My GM is Leaving | $300k Business in 30 Days (17)

I'm traveling 3,000 miles across the country to build a $300,000 lawn care business in just 30 days. This Augusta lawn care location needs to be making $1,500 per day before I can hand it off to a general manager and go back home. I'm starting with no employees, no equipment, and no customers to prove that systems build great businesses.

I just finished my morning run. Today is day 17. And the game plan today is I have a whole bunch of meetings I've got to get caught up on, so I'm going to be doing those. Terrence is going to go out and do the mowing route himself completely independently.

And then we're going to try to wrap up a mulch and a property cleanup this afternoon because something crazy is happening tomorrow and we had to clear the schedule.

Alright. I'm pretty excited because the project from last week, that was really big. Almost $5,000 actually. Now it's gonna be a little over $5,000. Cool. They said you kind of had a little bit of a project going on. Yeah.

I got your flyer.

Sweet. I'm adding a work change order that the client wanted. And so they actually wanted to add a little bit more in there in terms of planting. So all of that got just submitted into command center. They're gonna go ahead and sell the job. I'm looking forward to it. This is gonna really help us fill up next week's schedule basically completely.

I think this one is like the, you know, the first mow where everything went bad and like the tire.

The tire, yeah. Oh. Cuz it's just that backyard.

Yeah. I think that's this one.

That's probably it. I've never been here.

The dog's a biter. Good luck. Mike.

I can't have you do it today. I can't. It doesn't need to be done.

Okay.

So you don't want us to do it today?

First successful job.

All right.

Yeah.

So I guess you don't want it done.

It actually do needs it. So I'll have to talk to Mike and see what he thinks about.

Handling properties like that. I think it's something that you should. You know, we got you on a bi weekly basis. We should definitely knock it out because then in a week from now.

Should be talking about it needs to be cut again. Property notes. This is the visit notes that were like saved for me, but visit notes for today. So I just added. Customer said the yard did not need to.

Okay. So what I'll do is I'll go ahead and have Them still create a quote for you and send it over to your email so you have it on file. But then we'll just plan next week. They'll also give you a date at which they're going to be here. Okay, so now you're saying initially it's like $99. That that's our kind of our minimum charge. So does that mean if you come out and you have to do other things, that's going to be more than that, if you added other stuff? Correct. Yeah, that, like I said, that stays over there? Yeah, it'll be the same exact price every time. No surprises.

Awesome. I'll respond. Awesome. Thanks, John. I appreciate it. You have a great day. Have a good day. You. I'll just take a quick video for them so the crew knows exactly what you're looking for. All right. Thank you, brother. All right, so we closed another deal, just a really small one. I do have to have some sort of minimum charge, because that job, for example, would take 15 to 20 minutes each time we come and just trim those three bushes. There's really just these three bushes that we trim. He'll call us, like, every six months to get them done. He just wants some shape. Really doesn't need them cut back much. Just trim off the new growth. However, you do have overhead, like command center, and just overall operations where you've got to have some sort of minimum charge, especially if you're only coming every four to six months. Like, he's just going to call us and be like, yeah, I want them trimmed again, and it will literally take us 15 minutes. But I told him, like, look, the minimum charge is $99. That's what we charge you. And you can just call us whenever you want and get those three bushes done. So not a big job, but we got it on the schedule. And honestly, it's recurring revenue. A couple hundred bucks more in the bank.

Last week, we were looking for a general manager. You probably heard CH Chuck talk about how the two traits he sees in a great GM is time management and the ability to really grind, push forward, and sell more work.

When I had the lawn service, I was watching and, like, picking up on, you know, because Mike was the only person that did back office. That's what he said. Like, so he's crunching the numbers, how to. How to optimize the business.

That's his thing. You know, he's in front of the. He's running the numbers, which is something that I never had. You know, I knew, you know, how to cut grass. But it's like, how do you run the actual business? How do you make the most of the business?

