His $8,600 Day That Changed Everything! Trinity Tree Turnaround Extended

Hey, everyone, my name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care, where we have over 150 locations. And the day is going to be a coaching call that I had with a tree service.

It would just get to a point to where it's like, should I go get a regular job now?

I actually went out in person to this tree service. The name of it's Trinity Tree Care. John is the owner. And right now there's a couple major topics that we're going to cover. First off, we're going to discuss buying $120,000 grapple truck only.

120,000. It is the biggest purchase that I'm.

Making that's going to allow him almost double the size of the business because right now he focuses on emergency tree care, very hazardous tree care, and he needs to be in the actual bucket doing a lot of the actual cutting.

What do I actually like doing in my business? I love cutting trees.

Right now he's spending a lot of money on Facebook and Google Ads and he's not seeing a lot of return. And the leads that are coming are not great.

Last year was a year that I wanted to quit.

This is an extended cut of the turnaround show for my main YouTube channel.

But.

But this one goes in the weeds and I hope it's helpful for you.

So my vehicles, I kind of schedule maintenance. I don't know, I just been in a money spending mood. Yeah, I do think that this year is going to be one that's full of storms. And I just like, I can't have my trucks go down in the middle of everything that's going on.

Oh, yeah, you got the big truck coming in from California.

Yes. I have to go pick that up.

Got it.

That was kind of last minute, but I was reviewing my goals that I set in the beginning of 2023, and one of my big Carrie scary, audacious goal was to buy a grapple and saw truck. And then I went to Arborfest in Asheville, North Carolina, and I saw the boom trucks and I was looking at them, I was just like 3,900amonth.

I got that.

I was like, wait, there's a lot of things I'm probably missing within that payment. And then I just started asking, I guess asking questions like, what does ownership look like with this?

Right.

Somebody reached out to me and just like, hey, this is a unit that I have from All Tech. I really like it. This is what it's done. You have any questions, let me know. And then I'm just Continuing to research that unit. And I've seen one come up online, and there's only 120. I say only 120,000. It is the biggest purchase that I'm making.

Yeah.

But for the efficiency things of it, it's just like, can't beat it.

Yeah.

I'm acquiring three or four assets with that one unit and one. Because I wanted to get a grapple truck to be able to grab the material and load it up. That's about.

So that can load the material. You also have the bucket.

So it's not a bucket. It think of a grapple truck that say they're coming, pick up the debris on the side of the road. It loads it up. It's got a grapple on it, but it grabs a tree and it's got a saw.

Wow.

And it cuts and picks it up.

And put his back.

Then you can put it to the back of the truck. If you have a chipper, run it through the chipper and then it puts it into the dump bed.

There you go.

So it's like, all right, 120,000. The lift that I wanted to get was 115. And I was like, well, that still puts me in the air cutting.

Right.

The chipper would have been a hundred thousand. I have one for now.

So how thick of a branch or tree can it get?

So you could cut up to a 24 inch log with it with a double cut method. So you cut one side, flip it around, you rotate it, cut it again, and pick it.

Got it.

So.

That tree, just from what I'm seeing, with within an hour, I could have that down, but never even get.

Into the tree rods.

Will operating remote control.

That's pretty cool, dude.

So, yeah, really hopeful for that. But with that, with the note comes, okay, where are we cutting stuff out?

Right, right, right, right.

Where's. Where are we cutting stuff out in order to make it work within the company?

And how far are you booked out right now?

Honestly, I can knock out everything that I have in a week, guys.

You got a week booked out. Yeah, got it. And so really, it's like having that increases your efficiency. So. Well, unless you get more leads, you'd probably be able to just like let go of one person with that extra efficiency. Is that sort of the potentially got it. Okay. All right. But your goal is to grow and expand, Correct?

I want to get. So I did 350,000 last year. I'm trying to get past that. One of my business mentors told me goes, you're going to work Your best butt off at 350,000. Like to get to that point and then from there, that's whenever you're going to be able to afford the extra people to start delegating roles with or task to.

Right.

