He Built a $650K Business… But It’s Killing Him
Matt Courtney runs a $650K lawn care business with razor-thin margins, high turnover, and an ex-wife on staff creating chaos. Mike Andes coaches him to ditch mowing equipment, subcontract that work, pivot to higher-margin landscaping and snow removal, and cut fixed costs from $20K to $12-15K monthly.
Questions this video answers
$3,400 per month (three trucks)
$1,100 per month (started November)
About $175,000 per year (commercial maintenance portion)
About $650 per month (rent-to-own)
Approximately $2,400 per month (was ~$850/month before)
Chapters
Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes. And today on the home service millionaire channel, we have a very special edition of what usually the turnaround show. On the turnaround show, we usually cut that bad boy down to 30 to 60 minutes, but usually we have two to three hours of coaching with the business owner themselves. Well, now we're going to show the uncut version of the coaching, but we're going to be going with Matt from Courtney lawn and landscape and we're going to go over burnout. We're going to go over pricing. We're to go over how to subcontract out his mowing customers. His lowest pricing jobs right now are getting like 30 or $40 an hour. We got rid of those. We're going to focus on landscaping. We're going to figure out the cultural problems inside the business that are causing so many employees to show up and then leave within a matter of a week or two. There's a lot of conflict with his ex wife that's also working in the field. If you want to watch the actual edited version, go to the Mike Andes YouTube channel and watch it there. How's it going, Matt? Good to see you. You're up all night?
Yeah, since about 9:00 o'clock yesterday morning.
Oh, my goodness. When did it start snowing? About 10 yesterday.
Well, it snowed Saturday morning.
Okay.
We got about an inch and a half.
Yeah.
Then we got 2 inches of rain Saturday.
Oh, that's what they were telling us at the airport. And then it kind of like all froze over.
Yeah.
Oh, man. Let's go. Good stuff is your shop then?
Yeah.
You want to show me around a little bit?
Yeah, absolutely.
Good stuff.
All right. So this is my office.
Okay.
We actually got Brandon in here working, helping me get everything transferred to co pilot.
Okay, cool.
There you go.
Let's go. This is what you need right here?
Yeah. The only office with heat. Okay. This whole building doesn't have heat. This part of the shop doesn't have heat.
I got it. Got it.
Tick tock special right there.
Really? Are you serious?
Like 75 bucks.
There you go. That works.
One of my buddies, electrician, did it for like 100 bucks.
That's awesome. And then what's this? Is this just.
This is how we used to schedule.
Okay.
Magnets. We sell them. They get a job packet. The magnet.
Okay.
You know, so this is what's sold for the landscape crew going forward. Yeah.
So usually once out of February. Usually, I'm guessing.
Yeah. These are jobs that have to be done in February. Well, at least when it's dormant.
Okay.
Because they're dormant preens. And this is like a plant transfer.
Got it.
And then so pink is enhancement or landscape or actually, you know, pink is enhancement. So that's basically an upsell.
Okay.
To existing maintenance and then landscapes. Basically the same job. It's just not a existing maintenance customer.
Got it. And then the spring cleanups are like people that you've always had it kind of had on.
Yeah.
95 budget hours.
Yeah. Most of our sites are big.
Okay, Got it. Okay.
There's some are prunes, like 165 man hours.
Got it. Okay, cool. All right. Good stuff. And so I'm assuming at once out of February, you kind of assume now you can start doing landscaping. Yeah, got it. So once you hit March, do you think you're two months booked out, like in March and April for the landscape?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Got it.
Easy.
Got it. And that. That crew. Is that three people on that crew and just one crew?
Yeah. Well, if I can find more drivers. Okay.
Yeah.
Because. And if I could actually just sell. Because the last three years, the same things happen. I start out saying all I'm gonna do is sell. And the last three years, by May 1, I had a book. Two crews booked out till labor Day.
Okay.
But then something happens, and I spend 75% of the time in the field. Field. And all of a sudden it's August, and I'm like, hey, we're out of work. Yeah. Like, you guys got to figure it out. Then I spent about three weeks and books back out till Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
Then leaves come, and it's like we've never seen a leaf fall in our life.
Right, right, right.
So I'm back in the field 100 of the time.
Yeah. So when you're. When you're going back in the field, is it mostly jumping back in with the landscape crew?
Actually, no. The mowing.
The mowing side. And that right now is just one massive contract.
No, I mean, we do have one massive contract.
Okay.
But we have. I mean, we don't do a lot of sites. I mean, some days they only have one stop, but it's like a 35 hour moat.
Got it. So mostly commercial.
Yeah.
Oh, is it 100 commercial on the mowing side?
We have probably a dozen residential ones.
Okay.
Yeah.
But mostly bigger sites.
Yeah.
And is that a two or three man crew that goes outside?
It's been a three man.
Okay. So three man crew going for mowing. Three man crew doing for the projects, and then you and your nephew kind of Drive those two.
I would assume he's running the landscape side.
Got it, got it. And then you're usually kind of running the maintenance side. Or do you have another driver for that?
Actually, my ex wife.
Okay.
Runs that.
So she just drive it. She'll just drive them around, basically.
No, she runs. I mean, she runs it.
Okay, well. Okay, cool. All right. And then. And then you're kind of like usually doing sales, but then get pulled into the field a lot of times.
So I do sales, admin, operations.
Mechanically inclined. So I do all the mechanical work. Yeah, yeah.
And so. So your ex, she runs that maintenance crew, drives them around, but she's not doing any office work right now.
No.
Okay. Okay. So you are still doing all admin?
Yeah, I mean, I got a company that does payroll and taxes, but.
Okay.
Other than that. Yeah.
Okay, cool. Well, maybe show me around. Is it other side, the shop side?
Yeah, we have this whole property, actually.
Good stuff. Do you rent this, this spot?
Yeah, we rent this right now in November.
Okay.
So actually what I'd like to do down the road, because this is all actually asphalt grindings.
Oh, really? Okay.
I'd like to start selling material, like everything that we use.
Yeah.
Because there's really no suppliers around here.
Right.
But I figured if we use it and we don't sell it, we got it.
Yeah. Yeah. Cool.
You know, so. Yeah.
How long you been in this spot?
We just moved in in November.
Okay, cool. What do you have to pay for this place per month? Is it 1100?
1100.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
Yeah. So this is just another office. This is kind of what we call production office.
Okay.
So this is where actually, Brandon, if we put him in that position, he'll be. And the guys can kind of come in here, get their instructions in the morning.
Each morning stuff. Okay.
So. And then this is. There's no heat in here, so this is just cold storage.
Okay.
We actually inherited all the tires.
Wow. Just been the last tenant.
Yeah.
Okay.
Actually the owner of the building.
Okay.
So. But all this is ours. And actually we store our salt in here.
Oh, nice.
Actually, there was 25 ton here starting Saturday morning.
Really? So they come in here and they're able to deliver it and then you just.
We have to dump it out there because we can't get semis in.
Right.
We carried in with a loader.
Okay, nice.
But then in the summer, like, we put our salt boxes, plows, everything. So it's in here a lot here.
No, that's nice. No, it's awesome. November, then you Started here?
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Yeah, we got a lot to.
Were you just at your house before that?
We were actually at an old gas station.
Oh, really?
Yeah, so it was actually. It was probably maybe. Maybe that size.
The whole thing. Oh, man.
And I was actually paying more in rent for that.
Wow. Mercy. Goodness. Here, do you got. Is there another shop space?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Let's go. Yeah, this is the small part.
Okay.
This is kind of like the workshop area.
That is not mine.
Wow.
The owner kind of splits some of the space with you then. Yeah.
But so in the. In the spring, that's actually going to the back. That's their part.
Ah, okay.
They just had some stuff to do underneath.
Cool. Dude, that's.
Nothing in it.
Oh, dude, that's clean. Let's go.
And that's actually their truck too, but it's going out.
Okay.
So will you eventually have this space or this kind of just there, there. Oh, really? Oh.
Cool. So mostly the larger stand ons then, I'm assuming for those larger properties.
Yeah.
And then you use that for like the salt.
That's actually the owner of the building.
Okay.
And they. They charge us 200amonth.
