The uncomfortable truth required to build a $3M+ business

Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes.

If you don't know who I am, I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn care. We have 200 locations around the world. I'm also founder of Homeworks. We process over a million dollars in daily payments for home service businesses. And today is actually, it's like a little before 4am and I came into the office a little early and I just wanted to share some thoughts that I've been having. And I think the objective and really who I am really always trying to Help is the 18 year old version of myself. And I was, when I was 18 years old, I had started Augusta Lawn Care, but I had dropped out of what everyone thought was going to become a medical career. And I started college when I was 13 years old. And so dropping out at 18, I had already got my bachelor's degree. I was on my way to get my md. Dropping out and starting Augusta Lawn Care was not necessarily in the cards. Now I had mowed grass since I was 11 years old to pay my way through college. But to say that I was going to drop out of medical school and do this the rest of my career mo grass certainly let down a lot of peers, a lot of professors and they let me know about it. My family, fortunately my parents, they supported me. But during those moments, the uncertainty that I had and questioning yourself as to whether or not you're doing the right thing, that is the individual that I make my videos for and more importantly the person that I really speak to is the person I was 21, 22 years old and really didn't have a great business. We were doing somewhere between almost a million dollars in revenue. But that's when I got in the accident, caught underneath the dump truck, almost died because I didn't have systems in the business, I didn't have procedures and my hoodie got caught in the PTO underneath a dump truck. And for a couple weeks I was on the mend. But it really revealed to me that my business was not built on systems, it was just built on me working 80, 90 hours a week. And so that is the version of me that I make all my videos for. So when I look at this camera, I am looking at that person, the person that just dropped out of medical school, the 18 year old version of me that had a lot of questions and didn't have a lot of answers. And I try to speak to that person because I still remember going up into my bedroom at the time and searching on Google and putting in landscape business course and nothing was there. And back then, this is 2016, there wasn't a lot of online courses or education for, you know, very specific to lawn care, landscaping. There was a lot of stuff around like how to do lawns or make grass short, what kind of mowers to buy. But there wasn't a lot of business advice and advertising and what systems to use and how to pay people. And that's what I create@landscapebusinesscourse.com it's free for everybody. And that's the version of me I make this video for and all my videos. So whenever, you know, it's always if you've never made videos before, looking at camera's a little strange, but behind that camera I have to picture who am I talking to. And it's actually that person every time I look at a camera. Sometimes when I do live streams I think more of an audience. But most of my videos are just made for the 18 year old old version of myself. And you're like, well I'm not 18, but you might be also a bit crossroads struggling with a business that's not growing. Maybe you're more like the 21, 20.

Or 2 year old version of myself.

That you've built a business and it doesn't have any systems, you're working crazy amounts of hours and it's not profitable. And so that's the, the versions of me that I think about when I make these videos. And so I've been thinking like what are the common traits of people that are successful in home services and you know, and businesses in general. And I try to break it up because I truly believe that what's required to get started is not what's required to build a 3 million plus dollar business. And I mostly talk about building a.

$3 million business because once you build.

A 4 or 5 million dollars business.

You know what you're doing.

You can't build to that size unless you absolutely were given so much latitude in terms of financially that you have figured something out if you've grown past $3 million. And so most of my time and energy is spent on getting people from 100,000, 10,000, two to a million, from a million to 3 million. I'm trying to think of that person that I was because once I hit 3 million, there was things I started to realize there were commonalities and I had done that long enough to where I started to be able to figure things out. And also the person that has a five, $10 million business has the resources many times to go find out and seek the adv required to get to the next level.

And that's usually, that's about when I.

Started figuring out, okay, I need to pay to be in rooms and groups and masterminds, et cetera. But I didn't have that money when I was doing $200,000 in annual revenue and renting a space out for 200 bucks to park my trailer and my truck. And so that, that's really why I make these videos. And so there's five different sort of traits, common traits I see business owners falling into and was required to grow each size of business. So to get started, in my opinion, you, you start with inspiration because it's all you got. You got inspired, you quit your 9 to 5, you started this business thing, became an entrepreneur. And inspiration is required because, like, when I think of inspiration, I actually think about when God created the earth and he was inspired and he actually, like, breathed and the creator actually making something from nothing. And that's what I think of an entrepreneur, someone who gets started. You need inspiration. You need, you need to be able to take nothing and make something of it and start an llc, start a business, start a website, start getting customers, start generating revenue. And that is like a very interesting thing. And I think I've never had kids, but I would assume it's something like that is like, you step back, like, man, I, we created this, and without us, this would not be possible. And I think it's smaller scale, but similar in that in a business, it's the same way. It's like without the entrepreneur being inspired, the business doesn't exist. The same way that without the creator, the earth does not exist. And so I think to get started in inspiration, that is the trait of almost every home service business owner, every entrepreneur that gets started, you need to be inspired. Inspired to get out of a situation you're in, inspired to change the situation and your finances change a circumstance. Maybe you had a bad job, maybe you had a bad boss, maybe you weren't making enough money, maybe you're struggling paycheck to paycheck, whatever it is, you are inspired to change. And in order to be able to go from where you're at today to where you want to go, there's a large gap in between. And sometimes it can seem like a chasm you can't cross. And the only reason why you would ever even begin that journey and even think that you would be able to, to get across that chasm is because you're inspired. And so this is why a lot of times entrepreneurs are inspirational people.