And last year was. I got to like September and I just quit.

Really.

It was something that was wearing me out. We ended up getting a new contract doing brush cutting last year and then doing the invoicing, cutting the. Cutting the grass. And we're not talking grass, we're talking jungles. Like taller than me.

Yeah, yeah.

So it was anything that went into code enforcement, we'd have to go in, cut it, take pictures before and after, build each one individually. So we had all that going on. I had the tree work going on and I just got to a place where I was just like, all right, I don't want to do sales anymore. What do I actually like doing in my business? I love cutting trees. I'm passionate about that. So whenever the phone would ring, there was a place where I was just like, I'll get to that. And my mindset is, if I don't get to it now, I'm not going to get to it. I'm just going to put it off and put it off. So I had to think about the future. And I was just like, all right.

If God's giving me this business to steward over, well. And I'm not answering leads, but the money that I'm using is his to purchase the leads. I'm not being a good steward of what he gave me. And I was thinking about the future. I was just like, all right, things would slow down between November to February, so I'd have four months of very little work.

Right.

And I was just like, okay, I don't want that again. I don't want to spend my profits going into keeping things running. So I was just like, let me hire somebody in sales. So in October, I had the decision to either hire sales or someone to replace me cutting trees. But I didn't think I could find somebody on that short term notice at that time.

So you found someone to do basically the sales side, your hope was that they'd fill your schedule during the winter.

Correct.

Sounds like you paid just as much in wages to them as they bring in in sales.

Yeah. So at the beginning that was the case.

And what was the strategy with sales?

So the sales process, we have shout out to my buddy Sean. He owns Red Beard Tree Savages. And I didn't before then, I didn't have a sales process.

Hey, look at this tree. What do you want done to it?

Right.

All right, here's a price. And then I just be. That'd be it. All right, either, yes, I'll use you, or, oh, well, think about it. Okay, if you'll think about it, call me back. But I'm not, like, I wouldn't follow up. Yeah, I wouldn't do any of that. So I've learned about building trust with the client, going ahead and doing fact finding and discovery, asking them questions about, hey, how long have you been living here? How long have you had the tree? How long have you noticed the condition of the tree? Like this? And then I'll just run them through a hazard assessment. Okay, look, let's look at this tree over here. All right, so we're walking up to it and be like, hey, what's. Before we make any recommendations on what to do, let's look at the tree and see. Let's do a risk assessment.

Right.

All right, let's look at the targets that are there. So we have. Would you say that the house. You can move the house?

No.

No. All right.

Can't move the power lines either. Right.

So we can't move the power. We can't move the house. We can't move the power lines. You have the fence that I could potentially hit. We have the AC unit. So we'll just run through that with them. And then from there. Okay, so this is the targets that we identify that the tree can strike if it fails, partially or fully fails. And then from there, it's just like, all right, now what do you want to do?

Right.

Because I want the customer to make an informed decision on what they're doing.

So that salesperson, Were they really just going to the leads that were coming in and doing this process? There was no, like, outbound them knocking on doors or going out to people.

In the beginning, they were doing cold calls.

Okay.

So she was doing cold calls. And then from there would happen.

I was kind of in the mentality is just like, with the expectation I'm hiring someone in sales, they're gonna know it.

Right? She has, because their job description says it. So they must know how.

With that she has experience in outdoor sales or home service sales.

Yep.

I would. I will admit it was a. It's a lot harder to train somebody with the knowledge that I have. Knowledge and experience that I have to look at this tree, come up with a number.

Right.

With that, and then expect them to do the same. So that was a lot harder.

Totally.

And we do have an within the system that we use, we have an app that I know my numbers within business. And what we're able to do is input our numbers, our daily crew costs. We have a predetermined profit margin, so it'll factor in. Hey, this is the crew cost, equipment cost. These are your liabilities within this job. Each time you mark a point on it, it factors in the time that it'll take to remove that over that structure.

Cool.

