The $15K Plan to Grow Your Lawn Business (in 3 Years)

When it comes to getting more customers, you're really going to have two different options when you first start your business. Either one, you have money and you're going to spend it on advertisements in the form of Facebook, Google, Angie's List, HomeAdvisor, etc. Right. So you got either, you know, pay to play where you're going to spend money to go get these advertisements, or you're going to have time. Okay? Now if you're getting started and you don't have much money to go spend on ads, you're going to have to spend time. So, so over here, again, pay is gonna be things like Facebook ads. And this carousel of different ad platforms you can use online is gonna always be changing. So this will always change as time goes on. But right now, Facebook Google Ads, and this can come in the form of YouTube, Google. Google has multiple different ways to advertise as well as the local services, et cetera. And then also just obviously their AdWords platform. And then you have things like Angie's List. Angie's, you got HomeAdvisor. So all of these are online platforms to be able to spend money. We'll talk more About Angie's list, HomeAdvisor versus these other platforms down the road. But the second way that you can do this if you don't have money to spend on Facebook ads, Google Ads, et cetera, is you go spend time. And that's literally knocking on doors, that is going to be putting out yard signs, that's going to be putting up door hangers. So a great resource for this one again is going to be things like door to door. So door to door. And again, if you're going to go knock on someone's door, you might as well give them a price on a door hanger. So we actually have door hangers on lawn caremedia.com and let me actually show you one right here where we call them an instant quote. And these is what you can go. And you have time and. And while you're walking up to the door, you can literally fill out the price for weekly and bi weekly service for mowing again. And then also put any notes that are relevant to the quote and say that the quote is good for seven days. Put the date up here. So this is a great formula to use. If you're doing door hangers. Again, it's not taking you any money to do this. If you're already going to the door and knocking on the door and they're not home, you might as well put something on there with A price. So you don't have to call you for a quote, you don't have to come back for an estimate, it's already done for you. So we call these instant quotes or we got them for lawn mowing, we gone for molt installation, property cleanup. Just check out lawncaremedia.com, you can get these templates, you can customize them yourself and then all the customer has to do is literally take a picture of this and put their name and their address and their phone number, send it back to you and you have yourself a customer. So this is the type of thing you're going to do if you don't have a lot of money to go get these advertisements and drive a ton of traffic. Rather you have to spend time knock on doors, put door hangers, do yard signs. So any of that print media, flyers, postcards, et cetera, you're going to find that all on lawncaremedia.com so check those out. But even like postcards, you're going to have to spend it on what we'll talk about later, every door, direct mail campaign and setting those up, that's expensive. So at this phase, if you do not have a lot of money, when I say a lot of money, if you don't have more than $500, you're going to be spending a lot more time than money on getting your first 20, 30 customers because you don't have the money to go spend on all these advertising platforms. So you're going to have to buckle your big boy boots on and you're going to have to go knock on doors. Knock knocking on doors and talking to people is still the number one best way to get customers for a low cost. Your lowest customer acquisition cost is gonna come from knocking on doors. Alright now this is not fun, it's not exciting, but hey, what's your option? You don't have the money to go spend it on getting free traffic that is, you know, less.

Sweat on your brow. This is gonna be taking more money. But if you don't have the money, you're just gonna have to do it with sweat equity. Alright? That's gonna be knocking on the doors, talking to people and when you go do that, when you knock on the do to someone, you don't have to be like super salesy, just introduce yourself, say hey, my name is Mike, I'm getting a lawn care business start in the local area. If you ever need anything, let me know. And if they don't answer the phone or they don't answer the door, you're literally going to put a door hanger with a price on their front door knob. That's a fantastic way to do it. And by the way, if they answer the door and you've already filled this out as you walk up the driveway, you can literally say as you're introducing yourself, oh, and here's a quote just in case you ever need it. You don't have to be super salesy. Give it to them. If they are interested, they'll close the door, say thank you and goodbye. So that's what I would recommend you do. If you don't have money, use time. That's your first year. You're really gonna probably have to be leaning on this unless you have a bunch of money stacked away to be able to do advertising. Now the next thing I wanna talk about is the fact that your second spring rush is typically when you see a massive amount of growth. Typically that is when it really starts to, you know, hockey stick is in your second spring rush. Because a lot of times we'll get started in like our first summer, our first spring, we'll get our first 20, 30 customers. And that's all fantastic. You know, Augusta Lawn Care, I think biggest first month ever from someone brand new. They got like 100 customers in the first month. That's not super common. And again, they had money in order to be able to spend on advertising. They didn't just have to rely on time. That time when you're knocking on doors and things, you're going to have to spend a little longer growing because you can't just immediately get a ton of customers. You have to knock one by one by one. You have to do yard signs. You have to get a little more guerrilla marketing. We'll talk more about that later when it comes to the marketing section. But in your second spring rush, this is typically what I see in standard lawn care businesses. Your first year kind of goes like this and then the winter kind of, it slows down almost to nothing. Like, oh my goodness. But then your second spring rush is when it really starts to take off. And so this is the second spring rush. And the reason for this is cause if you have a good website. So the reason for that is cause usually it takes six to 12 months in order for your website to start really ranking well on Google. And we'll talk more about your website, we'll talk more about getting Google reviews down the road and just how important that is to making sure that this happens. Because again, all of this assumes that your website is really done well that you do have a lot of reviews, so we'll talk more about that later. But assuming that you have a good website, assuming that you have Google reviews, your second rush, your second spring rush is really when you're gonna take your business to the next level and very, very quickly, you're gonna see massive amounts of growth. Exponential growth will happen right here. Because this is when demand for your services goes really, really high. For most of us it's like April, May, June, that's. And during that time, the reason you're growing so much is because now when people search for your services because there's demand that's higher now you start to pop up because your website is starting to rank well. So you can check out lawncarewebdesign.com we build websites for you. It's completely based on subscription. There's no long term contract, there's no 5,000, $10,000 upfront that you need to spend on it. But that's gonna allow you to get a really good looking website that will drive traffic to you. And after six to 12 months is usually when you're ranking at the top of your entire city, county, whatever you're targeting your location is. And that's why your second spring rush is always when you take off. I consistently see this. Unfortunately, most people don't get through this lull right here, which is the first winter when you all of a sudden don't have any work, you have 20 or 30 customers, but it goes during three, four months where there's no growing season, there's no mowing, you don't have much of a brand, you don't have a very good client base to be able to tap into and be able to ask them for more work. So this is where a lot of people will quit and that is their first winter. Because there's a lot of a drop off when it comes to the amount of work coming in. But if you have a good website and that website is starting to rank well by the year end of this year, 6, 12, et cetera, going in when demand takes off, which is during the spring rush. As long as demand is high and you are the most relevant website in your local area, that is typically when I see a massive increase in the revenue and growth for a lawn care business. Alright, now I want to talk about the fact that during your first six to 18 months, most of your leads are going to be some sort of paid marketing. Now that could be online marketing, that could be print marketing, like with postcards, door hangers, knocking Doors, all that's marketing. Most of your leads are going to come through that form of marketing in your first six to 18 months. And the reason for that is because you haven't been able to get your website to rank really high. You don't have any brand awareness, you don't have a bunch of trucks driving around so people are not talking about you. You're not getting a lot of branding. You don't have people knowing about you. You don't have a large customer base that talks about you with their co workers and refers you to their friends and family. When that starts to take over after months six to 18, somewhere in here, you should be able to start getting most of your customers from existing customers, word of mouth and people just finding you on Google because of your website. So as long as you're investing into a great website, a great brand, doing really good quality work, typically the results really start to take off in that second spring rush. So I say that to give you encouragement because this is a tough year. You put a bunch of money at the beginning, you're getting started, you're a lot of boots on the ground, working hard to get every single lead. This is very discouraging that winter time when your revenue dips down for that first time. Very, very discouraging. But that second spring rush that if you can just have a great website, get great Google reviews, do good quality work, this is where now you have a brand. You have maybe 40, 50 customers going in that second spring rush that are talking about you getting friends and family. You might have a couple hundred people in your database that you can send emails to about your services going into this time. That's when you can really get a massive amount of momentum. Now the thing I want to talk about now is in that second year, this is something you want to track over time and that is what percentage of your revenue is coming from recurring services. So what I mean by that is if you take the amount of work that is project based work versus recurring, you can really break this down. Really simple. I said install.

