Starting a Second Location and Taking His ENTIRE Team to Hawaii! | RoundUP ep.26

You know, I, I just tell them, I say, okay, that's a $500 mistake. I've, I've now invested $500 into your education. So you won't, you won't ever make that mistake again.

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes. Another episode of Roundup today. Really looking forward to today's episode. We're going to be hearing from an entrepreneur that started his lawn care business about 14 months ago, has already built it to a million dollars in revenue. We're gonna hear about what he's done for marketing and what his plans are to build the business to over two and a half million dollars in revenue, already having general managers and building out a leadership team below him. So really looking forward to today's episode. State that has been under a lot of pressure from regulation and that is California around electric mowers and blowers and all the rest of it. So we're going to get into some of these conversations today. I think it's be super fun. So any further delay, let's go ahead and welcome Geronimo into the show. Geronimo. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me, Mike. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Let's jump into it. Tell me how I started doing lawn care and specifically over the past 14 months, what happened 14 months ago for you to kind of get things moving.

Okay. Yeah. So you said, how do we start? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Well, I was, I was working security at the hospital and I was working nights, and I had. So I had sold real estate previously, like a couple years ago. And so I learned a lot of sales skills and I learned a lot about systems. If you've read Gary Keller, millionaire real estate agent, I adopted that book pretty much when I was selling real estate. So I had an idea of systems and in business. And so I was kind of looking for my next venture when I moved back home. And so what's an idea popped in my head like, oh, how much can you charge to mow a lawn? And then I was thinking, well, how many lawns can I mow in a day? And then, you know, I went down that whole rabbit hole. So I want to say, three weeks later, I bought a truck for $800, couldn't even get out of third gear, and, and bought probably $900 worth of residential equipment. And I just started my, my journey. And one of the first things I did when I started out was I actually hired on somebody to drop flyers for me at minimum wage. And so that was kind of my marketing. And I didn't I created, you know, the Google. Google, my business page and website. So one of the things that I was looking at when I was first getting started was how do I be better than the competition? And so, you know, I looked at all my competitors in the market and. And, you know, I kind of studied them and I'd see them around town and. And I just asked myself, like, how can I be better than them in every facet of. Of the sales process to, you know, how we do our work? And, and so, you know, that started me with, like, oh, I've got to get, you know, I've got to get a professional software. I've got to get uniforms for myself at the time and uniforms, my guys as I hired them on. But.

And then. And then with the flyers, that kicked off right away. So I was not expecting that much growth in the first couple months. But I want to say our first month in business, we did 9,000 in revenue, and the second month was, I want to say, like 12 or 15,000.

So was that. Was that in the kind of the middle of COVID then that you left the hospital?

Yeah, so that. That started right at the beginning of COVID I want to say it was March of 2020 was when we started. So.

Awesome. And so did you. Did you just basically do it on the side for a little bit basically in a few weeks and then jump into it full time? Or is it like, I'm just done with the whole thing, doing security and jumped 100% directly into it?

Yeah, that's my personality. I just jump into things, you know, full force. And I'm young enough where, you know, I don't have, like, a family to support, my bills aren't super high, you know, and they've stayed relatively the same since the beginning of my business. So for me personally, you know, I just jumped right into it. Would I recommend that to somebody with a family? Like, probably not. It was a little bit risky, you know, but I trusted my abilities enough that I was going to make it happen. And. And so, yeah, that's. That's what I just jumped right in.

Your. Your background kind of in real estate, at least dabbling in that for a little bit. Talk to me about that and sort of. Did you feel like before coming to this business that you have now with your local moman, did. Did you feel prior to that like you kind of had the entrepreneurial bug but couldn't really find your niche? Like, I feel like a lot of times people get into real estate because, like, they're Usually entrepreneurial, they have that ability to sell. Did you feel like it was kind of a dead end, was just not the fit for you? What was it about the real estate that didn't really click versus obviously once you got into lawn care, landscaping, it took off very quickly.

