Landscape Company Stuck for 3 Years at $600K - Taking It to the Next Level!

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes and you're listening to the Landscape business course. Today is a longer episode, but actually a one on one discussion I had with a company out in Connecticut that has two partners and is really trying to change their entire business. And really, really a great call today. This call is a consulting call. If you look in the description of the podcast or the video that you're watching, you can book one of these calls with me. It's $299, 45 minutes on a Zoom call and I send you the recording after. And about 1 out of 10, 2 out of 10, I am able to share with you publicly. And so big thank you to Carla and Victor for allowing us to share this publicly. We cut out a little bit of the P and L and balance sheet stuff like that, and I completely respect that. But thank you to them for allowing.

Me to show this to you.

This is literally allowing everyone publicly to see kind of the dirty laundry of their business in order for other people to learn from that. And so I appreciate everyone that does these calls with me and then allows me to like, they pay for it and then they allow me to share it with all of you. So if anyone comments negatively about the business or the owners, I won't stand for it. I'll probably block you from the channel because it's just not right. These people want help. They're willing to pay for the help and they're willing to share what they're learning with all of us. So big thank you to Carla, big thank you to Victor DaVita Landscape Design over in Connecticut. Currently they're doing 5 to 600,000 in annual revenue. It's kind of been plateaued the past few years though. They really want to take it to the next level, but the problem right now is that they're fighting so many fires and just kind of feeling like there's not enough systems and the staff is not really with them and Victor is out in the field doing all the different work and going from place to place. So today we talk about a whole bunch of different stuff, everything from P4P to systems and procedures to dealing whether or not you should charge for a landscape design, whether or not you should do 3D designs for large projects and really simplification of services, some of these things. We're gonna go in really deep detail at the conference and so I definitely would love to see you there. Just go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference. We're now online and going virtual, so no more travel excuses. You definitely Want to be there and make sure you can see Landscape Summit 2021 without any further delay. Again, big thank you to Carla and Victor. You'll see there's a part that's cut out about 10, 15 minutes where we looked at their P and L and their financial statements, maybe even 20 minutes. But big thank you to them for allowing us to share this without any further delay. Let's roll it. And for all of you watching right when this is posted, Happy Thanksgiving.

Got it.

Okay, so in terms of a few numbers, I want to know, what do you charge? And this might be more for you, Victor, in terms of, like, when you're doing estimates and things, what do you charge per hour for design, build, construction, things like that? What's kind of your pricing matrix, I guess you'd say.

For design and bill, we're running, like, about $60 per hour.

And when it comes to maintenance, that's like a 50. But we need to. We need to raise the number.

Okay.

Okay. And then for your employees right now, are you paying hourly?

Hourly, yes.

And just as an average, like, not anything specific, but, like, as an average, what do you think? Kind of like that middle dollars per hour is for your employees, like, 12, 14, 15. Where you at?

We're getting, like, 17, $18 an hour.

Okay.

So just from those numbers, I can tell you I'd really recommend a price increase.

Now, I know that's hard to say when you're. You're seeing diminishing amount of revenues, say, oh, like, we should increase price. It's easier to say increase prices when you've grown 25% and you're like, well, yeah, we will raise prices and just limit growth a little bit. So.

Yeah, let me look at your website real quick. I want to see kind of some of the work that you do.

Right, Perfect. Okay. So you do masonry. You do everything.

Okay.

And then from your perspective, Victor, when it comes to finding people, is it that they are just not dependable, or is it just finding people that are skilled enough to do the work that you need them to do?

It's just the.

Way we're finding employees right now. It's just like referral from one worker, and they refer us to a friend that they know. But what it's been really complicated is just to get good guys who want to work.

I'm sorry to call you, but he.

Was asking if they're skilled enough.

You think it's hard to find skilled people in what you're doing right now?

It's being a little hard to find A skill.

So that's the other thing, Mike, we want you to take a look at the. So you took a look at the P and L, and now maybe you can take a look at the business.

In the website and what we do.

And then maybe you can tell us.

Your input and tell us if we're doing too much. Because that's what my feeling is after learning from the master here, Mike, I.

Think that we are doing a little bit too much of everything and not being profitable enough.

Yeah. So, like, there's two things.

Before I jump into what my recommendation is. Victor. When you have a big project, do you almost have to be there on site every day?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. So let's say if I had to look at just design, build, and I know you do tree care. Take that back. Let's look at literally as maintenance and then everything else. Right. And when I do that, I'm basically looking at 50% of your business and 50% of your business. Right. Let's just look at design, everything besides maintenance. Right. So whether it be, you know, tree work, whether it be designing walls, patios, masonry. I'm just kind of looking at your website now. Container gardening, all of those other things.

What is the biggest thing you do? Like, if I had to say, what's the thing that davita does the best when it comes to hardscaping and all that? What would that thing be?

Patios, retaining walls, fire pits, and in plant installations.

Okay, so if I'm building a fire pit, do you have to be there, or can your employees do that by themselves?

I have the. I have a very good mentoring team that they know what they do, and basically, I don't need to be there just from the beginning to supervise. To supervise. Let's say, like, once a week, I need to come and see how the project is going. But, yeah, they mostly do it more.

And so if I'm looking at all the work that we do outside of maintenance. Take that off the table. What percentage of all that other work do you think is patios and walls?

What other.

What percentage?

What percentage?

30%, maybe.

Yeah, I would say, like, from 25.

To 30% is walls and patios.

Yes.

Okay. And so you're saying that the other 70% is main. What does that consist of?

The 25% is landscape design.

Like, you know, the designing and installation of the plants. That's like a 20. It can be 10 to $20,000, a.

Project to come and install, and then.

The rest is 50% is mowing.

Okay.

