How to Recession-Proof Your Business

Welcome back to the Mike Andes Podcast where we discuss ins and outs of growing a small business. If you're new here, the Mike Andes podcast is all about taking your business to the next level. Today is going to be a huge call in show packed full of some great questions and some even better answers. We're focused on how you can prepare your business for the recession and maybe even take advantage of it. Sounds contradictory, but today is all about knowing the market and reacting accordingly. As always, you can find all this and more over at the MikeAndYs YouTube channel. Let's jump right in. This is how to make your service based business recession proof.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, it's time another live show. Today we're gonna be talking about is it an opportunity or should we be worried about going into a recession? I've been talking about this for the past nine to ten months actually since last October, so almost a year. I've been talking about what was gonna happen in the stock market, the real estate market, as interest rates would rise. And what I wanna talk about specifically though is how it's gonna affect your business. Okay, now if you are calling in, I am going to be taking phone calls as well as Q and A. So if you would like to call into the live show, just call the number below 361-733-3333, call that number and as always, the queue fills up and then we gotta cancel at the end. So if you want to call, call in early because that's the only way I can guarantee I'm gonna be able to take your call and get you A in for your questions. So as there are questions coming in and people are joining, I want to talk a little bit about today. Obviously the Fed came out, they're raising interest rates by 0.75% and it's expected that's going to continue for the next several months, continuing to rise to raise interest rates. What does that mean for your business like? Well, it doesn't really matter. It's like affecting mortgages and things like that. Well, first and foremost, foremost to home improvement businesses. When people feel like they have a lot of money in their house and that their house is going up in value, they're much more inclined to spend money on home improvement. They're much more inclined to maintain, repair and improve that property. So it is in the best interest of every home improvement contractor that the real estate market does well and that people have money to spend. And so as we see interest rates go up and we see housing as it's become extremely expensive, both because of asset prices went up during 2020, 2021 and then now in 2022. Not only are asset prices extremely high in terms of housing, but now interest rates are very high. So it's making it harder and harder to buy real estate. It's harder and harder, more expensive. Their monthly mortgages are extremely high. And so at the bottom, the bottom line is we have to start thinking about how can we prepare our businesses for a time when we have high interest rates and people don't have as much money in their pocket and they don't have the value of their house going up every single month and they can't just take equity out and keep spending money. This is why I've been talking so much for years about having recurring work. Because people are more likely in a recession to maintain their property versus improve and add to and construct new. And so I think it's important that every single contractor, home improvement, whether you are in cleaning, fencing, lawn care, landscaping, that you figure out a way to create recurring revenue where you maintain these properties. How else can you make sure that you are protected against this recession that is bound to happen? Now it's like super obvious. I was talking about it this a year ago at the peak. Go back a year, October at the very peak. I'm talking like, look, this is going to happen. And.

You know, sure enough, here we are, everyone's going to talk about it. It's going to keep happening over the next few months into 2023. It's going to get worse and worse and worse. We're going to see inflation come down and in my opinion, we're going to actually see when the, when the stock market, when the big companies start coming out with massive layoffs and when they come out with bad earnings, the stock market's going to continue to fall as it did today. It already has like by 40, 50% in a lot of stocks. Massive real estate. Now it's coming down in some markets, already down massively. And when this starts affecting unemployment rates, just see things switch. It's going to be very, very interesting to see what happens in 2023 as this recession starts to take place. So what can you do in your business? Number one, make sure you have recurring work. Number two is have customers that are insulated from this type of economy. These are customers that are less price sensitive. They're okay with price increases as well as they hired you because of your value and not because of your price. All right, these are the customers that have two houses. These are the customers that have million dollar houses. These are the customers that are not going to cancel when you need to raise prices by $5 to, to account for the cost of inflation and rising wages and fuel. These are the customers you want to have. And so whether you are currently looking to get into business or you are trying to grow your business, I look at this as a massive opportunity. This is going to completely clean the clock of this industry. I've been talking about this for many years and I thought 2020 was going to be the year when this happened when all of the B players get wiped out in the industry. And it wasn't in 2020 because the government stepped in with so much capital that people actually started starting businesses more because there's such an influx of capital as people got laid off or, or got fired from their job. They got a ton of cash to go start a business on the side. And guess what? They did. They started home improvement businesses. Though all the B players are gonna get wiped out over the next 12 to 24 months. I am, I am. I've been talking about this since the very first conference Landscape Summit. By the way, everyone just signed up for Landscape Summit. Go to mikeandys.com summit. We have one coming up here in January. It's gonna be a phenomenal event. And I was talking about what would be four or five years ago when we had our first one and said look, we all need to prepare ourselves for the next recession. And we are living, we are going into that moment right now. And this one's not going to be fast. This is not going to be a two, three week recession like we had in 2020 where it was like a quick scare. This is going to be a 6 to 12 to 18 month downturn that is going to completely clean the clock of this industry. And this is, I've said, I've said this before. This winter is gonna be a record year for amount of landscaping companies, home improvement businesses going out of business and selling their company. And I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Cause I think it's an opportunity and there's gonna be a real need. And so literally we're creating lawn care businessforsale.com should be up next month. And because I think there's gonna be, there's gonna be so many people trying to get out of this business because of wages inflation and fuel inflation. So all that to say. We have a caller on the line. We have, I think it's from Kansas, area code 913. Welcome the show thanks for coming on. Welcome to the Mike Andy Show. You're on. Go ahead.

Hello, my name is aaron.

I'm a 13 year old. So I'm going to do snow removal and I was wondering when the best time is to market for that.

Yeah, Typically, like regardless of what service you're talking about, you want to be marketing when people start thinking about it. Right. So if you're in Kansas, you guys probably start getting snow in November sometimes, or is it more December?

It's more December.

Yeah. So like probably throughout November you want to be talking about with existing customers and then marketing for that service usually three to four weeks before the peak like season. So whether it be mowing, you're going to be looking three to four weeks before that season when it comes to snow plowing. Same exact same things.

Cool. Thanks for. Thanks for coming on. You have a good one.

Thank you. Bye bye.

All right, cool. First caller down. If you guys would have a question, you would like to call in. The number is 361-733-3333. Go ahead and give that a call. As we get callers coming in on the queue. Let's go ahead and see a question. Does the command center help with taxes? We actually just are rolling this out now. This will be the first winter when we do have a CPA in house to be able to help do all of the taxes for our franchisees. I show my employees, other companies with new trucks, mowers, trailers, et cetera, and tell them I am worried for these companies when business slows down in the coming years. Not to say that every business that has good equipment or nice trucks are going to go out of business. I don't necessarily believe that because like, for example, if I wasn't trying to franchise the business and grow and really try to increase impact, I would take the location that we've made, you know, has a couple hundred thousand dollars in cash flow that can put in my pocket and I would probably invest in nicer trucks and just make it a better business, more streamlined, better equipment, et cetera. And so there's definitely, when someone's been in business for 10, 15, 20 years, that's a real possibility that they're just investing back in the business and spending money back on their equipment even though they know there's not as good great of a return for that money, but they're doing it just to shelter the tap from taxes. But what I get worried about is when there's new players entering the market, those are the people that I'd be pointing at and being like, I'm sorry but if you're just getting started and you have a brand new F350 dually for your mowing service and you have three of them and you have one employee, you're not going to be able to make it through. And times get skinny. And when recession comes, I don't care how you set your business up, it's going to impact you. And the people that are gonna win in the next decade are the ones that can get through that skinny time because all the market share gets as it contracts, it wipes out all the competition. And then as you go into a boom cycle which usually lasts 10 to 15 years, that's when people win the ones that were able to get through the bust cycle. So see here question.

Is it online this happen? Nope, it's in person. John McGuire. Good to hear from you Mike. Again. We had a good year this year. Mo crew was simple and profitable and landscape was smooth and profitable. A lot of our systems are in place and working with the recession on the horizon. Do you grow next year and add another mo crew or stay lean and profitable? We are going to make a nice profit this year and are scratching our heads on what to do with the money. Completely depends on your goals. If you are trying to grow. I really think next spring is gonna be an awesome time to do that because I truly believe there's gonna be a bloodbath this winter of people going out of business, people retiring, people sell companies, people letting all their customers go. We're already seeing it this year. So many of our franchisees having people in their market that are just walking away from jobs and we're getting calls. Our landscaper didn't call us back. And those are the best clients because they realize the value of having someone who picks up the phone and someone who actually shows up to do the, to do the work. And they, they are not as price sensitive because they realize that the person they just hired last this past spring for $20 a cut doesn't show up and doesn't even tell them they're not going to show up. So they're usually less price sensitive. They realize that a good value and a company that has everything together and good communication costs more and they're willing to pay it once they've lost a contractor and felt that pain. Hello. I just started my long term business and it is slow as it is. This does not sound too good. Okay, so you're saying it's slow right now. If you just started your business in the Middle of season, don't expect there to be a ton of demand for your product. In our services, home improvement is spring rush. You got three to four months where you're going to find most of your customers and then your goal is to fail, service them throughout the rest of the year, upsell them throughout the rest of the year. But the bulk of your new customers are going to come during the spring rush. You're going to have a little bit of a bump usually during the fall rush as the season kind of cools off. And so if you're in lawn care, landscaping, it's leaf cleanup, it's property cleanups, it's getting ready for snow if you're in those type of markets. But your dough time in this industry and most home improvement industries is going to be spring rush. So the game is how do you save up money and keep dry powder set aside for the spring rush? To be able to spend money on marketing then and making sure that your website is actually ranking well on Google by the time the spring rush comes and people are searching for on Google.

Any sneak peeks on future projects or current things you or the team are working on?

No.

