Phone Call About Customer Lifetime Value - Ep.051

Hey everyone, this is Mike and you're listening to the Landscape Business course podcast. It's been a while since I posted but this one is kind of a cool episode because it's not the best audio you'll notice because I'm recording on my mobile microphone. Not my usual shure mic that I use at my studio. But yeah, this one was recorded on my mobile mic because it was actually done in Dallas. So I just got back, I got back from a trip I had in Dallas for four days. It was put on my service autopilot down in Texas there and was able to probably like I'm guessing there were six to 700 business owners at least and just jam packed full, lots of information. Course members, if you are listening to this you will be able to get snippets of that stuff that I thought was really valuable. I recorded some of the speeches like five or six. They are on the course site. So if you go to the bonus module and I think it's like the fifth section of the bonus module, you'll see it's a new conference folder. It has about five or six audio files. They're all like an hour long or so. There's a really, really good. Those are the ones I really enjoyed most and wanted to share parts of that with you. So course members check that out. So without any further delay, I do want to jump right into this episode. Like I said, I was recording this in my hotel room in Dall and so not the best audio. But this caller came in, he came in, he's a, he's a course member and he is basically trying to grow his business and done a great job so far. As far as client number, he's quite a bit of number of clients but his revenues are lagging from what they kind of should be. So you'll hear about how we talk about route density creating, you know, increasing lifetime value and I think it'll be a lot of value to you guys. So that any further. Let's just go ahead and jump into it. It's about 40 minutes long. I hope you get something from it. Here we go.

Alright, so this is my first year. I was, I was, I had a full time job 9 to 5. I decided like in January that I was gonna you know, start, start this and start you know, with the website, all that before I even had any equipment built it up.

And then.

Got my little bit of equipment and then I was able to quit by the second week of June and go strictly full time with the business.

So basically I Didn't. I had to turn down a lot of business at first because I was only able to do so much after working on the weekends. Um, but then once I was able to pull the trigger and go full time, it just kind of took off and I underestimated how, how much work I was able to get. So I didn't really market very hard in the first place. So really what I'm trying to do is kind of like double or triple the business next year.

Okay.

And I'm trying to. Trying to get ranked higher on Google right now.

I think the third or fourth page just kind of depends on what you type in. Yeah, so that's one of my goals, is to get a higher ranking on Google and then also some questions about, like, Facebook marketing and stuff like that.

Cool. All right. Yeah, sure. So before you get into questions, just so I can have some context, do you have any employees yet or not yet?

No, it's just me.

Okay. And then like, are you doing like 4 or 5,000 in revenue right now, a month.

Average? Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, since June. June to now, I've been averaging closer to 5,000amonth.

Okay. Yeah. So I'm guessing you're kind of like wondering how, you know, you take that next step next spring. Is that kind of what you're wanting to know?

Yeah, yeah, just like, because I keep, like most of my. Most of my customers are mostly like bi weekly. So I know you always try to say, you know, with the customers that you have, you know, try to upsell them and stuff like that, but they literally just want their yard cut because they don't want to do it. Like, they don'. Care about leaves, mulch, nothing. So I'm trying to get away from those and get into the higher end neighborhoods. The weekly clients that actually, you know, want to take care of their yard and stuff like that.

Yeah. Okay, so do you have some specific questions as far as, like, in marketing? Is that kind of what you're thinking about right now?

Yeah, yeah, and I got it. I got a guy that I plan on hiring next year, and I've already talked. Everything's pretty much lined up to start like in early March to. And he's, he's committed. Everything's pretty much a go. So it's just now it's just to get to work so I can. So I can pay him. Good.

For sure. So are you. Are you thinking you're gonna stay pretty busy by yourself over the winter, or are you just kind of planning for next spring?

Right now I'm Trying to. I mean, I'm trying to stay busy. I'm still mowing right now, but I'm trying to get some leaf cleanups. I've got an ad on Facebook going right now that I wanted to ask you a few questions about, but I'm definitely trying to stay busy. Winter, but I've got enough money saved up through the summer and spring that if I didn't get any work, I'd be okay.