Yeah, so that's a, that's a great question. For me personally, like, I have a lot of high energy, you know, and, and for me, when I got into real estate, unfortunately, my main priority was to make money. And I was like, I was looking at like, wrong way. I was, I was 18 years old when I got my license and I was sold it, you know, by some of these online courses. But it was, it was a mistake. I did decent, you know, I was, I probably on average sold between 10, 11 homes a year. But I think the biggest thing for me was not only like being commission based, which I'm commission, I'm commission based now, which is the same. But for me it was the distance between the sales cycle, you know, and.

From the beginning of when you first meet a customer at say an open house or you knock on their door to the time that you close them, that could be, you know, between nine and 12 months from when you first meet them. So I, you know, I was like, I give this analogy. It took me six months to sell my first house, and then the following six months I sold seven homes. That was when I started. So I think why it took off for me in landscaping is not only do I have a professionalism about myself and I've kept that standard from when I started, but also I want to say, like, the sales cycles are quicker. So from the time that a customer, you know, is introduced to us either through Google or Facebook or one of our flyers, you know, I'm picking up the phone, I'm setting the appointment the same day, I'm probably coming out the next day. And then I'm giving them a quote, and I'm giving them the quote the same day after that. And then, you know, but which, in the beginning when we scheduled the customers, I mean, we were doing the jobs within a week or two weeks. Now we're booked out a little bit longer than that. But I think it was just the quicker, you know, sales cycle. And I was talking to a buddy of mine, you know, there's something about closing a sale that gives you more motivation to continue on. And I think it's little wins along the way that, that, you know, the more you get, the more confidence you have in yourself, the more confidence you have in bidding Larger projects. And. And so, yeah, I just kind of took that momentum, and we've been continuing to run with it since the beginning.

Talk to me a little bit about going from real estate then and then going to security at the hospital. Did you feel like you kind of had given up on kind of your entrepreneurial thing? Did you feel like a failure on the real estate side of things? Like, I kind of just kind of envisioned, you know, somewhat kind of putting the. Those desires on the back burner for a while just for the sake of a secure job. Was it that, or was it a matter of, like, you did need the money or what was it? How were you feeling during that period of time?

Gosh, I was so. I was definitely burnt out. I mean, I was working seven days a week for three. Three years in selling real estate in Sacramento. So when I moved back home, I think the. The thing that I wanted to do the most was just kind of, like, be a normal kid for a second, you know, work my job and hang out with my friends, which it didn't last too long because I ended up getting the second job while I was working security. So I was working, like, 18 hours a day. But I think I found out then. I mean, I was. You know, I was. I was down in. I was. Yeah, I was. I was down during that time in my life, But I think I was just looking for something. Something new to spark my interest. And through that process of being kind of at my low point, I found out that I'm a worker, you know, just naturally, like, I just. I need to be active. I need to be working all the time, whether it's. It's on my own business or whether it's on someone else's business. And I just figured I'd rather start my life on my own terms than on someone else's.

And then when you got started, obviously got started a pretty hot start. Talk to me about that first year. So growing that at that speed, obviously you would need a few trucks pretty quickly ramping things up. Sounds like because you were single, you're able to, like, hey, I'll just, like, plow every dollar back in and keep things pretty lean. What were you doing from a marketing standpoint, though, to ramp up that quickly outside of Flyers in 2020?

So the beginning was definitely flyers. Like, I want to say. Let's say I started in March, between March and June. So that kind of carried me through the springtime. We did a lot of larger cleanups. And then at that point in time, I probably had, like, 40 maintenance customers. So I was doing, like a big thing here is a lot of brush clearing. Nobody wants to get their hands dirty. So I did a lot of brush cleaning and, you know, just to kind of get revenue going. And. And I was saving all that cash, and I think probably four months in, I ended up buying a. A dump trailer and. And a truck, which I had paid for cash at that point. But.

