How to GROW your Lawn Care Business in 2026! Hosted by @BriansLawnMaintenance

All right, all right, all right. How's everybody doing?

How's everybody doing? Fantastic.

Hi, I'm Brian Foley. I run a YouTube channel called Baronsaw Maintenance and a laundry company in Michigan called Barons Law Maintenance. And we're doing a little bit on social media. And honestly, that's all you guys. You guys are my friends. Thank you so much for coming on out. Today's event, guys. You guys excited about today's event?

Let's go.

It's going to be good. I actually have one of the easier parts I feel because I'm this MC and I came across on the quid and said, hey, you want to, you know, do this whole event? And I said, you know, I'm not really the public speaking guy. Anybody like public speaking? I can get some lights out there, but raise your hand if you're a public speaking person. You like talking to people. Okay. One, two, three. So three cereal cameras in the group today. Just having fun. But I didn't get started doing YouTube or social media to talk to anybody. I just wanted to review couple products. So by the way, the people that are coming up to share today, they're not public speakers either. Okay? They're just one care guys, just like you guys. Is that cool? Nobody's here to sell you anything. Nobody's here to sell you on anything. But what we are here to do today.

What does he think?

I don't know.

It's part of the sales tactic in the industry. They're some of the smartest people I know. And here's another thing. They're some of the most genuine people I know as well. Guys are here to help me grow. Nobody's getting paid for any of this, okay? They volunteering their time. So when these guys come on up, I want you guys to get a huge round of applause. Right? Is that good?

Let's go.

We got Paul Jameson.

Let's go.

And then of course, we got Benjamin legend Mike.

All right, I'm just kind of MCing this thing today. These guys are going to be getting asked all hard questions. How you guys all doing? You guys all got microphones?

Fantastic.

Check. There you go. All right. Sitting in the wrong seat. Where are we sitting? Why am I getting in the wrong seat?

Blake, no microphone, but we're good now.

We're good. Oh, we just can't hear from Paul and M. So everybody, they always wants a shout out. So here's your shout out today.

Finally.

Finally. By the way, like, really quick, who put this together? I can't see. I feel like I know What a deer looks like. Yeah. If you put this together. Because my Danies and I were making fun of this thing.

Like, Paul looks perfect.

Like, look at that smile.

Like, it's thoughtful. He's eligible bachelor. He's rich. You see the ladies out there.

Blake Albertson looking fresh. And then how white can I be?

This is the whitest photo I ever took in my life.

The camera never lies.

What's that?

The camera never lies.

I. I know, right? Like, somebody could use Photoshop and just tinted it a little bit. That was in the marsh in Florida before our season started. And then my man is first off, they're giving me crap. You had to use, like, a little spool to get into the frame.

I actually feel very discriminated. I don't get my booster seat up here.

All right, so it's going to be like that all day. So we're all bu a little bit. But really quick before we get too far into it. Evan, thank you for just taking a chance on us free people to let us put this moving on with you. Super appreciate that. Here's what I'll tell you guys. The inmates are in charge of the prison, all right? So nothing is gonna be super formal. If you got questions, yell it out. If we got a Q A kind of thing coming up, yell it out. All right? It's the same thing. We got three to four minutes, and.

We'Re gonna keep it moving. All right?

So real quick, before we jump into it, give me like, a 90 second background who you guys are, what your disc looks like, where you're from, and in case there's some new people out here that don't know you. So, Paul, you're up first. What you got?

Yeah, I started a lawn care business in a 1997 Honda with Rusty Raggedy back in 2011. And it was way before Brian's law maintenance and, you know, social media and YouTube. So I made a whole bunch of mistakes along the way. Eventually, in 2018, I started a podcast sharing my business story on the green industry podcast, and that's been really growing. I put out one new podcast episode every day, talking about how to take a long care business to the next level.

Awesome. And millions and millions of downloads later, by the way. Yes. Helping a lot of people out. Who's listening to the green agency podcast? Yeah. There you go. Awesome. Awesome. Blake Ellington.

Hey, Blake.

Allison v. Lawn care.

Started my business about 11 years ago, Kansas City, Missouri, just with the family.

Lawnmower driving around the neighborhood.

Trimmer, you know, mower down here. Trimmer up to the side before truck trailer and then just kept reinvesting in my business. Eventually bought trailer, kept, kept upgrading, kept moving our service area a little bit and, you know, trying to crush it in Kansas City. And then started YouTube. That really helped, helped spread our word online. And here we are today. Just like, seems like a flash in the eyes, but 1112 years later, who's.

Ever watched the BB long term video?

Let's go.

A lot of those looking for B and B long Turk videos.

Some of the best strike videos. Past, present, and hopefully future, man. So keep it going.

Seriously.

I got started doing YouTube because of you.

That's crazy to me.

I love watching your videos. That's why I love the snot on the first time I met you. I quit last five, six years ago. So it's fun how it comes full circle, man. We've all heard that story, right?

We'll be best friends forever, man. All right, Mike G. How you doing, bud?

Good.

You doing good?

Yeah. So I started my business mowing lawns when I was 11 and I was going to become a doctor. So I started college when I was really young. I was 13 years old and mowed my way, mowed my way through college, basically paying for my undergrad. Dropped out of medical school, got my MBA at night and started Augusta Lawn Care. And thanks my team over there, we now have about 100 franchise locations around North America and then a whole bunch of other stuff. Lawn care, bookkeeper, lawn care, web design. Just do a bunch of stuff in the industry, trying to help everyone out.

