Q&A Lawn Care and Landscaping - Ep.42

Hey, everyone, this is Mike Andes, and you are listening to the Landscape Business course podcast. Today's gonna be pretty cool because we are going to actually listen to a live webinar that I did today with cohort number seven of the Landscape Business course member group. So what we've done the past week is I split the entire course, all the students up into eight cohorts, and we did live webinars for each and kind of making the small group so that people can ask questions and. And I was able to answer them live, and it was a lot of fun. So what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna. I essentially just recorded the audio portion. Not the video portion that everyone else can see on the webinar, but the audio portion I recorded and I wanted to share with you. Again, this was just for the course members that are able to ask questions and get feedback and all of that. So if you're interested in starting your lawn care landscaping business, check out landscape businesscourse.com. so let's just go ahead and jump into this. It's about an hour long. I'm going to cut out a little bit at the beginning of where everyone's just kind of hopping online and everyone's introducing themselves. I'll just jump right into the first question kind of area right before that, and I hope you get something from it. So without any further delay, let's get started. This was one of the eight different webinars we had with the different cohorts. We split them into groups and so nothing really special about it, just one of the ones. Finally, Roland and Jeffrey. I'm sorry, James. Here we go. Let me go ahead and broadcast your message. I have issues with employees continually breaking equipment or rushing through properties and damaging properties. Oh, I have a good one for this. I have discussed with them multiple times about being careful and respecting equipment. What else should you suggest? All right, so number one, it's not a problem. Like, if you listen to the podcast, when I talked to my team a couple months ago, this is the kind of the issue we are having and doesn't sound like as bad. We weren't having. As bad as. You don't sound like James. But let me. Let me tell you. Can I tell you what we did. You got to give ownership of the job to your employees. And what I mean by that is, if you listen to that meeting that I had with all our team is I was in the past going back to all the clients properties that we broke windows or that they messed up on Their edging or they were unsatisfied. The client was. And I was going back and kind of fixing that for my guys by trying to fix that with a client. What we did implemented is. I wish I had them, actually, is we now have these little yellow slips of paper, and they're essentially just 8 and a half by 11s that we cut in half. And on it, it has the date, name of the client, the complaint, and then it says owned by, and that's where the employee puts their name. And then it has resolution on there, too. So what happens is, if we get from the office, it's always the office. We'll get a call or an email or whatever send saying your guys didn't do X, Y and Z and the client's unhappy. And so we say, okay, no worries. In the past, I would have set up an appointment going back to the client, or we would try to call them or whatever. Now what happens is the office will fill out the top portion of that little sheet of paper. And then when they get back, the employees like that crew, we have already set them an appointment to go back to that client's house with the yellow piece of paper, and they have to fill out the bottom part. That is they have to sign their name. The employee does. And then they have to write down the resolution what, how they're gonna fix whatever, like whether it be edging or whether it be, you know, if they broke a window, they've got to, you know, say, okay, we need to call glass guru, get it fixed, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so now when you give them the ownership of that, I promise you, they take way better care of the equipment and the person's property. I have heard of some people, a couple people in the course we've been talking about before, they actually give everyone a bonus for the entire year. I think he did, like $2,000 the whole year. But every single time they made either lost equipment or damaged it that it was brought, it was taken off of their annual.

What'S it called, Bonus. And so essentially everyone would get a bonus at Christmas time. Unless you've, you know, lost a rake, a shovel, broke something on, you know, punctured a tire, ran over a bunch of nails, you know, whatever. And so the cost, and I promise you, people just take. You got to make sure that the game is. Is in their favor to win. The reason you, as the employer, want the equipment to be taken care of is because it costs you money. If it isn't, the reason you want them to take care of someone's property is cause they break something or they don't do a good job. It affects your bottom line. What you have to do is make sure that the game is in their favor. The reason they will make sure they do a better job at the client's property is cause they don't want to go back. They own the job and they take responsibility now personally, because they have skin in the game. Same thing with the bonus. And I think that's a pretty cool idea. So that's what I would say to you. James. Jeffrey asks, sorry, one second. I know I will of course need my mower. Should I buy new or used to start with? I would always buy new, Jeffrey. It is like, especially if you're just starting out, push mower for $1,1500, depending on what brand you go with, you can get a nice commercial mower and then even same thing with zero turns, always new. I would never go used. James asks.

Oh, you're talking about. He said in one week, they broke two trimmers, Hit one mailbox with mower, two yard hoses, and bent a mower deck. Wow, you bent your employees bent a mower deck. That's pretty impressive. But yeah, like last. This is funny. Like, this is crazy. So we hired someone. Great employee, by the way.

And great employee and gonna be long term with the company for sure. However, the first week on the job, I'm sorry, not on the job, but on mowing, because he did a bunch of landscaping kind of to get broken in. And now he has joined the mowing crew. And his first week, he literally bent three trimmers by putting his. So like, you know, in a 7 by 14 enclosed Traeger, which is kind of our standard now, the side door, you can open it up. And what he was doing is he was putting the trimmer down on the ground there. But then at the end of the job, he'd pull up a zero turn. And in order to get the zero turn all the way in, you usually have to get, you know, pull a little bit forward. Well, he'd have the trimmer right there. And he kept running like. Or like pushing into the trimmers. And he literally bent three trimmers in two days. And those shafts for the steels aren't cheap. And so finally I figured it out because I was like, okay, and you are on ET2, which stands for Enclosed Trailer 2 at our company. And then the next day you're on ET3. And like those are the ones that had. And I put it together and like, okay, he's the guy who's bending all these trimmers. But yeah, you just gotta talk to him. And now he understands, you know, you don't, you know, make sure that the trimmers are either A, hanging up on the racks or B that you just don't hit them when you bring the zero turn in. But anyways. All right. Jeffrey asks how many clients do I accumulate before I would need to be insured, bonded and get my business license? Zero. You should do that right away if you're gonna pre sell as different. Like when you start working. You need to make sure when you start doing work on someone's property, you should be insured, bonded and have a business license. That is for sure. Okay. And sorry, I am gonna get David's question here. Do you have system to collect late payments when in your first year? Oh, this is fun.

