Lawn Care Hiring Tips: Does Poaching Employees Work? Facebook/Indeed/Craigslist

Hey, everyone, this is Mike Andes, and you're listening to the Business Boot Camp podcast. A big thank you. Today's sponsor, which is Gusto. If you haven't Already, go to gusto.com bootcamp. Try their software completely free, where you can pay your employees directly through ACH as well as show them all your benefit packages. And be very transparent about where their money is going on every single paycheck. Check it out today. Try it out completely free for 90 days. Just go to Gusto.com Boot Camp. All right, today we are going to be talking about the lawn care landscaping community, where you can find good employees. The five different tips that I have here, I'm going to throw a bonus one in here as well. So stick around. We're going to do. I'm going to share five or six of these tips, and we're going to do some live Q A. We're focusing on hiring, and the reason for us focusing on hiring. Oh, no. Dean says I'm. Sounds like I'm on helium. So give me one second here. This is great. Nothing like going live and everything's messed up again. Give me one second. I'm going to go into my settings here. I found out the other day how to fix this, but the problem is. Okay, well, that's embarrassing. Let me open this up. Give me one second, guys. H4N44.

Okay, can you hear me now? Is it better now? Can you let me know if it sounds okay? Dean and everyone else, I need to know. Otherwise, we're gonna have the next 30 minutes of helium. Good afternoon. Hey, guys. There you go. Okay, cool. All right, we're back in business. We're back in business, folks. Okay? We're talking about the five different ways you can find good employees for most of us, especially if you're growing right now. One of the biggest issues we're having is finding good employees, and not just finding them, but retaining them also. So if you're in the course and most of you that are watching live are in the course, I created 30 of these, but instead of taking the next, you know, entire day on those, check out the course. At the end of the day, I'm going to show you exactly how to get there. But all 30 of them are in the course. Today we're talking about five, and I'm going to throw a bonus one in there as well. So why is it so difficult to find people? Well, we're competing against the government now. We have, you know, stay at home, and you can make a bunch of money and all of a sudden, if I can make 5, 600 staying at home, why would I, why would I go work and make an extra $50 a week? So that's very difficult. Entry level employees and laborers, it's a tough sell. So let's go over some of these ways. Hopefully in the list of 30 that's on the course, just one of them sparks something that unlocks a way for you to actually find good employees. Because that's how I've always seen it is there's a. You would try a bunch of things and then you'll hit something. It's like, my goodness, I get all of my employees from this one source. So let me go through these five or six. But the full list of 30 is on the course. And I just hope that one of them triggers something for you and you're able find that good employee that allows you to keep growing your business. Number one is a biggest question around hiring is when to hire without an in person interview. Covid kind of threw a big monkey wrench into doing in person interviews and being able to actually meet with the person, see how their, their actions are, see what they look like, if they have good eye contact and all the rest of it. And you can tell a lot of about a person when you see them in person, you see them drive up in a vehicle and all the rest of it. That being said, when should you hire someone without getting an in person interview? Mostly due to the fact that they're so good that you don't want to lose them. Okay, so in this type of labor economy, when it's so hard to find good people, I'm okay with hiring people sight unseen without actually interviewing them. There's only a couple ways I would do that though, because we rarely do this. The only way I would do that is one, when I call them, I am blown away with how incredible they are. Their resume looks really good and their references blow my socks off. That's the only way that I would hire someone without an in person interview. But in this labor market, you might have to do that just to get people. Because guess what? That person has 10 other people that will probably hire them tomorrow without any sort of like interview or the rest of it. Because there's just so many people out in the labor market that need good employees and therefore employees. It's making it very, very difficult to hire people. If you have too many filters, which we're going to talk about in a second, too many different filters that are keeping it, making it hard, adding friction to the process of them getting hired, if they want work tomorrow and they're a good employee, they can have work tomorrow by 10 other contractors. So if you have a really amazing person on the phone and then you call their references and they all blow their your socks off, and then their resume, like their experience and all the rest of it, you should hire that person and you should get them started right away if they're