How to Build a $1,000,000 Lawn Care Business w/ Bryan Connor (RoundUp Ep 7)

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to the Landscape business course. And today on a very special episode here of Roundup, we have a very special guest. We're gonna intro him in just a moment, but wanted to say thank you to everyone that has joined today. And make sure throughout the show you go ahead and post your comments, questions, and we will address those at the end. So today is a little different because I forgot my iPad. So if my notes are pathetic as as is usual, I will try to do my best here, though, to get these all out. So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, a man that went from a hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars in revenue in 2017 to almost a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in revenue In April of 2021, a man that mows lawns by day and makes keto friendly desserts by night and is a member of Augusta Nation. Please welcome Brian Conner. Brian, how's it going?

Hey, Mike. Doing well. How are you?

Very good, Very good. So you're in Georgia. You're in Augusta, Georgia. Tell us first of all, just a little bit where you're at now in terms of size of business and things. We'll go back into your story, but it's kind of say a little bit where you're at now in terms of the business is concerned.

Sure. Yeah. So right now we will reach a million dollars in revenue this year. Last month we did about 150,000. I'm sorry, last month we did 120. The month before that we did 150. So as far as employees, we've got nine. Nine team members that are doing maintenance and projects. We've got one team member that is managing and operating the treatment. And then I have a manager that manages all of that, and that is Jeremy Owens. So including all that, we've got 11 team members.

Awesome. So I want to go back, though, and kind of tell a full story. And this is some of the stuff I know. Some of the stuff I don't know because obviously you're part of Augusta. But what were you doing before lawn care? Tell us a little bit what you were doing, whether it be business and just in general. I know you were doing bodybuilding, your wife, we were competing and all the rest of it. But talking. Talk us a little bit before lawn care came along, what were you up to?

Sure. So lawn care has actually always been a part of my life ever since I was 12 years old. Kind of a similar story to yours. I wasn't saving up for college, though. I was saving up for a motorized scooter. But, yeah, so back when I was 12, my mom basically made me do the HOA area that was right next to our house. It's about two football fields long, and it was about six strips with a push mower.

And so I was doing that. And then.

I wanted a motorized scooter real bad. So she had the. She had an idea. So why don't you go and write a letter? I'll help you and deliver it to all the houses. So we didn't actually have an HOA.

So I asked for, I think, 25 bucks per property, and I would maintain the whole area for the year. Ended up getting, like, about 13, $1400. Bought the scooter. And then I did that throughout high school. It was a me and a buddy, we would, you know, push mow lawns. I think we ended up getting a lawn tractor and maybe even a Dixie chopper. We did that through high school. That was. I think it was B and C lawn care. So instead of my first lawn care job, I got paid $5 an hour, and that actually was the minimum wage back then. So I didn't like that too much. So we would mow on the weekends, sometimes after school.

Before, you know, practice or anything like that. And so that got us through high school, that making, you know, just on the weekends, four or five hundred bucks a week as a high school kid, that was, you know, great back then. And then through college, I went to undergrad at Augusta State.

Got a criminology and sociology degree. And so I did that through college, taught tennis, went to law school. This was back in 2010. You know, it wasn't a business. I didn't build it to be one. It was just, you know, money in my pocket while I was going through school. And so got into that. That was at USC in South Carolina, not on your side of the country. And realized that being a lawyer really wasn't what I wanted to do. So I. I quit my first year, moved back and started. Actually bought a local company called Fine Lines Landscaping. And so I did that. Started February 2012.

And let's stop there for a second.

I want to.

I want to scroll back a bit because we'll get into the. From a kind of. As you begin to grow, Fine Lines. But talk me through one part, and I want to. I do it. I want to do this mostly for the people listening. I know there's actually a couple franchisees I've talked to in the past a couple weeks about this, and I want them to hear from your perspective, obviously going to law school, not cheap. You committed yourself a long time to it, perhaps kind of had trained your whole brain in the way, hey, I'm going to become a lawyer or whatever it might be, and perhaps even had expectations of family, wife, whatever it might be, of, hey, I'm going to become a lawyer. What was it like having to quit that and go become a lawn care professional or business owner in general? And was there any doubt in that decision? After spending so much time dedicating yourself to the craft of law and like, you know, law and medicine, like I was going on the medicine track. You commit your whole life to it.

Right.

Like it's all you think about and it's not difficult, it's not easy schooling and all the rest of it. What was that process like and how did you kind of make sense of it in your own mind?

Yeah. So deciding to go from that track, which you're, you know, you're 100% committed, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't working at that time because.

You know, it was full time student, you know, you know, full time and a half student. And so it was trying to figure out where my life was going, you know, feeling as the first thing I've ever quit in my entire life. I think a part of me, I don't regret it because it's, you know, it brought me to where I'm at, but there's still that incomplete. You know, I didn't check, I didn't check the box. You know, I didn't complete my study and get my degree. But, you know, had I done that, I would have racked up almost $200,000 in debt. So. But at that moment, you know, I'm wondering what am I going to do?

You know, just trying to scrounge around and I had done landscaping, you know, my whole, you know, that was my only real jobs that I had. So that was the first thing, honestly, I was sitting, sitting down. It was around Christmas time, 2012. I was scrolling through and I want. It's a Southern thing, basically like a print version of a Craigslist. And now Craigslist is old, so. Yeah. So I was sitting there going through it and I saw this landscaping business for sale. And I made a little bit of money on the house that I had sold. So I was like, well, let's do it. You know, I didn't even think about it.

How much was it? How much was it listed for originally? Fine lines?

40,000.

40,000. And then do you remember what the Revenue was prior to purchasing it.

Yeah, yeah. He was doing about $6,000 a month. That was during the. That was your out.

Got it. So that's 2012. So talk us through kind of that first year or two, because obviously, even $6,000 a month is not necessarily enough to. At that time, were you already married, Brian?

No, I was. I was single. Yeah.

Still single. All right, 2012. When. What year did you get married?

2014.

Okay. So those first few years, walk us through what that was like in terms of growing the business. What were some of the struggles during that period?

