How to Transition from Your 9-5 Job - Ep.29

Hey, everyone, this is Mike Andes and you're listening to landscape businesscourse.com podcast. And today we're listening to another live call I had. I have to apologize. This one has really bad audio, like on his end. I don't know if there's a phone connection on his end or my end. So I'm really sorry about that. I'm gonna try to only put from now on the ones that I record on Skype just because the audio is better. It's just with Skype, there's a little bit of a delay and a lot of people don't have Skype. So I would usually only put things that aren't, like I said, on Skype because the audio quality, however, this call I just really thought was gonna be beneficial to everyone out there. This is for the person that is wanting to start a business that is in a 9 to 5 but wants to slowly transition out of their 9 to 5 to having their own landscaping business. And they don't. You might be a little bit afraid of, you know, cause you have dependents, you have a wife, family, a mortgage, car payments, and you don't want those things to fall through the cracks or get behind on those things. In those first couple years of business when usually you're not making a whole lot of money and bringing it home, it's a lot of the money, or at least a lot of the money has to go back into the business. So Anthony was on the call and he is from New York and he is going to be trying to start his landscaping business while maintaining his current 9 to 5 that is paying the bills and gives him a pretty good salary. But he's hoping that he can get into a business that he loves and that he feels like he has a lot of upward mobility. So without any further delay, Anthony on the call again. Please forgive the poor audio. Here we go.

I have a very good career right now. I make good money.

Yeah.

But I'm.

Happy. Years I've been reading a lot of books.

You're kind of breaking up, Anthony. You're kind of breaking up. I can't hear you too good.

You hear me now?

I can hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Just go ahead. Sorry about that. Just go ahead.

Okay.

My dream is going my own business. And last year I got them all over.

Stuff like that. And I really think this is a business I want to start. Long care, maybe in the landscape and definitely tree work.

Yeah.

So my main issue is I have an income with my job.

Yeah.

And I have two kids, clients, mortgage. So My goal is trying to figure out how I can build a good foundation in business.

So it'd be a lot easier to scale later on.

Right.

Make that transition easier.

Yep.

My parents, my stepfather owns a tree business. My father has owned many businesses. So I feel for what needs to be done just, you know, first. 18 years old, I pick up.

Right.

I'm not starting.

Yeah.

Pretty much what I'm looking for is how can I start this business and systems and procedures in place to where I can make this transition a lot easier. Two, three years down the road.

Yeah. Like, do you have weekends or evenings that you can work? You could be able to do work on the landscape business?

Yes, yes, I do. Just got a new job, so just working fifth year as we 10 hours a day, some days get out a little earlier. My wife is committed to doing a lot of the office work once we get started.

Yeah.

And you know, because unfortunately right now I'm, you know, more than willing not to take anything out of business for a few years to make sure properly.

Right.

So that's where I sit. You know, I'm just kind of looking for somebody who's in the trade to kind of give me some suggestions on some milestones I should try hitting first.

Yeah. So, like, yeah, like, it really comes down because it's totally different for everyone. And that is, it really comes down to, like, because you have dependents, you have the house, like all that stuff. Right. So you can't just like, stop your job and just go with no money. Right. And so either A, you either have to build up the clientele or B, you have some savings that are going to kind of, kind of fill in the gap. Right. And so, like, as far as milestones and markers, like, if you do it part time, like, if I were you, I'd really go after the recurring revenue right now, like after the lawn care, like mowing, just because it's steady, more steady income and something that you can, when you, when you leave your job, essentially you want to know that you're making so much per month that's going to cover your bills. And so if you have the recurring revenue, which is your mowing and your maintenance, that's where that can come into play. Whereas landscaping jobs, even though you can make money there, it's a little more revenue. It's just. It's kind of hit and miss sometimes. Like, you have a really good month and then you'll have only a couple big jobs the next month. So I would focus, you know, really focus on getting the lawn Care. And that's easier to do when you're just starting out and you don't have a big name, don't have a bunch of trucks and a bunch of employees, because those larger jobs are typically more labor intensive unless you subcontract them out. And so it's like if I were you and I was trying to kind of spend the next year or two kind of fading into business ownership, I would really focus on trying to like this is the nice thing though, like if I were you, if you had two years, if you kind of had a 24 month plan, the, like that first year you could be the one mowing and things like that and then getting sales. And then that second year you'd try to essentially hire someone to do the work for you. And then in the evenings you would just do all the office kind of work and getting new sales. And then that third year you'd actually jump and go full time, get more people on board and then quit your job. And so like the first year though, like, it's a lot of grind as far as just getting those contracts, getting the recurring revenue, as far as mowing, like mowing clients. And so like as far as what your target is, I'd try to go for like at least 25 of those people that are going to get you on a weekly or bi weekly schedule. And for your first year, try to get at least 25 of those people and that's going to give you kind of enough money to where going into your second year you can easily hire someone to do the work part. So that first year you'd probably doing the actual labor, like mowing as well as all the sales and office stuff. Whereas I think if you can build up, you know, 25, 30 mowing clients that first year going into that second year, you can hire someone full time and they can, you know, you can get that number up to 40, 50, and then them do all the labor part for you. You still hold your job, but then you focus solely on the sales and marketing aspect of it when you're working in the evenings and weekend. And then by the time you hit your third year, you'll have enough traction in your marketplace and things where you can kind of go full time and not be too much of a dip in your salary.