And then at the end, it's going to give you a price and you can show the customer that it's like, hey, this is your. This is a price you pay. The second Number is the 25% non refundable down payment that we collect. And then from there they're like, oh, that's a little bit above. That might be a little bit above my price range. Well, we set it up to where we have options with them. It's just like, all right, so if you give me more time, I'm able to discount the work because it allows me to fill my schedule with more. I don't say more profitable work, but it allows me to fill my schedule with people who need emergency services or an expedited service.

Got it. Yeah.

So we work on performance windows rather than backlog.

Right.

So I'll let customers know, hey, we got a 30 day performance window. So from this time of you signing the contract within 30 days, we'll get to it. We're not saying that we're going to put you off there at the backlog of 30 days, but within that time period, we'll be able to get to you on that.

Got it. Smart.

And if that. This is the things that I've learned within that sales process. Normally if someone's like, I can't afford it, you might negotiate a little bit and just know. But I'll be able to tell them. All right, well, would you like to see what it looks like at 60 days? Yes. So go ahead, add the discount for giving me more time to get to it.

And is that usually like a 10% off for. It's going from 30 to 60 and.

60 to 90 small concessions.

Okay. Yeah, but there's not like a percentage like there. You don't really have that calculated in there.

There is a percent calculator. Let me see. I can pull it up.

That's pretty cool.

It's definitely been beneficial to my business because.

And that's four trees, specifically. Yeah. You put in there.

Yeah. So it's for trees, but I'm sure if it's for Trees.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool. That's cool.

I'm trying to think of.

What's the name of it?

The margin multiplier.

Okay, cool.

Tree Savages. So look.

Oh, very cool.

And then from there.

It'S kind of a little CRM. So you could put people in there and then you do a new one lead, put their name, address, and your crew cost. So let's say for that I have a rough idea of how long that would take. About three to four hours to cut it down, clean it up. So if my daily cost is 6,000, like total, then I'm gonna look at it. That's about half a day's worth of work. So I'm at 3000.

Or that's about half. Yeah, I'd be at 3000. So I'd put around 1500 right here.

Right.

All right. And then it's calculated because I have a 50% or. Yeah, 50% profit margin. Yep.

And then you basically rank 1 out of 10 for all these other factors.

Yes, I think it 1 out of 5. So I could add the house, the. Yeah, we got a garden, we got a demobilized vehicle. And then from there it'll give me a price. But the way I like to set it up is I put. See, I'll do. And then would you agree that looks like a calculated price based off of your job and not just the number that I came up with and guessed.

Right. Right.

So it's a solid bid for what the work we're going to be doing rather than. Yeah, 3900, right?

Yeah, exactly.

We're able to do that. And then, hey, this is your 25% non refundable down payment. And then the performance window, if they say that's too much. Okay, well, here, this is what we look like at 60 days.

It's like a 5% discount.

So anything. It could be more than that. I usually do 5 to 9% within that. But small concessions because I learned that I used to give 90 days out, right. And then people would think, knowing I've had one customer at Smart, or just he's like, oh, what's 90 days look like? Because I offered that to him, right. And he knew that I could give a discount on it by giving 90 days, but I still did the job within a couple and a half. So he's just like, exactly. So I was like, all right, So I offer 30 and 60 as each one. And then from there, if the customer. Customer really needs the job done, we do offer financing with wisetac or that's whenever we could talk about getting.

Either taking stuff off the job scope or offer that 90 day performance.

And the goal for doing the performance window is so that way, if there is a storm that comes through, you can jump on the immediate work tie. High profit market. Got it.

So either that or just somebody. I've had somebody. I was like, here's a 30 day performance window. All right. And then they're like, well, what would it be if you could get to it in two weeks? So it just leaves my schedule open and flexible that I'm able to get to it. But yes, we live in Louisiana. If we have weather, it's hard to reschedule. Hard schedule. Hey, we have this day available for you at the time of the signing the contract. So it just allows us that flexibility that I'm not calling 10 different customers and saying, hey, we got to reschedule you.

Right, Right.

Guess what? The time I schedule them for, it might rain again. That customer's not going to be happy. So just like, hey, we're going to be here between this date and this date. Is that all right with you? Any date not. Does any date not work for you?