Okay, cool.

Just kind of extra money, really.

All right, so kind of, I'm guessing, kind of like, let's talk about Facebook and then kind of get some sort of a strategy for going into next spring. Is that what you're hoping for?

Yeah. Yes, sir.

Okay, cool. So tell me a little bit about your Facebook ad. Unfortunately, I'm not in my office, so I couldn't pull up your website and stuff, otherwise, I would.

But go ahead, like, tell me what you're doing right now on Facebook, how that's been and what you think you're gonna do to improve that right now.

Okay. Well, right now I got a leaf cleanup ad going. I got it budgeted for seven days for $10 a day, which is. I know it's kind of cheap because I'm kind of scared to really pull the trigger on it, but it's only been up for, I think, a day and a half now. It's got 13 clicks, website clicks, But I just think my. I'm gone. I don't think it's a good, like, setup. Like, it's just. Basically, it's like a picture of a rake and leaves. And then I got. It says, you know, contact us today for, like, a free. For a free leaf cleanup quote. And then it's got. Where you can click the website, and then I've got the phone number on there. I just. I'm kind of going about it the wrong way.

Right, Right. Like, have you. When people call, do you know if they're coming, where they're coming from? As far as, like, has anyone mentioned that they've called from that ad?

No. No. Everybody. I asked, like you said on your podcast and everything. Like, I asked everybody, whenever they do contact me. And almost everybody's either from. From Google or next door, the nextdoor app.

Right. Okay. So, yeah, that's the tough part about Facebook is it's. If you haven't set up the infrastructure, it's a little bit more difficult. And that's why sometimes it's better. I'm finding actually push them to a contact form because, number one, they're already on their device. And usually they're the type of person that wants to just send the contact form instead of calling you. So I'd be interested to see, maybe throw them to a contact form instead of a phone call, as far as what you say in your text and then what page you send them to on your website. So if you have a contact form, try sending that to them. Try sending them to that URL.

Give that a shot. Because a lot of times think about when you might be on social media. It might be around your family or at night, and you don't want to be on the phone, obviously. Or a lot of times people are on social media outside of business hours. And so during those times.

They'Re with their family, they don't want to be talking as much or. Or they want to be doing something silent. So that's why I think a contact form is actually pretty interesting. So maybe try that. And then the other thing I would say is, I think right now, even though I talk about Facebook ads a ton on the podcast, if I were you, I would be focusing more on what you can do, because I think Facebook ads, you need to spend a little bit more than that to get enough traction, because people need to see it so much. Doing it for a week isn't usually super effective if they haven't seen you several times throughout the year. Like, even Facebook ads is starting to get a little bit more diluted because there's so many companies in the market now. Not to say it's not discounted, just saying that I think right now you might want to focus on. Okay, if you have 20, 30 customers, can you get two more customers around each of those clients and trying to do, whether it be door hangers or getting referrals from those people and trying to just make your route more dense as far as your mowing customers, that would be more interesting to me right now because I know you probably have a big budget. You don't have, like, you know, a couple grand just to spend on Facebook ads for awareness. And this time of year, a lot of what you're buying is awareness. It's not so much direct marketing. And, like, they're not necessarily going to call you because it's not necessarily the time they're thinking about it.

Yeah, okay. Okay. So the contact form. Yeah, I like that idea with the contact form. And I do have one of those on my website. You asked that.

Yeah. And what's cool, too, is then, like, I don't know how much you've worked with Facebook. But also one key ingredient is putting the pixel on your. Either your homepage or your contact page. Do you know what that is? Uh, so on your Google, on your Facebook ads, manage your website page. So if you go to business.facebook.com and you go through that, instead of just like, don't do it just through your phone, but if you go on the actual website, you can. What's called a pixel. And what it does essentially tracks all the traffic that comes to your website. And then what you can do in, like, you know, six months, a year, you can send ads only to the people that have crossed that pixel. In other words, you can target the people that have actually been to your website in the past.