Versus maintenance in the last one, but it's the same as saying recurring work or maintenance things that happen every week or bi weekly, you go back to the property recurring versus one time jobs or projects. Okay, now what I want you to do is really try to focus as much as possible on building this recurring revenue. Now the thing about recurring work, this is mowing. Typically for us in the lawn care industry, potentially chemical treatments, property cleanups, weeding services, et cetera, one time projects are Going to be like paver installs, wall installations, planting bushes and trees, pressure washing, all these one time projects. My goal is to increase the recurring work. But the thing with recurring is it comes like a trickle. For example, I might do door knocking next week and I got five customers and let's say two of them are mowing customers. Well, great, I just got two mowing customers and that might generate me $300 in the next month. Whereas those three other project based jobs might create $3,000 worth of cleanup, some mulch install and some other planting some hedges or some bushes or something like that. So one time projects very quickly can ramp up your business and grow it and scale it very quickly. Typically, the landscaping companies that grow the fastest are the ones that focus on one time projects because you can scale it so much faster just because the numbers are larger. But what I want you to focus on is what percentage of your work is coming from recurring revenue and what you can do. How you can determine this is, okay, how much total dollars of recurring work is coming in every single month. So recurring dollars is what I want you to look at. And you can just usually use your CRM to filter out by service, your revenue by service, and then choose the services that are recurring, like mowing or treatments, whatever you consider recurring in your line of business and then divide that by your total revenue for the month. Okay? And when you do that, you're going to get a percentage and it might be like say 0.46, that would be 46% of your work is coming from recurring jobs. Now I want this to be as high as I possibly can get it, but it's going to take a little bit of time to grow up. I typically see the first year in business someone only having a 20 to 30% of their work being recurring. It gets so much easier to grow. Grow your top line revenue using project based work. Now this is a trap you can fall into. You keep growing and growing top line revenue, but all of a sudden this number starts to shrink and all of a sudden you're doing 10, 15, 20% of your work is recurring. Now if your goal is to do just hardscaping and big projects and things, that's fine. But in my opinion, having a recession proof business, I want this number to be as high as possible. Even if I'm doing projects and recurring big one time hardscaping jobs, I still want at least 30, 40% of my work to be recurring. Even if it's, I'm not super passionate about it, just to pay the Bills. Because in a time of recession recurring work mowing, those type of services are going to hold up much better than things that are with discretionary income like a new paved or patio or an arbor or some new bushes or whatever it might be. So I really want to try to focus on growing this. So this is a percentage, a metric that I want you to constantly follow and don't get discouraged. If your first year it's like 20, 30%, that's going to happen simply because it's so much faster to grow top line revenue using projects. And again, that is the tantalizing seduction that many landscapers will fall into is growing that top line revenue by simply adding more and more project based services. Okay, well we'll do paver patios. Oh, we'll do walls, we'll do water features. Oh, we will do tree services. Oh, we will install artificial turf. Like those are all different businesses. So just be aware of that trap of growing top line revenue simply by using one time projects and adding more and more services. We'll talk more about it later. But the two most unprofitable ways to grow your lawn care business is going to be through growing geographical expansion like servicing properties further and further away. And then the second least profitable way to grow your business is just adding more services. So I don't want to keep adding more services and taking more one time projects and different types of excavation. And now I'm gonna do this. You keep doing that, yes, you'll grow top line revenue, but you're not going to grow your profits because those are the least profitable ways to grow your business. I'd rather you focus on a couple services and go really deep and really, really scale those, even if it takes a little bit longer. I'd rather you focus on that recurring work and make sure you have that good base of recurring work instead of getting so over focused on one time projects and just diversifying into all these different types of services. Try not to be a master of all when it comes to landscaping because otherwise you are literally running 10 different businesses. I would rather have one service that is $500,000 in revenue than a business that does 10 different services at $100,000 each. So I'd rather have a $500,000 business with one service than a business that has 1 million in revenue but 10 different services. Because that first one I can systematize, make it way more simplified, it's way easier to find labor and I can make it much more profitable. Now that third year in business is usually when you Start thinking about salary. And as I mentioned in the first video, depending on how fast you want to grow, the business is going to determine what your salary is in year number three. Year three, you can usually start to make a decision and that is, do I grow? Do I start to continue to grow and I'm going to really scale up past a million, or am I going to really focus on profit saving cash? This is going to really be determined by your own personal situation. If you have family, if you're trying to invest in other things, if you're passionate about other business ventures or investing in real estate or something else, or you have family events that happen. Just keep in mind that if you're going to grow, what's going to happen is you're gonna take as small a salary as possible and you're gonna pump that in to capital expenditures like trucks, equipment hiring, marketing. That's gonna be the formula for growth. And that might be what you wanna do if you wanna continue to grow the business past a million. After year three, though, if you're like, man, I don't wanna keep growing. I wanna be a good general manager. What you wanna do is focus on increasing your prices, which is gonna increase your profits, and you're going to essentially increase your distributions in the form of owner distributions. And we'll Talk more about LLCs and S Corps down the road. But ultimately, an owner distribution is going to be something you take from the business and you're going to increase that as you increase prices, you're going to reduce your close ratio. You're not going to close 8 out of 10 of your jobs and get accepted if you're raising your prices, but you don't care because you're not trying to grow the business. You don't want to have to go hire more people and buy more trucks and get a bigger shop. So these are two different options you're going to have and the paths that you can go down usually around year number three. Now if you go slower, this might be year number five situation or year number eight situation. But just know that once you start getting the point where you have a salary, your salary, how big it is, is really going to determine which way you go. Because if you're taking a bunch of profit away from the business, you're not going to have the money to invest in a truck, in more trucks and more, more hiring and a bigger shop and more marketing. And so you're gonna have to have a smaller salary if you're trying to do those things. So just keep that in mind and realize that if you are growing the business, just realize that you can't just say, oh, I'm unprofitable, therefore I'm investing all the money back in the business. No, if you're investing the money back in the business, it means you're buying equipment, you're buying trucks, you're spending money on marketing. If you're not doing those things, you should be very profitable. If you're not, it probably means you need to raise prices. It means you're doing things that are unprofitable in the business. You might need to cut out services, you need to raise your prices. You might not want to have an 80% close ratio, you might want to have a 30% close ratio, but have prices way higher. We'll talk more about that in the future when it comes to pricing. But ultimately, this is the sort of path they're going to hit. Sometimes around year three, but really depending on your salary and what you want from the business, this might be more of a year five decision. If you've grown the business slower. If year number three, you're a million in revenue, this is probably the decision you're talking about. But if in year number three you're doing maybe 300 or 400,000 in revenue or 200,000, you're probably still in growth phase and you're going to be keeping your salary as low as possible, keeping your personal expenses as low as possible, and investing in the capital expenditures like trucks, equipment and marketing that are going to allow your business to continue growing top line revenue.

