Focus on 2 Things: Sales and Hiring - Ep.28

Hey everyone, this is episode 28 of the LandscapeBusinessCourse.com podcast. Today we have another live call.

I think I'm gonna kind of keep a lot of the episodes on this podcast to live calls. So I'll try to cherry pick one or two of the calls I have out of the week and put that on the podcast. So this one's another special one because we just recently had a 16 year old that I was interviewing and talking to on from landscapebusinesscourse.com and this is another one. Colton is his name and he is going into his second year of business and still in high school. And so it's kind of interesting. Past couple episodes been with youngsters and that ones are just starting out and I think there's a lot of valuable information for people that are going into their second year and really need to focus on working on the business instead of in the business and need to really focus on creating a team and systems instead of their own personality to run the company. So without any further delay, let's get into it with calling Colton. However, do keep in mind throughout this, his, his audio was kind of breaking in and out, kind of the volume was all over the place for some reason. Not sure why that was, but I think you get the general gist of what he's trying to say. So without any further delay, let's go.

Here we go.

All right, so. So there's really two things I just have to like your opinion on. First, you know, I'm only 20 years old. I don't know how old are you? Like 21?

Yeah, I'm 21.

Okay, well cool. So we're about the same age. You know, I started young like everybody else, you know, like 12 years old, 13 years old, trying to do this. But we have 80 accounts right now and we'll probably start the season like 65 because we're gonna fire some people or let go of some people because of just, you know, distance and stuff. And I'm kind of thinking a good marketing strategy and I'm also trying to figure out like a hiring strategy. I've kind of got everything else. I got finances and everything else. I understand. But marketing and hiring are something that I've never really done too well with. I just like your advice on it.

Okay. Do you own the business? 100%, Colton?

Yes, it's just me.

Okay. Alright. So like, did you listen? You probably haven't. Like I think yesterday I put up a call I had with a 16 year old. Did you listen to that? One.

No, I did not. I hadn't seen that one.

Okay, so. But you're a little bit ahead of him because he was really just, he was at like 20 accounts. And so there's a big difference when you go from 20 to 80.

So like how many employees do you have right now?

Right now we just last year we had one full time employee and that wasn't with all the 80 accounts. I had.

Passed on 20 accounts to me last, like right as the ending, the season ended last year and so we did two people with 60 accounts.

Okay. Do you have a website?

Not right now. It is being built right now.

Who's doing that for you?

There's a local guy. The company's name is Code with Power. It's like a 30 year old. He's taking care of the SEO and all that stuff.

Have you already paid him?

Yes.

And is he going to like design the website and then do you have. The reason I'm asking all this is do you have the control of editing that, that website or do you have to go through him in the future?

No. Yeah, I own the website completely. I own the domain, I can edit and all that good stuff.

Okay, so is it on like a platform like WordPress or something where you can go in there and change the text?

WordPress.

Okay, cool. Yeah, the main, like that's the main thing that's gonna help you is your website. Especially if you didn't have one last year or like, you know, beforehand. Having a website is. It takes like a couple years to really see the fruits of it. But once you, once it sticks like that, that's like the cheapest way of marketing. People see if you can get them on Google and things like that. And so.

That'S really good. That's important. And obviously making sure your SEO is on point and you got tabs and zip codes in there. So you want to make sure your zip codes are in your headers and footers so that when people search on Google, it knows your geolocation and things like that. So that's all like little stuff you can kind of learn. And so but as far as like marketing, like, I guess it's like how much money do you have versus how much time do you have? And the reason I ask that is because you can do. There's no right or wrong way to market. It's just how much, what are you willing to spend in terms of money? Because if you don't have the money, you're gonna have to do spend it sweat equity and you're gonna have to go out there and pound doors. Like, do you have some money to spend? And you're kind of wonder what the best way to do that is.

Yeah, yeah, I have some money, you know, that's saved up. I'm not, but yeah. And right now we've got, we started last year, we're with home advisors. We're about to get on, I don't know if you've ever heard of the app called Next Door. Have you ever heard of that? Yeah, yeah, we're on Next Door. We're gonna start that up this year and then we're gonna do, we're gonna do some door hangers. I, I.

They'Re not great, but they work. And then we're going to go ahead and ask for referrals from all our customers on our email list and stuff like that. So that's kind of where my marketing is this year. I mean, does that sound like, does that sound like I'm on the right tracker?

For sure. Like I haven't said this, how many ever on the podcast and stuff? Like my opinion on Angie's List, Home Advisor, like all these websites, they're not bad and I think everyone should have an account on them just in case, you know, you get a client or two from them. What I don't like to see is when people try to build their entire business on one of those platforms and they, you know, pour money and like advertising and all that, because essentially like Angie List, for instance, the customer isn't really yours until they call you. Like, there's no way of tracking them. Like that's all it's, it's, they're essentially Angie's List customer and you're, and you're just kind of like piggybacking on Angie's List. And the reason that's not a problem until Angie List decides they're going to change something or they're going to change their algorithm or they're going to change how much you need to spend to get to customers. Like you're at the mercy really of a platform. And so I don't say don't do those things. I just say don't. You don't want to rely on them. You want to, you want to be the one that's controlling the customer's information. You have all their, like their email, their phone number, all that stuff right from the get go. And that's why if you've been listening to the podcast and if you've heard me talk about Facebook ads is because the power that it's giving people to track and see the behaviors of the people that see your ads. Whereas on Angie's List, you kind of blindly give them money, cross your fingers and hope that sales come in. And so I really encourage people to take control of every advertising channel they're gonna use, whether that be direct mail or, or door hangers or Facebook ads, or creating a website. You want control because it's not so much about control as if one of those other platforms fall apart. Like, if Angie's List falls apart, there's companies who have built their entire marketing budget. All of their marketing efforts are built on Angie's List. It literally, there's been companies I know of that if Angie's List doubles the price in their area for ads, or if they change a competitor outbids them, all of a sudden they doubled their marketing budget for the year. And so you just don't want to get reliant on those. And that's why I'm a big fan of creating stuff that's gonna drive people to your website and then drive them to call you or get in contact with you, instead of just kind of giving money to Angie's List or these other like. I know you're not saying you're gonna give money to these companies, and that's, that's what I would recommend doing. I would recommend making the profile. We have an Angie's List, we have a HomeAdvisor. I think we have like maybe 10 reviews or something like five, 10 reviews on Angie's List. But I don't pay money to them. I think that money will be much better spent going after a very targeted person in a very targeted location. In my area that's looking for services, whether it be Facebook ads or mailers, cold calling, whatever that is. And so I think based on my experience and my market, that's what I would say. However, on the flip side, every single market is different. And so your market, if it's all Angie's List, go all in. Just make sure you cover your back by having a Facebook page and having a good website, having all the other platforms filled out, you just don't want to be reliant on one channel.