Got it.

And then from there, if they're like, not anytime's fine. Okay. We might arrive. Our contract state that we might arrive on the job site unannounced.

Right.

Just because if I'm working right here.

Cool.

Then I'm gonna come do this tree that I sold. So they. It leaves us that flexibility within our schedule to take care of multiple jobs within the same day.

And so a job like this, you said that this would be like a three to four hour job currently, yes. If you have the $120,000 truck that would allow you to do this in an hour, you think then yes, an hour.

And with the right size chipper behind it, that would be making the stump cut and then raking up a couple pine cones. And I could sit on the roof of something, sit in a lawn chair, not have to get in the tree.

Right.

I'm hard of hearing because I've been doing this for 18 years. And in the beginning of it, my dad would be like, put some earplugs in, Wear earplugs. Like, I'm good now. It's like, what?

Yeah, exactly.

And so I hate loud noises. I love cutting trees. But there's a point in time where the industry's changing and yeah, I want to be able to. I enjoy equipment right now.

The big bomb like I see is the fact that you're the only Person that can actually be in the tree cutting right now? Yes. When you have the $120,000 piece of equipment, can someone else operate that?

Yes.

So they don't need the license that you currently have to get in the tree.

So I have a state license, but I would have to get them nicer certified. So they would have to go. They have New Jersey crane experts. I would have to go take that course as well. To be a certified crane operator, they would have to take it.

Is that easier to get, though, than the arborist side that you currently got?

I would say it would be more along the lines of knowing the proper things to do in certain situations, from being in the tree, climbing or.

Either way, there's liability.

There's liability in it. But with the crane, it's safer, more efficient. Because the saw is on the grapple, you're 50ft away, you're out the drop zone. Everybody's clear of that. You don't have a saw cutting at you right here. If you're climbing, this is normally the work zone. Or in the lift, you're not. Some people have cut themselves because they try grabbing the branches, cutting it, and then it swings into them. Now they got a big gash.

So by having the piece of equipment, do you think, okay, you'll probably still have to be on the site for each cutting job, but you'll be able to double your output. Okay, got it. So this year, 600,000 is kind of the goal in terms of revenue that I'm assuming is you just maxed out because you're gonna have to be at every single job.

Yeah. So currently that would be maxed out. With the current setup that I have.

We'Ve gotten more efficient, But I've also started to push harder. I started adding second or third jobs at the end of the first job because last year I was kind of laid back. Hey, we did this. Look, we worked till 12 o'. Clock. Here's the full day's pay.

Right.

And I felt good about that because it's like, I want to take care of my workers. But at the end now, I'm seeing that, hey, my expenses are way greater than just being able to give y' all a full day's pay for half a day's labor. So we definitely ramped up production and by just sticking with it and like, hey, we're going to work until this time.

Sure.

You know, certain projects, you don't get off at 4:00'. Clock.

Right.

And that's one of the things that.

I have to be Mindful of because Ricky, he's got a family.

That was one of his biggest things was I want to be home for my family. And I was like, I'm not there yet. So I can't relate. But I would want to be a great husband and great father that is there for my, my family as well. And so that's tough at times because I want to push, push, push because it's the owner mentality. I got at the end of the week, I got to have checks coming in.

Yeah.

So I can make payroll.

Do they get paid per day though?

Yes, we get Ricky. No, Ricky is per day. C.J. salary and Louie, I just picked him up, he's per day as well.

Could you do some sort of performance pay though or something that like, if they worked a longer day, they'd get more money. So that way they it kind of compensate for the extra hours.

So that's what I'm trying to figure out.

I don't know how to implement a paper for pay for performance type thing with the tree work, but what I'd want to do and talk about would be potentially getting.

Maybe profit sharing in the sense, hey, once we hit this goal, whatever percent of profit that we have over, let's divide that between the crew and that's something.

