The Mistake That Nearly Took Down My Entire Company

In the lawn care and landscaping industry, traditionally the last few months of the year is when all of our profit and loss statements get obliterated. I call it Q4 collapse. And this is during October, November and December. A dramatic decrease in revenue happens in many parts of the country. And this is simply due to the fact that revenues from the services we typically do during the mowing season start to dry up. People aren't thinking about even doing any projects because it's cold, it's wet in many parts of the country. So seasonality kills businesses. We can't have an off season. And so when everyone's like, oh, we're a spring rush, then we have an off season. Off seasons will keep you poor. And so how do you keep from going having an off season? You create season specific offers with season specific services for your customers. It's pretty obvious if you're in lawn care and landscaping that the offers and services we give to customers during the spring, the summer and the fall, you got spring, you got weed and feed, we got bush trimming, we got spring cleanups. Spring, summer, we got projects. Fall, we have leaf cleanups and mowing throughout those seasons. However, Q4, when the revenue typically drops off, leads dramatically fall off is when the creative business owners that actually figure out how to generate revenue throughout Q4, they really crush it. I've seen businesses that are 25, 30% profitable, but because of Q4, they go back to being 3, 4 or 5% profitable. You've got to figure out how to make sure that you have no off season. And that means usually getting creative with your services. Unless you're in an area where you mow year round or you're able to do projects year round, it doesn't rain very much or you have warm and cool season grasses growing. That can be very helpful. But for the vast majority of we've got to figure out a service that we can offer to customers during the off season. And for most of us, that's the winter.

You're going to have season specific services with season specific offers for your customers. You're going to go to your existing database of customers and either offer them more of what they're already buying or or an adjacent service to what you're currently offering that is allowed to be able to be done during the off season.

At Augusta Lawn Care, we train our owners on five different tracks. We have Christmas lights augustalights.com then we have people that will do snow because they're in the northern part of the country. They do actual snow plowing and they'll really focus on doing snow and getting those contracts in Q4. The third one is the people who do mow year round. The next person is going to do winter services where they're going to be able to do bush trimming, trimming up the edges, checking the gutters, doing all the other things around a property for all their mowing customers, and trying to keep that recurring revenue coming in all winter long. The fifth person is going to shut down completely. And if you're not going to have season specific services, you've got to make sure you just lock down everything. This is easier said than done if you have a lot of debt and fixed expenses like rent and really high liability insurance payments that are fixed expenses all winter long.

The reason that off seasons really crush you when you try to leave daily operations is, is because a general manager or an office manager or a salesperson, they're usually considered overhead. And that overhead stays even if revenue dips. And therefore you go negative cash flow much faster compared to if you were in the business, you probably just wouldn't take any payroll for yourself during the off season.

But if you don't have those and you don't have a lot of debt payments, you can literally just lay off everybody and go into lockdown mode for two or three months when otherwise you'd just be paying people to do nothing. The last thing you want to be doing is having a whole bunch of employees working throughout the winter just to keep them busy. If you don't have efficient labor, you will not make profit. And during the off season, if you don't have work for them to do, lay people off. And a lot of times during Q4, that's the perfect time to get a job in a shopping center or retail or shipping or transportation, because that's their busiest season. So if you can also figure out a way to be able to offload employees during the off season and, and give them another seasonal position in another industry, that's also great. So you don't have all this fixed expenses dragging you down during the winter. Q4 collapse, where revenue drops, causes a trough that usually takes most landscapers four to eight months just to get out above zero. Because in January, February, March, they're so in the red and they're losing so much money that it takes them literally to the second half of the year just to actually have a profit on their profit and loss statement. And they're literally like negative 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000. And then, and they slowly start to rebound. And by the time they hit zero, it's June, July or August. And to avoid that, you've got to figure out Q4 collapse. Everyone's like, oh, spring rush needs to be better. No fix Q4 because Q4 is what causes that massive lull in revenue, leads and profits in the first and second quarter of the year. Look at your Q4 where is your leads dropping off? Where's your revenue dropping off? And figure out season specific offers for your season specific services and pitch those to your customers that you already have in your database. So if you already sold them mowing, sell them Christmas lights. If you already sell them bush trimming, sell them something else during the winter. Maybe it's salt or snow services. Whatever it is, make sure that you keep your revenue balanced and you don't have Q4 collapse. If you want a step by step breakdown of exactly how to go from just getting started all the way to a million plus and get the 2.0 version of this video, check this video out here where I go in depth on. Also check out landscapebusinesscourse.com for full tutorials and consider joining Augusta Lawn Care as a franchisee.