And this is also why, because we.

Are inspirational, we many times keep starting new businesses, starting new services, starting new departments, starting new initiatives, and we get inspired very easily. This is also what many gurus or fake gurus prey on is that entrepreneurial people are usually very inspirational. And so this is why they're able to be sold bill of goods, whether it be the next drop, shipping course or day trading, or flipping houses. They are usually very inspirational people.

And so if they see someone else.

That is inspirational, they're able to feed.

Off of the energy. And many times this is why an.

Entrepreneur wants to keep starting new things. But inspiration will only get you far so far.

It'll actually only help you one time.

When you're starting a business, and that is to get started, to get off of zero to start the business. But after that, it actually doesn't serve a huge purpose.

Because I've seen inspiration as a meaningful.

Ingredient, necessary ingredient to enact change or.

Initiate change, but it doesn't do a whole lot to stay motivated.

In order to grow an organization, grow a team, grow a business. What is required many times as you begin to start after zero and after being inspired is motivation.

Because now I don't need to just.

Get started, I actually need to apply myself to one thing. And motivation is the part that is required.

Because now you have to be motivated.

To wake up early.

You have to be motivated to do.

Things you don't want to do. You have to be motivated to be able to sell when you feel like you're not salesy, to learn software when you're not a tech person. These are things that require motivation.

And the lack of motivation with inspiration.

Is many times what we all label as a onetrepreneur.

Someone gets very much inspired but fails the discipline, fails to have the discipline to stay motivated doing one thing for.

Any given period of time.

And so motivation, in my opinion, will.

Get you to around $100,000 in annual revenue, maybe $200,000 depending on your industry.

But $100,000 will get you, you'll be.

Able to achieve that if you're just motivated. If you just wake up, like right now it is 4:20.

Like if you can just wake up and do what no one else wants to do, when no one else wants to do it, and keep doing it.

For a period of time that others are not willing to continue doing it, you will probably get too past $100,000 in revenue.

There's like, how do I make six figures? It's likely just get past inspiration and.

Be able to long enough.

This is what pushes people to work.

The 60, 80 hours per week. This is many times what is required to have a solo operator business, A maybe you and a virtual person, depending what industry you're in, maybe a part time helper.

But a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars.

Is very possible as long as you stay motivated.

Because as soon as an entrepreneur loses.

Motivation, this is when they go back to inspiration.

You lose motivation to wake up early, stay applied to your craft, stay inside of your industry, so then you get.

Inspired to go do something else.

And so this vicious circle of I'm inspired, okay, I'm motivated to do this thing, and then you lose motivation, you.

Go right back to inspiration.

This is the failure, this is the.

Downfall of most home service business owners, most entrepreneurs in general.

And this is why the vast majority.

Of businesses will not last five years. And it's simply because we get inspired to get started.

We stay motive for some period of.

Time, but we never get past motivation.

And so we never break the sound.

Barrier and start actually hiring employees, building a team and continue to grow.

And in my opinion the skill that.

Is required, and this is where I find a lot of times you move from more soft skills like inspiration, motivation.

To now you need hard skills to continue growing past this point.

100,000, 200,000, you need more hard skills. And many times the skill is required.

To get past $500,000 is just sales. Now I have seen some people, for.

Example at Augusta Lawn Care, the owners come for training for a week.

I have seen some people within one week have enough work for them. Two or three employees, like from zero, start from scratch, have multiple trucks and.

Employees running within a week or two.

They are basically getting 50 to 60 thousand dollars per month in revenue within.

A matter of a couple weeks.

And that's not the common, that is simply a person that knows how to sell. The person that can put on their.

Boots and sell ice to an Eskimo.