Okay, makes sense.

Like right now. Go ahead, go ahead.

I hear what you're saying.

Oh no, I was just gonna say like right now. Do you already have a plan as far as how you're going to get clients, like the first few or like, get started.

Yeah, well, right now I'm just going to focus that next month, just door to door.

Yep.

Specific areas I targeted in my area that were pretty condensed. Just trying to get as many as I can.

Possibly. Postcards and obviously building a website, maybe Facebook.

Page. So that's my strategy right now. Just to get as many as possible.

The thing I just want to do is make this. I really want to make a good foundation's business that way. Just easier for my wife. And I mean, you know.

Off the cuff, you know, whether I'm at work or something taken care of, there's a system in place for it.

Right.

So as far as software or anything like that, what would you suggest?

Yeah, I'd suggest as far as software, Lawn Pro is what we use for the course and what we used up until this year. Cause I kind of suggest Lawn Pro until you hit about a million dollars in revenue. And so I would suggest Lawn Pro. It's for what you get. It's incredibly priced and that's what we. I always use that as far as for like our course members. But like, yeah, like, I totally get where your wife is coming from too. And so, like, what you can do if you want to make sure she's on board, is kind of have the. The markers that you want to hit before, you know, you jump off and go full time. And I think as far as you just kind of got to pare down, like, okay, if you need, say, 10 grand a month to switch out from your day job to business owner, then you got to figure out, okay, 10 grand a month coming home, what's my profit margin? What do I need to be grossing in the business? And so if you're running a 25% margin, you need to be making 40 grand a month in order to make that jump. And the thing too is, though, that's a tough one. It depends on how much you need to make every month. But it's a tough one the higher that is, because as you get over 1, 2 employees, it's very hard to try to run it while you're working during the day just because things happen throughout the day. Clients call all that stuff. And it's nice if your wife is able to take some of that. But as you get more people.

There'Ll be a point where, you know, you have to go full time. So I wouldn't stress out too much as far as, like, when that's gonna happen or even how many clients that's gonna happen. Like, obviously figure out those numbers when it should work. But on the other hand, you'll kind of hit this spot where you know that when you go full time. Cause like the big tipping point in every business, there's two tipping points. One is when the owner goes full time, and then the other one is when they go from, from being out in the field to when they're only doing sales and marketing. And so those are the two inflection points that you'll kind of see within your business. And it'll kind of almost become natural when you know that if you went full time, you'd make more money doing the business. And so that part will almost feel natural in one regard.

But I like the.

I'm not worried about one night where I need to go full time. I'm not in a rush.

I guess I'd really just like to build it a good foundation.

Cheating on board, as far as that goes.

That'S pretty much it. Really. All I wanted to know is just. No, it's tough because, you know, I talk a lot of my family members own business and stuff. A lot I talk about my dreams, not what I see sometimes, you know, people are kind of negative, so they make it seem like it's impossible thing.

Yeah.

Which I don't see it to be that way. I kind of just wanted to hear somebody, somebody else's mouth what stories were right.

