I have $60,000 to turn around my LIFE and lawn care business! (Coaching Call with Mike Andes)

Mike Andes coaches Trey, who has $60,000 to invest in his lawn care business but is burned out and struggling with mental health. They discuss how to use the money for growth, hiring, and marketing instead of just surviving paycheck to paycheck.
Chapters
May tell me kind of how big it is, kind of some employees. Kind of give me some context and how you started.
It's really like just me by myself. I don't have any employees, I don't have any systems, I don't have any. I don't even really know my numbers right now. It's pretty like a disaster. You know, a lot of that is, I would say, a lack of resources. It's not an excuse. I mean, you have to gain those resources over time. But I started about three years ago.
You know, and now I'm at the point where I burnt myself out. The past few years I've dealt with some, you know.
Mental health issues and stuff like that from burning myself out, running the business and having a, you know, a daughter, you know, and I'm a single parent, so. But I want, you know, I'm very big on the business aspect and I want to grow, you know, more than just, you know, a one man team or even one team. You know, I have a lot of big goals and dreams as in, you know, with the business and real estate, all that stuff, so.
Okay, cool. Do you feel like sometimes you get frustrated because you have the big goals, but like you feel like you're not making any heads?
Yeah, that's one of the big, that's one of the biggest issues is that because I feel like I'm. I just feel like I'm different for some reason. Like I'm very big on like this kind of the same stuff you're, you're on like working out, eating clean, stuff like that. You know, a lot of people, you know, I take things very serious and I've been through a lot. I have a history. I've actually been in prison twice, you know, so I've, you know, I have a history and you know, I've changed my whole life around and became a totally different person. But that is because of the knowledge I gained from people like you, you know, from, you know, it's just you have to obtain that information. And I've grown so much mentally, spiritually and physically that I know what I can bring, what value I can bring to the world. But it's difficult when you know, with lack of resources and then, you know, your owner operator doing everything yourself. And down here it's a hundred degrees, so you're burnt out and just a lot of stuff, you know, going on that it's like. And I try my best. I mean, I'm. Some mornings I'm up five in the morning in the gym, you Know, then I go to work, I eat oatmeal, stuff like that.
So it's like actually last year I like the past few years I dealt with a lot of kind of like addiction issues and a very deep depression, honestly, just because of me and my child's mom separated and stuff like that. So that's took a toll on me because I sacrificed. I don't have a family anymore. I have issues with loneliness and stuff like that. So. But I keep pushing, that's the thing about it, you know. And like.
I just got a settlement check for a car accident stuff. So now it's like I've been at the point, but now like I'm clear headed. I want to, you know, move forward and get the ball rolling. Hardly have plans of getting the trailer done because I don't have my trailer wrapped right now. I want to get that wrapped. I want to get a website.
And I want to just, I want to dig deep into the business and learn. And the past few days I've been telling myself like.
Because I'm always, I used to work like five, six days, seven days a week and like, oh, I don't have to pay anybody. I could save money. But like the past, I'm just learning I have to leverage that. I have to learn how to leverage that and sacrifice, you know, but with my numbers, right? Like, I don't even know my numbers, but I know like I'm not making any money. Like I know I have to raise prices. There's things I know I need to do that I'm procrastinating. Like you guys say you don't do that, you have to just push forward, you know. So that's what I'm working on now. But then it's like, okay, I'm working in the field on day. I don't, you know, I don't, like I have to find somebody to try to type up the email for me to send the raise prices. And then I'm not tech savvy. So there's just so much stuff that you know, I, and I don't have any like friends because I, you know, I separated from all those people because they were, you know, not who I want to be around, you know. So it's very, you know, I would say difficult situation which I'm going to push out of regardless, you know.
Mm. Okay. And so, so right now do you kind of see it as you wanting to grow the business and not really know, having the confidence just because not knowing the numbers and things?
So like, no, it's not that. It's just I don't know where to start because I don't have any resources. Like, I don't have nobody to like, hey, you know, like, do you, like, do you have something like, you know, I feel like most successful people, everybody has that, that go to guy that they talk to or somebody, you know, that, you know, pushes them here or there. You know, I. It's like, it's very blank for me. You know what I mean?
So right now, what do you, what do you charge per hour?
Honestly, it's not really an hourly rate. Like, I, you know, the price averages from the. My minimum now is $100 a month monthly to, you know, like 200. But the thing is like, so down here in Florida, like it's April through November is weekly service, and then November through was bi weekly.
So that's like 42 cuts a year. And then like.
So some of the cuts, like if I do it by myself, it takes me like.
15 to 20 minutes, some even 10. So.
Okay, so let's see here.
At a hundred dollars a month times 12, I mean, that's like $28 a cut. At 42 cuts.
Yep. Okay.
And how many lawns do you have now?
I do a little over 50 a week. A month? Yeah, week, month.
And so are they. So basically 50 properties total, I'd imagine then right around that.
A little over. Yeah, around 50.
And you just been kind of hovering there for the past year or two.
Yeah, exactly. Off and on. Lose some gain some. Yeah. And that's what's, you know, aggravating because I want to quickly grow to like a hundred so I can bring on somebody full time, have. Because I don't have any payroll, anything. I don't even pay myself, dude, it's pretty bad right now. And I've had any. Like, it's like the lack of resources. Like I had a count and I sent her the information, but she hasn't got back. Waiting gotten back with me and you know, I've done this. I've taken days out to where I try to speak to three or four different accountants, but it's like, it's, you know, it's. I don't know, it's like you have to be in a certain point, I guess. Like a lot of people these days do not want to help you, you know, so it's difficult, you know.
So. So right now, what are you pulling per month? I would imagine somewhere around five grand a month, Six grand?
Yeah, varies. I looked at my bank statements because quickbooks is a disaster. But from J. From January 4th, it was like 34K. And a lot of that is, like, miscellaneous stuff. And I'm like, I take cash out, pay a guy. You know, a guy. You know, lately I've been paying this.
This guy. Like, last week, I paid him.
200 bucks a day just to work, but I squeezed in like two days in one, so we finished the week in three days.
But if I. If I. Okay, if I pay him, you know, just say, 24 hours a month or even more, I wouldn't make any money, so my bills wouldn't be paid. You know what I mean?
Yep. Okay, so.
Right now, how much do you think per month you need to make just to live? Like, three grand a month? Like, personally? Four grand?
Yeah.
Maybe 3,500.
Okay, so right now, why. What's kind of keeping you from the number side? Are you using a software? Using QuickBooks? How are you billing your customers?