Okay.

Because what I'm Seeing is like your business, let's say we do 500, 600,000 an annual revenue. You're offering so many services right now, it's very. A lot of moving parts. Right. And usually this is a conversation I have when someone's more around a million, but honestly, I still feel like, because you already have complexity when you have two different partners, right? There's already a level of complexity when that you both have figured that out pretty well in terms of knowing that, hey, Victor's gonna focus on the field, Carla's gon in the office and the administrative and management. Right. So that's a great balance there. But there's definitely, right now I feel a lot of complexity in terms of the type of work you do and therefore no focus. Like when I go to your website, basically you do everything right, and that's fine. But the problem is your employees never get super, super good at any one thing. That therefore Victor has to be there all the time. Like, if I was you, if I was stepping into your business today, I would say, okay, we're going to install paper patios and walls. And if maybe if there's something I haven't mentioned that, you know, is a big like, is there another part, Victor, that like, is a big part of your kind of design, build, construction side of the business? Yes. Is that planting or what is that?

Yeah, got it.

So if you're saying, look, we are going to, we're going to look at patios, retaining walls and planting, and we're going to focus on three different designs of patios, three different types of walls, and about 20 to 30 different plants. And literally you're going to put them in a binder and you're going to show that to the customer when you do an estimate. And so instead of saying, hey, like, let's meet you at the product yard or like, here's some pictures of a job we did a year ago or five years ago, literally have three types and that's all you do. And those should be the type that's kind of like you should have a cheap one where people have like, hey, I just want pavers, right? Just give me pavers. You know, it's a cheap design, cheap color, cheap type of paver, then a medium and then a high end one, right? And literally if you have three pictures and you go to an estimate, someone's like, I just, I want a paver patio. And you say, hey, which one of these three do you like best? This one, this one or this one? And you show them pictures like oh, that one looks good. Great. That's all you need from them, right? Then what you can do, not number one, it makes the sales process easier, but more importantly, your crew gets really, really good at installing those types of designs, those types of pavers. And then same thing with, for walls, right? So at our company, we install one type of paver patio, one. We don't, we don't deviate from that at all. We install one type of wall, that's it. Right? And I know it seems crazy, especially because I know, Victor, you're very creative and you can. When you look at a piece of property, you see so many different opportunities to build it differently. But most customers, if you show them something that looks good and it's kind of middle of the road pricing, and they like it, they actually prefer that over having the fatigue of like having to make decisions of like color and different styles and types of paver. And you want it big, do you want it thin? Like, and all the different, you know, variables that go into it. We know if you literally, they just need to see a picture and be like, yeah, I like that. Right? So I don't think in your case I would go with one design because you are focusing on kind of element of creating a design for somebody. But I would highly recommend not literally choosing out custom colors, custom designs that you've never installed, or ones that you did like three years ago and you're like, oh, yeah, I could do that again. You might be able to, but three years ago none of your employees did that, right? And so what it's causing is it's causing you to be the bottleneck at every single job, right? If there's something that goes wrong, you have to be there, right? Whereas if they install the same paver patio at every single job or a slight variation of it, they know that place inside and out. How to cut around, you know how to cut around vents, how to go up butted up against the house, how to do the drainage behind the wall, it doesn't change, right? So especially when you come to me and you say, hey, look, we feel like things are like out of order and it's like chaos. Chaos is created by moving parts. So we got to reduce those things, right? And the biggest thing that I would say right now is the number of services and the type of materials, right? So type of materials need to be standardized down to like three at max. And then the services, I wouldn't be cutting out things that are less than a few percentage points of your revenue. So for example, like last this year, how much in revenue do you think you got in gross? In, like, dollars from potted plants? Like putting in the plants in the pots and things.

We want to know the revenue.

How much do we make?

You think we made maybe containers, frequency or a container?

Maybe $6,000?

Yeah, about 6,000.

Yeah. So we're talking about one and a half percent of revenue, right?

So that's a waste of time.

It's a waste of time. You gotta train people on it to do the job at all. If you do it one time in a year, you gotta train everyone. Or if you don't train them, that means Victor has to be there. Right? So, like, if it's 6.1percent of revenue, I would scratch it. We scratched 20% of revenue by taking away artificial turf to simplify services. Right. And that meant for a year, we didn't grow. But what happens is, like Carly said, it's a waste of time. But more importantly, your customer is no longer confused by what you're good and what you're bad at. Right. And when they come to your website, it's like, oh, we do everything. Landscaping instead. It's like, we do this really well. We do this really well, and we do this really well. We do maintenance. We do paver patios, we do walls. Right. And we can do your landscape design. And we're going to be able to make your entire design using our three patio types of paver patio, three types of wall, and then these 20 plants that we know we can install. We know a lot about them. They don't die on us. We know exactly how much water they need, all of the rest of it. Right. So it's just trying to reduce the amount of complexity in the business. And the two biggest things are number of services. And then when you give that service, don't give them a thousand options. So, like right now, your sales process, if someone wants a paver patio and wall, do you take them to a supplier? What do you kind of. How do you show that to them Right now, those options, Victor.

When I thought. Say that again. I'm sorry.

Yeah. If you're wanting to sell a. Let's say a paver patio and like.

An outdoor living area kind of space, masonry, how do you sell that to them? Do you take them to your supplier? Do you show them pictures? Do you give them a catalog?

I basically we checked for designing in on the design, includes the 2D design and 3D design, how the.

Padding is gonna look like with the planting. And that's how I Sell the project.

Okay, but I think. And I'm sorry to cut you off, but then if they accept, let's say.

After the design, right. We charge for class C for the.

Design, if it is a small design, and then if they want to hire.

Us for the installation, then we give them a different quote, and then he can show them a different drawing with a quote. Right.