Okay, cool, Cool. So you use that most like the salt and material. Okay, nice. You guys use the walkers?
Yeah, we actually just bought that in auction and picked it up for Jeep.
Okay, cool.
But we actually had one that got stolen.
Really? From here?
No, it was actually a gated community. It was in a bit of a dump trailer. We lost a dump trailer.
Oh, they took the whole dump trailer.
All of it did. Like four years ago.
While you were on site?
No, because it was a gated community. It was a big. It was like a two week prune.
Oh.
And then it was our second year there. The first year we left there all spring, all summer. Second year left in there all spring, that summer showed up on a Friday and it was gone.
Mercy.
Yeah. We watched the videos, See the truck come down the road, turn the signal on.
Oh, you got it all.
Yeah. But they knew where the cameras were because they was hitting the brakes. So you couldn't see the license plate.
Mercy.
Pretty much the inside job, I think.
Oh, really? Yeah.
One of our guys.
Right.
Somebody knew that was there.
Right.
It was like. Like 60 km.
So when was it that you finally let go of your brother? Because I know that was kind of a whole situation. Early spring, late 2024.
Yeah.
So was that a few years ago he came on and what was his sort of role?
2022.
Okay.
Because we was having a Killer winter. Yeah, we did like I think 130,000.
I saw that. That was a good year.
Yeah. So. So, so it brought him on and. Cause he had almost as much landscape experience as I was like, okay, this is what we're going to do. I'm going to run sales. You're going to run all, all the crews, but I want you to sell like 150 grand. We're going to get to a million dollars.
Yeah.
Yeah. And so his role was mostly like managing the crews. You were going to also just be doing sales. And so he was basically kind of operations manager kind of. Okay. And then from, from your perspective, he kind of just started hiring the wrong people and doing the wrong. Like, what was sort of the issue there?
Well, he's a drinker.
Okay.
And like he would show like he ended up going. He was in the field too.
Okay.
And like he would show back up in the day. He'd be in the passenger truck with a non insured driver. He's in there with a 12 pack, drinking, leaving jobs like 1:30 in the afternoon where if you would have stayed, it been done at five. So now we're taking everybody back out to the job. This went on for like two years. But it's like, you know, it's your family, right?
Yeah.
Eventually got to that point.
Yeah.
Because I ran all his hour report and he was on salary, making good salary and he worked under 60.
Okay.
So. Yeah.
And so was that the beginning of the trouble or was already kind of struggling?
We were, we were struggling a little bit, but at the same time, because there's two trucks out there, I bought them when he come on board.
Got it.
So that added to it because I thought, you know, we're gonna go. Because I think that year we did like almost 740.
Yep.
I'm like, okay, we want a million. We had some trucks that were. He didn't know if he was gonna make it through the day.
Right. Yeah.
Like let's upgrade.
Right.
And so we got those two. So we took on those two payments plus his salary.
But you're gonna go to a million. That was kind of the big. Got it.
But said we went to 650.
And so when you had to let him go, did you lose some of the crew? Like was it kind of like you purged the whole system or he just had to go. Just got it. Okay. All right. So that was two years. And then now it's a matter of. We're still around that same 650, 700 range. Right. Now and okay. And so in terms of the debt, like we have the two truck payments and then how much do we owe on both of those? Still.
Probably.
Around 75 between the two of them.
So there's three trucks? Three trucks.
We have four trucks. One's paid off.
Okay.
And then the third one we just got last year. Okay. It was kind of a necessity for snow. Right. We had so much snow came with plow. Right.
Snow is one of those things. If you don't have a good truck, it becomes an absolute pain in the butt. Okay. So we got three trucks with payments, one that's paid off. I'm assuming that with between that the three trucks is probably 100,000 on debt for the trucks. Those three.
Easy.
Okay. Easy. Okay. Oh, cuz the newer one, right. So it's probably 120.
It's probably probably 150.
Okay. So that third truck's the nice one for snow. Got it, got it. Okay. And then payments on those per month right now for just the trucks. What are we looking at?
3400.
3400 between the three trucks. I'm assuming that third truck is like 1500 almost the nice one actually.
The silver 350s.
Like 14.
Okay.
And the new one's 13. Better interest rate.
Got it. Okay.
The one hundred and fifty out there is like 750.
Okay.
Right.
So three or four grand a month for payments on the trucks and then debt outside of that. Now what is that looking like?
I got a dump trailer. It's like a rent to own.
Okay.
So it's like 650amonth. Okay. But I was just tapped out on credit, Couldn't get a loan.
Right.
Needed it.
Right.
Because ours got. That was on payment too. So basically the insurance paid it off.
Got it.
You know, so they do that and then other than that, like our insurance went crazy after the theft, which makes no sense.
Right.
We went from paying like 850amonth to 2,400amonth.
I saw that it seemed kind of high. I thought maybe it was because of the snow plowing, but it just jumped after the theft. Did you make a claim for that then? Yeah, got it.
Yeah. So the, the only other claim we had was one of my subcontractors hit a garage door.
Okay.
Like a fire station. And we fetched up to it.
Yeah.
And well then they claimed that we hit all five doors. But like where we hit it, like I had pictures and everything. And it was a two foot where it measured. His hitch. That's where his hitch was.
Yeah.
The rest of them were, like, this far off the ground. They're a little nicks.
Yeah.
So I was like, you know, let's sit down and talk about it, you know, worked out, because I don't think he did it. Didn't hear anything. So I just thought it went away. And all of a sudden, my insurance agent calls and goes, hey, why do I got a claim for $55,000 for garage doors? I'm like, I don't know. Wow. So, but that ended up. I mean, they settled, but it's still like 18 grand or something because I only fixed the one.
Okay. So insurance is up around 2,500 bucks a month now. Yeah, got it. Okay. All right, so. But there's not a ton of credit card. Are you kind of just paying those off as you. Okay. No credit cards.
I just got bad credit, so I got, like, a $300 credit card, so.
Got it. Okay. But it's mostly then just running through cash. We have the debt on the trucks, the trailer, and then just like, it's money in, money out from the bank accounts. Okay.
Absolutely.
Okay, cool. All right. And from your perspective right now, like, it's been a few years where you kind of been? Like, I looked through all the bank statements. Like, it's. It's been zero. A lot.
Yeah.
So where are you at? Like, is this a matter of, like. So I don't know if you watched the video from last week. Like, there's Aaron we went with, and I don't think, regardless of what I tell him, he'll just always run the business the same way. And, like, he's just kind of come used of it, and it's like, where are you at? Like, what do you want the business to do? And, like. Like, what do you. What do you see as the problem right now? Like, what are you working on? Like, did it seem hopeless? Or is it just like, hey, I just got to get through X, Y, and Z or pay these? Like, where are you at in your mind?
I mean, it seems hopeless because it's always that way.
Right.
I think a lot of.
Comes from the bottle mapping, like, me doing everything and lack of good employees.
Yeah.
And I think I said in the video, me and Brandon's really want to pay. Well, everyone else wants cash. I want it now. So then I'm on the back end paying 12, 13 grand a year taxes, you know, they don't.
Yeah.
You know, and they're making well over 20 bucks an hour in cash. And they can't drive. They can't Even drive to work, we have to pick them up. I mean it's, it's crazy.
Yeah.
So.
And so when you try to find employees that can drive, etc, is it impossible? Is it you can't afford to pay them what they. They need.
It's like we can't even get them.
Okay.
Like we tried and Dean separated.
Krueger. Yeah, yeah.
One year. And we got 30 applicants. Everyone says it's free, but I got a 900 bill from 1 950, girl from mother. We got 30 applicants. Only five showed up for the interviews. We hired four and then I think the longest one lasted eight days. And they all had experience. They said we can't get that.
Yeah. This area, I seem, it feels like to me like 25 bucks an hour is going to find a decent an employee.
Very.
Yeah. So. So, so you think like the ones you got, they just, they just bounce? Do you think that's a function of like being in middle of COVID Like did you do that during 2021? 2022. Okay. So. But recently we haven't kind of gone back that strategy, trying to get more employees that are. Okay. Okay. All right. And so that was also the time though when your brother was around, right?
Yeah, definitely.
All right. So okay. So yeah, like the struggle, the part I struggle with is.