Okay, if they just visited my website through Facebook or just if they visited my website, period.

If they visit your website, period. So you put that pixel on there, and it basically allows Facebook to keep tabs on all the traffic that's coming through. And if they're logged in through Facebook, they come back and they're logged in on Facebook, but they've been at your website at some point in time, and it'll then say, okay, hey, this Facebook user has crossed your pixel. And then you have the chance to retarget. That's what they call retargeting on Facebook ads. When you see a certain segment of the popular. Because they're obviously a warmer lead. They've clicked on you before, or they've had some sort of interest in your company, and so they're a warmer lead. So if I were you right now, I would actually stop the Facebook ads, but put a pixel on your homepage, and then, like, late spring next year, I would then start running ads against the people that have come across your pixel. Okay, so you can just YouTube. Just YouTube. Like how exactly to do that? Like setting up a pixel. Essentially, you just gotta copy a piece of code into your. Whichever website builder you're using, and it's pretty simple. And then just make sure it works. And then it'll collect it. No, I'd give it at least six months. And so you get a good portion amount of people that can market to. And then late spring. Then focus on that a little bit more.

Okay, yeah, that sounds like a really.

So outside of I wasn't using enough money, right? Well, yeah, it's not a money game. At the end of the day, you get 13 clicks, but this time of year, it's taking more clicks to get a phone call. It's gonna take on average. Right now, I'm seeing that it's taking less clicks to get. Cause, you know, people talk about clicks, but then you have to think, okay, yes, you got 500 views, 10 clicks, let's say, well, out of the 10 clicks, there's another step. They actually have to like, you know, phone call, contact form, something's gotta happen. Right. And so otherwise just buying brand awareness, which if you have tons of money, that's not a bad thing because, hey, they actually did get your website.

But right now I'd be focusing right now. Okay, right now, how can you get work over the winter, whether it be leaf cleanups, stuff like that, and then get those contacts so that come spring you can try to get them on that recurring mowing.

Okay.

Like how many mowing customers do you have now?

Right now.

Anywhere from probably 65 to 73, give or take. I got, I got one, but one, I've got two or three that have like multiple properties. One has 13 properties, another one has five and another one has three or four. And then the rest are just, you know, regular, bi weekly and also have, you know, I've got probably nine weeklies and then two commercials.

Okay. You know, that like have that many customers is actually really good after one year. Like as far as the. What I'm looking at though, and what you said at the beginning makes a lot of sense is, you know, what is your average ticket per customer per month? And you're like under $100 right now. Right, because like, you know, customer.

Yeah, because I started with my hourly raise. Like when I first started, I was like, I want to try to do 45 an hour.

Yeah.

I quickly realized that I could go way higher than that. So by the end of the end of the summer, I was, everything I quoted was trying to be 65 an hour and I was still getting stuff. So then I was even going higher and like, and it ended up being. Doing really well for me being able to get those higher, you know, per hour plants.

Right? Yeah. Like, is your mark, is your route pretty wide, like spread apart, like, like far apart from each other.

Like day to day? Or you talk like, just like, like.

Your mo route, like your mo route, are they like within a 10 mile radius or within like 2 mile radius? Like how big is your, your cluster of customers, your 70?

Oh, yeah, they're all, they're all spread out through my city. Well, it's not too big of a city, but I'd say definitely like a 10 mile radius. And so like, you know, I obviously I'm scheduled by, by the area that they're in on certain days. Yeah, I have the majority of them are within probably three miles though because of that next door app. So the majority are right, you know, really close to my house.

Yeah, like I, I'd be focusing right now making that dense as possible because if I hear that you're, you know, you're charging 65 an hour, but then, and you have 70 customers. 60, 70 customers and the average ticket per month is still under $100, then I'm looking at two things. One is either a, you're driving a lot in between people, which it doesn't sound like that's the case. So it comes back to what you said at the beginning. Most of your customers sound like they're just wanting the mowing right now. And you're probably charging like $20 to $40 per mow perhaps.