Thank you. Do you how do you handle service taxes in Washington state? I'm not exactly sure what you mean by service taxes, but going back to this question real quick, I think this is a good one in terms of, you know, what should we be doing? If you're wanting to grow the business going into a recession, I really think about being patient. Setting side of cat, setting side of cat, setting cash aside for the opportunity next spring rush when demand is going to be high, you're going to have competition low because so many people are going to go out of business this winter. Like just mark my words, you're going to see Sony's lawn care businesses for sale from now until February of 2023. Just watch it. It's going to, it's going to be insane because people have grown over the past two years. They got started during COVID they got their, their, you know, they got their unemployment, they got a stimulus check, they got an extra five or ten grand in their bank. So they went and started a business and it was good for a year, for two years and then they're going to fold up. So I'm seeing across the board it's going to happen in every single home improvement industry. Because the home improvement industries are so easy to get started. The barrier to entry is so low that that's the first business that people get started on because you can get started with longer business for like a few thousand dollars. Just throw a weed whacker and a blower and a mower in your back of your truck. When they start to disappear, there's opportunity. Here's the bigger opportunity. And I've waited 13 minutes into this episode, this podcast, this video to share this. Here's the bigger opportunity, not the one guy solo operations that are going out of business, that are going to be the opportunity. The opportunity is in the companies that had 20, 30, 50, 100 employees and are scaling back massively because they can't find employees to work for them. I don't know if you guys caught it, but I was interviewing Jonathan Patochnik from City Turf, who's a partner in City Turf and they used to use 10 million plus dollars in revenue down in Texas doing mowing and all the rest of it. And they have cut back substantially. You notice what he said? He said when they didn't have the laborers, they literally turned down and turned away and canceled thousands of customers. So think about the impact that you can have and the amount you can grow during that time when you can't find laborers, when you can't find workers, when people are going out business because they can't stay up with inflation in terms of their pricing. When that happens, the opportunity is massive. When people are. Our bigger companies are starting to downsize and I'm seeing this across the board and they'll, they'll always have a good reason for it. It's not like, you know, they're doing a bad job. It's like what they'll usually do is consolidate services, but a lot of times they'll do is they'll choose the services they want to do that are higher margin and they'll cut everything else out. Well, guess what? Everything that is cut out now is customers that just got cut from a company. And you're able to get those customers that are least price sensitive. The customer just got cut from another service or they didn't, they stopped showing up. Is the least price sensitive because they realize the value of having someone who just answers the phone, communicates and actually does what they're going says does what they said they're going to do. So.

Mike, all of my customers are too cheap and I can't, can't UPS upsell anything? I think this, this comes down to value, right? Like really what is the value proposition of your upsell? Is it just a matter of you wanting more money or is it a matter of like knocking the door and being, hey, Mr. Jones, I noticed that your bushes are touching your siding, Mr. Jones. I notice that your gutters are really overflowing or they're. They're going to get filled up because the maple trees overneath the gut, over the gutters while I clear those out. So come fall, when the rains come, it's all cleared out. You've got to think in terms of what is value for the customer. You. You just asking them for the sale without any sort of context is the least personable way of doing it. Staying in touch with them over and over throughout the year is also important. You can't just like, show up when you need work and be like, hey, I'm trying to upsell you something. Like, you gotta be in touch with them throughout the whole year and constantly upselling them the services that are pertinent to that season. If there's no reason to do lawn mowing and pitching that up sale during winter, there's no reason to be doing leaf cleanup and pitching that service during spring. So you got to make sure that whatever you are trying to upsell is pertinent to them in terms of season and that actually they have the need. So the more customized you can make this, the better. The first thing you want to do is all your recurring customers that you have. Every single time you're on their property, you want to be asking yourself, what can I upsell them? Not what do I want to upsell them. What do they need? That could actually point out and be like, you need this service because of X, Y and Z. The more personalized you can make an upsell, the higher percentage of those customers are going to accept.

Hello, I am in school during the day. During those times I am super busy, but during the summer I am not. Do you think I should get more clients during the spring rush? It's really depending on if you're able to find someone else to help you out when you're in school in terms of doing the work for you. So you want to fill yourself to capacity when you are in school. So it might be, say 15 or 20 customers. And then just keep raising your prices, cutting out the bottom ones, raising your prices and new ones come on. So you can just optimize the amount of profit that you're making. And then I would try, if you're going to expand, try to go from like 20 to 50 really quickly so you can hire someone and they could be working out in the field while you're at school. That's a big step. But it's only possible if you raise your prices enough to account for that big jump in overhead. So that's why I would say maybe take one summer, raise your prices, cut off all the. Really raise your prices substantially. So you might get 10 new customers, but you cut your bottom five to 10 customers because you raise your prices. Then the following season you're going to go from 20 customers to 50 by using that margin to market. And then you're going to take those 50 customers and be able to go hire someone that is able to do the work while you're still in school. And then that season you would really grow and expand. I can't even get my customers go weekly, let alone pay for spring or fall cleanups, aerations. This is definitely a limiting belief. I'll just be honest with you. Because it's a limiting belief, slash, it could be that your customers, you're attracting the wrong customers for your mowing service. Right? So again, back to the customers that are most recession proof. They're the ones that constantly accept upsells. For example, the Bellingham shop the other day sent out what we call one click estimate email. We have it at Augusta Nation. We create these, these emails that they click one button and it sets them up for an estimate. And so sometimes these estimates are done over the phone or they can be done manually or done by the office. Sometimes they're in person, like property cleanups, for example. So recently last week the Bellingham shop sent one out. They had like 10,000 people in the database, emails and contacts. And I want to say it was over a hundred because I know yesterday they sent out to one zip code and they got 50 in one day. So there's well over 100. I know I'm safe saying there's well over a hundred estimates that came from that upsell for fall cleanups and so and property clamps. This isn't even leaf cleanups yet. We want, what we're trying to do is get a cleanup on their property and then go into lease season and then be able to get them again on multiple cleanups. So again it's, it's time sensitive as well as we've stayed in touch with them throughout the entire year with these emails. So they know that hey, schedule is filling up. You always create scarcity in those emails. Schedules filling up. Make sure you get your X, Y and Z. Whatever that service that you're upselling is on the schedule. So you got to create the scarcity. You got to have the right timing. You don't send an email on a day when it's raining. If you're trying to pitch some sort of project based job that requires good weather, same thing when it goes to fall cleanups. Don't send it on a day when it's like beautiful and there's no wind. Send it on a day when it's rainy, extremely windy, and they're like, oh my goodness, the leaves are everywhere. I don't want to go have to rake these up. That's when you send. So when pain is high, demand increases and when demand increases, supply needs to step in and that's where we come into play.

I'm charging too cheap and I don't know how to raise my prices. There's a whole bunch of videos I've made about raising your prices. Feel free to check those out. Do you use any Google AdWords or Facebook ads? And if so, do you have any recommendations on how to do it or any recommendations for a company that does it? I have some tutorials@landscapebusinesscourse.com but this morning's public video, everyone here should watch. Okay, I know it's a boring video. It's 15 minutes long. I know it won't get a lot of views. That video will get a top of like 3 to 5,000 views. It's not going to get a lot. Okay, but that video is made for the people who ask this question every single time. Where should I spend my money? What's the best place to spend my money? Watch this morning's video. It'll walk you through exactly how to calculate each marketing platform, how much to spend on those platforms, and which one's going to be the best performing in your market. You can compare HomeAdvisor, Google, Facebook, every door, direct mail. Every sort of marketing platform you could think of is. You can, you can analyze those and compare them, contrast them using the video from this morning. I highly recommend that video. It has the picture of a guy mowing with a Google and a Facebook logo on it. Please, I beg of you, watch that video. Next caller coming in is from six one two. Thanks for calling in. You're on the show.

Oh, hey, what's up, Mike?

How's it going?

Good, man. I'm trying to watch you through my, my phone and the separate phone. So I heard the beat. But hey, I got a question for you. I've heard you say in video once or twice that you think that this winter will be like a bloodbath for lawn care companies. Do you think that means that people are going out of the business this winter or people will Finish this winter, like their snow removal season and then like go out of business starting in.

The spring, if that makes sense.

Yeah, great question. So my hypothesis on this is that in markets where there's not snow going to see a mass exodus at the end of this year, they're going to finish out their calendar year, run their tax return and they're done.

Right.

They're going to cancel their December 31st, they're going to cancel their LLC if they have snow. I think that's why we're going to see a bunch in February and March also cancel. Because before they have to start their blades up again for mowing, they're going to cancel then as well. So, you know, I think a lot of people are going to sell and I think a lot of it is the chuck and a truck they're going to sell out because the cast of of fuel has completely ate into their margins. And then like I said, the big companies that are consolidating, cutting out services and just restricting the amount of employees they have because they can't find laborers. And so I think it's gonna be kind of two tiered there, there though. And so that's why I think it'll start in November and kind of end in March when there's gonna be so many people going up for sale or going out of business.

Gotcha. And you think that's labor related and the margin compression?

Yep, 100%. On the, on the solo operator level, it's going to be margin compression. And as you go into recession, they've had the lower prices. They have the bottom tier of customers because they're more price sensitive and they're usually cheaper. And so those are going to be the most affected. So they're going to have the hardest time reactivating those customers come next spring when everyone is in recession mode. And then secondarily they're going to have, they've already had a tough year this year compared to last when everyone had money. And so they're already like negative about the industry right now. Like can't sell anybody, no one wants to buy, can't make any money in this industry. And then they're going to come in the next spring and just be completely obliterated because no one will even buy their services because they currently have the lowest margin customers and the price sensitive customers. And then the big guys, you're 100% right. It's a labor. They can't find enough employees. And if you can't find enough employees and you have 50 employees, you know what you do, you cut back to 30 and you take the services that are most the highest margin and just cut everything else out.

Yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense. Just one more question. What do you think the biggest thing this interest rate hike is going to affect? I know obviously higher interest rates means it makes borrowing money more expensive. What do you think that means for.

The long landscape community?

Yeah, well, the biggest thing is that your equity, the equity in the homes of customers is going to go down. So they're going to become much less inclined to spend money on additions. Because adding a deck, spending $15,000 on your deck might add 12 to $15,000 of value to your house if you're lucky. Usually it's less than. And so additions to a home typically don't have a whole lot of value add. And no one's going to be doing those when the value of their property is falling. Let alone if people who bought in 2021 are now upside down on their mortgage. That's going to put everyone through a loophole. And I don't necessarily think they're going to sell because they can't go buy something for with a lower interest rate than what they got last year. But there is a mental flip switch that flips inside of a customer's mind when they owe $500,000 on something that's now worth 350. And so that is going to be the big thing that customers will stop spending on additions, they'll stop spending money on those type of project based jobs. And furthermore they are going to be more price sensitive. They're going to look for a second option, they're going to look for a third price quote and then that just comes down to who's answering the phone first, who's getting the estimate out to them the fastest. Because these customers are begrudgingly going to be looking for a second and third quote. They know they need to, they know the price costs are high, they know that we're in a recession. Everyone's now entering that time taught to squeeze the and pinch pennies. So they'll go get a second and third quote begrudgingly, but they'll rationalize the fact that they chose you because you answered your phone, you got out to them quickly and they'll say oh, like they were professional. So I just want to hire hired them. And they'll do that just so they check off the box of I got other quotes but they didn't get back to me. And they'll go with the first person that got the quote to Them?

Yeah.

And you're talking is that for landscaping and mowing as well?

Any service, like, honestly, like, even when it comes down to, like, construction, I deal with handyman all the time with my, like, my real estate and stuff. Like, whoever just gets me the bid first literally gets the job 90% of the time. And so.

Right.

Even if I have to haggle them or bring them down a price a little bit or cut something out of the job, like, they almost always get the job. And the reason is because I don't want to go to other bids. And so that type of customer, the one who's less price sensitive, like myself, is going to be the ones that people will do well on if they've been marketing to them having a good brand. And actually, the best way to get through a recession is over the past year or two, you've been raising prices to basically weed out all the people that are going to leave you anyways during a recession. And so that's who's going to be most impacted.

Awesome, man. Hey, I appreciate your time, Mike.

You got brother. Take care. All right, next caller's coming out of area code 215. It says Pennsylvania, I think. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

Hi. I watch your stuff all the time. Thank you so much.

My pleasure.

So my first question, it's not actually, like, about long line, but why do you put so much content out? Like, you spend a lot of time. I just like, what drives you to put so much stuff out for us?

Yeah, good question. I never had this one. So I think first and foremost, it is a business decision. Anyone putting content on YouTube has business interest. Right. So obviously I know that doing these live shows, like, for example, I'm doing this one because I had a canceled call. So I was like, hey, I can fit this in. So I know that having a live call, for example, creates a lot more trust with the audience because if I'm everything's scripted and everything's recorded, they're not going to trust me as much. So I know doing a live show is really important and creating content people, like, when people come to become franchisees at Augusta Longcue, they already know everything about me. They know everyone who works for me. They know command center. They know everything, how it works because of the content. So it creates. We don't do, like, marketing and sales when it comes to the franchise. Same thing with all my products. Like, I'll mention them, but it's not like we have funnels or ads that we run against. It's just like people that know that the content is good, they understand that what I'm going to be talking about is going to be valuable and they buy into the product. So first and foremost business decision. Secondly though is I got started in lawn care and it allowed me to do what I've done so far in my career and I want to give other young guys the opportunity to do that. So all of my framework and decisions when it comes to the public content is, is this speaking to my 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 year old self because I started August at 18, but before that I was weighing out should I go to medical school or should I go scale up the lawn care business side of things. And so I'm constantly thinking like what did I not have back then, right? So literally landscapebusinesscourse.com was started because I typed in landscape business course into Google and I couldn't find anything that was helpful from real landscapers beside outside of like schools where I already was, had been let down. But I already didn't want that. So I think my biggest thing is first and foremost a business decision. Secondly, I want to help the guy that I was when I was eight, nine years ago and getting them started. And I think there's an absolute need in the home improvement industry to professionalize it, make it more profitable, treat the employees correctly. And there's just been no innovation when it comes to culture and in this industry because all of that brain power has gone towards technology. And so everyone at Google and Facebook talks about culture and things like open book management and profit sharing and pay for performance and all of that stuff is very common in that world because all the brain powered money has gone that direction. I think there's a massive hole in opportunity in the home improvement industry and my goal is to professionalize it and make it where people can make good living. They can hire people and pay them $30 plus an hour and they can do that because they have such a solid brand and a great professional image that customers are willing to pay for. And so that's why I look forward to recessions is because I think it's going to screen out the people that haven't been listening to the type of content I create and the people who have been are going to really win and succeed.

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One other question I have. So I'm 17 and my company started two years ago and now we're up to like about 80 lawns per week.

Cool.

You know how like minors set up at the point where I'm going to have to pay taxes and so I'm trying to do everything more legit. How do you like up a business account as a minor? Like do you know of any kids.

Or how they deal with that?

Yeah. Are your parents willing to co sign for you?

Yeah.

Yeah. So like you know, you're, they're gonna have to sign for it. I would probably make them a majority stake ownership to create an LLC. Now when do you turn 18?

Okay. Like 10 months.

Okay. So it's still a while away. So I, I would do, I would do your LLC with them on there. So that way it's really easy. You can do it online. Like really there's no issues. And then same thing at like the bank and everything. You can start the bank in the business's name. And then that way when you turn 18, all you'll need to do is go into your, your state site, typically Secretary of State, and change the ownership stake to you. And then your business license change you to the principal. Right. So if you do those two things, you basically on the back end can change all the equity back to you. And then don't. You don't change anything with the business lice or the, the banking or anything like that because it's all in the business's name insurance. Like keep all that stuff so you can set it up this year, but then next year all you'll do is on the back end change the equity over back to you them off of it. And there's no extra cost in that. You'll just have to do a new business license which is usually like 60 to 100 bucks.

Okay.

And so I got a like first employee like a couple weeks ago while I'm in school.

Yep.

And basically like I think most important thing is probably him on P4P because I'm not like with him most of the time.

Yep.

I'm just having like come back if he gets a complaint, just comes back to the lawn the next day.

Do you have any, like, other, like, anything you think I should think about in that situation?

When did you hire him? Just recently.

Yeah, I hired him, like, two days before I went back to school.

Got it.

So he didn't have much experience.

And is he full time?

Yeah.

Sweet. Good for.

He's like. He has a. Like a second job, but he pretty much works like, seven to three.

Got it. And then Monday to Friday. What do you charge per hour right now to the customer, if you don't mind me asking?

So, like, the. It's like, it depends a lot on who's mowing. Like, if I'm going by myself, sometimes I can hit, like, 120 bucks in, like, an hour and a half or even more. Like, once we hit, like, you think.

You think like, 70 to 80. You think like, 70 to 80 an hour is kind of.

Yeah, but.

Okay, yeah, that's, like, what we're, like, actually hitting. If it's just me and, like, one of my friends. But, like, he's obviously going a lot slower because he's new.

But yeah, like, once he gets up to speed, he can definitely be hitting 80, especially solo. Like. Like, I've hit over 100 an hour for a while. Like, multiple hours, just solo.

And have you been running P4P for a bit?

So basically I told him the first two weeks I was. It was just gonna be, like, straight hourly because I didn't want him to, like, rush until he got the hang of it. This week, I'm, like, telling him what he would have made on P4P and just keeping it hourly. And then the next week, I mean, it's gonna be basically, like, full P for P. Just whichever he makes more on, he'll get.

Cool. Have you tried the software, like, the P4P software with him at all?

No, I think I emailed Brad yesterday just asking how it would work with Yardbook. I'm getting that set up.

Yeah. Even if you just tried it for a month, because the first month's free. Right. So try it out and just see how that impacts his performance. Because what I see a lot of times is having that daily report for them is super beneficial to actually seeing their performance increase because they're getting feedback so much faster. Right. Especially because you're not there. Like, P4P is a must in your situation. So I'm super thrilled that you're already thinking like this because it's the number one reason why people can't run their business while they are in school or do it kind of like you're thinking like this is, you have a really cool thing if for the next year you can actually make this work and build the business right. So I would 100% they try it out for month even if you cancel. And like hey, I can do it, you know, with paper with one employee. Fine. But just see how that works. Getting the report to the employee every single day like that. Like I truly believe you'll see a massive improvement in efficiency just by having where he can go in there and see like yesterday's pay and all the rest of it. So yeah, that would be my, my number one thing.

Okay.

Yeah. Awesome.

Cool.

And so just one more thing for leaf cleanups. When I'm selling a leaf cleanup, do I want to like sell them on a the recurring leaf glams like every two weeks or something. But like if I'm already mowing, like I feel like the chops the leaves up anyway so I don't do it. Like just have to get them on the schedule to.

Yeah.

Like do a leaf cleanup or someone.

Next to you before the leaves are falling. I would then try to just immediately sell them on like a buy a weekly visit or weekly visit to come do the leaves. And if you're already coming and mowing, it's just a tack on service, but definitely make it separate. Then if, if you most will call, go ahead.