Yeah. And I think, I think the fact even that you're willing to go door to door is really good for your first year. Like you'll easily get 25 clients if you're willing to just like kind of put your head down and get them like door to door flyers. And especially if you're trying to do your first year and you're kind of trying to do part time, I'd really focus on trying to get a tight route. So don't like go advertising in a different city or like 30 minutes away because you want to make your route for your lawn care really tight since you're going to be trying to squeeze these jobs in around your regular work. So I'd really focus on things like door hangers, door to door, all the stuff, or even cold calling within your very target market just so that you're not driving 20 minutes for one job and then 15 for another job because you'll end up. You'll burn yourself out on those weekends and evenings when you got to do work. Right.

And so like. Yeah, like, like do you know kind of what you need? How many clients are like, kind of what your goal is for that first year as Far as what you want to be at, like, what do you know, how much you need to make gross. You think to make the jump?

Like, let's. Like, if you thought of it.

Because honestly, I figured it might be a few years.

So I really haven't thought about yet. I'm kind of short term.

Trying to figure out how I can build this thing to get a few employees while having my job full time.

Do you not like your job? Do you not like your job? Or are you just trying to get in something different?

I don't. I really enjoyed it. I had an apprenticeship.

I enjoy progressing. And just at 28 years old, I kind of hit the top of. It was fine for a year or two, but now I just. I like getting better.

And I feel like the motivator for me is.

Seeing the fruits of my labor. And I just don't get that. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No matter how hard I work, no matter what I do, it's kind of.

Right. So that's. That. That's where I want to be. I just want to be in somewhere.

Yeah. Like, if you want. If you want, like an actual. Like if you're looking for numbers, I can tell you kind of what I did. It's like my first year, I was doing this kind of same thing as you. I did part time because I need to cover my living expenses. And all the money in the business essentially goes right back into the company. And so the that first year, I got 28 weekly mowing clients. And then all I did really was mowing. Like, I didn't do hardly any tree trimming or landscaping. Like, only the mowing. I made just like 30. Only like 30 grand gross. That second year. Then I got up to like 70 recurring mowers. I went full time halfway through that year. So like 70 recurring mowing clients. Hired my first guy in that second year and went up to 200,000 in revenue. So that was a good jump. And that's because I went full time. And so that's kind of like your first inflection point. And then so that's when you really will take off. But I think it's wise to do what you're doing where you kind of make it a slow adjustment. And if you kind of can kind of know, okay, If I have 50 clients and I'm able to hire one guy to do all those, can I make. Can I make enough net profit to, you know, quit my job and go into it? Because if you have the mentality of wanting to work Hard and see the benefits. Like obviously owning your business is where you want to be because the harder you work, you do actually see the fruits of your labor. And so I think if you're willing to work really hard that first year, because it's a lot of work and you already have a full time job. And so it's not going to be easy. But, but then if you're not in a rush, it's not a big deal, right? And so if I were you, I'd shoot for like 30, 25 to 30 that first year. If you can get that just by doing door hangers and some mailers to your local area, door to door, call everyone you know, put it on Facebook, things like that, all kind of tap into the people you know and your friends and family, all that. And I think you can get 25 or 30 and then next year if you can get to 50, I'd be starting to think okay, can I jump? Because as soon like I'm telling you, like as soon as you go full time, that's really when you see the money start to come in. And I think if you got to about 50, 60, then you can, you can easily bring up a decent salary home if needed. And even better yet, if you have a little bit of a safety net that you can continue to, to wait till year three even, you know, cause year three, like as far as, like the way I do the course and like even in my business, that's when you start to see the real, the real fruits, right? Like that's when we went up to over half a million and that's when you'll really start to, you know, be able to take a good salary for your family and things like that.

Right?

30, around 30 was what I was shooting for between 30 and 50 my first year. That's definitely right in mind. Now of course I have two is as far as pricing goes.

Obviously I'm.

In a different market, some pricing, I'm really up and down myself. But.

Do you price by mo or do you do like a monthly.

Fee or how do you.