Where like if you can either a get into some larger properties or like customers that are going to, you can charge higher prices or they're going to have mulch and they're going to have weeding and tree trimming and all of that good stuff. Right. Because like we really shoot for like $200 a month for our per customer. And so whether that be upselling them, whether that be offering additional services, I'd be looking at two right now, especially this time of year. You've heard me say this before, like doing an property analysis of all their properties of each of your customers, letting them know what they need to be done.

You've said that there's kind of like mowing gos, people don't really want other services, but trying to look for the gutter cleaning or something that you can do to raise that ticket item per month. Because right now, right now you're like 80 to $90 per month per client on average. If you just roll it all out with that kind of dollar amount. It's tough to get really good ROI when you start spending money on marketing. So like Facebook ads for instance, you know, if you spend 20, $30 to get a lead and you get three leads, you're looking at a hundred dollar customer acquisition cost. Well, it's gonna take you probably two, three months to recoup that cost because you know net profit coming against that cost. Right. And so that can get really expensive or it's just hard to make the marketing work when you're not making very much per customer, if you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No that's, that's my biggest problem is trying to get away from these, these bi weekly mo and Goes and get to, you know, the higher end neighborhoods.

So when you, when you, Right. When you give prices, when you give your estimates, do you give a weekly and a bi weekly price? Alex?

Yeah, well, at first I didn't. I would only give what they asked me. And then once I started listening to your podcast and stuff, then I started giving them both and they would still always try to always choose the bi weekly. Just like motives. I mean, some people even like, no, I wanted every three weeks. Not like, I don't offer that. Like, I only offer weekly or bi weekly.

Right? Yeah, like, and when people go bi weekly in my, like you want to just make it to where you make so much more that you actually don't care regardless of which way they go. So like you probably are on the same number and that is like 25, 30% extra if they go bi weekly. And so really you do make just as much if not more on those because your profit margin's higher on those modes because it might take you a couple minutes longer, but you'll make like $10 more. So it's not necessarily a bad thing if they're bi weekly. What I'd be doing is two things. Obviously trying to do the upsell stuff to them. Because if you have 70 customers, that's really good for one year. You didn't even go full time until June. If I were you, I wouldn't be trying to get more customers. I'd be looking for the right type of customers. Because at 70 clients, usually the course members and stuff, just from the people I talk to, they're more around 8 to 9,000amonth in revenue. And so I'm not saying that the model you have is bad or broken or anything. I'd just be looking. If I was you, just try to find the clients that are gonna be a higher ticket item per month.

Because it's just like that's, it's one thing I've just seen a lot of times, especially in your second year, you wanna grow a lot. So what you'll do, especially if you have a guy wrapped up as far as an employee, you're like, okay, well I need more work. And so you'll go after the volume. But if I were you, I'd go after, you know, target the areas, whether it be, you know, flyers or if you mark do direct mail, whatever it is, go after the places where you know they're gonna be going after the leaf cleanups and the mulch and you can get them on their gutters and they're gonna Have a bunch of trees. I'd be going for those really hard.

Okay. Yeah, that, yeah, definitely. Okay. Yeah, that's wanted to get away from the volume and get to, you know, more because I knew, you know, after listening to you, I knew that this many customers actually making more money. But it's the type of customer that I have. But I do need to. I haven't, I mean I've tried to upsell, you know, the majority of them, but.

It'S just I gotta like weed them out is what I'm trying. And I've been doing that. I've been weeding out the bottom feeders and stuff like that from the first, first months of the business.

Yeah, and necessarily, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Like you can make those jobs work. And so what I would do is don't neglect them, but then just go after the people that are directly around in their neighborhood. Like I wouldn't be going after new markets or like the neighborhood over. I'd be going like the five or six closest houses to the customer. And then you can still get a few more of those and make those worth it. And then that's where you can get the numbers, growth as far as number of clients. But that would be focusing your dollars that you're spending on marketing, on breaking into those markets that are a little bit harder to get into. But once you're in, you can make a lot more money as far as margin on the upsell stuff. Okay, so have you done other marketing? Like any sort of direct mail or anything like that?