How much extra would you like? Let's say I'm doing a lawn for $40. That's my minimum. 40 weekly, 60 bi weekly. If I'm doing like 40 weekly.

So I have a zero turn, a 16 inch zero turn.

So I'll buy a bagger for that and just go over it with the bagger. The second believes it's not going to take me like any more time per se. So do you still charge more for that 100?

Because first and foremost that bag is going to cost you 1500-2000 dollars. It's a pain to put off, it's a pain to clean. It's going to take more time. You're gonna have a whole bunch of debris that you gotta get rid of and taking care of that. So I would 100 be charging at least 20 extra for that leaf clean like a minimum. And so how we do our pricing when it comes to leaf clinic is how long it would take if we didn't have the lawn to do. Right. That's how we do our pricing.

Yeah.

Because what I don't want is mowing is done, but we still need leaves. Okay. It's $5 per cut. Oh great. $5 per week for my leaf clamp. Just do the leaves this week. That's what you don't want. So completely keep it separate in terms of the pricing as if the lawn was not being done. So that would be my recommendation. And then what you're most time gonna get is someone calling in the middle of the leaf season asking for a cleanup. That's when you give them a price for initial and then the service is going onwards weekly or bi weekly price for that afterwards. But 100% keep the pricing as if you are only doing the leaves. Because if they, if most places the leaf season extends past the mowing season. So you need to be able to, you need to be able to charge to go to the property just to do the leaves. And most customers won't blink. Like 20 or $30 per cut extra for the leaves. That's a steal of a deal, right? That's like 50 bucks a month. Yeah, so I, I would charge more than that by the way, but that would be like my base minimum.

And so our, our township collects the leaves if you like put them on the curb.

Got it.

Would you put them on the curve or is that like unprofessional?

I would do it if that's very standard. You know, I would do it if they're gonna, you know, it allows you to charge a lower price. But again like if your minimum show up rate is 40 bucks for, for a lawn, I would probably be looking at that as my minimum for leaves. Because if you stop mowing at the end of October, but you need to go back in November and December for leaf cleanup, you want to be able to charge that $40 minimum.

Okay. And here's what I say. So do you like, you don't hardly do any like in the field videos. Do you have any people that you recommend watching for, like how to actually like mow the lawn well or like do a good mulch job or stuff like that?

Yeah. Based on whatever service you're doing, just Google it, YouTube it. Right. Brian's lawmakers obviously makes a bunch of good ones. Keith makes some good ones. You know, I just, I just don't believe it moves the needle a whole lot in terms of the business side. And so that's why I make a whole lot of videos about it. But definitely like I've learned from those guys in terms of like when I was, you know, my first time doing a multi job or first time doing, you know, a certain type of service, 100% just Google that. Same thing with Dirt Monkey, like he's great for doing hardscaping, like, so you can learn so much from those guys. 100%.

All right, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking my call.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Next call is coming from 850- area code. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thank you, man. So I am similar to the last caller, but a little bit younger. I'm 15, so I'm starting out my first employee next year. He'll be running around with me. So I just had a question. What is. What do you, like, are a couple of ways that not only to, like.

Obviously, like, the goal is to make.

Money, but also, like, not have the employees think they're just like, a tool to make money and also to, like, have them help them have, like, a not a good time, but also, like, help them feel valued 100%.

So the first thing you can do to help them feel valued is actually care about them. And it sounds like you actually do. So don't feign that. I don't think it's because somewhat. Some people like, oh, I'll tell them. I'll convince them. I don't think they're a tool, quote, unquote. Because doing so will make them more efficient and more profitable for me. Like, it's like, oh, great, yeah, so you do think they're a tool. You're just gonna tell them you that they're not so that they work harder for you. That's the wrong attitude. And that will eventually get smoked out because you'll cave to the efficiency side of things and the business side when things get really tough. And so what they're looking for is when. When. When the rubber hits the road, does this. Does this owner, does this manager go the direction of money, or do they go the direction of the team? And so if you feign it, you're gonna. You're basically gonna set yourself. You're just kicking the can on the down the field until one day it's gonna catch up with you. Right. When something. When catastrophe happens, do you choose the money or do you choose the team? Do you back up the team? And this is why, like, you know that video I made a year ago? People roasted me over, you know, quote, unquote, find the customer. I was doing it for the employee that the customer was being an absolute jerk to. And there's. It's not a coincidence that that employee is now a general manager. And so in that moment, they. The employee sees, like. And there was no communication between me and the employee that. But they saw, okay, they Fired that customer because they said something negative about me and said I couldn't come back to the property. Oh, they fired a customer. They literally lost thousands of dollars in order to be able to just me have self confidence like that speaks volume to employee. And when that happens day after day after day after day and you do that over and over, there's no, there is nothing they can point to and be like, ah, they, they think I'm a tool. So that's the first thing. Secondly would be open book management, sharing the numbers of the business. There is nothing to hide. And if there's nothing to hide and there's no, they can't create drama. Right. And if you create a culture where people can come talk to you and they're not afraid of asking you really hard questions like why did I get a promotion? Why can't I get pay increase? Why, why are we doing this job? Like if they, if they can't ask you really hard questions, there's going to be a lot of drama that starts inside the culture. And so if you really want to care about them, invest back into making their lives and their careers better by making it very clear what you're doing inside the business and educating them on what how to run a business, how to do marketing, how what a profit and loss statement is, what the pricing of the jobs are, having open books, they see all of those numbers. If there's nothing to hide, you should be sharing everything with the team because there's nothing that they have to point at like, oh, they're hiding something. They think I'm a tool. They don't think I'm smart enough to know this stuff. So just open up the books, be clear and honest with them and if you want them to succeed, invest back in them. Show how the business runs, show them how they can succeed in life, show them how they can make more money. That's the important part.

And then one more thing.

So you obviously started out relatively young and hiring adults relatively young or like older adults per se. So not this next year but and for any coming years just I'm pretty young obviously. So are there any good ways or the best way to kind of have not command that respect but also at the same time show that. Not that you know what you're talking about but at the same time like it's, it's awkward when you're, if you hire like a 30 year old, you're 18 or whatever. Quite obviously.

Yeah. So like you know, first and foremost I, I didn't actually feel this Very much the reason was because I went to college so young. I was so used to being people around people in their 20s. Yeah. That like when I was 13, I was in college. Right. So I was very comfortable around 24, 25 year olds. And to this day I really feel like my peers, like when I look at someone, like, hey, like, are they my age? I think 35 to 40. Right. And so it's because that's the cohort that I was in college with. And so, you know, it wasn't super awkward for me. But I would say looking back on it, because I never addressed it, because I never talked about it, because I never thought it, I therefore acted in the way of being a manager and a boss and.

An employer instead of, I'm a young kid. Right. So it's the confidence that would you speak. It's really figuring out how to communicate really with authority. Not with dictatorship or telling people what to do, but speaking with conviction and knowing about what you're going to do and then delivering on those things and then just being consistent and people are going to follow your example. If you're the first one there, the last one to leave, you work hard. You're not afraid to get your hands dirty. Until, until we probably had 20 employees more, I would still get in the field. Not because we needed to, because I just wanted to prove that I can work very, very hard. And I don't want them to think I'm soft because I'm not. It just the business was requiring me to work on the business and be in the, in the office side and things more. And so when you're small and you're young, make sure that you're out in the field with the guys. Occasionally, if you only have one, two, three employees, you got to get out there and just hustle. Sometimes you got to be the one at seven, eight o' clock wrapping up the job. You got to be the one that comes in on a Saturday. And I really believe that you got to lead by example so they start to look and respect your work ethic. And I think that obviously I want to speak for them, but talking the guys that I hired, when they're in their 30s and 40s, I think most of them would. Would say that they could at least respect my work ethic even if they didn't respect me as a kid, that they had to respect the work ethic because that was unmatched and you can't question it.

For sure. Awesome.

Thank you, Mike.

Good luck, brother. Take care. Our next caller is coming from.

9, 7, 8. Welcome to show. Thanks for coming on.

Hey, Mike, how's it going?

Good. How you doing?

Good, good. I'm simply lawn care from PVD Math. We actually were on your show a couple months ago. You had interviewed my partner and I.

Things are going good.

I have a couple questions though. More about now that we're in the 500k range for this year.

Yep.

A couple different questions. Like, so we aren't going to have. We're getting an office in February. We won't have an office manager till the spring rush for next year. So we're kind of in a weird bit where my partner, he's the GM handling all the workers, working the field with them and I'm doing all the office work and estimates. And obviously we're both pretty overworked, but we're handling it fine. The issue I'm kind of finding now is like I'm trying to better manage my time between the estimates and the office work. One question I had was, what do you feel is more important? Either getting to estimate like the same day, getting that estimate out within 12 hours, or making sure you answer the call when it rains and not having to call back if you were to like say one was a little more important than the other.

Yeah. And you have to prioritize because especially during the spring rush, like you can't do everything right. So you do have to eventually prioritize. I would say. I've always says we got to take care of the existing customers. Right. Because attrition will kill a business. Customers leaving far greater than going, getting new customers. Right. I'm not, I have no guarantee that a new estimate is going to accept like let's say 50, 60% of them do. But I know that if I answer the phone and I get back to existing customers, I might be able to save 90 to 8, 99% of them if I just do have good customer service. So, you know, don't go after the next shiny thing when you have it already in your hand, which is an existing customer. Like, okay, I'm going to abandon this existing customer and go chase another customer. That doesn't make no sense. Like, protect this one. And then let's hope and pray that if you're a little bit behind on estimates that this other person still accepts even though you're a day or two late.

