The Path to a $10M Landscape Business (Mike Andes Coaching)

Hey everyone, it's Mike Handys. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care where we have 170 plus locations around the world. But today we're going to be talking with Fred Sutherland and his wife that have a landscape business that is just about $800,000 in annual revenue.

I think they are becoming better human beings by working here, which is what I care about now.

They've been plateauing at this stage for several years and trying to figure out what they need to do next to grow past a million. And really ideally they want to get past 5 million in annual revenue. You can grow this thing to 1.2 pretty quickly. And so if you're trying to grow your company and you're trying to figure out your office and your admin and having efficiency out in the field, this is gonna be a great. Listen. This is a segment of a turnaround show that we went up and did in Canada with them in person and you can see that on my main channel. But this is just the coaching. It's an extended version. So parts that were not shown on the main show are gonna be shown today. Let's go ahead and roll the tape.

You looked, I don't know how thoroughly you looked at my balance sheet. And I threw it in chat GPT.

You threw it in the chat GPT?

Yeah.

What'd you say?

I said, I was like, analyze my balance sheet.

What did it say?

And so it gave me an 8 out of 10 on the balance sheet and it said that we're probably taking too many, too much dividends out of the. Well, I'm like, well, chat GPT. I have three kids.

Well, you're not taking a salary.

No, we're just.

You're taking dividends.

Dividends. Right. So they're like, so we're pulling too much cash out of the business, which is like, we got to live off something. Yeah. But I'm like thinking about like moving forward. Would. Would you suggest like just that pathway of like with the current assets, don't purchase any additional equipment and just run with what you have. So asset utilization and then stack cash. Or would you. Do I have. Would it be healthy for me to purchase another piece of equipment that would help me do some of this work more efficiently? Because right now I do a lot of excavator rentals. Right. Which is fine because I don't. I'm not using the equipment all the time, which is what you're always looking for. But I'm like, it's part of that cart before horse stuff. Like, if you have the equipment, you just. You start doing more of that work.

Yeah. But it's a narrative people tell, and that's what I get a little concerned about. Cause, like, it's probably the thing that you told yourself when you bought the tractor.

Yes.

And now you've admitted that you don't use the tractor enough.

Yeah. But I'm. I don't feel bad about that because I'm like, it's not. It's not a stupid purchase. Like, and it doesn't cost me that much. Like, so it's like, I'm not take.

500 bucks, 450 bucks a month.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, not. Not a big deal.

Couple rentals. Yeah.

So I'm. And I'm thankful for the efficiency that comes for it when we do these jobs because we can do them more efficiently. So, like, I thought about getting another machine, but I hear what you're saying. Maybe you're saying it's probably not a good idea yet unless you have that work booked out.

It just depends how aggressive you want to be. Right. Like, I think if you took out $50,000 loan, that would fund the marketing aspect. And then you take, you know, get a piece of equipment like an excavator, you can grow this thing to 1.2 pretty quickly. I also believe that just fixing several things on the sales side will probably get you to a million without any more equipment.

Okay.

And that's just like. Like the website getting more leads around the. The project side.

Yeah.

Getting a vision to where someone else that's inside the current team or starts off in the maintenance division wants to move into the landscaping side. And the reason now people actually care to read the books, etc. All these other aspects that you feel like are not sticking, they'll actually have some clarity as to why they should.

Yeah.

Like my team, for example, we've always hired the general manager from the current team every single time. And they know that. And I also am telling the general manager, hey, that general manager could probably move on to something else.

Yeah.

I'm going to be looking from all of you.

Yeah.

And here's the recipe to be able to be the general manager, read these books, show up to these meetings and do these things.

Yeah.

And right now, we just don't have anything like that.

Yeah. There's no internal development, though. There is a pathway like I've laid out, but it's not like, formalized. And most of the people that are on my team are not thinking about. You kind of have to not convince them but you have to show them that they can have a career here.

Right.

Most people that work for me are not. They're here for a season. That's kind of their mindset and they're great.

But in terms of getting, like, the more equipment, it really just comes down to your tolerance for risk.

Well, that's maybe it's a different way of saying it. Like, you actually just answered the question because you were like, get a $50,000 loan. In that case, we would loan ourselves the money and then put the money into the business. And then that gives you that cash that I'm fine if I buy a piece of equipment that I'm paying $1,500 a month payments on. On, because it gives me the cash is there to cover the stuff. And I'm confident that if I just start going after the work, the revenue will increase with the right people in place.

Right.

So there's kind of like, from what I hear you saying, like, we're not totally in crisis mode to take on a little bit more debt.

I don't think so. Because I actually feel you'll be more profitable if you grow a little bit.

Yeah, I think so too. Yeah. I think, like, I'm just like, stuck. And if I just get over that hump a little bit and if I've been humming and hawing about putting money into the business for probably a year.

Well, because I think if you grow, it's not even a matter of like asset capacity or anything like that. I actually feel like by you growing the business and you focusing on sales and leadership, you'll spend more time in the business. You won't go to the track and field thing.

Yeah, I'll just probably do them both, actually.

Yeah, that's the motto.

Yeah.

But I mean, like, those sort of opportunities won't seem as appealing because now you have some fulfillment in the business.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've signed on probably for another four years of that.

Let's go. Yeah, but like, I, you know, like, I don't think from a, you know, debt perspective, it's way off balance.

Yeah.

It could sustain more. It's just a matter of, like, I think all of this. I think the answer to that question comes in the clarity of the vision you have. Because if you had really lazy, like, clarity, it probably help also her in terms of confidence, in terms of like, taking on more debt. Because right now, like, taking on debt for what, like. Or we just going to keep. Are we still going to stay at stalled out?

Honestly, no. Part of it is Like I've, I've, I've lacked the confidence maybe to really hire like a top player too, because I'm like, oh, I don't got the.

