't want five guys to come out and dink around and dig holes in their yard. They just want the problem taken care of and they're willing to pay for it. They want a flat monthly rate and they don't have to think about it again.

Awesome.

Cool.

Thanks.

You got it. Anyone else, feel free just to.

Hey, Mike.

Hey, Kyle. So I saw you last week.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I think it was maybe two weeks.

Two weeks ago. Okay.

Sorry.

It's flat.

All right.

So the reason I named my company Magnolia Lawn and Garden is because I'm. This year, this is my second year in business. Going into my second year, I'm going to be doing building like raised garden beds, stuff like that. I'm trying to differentiate myself from the. The landscape people that are, you know, doing, you know, rock beds, flower beds, that kind of stuff. And plus I like horticulture and you know, growing. Growing some of your own foods and stuff like that. The problem I'm having is I want to do it all. I want to build the huge beds, I want to build the little beds. I want build the in ground beds and the raised beds and the in the.

Winter bed.

I'm.

I'm blanking right now, but you know what I'm saying? Do you have any, any advice on that? I'm a oneman thing.

I don't know, maybe take some melatonin at night, take a good rest, sleep a little bit more.

Do you want me to convince you to do less beds? Is that. Is that really.

Yeah.

So is it a matter of, you know that by having all these beds, you can't systematize the business?

I think it's just a matter of.

Of God. I've always been told to niche down. You really niche down, like, so I feel like I should be. I should choose, like, raised beds or in ground beds. And. And that's all I do, you know.

Hey, so how. How much. How much of your revenue last year came from raised beds, percentage wise?

I didn't do any last year. Last year, I. I didn't get in. I didn't get into the business till June last year, so I didn't. It was everything I could do to get the little customers that I did get.

So the customers you got last year, where did that revenue come from?

Mowing cleanups, stuff like that.

Got it. So you just are passionate about the beds and you want to get into it, but you have not actually done these services for money yet, right? I'm actually.

I'm actually building my own right now, and I'm going to use that as my marketing.

Got it. So I would not. I would not abandon the money that's being given to you. Like, people are wanting to give you money for a service. I'd continue that, doing that. If you're passionate about the beds, cool. Do your own. Like you said, do the marketing. Try to upsell your customers, but don't force the market into something that they might not want. We have no evidence that a single person in your market wants raised bets. Now, is there prep potentially? I would. I would probably. I would agree there probably is, but we don't have any proof. I just know that people have paid you money to mow their grass, and so I would stick to that.

I'm not abandoning that.

That's not what I'm. Yeah, cool. And then just a matter of, like, hey, I'm going to try to upsell my existing mowing customers into this bed thing. And if the bed thing starts becoming 20 of revenue, 25% of revenue, 30 of revenue, there might be a day you're like, all right, I'm going to ax this whole mowing thing and just go all in on the raised bed thing. But I am concerned that we are trying to make a pivot in the business when we. We don't even know what that looks like. Right. So I would Keep doing your mowing. I'd get, I'd look at your mowing as your customer acquisition vehicle. Because if you get a mowing customer, the likelihood that they'll have you do raised beds is probably 10 to 100 times more than if you go after cold traffic.

Right.

And if you do a killer good job at your house and the few jobs that you pick up for raised beds, and then you present those to your customers who they already know like and trust you, the likelihood you'll be able to sell them on it much higher. And so I actually, I would look at your mowing as your customer acquisition vehicle, knowing that everyone needs that service and then refine your upsell process of when and how you sell your customers these other options. And I take down the three. Right. So if you have raised beds in ground beds or whatever, it's like I would narrow that down and then just be like, here are my three options. I know at these periods of time in the year, I'm slower on mowing and these other services. I'm going to pitch a segment of my customers on these other services at these periods of time.

Okay, I guess I didn't, I guess I should have clarified that. That is kind of my goal, like in the winter time, building this for my existing customer base. I do have a couple customers that I have told them that I will be offering this this following year and they said, oh, that's awesome. I'd love to have you do, you know, maybe a small one or medium sized one for me. But I'm, I'm trying to stay away from the traditional, like leaf, you know, leaf mulching and stuff like that during the winter time and have more, more project based, passionate work to do in the wintertime and fall.

