UNDERCOVER BOSS confronts Lowest Revenue Location!

Hey, everyone, my name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. We have over 150 locations around the world. But today I'm going to be taking a coaching call that I had with one of our franchisees in Michigan. So right now, like this year, what do you think is kind of holding you back? This is from earlier this year. I went out and flew to his location and the entire turnaround is posted on my main channel. But today I'm going to take the uncut version and talk about what he can do to grow his business.

I'm in such a mental emotional slump right now.

He seems to be distracted with other ventures in his business. He's trying to invent a new product. People have built million dollar businesses without the invention. Many home service business owners, we get distracted with real estate or flipping houses or selling cars or other ventures. And it actually keeps us away from the core business, which is making the vast majority of our money. There's usually only one thing that we should be focused on. So let's go ahead and jump into this conversation with Ken and see if I can't convince him that that focusing on his main lawn care business is gonna prove a lot more worthwhile than trying to invent this new product that has no evidence of success or evidence of demand in the market.

Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty simple. This is P1. I've had this thing for like seven or eight years.

Okay.

And then this was actually my personal truck that I got new bed and doors on and whatnot. Okay. And it will be P2 once it's painted.

Okay.

And that's the prototype railgate that I was telling you about.

Okay, Very cool. And then do you do some snow plowing then?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I got two snow plows back here.

Okay. How long you been in Fenton?

Since joining.

Really? This is just a few years.

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

Yep. So technically.

When. When I joined.

Was it then or the next year? I can't remember.

You were moving in that?

Yeah, I was in the process. Yeah. So I hadn't signed on yet because I remember having the last Zoom call that we had right in the backyard here.

I remember.

Yeah, we just moved. Yeah. The train came by, I was like, hang on.

But yeah, moving, no advertising, no nothing. The SEO was up and two months, something like that. So the very next year I was ranking two or three.

Right.

And that was just with my friends and old customers saying, this company's good.

So basically, year one, based on the numbers I saw you did about 60,000 revenue.

Yeah.

Year two, which was last year, did about 95, 96,000 revenue. So this year, what are you projecting to kind of do?

I don't know. Winter was so bad. I'm in such a mental emotional slump right now. I was really planning on doubling my revenue last year so that I didn't have to do any snow plowing this year. I had to use the. The. My personal truck with the yellow plow.

Yeah.

And that didn't work.

Right. Right.

And then P1 had starter issues. The truck is a die hard.

Yeah.

Like I said, I've had it eight years and I've never had a major problem with it. Only in the winter, only when it's cold, Only when you're moving heavy things.

Right.

And only when it's wet. And so the problem is that right when you need it to plow, that's when it breaks down. Luckily enough, when it broke down, it was in there a lot.

Got it. So how much longer till you start spring rush? Like start mowing and things like that? Like in a couple weeks.

Couple weeks.

Okay. Cool. All right. So then we got two very nice mowers.

This was Nick's.

Really?

Yep. This is the one I bought from Nick.

Oh, the one he got for free. He won. Gie. That's crazy.

Yep. I've actually got a soft meeting with this company to help brand. Help with their branding and selling.

That's pretty cool.

I'm going to try to convince them to paint everything that's red yellow.

That's good.

We'll see.

And this is the John Deere.

Yeah, I'm just gonna. I'm selling that one.

Got it.

Yep.

Cool. But your plan is to kind of run with that.

Yep.

On P1 when I said when I.

Sell that I can get a smaller mower. So I had to turn down too many people. There's some people in that direction.

Right.

They are the cookie cutter.

Right.

Neighborhoods. And half of those neighborhoods have. Or half of the residents of those neighborhoods have gated, fenced in yards.

Got it. So gotta get smaller mowers.

Oh, yes. Well, I mean, hey, I got a push mower, an electric push mower.

Got it.

Just for just in case type of thing. And when I would run the numbers, I'd be like, okay, it's $50. And they're like, everyone else is charging 35, 40. And I'm like, yeah, technically I would on something like this or that.

Got it. Cool. And then this big bad bo.

So I bought that.

Last year, year before Something like that. I had. I had quite a few customers that were paying.

Gee, that thing is beast.

Yeah. That was paying, like, $240 per cut.

Wow.

So I would. I would sell them on the whole. The whole season.

Yeah.

Like, hey, you know, 50, $400 or whatever. And they'd be like, sure, Nate, stroke a check and just give it to me.

Right.

And that would. That would at least start me off for the season. So, like, on Wednesdays, is. Is everything south, which is really rural.

Right.

So you're not finding anyone with less than an acre.

Right.

And so it was taking me two hours on the green one, and I'm just like. You know, my mentality is if I get the tool to do the job, it will fix the problem. It ain't fixing it.

Right.

I remember I told you that in the beginning. I told you, hey, when I get big enough, I would like to do a sub show on Augusta Nation called Equipment Corner with Ken.

Yeah.

And I tell you what to buy and what not to buy. And then eventually, I got to the point where I would eventually be telling people exactly what you're telling them, because it doesn't matter.

Yeah. Well, ultimately, like, yes, there are. There are going to be lawns that need this.

Yeah.

But the bottom line is there's thousands that don't. And so it's a matter of, can we take what we actually have and still build the business around that? Like, I happen to believe there's more than $100,000 worth of revenue that this mower is not required.

Nope.

And so, like, is this operational right now?

Yeah, it works.

Okay. How many hours on this? 1200.

Yeah, but it's got a new engine. It's only got 200 hours on the engine.

Got it. So are you thinking of keeping this with the red one?

Nope. So the red ones I'm keeping. She's got 0.3 hours.

Yeah. It's brand new.

Yeah. And it's better than the green one.

Right.

It just has some better features. It's built like a tank. It's. I'll probably have that for quite a few years before I. I upgrade. Or I should say buy another one, Right. No, I'm gonna sell both these, and I'm. My plan and I could not need it was buy a Bradley 36. So that. Because I had a 36 and a 52 in the back of P1 for, like, a year. Two years.