It was. So as to answer your question, the flyers. And then we. Oh, I did a clever Facebook ad. So I read this book on guerrilla marketing, and one of the things that I wanted to do to make my. To make my company stand out was I want to do a creative Facebook ad. I know that nobody in my area, because we're so small, nobody's doing online advertisements. So when something pops up on your Facebook, typically it sticks. I did a video where it was like, hey, Humboldt county, you know, I'm not afraid of a lot of things. I'm not afraid to use a chainsaw. I'm not afraid to work. But I tell you what I am afraid of. I'm afraid of spiders. And then I paused and. And best that honesty, I think, like, it just blew up. I mean, I think we've got over 100,000 views on that video. Got close to 150 shares, like a thousand likes or something. So just that activity on Facebook, I think it just. It just gave us enough momentum to get started. And then since then, because it seemed like people had liked our brand and our face, I've started to make more Facebook videos. And then because the viewers from the last one, they're carrying over to the next videos, and. And we've created a really strong online presence. And then that mixed with the flyers, that's. That's helped out a lot.

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Oftentimes, in a smaller market like yours, people say, well, you know, I can only grow my business to, you know, one or two employees because it's just so small. I look as a massive advantage for reasons like you just mentioned, that is, no one else is usually doing online. Right. When you make an ad, it does stand out because people aren't used to seeing local companies.

So.

So talk to me a little bit about what Your thought process is obviously there is a cap. Like you can't probably build a $20 million business in your area, but, you know, getting to a million as fast as you did through penetration and going deep inside of your market. What did you find worked well from a marketing standpoint versus if you were in a market where there was, you know, 20 million people within a 10, 15 mile radius of you?

Yeah. So what worked well, as of a couple months ago, I didn't actually know the answer to that question just because I was throwing like a lot of mud at the wall and seeing what was sticking. And that's kind of, I think, is one of the downfalls of growing so quickly is like, you know, I didn't have systems in place. We've been working on that for the last four months, you know, like hardcore. But just recently, what I've been finding in these smaller markets is I've been spending a lot of money on flyers, but I'd be getting most of my returns from Facebook and Google. And I think like, when I go look up, say, restaurants near me, I'm going to Google first thing, you know. And so over the last year, what I've specialized or what I've really targeted on is when we have good customer experience and when a customer is happy after the job said and done, I'll ask them to go leave a Google review. And that just helps us out. You know, if we have employees that have been working with us for a long time, I'll go ask them to leave a Google review. If we go to networking events and, you know, we present ourselves well, I'll ask them to leave us Google review. And so I just, I think just having that strong online presence has been the most profitable for us. I still believe that flyers have a nice impact because like, I call it brand awareness. I don't know what everyone else calls it, but it's just being top of mind, you know, like once a month, you know, they're going to get that flyer at the doorstep. So, yeah, that's pretty much that.

And then in terms of the fast growth that you've had over the past year and a half or so, assuming that everyone stayed with you, you had no turnover, you'd almost be hiring a new person every month. So talk to me about just you, really, the first time ever hiring people and being a boss. What have you learned over the past year in a pretty difficult labor market, not just to find these people, but then actually keep growing the business without everything falling apart? Because the biggest part about Growth that I see is not necessarily the money suck it creates, it's also the strain it causes because everyone, you're hiring people so fast, there's a bunch of newbies and you're basically become, you know, babysitter extraordinaire. So what have you done over and what have you learned over the past year that's helped you somewhat with that growth level while having so many new employees coming into the business?