There'S several things I seek in terms of where we can attack the business. The first one is like, do we want to keep doing all these services? And like right now you have the maintenance, you have the projects, you have the salt right now from your perspective, where is the money made? Like if you had to tear that down to like two or three services, where's the profit that you feel? Where's that coming from?
Probably the projects in the snow.
Okay. And so the maintenance side, it's that one massive contract. Who's that for? What's the story behind that?
So they were actually I was a branch manager for like a 15 million dollar company.
Okay.
And I was the account manager. So I had all these, all their properties and then we parted ways. Ugly. It was a bad divorce.
Got it.
And.
And that's when you started the business?
No, because I was on two year non competes.
Got it.
So once all that was done, I was actually selling trailers because I was like, I'm done with landscape, I hate it.
Yeah.
And I was actually really good at it. And the, the old district manager of that location because they have 10 locations maybe. Well actually they got some in Pennsylvania. They probably got 20 properties, but 10 around here.
Yeah.
And I Just friend requested my Facebook. He goes, hey, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, you know, doing this, doing landscape on the side. He goes, come talk to. So I took all their small properties and it was just basically me because I was. I didn't work like Tuesdays, so I would just do stuff on Tuesdays.
Yeah.
And he's like, hey, you're doing the best of all our vendors. What more can you take? And I'm like, just kind of jokingly, well, if I have to leave a six figure job to come do this, I need all your properties. He goes, give me numbers. So he gave me numbers and boom. Like we always offer running with $280,000. It was just like that.
Wow.
But so, I mean, that's changed because one of the properties got sold. The one where the stuff got stolen, we actually dropped because it was like an hour that way.
Got it.
So it didn't make sense. Right. And then another one they gave to someone else because of we couldn't do the snow. And the guy that was doing the snow kind of strong armed them. But it's still. It's probably. I mean, just with mowing and stuff. Probably 175,000 a year.
Got it. So about 175 is probably most of the maintenance side. Is that that big contract and at several properties, all commercial. Got it. And do you think you make money on that, that project right now?
They cover payroll.
Okay.
And what's good is they pay. I mean, they're one of the commercials that every other Friday. Check his money.
Right. Okay.
I never worried about it. And we do a lot of other snow and they give us a lot of up sales. Like the one year, I think they gave us almost 200,000 upsells.
Got it.
I think it's a good. I think it's good.
Yeah. But that's really about half the revenue of the business right now.
For the maintenance.
By the time you have maintenance and then like upsells and things like that, it's about right. All right, cool, cool. Do you want to hop in the office?
Yeah. I was like, the camera.
That's cool. It'll be nice when you got this whole space though.
Yeah, that'd be awesome.
And then is that the owners over there, like in that house?
They're nowhere around. They're actually a family friend.
Oh, nice. Very cool. Right.
Like to be competitive here in this market, like we. Because we use an LMN so you can see the whole property.
Right.
We would have to set our mowing. Like 2% net profit just to get contracts here.
So basically, in order to make. To get a maintenance contract in this area, you think you. Basically, it's 2% margin.
For mowing.
For mowing.
Yeah. I hear you talking about 80, 90 bucks an hour. We are on the high side at 45. I mean, very high. I got one regional company that is at 35 bucks an hour.
Camp.
And then I got one local, and they. The regional does mostly commercial. We run into them all the time.
Right.
And then we got one smaller company. I don't know how they're doing it, but they're growing. And everyone we bid on, we've been 45 higher than them.
And that's at like 40, 45 bucks an hour. Okay. And that's. That's the commercial side.
They're residential, too.
Got it. Okay. So on the project side, when you're doing bids, what are you kind of shooting for on there?
About 60.
Okay. All right. And then you win quite a few of those. Like, 60 or so. You think you're winning.
Yeah.
Okay.
But. And I don't know, because we mark up with us, too, like, because I know, because we are looking at, like, I think P for P would help us. I mean, I know we're on the low side, but we're so inefficient.
Right.
And I think we can make mowing more efficient. But, like, okay, that. That big property with the 95 hours, that's the big mo. When we first started, there was three of us mowing. I was on the crew. We averaged 23 man hours of visit for two years.
So, like, 75 hours, essentially, with three people.
Well, no. Well, three people, eight hours. Oh, wow.
Okay. Okay.
Now it's three people, 12 hours.
Okay.
And I. And I go, well, did the property grow? They had more houses? No.
Right.
They're just inefficient.
And so right now, when it comes to managing the crew, how are you tracking that? Is it, you know, you or your nephew, the ones that are kind of just on site, that are trying to maintain their efficiency?
I mean, I've. I don't really go out with them.
Okay.
But, you know, I've done to the point where. Because what we used to do is two people mow, one guy string trims. Right. And they would always just do what they wanted. So I actually went out and said, okay, this week, all you're doing is walking behind me, because I'll show you how to do it. You're gonna have gas, you're gonna have string trim. You're gonna start here, you're gonna finish here, you're gonna follow me. And they would follow me and the next week I'd go and say okay, now I'm gonna follow you. They'd do it right? And I wouldn't go the next week, I'd just show up like two weeks later and they're just doing whatever they want. What are you doing? Yeah, no, I, so quicker I'm like you're two sections behind. Obviously not. Why are you doing this?
Yeah, yeah. The difficult part with pay for performance is likely the fact that those jobs are so low bid. I don't even know if like even if you have 50% of revenue, if you'd be able to make their wages because if you're 40, 45 bucks an hour, probably 60 to 70% of your revenue just going to wages on those jobs.
Now I do got to ask because like all our jobs we factor travel in.
Okay.
So like, like my landscape crews, they're on jobs from the time they get here until the time they leave. If you know, say I go look at a job, it's 20 minutes away, okay. There's, it's going to take them two days to do. So there's three of them. So there's you know, an hour there, hour back for two days. So there's you know, six hours to figure an hour load, unload. So say maybe it's a 48 hour job but I'll bid it for 55.
Yeah, yeah.
Is that right or is that.
Well the nice thing about projects is you can, you can bake that drive time in. What's happened with the maintenance side and the big commercial site is we have this inflation of amount of time it's taking to do the job. But we're not increasing prices by 50%. Right. So you said like hey, we basically went from doing it in 24 hours, now it's 36 hours and we, we.
Probably raise it 35%.
Right.
I mean we've went up.
Yep.
But I can't go to em and say well we need to charge double because my guys are inefficient.
Right. Well and what's funny is this is the thing is we say okay, we're charging 40, $45 an hour but if we were able to get the crew to be twice as efficient, all of a sudden we would be making 70$80 an hour but the price to the customer would be the same. So like that's why when people start bringing hourly rates, I'm like, well it all Comes down to the efficiency of your crew, Right? Absolutely right. And so that's the part I zero in on is like, that project is a huge chunk of our revenue. I don't think we're making any money on it. And I think it's taking a lot of your time. And I know it's the safe thing because it's paying the bills in terms of the size of the contract, but I think it's taking away from the more profitable work, the project stuff, and the salt, etc. And so my thought is, and correct me if I'm not seeing something, and that is, would it just be better if it was you and your nephew doing the high profit margin work that you wouldn't be chasing your tail with all these guys? Because right now I feel like the stress part is coming from managing five, six employees that are. They can't drive here. You have to pick them up. You'll just never be efficient because you're factoring drive time. You're not factoring in you getting here an extra 30 minutes early, getting everything ready, then going and picking them all up from their houses and then driving.
Well, I pick them up on the way.