Yeah.

And the. The. Any job that I could fit the 52 on, I just got the 52 off and did the whole thing.

Right.

And I. Five minutes, 10. Some of them were like a 10 minute job. And I was done. I was gone.

Right.

And if I had to get the, the smaller one off, I'd take that off. One time, the 52 broke. Different 52. Yeah, it broke. And I had to do all my lawns for a week and a half with the 36. I was still meeting budgeted hours.

Yeah.

I, I did the math. Okay. So Mike says this. All right. So I, I did the math, and it came out to be if I'm here for 30 minutes or less, I'm making budgeted hours. I was there for like 28 minutes on a 36 inch mower. Yeah. So I'm like. So if I got the faster mower going on the, on the smaller property, it was fine. Like, I can fit the 52 in here.

Right.

Right. There's nothing restricting me from getting a big mower in here. I can mow it with that. Not gonna be able to turn it around. No. But the idea would be I, I had too many people out in that area with the smaller neighborhoods.

Yeah.

And, and the fences.

Yeah.

The math came out too high because I had to figure in the, the, the push mower Right.

For the backyard.

Got it.

So they, I got my, My close ratio was zero.

Got it. So the plan is sell this thing.

Yep.

Sell the, the John Deere. Get 36 inch to both on the, on the truck. Got it. Okay.

Because they both fit.

Got it.

Yep. Got it.

And this is the, the electric fish mower.

Yeah.

Let's go.

Yeah. Milwaukee.

Dude. This is pretty cool though.

Yeah. That's my fuel station. Normally they're like $400. I found that for 50 bucks.

That's pretty cool.

So I'll be hooking that onto.

Onto the headache rack of the truck.

Got it.

And then I'll be able to fuel up everything from there.

From there. That's cool.

Yep. Especially when fuel's low.

Yeah. So right now, like this year, what do you think is kind of holding you back? Cause I know, like you told the team, it's more like mental stuff that's blocking. Like, why is that? Like, what is keeping you? Because you got two more weeks. You got spring rush coming up. Like, what's the plan for the next couple weeks?

Oh, just door hangers. SEO is working fine. I've had plenty of people requesting estimates. Most of them are spring cleanups. I've got one guy from church that I can hire that is all about the, the extra work. So he'll be Good for summertime, like May 1. Those is when he can start.

Right.

I can do simple cleanups with, with the blowers and the mower. Usually I do the mulch method. Just mulch it all up and customers like that. I got that loader there, but I'd have to convert one of the trucks into a debris thing, which I did last year, and it worked great. But then the whole conversion, you know what I mean, it doesn't. It's not like a five minute deal. So if I had, if I, if I switched focus for this week and then the weather changed and then I had to switch focus to something else and then switch it. You know what I mean? That, that's causing logistical issues.

But in terms of getting new customers, like right now you probably what, 30, 40 mowing customers?

40, 40 to 50.

Okay. And so what are we doing right now to like over the next couple weeks to get more.

I'll just be doing door hangers and then I'll be doing one click estimates for people that didn't sign up.

Yeah.

So all my customers that I currently have will get the email too.

Right.

And somebody already texted me today and said, do I need to have you give me another estimate? I told her, no, you're good. But yeah, everyone else, hopefully they'll. Yeah, I'll take another estimate.

And so how many door hangers are we doing currently? Like, for like.

Do you have a. I'll be starting this week.

Got it.

Okay. So I mean, I got a ton in the truck.

Yeah. All right. That for the mowing. Really? Just pitching the mowing.

Yeah, Y. I'm just pitching the mowing because that's what I'm geared towards.

Yeah.

When I first started business and, and actually got an LLC and all that, it was. I did everything. I did like 10 different things. Power washing, brick pavers. What?

Got it. So.

Here is the new one.

Cool.

I got the QR code on there. And then. Oh, no, that's the old one. And then the new one.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah. Built in business card. So I can still use this.

So this, where does this go to your site? Got it. And then do you have the instant.

You guys built me.

Do you have the instant quote set up?

Yes.

Okay.

I'm probably going to lower the numbers.

Okay.

As well. And then if they don't want this or they're like, yeah, let's take the card. Can actually cut this off. I got the, you know, the little flag markers, the little plastic ones for chemicals and that sort of thing.

Yeah.

I'm gonna order some of those.

Got it.

Stick that right in the yard. And if it goes bad by the next week, you know, because of rain or whatever, take this off, keep the flag, wait a week.

Right.

And then when I mow it again, put another one.

Yeah.

These two.

A little bit bigger one. So that was actually the door. The door mailer.

Yeah.

That didn't, that didn't do as well as I thought it was going to do.

Right.

Last year I still got customers from it.

Right.

You know, so I'd have to send out 10,000 of them. And I didn't. I think I spent $5,000.

Okay.

Total. And that was including print.

Got it.

And I got. And I can't remember how many customers I got from it, but it was enough to, to, to see me through.

Right.

I was, I was fine. Not quite capacity, but it was comfortable.

Right.

Like I was mowing Monday, Wednesday and Fridays.

Right.

And anytime it rained or I had a project, it was Tuesdays and Thursdays. So that was fine. But that's still not capacity.

Right. So how many, how many mowing customers do you think you could take on right now in terms of capacity?

60 to 80. Okay. If they're close enough to be 60 to 80. If they're out in those rural areas where it should be a $90 or $120 cut, some of them are like, okay. I mean, most of those people have their own. They'd rather spend $3,000 on a brand new residential zero turn and do it themselves than to pay me. Because when I tell them, hey, yeah, your bill's going to be $3,300, I had like two customers go, great, here, here's a check. And the other ones are like, I'll get back to you.

Right.

And I tell them, hey, you know, I'm saving you 5% because of the credit card processing fees.

Yeah.

So if you just want to pay monthly, cancel anytime. But it's, you know, $160 per week versus, you know, whatever.

