Real Talk! - 4 Tips for Your Business: 100th Episode Special

Hey everyone, it's Mike over@landscape businesscourse.com today I'm going to really set back the basics of how to start a lawn care business. And before you turn this off, because you already have a landscaping business, I think this is going to be really valuable, even if you already have an existing company, in terms of the value, in terms of the advice I'm going to give and the tips I want to share. And so these are some of the things we're going to be digging really deep in at the conference. And we just have a few more days. It's Christmas Day today, but if you haven't Already, go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference and sign up for that one more week. It got to be signed up by the end of the year, so check that out today. But today I really want to talk about something and that is, and the reason I went kind of back to all of this is because I just recently, as of like a few minutes ago, finished watching a video of kind of one of the most popular YouTube landscape business owners. And so there's quite a few lawn care and landscaping business owners on YouTube, and several of them have quite a large following. And this particular individual had like 50 to 60,000 subscribers. I'm not going to mention his name. If you watch on YouTube landscape videos, you probably know who I'm talking about. And nothing against him. I don't want to embarrass him though, so I don't want to say his name or anything like that. However, he basically had just posted a video a few weeks ago and I just watched it right now stating that he was basically going to be going back to solo. So he's had a business, he's had employees, he's had a shop, multiple trucks, et cetera. And starting next year, so starting in a couple weeks, he is going to be going back to solo, getting rid of his employees, getting rid of all the.

Equipment, getting rid of the shop, going back to his garage, and going back to square one. And.

I really debated whether or not I should make this video because I know there will be some people that will be critical of me talking about this openly. But something I feel like needs to be really talked about, and that is.

The reason I feel like that is a problem, is that all the people, 50, 60,000 people have been following this individual, whether maybe several thousand of them that are business owners. And the problem I have is that they have been following him and listening to his advice, seeing the equipment he buys, see how he operates his business and has been following that as a guide for their own business. And now we find out that that business has actually failed.

And he admits to that. And so I'm like, trying to throw him under the bus. By no means. I've talked to him before in the past and things like that. But I think what it goes to, and the reason I say that is because, you know, talking about your equipment, analyzing your equipment all the time and your trucks and getting really in love with all of those things is not how you're going to become successful in lawn care and landscaping. It's just not. And so I want to share today some of the things that I would. I have not reached out to this individual, they have not reached out to me. But if I was to talk to this person, these are some of the things I would say, and these are the things that you could learn in starting your business to make sure you don't end up in the same position. So the reason that I. So this is the whole deal. Let me preface this whole thing. And this video is probably a little bit longer. I don't really have a timeline or guide or anything. I just want to get the camera and talk because.

I feel like that's important. A lot of people have talked to me about the difference between a channel like mine, which on YouTube, I'm like, nothing. It's all on the podcast in terms of size of audience. But they kind of say, hey, look, you're always talking about how to run systems in your business and make your company bigger. And you're talking about employees and teams and annual reviews. And you're always talking about advice for people that already have a successful business and have a team in place and have a bigger company, something that's already doing multiples of $100,000 a year in revenue. And so I want to take a step back because I feel like a lot of the people starting their businesses and just getting started or wanting to start a lawn care business are following the advice of people like YouTubers or people that might be filming around their lawn care business. And what my fear is, when I look at those videos and I see those individuals on YouTube, I see a business that's going to fail because that owner is not creating systems. They've fallen in love with the equipment, they've fallen in love with the appearance of a great business when the numbers and the marketing and things that actually matter are absolutely flawed. And so my biggest concern with our industry right now is the people that have a lot of the influence in Our industry, in terms of eyeballs, are actually running a company that is going to fail in the next few years. But we hit a recession. And so if people are failing now with their business and the way that they're running it, in times that we've had the past 10 years of good economic times, I really feel like some of these entrepreneurs, business owners, are going to be flushed out of the system and it's going to be very, very clear and evident who are the flashy business owners. And, and everything looks good on the outside, but the actual fundamentals of the business are flawed. And the companies that have been building systems and procedures and building a business that will weather any storm, whether the economic, whether it be political, whether it be their employees leaving, people leaving, stuff happening within the business, accidents.

