Two Shops, One Owner… and a Massive Setback

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes here. And today we're on the road, and we are going to be doing a shop tour from Logan. He's a member of Augusta Nation. He has two Augusta lawn care locations out here in Nebraska. And this is a great episode because it actually goes through kind of the downsides of starting multiple locations too quickly. Logan admits that he started his second location too soon. His first location was still on growth road. It did not have his established general manager and was not in profit mode. And he started second location an hour and 15 minutes away. It's great to see him now putting both of his locations into profit mode right around that 700 to $750,000 in revenue per location. So let's go and take this one out. It's in Columbus, Nebraska. Here we go. What's up, dude? How you doing?

How's it going? It's good to see you. You too. Welcome to Nebraska.

This is the crib, bro.

Oh, this is the. I wish this was our spot.

Oh, this is not yours.

No, we're. We're in the back.

Oh, cool. Let's check it out, man.

Let's do it. Nathan's on his way. We've been getting hit with this all.

Week long on and off.

Oh, my gosh. Got rained out pretty much all of Wednesday, and we got rain yesterday, and then we're supposed to get hit pretty good in about an hour. So. Yeah, it's been a bit of a struggle.

Isn't that a little earlier than usual? Like, you usually have pretty decent September.

Yeah. This has been probably the wettest season I've ever seen, even throughout the summer. Oh, yeah. We have not had any real, like. No. Nobody really switches to bi weekly this year, which usually we get at least.

A bit of a drought.

Yeah. Yep. Usually we get a good drought through July and August and then. But this year, no, everything has stayed super green. So this is.

Have you been here from day one?

Yeah, this. I've had this shop since I started in high school. Really?

Wow.

Yeah, for, like, five years. So we. It's small, and we're actually gonna be moving into a different shop here pretty soon. So we're kind of outgrowing this space.

Yeah.

Honestly.

What do you pay for this?

550.

Oh, cool. So you get all the parking.

Exactly.

And, like, this area here kind of thing.

Pretty much everything kind of on this side of the Quonset building. So we. Over there is where we park trailers, us employees here, and sometimes the ramp racks over here.

So, dude, if you're staying here a long time. You put a gravel here. I know, but you're leaving soon.

Yeah, we're. We're going to be moving into. It's like 3,000 square foot indoor space with just as much outdoor space for like a thousand a month. So. I know, I'm like, we can't really beat that.

Is it just like the going rate around here or is it just a good deal?

Yeah, no, it's. It's pretty cheap. Yeah.

This is cool. You got electric in here too, kind of. Or do you run it from.

Run it from that building? Yeah, yeah. So definitely not up to code, but we just kind of run it into.

Oh, that's sick.

Yeah, I mean, it works.

And who's this?

This is Nathan.

Nathan, Good to meet you. Good to meet you too. Absolutely. Are you there all three or how many guys are right now?

Oh, geez. I think we got like four guys out right now in Columbus and then my grand island team is running right now. So yeah, we got pretty much a full team. Usually we do try to go for four tens, but. Yeah, that's not happening this week. No. Yeah, exactly.

So do both locations start from here?

No, we have a shop in grand island that's. It's bigger than this. So we pull like two ramp rack trucks in there and they're. Yeah, it's about double the square footage for like the same price.

So how many guys start from here and then how many start from there?

There's three in grand island full time. And then I'm usually up there starting that team. So I run that team right now. Kind of a working gm. But Nathan has what?

We have four and. Yeah, we know we have five. And then me.

Okay, this one?

Yep.

Oh, that's cool.

Exactly.

And so this is the first location. That one you started last year.

It was like, it was. I think it was three years ago almost.

Really?

Yeah.

Okay.

We've been doing that for a while, but slow growing over there because I've had GM issues over the last couple years. Nathan's really been kicking butt this year, so I've been able to focus a little bit more this year on the ground. Yeah. Cool.

So what's this one doing? Revenue?

About 60amonth is what we've been sitting out lately. This month will be a bit of a dip. He had a couple good team members leave over the last kind of three or four weeks.

You just had to hire some new guys then.

Yeah.

Slows down efficiency a little bit.

That's been the biggest hurdle. And so it's now we've got everyone hired and trained kind of the end of the training period. So now it's more just building up efficiency. But yeah.