So I build them through QuickBooks. But, like, I'm. I just don't know where to start. Like, I looked into.
Lmn and they're expensive, you know, especially for my league. You know, it's like, I don't. I. And I don't. You know, I just don't know where to start, dude. Like, I. You know, and I just don't know what to do, honestly. I mean, I want to know my numbers, but I don't know where to start.
Like, I would really recommend either Lawn Pro or Yard Book to get started with.
They're very, very simple, cheap. Very cheap to get started with, too. Yard Book is they have a free version and really, just trying to get all the customers in one place where you can email them from there, you can build them from there, you can see your reports and know your numbers a little bit more. Because really, I would like to see you more around the eight to $9,000 marker per month before you actually go hire someone.
And having that revenue is going to give you the confidence that, you know, you can afford to pay someone full time.
Because I imagine you probably need to pay someone in your market about 15, 18 bucks an hour at least. Right?
Easy.
Yeah. So, you know, I think the main thing is, honestly, your pricing is not crazy terrible if you're doing the lawns in 10 to 15 minutes. You know, if you're doing $28 per cut, like, yeah, it'd be nice if that was a little bit higher per cut, but honestly, it's not way off. It's just a matter of getting more customers. Right. So like right now, what are you doing for marketing?
Nothing. And that's, and that's the thing, you know, I was always weary of my history, you know, because I'm, you know, you know, I don't. I talked to the guy at Lawn Care Weathers, I was telling him about that. He's like, you know, there's ways to go about it, you know, the best thing you could do is just reply to it, you know. But I was always somebody, you know, look me up or something. He's like, but no, nobody would do that if you didn't give them a reason. I'm like, yeah, but that was always in the back of my head and part of the procrastination, you know. But now I'm like, screw it, you know, I'm pushing forward. So with this settlement check, I'm gonna, I'm getting the trailer done. I got this guy doing a website. You know, I want to do lawn care web design, but I mean, honestly, it's like that, that's, you know, I don't know, that's just expensive, I would say, you know.
But I feel like the value that, you know, it would bring would be better than what? Like this guy's telling me he'll build me a website and he'll, it'll be like, like 30 bucks a month just for the, you know, to be there. But he's gonna do the SEO for one, one time fee. I don't understand that. See, stuff like that, it's like the lack of resources. Like, I don't know if he's like, is he gonna bring the same value that you guys bring or is that just like, you know. And he's telling me, because the accountant gave me his information and she has, you know, I guess on the first page of Google. So I don't, I don't know, it's just all like, you know, I don't know much.
So. Yep. Yeah. Like, honestly, honestly, there's people who built big businesses without a website, right? So to think that a website is going to be the thing that launches you, like, yes, there are people that have websites and it gets all of their leads, but traditionally it's not what gets them started. Right? Like, you need the momentum and right now with your 50 lawns, I don't see any reason why you can't get to 100 lawns by doing door hangers, door knocking, talking to people. And yes, there is a level of kind of putting yourself out there a bit right. In the community. And if you do start a website but at the end of the day, it's like, look, you've changed your life. There's nothing to be ashamed of. And you're trying to do things the right way now. Right? And so, like, I don't think even any money right now in your situation. I don't know how much that settlement check really is, but the dollars spent now need to be effective. They can't be just blown. And honestly, I would probably tell you, website is not your number one priority right now. Your number one priority is just getting more customers. And if for $1,000, you could go and get a whole bunch of door hangers and yard signs and canvas the neighborhoods, knock on doors, that's what's gonna get you from 50 to 100 very quickly.
The thing out here is like, everybody's doing that. I want you said, like, okay, if you raise your prices, what's your value? That makes you be able to raise your prices or separate. So, like, the reason why I want a website is because I'm at the point I want to separate myself because a lot of people look at you, oh, this person can do the yard for this. I don't care, you know, and with me being a one man guy, I'm already, you know, at the lower totem pole because I don't have three, four guys coming out, you know, so it's. I just want to separate myself the best I can and be as professionalized as I can when I, you know, so when I pull up to the property, they know it's a business and not just a yard guy.
Yep. Do you have the capital, though, to grow? Because the reason. The reason I'm kind of wondering is because, look, if you did get a web set up and it's pumping out a bunch of leads towards you now, you're gonna have to go higher. Now if you get a truck, do you have that ready to roll? Because otherwise you're just gonna get flooded with leads.
And, you know, I have like, I have like, like 8,000 in the business, and then I have a $60,000 check.
Whoo. That kind of changes things.
Yeah, that changed my life, honestly.
So that changes everything. I was thinking a couple thousand, right? So at 60,000, this is a matter of using that money to do exactly what you want. Right. And having a plan for that. Right. So I would. 100%. I, you know, obviously I'm completely biased. I would recommend longer web design because you can afford 60,000, even if you use it for a few years, and then you went and paid someone 10,000. To build one that you owned yourself or something like that. Like, that'd be fine. But.
You do need a great website. But the matter of fact, you get with 60 grand, you can go out. You can go out and get a truck and equipment and grow very quickly using advertising. Right. Whether it be advertising on Facebook, etc. The bottom line is, I would imagine based upon what you said, you don't really know how to, like, run Facebook ads, Instagram, nothing like that.
Yeah, and I'm. And my assumption is, like, I feel like, you know, like, I love learning, dude. Like, you know, audio books, 40 laws of power, all types of stuff, you know, so, like, okay, maybe when I have that free time to dig into that stuff, I can. But at this moment, with me especially being in the field by myself every day and my daughter, it's like I have no leeway to dig into that. So, you know, I want to gain that freedom to where I can dig into that and dig into other things. But I feel like at this point, I don't know what you would think, but it's. It's a better way. Maybe I should try to sacrifice and just try to leverage it to somebody at a minimal rate or something. I'm not sure.
What do you mean? Say that. Say that part again.
Just like Facebook ads and stuff. Like, you know, all that stuff. But I think, like, certain stuff like that is simple, like Google business and taking pictures. I just have to put in a little work, take pictures and stuff like that, which I want to work on.
Yeah. Because, like, this is. I would look at, if I was you, I would look at. Because, like, right now I fear that if you went and spent a whole bunch on. Even if you knew how to do Facebook ads and you knew how to do Google Ads, I would fear that you'd spend that money, get a bunch of leads, and then you're going to do unprofitable work, and it's going to be gross to the point that you hire the wrong people, et cetera, et cetera. Um, what I would look at if I was you, instead of looking at marketing as the way that you're going to grow in terms of ads right. Online, if you went and built a website, it's going to separate you from everyone else. Create an actual brand. Like, what's the name of your company?
