Florida Turf Pros: TRIPLED Revenue in 2021 with Sod Installs! (RoundUp- Ep.2)

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to landscapebusinesscourse.com. today is a very special episode because we have the man, the myth and the legend, Jonathan from Florida Turf Pros. And so this is kind of the first time I've done one of these on Roundup. This is episode two. And I'm hoping we can do these weekly where we have a landscaper on here and we can talk to them about their business and what they're up to. So I have questions for Jonathan, but before I allow Jonathan to come on here so I don't embarrass him and.

So it doesn't look like I'm trying.

To pump up his tires, let me just say a couple things I appreciate about Jonathan. I don't have this in my notes, I promise, but Jonathan was actually one of the first people who kind of.

Really inspired me that I could do lawn care and landscape business related content without all of the equipment, without all of the hype, and just talk about business. So if you go way back to my videos that I first got started with, it's literally me against a wall. And I figured, you know what if Johnson from Florida Pros can do it and he can offer value. And I learned so much from him, other people can learn from me too. And so I want to say a big thank you to him for being that kind of inspiration to allow me to get started. And he is, I love so much about Jonathan is that he offers this content. I don't even know if Jonathan can hear us right now. Jonathan, can you hear us? You're in the waiting room. Can you hear me right now? You can't hear anything. I can't hear you. So don't worry.

You'll have plenty of time to talk.

But the thing, the thing I love about Jonathan is the fact that when you look at a YouTuber that is like Jonathan giving content about business away, he has nothing to sell. He's not trying to make money off of his audience. He is strictly making those videos for the benefit of the community. And I have to applaud that. Okay, I think we're back on now. I'm gonna go ahead and let Jonathan in and we're gonna jump right into it. If you guys have questions, feel free to comment in the comment section and we'll go ahead and get this thing started. Jonathan, welcome to the show.

Hey, man, I appreciate you having me. I was like, like over the weekend, whenever I knew that we were going to be doing this, like, I was almost so giddy. I couldn't even sleep, man, just to, you know, chance to sit down and chat with you. This is, this is gonna be good stuff, man.

Unfortunately, I really made mistake last year when I started doing some review videos of people and it became like that I was gonna tear people apart and be really negative. So I think it's kind of now followed me because so some of the other youtubers won't come on the show. And so I knew you'd be game for it and I appreciate you coming on. So, yeah, I wanted to kind of go over a couple things and kind of quiz you on some of the things that, you know, on my people. I put a poll out like, hey, what do you want to hear from Jonathan? And first of all, though, I want to kind of get a broad understanding kind of where you're at in terms of size of business. I feel it's really important to know the context of someone's the size of their business before hearing what they have to say about. About business because it really does depend so much on the size of your company. So can you kind of give us a quick overview for those of you who might not have heard of you or have watched your content but not know, don't know a lot about your business. In terms of how many trucks, employees do you have, how many lawns do you service and kind of like your revenue goals for 2021.

Yeah. So. So we are at our. This would be our sales sixth year in business full time. Right now. I have four guys that work with me. We have. We originally at the beginning of this year, we had set. Set up and planned to have two trucks and trailers out mowing full time this year. And that would have been probably the second truck would have been, I don't know, probably about 80 capacity or so. But what we did was, is we're having. We are really having a big struggle finding frankly just good employees and good labor and people in our area to run these trucks. So what I have done this year, I have condensed it back down to one. One crew that goes out. And most full time, they're at about 30 lawns a day. And they do that just pretty much all day long. And it's proven so far to be really, really good. I had originally planned again on doing those. Those two routes, but it's just. It's been extremely difficult for us to find people to go out and do the mowing side of things. So that's where we are right now is one. One truck that's out Mowing full time. And what I'm doing now is I have stepped out of the field, and I'm completely doing estimates and then handling the sod installation side of things for our business. So I did a video previously that we were going to be focusing on sod installations this year. And what we have found is, is that you cannot just go into sod exclusively, because what's happening is as many times people are wanting landscaping to go with their sod, and it just had a way of kind of building on itself. So what we were finding was, is I was in the nup, not selling jobs, because I could tell them, hey, I can install your lawn. But we don't want to do the landscaping side of things. So that had a way of pushing us into landscaping this year. So this year, from probably the end of February, we're now booked out at this point mid July, and we have been busy again since. Since February all the way. Just as absolute busy as I can possibly be. So. So to answer your question, Mike, we have one crew that's out handling all the mowing things for us right now. And again, there are about 30 lines, give or take a day, out mowing, just full time throughout the week. I'm handling easy landscaping stuff at the beginning of the week, and then we're doing our major sod installations at the end of the week and make landscape projects. As far as the revenue number last year, we came right at 300,000 is what we did. Again, that was our fifth year in business this year. Projections, conservatively, we're looking, as far as revenue goes, conservatively to triple that number just because of the overall volume of. Of the work with the landscaping installations. And then the sod, we're just. We've just hit, like, every single month this year. We've just about tripled what we did the previous year. We're just finding that these sod installations, they're just. They're bigger revenue numbers. And we're kind of just tweaking everything right now to make sure that we're still as profitable as we are whenever we're doing the mode side of things. It's definitely been fantastic for us so far. And I'm running like a tick on my head cut off.

But.

But it's been very, very good so far this year.

So one truck for mowing. I'm assuming two people on that truck.

Then it's two people on the truck. Sometimes it's just too much work for two people to get it done. And then what I do is I have firefighters, a couple guys that will jump in as needed. On those super, super big days where two guys can't get the 30, like we have more. One day we'll put another guy on the truck, we'll put them out with another rig to go out and just help, help get that work done. The. We've just found it to be very, very fluid this year. It's like nothing is just cookie cutter.