Yeah, So I hit the ground running. My work ethic has always been extremely high. I had never gotten into a business to where you needed systems and even a pricing formula, so. So I just shot from the hip, you know, like I did when I was 12 through. Through undergrad. And I was like, it's a $50 yard. That's a $70 yard. You know, it had no pricing formula. It wasn't based on budgeted hours. It was based on feel, which is absolutely, you know, the wrong way to do it. So I took that business that was doing $6,000 a month. I'm good at growing, doing so, and having money in the banks a little more difficult, so.

Oh, I know. I know, Brian.

So, you know, the. February. Actually, he's a good friend of mine, Nate Lines, where the lines came from. Fine lines. It. First month he worked with me, it was great. Me and him were, you know, we're getting after it. And then from March to June, I had grown it to $12,000 a month just knocking on doors. You know, I printed it out, printed out little flyers, knocked on doors. Got a lot of business doing that. And so. But everything was built. I hired all my friends.

No hierarchy, no job descriptions.

You know, and no pricing formula. So we grew a company that was not profitable from the start and grew it to $12,000 a month, not profiting. And so I had all my friends working for me. And then at 25 years old, I was like, well, I'm not making any money at this. I still had a little bit of money left over, and I said, I'll buy a bar is what, you know, bachelor.

Well, I didn't know. I didn't know this.

Did you?

No.

You know what?

I do know this, but we never really talked a lot about this together.

That's a painful time.

That was. That was the most. Probably the most painful job I've ever bought.

Okay, so you bought. Yeah, I love it. Tell us a little bit about that. So why did you buy it? Obviously you're a little bit bored when you entrepreneurial bug thing going, but why did you buy it? Who'd you buy it from and how that, how'd that go?

So I bought it because I was at break even and I needed money and I thought that this was going to be a good investment, you know. And I've learned a lot. I learned a whole lot of painful lessons from that bar. But I also met my wife there, so it was, it was, you know, it was worth every penny. So I.

I looked at the bar, went there a couple times during trivia. It was packed, I mean, slammed. And downtown Augusta would be our. It'll be our midtown once we get a little bit bigger of a city. This old hole in the wall, 1970s publishing guy wanted $250,000 for it. And I looked at all decent at numbers, I looked at all of his records, which were extremely disorganized. And I said, hey man, with me. I had to put $50,000 down and then rent the building from them and have a business payment. So before turning the lights on, it was like $6,400 a month. And so I went to him with a bunch of questions, everything written down. I said, okay, if I don't get the right answers, I'm not gonna buy this bar. And I said, hey, you know, I see me breaking even and me having to work here to break even. I said, now, unless there's something you're not showing me, man looked me in my eye, 70 something years old, retired chemical engineer, and said, hey man, I don't know if you know about the food and beverage industry, but there's a lot of cash that we don't claim. I said, well, I was emotionally invested, I wanted it. And I said, well, if you could tell me that you're $4,000 a month in cash, those are my bills right now. I'll do, I'll give you the 50,000, I'll sign right now. So I did. And from, from the first month I was looking at P and L and I said, yeah man, I was right. I'm at break even. And I got a fire manager, I was the bartender, I received all goods. I was the cook and janitor. And so my thought of being able to run both. Cause I thought that I was going to buy it. And it run itself did not transpire. So I quickly had to not pay attention to the landscaping company, which I didn't have systems in place. There was not even job descriptions or pricing formula so.

That was July 2012. Then my wife.

In July, she actually.

Sold me advertising to a bar that was losing money. And she's extremely beautiful. So I bought all of it.

Bought all the advertising. And so she helped me run it from basically from whenever we met until we let it go. So I called a rebirth of my fine lines January 2014, because I was able to negotiate a deal where, because I put a bunch of money into the renovation and it was in better shape than whenever I bought it. Business wise and actual condition. So he, the, the owner let me out of the contract without, you know, forcing bankruptcy or anything like that. And I lost absolutely every penny I had. I was absolutely flat broke. And then by the time I got the landscaping company back, I had 12, 12 clients grossing $2,000 a month.

Really? So it really declined during that time then?

Oh yeah, I only had, I think it only took a couple months for it declined dramatically. And then I had one of my friends run it part time. Yeah, he ran, ran it until I was able to get it back, gain back control. January 2014.

Was it just a matter of, you know, you not being there, not getting new customers and projects or was it like you, you were actually losing customers due to the fact that you weren't servicing them well with the bar?

Oh yeah, not servicing them well. Cause there was no, you know, guidelines, nothing for my, my friends that, you know, that were my employees. Nothing for them to follow. The person that knew, you know, had all the expertise that knew what to do on the properties, you know, we had. I wish I would have brought them. I used to have, I printed out and I had, they were called client cards. That was my original CRM. So.

Yeah, so I would sell the job, you know, at the front it said for visit or whatever and I'd work up the, we did year round contracts. So it's like you know, 26 visit or 40 visit. I'd work up the handwritten contract on the back and I just kept them and so I was the only one, you know, if there's like little notes I'd put on there and everything was. I used to actually send the invoices, you know, via snail mail, fold them, send them. So there's, there's nothing that anyone could follow. But yeah, lack of service.

You know, all that. So.

So now you're focusing primarily on fine lines. The bar is bygone era, but now you have a wife. So what was that? Three year old and a three year old.

What was it like going though when you're like you said, your flat broke, you just failed. You know, from the bar's perspective, going now back to another business and now having the responsibility of a family, what was that like in terms of pressure? And was a lot of it having to do with, like, just your wife supporting you during that time? And what was that like during that period?

Oh, yeah. So day one, you know, let's call it January 2014. I had this business that was a shell. I, you know, just gotten married. And I was like, all right, well, I got to figure something out. And immediately I was like, well, I've got a degree. I was in really good shape. And I'd always had this, you know, I always wanted to be in the marines or, you know, do something with the military. You know, I always had that kind of. When I was going to law school, I was going to see about going into jag, so I was like, well, let's give that a try. So I went to a recruiter.

You know, as I'm doing lawn care and bodybuilding.