Money to pay you, but do we need that? They're gonna come with their own preconceived notions of how things should be ran, or do we take our current team that you have said to me is top players, great talent, etc. And then say, hey, in a year, this is where I want you to be.

No, no, they're not.

They're not, they're not.

No, they're not. They're too young. I need someone who's, and I can, I can, I think I can recruit them or pull them. Like there's no one internally currently that I'm like, you're the guy that I can.

Do they have the ambition of wanting it though? No. Okay, so then it's a matter of when you hire. So let's just say that it's down the road a bit.

Yeah.

So when we know that we're coming up to when we're gonna scale or jump something in a year, I'm recruiting and I'm gonna tell them about it.

Yeah.

And then I'm trying to hire someone that is completely overskilled for the current position.

Yes. Yeah.

And when I do that, the reason I like to do it is because then I have them for six to 12 months around other team members.

Yeah.

And they raise the bar.

Yes. Yeah.

And then they only reason they're attracted is because they know what's to come.

Yes.

So instead of hiring next spring for like another lawn mowing guy, you're going to, hey, you're going to start lawnmower. But here's the vision, here's the goal. And in six months, this is where I want you to be at. I'm hiring you for this position. Position today. But this is where you're going to be at in six months.

Yeah.

You'll get them for cheaper.

Yeah.

There'll be less.

Feelings of like, you owe them stuff. Entitlement. Could you come get someone else that's been running a three million dollar division and they come over here. It's not going to be.

No, I hear what you're saying. And that was a little bit with the guy I hired. He was, he just, this was too small mom and pop for him.

Yeah.

And he had to do work. And I'm like, well, you're not just a manager who's like watching the budget.

Because what you're hiring for is a Project manager.

Yes. Yeah.

When they come here, they are working on the job, and three to four times a week they're interacting with customer.

Yes.

So what you do is you hire a laborer and you tell them, here's the vision.

Yeah.

You will become a project manager over the course of a couple of years.

Yeah.

And here's what I'll be able to pay you, here's what the job will look like. But I need you to start here.

So coming back to the steps, because I like to kind of understand things from your suggestions. So.

Do all of that kind of visionary work on the construction side, really nail down the role, the expectations, but also the sales strategy, and also some of the. Like, here's the packages we're trying to sell. Here's we're trying to sell to. That's all locked and loaded, ready to go. And then inject some money into the business to give us that little bit of cash boost. So I'm not worried about making payroll the bloody time. And then, even though we do have a pretty large line of credit too, that we could dip into, and then.

We'Re going to fund, the reason that we're going to make sense of putting that money in is because we're going to change the way we do project management so that when our backlog fills out, we're going to increase prices. That's how we'll be able to convince ourselves that putting money in the business actually makes sense.

Yes. So we follow that. We get someone locked in to do those. Those projects. We push that, we actually start marketing for that. And then suddenly I'm probably at a million by next year.

And there's elements of the sales part, like we haven't really dealt in the lead. I do believe the lead bottleneck is what you'll hit right away. And so, like right now, the notion is I will dump money on marketing. We have done that in the past and it has not worked.

Yeah.

And so then it's a matter of how are we gonna solve that problem? That will be the next constraint. If you put money in the business. Cause you have like, liquidity. If you inject a bunch of capital in this business, the next thing you will need is leads.

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not worried about that. And I'll tell you why. Because I just know too many people as soon as I start making phone calls.

Okay. And I say, then that's the strategy. Then the question is, why do we need the money to.

To do the work? Like, you know that working capital Exactly. You need working capital. Like, I need working capital to confidently cover payroll to get that extra machine to pay for the $10,000 worth of pavers when I have to buy, buy them in the front end. Even though I follow the whole like 50 up front. All that. Those policies.

Yeah.

All of our, our, our strata work is all prorated as far as invoicing and stuff too. So the cash flow thing is figured out.

Yeah.

It's just that working capital to get after it and not worry about the money dropping in. In the bank account. And then I start making phone calls because people know that when I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And I. Right now we're in Abbotsford. You know this area. Like, there's all these places that you can find work. I just don't go there because when they phone me, I'm like, I don't want to go there. Like, we don't want to deal with the freeway.

Yeah.

If I say yes to that stuff, man, I know for a fact I'll double how much revenue we're producing in the construction.

And when you double the leads coming in, because you'll be able to now spend time doing that, we will have a strategy to capture as much profit as possible. Just dumping money working capital in business will never solve a problem. No. So there has to be other things fixed. Like, so if we can fix. Okay. Working capital, great. Okay, we're going to solve the vision problem. Great. That still does not fundamentally change the profitability of the business.

Yes.

And so there has to be implementation around. We will charge more money when we are booked out at 1 month, 2 months, 3 months, etc.

That is honestly fantastic, that thing. I still think we're profitable enough when we do, but I think it's gonna, like, blow our profile. Profitability out the window.

Will get you excited about going and doing sales when you're four months booked down. Like, we're booking at that rate.

Yeah.

And if you're so confident you can go call people and sell, then, like, go do that. Go get an admin person and get someone to go run the landscape jobs. If you think you can. Like, I can drive $2 million of landscape jobs if I just have a phone. Then we should be doing all of our time on that.

Yeah.

Like everything else. Like, if you're good at that, you enjoy it and everything else you despise, then delegate everything else.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Is this getting? Well, ask your. I need you to, like, Understand everything you need to understand too.

So but even like on the website side for example, like as time goes on, like there's ways to get more leads. Like even like the web form, like the estimate request form can be above the fold. It can be pitching landscape installations. The picture up top, not someone mowing. Yeah. A before and after of a landscape renovation.

Yeah.

Right. Like there's a lot more SEO on just Abbotsford you could do on that site.

So how would you. I guess what you have perspectives because you do this website construction quite a bit.