Yeah, no, it sounds good to me. It's just, it's a function of you choosing that business model. It's going to be harder to scale because like there's, it's a harder service to install those compared to say, mowing. But right now you're solo. You got to fill in the winter. I'm a fan.

Thank you.

Yeah, I don't think it's way out of like, it's not too diversified either, by the way. Like, beds are beds. Like, I thought you were gonna be like, I'm the bed guy. And I'd be like, I'm so down with that. And you could make some really awesome jokes and marketing around that, but I, I don't think it's too, too like too wide. You're the Bed guy during the winter and you're mowing during the the summer, spring, fall. Right. Like I think a lot of times we think we have a seasonality problem when in rally we have an offer problem. Like during the winter you are going to be the beds guy. During the spring, summer and fall you are the mowing guy.

Yeah, right.

Thank you Mike.

You got it man. Anyone else?

Hey Mike, this is Brandon from Orange County, California. So I want to make sure that I am taking the proper steps. So I'm a one man show, just like the last guy. And I'm not getting burnt out about the business. My body is getting burnt out about getting on the roofs of three story buildings to clean solar panels or power wash or anything like that. I was hit and run over by a truck. I broke every bone. I was in a motorcycle accident. My body just can't take it anymore. And unfortunately I'm in California which means I also can't hire the work without workman's comp insurance that I need in order to keep the business going. So what I'm planning on doing is taking, taking a detour out of my business. I'm actually, I'm very good at sales. I love doing sales. I've always placed in the top 5% of, of any industry that I was in. So I want to get back into sales, make 15, 20k a month doing that and then save my money and in August pump all of it into Christmas, Christmas lighting, Christmas equipment, advertising, workman's comp insurance and staffing and then use that income to basically afford the rest of the business moving forward. So instead of doing the grind until I'm basically burnt out physically and I can't do it anymore, I can't keep up with my kids or anything like that. Just kind of take it, take it back a bit and then really get into to gear in August. Do you think that that's the right move I should do?

So just so I'm clear right now, are you cleaning roofs or building roofs or are you fixing solar panels?

I do exterior cleaning so windows, gutters, solar panels, all of that.

Got it.

So I, I was just taking down lights and I noticed that the guy's solar panels were filthy a couple of days ago. So I did them as well. And so I'm, I'm on roof a lot and not too long ago I had a client where they got shoddy work and the tiles, they never nailed down the tiles, the shingles and they slipped out from underneath me and I fell. And so it jacked up my ribs. So it's like I, my body just can't take it anymore.

I got you. So when you're doing under 200,000 annual revenue in the business, you're going to have mostly physical stress. Yes. So the way around that is to grow the business so that you do not have to work in the business. Now, I like the strategy from a financial like cushion perspective of, hey, I'm going to go get more cash. So when I jump into this business, I can scale it to the point that I'll be hiring people right away. Now, the alternative to this notion is that if you can create $200,000 a year in income by being a salesperson for someone else, I can guarantee you're generating between half a million and a million dollars of revenue for that person regardless of what you're selling. And so my, my inclination is why not just become a salesperson for your own business? Go ahead and bite the bullet in terms of the workers comp. But if you can produce 6, 700, $800,000 worth of sales by you knocking on doors and generating leads, I happen to believe you'll be able to afford the workers computer. And so like, it comes down to whether or not you want to bet on yourself or if you want to take a more of the conservative approach. The conservative approach is what you said, and I'm not opposed to it, especially when you have a family and things like you gotta do what you gotta do. But I would also say that if you can, if you actually can create $20,000 a month for yourself as a salesperson, it means you're generating somebody 600,000 to a million dollars. And I genuinely believe if you took that same skill and applied it to your own business and you got so many leads now, it's like, whoa, I got to hire someone now my costs go because of workers comp. Great. We have a $600,000 business and we're going to pay three, four, five thousand dollars a month on workers comp. Who cares? We will increase prices because we have so many leads coming in. So it comes down to your confidence in that skill. If you have that confidence that I will sell anything to anybody, I would just go do it yourself because you'll build a $600,000 business with equity instead of going $200,000 and getting half of it chopped off to the government in California. And so it's a betting game. Like do you bet on yourself with that sales skill or do you take that skill, go get the cash, and then come back In a year. And then I would also be questioning why are we going into Christmas lights when we already have this other thing that we know what to do, which is the exterior cleaning. Like that's a very seasonal business now. Maybe it complements itself. So maybe you do the cleaning and then you do like Christmas lights during the two or three months during October, November, December. But like I would be hesitant to say that only those months am I going to work because now your workers compared to is going to be year round and you have three months of revenue. Very, very seasonal.