Well, the challenging part with doing actual paper performance in this case is you're on every job and you are literally, you're the bottleneck. Cause you have to be there. Without you, the job doesn't get done. And a lot of the how fast the job gets done is going to depend on you being there, et cetera. So like what you could do though is like your daily rate, like how much revenue they produce per day. So that way if they pool a longer day, they're all going, okay, this is a good day. We're gonna make a lot of money. And then you say, hey, anything over this dollar amount per crew, I'm gonna give you guys like 10% of it just straight off the top. And then they're like, okay, yes, we're working till 7pm but we got our third or fourth job done for the day and we're making a killing. It might be more palatable than doing day rate where they just want to get off early all the time and give them some incentive when they do. That's the nice thing about paying hourly is like, hey, if we work longer, you're gonna get overtime. And then they feel better about it. So it might be something to think about, like per day, what do we usually make and then if we exceed this dollar amount, I know I can afford more because we're just crushing it.

So what I'm figuring within my hours, if I sell a job, I'm able to get average between 700 to 1100 per hour for our four man crew doing work.

Four man crew, seven to eleven hundred dollars per hour. Okay.

Yes. So per day we've been killing it recently when we have the work lined.

Up like five to six thousand dollars per crew.

So we're only one crew. Got it right now. And what we do, what we were able to do. This was like an anomaly day we had. There's a park at the, around the corner. We did a mulch installation there for 8,000. Then we went do some more work after that. We made 12,000 that day.

Right.

But the best day we had was 8,600. And it wasn't like necessarily one large job, but back to, back to back medium jobs that we just knocked out at the end of the day. Yeah, I get it. We're tired. I push hard, but I have that mentality of like, hey, it's got to be done, it's got to be done. We're gonna get it done. That it sets us up for the next day to be like we really don't want to do much or push that hard.

Do you think on average they're like 4 to 5,000 is what you're making per day for the crew.

So if we have the work that sold at a profitable approach price appropriately, then $4,000 is. 4400 is what I've seen that we're able to get. Because the $8,600 day we pushed hard. The equipment didn't like that.

So. The equipment didn't like that, so then it kind of brought that day back down to a $4,400 day. Because I spent the next day, day fixing everything.

Yeah, yeah.

Doing maintenance.

Could you just do something where it's like, hey, anything over $4,000 per day, the crew's gonna get 10% right off the top as a bonus.

I think that would be doable because.

They'Re gonna then get that extra little job in.

Yeah.

In that same day because they want to get to 6,000. Knowing that now they're gonna make $200 split between them, that's 50 bucks extra. But they only worked an extra couple hours that day. Right.

And that's something I was thinking about. They don't want to be owners of my company. But the mentality of if we work harder, we definitely get Paid more, but we'll get bonuses. That's something I want to do well.

Because my biggest thing is like knowing that you're the bottleneck for every job. It's like, well, yes, we could be like, oh, let's go find another arborist. But then it's like, well, then we need to grow the business past a million dollars.

Yes.

Right. And so like, what we could do though is how do we take our current crew, make them more efficient so that they're willing to get three jobs done instead of two a day, allowing you to hit more of them. And now you can. Cause you have the truck to be more efficient yourself and just remove like, instead of trying to remove the bottleneck, just make the bottleneck a little bit, like the capacity for it a little bit larger. And then you could probably grow to like 7,800,000 still kind of being the bottleneck, which is not great. You still getting hit by a bus means the truck, the whole operation dies.

Well, hopefully if my hands still work, I'll just be sitting in a lawn because it's remote.

We'll put you up in your wheelchair and you'll just be like fire.

But that's great. I think in my brain I'm okay, if you wanted to build a million dollar business, we need to remove you as the bottleneck. You need to get another arborist, et cetera. I know how challenging that is to get someone trained, licensed, they're extremely expensive. And then you're bottlenecked on them anyway. So if they left, you'd be in a pickle. So it's like, okay, well, we're just gonna be the only licensed person. Let's just maximize that by getting the equipment that's gonna probably double your efficiency and then make our crew, the ground crew, all gunning for getting more revenue. That could probably put us at 800,000, 900,000 still with just you, the only licensed person.