So are you like I'll dive into it home and I'll send you a loom. Like I'll send you a video of like exactly what I would do. Because if you have someone that could just like make a few tweaks on that, you'll double your leads and reasons I say double is because you're only getting a few a week now you can easily double that. And if you have that and then you have the fact that you think you can just literally pick up phone and start calling people. This is a 2 to 3 million dollar company. From a sales perspective, the only bottleneck becomes can you find leaderships that can actually run the operations and admin side for you.

That's the big piece and that's talent. Talent recruiting we do. It's the talent retention and recruitment and all that piece. And that's honestly I've always said to guys in the game in landscaping around here. The landscape market is hot in this area.

Yeah, it is.

It's quite easy to actually find work. If you want work, it's finding people. And everyone I know has the same problem. It's finding the right staff and keeping them and all that stuff.

And if you talk to the guys who have 10, 15, $20 million businesses, talk to their founder for an hour and see how clear they are in the vision of the company.

Yeah.

Like they, they built it. And the reason they attract the best.

He's not clear at all.

Scattered. Oh dude, man. These guys.

Yeah, it's those guys who started those businesses. They had no clue that they weren't trying to build big companies. Like they probably almost happened by accident.

Yeah.

Like to they, to they're like intentionally doing things to hurt that and it still happened.

But when you break down like how they recruit, for example, like when you, when you talk, when you start seeing how they bring in great talent.

Yeah.

Many times it is around. Here's your, your SOP is going to be, here's your objectives, here's the compensation. Model based upon how you perform on your crew.

Yes.

And this is your crew, and you are expected to do 600,000. If you get over that, you start getting a percentage, they start having these things that is all, like, around the team member being incentivized to do a great job. Yes.

Yeah. Some of the companies. Some of them are. It's. The strategy is just have a big family with.

Which is. Which is a strategy.

Dutch people.

Different strategy.

That's the thing. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Like, of questions, like, obviously, I really appreciate kind of the clarity you're bringing around next steps. I did have some questions around the working capital. If you. It's. It's helpful to hear, like, obviously you've seen enough cases where just putting working capital in the business doesn't solve all the problems. I. I can see that. Like, I like your. That strategy of, like, of the operations, like, when we're booking out, how we increase to be more profitable. That all makes sense to me, I think.

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

There's a. I think part of it, too, is just. And, like, when I first applied for this thing, like, I think slowly I've been more and more shifting towards, like, oh, we're gonna. We're gonna keep doing this. Like, we're. I'm not gonna quit. It was discouraging. And there's things that.

I'm realizing I was naive around, which is. Is okay. Like, it's. People don't want to read books and all this stuff. But I'm like, but they're. If we're honest, we've seen a lot of growth in our employees. Just, like, character. Like, you hang out with good character people, and they have an effect on you, and so I can celebrate that. It just doesn't look the way that I thought it would look. I think they are becoming better human beings by working here, which is what I care about. But it's just coming back to a place of believing in it. I think I just lost.

I don't know, lost my heart there for a little bit.

Got bored, got just whatever, distracted, lots of things, discouraged. And I think that's normal. I know you preach that a lot, like, staying in the game.

But I think your logic makes sense to me. If I do a different business, it's just, you're going to be the same thing, just in a different industry.

Right.

So I'm like, I've thought that through enough and kind of talked to people that own different types of businesses where I'm like, oh, you're having the same problems.

Me. But you're like, I have a hard time finding engineers for software. It's the same thing. It's like, whether I pay them $20 an hour or $200 an hour, it's hard.

Yeah.

And so it's just like, what do you want the end result to be? And then realizing that you had clarity on that a few years ago.

I did. Yeah.

You just went three years in. And now we need to readjust like, okay, we're here now. I understand a lot more than I did three, four years ago. I have way more clarity, actually.

Yeah.

So it's okay to adjust the goal. Like, the goal doesn't have to stay the same from day one. In a few years, I'll probably be talking to you again and be like, hey, time to recalibrate a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're always evolving and changing 100%. Yep.

And the same thing is true, like, from the project perspective. We talked about how far you're booked out. The same thing is true when it comes to your strata and your maintenance. Like, what is our capacity in terms of our current trucks and employees? And when we hit that capacity, what do we do? We raise prices. Because we're not trying to grow that side of the division.

That part's a lot more difficult to do because it operates like the way that stratas work. They're going to have like, a budget that they create for the year. And then there's this process where you put the bid in and you win the work. And it's slower to raise prices. And so we have been over the last three years, and you can raise.

Prices, I mean, just to new customers.

Oh, to new customers. But I don't want any new. More new customers.

That's what I'm saying. So it's like, what is that determine. So, for example, if we have 150 budget hours per week of projects, how many budget hours per week can we do a strata? Where are we at? What percentage of that capacity we filled? When we hit this, what do we do?

Yeah.

Oh, now new customers, when they ask for a strata. Cause it's the middle of spring rush. We're not just gonna go do the estimate and put them on the schedule. It's like, okay, well, now we're above capacity. They're gonna be this different price.

Yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. Yeah. And then if they do go, because often the higher prices are always. You're selling quality, which we actually have a reputation to do quality work, which is why? We have demand there. So then you can convince people to, to potentially go with.

But here's the cool, cool thing you just said. I don't want the work.

I don't.

Now you are selling from a completely different leverage right now. In the past, it's been like, I need to grow, I need more customers. I'm going, I'm going. I'm finding.

Yeah.

Like now it's like, look, I don't need your work. Like, I don't. Like, here's our reviews. Oh, you want a deal? No, like, this is what the price is. You have way more confidence.

Yeah. So what we. The strategy we've been implementing right now with the maintenance division is I'm actually axing customers. Like, I've been all the data that I'm seeing, like, okay, this is like the man hours, way too much. Sorry, we're not going to go. Either this is the price or if part of it is like, are you annoying to deal with? Because if you are, I think we're going to just let you go and we'll work with these people. And so we're kind of in that process of like, of letting go of certain accounts and picking up other ones based on how, how well we're doing and also the level of enjoyment.