What do you think really works in your area? Do you kind of know that already?

Alright, so kind of last year, really all we've been doing is we did a lot on Facebook and that worked out really well when people would, you know, share your posts and share. Post pictures of the work you did on their Facebook. That worked out. That worked tremendously. And Then other than that, just word of mouth, you know, offering, you know, like half office services for, you know, every time you refer to somebody and you know, the same thing, word of mouth is probably the best way you're gonna do it. What, you're gonna get customers. So that's really what we did last year was just word of mouth. And we did, we did some flyers. But once, once, like we did the first round of flyers, we got so busy with just two guys that we couldn't. I didn't, I didn't need to market or I couldn't market anymore because I couldn't, I couldn't handle any more work. That's kind of how it was, how it was last year. So. And then this year I added on Angie's list and all these other apps just to kind of trickle in things because I am going to hire another person this year. But I added those things just to kind of, you know, just like on weeks, maybe we didn't have something. Maybe I could get a lead from this or I could get a lead from that. You know, just kind of having a steady flow of leads coming in from every different direction.

Yeah. Like, my biggest piece of advice to you, Colton, would be you're kind of in the spot where I was about two years ago. So like, we kind of like in the course of this three year program, right. Like, you're kind of looking, you're kind of like in year two, which is like, my biggest piece of advice is you want to do everything you possibly can to get out of the field and to be focusing 100% on sales. And especially when I hear things like we were so busy that, you know, you stopped doing flyers. That's when it's like, okay, let's figure out how to hire people and train them correctly and get them to fill the spots that Colton is trying to do right now in the field so that you, as an owner, Colton, can go get more jobs. And that's how you're gonna scale.

Right. Okay. So what I did last year was I found one of. I knew somebody, he worked with me, you know, all season, and I trained him and I really like his work egg and all that. He's a good guy. He's a good, good employee.

I'm trying to figure out if it's going to be a good thing for good time for me to switch to two crews, for to have one crew mowing grass, you know, the whole time, and then me to just another truck, another trailer, and then hire one more guy or just Staying by myself. Just kind of see how that goes and then just getting more work, more work. Just, just pump as much as I can, you know, sale wise into them and then everything rolls over onto me and then just fill up, fill up my schedules. I mean, do you think that that's. Do you think I'm at the point where that is. Where two cruises is something that I should, I should go to?

Do you have a family? Do you, do you have a wife or kids?

No, no, I still live at home. Very minimal expenses. I did that for a reason. So I mean I don't have, I don't have very many dude goats.

Dude. That, that's when you go all in, man. That this is the time you go on and like that's the reason, like really come down to it. Like how I grew so fast because you can pour everything back in the business. You don't have the, the monetary burden of mortgages and you know, all that stuff. Then you don't have. Yeah, you don't have the personal, you don't have the personal obligations of a wife and family. Like that changes everything because then you start thinking about putting food on the table and having shelter. You don't have to think about that. I'm still living at home. Like I'm building my house right now and we're almost done. But like I'm still living at home. I've done it for the past three years while I grow my business. And it's the same thing. Low, low expenses. I don't have my. I don't even have a personal vehicle. I drive a truck, work truck, so I can ride it off. Like if you can do that for the next year, like two years of, you know, living low expenses and put the money back in the business, you can easily, and I mean easily triple to quadruple your business in two years. Easily.

Just putting everything back in.

Yeah. Like right now, like, like I don't want to ask too personal, but do you have some money sent away that you could buy a truck and trailer and another equip. More equipment?

Well, I just bought another truck the other day. You know that, that went my truck money for another truck. So when I sell mine, I'll have some more money to put.

But yeah. Is your current truck. Is your current truck not good?

No, it was just getting a lot of hot miles.

That I wanted to deal with. I just, I knew I wanted something just a little bit more reliable. I don't know. F257.3 power shirt. Just the old good Good trucks just, they're a little bit older, so. But yeah, I had to get out of mine. I didn't want. I just couldn't afford it to break down. And you know, you know how that goes.

So what I would suggest you do is if right now you think that one truck and trailer could kind of COVID your mowing. Well, I would focus on doing is I. Okay, you know, sell your truck. You buy another one that's on the truck and trailer for lawn care. Buy one more truck, and then either A, don't get a trailer or B, get a trailer, and that will be kind of your landscape truck. And so. Yeah, exactly. And so and then what happens is as you grow, then you get equipment to fill a trailer, and that second truck would become a mowing trailer. Right. And then you get another truck and trailer for landscaping.

And so, like.