That's what I want for you as a business owner. I will never have 50, 60,000 subscribers on YouTube, maybe on the podcast, but never, never on YouTube for landscape business course. And the reason for that is because I don't show the things that everyone, all the eyeballs want to see. I don't show equipment. I don't occasionally, but not very much equipment. I don't show all our trucks and our trailers and putting graphics on it and new uniforms coming in. That's not what makes a great landscaping business. It's not what makes a lawn care business grow. What makes a business grow is you as the owner, focusing on systems, your numbers, your marketing, and growing the company with your team. That's it. And so today I want to share some of the. You know, I think it's like four things I wrote down really quickly as I was, as I was watching the video, him explaining what was happening. And the reason that let me. Sorry, I kind of got off track there. I wanted to preface this all by saying I talk a lot about companies that are growing and bigger companies. And the reason for that is because My goal with LandscapeBusinessCourse.com is to get you past a million dollars in annual revenue. That's my goal. And so I talk a lot about getting through that number. Now there's some individuals that their goal is 100,000 or $200,000 a year. For you, this information might not be super relevant. The reason I talk about getting through a million dollars, the reason I encourage students and members of the course and meet people on Proplus, people at the conference. You're going to be. This is what we're going to be talking about. The reason I encourage you so much to get there is because in order to get There you have to make systems, you have to make procedures, you have to have a great team.

Those are the things, those are fundamentally the things that make your business valuable to sell to weather economic storms and to provide you for, provide you with a solid paycheck.

Whether you want to hand your business down to your family, whether you just want it to spin off cash for you to pay your kids through school, whether it be for something that you want, an asset you want to build up and sell for retirement, whatever it is.

A business that's making 100, $200,000, you're solo doing all the work yourself is not a sellable asset. It's not going to spin off a lot of cash. And it's very, very vulnerable to economic tide, to.

Employees or customers leaving. It's very vulnerable. And so that's why I push everyone to do this. Now, I know that makes dislikes and people commenting about how not everyone needs to do that. I agree 100%. And if you're watching this and you believe that people should just stay solo, not have employees, not have the headache, not have all the overhead, not have the equipment, not have the shop, not worry about marketing, just do word of mouth, not worry about uniforms and try like if that's what you feel, you're probably, you are right for you and probably for a subset if not a majority of lawn care business owners that really should just stay in the truck and work themselves because they're not business owners. And that's the bottom line. Like, before we jump into like business tactics, the bottom line is that most lawn care business owners should be in a truck mowing. They should be an employee. Maybe they need to be a manager or a chief of operations or maybe they should be an estimator in a bigger company, but they should not be a business owner because a business owner is not responsible for mowing and for weeding and for talking to customers on every interaction and like collecting money, doing. They're not business owners run businesses. They work on systems, they work on team and they work on the numbers. They figure things out from a strategy standpoint. And so if you, if you, I know there'll be comments. I know people email me about this. If you want to be solo, that's. Then you should, you should do that. And just keep that in mind while I share these, these bits of advice is that this is, this advice is not going to be for the person that wants to stay solo, doesn't want employees or wants to stay in the business and run the show and do all the work, that's totally fine. That's what you should do if that's what your dream and goal of the business is. And so I wanted to preface the few things that I say by saying that because the whole reason I made this video and the whole reason I cared so much about seeing this YouTuber that has been so, I wouldn't say influential as much as had so much attention from lawn care, the lawn care industry. The reason it affected me is not so much that they failed and their business failed and now they're going kind of starting back at square one and gonna stay solo and fire all their employees and things like that. Not so much that, it's that I watched a video from five years ago, five, six years ago, when they were just starting, maybe it was four, four to six years ago. I forget exactly the date, but when they were just starting, I remember I watched the video of them saying what they wanted out of their company, their go, the company, their goal for the business. It was actually a video they were giving advice for people starting a business, which I have kind of an issue with in terms of, you know, people following that information and then down the road that person giving the information actually failed using that information. And so that being said.

I feel like, I feel like the reason I was so.