Awesome, man. By the way, I heard earlier. Awesome, awesome. Thanks for coming out. So here we're going to do. I'm standing, like, I like to stand. If you guys want to sit or stand, I'll go back and forth. I'm crazy, so work with you. But before we jump into it, here's what we wanted to do. We talk about, you know, it doesn't matter if you've been in business for a day, a week, a month, or a decade or two decades. Who understands right now that the world's changing, right? Economy's changing, talks about recession, depression. There's good cycles, there's bad cycles, Paul. You stick around long enough, you definitely get a little bit of everything right. Entrepreneurship as well. A friend of mine, his name is Jeff Joyner, just came to speak at one of our events. He's got a good line and I borrow it, but I got to give him credit. He said, entrepreneurship is bucky roller coaster. He goes, there's ups, there's downs, there's lefts, there's rights, there's loopy loops. He said. But here's the deal. The only people that get hurt on a roller coaster are the ones who jump off. That's entrepreneurship. Okay, so we've all been. Who's ever been through some loopy loops roller coaster rides here with your business over the last couple of years? Yeah, it's been a wild couple years with COVID So here's what we want to do. We're going to talk about some relevant topics. Getting customers, keeping customers, how to upsell customers, cross sell customers, build relationships. These are some of the best in the industry that I know that also know how to communicate effectively to help you guys grow. So if you have your phone may bring on your phone really quick notepad, take some notes. All right, we're going to entertain, we're going to have fun. We're going to learn a little bit today too. All right, before we do, I forgot about this.

Money, money, money.

We got some money, money, money bank. By the way, thank you to those guys for watching this event. We got some gift cards to give away. Here's the first one I want to give away really quick is who has drove the farthest to get to a quick expo this year? Who's. How far were your brother?

13 hours. Depends how fast you drive.

15 hours. That's freaking wild.

Go once, going twice.

Whip it, just throw it.

That's pretty dope.

Who is their first equip expo? You're not on equipment.

Whoa.

That's a lot of people knew.

Wow. See that? I'm a right handed guy. I can throw a ball for that mountain. Right? The point diamond. Nobody. All right, cool. Any ladies in the audience?

There you go. That's preparing for all of us men who are meaningful. Okay, so welcome to the show. It's like 101 for the guy girl ratio here. So we gotta show some love for the ladies. All right, let's jump into it.

Here's our first topic.

And we're gonna do a little round off here. We're good on time. I think we're pretty bad in time. Fantastic. So here's what I wanted. I want to give you guys a prayer. So we titled this little topic here six little known secrets new long hair business owners need to know. And it doesn't matter if you've been in for a day, a week, a month or a year, but this is all helpful stuff. So the first thing I want to talk about is your best tip for getting customers and acquiring Customers, because we're going to do a little route routing and go down the line. So getting customers and acquire customers. Paul, what's working out there for you, brother?

Well, it's the World Wide Web. It's called Google. I've heard one search engine in the world, and it's free to be on Google. You apply to it, they'll send you a little code in the mail. You get on Google my business, you can put your pictures, your company's information on the biggest search engine in the world. And I think it's underutilized. A lot of companies don't have excellent pictures and fully maximizing what Google offers for free. So I think you at least start there, as many others will mention. But you definitely want to make sure you're on the number one search engine in the world.

Google also Google my business listing and it's free to do. Who's got to Google my business listing? That's like 75, 80% of the living room who does have Google my business listing. It's okay. Okay, so write that down. Take a great note. This weekend when you get home, tweet that little thing in your business. It'll start paying dividends for the rest of your career.

And let me add on to that too. Once you establish that you want to get reviews on there, because Amazon's the biggest store in the world and they're training us as consumers. When you shop, no matter what you buy, probably psychologically, look, how many reviews does it have and what ranking is in 1 through 5. So if it's got like 4.6 with 12,000 view, 12,000 reviews, psychological. I trust this product.

Amazon's trained shopper.

So when a customer looks up on here, they're going to look at how many reviews you have. If you have, you know, writing reviews, they're gonna think, I don't know if I can trust this company. So you want to beat that up with real reviews as quickly as possible.

That's a great point. Who's ever shopped for a restaurant on Friday night, Saturday night, based on their reviews? Pretty much everybody in the audience. I know we do all the time. If you got a three or two and a half, I don't know about that. Unless it's like a hold of all barbecue place. And then you're like, you know, let's try it anyway. What do you got?

Yeah, and real quick to add on that, make sure you're updating those with like clear, good pictures, showing off, you know, your work in a good light. Because like you said it's the first thing that pops up, you know, ahead of everything for your business. For me, I think Facebook, Instagram, Google, my business, I think these are all really good ways to get new customers, but I also think they're a little.

Bit more of a long term.

Unless you're like paying for ads. If you're just making a Facebook page, it's kind of more like a long term getting customers. Something I always say, and I might repeat this today, but it's taking care of Susie. And I always use that as an example. And what I mean is, when you do have that customer, really go above and beyond for them because they will be your best person to spread your business around to their friends, their neighbors, you know, they're out at the pool, the park, and somebody needs lawn care. Whatever services you offer, if you've really done your job in taking care of her and given her a good experience, she will spread your name and you're in. So I always say, you know, focus on the customers you do have and really go above and beyond for them.

Why do you take good photos? But you're on the moral day, why don't you take a photo of yourself for your Google review? So what's the. My solution is hiring somebody.

That's why he has kids.

Use a kid. Oh, that's why one day, I mean.

Even get a ten dollar, you know, tripod for your phone off Amazon and there's a little timer like on every iPhone. You just go set it up and if you want to get it on your. But most of my pictures I just take after we, you know, do the work.

How many of you guys here see a show of hands, forget to take the before photo, which you always take the after photo.

That's freaking everybody. I'm a culprit of that too. And where I got into a better habit and say a good habit or a better habit is with fall cleanups. We have a company policy. We take a photo of the yard when it's finished. The oldest, prove we did it and leave cleanup. Cause whoever got a phone call a week later, who's there? We got a phone call. I don't know. A week later, five hours later, windstorm blows through. A customer goes, hey, when are you guys coming on out? Susie.

Susie, right?

Usa. And you're like, ah, our guys were doing this morning. She's like, well, it doesn't look like it. There's people all over the place. So we always take photos when we're done. So by the way, these Little habits are things you can establish. If you guys are taking notes, taking four photos, taking after photos. It's really, really helpful to get to that.

Yeah, yeah, I Brett, I told him this today. The lens on the camera gets dusty.

You're outside, you're working.

So wipe it off as frequently as.

Possible so your pictures are as clean. It's going to look like used to.

This is seriously read off the lens.

I keep a little cloth, keep it fresh.

That's good.

And I feel like that's also a good segue. Like once you're already taking these pictures, you have a tripod like you might as well just click record record. You doing a lead plate outfit just kind of shows off the quality of work that your company's doing.