Right.

So my sales technique is fine. I'm higher than normal. I would say close ratio when I'm actually speaking to them on the phone. Right. I'm trying to get away from that. I can have good customer relations with most people. They give me a call. The only thing that's stopping them is either the price or, I don't want to say economy, But a lot of people think it's the economy. You're fine. You're still eating out.

Yeah.

You know, you're not eating PB&J. Every day.

Yeah.

So you're okay?

Yeah.

But they don't see it that way. They think, oh, everyone else is the economy. So I thought the same thing for a while.

Yeah.

I'm just like, well, I just don't know how many customers. Not this year. But, you know, years past. I don't know how. I don't. Covid. Oh, no. I actually did the most money I've ever did during 2020.

Right.

And that was right before I signed up.

Got it. So did you move then to Fenton?

Yeah. Yep. I was 30 miles away.

Got it.

In that direction.

Got it. And so how many customers did you have there before you moved here?

60.

Okay, got it, got it. And how long were you doing it over there?

And I've been doing this since like 2014 or something like that. But it's. It's always, I'm throwing everything at the wall, seeing what's going to stick.

Right.

And my problem has always been, oh, I'll. I'll get this piece of equipment.

Right.

Oh, this, this thing's really cheap. Then like I told you, the. The fuel station.

Right, Right.

It's not going to speed anything up. It's just going to keep me from going to the gas station multiple times a week.

Yeah.

How much time is that going to save you? Enough to, you know, not be annoying. That'd be great.

Yeah.

I actually had a 14 gallon fuel station on my truck for years. I loved it. I only had to fuel up once a week, but my route density with 60 customers was much closer. And I was doing 90 something thousand in revenue. And of course, my profit margin because I'm solo was like 75%.

So what do you think is the cause of that being the default go to any more equipment? Because right now I just feel like you keep hitting 90, 100,000 in annual revenue. And my concern is not a matter of can we get more leads, it's a matter of can you, like, your personal capacity? Is it above 100,000 and like, like, leadership wise? I don't know, like, what do you feel is like, kind of like that, Cap? Because if you've been doing it for 10 years. Yeah, 15 years, whatever it is, like, what do you feel? Is that, is it a matter like you default to equipment all the time? Like, what's the distraction, do you think?

Oh, no, I don't spend a lot on equipment because I'm always finding some sort of deal or whatever. Like I said, that was 50 bucks.

Yeah, yeah.

That's not going to break the bank, anyone's bank.

Right.

I don't care if you don't have any money. It's. It's probably the people that I've hired in the past trying to get to that point where I'm like, okay, can you go out on your own? Well, then I never got enough customers to facilitate. All right, you take P2, right? You know, do I have enough money to paint P2? She ain't P2 right now. You know, it's a blue and white truck. Do I have enough money to paint it? And then decal, which, you know, paints like a thousand bucks here and then decals about 500. So 1500 bucks is not going to break anyone's bank either. Not even mine. Why would I need it? I can do everything on my own. Last year, I hired a kid part time, and he helped me trim on the days that I needed it, two days a week. The rest of it was all by myself, and it didn't matter. I was still home in time for dinner.

Right.

So that's when I was like, I can fit more in. Other people in Augusta Nation that are doing better than me. They're doing $20,000 in revenue per month are going, man, I'm getting home at like 6, 7 o'. Clock. It's been a rough day, but it's good.

It's.

You know, I'm growing. I'm going to be able to afford this, you know, later. I'm like, yeah. And then somebody else is going, yeah, I got all the equipment I need, but I'm going to be putting more into advertising, so. And then all of a sudden, I read their feeds later on, and it'll say something like, hey, we just added another 50 customers or something. Like. Like, 50 customers was another truck.

Right, right.

You know, I'm like, I'm not doing that. I don't know what. I don't know.

So do you not want the 50 customers? Like, what do you want from the business? Because, like, right now we have, like, say, 40, 50 customers. Do you want to have a second truck with an employee?

Yeah. Yeah. My goal is to max out and then, you know, hit capacity and then raise the prices so that either new customers don't sign on or when they do, it's more profitable. And then raise the prices on everyone that signed up in the beginning just a little bit, or at least the ones that I don't mind losing if they say no.

Yeah.

And then lose some of them so that it equals out.

Right, right.

And that would. I'm guessing that would be around 60 customers in this area per. Per truck.

Got it. So 20.

20 a day, three days a week.

120 mowing customers is sort of the goal.

Yeah.

So you. So do you want to get the extra 50 or not? Like, do you want the other employee and, like, growing to that size?

Yep.

Okay.

Yeah. Because I want to be able to duplicate each truck individually. You know, one to two mowers on each truck and they have their own route. And I just fill that person's schedule.

Right.

And then do another truck and another one and another one.

Got it.

Just keep. Just keep doing that each time. My issue. Well, I don't exactly know what it is, but I haven't filled the capacity of the one to then facilitate another.

And so for the. What has been the bottleneck? Has it been getting, like, enough customers? Has it been getting the employee? What has it been?

It'd probably be the customers. It'd probably be enough customer. Because once I got to.

Enough customers where I'm like, I can't do any more today, I would just put them on Tuesday and then one I couldn't. And when I filled up Tuesday, you know, my Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, if I filled up my Tuesday, just fill up my Thursday.

Got it.

Until. Until I said, okay, I don't want to do that anymore. I'm going to. I'm going to cut all these in half. And this one gets half and then that one gets half.

Right. So over the next six weeks, we have. We have spring rush. Right. The goal is, like, can we get 50 customers in that time frame, which is essentially one per day.

Yeah.

If you get one new customer per day for the next six weeks, we'll essentially be at that capacity for two trucks.

Yeah.

Okay. And then what are we doing right now? Like the door hangers. Great. How many of those do we have? And, like, how many are we doing?

Pretty much, you've seen them all.

Okay. Yeah.

