Mike Andes shares three near-disasters from his early landscaping business: a lawsuit from an employee over a trailer ramp, accidentally spraying Roundup on a customer's plants and destroying them, and getting caught briefly in a dump truck PTO. Each story taught him something about hiring, safety, and handling chemicals.
Hey everyone, this is Mike Andes from landscapebusinesscourse.com and today we are playing a game called Two One Truth, where I'm going to share three different topics and you have to decide which one's the truth and which two are lies. So the first one is I had all my fuel workers quit on the same day. I was sued by my first non friend employee.
And three, I had a manager withdraw half the checking account while I was out of town.
The answer is I was sued by my first non friend employee. So kind of classic beginner's unluckiness, I guess. There's a bad introduction to hiring and team in general. And that was the very first person I hired that wasn't a part of my family or friends close kind of group. That first person sued me and, and they did so because they claimed that they slipped on the ramp to the trailer and they said that they got injured from it and they got surgery and they wanted to sue me for that. And then they also wanted to sue me because I fired them. And they were saying that I fired them because they got hurt and that therefore I was liable for the surgery as well as for the fact that I wasn't doing things safely in my company. And that's why l and I got involved. And then the third thing they wanted to sue me for was the fact that I fired them because they were hurt. So anyways, next one is I accidentally applied Castron instead of lime treatment to a lawn. I backed up a truck into a gazebo of a customer. And third, I sprayed Roundup on every plant on a homeowner's property. The true answer is the last one. I sprayed Roundup on someone's property. I was just starting out my lawn care business and I was using a five gallon spray tank and I was using it for spraying Roundup occasionally and spot spraying beds and things. And then someone, a customer asked like, oh, I have all these bugs in my tree. Can I get like a spray? So, oh, no problem. I went to the store, got a little like quart of fertilizer, grub control for trees, threw it in that same five gallon, you know, backpack and literally had been used for Roundup and still had some at the bottom. And I figured, you know, I'll dilute it. I'll just fill it up with a bunch of water. So I put the cord in, filled it up with water, sprayed every tree, Probably a good five to $10,000 worth of trees, probably 30 to 40 nice plants that were well established, sprayed every single one every single one either died or got speckled. So I replaced the ones that died and then I paid for an entire year for TRUGREEN to come and do a year long of applications on the trees to try to revive them back to life. Little fun fact, we still have them as a customer today.
All right, the next one is I was caught in the PTO of a dump truck. Number two, skid steer. The hydraulics on the skid steer failed and the bucket fell and nearly crushed my leg. Third one is I got a scar on my thigh from a chainsaw that went through a log and into my leg.
The true answer on that is that I got caught in the PTO of a dump truck. I was underneath trying to turn on the pto. I did turn it on on my way out. My hoodie got caught into the PTO and it wrapped up inside. It wrapped up the hood and then started tri sucking me inside. Fortunately, it ripped down the center through my shirt and my hoodie. I fell out of the pto. All I really got was lacerations. I got some scars underneath my armpit and everything. But overall I was back to work after probably a week or two. But very, very grateful we went to the hospital. They thought maybe I had a concussion or broke my neck. Fortunately I did not. But that's what happened.
Alright, next one. I went to the ER because I got sawdust in my eye. Number two roundup splashed up in my face and I had to get an eyewash. Number three is I burnt my hand with oil while changing the oil on a mower and it was still hot. The true answer is I got a piece of sawdust in my eye and I had to go to the hospital. It's kind of embarrassing when like something you could hardly see came out, but it got in behind my eye. And what's crazy is that job was my very first trimming job and I charged like $300. This is way back. And it literally was probably a $3,000 job at least. And so I got to the job, got started and realized I was way underbid and way understaffed. I was by myself. So I literally called in all my family. Literally. I had my dad driving pick up loads of debris back and forth to the dump. I had my little sister out there pulling branches and raking up stuff. It was in the middle of winter, everything was frozen solid. Which is a good time to kind of trim bushes, but not a good time for me to be working doing something. I had no idea what I was doing. And so basically I was using a chainsaw trimmer pole saw on a hedge and a little tiny speck got inside my eye. I could hard. It was brutal. Like the pain in it was just is the weirdest thing. Couldn't hardly drive. So I had my mom come pick me up and take me to the er. Very embarrassing. All right, here's some reasons that we fired somebody. Number one, climbed a 30 foot tree with a chainsaw and had no tie off, jumped into a skid steer on a snow route with no experience. Or three, didn't tie off on a four story roof while cleaning out gutters. The answer is that someone jumped into a skid steer with no experience on a snow route on. On literally their second day. Alright, so their second day of work they hopped into a skid steer. They show up on a job halfway through a big, big snowy snow plowing job and they hop into without talking to the manager, without talking to the other staff members, just hop into a loader and start plowing. And so they were fired that evening. It's valiant safety protocol. But more importantly, they never even communicate with the manager and the other employees that were on site, that were experienced and so they were let go. Alright, last one. First year in business, our main marketing method was just kind of fill in the blank. What was our main marketing method the first year? Number one, radio ads. Number two, door to door knocking. Number three, cold calling out of a phone book. The true answer is number three, we were literally going through the white pages in the phone book and the yellow pages and just cold calling people. What's cool about the phone book is, you know, their address. And so we'd be able to say we're going to be in your area and we were wondering if you'd like an estimate. Therefore we knew their address, we could confirm it with them on the phone and set up that appointment. Nowadays, probably not going to work. I almost guarantee you it's not going to work. Most people would hang up on you and a lot of people did even, you know, eight years ago. But that's how we got started. And fun fact, the person who I spoiled roundup on and is still a customer today came to us through cold calling out of a phone book. That has been Two lies One truth with Mike Andes. I'll see you on the next episode.