Yeah, I think especially if you're starting out, if you're under say a quarter million annual revenue, the only thing you really want to be tracking is your close ratio. So what percentage of your estimates are actually being won? And if you want to double the size of your business, the fastest way to do it is not necessarily get more leads, is take the leads that you're currently getting and close more of them. So if you're having a 33% close ratio, you can double the size of your business by just making that 66% close ratio. So if you're like, well, how do I determine that? Let's just take the number of estimates that are one divided by the total number of estimates that you give out to customers and that's their close ratio. Focus on that number, track it every single week, every single month over time, and just focus on the fact that that's 20 or 30%. You're literally leaving 70, 80% of revenue on the table. And one thing we should track is what's our potential revenue versus closed revenue. And that's directly tied to your closed ratio.

Let me press you on that one really quick. Give me one quick tip like loading insert that these guys can apply in their business to help increase and work on their close ratio.

Call people back the day after. So once you do an estimate, give the customer a call, say, hey, just making sure you got your estimate is do you have any questions? And then don't let them cop out with like, yeah, I'll look it over and get back to you. Well, I'm right here. Let's, let's go through it. I was with you yesterday. Do you have any questions? Well, it's what about price again? You're going to sell yourself on value, have the confidence to actually push Back on that. But calling them back the day after. Most of us don't because we just don't have the confidence. And we're afraid of one question and is so and so can do it cheaper. What about you? That's what we're afraid of. And if you have confidence in your product and your value, you'll call them the next day, knowing that it is your duty and obligation to make sure they choose you because you're the best provider in your area.

Mike, really quick. I know you know this answer, so I'm gonna ask like kind of a two or two question here. Talk about customer acquisition costs. A lot of people start a business who came from an employee situation. You're working for somebody or some small business, right? Something like that. And now you're an entrepreneur. And as an employee, you're not used to spending money in a business, right? You're used to getting a paycheck. But now you step into entrepreneurship and then somebody tells you to invest in postcards or yard signs or a vehicle rack. So talk about customer acquisition and the customer acquisition cost. What I'm trying to say is investing in your business, it's a good thing. It's something you should. I had to learn this. I didn't know this. It's something I was supposed to be doing if I wanted to grow. So talk about that for a hot minute.

Can I? Give me two minutes.

I'll give you two hot minutes.

Okay, so here's a question for you. So if you go out there right now and buy, say, a $12,000 mower, all right? If you buy that today, what impact is it gonna have in your business tomorrow? I'll tell you right now. You're not making a single new customer. You're not moving any more revenue by just simply buying the mower. That $12,000. The alternative is what he just talked about, and that's spending that money on acquiring customers. And so who here has about, let's just say, 100 mowing customers or recurring customers on a weekly or bi weekly basis? About 100. Okay, now keep your hand up. Can you please yell out what your annual revenue is really quickly?

1503-754000-00450. 200,000. Okay, so the reason I say that is because if I spent $12,000 on marketing instead of a mower, and I had $120 customer acquisition cost, I would have acquired 100 customers and I would have generated a business that's producing between 200 and $450,000 in annual revenue. No mower will do that.

Slow down one more time. Say that again. That's super powerful stuff.

You want me say it again.

No. That was so good. 12 grand on marketing versus 12 grand on a new shiny piece of metal.

So if you take $12,000, you divide it by 100 customers, it's $120 per customer that I have to spend. And when we talk about customer acquisition costs, how much do I have to spend on marketing in order to get one customer? So if I have to spend $120 on Facebook ads, Google Ads, postcards, every door, direct mail, whatever you want to do. But if you know that number of your acquisition cost is, I guarantee you, guarantee you, your return on your investment will be far greater spending on marketing and customer acquisition costs compared to a mower every single day of the week. And so, for all the Expo people out there, I love you, but that's not what's actually going to move the needle for our businesses. It's going to be customer acquisition cost. It's going to be knowing that number, and that's ultimately what will move your business forward.

That is solid stuff. Who appreciates that round of applause.

We appreciate.

By the way, next year's panel, Mike won't be here because.

He was great.

Huntington got to buy their products. Massive, massive benefit to your business.

He's got, like, a bunch of tags, but it's true. Who's ever heard, like, I'm from Detroit, the auto industry. Who's ever heard, like, they sell a $60,000 truck, Chevy. And GM spends 1500 to five grand to sell a truck.

Right.

It's an acquisition cost. You got to market. You gotta. So I'm just telling you, if you're new in business and younger, first year or two, can you suck to me? I didn't know nobody teaches you this stuff besides Mike and the great guys like these guys that have YouTube videos, you have to spend a little bit to get a lot back. By the way, if you have this magic slot machine or whatever you call it. Right, Mike?

And if you put a nickel on.

The top and dollars come out the bottom, how many nickels you put in the top of that machine? I heard all of them. That's good. Amen to that. All right, so be strategic, Be thoughtful. Don't be wasteful. But a lot of these guys can help you dial those things that Mike's talking about. All right, really quick. We gotta change up really quick. I have a quick question for somebody to give away a $25 gift card. And we're gonna switch it up.

Mike, what is your customer acquisition cost? First one to say it, go, 35.

0, $35. It says 35 over here. Come on up. Give me a 25 gift card. Give him a Robbie.

Huh?

Is that good?

Fantastic.

Fantastic. All right, I got you right here, buddy. We're going to transition really quick. Would you mind?

Thanks, bud.

Paul's my assistant. I'm trying to get more brave.

Is that Marvin?

Marvin, yeah, Marvin.

Marvin Salcedo.

Yes, sir. Fly and drive. I love blue. That's too far to drive.

All right, we're going to keep rocking and rolling. So we talk about getting customers, acquiring customers. We're talking about customers, customer experience. We're gonna go start with Mike and then kinda go back. So, Mike, this is something I've really come to appreciate about you. A lot of your content focuses on. This is the difference between. Oh, here's my question. You talk about customers, customer experience all the time. Explaining the difference between a customer and clients. I know you know this one, but a repeat sale, help me out with that.