That's what I keep in the truck.

Got it. And so how many do you have for spring rush, though? Just in there.

Yeah, that was left over from last year.

Okay.

So I could order some more.

So what sort of other advertising we're doing to get the customers? Nothing.

SEO. I like. I like how the SEO works.

Well, it's ranked number one. Like, that was what I was first looking at. Because you got the 32 reviews. You have a 4.8 stars. When I put Fenton, Michigan, you know, lawn care, we show up first natively.

Yep.

It's on Google Maps, etc. So it really comes down to, like, what are we doing to drive leads? Like, I think going into the spring rush, have an instant quote. You might hit that just organically in terms of the number of customers. But more importantly, it's like, what are we doing with our time now? Right now we don't have a lot of work. No, it's like, what are we filling our time with now?

To get the work?

Yeah.

Nothing.

Okay, so what are we doing on a daily basis?

Waiting for spring to hit.

That's like, the recurring theme I'm hearing. Like, waiting.

Yep.

Like, waiting is a horrible strategy.

Oh, it is. I mean, I'm going nuts. Like, I've been. I owe in my area. I went out three times to plow last year. That was it.

Yeah. And so, like, what do you think? Okay. If waiting, it gets us no customers, what's one level above that?

Doing something?

What is that?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, because. Because my old strategy was just physically actually going to do something, going out to the. To the houses. And there's some areas that I know I could hit and probably. Probably do really good. But you have to have a permit to. To solicit in that neighborhood. And the problem is because all those residents know you're not allowed to solicit. First thing, if they don't want your business, first thing they're going to say is, you're not allowed to do that. It's illegal. I've done it before.

And I'm like, you don't even have to knock. Like, you just canvas put the door hanger on. It's not soliciting unless you knock on the door.

I know.

So, like, it's just a matter of, like, what's keeping us from doing something. Because, like, waiting is. Is literally, we're waiting on the sun to come up for spring, and in two weeks, that's going to happen. And I think, yeah, I do believe you're going to get a lot of customers just going into the spring rush with instant quotes, et cetera. But if we're doing absolutely nothing and waiting, like, it's a horrible strategy.

It is. Look at where I'm at.

Okay, let's say whatever we're doing is illegal. Right. Which it's not. It's not soliciting, it's canvassing. If you're doing door hangers only. Okay, like, but let's assume it is illegal. All right? The alternative to being someone yelling at you and calling you doing something illegal is that we do nothing.

Yeah. Yeah. You can't. You can't not do nothing because you're afraid that something bad might happen.

Anytime you do any sort of action and push, push anyways, you're gonna have pushback. Right? Like whether it be from customers, the market, the economy, like there's going to be adversity. But like, why are we not taking those steps? Is it like, hey, I don't really need the money, I don't really need to grow the business, or is it a matter of like just inaction? Like why, why is it that we aren't doing anything?

It probably be just the inaction because. Because in the past my best work has always been in spring and summer. And then once I get to that point, I'm like, oh, I'm comfortable right here. And before I joined Augusta, that, that's the way of the way that it was. And I was happy with that. And it just, it just happened naturally. I mean, I still had plenty of snow customers. I've been plowing this thing the whole time. That's probably why she keeps breaking down.

It's just.

The comfortable spot, I guess.

Yeah.

I've heard the saying that people are like water. They always sink to their lowest point, if not under pressure, but under pressure, water can cut steel. So if you're put under pressure, you're going to do great things.

So what is creating pressure for you look like? Is it a matter we need less money to feel the discomfort?

Oh, I've got less money right now. I'm good.

Right. So like what, what defined that? So like what's right now? Are we from like a balance sheet perspective? How much money is in the bank?

Oh, about four in the business account and three in the personal account.

Got it. And I assume that that's relatively similar to what current past springs have been.

Yeah, yeah, that's nothing. That's nothing unusual. So that hasn't, I mean, a month ago that scared me. So I under pressure, went out to those bigger customers that I had last year, said, hey, can save you that 5% credit card processing fee if you write a one time check. A lot of them said, that sounds great. That's, you know, hundreds of dollars worth of savings. I'll take it. Here's a check. And I went ahead and just put that into the account. Technically I haven't done the work yet that's mowing all year. Right.

I don't know if you want to say for free, but you know, when I was doing, when I was doing my math for how much I was making last year and the year before 4 it was like around 8 to 10. And I'm like, that doesn't sound right. Well then I did the math for all the customers that prepaid all those other seasons as well. I'm like, okay, I'm doing about 12, 12,000amonth.

Got it. Per month?

Yeah, yeah, solo.

Got it.

So I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's fine. And of course, my profit margin, you know, still over 50%.

Right.

So I'm just like, yeah, I ain't got no overhead. It's fine. Yeah, no employees.

Like, is there enough pain for you to actually get another 50 customers and get the second truck up and running? Yeah, because like, just like we've done for 10 or 15 years this way and like, we'll just keep doing it this way.

No, I don't like that because the pain is my kids are growing up. I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old and a 22 year old, but he, he lives on his own somewhere over there. Yeah, no, I have little kids and I want more little kids and I don't want them to rent this house.

Right.

And it's pretty cheap and that's not gonna last forever.

Right.

And I'm gonna have to grow at some point.

Our ultimate goal was to buy some property and start a homestead and then raise our children in a homesteading farming environment on the light side, where you're not selling anything to make it any money. You're just, you're eating the food, you want bread, you gotta grow the wheat.

You know, that sort of thing.

So that they can learn those lessons. I'd be able to teach them biblical lessons on top of it. Bread, milk, honey, grapes, all of it. I'd be able to teach them that. Literally. This is, this is. Here are the sheep. This is. Yeah, this is what the Bible's talking about. They'd actually learn it firsthand. That was actually the main goal.

Right.

And then if the economy ever did super, super tank, it didn't matter. I still had food, electricity, all that stuff.