wanting to get started right away. If they need a job offer, go for it. But that's the only way I would hire without in person interview. Otherwise, I do want to see them in person. I am not a big fan of phone or zoom call interviews. I want to see them in person, but if I can't, the only way I'm going to hire them is if they blow my socks off. And the inter. The references are incredible. All right, number two, make short videos that, that really explain why you're different. And when I say short videos, I'm talking 20, 30 seconds. If you watch the vlog, this past week, you saw me make a couple of these videos in front of the green screen. We made three of them. A 23 second, a 25 second and a 40 second video highlighting different areas that make working in Augusta so different than everyone else. And then what we did, and the reason I did that is because those videos are short enough to text. So make textable videos that can be attached as an SMS text and that are only 15, 20, 30 seconds long, that can be shared very easily. You can share it with your employees and they can share with their friends and family. You can send it to people that you know in the community, like, you know, pastors and all the rest of it that could potentially share that via text message. All right, so I'm a big fan of this. I'm very bullish on it. We've created three for our franchisees and then they're able to use it on all their ad platforms and all the rest of it. But you can literally take a phone and be like, hey, this is actually, you know what? I think on Monday when the vlog comes out, you're going to see one of our franchisees that actually did this. He had his payroll up on a whiteboard and then he was like, hey, everyone, if you were looking for a job, come work with us at Augusta Lawn Care. Here's what our employees made last week and it shows how much money they made. And like, that really speaks to someone. It's short, it's quick, it's fast. They're not going to watch a five or ten minute video. They have so many options right now in the labor market. They're not going to watch you for three minutes or five minutes. They're not going to go through a website and watch all your services and all. They're not, they have so many options. So make those short quick videos that are highlight why you're different. Make them high energy, show money, et cetera. And I don't mean show dollars like dollar bills, I mean like talk about money, talk about payroll, et cetera. Because that's what they're looking for if they've never heard about you before. Alright, number three, no shows. This is the bane of our existence in this industry is the fact that you might get good applicants and you get a bunch of applicants. It's so great. And then you set up interviews and they look so promising and then no one shows up. This is incredible. Like it used to be that no show rate was like 10%. Now it can be like 80%. Like just people setting up an interview and they're not showing up because they have to check a little box on the unemployment sector that says that they're trying to find work and that they are applying. So they will apply, they will set up interviews and they will not show up. And it's very frustrating. So here's what I would recommend doing. Send, try to connect with them via text message. So when you call them and say, hey, I got your application, thanks for applying, can we set up an interview time? And you set up for the interview time, ask them, is this a phone number that is textable? Can I text you on this phone number? If they say yes, the next thing you're doing, you get off that phone. If you want to confirm the interview. Now is confirm the interview time, where you're at, et cetera, and then text them those videos, text them that 20, 30 second video and say hey, let me share a couple of videos, why we're different, boom. And then 30 minutes, an hour before the interview, instead of you wasting time and finishing up your estimates or moving your schedule around, text them like hey, just confirm. Are you still able to meet me at 4:30pm at the shop? Here's the address. And then if they don't respond to that, you probably good chance you're gonna get a no show. So I like connecting with them via text message prior to the interview. Like right after you confirm the interview, text them, send them some links to your website, to some videos, to those 20, 30 second videos, et cetera. Then confirm with Them via text message before the appointment, the morning of and maybe an hour before. Like, the same way we follow up with customers, we should be following up with these interviews. Right? So number three on those no shows, make sure you get their text. Text number and actually communicate with them via text message. A little more personal, a little more closer than just a phone call or email. Number four, you need to have a form or a list of questions for your interview. For a lot of landscapers, especially if you're brand new, you don't know how to interview. You do not know how to do the whole hiring process and all the rest of it. It seems very complicated and confusing. And when you get in front of an interviewee, you're just as. Just as nervous as they are. You're, like stumbling over your word. You're like, oh, my goodness. I