And so I see the perfect parallel here. You know, you're going from, from. From law school to owning a bar, to lawn care to bodybuilding. It's a perfect alignment, you know.

Yeah, all ducks running right there.

But so I was like, all right, I gotta figure something out. Figure a military career. I'll just, you know, I'll just do that. So I was training for about seven months. I was gonna. Gonna try to get into the seals, try to train for. For buds and get in. So about seven months in. And so this wasn't, you know, gonna be a full time thing for me. Uh, so the first year, I think we might have done 36,000 on the books. I mean, I'm sure there's more cash, but 36,000 on the books. And actually we were, we weren't actually. I was not married yet. I apologize. The wedding was in October of 2014. So what would end up happening is I would have gotten married and then been shipped off, you know, for. For the military. So get about seven months.

That was really the plan. That was really the plan at that point in time that you were going to be shipped off. Got it. Okay.

That was the plan. So I was like, all right, my career will be taken care of. And so got into it, got it growing. And I was like, all right, I really am. I'm an entrepreneur. It's what I love to do. You know, I had actually had an online retail store while I was in law school. Like, I didn't have anything else to do so I always loved, you know, the whole aspect, the whole, the romanticism, the hard work and then being able to rise above your socioeconomic status, the entrepreneurship. So I was like, all right, I'm going to do this, I'm going to grow this thing. And so I developed plans. And the plan was, you know, I would say, I'd say, August.

This is 100%, I'm going to, I'm going to grow this business. And so I had all these plans.

The big plan, I call it the big, you know, the bhag, the big hairy audacious goal. I know the term back then, but it was to have a $10 million landscaping company right here in the CSRA so that, you know, it was probably a year after that that I developed that goal. And I was going to do it, you know, through traditional corporate structure, middle management, you know, division siloed, all that.

And you know, have the landscape construction, the irrigation, treatment, maintenance, everything separate. And so that's what I set on to do from, to say, September, October, August 2014 onward. Yep.

So 2015, 2016, 2017. Walk me through those years, what you're doing in revenue. What were some of the pain points? And my question is, what was your wife thinking? Like, was she having to support you through this time? Like, obviously now, now you, you've gone from law school to a failed bar to, you know, you thought you were going to go in the military. I'm guessing you got married under that kind of premise that thought, what was that for her? In the first couple years even of.

Being married, she's always been 100 supportive, you know, of all the, the dreams and just anything that I was doing, you know, she worked her full time job managing sales at the Metro Spirit, the paper, worked the bar with me Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So she worked with me throughout that whole thing. And you know, I proposed to her then and then with fine lines. We used to do a, an old really cool church that had the oldest grave of 1776 back from the Revolutionary War. So she, she would come out and line, trim with me and spray roundup and you know, spread pine straw. So she's always been like my biggest supporter. So that's been that. Yeah, I would say if you're going to be, you're going to be an entrepreneur and you're going to, you know, try to grow a business from scratch. That's probably the biggest thing in the world is to have, you know, if you're going to get married, to have somebody that's 100% supportive.

So I know there's another moment in the next few years of the story where you actually were going to give up and stop the business. And that's kind of when Jeremy came into the picture. Tell me when that was and kind of what led up to that moment when you're like, you know what, I just, I'm gonna have to quit this.

Yeah. So 2015 and 16, it was, you know, grow, grow, grow. I didn't really know too much about marketing and so I was always trying to hire a third party company that did, you know, as far as building the website.

And then doing Google Ads or anything like that in the print media. So that went on 2015, 16 and 17. I went from 67,000 to 200,000. So I wanted to sell the thing from 2016 through 2018. I had it for sale for $50,000 at one point.

You know, as far as the pain points.

You know, hiring any businesses, no matter what industry you're in, is the most difficult but also the most rewarding because once you hire people, you can grow outside of yourself and you start develop a team. But it's super difficult. You want to be able to offer the right thing to attract the right talent.

But in this entry level industry, that's hard to do, you know, as far as being able to attract people that are going to buy in and grow with you and give, give, give their all for, you know, let's just face it, a lower wage.

So I met Jeremy Owens July 2017.

I was a weekend away from firing. I think I had three or four, I think I had four employees at the time. But I was at my wits end. This was, I wanted to sell it the year before didn't sell. And this was July, it was super hot. I was, you know, going out doing estimates. I was on the truck, I was spraying.

I was giving it my all. But I was also still big into bodybuilding. So I'd get up at three in the morning, four in the morning, get that done. So I was, I was super fatigued. And so I was about to fire everybody and say, you know what, I'm just gonna pick the clients that I want, gonna finish this year out and sell it for, you know, whatever my equipment's worth. But Jeremy had a, had a spark in him. I think he. This time we had a hierarchy. So we had a crew leader, still had two man trucks, two team member trucks. We had the crew leader and a lawn tech. So basically the helper. And the way my structure was we hired you on at $10 an hour, you can make up to 12 as a lawn tech. And then it went from 13 to 15 as a crew leader. Hired him on, tried hiring him on for $10. He said definitely worth 11. So we hired him on at $11 as a lawn tech. But I can tell from day one he cared like he, he cared about himself enough and he had, it seemed like he had something to prove for himself. So he came out there, was letting me know that, you know, we were running 70 hour weeks. You know, I'm out there doing, working as hard as I can and I'm, I'm like, okay, well. And I'm new to hiring people, so I was like, well, I mean I, I don't know why they're taking so long, but you know, they're, they're working hard and they're out there. And I was like, we'll figure this out. But no, they were out there taking naps and, you know, smoking blunts in my truck. And it was, yeah, that was, that was an eye, an eye opener. You know, he let me know that stuff. And so we got rid of, got rid of the riffraff and we were doing pretty well growing it. So, you know, the Latter Half of 2017, we ended at 199.

And he was in, he was in part time school, you know, going to college to be a chemical operator at one of the power plants here, nuclear power plants.

So, you know, he had a bright future that would have been, I mean, anything he does, anything he chose to do and put his effort into, he would have been great at. But for some reason, you know, God put him in my path, brought us together. I think we both needed something out of each other. It was a great, still a great relationship. And we pressed on.