So this is. This is it.

Yeah.

So they pull all the mowers in here?

Yeah, mowers on the left and then a couple in the middle because we have too many now. All the small equipment along the back.

This is kind of our little meeting station. It's a little outdated, I'll be honest, but it works. And then they kind of keep our. That's not a very good spot for that. We keep kind of our small equipment maintenance stuff. Yeah, yeah. We had to maximize the space as much as we can. I mean, there's not a whole lot we're working with out here.

So this. This. This year is probably the first year this one's in profit mode.

Yes. Yep. We tried last year, but it didn't go very well because of my general manager issues. 100% my fault. But over the winter, we trained up Nathan really well, and he's been a lot more in the field than Joe was last year. And so, yeah, this has been our first real year in profit. So year to date, we're up to about 80,000 in profits. I mean, we. We bought a new truck that's sitting out there. We bought a couple new machines this spring, too. So not all of that. We're pulling out yet, but definitely better than the past years.

And were you working out in the field beforehand, Nathan? Cool. Cool. How long before you gm? Three.

Three years. Two years. Okay. Yeah, about two full years. And then he started as GM last year, so.

Yeah, let's go. And so right now, this location, are you only doing simple services like mowing and stuff like that, or do you some projects?

We do mowing, bed maintenance projects, some landscaping here and there.

We try to stick to simple services. I'd say probably 75 to 80% recurring services. We do about 140, 150 budget hours of recurring a week, I'd say, on average. And then we typically fill it up with about 30 to 40 budget hours of small projects. So I sent out a one click for bush trimming last week or two weeks ago. So we've been. I mean, that booked us out like six weeks just there. So, yeah, we do a few, like, I wouldn't call them hardscapes, but rock jobs and stuff like that. I typically take the lead on that, even if it is here, because then Nathan can kind of focus on the recurring side. I'll steal one of his guys and we'll do that project. But we've done a lot less of that this year than in years past, which is huge because, again, another reason I can focus on grand island, but. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So kind of give me kind of the breakdown. Because you started in high school. So give me the breakdown, kind of the growth of the business since then.

Yeah. So 2020 was when I graduated, which was when school got cut short. That was when we really started to grow the business we started with. That was year. We did a lot of projects. Very project heavy, at least 50% plus in projects. That was also the year I had a lot of my problems. I had a full team of like six people walk off the job. I had no idea what I was doing. I think I only had, like, three trucks. It was chaos. But that's kind of how it goes when we start that fall was when I got introduced to Augusta through. Actually through an employee who put me onto your YouTube channels. And I started watching the videos. I'm like, oh, this would solve a lot of my problems. So we implemented P4P and we started on service autopilot before even joining Augusta. So that was through kind of the fall of 2020. Then we joined in. 2021 was our first season. We sold off a mini skid loader. We bought two or three trucks. I mean, we. We really dove headfirst into it, focused only on simple services. So 2021, pretty much the same revenue, but a bigger transition to recurring that year. 2022 was the year we opened Grand Island. So nothing real notable in 2021. It was just kind of a switch over to recurring. Figure out the models, figure out how we're supposed to do things. Didn't make much of progress there, but 2022 was when I had Brandon as my general manager here. So he took over things again. Revenue stayed about the same. I jumped the gun on grand island and started up there. It was good to get my feet wet in that. It really showed me a lot what it takes to get a location off the ground compared to transitioning a Brandon, if that makes sense, because there's a lot of differences in that I learned. So that was 2022. End of 22, Brandon didn't work out great because he was. He had a lot of family stuff going on. He struggled with the team throughout the year. That was about the summer that Nathan joined 23. No. Am I off a year?

Yeah, you are.

I'm off a year. We're a year ahead.

Yeah.