would ask. You need to have a form. You have a list. Think about what you want to ask someone. List them all down. So, like at Augusta, we have a whole list of questions, and we literally tell our franchisees and general managers, start at the top, ask a question, and then fill out the answer with a form. Then the potential applicant, they know what you're doing. They know you're just going line by line. So if there's an awkward question, like, for example, are you okay with a drug test, random drug test, that's a weird question to just ask someone. But if they know you're just going down a list and you're filling in the answers, they're like, oh, they'll just give you the answer. They'll answer right away. So having that list is important. And if it's 20, 30 questions, I think ours is about 23, 24 questions. We just work our way down. And by the end of that, it's really clear as to whether or not that's a good employee. We've asked some really difficult questions. We. We've talked about what in the past, in certain circumstances, we ask to them to relay of what they've been through, previous employers, et cetera, where they've shown leadership, et cetera. By the end of that interview, I really usually know. It's very clear if I've asked all those questions, whether I'm going to hire someone. And to be clear, I don't do the hiring. I have my managers, and they're great and they're awesome. They do the hiring, but they use the system. Ask the questions. You fill in each one, and you might only get six in and realize this person's a waste of your Time and you're not going to finish the rest of the form. But if you get the end of the form and this person looks really good, then you're going to go to the next part of the form, which is the question. You ask the references. The same thing. What are the questions you're going to ask the references when you call them? Okay, so again, you've heard me talk about before. When you're in an interview process and you ask the person, so when I call Bob, what is he going to say about your performance? Not if I call Bob, but when I call Bob is going to be able to get the most accurate and truthful answers out of that applicant. Okay, but I need to have the form of questions that I asked during an interview and that asked the references. If I fill that whole form out, like, it's very clear as to whether or not this employee is going to be a good fit. All right? There's just no gray area. If I've asked all the questions, got all the answers and talk, their references and all of them, like all three of them, I'm usually good to go in terms of whether or not I should hire this person. All right, number five, the fifth and final tip that I have for hiring, I talk about it, is the filtration method. Okay, What I mean by the filtration method is this. You have a funnel, and at the top of the funnel is all the people that can apply for working at your company. You can add a whole bunch of as many filters as you want before at the bottom, you have qualified candidates that you actually want to offer a job for. Now, you can add or subtract filters. You can add or subtract the amount of people at the top of the funnel. Now, how you get people in the top of the funnel is like Facebook ads, indeed, ads. All the rest of it, getting people on the top of the phone, get them aware. But then the filters are the requirements you have for someone to actually work for your business. So if you require certifications or CDLs or applicator's license or two years of experience, or you require them to do hard hardscaping and like complicated services, those are all filters that will reduce and eliminate potential applicants from becoming qualified candidates that you offer a job to, what that means is if you're getting a bunch of people you know applying, but no one's actually becoming qualified leads, there's a chance you might need to remove some filters out of the funnel, I. E. Reduce the amount of experience you're acquiring. I E, reduce the amount of, you know, skilled skills that they need in terms of certifications or services that you're offering, machinery that they need to be able to drive or drug tests or smoking or whatever, whatever it might be, age requirements, you might have to take some requirements that is filters out if you're expecting anyone to be able to get in the funnel and get to the bottom. And so what I usually say is, as you need more employees and as you need employees more and you're getting desperate, you're going to do one of two things. You're going to A, advertise and get more people in the top of the funnel, or B, you're going to remove filters that you've created and you're going to get a less qualified candidate. But nonetheless, it's someone you can hire. So that's the decision you have to make. All right. All right. The bonus. Because of course we have to have bonus number six. Number six is a bonus. It's not really a tip on how to find people, but it's definitely a bonus question. Thing I want you to know is warning signs at an interview. All right, I'm just going to mention a few of them. There's a whole bunch of them. Comment below what you think is a good red flag for an interview process. But for me, there's a few. Number one, if they're a minute late, I'm not