So now a good decent truck is probably 12 to $15,000 just in and of itself. Now to get started, I'd rather you spend on a junker five or six grand if it can just last you one or two years. Because I really don't care about anything else than the money that you were able to spend on marketing. Okay? So regardless of your budget, whether your budget for Your business is 5,000, 15,000 or 50,000, regardless of what your budget is to get started, I would recommend that you just simply focus on one thing and one thing alone. I don't care about your total budget. I care about how much can you spend on marketing. Because marketing is what is actually going to move the needle for your business and is actually going to drive results and get more customers. You can have all the trucks in the world, and I see this all the time, people will literally spend $50,000 on two trucks, a whole bunch of mowers, a trailer, a dump trailer, all this stuff and literally they have zero customers. And they somehow think that getting the equipment and getting the trucks is going to lead to getting customers and creating a business with the complete opposite. You get a business by having customers and you just so happen to have to by trucks and mowers and trailers in order to perform on the work and fulfill on the sales that have been given. So maybe very, very clear, trucks and equipment is all a means to an end. Getting line trimmers and gas cans and safety glasses and gloves and all that other stuff is simply a means to an end. And the end is doing work. And to do work work, you must get customers. Getting more trucks and equipment does not move the needle for your business. It doesn't. You could buy all the trucks and have all the mowers in the world and your business would still generate zero in revenue. What creates a business is customers. So please, I'm begging you, stop thinking about your budget in terms of what can you buy trucks and equipment. Start thinking about what percentage of whatever budget I have can I put towards marketing. And that's what's gonna be the propellant, really? The propane, the gasoline, what's the word I'm looking at? Not propellant. The accelerant to the fire you're trying to build in the form of a business.

So if you're like, I only have $5,000, you might be saying, I have $500, that's fine. Here's how you can actually start your business with $0. And that is by focusing on the thing that actually matters, and that's selling and getting more customers. So what you can literally do is go to people's house and you can literally sell them on project based work, like a property cleanup, installing mulch, and require 50% or even 100% of that project up front. Mr. Jones is going to cost you $700. I'm going to trim all those bushes, I'm going to haul those leaves off, I'm going to pull the weeds in your flower beds. I'm going to edge up this lawn. And you're literally selling something that you have, do not have the equipment to actually fulfill on. But again, you're putting in sweat equity to go get the customer. You're getting that $700, Mr. Jones. Fantastic. All I need today is a check for $720. We'll get this job done next Tuesday. That is what you need to be doing. And if I say next Tuesday, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to go sell five more of those Things that you do not have the equipment to actually fulfill on. But again, you're putting in sweat equity to go get the customer. You're getting that $700, Mr. Jones. Fantastic. All I need today is a check for $720. We'll get this job done next Tuesday. That is what you need to be doing jobs for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, next week as well. And what you're trying to do here is, number one, you're gonna go sell projects, alright? So sell projects and you're gonna schedule projects and you're gonna schedule those jobs out in the future. So a week, two weeks, three weeks down the road, that's fine. That's gonna give you the more time you can schedule out, the more you're gonna have time in order to keep selling more projects and get more cash. And what you're gonna do, like I said, is gonna collect either 50% or even 100%, optimally, all of that project upfront. Okay? The third thing you're gonna do is you're gonna go buy the equipment. And somehow people do this all backwards. They go buy a bunch of equipment, then they start thinking about where they can do the marketing, then they think about getting customers completely backwards. If you have a whole bunch of money to burn, yeah, it makes sense to go get the trucks and equipment up front so you can literally sell the job today and get it installed and done tomorrow. That's great. But if you don't have the money, it's not an excuse. I don't care what your budget is up front. It's a focus on, you've got to sell first. Customers are the only thing that create revenue. Trucks and equipment do not create revenue. They actually cost you money. They are an absolute drain on the revenues of your business because they take fuel and you gotta fix them. And them sitting there and looking shiny does absolutely nothing for the valuation of your business. It is absolutely nothing to generate revenue. What does though, is sales. That's the only thing I want you to focus on. And what percentage of your total budget. At the beginning, I want you to think about how little can I spend on trucks and equipment so I can spend as much as possible on marketing? Specifically, why lawncarewebdesign.com it's not a big front. Up cost, up front cost. I want you to be able to get a great website when you're just getting started. And if you have the ambition to grow really big and do above 200,000 in revenue this year, you're a perfect candidate for longer web design. Because you don't have to spend $10,000 up front to get your website built. Same thing with marketing. Whether it be flyers or door hangers or Facebook ads or Google Ads. As much as you can possibly spend at the beginning of your business on marketing and getting more customers, that's what I want you to focus on. So instead of focusing on the price of the trucks or the how do you get the best deals in your mowers and if you should buy used or new, I really don't care. All I care about is are you spending money on marketing and generating new customers? Are you spending your time and your money on marketing? The only reason I really like financing my mowers, my dump trailers, etc. Is because as long as I can get 0% down, I like it because why it frees up the cash so I can go spend it on marketing. I never regretted spending a dollar on marketing. Alright? And your money on marketing. The only reason I really like financing my mowers, my dump trailers, etc. Is because as long as I can get 0% down, I like it because why it frees up the cash so I can go spend it on marketing. I never regretted spending a dollar on marketing, alright? Never. As long as it's done correctly and getting direct response and we'll talk more about that later. Later. To drive leads to my business. I've never regretted it because as long as that marketing is being done right, I'm going to get a massive return on that money. I can't say the same thing about spending $20,000 a truck. If I spend $20,000 on a truck and it sits there, it ain't going to do nothing for my business. Never. As long as it's done correctly and getting direct response and we'll talk more about that later. To