Disappointed or unhappy with the video of him talking about his failure was that when I watched the video from four or five years ago, he said he wanted to have employees. He said he didn't want to work in the field. He said he wanted to grow a big business and have lots of employees around locally and employ people and have a big business and where he would not have to be out mowing lawns and doing the labor part of the work. Something that was scalable, something could pot pass down to his son. I heard all of those goals. And so when what I get mad about is when small business owners have to, are forced to, or they have to, or they just end up in some regard giving up on their goals. And this is what I don't want you to do, is never give up on your goals. Maybe your goals are delusional, maybe you were wrong, but admit that, go back, this is what he's doing, he's retracing. And so I 100% agree with this YouTuber what he's doing, this is what he should have done from the get go. This is what he should have done from the beginning. But, but I think what could have saved all that time is being really.

Assessing yourself a lot and being really self aware to know what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you love, what you don't love. And realizing that to be a business owner you have to have strengths in certain areas.

And if you don't have them, you should stay solo. And that can be a pride hit for people. Cause a lot of people get hit with the reason they want the trucks and the reason they want the employees and they want the big shop is for the pride instead of the business and the numbers, the marketing and the systems and the team that makes a business successful. So I want to share these few things with you. This is what I would share with someone like him that is retracing their steps. And when I saw this video of him kind of just talking recently about him going back to square one, going back to solo.

It actually reminded me of the book we're just finishing right now. It's called Zero Turn, how to build a Successful Lawn Care Business. So Zero Turn is basically a turnaround of a company. It's a fictional story that we made up based upon all the experiences I've had with lawn care and landscape business owners. It's gonna be coming out next month.

