HOW BIG CAN YOU GROW A LAWN CARE BUSINESS?? ($100K, $500K, $1M+)

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 70 locations around North America today. I'm talking about how big can you grow your lawn care and landscaping business? Because in my mind there's actually a predetermined termin number and really at the end of the day, it's only limited by your knowledge and your ability to grow as a leader. So when we look at a graph like this, when we look at how big can I grow my lawn care business over the course of of time, this is how I see it when I look at entrepreneurs, business owners, and that is eventually they'll come to a point where they just can't grow above it. They'll get two employees and they just cannot grow their business. They get to maybe a million dollars in revenue and they grow really, really fast. And all of a sudden they just start just hitting the top, right? They'll get to a million. And all of a sudden they're just like, well, we can't really grow above that line of a million dollars in revenue. That is, there's something here, there's a limiting belief, there's a limiting attribute in their skillset that is keeping them from growing the business. For some, like I said, they'll grow their business maybe a little bit slower over the course of time and then they'll hit one or two employees and just kind of like it, just sometimes maybe it'll jump up, then it kind of comes down and it just seems like they can't keep this momentum of growth alive. And I ask why? And I truly believe until this individual gets some new skill, some new knowledge, or adapts their leadership style to be able to have other people on their team that will allow them to grow, they will always stay here until that moment when they raise this bar. I truly believe that there are $1 million entrepreneurs, there are 10 million dollar entrepreneurs, there are 1 billion dollar entrepreneurs, and there are 100 plus billion dollar entrepreneurs. And a lot of that is predetermined. But you can move this bar. How do I get out of this plateau? How do I actually make it to where I get back on this growth path and keep growing my business again? If that's what you want. But how do I do that? There's gotta be a change, there's gotta be something different. And there's two major factors, two major things that I see as the cause as to why people plateau at different points in their lawn care business. Two things. This one is usually going to be at this size of business, 200,000 most of the time. The ability to sail and have systems is the reason why a business will plateau.

Right here was all driven, all their growth was driven by word of mouth, the fact that they did a great job, that all their neighbors told all their friends and family about you. But eventually you get to the point where you can't sell, you don't know how to do marketing, you don't have a great website, and you eventually just plateau out because that will only get you so far. And the reason for that is if you were able to get 200 customers, but you have a churn of 20%, which is very normal in this industry, that means you're losing 40 every single year just to natural attrition, people moving, people passing away, et cetera. So if you have to get 40 new customers every single year just to stay at even, you're getting new customers literally every single week, but still staying plateaued because of natural attrition, people leaving, people moving, et cetera. So you need an ability to sell even more and break through this plateau of $200,000. And to do that using sales, it's going to be having a great website, having a system to sell, using an estimate, having a great CRM, having a great automation system to actually keep growing the business past that plateau that you otherwise be at. And for some People it's at $500,000 and it's a mix of these sales and systems above that. When we get to this one million dollar mark, or even 800,000 kind of in this range and above, this is what in my mind my has always been the issue when it comes to who cannot break passes. And this is leadership. I see this across the board. People will be great salespeople, they'll break through the sales part. They might even figure out some great systems in their business. But if they cannot lead, if they cannot be a strong leader, they will not be able to pass usually that one million dollar marker. And again, they might get here really fast, but they'll eventually hit a capacity, they'll hit a restraint that keeps them from growing the business. And it's because they aren't a good leader. If you want your employees to show up on time, guess what, you have to show up on time. You want them to work hard and be efficient and be money motivated, you've got to be that way. And so then it's like, well, this is horrible. What If I'm a $500,000 entrepreneur, should I just give up? I'm just stuck here at 500,000, I have four or five employees, I have five trucks and I just can't break through this half a million dollar marker. Well, the only thing that will keep you from growing and the only thing that will allow you to keep growing is by taking away the restraint and being self aware enough to realize, oh, I'm not very good at sales, I've got to get out of just being like, oh, word of mouth is the only way I take my customers. I don't need any more ability to sell, I don't need any website, I don't need to do any Google, I don't need to learn Facebook ads, I don't need to learn any way of advertising. I don't need to learn how to sell in person and use scarcity and talk to people and use eye contact. I don't need to learn anything of that. Well, then you're going to stay at that level forever. But if you're self aware enough to realize, hey, I have an issue with being able to lead other people, I have an issue with pushing myself, I have an issue with only being able to work three or four hours a day and then I get distracted and then I get down a rabbit hole on software or then I start thinking about this, I start worrying about money and then I start looking at all the numbers, but I actually don't actually do any work. These are things that you've got to be self aware enough to realize. What are your capacities, where are your constraints and in your entrepreneurial what barriers are you going to hit on your way to future growth? And so for myself, five years ago, I was probably a million dollar entrepreneur. What did I do? I kept learning, I kept growing. I invested in courses and in books and in audio programs and in training over and over and over and over again. What was I doing? I was trying to remove this barrier. I was reading books about leadership, reading books about hiring teams, reading books about how damaging micromanaging tendencies and all doing that was trying to figure out how I can move my constraints up. I'd say right now I just don't feel like anybody can say it's the market. That's why I'm not growing my business. Oh, it's the employee labor market. Yeah, it's just so hard to hire people. And that's why I can't grow my business. And I just see it time and time again. We make all the excuses, but at the end of the day, there's somebody who's thriving in this environment, there's someone who is finding employees. There's someone who's growing their business. So the fact of the matter is it's never the market, it's never the industry. Oh, this lawn care, this landscape. I'm gonna get a different service, I'm gonna do tree work, I'm gonna do hardscaping. Like it's not the market, it's not the industry, it's not your employees, it's you. And that's a very liberating thing because if you actually realize that your business will only grow to your capacity and that everything in your business is your fault and the good and the bad, and that when your business starts to plateau, it's your fault as a leader. If you actually believe that, it's actually extremely liberating because you're in full control. You're not the whim of any wind of a market or an economy or employees or perspective or what the public opinion is. You always have control as an entrepreneur. That's financial freedom. That's why you join. Becoming an entrepreneur is because you have the capacity to keep raising the bar. I encourage you. Whether it be investing yourself by getting a course, whether it be investing yourself, going, going to a community college and doing an evening course, whether it be listen to audiobooks, listening to podcasts, there's a wealth of knowledge that will allow you to grow your capacities, get past your leadership boundaries, get past your ability to sell or not, your inability to sell or create systems. There are always ways to do this. Whether or not people are willing to sacrifice time, money, energy and their pride to actually break these boundaries up to them. But it is no coincidence that a business stops growing. It is the leader's fault and it is in the leaders hands. And is it within their capacity to move? Their limiting beliefs, move, their limiting behaviors, move. They're limiting things. The things that are limiting the business from growing, it is only the entrepreneur and the founder's ability to do so. It's not the employee's fault, not the market's, it's not your employees, it's yours. And that's the most liberating thing about entrepreneurship, is you can make the change. I'm Mike Andes. I'll see you tomorrow.