Okay. But still, it's just like, it's just a matter of, like, we'll never be able to be efficient doing that. And then they are basically in control of everything. Like, if you have no ability to, like, swap them in and out, there's no ability to, like, oh, we'll find more people because they basically have you by the balls. And then that's a very, like, you just feel out of control. And so my thought is like, can we cut the maintenance and by doing that, reduce the size of the business to just the profitable services. Cause what's unique, honestly, Matt, is I actually don't think you have a huge debt problem because you have it all on assets right now. And that's what I was looking for is like, do you have a whole bunch of uncollateralized debt? And you don't. You don't have a bunch of lines of credit, you don't have a bunch of credit cards. You have on assets, the trucks. And so my thought is, why not get rid of all this unprofitable work that's currently. We're not making any money on it. 40, $45 an hour, you're never making money on it. And it's not like it's being done super efficiently if you have 40 to $45 an hour. You have to be so focused on efficiency. It's insane to make any margin like we don't allow in San Augusta under 60 because it's just so hard to make any money under 40. And so if that's not happening, like where literally every little thing is measured, everything is just absolutely dialed and you can't make money on it. And so as much as it feels like it's paying the bills because it's just simply 40, 50% of revenue, if we cut that out, can we get rid of a truck or two, get rid of a payment or two and then just focus on the high margin services? Because I happen to think if you had spent more time on being able to sell these landscape jobs and the stuff that you're making 70, 80 bucks an hour versus just focusing on this massive contract and these other commercial things where we're not making money by the time you take in the walker mowers, the right mowers, all that equipment, we're just not making any money on it. And it seems like it's paying payroll, but these are people that we don't really want around. And like, I'm mostly concerned about the fact that like through the war of attrition, you end up just throwing in the towel because it's demoralizing to work with those type of people and have the bank balances where they're at. That's just like, I just look at, I feel your stress. Like that's so painful. And so, and to have done it now for like three years.
And so when I come into a turnaround like this, I'm like, is this person willing to be able to tear the band aid off and just like be violent with taking action? Because that's the only way to turn this around.
It's not going to be like, let's improve the margin on this big contract or like, let's marginally change. It's like we have to restructure things. And so like, if you were to say get rid of the big contract and you just did the, let's just hypothetically say that we do for the projects, could you and your nephew handle most of the projects, you think, with maybe one helper?
Yeah, probably.
Because I would imagine they work decently when you're working there or your, your nephew is. And it's when they're unsupervised or on a big maintenance site, that kind of goes downhill. So if we were to gut that one big project, like maintenance, like what if we just severed for maintenance?
Well, I don't know because I think you're going to lose all your snow, too, because they're all tied.
That's contract stuff.
Yeah.
Got it.
Yeah. That's what scares me. Okay, Now, I will say those. And I don't know if you guys do it like, yeah, we're at 45 bucks an hour, but we also factor a truck, a trailer, mowers.
Yeah.
Is that. You know, do you just add that all the way?
We factor in for maintenance. We consider all of it labor revenue. But, but. But needless to say, like, at 45, whether you include the trucks or not, it's still going to be, like, it's super thin. And it's assuming that they're hitting budget hours. If it's taking them so much longer, we're not making them even 45.
Now, like, when you say maintenance, because, like I said, the mowing's thin.
Right.
But like, when you look at that, like. Like that big contract or even a smaller one, like, your mowing might be at 2% net.
Right.
But the property, a whole is like, 13.
Right.
You're making it on the pruning. Yep. The.
Could you sub out the mowing?
I don't know.
I feel like you might want to think about that because, like, especially if. Because if, you know, you're kind of like the higher bidder. What if we went to these other people? Like, hey, I'm going to sub out the mowing portion of these contracts. Like, would your current. The person holding the contract be okay with that?
You think I don't know that the big one would be. But most of the other ones. Because we sell out our fertilizer. Because I good friend, that we used to have, like, a $40,000 fertilizer contract. Right. And a national company come in at half our price.
Yep.
So we lost it. So. And I was getting rid of my machine. So when we looked at it, we only had, like, $12,000 worth of fertilizer. A machine's 18 grand. Right. Doesn't make sense to spend 18 to make 12.
Right. Yeah.
So my buddy. And we make 25% off.
Yeah. Can we do that for the mowing? Because, like, if people are willing to do things for 30 bucks an hour, great. You do that, and then now you just take the extra cut to make sure you ensure quality control. So you're still gonna go through site visits making sure things are good. You're gonna do the site visits when you're doing the pruning and all the other upsells that you're making good money on. Because if your blended average of net is 13% and mowing is at 2. It means you're making like 20% plus on the upsells. So let's just focus on that stuff and where we make money and then sub out the stuff. If everyone else wants to do $30 an hour to be on job sites, let them have it. Let's not fight that battle. And then you can do the snow and you can do the upsells and you can do the other stuff that's maintenance related, but you can make good money on. But then we cut all this equipment, we cut all the mowers, we cut out all these employees that we really like. You're not making money on that. And so if you feel like, hey, we got it, we kind of got to do it just to keep the contract. Can we sub it out? Can we make 30, 40 grand in net like basically in your pocket to manage that contract?
Look into it.
What's the fear on that side? Like, what's. Is it just like.
Because I think you're gonna have multiple companies. You know what I mean? Because, like, we have stuff around here.
Yeah.
But then we got stuff that's a half hour away. So I don't know if that one guy is gonna, you know, cover that. I mean, it's 120 hours of mowing, so it's not like Joe Smo's gonna go, oh, yeah, you know.
Right.
I mean, it's a lot.
Yeah. But the guys that you had mentioned that are kind of growing and that do residential and commercial, do you think some of them would have that same service area?
I don't think they would go quite as far as the big, big one.
Yeah.
And actually we just signed that contract, I think a month and a half ago, so.
Yeah.
And I got a good relationship with them. So it's like, I hate to be like, oh, sorry, see you.
Yeah.
I mean, but I mean, I gotta save myself too.
Yeah. I wonder though, if it'd just be a matter of like, hey, we sub out portions of the job, but you're still on site, you still do the upsells, you still do the improvements, and you still do the salting.
Because, like, honestly, if you had to cut ties with that contract 100%, I don't see making money there right now. And so as much as like, well, we need it because, like, for the snow and ice, I almost like, believe it's like, well, could we. If we axed it, axed at all, could we just go get snow and ice somewhere? Like just those individual contracts themselves? Because right now, like, your time is so spent on this other low margin work, you're not having the time to go out and get the contracts you actually want. And like, the time of, like, picking up crew members and doing all that is keeping you away from going out and seeking that higher margin work.
So now you're saying I should be in the field full time, though?
Well, it just depends why you want to build the business. Right. Like, right now we don't have a good workforce that we actually make money on. I believe we're losing money on all these employees. Like, they. If we're making 30 to 40 bucks an hour on them, plus you're paying them $25 an hour cash, plus you're paying their taxes on top of that. Like, there's no money there. So everyone gets to fall in love with that because, like, well, I can't let go of half of the revenue. But you're not making money on it. And so, like, it's like, where are we making money? And I think the only way I see it is right now is like, you work hard, your nephew works hard. Like they were with them last night. Like, he works hard. And so how can we build a business that does 250 to $300,000 with just the two of you? And I think that business makes money. And so whether or not it's like what you want long term, though, that's a different conversation. Cause in 10 years, you don't want to be doing that. But I think building a profitable business right now is probably like step one and then figuring out how do we scale it? Because right now we try to scale with. We try to scale an unprofitable business model. And so you have a business that's 800,000 or so when you try to scale it, but it's not making any money. And so can we retreat back to the few services that we know we make money, we know there's hard workers, which is you and your nephew, maybe one of your crew that you're like, okay, as long as they're working with us, we can make it work. But then we only scale down the road once we have more profitable services. And. And we've been able to scale those.
Do we just get rid of the big contract? Because a lot of our other mowing, because I just ran a number suit copilot, the equipment and stuff, and a lot of them are 50, 60 when I look at. Okay, we average this many hours.
Yeah.
You know, so we're, you know, 55, 60 bucks. An hour.
If you can make $60 an hour, I would probably say maybe we can keep them.
Okay.
Right. And then just be a matter of.
Because that you only really need like two people to mow three days a week.
Okay.
Realistically.
Right. Could you do one person mowing and have them full time?
Some of those properties, pretty big.
Right? You know, like just be demoralizing.
Yeah. You're there all day.
Right. You know, but who would do that right now? Like, do you have an employee that you're like, oh, we totally trust them to be on a job site all day long.
So. Debbie, my ex wife, okay. She knows my quote because she could never do this.
Right.
I taught her. So she knows exactly what I want. Right. The work ethic's not.
Got it. Oh, it's not there.
No, it's not.
And is she leading the maintenance crew?
Yeah.
Okay, that's.
That's part of the problem.
Okay, so we can cut this out the video point. Why is she still around?
