Overgrown Property Cleanup for the City - FREE OF CHARGE!

What's funny? I feel like I'm doing something bad, but I'm actually doing something very good. Jaywalking, breaking the law.

Cleaning. You can do it for your mom.

You can do it at your house for your mom.

Hey, everyone, it's Mike andes here@landscapebusinesscourse.com. today we're gonna be doing a little bit of community service. Not because I went to jail, but because we're trying do something good for the community. These signs here were installed about five to ten years ago. Blaine is the city that I was born in, and it's a little bit run down. We got to clean this place up. There's two of them across the street here. This is right when you come into the Alpha, out of Canada, into the U.S. right when you cross the border. This is what people see. We want it to look good. We're not getting paid for this. Today you're not going to see a timer. We're not going to see a bunch of money flowing in. But today we're going to do something good for the community. Hope you enjoy it. Hopefully the. The voiceover. You can make money in your business. Mowing lawns, pulling weeds, trimming bushes on jobs like this.

Come on.

I will always win. All right, so let's go ahead and talk about your business. Making money mowing lawns, doing landscaping jobs, property cleanups like this. This is kind of like the type of project work that we really like to do. You know, cleanups, property clips are great. They're somewhat recurring because usually they got to be done a few times a year. And it's simple services. So if you were doing just mowing right now, this might be a great entry point in terms of projects to get started in. Doing some jobs that are made 5, 6, $700 on overgrown flower beds and bushes that need trim. These are. These are great ways to get started without needing a whole bunch of skill for hardscaping and landscaping that over time, you can build up to and work on those bigger jobs. So on job like this, where we're not getting. We're not getting any money for this, unfortunately, we're going to talk about that later, but I don't know, like, the city is supposed to be maintaining this area, but they're not. So when do you do free services like this? Obviously, if you're just trying to do some community service, help out, want to help the community, that's awesome, right? Like, there's always a good time to take your skills and what you're good at and try to help other people. But there can be a time when it's actually a good move from a business standpoint. So I want to talk about that real quick. So a couple things, a couple ideas I might have for you. If you're trying to grow your lawn care business and try to get more jobs, and you're trying to figure out, how do I do advertising, but maybe you don't know how to do facebook ads, you don't know how to do videos and pictures and YouTube and google and a website and all the rest of it. If you don't know how to do those things and you still want to get your name out there, potentially what you could do is go to an area like this, talk to the city, and say, hey, you know what? Not only am I going to clean it up one time, I'm actually going to maintain it on a regular basis. And all I ask is that I have be able to put a little sign out front. Maybe it's a 3 foot by 2 foot sign, 36 by 24. And you're able to put it out next to the road. Maybe it's a yard sign. Maybe they actually let you have one in post with the actual metal sign. But that's a great way to get your name out there. After this cleanup, this might take me five or ten minutes a week to actually get this place looking good. Every week, pull some weeds, trim a bush or two, make it look nice. But every single time someone drives by, stops next to the sign, they're going to see my name. If I put my company's contact in there. And all you got to say is, this area is maintained by. Put your name there, put your phone number, and you're good to go. This is a great place to put a yard sign. If you don't have yard signs, make sure you check out the link below. We have templates that you can purchase and actually customize. Put your phone number on there, and I would, you know, if I was you, I'd put a property cleanup yard sign right next to this bad boy. Next week, we're gonna talk about the fact that one of these people driving by this sign actually called and asked for a big project based on just seeing me here. So just the fact that my truck is parked right next to the road, the community sees me working out in the community, they're going to want to support a business like that. So if you have nothing to do, if you're just getting started, you know, free is not bad. Yes, we want to make money. Yes, we want to grow the business. We need money to grow the business and be sustainable. You can't do free work forever unless you're making YouTube videos, but that's another story. But if you're trying to grow your business, this is a good point. You'll put park your truck out there, let the community see you working out here, and you're going to get some business. If you negotiate with the city and get a sign out there, even better. All right, so the honest truth, though, let's be honest here. Recently I've been making these videos for mowing, and you guys love it. Our view count is up, like, three times than usual. But the truth of the matter is I'm really out here just for you guys to make these videos. I do not mow. I've seen some comments and people like, wow, you mow every day and do landscaping jobs and you run the franchise. No, I don't. Unfortunately, I'm not that good. We only really work out in the field maybe three hours a week for the video camera, get a few videos so we can post them and make it interesting. Because guess what? What I'm saying right now is basically what I usually say on a podcast. But you guys seem to like it a lot more when you're able to watch me pull weeds and struggle and sweat. So that's what we put on here so you can learn while you watch this very satisfying video. So if that doesn't deserve a like, I don't know what does. Hit the like button right now. I'd really appreciate it. Comment below. Like, have you done one of these projects before for your community? Is there a community project you could potentially do with your employees or by yourself or on the weekends or in the evenings? Give back to the community. And it's good for business. People see you out in the community. They want to support local businesses and other community members that are striving to make the town, the city, wherever you live, a better place. Look for roundabouts and places next to intersections where it's high visibility and potentially a yard sign could bring in new business.

One second. There's a city worker driving by. What? Just wait. There's a city worker driving by.

You want them to think I'm stealing their job or anything?

