Projects Keep Dragging Him Back | Confession Booth

At this point, I'm like pushing back. It's like, I almost just want to go all in, all residential lawn care and do away with all the big stuff.

When there are tons of yards pouring in like spring rush, that's when you're tempted to do the whole mowing thing. When there is no more mowing grass because there's a drought and the grass hasn't grown and everyone's canceling or going to biweekly, that's when you're happy you have projects. Right now it's 60/40, maybe it goes to 50/50 this year. And then next year it's 60% maintenance and 40% projects because you're focused on this when you should be just mining this recurring work while the going is good.

Right now I got about, I got 5 guys that work for me full-time. We got 2 different crews that work. We got lawn care crew and they cut 143 yards weekly with 2 guys. And then I got the landscape crew that landscapes every day. I'm at the point I believe that I can grow more. We bought another truck and I just bought it a couple months ago. I got a good deal on like two Isuzu trucks for one price. I went ahead and grabbed both of them. That truck's sitting right now. Um, I run so much getting materials and stuff like that for this landscape crew and we do a lot of like retaining walls and stuff. And in the beginning I was like, I'm just going to keep it simple. I'm just going to do nothing but maintenance and stay away from all the hardscapes and stuff like that. And I started growing more into the hardscapes as we got better at landscaping. And then now at this point I'm like pushing back. It's like, I almost just wanna go all in, all residential lawn care and do away with all the big stuff.

Is that just 'cause dragging you back into the field?

Yes, exactly.

Got it. And what's keeping you from doing that now? Is it making up a big chunk of your revenue? Like 60% of revenue is landscaping?

Yeah, it's a big chunk of it for sure. So we did, on the residential it brings in about $18,000 to $19,000 a month. And then we gross— we, I made $250,000 this year. Um, so, and the thing about the residential is I like it, just brings in so much landscaping by having so many residential people.

Yep.

You know, I've always thought, should I go commercial? But I don't want to go commercial because I feel like if I have commercial, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get all those landscape jobs as well. So it's like I'm back and forth, like which way do I need to grow? So, you know, We're doing well. I just, I just like, you know, I don't know. And should I just step back and go to the basics? Just trimming shrubs, mulching, pulling weeds and keeping it that and do away with like these fancy retaining wall designs and stuff like that and French drains and sod and all that stuff and just do away with that stuff and really just hammer in small maintenance.

So I don't, I don't think it's like my mowing crew. Go ahead.

My mowing crew, like they go Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday, and I don't have to do a thing, right? Like as long as I make sure all the equipment's maintained and have their schedules ready and stuff like that, make sure the customers are happy when they're calling, if they have a problem we address it, very easy. But on the other side, the landscaping, that takes a lot more effort.