Okay, awesome. Then another thing we've been noticing with our marketing is the Google Ads and local services. So they were super busy in the fall, which obviously, you know, we've had A couple spring rushes. Now in the fall and spring we get that those are the busy season. But what we found was like it was maxing out the budget, which was fine. We wanted to do that in the spring, the fall, but it's not. I'm. We're getting probably like three calls from the local services like now a week. And I, I was just wondering, is that our service areas, six towns and we're in the suburbs of Boston. That's why I'm thinking, did we do something wrong? Because I haven't edited the local services. I haven't like changed anything. So I'm confused. Why is it so much less when I have a budget of like 500 a week on it and I'm getting like three calls a week?

Yeah, like it usually means there's other competitors that have moved in and started like they've been Google verified. But also three, three calls a week is not uncommon. Honestly, there is not a huge call volume from Google local services. I personally believe it'll take off when they move it from the top of the page down into the search. And when they do that and they get customers or users to think that those are more native, it'll take off because right now it looks very much like an ad at the top because they've changed the dimensions instead of being a full length across. So. So I think Google's going to optimize this down the road because they, if you look at the first page of every single home improvement search is almost always 80% Angie's list, home Advisor, Yelp, Lawn Starter, et cetera. And so Google does not like that. That's money that they could be having themselves. So I really think they're going to optimize Google local services over the next 12 to 24 months and make it an absolute cash cow. And then that 3 will go to 15. But for now, 3 is pretty good. I wouldn't be concerned or alarmed. Typically what happens is there's just so many people that are starting to get verified that they start showing you less and you just have less clicks because the dilute of product of more and more service providers.

Okay, awesome. Yeah, I was gonna say, I mean most of our customers now we're getting our sources, Facebook's number one during the summer. And then I would say right beyond that, my business just showing up on Google, that's kind of where we're at now. But the Google Ads to Google AdWords really haven't seen much results from that either. It's about the same is that Pretty normal too. Like three a week for Google AdWords.

Yeah, it depends on obviously how much you're spending. But you know, demand, like again, you're talking about like a 5 to 10x multiple of demand during spring rush. If not 15x compared to now, probably 50x compared to what you're going to get in two months. Right. So. So it's not linear at all. Like it's extremely important. That's why I say like spend most of your marketing dollars during the spring rush. That's when the clicks are available to have and most people turn off their ads because they're so busy and they're falling behind. Right. So any marketing dollar that you're looking to spend, if you can, I would be spending it in the spring rush. Again, most people don't because that's when they're so busy and overwhelmed with work they can't get the labors or the equipment or trucks to get the work done. So. So I'd be just really preparing for that rush because if you have everything set up correctly and you're able to spend money during the, during that spring rush, your dollars will go so much further and you'll go from 500 to 800,000 instead of spending all of your cash getting to 650 by spending it throughout the next four or five months. Make sense?

Yes, definitely. My follow up question of that then is we were. So our plan was we wanted to get another truck. We're up to three trucks right now. Two projects, one motor.

Yep.

We were planning on having another project truck right now for getting ready for this fall rush because obviously we're in New England. But we honestly like, we barely, we probably spent two grand. If I looked at the report on marketing all of spring. And then we've probably spent, I think I just saw like 15,000 in marketing this summer.

Yeah.

And we have barely kept the schedule post. Like I'm talking like maybe booking out like a week and a half all year. Like we, we basically had people quit because they're only getting 30 hours a week and we only had six people in the field. Now is that, do you think that's a marketing issue? We need to fix our marketing. You think is that normal? We've just never dealt with like crazy have a fixed worker.

Yeah. No, yeah. Here's, here's what it's crazy. Like I said, talk all the time about like, you know, marketing should be spent in the spring rush because that's when your customer acquisition cost is lowest. But no one does it because they're so busy. Well, the flip side is true. And that is when demand goes down and everyone needs work, guess what they do? They go spend money on marketing. Guess what that does? It drives the cost per click up. So what you're experiencing right now is not only because demand is low, it's also because everyone else is trying to spend money on marketing too. And so the solution to that problem is spend the money during the spring rush, but book out projects way out into the future and only focus on the recurring work during the spring rush so you can actually capitalize on that recurring work the rest of the year and let the projects be booked out way off into the future. There are people that do projects that are booked out six to 12 months. And so anything that can wait during spring rush needs to be pushed off so that Instead of spending 2,000 during that time, you spend 15,000 during that time. That will triple or quadruple the results you have for the business if you spend that $15,000 during the spring rush. The reason you don't is because you're so busy. The thing is, what you can do is move off everything that is not time sensitive during the spring rush. All that like that project truck should become a mowing truck during the spring rush. Every single project, you start booking out during these months when you're slower. And that's going to allow that when the mowing comes down, things start slowing down from spring rush. That's when you're picking up for the projects. And you should be booking out three, four months on those.

Okay, awesome. And then a question on only two more questions. I want to take too much of your time on more organic marketing. So email newsletters we started doing this summer. We've only sent out three, but we've done one once a month. We've been trying to stay consistent. Send out another one this month. We're getting about a 0.3% response rate. Now we do have a buddy of ours who does graphic design, so he's making. They're pretty professional looking. I'm really happy with it. Do you think the 0.3% response rate to these is. Is that normal? Is that just a momentum issue because we just started doing the newsletters? Or could it even be like the newsletter itself is too professional?

Too professional? Your email newsletters, you want to. We try to vary between really professional and then super personal. Right. So I would, I would challenge you on your next one to make it very personal and no graphics. And I'd say your response rate will be more like 5%.

Okay, awesome. Great. One last question for you, my partner and I. So I'm handling all the office work now in the estimates. Like I said, I was helping with the training obviously in the spring, so it was so busy, but now I'm just doing the office work in the estimates. He's basically the gm, you know, he's in the field. He's working with the guys still in the field every day, training and handling equipment. Something we've been finding is the workers are definitely starting to see me more as like the boss. And even though he's the boss too, more of like a friend, which we're finding a balance with it. The other thing I'm worried about is because I'm not in the field and I'm a young guy. I'm only 23. I haven't fenced this yet, but I worry that if we run into the issue of like them being like, well, Brandon just sits in the office and does estimates all day. What does he know about this? Even though I did it for three years, like 80 hours a week, you know, that sort of thing. Any what can me and my partner work on, like together? What are things we can be doing to help prevent kind of that kind of, I guess him versus him kind of mindset with the workers.

Yeah. Over communicate. Right. So I would be trying to have him do your team meetings with that are disciplinary because so he's. He stops becoming a quote unquote friend, buddy, buddy with the guys. Like if they're going to him with all the problems in the business, that's a problem for you. And so you want him to be the one that actually doles out discipline. And so they realize, okay, like he's on the same page with Brandon and is not going to get pushed around. We can't go around anyone by talking to a different person. Like it's like a mom and dad. Right? Like the mom says no, so they go to the dad. You do not want that. That's why I'm a big believer not having partners. Part of the reason. But if you're going to do it, just make sure you over communicate. So communicating what each person's role is and why your role is important. I literally had a franchisee talk with, I had late last night was talking to one of them about this issue. They have a guy in the office who's physically incapable of doing the field work, but none of the guys are respecting him. And so I said, you need to have a meeting. You have over communicate what the roles and Responsibilities are and the value of that role to them and, and how it impacts their daily operations and potentially even drop the ball on them and see what happens when they realize that like, oh, not having that person is really, really important. So, you know, if they're looking to. So you're saying they look to you as the boss and him as the buddy.

Yeah, I'm definitely more stern. It's not that he can't be, but he definitely, he's still learning how to be stern. I feel like it's not that he scared of the confrontation, he just doesn't really know what to say yet. And I'm more of a forward person where like I have no issue, you know, pointing out, hey, this is wrong. Explaining it not in like a rude way.

The major thing is actually between you and him. Right. As long as you both are aware that you're both of your val. The value of both of your roles are important. The good cop, bad cop thing works usually pretty well. If you can abide by that, you're the bad cop. He's a good copy. Not a bad scenario. As long as you both understand your roles or what you do is you throw him in disciplinary action and then you do more celebratory things. You do commemorative things. You give moments of appreciation away if that's the way what you want to do. If you're trying to duplicate yourselves, you do the latter. If you're trying to always be together and be the good bad cup. It's not a bad thing if they bring everything to him because they just feel more comfortable. But then they know that you're like the guy who brings down the sword. That's fine. It just. If either of you ever dropped away from the business, there'd probably. You'd lose your whole team because they're not going to go with the buddy buddy because then he has to switch to being more disciplinary and they're not going to go to you because they think that you're a tyrant. Right. So you'd have to just be. The two of you have to be very agree in agreeance of what those roles look like and remain bad cop, good cop, bad cop. Or you have to be more where you try to level it out by levity, letting him take on more disciplinary things. That makes that make sense to you.

Yeah.

Yes.

No, I, I think that ladder is definitely the great choice. He definitely can do it. I think if anything it's just been. He's been so buried in the actual, you know, in the field work. We just haven't had enough time till the summer to really talk about it.

Yeah, that's definitely our main five or six guys. I'd recommend you hopping out in the field like once a month and just destroying a job that's over, like is way over budget hours. Just go out there and just crush it and just show that you know, you know what you're doing.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, I like that advice.

Thanks. You got it.

If you really want to get your employees on the same page as you, there's no better motivation than P4P. That's pay for performance, which rewards workers based on the amount of work done and promotes efficiency in your business. By design now you can pay your employees a smart way with our new P4P software. You'll get automatic updating efficiency numbers, real time project tracking and individual employee metrics on a day to day basis. If you want to learn more about P4P, book a call with Brad, our in house CPA today at P4P software.com training.

