Growth Hacking for Lawn Care Businesses

Hey everyone, it's Mike over@landscapebusinesscourse.com Thank you for joining again today. On today's episode you might be watching on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or listening to the podcast. But thank you again for joining in. It'll be a quick episode. I want to give you a couple growth hacks, a couple things I think is going to help you grow your business and just a lot of announcements that I want to share with you today. So number one announcement is that if, if you haven't already seen it on Facebook and YouTube, we did a shop tour, an abbreviated shop tour of one of our shops in Blaine. And I think it was like four or five minutes long. For members only. If you're a part of the course, you get the full extended version of that, that interview and that whole shop tour of both our facilities. So our Bellingham and our Blaine shop, the one just started and then the one we had for several years. So that's like a 55 minute, it's like almost an hour long video. And that is for course members only. I had to do that simply because I got to restrict who sees all of it, simply because I literally show you every single aspect of the company inside of our office, all our scoreboards, our metrics, our project management boards, exactly how we run the business, why we do it. And so members only. If you're a part of the course, that is for you. It's on recently added videos. Check it out today, it's like almost an hour long. So sit back, enjoy and maybe get some popcorn or something. But it'll be the best hour you've spent probably watching any sort of media this week. I promise you that for your business. So check that out. Some nuggets in there. I think a lot of you can take away lots of things about how we set up our shop, how we set up our office and things like that. So check that out if you are a member of the course@landscapebusinesscourse.com also for everyone. So not just for course members, but for everyone. We made some more videos on YouTube and Facebook. I'm going to be trying to get better at this, creating more content for you all. So YouTube, Facebook, you can be expecting. And there's already a couple out there is a video of our team meeting we had last week. It's like 12 minutes long. It basically shows me explaining and talking to our team. We have two of these meetings a week now we do a Monday scoreboard huddle, which is us going through the scoreboard like you've heard me talk about in previous episodes. And then on Wednesday we just have a general team meeting. At that team meeting, we usually take a topic and break it down, see how we can get better at a certain part of the business. So last week we talk talked about on Wednesday about walkthroughs, client walkthroughs. So on landscaping jobs, on cleanup jobs, how can we make sure that we reduce callbacks, reduce customer complaints by simply doing a walkthrough. And so really, really, we were talking to the guys, the crew about how to go out and do these walkthroughs with the client to reduce those callbacks and those complaints. So you can see me actually explain that, explain to them how we expect that to be happening. We don't. We aren't horrible at it. We weren't. We aren't great. And so as I create more of this content around our business, it's not to say that we're perfect, but every single day we're trying to get better and we're testing things and trying to make our, make it more efficient, make it more lean. And so I hope that you can learn something from it. So that video is great, 12 minutes long of showing exactly what a team meeting might look like for you. I think he cut 12 minutes out of like 16 minute long team meeting, shorter team meeting we had that morning. So that was really useful, number one, just for you to learn about walkthroughs and how we do them. But then number two, I think it's really important just for you to see how a team meeting is ran. And so we didn't really get a whole lot of shots of the crew in that in there, but we like probably 15 people was on that one. And then there was a video to our other shop. So we video our team meetings live and it goes streams right over to them at the other shop for the crews that are starting out of there. And so you can check that one out online. YouTube and Facebook. That's up. YouTube is, sorry, Facebook. It's coming up in a couple days. YouTube, it's already there. But if you're listening to this, you probably, it's probably available already. And the other video that we made is just a few minutes long. And it's basically a real quick shot of our, some of our crew getting ready and heading out for the day. So one of my guys picked up a camera and kind of just as the crews were packing things up for the day and getting things ready and hooking up trailers and getting the routes Ready and starting. The office crew getting in there and unlocking everything. He was there and just did some shots. It's a few minutes long. But I think it also you can grab some nuggets from that. How we kind of make that efficient as we possibly can. So check that out again. That's available, available for everyone. You don't have to be a member of the course. That's on YouTube and Facebook. So check that out. Next thing again, you've heard me talk about before, but we are going to be in less than a month now, let me think. In less than a month we will be headed out to go out to Texas and to Tennessee. We're going to be meeting a couple companies down there that we are hoping to grow and hoping to help them make them more efficient and scale their businesses. So two landscaping companies that we've chosen, medium sized companies. I wanted to kind of get a good mix. I wanted to be not too big where I would alienate so many of you that are solo or just have a couple employees but they're not so small that we can't have dynamics of employees and different relationships and things within them business. So we're going to be trying to make those similar like the profit. If you've listened to that TV show before with Marcus Lemonis, with CNBC prime, basically how we go into the company, we'll be trying to help. Obviously I'm not investing, but it's going to be about 48 hours at each company where we can go in and just hardcore really try to help them as fast as we can. Whether it be hiring, firing, marketing systems and procedures within the business, seeing where we can make efficiencies and improve things within the company. And so that's gonna be a lot of fun. Really. I wanted to do that. That's always been something I wanted to do. Really get out in the field and actually help another business. Then the other reason I want to do it is we're going to be promoting the conference a lot after the show is created. So come October, once we've edited all the shows and created them and edited them down and we launched those and make them public, that's when I'll really be trying to really try to get the public. People that don't listen to this podcast, that don't watch these videos, I'm going to be trying to get their attention with these videos and with these, these TV shows, you might call them reality TV shows, I'm going to be trying to get their attention and getting them to the conference. So we're going to use it as our kind of our marketing tool to grab in people that haven't heard about landscape business course, haven't listened to the podcast or the videos, and that's how we'll be marketing to get people to the conference. Which leads me to my last and most important kind of announcement today, and that is the conference. So right now we have about 40 to 50 people signed up and we are looking to get at least 40 or 50 more. So I'd really appreciate it if you could join. I would love to have as many as I possibly can have there. I don't know. I talked to the organizer at the hotel and she's like, oh, don't worry about it. Most people book their tickets within two or three months. So that's why we're kind of aiming for the after the video series is created where we go out and go to Tennessee, go to Texas, make these videos, they're gonna be like 45 minutes long and showing us turning around these companies and hopefully helping them. Those are gonna be used as marketing tools to drive people to the conference. However, if you're listening to this now, it's only $99 per ticket. We are not making any money on this conference. And so I genuinely promise you that we're not like making a bunch of money on this. The $99 is gonna cover a lot of just our general expenses for the conference. I'm solely doing this because I want to have a person to person contact. We do lots of emails, lots of webinars, lots of live chats, phone calls, and lots of that going on in the past couple years with landscape business course. I really want to have that intimate, one on one, in person relationship with a lot of you listeners. So if you have gotten any value of my course out of the podcast, out of these videos, I really, really would appreciate you being there because I'll be able to really get a feel of where you're at, where what the audience is really looking for, what struggles you're facing. And so what we've done is we're changing it from just like the classic speaker kind of atmosphere. It's not gonna be like a bunch of speakers, speakers, speakers, speakers. It's gonna be workshops with keynotes. So the keynotes are gonna be specific things within your business. The workshops are gonna be you actually digging in your business, digging your financials, digging your processes and your procedures and actually working on your business. This is not gonna be coming. This conference is not gonna be built for you to come and passively, you know, try to soak in and absorb information. It's going to be you coming and working on your business, bringing the numbers, looking at your website. We're going to have workshops for hiring, we're going to have workshops for marketing. We're going to have a workshop just for your online and website design and how do you really create that marketing online presence. We're going to be having a workshop for your financials and so really looking at what numbers you need to know. We're going to be having a workshop just for project management. So talking about cleanups jobs that are one day, two day, three day cleanups or landscaping jobs as you grow and scale up your company, how to get involved in those and then how to manage those jobs with your team and make them efficient and make them profitable. So we're going to do workshop based kind of a conference where each workshop is two, three hours and we really go deep in your business. And what the beautiful thing about this is not going to be thousands of people. I will be able to personally talk to each and every one of you that are there and I will be there all day, every day making sure that I'm able to connect with each of you. So if you have questions, if you want to talk to me in person about certain things that going on in your business, this is the place. I would love to see you there. It's going to help me so much be able to get that feedback from you. I know that coming out of the conference my content is going to be a step 10 steps higher, much, much better because I'll be able to get that in communication with you and know exactly where you are at in your business. And, and I think that you coming to the conference will be a massive amount of value. Not just from the workshops and the keynotes and my personal just advice to helping you with your business, but also meeting other contractors, meeting other landscapers and lawn care business owners that are serious about growing their business. The ideas over lunch and dinner, those are the things that can really just completely change your business, completely revolutionize it, make it a big 2018 to kick off this end of this year. But it's going to be January. That's when this conference is. And so we are really looking to 2019. Just completely blow it away for the people that show up this conference. I will be personally invested in making sure that everyone that comes that conference kills it in 2019. And I'm going to do everything in my power to bring every piece of content, all the knowledge I have, and collectively absorb the information from everyone that's there to really help your business. So if you're listening, if you're watching, if you've ever gotten value from me about landscaping and lawn care, I'd love for you to be there. Again, I'm not trying to do this, this conference for money. It's 99 bucks right now. If you go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference, sign up. I'd love to see you there. We didn't do it at a big fancy hotel. I wanted to make this accessible and very affordable for everybody. And so that's why it's only $99 to get the ticket.