Well, the only reason why I was thinking of Christmas is I've done it the last few years. The only reason why I didn't hit six figures in Christmas lighting alone. This year on Halloween, I rolled my ankle in a neighborhood with my son and I'm still, my ankle is still jacked up. So being on roofs, putting up lights.

I've taken a laid back approach on that because the very first house that I was on the second story of a steep incline, my ankle couldn't take and I was doing everything on one foot.

All right, Brandon, we have established that you are accident prone. We need to get you off of the ladders and off of roofs. So in order to do that, we need you to focus on the thing that seems that you're better at, which is sales. So I would highly recommend you spending like you can, you can do this in one week, by the way, if you can. If you have enough cash to, to hold your breath for one week, I would do this. All you're going to do is door knock and you're going to do door hangers for one week. And if in that one week you're able to get three weeks worth of work scheduled. So like, okay, so that's for example, February 1st, we're hopping in for one week. We're just doing door to door sales and door knocking. I'm going to be booking the second, third and fourth week of January and I'm going to hire somebody to start on that day. Now there's a huge gamble on yourself and it comes down to your confidence in your ability to sell. And so I think you know, only you know whether or not you could actually do this and actually sell enough leads to fill the schedule and then hire someone. But if you can, I think that's, that's the more aggressive approach and then the secondarily like to do what you just said. If you can make $200,000 a year being a salesperson, there's no reason to have A business that is $200,000 in annual revenue.

Yeah.

And roll your ankle and climb on ladders and roofs. So I would really, really say, like, either go get the job because you'll crush it there. If you can make 15 to 20 grand a month, do that as income or take that Skill, build a 6 to $800,000 business, because you just focus on sales and then get people to do the roof and ladder climbing for you, because obviously, you're getting hurt doing it, and we don't want that. Makes sense.

Cool.

Awesome, man. All right.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

You got it. Anyone else, feel free to unmute yourself.

Got another question for you, Mike.

Go ahead, Reed. Let's go. There's a small group today.

Let's go.

Yeah, we're kind of using this jump, this jump start with copilot as kind of our business turnaround.

I didn't charge enough for the first three quarters of this year, and so profits were way down, etc. We have very little cash on hand, etc. I would love. I mean, I'm doing probably about roughly 150,000 a year, but it is not very profitable at all. I would love to make it 250,000 by the. By this time next year or by the end of this year. So my question is, do I stay solo this year and work on my finances, get everything straight, or do I go ahead, I hire somebody, get a technician, train them up to do the repairs and such, and have multiple repairs going per day, or just stay by myself for another year?

I could have answered this question, but your camera is messing up, so I can't see. I'm guessing, is your wife next to you?

Yeah, she is. Yes.

Hi.

I would have been trying to read your body language, said that question, but I couldn't because the black going over your face. Because the answer to this question is, what does she think?

I don't know. Okay. I. I truly don't know. Okay. And so right now, Reid, you're doing all the work. You're doing 125,000 in revenue. You're trying to get to 250. Is that kind of like the benchmark? Your. Your question, though, is, do I hire someone now and go for it, or do I play it more conservatively, do it solo, stack up some cash for a few years, and then jump later on?

Correct.

Got it.

What are you charging per hour right now?

I'm flat rate right now based on now 200 an hour.

How many customers are in your database inside Copilot?

I'm working on trying to get everything out of my Angie. But in copilot I have 200, 240 something, but I have close to 800 in Angie that I'm trying to get out of there right now.

Like Angie's list. Is that what you have to sort them?

Oh, Lord.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, we need to do that. We have a love hate relationship. Oh, man. I know, I know, I know. Do you have a website?

What's that?

Do you have a website?

I do, yes.

Okay, good, good, good.

Okay.

Yep.

I.

That was one thing I did this year was to go with lawn care web design.

Okay, cool. I knew I knew the name. Okay. All right, Give me a second. If you don't mind me asking, what's your cash on hand right now?