drive leads to my business. I've never regretted it because as long as that marketing done right, I'm going to get a massive return on that money. I can't say the same thing about spending $20,000 a truck. If I spend $20,000 on a truck and it sits there, it ain't going to do nothing for my business. If I spend $5,000 on marketing, I expect that $5,000 to make me at least 50, 60, $70,000 in revenue this year. And if I sell it all to recurring work, I can get another 50, 60,000 next year. So the return is much greater on that marketing dollars. Especially when you're talking about a small business, you need all the trucks, all the fancy trucks and Equipment in the world. If I spend $5,000 on marketing, I expect that $5,000 to make me at least 50, 60, $70,000 in revenue this year. And if I sell all this recurring work, I can get another 50, 60,000 next year. So the return is much greater on that marketing dollars. Especially when you're talking about a small business. You need all the trucks, all the fancy trucks and equipment in the world. It will not bring a single dollar of revenue to your business. What will is spending money on marketing. And that could be as simple as having the money to print out some flyers and door hangers and things from lawncaremedia.com it could be getting a website from lawncarewebdesign.com or it could be spending money on Facebook ads and Google Ads and Google local services and Yelp. Well, maybe don't spend money on Yelp. We'll talk more of that in the future. HomeAdvisor Angie all the different platforms, I'd much rather you be spending money there than on the next shiny $20,000 truck where if you just spend half that money on marketing, like $10,000 spent on marketing will completely blow your business up. $10,000 extra on a truck is not going to get you any more customers. I'd much rather have a $10,000 truck and spend $10,000 on bark. It will not bring a single dollar of revenue to your business. What will is spending money on marketing. And that could be as simple as having the money to print out some flyers and door hangers and things from lawncaremedia.com it could be getting a website from lawncarewebdesign.com or it could be spending money on Facebook ads and Google Ads and Google local services and Yelp. Well, maybe don't spend money on Yelp. We'll talk more of that in the future. HomeAdvisor Angie all the different platforms. Another thing that I would get a $20,000 truck. The day when I get my $20,000 truck, guess what? It doesn't come with customers. Whereas if I have a just a, if I just do a halfway decent job at spending $10,000 on marketing, I'm going to get a lot of customers, a lot of customers and a lot of brand awareness that's going to lead to in perpetuity customers coming to me so highly recommend. I don't care what your budget is. Ask yourself how little can I spend on equipment up to be able to just go start selling and if you have $100 in your pocket, you literally should go get some Business cards and maybe some door hangers and go pounding on doors and set up where three weeks later is when you actually do the work. So that way you can go buy the equipment based upon the down payment. Much rather you be spending money there than on the next shiny $20,000 truck where if you just spend half that money on marketing, like $10,000 spent on marketing or will completely blow your business up, $10,000 extra on a truck is not going to get you any more customers. I'd much rather have a $10,000 truck and spend $10,000 on barks that you collect. That's how you should be doing your business. Get the customers, get the cash, then go buy the equipment and the trucks. Don't get it backwards. Buying trucks and equipment does not make you a landscaper. It makes you someone who knows how to buy stuff. And that is very simple. And it's all showy and everyone thinks you're great and you feel that warm fuzzy feeling because you got a bunch of nice trucks lined up inside your shop and that does nothing for you. And that's why landscapers go broke, is because the appearance of success is what they're going for instead of the actual appearance of the bank account statement going up.

Now some people will say that the only way to start a business is just go in 100% jump. Then I would get a $20,000 truck because at the end of the day when I get my $20,000 truck, guess what? It doesn't come with customers. Whereas if I have a, just a, if I just do a halfway decent job at spending $10,000 on marketing, I'm going to get a lot of customers, a lot of customers and a lot of brand awareness that's going to lead to in perpetuity customers coming to me so highly recommend. I don't care if I'm in the deep end and don't try to do a part time job on the side, I or keep doing your nine to five. And I think that's the right move for a lot of young people or people that don't have a lot of obligations. You don't have a lot of debts, you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a car payment, you don't have a spouse, you don't have kids. These are things that are going to like some people would say tie you down, but I don't believe that. I think it's a matter of like, you have obligations, you have things that are important that you need to take care of and you can't just throw every dollar back into the business. So I'm a big believer of you can ease into it, you can get started part time. Now another alternative to what I just talked about is where you still keep your 9 to 5 job and what your budget is. Ask yourself, how little can I spend on equipment up front to be able to just go start selling? And if you're, if you have a hundred dollars and then you have someone else work the lawns throughout the week, you can literally get to almost 100 lawns in your pocket. You literally should go get some business cards and maybe some door hangers and go pounding on doors and set up where three weeks later is when you actually do the work. So that way you can go buy the equipment based upon the down payments. Because you could literally have someone out mowing in the field doing 10, 15 lawns a day. And then you help them in the evenings, you help them on the weekends and you can get a lot of work done, you get some projects done on the weekends with them and, and you really grow the business to 15,000amonth by just having a full time employee out in the field working while you do your 9 to 5 job and they're out just that you collect. That's how you should be doing your business. Get the customers, get the cash, then go buy the equipment and the trucks. Don't get it backwards. Buying trucks and equipment does not make you a landscaper. It makes you someone who knows how to buy stuff. And that is very simple. And show is also showy. And everyone thinks you're great and you feel that warm fuzzy feeling because you got a bunch of nice trucks lined up inside your shop and that does nothing for you doing the lawns. Now the way that this works is if you have a high paying 9 to 5 job, if you're doing 15, $20 an hour working doing roofing, there's no point in paying $15, $20 an hour for someone else to go mow the lawns for you. Alright? But if you're making $70 an hour, $80 an hour an hour as a software engineer, it's probably a good investment to go hire someone. And that's why landscapers go broke, is because the appearance of success is what they're going for instead of the actual appearance of the bank account statement going up.