Yeah, yeah.

Like if the guys hate. We had one that hundred thousand dollar project or complex was okay for profitability, but it was so annoying. And the labor, they had all these high trees. And I'm like, hey, no, we're not doing this anymore. We can do different work. So no, but that's a. Are you hearing that too, around how the strategy there, like the levers.

I think the confidence piece. And I've heard that before in other businesses. And it's when you start off, you're like, oh, no, I'm not going to do that. Like, I'm not going to have different pricing. But once you hit that confidence and.

It'S like, okay, yeah, if you're six weeks, six months booked out, like, okay, let's assume we don't get the contract for Strata or someone drops us because we raised their price. Oh, well, we have work coming in that's in six months. We're going to pull it forward and the customer's gonna be thrilled and we're gonna get the same price on it.

Yes. Better pricing usually. Cause our maintenance man hour rate is lower than our construction, but we sold.

It as if it's at our higher rate. Cause we're so far booked out.

Yes.

Well, now they're not Gonna be complaining like, yeah, we'll get it done in two weeks. Cause we lost this other contract on Strata. Yeah, you did. All you did is you moved your budget hour capacity from less Strata to more projects. Cause we're gonna move a couple guys over to there.

So this is where you can do your sales thing. Okay, Mike.

I wan copilot.

Well, that's the thing I was gonna ask because it's like that requires a lot of admin, right? So it's like at some point, like I can do so much admin and so much tracking and figuring that out. But it's like at what point do.

You actually most of you, you guys are doing 90% of it already. It's just a matter of tracking it. But like I think if I was you, I would probably have one. Like also really tactically like it's like I'd have one spreadsheet, I would have two tab, two pages and I have a one week for every single week of the year. So like week one, January 1st or January 7th, whatever, all the way down through, I have two different lines underneath them. And one would be maintenance and one would be projects. And then I have my total capacity for budget hours. Total budget hour capacity. Okay, we're going to start off as our budget for budget hours is going to be. Let's just make up a number. 70 budget hours for maintenance and 70 budget hours for projects. So our total is 140.

And you're coming to that Just to clarify, based on 75% efficiency.

Correct. So 30 budget hours per full time team member. So you could literally probably do the math now of what your capacities are.

Yes. Yeah.

Then it's just a matter of when jobs are accepted. We need to update the spreadsheet. So if it's a project, it's going to be okay. What day do we put them on the schedule? Boom. Okay. Okay. Now we're booked out an extra two weeks because that was a big project. Okay. We're booked out to here. All right. For the maintenance side, it's going to stay very consistent until you sell a big strata job.

Yeah, yeah.

And so it's actually not going to take a ton. Like if you were doing five leads a day, I would say you need software to track this. You're doing a couple new projects a week. You're doing one, two stratas a month. Like you can definitely do this in a spreadsheet. Yeah, yeah.

Now on the, the, the lead side, like currently like the calls go to me and so I would. If we're going to have, like, increased leads. We had a whole, like, filter system that we were trying to implement. Sales process that we don't really follow because I'm terrible at following that stuff.

I just kind of wing it.

In terms of, like, intake. Call intake. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's like a whole, like, you know, that someone would reach out to us, we'd have that initial phone call to see if they're the right fit. And then we. I do a site visit and I'd find their budget, blah, blah, all that stuff.

Yeah.

But I feel like if there's going to have increased calls, I might have to work with. Like, either we hire someone who's gonna run phones, or I go with one of those call services that's gonna filter through the people that I don't even really wanna talk to. They're not a good fit for us.

Yep. So with the $50,000, let's just say we inject in terms of working capital, I would say during our spring rush, we're gonna hire someone for five hours a day, and they're gonna be admin.

Yeah.

It's gonna be $100 a day. It's gonna be maybe a little more. So let's just call it 120 bucks a day. So times five, that's 600 bucks a week, $2,500 a month. It's gonna be 10 grand for the spring rush. Yeah, we know. That's when all our leads come in. We book out way out into the future.

Yeah.

And that's when you can't handle it yourself.

That is so smart. I've never thought about, like, temporarily hiring someone.

Well, it's like, if you have a seasonal demand, you should have seasonal work.

Yeah.

And so we can do the same thing for admin that you do for your guys out in the field. Yeah.

And you could just get one of your friends to do it for you. Like someone. Someone that we know that's a mom that just wants some extra work for the spring.

And the whole process is, like, the way to make them successful. Such a freaking idea. Here's the system. When you answer the phone, this is what you do. We have 70 agents at command center. Just like when you answer the phone, here's how it goes. Like, you do this and then this and then this. Like, if it's a project and it's an estimate, these are the questions I want you ask before you set up the estimate for him if a job is accepted. Okay. Go to the spreadsheet. Put it here. Oh, the customer Wants to know when is accept, when they can get on the schedule. Okay, here's how you do it.

You think your mom would want to do that?

Okay, sorry, she's retired.

She'd be great at that though. And someone could make some extra money just doing simple.

Yeah, there's tons of people that.

And if you say hey, look from. Because I know you're Mark. So March, April, May and June. There's your four month spring rush. You're going to work from 8 to 1pm that's going to give you the flexibility to say hey, we're open eight to five. You only have to answer the phone from one to five. Yeah, eight to one. You get all your operations stuff done, all your hiring, all your estimates. One to five is going to be. You're creating the estimates and you're ready for the phone and you will follow the same process as them because now you have that time blocked for them.

Okay, so I have to follow the process. Can't just wing it and then that.

That's probably the process for them. You can't change it.

That's probably only a one. That's probably only one year before you grow enough because you've been able to do that. Then you can hire someone full time.

And then they just do other admin while they're not.

Yeah, they work on something.