So 2018, pretty decent growth. You know, we grew $120,000 in revenue. Went through a whole lot. Yep.

And me and Jeremy did a lot of the work that year, so we actually profited a decent amount. I feel what the number was, I think it was like $60,000, you know, not, not bad.

And so we're like, all right, we're going to keep going with this. And I think we had, there's no culture at this point, you know, hiring, hiring folks. We were out of my backyard in my garage. So it was, you know, hiring people that had, you know, drunk on the job. Just not. There was not. We were not having a good time. You know, we were. Jeremy's. Jeremy was super stressed. I was super stressed. So we plugged on to 2019, and we did 400,000. So we didn't even grow that much, you know, 25% growth, and we spent 409,000. So. And all along the way, let's say 2014 to 2016, I was paying myself 2,000amonth. And then 2017 to 2020, I was paying myself 2750. So 33,000 a year.

So, you know, not. Not great numbers. And when that year hit 19, and I realized, I was like, man, we're growing, and if we keep growing, even at this pace, we'll grow ourself bankruptcy. And so that's when I started.

You know, I think I just. Just stumbled upon your podcast. I was searching, you know, I was like, man, I've got to figure out how to do this, how to grow this business successfully and profitably. And so your. Your podcast. I sucked up absolutely every bit of content that I could find from. From your YouTube podcast. And then that's when we, me and Jeremy flew out there for the. I think it was your second conference that you've had, Landscape Summit 2020.

So we went to that, and even before then, I learned about pay for performance. It's something that really attracted me.

To Augusta and to wanting to go to the conference. We were playing with the numbers before we went.

Yeah, I'm gonna put the brakes on because I want to go back a little bit. We'll come back to P4P, because I want to talk about that and transition, but I want to kind of go a little more chronological with the story. So I want to talk a little bit about Jeremy because he has been such a. A crucial part of the business in the last few years. For someone that's looking for someone. And like, for all of us, it's a dream to have a number two.

Right.

Like, someone that we can, like, lean on. They care about the business. For someone like myself, I have someone like Liz. And then, you know. You know, Lee is so supportive at the Bellingham local shop that he takes care of everything for me. And, like, that's what our dream is, right? So that we can go focus on building the business and, you know, creating the next level for them to climb up behind us.

Right.

But for. For you, what would you say to someone that you're trying. That is trying to potentially find that person? Maybe they're even larger than you were then. Maybe they're even, you know, a million plus now, but they're looking for a number two, someone they can lean on, a general manager, someone of that nature. What would your recommendation Be to them. What have you learned in terms of how you treat and compensate and just deal with some. Someone like Jeremy in his caliber.

Yeah. So yeah, first of all, you know, we would not be here if, if Jeremy did not, you know, if I didn't meet Jeremy 2017, it would have been absolutely gone. But as far as, you know, finding, he's definitely my integrator for this business and you know, he's the one that puts the wheels on the pavement, makes things happen.

And carries out the vision. Um, so as far as searching for that person, I got extremely lucky. Um, I was looking for a long tech someone that just help out on the truck and.

Honestly I would not know how to go about finding that person. Um, he came on, he immediately wanted to, you know, you could tell he wanted to be the best at what he was doing and you know, what he was doing at that time was, was using the. The line trimmer, the weed eater, some people may say, and just being. Being the best at that. And I would definitely say as far as attitude and character, be searching for more of that than, you know, any, any sort of technical skills. Although those are pretty important.

Yeah, I honestly, I don't know. I truly believe it was an act of God that put him into our organization. So.

I definitely know that it's necessary. I just don't know how I would find him again or find somebody like him.

When you say it's necessary, how having that number two helped you be a better leader, grow the business. Is it just a sounding board? Is it someone to kind of balance you out in certain areas? And is Jeremy more of a counterbalance to you or more or less just someone that is going to kind of keep. Because like I kind of think he's your, you know, hey, let's get our head out of the clouds and focus on today's operations. Yes, the clouds are great but you know, we got focus on what's happening down here. But like what was it that makes it that number two, not just Jeremy, but just in general. Why is that so important you feel like for an owner?

Yeah, so I feel like, you know, you've got somebody that takes for instance for our relationship, you know, he's basically does all the operations, does all the scheduling, handles all management or most management related tasks as far as our team and supports them. Allows frees me up to focus on the growth of the business, the finances, you know, looking for, focusing on my visionary tasks and you know, knocking out things that are important to move the business forward and also just Just to have someone to share the burden with. Because I definitely, you know, as you know, you can remember very well and you still go over there. But Bellingham is a. That's a beast of a location. Like, there's a lot of things going on. You got to share a lot of tasks. And I would be a. Definitely swallowed just by the day to day, would not be able to be thinking about the future and new hires and.

Combing the area and all of our resumes and trying to get ready for the next growth phase of the business.

So you came to conference wanting to implement P4P. What was that like? And I still remember even seeing you there and thinking you were both owners because obviously I hadn't seen you in person before. And so I just think, hey, these both, they either brothers or something like that, and they own this business together. And then we talked a little bit at the conference and seeing how much you guys cared about culture and actually cared about creating something with. For your team and P4P. What was it like going back to your team? Did they take P4P? Well, what really was the hardest points about implementing that with the business?

Yeah. So we went back, you know, fired up about it. And then we ran test numbers before.

But the vast majority, and this was an error on our part. So how we had our business set up was on monthly recurring revenue. So everything was prorated based on the number of visits for the year. And we had. We had a good bit of 21 visit packages. And so those only got one visit a month. And then one visit a month for. I think it was November, December, January and February at that time. Everything else was bi weekly. So we messed up and started doing the P4P numbers based on how much money that visit.

Yeah. So, you know, for the month, not for the year. The per. Yeah. So I guess someone was. Someone was paying 200amonth. And it was happening in February. They got 200 for that visit. So, you know, they were. They were killing it during our testing phase. But yeah, we didn't really like. Like, if there's no culture with no. There's nobody here except for Jeremy. That was, you know, when we rolled out P4P. So everybody loved it. They were making more money. You know, they don't think they understood it at all, but they enjoyed the bigger paychecks. Cause we did is we ran the numbers side by side and said, hey, y' all can choose and we're gonna vote at the end of it. I think one person didn't want it.

