Starting My Lawn Care Business: The First Year was HARD! [numbers and details]

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes from landscapebusinesscourse.com and today I'm going to be sharing with you the details of when I first started my lawn care business. Today we have over 40 locations around the United States. We have multiple locations that have multiple millions of revenue. It's all big and all the rest of it. But today, I want to make this video for those of you just getting started in your first year or two feel like you're spinning your wheels. You might feel like you're growing a bunch, but there's no profits. And I'm gonna give you the numbers and the very specific details of what I did in that first year and second year as I went full time. So today, as you see me, I was working today. And this is kind of where the idea for this video came. I still got grass on me. I probably have it in my hair. Mercy. Yeah, it's all over the place now. But I was out in the field working today. We were doing a shoot for. You're gonna see the videos later this week. However, I. When doing so, it reminded me of when I was out there working 10, 12 hours a day out in the field and then going to the estimates and then doing the invoicing and all the rest of it. And I want to make this video to make sure that my goal as I continue to grow the business with Augusta Lawn Care is I don't become out of touch with the community and don't become out of touch with those actually out in the field doing the work. Sorry, I got grass now floating around pollen. But that's a big thing to me, and I don't want to ever start talking about hiring all these employees and having command center and all these trucks and all the rest and forget that. Like, I came from the place where I have one truck and I was, you know, I remember year two and three, like, not being able to make payroll and like, all that sort of stuff. That's what I want to make sure I stay rooted and grounded in. So today I'm talking about when I was 18 years old and I started Augusta Lawn Care. Okay? So in the first year when we started Augusta Lawn Care, the logo looked different. We had a very different logo and different font, and we actually got a cease and desist letter from Augusta national, the golf course. Because first. First of all, we used pictures of Augusta national, the golf course, on our website, and our font was the same as the Masters Golf tournaments font. That's a no. No. So that was a little bit scary. The first year. But I was 18 years old, I got started and I was determined to start a business while I was getting my Master's in business administration from the university here, locally, Western Washington University. So I was part time, so I was working part time doing my lawn care business and then working part time as a personal trainer at Anytime Fitness, Blaine, Washington, which now I own that club, that gym. But at the time I was working there part time so my schedule would kind of look like this. I'd usually work out in the field from 6am till 2pm I'd be mowing lawns and all the rest of it. Then I'd come home, shower or work out before I'd start my training at 3 and then from 3 till 6, 3pm till 6pm I would do personal training at the gym. And then from 6pm till 10pm is when I had lectures at my night courses for my master's in business administration. And then usually from about 10 to 1 I would catch up on estimates, invoices and then if I had to do any sort of homework or assignments for the MBA course, I'd do it during that time too. So that was my life like from 18 to 20, like those two years. And I want to talk about during that time because I know a lot of people, whether you have a job like you're working part time with your lawn care business or you're in school, a lot of us have other things pulling us in different directions and it's tough. So I was 18 years old working part time as a trainer part time in my lawn care business. I had a 6 by 12 enclosed trailer. I bought it for, oh I'm almost embarrassed to say, $2,100. We did recently sell that after using it for like eight years. I think we just sold it for like 800 or $900 I think so. Not too bad the fact that we really get that much use out of it. But for $2,100, got a 6 by 12 enclosed trailer. I bought that one used off Craigslist but they had used it one time to move across the country. So it was basically brand new 6 by 12 enclosed trailer. And I purchased P1, which we still have today, which is a 2008 Ram 1500. It's a two wheel drive, is a six cylinder, doesn't have much power, it can't pull anything more than that 6 by 12 enclosed trailer. But at the time it was perfect for what I needed. And I, at the time, and since then I've always had A work truck or work vehicle. I've never actually owned my own personal vehicle since the time I was 18. And to actually purchase this truck, I sold my Misobici Lancer for I think six grand. So I sold my Mitsubishi Lancer for six grand. I was 18 years old and I purchased this Dodge truck to start Augusta Lawn Care. Now the problem was, is