Help the list. Right. So it's like okay, so when there's not a call come in and you haven't done the email, like you just have an order of operations. Number one, answer the phone. Number two, web chat. Number three, request forms. Number four, you just go right down the list. Expense categorization. Like you just go right down the list. Like how do I operationalize that? You literally do screen recordings and it's like okay, how to schedule job that Then it's you doing a loom of like walking through how to do that save to a Google Drive folder. So when they get a job accepted, like oh, how do I do Boom, boom, boom. Oh, okay. And they follow one step at a time exactly as you've done it. You go to the form, you fill out the budgeted hours, then you go to the customer, you send this email template and you put them this schedule. Like it just. You can operationalize it and make it like you start with this and here's the last thing you do and you might not get to this. If there's a lot of stuff happening, all these calls coming in, you probably aren't going to get the email. And there's a ton of emails. You probably won't get to the expense categorization.

Yeah, it's the details that I love doing.

Yeah, yeah, you're good at that.

For myself, like this is how you.

You, man, you're an sop, like queen.

And then if you have someone like that, for example, you can put something like a web chat that during 8 to 1 is live on your site. If someone goes there, they can actually start interacting with them.

Yeah.

Estimate request forms get responded to faster. Now you're having the confidence to put the request form at the top of your site Instead of going on a Contact Us page or they have to call, they just want to submit an estimate request form. And it's like. Well, I can also filter them out somewhat by just putting like, what's your budget? Having a three step dropdown of like 3,000 to 6,000. 6,000 to 12,000. 12,000 plus. Okay. I already kind of know where they're at and it's gonna weed out other people. Like I should have this whole project. I'm. For a thousand dollars. You just did the whole weed out process in the form.

Yeah, that's. That's really good. Yeah. You hearing all that? Yeah, no, that's. That's gold, man. That's. That's something I was. I would have never thought of. I don't know why. It's a simple solution. Just a temporary hire. They can. Now obviously you probably use some sort of. Because right now it's my actual number that the calls go to. So then we would just have some sort of generic number that gets forwarded to a different phone during different times.

You can also get secondary. Like you have iPhone. You can get a secondary number to one phone too, if you wanted to. But I would probably have like a office phone that you give to them and then they're here or wherever. You can also just do on like Grasshopper, for example, and split the line to them so they'll pick up from their phone after the customer calls your number. Like that. That part is like just X's and O's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'd have to sort that out and then maybe wherever they work, then we'll figure that out. Maybe they can work at home. Right? That could work.

Because if they're just taking incoming calls, for example, they don't need to have an outbound number.

No, yeah, no, that's. That's gold.

Because you're trying to reduce your reactions like throughout the day. Right now the reason you resent growing the business in part is because it leads to more phone calls, more problems, more people calling you. Like you just don't want to deal with it. So like, you know now from the time you wake up till 1pm you do not deal with that. And you're going to focus on the thing that you're really good at, which is sales and operations. Let the admin stuff go.

Yeah.

By doing that for one year, you'll likely grow the business to the point where you can afford a full time admin person.

Yep. Which would be awesome.

And it's probably going to be the person you would did part time with. And again you're going to get them convinced that hey, the goal isn't a year, you're going to be full time. And here's how I know. Here's my strategy here, here's the goal, here's what we're working towards.

Yeah, yeah. Getting it. It all is interconnected.

Well, that's why, that's the first thing.

Yeah.

Right. Because you don't get the good project manager to buy into the vision. You don't get the admin person want to work part time. They want full time. Right. Today, like, no, like here's the vision, here's how it fits in.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah. This is, I guess it changes a little bit the way I was going to spend my winter months here.

But I think it's the thing that you're gonna be strongest at. Honestly.

I like that stuff. Yeah, I do.

Like you'll get more excited about the business focusing on like how do I actually nail down the order of operations for my admin person that I wish they just take everything off my plate. You'll get more excited about that than like, you know, answering phone calls from people.

I'm not, I don't like. Well the thing I also think people should be treated well and I'm just like, I don't want to deal with this person right now. It's like, it's like this is terrible.

And you'll be more inclined to actually focus on like lead flow. Like I generally believe you could double the leads from the website was a couple of little changes and like you'll be fine with it now because that's. Someone else is taking the phone calls.

Yeah.

They have to request a form or coming to someone else. You don't feel like, oh, I've got to open up my email. Like that should never be in your stomach.

Oh, I have that all the time.

So like the first thing I would say is like no email on your phone.

Yes.

Your phone should not be the phone that's being advertised. Yeah.

That's all the emails. Well, they go to her right now, predominantly.

But can you access them from your phone?

Maybe.

See, this is the thing. This is part. This is what.

My strategy, because I have kids, so I get distracted. So I'll look at the email.

This is. Some are open. And then.

No. And then I will mark it unread so I don't forget.

Yeah.

And then he'll go into my email, respond, read it.

Yeah.

And then leave it unread.

And then I got.

I've gotten better.

Yeah. But this is why you're bottling up against 700,000. Because, like, as I say, like, after 800,000 is architect.

Yeah.

You're failing to go from manager to architect. And you're the manager inside of you wants to go check the email.

Yep.

Still wants to stay involved in all these little process. The architect has to step away from the business.

Yeah. Yeah. And have people that you can trust to do that. But what I also, like, you say, is there. What is you. What is your thing? You say, is there 100%? Is your 60% or 70%, 80%? So I'm like, yep. I'm gonna have to just let those things go wrong. And it's okay. They're learning.

He doesn't leave my bookkeeping a lot, though.

Yes.

Because he doesn't like it. I don't touch that.

I'm gonna be really mad.

Yeah. And so, like, the skill that will be the thing. You focus. Like, what has gotten you here is how do I actually manage a project? How do I sell a job? That's the role of a manager. The role of an architect is to step away from the business. Like, how do I optimize this website to get more leads? How do I create the SOPs for my admin person so they don't have to bother me? Like, they asked me the same thing three times yesterday.

Yeah.

Oh, I need to make a loom. So they just understand it.

Yes.