As they say, but they're willing to knock on doors, they're willing to talk to people in Facebook groups, they're willing to email, text, call people, follow up.

On estimates, follow up on invoice.

This is the person that can sell. And this is many times why someone.

Can very easily build a 500,000 to a million dollar business and then they.

Feel like they hit a wall. A lot of times this person's really good at selling. And there's more skills required to get past a million. But that 500,000 to a million dollar business owner many times is just so passionate about what they're doing, they're able to sell to every customer. If they talk to customers, they upsell them. If they' do the work, everyone is happy, they get a great review. The ability to sell more work is the easiest thing for this person. And again, this is going to take more discipline to get past inspiration, become motivated and then begin to sell and then learn this skill. Because no one likes to be quote salesy. But the person with the most conviction is the one that has the money.

At the end of the day. And so whether it be the customer or whether it be the salesperson, whoever.

Has the most conviction in the as a customer thinking, needing to think about it, talk to their spouse, delay, et cetera, versus the salesperson that has the conviction that they are the best product, they are the best service for this customer and they're going to do whatever it takes to make sure that this.

Person accepts and gets on the schedule. So whoever has the most conviction is.

Going to have the money at the end of the day. This comes down to sales. Now the thought that as you move.

Through these phases and skills required to.

Continue growing the business that you can somehow shed the previous skin is illogical. I believe that you need motivation or.

Sorry, you need inspiration, you need motivation.

And you need sales. But once you get sales, the ability to sell, you still need motivation, you still need to be inspired. And the reason is I need motivation is to stay doing the exact same thing without a feedback loop of reward that is very, very short. Because sometimes the feedback loop and the reward cycle is two, three or four, five years long before you actually start to see the results of the skill that you're applying, like sales. Because you might be a really good salesperson, still takes five, six, seven years to get to a million dollar business. And you'll have to be inspired to learn new skills and then motivated to keep applying those skills. And that might be the skill of sales, that might be the skill of marketing, that might be the skill of ads and hiring as we begin to grow the business. But you still are required to keep inspiration, motivation and then the ability to sell even as you continue to grow the business. The best CEOs and founders in even the Fortune 500 and large companies retain the ability to inspire people. They're very motivated, they work very hard, they are able to sell, they can get on stage and sell like crazy. And so the thought that, oh, like I am, I no longer need to be motivated and work hard because I'm.

A good salesperson and I build A bigger business. And so I don't need to be disciplined and show up on time.

Like you cannot shed the skin that made you successful. You will have to grow, you will have to gain more skills. You have to be additive in the skills that you are acquiring. But it does not mean that you can put away the skills that you have had in the past. And so once we have been inspired, we are now motivated, we now gain skills. We've grown past $500,000. The skill that is required to get past a million dollars is leadership. The ability to attract great talent. The ability to be able to take other people's skills, other people's talent, other people's labor and organize it and create systems. And without a lack of systems, there is chaos. And the ability to be able to be a Great Leader. Take 4, 5, 10, 15, 20 employees and put them together and then create hierarchies of mid level managers and then be able to inspire and motivate your team. Because the fact of the matter is your team out in the field, whether it be technicians or managers, they're probably producing net revenue to the business of 100,000, $200,000. Guess what they need? They need inspiration and they need motivation from you as the leader. And so I see that many times people will be really good salespeople, they'll build past 5000-006007-00000, and they start to stall out around six or seven hundred thousand dollars. And many times this is a function of they do not yet have the skill of leadership. Now I do not look down on this person. I don't necessarily say that you are somehow less than. This is the hardest skill to acquire because something is not innate in many of us. I have seen many people have the innate ability, the God given talent.

If you were to be able to.

Be inspired, to get motivated, to be even able to sell a lot of times because they've seen their face, family.

Their parents, to be able to sell.

But leadership is one of those things that everyone has to learn somewhat on their own. And you can see good examples of leadership. But then to be able to actually have the notches on your belt, to be able to have the stories to tell, the ability to be able to.

Have the hires and the fires and.

The things to look back on and have evidence as to what your decision you're making, whether or not it's correct.

Or not, that is leadership and can take time.

And so this is the most humbling.

Thing about entrepreneurship in my opinion, is.

That this skill is one of those Beasts that keep coming back to bite you every single time you add another layer of management. So you, if you have six or seven employees, you have to be a great leader. You have to have team meetings, you have to be able to attract talent, train talent, make sure they have high level efficiency, accuracy, high level of service. Difficult, difficult to lead six to eight people. Then it becomes difficult because as you get 10, 12 employees, you need mid level managers, an operations manager, maybe a.

