ONE MONTH until I am BANKRUPT

My trucks broke down very low on cash. Almost cut my fingers off.

This is where most owners would throw in the towel.

No wonder by so many fail.

His very first year in business, Marcus has been on the brink of failure multiple times.

It's a very sinking feeling. The horrible days, the days I don't know if I'm going to make payroll for the team. It's very tough.

Marcus started his Augusta lawn care franchise in Redmond, Washington this year. But it's been a massive struggle. So far.

I'm less than one month away from insolvency.

I've always said growth sucks. Cash.

Amazing how quick you could spend money, especially when you're starting a business.

Hiring trucks, marketing equipment, all of that while trying to probably give away discounts to fill the schedule and get customers quickly.

Those jobs that you do get on the schedule, you're hardly making any margins on. It's all money out the door.

Let's head to Redmond, Washington to see if Marcus can get out of this mess and keep his lawn care business alive.

I believe that's sort of the final frontier for me. Channel my inner Mike Andes.

Friday we're at the dump. Gotta be on a flight to Memphis. Gotta get to the airport by 10pm tonight. Lots get done before then. So dumping this out, fill it up with half yard soil, half yard mulch for two separate jobs. A little tree trimming today, a couple mowing jobs. Helping finish my other employees route. Let go of somebody yesterday is what it is. Still gotta get it done. Prioritize and execute.

All right, debris dumped. We're all loaded up. Got a half yard of mulch back there, half yard of soil up here. Finished a couple projects this morning. I got this longer pole saw. Gonna do some pole pruning some branches and then some mows I'm gonna finish up with. So I got the wheelbarrow in there as well. I need a trailer.

One employee quit yesterday, so we're just scrambling to finish up the week. Just said it wasn't for him is what it is. There's no bad feelings about it. Said I'd give him a great reference. Looking for another job. So today, just finished my first job that was just installing some soil. Gonna go install some mulch. About nine hours worth of services today. My one remaining employee, he's gonna do about 600 hours, then we're gonna meet up together to finish the entire week of services from there. I have six or seven estimates to get to. And then right after that I need to drive down about 30 minutes to the Seattle TAC, in which I'll go fly to Memphis, have a presentation. That's what I was doing last night. Just finishing up my PowerPoint. My thoughts of what I want to convey to the franchisees. Hopefully provide them some value. Stay up till like 3am Getting that done. Get started here at 6am I'll catch up with sleep on the plane. But for right now, nine budget hours to do several estimates. Let's get it done. In 12 hours from now, I need to be on a plane. So let's get it done. Prioritize next cube. I'll see you soon in method.

All right, plant some road engines right there. Some mulch. We got all the black bears over here. Mulch underneath and around the deck. Anything over here, big cleanup. Weasley's debris and then mulch. Still needed to find the edges a little bit more. Otherwise mulch throughout here. Gonna kind of repair the lawn too, and then mulching the front beds. Big clean.

All right, day's done. We're back in our shop now. Got all the tools and supplies. Just basically laid everything down in here because it's not this truck but the truck outside. Gonna go park it at the Sea Tac airport.

Took all the equipment and stuff off the truck and the stuff outside, put in the shed. Day's done and we're gonna go knock out some estimates. And then around 7pm we'll start the drive down to the Sea Tac airport, go from there to Dallas, from Dallas to Memphis. Right in time for lunch tomorrow. Couple red eye flights. I'm hoping to catch up on some sleep. I very much need it. And typing out some estimates and finding my presentation. And I can't wait to see all the franchisees down there.

Just initial most. I'll include that for frontline right there. I'm gonna get a video wrapping around the property. I've even looked at the backyard. But for efficiency sake, I'm just gonna make it up as I go. And as I see things, I'll say things in my phone here for the video. Slightly trim this off from the coaching on the pathway. Don't trim it too much to where it's gonna become bare, but as much as we can off from the pathway. It is pretty thick right now, so get it really down in height. Might you have to mow it a couple times. Check lots of pine cones and stuff, which is blowing the piles. See for now, I'm pruning, trimming shape of these bushes. Pruning feet off from the fridge of the house and Me being afraid of that. Going to get the dry corners from the house. Channel my inner m. The sales pitch.

