Running Mowers for 4000 Hours! BROKE to $300K Lawn Care Business | RoundUP ep.27

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes here. Today we're having another episode of Roundup with Matt from New Hampshire. It's gonna be a great episode, and you're not gonna believe this. He runs his mowers over 4,000 hours long, and he did this only because his first time, first time he started his lawn care business, he got new equipment, new trucks, the whole nine yards went into debt. And then 2008 came, and he lost everything. Everything got repossessed, and a few years later, he had to restart the business doing it using used trucks, paying things off, and not going into a bunch of debt. I understand debt can be used in a positive way. It can be used to scale up. And you're going to see how Matt's idea of debt has changed. But I want you to focus on just how much truth there is to the fact that new mowers, new equipment, they still need maintenance, they still need tires changed, and they need. Still need fuel and all the rest of it. So I want you to listen to today's episode and hear from someone that is using mowers for 2,000 to 4,000 hours before they get rid of them. And when they sell them, they're selling them for more than what they bought them for after they fix them up. So really looking forward to these episodes. I think there's a lot to learn. You're just getting started how not to start your business. And then what steps are. What steps Matt made so that he could actually turn the business around and make it successful. Here we.

Let's go.

Cool. So maybe talk a little bit about how you got into lawn care and why you started the business.

Oh, geez. We're talking back almost 20 years ago.

I started in 2002, and I was actually building a house, and I got into an accident and kind of screwed up my inner ear, which caused vertigo for life now. And I was actually installing the roof on this house three stories up, and I looked down, and a guy pulls in with a lawnmower. And I said, wow, I could be working on the ground right now instead of up in the air.

And I went out and I physically took my mower I had at home and went start mowing lawns a week later.

I made a lot of mistakes on that business. I ran that for almost six years, and I lost everything that I owned. I financed everything from trucks to mowers to a house to cars to. I was the typical broke person, just trying to make my bills.

And so from the roofing company. Were you owning that company? Or were you working as an employee for that, that business?

I. I owned a handyman business and ended up going. I kind of got roped into building a house for a friend of mine. And we. We did everything. I. I framed the house from the ground up. And it was at the point that I was doing the roof and where I. I'd gotten into a small car accident, and it caused. I. I was constantly dizzy, and.

I. I shut that business down kind of quickly. I still had it on the back burner. I've made a little money here and there to. To fill in the gaps, you know, income gaps, with starting a new business.

And then for those six years, did. Was it mostly but you by yourself working? And then why do you think that it did so poorly during that period of time with the initial kind of the mowing side of things?

So I. I knew nothing about it. You know, I was a hammer, nail, kind of bang them, bang and go.

I. I started by myself. The first year, I probably did $10,000. I mean, it was just a. Pushing a mower. And then I. I got a little cocky and said, oh, I'm gonna buy a bigger mower. So I went out and spend, you know, $30,000 on two mowers. I bought two trucks, and I hired my first employee who really was an employee or his cash under the table. As, you know, I think we all start that way.

He never actually became an employee. It was always. There was never a clear motive as to what we were doing.

I never. I didn't have a clear path because I didn't know what I was doing. So we just kind of muscled through the days, and I never really made a lot of money doing it.

And then, of course, in 2008, when we had the whole real estate crash, I lost my house and slowly watched every part of my business go away as the bank wanted it more than I did.

And so how, at that period of time, how much do you. Do you remember how much you were owing to the bank in terms of equipment and trucks and stuff like that?

Over a hundred thousand, one hundred twenty, maybe one hundred thirty thousand.

And then when did you kind of realize, okay, like, this is not going to work? And then what was sort of the plan of action to rectify that?

So I had to vacate my house, which got. Wasn't repoed. We actually sold it for a loss. We were at a rental house. It was probably. It was dark out, and the repo man came to take my last truck. That's when I realized I don't know what I'm doing here.

And then from there, from there, do you start to build it in a different way? What did you kind of change as you begin to grow from there?