This the way it is.

You'll have this many yard to do a day. It's like almost like every single week we're having to take it. Like we're just in a massive growth phase right now. I was not expecting to go this much into landscaping this year.

So. So, so on the sod side, are you more involved in that side and the mowing kind of runs itself then?

Yes, yes, correct. I, I have mowed this time or this year, maybe two times. And really it was a matter of. We had some call outs and stuff, but mowing is as of right now, completely off my plate, which frankly, there's, there's no way I can mow right now. I just, I'm doing estimates, it seems like all the time. I'm having to be very involved, of course, with the, the project, you know, the execution of the projects with meeting with the clients, making sure everything's done the correct way. So my, my responsibility for the business right now has just been selling, selling, selling and then overseeing the projects, getting enough hands on board to get these projects completed.

Okay, so lots of stuff to go over, go over employees and all the rest of it, like how you're finding them. Right now, however, $900,000. I'm expecting a YouTube video called Worth 300% increase in my lawn care business this year.

Let me tell you what, man, because we just did overall volume of work, we're fine like you knocking out an 8, 9, 10,000, $16,000, $20,000 sod jobs. They're just happening bam, bam, bam, back to back. And it's just like, I don't, I don't know if we can keep this pace up. And like, it's really been a very, very tough, tough year. Just, I was not ready for the, for the volume of work that, that has, that has come to us. This is the first year I said I really want to put my foot on the gas and do sod work. And, and I was not expecting there to be the. I just wasn't expecting the volume that we've done so far.

This kind of brings up a point in one of the comments someone had posted knowing we were going to interview you, and they said they wanted to kind of recognize you for the fact that you've pivoted like four or five times throughout the past five years on where the business is going, what the general direction is. Obviously prior to this year, it was simplification. We're not doing projects. What changed your mind to think about SOD installed and what were you right and wrong about in that decision in 2021?

Okay, so the thing that I was right about was there is really, really good margins in the SOD installation. If you did the work correctly, there's. There really is great margins in the work. Secondly, the thing that I felt like I was, I was dead on was the labor for that job. It's. I can, I can get, I can get labor for those types of jobs. It's not an issue. Just, just doing what I have to to get hands on the job, to, to get the project complete. I. Ideally, in a perfect world, we'd have our employees, you know, on a slow day, come out and help us, but we just can't with the amount of work that's coming in with the landscaping and the sod, I'm having to just pull people that I can get a hold of right now. And it's, it's not a four turf flows employee. It. It's anybody who I can get to come out and help us get these, get these jobs done. So that is a good thing for me because again, that does not have to be a skilled employee. It's not somebody that I have to just train, train, train. I can just get anybody pretty much to do that now. I am very, very thankful and I like the people that come out and work with us. But again, it's not as technical as having somebody run and drive a truck for you, show up day in and day out on a consistent schedule. So again, the margins are really good. And then the labor was easy to get a hold of. And that's, that's been really good for us. The thing that I felt like I was not prepared for was I just, I don't know what I was thinking as far as. We didn't, we weren't ready. I was like, well, I'll just, I'll just get a dump trailer. I'll just rent a dump trailer, you know, and like, literally in the first three weeks, I'm like, I have to have a dump trailer, you know. So, like, we went out immediately and I was blessed enough, you know, able to get a hold of a dump trailer and got, got it in, got the production. And I sit to myself thinking like, okay, now I'm renting written in goes and I'm written many skid steers to tear up yards, you know, and get them everything.

Everything you preached against, then. Everything you preached against.

I know, and that's exactly it. And so here's the, here's the, here's the reason. Because.

What I want to do is, is my, my goal is to go faster than what I had been going.

I figured I was going to be able to stream like that with the sod installation. I figured it's going to be very, very cut and dry. We're going to go up there and, you know, cut yards out. We're going to install sod and this will be nice and cookie cutter. But it wasn't. It is people, like I said, people want landscaping and then just the overall volume. Like if I had the ability, I guess to just, just cherry pick just, just the perfect saw jobs, that, that. But that's not what we're doing. Like, I have people, I have a guy working with me right now and you know, he's, he's relying upon me. We're kind of parting it up on the, on the sod thing. Like we need to sell work. You know, I want to sell work to so he can succeed. So you kind of have this, this drive to, to go. Go bigger, do more than we were originally doing. We had the lawn mowing side of things figured out. It was nice. It was cookie cutter. It was just, it was on autopilot, you know, and, and it was a good thing. But you get a taste of going in there and doing sod installations or landscaping and you hit a few home runs with really getting your margins right, then it's like, we can triple what we're doing. Like, we can, you know, but it is, it is definitely not coming out of challenges, man. Because again, as you know, I've always pre simplicity. And here we are like, oh my God, like we're in the stick of things right now.

So where do you feel that line's gonna come? Because obviously you probably already start to feel like, okay, do you say no to a customer when they say, well, I want a paver patio and I.

Want a retaining wall and I want.

A pond, like, where's that line for you to say no? Like, I'm doing sod installs and I'm expanding, but I'm not gonna go in a certain direction to require that higher skilled labor.

So what we're trying to do is I'm not going to do landscaping jobs as standalone jobs. And that's pretty much what I've made my mind up on is that if you want us to come in and do a sod installation job for you and there's a landscaping aspect to it, we will execute that project and get it done. But at the beginning of the year, I was kind of like, well, you know, well, we can make another $6,000 on this landscaping project. Well, we're not set up for landscaping like, we haven't, we haven't worked out of the, all those kinks yet. Sod, yes. We're going to hit that out of the park every single time. But landscaping side of things, there's, it's just a whole nother animal and that I don't have enough experience to, to, to quickly get it up and profitable. And there's a big equipment investment. I feel like that we're, we're not ready for. So to answer your question, we will do the landscaping if we are able to sell a sod job with it.