Is that what you do?

No, it's the same. Usually if the customer just wants to pay for the design, that's what we sell. If they want an estimate with the design. So we give them. We give them the design in a proposal, how much it's going to cost them for.

Bluestone patio or with the planting installation.

Got it.

But I think we also have to.

Get rid of the landscape, just the design, because I see you struggling a lot implementing a lot of hours in a design, and then they're paying you $800 and they hiring a different company for less money.

So maybe if. If they're not raise the price and.

They have to hire you all the way through the, you know, planting.

Maybe.

So. Yeah. So I have two thoughts on that. So, number one, you start $800 for, like, kind of an average. That kind of average for design. Okay. Okay. When you do that, Victor, and on that design, are you specifying what type of paver or what type of block they're going to use?

Yes.

And are those. Do they choose those, or do you kind of come up with the design and then it's up to them to either, you know, go forward with you or change that somewhat or, like, how do you come up with those variations? Or, you know, choosing a type of paver.

The 3D design shows how. What. What type of pavers or what type.

Of bluestone it's gonna be used. Why do you choose those? Customer.

Does the customer choose it or you.

Choose it, you tell them what to do?

I basically choose the. The material.

You choose it based on what?

The first appointment. What they tell you the first appointment.

Right, right.

Based on the conversation that I have with them.

I'll make the design.

Okay. And how many hours would say, an $800 design take you to make? Like, maybe a full day? Like 8, 10 hours?

Yes, if I have the time. Yes. But sometimes between.

Supervising the team and doing some work.

It basically takes me, like, about three days to finish up with the design.

And that's where I want your input, because I think that the landscape this time is great. You know, the 20, $30,000 project. But then he's leaving aside the mowing and we are concentrating, especially in the busy season, and then they want the.

Projects to be done quickly and then we don't have a good team to do the mowing. So it kind of like interferes with each other.

That's how I feel that it's not.

Where it should be because he's taking.

A lot of time of the design. I know that that's what he likes to do, but maybe we need like a system that will work best for the company.

So this is what I would recommend. Usually I would point you in one direction, but I know that, Victor, you enjoy doing the designs, so that's an important part, right? Because I'm not just gonna be like, oh, like scratch designs. Do the same type of paver patio every day if that's something you're passionate about and that is creating the design, right. So this is what I would recommend.

I would recommend increasing the price of the design.

And then giving the customer, when you go meet them at the initial, Victor.

If they just want a design, they should be charging top dollar. Like I'm talking at least twelve hundred dollars, right? But if they want to, if you install the project.

Or if you say, hey, look, I can do a 3D, like super in depth design for you for 1200, or I can give you a sketch that literally you're gonna drop in about 20 minutes with an estimate if you wanna move forward with us to install your project, right? So then what you're doing, you're making it very clear either this customer's coming to you for a design and they're gonna go use someone else, or you're gonna be able to sell a 30, $40,000 job using a sketch that you did in 20 minutes, right? Cause right now your time is worth so much more than, you know, even 60 to $80 an hour. You're literally charging the same rate to the customer that you're charging for your employee to be like mowing their grass or, you know, installing a hedge, right? So that needs to be increased, which will then put downward pressure on them to accept the fact that, hey, I can literally do a sketch for you. And when I say sketch, I'm literally talking like line, piece of paper, here's your house, we're going to do a paver patio. Me 16 by 10. Like, like very much are like, that's. That's the only type of design work our company does now, right? Is only sketches. And the reason is because we're going after the project and we want that we are not so interested in the landscape design, that's a one time I don't get, I don't get my crew in there. I have to do all the work as the estimator. The estimator is the most valuable position and they're doing all the work for that. So I would really say when you go to a design like, look, we got two options here. Thanks for showing me your property. I can do a 3D beautiful design for $1200. And you might know right from the get go that they just want the design and you don't even have to make this presentation. But if it's like, hey, we want you to come see our property, we'd like a design, maybe we'll have you install it. That's when you got to be like, look, I can give you a design. It's going to be twelve hundred dollars. It's not refundable. It's a set dollar amount, twelve hundred dollars or whatever you want to charge a higher price. I would just say very, very expensive. Or I can give a sketch to you with an estimate for us to install the work. And that's free because literally it should not take you more than 20 minutes. Any sketch, in my mind it takes more than 20 minutes starts to become something you should be charging for, right? But we start now taking this. In the time that you take $800 for one design, you could probably draw out 30 or 40 designs as a sketch, right? If you take 20 minutes times it by three, it's like 30 designs that you could quickly sketch out, right? But those 30 designs will probably lead to a whole lot more revenue than that one design of $800, right? So you got to look at your time like your return on your time, right? And right now you're doing, you're spending three days or 10 hours worth of labor trying to create $800 in revenue. Whereas that same 10 hours, if it was 20 minutes per sketch, could turn into, you know, 30 sketches, which depending on the size of the project, could be hundreds of thousands of dollars, right? So I would say, number one, increase the price of your landscape design. But really try to focus more on the fact that, hey, we want to design your project, but we also want to install your project. And that's why we're going to give you a free sketch. And when you give someone a sketch, they're usually not going to take the sketch and go use someone else because only you know all the elements of the sketch, right? You're not giving them all the details and the size of the plants and all the rest of it, and that's what they're going and taking and using someplace else. And the reason I'm so confident in saying that is because 10% of your revenue came from landscape design last year. And if you weren't passionate about it, I would tell you to cut it completely, because from a dollar standpoint, you're spending a big chunk of your time on 10% of your revenue.

If he wasn't passionate, or he says.

Maybe this is not where I should be doing, because I think at the beginning, it was what gave us more money, right. And what the customers wanted in this.

Area, and that's where he went to school for.