So we're just getting to the size where this really starts to matter because now we're talking about collections that are not just $100, $200. Now we're talking thousands of dollars for collections. And so but you're asking when in your first year. So it really depends. So I don't like taking people to collections. They're almost always going to leave a better view online and stuff. They're not going to like you very much at all if you take them to collections. However, it's a good card to pull. Is a latch last ditch effort to make people pay. And so if you have a hard set deadline like we do like four times a year now. So every quarter, all our overdue people that are 90 plus days overdue, we send collections. So I would try to do if I was you, find a small credit agency that does collections or serves papers and usually they'll take 20 to 30% of whatever the invoice is. But at least you get the money. At least you cover your cost. And what's lame about going to collections? If.

Your net profit margin is 30% and the credit agency is taking 30%, you essentially are just covering your costs. But it's better than nothing. So it's a last ditch effort. You want to take obviously 50% down on bigger jobs. You want to make sure you have a credit card on file, do all of that stuff and then.

Just try not to take on collections. That should be a last ditch effort. But you say when in your first year. I have the relationships set up with your collection agency right from the get. So if you need them, they're always there. And that as you get one that like an invoice that is overdue and is going to cost you a lot to just ignore or, or mark off as bad debt, like $100. I'm just gonna mark it off as bad debt. It's not worth sending the collections. It's not worth a bad review. It's not worth a whole bunch of phone calls from the client getting mad that they're having threats in their mail. It's just not worth it. But you want to have the relationship with the collection agency so that if you need them for a 5, $10,000 project, you have their back. And.

It'S funny, last week we had our first chargeback ever. We're a client actually tried to reverse their charge on their card and it was for 4,415 bucks. And so I've never had to do that before. It was just a dumb thing. Like I don't even wanna get in the story. But it was something really dumb they did to really ruin the project. And so we're gonna get the money back. Like we just had to fill all the paperwork out from our credit card processor. And they said, oh yeah, you'll win this no problem. It's just a matter of time. But it's still like, it's amazing that a client can literally call their credit card agency, say, hey, I want this charge reverse. Because they didn't come or they didn't do a good enough job or whatever the credit card company does that you as the business owner now have to refute that, like put evidence. So we had like emails, correspondence, like we had signatures of what they had. We had as fine as. Not fine print but like as stuff on the invoice saying not to do certain things and they had done it and that they admitted to do it in their emails. So like, yeah, Chargebox weren't cool. But you know, we'll get the money back eventually. But yeah, collections, overdue payments, it's, it's. Unless it's bigger, I just have to, I just mark it off as bad debt. Honestly, if you can keep that under 1%, you're doing pretty good. So anyways, James has another question. Let me see here. I listen to both your podcasts every week. What are the best books to listen to as well? I have listened to several staples, but want to know what else you recommend? I already read your book also. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend my book as a top book in the world anyways because I just know that for a fact that's not the reason I'm looking down here is I'm looking my Audible account. I don't read very much at all. I listen to a lot of books because I'm driving a lot. Especially now with the second location. I'm gonna be driving a lot. And I don't listen to lawn care books because I try to keep my. Broaden my horizons a little bit.

I'll read a couple to you that I've listened to recently that I think are really good. Like, these are the recent ones, not like the best or greatest of all time. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. That's a good one. As you build your team. Unbeatable Mind by Mark Devine. He's a Navy seal. That's like a different perspective. Really good book, though. This is probably my favorite I've read in the past six months. And that's Relentless by Tim Grover. That's. That's probably my favorite book right now for the past six months. The Way of a seal, also by Mark Devine in there. And let me see here. Oh, Extreme Ownership. You can see the reason I've been reading a whole bunch of Navy SEAL stuff is because one of the guys, my managers, one of my new managers, he is in the reserves and really likes these books and been sharing with me. So that's what I've been reading. All right, next question. Here comes from Jeffrey. Let me just go ahead and take that off and put Jeffrey up here. I'm eager to start up and feel confident, but I don't have money to start up and unable to get funded by family and friends. Is it better to take the time to save or dive in with a business loan? Don't get money from friends and family, don't get a business loan. Save money. You need less than you really think you do and get started. Jeffrey, I know you're new to the course, but, like, look at that budget and just do whatever you can to get the 15 grand or whether that be getting a side hustle for a year, whether it be downsizing your house, like all of those things add up and if you want it bad enough, you'll figure out the ways to cut in your life and do that. So that's what I would say. Don't get the loan. I wouldn't do the loan. When you're just starting out here. I wouldn't like right now. Only thing I use any sort of credit for, and we got into this deep on another one of the cohorts, is how to use debt. And the only thing I use it right for right now is equipment. Only thing I Don't use it for trucks. I buy all my trucks secondhand. And the reason for that is because if you listen to the podcast, I'm able to go up to where Kurt lives and get the exchange rate of the Canadian dollar and get 30% off, essentially. And so I buy all my trucks with cash up in Canada, because I can get a $12,000 truck for eight grand. So I buy them secondhand, cash up there, all my equipment, all finance, because I get 0% down on skid steers, track loaders, excavators. We just did a whole other trailer of equipment. So I'll finance the zero turn. I don't finance the hand tools. I don't finance little mowers. I don't finance even the trailer. I buy the trailer cash. And so equipment's the only thing I get a loan on. I. I do suggest everyone out there. This is something I haven't talked about yet, and I should make a podcast on this for the landscape business course. And that is, I would highly recommend that you get a business line of credit. And I don't mean get a business line of credit come January, when you really need it, because it's the winter. I get a business line of credit when the times are good, because that's when they will give you the best conditions and terms. And so we have, like, a $25,000 business line of credit right now. I'm gonna be getting. I'm gonna get that upgrade to 50. Like, do I need it? Nope. We got money in the bank. But I don't know if I'm gonna start a third location if something pops up in the middle of winter and I want to start a third location. Like, I'm gonna need some money. And so the perfect time to get a business loan, or not a business loan, but a business line of credit is when you're doing good. And so I know for, like, Kurt, I don't know how it works exactly in Canada, but I'd imagine you can still get a business line of credit. And I don't know how, like, for me, for the US it's not too bad. You submit your business credentials, and if you don't have, like, a long, like, two or three years in the business, then you can submit personal details and then back it personally. But I'd be getting a business line of credit, trying to get as much as you can so that when times get tough, you don't have to go get a credit card and pay 18%. And then also so that you always know that if an opportunity comes along, whether it be a great piece of equipment that is really cheap at an auction, or it be a truck that's super cheap, or you need a hire someone for a massive job, for instance, like if I know some of you guys, if you got the job that I got this past week, there was like an opportunity that came, by my way, $70,000 project. I'm going to probably go buy a track loader with the 50% down they give me. So they're going to give me 50% down, it's going to be like 36 grand. I'm going to take that cash, I'm going to go buy a track loader because we need one for her other projects and stuff. But then if I didn't have that cash because it's not going to be 36 grand, it'd be like 50 something for the track loader. You need the cash. And so if you having that business line of credit is great because if something, a big job like that comes up and you need a piece of equipment or you need to hire more people, you're not like, oh, I can't, I can't take this opportunity because I don't have the cash. Having that business line of credit in your back pocket is very, is a very good thing to have. And so I'd encourage everyone out there, try to get a business, whether it be 10 grand right now, just for something to float you through. Even the winters time and times, it's slow. I'd recommend doing that. And then when you want to increase that business line of credit is when times are good. Come August, September, when you got like, you're flush with cash, you have 100 grand in the bank, you don't need any cash, that's the time to ask for more money on that line of credit. And what we do, what you want to do is use your business line of credit a couple times all the way through each year. If you just leave it sitting there, they don't really make any money. You want to give them a bone. And so you want to use the business line of credit a little bit just so that they get a little bit of interest and they allow you to increase that number. And it's just a smart thing to have. It just is.