But I think he was also drunk. So.

It really take too much requirement for vote should be that you're sober. That's right.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

Cool.

Well, I want, I want to go into some more questions that can I had for you and for. Specifically for someone that has the size of business that you have, obviously the largest franchisee of Augusta outside of the first location. And so, you know, now you have a million dollar business, you know, which for so many entrepreneurs and small business owners, it's a, it's a small percentage that get to that, that kind of level. What this year has been a big change for you and not necessarily an unlock. Like, not necessarily. I'm not necessarily looking like why did you grow so much this year? Because like when I looked at your projections for this year, for example, April, I think you had. Was it 80 or 90,000? I think 90,000 you were trying to hit in April.

I want to say it was 85 and I think we hit 85.

Yep. And then, and then in the next month you did 150,000. You're way beyond your kind of like goals and projections.

Why did that happen? And then two is what was the hardest thing about that? Because obviously that much growth, when you like completely blow out your numbers like you did, creates a lot of stress and pressure. What was the learning experience from that?

Yeah, so the going from April. Yeah, it happened in. No, that was April was the big month. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So going from March to April, the reason it happened, we had hired somebody with great technical skills as far as landscape installation and which before, you know, myself, Jeremy, we, we had never really done any of that, you know, larger installs, drain work, walls, pretty much anything this guy could do irrigation. And so we started, you know, marketing a lot of that and getting a whole lot of those estimates in. And those estimates won during the spring rush and people wanting the work done.

I think, I think a lot of that was due to the stimulus checks. You know, a lot of project work.

So, and so that was, I think the. Why we started marketing it. We were marketing to one of our team members strengths. And so I was still, I was still in, you know, okay, we'll do a landscape whole division and we'll silo it and you know, get people with those kind of expertise. So we were building it and selling it and you know, we have, I think Jeremy did 300 estimates that month. It was, I think it was April.

300. 305. He had 365.

Wow. Yeah, that's a Lot.

I only know that because I know Marcus wanted to beat it, and he did 400 the next month.

Oh, wow.

I remember seeing 365, and I was blown away. That was amazing. But. Sorry, go ahead.

But, yeah, so we. We did that.

Those scale projects, that was a huge learning curve.

You know, that person is no longer with us. And the effect of those jobs still being one and having to be done by a completely different skill set, you know, like, our team members are great. It's just we did not. Did that work. We wouldn't have taken that work on if we, you know, did not have that skill. That skill set. So doing all the quotes for that took out some resource as far as Jeremy as being a. Because he's a. He has. He has a couple hats on him. You know, he manages the team, does the schedule and does estimates. So he's emailing clients, he's answering phone calls from all of our team members. He tries to make sure that all of our equipment's right. So he's got a, you know, he's got a large. He's got a couple hats that he wears. And so it used up a lot of his resources. And then we started getting into project failure as far as, like, we had a drain job that, you know, we went way over a bunch of times. Yeah, yeah, you are.

Tell us a little bit about that. Tell us a little bit about that.

Oh, yeah. So we got into it, you know, the equipment that we had for the budget, we had bid this job, you know, doing a Mini X, and that's how the previous employee likes to do trains. Well, that wasn't working out. So then we get a trencher, and so we already, you know, that. That is only like a $2,500 drain or something. Something silly like that. And so that already, you know, messed up the profits for that job. And then we went a full day over, might have been a day and a half. So that, you know, further, you know, was not good. And then we fixed part of the area and did not fix the whole train solution. So I went and met with the client, and of course, you know, he. He was super nice. He. He thought he was going to have to pay to get his solution done. I said, no, man. I said, that's. That's on us. And I had to pay another contractor. So. Still hasn't been done yet, but I think the contractor was backlogged. So, yeah, that job probably at least.

He got his cable back.

Oh, yeah. And we hit the cable.

Yeah, we hit his cable too. And he worked from home. So that was. And thank you.

Oh, sorry, you were, you were, you, you were gonna say how many hour, how many, how much the job cost total? Yeah, I'd imagine like five grand, probably.

Six grand it cost us. We probably lost about $3,000 in that job as far as what, what we end up having to pay over, you know, over all that. So. Yeah, and the guy's cable got cut while he was working from home and, you know, nothing, nothing serious, just, you know, neurology. So hopefully we did.

Oh, man.

Yeah, he's in neurology. I was like, okay, cool. That was how you learned that lesson. There's a couple others. Yeah. Just took, took up a whole lot of resources and kind of helped me refocus, realize like, hey man, we're here for, for.

Simple services to be done at an unprecedented level as far as communication and execution. And you know, we're just not the company to do custom work or things that require a lot of mechanical skill with machinery and things like that. We're great at communicating, we're excellent at follow through on what we have, what our wheelhouse is, you know, simple sod jobs, plant installs, mulch treatments and basic lawn maintenance.

Very cool. I know you and I have talked and your goal is to open quite a few locations throughout all of Georgia and all the rest of it, and you can talk about that. I know Your goal is 10 million in revenue across those locations. However, how do you kind of balance that kind of ambition with sort of the fact that every day you have to get out and grind and you're still in that phase of finding the next, the next general manager, finding another Jeremy, finding someone that's going to be able to support him down the road. And especially when you look at the grind today, in the next six to 12 months of still in that grind, getting to, you know, getting those first few locations started. What, how do you kind of balance that out? Because like, you have that drive, the entrepreneurial, like, let's grow, grow, grow. Balancing out with the fact of like, hey, there's operational inefficiencies we're fixing and we're hiring and all the rest of it. What, what, how do you do that? Is that a matter of having Jeremy? What, what's that kind of solution look like for you?

Yeah, it's 100% Jeremy as far as releasing because you only accumulate so much fatigue. You know, you've got different, different levels of stress. Even, you know, things that are going positive, you know, you're growing the company, things are moving the right direction, still adds a whole lot of stress because you're working long hours.