So if he's not passionate about it.

Then we can just eliminate landscape design.

I would say we don't do designs. We can do a free sketch for you with our estimate. And I would standardize what products you install down to three. On things like paver patios, walls, you'll get the select 15 to 20 plants that you know you're going to use. That makes the sketch really fast, because it's no longer about, like, what that looks good with their house color. All the rest of it's like, hey, these are the three we do. This one will look good. Do you like this? Show them a picture and you're good to go.

But then we have to come home.

And do the proposal. The quote, right? The estimate, so they can sign it and ready to go with the price.

And this is the thing. When you start standardizing your materials, you can literally standardize your estimate proposal, right? So you can literally. So our estimators have a template, literally, for paver patios. They have a template for a bunch of planting. They have a template and then literally this pop in there and change a few things because they're installing the same type of material. They're using the same base, you know, material. So that says the same, you know, three inches of five, eight minus compacted. It's using the same edge pro. Everything's the same in the verbiage. So literally, if they don't have to do a sketch, they can do the estimate part in like five minutes. And even if it's a 15, $20,000 job, and then the sketch part, if the person wants a sketch, should be maximum 20 minutes. Like, again, I'm talking very rudimentary sketches just for them to visualize and see it.

Because now you're in the business of selling the job, not in the business of creating a design, right? And if that person's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I want to see this in like 2D. 3D, no problem. I'll give you a 3D design and it's going to cost you 1200 bucks. Oh, no, no, that's too much. Okay, well then here's my sketch. Take it or leave it, you know, So I wouldn't even offer. If I was looking at a dollar and cents standpoint, I wouldn't offer landscape design. Unless someone balked at your sketch. You'd say, oh, look, go ahead.

I'm sorry my two cut you off.

But our like the structure of the business right now, it's like the Vita landscape design. Right. It's more towards of the design. So people.

That's why I think.

No, this is what he's saying. For not spending so much time in designing, I'll just overest with an estimate. If a client wants to part the.

But if you see the business perspective.

It'S leaning towards more of the design. Right. Even the name of it. It's like we do the sign.

So how can. If we now that we are thinking.

Through and how can we. If we see that this is not.

Something we want to implement anymore in.

The business, we want to cut that service.

How can we do that if the.

Name of the business is a design?

I mean, how can we reduce the service?

Honestly, I'll be honest. Like, I don't think that has very little impact, if any at all. The reason is because 10% of your business is landscape design. If 50% of your business was landscape design, I'd say we need to change your brand. Right. But when only 10% of your landscape, of your revenue is coming from landscape design, even if you say your land like, like in terms of. When I say, you know, davita landscape design. Right. You can still be honest. Look, we're gonna give you a free sketch. We can still do the design for you. But just your emphasis now is actually on selling the job and getting the work right. Because I like of your designs, Victor, like, what percentage of them go with you versus somebody else?

I would say like.

80%. I basically get the jobs and 20%, I don't get the jobs.

That's not bad.

Yeah, I've been selling a lot of installations this year and yeah, it just. But I think.

I'm sorry to cut you off, but I think the installation service income with the landscape is income should be combined. I don't know why we have then.

I agree, I agree. Yep. I think you should look at it as more as like design build as one part of the business and then maintenance as the other side. Right. And so because really, at the end of the day, even though it's only 10% of your business, it's kind of creating the other 30, 40% of construction. Right. So I would say that.

It's tough to say this to a company that has landscape design in their name, but a lot of businesses out there who. A lot of business is out there, a lot of potential customers are out there who. A sketch is all they need to get their job sold. Right. And by putting even. Even $800 as a barrier between that and the job is enough for them not even to ask for an estimate. Right. And I think you're potentially limiting yourself. And with technology the way it is, like where people can drag and drop stuff and virtual reality and everything, the way this is going with design of landscaping, people are going to expect free on these designs. And so as soon as you put up that wall barrier of a payment, like, hey, you gotta pay $800 or $1,200 or whatever, that person might actually be a really good customer. They just don't want to pay that money upfront. And a sketch is all they need. Right? So I would definitely think of that. When you go to an estimate, like, is this person that wants someone who wants a sketch or just someone who wants a design is willing to pay $1,200 for that. That design? I think you'd be surprised at how many people are okay with a sketch and just want the work done.

And that's true because I know a partner who we went. Who I went to school together, and he works at the nursery, a local nursery. And I spoke to him a few times, and he said that they're not designing what they. What they sell, it's just the sketch. So they do like a free sketch with an estimate, and that's the way they're selling their projects. Working on a nursery.

So, Carla, in the office, when someone calls and they want a project done and you tell, do you tell them right then and there, it's $800 or X amount for their design.

So we don't waste our time. You know, I tell them that we have a charge fee, and if it is more, we'll let them know, depending on how big the project is. And then we send in a questionnaire and we follow through. It's a process.

I think it's like a big process.

And then he has to present, and then he has to come back and show them the second option. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of time consuming, especially when we're busy and they want the projects.

I want to see my design.

Can you hurry up? Can then I want to see the planting.

So yeah, of those people that call and you say that to what percentage of them are like, okay, thanks, I'll call back later. Or like, basically how many people call you asking for a project versus how many people does he actually end up charging that dollar amount to?

I would say 50% of whoever. Yeah, yeah. So in this area, people have the money. So this is the thing too. I think we're leaning towards more services because we wanted to keep our customers.

Right. And it's like a high end customer that they like to pay one guy that does everything.

So they give us a contract for the year and they want us to do pretty much everything.

Gutter cleaning, pesticides, you name it. So that's why we've been able to.

Keep some of the customers. But now we're seeing that this is.

Not profitable as we want it to be.

And it's not structured and for the crew, it's messy.