Because she can drive and she's here every day. Okay. Unfortunately.
Okay.
You know what I mean? That's 100% the guys. And don't put this on. Yeah, the guys cannot stand her. You know.
Yeah, that's might be. That might be why though. You had eight people join and within a week they all left.
She wasn't here then.
She wasn't.
That wasn't here.
Okay, so when your. Your brother left, then that. When she stepped back in.
No, she was. She's been fired like three times.
Okay.
But we always bring her back, cuz we're like, oh, we need a driver. We need. She is here. But it's like, you know, Brandon was all frustrated because she was supposed to be helping him plow. And he's like, man, I might as well just be here by myself. And that's the old truck.
Right.
You know, because. And I don't know because you went to medical school, you might know. But she had a hernia removed like three years ago. All of a sudden now it's grown back.
It can.
Yeah. Okay, okay. Because everybody else told me it couldn't.
I'm like, I don't. Yeah.
But she'll be like, oh, you know, my hernia popped out. I gotta sit in the truck. And she'll sit in the truck on that big property for like two hours.
So is the only reason we're keeping her right now is that she can drive the maintenance crew. Okay. And what is she. She gets paid cash.
Yeah.
And around the same amount. 25 bucks an hour or so she's like 16. Okay.
She's cheap.
Okay.
Okay. So because from my perspective, I see a team member that is. Is demoralizing the rest of the crew. No one wants to work with her, so it's preventing you from keeping any good labor. They're not productive in terms of, like, making us money. And yes, they're cheap, but cheap. Like, a good employee can do five times the amount of revenue as, like, a pathetic employee that sits in the truck all day.
That's like I said. I mean, that big property, like, I ran it. Like, if we did it with the hours we did when I was in the field, that's almost a $55 an hour cut. But we got to get them there. Right. Without me being the guy running a weed eater.
Right.
46 years old. I'm not going to run a weed eater for.
Right.
And I own a company. I'm not going to do it.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, I would if, you know, guy. But if I could not have people riding mowers or driving around in trucks.
And I'm a guy working, it just seems to me it's like, okay, if we can pay 25 an hour, I feel like we should be able to find drivers in this market. Like, I looked online, like, of, like, what people are paying here, I feel like it's enough to get a driver. So, like, is it. Why are people leaving when they come here? Is it someone like her here? Is it because, like, a lack of management? Is it, like, the culture? Why are people not staying here? Because, like, right now you can find a good amount of employees, like, in 20, 21, 22. That was very common.
I called a guy to set up an interview, and he goes, well, how much you paying me? I said, well, we'll talk about that interview. He goes, no, how much you pay me to come interview? Because my time is money. And I was like, you know what? I'm done with America. I'm not paying you to come in and interview.
Right. Was that. Was that recently? Or 20, 21, 2022 or 23. Okay.
And I had, you know, we. Like the old place we were at, it was kind of like on a corner, and there was like a little convenience store there. They had one guy come in for an interview carrying a six pack, and he sits it down outside the door and comes in for his interview. Like, you know, I mean, because that was the people was getting.
Yeah.
And none of them could drive. Well, I can walk here. Well, still, you know, doesn't help.
Yeah, yeah. Like Sometimes I think about attracting talent, kind of like, why would they come here? And so one of the things is the same way we try to attract a customer to come become a customer. Like, what is attractive about this place for them to come work here? Because there is other options. And when unemployment's at 4%, like, we've got to be able to stand out amongst everyone else. And so, like, if I had to ask that question, if I was coming to you as an employee, like, why should I work here versus somewhere else? Like, what's the unique selling proposition now for an employee to work here?
I think you're always going to stay busy. I mean, there's always going to be work. We're going to take care of you. I'm pretty easy to do. I mean, unless you don't do your job, you're not going to. If you do your job and do it well, you're not going to hear from me. That's like the thing with Brandon, because he came from that, you know, and he gets nervous. Like, talk to me. See, I date his aunt. That's kind of my nephew.
Got it.
But, like, you know.
Got it. All right. We're tracking.
We're tracking my girlfriend's nephew.
Okay. It's a family business. Let's go.
So, you know, but, like, he'll be afraid to call me. Like, he'll call his aunt. I'll be like, why are you. Then she'll call me. I'm like, why are you calling me? Yeah, he's afraid to get yelled at. I'm like, I've never yelled at the kid. Well, yeah, but his old employer did. I'm like, dude. Yeah. So, I mean, how long has he.
Been with you now?
He'll be going in his third year. Oh, well, he was actually hired to run the mowing camp because that's what he's always done.
Okay.
He did it for like, six months and just didn't like it because of. And Debbie wasn't here.
Right.
Because of the people that we were hiring. He's like, I don't want to.
Right.
And he actually quit for like a day and went to another company. Had to work, like 19 hours that day. And he's like, hey, can I come back and work on the landscape side? Yeah. So we brought him back, and my brother was here at the time. Then my brother left, and he just kind of stepped into that.
Okay.
So.
Okay. I don't think we make any money on the maintenance side. I don't. I think the question comes becomes, can we Sub out all the low margin stuff and keep the higher margin stuff and keep those contracts, and then basically your job becomes project manager instead of I'm running crews. Because you're gonna still do the upsells. Like, well, really, Brandon's gonna do that. He's gonna be doing the upsells, doing the property claims, et cetera, on these sites anyways, and making sure that quality is high enough on the mowing. High enough. And so it's a matter of, like, can we convince the contract, the contract holder, that, hey, we're gonna have sub out the mowing portion? Are you pretty confident on most of them besides one? We could do that.
Yeah. I mean, maybe that whole contract. I mean, because there's four of them, but.
Right.
I mean, one of them is real big. One of them's medium.
Yeah.
And then the other ones are our most.
Because I happen to think if we. If we can get your time and attention off of that, get rid of your ex, because she now she does not need it, we can then focus on the stuff that's actually making money. And there's a. There's so many areas of opportunity right now I see that are just neglected because we have our attention on something that's sucking our time and mental energy. Like with your ex around and just focusing on, like, for example, the website. You can't get to the website right now. Like, the security. Something's off.
You're good. That's Brandon. You can take the phone call. You're good. You're good. Go ahead.
Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, let me see if I get a hold of it real quick.
All right, Take your time. Something froze up.
Yeah, we'll do this one residential. It's like a 300 snowplow. Can't get in.
Oh, the door's locked.
It's froze.
Oh, really?
Hey, Linda. Matt, Courtney. How are you?
Hey, I got a guy down there to plow your driveway, and he's saying that the keypad is frozen. What do you want me to do? Yeah, he said he couldn't get in. Nice. It's open. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you very much, dear.
Bye.
Okay, she opened it.
Brandon's a hustler. I like him.
Yeah, he's a good kid.
Yeah. Okay, so how I kind of see it is. Can I use it? One of these by two in the back of it. Is that fine? Like, I think you probably heard me talk about this before, but, like, we have, like, the 4L framework, right? So up top, we have liquidity. And I think right now, this is probably the most urgent when it looks. When we look at just like, their negative bank balances and, like, that's also where a lot of the stress is coming from. And a lot of times when I see someone making bad decisions, it's like I go back to their bank account and say, if that's negative, you can't think clearly.
And, like, I remember when I had to borrow money for my brother, like, to make payroll and stuff. Like, you're not thinking. You miss all the opportunities, and you just get zero in on one little thing, usually because you can't help but, like, get super frustrated and. And, like, nervous. And so you've been in that position so long, like, if you can trust me on a couple things, I think we can turn it around. But, like, it is. It's going to. It's going to restructure the company. It's not a function of, like, oh, we need to raise prices by 5 or 10%. Like, when we look at three years of basically negative bank balances, it is a restructuring. And so if you can trust me and take action on a couple things, I do think it's salvageable.
When we look at liquidity, like cash in the bank right now, if we had to break down the. The current, like, fixed expenses, we have about. We have the four trucks, and I.
Think I sent it to you guys, it's right around 20.
20,000Amonth.
Yeah.
For fixed expenses.
Yeah.
