This is an on-location consulting video (May 1, 2025) in which Mike Andes (founder of Augusta Lawn Care) visits Matt of Courtney's Lawn and Landscape in Salem, Ohio to diagnose a failing lawn-care business. The transcript shows severe financial distress (negative bank balances, unpaid debts, no owner pay), operational failures (employee shortages, poor hiring/retention, reliance on cash payments, few drivers), and personal/team conflicts (an ex-wife employed as a driver; alleged theft by a brother). Mike frames the episode as a six-week turnaround plan to restructure and save the company rather than close it.
Chapters
I'm gonna get nasty texts and hear what an awful human being I am.
You are one phone call away from being out of business.
I have no money. I probably haven't taken a paycheck in.
The last six years. Three bank balances are negative. You're not making payments on debt.
Something happens, and I spend 75% of the time in the field. All of a sudden, it's August, and I'm like, hey, we're out of work.
I'm doing everything. I do sales, I do operations.
Me and Brandon's the only one on payroll. Everyone else wants cash, and I want it now.
Can't find really any good employees.
None of the Americans want to work. You know, I don't know if it's everywhere. Just we always have bad luck. I don't know.
Do you have an employee that you're.
Like, oh, we totally trust them to be on a job site all day long.
Debbie, my ex wife, the guys cannot stand her.
That might be why, though.
You had eight people join, and within a week, they all left.
She's been fired, like, three times. But we always bring her back because we're like, oh, we need a driver.
Only two of my employees can drive.
So we have to pick them up, drop them off. I mean, it's crazy.
He's been doing this for eight years. I don't know if he has the actual intestinal fortitude to actually change the way he's running the business. There's a good reason to be able to say that he should actually just close down.
If that's negative, you can't think clearly. But this is not the close down show. This is the turnaround show. So we're gonna figure out a way.
But it's gonna require complete gutting of the business.
It's gonna restructure the company. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn care with over 170 locations around the world, and I travel around the country fixing struggling businesses. Today we're in Salem, Ohio, with Matt from Courtney's Lawn and Landscape. Matt is in debt. His brother's been stealing from him, and he's running behind on his personal mortgage and car loans. Our goal is to give Matt a strategy that within the next six weeks, he can turn around his business and get it back on track.