So what size does the business have to be to get to that point? Do you need to do about double, like 200,000 in a revenue?

That would be way more than that.

Okay, so what do you need to make for revenue wise for the business.

To be able to buy a house and start a homestead? Probably the 500 plus mark.

So four or five employees, three or four trucks.

Correct.

Got it.

Okay. That's why I was like, well, if I know how to do one truck, if I can learn how to do one Truck, then the number two truck isn't going to be a problem because I'll just do the exact same thing over and over, just a copy and paste.

Right.

Until I get to the point where I'm dealing with too many people that I hire somebody to deal with the people.

Right. But what are we waiting on? Like. Like it's not gonna just fall in our laps.

No.

Like, what is? Like, and this is a rhetorical question, like, what are we doing to make that happen? Because right now, sitting at home just waiting, we are not gonna build a $500,000 business. Like natural entropy to the universe is not. Is against us, is gonna take a force of will to build something.

Right.

A house doesn't just appear. We have to build the thing.

You gotta build it.

We gotta get materials. We gotta put effort and labor into it. And so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that what you've been filling your time with instead of going out and getting more customers to do that has been that project with the ramp we're at. How did you know? I'm just gonna go out on a limb.

That's my baby.

So walk me to your baby. Cause I have a feeling this baby is preventing other babies from being born.

I birthed it over the winter.

I know, but like, you know, so. Hey, walk me through this. Like, what. What is this all about?

All right, so this is called the real the rail gate.

The rail gate, Yep. Okay.

It's four common sections. It has rails inside. Eventually I'll have a rail that goes along the side as well.

Okay.

This thing turns into five different things.

Okay.

So it's not just a dovetail ramp.

Okay.

It could be a double dovetail ramp, which means you can fit a 60 inch mower on it.

Okay.

It is a truck bed extension. So a two foot extension.

Okay.

It's a tailgate. And then it is with adapters. It'll be. It'll have a car, a cargo carrier, whether it be a 2 foot one here. Because they're 24 inches by 60 inches.

Right. And so you weld all this up to your.

No, I had somebody else weld all this up.

Okay. So what's the difference between this and the EasyGo Mow system thing?

Yeah, the mow and go.

Yeah, Mow and go.

Yeah, yeah. And then there's the ramp rack.

Right.

A. It's going to be cheaper.

Okay.

This is going to be about the same price as the mountain go.

Okay.

It's that it turns into different things and it's One person operable. So you can take this apart.

So show me how this thing works. I want to see this baby. Okay. So this pin has to come out.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. That pin.

Okay.

I'm probably gonna have to use the hammer because it's like I said, it's still work in progress.

So she is not ready for market yet.

So the pin's got to come out.

Yep.

Once you get that.

Yeah. This is. This is temporary.

Okay. So take the pins out on the side.

Yep.

Very cool.

Cool. And so what's the difference between this and then the ramp rack? It's just cheaper.

Really. It's going to be less expensive. And then it's like I said, one man operable. Okay. So you. So one person can take out these pins.

Yeah.

And grab this piece. It's only about £80.

Yeah.

And then move it off to the side and then do the next piece.

Why? Why would you do that?

I had such a hard time. Most of my inventions, I got like five to eight of them, depending on what type of invention you're talking about.

Yeah.

It has always been, I'm solo. How do I create a product, find a product, or create a product that is. I don't have to rely on somebody else.

But why would you need to take off that bottom rack? That bottom piece?

This piece?

Yeah.

Not the. Wouldn't necessarily need to take apart. Apart that. It was so that it was universal and you could have five pieces if you wanted.

I see. It's like.

So right now it's in dovetail mode, but if you raise that up, it's now in truck bed extension mode.

Okay.

And then there'll be hinges.

Oh, I see. And then you could connect to the end.

Yeah, it'll connect on here and there'll be a full rail and this will all hold together. So now you have a ten foot bed. If you wanted a cargo carrier, you could do a four foot cargo carrier. You could actually put a whole mower on this. 4 foot or. Yeah. 4 foot long cargo carrier here.

Okay. So what's the status of this? This is like prototype, just prototype.

It's not even done yet. It hasn't had all its welds and it's going to get galvanized.

Okay.

And all that stuff.

And so what's it going to cost to get this to market?

About 3,000 per thing.

But what's it going to cost to develop it? Oh, manufacture.

I got it done. Welding. I already had a meeting with. Are you familiar with U mount blowers?

Yeah.

So I had a Meeting with Jerry. Jerry has a partner in Holland, and he has. This guy has three warehouses with robotic welders and everything. He's got the money. He said it's gonna cost about $300 per piece. So about 1500 dollars together with the sides and everything, he'd be able to get that to me. So plus shipping and all that stuff, I'm guessing about 3,000 bucks. He said that he's already got it done if he. If I wanted to. To go with him.

But, like, what's it going to cost to manufacture? Because you got to create. That's it.

1500 bucks per. Per unit.

So I could go. I could order one of these tomorrow for $1,500.

No, that's going to cost him. I had to pay him $1,500. Plus. Plus paint or galvanized. That's about 500 bucks, plus shipping and then plus profit for me.

So 1500. What's the cost of this, like, to build it? Like, what. What would be your wholesale price? You get it for that?

I would get it for. Yeah, it'd be about $1,500.

And then what did you sell it for?

3,000.

So ramp rack is 3,200, 3,500 or whatever it is.

Oh, it is.

Well, depending.

It was 5,000.

Well, I guess we get a discount, but like. So let's call it 4200, whatever it is. Like, this is my question. Is this going to make you $500,000 a year?

Oh, that's a good question. I don't know.

I hope so. I really see this as a solution to a lot of problems that people in our industry are having.

So what problem will this solve that ramp rack does not.