So we might have to let go.

Some customers for the next year because.

We have to cut down on services.

That we don't like. For example, I think doing subcontracting for.

Pesticides, that's like another service.

And it's a lot.

It'S a lot of work and I have to do it myself too. Doing the lung fertilizations, spraying some shrubs sometimes. And I think that's time consuming for me.

Yep.

No, no, we don't like. Anything that you, Victor, have to be at should be cut. That is the governing line, Right. If you have to be there and no one else can do it, that needs to be cut immediately. Right. And what's scary about that, that might be 30% of the business. But let me tell you this. When you cut out 30% of the business on all the things that taking your time and now you literally take back 70% of your day, you can go focus on selling a lot more of what you do well at and that your crew can scale and do well without you. Right? Because right now all your time is being spent on doing designs, managing crews on complicated projects, and doing services that no one else is trained to do. When all of your time is focused on selling and literally just making sure things go smoothly on job sites if something goes poorly, that's how the business scales. There's a trickle down effect. And the reason we've been talking so much about what services Your leads, what you're willing to take at the sales process is that trickles down into chaos, right? So I don't know if you watched that video that Lee and Liz did about the funnel and how it creates more chaos. The more services you have, the more variations of product you have all the rest of it. But basically at the top of the funnel, if we can control that variability and all of these, the complexities of different types of products, then we have design, then we have installation and like this big complicated sales process of proposals and all the rest of it, like if we can eliminate that, it compounds when it gets out into the field, right? The guys in the field, if you give them a complex proposal, a complex job notes, a complex design, like it's going to cause more chaos out in the field, right? It just compounds. So I'd really recommend it being like this. When someone calls, there's certain screening questions you're going to give in terms like, have you created a budget? Because if they haven't created a budget and they're literally just like trying to get ideas that might not be the person you want to work with. And in the past that screen for you has been a dollar amount for landscape design. But what it can be now is like, do you have, do you already have a plan? Yes or no doesn't really matter. It's a matter of just collecting that information for Victor. And then it's like, have you established a budget? Not really. Just trying to see what we're looking for, what we're looking at. That means that Victor can go there knowing that this could be a five minute conversation and be done with it. And that's a waste of time that in the past you would not have had to deal with. But I feel like getting in front of that person having a very simple sales presentation which is, hey, show me what you want. I'm going to do a sketch and an estimate proposal, send it to you back tomorrow and if you like it, we will get 50% down and we'll roll with it, right? And have an estimate. Binder, have a binder. Let me see one second, let me see if I have one. One second. I don't think I do. I don't. But I'll show you an example, kind of. So just kind of like a binder like this, you know, one inch binder and just ignore this. But it would just say like materials list, for example, and you'd open it up and you'd have laminated pages of all the different types of pavers. You do. So you have pavers, and then you'd have three different pictures and just ask them, which one do you like? Oh, I like that second one. Great. Okay. That's all I needed to know. Now you can literally make an estimate based upon that selection. You don't need to do, you know, show them a whole bunch of designs. You don't need to do any of that. And if you have several templates of verbiage that use for your proposal, you should quickly be able to change them and send it back within 24 hours, your close ratio will go up. By getting that estimate back to them right away. Like, we can do a 30, you know, 20, $30,000 project estimate, and within 10 minutes of leaving their property, they have that in their inbox. That's power of selling. And that's when we start focusing on becoming a sales organization, not a landscape design company. Right. A landscape design company. You're probably incredible at, like, great designs, great creativity, all the rest of it. But when we talk about scaling the business and making it efficient and scalable and taking it to a million plus in revenue, we got to focus on the sales process. And right now, there's just too much friction. They've got to pay a payment, they've got to get a design several days later. They got to understand a 3D design, which they've never seen their whole life. They don't understand what types of plants you're talking about. They don't understand the type of blocks you're talking about. They literally just want to see does it look good? And a picture of a project you've installed before or from the supply yard is all they need to be like, yes, I like that. And that's all you need to create a proposal right now. There's just so many steps. And then that's why when the guys get on site, they literally need Victor to be there throughout the whole project, because they weren't. It hasn't been simplified enough. Right.

So question for you. What should I do on the. For the clients that we have that they have a loan fertilization program and plant healthcare program, Should I serve.

These properties or simple just not to offer them?

This is what I think. I think that you could serve them for now and then allow natural demand to push them out. Because I don't want to say, hey, cut everything right now. You might lose some of the good work that you want to keep with them. Right. And down the road, we might be willing to do that once we've established now the fact that we are more concentrated on these other areas. So like on your website for example, you don't need to say 10 different types of services. You're going to say, you know, landscape design, build maintenance, and that's what we do those two things, right? We do everything in terms of the construction side of things and we do everything on the side of maintenance, right? And then specifying there and your pictures, like there's no reason to. So in depth masonry, there's no in depth reason to show a container gardening and even tree care, like vacation care. Literally just, you know, don't show the pictures of your designs. Don't show those things. Show the things that you want the customer to buy, right? So when we start simplifying, we also start reducing the amount of services. All the rest of makes us focus on those things that we want to sell. So what's going to happen if you stop selling designs? You, you're going to have more time to go do estimates and proposal and become a sales engine and you're going to get starting getting so much work now. You'll be like, okay, we're willing to cut out the fertilizations, we're willing to cut those things out even if we lose those customers that we've had for a long time. Because we have so much work coming in from these three different types of paver patios that that's all we do, right? And so I'd really encourage like whether it be social media website, start highlighting the things you want people to choose. Don't highlight those great beautiful projects that you had to be at every single turn of the road. And there was so much complexity, it took three months to install, right? You want to show and highlight the ones that you have inside of your binder that you show customers and laminate the pages so that you can show it in the rain. And you show those on your website, you show those on your, on your social media so that when people see those, they say, oh, I like that, I want that right? Instead of them pointing at a project you did five years ago that has a pond and some complicated masonry that only Victor knows how to install, right?