All Pro Landscaping.
All Pro Landscaping. Right. Do you have a logo?
Yes.
Cool. Do you. There's not a website, is there? Or do you have, like a Facebook page or anything?
No.
Okay, so, you know, create you know, you have the logo, Great, get a great website. And then I would invest in the fact that you're gonna go hire someone far before you even need them. Like right now you don't need a full time person, you don't have enough work. But if you went and hired somebody that was really good, you paid them 18 bucks an hour, whatever it might be, and they were you in the truck and Instead of taking eight, 10 hours to get your job done, you got done four or five or six. But in the next three hours, both of you were doing door hangers, you were out talking to people, you're out getting more customers. But now when they get that door hanger, they're going onto your website and like, oh, like this is a professional company.
Exactly.
That's what's gonna separate you from everyone else. I feel like that would be more sustainable than just you throwing gobs of money at Facebook and Google, getting a whole bunch of leads. Because in this regard, you're going to have sustained growth in the market that you want because you got to determine where the door hangers go, right? The 60 grand on between a website, buying a setup, hiring somebody and advertising is gone, right? How we spend that is whether or not we're going to be able to turn the business from 50 lawns and 60, 70 grand a year in revenue to easily get that past quarter million. It's a matter of where we spend that money, right? So like when we start an Augusta lawn care franchise from scratch, like zero, we spend 90 to 95,000, and that's including two trucks, a trailer, $20,000 in marketing, a general manager, a couple employees, right from day one. So you already have a big leg up having 50 customers, your own equipment. There's just no reason why with 60,000, you can't really, really improve, you know, change, change your life like you said, and change the business dramatically.
So if I was you though, I would look at investing that money as hiring someone before you really need to, knowing that's going to give you the time. Because right now you're working fingers to the bone every day anyways. That's going to give you time to actually go grow the business.
Got it.
And in doing so, you learn. You learn. Okay, I'm. While I'm out working, I'm going to listen to a podcast about creating Facebook ads. I'm going to watch, you know, videos on creating Facebook ads. It's not rocket science, it's very simple. Same thing with Google, right? They made it very easy to run ads. It's a matter of literally you following along with a YouTube video and you're fine. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is it worth paying someone a thousand dollars a month to do it for you? No.
And that's like one thing. Like you said, you're like, you're worried, okay, I'm going to take on a lot of.
Low, low, profitable work. And that's the thing, like, I'm not about, because for years I've done that. You know, I'm still doing that. You know, I want to get into the more higher end, high profitable, long care, you know, and.
And, you know, cleanups and stuff like that as well.
And that's what your website will do. It will give you that latitude to move into more services. Because right now, you are the lawn care mowing guy. When you create a website where every single time they come to your website or they see your card or your flyer, whatever it might be, they're seeing all these other services. Now you're putting them inside of a software like Yardbook or Lawn Pro, and you email all of them and tell them, you know, when it comes fall season, you're saying, hey, we're doing leaf cleanup season. Oh, now it's spring on the new. I'm doing mulch installs. So it's a way to be able to keep in contact with all of them. Because right now, if you talk to those 50 mowing customers you currently have, I guarantee you some of them have other contractors coming on their property doing work you could be doing.
Yeah, exactly. I have a customer who had some sod laid down. The yard was already graded. They just put side down, like, okay. And she was, she was already talking to me about it. And then. And that's where I feel like the, the branding or the, you know, I feel like it's like she doesn't respect, you know, or doesn't trust what I can bring to the table. You know, I could have done that with my eyes closed and did a better job than what they did, honestly, you know.
So in that regard, knowing that you have that money set aside, I think you're on the right track getting a website to separate yourself. And then the next step, really, though, Trey, is getting an employee. So that way, instead of you getting home and crashing, you spend an extra 15 minutes putting the data into Lawn Pro and into Yard Book, whatever software you choose. Because that's really how you're going to scale the business. Like, that's why I'm worried about saying, oh, like, let's just Go do a bunch of ads, you're going to get a bunch of customers, and it's just going to lead to more disaster and more chaos because now you're just juggling more things in your brain. Right now you're handling 50 million customers in your head.
And go ahead.
What, what, what's, what's, what's different from.
QuickBooks to YardBook or Lawn Pro?
Yeah. The difference is that inside Lawn Pro Yard Book, you're going to be able to keep track of the customers, have their notes, but furthermore, route them, put them on a schedule. You know, make sure that they're an optimized route throughout the day. So it's not like you're just driving all over the place. You're going to be able to keep notes for every visit. So when you show up to the property, it shows the notes for that visit. So if you have an employee, they can just read the notes of what specifically supposed to go on. Again, all that information's in your head and is in the software. And that's what I'm concerned is just adding more customers. Yes. I've said sales fixes a lot of things, and it's true. But if you just dump a bunch more customers on you right now, you're going to be stressed out of your brains because you're keeping everything in your head. You've got to get that in the software so that as the business scales and you add an employee, they can show up to Mr. Jones house and know exactly how that lawn's supposed to be mowed. You based upon the notes, not because Trey talked to them and showed them how to do it.
Got it. Yeah.
So like right now you can kind of floating around that, you know, 50, 50 customer marker. Have you ever done any sort of like, nothing like door hangers, Nothing like that, really. Just kind of word of mouth, people getting to know you. Yeah, got it.
Okay. Yeah. So, like, you know, in my mind, I really think, you know, you have a good amount of money to change the business, like, incredibly. Right. I think the website, 100%. You're right on, you know, doing door hangers, flyers, all of the rest of it. But the big thing is you're going to use the money. Like I said, go hire someone before you need them. Right. Know that. Okay, I'm going to spend, let's say, let's just say $3,000 a month. I'm going to spend on employee wages. Well, if I do that for 10 months, that's $30,000, which basically means I'm Going to invest half that money in my mind, which I know they're going to bring in revenue. So it's going to cover some of that and most of it more, hopefully more than that. But I'm going in my mind, say $30,000 is just that employee. Now I'm working with 30. Okay, well, what do I need to do at 30? Well, I'm going to get a website done. I'm going to get a lot of door hangers, yard signs, I'm going to use my logo. And now when people go to those places and go to my website, they're going to see I offer a whole bunch of other services. I'm going to allow because of me having an employee, it's going to allow me the time to get all my customer data into yard book, into Lawn Pro. Whatever one you choose, like flip a coin, doesn't matter either one. Right. Get it and get your customers in that software. And now every month, send them an email. I'm doing mulch installs this month. Respond back, you know, give me a call. Email us back if you'd like. If you'd like an estimate for most install, emails back if you have saw it install needs every single time, you're going to get two, three, four estimates. Spring cleanup, fall cleanup, that's all money in the bank and that's where the profit is right now. Mowing is great, but if you can upsell a customer you've already sold, you don't have to pay any customer acquisition cost and upsell them a mult install that you're 50% profitable on. That's the money.