This is the reason I think about how I think about too in a macro sense for business loans in general, having that business line of credit. I mean, when I say business loan, I mean business line of credit. When times get really tough and whether it be the housing economy, Drops again whatever it is, the people that have the cash are the ones that win. Whether it be so if the housing market crashes, the people have the cash can buy really low and then wait for it to. Because they have the cash. And when the banks are locking up and not giving money away that they, the people with the cash, they are able to buy stuff up for nothing, pennies on the dollar and then they win. When it comes to business, if you have cash and everything drops, all your competitors contract and they stop marketing. And if that's your time to pour, if you have the cash and you're able to pour that in, that's you can take off. That's when you can like get new markets that you can take over your comp competition, put them out of business. That's when you win if you have the cash. If you don't have the cash, I suggest having the business line of credit which is essentially just cash if you need it. And I promise paying 5,6%. Well it should be less than that. But 4,5% on a business line, business line of credit is going to pay you huge dividends if it comes to a time when you can wipe out competition or get into a new market and an opportunity rises and need that cash. So James asks another question.

When looking for a shop location and the concept of selling materials. Okay, good. How if at all do you apply the just in time philosophy?

Might explain yourself a little bit. What do you mean exactly by the just in time philosophy there James? Do you mean like.

When is the right time to do that?

Because like third years when we talk about, you know, opening the location and I know in the course, this is one thing I would change my advice in the course, in the course I put in that your rent for your location shouldn't be more than 5% of your total gross revenue, your monthly gross revenue. So for instance you make, if you're making 50 grand, you shouldn't pay more than. Would it be five grand, five, two and a half thousand dollars a month for your shop location. Your rent. I think, I think that's too high. The higher your shop rent, the more pressure you're in to sell a retail products. Yes, I know that location is super important when it comes to retail and I would say that's super important. That our second location, that's the reason why I did it is because the location is phenomenal. That being said, I still think even like we, you have to know like we don't need, we don't need buildings, we don't need like, like sewer because you can just put a porta potty. You don't need anything fancy. You literally just need ground with gravel. Like you want good drainage if you can afford it. And you need some concrete bins on those like and you can bring all that in. As far as what you're looking for in that shop location, you just need two acres of property to grow into.

And it needs to be next to a road with good frontage and that can be a lot that's really cheap. And you want to shop around. Like what I would do if I you and this is what I did with our property. I looked at, I looked for all the for sale properties that were in locations. I wanted $1 million, 1.5 million plus for like these acreages that I wanted prime real estate. I said, hey listen, I'm going to give you $1,000 a month cash and you can sit on this property. It's going to go up in value. Everything's going up, you know, building up around it. It's going to go up in value. Also on a five year lease, you don't do a single thing. I'll bring in the materials, I'll grade it out, sorry, I will make it look way nicer. And so when I'm done my five years, your property value is going to go like through the roof because.

I'm going to grade it, I'm going to put gravel, I'm going to have fences, I'm going to make it look nice. And you don't do anything. As the owner of the property, you don't do anything. So I would suggest everyone going out there and look for the deal, look for the right person that's looking to get in a five year lease and is willing to give you an absolute steal of a deal for the lease because they don't have anything better to do at the property. You don't need pavement, you don't need really nice signage out front. Like you can do all of that and it's way cheaper, I promise you, to do the upfront build out cost than paying like there are literally companies that will try to do what is on this course, but they'll pay four or five thousand dollars a month in rent. And because they have this nice property in this building that's really nice and they have all this cool fancy pavement for their parking lot and stuff and lights and they'll lose because that $4,000 accumulates to $48,000 a year, which $48,000 a year buys you a lot of equipment, trucks, infrastructure to build up the service side of your business, which is really where the money's at. The retail side is only a magnet to get the people in the door so you can upsell them to services. I promise you, the game is in services. So focus on making sure that you're.

Your retail side is very lean, and that's the biggest cost is gonna be your rent. And so that's that. Jeffrey says, okay, James, I think he's referring. I'll come back to that one, Jeffrey. But James is saying. I think he's explaining himself here, the way Toyota produces cars. Okay, okay, I got you. You're talking about lean manufacturing. The way Toyota produces cars. They make parts arrive on the assembly line just as they are needed. They choose and plan on never storing or having materials on. On hand until they are needed. So for direct landscaping applications, storing materials means having funds tied up. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, I'm going to. Or having someone else pay to store it and then buying it just in time to use it. Okay, okay. So this, this I see you're saying, James, so you're talking about.