So that was 2021. 22. So 23, no, 24 was when we had Joe last year. So Joe was here last year as a gm. Again, not much growth. I mean, it was a bit of a struggle last year, mostly from me. I wasn't doing my job as the owner to put a good GM in place who was setting up the team for success. So there was a lot of times where like, Nathan and his brother Aaron would kind of lead the team and take care of a lot of that stuff. And I noticed that because I was again running Grand Island. So it just took way too much of my focus away from here last year. So I knew going into this spring that it was going to be Columbus. Like Columbus needs to profit or we weren't going to ever figure it out. So I said, I'm not doing anything until we get Columbus and check. So that's what we did. I hired a couple guys in grand island who I just knew get the most done. That's all I care about. Just keep the recurring on the schedule. And that's what they did. And so for the first, probably what, March, April, I was really here, like every day, focused with you on just getting the shop built up where it needs to be. Nathan was doing really well. I mean, hiring, training, getting the work done. So this spring we made a really big push to just get recurring, nothing else. That's it. So that worked really well. By the time we got to mid May to June, we were at a solid list of recurring and we started to fill it in with projects. That's when we really started to see the good revenue. About 55 to 60,000amonth and profitable at that. Efficient. And we've pretty much just been running that ever since.

This is your goal kind of next year, get Grinding island, kind of same spot, like 60,000amonth in revenue or so.

100%. That's exactly it. I want to just maintain what we've got in Columbus. We'll probably make a small push for a few more recurring just so we can really phase out the projects. So we'll probably shoot for like, I'd say right now we're doing about 40 to 45 in recurring. We'll probably shoot for about 60 in recurring. So fill that up to about 60 and then we'll do another 20 in projects just to try to get us to about that 80amonth mark here. Stop growth once we get through spring rush, raise prices on everything and really be in a good profit mode. Cool. And then that'll be Nathan's focus. I'll be in grand island doing just hard growth as much as I can to get as much mowing on the schedule as we can.

Are you tired of paying Google and Facebook a whole bunch of money and not really seeing any leads? If you want a custom website built for you in the next six weeks, go check out homeservicewebdesign.com. you said you kind of like jumped the gun getting a second location. What did you learn in that process? Because like you did you. This one was still kind of in growth mode. Yeah, you started that one. That one's in growth mode. What did you learn though in that process? Because obviously you do it a little bit differently. But what would you change?

I would have really done at least a good year profit here. It was good when I left it, but it was only good because it was a lot of projects that were really profitable. But my skills in the field were one of the big reasons that it was profitable. I didn't think that was as big of a deal as it was. So I think what I would have really done differently would have been make a bigger push towards recurring, have a good year of profit while maybe slowly training up someone into be a GM role. So morning meetings, maybe a little bit more routing of the team, things like that that they can do to just kind of get their foot in the door for the GM stuff. I would have definitely taken a year and probably went to grand island with more cash than I did and just dumped it all into marketing and really just grew the mowing rod up to about 100 budgeted hours as quick as possible.

Because like this one hasn't really grown in revenue. It's just been moving from 70% one time projects to 30 or 70% recurring.

Exactly. That was the case for 22, 3 and 4. This year has been a pretty decent increase in revenue. Like last year we're sitting about 40 to 45amonth here. A lot of that being projects this year we have been about 60 at least since May I would say. So we have grown in revenue and recurring percentage which has been a huge help.

And in terms of finding a gm, like I don't know your previous two, if they had worked with you prior how that worked. But like now having Nathan, like what's the difference between. So it didn't work out like work well with the team to now someone that it's in profit mode, they're focused on recurring services, they're able to do it profitably. What was the differences between that you think?

That's a good question. I think There's a couple, and probably the easiest one is effort. Like, Nathan puts in tons of effort. He works probably just as many hours as I do in a week because he wants it. He, like, he wants to have a successful shop. He's been here for a while. He was in the field, which was the other point. Being in the field, working with the team, knowing how the work is supposed to be done, I think helps tremendously because they just. They know how it's supposed to go. Pair that with someone who wants a profitable location, who wants profit sharing, that is what I think makes a good. A good GM compared to what I had in the past. And there's things Nathan and I work on all the time. Like, we're not. We're nowhere near where either of us wants to be, but when I have feedback that needs to be worked on, Nathan says, great, Logan, let's, you know, we can work on that and then we do and we fix it. Whereas in the past it's been a, oh, I'm just going to kind of run through the motions and I'm just going to kind of, you know, hang out and do my thing. Nathan goes in the field when he needs to get in the field. He gets out of the field when he needs to get out of the field. You just get stuff done. And that's one of the biggest things, I think.