Yeah. Now, what do you like with payroll and all that stuff? Because I mean, honestly, dude, down here, like half the employees, even for the bigger companies, you know, I mean, we're in Florida, so.
Half the employees are like, you know, not really on the books, I shall say, or whatever, you know, I mean. And that's it. I mean, those are the good workers, though. So.
It'S hard to work around that. But even payroll for myself, like I said, I sent this accountant information. I still haven't heard from her. It's like, you know, how would you try to go and go in that direction towards like getting that situated?
Couple things.
Everything legit, where I'm paying myself and all that, you know.
Yep. So first thing is, don't ever think that like an accountant, for example, is going to change the business that thing. That means that we need their help. Right. We just have to. The problem is today is tax day and they're probably even smashed the past four to six weeks. Right.
That's why I haven't bothered her.
Yeah. And like, you know, you know, when you're small, like, they, you know, we're a small fish in their pond. Right. And so it's a matter of, well, let's fix that. Let's go. Let's get bigger. Right. At the end of the day, if you started having two or three, four employees, and she was running payroll for you every couple weeks, and you became a client that was paying her a few thousand dollars a year, she might move some things around for us. Right.
But, like, for somebody like yourself, I know you use gusto, and you probably like, mean stuff like that. Like, should I pay that or should I just go to gusto where I can do. I just have to figure out how to do it. But like you said, maybe it's best for me to just leverage it right now or try to, you know, have somebody else do it with everything I have going on.
Gusto is a great option, though, right? Because, like, literally, from day one, you're gonna be paying, what, 15, 20 bucks a month to pay, run payroll. And it's extremely easy, though. You can get on the phone with them and they'll walk you through the whole process. Right. I like that. Take it into your own. Like, don't wait for other people when you're small. Like, when you want to grow and you have the money to grow, like, do it just like you're going to go hire someone. So that way, when you come home, you have that extra hour to work on the business, putting stuff into lawn pro, marking things as complete invoicing, sending out estimates or emails to your customers, offering more services, you know, doing exact. Running payroll. Right.
And again, when you get to the point when you start getting all these customers, you're raised prices because you're, like, the reason you're not raising prices right now is because, hey, I don't know if I can replace them. I don't know if I can go get 5 or 10 more. If a 5 or 10 lead.
You fix that to where you're so confident in that lead flow, and there's no problem with you raising prices. You do it.
Yeah, that's what I want to do, because I'm already at the point, like, I already have it, like, in my head, everybody's getting price raised, especially with inflation, everything going on, because, like, some of the money, like, I want to, you know, try to do stocks, I don't know, but I definitely want to Raise prices. But like you said, you want to have those leads coming in or, you know, and that's what I want. I want to get the phone ringing or customers are calling, you know, and I can, you know, work and just try to gain more customers at the same time. And you know, like you said, and I know, like the trailer wrap and the website is the biggest thing right now, then I'm bringing on an employee. So, like, but with, like I said, with employees, how.
Do you find someone that's legal, but, you know, you can't find anyone that's legal.
Yeah, yeah.
So this is a matter. This is the thing. Like, you know, do I think that's right? No. Until I go higher. The bottom line is right now we gotta get started. We know the end goal. Like if in your mind, like, hey, I want to run our legit business.
Yeah.
I want to pay my taxes, I want my employees to pay taxes, and I want to be this legit. Great. That's where we're going to right now. We need to go get somebody. We need to go find someone on Craigslist. We need to go find someone across the street. Do whatever. Let's roll. Make sure you're insured and know that the end goal, like, once I get the job, I'm going, like, even if it's a, hey, look, I'm going to get one person. They're just going to help me out. But then when I start getting second, third employee, I'm running payroll. These people have got to be legit. And that's going to mean that I have to pay them 2, 3, 4 more dollars per hour. But I should be able to afford that if I just raise my prices. So it's like, hey, I'm going to get someone now so I can really spend some time getting stuff into the new CRM. I can focus on getting door hangers out. I can focus on getting more customers. Because when you start doing that, you're going to have to do estimates now, right? You're going to spend some time doing estimates, and I'm going to do that now. And then by the time I want this person full time or by the time I get my second employee, I'm going to raise my prices and the next day everyone's going to be in payroll and I run this thing legit. That's. I'd be okay with that. Because most people, they, in their minds, like, oh, I can't find anyone that's legal. I want to run a legal business. So what do they do? Nothing.
And that's how I've been, you know, and lately, like I said, I've been having a guy helping me pay him 200 bucks a day. But you know, so I see what you're saying. I understand from that perspective and that because like me, I've always tried to do it right since I started, I've been licensed and insured. I've always done things the right way and, and I take to heart what you say. Like when you say, you know, you want, you know, I've listened to what you say.
And at the end of the day, again, that's something that's gonna separate you from everyone else. When you can put on your papers that everyone is licensed, insured and your employees are all legal, that's a huge selling point. Right. The bottom line is like right now the guy you have now is a short term solution. And you gotta use that to be able to grow to the point where you have confidence to go raise your prices knowing that if you lose five or ten people, no problem, I'm gonna fill it up in a week. Right now we just don't have that confidence. But if you did that, you'd be able to afford the fact that you gotta pay someone now 20 or 22 instead of 17 or 18 cash.
Yeah, because I mean, this guy paid 200 bucks a day. He's like a machine, he does whatever. I mean he's like, you know, right hand man. I mean even though, you know, it's just like it's. I always try to, like if I bring him on, I'll try to do lawns and squeeze in a side job, you know, at least, you know, I don't like taking side jobs unless it's like 500 bucks. Because, you know, at least, you know, because that's another thing is pricing, you know.
So when you look at an estimate right now, how do you price it? Like for, let's say cleanup.
So cleanup. Like I did an estimate or I actually did it per man hour. So I'm estimating how many hours it's going to take and I'm looking at it. It's $60 per man hour. So if me and the guy are there for an hour.
20 bucks. So we were there for.
Four hours and it was, the job was five.
But we didn't start the job until like 3:30 in the afternoon. So we mow lawns all before that, you know, so like we're quick on the lawns. It's just the route density out here is very not, you know, I'M not route dense at all. I go from, you know, this side of town always. I go like a lot of miles, you know, which I'm. I'm just doing what I got to do right now until I can squeeze in and break down what I would need to do, you know?