So, yeah, you want me to talk about repeat sales and someone that is a client for the long term versus a customer in the short. I actually don't. I used to actually really think about clients and customers and everyone's like, God, call them clients. God, call them clients. I really do not care what you call them. They give me money and that's all that I care about. And I provide a good service. So they keep coming back. And that's to your point, them coming back time and time again. And we talked about, you know, when you're growing your business in terms of knowing what your close ratio is, well, if you don't know your attrition rate is, which is how many customers are leaving the back door, that's also going to be the determining factor of how, how large your business will become before it stops growing. And if you've been at the point where at 2, 3, 400,000 in annual revenue, like, man, I just can't get past this. I'm plateauing, there's a really good chance, to your point, you've not turned customers into clients that are staying with you, and you have an attrition rate, which is a percentage of your customers are leaving every single year, and no matter how many leads you pump into your business, they're leaving out the back door. And that's when customer service comes into play. Are you answering your phone? Do you get back to people on their email? Do you make sure. That if there's something that's done wrong on someone's property, you're back to their property within 24 hours. This basic customer service, it's going to lead to a lower attrition rate.

I love that. Great answer. Blake, what do you got from customer experience? What can these guys do to keep customers, get customers and keep them happy?

We're going back to cz and I really believe it. I really believe in going that X mile. Answering the phone, like, as silly as that sounds, we all know that answer. And then we're busy. We don't do it. You know, like, as an industry, the number one thing I get when somebody's calling me a new customer, they're like, you're the only person to answer the phone. You know, so it's so huge. Little things like that. When they have an issue, I want to figure it out. Even if it takes 20, 30 seconds.

Even if I don't offer that service.

Hey, we have a tree in the front yard. I don't do any tree work. I'll send you a buddy of mine that does the tree work. You know, I gave my buddy my hidden business. But also, that customer knows that she can call me with anything in the lawn, and I'll get her an answer right then and there, you know, so even if I can't offer that service, I can still give her an incredible customer experience because she doesn't have to go shopping for 30 minutes on Google, you know, and just keep getting voicemails. I love it.

I love it. Let me ask you this real quick, guys. If you got a customer last 12, 18 months, because you were the only one to give him a phone call back, make some noise. That's like 95% of the audience. And so I always say it's a simple business that people complicate cutting making homegrass short. It's a very simple business. But pick up your phone and I know by the way, your phone like 17, I'm gonna driveway again. Your phone has this ability to call people.

Gabe talking to you about it. They can call people. It's wild.

When you call you numbers on the other end, this other person gets their phone, the ring, and they go, hello. And spell talking to people. I'm just messing with Gabe. Gabe does a great job starting up.

His gym in business.

But here's the point. Pick up the phone, call people. It's not always about text messaging. Now, if you have a job. I did. Here's a quick tip for that. Shoot him a quick text message. Hey guys. A call. Yes, we will be able to take a look at the work, an estimate, whatever. I'll call you back at 5:30 when I'm in the truck and I can give you the time and attention you deserve. Well, if you're on draft time, you don't have to call those people right back immediately unless you got a bigger support system to be able to follow those leads. Paul, what do you got?

I want to share a story that re emphasizes that point, Brian. I got a phone call from a gentleman. He lives in San Jose, California. I live in Planet Georgia. And he's a CFO of a company that everyone in here has heard of or probably, and big, big, big money. The guy's so rich that he has a vacation home in a fancy country club in Atlanta that he only listens to a few times a year, like when the Masters golf tournament is. And just to come golf. I mean, this guy's big, big, big one.

Okay.

So the people that were doing his yard stopped humming for some reason and his neighbors called him and said, hey, your grass is getting kind of long. So he immediately went to 0, typed in Montcaire, Duluth, Georgia and called the very first person who came up. Voicemail, didn't answer calls. The second person, voicemail doesn't answer, calls me. And I think it was like 949-area-code or whatever. And I get all these telemarketers. And I didn't answer, but I was like, I wonder who that's calling from California. So I immediately listened to the voicemail. He says, hey, this is so and so. And I knew the name of the street because I work in the neighborhood. I was like, oh, those are nice houses. I call him back, he tells me the story, you know, next thing you know, I'm taking care of his property after I do his yard. His next door neighbor was the defensive coordinator of the Atlanta Falcons. I ended up picking up his yard. Next thing you know, I'm doing the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons players on the Atlanta Falcons, all because I called somebody back. Two other people had the opportunity to find this big fish and they didn't return this call.

So. Wow.

Was there any correlation between the Atlanta Falcons, you mowing their lawn and then butchering the Super Bowl?

Well, so there you go. I don't know if you can blame me, but my customers were Ricardo Allen and what was the other guy's name?

Robert Alford.

They had that play on. Julian Hillman. Those are my customers. And the defensive coordinator of the Falcons was my customer that year. So that was a painful loss. Then they fired him on Monday.

We can't afford co aeration this year. Sorry, buddy.

Oh, that's good stuff. But that, that proves the point that changed the business overnight, right when you picked up and once I got into.

Swing to the NFL and then all.

Of the Lions, they were talking to.

Each other and word of mouth referrals, man, it changed my life, like literally because I called somebody back.

So that's freaking awesome, man. That's really, really good. Is this helping you guys out? Is this good stuff?

Appreciate that. This is the kind of stuff that would have helped me big time when I was getting my business started. Way back when rocks were soft and dinosaurs rolling the planet. Let's do this really quick. Appreciate you guys sharing all these things. Let's shift gears a little bit. I want to talk about upselling. I want to talk about being able to go a little bit more wide with our customers. Right. We're talking about getting all these customers. And you know, sometimes to grow, you don't always have to just keep getting customers, keep getting customers, keep getting customers. I think that's sometimes a track. Now I'm not saying to go too wide with your business either. You got to know what you're trying to do. And you know, if you're doing mowing and landscaping and then power washing, that might make sense. Maybe power washing doesn't make sense. So there's a balance here. But what I want to talk about is upselling. And who out here is a natural born salesman who likes to sell and talk to people. Raise those hands. There's a couple here. It's about one out of ten. Two out of ten people out there in society. Two hands. You still counting one person, sir? Thank you. That's probably from Ohio, but.

Whatever.