Next caller. Sorry, Sam, you've been waiting for 18 minutes. I'm sorry. Welcome. Thanks for coming on.

Hey Mike, how you doing?

Good. How you doing?

Good, good.

Hey, this is Sam with Troops Mowing. I was on an episode of Zero Turn so I wanted to say thanks you for that.

Yep.

I was calling really quick, see if you could check out my website. I'm really curious if I would get any value from switching over to your website services.

Okay.

And kind of seeing.

Are you there?

Yeah, I'm here. What's the.

URL?

URL is troops mowing.com T R O o P S M O W I n G. Let me go ahead and.

Share the screen here.

Here we go. Troop smelling. Okay. By the way.

For everyone else listening, this is not going to be a website video where I go through everyone's URLs, so don't, don't put those in, in the chats. Okay. So I'm just pulling up now. This is with Yardbook, it looks like, right?

No, so I had. I built that with Squarespace.

I meant Squarespace. My bad. Squarespace. Gotcha.

Can you hear me okay?

Really?

Yeah, I can hear you fine.

Cool.

Really, what I'm curious about, Mike, is what kind of value I could get with you in terms of SEO if we were to switch to you in your website services. And I don't know if you can tell just, just from looking at it if we have good SEO or not looking for some guidance in that regard.

Yeah. So let's see here what you Service mostly Hutto. Is that like the main area you service?

Yeah.

Auto, Texas Lawn Care.

Let's see here.

Okay, cool. All right, so I'm looking up. So there you got 122 reviews. Let's go.

Cool.

Let's see here. Let's see.

Native.

Okay. How long has this, this site been up?

We used to do WordPress Squarespace version has been up for about a year.

A little bit over a year. Yeah.

Oh, mercy. We're really going deep here.

I'm a fourth page. I still haven't seen you.

Okay, yeah, there it is. Fourth page. So you're on the fourth page. Lawn Care and Huddle Troops MO llc. So first and foremost, because what I thought first you were talking about is design. I think your design is pretty good. Like, I definitely think this picture could be improved.

You know, I love the plugin here. The problem sometimes that slows down the site, which affects the SEO. Some of these pictures could be optimized because they're very large.

But I actually like design. I really. Obviously you have a good theme with your name. Everything in terms of the troop side of things, I think, you know, like the pictures, for example, I would like to see you, the brand, the troop, like their trucks inside these pictures. Because these could be pictures of, you know, any lawn in the world. But that's from a design perspective. From an SEO perspective, the only thing that speaks to me is that is after 6 to 12 months, where do you rank on Google? Right? And currently you're on the fourth page. So that in and of itself is where I'd say yes, it would be a value. What size of business? That's my main question. What size of business are you currently at and what are you trying to. Are you trying to keep growing or where are you at now?

Yeah, we'd love to grow.

Currently we're going to finish the year probably around 400, 000. Next year we're going to be shooting for 750.

Okay, then I would. So then I would say yes, I would think this would be a good time because what my goal would be so that you're ranking on the first page by next spring rush, right? So September, October, you know, by the time you get your site up, you're looking at November. It's going to take three to six months to be ranking really well. But the fact that you've been a year and we're still on the fourth page of Google, when I type in Hutto, Texas Lawn Care, that's concerning to me. I'm really Thrilled that you are really, really good at getting the reviews for Google My business. That's awesome. But this is, the money is in the native search, right? And right now you got lawn love. Angie's your green pal, Lawnstarter. Just write lawns is currently the best SEO in your area. And when I go to their page, as I'm doing right now, I don't know if you can see what I'm doing. You know, they're, they have multiple offices which is fine. They look like they're using the exact same service thing here as you, but like theirs is very SEO driven. There's not a lot of good design and this is like a classic SEO site that works well in the past, but this is what Google is not like anymore. All this text Google is starting to really like, that's not what they're looking for. Keywords and like a bunch of long text on the homepage. So all that say, I think you, I think it would be a good move for you if you were saying, hey, we're at 400, we're going to do 450 next year, 500. I would say don't worry about it. Your current site looks good enough and you're probably getting pretty good traffic just from the fact that it's a good looking site. You got good, you know, Google, a Google my business thing. But just taking what you currently have with the whole theme of the troops and the logo. I've seen your truck obviously here. They look clean. We would blow this one out of the water. So I would say it'd be a good move and obviously I'm biased but I think if you're trying to go to 750, I would give it a pass. Like definitely join Lawn Care Web Design.

Awesome. Yeah, I'll definitely reach out by sometime this week. Do I just go to that website and just click contact or. Yep, just send you an email direct.

Yeah, you just go right on there. If you have specific questions, reach out to the team. They always escalate stuff to me, their specific stuff. But it's mostly SEO stuff and web design and then we meet together when we actually build your site. So you should take a six. We're shooting for six now weeks. We say eight weeks but we've been getting them out in six. So yeah, fill that out. Because my big thing is like I'd want you this done by November so that by next spring rush it's ranking. Everyone rushes us in January and February for their site and then they wonder why they're not Ranking during spring rush. Like, no, it's going to take three to six months to rank. Well, that being said, though, Sam, like, you're on fourth page. We'll be on the second page, I would imagine, within a month, honestly, and which would be a big improvement. But my goal would be, like, at least doing the first page. Go here. First page. My goal would be, like, first page, when you type in Hutto Texas Lawn Care, maybe like the third or fourth spot down by the time we get to, like, February, March. That would be, like, the goal in terms of what we said on our end.

Okay, perfect. I appreciate you taking a look at that.

You got it, brother. Take care. Thanks so much. All right, next caller is coming from 2080208 area code. Welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me.

What's up?

So I got, like, a weird question, or I don't know if it's a question or maybe just asking for a suggestion. How do you approach an hoa? So my situation currently that I have is that this HOA hired me for some shrub pruning. So I showed up and I did some. Some training to the shrubs and whatever. And when I gave out my estimate and I give my prices to this guy, he was the president of the hoa and he really liked the prices. So he's like, oh, you know, I really like it. And I'm actually not satisfied with my current lawn care company. We're trying to see and accommodate for different budgets to see what we can reduce the cost on. Would you mind giving me your estimate? And I was like, happy to do so, because I was thinking, okay, in order for me to grow, this HOA is going to be a good opportunity. So when I was just typing this spreadsheet with my prices, I was doing it based on, okay, how many budget hours I'm going to do. 23 units, they're married to each other. I don't have to move the truck. It's a lot of weed whacking because.

The sidewalks and the front porches are really next to each other. This HOA community, it's kind of like so small in this area. And I was thinking, okay, this is going to be my estimate. But then I quickly asked the guy, hey, just for curiosity, just for kicks and giggles, how much are they charging you currently? And. And see and see what. What would it be like? Right? I was not hoping for him to give me the numbers because I was like, okay, what if he lowballs that number? And. And now I don't Know, you know, it's kind of like that. That kind of situation. So. So he did came back and said, you know what? This is the budget. This is the budget that we're looking for 2023. And the price that I was giving them, it was like a third of it of what he's currently paying for.

Okay, so you're asking how do you get the contract now, or are you worried about the fact that you're a third of the price?

No. Well, because. Because he gave me the numbers, All I had to do was reduce a little bit of that budget that they had for 2023. And he said, okay, let me submit it to the board, and then we'll get back to you. And then he did came back to me and said, you know, it's all yours. You came in lower than the rest of the guys, the rest of your competitors around here. So it's yours for 2023. So now how do I get the contract typed in? How do I, you know, do I ask an advance for it? I mean, what I was estimating was a third of the cost, but I had to go way above that because I only took. I only knock off a few hundred of the prices that they had.

Okay, so let me be clear. So. Oh, I see. You're saying. So you're saying you did the budget hours came out to a third of what you. What they were charging before, and then what you did is just went a couple hundred dollars below what they're currently getting charged. So you won the contract, and now you have all of this extra money. Is that what you're saying?

Yes. Yes. Well, technically, on paper, you know, good.

Problem to have, because guess what you're gonna need. You're gonna need the time. Like, how many lawns do you currently do?

19.

Yeah, so. So you're doubling the size of your business, right? And so by having 23 more lawns, you're gonna find that you underbid that job. I can guarantee it 100%. I would bet my life on it. So don't worry about that right now. You did the budget hours correctly in terms of budgeting, creating the estimate based on budget hours, but you are. You are 100% underestimating those budget hours, and that's fine because we. Like, what I was hoping. I was glad you said is you just went below what theirs was. I'm glad you didn't go for a third. Okay, so that. That's. That's a good problem to have for now. Set it up with the budget hours that you previously thought that's fine. And then just realize that you're probably have to recalibrate that in the next spring. Right. Once you actually know what the real budget hours are, then you can just change them later on. But don't stress out about oh man, like now I've got to like fix it. You could, if you wanted to just divide out how many more budget hours you can tack onto these jobs each visit, you could do that. That's fine as well. But I wouldn't stress about it at your current size because you're not. It's not like you're doing P4P where this is going to affect the guys pay. If it was affecting the guys pay on P4P, I would definitely take whatever the extra amount was. Divide out by your hourly rate. Okay. That's amount of budget hour to have extra. Split it up across all the visits and give more extra so the guys have the money and the budget hours are accurate. But at your size, roll with the punches. I think it'll be a good experience for you and just realize that you're probably going to recalibrate budgeted hours in spring.

So. So in part of like as far as the contract goes.

Do you. How do you structure a contract with an hoa?

Yep. So there. Which software do you use?

None.

Okay, so what I would do if you're going to, if you're not going to use software, you're going to charge them a monthly amount every single month. I would highly recommend using something you could you go free like Yardbook or Lawn Pro is cheap to get started. So you can send them an invoice every single month and.