Mm. Yeah. So, like, that's why partly, like, I think, you know, the door hanger strategy is because this is the thing. When you get a wrapped trailer like you're doing right now, the people that's going to impact the most is the neighbors of your existing customers, because they're gonna now see what you are. You. You parlay that with a door hanger on their. On their front door. And when they go to follow your web, see your website, it looks really, really good. That's when you start getting route density. And it may be not necessarily in between customers. But now instead of parking your truck and doing one house, you park your truck and do their house and the three other houses next door.
Yeah, and that's what, like, they already know that's what they're looking for. Cause my quality is top of the line. I'll take the extra 2, 3 minutes to give the customer that quality. On my card, it says the difference is in the details, you know, So I take pride. I have a passion for the industry and what I do.
So that, that's, you know, that's very. I already know that's what a lot of people are looking for. The only thing is, like, and I don't really care because I'm not gonna go down. A lot of guys, you know, they're just doing it to get by or, you know, they're comfortable, like charging this rate or that they don't. You know, I'm trying to dig deep into it, to the business perspective to build a brand. So, you know, you know, and I feel like down here, you have to get there to get into commercial, which that could happen over time, you know, because, you know, I worked for, you know, $15 million commercial firm and stuff like that, but which is way less profitable than probably you guys, you know, but he's not in the field, you know, and. But it's just difficult. Everybody cuts grass every price. Like sometimes I'll be like, man, I over quoted this guy on. On a monthly service, maybe 10, 20 bucks. And they want to save that 10, 20 bucks and go with this guy. And it's like, you know, so it's like I contradict myself. I'm like, oh, should I just went, you know, you know what I mean, but I'm learning now to just, you know, I get my price and my price is my price, you know?
Yeah. And just realize that like, you know, the reason they're gonna pay that higher price is because you do actually care. Right. Like most people don't. They just want the money and they want to bounce. Like if you actually care, there's value to that. And the way you take care of the customer. The bottom line is right now if someone, if one of your customers wants to refer you or talk about you, they have a tough, tough time telling anyone how to get ahold of you. Besides, unless they know your number. Yeah, right. There's not like, oh yeah, just go, just go check out his website, you know, all pro landscaping, whatever. You know, go check them out online. They can't do that. Right. There's the neighbors don't know who mows your customers lawns right now. They just see a truck pull up every week and guys hop out and mow the lawn.
So a brand, a brand carries like there's a long term play with branding.
Right.
It's not like you get a brand like tomorrow you're getting a bunch of leads. A brand is where I get leads natively without having to spend ad advertising dollars, without having to do door hangers, without doing anything like that. A brand just attracts clients. What's going to get me there though is getting some penetration when it comes to marketing. Right. Getting where I have three or four customers in the neighborhood and they see my truck all over, that's going to get me branding. That's going to get awareness in that area. Right. And then it needs to be that when they see your truck and they go online, it does look good. And they like, oh, I don't need mowing, but I do need multiple services and they offer that. And you're going to take the same customer right now that's paying $1,200 per year for mowing. They're going to do a fall cleanup and a spring cleanup and now that 1200 customer becomes 2000.
You could take the existing 50 customers you have, raise prices and add services and easily, easily double your the amount of revenue you're making.
Without getting a single new one.
I really want to like, how would you say to figure out my numbers? Because I feel like if, like, say like right now my 50 customers, like I brought on a guy or two or, and I tried to put them in the field and I stayed, I wouldn't make any money. You know, I guess that's just Part of being in that stage.
Well, right now it looks like you're doing about 5,6000amonth in revenue, give or take based upon the month. Am I right, do you think on that, just guessing off the top of your head?
Well, I know one month was five, one month was eight, one month was nine, but a lot of that, all that's coming right back out. I'm spending a lot of money, dude. I mean I spend a lot of money just on food. I'm very big, I'm very picky. Like I eat like, like crazy. I've been trying to slow down.
Well, because right now the money you need personally is $3,500 a month. Let's round that up to 4,000. Let's assume you get really picky on your feed. So the problem is right now you need 70% margins on your business just to get your personal life passed like through. Right. What that means is the business could be doing very well, doing 50, 60% profit margins, but it's just not big enough to accommodate your personal needs. Financially. What we need to do is focus on growing the business.
As long as you can grow that business without having to raise your personal expenses, you're good. Right now though, your personal expenses are literally 60 to 70% of the revenue of the business. Yeah, of course it's going to take most of the revenue needs to go to your person just to get personal expenses paid for. And of course, yeah, you can't afford an employee right now if the business doesn't grow.
I see. So just keep. I see. Because like I'm like, like you know, with the growth stages, that's when you sacrifice less margin. So then it's like more difficult to pay the personal because you got to sacrifice less margins to get into that growth stage. But I guess what you're saying is that's what you have to do. You know, you have to tighten down on budget and stuff like that.
Think about like this. So if I right now, without buying any more trucks, you keeping that same truck and trailer, you out and got a full time employee and pay them $3,000 a month. There's no reason that between you and the other guy, you can't do $15,000 a month in revenue. No reason why, especially if you're charging $60 per hour. The math on that works out every day of the week. You can easily 15,000amonth in revenue. Let's say though now we got to take away his wages, right? So now we went from 15,000 down to 12,000. Well let's assume that we run at 50% margin instead of the 70% margin that we're running at now. We're at 50% because maybe we drive more or we gotta ensure, get some more insurance, get some uniforms, whatever might be. We're still at $6,000 net profit a month against our $4,000 personally that we need, right? Growth is where like you're, you're next. The employee that sticks with you right now is gonna be the most efficient because you don't have to go get another truck, you only need more storage, you don't have to get more insurance. They're just sitting with you in the truck doubling almost your production every day, right? You by yourself could easily do four, five, six thousand dollars a month in, in production with another employee, you should easily be only 12 to 15.
And by having that employee now, you're going to go home, you're going to have an extra 20, 30 minutes to spend putting that data into your CRM. And now when you do your route the next day, you're not going to waste 10 minutes driving around the block because you have the addresses, everything's routed and optimized correctly. You have job notes in there and you're not going to be worrying about customers because you're going to email them all when you get slow and ask them for services.
So like, how, how do you think I should try to figure out my numbers? Like you think I should? Like, because like, I mean, I know somebody like you. You guys have everything down pat to where you know exactly what's going on. Like me, I don't, like, I'll do it in my head or write it down like, okay, I charge this customer. Like how we just did it.