Yeah, so, right. So essentially, you know, because we're a service business in our industry, you are selling time. Like that's what it comes down to. You're essentially selling, you know, cost of materials plus time. And so some people charge by the hour. I always say don't do that because people will freak out. Because essentially as you get more efficient, you don't want that to be driving your revenue down. Because if you can become more efficient and you're charging by the hour, you're going to essentially be running yourself into the ground. And so if you get a bigger mower, which costs more and it takes you less time to mow, you actually make less money. So I would never charge by the hour. However, you need to have an hourly rate that you decide on what to charge these people. So what I mean by that is, okay, if you come to a job, you're like, okay, this is gonna take an hour to mow their lawn. Okay? Now you don't tell them that you're gonna have a $50 an hour rate. Cause they'd freak out. But if you know that that's your rate, you'd say, okay, this is gonna be a $50 mow per week, or $60 if you do it every other week. And so you give them a flat standardized fee. And then that way it's good for them. Cause they aren't gonna be like hounding over you to make sure you're not wasting time. And then also it's going to make sure that you can depend on a certain amount of money coming in every single week or every single month. And that's really what you're kind of looking for, especially in your first couple years as you build that solid foundation, is knowing exactly how much money is coming in. And so definitely. So essentially my first year, my hourly rate, like I said, you don't tell this to the client. But when you're figuring out your prices, my first year mine was $40 an hour. And some people say that's a lot. But if you're under 30 an hour, you're gonna make nothing. And the reason for that is because you gotta figure in, like, you're not trying to build this to be working in the field all the time. You're gonna build this to hire someone out. And by the time you hire someone and pay taxes on them, you're already in the low 20s as far as per hour. And so then you get equipment and you got, you know, cost for gas and insurance and overhead. So like, if you're under 30 an hour, you're gonna be losing money long term. Like once you start hiring people. And if I were you, right from the beginning, you want to be thinking as far as numbers and systems and how you run the business, as if you're gonna be having several crews out there, not as if it's just you. And so as far as pricing, like my first year I was $40 an hour went up to 50. Second year, third year was, we're at 60. And then now, like on our mowing, on residential mowing, we're around almost 80 an hour. But that's also because we have, you know, all the systems in place and now are super efficient. We have bigger mowers, better equipment, so we're faster and things. However, that's our rate that we don't. We would never tell the client that we're gonna charge them $80 an hour to mow. However, if we told them that, they'd freak out. But, but then they don't take into consideration you have overhead, you have trucks, you have employees. There's so much that goes into it. And really, if I were you, I'd focus too on creating more of a premium service. So I wouldn't be trying to. If someone's gonna walk away from you, if I were you, I'd try to. I'd become the premium service in that you're gonna charge a little more, but you're gonna do like really good work. You have clean trucks, good equipment, you know, uniforms, no guys aren't smoking on the job, on people's property and stuff. And really try to create a premium brand. Cause that's when you premium prices. And so like, I know for a fact that we're 20 to 30% more than most of our competitors in our area. And I'm happy to tell my clients that because they know that they're going to get twice as good of employees and people on their property and the quality and our customer service and like all of that stuff, and they're going to be able to pay with a credit card and all the simple things that kind of add up, that add value to our service beyond just mowing a lawn or trimming a tree. That's where you can make your money is when you add those other things and are able to charge those premium prices.

Okay, so pretty much a price per cut. Not necessarily. I've seen other guys online who want maybe like a monthly rate or something like that. What would you suggest? Just going basic per cut?

Yeah, definitely. I definitely give the customer a per cut price. How we do it is we, we give them a weekly price and then a bi weekly price. So it incentivizes them to stay on a weekly schedule, which essentially just increases the amount of work we have. And so.

Like I said, usually it's 20 to 25% less if they go weekly. If they're $40 mo for weekly, they're gonna be like $50 mo bi weekly. And yeah, I always do that. The customer likes it more because they know it's costing every single time. It doesn't change and doesn't vary. And then the same thing for you as far as cash flow and projecting. You're able to do that a lot easier when you have that per cut price.