Oh, just for that.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, I would send them a month.

Yeah. Like a CRM. Yep.

Okay.

Yeah, that's. I use Wave. Okay.

Perfect.

Wave app.

Yep. Absolutely. Yep. I've used them before. So what you can do is just invoice them every single month. This is going to same every single month. But then on your end in terms of budget hours, that's going to be per visit and that doesn't change. Right. Like that doesn't matter that they don't have to see that side, but just invoice them at the end of every single month.

Right. And then as far as. So so and then prior to that, Dan, I got the snow removal for. For that property as well. I did send out a contract. I typed in a really easy contract, copy and paste. Just basically saying my company is going to be liable for whatever damages they do to the cars or whatever Just kind of like covering that aspect and then being liable for that aspect. But is it fair for me to ask for, okay, I would have to have 20% down of what this is going to cost.

No HOA. Typically, they're going to want more of a maintenance schedule, right, where they're paying the same amount every single month. It's less likely that they're going to want 20% down. They want it like a full package every single month. They just pay the same level billing for commercial work. It's pretty common. I think the big thing that I'd be warning you of is adding too many services too early in the business, because just adding your, like adding snow as a service to your insurance, for example, will more than triple it. It'll also more than double your auto insurance. So things like that could potentially wipe out all profits from the contract. So I'm not saying no, you already have the contract. I'm just saying you might potentially think about subbing out the mowing, the snow, plowing, or services that are going to cause you create. Like, we have to buy extra, extra equipment, increase your liability insurance, all the rest of it. That'd be a consideration in the back of my mind if I was you, as you begin to get into this contract.

I see, I see.

Cool. Anything else I can help with?

Well, thanks. No, no, no. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much.

Awesome. You got it. Take care. All right, next caller is coming from 77 0, I think it's from Georgia. Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on.

Yo, what's up, Mike? How you doing?

Good, good. You have a good radio voice. Nice and low.

Oh, sounds great.

Sounds.

Shoot. What's. What's up? How can I.

I just had a.

Quick question about what you were doing in terms of, like, is our current, like, inflation hikes impacting your prices like, immediately, or are you waiting out a little bit more to see how everything plays out?

Yeah, no, we raised. We raised prices across the board. We've had to. We. We delayed by at least three to four months, and it killed us. I probably lost 100 grand just at the one location in profit because we didn't raise prices when we wanted to. In March, I thought, okay, the whole Ukraine war thing took off. We had oil shock. I'm like, hey, you know what? Let's just, like, hold off. I don't want to, you know, hurt the employ, hurt the customers. But that we didn't raise prices until June, that probably cost me 100 grand. So, you know, I thought, I thought oil would Come down a little quicker and stuff like that. So we raised prices though twice this year already. We raised price on existing customers, we're priced on new customers, raised prices on projects, we raised prices on estimate fees, we raised prices on dump fees, reprices, everything. So definitely not. And especially right now as we're still at the tail end of we're going into recession. Right. I think a one way to weed out customers that you don't want in a recession is to raise your price. Because everyone who leaves that's price sensitive, you don't want them during a recession, they're typically gonna be the bargain hunters. The person that's going to not take upsells, the person is not going to have allow for higher margins and you don't want them during a recession anyway. So clean them out now. Replace them before we get into a very dark recession. If it potentially goes that direct, you have better customers that stick with you.

Gotcha. Just immediately act on it.

Oh yeah.

I mean, what's going on?

I've been trying to say it for.

The past 12 months.

There's never a bad time to raise prices in this environment. Everyone's used of it right now. Everything's going up. It's the time to raise.

You're the best, man. Thanks. Thanks for like bunch of the stuff you got going out, posting like content every day, man.

Inspiring to see you, I appreciate it. Thanks so much.

Yeah, man, congrats on the, on the real estate life.

Thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. All right, this is gonna be the last caller we got. We gotta draw the line somewhere. Next caller. Find the Nebraska. Nebraska. Been waiting for 17 minutes. I think his name is Cody. Thanks for coming on.

Hey Mike. Yep, my name is Cody. Thanks for taking my call. Omaha, Nebraska. The quick question is around the ever revolving topic of employees. Specifically today. I won't get into the rest of it, but just drama. It seems like even the guys that do have that stick around for days to week to month on end. Just very dramatic, you know, problems with other guys sometimes going to, you know, jail. Not real serious stuff, but disruptions in the business and stuff. And you know, online from the computer, looking at your videos and other folks that are more polished, it just looks like a different caliber of person that they're hiring or you're hiring like what I would call professionals and less dramatic, not to be personal to anybody but you know, less drama and just more, hey, we're here for business. We're here to work, we're here to make a living. That More polished employee. So, I mean, what's your recommendation on how to weed out and get more of that direction of, you know, we're professionals, we're trying to do good work. We're here to work as a team and build this business rather than, you know, I'm the 20 bucks an hour trim guy that goes to prison once every three months. And it's just a disruption to the business.

Yeah. I think the first thing is you got to realize that you're judging yourself based upon your competitors. And most of us look at our competitors through rose colored glasses as if everything they're doing is working. When you just don't get to see all the drama that's happening at their place. Right? And same thing with like, even you look at someone like myself, like, oh, they have it buttoned down. It's like, no, no, we still deal with drama. Lots of it.

It.

It's just a matter of that's not what you show to the public. And same thing with your competitors. They don't, they're not advertising their, their dirty laundry either. So just realize it's happening in every organization. Even if you look at, you know, the best of the best businesses ever and they're hiring people for $200,000 a year, there's still drama. Just different types of drama, right? You got infidelity happening in the office. You got people doing, you know, coming to work on drugs. Like got weird stuff still happening. It's just a different type of drama, right? You could have, you know, a bunch of women and, you know, have all sorts of drama happening, right? Different type of drama than you're gonna have with a bunch of dudes that are working hard on drugs, doing, you know, smoking, doing whatever, you know, coming to work on. Over on. What's it called? Sorry, I just went blank there. I was reading something.

Hungover. Those are just different problems, different types of drama, right? So you're gonna have drama regardless. Every single business has drama. That's the first thing to realize. Your competitors, they. They have just as much, if not more drama than you. I have drama. Everyone has drama, all right? It's just that most of the time you drama you don't talk about. Like, I can't talk about the employees that you know this week have medical issues, family issues, you know, people that have or have debt issues. Like, I can't talk about any of that, but I have to have those conversations with every single employee, right? So it's just something that you don't talk about. It's not public so that's the first thing, number one, very, very important. We always look at our competitors through rose colored glasses as if their businesses are so good and perfect. Secondly, I would say as you grow the business, you do get a little bit more brand authority because you're getting people that are coming into the business mostly from referrals from your existing crew. So if you have good guys, they're bringing other good guys to come work for you as well as when you have applicants constantly coming in, you are able to weed out your bottom performers. And it's same thing like customers with raising prices. When it comes to your team, if you have low performers, as long as you get a lot of applicants coming in, you're able to replace the lowest performing employees with the new applicants that are really well qualified and really good. So what I would say is double down on your applicant trying to get more applicants, double down on your hiring process, double down on getting more people in the door for applications because it'll put pressure on people to either perform or they're going to get cut. People will get complacent and they'll be more drama in environments like, hey, if you, as long as you just show up to work, you got yourself a job. Well, now when everyone's competing for a position because they know there's five other people that are ready to be called tomorrow, if you don't show up to work, that changes everything, right? And so when you're in a place of power to be able to do that, it changes the business and your relationship with the employees dramatically because now you are the one that has more of leverage. And so it sounds horrible. I hate even using that term, like leverage against employees. I don't like using that. However, the whole culture deteriorates. So when you don't have leverage, and it's actually really bad for your top performers when you as the employer don't have leverage because the bottom performers begin to run the ship, right? And everyone just go down to the common, the lowest common denominator of skill and effort. And so it's your responsibility as an employer to retain that leverage so you are able to replace the bottom performers, keeping the higher performers more motivated because it's the worst thing to work with low performers. So it's your responsibility to do that. So I would just double down on more applicants, better hiring processes, you know, just constantly having people in the backseat that are ready to step forward if you need them and just constantly hiring.

Okay, would you recommend balancing that with like the types of services that we do. So I like water features. We've been doing long. We do doing landscaping, we're kind of doing everything right now. On certain days I'm like, gosh, you know, maybe it makes sense, you know, cut the mowing, go with a higher skill, higher for, you know, higher revenue, like your typical design build type stuff. Yep, it's been one thought. Another thought has been on the mowing side. You know, maybe I do anticipate that I'm constantly rolling through people and instead of having, you know, a trailer and stand ons and zero turn mowers that take more time to get properly trained and get efficient on, just say, hey, we're going to use half ton trucks, we're going to use 30 inch push mowers. It's not what anybody around here really does, but I can take any one body off the street practically and not have catastrophic issues and have a much shorter turnaround for training. Is that the right mindset or is that a little too negative?

