🔴 Live Intervention: They Wanted to QUIT!

If you own a home service business, there's a good chance you've come in contact with burnout, you've been stressed out of your mind, you're physically exhausted and you want to give up. You're going to be stressed out. As a business owner it is. What type of stress do you want? Every single morning you wake up, you wonder whether or not you're even able to make it through the day.

I can sleep 12 hours and then I still can't get myself out of bed.

My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 150 locations around the world. And I know exactly what it's like to feel like you're being burnt out, especially in the middle of the year when you're. When it's just crazy hot and you're exhausted. I hated being poor. Hated being poor, and I hated it a lot more than mowing grass. Today I'm gonna address two different business owners that called in on my call in show and ask questions about being stressed and wanting to give up. I'm gonna give some answers and hopefully it helps you get through these moments in time where you don't wanna keep pressing forward. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on.

Hey, Mike. This is Cody from Michigan. We've had a couple of coaching calls. We had them last year. I had a bunch of cash stacked up. I was ready to go into the winter, firing my employee to go solo for the winter because I was in Michigan. The beginning of this year, I moved to Georgia, wasn't happy with the demand curve and how inconsistent the winter was in Michigan. And I just wanted to restart before I got five years into business. So I started a game in March. We started with zero mowing customers and I had a few grand in the bank. By the end of May, we had a hundred plus mowing customers. I don't need any help with the businessman. I'm doing good right now. I'm just burnt out. I know this is something that's predictable. Like the months of June, July, ish, are usually like full of burnout. But, man, like I went from just grinding, doing door hangers like 8 hours a day, 10 hours a day, mowing all day, and I was sleeping three hours a night and, you know, I was running off of fumes and that's all I needed. And now it feels like I can sleep 12 hours and then I still can't get myself out of bed. Like, to be honest, man, I put myself on a chopping block here. But the Last month or two, like I'll show up to the. It's just me and one guy, right? I got a full time guy. I'll show up to the shop 15, 20 minutes late, like I'm not sleeping right. I haven't gone to the gym in a month or two. Normally I'm eating two or three meals a day and it's good prepped meals and it's solid whole foods. But now it's like I can't stand a diet. I don't know, maybe it's systems that I need to keep me from, from burning out.

If I asked you this question, why do you think you're burnt out?

I would say that I'm burnt out because it feels like I didn't have systems. Maybe for the last couple months I was on top. My close ratio is good, my response rate's good, everything's good. But I am falling apart. It was making that engine go so hard. I can feel it falling apart. I would say I'm burnt out because I do not enjoy the day to day.

I can take this from a few different angles. First off, I would say if you want to build this thing to a million dollar business, this is simply the journey on the way to doing that. If you feel like you're burning out, you might just want to slow down and reduce the timeline to getting to the million dollar business. And so going from 0 to 130 customers, fantastic. Next year you could potentially probably double that or more if you can stay on the rails. Here's the thing, if there's a 50% chance you don't stay on the rails and you quit, all of this is for not. I would rather you take three or four years to get to the same place, but do so in a controlled manner with 100% likelihood of success.

I love selling. I love talking to customers on the phone. I love dealing with the employee. I love like talking to him every day, being his leader and seeing him trust the decisions I make. I love it, but it's literally just cutting grass. Like I hate it, man. Like doing it 12 hours a day for the last two or three years after like already not liking it, I just, I'm making myself hate it almost.

So here. This might come across as tough love, but just take it for like the love I have in my heart for you. Is it simply the recipe required to get where you want to go? I didn't enjoy doing lawns and I did it for six years and I did it despite having massive amounts of allergies. And hating every single minute of it. But like, you're going to either hate mowing lawns or you're going to hate not having the goals and the success that you want to have. So which one do you hate more is going to be the one that wins. Either you're going to stay in this because you hate where you're currently at in terms of money, in terms of finances, in terms of opportunities, in terms of success, or you're going to hate mowing grass so much that you quit. And having a really honest conversation of which one you actually despise more will probably be the thing that gives you the hunger to keep in the game. Because I hated being poor. Hated being poor. And I hated a lot more than mowing grass and not being able to breathe correctly because of my allergies. I didn't take any medicine for it and it was garbage rashes and eyes swelling and throat swelling, all of that. But I hated being poor more.

I appreciate you.

Feel free to reach out to the community. Me on Long Care Millionaires. I'm sure a lot of people would love to help you out or give a word of encouragement. I want a little bit more of the tough love part, but I think that's the majority of what a lot of us feel in home services. And when you're going from zero to a million, you're not working on the business, you're not thinking about strategy, you're not thinking about the architect side of the company and entrepreneurship and books and conferences. You're just doing the work and it stinks. I appreciate Cody being so vulnerable and I know it's a little bit hard on him, but ultimately every single situation is very different. I recommend get help from somebody that's going to be able to give you the type of advice you'll need. Now, the second person I called in, I used a quite different approach. Mostly because of the fact that I think it was mostly self inflicted and they were putting their goals so far ahead of where they were at, they were starting to feel inadequate. All right, next call is from 613. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on. What can I help with?