Sales manager, an admin manager and someone in the office. And you start to scale up.

Now the skill of leadership morphs because no longer are you doing necessarily a I'm hiring my technicians, I'm actually hiring managers that will manage my technicians. I am hiring people that are going to actually build departments for me. This is now another skill that is required because you are hiring people to do things that you do not know how to do, or hire people to do things that you are not good at. And that is a whole nother level of leadership. Because I've got to track someone to do something for me that I don't actually know how to do it. Different level of skill. And so this leadership skill is the thing that many times gets someone past a million and then gets them to pass 3 million or so in revenue. Now, once you pass $3 million in.

Revenue, again, I have to grow more.

I have to continue to expand. And this is the evolution and this is the constant pain that an entrepreneur faces. Because next I have to have systems. And you can have great inspiration, great motivation, great ability to sell, great leadership. But then if you fail to create systems, the people that you begin to lead can actually get disillusioned and frustrated by the fact that you don't have any systems, you're chaotic, you don't have any pattern, you don't have any way of doing things the same way every single time. You don't have any sort of standardization, you don't have any simplification. There's no way of doing things again and again and again in the same fashion. And so they get frustrated because you, again, I include myself in this, have the tendency, even at this stage, being a great leader, we make a million 1.5, maybe even 2 million. You're like, man, like, what's the meaning of making more money? What's the meaning of being in this business more? I want to go do something else. You spend more time away from the business and that's fine. But you go back to getting disillusioned with inspiration and motivation and even selling, because those things were Fun. Those things were exciting. Those are the things that as entrepreneurs, we love the chase, we love the hunt. No one loves building systems. It is not fun. It is not glamorous to be sitting at your keyboard looking over data, looking over the past six or 12 months, testing new things, being able to come back and be like, nope, that didn't work. Okay, let's adjust it slightly. Going back. Okay, let's modify this. How did it change the numbers over the course of the month? That is not the fun part of business. You didn't get into business. I didn't drop out of medical school to be crunching numbers and looking over spreadsheets all day. And so this is where you start to get disillusioned. And many people will go switch industries at this size of business before getting past 3 million. And so this is why I actually built the copy and paste millionaire method. And that is, let's just take what you're good at, which is getting to 789000 in revenue, and just copy and paste it. Because it's an easier model for many people than trying to build to a 3, 4, 5 million dollars business and start having 3, 4, 5 different layers of management, between technicians and then crew leaders, and then having operations managers and then estimators. And all these levels of management can sometimes be more difficult. And a lot of times because required is a lot of systems work. And if you go to a business.

That has been around for 20 or.

30 years, a lot of times they have a lot more systems, and it's in part because they just done it longer. And the uncomfortable truth is that many times the systems you want to build simply require more reps, and they require more time to be able to see what works. Because in the industry, like for example.

Lawn care, landscaping, I have one spring rash a year, and I can test a few things. For example, door hangers.

We started doing door hangers five or.

Six years ago, the first door hanger.

That we ever produced.

Now I look at it and I think it's slop.

And the reason for that is because over the past five or six years.

We'Ve made a bunch of iterations.

The challenging part is because of seasonality, I really only have five spring rushes to work on and compare to data. And so as much as I want to be like, okay, for the next month or two, I'll be doing door hangers and I make adjustments and I'll adjust the system as much as I want to do that. I can't really compare these, you know, March and April to May and June because very different demand curves. And so to think that I'm going to be able to compare the data and be adjust the system based upon a variable. For example, if I show the price.

Or not, if I show one or.

Two services, if I have a QR code versus them writing on there like these are all the little variables. But I can't, it's hard to compare because I have a seasonal business. And so many times the advantage that the biggest businesses have in home services that are seasonal is they simply have so many more years of repetition and for data to be able to compare to, to create and refine the system. And so for the person that's just getting started, they got inspired. They look at my door hanger and like it's not converting. The person that got motivated, they would be able to put out thousands of.

Them and say I actually put out.

5 or 10,000, it still didn't work great. The salesperson would be able to take the exact same door hanger and they would be able to sell and upsell existing customers even though the conversion isn't great. They'd be able to sell them other services, upsell them other more high profit margin products. They'd be able to make it work. The person that's a leader, they would be able to get that skill of leadership and continue to grow the business. They would be able to create door hanger crews. Like they'd hire people to just do door hangers and they track them and make sure they're super efficient. Like the door hanger crew strategy, they would refine because they're a great leader and they'd create incentive plans and they'd motivate their team to be able to.

Go out and put door hangers out.