Yeah, yeah, like I don't think this is a function of one or the other. I don't think you can say I'm going all in on mowing or I'm going all in on landscaping. I like having both. I think that you will get more choosy with the type of one-time projects that you take on when you don't need the work. Here's what I mean. I will look at your entire year and I'd say, okay, this is December, this is January, all right, this is July in the middle of the year. I'm going to determine for every single month of the year what services am I focused on. Let's just say, for example, that we know that, okay, spring rush, we have a lot of mowing. And we're gonna get a whole bunch more of these mowing jobs. But then we know that after it gets warm, it starts to be where we don't get a lot of mowing jobs. This would be a great place to be able to put some of those projects. And any jobs that are gonna come in, these one-time projects, I am going to sell them into these months, alright? And then I might get, you know, a month in the fall, for example, where I can go out and still get some more recurring mowing customers. But when I'm focused on the recurring jobs, I'm not also slotting in all of these projects. I'm going to sell these one-time projects to my existing customers and upsell them during times of the year when I'm slower. That, that could be your off-season, that could be your winter, that could be their summer depending on what type of grass you have. But I've got to determine which months of the year am I focused on recurring jobs and my existing customers, and what type— time of the year am I open to doing one projects? Because I guarantee you When there are tons of yards pouring in like spring rush, that's when you're tempted to do the whole mowing thing. When there is no more mowing grass 'cause there's a drought and the grass hasn't grown and everyone's canceling or going to biweekly, that's when you're happy you have projects. And so instead of thinking I've gotta like shift from one to the other and like, oh my word, I have too much mowing and I'm overwhelmed with work to now like, oh my word, I don't have enough work. Instead of that, I'm just gonna determine which months of the year do I focus on recurring and which months of the year do I focus on one time. And I'm gonna make sure that when I focus on recurring jobs, all these customers, 'cause now if instead of 140, I had 200 yards, I happen to believe that if I upsell them, when I get slower, I'll fill in these gaps of the year just fine. And I'll probably be selling them the type of jobs that I want, 'cause I'll promote one-time jobs or cleanups or smaller projects that I know I can do without me getting involved with things like drainage, where every single job looks different. Right now you're doing those because you're using those to build revenue, you're keeping your landscaping crew busy, and I think that instead of, like, it's gotta be immediately, just shift over time. Right now it's 60/40, maybe it goes to 50/50 this year, and then next year it's 60% maintenance and 40% projects. But the way you get there is when the going is good, spring rush. You've gotta make a determination what you're focused on. And if your focus is I wanna build recurring revenue, I'm only going to sell recurring revenue during that time. And this is why most people will never build their recurring revenue enough to where they can jump into it for the majority of their revenue, is because they try to do both projects and recurring during this time, they're overwhelmed, and they stall the amount of recurring customers they take on 'cause they're so busy trying to stay up with all the projects. Why? 'Cause they've, we've all bought into this logic that first come, first serve estimates is somehow equitable and fair and democratic, when in reality, based upon the service, I will determine when that job goes on the schedule. And how far I'm booked out is completely dependent on what type of service you're asking me for. If it's in the middle of spring rush and I have 30 leads a day coming in for mowing and projects, 5 of them— let's just say 5 of them are projects, 25 of them are recurring. All right, you're like, how far are you booked out? Well, For these guys, these projects, I'm 2 months booked out because I'm not doing any more work that's one-time projects until July. Whereas these bad boys, I'll get you on this week. And so what so many of us have done is like, well, you have capacity, you have time on the schedule, you should be putting these projects—

no, I'm not.

There's certain times of the month where I'm going to focus on recurring work because that's what I really want to build. That's the recurring revenue, that's the quality of revenue that I would rather focus on. And so the whole objective of building a high-quality revenue business, the challenging part becomes when you're getting leads from both projects and recurring, one-time jobs and recurring, maintenance for commercial and for residential, and you've gotta be the filter to determine what gets through when times are busy, 'cause you can't service everyone. If you service everyone, that's when you feel burnt out. That's when you feel like you're running around like a chicken without a head going after all these projects and getting all the stuff set up and all the materials and all the rest of it, 'cause you're focused on this when you should be just mining this recurring work while the going is good. I just stepped outside the office, but what I'm talking about inside this video is a big reason why at HomeWorks on the calendar page, there's a column that you can toggle on and see budget hours, but not just budget hours for the whole week. You can see it for recurring jobs versus one-time jobs. And I believe this is so important because you can have a full schedule, but I want the right type of jobs at the right time of year.. And if you do multiple services, I like doing one-time jobs only when I'm slow, only when I'm not busy with getting other recurring jobs on the schedule. Using that feature is so important to be able to make sure you even out your demand curve for the whole year, but you're prioritizing the right type of work at the right time of year. So go check it out. All right, next caller coming in hot. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming on.

I got a tutoring business in Florida and I think we're about to hit our slow season. Very new. I just opened pretty much in December, and, uh, last month we did about 9K, so we're super small. Um, basically just, uh, calling to get any kind of advice for how you would approach like the slow summer coming up. I feel like I'm doing the right thing with having contractors as tutors and just kind of taking the percentage off the top of that. Um, just wanted to get your advice over that. Overall business. Your thoughts?