Yeah. So I want to say I took this away from your video, but it didn't actually apply apply to me until I started hiring on people was, I think the biggest thing for me is learning to let go. Like learning to give control to somebody else. And when I first started, when I first hired on my first two and three employees, like I was, I was a really hardcore boss, you know, and it was the first time I hired somebody on, my expectations were super high. And so very quickly, like I'm a self analyzer when I, when I'm making a mistake, typically if it's not aligning with my moral code, I can pick up on it pretty quickly. But I realized that I was, you know, I was being a micromanager, I was being rude, probably because I was stressed out. I was working, you know, 30 days straight during the springtime. But you know, as I've hired on more people and as I've grown, I've really learned to accept people for, you know, the mistakes that they make. And it's just, just to sit down with them and have a conversation and say, you know, what did we do wrong here and how can we fix that? You know, and I'm okay If I lose 500 and I tell them, you know, we had someone who ran into one of our orchard ladders and broke it or it fell off the side of our truck because it wasn't scrapped down properly. And you know, I just tell them, I say, okay, that's a 500 mistake. I've now invested 500 into your education. So you won't, you won't ever make that mistake again. I think that's from Bill Gates or you know, one of those, those tech guys. But so I would say the, you know, the biggest thing is like I've learned to be patient with people, you know, and as far as like employee retention, yeah, we, you know, we have some turnover from people that, that are coming into our system and they just don't work well with us. But also a lot of my guys are extremely loyal and the girls do that, that work in the office. But, but I Would say, you know, like, we. Our start time 7 5. I've got some guys that are showing up at 6:45 just to, just to be in that environment, just to, you know, talk with guys and figure out like, what's going on with the day and the schedule. And so I think the biggest thing for like employee retention is I'm not necessarily selling a vision, but I'm providing an opportunity for people and I'm, I'm, I'm giving them enough access and enough information for them to buy into our program too. And you know, I share my numbers with my employees. I have a goal sheet. I don't, I don't know if you can see it, it's on the far left. But it says, it says a million in revenue. And you know, we're going to come a little shy of that. But I promise you guys, at the beginning of the year, I've taken to Hawaii if we, if we did hit that goal. And, and so we're actually leaving here in two weeks.

Let's go.

Yeah, but, so we're, we're excited. We're gonna be there for New Year's. But you know, it's like the base thing is like, let's sell the vision, you know, and just get everybody on board as a team. And whenever we make a mistake, we all go over that mistake together so that we all can improve from it. I think one of it, I'm not sure what sheet you use. You said it. Was it a green, Green sheet. When someone messes up, you share.

Yellow slip.

Yep, yellow slip. Yeah. Sorry about that. We don't do that. But you know, we just, we have a conversation about it in the morning before we head home. So that's big.

As you, as you were kind of growing the business and obviously a lot of you said a lot of the profits are going back into the company so you could grow. I think a lot of times what people hit up against is the fact that as you're growing, your cash reserves have to grow with the business. And so even though you, it feels like you're not profitable, you actually are just at the fact that you gotta have, you gotta be growing your cash reserves. As this year has ended, how have you started to kind of allocate, okay, now I've gotta get my cash reserves higher, my working capital higher, but yet I still wanna keep growing as well as, like, are you trying to pull profit out of the business yet? And what does that look like as we go into next year where you're still trying to grow very quickly. What do you try to keep aside in terms of working capital? Is there a percentage or some sort of metric to, for you to feel comfortable with versus, you know, just plowing money back into the growth of the business?

Yeah, so for me, like I, I am kind of, if you look at the disc scale, like I'm a high D, but at the same token, I am kind of conservative in nature. And so for me, like My number is 150,000 in the bank. I think we've got a little bit over that right now. But that's because like we've had a lot of experience expenses. We bought in a lot of equipment just these last couple months and so, and we've got a lot in AR too that we've gotta, we've got to work through. So we're working through that. But my number is 150,000. That number may go up as we grow to $2 million and as we get six or seven crews going.

But, but it was tough, it was tough getting that over these last 12 and 13 months while also investing into equipment. I think the nice part about our business, as I'm sure you know, is like equipment's relatively inexpensive compared to most industries, you know, so if we have to buy a truck, the truck's only going to be 15 to 20,000. If we have to buy equipment for a crew, it's only going to be five to six thousand dollars to start up that crew with, you know, like some basic Honda commercial mowers, weed eaters, hedge trimmers, that sort of thing. And then the rest is just ongoing maintenance. So you might have a car payment, you might have chemical use or green waste fees, you know, as the months go on. But all that's working your bit. So we've grown from.

The beginning of this year, we had 54 maintenance customers. We have 300 now and then we also do cleanups and installs. So we're anywhere between three and four crews. So I've invested about, I want to say 120,000 into equipment, but I've also financed quite a bit as well. And, and so that kind of adds up. I think we were 32% profitable this year.