Now some people will say that the only way to start a business is just go in 100%, jump 15 or 20 to go do the lawn care. Alright? So if you have a high paying job And a lot of times this is what happens. You hate your job and you want to have your own business, you want to have your own lawn care company. That's what you're passionate about. But in that first year, that first one or two years, you might actually keep your job and then have someone work for you out in the field at a much lower rate. So that's a good option. Again, a great way to subsidize and slowly migrate over into business ownership because maybe you can't live on what you're going to make on that long term business. You can't put every dollar back in. So what you can do is keep your 9 to 5, hire somebody out and then your profit margins are gonna be lower because you have someone to hire. But then you can take every one of those dollars in profit, chuck in the deep end and don't try to do a part time job on the side or keep doing your nine to five. And I think that's the right move back into the business. Kids keep growing it and then eventually one day you're like, oh my goodness, I made more in profit on my lawn care business than I did in my 9 to 5 job. That's a good, good time to switch over to going where you now go full time. And that's a massive catalyst. A big shift to growing your business is when you go from part time business owner to full time business owner. So a couple things you got to keep in mind though if you're going to do this, if you're going to hire someone else while you're out working all day long on your job. Now some people's careers allow you to have the flexibility to be for a lot of young people or people that don't have a lot of obligations, you don't have a lot of debts, you don't have a mortgage, you don't have a car payment, you don't have a spouse, you don't have kids, these are things that are going to like some people would say tie you down, but I don't believe that. I think it's a matter of like you have obligations, you have things that are in touch with your crew all day long. But most jobs, if you're in meetings or appointments, like you can't, there's going to be hours of time where you can't actually interact with your employee out in the field. And that can be pretty scary. A little bit dangerous too, if they have a flat tire, if they make a damage case, if they get into an accident. And now you're not available for a couple hours. So ideally you're like work that you need to take care of and you can't just throw every dollar back into the business. So I'm a big believer of you can ease into it, you can get started part time. Now another alternative to what I just talked about is where you still keep your 9 to 5 job and working from home or something like that, where you have more flexibility, but assuming that you don't, you're going to need certain things to make sure that this employee stays efficient. Because the worst thing that I see is when people do this, they have their own job and they hire out the lawns and then you have someone else work the lawns throughout the week. You can literally get to almost 100 lawns. The thing I see the most is inefficiency. Okay? I see this all the time. Because now any funds, because you could literally have someone out mowing in the field doing 10, 15 lawns a day. And then you help them on the evening, you help them on the weekends and you can get a lot of work done. You get some projects done on the weekends with them. Efficiency. I spelled it wrong. Alright, whatever. What I see all the time happen is someone has their nine to five, but then the person that they hire is so inefficient they stopping at gas stations, taking 20 smoke breaks, taking a nap because it's unmanaged labor. And we'll talk more about this later. But unmanaged labor, which is the largest variable cost in your business is labor cost. Especially if you have just one employee, you might make $10,000 a month in revenue on them, but like 4,000, 5,000, that's going out the door to wages. So you got to make sure that they're extremely efficient and you really grow the business to know 15,000amonth by just having a full time employee. I recommend in order to combat this is use P for pickle working while you do your 9 to 5 job and they're out doing the lawns. Now the way that this works is if you have a high paying 9 to 5 job. If you're doing 15, $20 an hour working, we're doing roofing, there's no point in paying fee. We'll talk more about this later. But especially if you cannot manage the employees throughout the whole day and you have your own job, you better make sure they're getting paid for performance. They're getting a percentage of the labor revenue that they make for the business every single day. You can check more about this@p4psoftware.com I own this company, the training is completely free and we're going to talk more about later in the course. But it's extremely important that they're on P4P. So that way when you're working and doing your job, 15, $20 an hour for someone else to go mow the the lawns for you. But if you know they're being as efficient as possible, they're not taking three hours to go get a belt because it broke on the mower, you need to be okay, you're making $70 an hour, $80 an hour. As a software engineer, it's probably a good investment to go hire someone for 15 or 20 to go do the lawn care. Alright, so if you have a high paying job and a lot of times this is what happens, you hate your job and you want to have your own business. You want, how can I most efficiently drop by the shop, drop by the dealer, go grab the belt and get back to getting the work done. So P4P extremely important. Now you can also do things like truck trackers. I'm less inclined to really care about truck trackers because guess what, if someone's a bad employee, they can still have your own lawn care company. That's what you're passionate about. But in that first year, if they know that you're tracking their truck, they can still make it look like they're working. They'll just now be on their phone for five minutes after every single job in the truck. People getting truck trackers and recording their employees and audio recording. Honestly, if I don't trust them to drive my truck the first one or two years, you might actually keep your job and then have someone work for you out in the field at a much lower rate. That's a good option. Again, a great way to subsidize and slowly migrate over into business ownership. Because maybe you can't live truck, track them and do audio and video and all the rest of it. Now I do like having a GPS on the trucks, mostly for the fact that most truck trackers now that you plug into the computer of the vehicle, you can see a live updated map of where they're at. So if they do get into trouble, if they get in an accident, you know exactly where they're at. It also gives you really good mechanical information. So if you're out working your job on what you're gonna make on that long term business, you can't put every dollar back in. So what you can do is keep your nine to five hire somebody out. You know, okay, the tire pressure is low, the oil needs changed, there's a part on the truck that needs to be fixed and replaced because you're not in the truck every single day. A truck tracker might be actually a really good investment for you. If you're doing your business, you're doing your work and then the business is being ran by somebody else working out in the field. But this is the one that's going to be the best in terms of making sure that the employed and then your profit margins are going to be lower because you have someone to hire. But then you can take every one of those dollars in profit, shove it back into the business, keep growing it and then eventually one day you're like, oh my goodness, I made more in profit on my lawn care is thinking about the business's best interest throughout the whole day because it aligns their best interest. They make a percentage of the labor revenue they earn for the business every day. So being on P4P is extremely business that I did at my 9 to 5 job. That's a good time to switch over to going where you now go full time. And that's a massive important now I do recommend if you're doing this option, it's important at least the start of the day, but optimally the start and end of every day you still make connection catalysts. A big shift to growing your business is when you go from part time business owner to full time business owner with the employee, especially the start. Okay. So a couple things you got to keep in mind though if you're going to do this, if you're going to hire someone else while you're out working all day long on your job. Now some people's careers allow you to have the flexibility to be and I just find so many times when an owner that is working their own 9 to 5 doesn't get the day started, doesn't get their