Yeah. So that. That is what I'm going to. So I don't. If I were to hire somebody to cut for me, they wouldn't necessarily have to have a license, but they'd have to be trained in a pruning standard. Ansi. Pruning standards for our industry. But they would also. I'd have to kind of be around the site for them.

Because you still have to be there. You still have to be there.

I would be the license person, have to be on site for any work that's being performed.

Yeah.

So that I'm. It is a goal of mine to get my ISA certification. So it's a step up from where I'm at. Louisiana is one of the states that require you to have a license. Most of them you just have to have three years. You don't have to. You could start your business without the license and then within three years you could get your own certified arbitrary license. Got it through the isa. But I have my three years and I just have to buy my time back to get in the book.

Right.

To start studying to get that. There's, I think over 400 licensed arborists within Louisiana. Only 40 of them. Around 40 of them are ISA.

Really? Wow.

So that's a big distinction.

Yeah.

That's what the bigger contracts and government of city. That's what they want.

Yeah.

We have a lot of nice parks around here. And every time I'm walking through the park, it's like, man, I would love to have this. Yeah, say that now. But it's like, man, I would love to be able to walk through this. I already tell people I'll cut that tree down or I'll prune that tree.

Yeah.

But going to a park and then having my name that we took care of the trees, that would be my goal long term term just to level up within the industry to help other people out.

Yeah. My concern is that we, we are basically buying this brand new truck that's going to allow us like probably double efficiency. Great. But we don't have enough leads to actually keep that thing busy because right now we're only booked out like a week. So what are we. Do we have a plan in place to get more leads and get more work sold to be able to keep.

This thing busy so that I would have to review my marketing plan to see what. What needs to change. I'm doing Google lsa. I'm doing Facebook marketing and Google my business. So we're doing those three. And I definitely feel as if I could get more leads coming in somehow.

But last, last month in March, which isn't like booming month by any means, that's whenever things start to like start circle. And then we had 60 leads coming from that. But the difference is until last year, everything I did was word of mouth.

Got it.

So having to pay for marketing now, that's a big difference. I had a company doing just Facebook for me, just 2500amonth and over six or seven months only had like 130 leads come in.

I was like, I assume those aren't high quality leads.

There were some.

Yeah. Lower close ratio than like you would usually get from referrals.

Though. Yeah. So. And I was for the first time, this is when I used to be like, I'm staying here. Like, I'm just staying within St. Charles Parish. Are really not moving further.

Right.

But after Hurricane Ida, all this was wasteland. Everything. They used to have a big old tree on the corner of that building. All over. If you go over there, you can see the stump that was laid out or the tree that laid over into their yard. Everything was just destroyed.

Wow.

So that was a great first year to be in business for me. But it really affected these years now where the work that I would have trickling in because of the referrals, because of the word of mouth. Now I'm having to go out to Kenner Metairie right now. My geo fence is within 30 miles. So we're going an hour out. And those are the things where it's just like, hey, we got to make sure we sell a job for this amount because, yeah, that's an hour drive. Well, about an hour, 15 minutes whenever you factor in your drop pulling heavy equipment.

And so if you got your ISA certification, that would unlock a lot more work locally.

So within the city of New Orleans Canter Metairie definitely would. But now I'm already in competition with the bigger, more well established tree services. But from there I would set myself up from the people that are just starting.

Right.

So it's just like, I value the continuing education that we have going on. And from there I would be able to say, well, yeah, I'm an ISA certified arborist. A salesperson's a licensed arborist. If you want a consult, I'm able to do a consult to tell you what your trees need. If you want a quote on something, I'm still going to say, send somebody that's licensed out there to take care of your needs. But if you're looking for a detailed history of what you need done, what you should do, what the recommendations are, and you want a written report, I'm able to charge for that now because I see that I'm knowledgeable, I have the experience.

Right.

And so I think it definitely opens up from. All right, we do free estimates. We'll give you a free quote. But now if you want to consultation and you want my time, it looked like charging $300 for that one hour and writing a report to give to you. And I'm not going to try selling you service. We do offer the service, but if X, Y and Z company comes here, you can tell them I have a certified report. This is what needs to be done so they know that they're informed, making a decision on what to do, what's best for their product.