And that's. And that. That's assuming we have the debt on the trucks. We have yours and Brandon's salary. That was like seven grand, if I remember correctly. So we have rent, we have insurance, et cetera. So on $20,000 a month, assuming that I was also paying your salary out of that, that is the fixed expenses, that means we basically make around 250 to $300,000 a year. And so I think we can do that with just you and Brandon. If you're doing projects and you're doing salting and snow, and then I think that we can make a margin on the rest of it, like 10 or 15 or 20% by subbing it out and so. But then get rid of it. Like, so, for example, the mowers right now, are those all paid off? Yeah, those are all paid off. Okay. So I think we sell off everything required to mow a lawn. If there's competition out here willing to do for 35 bucks an hour, we do not want that work. Like, let them have it. We will never make money on that. So we liquidate, we sell off Everything to do with mowing and maintenance. And that frees up almost all of your workforce. You can let go, right? You're gonna let go of your ex. Like, we know this is. This is not like a matter of like, oh, it might work out. Like, we know it doesn't work out. Like, we fired herself several times. She's probably preventing good employees from staying. She's getting Brandon frustrated. Like, the dynamic with the family there is not going to work either. So, like, we gotta get rid of her in order. If we let her go, we gotta let go of the maintenance. So let's do it. Like, get rid of mowing. Like, if you have that mower, like those right mowers, and you're mowing grass for 40, $45, you're not making any money. Just because the cost of that thing is 10 to 12 bucks an hour plus your labor of 25, you're not making any money. So instead of us trying to constantly just try to generate revenue and then they just go out the door, get rid of it. Then it just becomes a matter of, can we get a subcontractor that will do the work? And if you made 10% margin, 15% margin, we should be thrilled. That's going to be like literally $30,000 a year for you. Just checking on the sites. So first step is like, if we do that and we cut out all the maintenance, how many trucks do we actually need? Because I don't, I don't think we're going to have to have $20,000 a month once we cut these things out. Right? You need this truck for salt, right? Salting and snow. So we got one truck here and the brand new one and the brand new one, and then we got one paid off and then the third one. And so if we sold those off, like, how much do you owe on the one that has the third truck right now? How much is it worth?
I don't know, probably 22. I mean, because I overall.
Okay, you are a little bit. Okay, that's fine. So we would. We eat. Let's just call it 8K by the time we just need to get rid of fixed expenses. Because I think this 20,000, we can get down to about 12 to 15. Therefore, making a business that is 250,000, 300,000 profitable. And so if we able to get down to two trucks. Just hear me out for a second. I know this is out to left field for a second. Two trucks, it's going to be two solid trucks that, you know, work well. We sell off the fourth truck that is paid off. That's money in our pocket. How much do you think that's worth? Maybe five grand. Six grand?
Oh, I blue booked it like 75.
Perfect. You sell that and you sell the third truck, pays off the third truck's loan. How much is that loan currently costing you every month?
775.
So that's. Let's call it a thousand. Okay. And then right now we have all the mowers. If we sell those mowers, Some of those are nice. That's. I would assume between all three, you're looking at 25 grand. 20 grand. Well, because of four. No, may not. Because it was reused.
Yeah. And probably three grand. Four grand a piece, maybe.
Okay, so then we're maybe we're going to get like 10 grand. Let's just call it 10. 12 grand liquidated. So, like money in the bank. Give us a little bit of breathing room, because right now we have no breathing room. We need a little bit of money bank so we can sleep. That's going to come in the form of the mowers. What else do we get rid of? If we get rid of mowing, I.
Get rid of the MoW trailer.
Okay. Thousand bucks. Yeah. Okay. Let's just call it 15 grand that we liquidate all the mowing stuff.
Okay.
Mowers, trailer, hand tools. Going to keep the hand tools anyways for improvements and cleanups. But we get 15 grand in the bank. So from a liquidity perspective, we sell off assets, we get rid of two trucks. Now we're down to just two trucks that we own that are good. Maintenance is going to go down. Insurance is going to go down. Like I would be paying for auto insurance right now.
The auto is like, was.
I just renewed it like a thousand a month.
Well, it's 19,000 a year. A year.
Okay. So about 1500. So that's going to be. That's gonna drop by like 800amonth.
Yeah.
So now we've reduced this already. Down by a thousand now down 18k. Just between the insurance and letting two of the trucks go. And then it's also like there's other costs of like, maintenance, storage, all these other things. We just cut those all out. And so now it's. We need to make. The goal is we need to make $22,000 per month in revenue to pay your salary and be profitable. And I think that's very possible. Between you and Brandon, you're going to do ice, snow, and landscaping. And right now we're spending 10, $15,000 a year, sometimes more. When you're growing on Angie's List and other ads. The reason we're paying for that is because we are. So this goes into leads, right? So liquidity is we sell off assets we don't need anymore. We get rid of some of the fixed expenses. We focus on the two trucks that work really well. We're going to go all in on landscaping, snow and ice. And we then maintain those contracts using subcontractor. From a leads perspective. Right now, I can't access your website. Like, the SSL is messed up. I can't even go on there. There's no Google reviews. If we can just focus on those two things. Like, it sounds like someone's building the website right now. Oh, we are.
Yeah.
When did you just start? A few weeks ago.
Two or three weeks ago. Yeah.
Awesome. Okay.
So it'll be like spring.
I was literally going to bring it up as an idea. Okay, cool. So here's the thing. Let me talk to the team. I want to give that to you for free for six months. Okay? Now, now, all I ask is that you get at least 30 Google reviews on Google. Right now. You have zero right now. It's not connected to the website. Was there any website before I.
So I've built it two years in a row.
Okay.
And the first one, because I'm not techie.
That's fine.
I went to launch it and it disappeared.
Yeah, yeah, that's right now. That's what it looks like right now.
So then the next one I actually got at the launch, I had spam on my card, so I canceled my card. So, like the host gauge or whatever.
When it came up, default, and then there you go. Okay. Okay. So. Okay, so liquidity, we're selling stuff off. We gotta get down our expenses. I think if we do that, we can make money, 22 grand a month on projects, leads. Right now you're spending money on Angie's lead. Angie's List. It's literally outranking your website. Like, if you look, type in your name, Angie's come to first, which means everyone that searches your name, you're paying Angie's for. Because they're like, oh, there it is. Boom. And they click and they. It's like, this is Courtney's lawn landscape and they're going to Andy's. And then you're paying for that. That lead. And so we're driving literally all of our traffic to our rented source and paying for every single one that comes in.
Actually, we pay like a flat rate per month.
Got it with that.
Yeah.
But we're still having to pay for them. And like, that lead is rented because Angie will go sell that lead to someone else tomorrow for another service.
I know. I just. I had one that we did two jobs for last year and then I was plowing last night and he come across as a new lead request.
Oh, yeah.
I'm like, are you serious?
Yeah, yeah.
We did ten grand for you last night.
Oh, man. Yeah. So, you know, I think that's the main thing. I'm going to talk to Tori and the team for a longer website. We're going to be free for six months. That'll get you through spring rush, so you can restructure a little bit. And then all I ask is please get 30 Google reviews. So you have. Someone's created a Google listing for you. It's not correct right now. It has wrong information. It's spelled incorrectly. So, like, if we can just get Google your Google listing, get control of that. Do you have. Do you have control of it? No, I don't think so. No. So, yeah, I don't. I think someone else created it because it literally is like, there's no spaces on it. Says Courtney's lawn service with no spaces.
Okay.
So what you'll want to do is just type in your name, look at the groove, and then claim this listing.
Okay.
Once you go there and claim it, they're gonna ask for you to verify it. They'll ask you for like a video up the sign, this sort of area. Then you'll own it. Then you'll be able to go get your reviews.
Okay.
And you'll basically send that link via copilot, do the texting or email to every single person you've ever done a service for that you know is going to like you and people that like our local friends, family, anyone that can give you a review. We need 30 plus. If we do that and the website gets up by spring rush, you'll have enough leads coming in to where this is not a problem. And what I'm going to do, if you're okay with this, talk to Tori and go over the site with them and make sure that it's focused on landscaping and snow and ice because I want leads coming in for high margin services. I could care less about mowing if there are people in this market because I don't have this problem. In our market, no one's doing lawns for 30, $35 an hour. It's licensed industry. And so, you know, if they are doing it, I am not Even in competition with them. Like, these are type of people that if the customer wants them on their property, they're not competing with me.