But it honestly, you know, I'm not in the field anymore. So as far as the physical stress on my body from, from this business, it's not there. And then Jeremy handles, I would say 90, maybe 85, 90% of our estimates. So that takes a whole lot of stress off of me. And as far as handling the day to day.

I can remember, I still remember times when you know, I would wake up at 3 o' clock in the morning, go to the gym, be done with everything and on the road by 5, 45, 6 o', clock, maybe hit estimate here and there in the middle, but not too much. And then you know, still be working on properties at 8, 30, 8, 45 at night, you know, getting home, doing invoicing till 10 o', clock, 11 o'. Clock. So those were the really hard times. And as far as energy for the business in the day to day, I, I truly, I mean I honestly believe I'm finally on God's path and this is what I'm supposed to be doing. As far as seeing that future vision just chiseling away, I'm able to, this is something I had to learn. Um, cause I would get frustrated of not being where I wanted to be. And I'm definitely much more of a, you know, a future thinker. But you've got to, you know, you gotta put the, gotta put the legs to the pavement and do the day to day and get it done. Especially when you're not scaled, you know, you're not a 10, $20 million company so. But the hope that that vision has given me has always had me hold on and get through it and just you know, having a super supportive team and family helps out tremendously.

Very cool in tying that in. You talk about, you know, the support in the family side. Your wife has a business as well, Sinless Suites. Yeah, for everyone out there, sinless-suite.com but tell us a little bit about that because I think for very some people they have an entrepreneurial drive themselves and then they gotta kinda like pull their spouse along for you. She also has that kind of bug as well. How has it been in terms of supporting each other in your different ventures? And for those of you who don't know, they're keto based desserts that basically she ships around and it's growing very, very quickly. They've had, they've been able to figure out some things with the bakery and all the rest of it. But in terms of supporting each other in your different entrepreneurial ventures, how has that worked with the relationship?

Yeah, so like I said, she's always supported me even, you know, whenever she was, whenever I was doing the business and she was, you know, working the job that she had. So most recently she was a trainer at our local gym, Evans Fitness. And you know, when Covid happened as, you know, with your gym, it kind of shut some things down. And the training department, you know, even when they we got back online, we're, you know, we're in Georgia, it didn't really get, you know, crazily affected like a lot of the rest of the United States. But even when it came back, some of the clients didn't want to come. So it was, it was kind of a real low.

A low amount of clients even whenever it got started back. So from day one, she. We've been, we had a side business that we. Our passion business, I guess you would say. We were nutrition coaches and we did a competition bodybuilding team and then just general nutrition. Whether you wanted to lose body fat or gain muscle, that was a natural truth. So we had already done that and she was baking for her clients that didn't want to bake. So she had been doing this for a few years just as a hobby, and she enjoyed it. And they are tasty treats. It is treats without the cheats. So soon as that happened, day one, she started a Facebook page. Got a huge following, over three or four thousand now. And so that first week, the Lord provided us with a path to replace her entire week's income from the gym. And so she kept doing that and she was doing a little bit of training.

And then within a couple months, she went completely full time baking out of her home.

And as far as, you know, support, we've always been a great team, even whenever we were. All right, the shameless plug.

Check out.

There's, there's the truck right there.

That's right.

So we've, we've always been a really good team. Whether we're bartending together, you know, mowing lawns, you know, we, we just support each other. And the, you know, as far as our passion and love for each other, it's never, it's never faded. And we, we truly want what's best for each other. So, you know, I'll go, I'll run a truck on Saturday sometimes give her a break. Sometimes I'll cut trees with her. You know, as far as cutting them up and packaging them, we just, we work really well Together. And as far as on the business side, she had asked her before if she had ever, you know, thought, you know, business or ever had any desires to. And she didn't, you know, and, and a lot of times when you're going through, going through life and God will, you know, drag you a certain direction and that was one of those pivots. So she really loves baking. It was something we went through a really.

A really tragic time with a miscarriage.

Last year. And baking is something that helped pull her out of it as far as, you know.

You know, the extreme sorrow and then, and grief. So it helped out a lot. But as far as the business side, she said she never had desire to, you know, her own business, never thought she would see herself doing it. And she does such a great job. And there's things that I can help with which I'm, I really love, you know, as far as being able to teach people different things about business, you know, licensing and as far as, you know, your.

Your costs and your profit margins, hiring and things like that. So just from experiences and sometimes a lot of the mistakes I've made, I've been able to help her with questions that she has.

Awesome. Very cool. Well, I have a couple questions coming in from the audience. I'll pop them up here on the screen. And one comes from Dave over at home. Keep says yes. How do you scale leadership? That is the hardest part of expanding. Do you plan on just starting with most services and those new areas and integrating training until you have a players built up? Brian, go ahead.

Okay, so yeah, leadership and I'll just touch on that. My goals have changed a little bit and we just had our first off site meeting. So our.

Oh yeah, I haven't had, I haven't had to talk to you since then. How did it go?

It was excellent, man. The guys really came together. We identified our values, you know, shared a whole lot and you know, got our 10 year, 10 year vision. Brought it down to the one year and where we're going to be today. So our new 10 year vision and the guys share this.

The big hairy, audacious goal is to have 50 locations within 20 years. So go with about 10% of what your goal is, but the 10 years, 21 locations within 10 years. But to answer your question, I had to go into that type of a goal and let you know what our vision is because I truly believe that when you have a very large vision, you can attract some great talent. You can, you can attract a whole lot of desire out of people. That never even thought they had it in them. Because if you offer these opportunities and you follow through with what you're saying, that's the big thing. That's the big thing that attracted Jeremy. For some reason, he believed in me. But every step of the way, when I said, hey man, this, when, when we get here, this is what's going to happen. This is what, this is a position that's going to open up for you, I was able to follow through. So having the big goals, having the, you know, laying out like, hey man, this is the opportunity and not it not being a carrot on a stick, it being attainable is huge. So with our vision just in the next 10 years.