But here's the deal. Sell is a four letter word for help. So when I was trying to talk to people, I always had this like used car sales, used RV sales guy kind of like idea of that's what a salesperson was. Is anybody kind of relate to that? Right. I don't want to sell these people in mulch. They're busy. I don't want to bother them. All this other stuff, I read a bunch of sales books and I realized that selling is just helping. They have a need. I have a service or product. I'm going to connect the two. It's going to solve that person's problem. So sell. You want to make this sound. If you remember anything from the day, sell is a spoiler for Help. So I want to talk about, how do you guys help customers? How do we cross sell? How do we upsell? I think it's a really valuable service, right? You're already doing the mowing. Why would you not get the mulch? It's already doing the mulch. Why would you not get the corporation? Which is really funny. You brought that up. Who's ever been to your property and you're about to mow and then you notice a bunch of corporation, you know, plugs are all done and you're like, dude, we do that service. But you didn't get to work. Right. Because they didn't know because you never upsold. Right. So let's talk about that for a couple quick minutes. I think that could be really helpful. You want to come back, give us a call. Yeah.

Upselling and cross selling. I love a guy named Dan Kennedy. He's our old school marketing guru from the 1990s. Like he started infomercial for the guys that are older, know what I'm talking about? They can move behind that. But you have your current customer upselling, you cross sell. I mean that's, that's the name of the game. So I think you need to find out whether businesses department services that you want to upsell and cross sell. And then it just comes down like what my wife's talking about marketing, email marketing, talking to them in person, letting them know that you're, you know, you offer those services. So the other guy has.

Paul, what was your most effective way of cross selling with your business with like newsletters and email phone.

I've run high volume. So just word mouth. Like, hey, seasonal flowers, for example. So in every spring we put in begonias and before you, you know, put in begonias down south and just say, hey, flower season's coming up. You know, what color combo do you want? Then if fall comes around, we do pants and say, most of my customers are going to be yellow, purple, pantsy. Would you like some? And just, you know, kind of word of mouth. Then you just get used to every year, hey, Bob, when you put the flowers in, right?

That's good.

Yeah. First off, I love the help because that is so huge. Anytime. You know, like earlier in my business I was doing the same. Listening to people selling. I'm like, oh man, this is what you need to be a good business. And I hate it. Like I did not like that. Now it's just, just helping them, you know, helping the lawn with aeration and other services. So at the beginning of the year Sending out a letter just with all of our services so they know straight up or anytime we get a new customer, letting them know just then and there, the services we offer. And then while we're on the properties, most of the time it's like, hey, do you do this service? And then it's walking through.

Oh, yeah.

We also offer aeration mulch, and then just going down the line. But like you said, it happens still to this day. So obviously, I need to do a better job as well. We all do. You show up to the yard, it's already airing. I'm like, that is my fault. It's my fault that they didn't know I offered that service. And same with all of us. So you just have to find a way to communicate the services you offer to your current customers.

That's solid.

That's solid.

Mike, what do you got, brother?

In terms of sales, I think the biggest thing that all of us need to focus on is that the reason you aren't selling is because you haven't sold yourself on your own products and services, and you don't actually believe in it enough to sell it to anyone else.

And so I think that's the number one thing. If you. If you struggle with someone, with you, with charging someone $500 for a property cleanup, and you're like, man, I don't know how anyone would buy this. You need to sell yourself on it first and convince yourself first. Because if you don't, you'll never, ever be able to sell anybody else. Because when you actually believe that you're the best option for them in their. In their. Their yard maintenance or their landscaping job, you will sell from a point of conviction instead of any sort of sales tactic that you read in a book. And it'll come from the place of, if I do not convince Brian to get this wall project installed by me, I've failed him. And because I care about Brian, I have the conviction that he must buy from me, otherwise I have let him down. And when you sell from that point of view, you will never walk away from a sale with the expectation that I could have done better on that. Because you will leave everything on the court to make sure that sale goes through. You will not need any sort of tactic. You know, say this affirmation, wear this, you know, rub this lucky penny. It'll be a matter of, I am selling this because I care about the customer, and if I don't, I'm letting them down.

And here's the thing. If we're helping people, we are advising them and if they go with somebody who's inferior then they're going to get an inferior product or service. So like you just said, like, why would we let them go with somebody else? So you're like, well, I don't want to bug you. Well, we're helping them. I'm going to bug you to make sure you get a great product or great service because I believe in what I do. Do you guys work hard? Do you guys believe in what you do? Come on, raise your hands. You guys work way too hard to be giving it away for free.

And keep in mind the reason you might when I said that and even when he said that there and it's like, do you believe it? The reason you actually probably don't is because you're not the target customer. No one in here would hire someone else to mow their lawn or build a patio. The reason is because you're able bodied and the average age in here is probably around 35 to 40. And so because of that, we don't value time the same way that a 70 year old does that has multiple millions of dollars worth of net worth. They value time way more than us. So spending the weekend mowing a lawn for us, not a big deal for them. That is the only asset that they cannot buy more of and that's time. So remember, you're not the target market. Think in terms of a 67 year old has four houses and you saving them two hours, is that extra two hours them on the golf course or them closing a four million dollar deal with real estate or them spending time with their grandkids which is the only thing they want to do at that age.

That's huge. That is so good. This is helping you guys out.

I'm going to Back to your first up. We have about 23 more minutes. You guys doing good? You guys having fun?

Since I ran a 5k yesterday. Anybody else run a 5k yesterday? Literally nobody in the room. One this morning. Chris, come up, up, up really quick. I'm going to give you $20 gift card. Give a round of applause. There you go. Chiropractic, free fees.

Brian's only stretching because now he knows he has a second kid on the way and he knows he's going be running around a lot.

Literally sat down at a hot dog in the concourse deal yesterday afternoon and I almost thought I couldn't get up. I was like attacking getting old.

Don't laugh. If you're young, it'll happen to you too. All right, I have so Much more empathy as I get older. It's fun. So, all right, really quick. We're going to keep it going because we want to wrap up, like 15 minute Q&A. We got 22 minutes left. I don't know, whatever this thing tells us to do. It's kind of like a suggestion, though. So we'll do whatever we want, right? Like, the inmates are in charge of this person. Let me do this really quick. I want to talk about canceling customers and not getting stuck in your business. I'm having a lot of conversations here with folks that are raising prices and a couple people are falling off and they're, like, freaking out. But we all do when we first start doing that kind of stuff. But then they realize it's one of the best decisions they ever made. So I want to shift gears a little bit here for just a quick second and talk about the mindset of it's okay to prove it's okay to cancel some customers. Give me some good stories that you guys have or some personal examples of raising your rates, canceling some customers, and focusing your business in and really tightening up the shit as maybe recession is around the corner or something like that. We might have cut the fat, right? And then also you cut the cheap customers out. That's okay. We're a business. It's not a charity business. I am a for profit business. Just so you guys know, I'm not a philanthropist. Okay, there you go.