Yeah. Like, I just think that it's a matter of, like, if we can focus on getting the certification and not having to go out further and further away. Because even getting another certified, like, if you can change free quotes to charging $300 for an hour's worth, like, that's huge. Right. I think it just unlocks so much instead of trying to, like. Cause $2,500 a month, that's a lot. We take the $2,500 a month, we now are gonna have a $4,000 per month payment for this truck. So now we're gonna add like, $7,000 a month, probably increasing liability costs in terms of insurance from the truck. So let's call it seven grand a month in overhead that we could try to, like, we need to make up for that because, like Q1, for example, we did 100,000 in revenue. We lost 2,000. I'm assuming that's a slower quarter. And most of our profits are made in Q2 and Q3.

Yeah. So this is the thing that's been.

Challenging to me. But then I look at leads and closing ratio. We're at break even right now. We're at 150,000. Around 100, 146,000 in sales year to date. Year to date.

Okay.

So Today we're at 146,000 expenses and around 156,000 in sales. But it just feels like I don't see any of that, because as soon as I get it, I got a credit card bill. Because my marketing last year was 2500amonth. That rate with managing an ad spend was 2500, spending up to 5 to 6000 per month per month on leads coming in through Google. So I have to try figuring out, all right, if the leads are coming in, how do we close them?

Right.

And if. If we keep or 40 to 60 thousand dollars in the pipeline, I'm fine with that.

Right.

Once I hit 60. Okay, let's raise the prices.

Right.

And then Now I'm at 22,000 in the backlog. Well, yeah. So minus. Minus the 25% down payments that we collect.

Right.

At 22,000, about 22 to $24,000 in revenue in the pipeline. I have to go out and make. Yeah, that's a week.

Yeah. Well, the challenging part about having $5,000 a month in ad spend is let's say we're 30% gross profitable on these Jobs really means you have to do like 15 to $20,000 a month in revenue from those ads just to break even on the ad spend. Right. And right now we're doing like 35, probably 40 to $50,000 a month. Like total revenue.

Yes.

Got it. Okay. And so that's when I'm like, what happens if we just cut the ads off completely? What can we do basically that doesn't cost ad spend, that can still drive leads. So like, do we have like, how many Google reviews do you think we have?

I have 26 or 27.

Okay. Do we rank pretty well on Google and things?

Well, I'm Google guaranteed as well, so that is something I pay for.

Right.

But as far as SEO or my website popping up. Right, that's something I have to change.

Because I believe if we, if you spent money on that, it'd be a tenth of the cost of all your ad spend and drive 50% of the results. Because if someone's typing in tree service right now, the only way we're going to show up is if we're spending money. Like the long term goal is always show up without having to spend money either through referral or through SEO. And like they search and boom, I'm there. I didn't have to pay a dollar for it because like for $5,000 a month, we're paying to be up there all the time. If we spent $500 a month, we'd be able to build a website and rank there for no extra cost per click. Yeah, right.

And that's definitely something I want to get to. I think one of my problems is there's a problem. There's a problem that's presented here. Put it on the credit card. Right now I'm thankful that I'm earning. I'm earning the cash back and haven't had to pay any interest. But it gets pretty scary whenever they closing date. There was one night where I was just freaking out. I was just like, I have, I paid like 15,000 on it that month already and I still had a $3,300 balance that day that I was about to get interest collected on. And then within the bank account I had, I had a check that was, would have covered it, but ain't clear yet. So I just like, you know what? God. All right, hit sin. They're gonna get their payment.

Hope it goes matches up. Let's go.

Yeah. And I woke up the next morning, I had like $10,000 in my bank account. So it paid off that time. But it's not, it's not, not a good feeling, right?

No.

Last year was a year that I wanted to quit. I definitely, it would just get to a point to where it's like, should I go get a regular job? Like I make more money, all the work that I do. And then cuz 20, 23, I started off with probably 50 or $60,000 in the bank. In the bank camp.