I walked away from it completely. I went and I worked for, for a home improvement company or, you know, like a hardware store. I worked there for a couple years and decided that I wanted to be outside. I've always been an outside person. I just want to be outside. And I started looking at the largest landscape companies in the area just for a job. And I went, I had interviews with all of them, I had offers from all of them, and I went and I worked for the largest company in the area. I worked for them for three years. I got some really good training there and understood what I was doing wrong in my business because I didn't know anything I was doing. I wasn't cutting lawns right. I wasn't doing up at the right times. You know, I wasn't keeping up with my customers. The customer service was poor and bookkeeping, everything, everything was poor about it.

And the company went through some changes and I decided it was time to, time to go back out on my own with some, some new knowledge.

And then at that point, what year was that and what was, what were things that you decided, hey, look, I've learned from this bigger company that I actually have to implement in terms of, like you mentioned, potentially even when to mow, how to, but even system side, specifically, where there are things you're like, hey, I did this wrong. I got it. And from day one, I'm making these specific changes.

So from day one, I, I went out with the mindset of, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start a premium product, which I didn't know what that was before.

Making a schedule, having a route, following that route week to week. You know, Mondays you're mowing these lawns, Tuesdays you're mowing these lawns. I never had that. I just went out when I needed to go out and mowed.

Having a good clear path. So if I hired somebody else, I could tell them what we're doing along with, you know, so we're all on the same page.

And like I said, I learned a lot of technique there, but I also learned a little bit of the back, back side of the story, the business. I, I never really was involved in the backside. It was such a big company. I ran a MOW truck and, you know, I went out, I mowed for.

60 hours a week and did most of the customers that you Initially got kind of on your second go come from your initial business or were they just brand new and you have to kind of restart the whole marketing engine?

Well, apparently I made up about a bunch of people mad the first time because I just, I closed up shop pretty quick. But one of my first customers, but going back in was one of my oldest customers I had originally. And it kind of spiraled. Once people realized I was back in business.

They, they hired me, they started hiring me. The first year I did it part time, I worked another job. I mean I did very minimal, but I was building up. I knew, I knew what I was building. I was going further. I wasn't going to stay in working for somebody and do this part time. So that year I worked alone and I probably, it's funny, I worked out of my, my Dodge Caravan and I had a little trailer that I, I told my walker mower. I, I think the mower was worth more than the Caravan was.

And so when you're kind of purchasing things for that next go at things, what was your mindset in terms of. Obviously the first time there was a lot of debt. You got a lot of things new. It sounds like you got now a used van and you're towing the, the, the trailer on using that. What was the mindset in terms of. Was it a matter of do you think you kind of needed to be humbled down a bit to, to then restart, or was it a matter of like financially just completely, you know, you did not have enough jobs? Like why did it fail first time? Because a lot of people go out buy trucks and to set up. Like why did it not, why did it not work the first time versus what you did the second time?

Well, I went through a course. Who, I don't know if I should say his name here, but I went through a course that really taught me how to live debt free. And we cleaned up our lives, we cleaned up our credit card debts. I came into this business owing no money. And I've had the mindset of the whole time owing no money. I started purchasing equipment. I bought the first mower with cash. It was used, it was $3,000 for, for a mower.

And I've since slowly bought everything cash. It's only recently this year that I bought one piece of equipment on credit. But my business outweighs the whole, you know, it's an $18,000 credit. It's not, it's not a huge purchase. But I, I've got to the point, I have six mowers, I've got four trucks. I've got. Everything is used, everything is older. I work on everything myself. It's, I can, I can repair, I can maintain. It just has worked really well. And to come through as far as I've gotten and have only $18,000 of debt, I think I'm doing pretty good.

What has that done for even your family and just yourself in terms of kind of peace of mind, knowing that the company is where it's at now versus even, you know, 10, 15 years ago when, when things were kind of falling apart and, and knowing all that debt was there. What has that done? Even personally and in your family life.