So I have a business. I get it. You know, smart people. All right? I got Ohio. They're smart people. So, Mike, let me talk about.

We know why you're wearing a red shirt.

That's why. Oh, wait.

Come on. I'm a Buckeye stand. You're the best football team in the league.

That's right.

Soccer.

Soccer people. Right? Like, I don't know if it cost. All right, so really quick, let's keep it going. Liz, I love.

I gotta get rich because, like, I'm mentally deficient. So what are you gonna do?

But.

All right, let's talk about it really quick. What have you seen out there? People getting nervous about canceling customers or freaking out or even raising rates. Because I think a lot of us need to do that.

Yeah. Like, I challenge you to ask anybody that has raised rates and they regret it. I have yet to meet anyone that does that. And so I recommend everyone raise their rates again. The reason we usually don't is either A, we think people are going to leave, or B, we've created emotional relationships with these customers, and we don't want to offend them them. And ultimately the best thing you can do for a customer is stay in business. Because a high net worth individual, again, that has multiple millions of dollars in net worth, has a home that is the majority of their net worth and doesn't want to have to spend any time doing lawn care. The, the worst thing that can happen to them is that every single spring they have to find a new landscaper. So the best thing that you can do for them is charge a price that gives you a sustainable profit margin that you're able to stay in business. Because guess what, this industry has like a two to three year turnover. And most high net worth individuals would rather pay a higher price for a good product that sticks around instead of them having to find a new guy because they don't show up every single spring. So I just challenge you. Try to find someone that has raised their price and they're like, oh man, that was the worst thing for my business. All right, think about it from this perspective. You make $10,000 per month in revenue. All right, everyone, follow me. We're going to fire up some more numbers. $10,000 per month in annual revenue, sorry, monthly revenue, and you raise your prices by 20%. All right, so we're going to go from 10,000 to 12,000 per month in revenue. Now, let's assume that prior to this price increase, you were running a 20% profit margin business. All right, so how much in profit we had, we would have had $2,000 in profit. If we raise our prices by 20%, that is what, $8 on a $40 mo? Everyone following, if we raise our prices by 20%, you just doubled your profit because guess what, your expenses are still 8,000, but now your revenue is 12,000. And now you're running a 33% margin business. The asset value to creating your business, the enterprise value, is far greater than when you had 20% margin. So raising your prices is the number one lever that we all have in our businesses, and yet we're freaked out of our mind to use it. And it's the number one thing that will change your business and turn it into being profitable.

Solid. Blake, what do you got? That's huge.

Yeah.

In terms of cutting down the route. We were driving about 20 minutes to probably 8 or 9 yards, and I did what you said. I had an emotional relationship, you know, in my mind, with these customers. We love our customers, if you will. Right. And I was, I just kept doing it. Springtime throws around, we're going out and those 20 minute drives turn into 40, 45 minute, 50 minute drive stopping at the gas station. You, you guys know the whole deal. And I just had to cut it off and I.

It was the best thing I ever.

Did because then we just slimmed it down and just stayed in our area and only picked up customers. And that's our new service area. So even though it's scary, even though, you know, we're all scared to take that leap, just honing in and just.

Making up, you just have to make.

It up the service area. You know, I always think it was this magical formula. Just no, this is our area. If you're outside of it, you know, we'll. We'll refer you to somebody else. Yeah, good.

Are you done, Blake?

I'm done.

So, Brian, I think this is actually a blessing that what happened with COVID and inflation and things like that post that. It's very common now as we know that folks are raising their prices. Before that there was companies that were going into the spring and they weren't raising their prices from the year prior. Which is stunning to me because I always use the example of women's. When I was in high school, the junior bacon cheeseburger is 99 cents. You know, when you're on that high school budget. Well, then I remember one time I went in and it was a$.09. I was like, what in the world? But it was incremental. And then it was a $19 and a $29. Maybe they raised by 10 cents at a time. It keeps going up and up. And then next thing you know, I go in there.

It's like $1.79.

Or do you make it cheaper? But what Wendy's does at Chick fil a or any place is they incrementally raise their rate. They do it all the time, consistently. It wasn't like they just went from $1 to $2 every 10 years, always raising the race. So I think it's a good habit. At the minimum, every spring going into the new season, at least once a year, raising your prices. And so now what's happening is I think everyone raised the rates this year. They have to do to get head spring, in my opinion, make that just a part of the rhythm of your business. And my boy Matthew Marsh shout out to kjack. He talked about this. He's like, you got to train your customers that you're going to raise your rates every year like they're going to expect. Oh, Brian's going to send me the price adjustment or the price increase under like that they're going to know you're going to send it to them going into the start of every season.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. I mean he was up there by showing hands, he realized gas costs more money, right? Gas costs more money by. Let me, let me ask you. His food and groceries cost more money by travel services like you know, babysitters on stuff lower. I mean everything costs more money. And if you have not raised your race 10, 15, 20, 30% in the last year or two, you are going backwards. You're going backwards. Like imagine I'm not a pilot or anything like that. But if a plane is flying and it's going 200 miles an hour this way and there's, there's technical terms for all this stuff and the wind's going this way at 250 miles an hour, how fast is that airplane going? Air speeding ground backwards. It's going backwards. Well, I'm giving it all I got backwards, backwards. Does that help out visually? So don't be afraid to raise rates. 8, 10, 12, 20, 30%. Okay, so anybody talk inflation 8.6%. Well, look at the gas, it's up 100%. Look at food, it's up 30%. Look at lumb cost of thousands of 10. Right? And then you guys, Mary, I got raised two dollars, right? Be bold, be confident. Let's go, let's rock and roll with this and let's make some money.

The word I don't use two.

The word absorb.

There you go. Like we talking about confidence.

Just got to let your customer know I have to absorb all these costs that we have and we're doing that.