crew started in the morning morning. It's very difficult for that crew to get their day started off correctly. Have the in touch with your crew all day long. But most jobs if you're in meetings or on appointments like you can't, there's gonna be hours, tools and equipment they need for that day. They just need someone to kind of check home base with of time where you can't actually interact with your employee out in the field. And that can be pretty scary. A little bit dangerous too if they have a check in with see what they need for the day day, ask any questions. It prevents so many damages, so much downtime, so many unhappy customers. If they can have someone they can just start the day with. So my recommendation is, if you're doing this kind of split start where you're doing your nine to five and you hire one or two people to do the lawns, try to at least get them started in the morning, connect with them, go over their route, touch base with them, make sure you have great communication if you're doing this flat tire if they make it, damage case if they get into an accident. And now you're not available for a couple hours. So ideally you're like working from home or something like that where you have more flexibility, but assuming that you don't with a WhatsApp group, you're communicating with them throughout the day. And if you're not able to communicate with them throughout the day, you better make sure they're on P4P and you better make sure that they have some sort of accountability to the profitability of the business so that they don't just sit around. You're going to need certain things to make sure that they this employee stays efficient. Because the worst thing that I see is when people come for two hours because, oh, my tire was flat, so I sat there for four and a half hours until you got off work, do this. They have their own job and they hire out the lawns. You go to have someone that's accountable, someone that's on the ball and really trying to get their job done. And I don't mind if I have to pay them a little extra. I don't mind if I have to pay them a bonus or a profit sharing to make sure that the work is being done, profitable. Because a great employee could easily do two to three times as much work as a C level, horrible employee. Employee that you can't trust, employee that saps the clock is on their phone all the time. So the thing I see the most is inefficiency. Okay, I see this all the time. Because now, inefficiency, I spell it wrong. All right, whatever. What I see all the time happen is, trust me, having these things is very important. If you're going to have that hybrid model where you have their 9 to 5, but then the person that they hire is so inefficient, you work a 9 to 5 and you hire someone else out again, I'd only do that if you're making probably more than $40 to $50 per hour at your 9 to 5, your current salaried position, your job, then it makes A lot of sense to go buy get someone for 15 or $20 an hour. If you're making 20, 25, you even $30 an hour, it's not worth going hiring someone for a little bit less. Stopping at gas stations, taking 20 smoke breaks, taking a nap because it's unmanaged labor. Alright. And we'll talk more about this later because you're going to be the most efficient employee. So even if you're paying someone $20 an hour, if you're making 30, you're another job. I'd just start your lawn care business. Honestly, you're going to be way more efficient than any other employee because you have the business ownership and equity in the company. So keep it there. But unmanaged labor, which is the largest variable cost in your business is labor in mind. But it's a great option if you want to grow this cost. Especially if you have just one employee. You might make $10,000 a month in revenue on them, but like 4,000, 5,000, that's going out the door to wages. So you got to make sure they're extremely efficient. And so what is up even if two, three, four employees before you actually become full time down the road?

All right, so I add a little flavor to that by talking about LLCs versus S corporations. So limited liability company versus an S corp. Okay. Now keep in mind an S corp is what's called a pass through entity is not the equivalent of a C. I recommend in order to combat this is use P for P Corp. Okay. How I've always kind of kept the two apart in my mind is C is we'll talk more about this later. But especially if you cannot manage the employee throughout the whole day and you have your own job is the first letter of corporation and therefore it is a real corporation. That's not really the truth. But when you think you better make sure they're getting paid for performance. They're getting a percentage of the labor revenue that they make for the business. Every big corporations like Corporate America typically C corps massive companies that have stock between hundreds of shareholders and they're traded on the stock market. Apple, Google, single day. You can check more about this@p4psoftware.com I own this company, the Train Complete, et cetera. Those are all C corporations. But an S corporation is specifically built for companies with less than 100 shareholders typically smaller businesses that are privately held typically and this was being a past rent A which means the income, the profit on this business is free. And we're going to talk more about later in the course. But it's extremely important that they're what you are going to be taxed on as your nominal income personally. Okay? So don't think that by putting in an MP4P so that way when you're working and doing your job, you know they're being as efficient as possible. They're not taking three hours S corp, like you're somehow getting taxed at a different rate. You're not. That's a C corporation that you get tax a corporate tax rate on. Okay? That is not the case with the S Corp. Any income that you get from an S corp is still going to be taxed at your nominal tax rate that you have personally. Now the thing that's different though is with an llc, you're typically, you can go get a belt because it broke on the mower, right? You need to be, okay, take a W2, like pay yourself as an employee. Typically you don't. But even if you do, it doesn't, it doesn't protect you from the fact that you're gonna have a how can I most efficiently drop by the shop, drop by the dealer, go grab the belt and get back to job. About 15% self employment tax, okay? So any profits that come in the business, you're gonna have 15% tax right off the top and then you're gonna have your nominal tax rate. Now with an S Corp getting the work done. So P4P, extremely important. Now you could also do things like truck trackers a little different. I'm going to have to pay myself a W2 or I'm going to have to pay myself a salary or some sort of wage as an employee of the business. Okay? So some people are like, well, it's only savings that you get when you go to S corp potentially. But the thing is, I also know I have to pay myself as a W2. I'm less inclined to really care about truck trackers because guess what, if someone's a bad employee, they can still make. If they know you're tracking their truck, they can still make it look like they're working W2 employee and a W2 employee right off the top. I am paying into Social Security, I'm paying into Medicaid like all the other stuff. So I'm going to get taxed here like a regular employee, literally. So typically that's why you pay yourself as a salary underneath an S corp. You want it to be as low as possible. Because paying attention yourself as a W2 employee is like just now be on their phone for five minutes after every single job in the truck. Alright, so people getting truck trackers and recording their employees and audio recording. Like honestly if I don't trust them to drive my truck, I'm not the highest tax you can possibly pay. So you know to this day I have a very low and most CEOs and owners are going to have a very low salary because that's what you're gonna get taxed the most at. So why in the world would I want to give myself a big salary? So when an owner that is, you know, not gonna truck track them and do audio and video and all the rest of it. Now I am, I do like a massive company. Like I make $100,000 a year. It's like yeah, that's your salary. Having a GPS on the trucks mostly for the fact that most truck trackers now that you plug and no one cares. We all know that we just have to do that for the irs. But you have to make yourself an employee of the corporation under an S corp. So you do not have to pay the 15% self employment tax underneath this S Corp. However you are going to. If you file as an S corp from the beginning into the computer of the vehicle you can see a live updated map of where they're at. So if they do get into trouble, if they get in an accident, you know exactly where they're at. It also gives you really good mechanical information. So if you're out working your