The Struggle of Hiring Lawn Care Employees

So if he tries to pull that stunt again, I'm a Will Smith.

Today we're catching up with Bryce claussing from Vanworth, Ohio. And on the last episode, he was trying to double the size of his business in just a matter of a few months.

The road to 40k, that's what we're on. If you're on a business, you got to step out of your comfort zone.

By the end of this year. His goal is to hand this location off to a general manager and start another location. But in order to do that, he's got to build a team and get more employees.

0 for 1 today. I'm really being picky on who we bring on. Maybe it doesn't look like an attractive job because I have those rules.

Today we see just how difficult that is with people not showing up to interviews, employees dropping off, and having a massive shortage of laborers out in the field.

You just lost $500, which is not showing up on time. You know, you didn't have to go through that pain.

And as if the labor crisis wasn't bad enough, we also get a tornado that comes through town in today's episode.

70 mph winds, tornadoes, hail. This has never happened in my lifetime.

I can guarantee you, if you double the size of your business, it's going to take a lot of energy. And you're going to ask yourself, is it really worth it?

And I can't get it right because I can't do simple math.

Oh, my goodness. Yo. Yesterday, this truck right here was covered. Oh, there's a shadow. But covered in bird poop. And we went and washed it off, and it's already caked. That's from just yesterday to this morning. That is ridiculous. I'm about to declare war on some birds. All right, whatever.

So we're here this morning. Look at that. I am 40 minutes early. I try to be 45 minutes early, but I was running a little bit behind this morning. Don't tell the boss. Two employees beat me here, and they have beat me here. Or they've been here at least, like, 40 to 45 minutes early for, like, a month straight now. So great guys. Very motivated guys, and I'm very happy to see that. Yeah. So we're gonna go inside. Kobe loves to give morning motivation, so maybe I'll grab a little clip for you guys for that in case you need some motivation. And then if you that doesn't work out, just listen to still balling by Tupac. That always gets me pumped in the morning. So go ahead and do that.

Foreign.

Honest. We are not on pace to hit 40k a month this month. It's still early in the month. We still have opportunity, but we need more guys. All right, so there's only three of us right now. It's really going to be hard to hit 40k a month with 3 of us. Got some more interviews today. I'm really being picky on who we bring on which, you know, a lot of you are probably saying I'm shooting myself in the foot here and I understand. You know, a lot of people say it's just a lawn care lane. Keeping company buddy like you, you gotta just gotta bite the bullet on some of these guys and just not willing to do that yet. I'm not in enough pain. Alex from Moseley says you don't change until you're in enough pain. Right. So I'm just not in enough pain right now. Even though that may mean missing our mark, I'm not giving up on the month. I'm just saying I really want. Guys are great, Culture fits, high energy, nice, respectable, hard working guys. The applicants that we've been interviewing lately, they've all had issues at their past jobs that obviously weren't their fault. And what I need to do a better job of is getting out. That this is an opportunity to have a career with Augusta. You can grow within Augusta to be a general manager and have a salary with, you know, good profit sharing. You can become an owner. Right. I'm gonna start some new ads on Facebook to try to try to showcase that this can be a career and stuff like that.

All right. We just got done with our interviews. Kobe, how'd you think it went?

First one canceled on us. The second one did show up and the third one did a no show interview that did come in.

It was great.

We loved them. Hopefully we can see what things can work out. As far as other interviews that we look to have tomorrow, we're staying alive or preparing. Spring season's coming up and we're very excited.

Heck yeah. So we went 1:1 for three today. But that's all right. You know, that's kind of been the story this year. You know, you schedule a lot of interviews but not many show up. But right now we're about to go head out and do some estimates and then hopefully we. We knock down some jobs to get everyone rocking and rolling this year.

Little update on training. I think he's ready to go. I think it's pretty, pretty good. You know, Shout out to Kobe. Kobe's really taken over the Training portion. I have a patience issue, sadly. I need to. Need to work on it. It's not a good excuse. He's really taking over training. He's killing it on a mission to find some more guys. I had a meeting last night with a former employee of mine from last year. He had to leave.

State. Want to give him insurance cuz he made too much money. So he left for a job with insurance, but now he's wanting to come back. He asked to come over last night, late last night and talk to me and so hopefully we get him back. That'll be a guy that already worked for an Augusta over a summer. He killed it. He was our top performer on P4P last year. You know, getting him back will be huge. So obviously that will help out with all of the hiring troubles that we've been having and. And stuff like that. So.

All right, so we're here with our first estimate for the day. Kobe, what do you think we should do here?

We know that we're simply going to be swiping up the lease leaves and whatnot in the side yard, the front yard. That was told already originally. But looking at the backyard, we can definitely see the landscape. Beds have some weeds and some leaves and other things are in there. So we'll make sure to ask her for a quote, get that cleaned out.

For her as well as we see.

Some bushes that are overgrown. So I think we should definitely trim those bushes because everybody likes some good bushes, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Real quick, Kobe, show them your cup.

Hey, come on now, Augusta, if you.