So where does that line though come for landscape? Do you do everything to do with landscaping and hardscaping?

Everything.

Like where's that line come now?

We will do like flower bed tear outs and then reinstalls. We will do.

Pretty much, pretty much just a basic flower bed and design install for people. We're not doing irrigation, we're not doing patio pavers like you mentioned or anything like that. Just think of, think of a flower bed tear out and then reinstall and then a redesign, you know, drawing somebody up, something that's low maintenance, that works with what they already have. Very, very rarely are we doing a major. I think we've done probably like two, like you know, really big, like 16 or $20,000 job. Like Dylan had a couple of those. And again, it was, it was only because we were able to sell a saw job with that. But we're just, we're not set up with the equipment to do those types of jobs right now. So I really try to say no to do anything that's above a basic tear out and reinstall.

So I want to ask you like, so I know just from following your content, like years ago, the goal was like, you know, $10 million business grow, grow, grow. And then you take that period where you talk about simplicity, making things simple. You got out of margins, you start becoming profitable. And that was kind of the mantra. What is different now when you're thinking about growth versus let's Say three, four years ago, when you were also on that same growth trajectory. What's changed? Do you feel like? Because in my opinion, sometimes taking a couple years to get your feet underneath you, figure out your profitability, figure out what you're good at, figure out where you're going, get your labors from, is really a wise thing to do. What's different now compared to three years ago, when this was kind of the same goal back then?

Let me make sure I got your question right. So you're saying originally I had kind of planned on having a business of a certain size, and now, like, what? What's the difference? Like what. What made me change my mind? Is that kind of what you're asking?

Yeah, because one of the questions was kind of like, you know, at first it was you. You wanted, correct me if I'm wrong, at the very beginning, you wanted to.

Grow really, really big. Right?

Like from Jonathan Patosnik, long care millionaire. That kind of inspiration.

Yeah, yeah.

And then, then he kind of took a step back. Okay, I'm happy with, you know, this is what is right for me, for my family, for my business, for my profitability. And now it's kind of like, it's just like, hey, we're going to triple the business this year. What's different now, though, versus, like, what change do you feel?

Okay, so I guess the main thing for me was, is like, we had financial goals. Like, I want to pay off my house in the next five years. And you know, you're sitting down looking at the numbers on it. It's like, we can go faster. Like, it's going to be crazy for the next five years, and it's going to be really, really hard. But, like, we want to basically, Mike, we want to pile up a lot of money as quickly as possible. That's what we're trying to do. I know, I know. That's really what it comes down to. And really, when we had the mowing side of things, and the channel has always been, you know, let's streamline everything and let's just make it as easy as possible. And I think that attracts a lot of people, and it should. It's fantastic way to get your business up and running. And yet you can. I've proven that you can absolutely do that, be profitable, be happy, and have a successful lawn care business without doing anything more than having a successful. Several mowing crews. You really can do it. But again, if you're going to do that, you're going to go. You're going to go a Lot slower like I did for the first five or six years. But then for us, my, my goals and my family goals have changed to how quickly can we pay off everything and still have this much money piled up in the bank invested? And that's our goals. And for me, the fastest way to do that was to take on bigger jobs with higher margins.

So it sounds like getting the leads has not been the issue. It sounds like more getting the consistent labor force has been more of a problem or like I should say, the kind of the bottleneck. I should say, how has it been? Obviously you simplify enough to where you can get kind of unskilled labors. But is that difficult sometime, sometimes from a scheduling standpoint to know, okay, I can book three jobs this week because I know I have people or if I am trying to grab people part time or people I know or people that I'm not, you know, aren't full time employees, is that been a challenge?

It has. And I'll be very, very honest with you as far as the reason. I've had people that we count on for our mowing side of things call out. I've had people that had not shown up, people that in the past have been really, really good people. And whenever that happens and you're running such a lean, such a small operation, when somebody like super important like that calls out, it doesn't just. It's not like we have multiple other people that we can pull from different trucks and just go finish that day out. I directly affected by that. The estimates that day are directly affected by that. The project execution on the jobs that are lined up are directly affected by that over the next few days. So to answer your question, it's been a very, very challenging year with from the employee standpoint for us, not so much as the, as the unskilled labor, if you will, getting the sod jobs done, but the mowing side of things, having people show up day in, day out, you know, every single day. Like that's what we need, reliability every single day. And that's been really, really tough this year.

Cool. You mentioned estimates and kind of like the scheduling of those and how that's all affected. One of the questions was in relation to your end office support. Is your wife involved with that? Do you handle the phones? How if someone calls Florida turf pros wanting to set up an estimate, what does that look like? I have a feeling I know because I was watching one of your videos not too far back and you answered the phone with a customer. I thought that was super cool, by the way.

But do you answer the phones? How does that look now that you're tripling in size? Have you changed that system in the business?

So really right now it is still me and then my wife this year, this has been the first year that she has really taken ownership of doing estimates, calling people back. And it's been a huge blessing to, to get that off my plate, a portion of that off my plate. I still, she still works part time at a hospital in the area and obviously there's times when she can't, she can't do that. So I'm still very much involved in the day to day opera of answering the phone call, customer service type stuff. We've talked about maybe adding an office assistant to come here, but she, she's, she wants to be more involved and, and she wants to get her hands in things and she's very, very good at it. She's good at talking to people and she's good at the scheduling, customer service and stuff. So we're trying to, trying to include her more in that and I'm, I'm honestly trying to play catch up with her and teaching. This is the way we talk about this type of thing. You know, this is how we send estimates. This is why we do it this way.