None.

Somehow I don't really even know how it kind of people were finding me on Google so fast because I did all my SEO and it's definitely not great. But it, I guess it did the trick because I mean, I don't know, I get there just because I got some. I got 10 reviews so far and that definitely helped me.

Yep, yep.

But your.

One second, one second, let me see if I got my. If I can pull you up your website up real quick. One second. Because yeah, like at your size, if you're already getting a lot of traffic through Google, I'd say double down on that like over the winter and stuff. Do you know more SEO and focus like hardcore on that? Well, one second, let me just see if I get my WI fi set up here. Sorry.

The SEO, like, because I think I'm just so bad at it because I'm a horrible writer as it is and I really don't want to pay anybody to do it.

No, don't pay anyone. Don't pay anyone.

I think I'm doing it right. I mean, I did. I looked up all type of videos on YouTube and everything to learn how to do it.

Okay, one second. What's your website, Alex?

Midtownlawns.com.

I think you. You're on Instagram sometimes, aren't you?

Yeah, yeah, a while back, like when I was still working.

All right, WordPress. Perfect. Okay, here we go.

All right, so I'm just going to look through here real quick. So blog post, services portfolio, customer reviews.

So you said you had 10 reviews right now. Is that through Facebook or Google.

Right now? Google have 10 on Facebook? I think I have 13.

Okay.

I have like five or six on thumbtack.

So on your website, just maybe, maybe put all those reviews on there because just.

No, you're good.

You're good.

Add more reviews onto the website.

Well, yeah, because right now you only have the three. So just maybe put all. And then, you know, your pay my bill, pay my bill page is dead. Right?

Yeah, there's nothing on that one.

This is little.

Yeah, I did know that because it comes. Yeah. Once I move from yard book to. To.

Lawn pros, I need to take that out.

Gotcha.

I don't need it anymore.

Right. Yeah, they do. They do have a link though. So if you wanted to, you could still actually put that there. Just make sure you update it or what I would, what I would do too is just have a direct URL to that instead of having it go to your. Stay on your page. But anyways.

I would. Right now you have seven pages. I would try to cut that down to four. So maybe do like, you know, your homepage, your about page underneath your services. I would put your portfolio and then under like contact us, you could put your reviews or something like that. Like just because there's a lot of pages there. There's just. That's just a little stuff. But as far as SEO, what are you doing now to focus on that? Like when you say you're. What you do when you're doing that?

I haven't updated it since I first did it, since I first did the website and back in like March, February or March. I haven't even touched it.

Okay.

But I just did like, you know, typed out the articles and stuff with, you know, and always use, you know, trying to use the words and then put the.

One with them, the map on there, the different links to.

I can't remember. I don't remember what I did. But yeah, I just watched videos and it's like step by step stuff and did it on all the pages with mowing, mulching, pine straw cleanups, all that.

Okay, so, like, like, okay, so I'll just kind of say my. Are you a course member, Alex, or. No, I totally forget. I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. So, you know, a couple of things that I'll probably say off the bat, and that is, like, right when you open your first page, that those pictures are really good, but if I were you, I would be showing more of you and your equipment and like, you. Like, not even just your work, because I can see your second picture. It shows that you're probably one of your jobs, but I don't see your truck logo. I don't see you. I don't see. Like, that could be anyone's job there, right? So I would be trying to highlight you and your. If you have a logo or if you have uniforms that you can wear, if you want to drag a couple of your friends out and put them in uniform and have like, more of a crew picture as your first one. Because, you know, like, right now your first one is just like a mower, right? Well, you know, anyone could be that, right? So I'd be trying to put your face on that. And then as far as SEO, go ahead. And like right now you have one blog post. It's the one that says, welcome to Midtown Lawn Care. I just start creating more and more of those. Everything on, you know, they can be how tos. I like, we did one. Have you seen my website at all our Augusta Lawn Lawn long hair one.