job. So just hold on to your. Hold on this for a second. If you file from the beginning you have to do articles of incorporation, you know, okay, the tire pressure is low, the oil needs changed, there's a which states like what happens if you know certain you have a treasurer, you have a secretary, you have a president part on the truck that needs to be fixed and replaced because you're not in the truck every single single day. A truck tracker might be actually a really good investment for you. All these different parts of the corporation and you have a board and again at the beginning you might be all those positions but you still have to create the articles in corporation and you also have to have annual minutes with an attorney to go. If you're doing your business, you're doing your work and then the business over if anything's changed inside of the corpus is being ran by somebody else working out in the field. But this is the one that's going to be the best in terms of making sure that the employee. Now what's really really cool is the fact that you're able to now file a form. This is for the US is thinking about the business's best interest throughout the whole day because this is going to be specifically for the US folks. Form 1120s. Okay. And this is going to allow you to be an LLC that you started as an llc but it aligns their best interest. They make a percentage of the labor revenue they earn for the business every day. So being on P4P is extremely taxed as an S corp. So you get the tax advantage of an S corp without having to file all of this stuff up front. So this is just a recent tax law that I would recommend you do. Start as an LLC and then talk to your accountant Important. Now I do recommend if you're doing this option it's important important talk to an attorney and when they think you're ready. Any good accountant will know when it's the right time to file. At least the start of the day. But optimally the start and end of every day you still make connection a form l, sorry form 1120s which is basically an election to be taxed as an S corp. And you can literally what's really cool about this is you with the employee especially the start you can file for this at the end of a tax year. So it's the end of 2025. You know, it's January 2026. I'm filing last year's tax return I can elect in that year on the form 1120s. And I've just find so many times when a owner that is working their own 9 to 5 doesn't get to be taxed as an S corp without having to go through all of this stuff. Now this does cost money. Articles in corporation doing mint. It's costly. So I actually would recommend you just file as an LLC. And then after the first couple years, once you're consistently the day started doesn't get their crew started in the morning. It's very difficult for that crew to get their day started off correctly. Have the profitable Typically if you're making about 40 to $50,000 a year in profits consistently then it's worth to do the Form 1120s and be taxed like an S corp. Why? Why don't I just do it from day one when I'm a dollar profitable tools and equipment they need for that day. They just need someone to kind of check home base with. Well the thing is as an S corp I have to file a separate tax return. So you're going to be paying 4 to $800 extra just to file the tax return, check in with, see what they need for the day, ask any questions that prevent so many damages, so much downtime. So there's definitely extra cost involved. With an S Corp, it's a little bit more complicated when you file for your annual report with your state, your secretary of state, if you're so many unhappy customers, if they can have someone they can just start the day with. So my recommendation is if you're doing this kind of less, you're gonna pay more for this, you're gonna pay more for that tax return. Split start where you're doing your nine to five and you hire one or two people to do the lawns. Try to like least get them started in the morning. Your accountant, instead of just having a schedule C on your llc, you have to have a completely different tax return underneath this new form or being taxed as an S corp. So that's the kind of difference between the two. Again, I always, almost always recommend you start as an LLC and then you can always elect to be connect with them, go over their route, touch base with them, make sure you have great communication if you're doing this, act as S corp if it makes sense financially. Now, another couple things I want to talk about because we've talked about insurance, we talked a little bit about licensing and bonding and all that fun jazz with a WhatsApp group, you're communicating with them throughout the day. And if you're not able. Now I want to talk about some things that are going to really impact your insurance that people don't take into account. The first being when it comes to buying new trucks, new communicate with them throughout the day. You better make sure that on P4P and you better make equipment, especially if you have debt on it. What people forget is that if you have debt on a piece of equipment, they have some sort of accountability to the profitability of the business so that they don't just sit around like a piece of a truck or a trailer or something like that. There's a good chance that the person who owns that debt is going to require you to have a certain amount of insurance. So for example, if I lease, if I lease a brand new truck, I could literally for two hours because, oh, my tire was flat. So I sat there for four and a half hours until you got off work. Be spending $250 per month on insurance because they require me to have very high limits and very low deductibles on my auto insurance. You gotta have someone that's accountable, someone that's on the ball and really trying to get their job done. Now if I buy a truck, maybe I have to spend more up front. However now my monthly cost for insurance might literally be $100. So everyone always takes into account what you pay on the and I don't mind if I have to pay them a little extra. I don't mind if I have to pay them a bonus or a profit sharing to make sure that the work is the lease itself or on a loan. Same thing could go for a loan. Some people always you can take that into account very easily with that being done profitable because a great that employee could easily do two to three times as much work as a C level monthly cost. But what they're forgetting about is the fact there's an extra $150 just in insurance per month, let alone the cost of interest or other expenses that come along with that lease or that loan. So keep that in mind. One people a lot of times will forget about when it comes to insurance is what is the horrible employee employee that you can't trust employee that saps the clock is on their phone all the time. So cost of adding a piece of equipment that has a lease or a loan, not just in that monthly cost for the actual loan. Trust me, having these things is very important. If you're going to have that hybrid model where you loan or the lease itself but the actual insurance cost, you work a 9 to 5 and you hire someone else out. Again, I'd only do that if you're making probably more than 40 to $50 per hour. Another thing that's going to affect your insurance is going to be the type of services that you offer at your 9 to 5, your current salaried position, your job then it makes a lot of sense to go buy it, get someone for free. And a couple of the big ones that I always think of when it comes to insurance is trimming bushes and snow plowing. Just trimming bushes above 12ft typically will double or triple your general 15 or $20 an hour. If you're making 20, 20, 25, even $30 an hour, it's not worth going hiring someone for a little bit less liability insurance cost. Also if you are looking for.

Because you're going to be the most efficient employee. So even if you're paying someone $20 an hour, if you're making 30 or another job snow plowing that might literally double your general liability as well. Those are typically served I just start your lawn care business. Honestly, you're going to be way more efficient than Businesses that have a high rate of injury and mistakes and very expensive mistakes like your snowplow. Any other employee because you have the business ownership and equity in the company. So keep that going. You could easily do, you know, $50,000 worth of damage by backing into a building or backing into a vehicle. Keep that in mind. But it's a great option if you want to grow this business. Taking a whole bunch of curbs out when you're snow plowing. Same thing with, with trees. Very possible you're dropping if you're 15ft above the ground. Very liable to get hurt. Very liable to be driven. Even if two, three, four employees before you act. Dropping trees and large branches that potentially hit a car or a house or a person. So those liabilities should become full time down the road.