If I were you, that's what I would do. Like the next few weeks, as you get some more contracts, get the second truck. That second truck at the beginning is gonna be the truck you drive around getting estimates and doing sales work while you got another guy mowing. And then you want to make sure that those estimates that you're doing is generating enough sales to her. Before you know it, you need to hire someone else to fill to go with the other guy in the truck so that they get done faster and can do the jobs that you're starting to sell.

Sure. Okay. Right, Right.

And I would just go all in. Some people are into, like, I see both sides of the story as far as a. Like, the first train of thought is sell. You'll get so much work that you know your current equipment and people can't handle it, and then hire and then buy equipment. And then the other train of thought, which I'm leaning more towards is buy just a little bit ahead. Like, buy equipment a little bit ahead, hire people a little. Like too many people a little bit early. And then it just, like, it puts the fire under you to make sure that you fill it up. Yeah. Yes. Like, I bought our. My second truck before I even had a full time employee, because I knew it pushed me to make sure that I fill that guy schedule up so I could hire him full time, get him in a truck, and start growing the business.

Okay. And you switched to second crew at what, the first year? Second year. Like when you really started second year.

Right. Second year is when I switched. When I. When I got my first employee. And that's when I started the. Like, this is when the turn happens for you, Colton. That like the next year's your big turn. It's like our first year, I did 30,000 gross sales. That was just by myself on the weekends. Dah, dah, dah. Second year, got someone full time know 200,000 in sales. It's that this coming year that you're starting, you're gonna go into. When you start seeing the change, we went from 200 to 550,000 in revenue. And that was because you start, okay, if I can hire one guy, why can't I hire two? Why can't hire three? And last year we're at four or five people, you know, this year we'll be at six or eight people. And so you get that, that rhythm of. And the biggest thing is you getting out of the field. Because once you make that commitment to being sales full time, that's when you'll see the scale in your business. And it forces you to create the systems for hiring and for doing the work and filling all the roles that you've been doing. And you're so, like, you know, passionate about right now. And you really got to create systems to make sure that those things aren't, the balls aren't dropped. But then you got to focus on sales. Like that's how you're gonna grow your business.

Sure, sure. Because. Yeah, because when you have students.

Yeah, I get how all that works. Sweet. So then now how did you go about finding your first real employee? Because, you know, you have your, you have your friends that are, you know, here from college. How'd you go to find a real employee?

Yeah, so my first employee was. I didn't know him. And I had known like a friend of mine. And so he had moved here just recently, like, like recently before I hired him. And so he got on board. However, like, this is like, if you want a system, as far as how I hire people, it's essentially this. Number one, they fill an online application. Number two, we have a job fair. Number three, they get an interview. Number four, they get trained and hired. And so the reason, what's easy to fall into when you're just starting out and you're just trying to find your first guy is that you just kind of like, try them out. You know, quote, quote, try them out. You know, just throw them in a truck. See if they work out after a week. Like, the success rate on that is so low. And we've been burnt so many times from that. Whether it be people making L and I claims or then, you know, you try them out for a week, they don't work out and then they go on unemployment and you're paying like for that. And so like, and really that really, really it comes down to is if you show up front commitment to them and you show that, hey, like we're serious about hiring people, we're serious about training you and you're investing time and energy into a career fair and into interviewing everybody and to training them, whether he videos or in person training. And like if you show that commitment, you're gonna get people that stick around for a whole lot longer and you're not gonna have turnover. And that's really important with your first couple people because if you start burning through people every two months, number one, it's hard for the business. But really what I think is worse is for you as the owner, your mindset can start to change and look at people differently and start looking at them in terms of two and three month labors instead of as careers and people that you want for five and 10 years. And that's the biggest hurt, that's the biggest negative of seeing that within your first couple hires of a big turnover is it switches in your mindset and, and you'll fail to be able to scale your business because you don't trust people as much and you won't depend on them. You have to in order to grow.

Okay, okay, now where do you, now how do you advertise for your, for your employees? Is it, I mean, what do you, how do you find those people?

So like I used to be against Craigslist and now I am for Craigslist because they make you pay to put a job ad on there. So at least in my area, I don't know exactly what your area, but I know ours. In the past few months they changed from where anyone can post a job posting to where now you have to pay $10. It literally cut out 80% of the job offers that are on Craigslist because of all the scammers and the direct multi level marketing people, they all stop posting. And so all the jobs now on there are really serious, like they're actual real jobs. And so that improves the amount the quality of people that are looking for jobs. And so like we just did this job fair, we just did yesterday, like as you know. And so we had 10 people that filled out the application on our website. So like we had a craigslist ad, it said, hey, go to this link. It was augustaloncareservices.comcareers. they went there, there was an online form which is essentially an application. You can Actually go there now and you can check it out, see what it looks like. And then they can submit that. That was sent right away to the office when they submitted it. The office then reached out to them, said, hey, we have this career fair on February 14th, and then we'll explain more about the job and what it offers, Pros, cons, more about the company, all of that stuff. And so that's kind of like how we kind of got people on board. And then at the job fair, they signed up for an interview. So those are starting tomorrow, Friday. Throughout the whole days, I'll be interviewing people, and then next Monday or Tuesday, we tell everyone, you know, who made it, essentially. And that's kind of our hiring system. Like, if you want to kind of see exactly what I said and everything, I don't know if you've seen. I have a YouTube channel. By this evening, I'll have a video up there. Just like 10 minutes of kind of like what I did and everything. So you can look at that. But, like, it's really about, like, this is the thing. Like, your people, your most important asset, most valuable asset. It's not your equipment. It's not anything. Your people are your most important. So, like, as you grow, if you can keep that in your mind, you're gonna be able to keep people on board because you're gonna treat them like they're valuable, and you're gonna need to invest in them. Like, people invest thousands of dollars into improving their equipment and improving their logo and their website, but they won't. They. They. They choke over investing in their people and getting their people to be better and all of that. And so I really feel like if you can get square on that idea that, you know, people are your most valuable asset in your business, you'll change how you hire your first, second, third, and so on people, and they're going to start to really follow your vision for the company. And really, like, between. Between hiring and sales, those are the most. Those are the two things that every single landscaping business really needs to work on. Like, whether it be me or anyone, if we can focus on those two things and improving our. That's it.