You mentioned, you'd mentioned that your goal is kind of build the bill the business over 2.5 million over the next several years. And what you're kind of debating or planning on is potentially opening up a second location in a place like Sacramento that's a little bit larger. What goes into that decision making process in terms of do you just Keep scaling one location and have a satellite or do you actually split it up? How are you going to organize? What are the things going through your mind now as you start thinking about potentially dividing the company or starting a second location?

Yeah, so my biggest thing is like, I want to get this location set, you know, so my, my goal is to be in Sacramento by the, hopefully in the next 12 or 16 months. But you know, realistically that goal won't be accomplished if this isn't set. And so that's why I've, I've hired on the GM and I've been training him, you know, over the last month and a half or two, two months or so. So hopefully by the end of next year he'll be good to go and at least he can divert, you know, 60 or 70% of my time versus, you know, 10 to 20 because I have to be so hands on.

So, yeah, I think one of the biggest issues that we have, and it's a goal of mine, but it's not, you know, we haven't put a whole lot of thought into it is it's definitely going to be, you know, how do we control the money coming in? How do we control, control the quality of the jobs? I think that's most important. And so for us, the way that I've, I've thought about, okay, how do we scale this business and still maintain that quality when I'm not, you know, micromanaging or following up with our employees or informants every single day is we started working on a training program and we've started to work on grading sheets, we've started to work on testing and we've been working on that for probably the last month and a half or two months or so, and we're still fine tuning it. But I think the biggest thing moving forward is like, you know, yes, we want to bring everybody on board, but how do we hold them accountable to the work that they're doing now we're not doing P4P, so it's a little bit different. But yeah, how do we, how do we get people to, to maintain the same quality of work when, you know, the GM is out doing estimates all day or, or, you know, I'm not even in the same, same city is. And we're still.

How did you, how did you find that gm? Was it someone internal that you just saw the, you know, opportunity for them to grow or someone that you actually went out and like, either poached or found someone that was really experienced and like, hey, over the next year I got to bring you up to a certain level, and you're going to basically shadow me. Or how is. How have you figured out who that GM is going to be?

My first employee, actually. Very cool. Yeah. So my first employee, he's a young guy, he's 19 years old. He's got a lot of work to do. But, you know, I think the biggest thing is, like, ever since the beginning, and like I said, my first couple employees, I was extremely difficult on them. Right. So he's been through that whole process. He's also seen me grow as well. But along the way is. Is, you know, he's just put his head down and he's worked and he's learned and he's, you know, he's learned how to communicate. He's improved his life inside and outside of work. And to me, that shows. That shows that he's dedicated to the companies, dedicated to. To learning, like, what it is that I have to offer, what Jocelyn in the office has to offer as far as knowledge goes, looking, looking at it now, would I do it any differently? You know, he's. He's a great guy and, and I can't wait to see what he has in store for this location. But I'm also learning too, like, you know, this position that, that we're looking for as a gm, like, it's still possible to hire on from the outside. I always thought they had no landscaping and they had to start from the beginning. But, you know, as I start to look at my job roles and what I'm doing on a daily basis, a lot of it is, you know, sales estimates, numbers, managing, you know, managing some of our, like, our employee events, that sort of thing. And so it's really just keeping everything intact and make sure everything's flowing, flowing constantly throughout the day, and you're spending the proper time on the schedule, especially during this rainy season when we have to move things around. Finding somebody competent like that you can hire out for is what I'm starting to learn. You don't have to. He doesn't have to start from the ground up. And I think that's really important too, for, you know, someone who is growing as quickly as they can.

To, you know, to. To be able to hire on from the outside is going to expedite that training process for replacing you. Because, you know, if I would have gone, if I'm going the route that I'm going, you know, I. It's going to take me 12 to 14 months to get him trained up to a point where he can take this over 100 or at least 80%, but if you're to hire on, then you cut out that 12 to 14 months, theoretically. I mean, you can, you know, there's still some training on your system processes, but at least they have a foundation because maybe they've done this before or something.