Now, I have seven locations that I personally own in Augusta, lawn care, five in North Carolina, two in Washington state. And I can say without a shadow of doubt, 110 unequivocally, the financial performance of a location and the growth of that location depends on the general manager, the person that everything stops with them. Hiring, firing, sales, and the overall performance, really just 100%. If they're great, the performance of that location will do well. It doesn't matter if it's a new location and they're trying to grow or if it's an established location and they really need to manage people well. It simply come down to the general manager.

You know, he talks about P for P, you know, how to get the employees to better. So those were the things that I picked up from him when I had. Like, he really, really helped. Like, I would have never. Like, when I had the long service I had, I was able to pull myself out of the business and just run the business.

Now, I've consistently said, to grow a lawn care business or landscaping business to $500,000 in annual revenue, you need to be able to do one thing well, and that is sell, grind, pound pavement, do door hangers, talk to customers, sell in person, all those things. In order to grow past 500,000, you need to be a great leader that is finding, attracting, and hiring great people, and then them wanting to stick around. And you're willing and able to push them when the times are tough and get the most you possibly can from them while also making sure that they get to the next stage of their care.

Sam.

She said it's the perfect level because she likes the clover for the bees. She said she's okay with everything I wouldn't like to do because she doesn't put any chemicals because of the deer.

Squirrels, and all of this stuff like that. So she's super happy excited to see us back in two weeks.

So hopefully Mike's not mad about the 55.

All right, so this property I'm showing you on screen right now is actually a customer. We just got on the schedule and booked. But there's quite the story behind it because yesterday John had put the door hanger out on the person's property. They emailed command center with their information like they're supposed to from the back of the door hanger. However, they didn't actually send the picture. They just sent us information. And they said, well, we are willing to pay $55 for a BI weekly cut. Well, typically our minimum in this market is $39 for weekly or $59 for bi weekly. So right off the bat, I basically knew they were kind of trying to play the game. And I could tell by the wording they were like, that's what we are willing to pay.

But I could understand because it would. Because he understood that it took an hour to motor sharp. He understood that. So like, like we got it at 56 minutes. He understood that it took an hour to mow the yard. So that's seven. That with the budgeted hours, the way that he calculates it, he understand. I get why he said that this would normally be a 70 yard. And you know, maybe after, you know, like we say next, next year, spring rush. Definitely something. Hey, you're gonna have to come up to 70.

Yeah. The number one reason why I chose Terence to be the general manager of this location was because when I offered the position to be hired here, it was for a short three week stint to just do door hangers. Most people don't want that job. Door hangers are not fun. No one wakes up in the morning wanting to knock on doors and talk to strangers about lawn care and landscaping services. And so the fact that he was willing and able to do that grunt work and able and willing to do selling gives me very much confidence he'll be able to grow this business past 500,000 in annual revenue over the next couple years. Also, I really enjoy working with people who are super decisive, know what they want in life, and make decisions quickly. And so the fact that once he got the job offer within 24 hours, he had already flown here and was making arraignage to move his family said a lot to me.

This is the longest time I've ever.

Really at this point has. It's been like two weeks.

You know, our kids are my life, man. You know, so.

Well, we got proper cleanup. We got a molt install from the door hanger. Don't know what this is exactly. Let's go. Pretty Terrence looks excited. It's as you cross your fingers, you don't know. Right? It's like the cleanup I think is 250 and then the mulch is the 399. Okay. So that's why I was like, okay, let's get five yards and then.

Oh, so we don't even know how much mulch we need.

Well, so when we do the 399, typically I assume five yards. Right. But what I was thinking is I would go to the dump now.

Okay.

And then if you get there, like, hey, I only need three yards. Just let me know. Okay. Okay. And I'll pick it up.

Okay.

Yeah.

This is exciting. Like you're just walking up to a dock. It's scheduled for today.

I know. We moved it from yesterday to today. Just hoping that we get done by the night.

We can't dump there. We can't dump lawn debris or anything with it. Can dump trees, big lambs and rock and stuff like that, so.

No, she told me you didn't. The factful.

Okay. What I was looking at, I went to linear. I thought that was both 21.