Around a thousand.

Okay. That's important.

Yeah, that's what I mean. I've made a lot of mistakes.

That's okay.

I didn't raise my prices in time to recover.

We've learned a lot over the last year. Good, good. So that, that's like, hey, there are people that are negative big time. So let's, let's. You know, I'm assuming there's not tons of data in the business right now.

We have a truck and there's like eight grand.

Okay. All right.

Okay.

All right. Hey, we've seen worse. You're okay. So I would say there's enough financial stress to take this slower. Adding, adding more employees, you will grow the business faster, but your margins are going to collapse. So first off, finding someone that can do your repairs are very difficult in the repairs side of things. Your insurance also impacted because they will make mistakes. And so if I would you. I would go all in on this, this recurring maintenance strategy.

Right.

Because right now you're doing on average $10,000 a month. You can replace your revenue if. Let's just say we did 199. Like 199 packages. You need 50 people a month to replace your current income. Yeah. And so what I'm. I would do if I was personally you. Is it your slow season right now?

Yes.

I would go door to door. I would talk to every single one of your 200 people in your database. And ideally, when you get to 800, I'd probably do some sort of email thing and then text through copilot. I would talk to every single person again on the 199.

Right.

Because you need 50. And I would imagine out of the 200 in the past year, you've probably worked on maybe a hundred of them. And I would imagine your average ticket is between five and 700, roughly.

Yeah, yeah.

And so you can convince people to spend 199amonth or whatever. Whatever you think you can, you can come up with in terms of pricing, right?

No, I mean, I'm not afraid of that. 199.

What you might even do, Reid, is to test your pricing, is talk to your top 10 customers. And like, if I offered this service, what would you be willing to pay?

Hey, that's a great idea. Yeah.

And these are people that probably know you. They've worked with you a long time. You do repairs all the time. Hey, if I offered this, what would you be willing to pay? Now, keep in mind, willing to pay and actually paying very different things.

Right.

And so keep that in mind. But it's at least would let you gauge it so that you have the confidence to then go pitch it to every single customer. Like, I'm talking about, like, like, if you have less than a thousand customers, you can knock on every one of their doors. It is a matter of time. And so if there's 200 that are, say, warm in the past 12 to 16 months, I would knock on every person's door. I would have a, A, the, the layout thing that we talked about, I'd have that. I'd simplify it more. I'd go down to two options. One is like the express, and one is like the basic, like whatever you want to call it. And it is super simplified. It's super basic. And the whole, whole objective is sell 50 people a 199 package. You will replace your current income. And then once you have that, that's steady income, you know it's coming in, it's going to cover the personal bills, and you're in a better spot to then know that when you go hire someone, you have those bills paid.

Okay. Yeah.

Now, the challenging part about switching to recurring revenue is you have less cash upfront collected. So the challenging part with this is like when I say eat the cost of the 400, 500 invoice and get them signed up on a one night. That you can't do that when you have a thousand dollars in the bank. So this changes our strategy to we keep doing what we're currently doing, and on the afternoons, evenings, and weekends, we're knocking on people's doors and upselling into this package. And I'm going to put a thermometer on the wall with up to 50, which is the goal of these service packages that we have sold. When we hit 50 we get an employee because now we know we have $10,000 a month in recurring revenue. That will not go away. And I'm more confident to take a hit on my recurrent, on my revenue profit margins because you will go from 60, 70% margins down to 20 to 30% as soon as you get an employee.

Yeah.

Alternatively, what happens, Reed, is you get the 50. You're basically maxed out now just doing those inspections and doing the repairs required to maintain those, those contracts. And then you just raise prices. All right, now it's 249 and you just gave yourself a $4,000 a month raise.

Cool.

Yeah.

Best of luck to you. I know, I know it's a scary time with that low of cash. But like, I genuinely believe I'd go all in on recurring. I would make that the number one benchmark. I would simpl contract. I'd simplify the offer down to two, maybe three things. Don't worry about a contract with a lawyer and all the rest of it. What are you gonna do? Take someone over 199? Like it's just not going to happen. Right, right. And say, well, what about a big. What if there's a big massive repair issue? Like you, you supply the labor. So like even if it was a two thousand dollar mistake, you'd have to work a weekend.

Right? Yeah.