But, but it comes down to like, the thing is, like, you'll get better at estimating as you do it more, because you'll be able to look at a lawn and know how long it's going to take, right? Because essentially, even though you're giving your pricing by the mow, you're still look, it still comes down to how long does the lawn take to mow, right? And so, so like you're gonna look at a lawn now and kind of like, okay, that's gonna take somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes. And so you'll probably give them like, you know, 35 or $40 per cut. However, you do this for a year or two and you'll be able to look at a lawn and be like, okay, that's gonna take between 32 and 34 minutes. And then that's when you really get really good on your pricing. Because like I said, you're technically charging by time, but you gotta create that system and create the standardized pricing. Like, even, even when it comes to like tree trimming and installing mulch and doing cleanups, like, you should standardize all your pricing. And instead of just creating, you know, these estimates off the top of your head, you should have a kind of a menu of services that you bundle together. For instance, if you have a crew of two doing a cleanup, you can say, okay, there's this bundle, it's a crew of two. You get a dump, dump loads, run to the dump. So with a whole trailer of debris for leaves and branches, and it includes all of those things. And it's, let's say 7.99 and you get them for the whole day. And so you kind of bundle all of your services together and create this kind of products and a menu. And so it's easy when you look at, say a cleanup to say, okay, that's going to take a day, it's going to be about one dump run. And then you just give them that menu price, right? Instead of trying to every single time kind of like pull numbers out of thin air. It's really good. And you'll get better at that creating that standardized pricing. But even like, you should be able to get a price per yard of mulch. And so instead of figuring out, okay, how long is that gonna take and all the different factors that go into that, you'll know, okay, it's five yards of mulch and I charge X amount to deliver and install mulch. And then you can give a price really quickly. And so like another thing too is as far as your price, as far as giving your price pricing and your estimates, if I were you, and what we recommend doing in the course is to like instead of just, if you go do a lawn estimate, instead of just telling someone, okay, that's going to cost you $40 per cut and you tell them right there. What we actually do is we tell them, we do the estimate with them, we tell them at the office, we'll send them an email with their estimate. And the reason for that is because if you just say a number, they're going to think that you're just kind of like making it up off the top of your head. And when you do that, then they think they can negotiate. Because if you do a walk through with your property and you're like, oh, that's gonna cost $50amo, well if they think you just made that off the top of your head, why not negotiate with you and try to get you down to 40 or 45, because you made it off the top of your head. And so you really want to make sure you create where that's not the case, number one, where you're not making off the top of your head, but also reflect that to the customer by going back to your computer, creating a good estimate, sending that to them, and then they're not going to negotiate. And they know that you actually have a system in place for pricing and that they can't try to get you down on price and things.

Okay, you said my first launch.

When should I start upselling?

Yeah, yep, for sure. So what I would do is I'd be going for, you know, your mowing. And when you, when you're at the property, you're, you're obviously gonna see every, you're gonna kinda see all the other needs of the property. And so there's two things. Number one, a lot of times what I tell people they can do, it really depends on your market, is you can actually, instead of saying you get a free estimate, you can say you get a free property analysis. And what the property analysis allows you to do is kind of go through all the points of their property, whether it be like pruning, gutter cleaning, pressure washing, and you can really kind of look at their whole property as a whole. So that's one way to do it. Another way to do it is if they call you for a lawn estimate when you give them the estimate, when you send that to them in the email. Also include an annual cleanup for the winter. And so what that cleanup will entail is like trimming all their trees, cleaning out their beds, weeding them all, and getting rid of leaves and debris, stuff like that. And the reason you'll want to do that in the winter, and if you give that annual price, that once a year price, you want to do that in the winter when you're not able to mow. But it'll keep you busy during those two, three months when there's nothing else to do as far as mowing is concerned. And that's really the hardest part about year number one and two is you have a whole bunch of mowing, but you don't have a whole bunch of landscaping and tree work. And so what happens is those couple months in the winter can get really tough as far as cash flow because you don't have much work. And so if you're able to get all of your or a large percentage of your mowing clients on at least an annual or even twice a year cleanup or tree trimming or however you want to term that in the winter, or, you know, June and December, or however that schedule works out, that really kind of levels your workload, which is great, number one for you as far as cash flow. But also when you start hiring people, they won't go on to unemployment and things like, or go get another job during those slow months. So it's always a good idea to try to upsell those services that you can really get in the winter. And one of those is tree trimming, because the trees are all dormant.

Any suggestions while I start it?

Say it one more time. Sorry.

