Growing Your Lawn Care Business During the Summer PART 1

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to the landscape business course podcast. Today is Q and A and you can submit your questions on the texting platform. If you haven't joined the texting platform already, I'm going to give you the number right now. You need to text the word landscaping to 855-575-1267. Alright, this is the best way to get a hold of me and ask questions. I cannot do consulting calls if you're not a franchisee. I can't. I just don't have the time. I know a lot of people. My number's kind of out there. So people leave me voice messages and that's fine, email's fine. And occasionally I get to them, but it's very rare. It's really for the franchisees that I gotta dedicate my time. So this is the best way. Either the Facebook group, landscape business course, Facebook group, or on the texting platform. So again, Text Landscaping, do 855-575-1267. And when I need questions for these Q and A episodes, this is where I post. Okay. And I answer all of them. Maybe not right away, but I get to them. Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into the messages that came in a few minutes ago. I posted asking for questions. And let's go ahead and get started. Before we get started, actually lawn carewebdesign.com if you, if you need your website built, check it out. Usually takes us four to six weeks. Completely custom. Check out the sites that are on there that we've already built and see if it's something that you would be interested in. No contract, it's just a monthly fee. I think you'll enjoy it. All right, next question here is we're not going to get through all these questions, so I'll try to make a few parts and get through these. What if you did a video going over to zero to $10 million in 10 years? What would have to happen and what would be the hardest part? Obviously this is massive growth, but it gives people the view of what it would like, what it would look like and the difficulties of growing that fast. Okay, yeah. So zero to a million, by far and away the hardest. If you can get from 0 to 1 million, it is much easier to go from 0 to 1 million than from 1 million to 10 million. My point of view, the reason I see that and say that is because the percentage of landscapers that get to a million is so low and the percentage of people get to a Million and get to 10 million, that ratio is actually higher than the people who get from zero to a million. Going from a million to 10 million is higher ratio. So that's why I would say that getting to a million you have to create all the systems and if you have the desire to grow really big, you should be able to just keep scaling it. And it's a matter of how long do you keep pouring ad money and pouring money back into the business and marketing and growth. That's what determines where you kind of plateau off at. And most people, they hit 2, 3 million, they're like, okay, this is good, I'm making really good income. It's not too stressful. I don't have to have like 10 locations, it's easier. And so that's my two cents on that. In terms of the growth, I would say yeah, getting to 1 million is the hardest. Getting to 2 million is hard. Getting from 2 to 5 though is going to be pretty easy in comparison to those first 2 million. And I think from 5 to 10, same thing. It's like you keep growing your either services, you, your how your service area or more importantly your route density. And so I would again really caution someone that's growing that fast against just growing in their service area and just growing in the amount of services that they offer. It's very easy to have a $10 million business if you're offering 50 different types of services. Guess what? Not going to be profitable. Very hard to create systems around all of those things. I'd rather have a million dollar business than that does one service than a $10 million business that does 50 services just hands down. And you can scale that number however you like. Next question. Kevin from Dallas. How do you feel about offering discounts to customers in a specific area or neighborhood to increase route density? We don't necessarily give discounts, but if someone's out of our service area that we add budgeted hours and therefore price to their, their recurring services price. So for example, Maybe it's a 10 minute drive outside of our regular service area. So we know at 10 minutes in, 10 minutes out, extra 20 minutes. So we might add $15 to every single one of their visits. And if they accept, great. We're getting charged to drive, they're getting, you know, we're getting paid to drive there. If they don't accept, it's no biggie. So we don't give discounts though for people inside of our territory. Like that's where we make our bread and butter and we, we want that to be profitable. What office phone system do you use and what do you recommend and why? I don't really have any specific recommendations. I recommend that you use something that's flexible, that you can get an app on your phone that's Internet on the Internet and not just where you're tied in with a cable line or tied in with a phone line from a cell phone provider like Verizon or something. I'd prefer