I'm sorry, do you already kind of have a budget set aside for that second location? Because obviously, a lot of times I find owners, they start very lean on their first one. It's like, hey, the second one, I got the money. I'm going to start it off in a bigger way. Especially if you're going to be the one being involved with that second location. Would you kind of dip your toe in with one or two in crews, or would you kind of want to just start with a bang? If you do start a second location and your. Most of your attention is on that second location.

So when I first jumped in the business, I was very, like, I was very, okay, we're just going to, we're just going to do it now. As I've grown and as. As I've kind of learned more about the business, I'm. As I grow, I'm taking it slower, you know, and I have. If you want to get into it later, I have this box theory that I've always followed ever since real estate. And, you know, essentially my thinking is like, I want to be 100% or at least close to 100 ready before I make any kind of expansion, whether before I buy a truck, you know, I want to make sure my trucks are as efficient as possible. A mower, it's as efficient as possible. Or if I'm getting a second location, I want my systems to be dialed in as efficient as possible before we make that jump. So if I were to do it over again in Sacramento in a bigger market, where there's. There's more opportunity for growth, I think we'd probably start out, you know, running. I wouldn't say, you know, I'd go jump in and spend $250,000 on, on equipment, employees, and overhead. But I think we'd certainly start out at two or three crews and grow it. But I think we'll grow at a faster pace because we'll have those systems in place.

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Before we end it out, I wanted to talk a little bit about California in terms of some of their regulations and things like that. The reason is because I think some people make excuses for why they can't succeed in certain markets. And obviously you've done very well throughout the past year in a climate that is somewhat against our industry, some people might say so first of all, kudos to you for not letting that be the victim card of I can't grow a lawn care business. But with all of that being said and all of the regulation and things that around like leaf blowers and electric mowers coming down the pike, have you started to plan for that? Are you more of the opinion? It's like, hey, when it comes, I'll figure it out then and I'm not worried about it until it actually is, you know, in the law.

Yeah. So my, my thing is I've always thought that way. I've always said if it comes, it comes. If it doesn't, it doesn't. So, you know, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. But there, there has been one pivot that I've been making and that has been buying extra equipment and extra inventory before it actually, you know, before anything actually happens. And I know like for instance, Honda has pulled out of cash California completely. So getting Honda commercial mowers has been extremely difficult. And so whenever something comes up, like we had a dealer who he ordered, ordered his last year, they came in this year. I just went ahead and bought two more. I don't have any, you know, use for them right now, but I'm gonna have use for them next year. And so that, you know, trying to get out of state if we can.

But yeah.

Do they do that just for, do they just do that for admission stake like they their motors, man?

Yeah, yeah.

Have you played with electric at all now at all? Or you just like, hey, like when it comes, it comes?

Yeah, my, my thing is like investing in the batteries. I mean, it's just, it's a lot of money and if you're gonna do it part time, it's not even worth it, you know, so I haven't even touched it and I don't, I don't want to touch it, to be honest. I mean it's, We've got someone who works on our equipment in here and to be able to switch that from gas powered to electric, I don't know if it's something that you could do. And it definitely throw a wrench on our business.

You know, when it comes to delegating, I know you mentioned, like, you know, stop micromanaging and handing those things off. Trusting other people has been a big hurdle for you when it comes to the office side of things. Knowing that you have office staff. What were some of the things that you first started delegating when you started getting that 3, 4, 500,000 revenue marker? What were some of the first things you started delegating in that process of letting things go and getting things off your plate?

The biggest thing was our maintenance accounts. So, you know, we were growing on average after attrition, like 35 to 40 accounts per month. So the biggest thing was, you know, I, I taught Jocelyn in the office. I taught her how to, you know, read the routes, how to organize the routes, how to schedule them, where to put the guys at. And then also, you know, as we're getting more customers, obviously we're getting more complex complaints, we're getting more special requests, that sort of thing. So, you know, train her to, okay, you get this information from the customer, where do you put it next? And then. And then how do you make that information, you know, as close to what the customer said? So that the guys in the field aren't. Aren't confused, Are we grabbing photos from the customer and uploading it to their jobber so that, you know, they have an efficient job while they're there and they're not calling the customer, trying to figure out what's going on on. So that was one of the first things. The second thing was invoicing. And, you know, I, I contribute a lot of that to Jocelyn. Invoicing on Jobber is not the easiest thing in the world, especially when you have, like, a commercial property, like a, you know, a. A property management company, for example, where, let's say they've got 35 different owners and they. They have to bill separately. Jobber. It's been difficult for us to. To get through that, but Jocelyn and I, we've created an ICE system for billing, and things go super smooth now. And I owe it all to her for creating that.