What's the transition look like from, like, where you're here all the time to now you have the two, and you can't be here and you can't be there at the same time? So, like, what did that look like in terms of, like, you training yourself to, like, either delegate, manage? I know it's tough when you don't have a good gm.

Yeah.

What's the difference, though? When you have a good gm, like, what. What do you have to start training yourself? Because, like, the thing I see sometimes, like, for people watching, it's more for Gustaf Nation, is like, you have a bad general manager, manager, or someone's not performing well, but then when you get someone good, you actually have to change the way you manage them.

Yeah.

So, like, how has that process been the past few years?

100%. It's been more of a stress on my leadership than anything else and my management style. Because in the past, you know, when you're running a location, it's easy to. When you're running it, you see everything and you see all the problems, and it's your job to put your hands in it and fix it. You see a broken Mower, you fix it. You see someone not loading the truck up properly, you fix it. That's your job. That's not my job anymore. It's my job to say, Nathan, I noticed that when this person loaded up their truck, they loaded it on this way. And then Nathan fixes it. It's been that, you know, it's more, I'm supposed to be the leader and the one who sets the example and manage my manager versus manage the five or six people that work here. That's been the biggest one. On top of that, it's like Nathan and I, we weekly track our metrics. So the manager sheets that we have built, we modified those a little bit. We track those pretty religiously. We put those together over the weekend. Like, usually Tuesday morning we have a meeting about them. We spend at least 30 minutes talking about our metrics from last week, the highlights, the lowlights, and where we're going to improve and focus on this week. I think that's been a big one because it keeps everyone accountable on a weekly basis instead of like a monthly basis or whenever I think about it, basis. Nathan knows revenue dropped last week because we had new hires. So now he knows this week our focus has been on, well, let's just get more budgeted hours done while maintaining high efficiency. That's the change this week. Next week will probably say a similar thing. We're going to focus on X, Y and Z. And it's been really. That honestly has been a big one.

From your perspective, Nathan, because you were out in the field when they had the other GMs. And so it's always a little funny to me, like, when you see an underperforming GM and you're like, okay, now I gotta take their job. So when you stepped in, what was some of the things that you saw immediately you already knew needed to get fixed, and you're like, okay, finally I can actually do something about it. Like, what was that for?

You.

Probably dispatching. Because the last year the GM Logan always had to dispatch us all the time. All the time. And he just scanned through it. All right, Assign. That's it.

Brandon, he did really good. He did good. Everything in the field, everything was assigned. I just didn't see anything else besides that.

But.

Yeah, and from the team's perspective, like you going from technician to general manager, what was that like? Was it difficult at all? Or was they like, yeah, finally someone that cares? Or like, what was that transition like?

Well, it was pretty much only me, so.

Oh, when the transition happened, yeah, we.

Lost A lot of the team, we had a huge snowstorm. We pushed pretty hard.

Didn't someone else come out and over to help?

Oh, yeah, we had. I called in my sister. I called in my sister's friends and my sister's friend's friends and my friends. I mean, we had everybody helping whoever we could.

How did I remember this?

Two feet?

I remember. I think it was Connor Stead texting me like, dude, Logan's like not doing good right now.

So Nathan was like one of two that ended up staying over that time. That was like in January. And so you can take it back up. But I just wanted to add that context. I mean, you literally took it over. I.

You took it like. Yeah.

So you had to step in. Basically during that time, people left.

Yeah.

And got it.

And he did great then. And that was when, you know, I guess that would have been the year that I hired Joe because I thought Nathan was gone. I thought everybody had left. So I hired Joe last year to take over as gm. He had no ties to Gus. I hired him straight out from out in the world.

Mistake number one for sure there.

But during that time and starting up the transition with the new general manager and pretty much all of last year, I saw Nathan take a lot more leadership than a lot of times than Joe was on maintaining equipment and dealing with yellow slips and stuff. He took more ownership than even my manager was. And hindsight, I should have made that transition in June of last year, but that really, I think gave him a bit of an opportunity to not be in the role with the title and responsibilities that it held, but start to get more step into that role and take it on from more of a team member's perspective, if that makes sense.

That's cool. It's like this location, we can get to profit mode. Probably would do 750 next year.