Because we used to. I kind of think we got rid of most of them, but I used to get calls all the time, like, hey, can you give us a price? Like, I got $50 minimum. Oh, that's too much. Can't you match what I'm paying? I'm like, we're not Walmart, right? And I'm like, what are you paying? They're like, 20 bucks. I'm like, why are you calling me? Yeah, well, we're not happy. Well, if we do it for 20 bucks, you're not gonna be happy either. Yeah, stay with them.
Yeah, yeah. So, like, let's not even go after that work, because right now we're losing our shirt. And more importantly, all of your time and attention is being spent on something that doesn't make you money. I just want that time and attention put on something else. And it's gonna be going after these leads that will come in from the website for landscaping projects that you'll make money on.
What you're saying still do the spring cleanups and the pruning.
Yeah, we make money on that.
Okay.
And so if Brandon can have, like, one person with him that's really strong and even. Even if. Right for now, it's one of the people that you currently have, you just take your best one and he's going to go help Brandon. He literally just worked on a Brandon, get rid of your ex so that Brandon's happy. Because we need to preserve Brandon at all costs. If he leaves, we are in a really bad spot. And so I would have a conversation like, hey, I'm going to get rid of her. I want to make sure this is. We're going to build this around you and me. You're going to run the landscape maintenance. You're going to run the landscape and like the upsells, etc. I'm going to manage these contracts in terms of the subcontractors, and I'm going to go sell more projects for us. And then, like, what I would say is we do if we continue to expand, because I believe once your size up and you're getting leads, you're going to start getting landscaping projects. No employees that are not legit. But now you have a company, when they come in, you don't have employees that are detracting from the culture. The people you know shouldn't be here. And you don't have work that's Sucking the life out of you that you're not making any money on. And so it's actually when they get here, it's like, hey, this is how we do landscaping projects. And you can be proud of the work you do because these are like your time, your intention. Brand is a time. Intention is spent on it. And then the website generates the leads. We don't pay Angie's list for every single lead that comes in. And those are lousy leads. So that's like the leads perspective. So I'll talk to Tory. I already made a note of that. I'll make sure he bends it in. More of the landscaping. Snow and ice. Go ahead. You're fine.
Spectrum.
Okay, cool. Okay, cool. That kind of leads us into labor. We talked about this already.
For now, you and Brandon, we build the whole team around that. Brandon, Think of him as your operations manager. All right? He's going to the goal as we scale rebuild, probably likely in 2020, late, late 2025 and 2026, because right now, restructuring is going to take you to six months. Okay? Getting these subcontractors in place for the mowing, really redoing these contracts, getting rid of people in the organization, selling off the truck, selling off the mowers, that's going to take you some time. Now, the difference between six months and six weeks is how violent you get with it. And I just recommend just like, pull everything out like, like, literally before spring rush. If you can do this, this step, this is the difference between you, like, getting back on your feet in early 2026 versus literally in eight weeks. Being like, this is a new business. I feel good about it. And so I would recommend be violent with it. Get rid of people, cut trucks. Like, you can sell trucks quickly. Like, just get rid of them. If you take a little bit of loss, who cares? We know we're going to get rid of one payment. We're getting rid of two trucks, half of your insurance. From an auto perspective, get rid of maintenance. All this equipment sucks time in terms of maintenance, etc. Just get rid of it all labor. We're going to cut all your lowest performers. You're going to eat one person that would be Brandon's helper. And ideally, once we get back on our feet and the business is restructured, we find employees that are legit, that can drive here. They have a license. And the new policy at Courtenay's Lawn and Landscape is you come here with a driver's license and a phone. But we need to pull out all the detractors. That currently, when those people are coming in, like, if I can't work here, I'm out. I'm seeing people that are lazy. I'm seeing people sitting in the truck. I'm seeing a whole bunch of waste on a job site, and I'm hustling. Forget that. I'm out. That's what's keeping the good people away right now. No one good wants to work here. And so the reason I say that is because you have someone like Brandon wanting to leave. So we know we need to get rid of those people down the road. So I'm thinking, like, after restructuring, you have one. Like, is there one of the employees? Like, I think they'd be good if they were just working with Brandon.
Yeah. Juan. And he speaks English, and he's married to an American woman.
Okay.
I'm sure he's legal.
Yeah. Okay.
Some of them. I don't know, they don't. They don't speak. I don't speak.
Yeah. So.
So he could probably. He would probably. I could probably get him on payroll.
Okay.
This is.
This is what we.
This is how we are. Yeah.
You know, and. But he can't drive.
He used to drive to the old shop.
Okay.
I don't know if it was because.
He lived right around if it was legal or not, but he did. Okay.
But he drove here once, and then all of a sudden, his car was broke.
Got it. So then this is. This is what you do. So from a labor perspective, we're gonna sit down with Brandon and this other gentleman, and we're explaining what the business is going to look like. And you're going to be very clear that within six months, everyone working here is going to have a driver's license and a phone. And if that means that he goes and figures that out over the next six months, if that means he already has a license and you just don't know about it, that means he needs to go clean up something and pay some fines so he can get his license back. He's got time to do that. And that you would make it very clear that if and when he gets back on payroll, if he's able to, in those six months, you'll cover the difference. You'll make sure he's covered. Because it sounds to me like he would be a really good team member if he was just with Brandon. But with all these other people and your ex around, like, everyone's morale just comes down. Everyone just goes to the lowest common denominator, and that's what's happening right now. Everyone's like, what can I do? Just to not get fired. And right now, because you're handicapped by not being able to find good people, they just run the roost.
Oh, yeah.
And so from a labor perspective, we're going to sit down, we're going to have a meeting with Brandon and him. Here's what the business is doing. I'm going to. I'm serious. I'm getting rid of the trucks. They won't believe you until you sell trucks and you get. Let the. You get subs on those mowing jobs and you let go of your ex. So I know that will be a bloody conversation around the ex thing. I understand there's family stuff, but like, we know she is the one keeping the good employees from staying. We got to get rid of her. And you already know that. You've fired her three times. So the reason you kept her, though, is because you've been handcuffed at these projects, these, these contracts. The reason I'm actually wanting those contracts gone is because you'll get rid of her and you'll. You won't feel like you need her anymore. So we, then we can get loosed of her. Now we actually open up the culture to good employees staying. All right. The reason the labor part, having legal employees is important is because you are. You are one phone call away or one inspection away from being out of business again. It's an existential threat. And so there are certain things inside of business that if you don't like, for example, you don't pay your sales tax, you don't pay your payroll tax, you are, you are putting at risk the fact that you could be shut down tomorrow. And so we need to remove that. That is the thing that even if you were profitable, let alone if we, Even if we had liquidity in the bank, if you're doing that sort of activity, we are, we are. We will not be able to sleep well at night. And so, like, when we look at, like, can you just run a business that's profitable and you sleep well at night? We need to make sure we have legal employees and we're paying payroll taxes, et cetera. So that's labor. That's a hard conversation with exes. That's a hard conversation with the current employees. It's a hard conversation with Brandon, the one employee. And I sit down right here. I'm going to go over exactly how this business is going to rebrand. Here's what this, here's what Courtney's lawn landscape looks like by June 2025. Here's what's going to look like, and here's all the things that we got to get done in order to make that happen. We're selling off trucks, we're getting rid of the mowing. I'm going to go find subcontractors. I'm going to get three bids on it next week. I've already set these appointments up. Here's what's happening. And so then the last part is leadership. And that's going to be that hard conversation with all those parties, and that's going to mostly rely on you. And I believe that by having those conversations, someone like Brandon is going to thrive. Someone like him like, oh, this is a legit business. We're going to actually run this correctly. We're not going to run this based upon us being handcuffed to employees that are pulling the culture down. So he's going to jump in. I believe Brandon will step up once he sees the leader come back out inside of you. Because right now you have relegated all sort of leadership to basically team members that have no business being here. And you stepping up and taking authority and firing those people, letting them go and saying, we're going to change things around here, you'll gain his respect back and he'll be all in. And by him being all in, he'll manage his one person really, really well and make those projects super profitable for you. And the only way. The only way we keep good employees around here is if the leader inside of you comes back out, because right now it's not there. You've relegated all that leadership to other people. And so by taking ownership of the business and, like, doing the hard work of, like, selling the equipment, selling the trucks, getting rid of employees, that's the leader coming back out inside. And you take ownership of the business. Right now it's running you. You run the business, not the business run you. And right now it's running you. And so we are not gonna let employees that we know shouldn't be here be around and deteriorate the culture. We're not gonna take jobs that we know we can't make money on. We're going to do the work that comes in. We're not going to be subject to, like, Angie's List for every single lead and paying them. We're going to take ownership of it. Like, you're taking back the business. And. And it's just been a matter. It's been running you for the past. You've been very reactive. And I know it's like, to be There, like, I'm not pointing fingers. It took me five years to figure this out until like, literally underneath the dump truck almost died because of it. So I know it's like, you can absolutely turn it around. It will just be a matter of this can take. This can take six years for some people like to actually get rid of the. Right, the people have the conversation, sell the trucks. Or you can do this in six weeks. And you have spring rush in six to eight weeks. So it's possible. I totally believe it's possible.