That's the problem. It's either in your head on a piece of paper, it has to get in the software.
But in the software will I be able to see like per, like per customer, what, what the numbers are on the. Because I thought that was only lmn, you know, that's why I was looking.
No, and honestly, 95% of the reports in LMN or service, autopilot or real green and even yard book are not what. You are going to be the key drivers of the business right now. I need you to know revenue, I need to know profit margin. I need no dollars per hour on the job site. I need no percentage of my revenue that's being wasted in drive time. Those are the numbers you need to know.
And figuring that out is just looking at everything and taking time to Actually, I guess.
Like the drive time, like, okay, if I say this property took 10 minutes, what I like, write down 10 minutes drive time for that property or all that.
Some of it's pretty simple. So, for example, let's say we work 10 hours in a day and then we look at our software and it calculates all the budget hours and all our jobs was equal to about eight hours. Right. Actual budget hours on the job site. Right. Eight hours worth of budget hours. All of our modes combined, like half an hour here, 45 minutes here, et cetera. And that was eight budget hours that we completed. What that assumes.
Excuse me, is that we have a 20% waste factor. We had to clock in for 10 hours and we only got eight hours worth of work. 20% was waste, drive time, unload time, gas, et cetera. Then it's a matter of like, well, okay, great. That's all I need to know yesterday is I got budget hours versus clocked hours. There's my. I got 20% waste. Well, if I look at another route and I have 40% waste, maybe I need to think about raising my prices so I get more budget hours in the job. Or maybe I have mass amounts of drive time and I need to consider losing some of those customers because I'm spending so much windshield time.
So a lot of these numbers, though, come from having the data organized in a CRM to be able to look at your revenues month over month and know exactly what they're doing. To be able to know, okay, well, last year and the year before that, in the month of November, I made X amount. I expect that's going to be going up based upon this. I can see it on my graphs. Don't overcomplicate numbers. We need to know our revenue. We don't know what we're doing with revenue. We don't know what we're dealing with. When we look at $200 per day, we're giving that person, we don't know what our end result. Like right now, if you go out for a day, how much do you think you make in revenue with the two of you working?
Like, dude.
Like right here, he did 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 properties. And I would average those to be like 1:1, because all these are over 100. They're like 120, 130, 140. So I would. They're like 125.
Do you think maybe like, let's assume like $40 cut, you think? No, 35 okay, so let's do 35. So we do 35 times 18.
Grab my calculator. So don't mess it up.
35 by 18. So we did $630 in revenue. Right. And let's assume that we pay you 200 and him 200. Okay. So the wages on this job are going to be $400. Okay. So if we $400, which is our wages and we divide that by 630.
I mean that 63% of our revenue is going to wages. That's too high. We want that between like 40 is where I want that to be, or below. But even if I get it under 50, that would be a good thing, right? I would imagine a lot of that is caused.
By drive time. Yeah, you probably have inefficient route. That being said, when you start selling more customers, that 63% can dramatically decrease because one, you get the jobs done faster, that is reducing your labor cost. Or two, you increase the amount of revenue you do in the same amount, exact amount of time, which again is going to bring that percentage down. So a lot of the numbers. Knowing your numbers cost comes down to one thing, like knowing how much revenue you made yesterday. Right. And that's a little more difficult because you're doing monthly contracts, but still being able to look at a month and say, Okay, I made $6,500 in revenue. I had to pay X amount in payroll. All of those things need to be the num. Those numbers need to be there. Those are data points for all the other numbers we have to talk about.
Right. So focus more on the data points right now. How much do you spend in labor? How much do you get in labor? In wages? I'm sorry, how much did you earn in revenue? How much you spend for labor or wages? Those are the input data points we need for all the other numbers. If we don't have those, there's really no, there's. There's nothing else. You know, having fancy graphs and LMN isn't going to do you any good.
Let me know whenever you gotta go, man, because I know you're stuff.
It's okay. I got. I got two more minutes for. I got my. My next call. So you're good.
Like the personal life, like, because like I burnt myself out the past few years and it's like my daughter and stuff. Like how, like. Because I. It seems I know you work, but it's like you like, like especially with the past addiction diction issues and stuff, I try not to do certain things because at least other things and stuff, but like I, I'm, I'm learning like even recently, like I have to kind of live and you know, and still enjoy my life and not try to, oh, I can't spend money here, I can't go enjoy, you know, even I don't have no friends, so I don't really do much. Like I played poker last night at the dog track, gambled, you know, and just certain stuff. Do you feel like that's okay? Because I feel like from listening to you guys and certain people, it's like that will deter my success. But then it's like starting somebody else. Like you gotta, you gotta live your life as well as business because if you don't live your life, you're basically dead. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Only you can determine what that balance is and what you need to be happy. If you need to go do that to be happy. Anyone telling you otherwise is only going to make you very miserable. Right. The bottom line is you might have to sacrifice some things in the short term if you want those other things in the long term you might have to know, give up some evenings, weekends, you know, little things that you want to spend money on for the short term so that in the long term you can have those things forever.
Well, that's the thing. I've been doing that for years. I've worked seven days a week for three, four months straight last year and all it did was turn me out.
You know, we've been playing defense, we've been having you work all day long without growing the business.
Yeah, I got you.
Now the 60 grand is your permission to go on the offense.
Got you.
I'd stay away from gambling. Like a ten foot pole with $60,000 in your pocket. You got it. You got to take this money. Like this is money that will triple or quadruple this business. No doubt. There's no reason to get to Pass go under 20, $30,000 a month in revenue. With that kind of money behind you, none. A website is going to cost you. What? No. Even if you did long care web design, which I know is expensive compared to other people, $400 a month, like that's where from $6,000 in a few months of that we're down to 58,000. Right. Like that you have a lot of money to really turn the business around and go on the offensive. The reason we have it in the past is because you've been sucking the business dry. Because personally you need the money. Not to say that you've been even spending it badly. $4,000 is not like you're spending lavishly. It's a matter of the fact that you need to live and you got to provide for your daughter. Now you have the opportunity to go on the massive offensive, grow top line revenue, and then actually be able to have some difference between what you need for the. For personally and where the business is making.
Got it. And then I got a Ford F150 long bed. I pay 500 bucks a month. And I always, I'm always taking stuff. A lot of guys don't do this, but I always pick up the breeze, tree branches and stuff. So I'm always loading my truck up. I'm at the point where I want to try to get a zuzu for like maybe 35, 40 if I could keep the payment the same or maybe 100 bucks more. Do you think that is because we're always. I'm always unloading the bed of the truck because it's my only vehicle to go home. You know, I'm putting in my dump trucks. I have a dump trailer too. So do you think it's a good idea to try to maybe work on that? Especially with the money that I have? Because. To be maybe more efficient or maybe just take it, take it one day at a time.