I mean, that's a business in itself. If you have sales and you have people can actually do what you just sold, I mean, there's your business right there. Sure.

Right. And the problem is too many people get romantic about their equipment and their trucks and what their trucks look like, you know, and even their uniforms and their business card. Like, those things are all part of it. I'M not dissing or saying those things aren't, aren't good. But like, it comes down to sales and if you got the people that are the right people on the bus.

Okay, gotcha, gotcha. And even if you don't need anybody, are you still doing these job fairs? Are you still, you still looking to hire so that, just so you have people that you can call or.

I always need people.

I always need people because if I can find, if I'm, if I'm always looking, it means my pipeline is always full. So, for instance, this coming week we have this contract, I think I might have mentioned on the podcast, it's really big. It would require two to three more guys. I got to make sure that if I ever have that kind of opportunity, I don't say no to them because I don't have a pipeline of guys ready to go.

And the thing too is I would hire one more person than you think you need because it's the same concept if you will start to sell more because you know, you got to keep them busy and it keeps you on your toes, making sure you can keep them for 40 hours a week busy.

Okay, do you like two man long cruise or do you like three man long cruise?

Definitely not three. Unless they're doing large, large commercial projects. And when I say large, large, I mean like they're going to be there for three or four hours. Otherwise, two. The most efficient is one. However, you're going to lose morale. And, and so the only reason I would do two is accountability between people. And then also just for keeping their morale up, I would do two people. That's kind of what my theory is.

Okay, that's what I was thinking because originally I had everybody around here, you live in a lawn truck. I mean, they have three guys. And I started thinking about it, it was like, that's not. Each guy you add, you lose a little bit more efficiency. What's your take on that?

Right, but if they're going to be sticking around a job for three, four hours, it's actually then you have to have a big capital expenditure of, you know, truck trailer, overhead equipment, insurance. Right. So like our landscape.

We do a lot of residential stuff.

Exactly right. Because like on our landscaping jobs, we've had five or six guys at one job. And so there's. But even still, one would be most efficient in one regard. But you got, you know, you start looking at capital expenditure and all of that stuff. But as far as mowing, I'd say two. One, if, if you only have One guy, you're actually gonna make more per hour if he's just doing it. But I start to think about, like, long term, is that guy gonna want to stick around and be working by himself all day by himself? Probably not. And so that's why I'd stick two guys in there.

Right, Right. Yeah. Because everybody knows how it was when you first started out working 13 hours a day. You didn't feel so great. You were gonna pay 10 or not 10, about $12 an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you this. The guy that I was, that I used all last year, I had a little bit different mindset last year. I didn't. I didn't really understand where I was needing to go last year until, like, like, mid to late season, like, in the reference of, like, growing and actually stuff. So my. So.

He'S a great worker, but doesn't necessarily think, like, most efficient time. You know, let's. Let's make this. Like, how do you get him to understand, like, what I'm trying to do, like, being efficient and everything? Like, we are professional company. Everything has to be done like this. It has to be done in this time. Like, how do you. How do you.

Understand what I'm saying?

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Well, this is the bottom line. The bottom line is you are being. They're being paid by the hour. You're not. So it's actually. It's. It's not even. It's not even possible to think that they're gonna work as hard as you or as efficiently as you. However, what you want to do is, is get them as close to that as possible. And so how you do that is the magic question. And there's a lot of ways to attack that. I think the most important way is to. On the onboarding process and training processes that you have created that that's the most important thing is to ingrain inside of them. Like, last night at the job fair, I talked most the time about our culture, about what we're going to do, like, our goals going forward, like, all of that stuff, because I'm trying to get them on the same page as me, and I want them to be a team player. So I don't call them employees. I don't call them. I'm not the boss. Like, we're all on the same team, and so I'm very, very transparent as far as what our goals are, what our revenues are, what we're trying to do. And then what you have to do, Colton, is you can't just say, you know, we want to make 100 grand this month or whatever. Like, you got to say, you got to make it clear to them and how that's going to affect their life. Like, are they gonna get a pay raise? Are they gonna get a cut? The company, like, how's that gonna work? So what you gotta do is you gotta be very upfront and commit to the fact that, hey, as you become more efficient and as you become more valuable as a company, we are going to raise your pay. And so people know within my business that within the first year, they're gonna get compensated according to how efficient they are. Now, that being said, you gotta have a system in place to track that efficiency, whether you're time tracking on the job. Like, we know down to the minute what a guy's gonna make us in a day after he clocks out. So, like, I know if there's room to give someone a raise, and if I can see that over, you know, a month's time, guess what? He's gonna get a raise. And if they can see, like, over that first six months, 12 months that they're working with you, if they can see, okay, I worked harder and I worked faster, and I got a pay raise that is gonna incentivize them to keep doing the same thing. And they're gonna continue to look for areas that they can cut off five minutes, cut off 10 minutes. You know, how can they do the tree faster, collect, you know, the equipment faster, all of that stuff. And they're. Because they are incentivized, because you're incentivized for efficiency. But they're not because they're getting paid by the hour. So what you got to do is rig it or you got. You got to make the game, you got to make the system so that it's in their best interest to be efficient, be fast, and of course, have quality and all those things. But, like, it's up to you as the business owner. It's not their problem. It's not because they're lazy. It's not because they're entitled or whatever. It's because we as business owners have to make the game so that it's in their best interest and they're winning the game when they are efficient and when they are bringing to the bottom line the best interest of the company. And the best way to do that is to make sure that they're involved in decisions within the business, that they have skin, they have equity. Like brand, like equity, as far as. I don't mean like equity in the business, but I Mean equity and equity and decisions and equity and how things need to be changed. Like, I ask, how can we change this company? How can we advertise? How can we. Like, my big question is, how can we save 10 minutes? I asked the guys, how can we save 10 minutes? So, like, we're changing right now. I mentioned before, like, where instead of the guys hooking the trailers up in the morning, they hook them up at the end of the day for the next day, because they're gonna save about 10 minutes. Cause they're going way faster at the end of the day to get off work. Whereas in the beginning of the day, they go a lot slower. And so you've got to get really open with them, be very transparent with them. Like, hey, the only way we make money, especially in lawn care, is that we're efficient. And so if you're tracking them and you know what their efficiency level is, and you know how much they're making you per hour, and if you can tell them, hey, I'm tracking this, we know we're tracking our efficiency. And then you can say, hey, you're gonna get a dollar raise because you've been killing it. Like, it just takes one of those for them in their mind to make the switch to like, okay, how can I be more efficient? Because as long as they know you're watching, that's the key. Because if you're not tracking it, if you're not time tracking, if you're not really watching the numbers and you're just kind of shooting in the dark, they're gonna pick up on that, and they're just gonna call you on your bluff. But if you are really tracking everything and do know what you're making per hour, and you do know your numbers, like, really solidly, whether it be estimates and cost, like, all of that stuff, they're gonna pick up on that, and they're gonna start playing your game, and they're gonna play by your rules. And so nothing. The employee is never at fault. It's always the business owner. And are we making the systems and procedures within our business that will make the game in their best interest and in the company's best interest at the same time?