How have you created redundancy for people like her or even the GM that you're training in terms of as you've grown the team so that you're not so dependent? I think a lot of times people are worried about delegating because, like, well, if they know how to do the job better than I do, or I don't even know what they do on a daily basis, and then they leave. Like, they hold all the keys of the business. Have you created redundancy or are you more a matter of like, hey, I'm just going to do whatever I can to keep them on board and keep them on the team?

So when Jocelyn, once I got Jocelyn kind of up to speed on. On what her job role is, and also, like, she's done a lot of it herself, too. I mean, she was like a rock star. She came in, I didn't even have time to help her. I was doing estimates all the time. So she learned a lot of this herself. And because of that, earlier this year, later in the year, I realized I really don't know what's going on, like, inside my business, inside Jobber. So one of the things was when I sat down and I started creating my sop.

I interviewed her essentially for an hour or several hours, and I just said, how do you do this? What's this step? What's the next step? What's the step after that? And I got myself on the same page. And then when I hired on my gm, I took all those notes that I had with, with Jocelyn in that conversation, and I shared that with him. So now he's on the same page. And then I have him sit down with her and they're talking about this. And so now all three of us are on the same page. And, and, and so that was kind of the way that I had gotten around that was creating sop, getting everything in writing. You know, my biggest thing is, like, as a business owner, the last thing you want to rely on is your memory, you know, so I'm constantly writing things down. I'm constantly putting things in my calendar. I'm constantly creating booklets and, and just making sure that, you know, it's. It's out there and people can see it if they want to look into, you know, what's going on in my head. So very cool.

Just in case anyone's close by you or potentially wants to reach out, is there a website you can give and kind of someone somewhere they can reach out to you?

Yeah. So we. Our Instagram page is. I want to say it's local Moman. Our website is www.yourlocalman.

The business name is your local Moman. But a lot of our. Our social media is just local. Oh, man. Without the door. So that's where they.

Awesome. Before I let you go, what. What's kind of the One thing, if there is one you're working on now to improve the business at this stage, whether it be the season or just in general the size that you're currently at, is there one thing you're still working on and trying to improve now?

Inventory. Tracking inventory. Making sure that things are being accounted for. That's been our latest project is kind of getting equipment marked, getting them logged in a booklet. So I don't, I don't have that. Oh, I got the booklet right here. So we've got a booklet. It's got all of our equipment on it. You know, it's, it's organized. I'll just be brief with this real quick. But it's got our mowers right there and the date we purchased it, the type of mower, the serial number and then on the mower. And it's every. Everything's color coordinated. So our mowers are, I think, pink. And, and so everything's tagged. This is pink one, this is. This is P2, P3, P4. And I think as we grow, that's going to be super important to make sure that, you know, everything has its own space in our inventory book. And then whenever we work on that piece of equipment, we can look back and say, oh, P1 was. Was serviced on this last day. And so that's the latest thing we've been working on. Very cool. Awesome.

Well, thanks for coming on, Jerome. I really appreciate it.

All right, thanks for having me, man.

What a great episode. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Roundup. If you haven't already, make sure you sign up for the conference so you can meet more landscapers like Geronimo at Landscape Summit. Just go to Landscape Summit Co and you can sign up there for the conference. Bring your manager, bring your office person, bring your general manager. If you're going to start a second location like Geronimo, it's going to be a great event to kick off 2022. It's just full of dense business information. We don't do equipment, we don't do a trade show. We don't try to sell you anything. This is just strict business talk and I really look forward to sharing that with you. January 13th, 14th and 15th is just a month away. I look forward to seeing you there. Until next time, be great because nothing else pays.