All right, so this bush trimming here, not really the best job, to be perfectly honest, for a couple reasons. One is I can't reach the center of this without jumping on the sign, and if I do that, someone's gonna call on me. So I got as much As I possibly can for the sides. But ideally, you have access to the center of these bushes, so you can get all the little pieces off, because those will die. Fortunately, with this one, it's not visible from the road, so it should be okay. But typically, when you trim a bush, you want to make sure you get all the little pieces off, because otherwise they'll just sit on top, die, and then look horrible. So I'm not going to get all of it off, but that's kind of the goal. I'll probably shake the bush to try to get as much to fall down as possible, But I don't have, like, a rig to get above this bush, and I'm not tall. That doesn't help anything.

All right, so let's continue on. Let's talk about pulling weeds. Cause that's what I've been doing mostly on this job. When should you pull weeds? When should you knock down the weeds? When should you spray the weeds, et cetera? Let's first talk about pulling the weeds versus knocking them down with the weed whacker. Now, first of all, if you're around glass, like windows or windshields for a car, Be very careful about using a weed whacker to knock down weeds. You will break glass. We broke a window just last week locally at our shop because of this very same thing. There's gonna be gravel inside flower beds. And a weed whacker hitting that bad boy, it can send that thing, like, flying hundreds of feet away at a very high velocity and break windshields. So keep that in mind. But that being said, pulling weeds versus knocking down, Keep this in mind that it's very important to make it very clear on an estimate and job notes. If you're doing a job and the customer's like, oh, like, I don't really need that area, you know, pooled by hand. Just knock it down. Because I can knock down a flower bed that's 1,000 square feet of lawn or 1,000 square feet of high weeds. I can knock that down with a weed whacker down to the soil in probably, I don't know, an hour or two to pull weeds for that whole thing. Actually pull them by hand and get the roots out. You're probably talking, like, a good solid day or two if you're pulling every single one by hand. You know, potentially, you could use rototillers other ways, too. But if you're deciding between pulling weeds versus knocking out the weed whacker, Keep in mind your surroundings, like the windshields and the glass, like I mentioned, and Also make sure it's very clear in your estimate and your job notes. So that way the customer's not surprised. And they're like, you know, your guys aren't using the weed whacker. And they come out flaming mad because, like, oh, my goodness, why are you using the weed whacker? I want you to pull them by hand, right? Hold their nose. The pollen is going to fly. Oh, yes. This is when the pollen is going to fly, Michael. This is what you didn't see in this video is the fact that my arms literally started getting bumps all over. I get, like, I have bad allergies. So, like, this is the worst time of year with the pollen and everything. So, yeah, shaking the bushes. What I'm trying to do is get those little pieces of bush trimmings to fall down. But in doing so, I'm getting pollen all over me. So I don't think we show it in this video. But my arms are not. They're not scratched. It's just like they get red, blotchy, whatever, And I get on my chest, it's itchy. It's horrible. And that's why I had to stop mowing lawns all day long. I physically, like, would probably be, I don't know, 10 years older by now. Anyways, we're talking about weeds. We're talking about knocking them down. Make sure it's clear in your estimates, your customer, don't get mad. And make sure it's really clear on your job notes. So. So your crew isn't calling you ten times a day saying, oh, are we supposed to knock these out with the weed whacker? Are we supposed to pull these out by hand? If it just says weed beds, they don't know, like, say, pull weeds by hand or say, knock down with line trimmer. Like, make it very clear in your estimate for your customers and the job notes for your crew. So there's less back and forth, there's less questioning, there's less. They don't have to ask questions when it comes to the sales process. They don't have to call and ask you does it include pulling the weeds or includes knocking out as much detail as you can have in the estimate and in the estimate notes for the crew. Job notes, the better. Less communication, less back and forth. And at the end of the day, you want to make sure that as the estimator, once you've sold the job, you don't have to go back to clarify with the customer. To clarify with the crew, they're not texting you Five times a day, asking for clarifying remarks. Make your estimate and job notes very, very clear. Same thing with spraying. A lot of times, if we have an area, the customer has budget, and they don't want things pulled by hand. To get the roots out, we. We will simply knock everything down or spray it and then come back a week later and then knock it down. Right. Cause a lot of times, based upon the type of spray and the type of weeds you're spraying, they actually need the chemicals to be absorbed through the top of the plant, like the green part. Kill the plant, and then you can come along and weed, whack, knock them down to the ground. So there's a balance. Sometimes you're going to be just pulling the weeds by hand much longer, much more thorough. Immediately. Looks good here. I'm gonna actually get what I can out of this gravel. It's very hard to pull weeds out of this drain. Rock, gravel, cobble stuff. So I got as much as I could that's visible. I spray the rest of it, and the next week, if anything is visible still, I'll pull it once it's dead. Last thing. Do not compare yourself to the competition. The average landscape company loses money. So why would you copy their prices, copy their systems, copy their wage rates, copy the way that they treat their employees? The average landscaping company fails in America, so stop comparing yourself to your competition. They're all probably struggling, too. You've gotta be different. You've gotta do something different for your employees, for your customers, and that's how you win. All right, everyone, we have finished for today. Make sure next week you tune in, because we're gonna actually put bark mulch down. What I finished up was spraying all the little weeds. I could have probably spent another four hours trying to pick every single weed out of this gravel. But we still. We did this in like 90, 100 minutes or so. I got the main stuff, got most of the trimming done, got the whole truck full of debris. Next week, we'll bring back some mulch, get all the weeds that will be dead, and it'll look a lot better. So make sure you tune in for next week. Make sure you subscribe. We'll see you next on the next video.

Hey, it's Mike here, and I just want to say a big thank you for watching the video. Trust me. Click the other video over here. It's really, really awesome, and it really helps the YouTube algorithm. So click it. Just. Just go ahead now.