You know, there's two schools of thought here, right? One is, okay, how do I systematize, make it really simple so I can get, like you said, anybody off the street, train up really quickly and they're profitable? Or B, do I focus on very skilled labor that I can then charge a very premium price and be able to afford to pay someone 30, $35 an hour because they have the skills to do excavation and water features and all the rest of it. So there's no right or wrong. Either of those, I think, will work in the, in the labor market. The challenging question is, can you even find the first part right? Can you even find the guys that can do the excavation, that can do the pond features? That's my biggest, bigger question. And so what I would recommend to you is to literally do a 50 price increase in all your mowing and see what happens. Because what's going to happen is right now you're thinking about scratching it, so you might as well do that. And if you retain 90% of your customers now, all of a sudden your mowing becomes so profitable to where you can afford to pay a higher wage and you're going to be able to attract a different level of employee for that position. Because you're now comparing McDonald's at $14 an hour versus $16 an hour right now for landscaping and they're like, not a chance. $2 more per hour, I'll just work at McDonald's. But when you're able to now pay them $20 an hour and now 14 versus 20 starts to look really, really interesting and they're willing to go out and work. And you're able to compete against McDonald's because you're talking about entry level work. If you start comparing yourself against a very skilled labor like new excavation, pond features, all this other construction stuff, you're comparing your 30 to $35 an hour, which sounds great, to other jobs that are 40, 45 if they went into construction or the oil industry and other things. So it's just which problems do you want to have? It's either A, dealing with, quote unquote drama of entry level employees that don't have much skill, or B, dealing with drama from someone who is extremely skilled you can't replace and now you're handcuffed to them. So it's just the drama issue kind of ties hand in hand which direction you go with the business. It's just a different type of drama, different issues you're going to have with the employees. And they're just part of leadership. But I would just, if I was you, I would 50% price increase your mowing because you're already considering cutting it. And then I think think is going to happen, you're going to retain 70 to 80% of those customers. You become so profitable on mowing, you'll be able to afford a higher wage and that will attract a better talent pool and it'll be easier to find employees because they're comparing against, like I said, McDonald's down the street.

Okay, thank you, I appreciate it. The 50% increase on the mowing is interesting. Obviously you got way more experience with that. You know, obviously pricing changes all over the place for $50 a yard minimum right now. So the thought of going to 75 if 75 of the folks or even 50 of them stayed with, I would hands down take that route. Just, you know, obviously hesitant towards like nuking.

Yeah, I would just say, okay, like let's, let's raise our, our minimum to 70 and raise all prices by, you know, let's say 40%. Right. But trust me, like, that will more than double your profits. It'll probably triple your profits in mowing. And that alone will allow you to raise your wage by at least three or four dollars an hour, which will completely put you in a different market when it comes to the labor pool. Right. And I think they'll change your opinion of mowing, and that's why we focus so much on mowing is I do believe you can be, you can be create a price insensitive customer with that service and Then you're competing against entry level laborers instead of guys who have so many options when they have, when they're that skilled.

Sure. And not to open up another can of worms, but does it make sense to do like a 50% price increase and really go to another level, a very niche customer like you said, that's not priced sensitive versus maybe saying, you know what, maybe I just double down on advertising and really increase route density. So take the Walmart approach of just higher volumes to increase profitability rather than selling a bend like selling a Toyota versus a Ben.

The Walmart approach cannot work in this industry. It just can't. Because you can't find the labors for that cheap. You're going to ramp up drama if you're trying to constantly go after cheap labor. And drama could be in the form of literally HDB program not coming through and everything falls apart. Or it could just be like again, they're comparing $14 an hour against $15 an hour and they're not going to go for 15 if they're making a dollar more than McDonald's per hour. Right. So I would say, you know, raise the prices and just focus on being the premium service. Here's the thing, just raising your prices makes you a premium service because no one's going to buy if they are not the type of customer that is premium. Right. If you're so much higher than everyone else but you're able to offer better employees, better training, better trucks, better customer service, phone calls get answered because you have the higher margins, it's natural selection of better customers are going to come to you. And so it's just a very natural way of the business moving that direction.

Sure.

It's, it's just on my end not to get too rep center, we gotta wrap this up. But it's just on mine we don't have the best route density now. So I get afraid that it's raising prices is obviously going to help profitability. But it maybe takes me further away from route density just because, you know, Instead of having five on the block at 50, it's one on the block for 75 or I mean that's a fixed issue number. But at some point I think it's a fair argument that the higher the price goes, the less the route density would be just because of it's getting more expensive. Thoughts on that?

How many lawns do you have?

About 95.

Oh yeah, I would do it.

And we're, we have terrible route density to say the least. But it's one of those like, well, you know, once we get the second, third, fourth crew, we're going to have little pockets that'll improve route density as we continue to scale and just push through the mud of. No, the difference being poorly done.

The difference you're gonna, you're gonna go from 95 to 70 customers when you raise your prices by like 40%. And you. So now you have to compare is, okay, how profitable were we on the Delta? So the 25 that we lose, how profitable on those were we? Right, so I'm assuming literally like a 30% of your customers are gonna leave. So if we. By having them, those 25, are you 30 to 40% more profitable? No, you are not, because they're at a lower price point. And again, the whole reason I said that is because you literally stated we might just cut the mowing. So if you're going to cut the mowing before you do that, might as well just jack the prices. And I think you're going to be shocked that you might lose 25 customers. The other 70 stay with you. And you're at nine. If you would have said 15 or 20 lawns, I would say, okay, this is a different ball game. But at 95, going to 70 is not going to dramatically decrease your efficiency on route density. It's just not, regardless of what your service area is, because you already have so many stops inside of whatever service area you have. Taking away 20, 30 doesn't move the needle. If you had, if you would have said 15 to 20 lawns, I would have said cancel everything. I just said at 95, I would do that. Again, only because you said you're considering cutting it out. Right. If your goal was growth, expansion, you want 400 lawns, I'd say, hey, keep doing what you're doing. Like you said, get more customers, close every single job, get good round density. And then when you get to the point when you need to make it profitable, then you would raise the prices. But if you're considering cutting the service because you can't find employees for it, that's when you say, hey, Jack, the prices, give the Delta a big chunk of it to the employees. So you can hire like for four or five dollars more than everyone else in your competition in your area, and then see what comes in the door, and I guarantee you'll tap into a different type of labor market.

Okay, thank you.

Much appreciated.

You got it. Sorry to everybody in the queue that I was going to get canceled, I said, that was the last call. I need to hop on a call. It's 5pm I got a call here Pacific Standard Time. So thank you all for joining. It was a long one. Mercy goodness. We're at what an hour and 30 minutes on the dollar. So thank you to everyone that was commenting. I will scroll through these very very quickly but I'm not going to answer any of these. We will have another show where we answer just the comments. So I'll get to the comments definitely down the road than all for your support. Thank you all for supporting landscapebusinesscourse.com MBA for entrepreneurs land lawn careweb design.com I really appreciate it. All the links are in the description. I really encourage everyone to come to Summit. I really really like cannot overemphasize how good this year is going to be the work we're already putting into it. We just got how was his name? I just blanked. Ballard. Corey Ballard. He's going to be coming. We got Tommy Mellow, he's going to be opening keynote. He does $150 million business. Corey did 2530 per year then sold. Perfect cut.

We got multiple owners that are in that 1 to 2 million dollar range. We got someone speaking that has a nursery, a dealership and two lawn care locations. We have Marcus who spoke last year as a consultant. He does massive design build consulting for companies. Do 7, 8, 10 plus million dollars in annual revenue. It's gonna be a great event. I think you want to be there. Make sure you get a hotel at the event. The hotel's good, it's relatively cheap. 120 bucks a night is pretty good deal now these days. But it's what's cool is you're at the event. You don't need a rental car. You can literally fly into Seattle, drive the bus directly to the doorstep of the hotel. We have food there. It's within walking distance of other restaurants for dinner. It's gonna be a great event. It really really is. I really think this is gonna be our best one yet. We're putting a lot of effort into all aspects so I'm really looking forward to it. And just go to mikeannies.comsummit and you can book your tickets there. Bring a manager, bring your spouse. We're having the support track. Liz, Lonnie Lee, other people, spouses are going to be speaking at that event. Probably 30, 40 people in that track and it'll be a separate room for two of the afternoons that they'll be speaking there for a couple hours and doing different things with people who are not owners. So how to support the Owner. So anyone that is in your support network, managers, employees, spouse. Really good to bring your spouse. By the way, if I was married, I would be bringing my wife to every single event that I go to. Just so we're on the same page, just so we understand each other's language, we understand why, you know, we come back, we're like all rearing to go and goals and we have ambition and we're driven to get started on the spring rush. You want to make sure your spouse on the same page actually added to our franchisee training. The very last thing now that I talk about is getting your spouse on the same page. I'm not even married, but I realized just how important it is as a small business owner to get your wife, husband, spouse, partner, whatever, on the same page with you. When it comes to business, it's extremely important because most of the owners I see closed down. There's something with the relationship that falls apart. There's misunderstandings, they start to grow apart. The business starts to take too much time. They're not on the same page, and it ruins the relationship. So I really recommend you bring your spouse. They'll connect with other people there that are on the same. They understand their issues because, like, it'd be a great event. Please bring them and bring your team. It's just gonna be a lot of fun as well as a ton of education. Someone asked me the other day, hey, they were comparing us against another event and say, why should I come to Landscape Summit versus this other event? I said, this other event is basically having people that do marketing services, web design services, all the other things, have them speak on the stage and then they sell for the last, usually 20, 30% of their speech. Everyone that's coming to this event at Landscape Summit has actually run a business in lawn care and landscaping. None of them have just like, hypothesized about marketing, hypothesized about hiring, because they're like a good HR company. No, these are people that have actually run lawn care, landscape businesses and all scaled into seven figures plus eight figures and beyond. It's gonna be a great event. In the past, I've done most of speaking. I'm still going to be doing speaking every single day for keynotes, but now there's me other people as well. It's fantastic. Have a support track, have everyone there at the same hotel. I'm really looking forward to it. It's gonna be the best, the best event we've ever put on.

This has been the Mike Andy's podcast. Now you have some ideas on how to take your business to the next level. And if you liked what you heard, we have tons of lectures, interviews, and more over at the Mike Andes YouTube channel. It'll be right up your alley. That's all we have for you today.

We'll see you next time, Sam.