You can take this off and you can turn it into something different. If you don't want a dovetail ramp, it doesn't matter. You don't have to put it in dovetail ramp mode. You can put it into something else. If you. If you live in an apartment or you live in a trailer park that doesn't allow you to have trailers, you don't have to have one. Because that was part of my problem when I first started. That's why I had to get a Moengo. Ramp rack was too expensive. And I love their product. It's. It's a. It's a heavy duty product, but it was too expensive. I couldn't afford it. So I found Moengo and half the price. I bought that. And that's what allowed me to get past the hump. Because once we once Me and my wife got married. I brought my trailer to the mobile home park, and they said, nope. I said, what am I supposed to do? This is how I pay my rent. You want me to pay my lot rent, you gotta let me do my job. And they're like, you gotta park it somewhere else. That wasn't gonna happen. So when I found the Moengo system, I put that on 2,100 bucks at the time, which it's a lot more now. I put that on, and it actually catapulted my business because then I was able to do more in less time.

Okay. So my question, though is like, is this distraction preventing us from building a $500,000 business?

Yeah.

And the likelihood of this succeeding versus getting more mowing customers. I know the GR grow.

Yes.

I know that customers need it cut. I'm not so certain that this has enough differentiation.

Yeah, you're right.

To be able to get over the hump, because it's not $3,000 to get this off the ground. The marketing, the branding, the. The patents, the. All the trademarks are required for this. The infrastructure. You're not going to be able to buy one of these from Holland and have it shipped here.

No.

You don't have these things.

I think he said 10 units total, and he could store it and then ship it from there. It would cost extra. Extra 30.

Right. So if it's gonna cost an extra 30 for 10% for 10 of these.

Yeah.

You're already higher cost at wholesale than the cost of a ramp rack. If it's 30% more.

Well, just to. To store it and ship it, it was 30% over 1500.

Right. So 30% more than that's gonna. Look, we're looking at almost $2,000.

Yeah.

And then if we're going to sell these for how much?

I was. I was shooting for the $3,000 mark.

Okay. So we have $1,000 in gross profit. Now, it doesn't include website advertising, all this other stuff, the storage, all these other things that are going to go into this.

Yeah.

We have $1,000 in gross profit. We would need to sell 500 of these per year, which is more than one per day, to be able to get enough gross revenue to equal what the business could do with two or three trucks.

Agreed.

And so my question is, is this a distraction? Or is it. Or is it a distraction that's simply keeping you busy during the winter when we could be focused on getting the more customers?

Yeah. Because I. The. The. My fabricator was curious when we were going to Finish it up when I was going to pay him for this and blah, blah. And I said, I think I'm good now. It works.

Yeah.

I want to finish it up. There's got to be some more welding. And like I said, paint or galvanizing, but I knew spring was coming up and it actually works. I get my mower on it, not a problem. And that can go on that truck. And I can do it one person. The way that I designed it and the way that it's built. I don't need help.

Right.

I don't like the other systems that I've had.

Yeah. But my thing is with this is like, I understand getting on and off is a one man job.

Yeah.

The thing is, 95% of people don't take on and off these ramp racks.

Right.

They leave them on the truck. And so because of that, if they need help to get it on or off, they ask a friend to come over for a day.

Yeah.

And they put it on.

Or they have an employee and that's. And that's fine. Hey, today your job is to remove this so we can turn the truck into something else.

Right.

And I get that. I don't think that everyone is going to go, yeah, this solves my problem. I'm going to buy your product instead of something else. And I get that. But there's, I believe that there's going to be enough. I've, I've heard it a thousand times. People are like, I'm not going trailerless because. And they give an answer that isn't a sufficient answer.

But is your differentiation enough to be able to convince them to go trailerless?

Yes.

What is that?

That you can still run a 60? A lot of guys are like, well, I'm not. I don't run anything less than 60. You still put a 60.

So why could you not put a 60 onto a ramp rack?

You can, I've seen them. I've seen, I can't remember who.

So you're really. Your differentiation is price, price.

And, and it converts, it converts into other things. So it doesn't have to be a dovetail ramp.

But what percentage of people convert their ramp rack or want to convert this?

Well, none, because there isn't. It doesn't exist yet.

That might be a reason why there might be.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of my ideas, I go and search, image search, YouTube search, whatever it is, product search. I look for products, whatever. And if it doesn't exist, I start to think two things. One, well, then that's something that can be Invented. And two. Well, then why hasn't it been invented yet? I mean, when I. When I. When I first found. Right when I first found the. The ramp rack and the railgate, you got to remember, that's how I found you, is I was like, who else is doing this? I mean, these ramp racks are expensive.

What am I. Why aren't more people using them? And so when I started searching it on YouTube, see who was going trailerless and what the advantages are, because I knew the advantages. I found this guy saying that I'm putting ramp racks on all seven of my trucks. And then I found out he doesn't have seven trucks. He's got 10 or 12 or something like that. You know, I'm like, oh, well, this guy knows what he's talking about. And I started. And I stopped. I, to some degree, stopped paying attention to some of the other guys because some of their advice was good advice, but not for me. There was a guy that said, don't do bi weekly. It's going to ruin your business. So I told a bunch of people, I'm not doing bi weekly. And I lost business. I did that at the wrong time. I was listening to the wrong person at the wrong time. And so I stopped listening to that person and started listening to the person said, you could do bi weekly but charge 50% more. I said, oh, there you go. Not only is it going to be higher profit, but it's also going to be a little bit of a punishment where they're going to go, yeah, that ain't worth it. Just go ahead and do weekly. There you go. You're encouraging them to do that. So I found you that way. It solved a problem. It helped catapult. And like I said, it's not always the case because that's. That's part of my blockage in my brain is, oh, well, if I just find a product that will solve this problem, if I just get a different mower, if I get a bigger mower, if I get a smaller mower, right? If I get a way to not have a trailer, all these things are like, okay. And then more than half the time when I've actually either made the product or just bought something, it actually did solve a problem. And instead of going, all right, well, where's my next problem? I'm going to solve it. Or, you know, oh, now I need more customers, better advertising, because I'm horrible. And I didn't do that. I just went, well, awesome. I'm going to run all year with the one problem that I solved, I solved one problem. Now I'm just going to run that all year round.