You know, so go watch my videos, honey. Watch my YouTube channel.

That just unfortunately doesn't work that easy.

So because like, you know, tying into that because of Command Center, I have a lot of more. I don't talk a lot about office workers as much.

So I want to kind of dwell.

On this for a second because I know most of the listeners are going to be more in your scenario where perhaps their spouse is helping with the office side of things. How has that been like, obviously she's supportive of the business, but have you had to draw certain lines in the sand like hey, when I come home. Or we're not talking about the estimates that we didn't get to or the schedule. Like have you delineated that either by time or by roles with your wife?

Yeah. So one of the things that I've noticed is that whenever she has come into the office and she's very excited to help, but one thing that I have learned is that I have to be okay with letting some fires burn over here and I cannot get to everything at the end of the day and I come in at the end of the day and we've been working a 12 hour landscape job, slap worn out, all I want to do is shove food in my face. And get a bath and, and you know, we have, you know, seven or eight things that, you know, these are seven or eight people that they need your attention. Well, it'll be eight or nine o', clock, you know, and she's wanting to talk about those types of things or.

At least, at least she wants to do it and not the other way around. Yes.

Yeah, she's on me about it, man. She is totally on me. But we have struck that balance this year of kind of being like, okay, you know, at this time during the evening, this is our cutoff time. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if the world's burning down around us like this. And I really feel like you have to do that, at least for me, because if I don't, there's always work to be done. There's always something to do, like whether it's customer service or putting your foot on the gas for generating more, there's always something. So you have to be very, very careful about doing too much too late into the night. And I would just tell everybody out there, just set a stopping point for yourself every day and be okay with that.

And right now you're booked out to mid July, you said, with the sod jobs. Are you actively having to turn jobs away or people are saying, I should say, are people canceling once they know you're three months booked out?

So I'm very honest with people on the phone and really our market, a lot of people are booked out. Like if you have a good reputation, you're booked out. In our market, there's so much housing development, so many people are wanting things done, but I'm honest with them on the phone and we have kind of found like the two month mark to be kind of like the cutoff. Like if you're, if you're much after that, then there's like, well, you know, we'll call somebody else. Usually what happens is they call a bunch of other people and then you never get a phone call back. So we try to follow up with those leads as it gets closer to have you found anybody yet? But, but what I tell people is, is hey, you know, we're, we're six to eight weeks out knowing good and well we're, we're eight weeks out. And I, you know, or, or, or 10 weeks out and I tell them we're six to eight weeks out and I'll do everything I can to work you in sooner, you know, if we get caught up during the week and, and usually that at least people Let people understand, like, okay, he's going to really, really try. And we've been able to do that a few times this year. But it's just. We're in a very, very. Our market is growing right now. Houses are going up like crazy. And it's. If you're not making money in the landscaping industry, you're frankly, you're doing something wrong.

People from my corner of the country moving to your corner of the country, my friend.

Come on. I'll be honest with you. We need. We need another good couple mowing company. I'll tell you what, man. Oh, no, no.

I mean. I mean, people in my area. Sorry. I mean, people in Washington state moving down to that side of the country.

Oh, man. I tell you what. You put a house in the market in our area, you're going to have multiple offers, $50,000 above the asking price, and it'll be sold in 24 hours.

So. So when it comes to the estimate side of things, how does that work? So your wife is taking the phone calls. She's getting the contacts. Is she staying up in the evening? Say, for example, like three to six? You're doing estimates. Is it sporadic? Do you have certain days? How are you setting up your estimate schedule right now?

So if she is. If she is off, what she does is she collects. She answers all the phone calls on her off days. She's typically off three days out of the week. And she will answer the phone for me those three days. And again, it's a tremendous help whenever she does that. Okay. And what she will do is, is if she can. If she can pretty much say, okay, this call, Jonathan does not need. I don't need to bother him with this. She handles all that. But if there's a bona fide estimate that I need to do, she starts to pile them up. And what we kind of did was at the beginning was I was kind of running around and. And doing estimates on Tuesday just because that's when I was free to do it. Or. Or I had a break in my schedule on Thursday and it didn't work. It just. It wasn't good. And you had said something the other day about just piling up your estimates on one day, and I made. I. I implemented that. I'd actually implemented that a little bit before. But hearing you say that was like. Yes, like, that's. That's exactly the way you're supposed to do that. You tell people, I do estimates on Monday, and I'm gonna do them all day on Monday, and that's what we're gonna do, you know, so, so to answer your question, what we do now is she gets a lot of estimates for me, we pile them up and I go out on Monday and from like 7:30 in the morning till as long as it takes to meet everybody, that, that's what I do.

Cool. In the comments section we have someone asking about how you're marketing the sod installs. One of them is stalking you in your website and said you have nothing. No mention of sod installs. So tell us kind of how you're getting that word out. Are you using postcards? Are you using door hangers? Just word of mouth to your existing customer database. What have you done to kind of break into that market?

Okay, so to be honest with you, I think the name Florida Turf Pros has a lot to do with people because whenever you type in Sod Care company near me or Sod installation company near me, we're at like, we're the one that comes up. So we're organically coming up in that search result. Even though our website, our website was supposed to be done a while back, frankly about two months ago, but we're still waiting to get that update done. But we don't have anything on our website about it. But people will see Florida Turf Pros with a lot of good reviews. And then we get phone calls and I get estimates to our website people specifically asking for Sod Care SOD installations. And to answer your question, it's really kind of shocking to me that we have got that much, that many leads without actively going out and putting postcards out everywhere and saying that we do it. But we have found that if you go out and do a good job for somebody in an hoa, if you go out and do a good job, here's what we have done that has. This is the key to it all. We will shoot.