Okay, yeah, that makes really good sense. That's a good way to. That's a really good way to put it. Okay.

With him. So.

All right, so back to marketing real quick. So when you go. When you look like, how do you generate your leads for your business?

Yeah. So every year we've changed things up a little bit. Like, I'm a big advocate of trying all the channels, tracking every single thing, and then figuring out which ones are good and then going all in on them. So we've tried everything from home and garden shows, door hangers, door to door, cold calling, like, everything. And so right now, this changes every year because as technology gets better and changes and evolves, not gets better, but it evolves.

You really got to just go with that flow. And so some people were like, we're only doing door hangers because we've done it for 10 years. That way they're going to be the ones that are out of business. And 10 or 15 years. And so what I try to do is focus on roi, focus on tracking it. You've got to track when people call you. You've got to ask them, where did you come from? Where did you hear about us? Because if you don't do that, you're just going to be kind of blindly spending money. And so it's a big, big thing to track all of your leads and then track how many of those leads become customers. Because I know for a fact that a cold call lead is gonna convert a whole lot better than a paper lead, like a mailer lead. And that might be different in your area, but, like, I just know that we're gonna get way more calls and leads from a mailer per capita. But for a cold call, 90% of the people who set up an estimate are actually gonna convert to a client. And so you gotta just track all those things, track the leads, what their lead source is, where they're coming from, and then track how many of those people become customers. And then you'll do that for a year. Try a whole bunch of different. Like try, you know, spend 500 bucks on Facebook ads, spend $500 on mailers, spend $500 on paying someone for 50 hours to do cold calling. Pay $500 to have someone go knock on doors for a week. Like, track all of it, and then figure out what works in your area. Like, I can't give you blanket advice because every market is different. However, if I was to give you blanket advice, I would say Facebook ads. It's like super underpriced right now. I have right now an ad up there right now that's being watched at 2 to 3 cents per view. And I'm targeting it to people that are 50 years old and above that within my radius of service. Like, that is so targeted. And for 2 or 3 cents, I'm giving them a 2 to 3 minute video on our company. And let's say 10% of those even watch the whole thing. Like, it's still 30 cents per person watching that, versus a paper ad that I'm gonna have to pay to print. I'm gonna have to pay for it to get shipped there. And then 99% of them are gonna throw it away. Like, there's such an incredible. Like, I'm targeting the people that I wanna be in front of, and it's huge for us. And so I would just. If I were you, and you haven't tested stuff before, like, if I was to give you one blanket of advice, I'd say Facebook ads and really figure out how to make those correct. Target them and all of that. However, if I wasn't to tell you that, I would say try everything and track every little thing. Track it like crazy. Because if you just spend money in all those areas and then just like, kind of like cross your fingers and take calls when they come in, you're not gonna know which one worked. Like, if you spend $500 on cold calling and $500 on print ads and. And 90% of them come from the cold calls. Like 90% of your leads. Guess what? Forget print marketing, right? Like, don't even deal with it. Just move on and so. And then go all in on something. So, like our company this year, we're going 100% all in on Facebook ads and cold calling because that's what we've tested out and in our market has worked so much better. So that's what we're doing.

Okay, well, cool. All right. So you pretty much answered my main two questions for marketing hiring now. Some kind of off the wall questions y' all do. Landscape, hardscaping, stuff like that.

We do. So we do landscaping. And really, as you grow your service side of the business, the landscaping jobs kind of come to you. Right. And so that's always what I've heard. Yeah. And if you're not comfortable doing them, sell them out. It's not the end of the world. And you can get away with not having to have much of equipment at first. So we have more equipment now. We have a skid steer and dump trailers and dump trucks and stuff. But, like, at the first, I would have said no to retaining walls and to big lawn installations. Like, I should have just. You can. If you're.

You don't want to be the Walmart of lawn care when you're first starting out, because you. Then you're just all over the place. Yeah, yeah, I understand.