January 2023 is when we're supposed to, we have a deadline to open up two locations, one right here across the river and one in Beaufort, South Carolina. So we already. And I've, I've like, I don't know if it's.

Rain man or Beautiful Mind. I had a big whiteboard and I lined it out from year one to year 10 and showed what opportunity that's going to have, how many estimators will have, how many general managers and operators. And I lined out the pay on all of them and what kind of opportunity, what kind of job description that is. And so now all of my team knows, okay, within two and a half years, there's going to be two operators. Next year, we're hiring our first estimator. We're replacing Jeremy. Jeremy's going to move into my, my position. He's going to be a general manager and we're going to hire a spray technician. Jesse Carter, who manages the spray division, he's going to have that employee. So there's opportunity. And when, when, when your team sees it and they bought into the mission that gets them fired up and they're like, they can see themselves now having a future, you know, with the company and they get, and you get big buy in. But as far as like eight, you know, having eight players and the training, that part of the question, simple services. So I've learned a lot from wanting to, you know, expand via different services, more specialized services. And I just, it's not, it's not for me. Um, so our model, you know, the model Mike designed is for basic mowing, cleanups, mulch, very basic sod replacement. And it works because you can get somebody that wants to work and within two weeks they're mowing their trimming and they're making money for themselves and the company.

That's awesome. And so, so that meeting. Tell us a little bit more about the off site meeting because I know it's your first one. What were some of your fears going into it? And then like you kind of, you shared obviously the future. How else did you kind of lay out that off site meeting? What did that look like?

Yeah, so it wasn't the best planned. I should have gotten a place that was quiet. I picked the Logan for house on a Friday night.

So that, but.

That was, that was interesting. So we had to, you know, we were kind of talking over people. But obviously the big fear is people not showing up. You know, hey, man, even I don't even want to have a free steak with you. I'm tired. I'm tired of seeing you throughout the week. I don't care about the steak. And so. But everybody showed up.

Minus one person. And I know who you are. No, I'm just kidding.

But as far as, like people not showing up, that's, you know, one fear. But the other one is people not being engaged and not listening, you know, just showing up for the free stake. But these guys, I mean, we laid it out. I, I got the, the pamphlet right here, you know, and believe it or not, you know, it's a full page, There's a back.

There'S another back. I mean, it's four full pages. And the guys were engaged through all of it, asking questions about it. You know, like a lot of it was.

Well, I mean, people get intrigued when you show them how much money they can make. So, you know, a lot of it was. I had outlined.

The different roles that were coming up and when they're coming up. So like for instance, Estimator January 2022, the skills that are needed, what the job description is. And for a lot of these guys, they're all come from the field, you know, field team. So that's some serious hard work. You know, it's hot. It's, you know, you're getting debris all over you. It's late days. So just the fact that they're not going to be on a truck anymore with a weed eater is super huge. But, you know, some of the pay and you know, being in Georgia, this might sound, you know, like, oh man, you're only paying that much. But this is actually, you know, a good wage here. So 15 to $20 an hour, 3% profit sharing for that position.

You know, and then lined out from general manager, all the positions we went through. I didn't take them through the 10 years, but we took them through, you know, the three year picture, which is actually only two and a half years away, what that looks like, how many, what the profit's going to be, where the profit goes. One thing they get excited about is we've got a debt board that Mike had recommended. We've got it up there on the, on the wall. And they all know that when that debt is gone, they start, we start doing 10% quarterly bonus or quarterly profit sharing for the field. So I put a date on there for that. And so that's, and that's kind of as far as sharing the profit, not in the equity stance, but just in quarterly profit shares is, I think is, is really big. I think it goes a long way. If you're saying, hey, you know, we're a million dollar company, we are, you know, profiting 15%, you know, $150,000 and 10% of that is going to the field team. So they, I honestly believe they bought in way more than that. This is the most bought in, you know, best team that I've ever had. And I'm super, I was super excited about everybody's involvement in the meeting.

Awesome. Quick question here from Javier. Brian. How do you grow the weed control and fertilizer side of the services? I know, Brian, you've grown that one a bunch this year. I think you have like three, almost 400 customers now for weed control. Tell us a little bit exactly how that's, how that's kind of transpired.

So with, I think it pairs really well with, you know, the, the basic service offerings because people, from what I've heard, you know, feedback of the customers, they really enjoy having one company for their lawn care. You know, you may be a different company that builds the wall, but the person mowing the grass and treating the grass, a lot of people, as long as you can perform, really enjoy that because you know, you think about it, you've got, you know, on one lawn you got two companies are having to pay bills to just for the mowing and treatment. You might have a sprinkler guy come around once or twice a year. And then, you know, so it's just, it's convenience for the, for the homeowner. So we're already marketing too heavily for mowing and then we are targeting specifically for treatment, which in my opinion is you're paying way more for those leads than you are for even for mowing, simply for the fact that there are some extremely large players taking up that, that ad space. You know, you got trugreen Fairway in most regions. You got lawn dock. You've got spring green. So you've got a whole lot of.

You know, firms that are built on venture capitalism and they've got, you know, billions of dollars, a bunch of these.

New things coming out. Like they're actually very interesting. I'm not going to take it away from them. But it's definitely like what you just said there. And the cost of those acquisition leads for that service is getting higher is because what they're doing is now where you take a soil sample, you send it in and then they do a soil sample and then they can send basically bags that attach to someone. Someone's hose and it's like customized basically fertilizer to your specific soil type. And they can do it really cheap because they don't have to actually send anyone to your house.

Right.

Obviously the homeowner has to spray it, which in my mind is kind of a disconnect. Like whoever is going to have that probably doesn't want that someone want to be doing it themselves. But you're exactly right because they're competing for those same. Same leads.

Yeah, I think it's a Sunday services. It's actually a pretty catchy little.

Yeah, very cool.

It's pretty cool. But yeah, as far as how.

I didn't answer is how Google Local services and.

Putting a whole lot of money towards. Toward that. But I'd say Google Local and then we've been had some decent, decent success. We're still paying 60 bucks a lead for. You can do a, you know, a lead generation on Facebook but you can capture all the information you need is in the quote. So 60 bucks a lead. It's not great. But.