You're talking about having material yard for your landscaping jobs. Okay. And so, yes, I like what you're thinking about, and that is you don't want to be storing up money or essentially putting cash aside to warehouse materials until they need to be used. And so from that side, yes, you might be a little bit less efficient on your own jobs. Now, I think it's not that. I don't think that's the case from what you're talking about, like lean manufacturing, that makes sense as far as using it when you need it, making sure that you don't have a lot of warehousing of product and things. Yes. But when you do warehouse products, you get a lower cost per yard. So for instance, I'm able to get bark mulch for 20 bucks a yard, whereas any other contractor is going to have to spend 30 bucks a yard because they're going to get in four or five yards. I'm going to get it in 40 yards because I have a bin, I can warehouse it. Okay. So from a retail side, I'm able to make money number one. So that's. I'm not even taking that into this discussion right now. You got a warehouse product, and obviously we don't want 100 yards of something sitting around. And we try to keep all of our product bins where we're refilling them every week, and so that we don't have massive amounts of money tied up in storage of materials. That's the retail side. Okay, that's totally separate. Now let's talk about just your landscaping jobs. If you need an extra one or two yards to finish off a job and you have to drive all the way back to the retail shop where you get that from your supplier, that's time. Okay, what if they're closed and now it's six o', clock, just after six o', clock, they're closed. You can't get materials till Monday and here it is Saturday evening and you want to get the job done. That's why having the retail yard is the double like benefit of being at having it at your own shop is you can, you don't have any time restraints. You don't have to wait for delivery because you're your own dump truck or your own trailer. You can pick it up yourself. You don't have to wait for someone to schedule for delivery. And yes, I see your point though about having materials when you need it. And that's why like I said, when it comes to the retail side, we make sure that we're not storing product for ages. And that if it is a product that isn't used a lot and is a higher price product, for instance, like lava rock, we spell, we send self like 60 bucks a yard, but we only have like 5 to 10 yards of it at any given time in a small bin. Whereas something like bark mulch will go through 200 yards of that in a week. I want to make sure that we have at least 100 yards on hand at all at the shop. That kind of turnover I'm not gonna complain about because I make $15 per yard of that in profit. So that's a markup as far as the retail side is concerned. But from the service side there are still, it's still net positive to have the materials on hand because of the efficiency in getting the materials to the job, to delivery and then just having access to them. And then three, being able to have clients come into your office, actually see the product before you show up on website after picking up the materials from a supplier and then them not liking it. So having it on hand pays off in the long run. Jeffrey asks, there are so many brand of mowers, all ranging in price. As a startup, which brand would you suggest? I am not romantic about the type of machinery I have. We have Exmark push mowers.

We have Gravely and John Deere zero turn mowers because I like the stand ups on John Deere and That's pre. The reason I'm loyal to those brands is that I'm loyal to the dealers that are around me that service those brands. I would not care if I was you about what brand of equipment you have. They're all good. They're all pretty similar. If you go on the lawn site, the forums, or you talk to anyone, they're going to argue about their brand being the best. Skag, Exmark, all these other Cotoro. I just look for your dealer. Who's the best dealer? Who services the equipment the fastest? Who is this is most important, most convenient to your shop location. Like, is on the way to all of your jobs that's close to all of your jobs so that you don't have to travel an hour to get a little part. Like if you. For instance, for me, my closest. What was it? A walker. We were thinking about getting walker zero turn mowers. The ones that have, like, the storage in the back, which is pretty cool, and it, like, dumps behind into your truck. Like, I was like, that's legit. Well, guess what? I have to travel. I would have to travel two hours to get that thing serviced. Which means if a belt breaks halfway through the day, that mower is basically out of commission until I can drive two hours to go get a belt or order online and wait a couple days anyways. Now when we have Gravely, John Deere Steel, Exmark, and kind of stick to those brands, I know that if something breaks within 30 minutes.

Within 30 minutes, I can have it fixed. If it's a small part, I can have it fixed because the dealers are there, they have the parts, and they have a good relationship with us, the guys. And a lot of times they'll give us the little stuff for free. You know, like, if it's a nut or a washer, like, they don't even charge us. They're just gonna give it to us for free. And that's just my opinion there. And they. And they'll call you. I mean. I mean, I can call them if I have a problem out in the field, and they will give me, like, suggestions as far as, like, fixing equipment. Like, if something doesn't start, I call them. They're like, oh, check this valve. Or a lot of times what happens on the zero turns is their fuse goes out and they, oh, just turn this thing, and then it'll pop open, reset it, and. And, like, that's invaluable. So that's why I would do that. James, I think you're talking over Jeffrey in our area. The biggest dealers only sell mowers that function well in our area. That's true, James. I would trust anything that is sold at a major dealer in your area. Yep. It's all personal preference. Everyone has their own preferences. I'm not dissing anyone that likes any of those brands I mentioned. I'm just saying that.

I wouldn't get romantic about your equipment. I get romantic about your profit margins and which one's gonna make you the most money. And the dealer that's closest to you is gonna be the most efficient, thus in turn, make you the most money. So that's my opinion. So, any other questions? I know James and Jeffrey and.

David have asked questions. Anyone else? Estevan, Kurt, Anyone else out there that wants to jump in here and ask a question, feel free to do so.

And so, yeah, that is my 2 cents there about equipment. We haven't talked a whole lot about equipment in the other cohorts. That was cool. Yeah. I wouldn't get romantic about what type of brand to use, things like that. I'd be looking to create relationships with your. With your dealer and then go from there. So, yeah, like. Yeah, that's a story. Nevermind.

Kurt, how's it going up in B C? This has been a good summer for us here. In the fact that it's not and not everything is dead. Usually by July, it's like super, super hot here. We're still in, like, the low 70s and so mowing is still super strong. It was a pathetic spring, though, because it's so wet. We couldn't do any excavation or dirt material stuff, so. But it's been good. It's been good. Any more questions, guys? I'm still here, happy to answer any of your questions. I know a couple you guys logged out, so we will see you all around. But anyone else? I'm still here.

Kurt going great. Just gearing up with a couple more clients. Good. Kurt is a good guy. I met him in person and I met a couple other guys from the other cohorts because they're close here in Washington. And you know what that's crazy, is how many Canadian client, Canadian students, they're on the course. There's a lot of them, like Nova Scotia, New Brunswick. It's crazy. Jeffrey asks when. What do you do when you have a customer that tries to haggle you on your estimates? When I get that problem, I don't look at them or think that they have a problem. I think that I have a problem. I have a problem with my systems, my procedures, how they are taking me.