it be a VoIP voice over Internet, IP or whatever it is basically Internet phone number. So we use several different phone systems. We use Grasshopper, we use Phone Booth, we're playing around with Ringcentral and that's what we use like for Command center and stuff like that for all the franchisees. So but again, if you're just getting started, Google Voice number is great. It's free. There's lots of those type of services. You can text from that number. And you know, Grasshopper similar, it's a paid service or we use that to be able to text with our franchisees the same number that the customers call. So it's something we're playing around with full service with the command center where they can text their own number and it goes to Command center, whereas the customer will call that same number and it'll go to Command Center. So interesting there. But yeah, Grasshopper phone booth, any VoIP phone. Google Voice is a great way to get started if you're just getting started out and want something free. Next question. What's the best way to let your homeowners know that you are increasing prices? So should it be subtle, like 2 to $3 or higher? We typically price by fives example, 40, 45, 50, et cetera. Best way to let them know is be very honest with them. Tell them that you can't afford to come lose money on their property every single visit. If you're just trying to raise prices in order to increase profit margin, still use the same verbiage of that you want to be in business for a long time for them and you want to make a sustainable profit margin. In order for you to do that, you need to raise the prices. Here what the prices are going to be. Let us know if you would like pause service. We completely understand, but this is what we need to do to pay our people and provide a sustainable service. There is a document in the course on the templates and downloads that has exact coverage. What do you use to track all your trucks and how does it work? Patrick from Hampton, Georgia. We use a software called Zubi Z U B I E, it's $179 per truck per year. It tracks not only their location live, but tracks like their fuel tracks all of the computer of the vehicle. So if there's any diagnostic issues, it actually gives us the code. It tracks braking and acceleration. Does a whole bunch of stuff. It's not anything new or different than like Verizon. They have a program. All of the soft. All the ones that I suggest are the ones that plug into the truck itself, get computer information as well as live tracking, like every five seconds being updated where they're on a map. I suggest those over like using the mobile phones of your employees as a way to track them. I highly suggest that. So Zubia is good. We like it, but it's nothing like. It's not like the best or anything. It's just what we use. How has marketing changed compared to the early days of landscape business course? Any new suggestions for effective marketing? Thanks, Dylan from Tacoma, Washington. Yeah, marketing is one of those things that are just constantly changing and evolving, right? Even the past five, six months, as we've gone through this whole pandemic, there's been drastic changes in which marketing platforms and methods are the most effective. And so I'm constantly testing them, giving that information to the franchisees because it's just changing all the time. Like when the pandemic first started, we saw this massive shift the first couple weeks in a drop in cost per click for Facebook and Google because the first thing all these travel companies did and golf companies and gyms and restaurants that all went closed, they stopped spending. Therefore the price per click went down. Great opportunity. But then guess what happened? Everyone got their own online strategy and started pouring money into the funnel that where everyone was at, which was on their phone. So the price went back up. So it's always constantly evolving and changing. I don't talk a lot about it here because someone will watch this video in two years and be like, oh, I need to do this. And we've moved on. Like, the world has moved on. And so I think it's about being educated constantly and consistently to be able to know where to put the money. So, for example, like the past month there's been three methods that I've been just preaching to the franchisees all the time. Use this. Use this. Because in six months it could be completely different and this opportunity is kind of gone. And really Augusta Lawn Care. When we first started and when that course was being made five, six years ago, we built it on the back of Facebook ads. Facebook ads Gets more and more expensive get. But now there's other ad products that they're pitching that are a little more advantageous and you can actually still use. So just being educated is really important all the time and constantly improving your marketing skills. Next question, how to start implementing systems as a solo operator. Biggest one I would say is treat your second employee as part owner. Show them the numbers, show them open book management, show them how to price jobs. That's just my opinion because guess what? When you start growing and scaling and you need someone to go do an estimate