Yeah, totally. So we helped Mathnasium a little bit, uh, on one of the turnaround shows. And so AI is certainly going to be a headwind for your industry, but I also believe that, uh, it is going to become more important for especially people that are challenged with just sitting in front of a computer. AI is not going to be useful for them to sit in front of a computer and learn. So I see a lot of value still. I think how you make an offer for your off-season is really important. So when it comes to mowing, for example, we create an offer for the winter when we slow down typically to keep someone's property looking good throughout the off-season. Your off-season is the summer months when people are not in school, 'cause they don't have homework that you're usually helping them with. And so what I would do is I would create an offer around increasing, like, for example, the math scores. Like, so much of our education system now is on scores. You can create an offer around getting people up certain grade levels or scores and guarantee it over the summer. You want to attack the point of greatest pain in this case, which is going to be when they get their report card at the end of this month, or next month, and they're like, oh my word, they're falling behind in math, they're falling behind in English, and then you're gonna create a guarantee around getting them to that next level, and the only thing that you're gonna tie that guarantee to is them showing up.

And what would I guarantee you, like, to maintain grades and then, like, do a money-back guarantee, or how would you do that?

Yeah, personally, I think you can make a money-back guarantee around getting them to their adequate grade level or one level higher. So for example, my kid's in grade 5, they got a decent level, I want them to be at grade 6 level though and get ready for next year. I want them to be testing at grade 6 going into grade 6 so they feel a little more accomplished. Or they're testing at grade 4, I'm just making some of this stuff up, you know the metrics better in terms of how this is graded, but they're testing at math level 4, they just finished grade 5, they're going to grade 6, I know they're gonna be left behind. You guarantee, hey, by the end of the summer, they're gonna run another test, and you show what test you're gonna run, they'll be at grade 5 level and up to speed, and if they're not and you've showed up every single time, you get your money back. The thing is, a lot of people are gonna miss one or two, so you could probably disqualify half of them, but more importantly, you're going to be able to offer them something that solves their problem and isn't just a supplement. I want you to be the surgery, not the supplement. The surgeon gets a lot more money than the person sent, you know, getting a supplement for $1 or $2 or $3. Just guarantee it happens.

Okay. Yeah, I was thinking about that. And then like, do you think— because I'm not actually doing the tutoring, I'm just contracting all that position out. So do you think I should drop the price or talk to my tutors about trying to lower prices as well, or just keep them the same? Or—

Yeah, I would probably do a two-split option. So it's like, hey, during the summer, if you want your kid in here, I'm going to make up a number. Don't worry about it. It's going to be $199 per month. For 3 months. So let's just call it $600 for the summer. Or you can do a $999 package, which is going to include some exclusive one-on-one tutoring and it's going to have the guarantee. So I would actually keep this your current price so that you're not cutting price on this. But I give you permission to make a lower entry-level offer for people that are just like, well, I don't— I'm not going to show up every time. We got the kids, got sports, we're going to be away for a few weeks. Great. We'll put you in this program, let's just call it what your, you know, a little bit lower than your current prices are, but then have the premium offer that is much more of a one-time thing. Like, I would not do a monthly on this. I would do, it's a one-time, you pay up front, $999, but then you unlock the guarantee, assuming you show up every time, and we guarantee they're gonna get to this certain level. And what's nice about your business is there's metrics. Like, you can score the kid.

Yeah, that's good and bad because it's also like, you know, they can't measure it either sometimes.

Yep, no, I get you.

Anyways, but yeah.

Cool, hope that helps. I think it's mostly about the offer in this case. For every business, if you have an off-season, it's crippling, and whether you are in lawn care and that's your winter, or you're in tutoring and that's the summer break for kids when they get off school, we've got to solve that problem. And I believe that when someone gets a report card at the end of the season and they realize that their kid is behind is a great time to sell them a guarantee and make it a premium offer. Make it higher cost. This is why at HomeWorks, for example, we guarantee someone grows their revenue by 10% and more than 99% of people do because we just make sure they get through onboarding. We make sure they use the software. And my whole focus is get them to use it. And so in this case, your offer is tied to them showing up because, you know, if they use it, they'll get the result.