And the name of the character that we talk about is Larry. Larry goes through a transformation in his lawn care business after starting incorrectly. And where this YouTuber was at is exactly where Larry comes in contact with during the book. He comes into contact where he scales back, he goes backwards and basically gives up on the dream of building his business big. And so this is the advice I would share with Larry. This is the advice I would share with this youtuber and this is the advice I want to share today. So you avoid having to take step backwards, starting back at square one and admitting failure and giving up on your dreams. So first thing is when you're starting a business, work backwards. What I mean by that is start from where you want the business to be at and then work your way backwards in terms of what needs to happen, the timelines for those things to happen, and then work back to the present day. So if you're wanting to start your business next year, you need to figure out what's going to happen by the end of that year. Alright, but before you even do, excuse me, before you even do that, what's the business going to look like in 10 years? What's the, like, where do you want that business to do? Do you want to sell it? Do you want to have so many employees? You have a need to have a very clear picture of what you want that business to be in 10 years and then work your way backwards all the way back to the first year now where you have this goal of 10 years out in the future, but you've worked your way back nine, eight, and now you go back to year one. And at year one you're going to say, okay, I'm going to have X amount of dollars in revenue, I'm going to have so many employees, I'm going to have so many customers. I'm going to be serving this type of demographic, this type of customer. Is it residential, is it commercial? Figure out exactly what services you're going to provide, get a very clear picture of what year one looks like and then you're going to continue to work backwards. Now what's it going to look like at 11, 10, 9, 8, and what are you doing along the way to get to that goal after one year? And then when you hit year one, you already have a goal of what you want in year two, what you want the business to look like. But you build all those little steps that are going to get you there. And so what I really believe is people need to work their business from backwards. If you want your business to be sellable, there's certain services you're going to want to provide that are going to have a better, it's going to sell better, it's going to sell at a better rate of return and investors are going to look at better. Certain types of services, clientele, commercial, residential, et cetera, contract based versus bid, like all that. And so start out where you want the business to be in 10 years and work your way back. If you want to be solo and running your business like that and you're out doing the field and then there's no reason to start hiring people and getting big trucks and getting fancy equipment, you're going to be solo. You need to run a lean operation so that you have a good profit margin, because that profit margin is going to be a lot bigger than a bigger operation in terms of percentage. But you also have a much lower gross revenue. So you're going to figure out your lean. How do you save money? If that's what you want in 10 years, that's fine. If you want to have 50, 50 employees in 10 years, you have to work your way back. What's that going to look like after one year? You have one, two employees. What year two look like? 4, 5, 6, 10, year three? Like you got to figure these things out and then figure out, like I said, work your way Back from year one or the next, the coming year and work your way back in terms of what happens when. Okay. I don't think you should be doing like monthly goals for year five and six. Do it for the next 12 months to get to that next big milestone. So work your way backwards. Figure out what kind of business you want to build. Do you want it to be able to give you a bunch of time off and you really flexible schedule? If so, great. But it's probably going to slow down the company's growth a little bit, which is fine. That's what you want. Figure out what you want the business to do, figure out what you want the business to serve you, whether it be your lifestyle, your pocket, the community, what's the goal of the company and then work your way back from that. So I think a lot of times people, they don't have really an end goal and so they kind of flounder in terms of what they should be doing. Gotta have a clear end goal and then work your way backwards to the present day and figure out that path. That's number one is work backwards. Number two is don't fall in love with what you do, fall in love with how you do it, why you do it. So what is the what, how and why of the lawn care business? What we do is lawn care landscaping. We mow grass, we trim shrubs, we do weed control, we pull weeds, we trim bushes, we build fences, we build retaining walls and patios and pavers. That's what we do. That's what we do. And so many lawn care business owners, so many landscapers and get really involved in what they do, they love it. And that's fine. That's totally fine. I'm just talking about if I was giving you one on one advice when you're just starting your business, this is what I would say to you from my perspective of landscape business, course, the people I've talked to and for someone that wants to build a big business, this is what I would say. Not for the individual that's going to stay small, one, two, people like, that's not who I'm talking to at the moment, they can stay in love with what they do and they can stay in love with the grass and the leaves and getting really anal about things, that's fine. But for the individual that wants to grow a big business, wants to grow a scalable business, a business that is going to be able to sell a business that's going to employ a bunch of people and is going to consistently produce results regardless of economic prosperity or slowdowns. It's going to be the individual that does not fall in love with what they do, but how they do it and why they do it. The first one, how they do it is the systems and the procedures. So we're not going to focus on why, we're going to focus on how and why. Sorry, we're not going to focus on what we do. What we do in terms of lawn care, landscaping, mowing grass, all that stuff. We're going to focus on how we do it and why we do it. How we do it is the systems and procedures that you put in place to make your business run successfully and smoothly all the time, regardless of the people, regardless of whether you're there, regardless of whether or not your best employee is there. That's the how you get really? Really. You love working on the systems, you love working on the procedures. You love working on how the estimates go out and then the emails like you get anal about the automations of how you follow up with an estimate. You get anal about how people call, how they answer the phone at your business. Systems, procedures. That's the how of the business. Then you fall in love with the why of the business. Why does the company exist? What's the strategy to accomplish the goals? Why is the company in your community? Why are they serving that certain demographic? What is the end result that that company produces to society, your community, to the employees? What is your why? Our why is we're trying to change the landscape, the level of. Sorry. We're trying to change the level of professionalism in the landscaping industry and employ a team that is inspired by the work they do. That's our why. I got really passionate about that. That's why I make these videos. That's why I have landscape business course. That's why I have a conference coming up. It's because my landscaping company is dedicated to improving the level of professionalism in the landscaping industry and hiring a team, employing a team, bringing a team together, building a team that is inspired by the work they do. That's our why. How we do it is our systems, our procedures. We're the most efficient. We're constantly thinking and evolving and changing and modifying their systems and procedures and estimates and billing and scheduling and employing people. All this systems proceed. How and why? Very rarely do I ever. The more and more I can get out of the what we do, the lawn care, landscaping, hooking up trucks, the equipment. The more I focus on that, the less I will focus on how and the less focused I will be on why. And that's why business owners will fail and go back to being solo is because they're always so wrapped up in what they're doing. They never have time for why? Sorry, why? And they never have time for how the systems and procedures thereby their business will not scale. They will not be able to hire people because they're so wrapped up in what they do. That's number two is I'd really encourage you not to fall in love with what you do, but how you do it and why you do it. Number three is figure out this is a problem. Figure out the winter work issue. Our industry is seasonal traditionally and you have to figure out as a business owner how to solve the problem. It is a problem. It's a problem for keeping your people, your labor. And it's not easy to find good laborers. And when you do find them, you better make sure you treat them right. You better make sure you try to keep them year round so they don't have to go find another job and then get lured off into another company. You better make sure you try to keep a hold of them. And if that means you got to think, that means you got to figure out how you are going to make a business that can keep them busy during the winter, whatever that is. And optimally you make it so great that you actually can make money during the winter and not just be a savings seasonal business where you can actually grow and scale and hire during the winter instead of contracting, saving all the money, but knowing that's all leaving in overhead in fixed expenses and you're not making any money for three, four months. That is a big problem in our industry. It's very hard to scale a company when that's happening. And I really encourage, if you're just starting out, figure out what you're going to do in the winter. Go back a few videos. I talked all about different types of winter work that you can do different to fill in those gaps. But you've got to figure out how to solve that problem. It's going to definitely keep a better team on staff, which will allow you to grow more sustainably. And it'll be like, keep those key employees on payroll, keep them in your company. And if you're wanting to grow a great company, if you're wanting to grow a great business, if you want to grow a great team, you have to have those key players stay with you year after year after year. That's not going to happen very much. The average person staying a long term business is probably Several months. That's just our industry. Right. It's hard labor that's going to be tough. But there's going to be a much greater chance of people staying with you long term if you create that winter work window where they can, yes, go get vacations, give that option to them, but have work for them if they need it so they can provide for their family and you can attract talent. That's not just seasonal labor, but people that have families, people that need to provide and you can hold on to them for a lot longer. In general, those individuals are going to need more money. They're also going to have other demands in terms of family and things like that. But they'll stay with you much, much longer than the teenager that's coming out of high school or just come back from college, which that's going to use you for a few months, get some money for their next car and then they're gone. And so I'd highly recommend try to solve the issue of winter work within our industry for your business. Number four, last thing, I've already mentioned it.