Yeah, that's really. I think that's right about where we be. Winter is always rough for us, so we usually really solid through November. December is usually not bad because we get some stragglers on leaf cleanups, plus we monthly bills. So all of the. We have a whole billing cycle where we get paid and we don't have to pay anything hard. Months. January, February and March. Those are our struggle months. Yes.

So do you have two plows then?

We have four.

Oh, really?

This Columbus will run two. Grand island will run one this year and then we'll have one that sets as a backup. So that's going to be our big focus and shift this year.

That's like the variable of the year, really.

Yeah, it really is. I mean we usually get a couple good events, but usually, I mean the last two or three years it's been snow dumps on us for about a week straight and then we get nothing for about a month or two. And it's like we bill out like 60, $70,000 in those that week, but that's it.

So I don't know. We've been really experimenting with changing the snow model to flat rate for the season for residential customers. Last year we made the switch to have winter services include snow and that's the only way residential customers could get on snow.

Got it. Because you mostly do commercial.

We mostly do commercial, yeah. Trying to get commercial customers on flat rate as well. But commercial customers are a lot more zero tolerance. So if we get a dusting, a rain, anything like that, more likely to go out and do a couple thousand dollars worth of service. But there's a couple companies in town that dominate the market. I mean they have like 20 year old tractors, they've got real like the construction companies, they're sprinkler companies, they have tons of huge equipment. So it's hard for us to compete with them on price. So we try to compete with them on priority service. We try to compete on, you know, stuff like that, the things that we're good at. So it's hard to find those niche couple customers that are going to make a lot of money over the.

Have you last. Did you do the residential with winter services? No. Last year?

Yes.

Just like kind of dipping your toe in that.

Yes. So we, we've done winter services in the past, but it's always excluded snow so it would be its own thing and then we'd have residential snow removal as another thing. So last year we slapped them together and said the only way you're going to get snow is if you're on winter services. That really helped in the November, December, January when we had no snow and we could go out and do leaf cleanups. We could trim plants. Yeah.

How many get on last year?

You remember, we probably had about 15,000amonth in winter services. I don't know the exact budgeted hours, but we. It was about that in a month. This year we're hoping to see about 25 to 30,000amonth on winter services.

Or the other thing. I actually submitted a question on the mastermind about this one the other day yesterday.

Yeah, about the seasonality.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm struggling to determine if we want to do just winter services. Snow for Residentials or if we want to also offer like a flat rate unlimited snow removal for residential customers. Because I got a lot of pushback last year when I made that switch to I don't want you to do anything, I just want for snow. And that was probably lost a good third to 50% of customers because of that. So I've been toying with the idea of offering $550 or $600 for the season unlimited snow removals. Once we get up to an inch of snow, you know, we'll come out and service in a limited amount of times. I think that could capture some more customers.

But have you sold the season for residential or have you only done per push for residential in the past?

We've only ever done per push in the past for residentials, minus last year when we switched to winter service.

What if you, what if you did like winter services, like that same model, but they said if you don't want that, you can, you can get snow only, but then it's way more.

Yeah.

And that's just make it almost as a downsell in the winter service.

Yeah, that makes sense. And that was kind of what I posed the question yesterday about. It was my thought would be we could either do. Well, it was either flat rate or per push. We downsell. If they don't want winter services, say, okay, we can do this, but it's going to be more. Yeah, yeah. That was kind of what I thought.

If you did it say like 80 or $90 every two weeks for winter services. And they're like, well, I only want snow. Great. It's going to be $150 per push.

Yep. Yeah, that's kind of what I thought would work pretty well. And it was either that or I'd do it. Okay. It would be $600 for the season. I thought to down sell into a flat rate for the year, but we could. I have no problem with doing per push. It's just that it's so variable.

Totally so variable. Yeah. You have to make it where it's so high price like you. Okay, we'll. We'll get contracted in or pay people more, whatever. Right. Yeah.

No, that makes sense. We could just staff up double our staff during those big snow events. I don't know.

I think it's almost really a way to try to sell winter services.

Yeah.

Because like, hey look, if we have more than three events, you might as well just be on winter services. And then for any time if it doesn't snow, you still get something for.

Your, for your money 100%.

Right?