I. If I was you, I did this, I would focus, number one on getting more customers. Number two on an employee, on your second employee. That's when I go get another truck. Because there's always gonna be other trucks. Getting another truck. You got 60 grand, get a truck tomorrow. You know what you can't go get tomorrow is great customers, great employee. Those are the harder things. Most people, 60 grand, what do they do? They go buy another truck. Why? It's easy, right? It's a lot harder to go build a website, get your logo, create a brand, get customers, get. Go get an employee. And then like, oh, now I need a truck. And guess what? You'll get one tomorrow. Go overpay by two or three grand so you can get one right now.
Yeah. So, okay, so this guy, he sent him, like the guy who's doing the website, he sent me these things, but it's like, it's not what I want, you know, I.
And he made a domain for me. How does that work? Like, say I wanted. Because I'm. I don't know what to do, dude. Like, I don't want to diss the guy, but it's like, I need. I like, you know, I'm very picky on stuff and I want to stand out, so. So, you know, especially talking to you, I'm probably gonna end up going with you guys.
This is the thing. If you used us for a year or two and you wanna go do your own thing, just go do it. I don't care if you use us or him or whoever. You gotta realize, though, that right now, if creating a website's gonna separate you from the pack and allow you to spend significant amount more money, we should not be coughing over $400 a month. You. For an entire year. It's $4,800. Right? That's a lot of money. But in that year, we can completely change this business. You have $60,000? Yeah, man.
This is life changing, dude.
So we got to be smart about it, though, because you could blow 30 of that tomorrow on a nice, easy truck.
No.
Guess what?
No.
I'm just saying it's possible, right? We're not going to, but it's possible. That's not gonna move the business forward. What's gonna move the business forward is you figure out systems. And the way that's gonna happen is by giving you some more time on your hands to do that, and that's gonna come about by having an employee.
So with all this information, you're telling me, like, I can't talk to somebody like you every day. So how do you feel like, to be able to try to gain insight or perspectives? Because, like I said, I have nobody to talk to, and I don't. I mean, I just can't do everything myself. I have to have somebody to talk to, like a friend, a business. You know what I mean? Like, how do you feel?
Like.
Because I'm trying. I want to. Like. And I got my. My buddy, he's a realtor. He said he'll help me with budgeting and stuff. So I don't know, man. I'm just lost.
But this is the thing. This is the thing with the beautiful thing with the Internet. You don't need. You don't need to talk to other people. I don't know anyone in my family that's a millionaire. I never had a mentor. Don't. I never talked to a business owner. That is. You're a genius. No.
Like, that all came from listening. It's plugging yourself in all day long. Instead of listening to the radio or music, you're listening to podcasts. You listen to books. You're learning about Facebook ads.
I didn't know how to run Facebook ads. I dedicated four months to learning how to run Facebook ads. You can do that. You don't need someone to do that for you.
Now. Like, do you like when you. I know you got to go. Sorry.
Like at like, do you have a cutoff time at night when you kind of just unwind and relax? I know it's kind of personal, but I personally don't. Seems like you're like a machine, dude. Like you never stop. And I mean, I know it's like because you're, you're always progressing is like, that's what keeps you going, you know, Which I want the kind of state I want to be in.
You know?
Know what I mean? But I feel like I try to do so much, especially with all the work, but I guess that I just, you know, I. At night it's like I want to do something, but it's like I can't. You know.
Just the thing is like, you're not me and I'm not you. Right? Like, you got to do what's right for you. If you try to be me, you're going to mess up. You're going to burn yourself out, right? If I try to be you, I'm going to mess up. I'm going to burn out. You can't compare yourself to me or anybody else. That's the advantage of not having someone that you do emulate like a mentor is you don't think, you don't take everything they say as gospel truth. Because not for you. For you it's different. You might need to have a time that you say, hey, I'm done. My brother literally blood related to me, he has to have a certain time. He cuts off and he's no more work. Right. For me, I would die. Right. I want to work like that. I want to have the drive and I want to keep going and building and growing and there's. There's time. I burned myself out last weekend, man, I burnt myself. I got cold sores the whole night. Had to be. And I stepped back. It's just being self aware. Like, look, there's gonna be times you're gonna work 8,800 hours in a week and be like, let's go, I can keep doing this. There's gonna be times you work 40 or 50 and you're like, I'm drained. Just don't beat yourself up. You're just trying to do the best you can. Yeah. And especially everything you've gone through. There is no, like, you're doing a bad job. Like, my goodness, you're a parent, you're a business owner. Like, you completely turn Your life around, like there is no comparison. So the fact that you have $60,000 to turn your business around in that year, year and a half to learn from podcasts and Audible books, like you have the money, go spend $500 and buy 80, 90, 100 Audible programs that are going to keep you for the entire year that you can listen to out in the field, that will change your life.
Well, no, I do that all the time. I already have like 30 books on. I mean, I'm very spiritual and stuff like that. I'm, you know, self improvement. So I'm, I'm big on that. That's all I do. I try to balance it a little bit. Listen music sometimes, but I'm always learning YouTube. I mean, I listen to Keith, Brian, all those guys.
Now the thing is you have the 60,000 to go implement some stuff, right? You've heard about building website for. You've heard about wrapping your truck, you've heard about making uniforms, creating a brand. You have $60,000. Like, we have franchisees that with less than 20,000 are like, he started in February, he had 20. He's already doing 15, $16,000 a month in revenue. Didn't have a lot of money like you have. You now have the money to go on the offensive. So it's a matter of, hey, I got a plan. I know what I'm going to do and just execute now. Yeah, give me one second.
Sorry.
Yeah, man. Yeah, I appreciate it a lot. Dude, this is a big help, man.
I mean, that's pretty much it, I think.
Just the website, the trailer, and just like you say, go offense and that's what I've been doing. You know, I've been waiting on this guy with the website, but I'm at the point now where I'm. Because I know it's going to take a couple weeks with you guys, but I'm ready to push, man. I'm ready to push and get into that stage. You know, I want to, you know, get out of the field and start maneuvering and do more.
So. So do you have a paper and pen with you?
Yes.