Don'T have one of these bad boy cups, that's nice. I wonder who got him that. I wonder who got him that. I don't know. The boss just must be a great human. That's all I'm gonna say. Very attractive. Great young man gave him that cup. We're gonna type it up, send it to command center. They'll do the estimate, send it to the customer, and I'm pretty sure we're gonna get this job. So check in with you guys on the next one.

Just got back from a morning workout. I always work out before work. It gets rid of that morning and really get you locked in for the day. And you know, I'm trying to push my employees and everyone that works for me to work out. And they asked me, when I work out, like Bryce, when you at the gym, like we could do workouts together. And I was like, yeah, I usually get there around, you know, like 5am and what. How do you have the motivation to do that every single morning. And I was like, well, you don't understand. You didn't have to sit through Conference Landscape Summit 2023 with Mike Andes on stage making fun of my Buckeyes for losing to Georgia. You know, you didn't have to go through that pain. Right. So I'm training really hard this year. So if he tries to pull that stunt again here at the landscape summit in October, October in Louisville. I'm a Will Smith. Them.

Wow.

Will Smith just smacked the out of me. Like, that's just. That's just my motivation. So I'm really training for it. I know I'm gonna have to go through, like, Chuck and Lee, who are, you know, pretty big dudes. So, you know, the odds are not in my favor. So I better, you know, probably start doing steroids or something. But yeah, I just can't stand for that, Mike. So, Mike, this year, if you do that crap again, Will Smith's coming at me. All right, but no, I'll. Joking aside, I think everyone should work out. I think it's freaking huge. And I get pumped and, you know, you just get ready to go for the day. So I'll check back with you when I'm at work. I'm not bring you in the shower with me. So. Sorry. But yeah, see you guys soon. Let's go.

All right. So I reached out to two people I went to high school with. Kobe is actually someone. I went to high school with, a really good friend. And recruiting him went well. But, you know, when you do it, you gotta make sure that one, you're willing to fire them. Set expectations up front. So I told Kobe, I was like, listen, you gotta be, you know, you have to hit these marks P4P. If you have the software, you know, you get to see their hourlies and their efficiency and all that stuff. And I gave them the numbers. You have to hit these numbers or I just. Just can't have you. All right. Is that something you feel like you can do? Here's what other people are doing within the company. And he felt like he'd do it. He had the confidence, so he did it. You know, everything's number based here. So I weigh emotions out of it. If it doesn't work out here, that's fine. We can still be friends. I know that's tough. And a lot of you saying, don't do it, don't do it, doesn't work out. Well, I think it'd be good. So, you know, I'm going to take the risk and if they don't want to be friends because our business wise didn't work out, then it is what it is. But I really truly believe that there'd be great fits here. I met with one last night, I'll meet with one tomorrow, try to pitch them on Augusta and the vision and everything that we provide here. And hopefully they take it and they see the value that I see. Augusta has some severe weather tomorrow. 70mph winds, tornadoes, hail, all that stuff. I think it's not supposed to start till the afternoon, so at least in the morning get some work done and then we'll probably be shut down with this severe weather. You know, make sure the guys get home safe. That way if we do have a tornado or something like that, they can be with their family and get in the basement and take shelter and stuff like that. I know they would be more at ease with their family when severe weather's going on. So I'll make sure they get home in time before that severe weather hits us. Then we'll pack back up again Thursday. You know, assuming that nothing drastic happens with this storm.

And at least 31 people have died after a series of storms across the Midwest, on western and Northern Ohio, at least three tornadoes all along and west of Interstate 75.

And you don't usually see it, not just in this case, but anyhow, we had a tornado warning. I see on this video it looks like one, right? And then there's separation strong winds and severe storms rolling the dry state. That was a victory today.

Today's Thursday. Yesterday we had severe weather. So I actually sent everyone home early. Schools let out early, all the factories let out early. Everyone let out early. They were really calling for some. And that's. This has never happened in my lifetime where schools have canceled due to the threats of tornadoes. You know, when I school we actually had a tornado come through my town where we had, you know, shelter and all that stuff. So they were really calling for something huge, something big. So everyone closed down. Everyone did and sent everyone home just through the storm and stuff like that. So I did the same. I felt like, you know, they would be peace at mind if something crazy was going on to be with their family, know that they're safe and be able to handle things at home. So there was a tornado heading right towards us. Luckily it lifted right before it got to my town. So very thankful for that. Very happy. We, we got an alert, sent out tornado touchdown headed right to us. And they put a map and all that stuff from our EMA director So very happy, very thankful that that lifted and did not hit us. But, you know, we're back at it today.

I don't know about you guys, but on our first day of mowing, every single year we make a bunch of bonehead mistakes that like, you know, we forget to do things that like you do every single time you mow, but you don't think about it because it's such routine. Like today we got so excited, so ready to mow, to mow that we went to our first job site without feeling up. So, you know, stuff like that, we're like, you know, when you're in the thick things and you're going through the season, you never think about. You just do it because you know that's what you got to do. Had to take time every day, not very efficient to go back to the gas station to go fuel up. So we did that. And then we also forgot to, we forgot to grab a big trash can. So I'm just gonna grab one of these and then I'm gonna be on my way.