Man, it's made a huge, huge difference.

You know, I don't, I still don't pay myself much because I, I put a lot back into the business. But as far as personal life, my, my wife can rest at ease knowing that we can pay the bills. We're not chasing the, the payments down on every credit card and the, this loan and that loan and that. It's more at peace if I buy a piece of equipment. I buy a piece of equipment because I have the money. There's, there's less question as far as where we're going. We know both where we're going. We're building a business. The business is an asset in itself. And it's not a burden. You know, before it was a huge burden. You know, it's like, you know, you're putting out thousands of dollars a month for payments and, you know, maybe I didn't even make that every month. You go through the wintertime and you're making all these payments on mowers. You're not using them. It made a real big difference at home.

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And now you said you have four trucks, six mowers. Tell us a little bit how your approach is in terms of employing people after going to that big company, seeing how they operate things. And then what did you bring over to the second kind of go at things that. From an employee and, and finding new hires.

So new hires, that's a, that's a whole new thing these days. That, that's my January project. I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that here.

I have currently five employees. They, they're on standby. Most of them work part time over the winter and then they work when we have snowstorms. We've had two snowstorms this year, so they're working somewhere else mostly.

As far as hiring, I've learned that working in teams of two people work really well. The, the company that I worked for had teams of one, two and three people. Three people is good. If you have really large jobs, two people's really good. It's, it's the most efficient way that we found to work and it's the safest as well. If you send two people out and somebody gets hurt, there's the other person that can, you know, pick up the pace or call 911 or whatever needs to happen.

Now are you mostly doing mowing or have you shared a branch into some other services as well?

I branched out to everything. I was the typical. I wanted to do everything when I started again. Right.

We have since dropped down to maintenance. All we do lawn maintenance, bed maintenance, bush maintenance, mulching, that type of stuff and obviously plowing in the winter. I got spread too thin with trying to do irrigation and trying to install patios and starting to. It's too much to do at once.

It's a lot of expense on equipment. It's a lot of just trying to. Your money's too thin. And we focus on one thing. I can train people in one area, they can learn and we, we get more proficient at it. And I've, I've found profit wise that it works better for us.

And from a, from a cost standpoint this past year as it's been harder to find employees, but even just the cost of everything going up, have you been raising your prices on an hourly basis? Have you been adding those fees, you know, any sort of fees back in that have been new even in the past 12, 24 months.

So I watched one of your videos on raising prices which was really inspiring. One, I don't know in the middle of summer this year where I did a blanket price raise, there was customers that were under $50 got a $5 raise, over $50 got a ten dollar raise. It was simple, it was easy to explain, it was easy to write an email for. And I lost one customer, probably not one anyways.

Probably not one that was super pleasant anyway, so.

Oh yeah, they're usually the first to go, right?

Yeah. That's awesome. And one thing you had mentioned in caught talking before the show and that is about kind of been fixing up some equipment Actually selling it, how does that work? And I know for some people out there that are more handy or mechanically inclined might be of interest to them. How have you done that to kind of stay busy through projects? Or is it something you just enjoy doing? And what's kind of your process for being able to make some money doing that?

Well, so back up to when I was growing up, we had a town dump and you go every week and you pick up something that was broken from somebody else. You, you fix it up and you sell it in the front yard. I kind of have the same mentality. I, I'll buy a mower, I'll, I'll fix it up, I'll run it and I'll sell it. I generally sell it for more than I bought it for, but I ran it for two or three years. It allows me to go pick up another mower and, and fix it up, do the same thing. I think my newest mower is 10 years old. And, but it's kind of a supplement because I do that in the winter I can do. I mean, there's not a lot going on around here. You know, once it snows, it snows and we're not, we're not doing anything. So I do fill my time with that during the winter. And then in the springtime when everybody wants a mower, I can sell a couple mowers and I go buy something newer.