To improve your clothes ratio. Something nice. Give them maybe a little bit folder. I won't show you everything in here, but, you know, they do get a little magnet, some information about Augusta and our services. It's magnet, free fridge. That's my business card in there. And just a couple things that make us different. So.

Something helpful I found out with sales is that don't talk about what people don't want to talk about. A lot of people don't want to talk about landscaping. They don't even want to think about their landscape. That's why you're there. You'll maintain it so they don't have to think about it. I like to gear the conversation more towards, what do you got going on this weekend? Right now, here in Redmond, it is 85 degrees, sunny. People are out on the lake, and I let them talk. Ideally, you see something light up in their eyes, something that they're excited about, and they talk about it. And you let them talk, and it's great. And you build off that because people like talking about themselves, and there's no problem with that. What's that little thing that gets them excited? And when you find that out, when you uncover that it's the best thing, because their eyes light up, they say, oh, yeah, my daughter just graduated this weekend. We're doing a big party. That's why we're trying to get the, you know, the property cleaned up in time. Like, yeah. That's awesome. That's so cool you're having family over. I want to talk to you about that. Not necessarily your landscaping. I want you to know that I'm the professional. I'm gonna take care of your landscaping so you never have to think about it. You could focus on your daughter's graduation this weekend, and we could have that relationship. You're on autopay. You know, it's taken care of. That way you could focus your time on other things on the weekend. You could focus on the graduation party. You could focus on doing golf. We're saving you that time. It's cost benefit analysis. It's opportunity cost. What do you want to spend your time on? And that's where we come in.

Let's go to the top.

Cool. We'll get started. There's been a lot of debate on this, so I really want to just cut any debate out and make sure it's very apparent. So there's no debate, and there's no questions about this.

West coast. Best coast is what it is. Oh, stop it. I know a lot of you don't really get to see this. This is the sun, obviously.

Goes over the west coast, so we get the sunsets, not you guys. So you get sunrises. But look at this. This is the least blurry image I could find, and it's still very blurry. If you'd like to join us on the west coast In Washington, Oregon, or California, it's gonna say, I'll set up a booth in the back.

We just ask a couple things from you. If you just do decide to move over here. We want your right to privacy, your freedom of speech, and you need to wear a mask while you're driving, too.

Just got the racks on the second truck here. So these ones actually are yellow. It's actually a pretty similar yellow color. Versus the other truck that's got the green racks on the side. Now we just got to get these ramps.

In the yellow color. That'd be pretty cool. But just wanted to reflect a little bit. On how this past month and a half. Or I'd say even this whole springtime has been these went down. Of course, as you know, in the summertime, Both of our trucks going down at the same time. This one needed a new transmission. This one coolant radiator. About to pay $13,000 in new truck repairs, paint, new decals and things. Separate equipment, Things go wrong. One truck needs a new engine, Perhaps one truck needs a new transmission. So this one now is having starter problems. And then this one now is having really bad brake problems. So it just needs new brake pads. But that's where we're at. Used trucks. I knew what I was getting into.

I had doubts. My trucks broke down. Very low on cash. Almost cut my fingers off. I'm a little unsure if my index finger is still on or not. Just found out today. That the workers compensation Is not going to cover it. So I'll have to figure that out. So it's been a struggle as well. We all know in the springtime, it's not really something that was new to me. Working at the original Bellingham shop. But with your own business, it definitely comes with its own challenges. I've never had the financial challenges like I do now. Just a week ago, I had $3,000 to my name in cash. Right now, it's probably the lowest low I've ever been in my business. That's very low. I've never been really financially stressed, So I believe I passed the stress test. I believe we're out of it. Last month we finally showed positive cash flow, which was a big deal because as Mike talks about the first several months in business, you're buying your trucks, you're buying your equipment. It's all money out the door. It's amazing how quick you can spend money, especially when you're starting a business. No wonder by so many fail because even then you don't have hardly any momentum in terms of your close ratio may be low. You're just not getting jobs on the schedule. Those jobs that you do get on the schedule you're hardly making any margins on.