By raising like crazy.

That's very reasonable for them.

100% I get. If you get pushback, just as professionally explained, my costs are up. I'm not making any more money. Okay, honey, no problem. Look, I just clean up the snow globe feedback. It was nothing crazy like 300 bucks for a leaf clean up small yard and a couple hundred seven hundred bucks for snow. It's just for both. Like no, it's broken out like oh, okay, no problem. I just want understand like Mike said, be confident about what you're offering. And sometimes you just need to explain good customer service plate explain for 30 seconds. Slow down to speed up. All right, really quick. I'm going to wrap this up with the couple topics that I want to make sure about that we're going to get into Q and A. So if you got a question so thinking it and then we'll bring somebody with A microphone walking around. So John can queue you up for just a quick second. My last question for you guys. All these great thoughts, all these great ideas presented here in 50 minutes. We can talk all day about this stuff, right? We got to execute, right? Knowledge is the one thing. Knowledge and action is power. Right? So give me your best tip for these guys to execute. What, what can they do to go back on Monday and start implementing some of these things? Right? To start your own. Paul, let's talk about your.

I'll take one out of Caleb's playbook. He shared this this morning. It's got to be a plate size. You can't go back with this huge blueprint. We're going to change everything. Just pick one little thing, we're going to get on top of that, then you get it and then you have momentum and you make another little bite.

Size when you accomplish that one perfectly.

Yeah, I love that. Like, make a list of these things now, hey, we have a service area now. You know, last week we didn't have a service area. These little things, just like you said, make these little improvements throughout the year. And if you have raised advice, send out that letter.

There you go.

This is going to be a controversial one. I would shred all the manuals that you picked up this weekend and I'd print out your balance sheet and your profit and loss statement. Book an hour at the CPA and start figuring out those mean. Because if you don't know what a balance sheet is, you don't know what assets and liabilities are. I don't care what you buy out there, your business will fail, unfortunately. So that's would be my recommendation.

I. I love it. Yeah, I mean, it's the truth. What gets measured. It's heard. We've all heard that one. So how do you know if your business is up or down, left or right if you're not taking a quick glance at it? All right, so really quick, let's go into the Q and A session. Just helping you guys out. Give round of applause. Just help.

Hi. So question this gentleman Green had a question. We got a mic out here. We got one over here. Why do I know what that is? Where you at? We got a question over here. Come over here really quick. I promised him the first question. I will be back. Colin. Mr. If you want to stand up, we're going to get a quick introduction for you. A quick question.

Money, money, money, money, money, money, money, money. For question.

Hey guys, I'm Charles.

Question one of the things.

Guys, one thing these Guys did not imagine that should be done is whether.

You guys have a CRM or if.

You'Re supposed to have invoices, put your services on there. So that way when they receive it, they will see it in front of every month.

That's awesome.

I've gotten more business by doing that.

Yeah. If you guys like are doing your invoices every month, including quick paragraphs now, scheduling, all caps, whatever, AirAsian inferred, insecticide, drug control, whatever. Falling.

Always be selling, always be upselling the next thing. Great statement. Who's got a question over here? Hang on one second. Got to run over there. I'm big guy, not going to run anymore. I'm not running anymore, John. Don't worry about it. I, I ran through my lifetime. We got a question from Colin over here. Hi Colin, how you doing? Good. What's your question, brother?

Organization wise and building a team.

One of the most important factors to deliver around 200 where you can kind of do 100 people up to 500 plus where you know you can start building. Good question. The question was what is the biggest tip that you can have, organization wise, going from 200 to a half million plus. Is that the question? Yes, sir. Mike, you got a bigger business, you.

Want to handle that first?

And I'll go to Blake. Oh yeah.

If you're going from 200,000, typically you're going to have one person with you, maybe two. And if you're going to 500,000, then what starts to happen is you have unmanaged labor, which means people are working without your supervision. And so in order for that to happen, you either have to have really great grade A talent all the time that you can always trust, which obviously you want to trust the people, but that's less likely to happen than you creating a system yourself and actually having something that's predictable. And so I'd be creating a system, we call it P4P or pay for performance, where people get a percentage of the labor revenue they earn for you every day. Because that way when they're not being watched by me every single day, I know that they're, they're pushing into that mower that I know that they're hustling because the harder they work, the more money they make. Seems like a pretty fair system to me. So I'd rather create a system instead of the business being dependent on me as a personality. That's typically the adjustment that is failed from 200,000 to 500,000 is the inability to switch from a personality dependent business into a system. Centric business. And so I'd be focusing on that.

Yeah, I love what you said there. A friend of mine, Josh Ladner, super successful in the service industry. He talks about the five levels of business.

Business.

This might be a quick one to write down, but number one, you're the technician. You're out there. Level two, you got a couple crews. Level three, sales guy, a couple cruise. Level four, you got your office, maybe some admins and systems. Level five, you're like a real, you know, true entrepreneur. You can walk away, have mailbox money, that kind of story. So systems and processes to go up the ladder. I love it. All right, great job. I got the thumbs up on the way to the wall. That's how you know it's working. All right, who's got another question? We got one right here, buddy. Where you way over here. Speak a little bit. Audience. Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Fantastic being here in front of some incredible speakers. I have a question.

What's one thing you would tell a.

Younger self about business?

One more time.

What was the question, Johnny? What would you tell your younger self that's about business? That's a great question. I feel like it's like that Tom Brady quote where he almost cried, right? You guys see that one on Instagram I left? Yeah, I worked on that one too. Well, my bookkeeper, Joey Carly, has a.

Man crush on Mike Andes. He found out that you're gonna be on this stage. He's like, you're gonna meet Mike Andes.

I was like, yeah.

How is it not like hard, like hard not to look at this guy? Man, you're looking good.

But I bring that up to emphasize, and like you mentioned this, when I started out, I didn't know how to truly understand profit and loss statement, the statement of cash flows, a balance sheet, those are foreign to me. So as quickly as you can understand the financial component of your business that is so, so important to your long term success.

I would figure out what I like to do and be consistent and be confident in doing that. That's a little higher level, but consistency is key.

There you go.