even talking to them. There's no, like, oh, I was a minute late and I'm going to do my interview. I will just say, you're not going to fit. Goodbye. And you can ask the people that work for me. I've asked employees in the office to go tell the person who just walk, drove in the driveway, like drove in the parking lot a minute late. I tell them, just tell them to leave. Like, bless her heart. So, like, I, like I have. Trust me, they should be putting their best foot forward if they want a job. And if they're going to show up one minute late, I can guarantee they're going to show up late to work. It's just guarantee it. Now, if they call you 10 minutes before and say, hey, I'm behind in traffic or whatever it might be, maybe I'd give some grace, but that doesn't usually happen. If they're late to the interview, you can count on them being late to work. And I hate, I hate when people are late bad mouthing the employer. Another red flag. If someone's badmouthing a previous employer, good chance they're going to badmouth you eye contact again, has a lot to do with trust. If they are breaking eye contact when you ask hard questions, etc. You got to take note of those things. If what's their reaction to the question of doing random drug tests? Again, the reaction do they pause, et cetera. Another red flag potentially. And the last red flag I have mentioned here is can they ask, can you pay cash? They ask for you to pay cash to them instead of being above board and paying like payroll taxes and all the rest of it. Really big red sign because there's a really good chance they have garnishing of wages from like a bankruptcy, for example, or they have child support or they are illegal. So any of those things, if those are red flags to you, and in my opinion, people should pay child support. Some judge came to the conclusion that they should be paying child support. I'm going to make sure they pay child support. I'm going to fill out the forms for the state and they're going to pay. So if they ask to pay cash in the interview process, just know that there's going to be an issue in one of those few categories. All right, So I hope that was helpful. I'm going to jump into the Q and A. But before I do that, I wanted to show you all that are in the course how to get to the 30 tips. So I didn't go over all 30. Let me just show you real quick before I get into Q and A. If you have a question about hiring, anything like that, comment, let me know what red flags you see in the interview. But I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen real quick with you guys because if you're in the course, I want you to know exactly how to get to the full. Here we go, here we go. So this is the Here we go. This is the landscapebusinesscourse.com. if you're not a member, check it out. Landscapebusinesscourse.com you can sign up, but once you're inside the course and you go to all courses and the basics course. So there's a P4P course. It's part of the. Part of the whole package. But basics course, scroll through past all the other modules, you know, getting started, blah, blah, blah, the shop, tours, all the other stuff. Okay, down at the very bottom is the hiring webinar. Click on this. And this right here is all 30, 30 ways to hire great employees. So look at that one. That's the full webinar. It's going to have a whole bunch of like tactical Tips on finding people, et cetera. So check that out. Remove. We're back. Okay, let's go ahead and get some questions rolling in three, two, one. There it is.

All right. Least isn't the CAT filter. Yes, exactly. Thank you for correcting my audio. Sorry about that. For some reason, whenever I plug my microphone, it goes to 44,800 hertz instead of 44,100 hertz. All right, now you sound like Brad Pitt. All right, Seth, how long should it take to train a new hire with zero lawn care mechanical experience on basic mowing?

Yeah, so the big kicker here is that fact that you're talking about basic mowing.

Right.

If you've simplified your services enough, it's going to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to hire that person and get them onboarded and trained and efficient. And if you have complicated setup, more mowers, different types of mowers, different types of trucks, different types of trailers, all of that complexity is going to increase the amount of time it takes to train and hire somebody and make them efficient. That being said, if you get someone and you're doing mowing service, you're doing basic services. What I always recommend is start them on basic things and slowly scale them up. Typically, someone in this industry is not going to be able to sit behind a camera or sit behind a screen and watch for four hours of videos about how to mow lawns. And they pick it all up. Usually what they're going to need is out in the field experience. And day one is weed whacker. Day two is a blower. Day three is a push mower. Day four is driving the truck. Day five is driving the truck with a trailer. Day six is backing the trailer up. Day seven is zero using a zero turn, like how you stack. That is, in my opinion, very important. And obviously the employee that has experience is sort of the person that is determining whether or not they're ready to move on to the next step of training.