Game changer. Game changer.

This is it. If you want, you wanted something good guys here. So we shoot about a 30 to 60, 60 second clip of the job from start to finish. A before and after. It's very simple. My, my editing skills are, they're horrible, honestly. And. But you don't have to, you don't have to be fantastic with it. So what we have done is, is we have taken the before and after videos of these and again, it's only 30 to 60 seconds and we have got our clients who we have done these installations for. They, they share these enclosed Facebook groups throughout the neighborhoods and whenever they do that and they put out basically A recommendation. Hey, these guys did a fantastic job. And people are so excited when you're done with their yard. They're just excited to share and frankly kind of brag to the neighbors like, hey, look what I got done type thing. And.

We have found that to be the ticket.

Awesome. I want to go back. I know we talked about sod quite a bit because that's what you're really focusing on now. Which, by the way, from a percentage standpoint, do you think it's about 80% of the business now? Oh, gosh. From a revenue. From a revenue standpoint.

From a revenue standpoint.

I wouldn't say it's probably 80, Mike. It's probably.

I don't know, it's probably a little less than 80 of what we're doing right now. Yeah, yeah. The mowing side is still very, very, very good and very, very profitable for us. It's just. We just do really, really well with that. But I don't know the exact number as far as the percentage goes, but I know it's taking up 100% of my time.

The next thing is going to be, I'm canceling mowing. There you go. So when it comes to mowing, though, I remember you. The very first video I saw, which I don't know how many people. The same way the trailer list set up. Right. This was the inspiration behind really what we've done. The trailer set up way back when I always wanted to do it, trying to figure out how it would work. We have to bag clippings in our area, so we have to leave the bed of the truck open. That being said, you mentioned you have two trucks and trailers. Do you use trailers now for mowing? Have you shifted your focus to larger properties? And where is is it? Does it still exist, the trailer setup?

So we actually sold the Ranger. No, it doesn't. We are using trucks and trailers for our business business now. And the reason being because the trailer was set up for us, it was perfect at that time for our business. Whenever I was out running a 36 inch standard, man, frankly, you couldn't beat it. And if you're starting out and you want to stay lean, I still stand by doing that. I really do. We had just the bare necessities on there. And I'll tell you what, whenever it was me and just a helper out there, that was absolutely some of the most profitable days of our business is going out there and just absolutely raking yards. You know, with that setup, it was so much fun. But really what we found Was is we had to get a 52 on the vehicle as well and then a 36. Because we do have different size properties in our area. We, we take our. Our wheelhouse is quarter acre, two and a half an acre. And frankly I don't, I won't do, I don't do anything over half an acre anymore. But if you put a 52 inch mower on a half an acre property, you do it. It's just lightning quick. It really is very, very fast. And we've just found by carrying two mowers, there's not a property that we can't do in our area. And it just speeds things up. The timing with two guys is better many times with a 52. So if we can put 52 on a yard, that's what we will do. We use the 36 as needed through the back gates where at the beginning of the business we only carried the 36. And that was perfect for that, that ranger type setup. But again with carrying multiple mowers now just the guys don't have to, you know, do inter. You know, come back and get different mowers which just. It's easier for us to carry. Carry the mowers on a trailer and put our, like you said, the clippings on the trailer. Carry extra trash cans and that type of thing on the trailer. So I still think it's good if you're starting out, but for us it just kind of if now it's not.

So I think honestly though, this is the thing that I really respect about you and people that do something like this. And this is you don't romanticize your opinions and when you, you realize that when the business needs to pivot. Right. Like I think sometimes, especially for people who are making videos and sharing it publicly, their opinions on certain things. Like if they said that landscaping was all that in a bag of chips and that's all you, how you can make money. They won't switch to mowing, even though they know that's what's right for their business or vice versa? Right, right. Like someone like yourself making a video like that, you would either take the video down or you would say, you know, you just keep going down that direction. Why is it important in your opinion to be able to pivot and realize when you were wrong or when the business needs to change directions? And why is that like healthy for the business?

Yeah, I just think that that's the beauty of entrepreneurship is like you get to call the shots and what was good for your business. Two years ago is not the best thing this year. And you have to be willing to, to make those adjustments. Yes. Does a small trailerless setup work? Yes, it did for us that time. But it's just, it's just something that if you're not, if you're not willing to make that quick adjustment and be real and say, hey, that was right for us then, but it's not right for us now and we're going to fix it. I do that every single year. I literally, and it's so basic, but I just sit down in the winter every year and I just write out what can we do better in our business? And many times it means changing stuff that worked for us the previous year. But I've always asked my guys too. I asked them people who are working with me, like, what can we do better like this year, you know, from an equipment standpoint, from a routing standpoint, you know, from those types of services that, you know, you think that we should be offering, you know, like how big of headstreaming jobs you want, just all that stuff and you, you have to be willing to pivot and change things up. And again, I think that's, that's the beauty of owning your own business is being able to call those shots about what you think it's best for your business.

Kind of mentioned there a little bit about your employees, talking to them about the services that you want to offer and things. Have you had an employee or employees that have really stuck with you for the full five years? What has that looked like over the course of the past five years in terms of your employees? And in Further secondary question 2021, what's that been like, finding employees and the bottleneck for really a three month backlog that you now have?