Exactly.

But how did you learn how to do? Like, I know how to do landscaping.

But how did you learn how to do design? Like, how did you learn names of plants and all that?

Yeah, like, are you there? Can you hear me? Yeah, I'm sorry. Well, there's this Wonderful website called YouTube.

Is there videos about landscape design and stuff like that on there?

There is, There is. And this is the thing. This is the thing, Colton. Like, I would decide if I were you if you want to go design or you want to go maintenance. The reason I say that is I have talked to so many people that try to straddle it and then they have, they got to come that they come to a place where they have to choose one or the other because it's so hard to try to straddle. And at first it makes really good sense. Like even for us at our side of the business, it kind of makes sense to have like a landscaping crew or two and then several lands maintenance crews. Right, it makes sense. But you'll find you kind of end up catering to one or the other. Like, you're either gonna be really good at landscaping installations and knowing equipment and doing hardscaping and getting those contracts and doing before and after photos like all that, or you're gonna be focusing. Okay. It's completely different ball game. As you grow, you gotta decide if you're gonna be one or the other. In my opinion. There are companies that are successful and they do both. I'm not saying that's like wrong, just saying that like as you, first of all, when you're small, go for the lawn care. It's low hanging fruit, it's recurring revenue, and then you can grow into the design. I've just talked to many design firms that are doing 5 to 10 million in business a year. And on their big landscaping jobs, they say they don't make a single penny. And they're 100, $200,000 jobs. Massive patios and rock features and water features and irrigation. And they say they don't make money on those jobs. They make money on the smaller 20 to $30,000 jobs, you know, the small lawn installation or tree installations and mulch and things like that. And so I've just seen, I've seen too many people go after the hardscaping because it is so fancy. Like all the, all the landscaping magazines they carry, the sweet pictures. You have to have a lot of people to do all the work. And that seems cool and that seems fancy, but I think when it comes down to it, and as far as creating a sustainability sustainable long term, Business that has recurring revenue and not one shot in the dark. Big days and bad days, and, you know, then, you know, a good month and a bad month. Like, I'd focus on the lawn care and the maintenance part of things. And then if you want to grow, there's always the option of going after those install jobs, but then having that really, really solid base of recurring revenue.

Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes really good sense. Okay. All right, well, my last question I have wrote down here, how do you get paid from your customers? Like, do you do credit cards? Do you do mail checks? How do you get paid from your long customers?

Yep. So we do. We do. We allow people to pay check or credit card. And so we. It's all through our system where, like that you can pay.

Using a credit card. So like Lawn Pro is the system we built our company on. And that's what we, as part of the course people get. And so through that one, you can. People can pay via PayPal. And then we also use, like in the course we talk about.

A website called stripe.com and you can put all the customers credit card information into that. And then at the end of each month, you just essentially send them a bill, but then it just says paid on it, and you take the money right out of their credit card because you have it on file in stripe. And so at first, like, there's two ways of doing it, and we've kind of gone, you know, kind of both ways. And that is you can keep every single lawn mowing client, their credit card information in stripe. And then end of every month, you just essentially click paid and the money comes out. And that's really nice because as far as cash flow, like that is optimal, right? Obviously, the only downside is you got to pay like 2 to 3% in processing fees. But I always say if people are worried about 2 to 3% of the, you know, and they think that's gonna make or break their business, I think they got bigger problems they gotta be thinking about. If you're not running a company that can handle 2 or 3% cost for a huge upside of having good cash flow, I think that's. That's a bigger problem. There's. But there's other problems. You know, there's. It. I'd be more worried about making your firm 2 to 3% more efficient than I would be about making it 2 to 3%, cutting costs. And so I would say go credit card as much as possible. You're gonna get some. Some people. And when I say some People think like half of the people won't give you, like literally 5% won't want to give you their credit card. Then you take check and as you get bigger and you're okay with the ebbs and flows of cash flow, we've kind of allowed it to go where people can just go check and because really cash flow is the only reason why we would want to have credit card on file. And then, you know, we have less collections and things like that. But if you, or if you're okay, cash flow wise, it's kind of nice to have two or three extra percent of gravy. Right. And so, so then we do accept checks. We do accept checks from commercial clients, for sure. Also on stripe, people can actually set up bill pay. So you take their routing number and account number and for 55 cents you can make a draw on their account. And so if that's $5,000, you still pay 55 cents. I think it's 55 or 65 cents. And so that's another thing we use in the course in stripe that you can use. You either put their card information in or their banking information in, and then you can just essentially click one button, get payment, mark their invoices paid, and send it to them as a receipt.

Okay. Yeah, because I, I run everything off of QuickBooks right now. That's what I start. Long time ago, my grandfather started mentoring me with like financially and he wanted me to get QuickBooks just to handle my personal finances. And so that's what I've been, that's what I've been using is just QuickBooks for now, everything. And it does the credit cards. But I did some last year, but I, I didn't know if the small percentage was, I didn't know if that was something that I should just lose because 2% or 3.4% or whatever on $50. Yeah, that a big deal. But once you have that multiplied by, you know, four and then 80 per month, that's pretty big. That's a pretty big amount, you know, taken off. And then if you had that much money extra just coming in, but I didn't know if that extra percentage was, is actually going to make, make a difference or not.

Right.

So like you said, the cash flow, that's a big thing because, I mean, to be honest, I've still got four people from last year that I'm still trying to chase down, you know, money from. And I, I don't want that to happen again.