The lights work.

So we had two interviews yesterday. None of them showed up. Sadly, out of our last 10 interviews, only two people have shown up. The two that did show up, there were some red flags that we saw with their past history, either jumping, you know, half had 10 jobs in the last two years or stuff with the law and stuff like that. So we decided to pass on them just for those reasons. Obviously here with Augusta you can become a general manager or a potential owner. Obviously with Augusta you can become a franchisee. You know, after two years, you don't have to pay the initial fee. So, you know, that's obviously another big pitch that we will get them. Yellow slip. So employees, they really care about how much much they make. They want to make as much as humanly possible. I've interviewed so many people and they always say their, their motivation is to make money. Hey, what attracted you to this job? Oh, I saw you're paying people 22, $24 an hour. Cut grass. I can do that. We put money incentives around stuff we want them to do, right? So like being on time. So we give a hundred dollar Amazon gift card if you show up on time throughout the whole month. So at the end of the month, if your attendance was flawless for that month, get a hundred dollar Amazon gift card, right? We also give a $500 sign on bonus. And this just motivates people. Hey, you come in, you work by 60 days, we should know if you're a good fit or not. Right. You'll get the $500 sign on bonus and then we also get profit sharing. So you come in. We're open book management. Mike preaches all the time. We're a big believer in that. You make us profitable, you should get a piece of that profit. So we give profit sharing to our guys. But what we do is we tell them, hey, if you're late one time or have one excused absence, we have your bonuses. One, you lose all 100 of the Amazon gift card. So you're down $100 now. Now we have your sign on both on this. So now you just lost another $250. So now we're up to $350 that you lost just by being a minute late, oversleeping, whatever. Then you have your profit sharing. So the profit sharing, let's just say 300, right? You just lost another $150. You just lost $500 for just not showing up on time. You need to make sure that you wake up just in case that you oversleep, you'll still make it to work on time because it's not worth losing $500. It's just not. Don't lose $500. Just don't do it. That's your money. Don't let me take it and it twice. You lose all of the profit sharing, all of the sign on bonus, and you don't get the Amazon gift card. And we tell them this in the interview to let them know we take attendance. Very, very, very serious. And if you're not going to show up, if you have a history of being late, history of oversleeping, and you expect me to understand, don't come work here. That's why I tell everyone. Maybe that's causing me to have some hiring issues. Maybe it doesn't look like an attractive job because I have those rules. But I much rather work for people I can count on or work with people that I can count on than ones I don't know if they're going to show up on time or not. That's the way it is. If I gotta choose from a smaller pool or interview 10 times more people than you do because you just choose whoever and deal with the headaches they bring, then that's you. I much rather interview 10 times more people to find those one or two guys that are reliable, that I know I can count on. All you got to do is show up. That's all you got to do. It's that simple.

Over one today, One in five the past two days. Hopefully the next guy shows up. We went over 200 interviews today. Employee struggles are still going on. All right, so just three of us. We're gonna probably have to find, you know, two more guys to hit that 40k a month, but, yeah, so right now we're just trying to stay true to the people that we think will come in, be a good culture fit first. You know, maybe we'll bend that a little bit if, you know, a week or two goes by and we're getting a crap ton of calls and. And we need bodies. Sure. But right now, I think we're going to stay true to our core values and. And make sure they're a good culture fit before bringing them on. All right, let's hope for some good potential people coming soon. So.

Yeah. So there's a quote I shared with my team. Being poor sucks more than working hard. That's me. I'm not a big quote guy. Inspiration guy. But when I saw that quote from Alex Hermosi, tweeted it out, I. I thought it was very real. Sometimes you're sitting at home exhausted, and you're like, man, is this worth it? Is this. I am exhausted. I'm tired. I'm not having fun. And customers are complaining, customers dropping service, having trouble hiring, and all that stuff is extremely frustrating. And I was actually going through kind of this one day where I was just so exhausted by the time it was nighttime, and I was very mentally weak. And I really got down on myself that night. And then the next day I saw that quote, and it really made me realize, you know, this is the grind years. These are the grind years. And you have to just keep reminding yourself, these are the grind years. These are the years where you gotta put your head down, work a lot of hours for such little pay. These are the times that you'll talk about in the future. Right now you're in the thick of things where 10, 20, 30 years from now, you're going to talk about these times and you're actually going to wish you could do it all over again. Even though it's tough, even though it sucks, even though spring rush is not fun, but exciting because you're working a lot of hours, but it's exciting what the future holds. And so, yeah, so that's. That's why I'm going to keep reminding myself even when things aren't going my way or perfectly planned, you know, because nothing business goes perfectly planned, but yet I always assume my plan will go according to plan, which is something I need to work on. So yeah. So this is something I've been. I've been thinking about, and, you know, we're back at it today with a lot of mowing and back in the grind.

If you enjoyed today's episode, check this video out here Where I started 4 Augusta Lawn Care locations in a matter of just a few weeks. And trust me, if you thought today's drama was high, just check this out. When trying to start four locations in one month.