I'm always, I always laugh. Like, if you look at the mowers today versus say 10 years ago, like, there's always the, well, the bells and the whistles and the seat is softer. And, you know, now you have USB charging ports. But like, overall they're actually pretty similar in terms of what they do. But what's kind of your sweet spot, spot in terms of, you know, hours and perhaps age years old that you're looking to buy. And then when is it like, it is too old and like little, like, I think a lot of people their, their comeback would be like, well, I don't want belts breaking or little wiring things going wrong. Like, when does it hit the, like, okay, this is too far beyond where I can use it commercially and I should just go sell it.

The funny thing is, I find I, I think back when I had new mowers, I was replacing belts, I was replacing bearings, I was greasing them, I was replacing tires. I still put gas in them and I still do it. So most of my owners right now are between 2 and 4000 hours on them.

Wow.

And, and I don't mind that the mower that has 4,000 hours on it got an engine a thousand hours ago. You know, there's two. There's a few major components. The time that I'll turn them over away is when the metal starts fatiguing on like the deck. If, if the blades aren't going to hold in straight and they're just not gonna. It's not gonna mow correctly. It's time to either move it to a homeowner or you know, the graveyard for mowers.

And so. Wow, 4,000. Is that, is that on walkers then?

Yeah, I have, I have mostly walkers right now.

Yeah, I think that, I think the youngest walker we have has 1400 hours on it.

Wow, that's awesome. Most people, like, I talk to people like once a thousand. We're getting new ones. So it's, it's refreshing.

It's. Yeah, I know I used to have that mentality, but again, on a new one at 400 hours, you're starting to replace all that stuff? Yeah, every year I replace all the belts because it. New belts are new belts. Sometimes you have to replace the pulley so it doesn't tear up the belts. But the amount of money I spend on my mowers, I spend maybe a thousand dollars a year per mower. And compared to that, when I had a 300amonth payment for my mower, which is better in my book, I'll spend a thousand dollars a year and just keep running them until they're. They're physically can't hold themselves together anymore.

That's awesome. I know, I know this year you did around 300,000 revenue, but going kind of the vision. I know you mentioned, hey, getting to a million. What's kind of the process? What are you going to be doing to get to that point? And do you think the constraint, what are the constraints? Is it most just finding people.

A little bit of finding people.

Like I said, that's January's project. I don't know how I'm going to do that. I don't think any of us really know how we're going to do that. But just really having a clear mission, a clear statement, a clear path. Kind of think back into the early part of my days. I didn't have a full clear path. I still don't. I'm working on that clear path so that when somebody comes to work for me, they, they can see there's a clear path to the top. I can be a manager someday. How can I do that? Well, here's, here's your blueprint of how to become a manager.

My whole idea is to have it in writing, very clear. My next goal. It's funny because I, I've only been increasing about 30 per year. This year we tripled from last year and next year I want to get to the 5, maybe 600 mark. If I can close to double the business, I'll be happy. But it is going to take personnel and it maybe take. It may take purchasing some new equipment which is kind of out of my wheelhouse.

And actually getting the equipment this year is going to be a little bit tougher just as last year was.

Absolutely. Well, I really appreciate your time, Matt. And if people wanted to reach out to you, they're potentially maybe even close by. Where can they reach?

Yeah, I have a website, grandscapers.net and I have. Yeah, website is probably the best way.

Perfect. Well, I really appreciate it, Matt. I wish you all the best 2022 and maybe we'll check in after this coming year and see if you're able to get that past that half million marker. Thanks so much for tuning in today to another episode of Roundup. If that was something interesting to you and you learned something, comment below, Share the message with other landscapers so we as a community can come together and learn and grow our businesses. If you would like to be on the Roundup show and actually interview with me just like we did today, feel free to go in the description. There's a link there. Fill up the form and we'd love to talk to you. If you are wanting to share with the industry and help other people grow their business. Thank you so much. I'll see you in the next episode.