Cool.

You got this.

Thanks.

He's going to crush it. Let's go. Anyone else? Feel free before you wrap things up, man. You're letting me get into the irrigation business. Just talking about that, dude. Let's go.

It's, it's been a lot of fun. I grew up doing this with dad. I mean, this is my 28th year of working in the green industry. We had a landscape business together and we split off in 22 and just decided they would take the landscaping, I'd take the irrigation. And it's been a lot of learning, it's been a lot of growing. So we're excited.

I would say you have a lot of excess capacity. Um, because if you do the Math on your $200 per hour, it means that on average you're ma. You're doing about 12 to 14 hours of work a week. And so what that tells me is I don't believe you're only working 15 hours a week. I know there's like all this other stuff around the work itself, but that can become much more efficient. I'd be shooting for 30 budget hours or 30 like billable hours per 40 hour week, 75% efficiency. And so I, I Genuinely believe you can double the business and get to 250 just by yourself. The reason I can do that is like 1 99. If you're charging that per hour or 200 bucks an hour, that's only a thousand hours. Let's call it 1250 hours that you have to bill out every, every year. Yeah. So you can get to 2:50 by yourself. 100%. It'll just be selling enough work so that there's all back to back to back and not all the in between stuff of here's an estimate and then like doing a walkthrough and visiting them again like that's killing you because right now you' efficiency is like probably around 30%.

Yeah.

And we went down like 60 to 70 at least. So you can double the revenue of the business. You can absolutely get there. But focus on the recurring side and not having all this drop hat invoice here and then go and talk to the customer again. Then jibber jabber for 20 minutes you're in and out. You have them on the schedule, they get notifications that you're coming, they get notifications when you leave. You take a picture of your little of your sheet that has an inspection report they get in their client portal like you got it right.

Yeah.

So in staying with what I'm doing, I charge a 200 service fee plus the flat rate on whatever repairs I do. My 200 service fee covers a 45 minute consultation, so to speak, as we were doing the walk around etc.

And then I charge for that system audit. I do a per zone price on the system audit thing. I was planning on going with a 10 raise across the board on all the repairs prices beginning in March, you know, for any repairs that I do coming up in the springtime, et cetera. Because right now we're basically just dead. I was planning on going ahead and raising up those prices.

Like I said. I've been doing it for 28 years now. I kind of know how long it takes me to fix a 1 inch line. So I just kind of average that out and I put like an hour and a half on it. And I charge like $300 to do to repair the 1 inch line. So do that price increase or stay where I'm at plus the other.

Let me try this out. So okay, you charge $200 on initial upfront thing.

Right.

Let's say you have 100 new customers a year. It's 20 grand.

Right.

So is it safe to say that like 15% of your revenue comes from that $200 initial invoice, probably. Yeah. Okay, so like 15 or 20,000 a year.

Okay.

This is radical. I'm not saying you should do it. I don't have enough insights on your numbers, but I would consider. I would consider not charging that. I would consider saying, hey, this is what we. It's a 199 per month. You pay me 199. I'm coming to your service, and I'm going to service for the month. On that first visit, I'm going to give you the list of the repairs, and they're optional if you want to get them done. And I'll service everything but those things if you don't fix them. Right. So it's okay. My initial consults and audits are free, but you just have to be on a maintenance package. So it's 199amonth. I come, I'm going to be there. I'm going to do an audit. I'm going to tell you, these are all the things that are broken, and if you don't fix them, that's fine. I'm just not going to maintain them. Like, I'm not responsible for these. And then what's likely going to happen, you're going to upsell them to a 5 or $600 job, and then they're going to stay on the 199. And the reason you use it as leverage is say, hey, to avoid this 600, 800, $1,000 issue in the. In the future and have them turn it on and adjust it. And all this painful points you just go through, like, as they're walking around the property. Oh, this one's messed up. Yeah, I always blow it. You just go. All their pain points. Don't worry about this. Again, it's 199amonth. And Mr. Jones, that's the equivalent of like one repair a year.

Yeah.

Why don't you just have us on the. On the package? I'll fix these things, and then we'll get you on the package. Yeah, and then there is no up, because right now what you're selling is you're selling the initial audit. That's like the overcome when someone calls just like, oh, no, the audit is completely free. We do maintenance packages, but it's completely free to come out. Especially when it's dead. Like, if it's dead, like I just go get in front of them and get ready to sell.