for you, they'll be able to do it because you've showed them all the ropes and they understand the metrics. Next question. Diego from DC Lawn Care from California. What advice do you have for someone to get their first employee? The biggest problem I have is that I don't have enough work to keep them along full time and I really, really don't want to stay solo until I have a full schedule to hire someone full time. Thanks. Alright, so my advice on this goes back to last Q and A session when I talked about projects. Go back and listen to that how you can use projects to book your schedule out and then know that okay, three weeks from now I'm going to start hiring somebody full time. I'm going to start booking and marketing to make sure I fill the schedule from the third week and onwards as if I had an employee. It's going to give you confidence to be able to hire that person, give them a date to start and and be a lot more confident on that. So go back to the last Q and A. I talk about using projects to schedule that out. All right, one more question and then we'll go to a different part. Oh, this is a long question. Looking to restructure my business have been operating for about four years to pay for college starting out I took whatever work I could. Right now I mow Monday, Wednesday, Friday and leave the other days open for landscape jobs. Friday is comprised of a dense route and the other two mowing days are slightly scattered. I eventually want to stray away from mowing and focus on bigger landscape jobs. What is your recommendation for balance between mowing and landscaping jobs? I'm currently a solo owner operator with one guy I employ full time, Ben. All right, so my balance would be use landscaping jobs to fill in the times when recurring work like mowing is slower. So maybe that's winter for you. Maybe you have a dry spell in the middle of summer that you have to fill up using projects because mowing is not very Busy. If you are in Florida or California or somewhere, it grows year round. The grass does. I would say focus on that instead of landscapes and landscape projects. But in terms of the balance, I would say use projects to fill in the gaps of your mowing services. When those slow down. Next question. How important is thatching or aerating a yard for overall health and growth? Growth of grass. Thank you.

Yeah, it's very good for your grass. It's great because you don't have to use chemicals. So you can kind of pitch it as organic lawn care if you're. Because you're not using chemicals. Aeration and dethatching lime treatments, those things are organic. You can pitch it as organic treatments and not having to get into chemicals, not have to get applicator's license. If you're in those states and be able to pitch it to your to your customers as a real positive, organic kind of service. Felix from Connecticut, I have been in business for five years now and never did any kind of marketing for my company. I only have 40 clients and work for myself full time in my business. Should I do my own Facebook marketing or social media myself or hire a company to run ads for me? I'm a massive advocate of doing the Facebook ads yourself. Does that mean you need to go learn stuff? Yes. Does it mean it's impossible? No. Go get a book on it. Go listen to some podcasts specifically about Facebook marketing. Figure these things out. Stay on the cutting edge instead of paying. Cause like if you go pay another service to run your ads for you. Out of every dollar, only 50 cents is gonna go towards marketing. The other 50 cents is gonna go towards their overhead and their offices and their employees. And you don't wanna be paying for that. You wanna be paying for ads. So that's just my two cents. Some people would say it's worth it because they're gonna be three, three times as more effective. Well, in that scenario, yes, that makes sense. But I truly believe you can be more nimble, more effective because you know your local market and you can change things more often from a Facebook ads app or whatever and be more nimble to when the cost per click starts going too high or when you're really getting a good ad performing, you can pour more money on it. That's just my two cents. All right, I'm going to close this episode out, start up a new one as part two, which I'll launch here in a couple days. But thank you so much for your questions. Again. Make sure you join the texting platform or landscape business course, the Facebook group, and make sure if you need a website, longcarewebdesign.com also, we got the new franchisee training coming up in two months. So right now it's June in. Oh wait, is it June? Yeah, June, August, September. Wait, we had it in May, so I'm getting all my dates confused. In August we are having the next franchisee training. Alright? So every two months we have training for the new franchisees. If you're interested in becoming a franchisee at Augusta Lawn care, go to augustalawncareservices.com franchise book an appointment with me. We talk for 45 minutes, see if you'd be a good fit. And then in August, we're going to have the next three day weekend of training for new franchisees. Alright, we'll go to part two and answer more of these questions.