So they can. And, like, they didn't. They didn't watch the loom. Oh. I need to make part of the process that before they contact me, they search the database.

Yeah. Yeah.

And that's an architect. They step away from the business. That's why someone like me will step in and, like, see your numbers. And it's really clear. I'm just. I'm a third party. I'm out of the business.

Yeah.

That's what you have to become to take the business to the next level.

Yeah, I know, that makes sense.

You will drive in here and be like, why are the trucks parked over there? We could get, like, way better efficiency if we parked them slightly at an angle.

Yeah.

Like, that's the type of thing an architect thinks about. As a manager, you're like, no, who cares about that? Like, we need to get the emails done. Yeah, right.

Yeah, I am. I am. A lot of my energy spent on some of that operation stuff. And then I have my dream fulfilled where I'll have a job where I can work out in the middle of the day.

But see, again, like, defining that, that's super important. It is like, defining what that role is going to look like for you. Like, I know what the day, like, what my day will look like when I hit the certain point I want to be at. It's not just like, well, I want to grow a big business. Okay, great. It's like saying, well, you know, I want to get from here to Everest. Okay, great. Like, but we now need to get a plan. Work backwards. We know where we're going to go. Like, are we going to have a plane? Are we going to drive? Are we going to hitchhike? What's the plan here? And so, like, now it's like work backwards from the fact that you want to work out in the middle of the day. That's a great benchmark because there's so many other things will have to be fixed for that to be it.

Yep, yep.

Right. You'll have to have an admin person, you have to have an operations person, you have to have a salesperson.

Yep.

Right. You will not be able to have the email coming. You will not be able to have the phone coming on your. Onto your cell phone.

Yeah.

And so then what you start doing is ask yourself, okay, is that future self going to have the email coming to their cell phone? No.

Yeah.

Probably shouldn't be doing that now.

Yeah. You start working towards it. It's the classic, like, working backwards from where you want to go. Yeah, I understand. Like, all the stuff you're saying makes sense. Doing it. Like, obviously there's always going to be challenges along the way to get to where you want to go, but it is. The stamina is there when. And you know what's funny is one of our core values is having a positive and persevering attitude. So to keep going when those things come up because you know where you're trying to go. Right. That it gives that that perseverance. So it's. Yeah, this has Been really valuable, man. Like, I appreciate you coming out here.

And I was like, perseverance becomes brutal work when the goal is not defined.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, perseverance is like grinding at a mill.

Did you make that quote up or did you read that in a book?

I just thought now, like, my candies.

Say it again.

When I think about, like, someone persevering, it's like, the only reason we actually admire is because they're going towards something.

Yes. It's true.

And so if you don't have that defined, it is just craziness.

Yep. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, yeah. That's a little axiom that you should.

Coin that.

Yeah.

Cool.

Is there anything else I can help with? I think this is not like, a turnaround. Like, there's a big, big problem with the business. I saw that in the financials. Usually we don't go to business like a story. I also believe that there's companies and their business owners just like you, that are in like. Like midlife crisis of a business.

Yeah.

And it happens between that stage of manager to architect and just like, we need to change frame here and, like, there needs to be changes in the business. And a lot of times it's just looking inward and, like, what do we want from this business? Where are we going? And, like, what. How am I preventing that growth from happening? It sounds to me like the growth is there. Yeah. So we're doing something wrong. And usually it's just us as owners.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's where I think the turnaround story is, is that I. I just needed, like, an internal turnaround. Like, there's some strategy that needed. Needed to be shifted, but there's also, like, getting clarity on where you're going and. And some operational pieces because we were stuck. Right. So it's. It's super helpful to have the clarity that you're given, and I'm hoping it'll help other people, too, who are in a similar spot to me, to keep. Keep going and keep pushing through. And.

Yeah, I really, like. I really appreciate you coming out here and being able to do this. It's been awesome for us. Yeah.

I'll send you a video. I'll give it to Zach and they'll send over about the website. Perfect. There was a. Several things. I think a couple little changes. It helped with the leads. I know right now that doesn't seem like the constraint, but I think it'll give you more confidence.

Yeah, I hear you.

Stuff like that.

Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Cool. Anything Else I can help with.

Well, we have.

They're coming back in a few days, I think, to crew and all that sort of thing.

We have another business that you. We talked about that we have kind of been. I don't know, it's like one of those things where we tried to sell it. No one was open to buying it.

And the event thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

And it's like, do we just kind of.

Like, I'm not an entrepreneur.

Like, I'm not an architect, so I go ahead.

Well, I was just saying. So, like, when I look at it, I'm like, oh, this is a great side hustle for someone who doesn't actually have, like, set hours for time and space in their life. It's like, I can just do it when I can.

Yeah.

And it's great that way.

Right.

But.

And just talking this out.

Yeah.

Actually, like, if we continue to scale on the landscape side, like, I think probably your role could be reduced. Just the bookkeeping. Bookkeeping piece, which you enjoy, and maybe you have a little more energy for that down the road. That could be a.

So your question was just like, is it wise to have two.

Yeah, I do. I thought about, is it a distraction having two businesses?

But you're not involved in that one at all, are you?

No, not really. No. Like, I'm involved in. I see the opportunity. Oh, man. I see the opportunity. I'm like, the margins are so juicy. I'm like, why are we not going with this thing?

And I'm a manager and, like, a detailed.

And I'm like, but I got the storage figured out.

It's organized.

It's great.

So it's like, maybe, you know, but you can't. Like, it's unwise to try to do, like, multiple things at once in our stage of life where we have kids and other responsibilities.

So, like, do you want to do the business?

I love the business, but I don't know if I would love it if it got to, like, a big.

Your role would change.

Because my role would change, and I don't know if I could handle the pressure of running a big business.

Yeah, then don't. Just don't do it until you love it. And, like, the thing is, as the business grows on your end and the landscaping side and becomes profitable and you're feeling more fulfilled, this becomes optional. Yeah. It's like, do you like doing this? If not, what are we doing?