at the time, the neighborhood that my family lived in. Cause I was still living with my parents at this time. And at the time, they would not allow vehicles that had company logos and stuff. They would not allow them to be parked there at night. So it was. It was a little bit difficult. Like I had to kind of like skirt around the board. I had to be nice to them because I was part. I had to park on the road. We didn't have room in the driveway. So what that kind of forced me to do is as soon as I got a second truck, I had to go get space to park the trucks. I couldn't park them at my house anymore. But in year one, with that one Dodge truck and a 6 by 12 trailer, what I did is I definitely wouldn't get away with parking a trailer in my driveway or my family's driveway. And so what I ended up doing is for $40 a month, I rented a parking spot at a storage facility, Just the parking spot. And it wasn't even on pavement, it was literally on gravel. And I just parked my 6 by 12 trailer there. And then I would drive the truck everywhere else. Like, I would drive it for lawns, obviously, but then I'd drive it to work at Anytime Fitness. I would drive it to school. It was basically my daily driver was P1, that Dodge truck. And since then I've always driven an Augusta Lawn Care vehicle. I was downgraded from trucks to cars in the past couple years, but still driving a car from Augusta Lawn Care today. So, you know, in that first year, we did revenues of $29,000, just under 30 grand. So $29,000. My goal every day was like, if I can make $200. Because I figured if I can make $200 a day and work five days a week, that's $1,000 a week. And if I can work 50 weeks in a year, that's like 50 grand a year. And that's really good. If I can make 50 grand a year, I'm happy. And so my goal was $200 per day that first year. So obviously it grew from like $1,000 a month, $2,000 a month the next month, and slowly Grew to the point where over the course of the whole year, that first year, I made $29,000 doing it part time. Year number two is when I went full time. And I've always talked about the big catalysts to growth. And one of them, the first one, is when you decide to go full time. One of our franchisees in Michigan is currently doing this and he's gonna have a bunch of growth. Because when you go full time, you have more time to invest in the estimates and the sales side, you get more clients. You're now actually looking for work because you have time on your hands, you can actually get more work done. So massive catalyst to growth is when you go full time in your lawn care business. But it's not bad. I spent an entire year doing it part time. And so that second year though I went full time, I went full time started, you know, we're gonna do this thing legit, we're gonna. I stopped working at the gym as a personal trainer. Little did I know five years later, I would be purchasing and owning the gym. But now when I went full time, I hired a part time employee in April of that second year. And by the time June came, like a few months later, I needed that person full time. So at the time it was, I offered them what I thought was an incredibly large amount of money. This is only like what now? Seven years ago? Six. Seven years ago. But by today's standards, our base pay is above what I paid him back then. But back then I thought I was paying him at least 4 or $5 above everyone else. But obviously wages have increased quite a bit now. So starting him off as part time in March, or, sorry, in April, in June, he went full time and we were all clicking all cylinders. Well, I had to go get another truck, I had to go get another trailer. And in order to store those things, I couldn't do it at our house and I couldn't do it at the storage facility. They didn't have any more spaces to park trucks or trailers, so I couldn't do it there. And the biggest problem was now I'm having all of these clippings because we're growing and in our market we have to haul away clippings when we mow grass. And even if you don't have to bed clippings, you've got more debris because you got cleanups and leaves and all the rest of it. So it became more and more difficult to go to the dump all the time. The dump was like 25 minutes drive. Paying for that driving back and forth every day was a pain in the neck. I'd usually try to time it to where I would take the clippings on the way to school, for example, at night. But it was just a pain in the neck. And so now I just remember that. I remember leaving anytime fitness as a trainer. And then what I'd try to do is before I get to my class at 6pm in Bellingham, I would stop by the dump. So I'd come in my class usually sweating with clippings all over me. But anyways, that second year got the full timer. Now though, the storage was a bit of an issue because I couldn't get any more space at the storage facility. And then the second truck, I can't keep that in our neighborhood. So I went and got a storage, not a container but a storage. Like a roll up, big roll up door storage place. It was 12 by 40, which is really nice. And I