The place that we're staying, the venue, the hotel, it's a brand new, very, very nice, but it's a Holiday Inn. And so it's only 109 bucks per room. And if you get a roommate, it's super cheap. You can, you can bring a project manager. They're going to learn a lot here. They're going to learn about the back end of the business. Bring a project manager, bring an office manager. It's a great place to bring that cohesive unit of a leadership team together. And so I'd really appreciate it if you do come. Like, I feel that it'll help me a lot, obviously, with my content, knowing exactly what you all need, seeing you in person, being able to see your numbers, be able to see exactly what you are wanting and needing in your business. And I absolutely have no doubt, I have no doubt that if you come to the conference, you will not regret it. So Please go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference. Sign up today. Until the end of this month, it's just 99 bucks to sign up. So check that out. And.

Why did I name this whole episode growth Hacking? Simply because I feel that all the things I announced today are another way for you to hack the growth of your company. How do you go scale quickly? It's by learning from other people's mistakes and, and not having to perform those mistakes that are costly via time and energy and money and effort. And taking all of that out of the equation by learning from others. So the conference, the videos that I'm trying to give to you online that are completely free, the course, all the information I share there, all of that is done directly, for one thing, and that is to help you grow your business and scale fast and get out of that place that you're now and a place where you can be actually generating an income generating a good solid salary, creating a business instead of a job. That's what I want to do for the landscapers that are listening to this, I want to do that for the landscaping industry. And so I really believe that this is a start of something really, really cool. And of course I love to see at the conference. So check that out today. And again, thank you so much for your attention. It's been a wild ride the past year and a half of landscape business course and I really do look forward to seeing at the conference. Until next time, guys. Be great because nothing else pays.