And it means that I'm not being professional enough and presenting my proposal in the way that wouldn't. Like for instance, McDonald's and taco time and Burger King. You don't go in there and start haggling with the person at the desk about what the cost of your burger is or the fries or the taco because it's standardized pricing and you know that everyone else behind you is going to pay the exact same price. And the reason people think they think they can haggle with you in the service industry is because they think it's like all like just kind of numbers are floating around. If you're really, if you know your numbers and you know your profit margins and you're using the standardized pricing sheet and you use the standard hourly rates, that should not be an issue because you know what your profit margins are, you're sticking to them. And if you're busy enough and you're marketing correctly, you, you're like, okay, if you're going to haggle, you know, no, thank you and just say no. Just say no. Just say these are standardized prices, we can't lower them and they're going to respect you more and probably still do the work for you with you. Jeffrey asks again, or do you bend to keep them or move on? I never bend on prices. Never. The only time I'll ever bend on prices is if we are really low on work. So like in the winter I'll bend a little bit just to be honest because I want the guys to stay busy. But that's the only time, if only if we're running low on work, which is basically never besides winter and maybe a touch in August. But this August we're not going to be, we got that massive job. It's not going to be slow anyways. David, do you have a minimum price or do you just divide the hourly? We do have a minimum price and I guess this is how like the hourly rate? Yes, we use that like religiously. And right now our hourly rate is $60 for just any like weeding, trimming a tree, whatever. It's 60 bucks an hour per man hour. But we shoot for $80 an hour as far as timing. So when we do our estimates where we're figuring 60, when we do our scheduling and we allot the guy's time, we're using actually $80 per hour. But do I have a minimum? So what the reason I said that is like if it's a two hour job on the estimate, I'll probably charge three Hours, because it's such a small job, you're like, well that's like a 50% increase. Yeah, because it takes drive time and all of that. If it's a 20 hour job, I'm going to charge 20 hours. But if it's a two hour job, I'm going to probably charge three. Because the time it costs takes to make the estimate, send it to them, do all the office stuff, the crew's got to drive there, all of that stuff, you got to figure that stuff in. Like that's overhead, that's money out of your pocket. And so I don't just divide the hourly rate. If it's, if it's a 20 minute job, I'm charging at least an hour. Like at least. And so like for instance, one of our clients, he had two different projects. One was like maybe a five hour project, the other one would be like a 20 minute project, but I charge like five hours on one and two hours on the other. And he was a little bit confused. And I explained it to him, like, listen, if you just do project number two, I'm not going to come out here for 20 minutes. And that's. Yeah, you're going to charge appropriately. And so he got it, he went with it. But whatever. That's. Yeah, I don't just divide if it's a 10 minute job, but that being said, if it's weeding, if it's okay. Now I see what you might be coming from on this one, David. If it's pulling a couple of weeds or trimming a tree at one of our mowing clients. Yes, I'll divide that out. If it takes 20 minutes to do an extra little work at someone's place because they asked one of the guys to do it and they know how it works with us. They call the office or they make the note, office agrees to it, they say, yep, just track your time. They put on their 20 minutes. Yes, we'll charge $20, $60 hour rate because they're already there. They didn't need an extra estimate. We'd have to go out there, do all of that stuff. And so, yes, we'll just charge our hourly rate straight across for our mowing clients that want extra little stuff done offhand. So I hope I answer your questions, James. How would you approach customers that have been some of your longtime customers that for current labor rates are under bid? I don't want to lose money each week to service them, but don't want to just dump them or raise their rates so quickly they jump Ship, some need to be 30% higher.

Well, 30% is a big jump.

It really comes down to where your business is at. We're going to raise our prices next year. I made that decision because year number one, like, you guys, you guys know, in the course I say, you know, our first year, I was thinking, like, $40 an hour is kind of our, our charge. Last year we're like, probably 50 to 60. Now we're like up to 80 when it comes to mowing. Again, when I say 80, some people get tripped up by that. 80 is what we should be getting. Like when it's dry, not growing too much, we go, oh, we go lower than that in early spring, late fall, because it's super wet, super long. So. But as far as, like, timing and, like, how I estimate it, we're shooting for the $80 mark. So what that means is that for people back in my first year that I'm still servicing, which is probably 20 or so. Oh, hey, Leanne. Those 20 clients, they are. Their estimates are still built on that $40 an hour model. And so next year we're going to raise their prices for them. Yeah, yeah, they're going to see a 30, 40% increase. Yes. We don't. We do their properties faster than we did in year one. We're more efficient now. We have better equipment, better trained staff. So, yes, they're probably more like a 45 or $50 an hour job. However.

They got their prices got to get raised next year. The reason I say next year is because I know next year we're going to be, like, blown out of the water for work because our new shop will be start. Has. Will have started. It'll be the first spring there, the first time services will be offered in the south part of our county, which is all the people, where all the people are at. It's going to go gangbusters. And so that's when we're going to. Okay, we're going to take the 200 clients we have, take the bottom 40 or 50, and up their prices by 30 or 40%. If we lose half of them, I really don't care because I know we're going to have another 200 next year. And so that's my opinion, James. Like, it's all about where you're at in your business. If you can handle to lose.

25% of them. Think about it, though, like, do the math on raising your prices 30%. That money that 30% you raise goes directly into your pocket. Directly in your pocket. You can get a Whole bunch more clients and get 10% margin or raise the prices 30% by 30%. Now you're making four times as much because now you're making 40% instead of 10%. You can get four times as many clients and make the same amount of money. So raising prices. I rarely will tell people not to raise prices. Very rarely. Leanne writes. Hi Leanne. By the way, Leanne has a good Instagram account, which by the way, everyone should follow me on Instagram. Just search Mike Andy's. I think I put I don't like certain do a whole bunch of stuff on there. But you'll be able to see the new shop as we build it. Let me just show you guys real quick and I'll get to your question. Just a sec. Leanne, you reminded me though.