So I really believe that if you stop at the top, again, everything trickles down at the top of the funnel. If you stop doing complex designs, if you really start focusing on the sketches, if you start focusing on standardization of your materials so that way you don't have to show them a bunch of information, you can just show them a picture. Do you like this? If you do that, you will Start to get so much more revenue, you'll be confident, very confident to start cutting out services. Okay, we're no longer doing that even though we've done it for five years, right? Definitely. Right now you need to control those services from coming into the funnel. But before you start cutting the services that you've done for years for a customer, let's fill the funnel with more of what we want. Right.

Should we start marketing more of the mowing services right now and then maybe just picking.

The customers that we want to keep for now, offering for next.

Year, full package and then letting know the rest of the customers that we.

Are not offering, you know, the services.

That we were last year. Is that a good idea?

Yeah, I think, you know, in terms of marketing and what you market, it's going to depend on the time of year. Right. As we go into spring, definitely. Mowing is something I would encourage, try to build the recurring revenue side of the business alongside with the design build. Because my concern is that the, if we focus so much on the design build and our recurring revenue is slowly following, falling in terms of maintenance, I don't like to see that. I like to see them grow at the same pace. And so I would focus on, if you're going to marketing, focusing on those recurring services, mowing, etc. In the spring, but when it comes to summer, when it comes to fall and winter, that's the design build side of things. Right. And because it's a one time job usually. Right. And then my other question in terms of marketing, Carla, is right now, do you all stay in touch with your customers via email each month?

So I started doing.

Email, constant email.

And I was sending them like I.

Just started, maybe I did three emails.

Okay.

But we just signed up for Service Autopilot because we, you know, we heard.

You and we wanted to implement a new software and it's great, but it's a lot of learning.

So what were you using before? What were you using before?

Mailchimp, I think, and constant email.

What were you using though for your CRM before Service Autopilot?

We were just using an accounting software called Xero.

It's like QuickBooks.

Oh yeah. Yep, yep. Okay, so I'm glad you made the switch to Service Autopilot. It's definitely going to be a learning curve. Definitely.

But yeah, we switch it because we had to. Everything was everywhere and I can't function.

When everything is everywhere. I had to have something that easy to communicate. I don't need to use pass all the time phone and I Love the service. Autopilot has everything we need, but it's a, you know, learning curve.

Yeah, definitely. So, like, what I was. What I'm thinking in that is when you look at constant contact or, you know, even zero, how many contacts do you have? Just like people in the database, 100. And is that from years gone by?

So I started collecting last year because.

Before I was not really collecting customers. Every. Everything was written in pads.

Got it?

Yeah.

Okay. So that's definitely a huge thing, especially it comes to landscape design and build is get their emails. Like, again, the whole sales process needs to change. It needs to be that when they call and they say, hey, I'm thinking about getting a land, you know, installing a paver patio. All right, let me get your information.

You do that, then you might do some qualifying questions and then set up an estimate time. Right. And no longer is it like, I'm send Victor out to do a design for you. It's going to. I'm going to send him out to give you an estimate. Right. Because we're going after the work. Right. And in that process, you need to get their email. Right. Right from the first phone call. Like, literally, like with Augusta, they have to get their email. I don't care if we don't get an appointment. I don't care. Because if I can keep them in service, autopilot or any email contact service, I can stay in touch with them. Which means, you know, those hundred customers that you installed projects for, every single one of them are great candidates to set up for recurring services. Right. And so that monthly email that goes to all your customers pitching a relevant service based upon the time of year will be huge for you because it's no longer you spending money on marketing. It's literally just keeping those leads warm. Right. And honestly, if you have a bunch of phone numbers, I might just call them, say, happy Thanksgiving, or wondering if I could get your emails. I wanted to send you a holiday card and literally just make a digital holiday card, but use that as a way to get all of their emails. Or Christmas, because Thanksgiving is two days. But like, if you say, hey, I want to say I wanted to send you a digital or a virtual Christmas greeting and literally have you and maybe some of the guys saying thank, you know, happy, merry Christmas, or whatever it is. But that's a great excuse to get their email address in your database because I feel like you probably have several hundred contacts over all these years. And that's money. That's the value of your business right there.

Yes, I Agree. I agree. And that's what I've been trying to do better this year and for the following year. Absolutely.

Mike, I have a question. What do you do during the winter season? Do you do snow removals or do you do something else to keep the business going and get some profit?

Yeah, we do a little bit of snow plowing, but we don't get a lot of snow here. Some of our franchisees, like up in Ontario, they snow plow for five, six months out of the year, right. In our local market, we don't. So we got to stay busy with projects, trimming bushes, property cleanup, all of that sort of thing. And then again with recurring revenue of mowing customers, we, we're trying to convert them into winter services where we continually are still coming to their property. And so.

I think, Carl, you're coming to the virtual summit in January, right?

Yes, we were going to sign up for the real, but since it's virtual.

Yes, we are perfect.