The next layer, the person that gets past past 3 million is many times the person that systematizes it year after year after year after year after year after year after year after year. When everyone else stopped at just sales, they stopped at just being inspired or motivated or even grading a team. But the person that constantly year after year just looks at the things that worked and the things that didn't work and then makes a system for making a repeatable process that consistently has the outcome of success.

That person wins.

And so those are the five different.

Phases that I see someone moving through.

Being inspired, being motivated, having the ability to sell, having the ability and the skill of leadership, and then eventually moving into more systems and processes and getting those out of order can many times stall the business and so someone that is just getting started, they need to just stay motivated and keep doing the work and staying in the field and getting more hours in and being more efficient and refining their sleep schedule and their service area to get more jobs done and just stay motivated for the extended period of time that most people in which they give up, they should not be thinking about these intricate systems and all the AB split testing and.

My reports and how they're gonna, I'm.

Gonna do this automation, I'm pull this. All of a sudden you start spending stuff, 20, 30 hours of your week doing systems thinking when you should just be staying motivated to keep doing the.

Work that's in front of you.

And many times that is the actual doing of the work, labor hours, revenue, out in the field as a technician. And so getting these things crossed up, I have seen many people fail because of it and not fail in regard.

Of being a failure, but they quit.

And that's the ultimate, an only way.

To fail in business.

And I have seen the people that apply these in sequence and be able to then not only change their skin or change the skill that is required, but build on top of the skills they haven't have in the past. Those are the most successful entrepreneurs.

Those are the ones that build great businesses.

So as we head into 2026, this new year that is ahead, these are.

Some of the things I've been thinking.

About and I wanted to, to start.

Off the new year 2026 with a word of prayer. And I've done this pretty much every year of making content to what I can remember. And if you're not religious, you can close out here, that's fine. But I wanted to say a word of prayer for my audience, for the people that I am in charge of and I am trying to lead and doing the best that I can that this coming year would be regardless of whether you are just getting started and you're just inspired and you watch this.

Video like, I'm gearing up for 2020, I'm just getting started. Whether you just have to stay more motivated because last year was tough and.

The economy was a little softer and it was harder to get customers and you hit a roadblock and you kind.

Of feel stalled out at 4 or 5, $600,000.

Like that's whether you're there, whether you're.

Trying to sell and continue to grow the business, whether you are trying to find employees and attract a good team, these are all skills. Whether you're trying to figure out systems.

And you're starting to hit A roadblock.

I think we all need wisdom.

And if the wisest man in the world, Solomon, in the Bible was able to humble himself and say that he needed wisdom and he needed understanding, I think that we all, as mere mortals.

That do not have the level of.

Wisdom that he has can also ask for the same thing. So if you don't mind.

Heavenly Father.

We are so thankful to be able to be together virtually and in this community of other like minded small business owners, they're struggling. We are always trying to move forward. And regardless of whether or not we are profitable or quote unquote successful, if we are trying to grow, there is always some level of pain and discomfort. There's a level of push and motivation that is required to continue doing what we do every day. And I'm so grateful for this community and all that they have given me and my family and the ability to be able to grow Augusta lawn care and homeworks and home service, web design and all the different businesses and little products that we try to build to help other entrepreneurs. I'm so grateful for this community and.

I pray that in 2026, as we.

Move forward, that regardless of whether or not someone's just getting started and they lack the motivation to stay applied to what they're doing, or they lack the skill of sales or leadership, or they're trying to build big business and they need systems and the ability to be able to look through data and attract great talent, regardless of the skill that we are deficient in. I pray that you would give us wisdom and you would give us understanding. You would be the counselor and the prince of peace. In times when we have questions and we don't know the answer, that you would step in and give us leadership. And although here on this earth, we as mere mortals try to be good leaders and lead, we pray that you would be our leader. And to every person on this earth, they are also looking for leadership. And so as much as many of us have to lead, make decisions, command and control, delegate throughout our day, we pray that we remain humble enough to realize that you are our leader and that we rely on you as our guide to be able to get through this life and to grow our business and to grow teams and give back to our communities and our families and build up in a way that we can do what little we can here on this earth. So I pray for wisdom as we go into 2026 and begin to grow our businesses. We get those that might feel like they've been on a treadmill of growth. They've been on a treadmill that is exhausting them and their family and their relationships and their body. I pray, just give them strength and wisdom to be able to know when to raise prices, what employees to hire. And we come to you humbly knowing that we don't know everything. And we pray that you would give us the answers. We ask all these things in Jesus Christ's name, amen.