Scaling a $1.2M Landscaping Company

Everyone, it's Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 170 locations around the world for the day. I'm actually going to be doing a hike with a landscaper that did $1.2 million revenue last year.

Contractors, we're feast or famine. I don't know how you feel about partnerships but I kind of got burnt and it kind of scared me.

But what's interesting about this one is we are literally climbing a mountain in the middle of Arizona.

This is a good vista. This is awesome, man.

So we did this on a turnaround show with a whole bunch of other episodes on my main channel. In the middle of that we met up with this LA cheaper and just chatted it up. So let me know in the comments if you like this sort of more relaxed content and hopefully you get something out of it. We're getting started.

Behind the scenes now.

Where's most of your work come from?

Like where? Like location wise?

Yeah, like all over Phoenix.

Yeah. I mean I'm doing jobs as close as did one probably 3 miles from my house and just did a big job down in Queen Creek, which is like an hour and five minutes away.

Yeah.

That'S good.

What's like the really around the golf courses?

Like yeah, there's a lot around the golf courses but that's where.

Like Amos Peterson. Yep. So he's got a pretty good clientele. So I get a lot of his referrals.

Does he usually close most of the project like estimate then.

So since they're all. Most of them are all referrals.

Yep.

I'm probably.

70%.

Yeah.

Because really it's already on the teeth.

Right.

You just got to go up there and hit it in fair.

I'm assuming you probably do like 12 leads a week is really all you.

Need though.

Is one to two leads.

A week just to stay busy. Like on the project side, the projects.

That we've been landing are big. Really so.

So really only like one or two a month.

That one inch, that one that I bid over there, that's going to be probably about a $70,000. Scott.

That's cool.

Let's go. That'll take about six weeks co.

Maybe five. I'm already doing a big driveway. You know that's a thirty thousand dollar job. That one's already on the table. Yeah. So that'll take a couple weeks. So they're big ticket jobs.

Right.

I don't do a lot of small stuff.

The nice thing about that is at least gives you time where you can manage the project on site too.

Exactly.

Now you can run around doing thousand estimates a day.

Well, and that's what kind of saves it.

Right.

But.

Oh, putting greens, turf irrigation's obviously.

Big here.

Yeah.

The irrigate stuff because we don't got rain.

Yeah.

So everything needs water.

And then also to lighting. Lighting's massive.

Right.

Which I really want a special dude.

I know. I wanted to. I wanted to do lighting. If we kept going with project work.

Yeah.

I would have kept doing lighting.

You don't even have to do project work. Just lighting in general.

Yeah.

I mean.

Yeah. Like, it's so simple. Such big margins.

So good.

What's the hourly I charge or like pay people here for just for getting started? Like 20.

Oh, for guys.

Yeah.

A lot of people do it different. Some people do hourly, some people do by the day.

Yeah, it's really popular here. Day stuff. Yeah. Like 200 bucks a day.

What do you think about that?

Oh, it just depends. Like it starts to become almost like a contractor. And you got to be careful with like the obviously minimum wage as that's bumping. Like what's your guys. You guys are low here, right?

150 a day.

Yeah.

And my best guy was 240.

Got it.

And that's based on an eight hour day.

Got it.

So some days.

They may work less than eight hours. Some days it's more.

Do you ever get pushback when you like you have basically worked 10, 12 hour days? No. So they just kind of know that's the way it rolls.

Yeah. Because they know like they're some days they're gonna win.

So it all kind of balances out. Yeah.

Because my guys are day rate.

Right. Right. So you're guessing how many days essentially.

Exactly.

Got it.

So I know. Okay. At least need to do 500 bucks a day or whatever. Yeah.

Did a lot of people locally get out of the business, do you think? Last summer, once it got so slow.

I heard that a lot of guys went under this. This past year. Yeah.

Like the project guys. Yeah. So is most of the stressed out on like making sure basically hitting project hours and materials, all that sort of thing?

Yeah, well, and I got caught up. Get caught up too in like as long as my guys are busy.

Right.

You got to be careful with that too, because then you start suffering.

Right.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So. So I'm really stuck there. Like I want to grow and the opportunity is there to grow.

Right.

But I don't want to take on more payroll because I'm Trying to buy another truck. Buy more trucks.

Trailers. Yeah.

And I don't even have this part out. You know what I mean?

Right.

At this size. Yeah. And then at that point, you go from $5,000 a week in payroll to 10,000. You know what I mean? You're doubling. Yeah.

Up until probably the last couple weeks is when it really hit when so much people started saying yes. Yep. Is whenever I was like, all right, I need to do this. But then you look at the account and like, dang, I need to buy trucks. But I hate debt.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So. So the bobcat would be like 6, 700 bucks a month.

Yeah, the guy told me it was 600. It was right at 600.