So in that we're going to talk. Go ahead.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, that'll be big. But then even with, when it comes to winter services, we're gonna talk a lot about in there for at least an hour. So how we do that to convert our mowing customers into winter services and kind of that just that sales process, right? Like the thing that's gonna change you all from where you're at now to a million plus and doubling is sales. Right. And so when people think about sales like, oh, I just need to do ads, I need to get more customers. Not necessarily, because just getting more customers won't fix the problem if the sales process and everything behind it is a ton of complexity and stuff is always failing. And you know, guys aren't trained on all your services and you're making things up on the fly and you're always chasing your tail and fires are happening all the time that you're trying to chase. Like, you've got to simplify, simplify, simplify. Once you've done that, then you can start pouring money, or more importantly like time into getting emails and things like that and be okay with the fact that literally if you send out an email and get 10 estimates, you know that that's going to convert because your sales process and you know what you're going to sell them and you know what the prices are going to be and your crew knows exactly how to install them. And on P4P when we, when, if you ever start talking about that, your crew is only going to love you as much as long as you are Accurate on those budgeted hours. Right. And if you're installing projects that are all over the place, you're not going to be able to be consistent on those budgeted hours. Whereas if it's a job that they've installed 20 times in the past 12 months and the same type of pavers, the same design, like when I say we design one type of paver, install one type of paver, I'm talking like one color, one design of those pavers, like there's no variation. Right. And for 95% of our customers, they're fine with it. The other 5%, we've got to the point now where we don't even want them. Right. But I truly believe even if you did three, it cut out huge amounts of complexity because your crew would get efficient. Right. No longer they spend two hours trying to figure out the design of the blocks or the pavers, because the new one, right, Literally they know exactly what they're doing when they get to the job, know exactly what the base prep looks like, exactly what the drainage looks like, and they're going to be much more efficient. And they're four on P4P, they're going to make a lot more money. So they become happier too. Right. So obviously P4P is huge. But I think having these things in place are necessary, the simplification part, because if you implement P4P right now and they have a big blow up on a job because no one knew how to do the drainage correctly, or they cut a block incorrectly and go back to the supplier, now it's coming out of their pocket and they're going to get more frustrated. Right. So simplification is necessary for P4P to actually work because they do not, they're not happy if you're inconsistent with your budgeted hours.

Correct.

And another question we wanted to. He wanted to add another to our company which is selling soil and mulch, right. Organic mulch. Because we wanted, you know, we rent.

In this space and it's expensive, but.

After listening to your story, I said.

No, we are not going to add that.

It's just gonna be another conflict. What do you think?

Yeah. As you get bigger, I like the idea of having material on site for your landscape install crews. Right. But when it comes to actually selling it and having people where they can come pick it up, it's another thing that makes you reactive. So, Carla, if you're the person in the office and when someone drives in, you have to go help them again, it makes you reactive instead of being proactive. With how you should be operating the business. Right. It makes it where when someone drives in, literally you have to stop everything you're doing and go, react, act. Right. And the margins usually are not as good as you can make them with labor. Right. If you make it efficient, if you simplify things, you can make much more in that side of things. Right. And again, I think it would maybe add 10, 15% to your revenue. And that's not what we're interested in right now. We're trying to take those 30%, 40% blocks and really focus on those.

Got it.

So.

Is there anything else we should.

Any other advice that you give us for this company?

I think, you know, I think conference is gonna be really good and if you can do some of these things before that, you'll be set up really well. Because again, like you can't implement P4P running the business the way it is now. Right.

So right now we want to cut.

Down services, we want to focus on what's gonna give us a profitable margin and be easy to have a system with so that maybe in two years.

My goal is to go back to.

My career and do something else and have someone to replace me in the office and I can just in the back end on the weekends, work and.

See, you know, how everything is going.

And he will be just doing sales, less work.

That's our goal, to make it easy.

And have a good paycheck at the end of the year. That's it.

Absolutely. Like, you know, at the end of the day you cannot step out of the business if it's complex because it's so hard to find someone. Like we have to replace you right now. You have to know how to use Xero. You'd have to be learning service autopilot, you'd have to be learning how to use constant contact. Like there's so many different moving parts. Right. And the goal is to simplify things. Yes, for better revenue, yes, for better profitability, but also so that you can literally leave the business and train someone else how to do it. We'll see you, Victor. Bye.

He's going to get the phone, I'm sorry.

Oh, okay.

No worries, you're good. But basically that's definitely, like you said, a two year goal. Because first the financials have to get in order. But before that happens, the systems, the procedures and the simplicity has to be in place. Because in order for you to step away, you have simple systems for someone to follow and take over what you're doing. And you need to have a crew that you don't have to micromanage. And that's gonna come in the form of P4P, right? Where you know, when they leave, they're working as hard as they possibly can and you don't have to go out and watch them, track them, all the rest of it.

So I think, you know, takeaways from this call, I think is like, number one, simplify services. And when you do that, it's gonna change your website, it's gonna change your social media, it's gonna change, you know, what pictures and videos you show on those websites in the social media. Because you don't Wanna highlight a 3D design now, right? We're not going after the $40,000 worth of landscape design. We're going after 5, $600,000 worth of installation. Right. That process of you answering the phone, Carla, that's gonna change. Now we're removing that barrier of, hey, no longer is it. We're requiring a massive dollar amount for a design. Because some people literally, when you get to their property, they literally say, I just want a 10 by 40 paper patio. They don't need a big design. Right? And so that's, you know, in the past that seemed like, oh, that's a smaller job or it's not as exciting. That's like beautiful for what we want to do. Simple, simple, simple. When someone calls up, shows up and we say, hey, we want a 10 by 40 patio. Great. Do you like this picture? Yes. Fantastic. Literally, that is money in the bank, right?

Yeah.

And so you're. Right now you're not getting those. You're only getting the complex designs and the complex jobs because you're requiring them to pay for it. So they expect it to be complex and like a different tree than anyone else on the block and a tree they've never seen before. Right. They're expecting that because they're paying for it. Whereas you're missing out right now, I feel like on those five to $15,000 jobs that if you standardize what you're installing can just be absolute money in the bank. 50, 60% margin.

Got it.

All right. We have a lot of work, so this year will be like your fifth year. I think that you didn't see a.

Growth, but we saw a change and.