Just search the Mike Andy's and you'll be able to see as we build a new shop. Like kind of behind the scenes. But yeah, Leanne has a good. I follow everyone that has an Instagram. I don't follow you. Like I don't have any follower. I don't actually follow people, but I do watch everything you guys are doing. So this is my Instagram. I'm trying to show you just the Mike Andy's landscape business course. No, no, Business boot camp is what I have it under now, but you'll be able to see on there. Like for instance, let me show you this. This is our new property Grading it. Day two of grading. So definitely check it out. But anyways, Leanne has a good Instagram and so anyways, let me show Leanne's question. What do you recommend to edge curbing? We are mowing a right of way that is 8.1 miles with curbs at almost. Oh my word. That's a total of 32 miles. We have two days to complete the work. Oh, I see. Other than have four people walk and edge the 8.1 miles current process, looking for ideas on how to reduce our labor. All right, let me take a drink and think about that for a second.

I'm assuming you're talking about.

About curbing. As far as edging, as you're saying, doing by hand, do you mean like edging with like weed whackers? Like edging? Or do you. Are you talking about like edging? Like curbing, like concrete curbing? Just clarify that with me real quick, lan. I don't know if you're talking like edging a lawn or you're talking like concrete curbing. 32 miles. Let me know real quick and then I'll. I'll. Because I think you're talking about using weed whackers, like with a trimmer and edging the grass. But just confirm that with me before I give you my two cents.

I like Leanne's truck. Let me see if I can beat Leanne to answering my clarification question and try to find on Instagram her truck. She has like a full wrap on it. And I would probably change the way we wrap our trucks.

But. But once you have. We have six now six pickups and more to come. And like, you kind of have how they all look. I just want to keep them all standardized. But anyways, yeah, you beat me, Leanne. Yeah, but you. If you look on. On her Instagram, you can see a really cool. The grass kisser, I think is what her. The name of her company is, I'm pretty sure. But okay, so Leanne Current. Yes. Edging with line trimmers, concrete curves. Gotcha. So.

Leanne, I would, I would get an edging. Edging. One of the push behind edgers. Not that's gonna make it faster because you're walking still, but it is going to reduce the.

The, the human. What's up? What, like the fatigue factor on your people. Because walking. Let me see if I can do this. Walking like this all day long or like for eight miles is gonna kill your people. It's gonna kill their back, their forearms. It is an incredible workout. Whereas if they can just walk like this, it's not gonna be as bad. And so it's essentially like mowing a lawn if you have an edging machine. And so that's what I would recommend doing if you. I don't know if it's a one time, Leanne, or if this is a recurring project. If it's a one time, just rent the machine. You could rent a curving machine, an edging machine, for probably, I would imagine, 50 or 60 bucks a day, and then just get a bunch of those little. The little metal square bits that would. Because, like the edging, when you're going up against concrete curbs, it eventually wears off on the edge. So you'll need to change those out. Get like 10 of those. Rent an edger. If you're doing it for one time. If you're doing this every week, buy one. But I promise you, the reason human fatigue is a real deal is when people get tired, their efficiency goes down, they take more breaks. And, you know, if you're edging like this all day after like 30, 40 minutes of doing this, you gotta take A break, kind of roll out the shoulder to shake things out. You gotta do that quite a bit. And so I promise you, if you like people talk about, oh, well, we just work harder. Well, human fatigue is a real thing and it does decrease your efficiency. And yes, efficiency ties into your bottom line. So I would get a curving machine, rent it if it's a one time, buy it if it's not. And that is that small of a machine. I wouldn't mind getting secondhand. Haven't heard me say that one, have you? That kind of a machine I would use secondhand. I would get something secondhand because you're using it for a one off job. Okay. It's recurring. Oh, here we got more information. Recurrent. We have discussed renting a unit to trial to see if it's better. We will do this. Yes, Leanne, good idea. Rent it. See how it works. Make sure you get the little metal pieces because you will have to change those out. They dull out and then the curves. The edging doesn't look as good, especially against the concrete, but they look. It looks way better than line edging. It really does. Because you can get really thin on the edges instead of having like someone mess up and like it doesn't look straight. Stuff like that. Especially after eight miles of walking doing edging and you might have some mistakes and your edges might be a little bit crooked with a line trimmer. With, with the machine. It won't. It'll be consistent. And so yeah, I'd recommend renting it, seeing how it works. If it works out good, it's a recurring job, buy one. That's what I do. Good stuff. And for everyone else out there, if you don't have that big of a job, that's massive.

If you get the steel combi systems for the weed eaters, you can get those attachments that are like edgers, like instead of the line trimmers. It's a metal head that we call it metal head, but it's essentially just an edging unit that you has the, has the metal piece in there. It kind of works like an edger. It's not as good because you still have the weed eater and you still got to kind of go like this. But it's a whole lot better than the vertical, this line trimming sometimes. Kurt, are you talking about flat trimming or vertical trimming? I think she's talking about vertical trimming. I could be wrong, but I think she's talking about vertical trimming. Kurt, as far as along because she says it's A long concrete curbing. James, Leanne, I realize that you might have sounded that might say sound bad. I meant check out your Instagram. Oh.

Yeah. I think for everyone out there wondering where. How to find Leanne's because I mentioned it. I think if you just search the grass kisser on Instagram, I'll do it now. Oh, great. Yes. Okay, thank you. If you just search the grass kisser, you'll probably find her on Instagram for some reason. My search bar on Instagram just disappeared. We do both, but mostly vertical trimming for this curbing. Yeah, yeah. So usually against concrete curbing, doing the vertical. And so that's that discussion. So any more questions, guys? It's almost seven here my time. I know for some of you it's like 10 o'. Clock. So thanks for showing up late. This is my last cohort of the day. I have one more tomorrow. We have eight cohorts in the course and so it's a lot of fun.

I think we have like seven or eight people in this one that are registered. And so we try to keep it to about that. Each cohort has like 15 to 20 people, but, you know, only six or seven. You can usually make it out at the time of live and then rest, watch the replay. But any more questions for anyone else there? Jeffrey, for flower bed installation was the minimum size of estimate. I don't have a minimum size of estimate. I have a minimum hourly thing. Like I said I was talking about there before, if it's a super small job, I'm going to charge a little bit more by the hour. But for a landscaping job, like bed bed installation is of like, I don't want to be going for $100. Like I need to be 2, 3, $400. Like for me to even care enough. Like, because you have to think about like searching as you grow. Your office staff have to make estimates. If you call the client, that's a bill. The client. Like all that stuff takes time. That's overhead. And so I'm not going to show up for little stuff. And especially as you get bigger, you get, you get a little bit more choosy as far as. And I don't want to get arrogant. Like, I don't want to seem like that. But on the other hand, like, as you get bigger, you just have to, you have to choose which battles you want to face and which jobs you want. So what's the lessons from the other discussions? Yeah, so the other discussions, we talked a lot about the like last co. They all kind of Run together. But I think, yeah, this is the Last on Cohort 6. We talked a lot about using credit and so we kind of jumped a little bit into it. This one about, you know, when to use it, equipment versus like I was thinking about buying real estate, decided against that. I'm not in the, I don't want to get into the commercial land real estate game. I'd rather just stay in what I'm good at. And that's landscaping and materials and stuff. So we talked about that. We talked about.