All right, so I add a little flavor to that by talking about LLCs versus S corporations. So limited liability company versus an S corp. Okay. Now keep in mind an S corp is what's called a pass through entity is not the equivalent of a C things that come to insurance. Adding those services, you might add 5, 10% to your revenue, but it might not be worth it if it doubles or triples literally. I've seen tripling of general liability insurance from like 200 bucks a month to like $600 a month just by adding one or two services. So t corp. How I've always kind of kept the two apart in my mind is C talk to your insurance agent and make sure that you are getting the right type of insurance for the services you provide and then start working. Is the first letter of corporation and therefore it is a real corporation. That's not really the truth, but when you think about big corporations like corporate America, it's typically C Corps, massive companies that have stock between between hundreds of shareholders backwards and realize that you might not actually want to offer all those services based upon the extra cost that it incurs when you add it to your policy holders and they're traded on the stock market. Apple, Google, et cetera, those are all C corporations. But an S corporation is specifically built for companies with less than 100 shareholders, typically smaller businesses that are privately held, typically, and this was me, a pastor entity. Which means the income, the profit on this business is what you are going to be taxed on as your nominal income personally. So don't think that by putting it in an S corp like you're somehow getting taxed at a different rate. You're not. That's a C corporation that you get a corporate tax rate on. That is not the case with the S Corp. Any income that you get from an S corp is still going to be taxed at your nominal tax rate that you have personally. Now the thing that's different though is with an LLC you're typically you can take a W2, like pay yourself as an employee. Typically you don't. But even if you do, it doesn't mean it doesn't protect you from the fact that you're going to have a 20, about 15% self employment tax, okay? So any profits that come from the business, you're going to have 15% tax right off the top and then you're going to have your nominal tax rate. Okay? Now with an S Corp it's a little different. I'm going to have to pay myself a W2 or I'm going to have to pay myself a salary or some sort of wage as an employee of the business. Okay. So some people are like, well, it's only savings that you get when you go to an S corp potentially. But the thing is, I also know I have to pay myself as a W2 employee and a W2 employee right off the top. I am paying into Social Security, I'm paying into Medicaid, like all the other stuff. So I'm going to get taxed here like a regular employee, literally. So typically that's why what you pay yourself as a salary underneath an S corp, you want it to be as low as possible because paying yourself as a W2 employee is like the highest tax you can possibly pay. So you know, to this day I have a very low. And most CEOs and owners are going to have a very low salary because that's what you're going to get taxed the most at. So why in the world would I want to give myself a big salary? So when an owner that is, you know, a massive company, like I make $100,000 a year, it's like, yeah, that's your salary. No one cares. We all know that. We just have to do that for the irs. But you have to make yourself an employee of the corporation under an S Corp. So you do not have to pay the 15% self employment tax underneath this S Corp. However, you are going to if you file as an S corp from the beginning. So just hold on to your, hold on this for a second. If you file from the beginning, you have to do articles of incorporation which states like what happens if, you know, certain you have a treasurer, you have a secretary, you have a president, all these different parts of the corporation and you Have a board. And again, at the beginning, you might be all those positions, but you still have to create the articles, incorporation, and you also have to have annual minutes with an attorney to go over if anything's changed inside of the corporation. Now, what's really, really cool is the fact that you're able to now file a form. This is for the US so this is going to be specifically for the US folks. Form 1120s, okay? And this is going to allow you to be an LLC that you started as an LLC but be taxed as an S corp. So you get the tax advantage of an S corp without having to file all of this stuff up front. So this is just a recent tax law that I would recommend you do, and that is start as an LLC and then talk to your accountant, talk to an attorney, and when they think you're ready, any good accountant will know when it's the right time to file a Form l, sorry, Form 1120s, which is basically an election to be taxed as an S corp. And you can literally, what's really cool about this is you can file for this at the end of a tax year. So it's the end of 2025, you know, it's January 2026. I'm filing last year's tax return. I can elect in that year on the Form 1120s to be taxed as an S corp. Okay. Without having to go through all of this stuff. Now this does cost money. Articles and incorporation doing mint at costly. So I actually would recommend you just file as an llc. And then after the first couple years, once you're consistently profitable, typically if you're making about 40 to $50,000 a year in profits consistently, then it's worth to do the Form 1120s and be taxed like an S corp. Why? Why don't I just do it from day one when I'm a dollar profitable? Well, the thing is, as an S Corp, I have to file a separate tax return. So you're going to be paying 4 to $800 extra just to file the tax return. So there's definitely extra cost involved. With an S Corp, it's a little bit more complicated when you file for your annual report with your state, your Secretary of state. If you're in the US you're going to pay more for this. You're going to pay more for that tax return to your accountant. Instead of just having a Schedule C on your llc, you have to have a completely different tax return underneath this new form or being taxed as an S Corp. So that's the kind of the difference between the two. Again, I always, almost always recommend you start as an llc and then you can always elect to be taxed as an S Corp if it makes sense financially. Now, another couple things I want to talk about because we've talked about insurance, we talked a little bit about licensing and bonding and all that fun jazz. Now I want to talk about some things that are going to really impact your insurance that people don't take into account. The first being when it comes to buying new trucks, new equipment, especially if you have debt on it. What people forget is that if you have debt on a piece of equipment, like a piece of a truck or a trailer or something like that, there's a good chance that the person who owns that debt is going to require you to have a certain amount of insurance. So, for example, if I lease a brand new truck, I could literally be spending $250 per month on insurance because they require me to have very high limits and very low deductibles on my auto insurance. Now if I buy a truck, maybe I have to spend more up front. However, now my monthly cost for insurance might literally be $100. So everyone always takes into account what you pay on the lease itself or on a loan. Same thing could go for a loan. Some people always, you can take that into account very easily with that monthly cost. But what they're forgetting about is the fact there's an extra $150 just in insurance per month, let alone the cost of interest or other expenses that come along with that lease or that loan. So keep that in mind when people a lot of times will forget about when it comes to insurance is what is the cost of adding a piece of equipment that has a lease or a loan, not just in that monthly cost for the actual loan or the lease itself, but the actual insurance cost. Another thing that's going to affect your insurance is going to be the type of services that you offer. And a couple of the big ones that I always think of when it comes to insurance is trimming bushes and snow plowing. Just trimming bushes above 12ft typically will double or triple your general liability insurance cost. Also, if you are looking.

To do snow plowing, that might literally double your general liability as well. Those are typically services that have a high rate of injury and mistakes and very expensive mistakes. Like if you're snow plowing, you could easily do $50,000 worth of damage by backing to a building or backing to a vehicle. Taking a whole bunch of curbs out when you're snow plowing. Same thing with trees. Very possible you're drop if you're 15ft above the ground, very liable to get hurt. Very liable to be drawn.