It'S structure and that's what we're gonna do for 20, 21.

In this scenario, though, I really think you're gonna actually see massive growth. Because when we talk about cutting out some of these services, we're talking about 10, maybe 15, 20%. I truly believe if you focus on those few things, paper patios, walls and maintenance, like if you focus on those things only and you simplify them and your sales process on the on, like for you, Carla, you'll get more estimates. For Victor, I truly believe you'll get. You can very easily scale the business. I feel like you're losing a lot right now on those mid sized projects that are very simple and no one wants to pay $1,000 for a design for because they know exactly what they want. It's really simple. And you're losing out on those right now. Right. I really feel like there's an opportunity there and I don't feel you're gonna have a step back in revenue. I think if you do these things and come in next spring having these simplified systems and then when you have that spring rush of leads, Victor will be able to go do all the estimates because hopefully he doesn't have to be out spraying. Hopefully he doesn't have to be out these really complex masonry jobs and the crew is able to handle them. Right. So that I really don't feel it'll be a step back. I actually really feel at the same time you cut your services, Victor's gonna have opportunity, go do better estimates, have better response time. You'll get those estimates back to them within 24 hours and that's going to lead to more sales. Right. So I really do feel that it's not gonna be like a big downer financially or anything. I think it's gonna be only positive.

Thank you, Mike. Are we gonna have in the conference, are you going to teach us how to train the teams and everything?

A big part of the conference is going to be around the cultural side of the team. Right. So like training them around, you know, learning the finances, them being able to start looking at jobs and know what the budget hours are, them being able to see the profitability of a job, know what that is. That's important because in terms of training, like, you know, mechanical, like how to build a wall, how to do a paver patio, they'll become much more efficient at that. If they have the broader view of the company, if they know about the numbers, if they know the vision and why they're doing what they're doing, and when they start to see you all at the top making very hard decisions on improving the business and improving yourselves and saying, look, I enjoy doing landscape design, but that's not the best thing for this business. This is not the best thing for our employees. This is not the best thing for the long term of what we're trying to build here, and I'm willing to sacrifice that when they see that and they start saying, okay, there's a vision, there's something we're driving for here. There's progress, there's change, they'll start to adapt to the fact that, oh, we're only installing these types of pavers and they'll be okay with it when P4P gets implemented 1 day and they start to make more money. Right. So it's definitely a part, you know, in terms of training the employees. We're going to really be focusing on the cultural side because I feel like when you get that part nailed down, so many different things start to take care of themselves in terms of efficiencies, safety, things like that. Got it.

How can we learn about the franchise business? Is that a different appointment that we.

Can do with you maybe in the future? Because that's where we see that we have a lot of the failing, like.

The marketing, the structure. It's a lot. And I feel that if we can.

Have a system, it will be easier for us to work.

Yeah. Like if we had questions about that, definitely on if you go to augustanlawncare services.com franchise, we have a whole bunch of videos on there that would probably answer some, like the ask, you know, I have a whole bunch, like 20 videos that kind of answer a lot of the questions. But then definitely on there, you can book another call with me and we can, you know, see if it'd be a good fit. And the thing about the franchise, you know, I don't push it. I'm not, you know, if we do do a call, I'm going to be like, oh, you definitely got to do it. And you can see in this call, like, I'm much more interested in you succeeding and much more interested in the business going forward and reaching the goal of you getting out of the business, not having to be there every day, not always chasing fires. That's what I'm much more concerned about. Right. So it is a great fit, I think. Definitely would love to talk to you about that. But I think either way, the elements that we talk about, the conference, the things about we talked about today, it's the same stuff we do at Augusta. It just takes. Augusta takes a little bit of the edge off in terms of, like, figuring out your marketing, your website. You don't have to worry about things like that. You know, the office side of things would be easier for you to get out of it, Carla, because, you know, there's someone to answer the phone and send out the estimates and do all that side of things. Right. So there's definitely pros and there's cons, too. Right. So definitely, if you go on the website, there's more info on that. You can watch all the videos and then there's a link there. You can book another call with me just around that.

Specifically, are you doing in Connecticut.

Right now?

We don't have anyone in Connecticut, but, yeah, we do. Yeah, we can do it in any state of the United States. Yeah.

Okay. So that's something that we might be.

Interested in for the future, I think. Right. I mean, we're gonna fix our mess right now. And because we do have to have a budget.

I was reading that it's like $15,000.

If you already.

Approximately.

If you already have a business to convert everything. Right. And then, yeah, we will look into it and see if this is the right fit for us, too.

Yeah. And I agree, like, you know, regardless if you join Augusta or not, I think the first things that I would recommend you doing are exactly what we talked about today. Right. So I don't think that changes. I think that if you implemented these things, you're like, okay, that was really good. You know, what else could we get out of this and not have to worry about things like the office or sending out estimates or designing our marketing? Those are things that, you know, then you could probably build on top of. But literally, the stuff that we talked about today, like, that's what I'd be saying for the next six months, you should be working on no matter what. Right. So if you do all those things and, you know, you feel free to book a call anytime, but if you did those things and then it was like, okay, maybe it's time to rebrand and focusing more on recurring and the simple services and things like that, that might be something we talk about, but I'm never going to pressure you in that direction. My main concern is that you implement these things like conference P4P, you know, profit sharing, open book management. These are the things we talk about in terms of culture. And I don't care if you're a franchisee. I don't care who you are. These are the things that work. Right. And so, you know, you don't need me. I think you're gonna do great. Just what we've talked about today, making big changes. But definitely, if you ever wanted to book a call, just let me know.

Okay. Mike, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

Appreciate it.

My pleasure. You'll have a great day. Take care.

You too. Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

You too. You too. Have a good one.