Any other suggestions for me?

Yeah, like, so what do you have a name for your business? Kind you're already throwing around?

Yeah, I got names started on Nelson Property Solutions.

Okay.

Nelson Properties, Susan. Okay. Yeah. Like, I'd try to get your, your URL to be exactly what your company name is so that you don't have to abbreviate it or anything like that. So, you know, just going to GoDaddy or wherever and just type in exactly what your business name is. And the reason for that is because as Siri and Alexa and all this voice technology comes out, that's important to have your URL as close to your business name as possible.

That'd be the first thing. And then like your website.

It'S kind of, sometimes it seems that at the beginning it doesn't drive much traffic because it's not high. On Google, most of your leads are gonna come from you talking to people, whether it be door to door or you send out mailers. And so. But the thing is with the website, it really kicks in. Year two and three, once you work on it, get SEO good, it gets up to the top of Google, it becomes where it's such a low customer acquisition cost because people are googling you, finding you, calling you, and you didn't do anything for it. You just pay for hosting and you refresh it once in a while, put some of your pictures or whatever. But like your website will become your best marketing tool. And so I definitely make sure you have the URL down, make sure it's a decent design. You can create it like I'd recommend weebly.com w e e b l y weebly.com or you can use WordPress. There's a billion different ways to design it and so obviously make it look nice and have about us and all that stuff have before and after. Make sure it links to your social media. I'd make sure you have a YouTube channel, make some videos of you doing some work. Just a couple. It doesn't mean a lot. The reason, like for instance, YouTube and Google, a lot of people discount Google, but you have to remember that Google is gonna push you higher in the rankings when you start using their products. So if you search your business name in your first year, a YouTube video will come up at the top, whereas your website might be on the third page. So a YouTube video or two is really good, just like introducing your company a couple minutes long. Have a Google page. Because like for instance, if you take your city name right now and you type that in and put lawn care at the very top, it's not going to be the best websites or even ads. It's actually going to be Google Pages. And then under that it has like a map and it'll have how many reviews you have under Google. So if I were you, like what I pushed for my first year is Google reviews from the customers you get after year one. At the end of year one, you want to try to get like 5, 10 Google reviews. And they're a lot harder to get than Yelp reviews because it's just confusing to try to get customers to do it. But the whole point is to try to get higher in Google. And so you having the Google page, having the reviews, having a YouTube video, linking that all back to your website, that's Like a great way to get up to Google, like fast up on Google. And like I said, eventually that becomes your lowest customer acquisition cost. Just having a great website that when people search for your area, it's going to pop up first. And so another part of that is like, on your website, as far as SEO, you know, I encourage people to create a blog, not because you are a great writer or anything like that, but just for keywords and mention things like lawn care and tree trimming a lot, give advice, tell people how to do things in their yard, create a blog, it's on your website. And then also in your footer and your header on your website. Make sure you have all the zip codes and city names that you service. And so the reason for that is because when Google, when someone searches Google and it's scanning through like a bazillion websites, you want to quickly find the areas that you service. Because when someone, for instance, if they use Siri, and they're like, siri, find me a lawn care service, the first thing Siri is gonna do is use Google to search where that person is and geographically, what closest lawn care services are in proximity to them. So you want it to be very clear to Google who you are servicing and what your target audience is. And the best way to do that is have your zip codes and city names in your header and your footer. And even if it's not visible on your website, as long as it's visible to Google, that's the most important thing. So those are just kind of a couple random tips, but definitely your website is something you want to invest in. It's just one of those lagging indicators that you really won't see the fruits of your labor until you're on that first page. And then really, you'll start to see it. The amazing thing about it though, Anthony, is whether it be website stuff or when it comes to numbers and financials and marketing, our industry is so behind the times. If you got your social media down and you got your website down and you got professionalism and your finances and marketing down, you have a huge upper hand. And so even getting to the first page of Google is not really that hard in our industry because 98% of the companies have no idea what they're doing.

So it's actually pretty simple. And so those are just kind of a couple random tips I guess I'd kind of throw at you.

Like you're saying. I mean, one of the main reasons why I pick lawn care in this industry is because, like, you Said most people aren't using a lot of technology we have today. So I just don't see how you can't really get an advantage.

