Mike Andes of Augusta Lawn Care reports 17% sales growth and 44% higher estimates per location despite recession talk. His argument: home services stay essential when money tightens. Focus on hiring, customer acquisition, and systems now, buy equipment cheap, and grab market share when competitors fold.
Gas prices right now are absolutely insane, and you're hearing in the news, you're hearing on your social media feed, you're hearing about how bad the economy is, how bad the real estate market is, you're hearing about inflation, and you're hearing about interest rates going up. And I want to offer something on the other side of that coin, because last month, same-store sales at Augusta Lawn Care went up by more than 17% compared to last September. When we look at Q3 2025 versus Q3 2026, the number of estimates that were sent out per location went up by 44%. And I say that not to brag. I say that to offer another side of the equation. And that is, if we're going to go into recession or an economic hard time, there are still going to be people spend money. And it's going to get hard on all of us as home service business owners. And look at all of your competition. But the people that will come out the other side of any sort of economic trouble or recession that we have, the ones that'll actually grow their business, they'll be able to buy trucks when their competition is selling them for pennies on the dollar. They'll be able to spend money on marketing when everyone else has not. And so the customer acquisition cost actually goes down. They'll be able to hire the best talent in their market because everyone else is laying people off. And so I encourage you to block out the noise, focus on what you can control, which is How do you hire? How do you get employees? How do you get customers? Making sure you know your numbers, you have systems in place because those people are the people that a recession actually serves. It's the people on the other side of the recession that double, triple, quadruple their business and take market share in their local area are the ones who just stay focused on what they can control now.