got a screaming amazing deal. For $200 a month I was able to rent that 12 by 40 foot long storage facility. And I was able to park one truck out front. And for $100 more I was able to dump all the clippings at the back of the facility. So for $300 a month I was able to dump all my clippings and park one truck, two trailers. And then I would bring my truck, my company truck back and forth from work every day. So basically we had two guys, myself and full time employee going out and doing solo routes all day long. Both of us had a truck, both of us had a trailer. P2 the second pickup TR we purchased $7,000 once I included the registration and the title and all that stuff. And then the 7 by 14 enclosed trailer, which by the way we still have that pickup today, we still use it. That's why used trucks, they can last a long time if you take care of them. We haven't had to do anything major to that truck either. It's been great. 7 by 14 enclosed trailer purchase it basically brand new from up in Canada. So I only ended up paying $4,000 US dollars. It was $5,500 Canadian. But that was a 7 by 14 enclosed trailer and we recently sold that one as well. As we slowly merged from trailered setups to trailer less setups using the ramp rack. So in year number two our revenue was $190,000. So I was very happy about that. Literally we what five like almost 6x we more than six times the revenue from year one into year number two. And that's absolutely due to the fact that I went full time and I got a full time employee. So massive upgrade in production. The goal in year two was like, if I could make $1,000 a day in gross revenue. I was thrilled because in my mind I was like, okay, if I have $1,000 a day and I have $200 going to an employee, and then I got $100 to cover gas and insurance, I got another $100 to cover equipment and my rent, I was like, $500 I can make in profit every day. This is great. Obviously, though, as the business grows, you have to keep investing it, growing it, putting that money into the next truck and then the next trailer. Then we got a bigger shop. Now we have bigger rent. Now you gotta increase your labor rates because your labor costs are going up. The amount we have to pay per hour to employees is much, much more now. Now you start adding benefits and paid time off. That costs the company money. And so you keep investing, keep growing the business. And you look back, and now it's much larger the business. Next week we're gonna be. I'm actually gonna show you what that first location, the one that I just talked about then the first year and two that I just talked about, what they're now doing. I'm not there but maybe 30 to 40 minutes per week. Just to say hello and encourage the team. They do an amazing job. It runs without me. And that's now seven, eight years later. So this whole channel is dedicated to getting you from this years 1 and 2 to where I'm at now, where you can run the business on systems. You don't have to be there. And you're creating a place of work where people can actually start as laborers, but they can grow, they can learn, they can become something more. They can become office manager, they can become an estimator, they can become an owner. I'm really happy and really proud of the fact that now we're having like our third 3F program. Part of the franchise is if an employee gets started and they're starting mowing out in the field, they work for two years, they can join as an owner, as a franchise owner for no franchise fee. So our third one's joining and we have a fourth one already planning on in 2023. So I'm very, very happy that creating an environment where people can do that, but do not despise the days of small beginnings. And the reason I say all of that is because you might feel like you're creating a place of work right now where, like, it's dead end, there's really much money and you're like, you kind of feel bad about that. Maybe you're just getting started. There's some financial pressure and you're just trying to figure things out. Everyone had to start there. I had to start there. Everyone ever built a big business had to start small somewhere. And I encourage you, just keep grinding, keep learning, keep growing. And I hope that the content I bring on this channel is helpful in making sure that you're able to grow the business, do it profitably, and go from years 1 to 3 to 5 to 10. Keep growing the business and making it something you can be proud of that helps your community, that gives back to your employees and ultimately serves you, your family and your future. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com, we'll see you tomorrow. Hey, everyone, Mike Andes here. Thank you so much for watching the video. If you haven't already, click the links below to check out Lawn Care Media, where you can get door hangers just like this for a variety of services for lawn care, landscaping, fertilization, irrigation, fall cleanups, and the list goes on and on. You can get all there and customize these and make money mowing lawns, doing landscaping services. We'll see you there.