Totally. Like the amount of companies that call me and they don't have a scheduling system or like even like expense tracking and they still send their invoices through the mail instead of email. Like, it's incredible. And so if you can become more efficient, and that's what it's all about, especially when it comes to lawn care and maintenance, is it's all about efficiency. And so whether that be creating really tight routes or whether it be having a system in place for invoicing and estimates, like all of your, like, like you mentioned earlier about creating a system and not so you have to keep working in the business and it can run itself sort of thing. Like it's all about creating those systems. It's all about creating a system for hiring people, creating a system for how you market, creating a system for how the jobs are scheduled every day, how are they invoiced, you know, when you go for an estimate, how is that then made into an email and sent out? Like, it's all about systems. And so I think, I think you have that down. And like I said, like you mentioned, there's 98% of the people in our industry are living back in the 90s as far as when it comes to technology and using technology to do all of those things, create systems, create schedules, create invoicing. It's amazing.

I'm glad that's what you mentioned first, is systems. Because most people talk about their equipment or whatever or their business name, but the fact that you're thinking more on the business aspect is what I always push people to do. Think of it as a business, not, oh, I have great equipment and a nice truck and a fancy logo and a nice website like, focus on the thing that matters and that's your numbers, your efficiency and your systems. Because like, for instance, if you wanted to sell your business, you might make two companies, might both make a million dollars in sales. The company that has systems in place and doesn't need an owner operator, it will be valued two to three times more than than the other company that makes the exact same amount of money. And so I really push people right from the get go. And a lot of people are like, well, it's only me. I'm only by myself. Why do I need to create systems and why do I need to make everything very systematized in my business? And the answer is, because what you start off if you build the foundation correctly, that's how you're gonna scale your business. And you can't scale it if it's depending on you and depending on your brain, because if something happens to you or you want to take a vacation, the business will fall apart. And that's what so many small businesses are built on is like the personality of the business owner. And so once that's taken away, or they get hurt, or something happens to them, the business falls apart. And that's the last thing you want to build. Right. It's just another job.

Anything else, Anthony? Anything else? You kind of have a top of mind.

No, I mean, the stuff I was thinking, I just. Honestly, I was just looking for confirmation that I wasn't. My head wasn't in the top. Not thinking.

You know, unrealistically. So I feel a lot better about this. I'm excited to start next month or tomorrow, actually.

Yeah. Cause like, when do you start? When do you start mowing there?

I start snowing around, so.

Oh, wow.

See how marches?

I don't know how much I'm expecting about April.

Okay.

I can start at least still clean up for something.

Yeah, Like, I'd really, I'd really, if I could give you any advice, like, one thing would be that first year. And you'll notice this, every single year going forward, you have about a three to four week window where you kind of put like 90% of your marketing effort, money, whatever, into those three or four weeks. And that's like the first, like a week or two before the grass starts growing, and then a week or two after it starts growing. That's when you want to put, like, everything in and the last thing you want to do. And this, what this happens, like, everybody. And that isn't come June, July, and they're like, man, we're having a great year. But if only. Imagine where we could be if I would have, you know, done another mailer or like, put more effort into those for like those few weeks. And so if you start, if you know that you're gonna be mowing, like March 1, like, come mid March, I'd be like, like, that's the time to put in the long hours of the evenings. Do the door knocking, do the cold calling, do the mailers, do a Facebook ad. Like, whatever it is you got to do, that's the time you want to. Like, if you can make, like, why the snow's in the ground. I'd make your website. I'd make, you know, a business card. I'd do some of the kind of uniform get some some of that stuff down don't go buy a whole bunch of equipment things like that I'd focus on getting the sales now and then just come March middle of March like 34 more weeks then go like 110% all bored in on getting those 30 clients that you want to get and because like I said you got that about three to four week window where most of your because like people get on schedule they'll get on their mowing schedule with a service and then essentially you got them the rest of the year and so of course sometimes you'll lose one or two or someone gets unsatisfied and you'll pick up a couple because they didn't like their service or whatever but like most of your sales most of that really like the big kick in your rep marketing is going to be that first few weeks there so if you're all in on it and you're really committed to it like just put everything you can in those few weeks sa.