Most landscaping companies offer no benefits. Yeah, that's right. And you know, honestly, in my opinion, though, P4P pay for performance, open book management, a great culture, paid time off, all of these are definitely benefits that you could potentially offer in your ads. And that's why making a video, making your ads centered around what makes you different is so important. David, two to 22 years in the profession and business, you are correct. If they do, it is minimal. Carlos Silva, thanks for the videos. How to convince an hourly employee to work per production. Thanks in advance. So, Carlos, go to the course, go to P4P and then talk. There's a in there. There's a video about convincing your employees that P4P is better than hourly. You got to train them, and you've got to show them the numbers behind how they can make more money. And you have a trial period, and they can make the hire of both either hourly or P4P. So check out the video in the course landscapebusinesscourse.com underneath the P4P.A course section. Do you think that paying $45 per application for a boosted job post on indeed in on indeed is steep? Well, it just depends on, like, you know, does IT bring in 10 applications or does it bring in zero? That being said, we spent thousands of dollars on things like indeed, Facebook, Craigslist, et cetera. So $45. Oh. Oh, I see what you're saying. Sorry, seth. You're saying $45 per application. The thing is, like, if one out of three work out, that's $120 per, you know, good employee. I'd do that all day long. Like, all day long. Right. So it really comes down to, again, your filtration system. $45 per application. You're putting people in the top of the funnel. Now you got to figure out how many filters am I going to have in place to get people at the bottom of that funnel. So the filtration method can be applied for all hiring. And $45 per application is top of the funnel. You see top of the funnel, and what's at the bottom is going to be actual qualified applicants that you want to give a job offer to. Supremo. What do you think about isusa, NPR box trucks with ramps for long care? I like it. If you have to bag your clippings, though, it's a little bit of a pain in the brain because trucks, you can just dump the clippings over the side of the bed. Whereas a box truck, although I love the fact that you have great marketing, it's all enclosed. You can just lock it up. Very, very cool. But if you have clippings, wet climates, or you want to use that truck for, like, hauling debris or cleanups and bush trimming, that becomes a little more complicated, in my opinion. Yes, there are the ones that have, like, the dump bed insert with the box truck. Those are usually pretty expensive. So that's when it just becomes a measure of, like, can I get four pickups for the price of one box truck with a dump insert? Like, that becomes kind of complicated. All right, let's keep going here. If you Want to drop a, like, I'll keep going for a couple more questions here. Chase Grant, would you say hire people, you know, when starting. By the way, love the videos. Yeah, like, you know, I'm a big fan of hiring people, you know, at the beginning. Right. Because all you really need to do is trust the employees, especially if you have like a full time job.

I actually mentioned to a couple of our franchisees, one was a firefighter and another one was he's still in school. And I said, look, this is the one time you should go hire someone that you know or someone that you trust because that's all that matters. You can't manage them throughout the day. You need to trust them and that should be your focus. So, like, my first three, four employees were all people that I knew from church or that were related to me. And because of that trust factor, I didn't have to watch over their shoulder. I didn't have to think, you know, are they trying to keep money away from me? Are they trying to hide things? Are they trying to steal from me? I have to worry about that. And it could just let me grow the business. And in my mind, that's the biggest thing when you're first getting started is trusting those employees. Grass Monkey llc. In a past video, you talked about ratio of payroll to amount billed. Benchmark was payroll was around 35% of total billing. Is that ratio accounting for additional cost of payroll like taxes, etc. Yes, it is. Great question. I'm looking for just total amount of labor expense. That includes payroll taxes, lni, workers compensation. Excuse me. All the other stuff is included in that amount and that percentage. And it's the easiest way to keep track of it, in my opinion. So cool. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and call it a day. Tomorrow I'm gonna be doing another live video. So if you have any questions, definitely feel free to post them in tomorrow's video. I'll be going live. What we're trying to do right now is five vlogs during weekdays and then on the weekends I will do live streams. So I'm gonna do one today and one tomorrow. So thank you so much everyone. Make sure if you're in the course landscapebusinesscourse.com go check out the 30. The full all 30 tips. I just shared five or six today. Please go watch the 30. I hope that one or two of them spark something and gives you an inspiration, an idea to go and get a good employee. Best of luck out there. Welcome to the spring rush time has begun. Stay healthy, keep making money. We'll see you guys.