Grew Their Revenue From $150k to $275k

My name is Ricardo Vargas. I'm a franchisee owner at Augusta Lawn Care. And here's my story. In 2023, we finished the year off at $150,000 in annual revenue. And this past year in 2024, we bumped it up to $275,000 in annual revenue. And there were three main events that made this possible. So at the start of 2024, we had a very strong lead. We had 13 commercial snow contracts. It snowed like twice. We had good revenue between like 15 to 20,000. It was pretty easy. Honestly, the snow wasn't. That helped us a lot get that initial capital in order to reinvest into the business, to grow it to where we did. So with that strong start in January, we started off February, really just preparing for the mowing season. We tuned up our machines. I started looking for a new mowing truck and we started the cleanups. Sadly, I had a personal loss, which would be my grandma passing. With my grandma passing, I had to make a really last minute trip to Colombia to attend her funeral. Be there for my parents, be there for my family. And although it's a very tragic loss, it really helped me so switch my focus into like really not having any regrets in life. Right? Like, life is so short. You can basically be gone from this world at any point in time. So there's no reason to hold back and there's no reason to double think or there's no reason to hold your potential back. So live with no regrets and go all into what you're doing. So I would say March is one of those main events that I was talking about that really switched and really made this possible for us this year. Because first of all, we had bought the mowing truck already and we had the rat rack set up. We got it all decal, all painted. We invested a lot, a lot of money into it. And then a week after getting that done, we had our contracts canceled, which is absolutely horrible. We had 13 different commercial properties that we talked about earlier and we had them canceled. And so that really hurt us revenue wise, very deeply. And I went into a kind of panic state trying to fix that and fill in those that revenue gap. And in doing that, I contacted Mike or the turnaround video just to really help out, really get outside influence into how, what I should do to fix up the business. I also went to an acquisition.com workshop over in Vegas with Alex Hormozi. And even though what they taught was very advanced, it helped me learn a lot about keyman risk, key client Risk and the different risks that bring the business valuation down. And so knowing that I could go forward in the business, really avoiding those kind of risks.

What emotions did you have during this time? Because it's obviously not easy to lose all those contracts at once. It can be really stressful, bring a lot of anxieties to the business. So how would you say you felt during this time, and how did you handle the situation?

I really panicked. Like, we had 40% of our revenue wiped out, and I just needed a solution asap because spring is literally around the corner. And, you know, we have overhead. We have. I just bought a whole truck just because of that. Had a whole ramp rack, new mowers and stuff, new equipment. And so I was like, all right, we need to put these tools to work in order to bring back this revenue. So I try to look for pretty much everything I can't. I contracted a marketing agency, contacted Mike, went to the workshop. So I just pretty much went into problem solving mode. That's pretty much what happened. So in April, we had the turnaround, and after Mike left, he really left me with, like, very specific things to work on. For example, getting reviews, focusing more on upsells, really trying to lower our CAC down. And in doing that, it really did help the business throughout the next following months. And the next following months are pretty boring because it was just rinse and repeat, right? Repeat what works and then delete what didn't. So that was just pretty much what happened in April. April in May, rinse, repeat. Really focus on recurring, really focus on cleanups, small things, simple services, and whatever big jobs came. We just left it off for June. In June, we really just focused on customer retention, keeping our clients happy, doing whatever we can to bring value, whether it's like, you know, upselling into bush trimming, upselling to mulch insulation, just doing things that, you know, people didn't get done in spring, and really trying to show the professionalism in those hot months. So the second main event that would make this year possible would be in July. Now, first of all, I did run a 5K, and that's a personal win. I had never ran beforehand. And, you know, it so happens that a friend went to go run it, and then they invited me, and I was like, all right, so let's go do it. And then I did it. I ended up pretty much almost dying afterwards, but it worked. And it really showed me that whatever you put your mind to, you can get it done as long as you put in the work necessary to do it. And so after the race and after getting all this work done in July, I made the single biggest life decision I have ever made up to this point, and that would be I joined Augusta. And so with joining Augusta, I learned very much everything that I need to know about Copilot. Right. I basically went through all of Copilot University, relearned it, started using some features that I didn't know were there, and that would come in handy.

What personal reasons did you have?

And, like, what?

Also business reasons that you have, because obviously, you don't, like, leave your company and join a huge franchise out of the blue. Right? You have to have reasons and maybe a purpose. So what was that purpose or reason for you?