Let's figure out how you're going to spend the 60, because we need to have a plan for that. All right, so let's assume right off the bat that whether you use us or someone else, that we're going to spend $5,000 for the mark for the website, right? Whether you go build it or whether we do it doesn't matter. Let's just assume $5,000 just for the sake of Writing it down. Then we got to go and do a bunch of print marketing, right? Let's assume we got to go, we're going to go spend like, we're going to go high. Let's do 1500. I don't think you're going to need 1500, but say we do 1500 on print marketing. Okay, so this is going to be door hangers, yard signs, business cards. You're going to actually become, you know, looking professional.
I already have fast signs. I already have fast signs. Like they already, they already sent me the drafts of it. So my trailer is going to look beautiful. I already have it. The only thing I'm waiting for is that website. So all that can connect.
How much is the trailer app?
Like 3500.
And then what color is your truck painted right now?
Maybe 4,000. 4,000 for the trailer. The truck I'm not gonna paint because it's, I use it for business and to go home and stuff. And I live in apartments, so I don't want to deal with that headache.
Gotcha. Okay, so you got the trailer app, we got print marketing, we got the website. All right, so now we are going to go hire an employee, and let's go ahead and assume that 100% of their wages is gonna come out of the 60 grand. Obviously, they're going to earn money, and that's not going to be the case. But for the sake of being super conservative, let's assume that for the next 10 months, we're paying someone three grand a month, and that's $30,000. So literally $30,000 we're going to go spend on an employee. And again, by having them, they should be able to make more money for us. But let's just assume they're 100% cost. Okay, we still got, we still got 20,000 left. So now it's a matter of, okay, I have got a full time employee. I'm starting to do marketing. I have my website up now. What's happening is I got a bunch of customers that are coming in. I've got to go get another truck set up. That's where we're going to spend the next 20 grand on, in the whole other truck, et cetera. Go ahead.
I'm going to, I'm probably going to buy my dad's old truck. He has like a 2002 Chevy. But I mean, I can give him, I can give him like a thousand bucks for it. And, you know, worst case scenario, I put a brand new motor in it for 3,000. It's still gonna, you know, so I'm gonna probably do that and just paint it. I told him I was not gonna do it. It's still sitting in the yard.
So that's probably, let's say, let's say by the time we get it, we put a new motor and we paint it, we're looking at 10 grand. Let's just round up, right, let's say 10 grand, probably not even half that. But let's just assume by the time we get it, put a motor in it, paint the thing, we're looking at 10 grand. We still got another 10 grand for equipment that is going to come in the form of mower, your trimmers, your blowers, and everything you need for a second setup. And that's going to be when you get a second employee. We're not talking about a business that has you two employees, two trucks, two trailers and you're off to the races. That is a business that can easily be 20 to 30,000amonth in revenue.
Yeah, see, I was thinking, I was looking at it from the perspective is like I get a guy with me or two with me and I try to max that. But you're saying once you get, you're.
Saying once you get a full time employee, you go to website and all the print marketing, within three months, you're going to need another truck. Like you're going to be maxed out. You're not going to reach all your houses. You're going to be at 80, 90 mowing customers by the end of the summer.
Okay.
That would be natural demand. Don't plan on like, oh, I've got to go buy a truck at a certain time. Well, no, I'm just money dry. We're keeping the powder dry so that when that time comes, we have the money.
Yeah. I'm just thinking, because I'm the only thing is I want to make sure that first truck is profitable. You know what I mean? Especially like you said with the 60% on that, on this, this route. I told you, you, that's not, that's not, there's no second truck with that. So, you know, so once I get to that 80, 90, make sure it's profitable first too.
Right. That being said, every single mowing customer you get from now on is going to be within that same radius that you're currently operating in. And if you went from 40, 50 mowing customers to 100, you're driving half the amount of time between every single property now because you're not going to drive further now to, to get more they're already inside your territory. You're just passing them right now.
Well, yeah, I go through the whole county, so it's anywhere is my radius pretty much, you know.
So anywhere where you get customers is not any more windshield time. You're already driving past their house.
Yeah.
Just by adding more customers, you're, you're how much drive time you have. A route's going to decrease because now you have more properties on that route. Instead of driving 20 miles, you're going to drive five or six and get the same amount of properties done.
Yeah, yeah. And I wrote this down. I got a whole page of what I was going to do with that money to the same way you had it.
So.
I appreciate it, man. I appreciate the help a lot, dude.
You got it. So you know, whether you use us or not for the website, don't care. It needs to happen though and it needs to be then. Right. Followed up with a really good print marking strategy. Doing door hangers and then learning while you're outside how to run Facebook ad. In Google Ads, not rocket science. You watch a YouTube video. Once you have a website that you can drive traffic to and know that it's going to look good and people are going to think you're a professional. Once that's there, trust me, you go on how to create a Facebook ad. Look for most recent video like that, it's going to be actually current where the buttons are all at because they move things around all the time. You're going to be able to set up an ad, no problem.
And then the CRM, that's another thing. I'm a dig, I guess I'm shooting for yard books. So you said definitely work on that.
Flip a coin. Yard books, lawn pro, either one. Yeah. Yard book is free to get started. It's pretty simple.
Go for it and then just shoot, shoot. All the customers email say, hey listen, this is a new, you know, way we're doing things. And I'm also trying to get everybody credit card on file because people pay me crazy like two weeks late. People just pay when they want. I got a text. I'm working on that too.
When you raise your professionalism, they'll raise their standards too. Right. So if you're invoicing them on a specific day and if you're really specific about what's going on, they will match that. Right. And then guess what, when we get that second truck and we've depleted this, all this funds, what we're going to do is we're going to email them all Prices are going up, and you're not going to be afraid of that because you're going to have so many leads coming in from the website by then.
So you think I should hold on raising prices right now and get everything situated?
I would wait until you have lead flow, because right now you can't afford to lose 10 customers. It would personally be damaging to your finances. What you need to do is go get more customers. Get. Get the flow of customers coming in. People come from your website. If you're starting to get one, two leads a day from your website, you're not going to be concerned about raising your prices. You're gonna have so much confidence that, hey, if I raise my price and I lose 10, 15 people, no problem. I'm gonna fill that back up in two weeks.
Yeah.
Got it, man. Hey, man, I appreciate the insight, man. Very helpful, dude. You're the best.
You got it, brother. We'll stay in touch. I know the guys are going to ask me, is it okay if they use some of this stuff, this video? They'll probably like it to share with some young guys.
For sure, for sure, for sure. Also, I'm definitely going to get back with you probably within the next month or two, you know, just so I can get some more insight, man. Keep doing what you're doing, man.
You're.
You're blessed, man.
Dude, I appreciate it, brother. Have a great rest of your evening.
Are you too, man? Take care.
Take care.
Bye.