And then you guys have the, the little yard sign things with Max too, right?

Yeah. So every treatment here in Georgia, a lot of places you have to put a sign anyways. So we've got Max. Not it's not the exact sign, but it's the exact format. So Max on one side and then the, you know, the warning treatment on the other. So that helps out Kevin.

Kevin asked how you found someone like Jesse. What do you look for in a person to take on the treatment division? Obviously they need the technical experience in this specific type and the in the certification. But I know Jesse. I met him for someone like that, I really feel like he's someone similar to Jesse in the fact that he really took it on, has really ran with it, has grown that side of the business. What is different though for that type of individual versus someone out in the field for say mowing?

Yeah. So I, you know, as far as, you know, having somebody come on like Jeremy, I got, I got lucky once again. You know, I was, I was looking for something specific and I was going to sell that division if I didn't find it. So it needed to be someone like Mike said, technically able to handle all the treatments, but also somebody super self motivated. Wanting the opportunity to grow a division and the hard work that, you know, that they're put in for.

Probably a couple of years will turn the reward. And so someone that's going to be looking further than a weekly paycheck and you know, hey man, I've been here six months, where's my raise type deal? Somebody that's intrinsically motivated but the guy's also super skilled with being able to organize things. Like he took, I had pen and paper routing, you know, as far as like, okay, here's Route 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Yeah, he organized that.

Looking for somebody that I got super fortunate with. Jesse, character attitude, you know, just, just, just like, just like Jeremy self starter, but he also worked in an office for a while, had some management roles. So I know that once, you know, we do have his first employee, second, third, etc. He'll be able to manage that as well. So I would say if you're looking for somebody to take over a division.

I think it's super difficult because especially if that person's gonna have to start at one truck and build that truck until.

That division can afford to hire the first employee. Because have we how we had scheduled.

I think one thing you did too is I thought was really useful for attracting someone like Jesse was what you did is you gave him an actual goal in terms of number of customers.

Right.

Do you want to kind of explain a little bit of that?

Yeah. So we broke it down. I think we're really trying to implement entrepreneurial operating system. But just one facet of it as far as breaking your year down into quarters and then you know, the weekly meetings. So he's got, I believe we had 500, I think it was 500 customers was the goal or properties and basically broke it down to what the revenue was going to be. So each week as he signs up new people, he knows how, how, how far or how close he's getting to that goal. So that's, that breaks it down to a weekly like okay, hey man, I'm hitting it, I'm hitting it. And once I get to the goal, we know based on the revenue that we have enough money to hire that second employee and that's going to Be huge for him, you know, as far as I know, I hope he knows he's a big part of the team and, you know, a reason for our success. But when you have a division and you've got Jeremy, that's over, you know, 10 guys and having communication with them all day. And then you got Jesse, you're dealing with treatments. Yeah, we talk here and there, but it's a little. I'm super excited for his first hire.

Very cool. So before I let you go, I know we're a little overtime, but for someone like yourself, that has grown a lot and, you know, gone to some highs and lows from the entrepreneurial journey, you have big dreams of what you want to do in the future. You're building the team for someone that is. They're just dreaming to get to kind of where you're at now in terms of, say, a million in revenue. And. And really, they would be more inclined to camp down on where you're at now and just optimize it, make it really profitable, which is absolutely something you could do over the next couple years, but they just want to get to where you're at now. What would you say is the biggest thing that, if you could have known, say, in 2015, 2016, what would have been the thing that could have unlocked a little bit of the time that it took to get here, as well as just taking out some of those hurdles?

Okay, so I would have. I would have taken one of the.

I guess the.

Road bumps that I hit was early on, I guess it's 2015 or 16, I saved up $10,000 to put towards marketing, and. Which would have been a great, you know, bump. You know, probably would have gotten $200,000 worth of 150, $200,000 worth of bump from that. But I put it in the hands of someone that stole it, and so that was rough. But I would say that $10,000 level or, you know, a good. A good marketing budget right then, but also having super simplified services that, you know, I could go out, make good money and save that money for the growth of the company, because I had the assumption that, you know, you.

I was buying used trucks, but I was financing all the equipment. And so I would say be as debt free as you possibly can. There's nothing wrong with going in with a little bit of debt, but making sure that you're profitable, having that good pricing formula and sticking to extreme route density. You know, for some people, that means within three miles of wherever they are. Some people, that means five Five miles or it can mean different things, but route density, a good marketing budget and simple services on top of making sure you're profitable. Because that's the only profit, the only way that you're going to grow your company. And once you get started and you're in debt, it, it is, it's. It's really tight and it's super difficult.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on, Brian. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

I respect so much about you and Jeremy and your company is the fact that even when you joined Augusta, you already had, by all accounts were very successful, had already been growing a lot and just your ability to learn. Even at the conference, I still remember you talking to Liz and Brad and other people there and, and just being so opening to learn and grow, even though you had already grown so much. And I think that's, in my opinion, your unlock is just your ability to learn and not get. You know, I've been there, done that. I don't need to listen to you. But you're, you're so open to learning and I think that's a big unlock for so many people that they can just be willing to learn from anyone, everybody, and realize that we, every single day, there's something we can grow, grow upon.

Yeah, 100%. I really appreciate you having me on, Mike.

You got it, brother. Have a great day.

Yeah, you as well. Take care.

All right, bye. All right, everyone, thanks so much for joining here on another episode of Roundup. If you have any more comments or questions for Brian, feel free to reach out. He has actually started his own channel for from Augusta Lawn Care of Augusta, Georgia. So feel free to check him out. Just type in Brian. Brian Connor. He's create a YouTube channel kind of documenting daily operations, what he's doing and the struggles of growing the business. So definitely feel free to reach out to him. He's a great resource. I know even in the Georgia area, he's reached out to quite a few of the other, you know, lawn care professionals and lawn care business owners trying to help them grow their business. And he's very, very giving in that regard. So feel free to reach out to him. And as always, thanks so much for joining us here on landscape businesscourse.com we'll see you next time.