Like using the loans for the business line of credit. Some questions over how, how to get those, what you need, things like that. If you can do personal lines, like I'd check in with your personal, with your local credit union, go with them over someone like bank of America or one of these big companies. Especially if you're just starting out, the credit unions will usually work with you a lot better as far as getting you that line of credit. A little simpler, less fees. I think our fees were like 400 bucks. It's like 1%. Let me think. Yeah, it's 1% usually of your total that you pay in fees. So if your loan is 20, like 25,000, we paid 400 bucks somehow, or was it 250, I forget. It's usually about 1% in fees that you pay for a line of credit. So we talked about that. The other ones, we talked a lot about hiring people. Like what my processes are on that, what we're doing right now for hiring. So yeah, there's lots of stuff we've been talking about every single course. This one's we kind of hit a lot of stuff, so it's kind of cool. We talked a lot about in this one about equipment more than the other other other cohorts. Anything else, Anyone else. And there's still six of you guys hanging out. So I'm still going to be on. David. All right, here you got another question. We are in winter here in Perth. Oh yeah, David. Australia. We are in winter here in Perth. So it start. Wait a second, David, what time is it? Isn't it like seven in the morning your time? Anyways, we are in winter here in Perth, so it's starting to rain more often. What are your procedures for your employees working in the rain? Do they stop when the rain starts or do they work through light rain and get out of the heavy stuff? And do you provide wet weather gear for your employees? Okay, so this one's not so much like advice just as much as this is what we do. We Live in the Pacific Northwest. It rains a lot. Especially in the spring and the fall. It rains a lot. They know that. They're going to work regardless. I try my best to look at the weather and say, okay, if it's pouring down on Thursday, is there any way it's going to be better tomorrow where they can just work a little bit longer tomorrow and get off earlier? So I'm trying my best on rainy days to get them off and push the work off. Sometimes that's not possible. They know that. 10am Monday. Nice, David. Nice.

But we try our very best to. To get them not where it's like torrential downpour this spring. I don't know about you, Kurt, who just, just across like 20 minutes from where I'm at, but we were mowing in the snow. Like it wasn't where it's like sticking, but it was like snowing a few times this spring in March, when we started mowing the first couple of weeks. And there was a couple of times we actually pulled the guys off because they're like, we're bagging snow right now and no grass. And so we pull them off the job. But as far as wet weather gear, we do have a coup.

Sets of gear in case guys forget, because I don't want them to be like miserable all day, but on the other hand, I want them. We've really switched to where they take care of personal safety stuff too. We have it. We have it all at the shop, but we provide the minimum basic stuff. And then if they want to have nice gloves or nice headgear or the earmuffs that have Bluetooth for their listening to stuff, that's all up to them. And they take a lot better care of it. They don't lose it. They don't lose the safety glasses as much when they buy it themselves. Same thing with weather, wet weather gear. If you want good, you know, Helly Hansen or something good with some good rain gear, you're gonna be. You're gonna be shoveling out 100 bucks. And so I don't want to have to do that for all my guys and then them just lose it or rip it, blah, blah, blah. So if they. I leave it to them now to buy it. And we do obviously provide all the uniforms when it comes to wet weather gear. They have their preferences. They like certain stuff. And I just kind of. That's the one part of the uniform that I kind of let them go on, like do their own thing because, number one, they like it more. They have certain stuff they like. And number two, I don't want to shell all the money for all of their gear for the wet weather, but I. And I like to give them the option to get their own stuff because it is miserable to work out there. I've done it for a long time. I know it's not fun. And I feel bad when I pull up to jobs and I'm all dry and they're soaking wet. And so I want to give them as much as I can to get them either a, out of the. The rain or two to.

Give them what clothing they want to wear out there. So that's my two cents on that.

Anything else, guys? Anything else? Because if not, I got to go to a birthday party. So I'm going to close it down here in five minutes. Any more questions that want to jump in here, I'm going to answer every single one in five minutes. So go ahead and post those up. I recorded this one because I was. I can't believe I didn't record any of the other ones, but I recorded this, this live webinar because I wanted to have a sample of kind of what these are about. Might put a part of it on the podcast, the. For the landscape business course podcast, but we'll see. I should have recorded all of them, but I didn't. Anyways, anyone? Anybody else? And then like I was mentioning Bioshake still. Come on. I'll get back to that. James, give me a second.

Like I said about October, there might be something we're gonna put together where you guys can come in in person. I don't know. We'll do like a one or two day thing if it'll be one on one or it'll be like three people at a time. Because several people had asked about it. And then in the. It came up in the. In like one of the first cohorts last week asking about if they. Because they want. Some of you all want to actually see in person some of the stuff we're doing. And so I think it'd be a good experience for you guys. I just have to figure out how it's gonna work because I'm really busy. And so we have to figure some stuff out. James, real quick, Bioshakes, it's done. It's not happening. We had problems with patents. We got through those. And then as soon as we did that, our manufacturer essentially said, hey, this is like red tape for us. We don't want to be involved. They wash their hands of it and they say they're not doing Anything, essentially taking all our ip. And so we couldn't, we didn't want to spend a whole bunch more money going to another manufacturer. I'm so busy. My partner is super busy, and we both make a good living. And so we didn't, we didn't pursue bioshakes. Bioshakes is. Will be a story to tell one day. Leanne, any suggestions on an employee that repeatedly doesn't have their eye protection on? Would you fire them? Yes. You have to draw a line on safety.

And if you don't, it'll eventually bite. It will eventually bite you.