Right.

Cool.

Cool. Yeah, I like that.

Let's go. Good stuff. Anyone else have a question before we bounce off? Go ahead, Michael.

I do. Yeah. So I, we did about 280,000 this year and I have two employees. I did not do a whole lot of the physical work and I'm really good at sales and I'm really good at the physical work. But the problem with like, I've kind of done more of the admin which needs to be done with the 280,000. Just talking with clients, doing the back end log and everything. The problem is, is that my mental health is not the best while I'm in the office and everything. I am more of a very physical, like, work kind of guy. And so it's been really tough this year and I've started to slip back into like not doing so well in the office. I find myself wasting time and it's hard because I just had a daughter and she's very distracting and I have work at home and I can't rent an office because we don't make enough money for that because I live in Colorado and it's very expensive out here. Yeah.

Cool. So first off, I can see you're sitting next to a window. Very cool.

Have you got a walking desk or walking treadmill and a standing desk? I don't highly recommend. Highly recommend. So walking treadmill is going to cost you 120. And then go on to one second, see if I can get the flex. A spot. Flex. I spot. It's $220. Yep. It's standing desk. If you spend that 350 bucks, like, literally it'll be game changer for you. Like you'll be able to walk and stand up and you will walk 10 miles in a day and feel completely exhausted physically. And it'll help with the mental side, right?

Yeah. And that's because I found myself wanting to get back into the physical. But I know to grow I gotta stay in the office.

Yeah. And I think there's a balance too, right? Like at 22270, 280, where you're at now, if you, if you're saying you're gonna stay there, I would probably say you could be in the field for 25 to 30% of your day or say two days a week in the office, two, three days a week out in the field. So like for us, for example, until my, until my, my manager is around 7,800,000 in revenue, they're working the field at least some part of the time. And so I don't think I'm opposed to that, by the way. So if you're going to stay around 270, 280, 300, 350. Now if you're trying to go to 6, 7, 800, yes, you'll probably be doing more sales, admin, et cetera. But if you're holding over your head like I can't go in the field because it's going to slow the business growth down, I would take a step back at your size and reconsider that, especially if it's going to help with mentally. If you said, hey, Monday, Wednesday, Friday I'm in the office, Tuesday, Thursday I'm going to go out in the field, would that be like, do you have that much admin to actually do every day though full time?

So I am actually in the field somewhat because we're a lawn and tree care company. So I'm an arbor. So I'm the one climbing trees and cutting them down and stuff. I haven't been able to hire anyone for that because it's a very, it's a highly skilled job and so it's hard to hire someone for that. So I still do that about two times a week, sometimes once a week. But yeah, I do a lot of sales. I like deal with all the taxes and other stuff like that, all the admin side and organizing and planning and it's, it's gotten better. But it's also like difficult because sometimes like I get distracted when I'm at home. And so it's very like I'm not as efficient as I think office person would, but I can't hire an office person yet.

Good news, good news. You cutting trees makes you more money than hiring someone to do admin work. What I mean by that is the constraint to fix this is sell more tree jobs because it gets you outside and it allows you to afford someone to do 15 and 20 per hour tasks that you could otherwise be making a hundred dollars an hour or 200 up in a tree. That is the constraint. Like I would be trying to get you out of the office. As much as I want you at a standing desk and walking on a treadmill, let's go. As much as I want that and I think it would help, Instead of doing 20 to $25 per hour tasks, I want you to go sell more tree jobs so you can get in a tree, make 200 bucks an hour and have someone else back of the office doing what they are good at and they enjoy doing and they don't have the same struggles you have on the admin side.

Okay, but what if I want to grow because like I'm trying to grow this to be about like a, you know, a 2, 3, $4 million business.

So eventually across that bridge when we get there. But to get, to get there, though, we need to get past 500,000. And what will get you past 500,000 is getting an admin person that does good admin and you doing more revenue producing work at 200 bucks an hour. And then when we do that enough, we will then have the money to hire that person full time, we will have the money to get an operations person, and we regrow to a million, etc.

Right.

And kudos to you for being so vulnerable. Thank you.

Yeah, of course. Thank you.

You got it.