I just wanted to thank you for everything you've done in the industry. You've really helped me out and plenty of others. So yeah, that's wanted to ask how you would recommend dealing with stress and overwhelmed in the day to day business day on a landscaping business. And specifically I'm a solo operator with no employees there.

Okay. What sort of stress right now are you feeling?

Right now I'm at the point pretty much where it's like hard to get up in the morning. But to be more specific, it's stress in terms of having to schedule my clients properly and make sure that I'm following up with them. Like burnout. For sure, burnout. The huge one. Being a solo operator with no employees.

What you want to come to terms of, what type of stress do you want to deal with? Because you're going to be stressed out as a business owner, it is, what type of stress do you want to. From 0 to 200,000 it's going to be mostly physical stress. From 200,000, 800,000, it switches to financial stress. Because you're no longer making 50, 60, 70% profit margins. You're making like 10 to 20% because you have to hire people and get a shop space and get more trucks and you have more overhead. It's going to always be stressful. And so the thing that I actually go back to is not the stress itself. But why do you, why do you wake up? Because I know it's difficult, I know it's hard, but like why is it that you actually end up waking up eventually? Is it family are you trying to provide? Is it a goal you're going towards? Are you trying to dig your yourself out of a hole? What's the actual motivation for you to actually get out of bed? Because you are doing it now.

Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know. It's hard for me. I know that I'm creating something that's much bigger than myself and I know that I'm definitely somebody that does not like working for somebody else. I much prefer creating for other people and helping out other people and just helping out people, let's say they're older and they just can't do it anymore. So that's definitely one reason for sure. But I don't have a family at the moment. But for the future I definitely want to be able to create for them and have that sort of lifestyle that would beneficial for that. And I want to have sort of memory to live on for sure. And it definitely feels like I'm in this pit right now, but I know there's something that's going to be built out of it.

What does better look like for you? So if things work out, is it a bigger business? What do you expect it to look like?

First of all, better looks like having employees and having that managed so that it's easier to manage the day to day work so that I Can easier focus on the admin work and selling so that I can continue growing the business. The long term goal is to get to a million in revenue, which I will get there. But it's more so to be able to have some more structure and systems in my business and just have some employees that can be there with me to take some of the labor off of me so I can get better in terms of talking with clients. The admin work is just doing all right now is killing me.

I feel it. I know it's like, man, here's the thing. You want to build a million dollar business. Like 1 out of less than 1 out of 50 people that start a lawn care and landscape business will build that 48 of them didn't have the ability to get through what you're feeling right now. And so if we're going to have the audacity to say we want $1 million business, we're going to have to realize that we're going to be in the top 2% of people that can actually get through the pain you're feeling right now. And I know it's difficult, I know exactly what you're feeling. But it has to come at a cost. Because if it was easy, everyone would just be lining up to start lawn care and landscape business and scale it to a million dollars. Have a bunch of people running, making a bunch of passive income. And that's not what.

Yeah.

And I would also try to reset your expectations somewhat because when you talk about stress and burnout right now you having physical stress when you grow and you get employees that will get better, but it will be replaced by a different type of stress. Because now you have people calling out, now you have employees making a bunch of mistakes at customers house. Now you have a bunch of people you got to manage and you got to provide not for your family, but for their families. So that type of stress is hard too.

Right.

And so it's not necessarily a bigger business will fix it. It is simply that you are right now looking on the other side of the fence and saying I would prefer the stress that's over there, but be careful because that's also going to be hard. And so what I would encourage you because if I would have known this before, it would have been easier come to grips of the fact that it's going to be stressful and then ask yourself whether or not you're willing to pay the price required to get the million dollar business. Because less than 2% of people in our industry are willing to get through the pain you're feeling right now. And that's why they quit.

Okay, gotcha.

I wish you all the best. I know where you're at. It stinks. And you don't see a lot of the fruits of the return. I would say the one thing that helps sometimes is raising prices because it gives at least a little bit more of a meat on the bone and a little bit more comfort. In terms of the ability to take a weekend off, the ability to do a little something on the weekend, or have a little bit of pleasure in life, I would raise your prices. That's always the short term fix. But in the long term, if you're trying to build a million dollar business, expect it to be painful. It's gonna stink. And then if you that's the expectation, anything less than that, you're like fantastic. It's not so bad today, but it's just gonna be hell. And for people that are like, I want a franchise, I want to like 10 million or 100 million dollar business realize the pain required. Because the percentage of people that are willing to be able to sacrifice and be able to get that level is so minuscule. You will have to sacrifice time with family, you have to sacrifice your energy, you have to sacrifice things that you love in order to be able to do that. Big dreams will require big sacrifices.