I went on it a while back.

Yeah. So like. Yeah, no, no, it's nothing new. It's nothing amazing. But just if you go to the page and you go to our blog page, it's under services, and you scroll down to blog like these. The articles that are written are written by just like our staff people. I mean, our office staff that like, don't really have a riding experience. And we wrote about everything from like, soils to supporting local farms to, like, getting out and doing hikes in nature in our area. And then every. You'll notice, like, in each one, we. We tag something like 10 times. Whether it be a local business or there just be like our county name or like in the one that supports local farms, we. We. We link to like, the Lyndon Chamber, like the city's chamber of commerce. And we literally made I think like 20 of these articles. And what's amazing, when I look at my stat websites, my website stats more than half of Our traffic to our website is generated through that blog. Now that blog has absolutely no selling. Like we don't try to sell them on anything. We're just trying to give information and it's not even so much about the information. Like, honestly, I bet you most those people aren't even reading those articles. It's just that having all of those links.

Attracts a lot of attention from SEO. And so.

That would be something I would look into, just creating a blog and writing about stuff in your local area and literally like write an article every few days on something that's happening locally in your area and you know, do 10 links to. On whether it be your city name or whether it be. If you mention grass or you mention neighbors or you mentioned anything, you just link it back to a page on your website, your contact page, your services page, and that'll just make you look a lot bigger in Google. So like our second location.

Was a little bit difficult because we were first on Google in our area for our first location. Well, when we went to our new location, all of a sudden, like we're not the best in SEO in that bigger market. So it took a little bit of work. But the, what really pulled it through was that blog. Because we now will pop up on the first page if you just type in the city name and are searching about hiking. We'll pop up on the first page because we have the most links, which isn't nothing to be proud of, it's just that we've narrowed down on a niche and the city name is what you'd be going after. Not so much like landscaping, lawn care or whatever you're doing.

So I would follow you, I'd create a blog and then you're on WordPress. So I'd make sure that every single page you have a description. So not just your homepage, but on each of the pages of your website make sure you have a description with number one, the city names and zip codes, and number two, what you do, lawn care, landscaping, mowing, et cetera. And then just make sure you compile all that into like a decent looking sentence. So something along the lines of, you know, on your contact page, just make it, you know, obviously the tiles contact page, but the description you. Everyone forgets that each page can have a description and you can make your website look even more credible with that keyword by having in all of your, your site description, your page descriptions. So you know, under your contact page put something like your description be contact us for lawn care, landscaping, mowing, you know, tree Service, gutter removal. In the addresses? No, in serving markets, in your city name. And then look at whatever cities and counties you, you're in. Zip code, zip code, zip code, zip code. And then that's, that's what your site, you know, description should be. Okay, you know, obviously, go ahead.

I've got a little bit of that on there.

Okay.

But I definitely didn't know about the zip codes. That's, that's a good one.

Yeah. The zip codes are important just for say if someone just puts in landscaping service. The first thing Google is doing, if you go scroll down the bottom of the page on your search is it's going, it says using and it gives an address and use it just the city name and estate. So it's just basically using that location, that geolocation to determine what's closest to them. And so what you want to do is make sure that you own that zip code so that Google, it makes it really easy for Google to know that you are in that place by having it in your header, having it in your footer and having it in your site description, having it like you don't want it to clutter. So from a UI user interface, you don't want to see it very much. Like if you go to our website, you don't see the zip codes a whole lot, but I have them on every single page at least three or four times. You might see them once as a user, but they're in the site descriptions, they're in the SEO, they're hidden. Even when you click on the pictures, make a description on your pictures. Because even in Google images those hold a lot of weight. So each picture, like if you copy one out of your phone, for instance, the name of that picture is probably like image 8631. Or if you bring it out of Google, it's probably like some random URL. Make sure you change that to.

Your landscaping name, your company name and then same thing, either zip code or city name. Because it's gonna be the same thing.