Yeah, exactly. And wait till like us, we're going to collections and you got 10 people to court and stuff, Right? Right. And so, and like, so for us right now, anything over $3,000 as far as landscaping jobs, they have to pay with check. They have to pay 50% up. Like, we have payment terms for that. Like, this is the deal. If you have a hundred checks, like, okay, let's say, let's say next year, you have 150 checks that come in every month from landscaping, mowing clients, I mean, mowing clients. And you got to go to the bank, you know, 10 days out of the month to cash those, right? Which is not. Which is like you say, why would we have to go 10 times? Not just go once? Like, you gotta, you don't want them to check these in there two weeks, right? So like you'll go to the bank 10 times. If you have 150 checks coming in, you'll at least 10 times. And so you gotta start thinking about, okay, 10 trips to the bank an hour each one, you gotta collect the checks out of the mailbox. You gotta have someone to add them up, mark them off as paid. Whereas, like with credit cards, as soon as it clicks paid, it's marked it paid automatically in the system. It's sent them. Like it's all automated. You gotta start thinking, like, if this scales, if my business is doing, you know, if I have, you know, 300 accounts, how is this gonna look? How long am I gonna have to hire an entire person just to do accounts receivables and go to the bank and, you know, make sure that the check is as much as what's on the invoice and then to mark it paid in the system and keep track of things like, so you gotta think long term game, right? And so my big thesis is that you, right from the get go, Whether you have five clients or 500 clients, you build it as if it's gonna be a thousand clients. And so I think if you focus on doing that, whether it be hiring systems, the type of system you use for like QuickBooks or Lawn Pro, whatever you use, that should be all, thinking, like, what's it going to be like when I'm 10 times as big?

Sure. Okay. That's how I'm thinking. That's how I started thinking months back. But all right, now I know I'm going to need. I never really. This is the last thing we'll discuss, but I know I'm going to need to get away from QuickBooks because I'm already seeing where it's, where it's just not Right. For my industry and other things. I know you mentioned Lawn Pro, and that's part of the landscape business course now. What's the landscape business course? I mean, is that. Is that going to benefit me from, like, where I'm at or how is that. How's that going to help me? I mean, will that help me learn or what do you think?

Yeah, like. Like the course. There's. So the course has six modules. The four first one wouldn't be relevant to you because it's all about the first year. So that's getting your first 30, 40 clients. It's getting all your first equipment, all that stuff. But what it would help you do in your situation, it's going to help you systemize stuff. So, like, hiring system. How do your scheduling system, routing system.

What's going to separate Colton at 20 versus when he's 25 and he's making, you know, a hundred grand now versus a million in five years. What the difference is gonna be and what is gonna be different in the business is gonna be if he creates systems or if he starts to continue just run it, you know, trying to juggle all the balls himself.

And so landscape business course, it's pretty in depth. I mean, it's not like a skim of the surface type, type thing.

No, no, no, no, no. Like, this is the thing, too. Like, honestly, Colton, I think there's probably better advice on certain subjects than what I even have in the course. What the course really is kind of like starting and then ending. Like, the ending is $100,000 a month in revenue. Like, that's kind of the thing. Right. But I just essentially give step by step. So it's not, like, scattered. Like, you can get marketing tips all over the place from lawn care. Right. But I give a very systematic approach. And as far as, like, this is what I did. This is exactly the steps that I followed to go within the past three years to get where I'm at. And whether that's the best advice or not, it's just what happened. It worked. Yeah. And like. And so that's what the course is like. I think the biggest thing would be for even you, like, is, like. Cause I'm probably, like, a couple years ahead of you as far as where the company is, and so you'll be able to follow those things before, like, I'm learning. So, like, we just had this job fair. The course members are going to get the entire video of, like, the hour or whatever of exactly what I said about company history. I talk about the job I talk about pros, I talk about cons, I talk about next step. Exactly. My presentation to the guys, and they're gonna see that. And so stuff like that, I show in there how to do Facebook ads so they're targeted. I know this comes across like a sales pitch, but, like. And I don't make. Like, if I were you. If I were you, definitely, if you're on QuickBooks, you're gonna see a big efficiency increase if you just switch to LawnPro. The only reason is QuickBooks is actually a faster system. It's actually, like, just because there's so many people on it, there's so much money invested into it. Like, there's so much money there. However, Lawn Pro is so specific just to our industry that everything within the system is built around, like, recurring mowing. And then, like. Like, everything. And then, like, for instance, invoicing on Lawn Pro now, you. You put in all your. Your scheduled mowing for the month. At the end of the month, it'll automatically create an invoice, and then all you got to do is just check them off real quick and it sends them. And so things like that. It literally saves you hundreds of hours.

That would save me a whole lot of time.

Like, I bet you anything. I bet you anything in the world right now, the last month, last couple days of the month, right now, you are literally spending 10 to 12 hours creating invoices and sending those.

Oh, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. And you know how it is.

Oh, yeah, totally. Like, I remember, like, when I was doing it without doing automated invoicing, and it was like, the 29th, 30th and 31st. Literally, no sleep for me, because, like, by that time, we had, like, 120 clients. Like, no, we were like 110. 110 clients. And I was doing all of those within a couple days. And that was just, like, the most miserable thing. Whereas now. Now, like, literally, as long as I've done everything right, like, I don't do it now. My office manager does. But, like, as long as we've done everything right throughout the month and checked off jobs as complete, they have automatically been created for every single customer. At the end of the month, I just scroll through those, make sure everything looks okay. I click one button, and they're all sent, you know, and so at first, that's just like. Well, you know, the cost benefit analysis. But the thing is, 1012 hours, even times that now by $20 an hour for an office manager. And all of a sudden, it's like a no brainer it's an absolute no brainer. Right? So like now as we've gotten bigger and you start looking at efficiency and you start looking at how many people you have and you start trying to trim 10 minutes off because that's a big thing now. It's like, okay, I'm willing to pay money for truck tracking and for like really specialized software for the guys and like all of that because now you're bigger and you're creating the systems. But it all starts like, it's like if that's the only thing you did is change from QuickBooks to Lawn Pro, you would like, it'd be a huge increase for you.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that, that's, that's, that's what I kind of wanted to hear because I knew I needed to switch this year, but I didn't know what program to switch. Have you ever heard of Service Autopilot?

