GROW During the Fall Months! [This Mistake ALMOST Sank My Lawn Care Business]

Every single day, I talk to dozens of landscapers, whether it be Augusta Lawn Care franchisees or lawn care professionals around the country. And right now, this is the biggest issue I see with our industry this time of year, as we head into the fall season, why people don't grow their business, why they stagnate, they plateau, and they actually decelerate and lose money throughout the winter. I'm Mike Gandies. I'm the founder of August Lawn Care. We have over over 50 locations, and this whole channel exists to help landscapers and lawn care professionals grow their business. So if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe today. I'm just gonna be talking about something I see consistently right now. And the reason I'm talking about this is because in the past three days, I've talked to 18 landscapers, mostly the franchisees at Augusta Lawn Care, some that are not. And out of those 18, seven of them, I had to have the same conversation. And that centers around the fact that as we head into the fall season, a lot of us are not complacent. It's just like, we're worn out, we're tired. We just went through a really draining spring and summer where it was very difficult to find employees, where financially it was tough because inflation, all of our costs were going up, labor was going up, fuel was going up, trucks were going through the roof. Painting a vehicle was extremely expensive. Everything was extremely expensive. And we get to raise prices. That causes pressure. You gotta. Like you're losing some customers. Customers say negative things. And so lots of pressure over the past couple years especially, but especially 20, 21. And for most people this time of year, as we head into September, October, it's like, man, I'm just ready to be done waiting for the end of the season. And I understand that. I get it. We're frustrated. Sometimes we're worn out. But if you're wanting to grow your business, I encourage you. You can still grow your business. Now. And I'm gonna address the one thing that most of us bring up when it comes to why we can't grow our business this time of year. And. And for most of us, it comes from a really good place. And the reason I'm saying we is. Cause I've been here, I know what it's like to be in the fall and you're really busy, but you don't go out and hire more people and grow your business and get around. It's not a big deal. But for most people, we always are wondering about what in December, January, and February, once the fall season, the fall cleanup is done after the leaves have been all picked up and we've trimmed all the bushes. What happens in December and January and February if I'm not plowing snow? If I'm not plowing snow, what do I do to make money? How do I keep my crew busy? And there's just no way I can hire someone right now in September or October, when I know in a couple months I'm going to be slowing down and I'm not going to have enough work for them. So the first thing is this. I had the same problem. And it took a mind shift for me that completely changed my business profitability and changed the way that I thought about employing people and allowed me to open up profit sharing. So after making the changes I talked about, today is the moment we did this. The following year we were profitable enough to do profit sharing because no longer did I have to keep money stored away for winter, knowing that we were going to learn we would lose 70 to $120,000 each winter in just payroll. And I mean losses like loss net losses in the business. Because I was just trying to keep everyone full time. And this is the unlock. When you're hiring people, you don't need to feel obligated to give them full time hours. I truly believe that for most of us, if you were open and honest and said, look, I am able to give you full time hours, let's just say March through November, December, January, February, I can give you as many hours as I possibly can, but it's probably not going to be full time. And if you need full time hours, I totally understand. You have family, you need to have a dependable paycheck if you want to go get another job during that time. Because if you it's retail time, like it's around the holidays, there's plenty of jobs, delivery jobs, retail jobs, more indoor jobs that are a little bit more pleasant than working outside in the cold. You're more than welcome to do that. I will give you a guaranteed start time and position coming next spring for you to guarantee to come back and work with us. And so most of us in our mind is like, oh man, I can't hire someone now because I can't guarantee them full time hours during the winter. I had that mindset for so long and then I started realizing, look, this is crippling the finances of the business. And by unlocking that and basically saying, look, we're gonna try to keep as many of our team on as possible and we Usually keep about half of them on full time throughout the winter. And then the other ones, some of the other ones, they're like, hey, you know what, if you need me one or two days a week, great, I'm there. If we have a snow plowing event, I'll be there. I'll make a bunch of overtime, that'll be great. But if you don't need me, that's fine. They got all December, they have Christmas and they got holidays and that New Year's and all the rest of it, they usually are with family anyways. It's really January and February for most of us that we are pretty slow. And so yes, you can do things like bush trimming up sales, winter services to try to keep your crew busy. But I highly recommend you do not just try to keep them on and do busy work. Because that's what we would do. We would do stuff around the shop. We would literally go do free services for customers just to keep the crew busy. And I felt obligated to keep them full time hours. When I stopped doing that, what I realized is that by actually keeping that process in the business and at least getting through the winter without having a massive, massive divot in our profits, a massive hole, and every single summer and fall we have to have all this cash sitting around waiting for the winter. When we stop doing that and stop having that level of almost honestly guilt that I couldn't keep my team full time when I stopped having that, that's what allowed us financially to afford profit sharing. So that when the times were really good in the summer and fall and spring, that we were able to actually give the profits to the team, knowing that we would not need as much cash sitting around during the winter. That was the unlock that allowed me to have the confidence to do profit sharing. And literally this paycheck, this past paycheck, the quarterly profit distributions for the team out in the field, this is the team out in the field. It was over $1,000. It was the first time we did over $1,000. It's not like it's regular. This is our best one so far. Quarterly distributions for someone out in the field that showed up to work every day was $1,000. That would not have been possible if we were so trying to stay locked in on. We got to give full time hours. And I think you'd be surprised how many of your frontline employees are okay with taking some time off, going on a vacation, getting another job that they don't really want to work outside. Like, especially if you're in a place like us, we only have seven hours, eight hours of daylight. They're literally working sun up to sundown, getting their hours. And it's miserable weather, it's wet and it's cold. So they can get retail jobs during the holiday rush, delivery jobs, something perhaps indoors, and then give them a guaranteed start date so they have that dependability. I'm not a huge fan of just like laying them off. I'd say, look, we're just not gonna have, you might get 20, 25 hours, but if you want 40, go get another position. We'll have a guaranteed start date for you. In my opinion, this is better for them too, because they have a more predictable schedule and they know, Look, I need 40 hours, great, I'm gonna go get another job from December to March 1st and I'm gonna go back and get my landscaping job. And that's been guaranteed to me. It gives them that reassurance that they're gonna get their full time hours. This is my recommendation, so you can go ahead. And right now, when you're busy, go hire, go create more jobs. This is why we as business owners exist. We, we go create jobs for our community. This is something that we can do. It's part of something that we are good at. We are good at creating jobs a lot more efficiently than the government. So let's go do that when we have the work coming in. Leads are pouring in. Go create jobs. Go employ more people and just be upfront and honest with them. Don't be shady or like, oh, yeah, we'll get you in the winter. And then in the back of your mind, like, yep, gonna have to be laying them off. I truly believe that if you are upfront and honest with them and say, look, we're going to give you as many hours as possible, it's likely that we slow down during these months and if during that time you need 40 hours, go ahead and go get another position. You'll have a guaranteed position when you come back. Otherwise, we'll give you as many hours as possible. And I think that most people understand that. And if you start opening up your books and sharing the numbers that, hey, by doing that, this is what is enabling us to be able to do profit sharing. I think it's a huge win, win for the business and for the employees. I'm Mike Andes. I hope that was helpful and we'll see you tomorrow. I hope.