Yeah. So like as far as like, you know, just to summarize, I think, I think right now if I were you, I'd spend that money that you're working on Facebook and even if you just make some brochures or whatever it is and do either flyers or direct mail or something to those neighborhoods that you know are gonna be higher net worth, are gonna, you know, want year round service that want their beds cleaned out every single week, want their trees trimmed three times a year, I'd be going for those guys. And then I'd also at the same time be trying to increase your route density with the existing customers. You do have the next door clients, the three or four. This is your last few MO's of the year. So what I'd do is make a three fold, like a tri fold flyer and stick it in the nearest five houses to all of your clients that have seen your trucks there every couple weeks. They already have some brand identity and they know you do a good job. And so when they need service, they're gonna turn to you. And if you can put that flyer on their door now or in their mail now, come spring it's gonna be a lot more. You're gonna have a denser market. Cause even though you're doing the bi weekly thing and they might not be the highest margin clients, if you can get a group of four or five of them every time you stop your truck, all of a sudden that comes really interesting.

Yeah, because my efficiency, well, my per hour would be a lot higher because I wouldn't be driving, you know, a couple minutes. Yeah, I could just park and.

Yeah, but overall, but overall that's like really, you know, bottom line, if you, you know, have 70 customers and you're not even, you know, done your first full year full time, like that's really good. Like I was in your position, I was at like 30. Obviously we just have a different market as far as cost and everything. So the cost per customer was higher and everything. But to have 70, like you're doing something right, so you know, keep doing what you're doing. And if Google is where, you know, they're coming from, I'd pour all of my energy into that. Because if you're on the fourth page and you've got 70 clients and quite a few of them, if even 20 of those came from Google, I'd be. And you're on the fourth page. There's no reason why by spring you can't be on the first page. You know, make some YouTube videos. Make sure it's like you'll see on our site the first page is a big YouTube video. It's not so much because people want to watch it. It's because I want to make sure YouTube knows that my channel is connected with that website. And when you search our name in our town, like if you're in our town and you search our name, it's not so much our website that's first. It's a lot of times our videos. So the videos I make every single month, the Vlog, those will pop up sometimes even before because Google right now is really trying to push video. And so sometimes that will be your way in on the first page is by actually video and then linking that to your site.

So those can be before and after videos. They can be just some clips of you talking about the business, about what you've done, how you started the company. Tell your story of starting, going from part time and start going from your 9 to 5 to entrepreneurship.

That could be on your about us page or part of your website. That video there, you could do another video on your services page outlining what you do with cutaways to videos of you actually doing that work, whether it be mulching, trimming trees, mowing lawns.

And then have a brand promise video. And then I'd get in the habit of doing before and after videos maybe two, three minutes long or do what I do and that's like 10 to 15 minutes long. But each month we pump out a video or with all our before and afters or at least some of our jobs that we catch videos of. And really like I said, it's not so much that I'm worried about people watching it. Even though you'd be amazed, you'd be amazed how many people you'll come to an estimate for. And they will literally just tell you that they're gonna go with you no matter what. And when you ask them, they'll say, well, I watched every single one of your videos, I trust you, I know your guys and I just wanna do business with you. And so the videos, you'd be amazed. A 67 year old that has a lot of time on their hands, they'll watch every single one. And they will. It happens to me every couple days a client will say, I want it to be done like X, Y and Z, like you did in this video I just watched. And so I'll know exactly what they want and then they know, they've already seen what the work we do and know what the product's gonna look like.

That's awesome. I never looked at it that way. That does, that makes perfect sense.