I have. And so that's.

Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, yeah, Jonathan, sweet.

You know, the long pro. But I didn't end it. I figured they were pretty much the same. He seemed a little bit. I mean, he's running a $10 million company plus, so I figured it was just a little bit, A little bit much more than what I needed. So do you have to pay per month or how is it just one?

It's one time. That's what I really like about the Lawn Pro. The only thing you pay for. So everything is included in your initial. Besides, if you want the automated routing, it's like nine bucks a month. Then if you want to create where on your website people log in and have like a username and password, that's nine bucks a month.

Okay, so there's really nothing. Nothing other than that.

Right. And honestly, I wouldn't suggest even paying the nine bucks a month for the customer portal because when you send someone a link through the invoice, it already sends. It sends them right to there. They already have a portal. Really? Yeah. Like Service Autopilot is a really good program and that's the one that we're switching to. But the only reason we're switching is because now we're so big we've kind of outgrown Lawn Pro. My opinion on longpro is it's good until you hit about a million dollars in revenue and by then you have so many visits that need to be routed, you need something more sophisticated. But we're gonna end up paying like 250 bucks a month because they charge for every single thing that you add on there.

But it's worth it for you because of the amount of time you're going to be able to save.

Exactly. Whereas with Lawn pro, it does 98% of what we're doing on service autopilot. It's just that 2% when you get really big makes a difference.

Okay, well.

All right.

Well, man, I sure do appreciate you talking. There's only so much information you can get from other people, other business people. But it's nice to have somebody in your ministry who's have kind of doing it so, you know. So. Hey, my pleasure talking with me. I'm gonna, I'm definitely gonna do a course of probably a. Probably a go because I'm, I'm just ready. I'm really ready and I, I'll do whatever it takes. So.

Yeah.

And I wanted to twitch to love one of the different software anyway, so I'm probably gonna give it a go. So.

Okay, well, if you do. No, my pleasure, man. Like really it's cool because it's funny. It's so weird. Like the past two weeks I've had more 19, 20, 21, like that young guys call. It's so cool. I think part of it like, is from my book, which by the way, if you, when you get the course, like, I'll send you one of my books. But like, it's so cool because like this is the best way to learn like your career. And like lawn care is such a fundamental. It has all the aspects of a big company like advertising. You got pr, you got hiring. Like if you, if you failed, if you fail and at 25, your business didn't take off, you'd still have so much more skills than the 25 year old that just got an MBA because you've actually hired people and bought equipment and you know how to run a P and L and you know what taxes like you have. You know how to create systems and lead a team. Like it. It's incredible. Like if, if I could. This is why I did the landscape business course. Really? Honestly, Colton is like, so I want young guys our age to be able to have a system that's gonna work because I don't want 90% of them to try and have to fail. And like, I want an option for guys that don't want to go to college to actually follow a system that's gonna work. And it's like a franchise, you know, I'm saying like that's why people buy McDonald's is because it works. And so that's the whole reason I made the course like, honestly, it's not about the money. I could make more money if I just spent my time, like the past hour on my business. But, like, it's all about, like, I feel I started when I was like, you, 11, 12 years old, pushing a mower around. And so it's just. It's kind of where I started. And it's. It's a lot of fun, man.

It's a lot of fun when it tips the point of being a summer job to, oh, wow, this actually could be a career.

When I talk. Totally. When I. When I talk to you one year from now, when I talk to you for one year, you're going to look back this next year, regardless if you get the course, man. I'm saying, like, regardless, it's gonna be. This is the year when everything clicks, starts to click, you know, I'm saying. And, and so, like, I look forward. Like, that's why it's so fun having the students in the course and stuff, because we continually are talking and seeing their progress. But, like, this next year is when you're gonna, when you're gonna pop and you have. The reason I say that is because you have your mind on sales and hiring and not on what type of equipment you have. Like, you didn't even mention what kind of brand of equipment you had. Or like, like, that's not important. It's really not.

No, no. As long as it, as long as it works. As long as it's not constantly breaking. As long as it looks good. Yeah, I don't really, you know, doesn't matter if you got the nicest stuff.

Where the game's at, man. Okay, well, it was good talking with you. If you do decide to get the course, how it works, essentially, is within, like a day, you'll get your LON Pro credentials. So you can sign in and then I send you a book and then you get instant access to the course. And then I am continually adding stuff to it. So, like, literally right when I get up this call, I am uploading last night's the video of entire. The course thing. I mean, the job fair. I'll be uploading that because, like, a lot of stuff in the course too. Like, I give you employee training. So, like, Yes, I know.

I heard about that on your podcast.

Yeah. So, like, we're still adding to that. Like, everything I'm adding to. And so, like. But essentially it's so that you can have a system for hiring. Like that first day when they get on the job, you shouldn't just throw them in a truck. Right. Like that first day should be watching tutorials, going out and working with you like out in the field and like, like learning. Right. And that's how you got to create those systems and so it's all on there. You get instant access. But like I said, stay in touch with me regardless, man.

Perfect. All right, man. Well, I sure do appreciate it.

You have a good one, Colton. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye.

Alright, so that's it for today everyone.

If you do have a question and you want to talk to me, feel free to go to landscapebusinesscourse.com if you're a landscaper or you're wanting to get into landscaping, I'd love to talk to you, see what I can do to help you. If you need more information on the course, free to go landscapebusinesscourse.com and I'd.

Love to talk with you.

So that's it for today everyone. Thank you so much.