And then a truck would be like 500, probably.

Well, the truck I would want to buy, I'm not one of those. I need the shiny new truck.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I've looked at a few that are right in the 7, $8,000 range. I could buy cash.

Okay.

Yeah. I want my trucks to be cash. Yeah. Cuz if your trucks are cash, if they break down, it's fine. I'll just go repair it. You know what I mean? It's not y. Okay, so you have an $800 repair plus the $700 payment on it.

You know what I mean?

So. Yeah. I don't know. Like, as it. Especially with the slow time, it kind of scared me.

Right.

A little bit. Because it slowed down. And it's like, what if I had all those payments, right. And it was that slow?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go.

You know what I mean? Cuz as contractors, you know how to do the contractors. We're Feast of famine. Like, you can be in a feast for three years. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you're slowing down and you're just keeping your crew Right. Running. You know what I mean? And so.

And even for my wife, because the first three years, I mean, we were running, like. But then it's really slowed down. And even for her, like, she realized, like, dang, like, it could slow down like that.

Right, right, right.

You do need to make contact and you do need to build relationships. Yeah. Because I was talking with my Ewing rep, and he said that. He told me that. He said, I've got landscapers. When they were slow, he said, I've got guys coming in here. So they haven't gotten calls in three weeks, and they're door knockers. And I don't know how you feel about partnerships, but I kind of got burnt.

Yeah.

And it kind of scared me.

Yeah.

And we were like really good friends and stuff like that.

Yeah.

And I actually just had a business guy, we're doing his house and he owns a big media innovation company here.

Huh.

And.

He'S. We're actually on his house, big old house in Frederick Valley. And he actually approached me about becoming a partner and helping us because, you know, so many contacts.

Right.

And custom home builders.

Yeah.

So I still have that on the table because he was like within two years.

Would he just want to be a silent partner with money?

No.

Oh. He wouldn't actually jump in.

He wants to help.

Really? Has he done landscaping before or just the media, like the digital sign?

Yeah, he does all that stuff. He's never done landscaping, but he's like, I know it's a good, profitable business.

Yeah.

And he doesn't mind, like doing hard work.

Yeah.

Yeah. Getting there. So he said, I'm wanting to start a landscape company. He's like, but I like you. I like what you stand for and also like how you guys work all that stuff. He's like, I think with you having that side and the experience of it, like if we combined it.

Right. That's cool. So you still 5050 on that though?

I'm just. Yeah. Praying about it and just.

Yeah.

Cuz I don't know.

Cuz the first one didn't go so great.

Yeah. But you know how it is. Like I put my trust in it and then as the business started growing, things started, you know, become more and more secretive, yada yada.

Right, right. So was that your first year?

No, this is back.

Oh, even before you started this full time. Okay.

This is back when.

Okay. Okay.

So ever since then, I always told myself I never have a partner. Like I'll do it myself. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I think now that I'm in it, I realize I either need somebody that I can trust. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like.

Because I can't. I'm like the past probably three months, it's really kind of hit me.

Right.

Like if I'm not careful, I'm gonna become one of those. Even though you're making a lot of money.

Yeah.

You're gonna turn into one of those paycheck to paycheck, right?

Yeah, yeah.

How much the revenue work that we can do here.

Yeah.

There's no reason for me to be like that.

Right. So you're thinking you're gonna either partner with someone or get like an admin person, you think, to do like the back end stuff more I mean, he does.

Well, this house right now that we're doing for him, I think he's going to be about 7 or 8 million dollars in by the time his build's done.

Wow.

So he does quite a bit.

Why does he want to go into landscaping?

Because he wants to start another company.

Okay.

He's like. Like I said, his company runs itself.

Got it.

So he does.

So he's like. I just.

He basically stays at home and his.

Yeah.

Everything runs itself. He'll go like. If it's some of his high profile clients.

Yeah.

Then he'll go and do some estimates with them and stuff. Just because. But he does.

He just came back from Vancouver. Hoover Island.

Wow.

He was doing a yacht over there. Dude, let's go. The sound system on there. So he does big stuff like that.

That's cool.

Let's head out.

Yeah. Let's get it, guys. So. Thanks.

He put actually back in my pocket. Yeah, I got you. Sorry, my hands are full. You made it. Francis. Francis.

And now we're all heading back down.

God.

So that's why I tell people like, you still gotta. Yeah. It's good to hang doors and like do all that and. And you should. Because that's part of it. Yeah. But you also should go to these. I just went to Belgard University.

Yeah.

Which they put on. It was free.

That's cool.

Full day event.

Yeah.

There was 200 other landscapers there. I walked around and met guys, other contractors, other.

You know what I mean?

Like, you got to take advantage of all those free things. Yeah. In order to keep going.

Yeah. Are we going this way? Yep. Oh, okay.