Yeah, so. So starting whenever we started the business, I had my brother who was working with me and he was good for us at that point in the businesses life cycle. He's since moved on, done different things. And then I was really blessed to get a hold of a couple firefighters, guys who were needing part time work and they were very, very consistent for me. And then I found two brothers that they were, they were perfect. I mean they showed up day in, day out, they were with me for three years and they were somebody. I was like, okay, I can build my business on this. And without getting into too much of it, they just, they just had some things that they just couldn't get, couldn't, couldn't figure out on their end. And that kind of threw us for, for a bit of a tailspin you know, I was really kind of planning on building my business with these guys, like, really kind of just pulling these guys up and just, you know, making them, you know, just, just helping them out and then really just getting our business to the next level. Well, I was very, very disappointed by that. And so we had to. Had to pivot. And last year, one of my best friends who I grew up with, he. He was in Texas, but he came home at the beginning of last year and he, he worked with me and he has been an absolute blessing for the business. I mean, it's just been. It's been fantastic. And he has, I guess, been my kind of like my solid. Whatever I need. Like, he's. He's there, he's ready to go. He's been super, super reliable. Then I have another couple guys that, who are my crew supervisor and then another couple employees, and they're doing a great job. But again, we go back to the reliability issue. It's just, it's. Anytime somebody calls out, it's really, really tough, man. So to answer your question, I felt like at the beginning I had a group that was really going to just, we were going to go the distance with. But over the last year or two, I've had to. I've had to be more flexible with who I bring on getting rid of people and, you know, paying them really, really well and, and doing easy yards. It's just you can't make it without complaining. You can't make it too much easier for people to come in and show it to work. But it's just been very difficult for us.

Have you. Are you actively looking in, like, hiring right now, or is it more. You're kind of taking, you know, only people who you kind of know or.

Have been referred to.

Yeah.

So last year we had to start reaching out, and that was the first year that I really started hiring people that, that I didn't know. And I guess that's when the real challenges came was whenever we were bringing on people that, like, I had, they, if they call in, it didn't matter, like, you have to see me, you know, over the weekend or, or that type of thing. So I found it was very, you know, good in the beginning of the business to have your friends working with you, but as the business kind of progressed, that doesn't work. At some point, you have to, you have to get other people surrounded. You create an environment that they want to be at, and, and, and basically, you know, you have to kind of all be in this together. And I'M still learning how to do that. I'm still learning how to create an environment where, where people are really, really just bought into what you're doing.

Cool. Very cool. And okay, I have to address this new personal truck. How's that treating you?

Oh, my gosh.

It'S fantastic. It's not. I absolutely love it. I hate to absolutely hate how much it costs. And I know you did a video on that. And I'll tell you what, Mike, I saw my name pop up on this. Oh my God. Said, oh my God, he's done reign me, you know, and I, I logged in there and saw you're very, very gracious. But yeah, there's no, there's no justifying the cost of those new vehicles. But I'll tell you what we had. I saved up a pile of money and we hit a lot of the goals that we wanted to hit. I said, you know what, I'm just getting that I want. I was tired of driving the Ranger and 12, 15 year old, 1500.

That's awesome. That's awesome. So speaking of goals, what is the next step for Florida turf pros continue to grow past a million? What, what is the. Obviously, no money aside personally, you know, pay off the house, things like that. Great goal there. Where does the business go from here in next few years in your mind right now?

You know, that's a conversation that I have with my wife. It seems like about once every every month or so. And I felt like, I felt like whenever we had two money crews up mowing full time, I just felt like we were on autopilot, like everything was so easy and I'm like, what else do we need? You know, like, this is, this is it, you know, like, I'm taking home a fantastic salary. We got plenty of money left over. The business at the end of every year, taking nice vacations. Everybody's happy, employees are happy, like, what are we doing? Like, why don't we need more money? And then it's like, well, because I'm 36 years old and I got a long way to go and I have the ability to do more than what I'm doing now. And I done a video on a while back, you know, you know, about what do you do whenever you check off all the boxes that you wanted to accomplish whenever you were starting out? Like, what happens when you hit those goals? Well, I felt like I'd really reached that point. And I'm not going to say I got bored in the business, but I'm going to say that I Felt like I was capable of much more. And I felt like I would have been short, changing my family if I didn't push a little bit harder. I would have been shortchanging the people around me if I didn't push a little bit harder. So to answer your question, we don't have a definitive like, okay, this is our end revenue number or this is how many years that we want to work. We know right now we're going to go as hard as we can as long as we can, pay off as much as we can, and pile as much money as we can. Because one of the things that we've talked about is, you know, with our business being so reliant upon me still, it's. It's a. It's a. I got to. I have to work while I can, and I have to provide and do as much financially for our family as I'm able to at this point in my life. And I don't want to just be kind of coasting along and then something happened in five or 10 years, you know, whenever I know that, you know what, like, gosh, if I had to put my foot on the gas, you know, five or 10 years ago, we could have just been set for the rest of our lives.

Can you see the comments when they come in or not?

I got the. He was hardest working man. I know. I'm super proud. Oh, that's my wife. She's on here.

Let's look at there.

Yeah. She said even if he. He wants to throw song with him, she has been begging me to come out in the field, and I just won't. I won't let her do. Man, that's awesome.

So you kind of alluded to there a little bit earlier, and that is just the amount of pressure right now with being booked out, having a schedule that's booked, having employees that, you know are inconsistent, all of that pressure after five years, this time we're in the middle of spring rush. A lot of people are booked out. A lot of people are struggling with employees. What has been your recipe? Or maybe Jamie wants to chime in here to help therapy for you, but what has been your sort of methodology behind making sure you don't burn out during this time and you're actually more consistent throughout the rest of the year instead of just laying it out on the field and then pittering out because you're so exhausted in June, July?