Yeah.

So don't build it into something you're going to hate.

Yeah.

Because then you're going to nix it not have anything. And then this won't be ready yet to actually sustain the family.

Yeah, it's logical to focus on this one first. Where we were, there was a times we were like, maybe we should do more of this because you need to see the margins are so much better.

Yeah. We also don't like the weekends. Yeah, it's all weekends.

Right.

So I do, like, a lot of rentals, which works great for kids.

Like, if you could close it tomorrow and the family be able to provide just fine, would you do that? Would you prefer that?

I would be happy, but not, like, any more happy than I am right now.

Yeah, that's that. Just keep it there. Yeah, just keep it there.

Yeah.

You know, get tons of leads, just raise prices, make a little more money. Right. Because then eventually you'll want to drop it because this will be fine. And, like, the kids will be a certain size or whatever. You're like, I want to get rid of it. Build it in a way where, like, when you let it go, it's not this big pain in the butt. You got a manager, and I got to do bigger storage and I got to do bigger events. Like, you enjoy it. Just. Just stay there. Yeah, I would just recommend that.

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

It's the same thing. Like when you first got started saying doing this and you were really involved in doing the work, the margins are better, 70, 80%. And that's why everyone's like, well, I should scale it up.

Yeah.

Some people are the opposite of you, which I tell them, you should just stay in the field and have 70, 80% margins and keep doing that.

Yeah.

Right. So you're literally looking at someone who's like, I would say, hey, keep small and telling you, like, get up as high as possible. You have very different skill sets. And I got together. That's why you're probably like, it's so valuable. We're a one, two punch, 100, and there's huge amounts of value there. So I would just, like, don't tell her she should grow and don't tell him that he should stay small. Right. And I don't think that. Yeah, right. So it's just a matter of, like, you both have very different skill sets, and at different size of businesses, those skills will be most utilized.

Yeah.

Right.

No, so when. Last question. Then we can get going. But, like, as far as, like, continuing to scale from your perspective, when you've kind of heard, well, you know, the market. Right. You've seen. Are you envisioning continuing to scale, maintenance in addition to construction, are you saying like just have like a maintenance that's kind of like at a certain revenue size and scale this up. Like what's. Because you really could do both I guess if you wanted to. But like it's what's kind of like your perspective on what you're seeing from other companies.

I would be tracking my capacity for both maintenance and the project side. I'd be really monitoring. Okay, we're getting tons of lead count but then how many are projects, how many are recurring maintenance? And then I'd be tracking like when I hit above my recurring maintenance threshold, I'm raising prices and then I will make a determination every winter, am I going to increase that capacity that is buying more trucks and hire more people for that division or not?

Yeah, yeah.

I don't need to have that locked into my long term vision. It has nothing to do with whether or not you're going to work out in the middle of the day.

Yep.

It's going to be a determination each winter it's like we are getting tons of leads for projects but we keep hitting capacity and we're booked out eight months. Okay, let's increase capacity on that division. Let's buy. Move one of the trucks over that is reduce the capacity because we lost a couple of strata jobs or let's go buy the truck for the project division.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, it's all like, you'll see the whole chapter in the book, growth should just simply be dictated by budget, hour capacity. Not when I hit that. Yeah, I'm either, I'm making a decision, either I'm in growth mode which I'm going to get more employees and get more trucks or I'm in profit mode, I'm going to raise prices. It's a binary decision.

Yeah, yeah, no, that, that's actually super helpful because I did not think that way. But it is just like it makes more sense. There's a lot of other model, like a lot of companies that have, I would say they're maintenance heavy. Like they scale high on into the commercial side and then they have like a smaller construction division. Like there's quite a few actually. They're like probably like two, three million dollar companies around here. And then there's some large construction companies that have like just a maintenance division that they do like a small one just to kind of maintain their own stuff. So I don't know, like different models but you could really just. I like it's not about the model, it's more about like the capacity and also I think who you have on your team, like your talent on your.

Team, that'll change the capacity. Right. It does get a really good all star all of a sudden that capacity, the entire team could come up.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's not, it's, it's helpful to know I don't need a ton of clarity on that per se because I started this business with laser sharp clarity on what I was trying to do. Why? So some of that was just determined by my personal preference of like I like people. I don't want to just do commercial work. I want to hang out with old ladies and make their yard look good.

So cool man. This is.

Yeah, I don't think it's a priority. I don't think it's a priority. You have the budget looks solid. You guys are using budgeted hours. You're organized is not an important thing. It's not gonna like it's not even come close to impacting the business as much as charging people more if you're booked out further. Yeah like that alone will probably add 40 to $50,000. Like those are like huge rocks. Changing Copa. Why add all that friction in the middle of this? Like we have more important things to focus on.

So what size do you need like a program like that?

Well what are you using now?

LMN just for estimates.

We don't use it for any sort of dispatching or anything.

No, we there we found, we created our own thing. Like we like this guy and this is kind of interesting because there's a guy I have on our team is awesome and we were, I told him I was going to lay him off in the new year. He's a more admin. I was told him I was going to lay him off because I was looking at the profitability of the business and I'm like you're a non revenue producing employee. You're sucking up $20,000 a year. Probably not a good long. Even though he's super awesome. But if, if I do inject some capital and we do keep pushing to grow he maybe because he built our whole time tracking thing like he, he, he, he pull it pulls out a Google calendar and it like populates itself all the like he's, he used chat GPT for all the code but yeah he's kind of wired that way. Like he's, he's super sharp guy. So keep. That's what we're using for that. I usually mostly use LMN just for estimates and the budget.

I love the budget like but not like fuel routes.

No.

Okay. Automations.

No.

Okay, well then in that case I thought differently. In that case you might want to consider something like copilot.

What is the purpose of automation? Just like when communication, the admin person.