Yeah. Because we still have a lot of people. Like we do during winter service. The first few things we do leaf cleanup. Great. Then we're gonna trim all the perennials down, we're gonna trim all the bushes. Then we're gonna get on the gutters and things. So we usually are pretty busy through January. If we have nothing to do as far as snow. Yeah. Then we kind of get everything done and then it's a bit of a struggle. So that's when we kind of wish we had some snow coming in. But I mean, I think, I think that would work really well.

I'm like, it'd be tough to do that on instant quotes, though.

I know. And that was really my question is how do we do.

Because like we have the snow instant quote, which is whatever. Then you have winter services.

Yeah. Because there's not like a here's winter services and then here's also snow. You, you could do, you could take the, you know, we have like comparing against a cleanup. Just compare it against snow pushing.

Yeah.

Just like, hey, you're push your price per push. But it's not selling that. You're still selling winter services.

Yeah, yeah, I know. And that's what was tough about it. Like last year when I made the transition, I made a loom video. I sent it out to anyone and I included like fall cleanup, spring cleanup, and snow removal on there at you know, 90 a push or whatever. And I mean it was well over double the price of winter services. So I mean, I think that was a really good way to kind of to sell that. But there was still a lot of pushback on I only want snow.

Yeah, well, I'm sorry, I almost wonder, I almost wonder though, if what you do is instead of comparing it with the cleanups, just compare it against snow and then move the snow per push up. So if they say I just want snow, okay, great, we'll do that for that price. So for example, instead of comparing winter services to a cleanup in the fall, cleanup in the spring, and Snow service for $90 per, just compare it to 90 or $150 per push for snow versus winter services. Show the savings. And if they say I just want snow, then just sell them that price.

Okay.

Cuz they're seeing it.

Yeah, yeah. And it's right there. That makes a lot of sense.

At least you have something. If they say that.

Yeah.

The challenging part is if you actually want them to take it, they actually after have to reach out and say that. But if you got Quite a few doing that. That's what I would do. I would not compare it to the winter, to the cleanups. That way the, the price discrepancies, you get winter even higher. They're not even looking at though. But then when they call you, you can. Oh well, we can do it for the price I put on there.

Yeah. But you, if you switch to winter services, you're not only getting snow, you're getting leaf cleanup, gutter cleaning. I mean all of the 20 other things on there. That makes a lot of sense.

And you can make the prices almost similar too. So it's like 150. Let's say there's five pushes. Okay. It's 750. Okay. Winter services at the off season. 750 also.

Right.

And then if they call back, I just want the snow. Great. Well let's do the 150 per.

Yeah, yeah. And nobody's out anything over the course of the season. Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think it would make be just too much work and not really worth my time to try residential flat rate pricing for the season?

I say this, I know that you build Lawnworks website in Lincoln. Right. The web team has in the past. They have a really good.

Website with their instant pricing for snow on there. It's pretty much what I just said. It's like one car drive 550 and then they offer like a three paid. Three paid deal.

Some people do instant quotes for mowing or for snow now because you can change that number.

Yeah.

You can just change it to per month.

Per month. Yeah. They put the. This is a contract for the season. Yeah. And see that was. I don't know. Nobody here does anything like that. It's always per push. Same with granite. I've never heard of anyone here but Lincoln and Omaha. They offer where you can just have unlimited for the season. This is the price.

Yeah. It's just such a gamble because if you have a really crazy season for mowing or for snow.

Right.

It can hurt.

I know. 100.

That's tough.

That's. That was my.

That's where I kind of see like I see using winter services as the thing that evens things out and then the per push being so high that if it actually does get. You get tons of money and you're okay with it.

Yeah.

I think that's almost a happy medium.

Makes sense.

Because the thing that you're trying to do with the seasonal price is basically what winter services provides.

Right.

Which is that more consistent revenue.

That's exactly what it was. And we do a lot of that with the commercial stuff. So commercial. The majority of them aren't really wanting the flat rate pricing, but they're used to a $6,000 bill that one week when we get all that snow. So that is what we use as kind of our selling point. Yeah, it's our selling point. But that six grand we built out in that one week is that extra boost in revenue we get to cover the extra cost payroll.

