TOUGH LOVE from a $3M Landscape Business Owner

If you own a lawn care landscaping business, you will not want to miss out on this video today. It's something brand new I've never done before and that is actually share a video that only Augusta Nation typically sees. And this video actually comes from our private Facebook group. So being part of Augusta Lawn Care and our franchisees, we are all part of a Facebook group and we hold each other accountable, ask questions and it's a great community. However, there was one video in there that I thought was really, really good and spoke to a lot of the demands and issues that we have as landscapers in the spring rush when things get really, really difficult. And it's actually from one of our owners. His name is Ryan Payne and last year in 2022 he won the award for the highest revenue for multi location owners. He has two locations out in Texas and he also has a nursery and a dealership that he sells from as well. Now typically we pretty positive, upbeat, encouraging and motivating each other. But sometimes you just need a little bit of a kick in the pants and motivation and some tough love and that's what Ryan's gonna be dishing out today. I thought it was very helpful so I asked him if share this publicly and I think it's valuable. So without any further delay, this is Ryan out in Texas and really looking forward to being able to share this clip with you.

Hey everybody. I've had a few people ask me for a shop tour. I want to give one of those. I'm going to do it tonight. I'm not really going to talk much about the shop at all. I'm just going to kind of have it as background footage. I got to thinking with the new coaching calls, you know, Mike said they're going to do grading and some soft skills and some people want a players coach, some people want a tough coach, right? Definitely a guy who wants a tough coach. I'm competitive, I'm all for all the hoorah and you know, all the uplifting posts and this and that and I understand them, you know, the need for them. It motivates some people. But I'm here today to be the tough coach, to give the tough love. So if you get your feelings hurt easy, I would just stop the video. If you like a tough coach, I would listen to what I have to say.

First thing I want to talk about is we talk all winter about how spring rush is not easy. You know, people preach it, talk about it, post it, make videos about it. Everyone knows it, right? You would think, right? I mean Everyone watches the videos, they get lots of comments. And then every spring rush comes in, then we have all the people talking about how hard it is and everything else. And this video is not directed at any one person. But if you take it personally, you probably need to watch it. You know, everyone has excuses.

Why they can't do this, why they can't hire people, why they can't find people, why they can't pay enough money, why they can't land jobs, their prices are too high, or this, or there's always excuses. I started my company in 2017. Let me preface all this by saying I'm not the best. I don't claim to be the best or the smartest or the brightest. I have no real advantage.

Let me give you a little bit of my background. I started in 2017.

I had a full time job as a crane operator. I started the company because we were still living paycheck to paycheck, even with the money I was making and I had kids to take care of. I had no website built for me. I decided In October of 2016 I was going to get into lawn care. I picked lawn care because it is so easy. You don't have to be a journeyman, you don't have to invest any years or time or get certifications. Guess what guys? That's the reason there's 10,000 chucks in a truck in your city. Because it's easy. We all picked an easy service. What we do every day doesn't require an incredible amount of skill as far as the labor that's being done.

So when it comes to that, you have three options, right? If you're not making enough money, you can't get jobs approved. You can either become the best at what you're doing, even if it's a simple skill like lawn care or house cleaning. Whatever it is you put in the time, you learn how to be more efficient, how to optimize, how to get more out of your guys, the most optimal setup for your trucks.

The second option is you learn a skill that a trade that takes more skill. Landscaping, hardscaping, drainage. Things that people are scared to do. I don't know why they're scared. With no risk, there's no reward. People have no problem going out and buying a course, a book, a guide, an audiobook, putting in their headphones.

But people have an issue bidding a job they don't know how to do because they might lose money. Chalk it up to buying a course. You're getting hands on experience. Just do it. I had no background in lawn care and landscaping. I hated mowing my yard. It's dark and I have lights out so you can't see all the trucks that well. But there's four of them right here.

I hated mowing my yard growing up. I was a video game kid. Let me tell you, I'm a dumb die hard well. I was a World of Warcraft player. It consumed my life in high school and college. The only yard I ever mowed was my own yard growing up because I had to for allowance. I never landscaped. I never worked for a landscape company, none of that. I didn't even own a mower or mow my own yard at my house. When I decided to start my company, I had a lawn care service. That's how much I disliked mowing grass. I simply picked it because it was easy.

Mike has made it super easy for everybody now, which I think is a great advantage, right? You pay 15 or $20,000 and you're given a website and a Google my business page and all these guides and P4P and it's fantastic that that's available to everybody. It wasn't when I started, the first thing I realized that I didn't know how to do was register an LLC and all the business stuff. So that was the first task I took on in October of 2016. Next thing I had to do was learn how a website because I didn't have any money. I sat down and taught myself WordPress how servers work, how to install the software, how to update it, how to Photoshop graphics, how to make videos for my website. I taught myself search engine optimization, page slugs, header titles, tags, alt text, all that other stuff you got to know. You guys don't have to, right? Mike's got a team for you. But that's what I did. I built my own website. It had a hundred pages. I had a page for every city, I had a page for every service. I had all the keywords. I got my logo designed on Fiverr. That's what I learned how to do. Picked one, went with it. No one set up my payroll for me. I had to learn how to do that too. I had to teach myself the Grasshopper app, how to get a business phone number. Then we grew and I had to teach myself ringcentral and voice.