Short advice from Mike Andes telling a 16-year-old lawn care business owner (making ~$12,000/month) to hire before spring—ideally in January or February—by picking up retail staff after the holidays or marketing now to fill positions. Hiring in spring is discouraged because competition for labor from other contractors and trades is intense.
Hey Mike, I'm 16 and started a lawn care business earlier this year. My monthly revenue is around $12,000 right now. I want to hire someone. What would be the best way to hire someone next spring? I would not be thinking about next spring. I'd be asking yourself, can you hire someone earlier? So after January is typically when a lot of retailers let a lot of their frontline staff go because it slows down after Christmas, New Year's, etc. That's when you want to be picking people up and that's when you want to eat the cost of potentially creating work for them. Or right now be marketing to try to fill jobs in January and February so that you can keep those crews busy before mowing season starts. By the time March, April and May rolls around, you're too late. You're going to be competing against every other contractor, every single other industry in the trades for employees. Once we roll around to spring.