And even if they didn't, even if it wasn't so much a marketing tool, as far as if the clients watched it or not, I'm not so interested is the fact that the SEO is so powerful because Google, you're using YouTube, which is a Google product, they want you to succeed, so they're gonna bump you up. And even if you throw a little bit of money at Google, AdWords next spring just to bump you up onto the first page, like literally. So our second location, like I said, wasn't doing that great as far as SEO. Cause we had just started in that market. So I pumped a whole bunch of money into Facebook ads. Not so much just for the leads. I just wanted a bunch of clicks. And it got so much because you're targeting your local market. All of a sudden Google sees that your local market is getting a ton of traffic to your website for those certain key terms. And so all of a sudden we're on the first page. And so if I were you, I did the same thing with Google AdWords at the exact same time. So I would do, if I was you, next spring, if you're gonna put any money early spring, I'd do it in a Google AdWord to try to bump up your ranking artificially for the spring. And then driving those people to your website so you get them to cross your Facebook pixel late spring, you're able to retarget them on Facebook.

Nice, man. It's genius.

Any other direct questions besides the marketing part that I can help you with? I gotta kinda go here in a couple seconds, but I got a minute here.

No, that's pretty much it. Everything else, you know, I listen to all your podcasts and everything. I'm almost done with the whole course thing. About to get back on it now that I'm slowing down. But no, I think that's, that's pretty much it. Just because I know, you know, 90% of it is all marketing. The works. The easy part.

Yeah, yeah. And the game. Yeah. Like right now, like, you know, as you know, going to next year, you're gonna be thinking about marketing 100%. Then what's gonna happen is you're gonna be contacting me next fall because you're gonna need more people. Now it changes from marketing to now, like management. Right. So it's good though that, you know, if you were worried about managing people right now and finding people and how you're gonna deal with employees and talking about like their wages, I'd be really concerned because you're only at 5,000amonth. And so I think you got it right. You know, focus on the sales. If you get top line revenue, you know, you can eventually pay people more or whatever. Like that'll take care of itself eventually. So, you know, focus on that 100% next spring and the next year and then, you know, definitely, I think next year you'll easily be doing 20k a month. And then you can start thinking, okay, how do I get a second crew and all that good stuff? And then it's just a different ball game.

Yeah. So my uncle, he's got. He's been doing it for 30 years. My grandpa gave him his business, and I worked for him for years, and I learned a lot, but I wasn't making enough money. And he's got like 30 employees.

Seven or eight crews. So he's mentoring. He's definitely helped me, but he's. He's behind on the times of, like, his website. You don't have a website. All his is work. He has his word about who's been around so long, so he's.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I'll be putting up the audio because from this conference I'm at right now, I'm putting up a bunch of the audio later, like, probably later this month. I'll put up a lot of the audio that I'm recording. But you probably heard of Jonathan Pinochnick from Lawn Care Millionaire. Have you heard of him? Yeah. So he did a really good talk this morning, and I'll put it up probably for the members on, you know, in the next five years. What are the things that can basically wipe out your business? And whether it be technology or, like, the labor crisis or whatever it is. Right. And so, you know, companies that are so established and they've always worked on word of mouth or have a massive amount of employees, but, like, they have, like, they're the ones that are susceptible to, you know, an Amazon coming in and. Or a Home Depot offering, you know, robotic mowers. And all of a sudden, like, they get wiped out. Right. So, yeah, it's interesting, but you'll like that one.

Heck, yeah. I look forward to that, man. Actually, a couple years ago, I moved up to the Seattle area, just north of Seattle, Mount Vernon. I can't remember what it was. It was on the foot of a mountain. I can't remember what the name. It was a small town, but I was playing for an ABA team called the Seattle Mountaineers.

Oh, yeah? Yeah.

And then up in Canada and playing, and I remember seeing. We passed through, like, I remember seeing Blaine on the street signs going up towards Canada.

Oh, yeah.

And it was funny, whenever I learned that that's where you were from, I was like, that's cool.

Good stuff. All right, Alex. Well, let's stay in touch. And then, like I said, you know, come next spring, let me know come June, like, how it kind of went down. And I'd say, as you do it, just kind of keep track of everything. If you keep doing what you're doing as far as asking people where they're coming from, where they heard about you, like the lead. Then you'll have really clear data as to where you should be putting your money.

All right, man. Sounds good. Thank you so much for taking the time out.

No problem. You have a good evening, Alex. Bye. Bye.