I plateaued and then went, oh, now what do I do? And then my default was since I'm good at the physical stuff.

Right.

At actually making something, coming up with the physics that actually make this thing work. That's just what I keep going to when that isn't the solution.

Well, there's three ways to grow a business. Right. You got, you can do things more. More of what you're doing. You can do what you're doing better or you can do something new.

Yeah.

And everyone defaults to new. The problem with new is that you have a very low chance of actually being successful. Whereas if you keep just doing more and better of what you're currently doing, you usually make a lot more money.

Yeah. And, and just there's a lot of.

Problems in the world to solve and a lot of inventions that could be made.

Yeah.

But doing more and better is a. Has a much greater likelihood of making profit than doing things that are new.

Yeah. It's, it's gonna work. It's gonna be a what a higher percentage that it's actually going to work.

Yeah. Have money. Profit.

Yeah. And, and just so you know, although I, I like that I invented something. I like that it's going to help. I like that ultimately I was like, hey, I just want to invent it for myself. If nobody else buys it, I don't care. I have one that works.

I, I don't mind tinkering, I don't mind building, like scratching your itch and making a solution, but when it's distracting you from building the main thing.

Yeah.

That's where you want to cut it.

Yeah.

And like, like the fact that if we're spending a bunch of time looking at patents, who's going to manufacture. Where is this going to be stored? How can I sell this?

Oh, I drove all the way out to Holland.

You drove to Holland within that truck. Oh, wait, Holland, Holland, Michigan. Oh, Michigan. I kept thinking Holland, like on the other side of the. I was like, dude.

Yeah. It's amphibious.

How did you drive to Holland?

Yeah, I drove to Holland, Michigan.

Okay.

Met up with Nick, got, I had to make sure that thing actually worked. Got that mower loaded up and then drove to do the presentation with the guy. He said he loved it. Like a three hour long presentation. He showed me his whole. It was, it was basically very encouraging.

Yeah.

And I wanted to sell it for 2,500 bucks. Well, they were like, well, the problem with that is that's like your manufacturer. You're not making any profit. And the reason why ramp rack is selling them for $5,000 because they're making.

Profit, a profit off.

I was like, okay, I get it. I'd rather, you know, just build these, have somebody build them and just sell them to the people that I know.

And make no money.

20 profit, whatever it is, instead of having that guy.

You know, if you sold a hundred of those and you made 500 bucks a piece, that's 50 grand.

So I think I did the revenue thing, and I think this is probably where I got distracted. So let's say it was 3,000.

Okay. Revenue. And you're gonna sell them for three grand revenue, which again, just for the sake of being critical, is about $1,000 less than a ramp rack. But they have rails, so we're comparing.

It would come with rails.

Okay, okay. With rails, we're looking at three grand.

Yeah. So the version it's in right now, it has the sides and would have rails.

Got it.

And that would be the 3,000.

Okay. You're selling it for 3,000.

Yeah. But if you didn't want the. You can bi fold that and have it just be a ramp. Doesn't have to be a dovetail. So therefore, you don't need the sides.

Okay.

So with the sides, you can actually have it. A truck bed extension.

Okay. So that's three grand. We're selling it for three grand.

If I sold 200 of them, that's 600,000 in revenue.

Well, I know, but half of that's going out the door to just manufacturing.

Yeah.

So 300,000, you're gross.

Yeah.

So you're doing 300,000, and then you have expenses of man of advertising, licensing, insurance.

Like. Yeah.

I didn't think about all that.

It's like saying I'm going to build a $500,000 business. Saying I'm making $500,000 in profit. It's not.

Yeah, you're not making $500,000 profit. Right.

And so I figured.

I figured it was going to be about 25%, but again, I haven't done it. So again, that's part of. I'm like, hey, I got a great idea. I would buy one of these. Yeah, I bet you other people would buy them, too. I had quite a few people that I know on Augusta alone, and then people that I met at Quip Expo, and when I told about this, they were like, tell me, I'll buy one now. If 3,000 is not going to be enough, you know, they might not buy mine.

Okay, great. Give me $3,000 and I will build you one. And I think the number of people that will be interested becomes far less. Like, the difference between that's a good idea versus I will give you $3,000. Very different.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And I'm not confident people are going to give you $3,000. Well, I am confident is people will give you 50 to go mow their craft.

To go mow their lawn. Yeah.

And that can scale. Like, this is a distraction that's going to keep you at 100,000 per year in revenue on the mowing business.

Because I'm trying to do something else.

And I like, there's not a differentiation between this and the next product. It's another me too product minus your rev. You're like, oh, it's cheaper. Great. It's cheaper because you're leaving all the money on the table. Like, all that extra profit. Like, they're manufacturing theirs for 1500 and they're selling it for the 4000, and they make a profit. And I know them, and I know those are skinny margins. And so when you start manufacturing heavy equipment and all the metal and the fabrication and the storage and the warranties and the insurance, like, there's so many other factors that go into that. It is distracting you from doing the thing that we know it has a customer, we know we can grow.

Do you have grass?

And so if we're. If we're. If we're. If we're waiting for spring and that is preoccupied preoccupying our time, kick the thing to the curb, scratch your itch, let you use it. Let's go. And if you grow this business, I happen to think if you have 10 trucks rolling around with those and you're like, crushing it, people will suddenly be very interested. And I know it's like, it's your baby.

Well, it's because I had a good idea. I actually, it was a very. I've got eight rolling around in my brain right now. A lot of them are going to be super expensive. Like I said, I have soft meetings with Bradley Mowers, and I had one with umount, and I'm supposed to have another one with mega attachments about, hey, I got an idea. I'm going to present you this idea. Let me tell you.

Do you know how many of those they get every year? Yeah, probably hundreds.

And because mega attachments, he was like, yeah, I'll listen. That was all he said.

