A motivational talk by Mike Andes (founder and CEO of Augusta Lawn Care Services) directed at landscapers and lawn-care workers. Andes reframes lawn work as selling clients time and urges workers to use on-the-job hours to learn—through audiobooks, podcasts, mentoring, and hands-on business tasks—so they can advance careers, potentially start businesses, and better provide for their families.
Hello, fellow landscapers and lawn care professionals. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder and CEO of Augusta Lawn Care Services. We have 37 locations around North America. But today I want to talk to you and your team about lawn care, about landscaping, about your future, about what you can do to make sure you get your career to the next level. I want to just kind of inspire you to do a couple things today and this week. I know it's really easy as lawn care and landscapers to just kind of fall into the trap of like coming to work every day. We do the same thing all the time. It's really, really basic work. It's simple. We're not changing the world. We're not like developing the next Facebook or building the next Tesla. And it can just seem like mundane. There's no real meaning behind what we're doing. And I want to encourage you today that, number one, you're really selling something that is almost impossible to get anywhere else and that is you're selling time. We don't sell straight lines or greener grass or trimmed bushes. What we're really selling is the fact that the homeowner, our client, doesn't have to do it themselves and therefore they're able to spend time on the weekends with their grandkids or if they've been working all week long, a time to be able to recover and rejuvenate themselves on the weekends after working a long work week. But for us in the lawn care and landscaping industry, we're giving them an hour, two hours, three hours a week that they can actually spend time with their family, their friends, their loved ones, building their businesses. And so I want you to think about this coming weekend and as we go into the spring season, begin to mow more lawns and get more busy. We're going, what can you do while you're out there performing a very valuable service to our clients? What can you do to improve yourself? Instead of coming to work on your job, come to work to work on yourself as a human being, as a professional. Not only getting more skills on how to mow grass better or do better landscaping skills, those are great. But what about your professionalism? What about your ability to lead? What about your ability to learn business? What can you do today? Whether it be listen to an audio book, whether it be listening to a podcast, what can you do today to really learn and develop yourself for that next job? Maybe you're not going to be here for more than just the summer. Maybe this is just a part time job for You. But what about your next career development stage of what you're trying to build? Maybe you have a passion, a career you want to get into, a certain job you're going to school for. What can you learn today while you're out there working for the next 8, 10 hours, grinding out in the sun or out in the cold like it is here today? Learn about how to lead people. Learn how to market a business. Maybe you want to start your own lawn care business. Maybe you should annoy your owner and ask them a little bit about the numbers. Maybe they could help you learn how to do estimates. Maybe they could teach you how they do marketing. Maybe they could teach you how to do equipment maintenance. These are all skills that are so valuable. I really encourage you. If you're trying to get the next place in your career, if you're trying to own your own business one day or you want to make more money, you want to help provide for your family in a better way in the future. I do everything you possibly can to help your current owner and then make sure that you get as close to them as possible, whether that is helping them on the weekends, doing special trips or errands or equipment maintenance for them, trying to learn more about the business. What you can learn on the job in this environment where you're mowing all day, what you can learn on the job and hear and listen and digest all day long, that's the real value of this job. The actual skill, skill sets of mowing grass and pulling weeds and trimming bushes, it's basically a commodity anyone can do. It doesn't take a lot of skill. But what you can learn on the job, what you can push in your ears, watch, begin to absorb from your owner and from your other co workers. That's where the real value is at. Maybe you're interested in politics, maybe you're interested in different areas of business or making more money on the side or the stock market. These are all things that if you can learn and just absolutely absorb yourself while you're out working, there's tons of content out there, audio books and podcasts about things you're passionate about that you can learn about, improve yourself in and get to the next stage of your career. I encourage you to come to work, to work on yourself as a human being, as a professional, as someone that wants to get ahead in life and lead others into battle. Lead others, your family, your co workers, your team, and get them to the next level in their career, get them the next level in their emotional or like career. Development. These are all things that we can do and that we have a very, very unique opportunity as landscapers to have an entire day to plug in those earbuds. Yes, we can listen to whatever newest music is out. Yes, we could listen to some stupid talk show. But what can you do to actually embedder yourself? Set yourself up for future career prospects that will make you more money and set your future up for your family, for your team, and for your businesses. I wanted to say thank you to everyone that kind of joined us this morning for the team meeting. And I really look forward in the future, hopefully connecting with each of you. And, and I just encourage you take this opportunity, learn, develop yourselves, download the podcast, download an audiobook today, and see how it can change your life in the future. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com We'll see you next.
Sam.