Well, I can tell you that the off season for us, November, December, January, and February, for me, that is a time of recuperation. It truly is. I feel like that is a time when I just, I completely recharge and it seems like every year come, you know, late February and March, I am chomping at the bit. You know, I just have a million plans for the business and I'm just, I'm raring to go. But I feel like this year has been the, the busiest I've ever been. I've worked the hardest I've ever worked. I've worked the longest. Much more going on than there's ever been. And that goes back to simplicity of services and exactly what we have not done this year. But I just, for, for me, I have to, I have to slow down on the weekends. I have to. If I don't slow down on the weekends. And again, we could keep doing estimates on the weekends. I could work through the weekend to get up on work. But we just kind of have this thing. We're like, look, on Saturdays and Sundays we're not, we're not answering the phone. We're not doing anything on email. Like we're not doing anything after six o' clock at night. You know, we're just, we're just not. And I can't for my mental rod, mental to hell. I can't do it. So.

Okay, so we're going to wrap up here. But before, before we do, I have to get something besides lawn care out of you because we hear about that.

All the time on Florida turf Bros.

So outside of work on the weekends, what are you doing besides just spending time with family? What, what are some things that you like to do outside of work?

So my, my son, he is a baseball player. We travel all over place the, the Southeast. I'm doing baseball tournaments for him. We're, we're caught up in that. I personally I, I love fishing and I love hunting. So during the fall and winter I'm. I'm hunting is what I'm doing. Early spring, before we get kicked off lawn care, I'm out fishing. I love being outdoors, Mike. Just anything outdoors, like that's, that's me. Even on the weekends, you know, whenever we're supposed to be resting, it still seems like I find a way to, just to get outside and be in the sun. But other than that, like, like you said, family, family time is important. We go to church on Sundays and that time for us is just, it's just, it's just good time. Just a good time to be together.

Very cool. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and open up the Q A here because we got about 10, 15 minutes here left. I'm gonna open up. Just the most recent question here. And you can see these right there. Jonathan, say that again.

I can see. Yeah, I can see, though.

Cool. So John McGuire asked, how can we be sure our employees maintain our company's quality when out on their own. Can you go ahead and address that for us?

I will. And that's something that we've struggled with, John, this year. Frankly, I have had more callbacks this year than I have ever had. And one of the things that has worked for me is, and I don't know what else to do is I have went behind, literally, and told my employees, like, hey, I'm going behind a spot, checking everything, you know, like, this is what I'm going to do for the next two weeks, you know, And I have. I have literally done that. And once they know you're serious about that, that helps. But I think. I think the end goal would be to. To get them to buy into, you know, I just want to do a good job because my name's on it. Like, I'm the person doing this, man. Like, and if you don't. If you don't really. If you don't have a person who. Who takes ownership and pride in the work they do.

You'Re not going to wring it out of them, man. You got to just find the right person.

I know right now what kind of where you're at now with the business, it's a matter of trying to keep the people, and you're going to pay them probably, I imagine, a premium compared to the competition, obviously, with 20, 21 at heart, is to find people. What are you paying versus, like, competition just in general, like, round numbers.

A solid, solid 8 to $10 above the confidence. Wow. Yeah. Solid 8 to $10 above everybody in our area. Yeah.

Do you feel by having that, that higher wage, you can almost, you know, demand or, like, require that higher level of expertise?

Yeah. So whenever we do put out ads, I put out a Facebook ad a couple times this year. And even as difficult as it is to find people, I had about 40 people apply for, for that ad within a matter of two days. And that's. That's pretty much unheard of. But it was strictly a result of people seeing the number that we're willing to pay for somebody who does a good job and is willing. But obviously, with 40 people, you know, you might get 10 that are worth looking at. And then out of that 10, two are, you know, actually good, good people. So we just found that Paying. Paying really well will kind of get people interested, but you still have to. You still have to filter them and make sure the right.

Nicholas asked about kind of how do you connect with a firehouse? I know you mentioned you have a couple firefighters you've connected with. Was there something specific you did?

Nope. So whenever I grew up, I grew up cutting grass for my best friend, who, I told you he was from Texas. He's come and working with us. His dad is actually a firefighter. Well, I cut grass for his company, so his dad actually started working with me as being at our. Of our business. So it kind of came full circle that he jumped on with me and started working for me. And he was connected to all the firefighters out there, and he told them, say, hey, you know, this guy pays really well. The yards are super, super easy. You know, you work Monday through Thursday, and you light stuff on Friday. So I was very, very blessed to get some people from the firehouse interested as a direct result of one of the employees that worked with me.

So I have a question here. And it kind of has to relate to the fact, like, I think sometimes people, when they do simple services like sod, for example, or mowing, that you and I kind of are so passionate about, and they are somewhat allured by the bigger projects, more money, et cetera. Someone listening to say this, this episode, saying, okay, I only mow. I should go do sod. What are the precautions? What would you tell that person, like, hey, that might. That might be the right thing for you to do, but here's why it might be just good in Florida, or.

Why it might be good for me.

Or what would the precautionary tale be.

That you would tell them the cautionary tale that it would be. Be very, very careful about overextending yourself. Even if the margins are fantastic, you have to be sure that there's. There's room for you to get the work done and execute projects. And that means, do you have the time to do it? Do you have the staffing to get it all done? So just because, you know the work is there, you can really screw it up, man. You can screw up your margins. You can work a lot harder and solid installations, you know, and make a lot less money. But the flip side of that is if you figure it out and you get the right people on board to help you out, you can do really, really well with the side installations. And again, it's right for me. In my market, houses are going up like crazy. People are wanting to spend money on Their landscaping. So it's, it's an easy thing for us to do. But I would just advise people of, you know, be very, very careful about going and getting a mini skid steer or, or, you know, some type of mini, you know, something to move, to move earth. Because those are big pieces of equipment and represent a substantial investment.

A lot of people are asking about the future of Florida turf pros. Content related. I'm just wondering, are we going to see oddly satisfying sod installation videos in the future?