Something we've talked about a lot with our franchisees this past couple years is higher lows and lower highs. Most of us will only lose the game of business because we quit during a low low. And whether it be depression or just a really tough spring rush or a couple of employees walking up the job the same day that you get two customers swearing at you in the face, the same day that your checks balance on payroll rule, when that happens, that's a low low. And I think if I was to talk to my younger self, I'd say have lower highs and higher lows, which means when it's really, really bad, it's not as bad as you think. And when you're really, really, everything's great, and you just sold this $40,000 job and there's a bunch of money in the bank, bring yourself down a bit and just live a little bit more level of a life. And some people will call you boring, but boring business owners and boring entrepreneurs typically make billions of dollars. And so if that's your go.

Like something later at it, you just have like a Mike playlist.

You'Re working on that we got in the mail. Next question. We got. All right, we got Dakota here.

The question is if you get that.

Custom that likes to.

Even bother picking them up or you just.

Well, one time. What was the beginning part of the question?

Oh, they think you all contractors. Yeah. And then they call you. Yeah, I mean, go ahead.

Can I give an analogy? All right, so if there's a really hot girl you've had a crush on, all right, and she's gone through a bunch of guys, and now you've had her. Your eyes on her the whole time, and as she comes to you, are you just going to be like, oh, no, you've ditched all these other guys, or are you just going to step up to the level where she doesn't ever want to ditch you and she wants to keep you forever?

That's what we got to do with customers, right?

Are you married? Are you single?

Don't worry, I'm single. So it hasn't worked for me, bro.

Dude, that's so good. You can go snows with that. I'm not gonna put my mouth. So that is good. People want what they can't have, right? Oh, that's good stuff. You guys enjoy those up. Hey, how much would you guys love to have this event go on same time again next year? Give me round of applause.

Got one more. We got two minutes. We got two questions.

Hey, guys.

How you're doing?

Appreciate you guys. Question for Mike. Where do you decide to go the way of the franchise way rather than.

Expanding your own operation?

Okay. I don't want to get promotional. If you want to talk about franchising, Lee is in the back. But ultimately, for me, like, my goal is to change the level of professionalism in the landscaping industry. It's why Augusta Lawn care exists. And so I had been making content for a long time on. On social media. And landscape business course, but people don't listen. Honestly, I can talk about balance sheets and financial statements in front of you all day long and 1% of you will do it. And it's an unfortunate case. So when I have them as franchisees, they know that everything I say is in their best interest because my name and their name are the same. And so I feel like I have a better success rate of getting implementation. And so if we can do that a thousand times in the us, which is the goal, then people will start to listen because you'll start competing with us. And that's just the honest facts. So. And one quick thing I want to say, just in case I don't get the microphone again, I think what's really important, that everyone is here and we are educating ourselves and learning and everything. And I think it says a lot when you even see someone who is successful. And I just want to give a rose out to Corey Ballard, who here. Who's here and is millions and millions of dollars in revenue sold. Businesses could probably put circles around everyone here and still sits here and learns from people that are far below him. And I just want to shout out to him and that's what we all need to do in this industry to become better.

That's good stuff. Cory is the goat. And you know what? Shoot DMs and emails back to everybody. Still, he doesn't have to do any of. He's. He's made his money, but he's a big server man.

I love it.

Great job. We got one more really quick last question here. All right, what's up, Brian? Got a quick question. Obviously, as Mike said before, your mowers.

Are not going to be the biggest source of income. Then there's websites going to get stuff.

That we're always like detach or validation.com, brian Spaniel.

You know, if there was a website.

Where you could probably get some, let's say, plug and play stuff for an.

Entrepreneur, Notrepreneur, if you will. What type of website would you tell.

People to go to?

I would say mikeladies.com.

That'S a great question, man. I'll tell you what, there's a lot of great content out there. There's a lot of garbage content out there. We just call Spade and Spade. Find somebody who has the business that you want and the lifestyle that you want. I'm just telling you like straight up, that's what I want to look for. And it's easy to get fruit on a tree. It's really easy to have a fancy website, be a slave or be a guru or a social media person. I'm in it, and I'm sometimes just kind of turned off by it. Can I. Can I say that out loud? Is that okay to admit? Like, not everybody I take advice from. There's a reason I'm not going to get heavy, but there's a reason that I got these guys on the panel to help pour into you guys. I take this very serious. I can invite anybody up here. It was our show. I picked these three guys. So if you want to know a Troy who listen to it. You guys all right. To help out. All right, let's lighten up a little bit. Here's what we're going to do. I think we're done, right?

Was this good for you guys?

You want to hand us out.

Gift cards, and then we're going to do something really special that you guys are all. And you guys can stick around for a quick second. So, Blake, anybody in first year of business. First year in business.

Round of applause for this young man.

I don't really have a question.

You don't have a question? Who was born on June 10, right? Oh, let's go. Yeah, it's my birthday. Let's try to make this stuff up. There you go. All right. You guys look really cool. I don't think we've ever done this before, and hopefully we, like, don't, like, collapse to this thing or anything like that, But Quinn wanted to take a cool photo. This is the first time we've done energize, and if we want to do it again next year, we gotta kind of show the marketing team that this was a success. Pretty sure. Standing room only, so I'm pretty sure success. And we cannot be more thankful that you guys came to join us for an hour. Your time is valuable. Our time is your time. I'm telling you guys straight up. So, guys, what I want to do, though, really quick, if you guys want to do a mad dash to the stage, we're going to take a huge group photo. But let's do it quick. So literally every one of y', all, no one le. Let's go. Get on stage. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Don't jump out. Don't jump.

Sam.

Great show. It was.

I think everybody got their money's worth just with this event alone. You guys talked about how important it was to educate and for you, you said you wanted to, like, kind of revolutionize and, like, kind of hammer home. Like, people do need to be doing different things and this is what you.

Guys need to do.

How important is is it for Equip Expo to have events like this and kind of that they're doing it, nobody else really is right now?

Well, the thing is, doing the same thing over and over and expecting any different result in your business is the definition of insanity. So coming to Expo, meeting other people that are above you, below you, seeing what's working, what's not working, it's the perfect environment to be able to change, make change in your business. I think everyone showing up here has that common goal and is to improve and make themselves better. So coming to a place like Equip Expo is just a game changer for any business owner, in my opinion.

Sam.