This is why the numbers just made sense. Right? What I wanted to do long term is have multiple locations, not only just to diversify a portfolio, but really to be able to give more back to the community, back to the employees internally. Really just have a career path that is worth chasing. And that possibility of an employee being an owner, at some point, I feel like that's what I would want as an. As an employee. And the fact that I have a chance to offer that to other people, I think is a blessing that I could not just pass on. And on the personal side, being an owner, being a business owner is not easy. And it just comes with a lot of hats, right? You got to be an accountant, you got to be an operations manager. You got to be a salesman. You got to be this, this, and that. And as you scale up, it just gets harder and harder because it's just a lot more and more and more and more and more. And my goals require me to get everything done within a time frame, and I was not gonna fit that time frame in just by myself. And Augusta is essentially like a head start into it. It'll cut maybe a year or two years off of my trajectory, and honestly, that's worth every single penny. I decided to join for that. And then in August, that's all I really focused on, really. Just making that brand transition, getting the customers warmed up to the brand, really have them understand what we're about. All the professionalism that we're about and revamping the internal systems and standardizing them, that was pretty much all of my focus in August. Plus, it was a very hot month, so we didn't really have much of much work, apart from the already recurring work that we had. And then we go to September. Oh, my God, we go to September. And so September comes around, and just when you thought everything was Going great. And just when you thought it was all sunshine and rainbows, the storm comes, and me and my wife decided to separate and file for divorce. That was probably one of the most devastating things. And the third thing that really made an impact this year, business wise and personal wise, because basically all of September was just trying to recover from that. And while I did miss out on some, you know, business opportunity, whether it was jobs or anything else, like, I was really focused on solving this and really getting through this hump in my life that I was not expecting.

How did you manage to get through that? How did you push through that, like, difficult time? And how did you manage your business during that time? Because you're going through this, and then you have a whole business to run.

So this is another reason why I joined Augusta. The community itself, right? The community of owners and how, you know, so many different people all in one place with one single focus, right? And that's just going as a person and growing as a business owner. And, you know, when in the midst of that was happening, I was not alone, right? I had, you know, either coaches or I had different owners that really reached out and noticed that something was wrong, or I would just tell them, and they were there for me when I needed them. And, you know, the fact that I'm young and then they're older, they have more experience, they have more ways of dealing with stuff like this, it can really guide me in the best way possible. Understanding that, you know, business is business. Like, whether you like it or not, whether you're in the hospital or not, whether you're happy, sad, like, motivated or not motivated, it goes on. It continues, and business does not care about your feelings. And so I really put me in the mindset of, like, hey, like, I'm hard. I'm going through this. Great. But, like, I need. I need to get. I need to get on with this because there's people that depend on me, and there's customers that depend on us. And so we have to get this done. We had to get it going. So it was just like a really kind of put the feelings on the back burner for a bit until I had time to really go back and deal with it and heal, whatever, because, you know, it's the fall, so it's about to get really busy. So that should really just kind of put a band aid over it for now and keep going. And then in October, another personal win would be that I ran a marathon, and I ran it with another owner, Thomas. He told me he invited me Over. And then obviously the only thing that I've ran up to that point was a 5K. And so I, you know, put my big boy pants on and started training like a month beforehand. And then when the day came, we did it and we ran, we ran it and it was just kind of like proof to myself that no matter how big the challenge is, no matter how hard it is, no matter how high that mountain is, you can still climb it out of sheer willpower. And if you really want it, you will get it done. And so with that being said, October was really just getting back into the things of work, right? Going back into offering, you know, whether it's corporation overseeding, offering fall cleanups, starting to do that, and just getting ready for a service that we're about to start offering in November. Now November was probably our busiest month, ironically because it's usually when the winter starts or starts slowing down. But it was one of our busiest months and one of our best revenue producing months. And that's because of Christmas lights. So Christmas light season came around and we were pretty much booked right at the beginning. I didn't really know how to do any operations, any sales or anything else. But you know, with training and with the help of the community of owners in Augusta Nation, everybody helped each other out and when someone had a question, we kind of asked around and eventually solution would come. And so November was just full on Christmas lives. We were, there was nothing else. We were, were really focused on just Christmas lights. We had a revenue goal of 30k which we did hit. And so that was, it was amazing. I mean absolutely cool. And the fact that we brought this new offering in really showed us what Copilot can do. Whether it comes to tags, follow up emails based on the tags, different pictures attached to the work order requiring the deposit down. So it really, really showed us the power of Copilot. And, and honestly I've used it from the start and I didn't really know it could do half of the things that it could do. And so it's, it's, it's really great. It really upped my knowledge on the software itself and really how to push out a new offering successfully. And so we wrap up the year with December. We finish off the year at well, you know, I forgot to, I forgot to charge on time but it would have been 275. But technically our PNL says 265 so it's whatever. But we hit our 30k year goal. We hit our 250 year goal. And so it was a very successful year. There's a lot of ups and downs. A lot of downs, a lot of downs. But. But we made it out in the end. Towards the end, I was just really. Took the time to reflect on what everything that happened during the year, really trying to see what I wanted to do moving forward, what kind of priorities I needed to. To have in my life, what kind of expectations I should have of people and my standards overall of what a business should look like and feel like. And so as we wrap up the year and as we wrap up this, I just want to give thanks. Give thanks to all the owners, all the general managers, everybody that I've been in contact with, whether it's on the Facebook group or in person events on the training. I want to give thanks because every single one of you has shaped my mindset, has shaped the way I do things, one way or another. And it's all for good, not for bad. The people that have been there for me really do appreciate it. I literally would not be able to be here if it wasn't for those people. And you guys know who you are. Give thanks to my friends, my family, my boy that's always behind the camera or with me on the jobs. And so just thanks. I'm really, really excited to see what 2025 brings. We have a huge goal to hit of half a million. I'm pretty sure we'll get there. And remember, above all is God. And without him, we won't be able to do what we do. And with that, thank you, guys.