So now let me ask you is. And I know there's no money, but is putting material out here and selling it, does that bring in people? Because maybe someone comes in, hey, I want to buy mulch. Then you have a good person selling it. How are you going to get it there?
Right?
You need a solar. Oh, how are you going to put it down?
Right. I think it's a distraction.
Okay.
So as much as it would be cool to have this space here and we can always make sense of selling new services, I know that right now we have not spent any time on the one serve. The couple service that we know does make money. It's landscaping, ice and snow. And we know that we have a business of $650,000 in revenue. And my thought is, can we sub out half of it and make good profit? 10, 15% on that and the other half that we're making 20% plus on keep that. Whether or not we do materials out here is a flip of a coin as to whether or not it works. Also, how are we going to attract someone to work in here for 40, 50 hours a week? And what are they going to do when they're not loading someone up? Because we've done. I've done that before too, made this mistake. There are days when there are two people that will drive inside of here for material. Yeah, those are how the days are. 10 or 12. Well, now we're doing the delivery. Okay, we got a massive truck for that. We got to get ourselves a 30,000 pound, you know, beast. Whole different payment schedule. Now that thing's sitting out here half the day because then there's no one in here. So, like, it's a totally different business. Materials. We know we have a business that does $800,000 can do $800,000. And I believe we'll eventually grow once you can spend your time focused on getting leads for landscaping and snow. Right now you are running your. Running your running around fixing all the mistakes and the problems for work that you're not making money on. And if we just half that work and then you just focus on the other stuff that's doing profitable, like, you will get more leads, you'll do better work. Like customers, you'll feel some more time with them. You'll be on site a little bit more. The quality of the work will go higher. And then when you get good employees, you'll have time to actually go train them correctly instead of right now, like, good luck. And I think one of my. Your unique selling propositions, like, hey, you're not going to hear from me very much. Not good.
Yeah.
Like a great employee wants to be led, right? And I think you have. You have relegated all leadership in the business. You've allowed crew members to come in. You've allowed employees to tell you what to do. You're picking people up from their house. Like, these are. These are. These are adults, right? And they want to be led. And that requires strong leadership. And that when you come in here, here's how this business operates. These are the customers we go after. Here's how a lawn looks like when we're done. Here's what a property looks like. Right now, that's not happening. And if they literally, the unique selling proposition is you don't. You don't get in their business. And like, quote unquote, what you're saying is, like, I'm not going to lead you. That will only attract the worst employee. Like, if they wanted to not be led, they go start their own business. They go do their own thing. If they're an employee, they want some sort of, here's what, how this works. Here's the rules and regulations. Here's how you succeed. Here's the ladder go that creates standard operating procedures, training. None of that exists right now. And it's because you're. You've got all your attention on these other things. And so I don't want material. Okay. We're going to focus on we know can work and we're just going to do more of it. Not anything new, just more and better.
And I'm excited to see what the website does because that's what scares me going. Because our backbone. And we've actually started with maintenance, so to say, right? Boom.
Yeah.
You know, because with like maintenance, I look at copilot now, I'm like, okay, we have 300,000. I get maybe not profit or whatever.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's reoccurring. It's gonna come. Next year is gonna come. Now we're going, let's get rid of that.
Yeah.
And looking at from where I'm at now, hope Angie's comes. Yeah. You know what I mean? So you know, hopefully the website, you know, I see something with that and I think I will. So it's just a new train of my brain.
Yeah. Well what's nice is in Salem like I believe that you get a 30 Google reviews and having the site actually just, just up and working, you'll be ranking very high. And so I have no doubt about that. If you get 30 reviews and the site gets rebuilt by June, you'll be the number one ranked in this area. There's just not a lot of competition. So all these people charging $35 an hour, it's cause they don't have a great looking website. There's no one around here that's doing it right. It's like you will dominate there.
And so I think regardless you restructure the company though in a way that you're focused on profit work. Now you're like, well Mike, you talk about recurring revenue all the time. That's what I was doing. We will eventually get there once we have the systems in place to make the current landscaping and ice and stuff make money then down the road you're going to start getting people because it's in your name. They're going to start asking for mowing and then you're going to start bidding it at the price you'll make money instead of right now you're just like literally doing it to just keep people busy. The people we don't want around.
Trust me. I'm going to leave because I thought he was going to say get rid of the project and let's go mow.
No, I'm like no, no, no. Because like right now the maintenance makes no money. Whereas I know we can make money with projects and I know that you have a really good project manager. I really believe you build the business around the two of you. Him is operations, you in sales and admin. Down the road as you grow you'll get a good admin person. Once you're in that million dollar marker to be in this office doing phone calls and emails so you can just focus on sales. That's something that in 10 years you'll still be able to run.
Right.
You're focusing on sales, brand is focused on operations and the admins handled by some gal in the office that works and that will be a million dollar business. But right now we need to kind of scale it back just a little bit. I don't think your Revenue is gonna go down a whole lot because you're gonna sub out the maintenance. And so I would say, like, your number one thing to do is we, like, in the next six weeks is find subcontractors for the big contracts. Gotta find a subcontractor. Like, you can do that in six weeks. We can sell off two trucks, and we can sell off all the mowers and the trailers. In those six weeks, the site will be done, and you'll have 30 reviews. If you do those four things in the next six weeks, your spring rush will look totally different. And then the fifth thing would really be having the hard conversations internally and gain the leadership back conversation with Brandon and that one gentleman, letting go of all the employees that you know shouldn't be here anyways. Those five things in six weeks, that changes the business. I know it's scary. I know it's scary letting go of that much maintenance. But, like, you're not making money on it. It's distracting you from making. Doing the work that does make money.
No, I tell people all the time, like, well, how you do snow. You're out all the time. Like, I just want to deal with me and Brandon.
Yeah, I'm cool. Yeah.
Boeing. I am so miserable from April to Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
I mean, I get text messages like, these mowers suck. The blades need change. Can you change them? What do you want me to do?
Yeah, it's just the quality of the employee that you have. But right now, you've built the culture in a way where only those type of people will stay. You've built a culture in a way that any good team member that shows up here wants to leave as fast as possible. And so we need to restructure that. We need Brandon. He'll buy into the culture more. This other gentleman is kind of a patch job unless he steps up. If he steps up, though, we're good. Like, right now, you have a bunch of C players, and when you get someone else that's good come in, they're like, I'm out. And then you get someone who's bad that's actually worse than, like, a D player. Like, this isn't so bad. I can kind of basically do nothing and get paid cash. Like, we'll never make money doing that. There won't be a culture that we want to even want to work. If you're miserable doing the work, too, it also doesn't mean you want more of it. You're not, like, super jazzed about getting more mowing contracts. So, like, let's focus on the stuff we are. Brandon's gonna be fired up, get the culture returned around, get rid of assets that we don't use, subcontract workout and like the business looks different in six weeks. It's gonna take some tearing off of band aids.
I can be a prick.
Yeah, I think the Google review part use copilot. Once you get everyone in there for texting or even just mass email, I think you'll get 30 pretty quickly. Even if you spend an evening.