Yeah, it's not worth your time or attention.

Okay.

I can Guarantee you, I have no doubt whatsoever that that will have less opportunity than growing this business.

Yeah. And here's the thing. I do agree with that. I don't think that I'm going to stop doing this to do that.

I don't think by doing both, neither will succeed.

Oh, okay. I see what you're saying, because I thought I could. Hey, I just. I got a fabricator. I don't. I know how to fabricate that. I'm not. That I'm not as good as the guy that I hired. And he's got all the equipment, so he just went ahead and during the winter, he put that together for me.

Right.

And I'm like, yes, I finally got it and I needed it for this year anyway. So once that was done, I sold my old one.

But you're having the manufacturing, the fabrication done by someone else. You are the middleman. You're the salesperson. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

And so they already have a markup. Right. Someone like ramp rat goes from their warehouse to the customer. They don't have a middleman.

Okay.

And so you are essentially the salesperson. And what I haven't heard you talk about is like, how am I going to sell this? The brand, the marketing strategy. That's actually the business you are in, not building it.

Yeah. Everyone that I've talked to already say, so you're part of Augusta. I said, yeah. They're like, you sell it to them. I was like, well, I can put it on the. On the site. Sure. And. And yeah, there's going to be a lot of people that are going to go, hey, that's a great idea. I want to buy one. And I said, that's fine, but that's still only 150. 170 locations.

Well, still, it's just a matter of, like, what, Pass it.

I got to do more than that.

Well, even. Even this, like, during spring rush, let's assume you sell 200 of these to just Augusta Nation.

Yeah.

Okay. During spring rush, when they're being used the most, guess what's gonna happen. This thing broke. I need a new spring. How do I do this? This fell off the truck. This bracket came loose.

Yeah.

And guess when that's gonna happen. During spring rush.

Right. When I'm busy doing this.

So by doing that, it's going to take away from this, and then by doing this, which you need to be doing during spring rush, it's going to be taking away from that.

Yeah.

Why not just focus on one of them? And I happen to believe that 100% of people need their grass cut and exactly 0% of people have bought those right now.

Yeah.

If we make this successful and it's like, it's not a problem during the winter, financially and things, then we go scratch the itch of creating, innovating, and being an inventor, which that's fine if that's what you love to do.

Yeah.

It's one thing to be a passion project or a hobby. It's another for it to distract from what puts food on the table.

Yep.

And what's keeping us from ultimately the goal of having the homestead, being able to do that, and building the $500,000 in revenue business.

Yes.

Yeah. If the past these next two weeks, three weeks, we are still just waiting. That's going to be the difference between this year doing 120 and this year doing 200.

You're right.

And so if right now, if what I saw in there is all we're doing for door hangers is like a hundred door hangers, we should be doing 100 a day.

Yeah, you're right.

And that only costs like. Like $80.

Yeah.

In marketing spend.

Yeah.

If right now we were, okay, we're gonna do a hundred per day minimum. Like, the rule of 100 it is. We do a hundred door hangers per day. You're like, well, they don't want soliciting. Fantastic. We won't knock on the door. Just do 100 of them.

Right.

I happen to think if you do 100 per day, you'll probably get almost a customer a day. And if you get a customer per day, over the next six weeks, we'll have 50 new customers.

Yes.

And we have 50 new customers. We'll fill both of these trucks.

Correct.

And so what I don't want to see is a distraction.

Keep us with braille gates on both.

Fantastic. I could care less what we put in the back. I just care about the customers. Right.

Yeah.

Because having the railgate, having the ramp up, I don't care. The fact is, if I got a ramp rack, it cost an extra thousand dollars. I don't really care about the money. I care about the distraction of weeks and months spent on doing something other than what's producing revenue.

Yeah. Okay. What would your advice then be in the winter when there was nothing to do?

I was only surviving on the money that I made from the previous year. I knew that's what was going to happen because that's what's happened every year since then. As soon as I went full time.

Yeah.

That's what happened is I made enough money, all right? So I'm gonna snow plowing. And I would sell snow plowing to all, you know, most of my customers, right. I'd have 20 to anywhere between 20 and 60 customers that needed snow plowing.

Right.

So I would go out and do that. And that was anywhere between 8 and 12 pushes per year. Per season.

Yeah.

I mean, if you think about. That's about. That's about one a week, right. You know, for winter.

Right.

So you go out once a week, and you absolutely kill yourself, and you come back, you're like, yeah, this year I only did three.

Right.

And I did not sell a lot of customers.

Right.

So all the customers that I had, they're all like, yeah, we'll let you know.

Right.

And none of them actually had it done. You know, the ones that I did had it done. I actually got new customers that have never heard of me before actually sign up for, but it's still only three.

I have a feeling, though, that the distraction of things like that, though, keep us from going out and, like, pushing against the market. Like, talking to every single customer in person is something that can be done. And asking them for the snow. Like, getting the snow contract in. Right.

Like doing, like, door hangers for snarl.

Sure.

Okay.

Like, around here, on average, this is more like five to ten times a year. It should be happening.

It should be.

We can do it. The thing is, alternatively, let's assume we don't do mowing. We could do Christmas lights. We could do a lot of different things. We could do fall cleanups.

Yeah, I did fall cleanups.

It's a matter of, like, that spending so much time. Like, how many. Like, right now, if we're. Because we're doing nothing right now, there's no jobs. We don't have any snow plowing. What are we doing throughout the day? Like, what. What is, like, the day in the life of Ken? Look, like just.

Just family stuff. Okay. Just family stuff.

Yeah. Which is valuable.

Yeah. No, and it is. And I enjoy it. And it's not like I'm like, man, I don't want to go to work. It's more like, all right, well, when I get to work, I'm going to soak up this time, because when I get to work, I'm going to be spending less time with my kids.

If I really. If I really boil it down and examine what happens, what happened in the previous years, I was still only working three days a week.