Mike Andes talks with a landscaping business owner about preventing summer burnout. Set a one-hour limit on evening admin work, delegate estimates through Command Center, and accept losing $1,000 a month rather than risk $35-40k in annual revenue by burning out.
Okay, perfect.
Awesome. And then. Yeah. So there's one more question kind of on a different note. I was wondering. Yeah, just a few. I don't know if you went through this too, like, when you're at this phase, but, like, feeling, like, super. Just, like. Like, in July, it was, like, like, physically exhausted, but now it's just, like, mentally exhausted. And, like, just like, when I. When I get home from gift, I work in the field. Like, just, like, takes a lot of energy to go do, like, the paperwork and stuff. So I don't know if you just had, like, tips on, like, when. If you went through that, too, and you're going just, like, just feeling, like, super drained. I happened, like, every year in August, but, like, I felt like, motivation. All that's just, like, so drained right now.
Yeah. So, like, I think what you ought to start doing when you feel that way is give yourself very defined parameters. And, like, let me just be really clear. You can afford to do what I'm about to tell you. Like, let's be really clear. Like, from a financial standpoint, you can afford it right now because it's more important right now that you don't burn out. Then you make an extra, you know, thousand dollars a month because you push the envelope at 12:00am Right? Like, so what I would say right now is set yourself some pretty clear parameters. And that might mean that when you come home, you only get. You only can work on, you know, paperwork for an hour. Right. And whatever that is. And that might force you to do estimates on site now, right? That might force you to do them when you're driving, or it might force you to have command center send them out. And that might cost you some extra money. Right. But it's much more important that you don't jeopardize the next three months. Let's say $1,000, you either paid command center or you just took it in your teeth in terms of not getting an extra job or not getting the extra hours in at night and just lost $1,000 a month. That's three grand. The bottom line is you can't burn out and jeopardize the 35, 40,000 in revenue that you're making because you're going after the thousand dollars extra profit.
Yeah.
So. And I know. I know the feeling because it's like, hey, I got to do it because I'm in this period of, like, not much profit and, like, lot going out. But don't let that scare you. Like, I'm looking at your financials. You. You can get through this time, no problem.
Yeah.
All right. Yeah.
So even if it's like, hey, like, even if you tell your girlfriend, like, hey, keep me accountable to doing, you know, when I come home, I got an hour and I can work on my stuff, or I know you spend 30 minutes kind of decompressing, showering, eating, whatever, and then you got one hour, and then after it's like, it's done. And if it flows into tomorrow, so. So be it. Right.
And that might mean, okay, we may. We don't take a job. Maybe you don't get estimates back to people right away. Like, that's always the goal. But at the end of the day, it's so much more important that you don't burn out. Because by burning out, you jeopardize all the revenue, all the employees, all the jobs. Right. We'd rather just, like, lose some or not grow next month or whatever. And jeopardize the whole farm. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. Like, I think I kind of started doing that a bit, like August. I don't know for sure, but August is gonna be a bit. It's gonna be lower than July, probably, because last week was pretty slow.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I kind of started doing that a bit just because. Yeah, it was going to be a lot, but yeah.
When you get home in the evening. When you get home in the evening, is it mostly sending out estimates or just, like, communication or what's the most thing that you do in the evening?
Yeah, but, like, it's. Yeah, the communication and scheduling. The. If it's a mower day, like, scheduling for tomorrow.
Because.
Yeah, everything. It's kind of. It's totally my fault that all the MO is like, super all over the place. Because when I was one week, I was super busy with projects. So now essentially every day, I have to, like, really think about how I'm gonna schedule the moas. Because everyone's, like, off their. Their weekly schedule, you know, So a lot. A lot of the reason why. Yeah, I have, like, so much work on the table when I get homework is my fault just from, like, letting it go. But yeah, and then, like, bookkeeping and stuff, I'm super buying, too. So I spend time doing that. But yeah, and Smith is probably. It's probably the big thing and then communication with clients.
So here's the deal. I just. I just pull up in July how many estimates you sent out. You sent out 42 estimates. Okay. If every single one of them was landscaping jobs, every single one, you would have paid $240 for command center to send all of those out for you.
Yeah.
So, like.
Yeah, so that's the thing. Like, I've been on my to do list for so long, like, to really start, like, getting Command center to send it. But then the thing was, like, the bolt, like, what takes me along is what I still have to do, even if Command center sends it.
Got it. Yeah.
Figuring out.
What it's going to take for that job.
So honestly. No, I agree 100. I agree 100%. Like, the time is just the calculations and all that. What I would say is stop beating yourself up over perfection. Right. Like, you're not going to get the job perfect. Right.