I forgot to send you the new address from our competitor guy that told us to go somewhere. It's not. My bad. My bad.

I went there this morning. They told me no, I couldn't.

Don't. Okay.

Cuz it would have been already gone by now. I went cuz that's why I told you I was going to do the dump. Yeah. I couldn't though.

And you went to the land of your place. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. I don't think they take anything there.

No, she told me foxhole.

Foxhole.

Yeah. And then it was like 20 minutes away and I was like, we're not wasting it.

Yeah. Okay, well, I'll just go get the mold spin because we got all the stuff in there. So just let me know what you need in terms of mold once you get to the property and I'll pick it up. Okay.

All right. So it's 3:30, I'm headed to a job. And we're done. We're just about to start. We will start like at 4pm so it's gonna be a late night. But we got to get this job done today because tomorrow we can't do any work. And in tomorrow's vlog you'll see why we can't do any work. And it's crazy.

All right. We started on the mulch. We got all the debris. Debris out of the flower beds, these leaf piles. I'm gonna start bagging that up. And Terence has started installing the mulch back here. Been here about an hour and a half so far. So so far on schedule. This is big chips of mulch. Big stuff. But that's what they had before. And so basically just kind of rolling with their current workflow.

All right. To wrap up, I got seven o' clock meeting I gotta get to. But a whole bunch of debris we are going to be hauling off to the dump. We Got all the mulch installed. It's like big chunks nuggets it's called. We don't usually have these back home where I'm from, these big nuggets, but that's what they had before, so it's looking pretty good all back in here. Installed the mulch, trimmed up all the bushes nice and tight, and they asked for an estimate for the big trees on the other side of the property and the backyard. Like another at least 8 or 10 yards of mulch going in the backyard. So that'll be good as well. Some people might be wondering kind of my thought process when I'm out in the field sweating and working away doing what would otherwise be an $80 an hour task for an employee to do. And I have not been in the field for years. And I'm not gonna lie, it's not like I, you know, enjoy pulling weeds, trimming bushes, and installing mulch to the utmost degree. My allergies are kind of kicking up today. It's not fun or exciting. But the thing is, if you're starting a lawn care business and you're kind of in this journey that I'm taking here over the past month and you're getting it off the ground, it's likely that you're new and you came from the restaurant industry or you're a teacher, or you're a police officer, you were doing some other thing. And there's gonna be days where the work isn't fun, it isn't exciting. You don't wake up inspired to mow grass in the rain. That's not something that most people in their right mind want to do every single day and wake up enthralled and inspired and making their heart sing. There's gonna be times you doubt yourself, question yourself, wonder whether or not this is actually the right industry, whether or not you should really be have gotten into business. You're gonna doubt whether or not you're really a small business owner, whether you have the skills or the ability of the industry experience. You're gonna have all of those doubts. And they're typically going to come when you're physically exhausted and tired on a project or like in yesterday's video, you saw a customer getting unhappy and just like a gut punch in the stomach. I still felt that when I was talking to Linda and she was berating us and saying all these things that I had literally warned her about. When she asked to take up the tree and trim it way back, I told her it's going to look bare, but still it's still to this day, after seeing it hundreds, if not thousands of times across 130/status locations of Augusta, still letting down my customers. A punch in the gut. And you just question whether or not you should even be in the service industry. That's a normal feeling and emotion. And if you're just getting started, it's normal.

She has no idea that I'm coming. Only the only person that even her. So I haven't told nobody but my sister actually picking me up from the airport. She's the only person that knows that I'm coming.

And my wife doesn't get out the hospital until tomorrow. So I'm trying to see how I'm gonna play it. I don't know if I'm gonna go straight to the hospital because I want to hold the baby so bad. Yeah, I said, man, so. Or just like wait until the morning and then go and pick her up from the hospital to take her home.

Shout out to a bus salon.

All right. Catch you later, bro. Appreciate it. Catch you later, dog. Yeah, we'll see you.

We're out in the middle of nowhere. What time is it? Midnight.