Yeah, I don't think we're going to do oddly satisfying sod installations, but I will.

Oh, I'm telling you, a drone shot up in the air.

Somebody. Somebody's gonna do it, man. You literally put it out there and it's gonna get a. It's gonna get a million views. So.

It'S gonna happen. But no, I, I feel, I feel bad to an extent for not having put out content more consistently. I hope that the people who have listened tonight will understand, like, and we are running out. I'm running out of breakneck speed this year. Just trying to play catch up with everything. But if, if I do post a video, it's going to be stuff that worked for me, man. We have a.

We have the chief. The chief center here.

Hey, hey, I'm not kidding, dude. He'll post a pressure washing video and I'll watch it for five. Why not?

That's what we do in the weekends.

That's really what we do on the weekends.

Jonathan, what height are you cutting? St. Augustine. What blades do you use at the.

Beginning of the year in our area, whenever it's like, really wet and nasty with all the weeds and stuff, we use, like, the flat blades that have no lift on them. And we just want to get that, that grass out of our, out of our deck. We don't want to run the high lift, like, later in the summer whenever we find the grass is like, really, really dry and it tends to lay over a lot better. We'll use those high lift blades because it's no problem getting that. That grass to lift and getting it out. But really, I don't. We don't run high lift rates in the spring just because it clogs up the deck so much.

Cool. All right, well, I know there's more questions, but I'm going to stop it there. I have a request that you make more content, though. We need Florida turf pros to come back. I don't care if it's just a.

Camera on your phone. We gotta get some more content out there, man. You're right. And you know what the bad thing is, Mike, Is like, I have literally. This is so embarrassing, but I have literally probably made 10 or 12 videos that I need to just drop that are sitting there.

Just.

Just put them all in one day.

Just put them all in one day.

Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do. I. I really wanted to share the videos that we're doing to generate SOD work. That's if you're interested in doing sod. I think that if you see how simple it is that what we're doing and how we're getting our clients to circulate these and these closed Facebook groups, I think that's going to be a really, really valuable video for you. That's what we have done, and it's just generated a tremendous amount of work.

I'll drop that video before we wrap it up. Jonathan, what would you share with someone that was just getting started in the industry this year? I feel like this is big thing I've been thinking about, and obviously with our franchise, we always are starting. I always feel like I'm just starting, right. Because as they open up, I feel like I'm trying to get them in the groove. What would you share with someone just starting now in 2021, with the labor market the way it is, with the housing economy the way it is, what would you share with that person? As an overall, just from a landscaping.

Universe world, I would say that this year you need to focus on keeping things simple. And in this particular market, it's going to be a grind with the employees, the staffing, and you're going to have to stick it out. I think this is going to be a tough year. You're going to have to just put your head down. Like, that's it. You got to put your head down and. And just do the hard stuff. I'm not talking about working until you're killing yourself, but you just have to go in this with the expectation. Especially, like, if you're starting out, like, man, there is a.

You.

You've got to pay some dues in the beginning, and there's no other way around it. There is no. We're going to start. Start the ground running. And if it's going to be peaches and cream, like, it's not, man, it's hard work in the beginning. But don't let that keep you because after that first or second year, like, it gets easier. Like, every year it gets easier. It really does.

Awesome. Jonathan, thank you so much. And I Know I said it beforehand, but I really appreciate everything you do for the community. And every video you make is completely for others because it's not like you're trying to sell anyone anything. And I really do appreciate that. Even for someone like myself, Obviously, I'm promoting the franchise and. And courses and all the rest of it, but for someone like yourself, everyone, I think, listening tonight and your followers, just a big thank you. You inspired me when I was 17, 18, trying to look on the Internet, trying to find people talking about business and not just mowers. And so I want to say a big thank you to you as well.

Yeah, I was. I was not expecting you to say that. I did not know that at all. And that's really, really cool. Really, really humbling to hear you say that because I've looked at your videos, thought, man, this guy just has it all together, you know, like, that's. He's got to figure it out, you know? And one more thing. A video you had posted the other day about some of the struggles that you had had during your landscaping this year in particular, has been very, very tough. I gotta tell you. That, for me, was a very, very timely video just to hear, like, okay, even Mike Andy, you know, who has multiple businesses running on all cylinders, it was just refreshing to hear somebody say, man, sometimes it sucks. Like, sometimes it's really, really hard, you know, and it just. It just came at a really, really good time. And I appreciate you. You sharing that. That type of content.

Awesome. Jonathan, we'll have to do it again. I'm hoping sometime we can get a few more people on here and kind of do more like a roundtable.

So I'm definitely gonna have you, hopefully.

As a second guest. We'd like to have Jamie on. Like, I saw Jamie one time on a video.

I'm just saying Jamie could always come.

Out instead of throwing sod put, pick up the camera, make a nice little video. We all appreciate it. Jamie, I know you're watching. So, you know, we look forward to more Florida Turf Pros in the future.

All right, man. Well, she's gonna be on me about it now because now she's got Mikey and he's on her side.

All right, brother, take care. Have a great evening.

Yes, sir.

We'll see ya. Well, there you have it, everyone. Jonathan from Florida Turf Pros. I really appreciate him coming on, being kind of the first guest, and I hope that down the road, every week, we can do one of these roundup episodes and share more from other landscapers, both from YouTube and people who you've never heard about before on YouTube that can share some insight. Share with this community. We can all learn and grow together. Thank you so much, everyone, and we'll see you tomorrow. Cool episode coming out. Actually, it dropped while we were live, so make sure you check out the YouTube channel. I think they just dropped a really cool vlog when we were out in Georgia. Check it out. Thanks so much, everyone. We'll see you next time.