Money'S coming out, nothing's coming in, very little things are coming in. And then that's fine at first. Then when you start seeing, all right, this accounts are drawing down, I don't have anything in the QuickBooks checking account anymore. So that we wiped that out. Then the savings is starting to come down. And then the business checking account might have been at 30,000, but then it's starting to come down. All right, we're at 11. That's not that bad. But all this money is gone. And then whenever it gets to like $500 or about a thousand dollars, what am I to do?

Yeah.

But I definitely, my faith is in God providing for me. And so last year was one of the years where he showed me that I wouldn't go without. And most of the times it was just me praying God, if not for me, for cj because at the beginning of the year was just me and cj. Ricky is, I call him a flex worker. That's how he started. He would work for one of my friends that cut trees. And so whenever he didn't have work, he'd come work with me to have additional or supplemental income. And then so that's what we would do. If I hadn't last year, if I had anything above $2,500 for the day or the job, I bring Ricky in to come help us.

Got it.

Because I would be in the lift.

Yeah.

I'd cut, CJ would get overwhelmed on the ground. I'm jumping out of the lift, cutting up on the ground, helping him process it by getting. I get in the skid steer, operate it, loaded up. Ricky's an operator, so I was just like, yeah, let's go ahead and do that. And now this year.

Ryan slowed down the other tree service and now Ricky is almost full time with me and it's more of just, I don't feel obligated to work him.

Yeah.

But if I'm running my business to serve others, then I was like here. And so that's been almost a full time position. And then it's about the summer. Last year we had one of the roughest summers. So I went Ahead and picked up Louie from my neighbor, because my neighbor.

Does lawn care, landscaping. I saw that. Let's go.

And he's like, hey, he really want. Like, he's cut trees in the past. Like, he really wants to do that. Well, before meeting him, I was like, does he know how to operate the lift? Yeah, he knows how to operate the lift. I was like, all right. But I still. I'm kind of in that. That protection mode of, like, I don't know if I can afford this. I don't know. I don't know. And then I just had a solid week booked up of work. I was like, you know what? What's the buy in? Like, what's the buy in? What's the daily rate that I could get him? And then see how much the efficiency or productivity picks up. Having additional hand, right? Because I feel bad if I put a lot of work on the ground, have to go run and do something, and Ricky and CJ Are there, cuz, yeah, that's a lot of work, right? And now having another person, it's like, hey, I did what I needed to do. We eliminated the risk. All right, y' all can begin to process it, run it through the chip. Or Ricky, cj, Louie, y' all still stack that in a pile. Let Ricky grab it loaded in the trailer. So, yeah, there's definitely a lot of things that go on day to day that cost money. And, yeah, it's getting to a point to where, all right, long term, am I able to continue and sustain this? Right, if I have 40 to 60 thousand dollars sold at all times? Yes.

Right.

Because that's what I want to have at least a month's worth of work lined up, not a month's worth of expenses lined up. Because my expenses seem to continue to grow. And I'm trying. I'm trying to figure that aspect out of, like, where do I need to eliminate the waste?

Well, even if we look at last year, right, like, if we're spending $5,000 a month in advertising, that's essentially where all the profits went, right? And so the question is, how do we get leads without having to spend $5,000 a month on advertising? And so then it's a matter of, okay, where are we spending ads right now? Which is basically renting space on Facebook and Google. Can we deploy that to, like, owning the website, getting the Google? We should have 100 Google reviews. You serve a ton of people. You do a great job. How do we get leads for free? Because people are searching for us, right?

Yeah.

So I think they might need you. Do your thing.

If you want to get around other successful home service entrepreneurs like John here from the tree service, just go to bluecollarsummit.com it's gonna be a three day event. We're gonna be getting together. It's gonna be myself, John Taffer's gonna be the opening keynote. And on the Friday, the second day of the event, I'm gonna send the entire workshop focusing on how we can fix your off season so you actually make money during your off season instead of slowing down. Check it out. Bluecolorsummit.com and we'll see in the next one.