Fortunately and unfortunately, last year, when we didn't have some of the safety protocol in place, I was the one that got hurt. And some of you, if you've been a long time listener, you remember when. August 4, 2016. I got caught in the PTO of our dump truck and had to go to the hospital. And like, it was not cool.

That comes down to safety. If I'm glad it happened. The reason I said fortunately is because it was me. I'd rather that happened to me because of my negligence than for my negligence and safety protocol to affect one of my employees and literally almost cost me my life. And if one of my employees died because of that, I don't know if I'd ever live it down. I don't know if I would ever forgive myself for my lack of safety protocol. Essentially, I was wearing a hoodie similar to this. One of our Augusta hoodies went underneath a dump truck in the to fix one of the PTOs it was on it caught my hoodie and then strangled me out. And then, fortunately, it ripped down the center eventually, but it strangled me. And I had to go to the hospital. They thought I had a concussion, broke my neck, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that wasn't cool. But as far as someone that's like, you say, well, that's not eye protection. That's like, you, like, gotten a PTO of a dump truck. Yeah. But you just wait until someone hits a tiny little pebble that's sharp, a shard of glass, and that ends up in their eye. They go blind. Like, these things happen. Like, we're working around environments where this stuff can happen. There's nothing, like, you should not take it lightly. And what I would do to make it really simple and is have a pink. I don't think I have any, actually. Here, have a pink, like, sticky note stuff. Every time someone has a safety protocol issue, like, they're not wearing their safety glasses, blah, blah, fill out what they're doing wrong. Put it on their truck window so everyone can see. The whole crew, everyone at the shop sees that so and so wasn't wearing their glasses. And it's pink sticky note, no one can miss it. Like, what in the world? When they show up at the work the next day, they're like, what's that doing over there? And then they go all read it and make it a, make it a priority. Safety should be a priority. I do not recommend, I make sure it's absolutely mandatory to have safety goggles and ear protection on the job. It's up to them about hand protection because some of them don't like it. Some of them do like it. Like, if they want to have wrecked up hands, you know, for the rest of their life, go for it. I would wear gloves most of the time. Not all the time, but most of. I would. But I don't, I don't make that mandatory. But yes, safety glasses. They can wear sunglasses if they want instead of safety glasses as long as they're protecting their eyes. And then ear protection. The ear protection thing is kind of their own thing too because, like, if they want to lose their hearing, go for it. I just, I provide the earplugs, I provide the earmuffs, like, and then if you want to get really nice ones, which most of them do, the Bluetooth ones, to listen to their stuff, they can do that. I recommend it really highly. But the safety glasses, that's a non negotiable. It should be in the employee contract. It should be like. Or in the training tutorials, which, by the way, I know the tutorials for your employees aren't that great right now. In the course, we are going to make new ones in this winter and they're gonna be actually like professional and like really good that those ones were okay to kind of give you guys an idea of what you should be doing. He was like, they're like three hours long to watch all of them for your employees. And we still, I still all our new employees watch all of those. But we will be making better ones. But anyways, back to your question, Leanne. It's a non negotiable. I would fire them eventually after two warnings. Give them two warnings. If they're still not doing it, you're out. And the reason I'd say that is because if they're not going to comply to your safety protocol, that's in their best interest. There's going to be other things that will come along that they won't heed your Warning or your better judgment. And it'll end up being a bigger issue. Whether that be their safety, whether it be honesty, whether it be dealing with other employees. It's going to come up later. They're not someone that you want on your team. So. Any more questions before we wrap this up?

Yeah. Ouch is right, Kurt. Almost a year. Almost a year since that. And it's funny because, like, that's kind of what propelled me to make the course after that. Like, after you have an experience like, close to death like that.

You kind of have that, like, mentality. It's like, okay, everything after this is like gravy on top. And you go all in. That's why, okay, I'm like, we're gonna make a course, we're gonna franchise this thing out. And now it's like, I don't know, it's just.

It's just you go all in. Like, you realize that, hey, this is, you know, life is fragile and I'm gonna do everything I can while I got it. And so. And after an experience like that, you just realize that you're probably thinking too small, taking things too lightly, and you go all in. So that's what we've been doing for the past six months and it's been a lot of fun. So if there's not one more question, I'm going to hop out of here and thank you guys. I'm going to go have fun at my party. Kurt, you know what? Funny. It's funny, Kurt. I'm probably going to be like 10 minutes from your house because the party's up in Canada. But anyways, thank you, Leanne, Kurt, James, Jeffrey, David, everyone out there. Kurt, you need to show your new employees, those of you after that to under. Yeah, that's a good point, Kurt. And every time we have a safety meeting, it comes up. Kurt, the guys that were there that day, we always, almost every single safety meeting rehashed that experience. That day when they found me and I was like kneeling on the ground, like, my shirt all tore off of me with it looped around my neck in the blood and everything. Like, we rehash it every time in the safety protocol meetings. Have safety protocol meetings at least twice a year and do all that. So. Alright, guys, thank you so much. I appreciate you guys. Check out the course. If you guys haven't, I know some of the one. There's a couple of you, Jeffrey, a couple of you are a little bit newer on the course. Watch every video. Get a really good understanding this winter. Keep your eyes open more materials going up. No one's gonna be paying anything more for it. You guys are in it for life. I'm with you guys for life. Gonna be better content, new stuff, a lot more stuff on how I'm doing the second location, all that stuff. I'll have time in the winter and so that new content is going to be coming. I'm going to start thinking developing something for October. I'm guessing when I'm going to, when I'll offer people to come in and actually be here and we'll figure something out. I don't know what that's going to be, what's going to look like, if it's going to cost anything. I don't know that yet. I will let you guys know as soon as I know. And so again, thank you all so much. You guys are great. People in the landscaping industry are just fantastic and I love, love, love doing what I can in some small way to help you guys out. So again, thanks so much for showing up and I'll see you on the podcast. I'll see you on the next webinar. We're going to hopefully have these every couple of months. I'll definitely stay in touch. So again, let me know if you get anything I can help you guys with. Email me landscapebusinesscoursegmail.com or mike landscapebusinesscourse.com I'll always try my very best to get back to you guys and help you in anything I can possibly do. And so until then, like we didn't talk about marketing and things like that. So if there's any follow up questions, just hit me up anytime on email and I'll send you usually a voice recording back. And so until then, best of luck, guys.