They'Re going to get an email every time this happens. When they finish this task, it's going to notify you. So for example, accepted estimate you could be okay, I want it to go to this user. I want to go to this user. Yeah, like it saves you so much time in like texting them and then texting you and like all this sort of thing. Or like if an invoice is overdue, it's like, well, how do you know that Right now you go and you see it's overdue. We'll just create an automation. It's going to email them after day three, day five, day seven. Then it's going to text you and tell them to call, tell you to call them. And so like those are things that would otherwise fall through the cracks and you would jump back into the email because you're worried about things slipping through the cracks.

Yeah. And this is where Cam shines because he's all into the automations and stuff. And I'm like, dude, I don't care.

Yeah, they don't. We don't use the automations in a element.

No, we don't use. We use element to like 10% of its capacity.

No. Yeah, it's huge.

I haven't like loved using. So that's why.

Well, like, like look. I would say look if you're, if you're in element and like don't switch it to copilot. If it's like something that you're like, I like the software and like don't. I don't care less about copilot. Like it's a matter of. I need. I do think you should have field management software. Like when the guys show up to jobs, they should have job notes. They should have. When, like when they see their list for the day, they click there and it's like directions. Right. That'll save you so much time in the morning of operations. Things happening throughout the day. Like, oh, I didn't know what, what's. What's the next one? I can't find it. It's not my. Do you just spread sheets right now you print off for, for your crew out in the field?

No, like we have more of a. There's a strategy. Like we have an annual plan, like a maintenance plan that we operate out of and then it's like, hey, we're in this season now. So this is. This is the work. And then the.

The.

Our crew lead, he. We use Trello kind of for some of the notes and stuff like that and like tracking details.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You guys gotta switch. You gotta do like flip a coin, use any software. You gotta switch. Yeah, yeah, 100%.

There is like a lot of other things.

There's a. It's all just in one. That's what the CRM is for. If you're using Trello. I've seen like all these different little things, like a time tracking inside of a time sheet thing. It just put it all in one spot. Like flip a coin on the CRM, doesn't matter. It'll be super beneficial. Like, you need to have it where the guys can log in from their app. They clock in and out here. They hop in a truck. They have their schedule for. They know how many budget hours are assigned. They get to the job site, they click on. They can see all the job notes of what's assigned to them for that day.

Yeah.

And then your crew. I would. I thought you were using Element at the full extent, which I know they knew.

Okay.

No, like, if you're comfortable in it, like, just. Yeah, okay. They're usually.

They're like, we won't put this in this offer because they'll. But like, it's more a matter of like, it's a little more complicated.

Yes.

But it's like, it's built for massive companies and they do a great job at it. Really. They do. I know Mark, the founder, and so they do a great job, but if you're not comfortable with it, I need you to use something that you're comfortable with. Like, we're probably even more complicated than something like say jobber or lawn pro. Right. Those are even. Even simpler. Right.

So we. We hired like this guy I brought on. I told him his first thing is, your job is to implement Element. Okay. So he. And he. This is what we found, though. It's like, as we started to push it on to the guys and even me, I'm like, this is annoying. I'm like, all this detail, like, screw this stuff. Like, I'm just getting work done. Like, so we found it was not user friendly when it came to, like, the guys.

It's awesome for doing all of that leg work. Then that made it.

Well, that becomes. That becomes our task. Right. So say, for example, out of five hours that you hire them for the spring rush, if, you know, maybe an hour's on the phone max, because you're getting like maybe five or six calls, several emails, like another 30 minutes. Like, then the next task is like, for the next hour, you're going to look at the software, you're looking at the day before and close it out. So any jobs that weren't completed, you move them over. Any notes from the crew? We call it notes for dispatcher. They can see right off the bat, like, oh, they didn't finish the backyard at someone's house because there was too much water. They didn't trim the bushes to finish the bushes at this strata. Oh, we need to put on for next week. Like, things like that right now is going to keep you from scaling because you're juggling all in your head.

Yeah, yeah, I know. And. But it's different a little bit on these, on the strata side, because I get it. It's so large, the properties. It's not like a residential property where you're here for two hours doing this specific scope. It's like, it's larger scale, bigger. Like, we, we have pretty high efficiency because a lot of our sites, the guys, they show up there at like 8 o' clock and they're there all day long and then they go home. So it's like you just get as far as you get. Right. That's kind of how it goes.

But then having benchmarks like this is back to the budget hour capacity part. Like, that can only be accurate if I know how many budget hours that strata should be and when they're spending the four budget hours today, these are the things that they're doing. Instead of just being like, here's all the job notes for this entire contract, this whole strata. Like, I'd rather be like, today you're mowing and you're pulling the weeds. Don't worry about the bushes, don't worry about all this is the only part you're doing.

Yes.

So, like, I really think the software would be important.

Yeah, I get it. Yep. I agree.

Even with like scheduling construction and that it's like, how do you wrap your brain around all of that without knowing how much?

Or like, so that's. So that's more of a project for maybe you and Cam.

I think it's probably low, lower priority than a lot of what we talked about. But, like, I think that if you were like, hey, we want. This is the vision from here to there, software's gonna get involved. It's just going to. Cause right now a lot of it's being stored in both of your brains and you don't get to 10 million without losing your brain if it's not in software. Like, you need other people. Like this admin person, be able to step in and from their house, be able to do route management. Not coming here and looking at spreadsheets, not looking at, you know, sending files to each other, texting each other. It needs to be in one spot. Yeah.

Yeah. So maybe we'll. We'll think about that in the future.

Like. Yeah, like, these other aspects are like big levers. That's just like, I would say, really consider it to mostly just de. Stress your life, especially if you get an admin person involved. Because right now you guys can kind of juggle between the two of you, but, like, eventually it needs to be operationalized.

Yeah. Yeah. Cool, man. Well, thanks again. This has been fun.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for letting me come up here. And it was like, perfect weather too.

Yeah, I'm surprised it wasn't raining.