This is the advice I'd give to someone starting their business in the lawn care landscaping industry today or going just beginning over again. And that is know your numbers and know your marketing methods. Your numbers are, I'd say it's kind of like a defensive coordinator and the offensive coordinator would definitely be your marketing. And those two people on a football team have to be in alignment with the head coach. And so you are the head coach of your business. And you have to know from an offensive standpoint and a defensive standpoint how your team is going to win the game. And from an offensive standpoint, you have to bring in new business. You have to market, you have to advertise. You have to figure these things out. You need to figure out Facebook ads. You got to figure out SEO and website development and content marketing and Google AdWords. You have to figure those things out. You have to figure out what the ROI is on print ads and postcards versus door hangers versus Flyers and the newspaper versus radio ads. All you have to figure these channels out. You got to figure these out. That's the offensive coordinator job. Off of offense. Grow, build the business, get new clients, get new leads, new estimates, new services growth. That's the offensive coordinator. But you've got to know your financials. Like people always say with, with football is great. Teams are built on defense and in the playoffs, like the team with the best defense win. That's the guy that is the defensive coordinator and that's the financials of your business. They're going to be the thing that's not fancy. No one loves doing them. The fence, never. The defensive plays rarely get on like the highlight reel. It's always the offense that do great plays and they get on the highlight reel. But the numbers, the financial aspect of your business and you devoting time to the defense of your business is what's going to win you championships. Defense wins championships. And knowing your numbers makes a successful business. And you have to know the marketing and the growth, the offensive coordinator, and you also have to know the defensive coordinator. And knowing your numbers and knowing your ROI and knowing the customer acquisition cost and lifetime value of a customer, you have to know those things.

So partly I'm venting, partly I hope that.

Someone in the shoes that individual I just watched that is going backwards and kind of giving up on everything they always wanted in terms of a business. I hope this helps someone.

Get a second chance at their goals, take another swing and do it right. Or I hope if you're starting your business or you're wanting to get started, you listen to this and you apply these things so in five, 10 years, you're not backtracking, going backwards, trying to shovel yourself out of debt, having to go back into the field and mow. And you're creating a real solid business. Because if you implement these things, it's a business that'll grow by itself. It'll grow in systems, procedures, and you will not be mowing. You'll be focusing on the how and you'll be focusing on the why. Thank you so much. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com We're going to be digging very deep into some of these things at the conference. It's coming up in just three weeks. So go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference and sign up today. Can't wait to see you.