A lot of the times it's about telling yourself the truth, an unbiased truth. I'm in hyper growth mode. I have less than $10,000 in my bank account. I have two employees on my payroll and lots of overhead expenses. Left unchecked, I'm less than one month away from insolvency. I'm averaging four hours of sleep per night, not giving my body time enough to recover. Two weeks ago, I almost cut all my fingers off with a hedge trimmer. Two days ago, one of my employees quit. We have a very full schedule and a lot to get to before I had to be here. It's a very sinking feeling. It's very tough.

This is where we're at now.

When you are low on cash, you're doubting yourself. Things aren't going as planned. And it's very hard to get momentum in your first year. Especially in the springtime.

You think back what you really want and you ask yourself that question. Why? Why am I doing any of this? I will never ever give up. If we take ownership of the problem, we could take ownership of the solution. With all the struggles, I still love it. Never quit. We realize that to be successful, we really don't have a lot of choices. We live in alignment with our vivid visions and are determined to fulfill them. In pain and suffering is growth. I'm more than aware of that. We have a legitimate desire to make a positive impact for my clients, team members, family and franchise community. I realize that when we are our most effective self, that passion is projected onto our clients and team members and that inspires them to become better versions of themselves. The bad is on you Try to project the good on them. Somebody wants what we want. It's up to us to make sure that person is us. That's where we're at. Focused on the future. We realize that we are vertical. We're on this side of the carpet. There are people on the other side of the carpet that would do anything to have a bad day. We could roll out of bed in the morning on our own, stand on our own two legs, take a big deep breath of fresh air without the assistance of a machine. You realize what you do have in moments like this.

We realize that working outside the elements gives us a great sense of accomplishment, that we will never fully appreciate the sunny days without first working in the pouring rain. That's our subconscious self. We like being out in n We live in America, which represents 4.5% of the global population. Yet 30% of the world's total GDP, talent, education, wealth and opportunity is right here, right now. When your head hits the pillow at the end of the night, you get a huge sense of fulfillment. We are in the right place. High performing franchisees like Kevin Fairburn, Nick Dentalsbeck, Ryan Payne, Andy Burleson, Dustin Vierlink and so many more are in this room thanks to people like them. We could be proud of our wearing our uniform and continue to live the Augusta. To eat those.

I just hung this up. It's an old Augusta shirt. You can't even tell, it's almost black.

So here's the new color. That's what it's supposed to look like. And believe it or not, these were the same color shirts at one point. So more than anything, this signifies how hard we work, what we really stand for. Now I got to start from the bottom and be really scrappy with it. I look forward to the horrible days, the days I don't know if I'm going to make payroll for the team. Things I don't experience here. I feel like I need to experience that pain for me to grow even more as a an owner. I hope this has provided some value to you. I definitely learned a lot in this past month. I shouldn't have been as arrogant. I'm going to bother you until I get my payment. Do have a U haul van. Try to park down the street so they don't really see your truck. Sometimes you're wrong on estimates. You got to take it on the chin whether you're in Augusta or not. It's all about the systems. Lower highs, higher lows, that's crushing it. That's P4P. As long as you build your business around systems and focused on the long term, that's what it's all about. We're all pulling the same direction. That's great. It's been a pleasure. I hope to meet you all at Landscape Summit this year. It's in October in Louisville so if you're going to the Korean Industry Expo, they changed the name of it, but that's how I remember it. If you're going to that, then hopefully I'll see you. So Marcus Redmond, Washington Year One 2023 Springtime We Survived despite the ups and the downs.

I'm extremely proud of Marcus for just completely changing the trajectory of his life. To start at 18 years old, not really having a whole lot of direction or skills or education and being able to grow to just a few years later, owning your own business and having an employee and just figuring these things out. Those skills are invaluable and the the ability to learn all of these skills at such a young age is why I'm so passionate about lawn care, landscaping and service based businesses. Regardless if it's something you want to do for the rest of your career, it's a great place to really sharpen the skills of hiring, marketing and being able to get to the emotions of trying to grow a business and going through all the struggles like Marcus has.

It is not easy for someone like Marcus to go from a general manager position where he never worked out in the field and he was in the office most of the day doing estimates to be out in the field doing work for 12 and 14 hours a day. I respect that a lot of this young man and I look forward to sharing more of his journey down the road.

Peace out guys. It's a pleasure.