Yeah. I think if I was you, instead of trying to go uphill with like, let's try to get people on seasonal when they're not used to it, I would say let them come to me for a higher price at per push. So I can really maximize if there's a bunch of snow. But if there's not snow, I'm selling them the winter services as a thing that gives me the stability. Instead of leaning on, they sell them the whole year. Because here's the thing, if it doesn't snow a lot, they're mad at you.

Right.

And if it snows a ton, you're mad.

Yeah.

And so like, that's why, like with snow you can get like three events and you can get 20 events. And so it's too much delta like difference there to for. For it to be consistent. So I think that's actually like the happy medium.

Okay, I like that. I think.

And then you just use the winter service form as like I compare the winter services to just the per push price.

Yeah, that makes sense.

You could even put on there. If you just want snow, contact us.

Right. And we can do it for. Yeah, we can just be the price.

It'd be there.

Right, that makes sense. Okay, I'll do that. I think that keeps it simple because then I don't have to focus. I don't have to think about that. Takes a lot of time away from me having to switch the model over. I can just do what we already have, which works fine. We would just change up how I kind of sell it.

And you could still have your instant quote form from snow. You just have the prices significantly higher. Right. It's like if it's because if someone signs up and they're willing to pay twice as much as you usually would want, you would take them per push.

Right, Right, exactly.

They are working on getting the credit cards to be added to that form as well.

Perfect.

So that way if you actually want to drive ads to it, you could. And then get the card information in copilot.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. The only reason I was really making a push towards per season was just to even out the cash flow. And it's tough, you know, if you can lean into.

If you can lean into winter services, I think that offers that. Knowing you're profitable on it gives that flex, that more streamlined revenue, but then not risking losing your shirt on. It's like 15 event season.

Right. Oh, and that makes a lot of sense. With all the rain everybody's been talking about. It's gonna be pretty wet snow or pretty.

Is it really what they're expecting?

Yeah, but I don't know. We'll see. It's always been like that where we get like one, maybe two super light events until January, and then we get a huge polar vortex that comes through and then it's just we get dumped on for a week straight.

Yeah, well, let me know how it goes. Like with the loom. If you do that and actually show the breakdown of winter services versus just snow and then have that price and be like, if you just want this, let us know. Yeah, let me know how that works. Because I think that could really be the happy medium. You know, it's easier to sell to existing customers. And then you could still have your instant quote form for snow going and if you will accept $150. Great, let's do it.

We're all right.

And then you can up your, like, the pay during the snow event so that what happened a couple of years ago doesn't happen again because people are getting paid enough, they'll stick through it. It's just brutal work.

No, it is. I mean, we were probably going for 36 hours, 48 hours at that point. It's brutal.

I remember just like we would come home, we would come back to the office, sleep on the floor of the office for an hour or two, then bounce right back out, get caught in the snow drift on the way out the shop, get changed. Like, it was just.

No, it sucks. And I would ultimately like to not do it at all. I'd like to just only offer it through winter services or just do like Christmas lights. I mean, that's going to be something we're doing this year. Too new for us. We didn't do it last year, but we're probably going to do your toe.

In it kind of thing.

Yep. Get our feet wet with Christmas lights. See how well that goes. There's definitely a demand for it. I think there's maybe one guy around here that does it. But companies drive from like Fremont, Omaha area to. To Columbus because nobody offers it so I'm excited to see how it goes but yeah.

Yeah, let me know how it goes. I know we gotta run. We're late. We're driving. We're going out of the Willis's where David and what's it called? What's. There's a name David Willis. He's like three and a half.

Oh is that in Manhattan, Kansas or whatever? Yeah. Who else have you visited around here?

We went. Just left Jordan.

Jordan. I figured that.

Yeah. So Jordan then here, then there at six o' clock clock tonight and then we go someplace else.

Jeez.

Yeah Jordan's doing good.

Yeah.

Have you bet. Have you been to a shop?

Oh yeah, I've been with him a couple times.

Hyper growth mode man.

I know dude. I know he's going through a lot of stuff.

He'll get to a million probably this year.

I know at least in run run rate. Yeah, yeah, I know it's pretty exciting to see what he.

Thanks for letting us drop by.

Thanks for coming.

We couldn't drive through here without saying hi so. I know, I know it's quick but I.