we CUT OUT more services! (no more trees)
Mike Andes cut planting and specialty services from his four lawn care locations to boost recurring revenue from 40% to 75%. Planting created callbacks, supply chain chaos, and training headaches. He now focuses on mowing, trimming, and weed control to scale faster and reduce risk.
Questions this video answers
About $1.6 million (≈ $1.6M) with 20%+ margin.
About 5–10% of revenue.
From roughly 40–45% recurring to 75%+ recurring.
361-733-3333
Chapters
Hey everyone, it's Mike Gandies. Welcome to another live show here on a Saturday. Happy July 4th weekend. We're gonna jump right into it. If you have question, feel free to give the call, this number here a call. It's a brand new set, so give me a couple seconds to get situated here. But we are going to talk about really quickly why we are cutting out planting services, plowing services, etc. From the shops that I own again as part of Augusta Lawn Care, someone can choose whatever services they want. They can have any, any service that they would possibly like. In terms of landscaping and lawn care, completely up to them. Some, some of our franchisees do concrete, some of them do landscape lighting, irrigation, Christmas lights, et cetera. However, for the four locations that I own, we are cutting out planting and we're cutting out snow plowing for the a couple of them as well. So I'll talk about snow plowing mostly in a different video and why we're doing that. But today I'm talking about why we're cutting out planting completely. Alright. So hopefully everyone can hear me. Okay, we've got a new set here. Somehow when you have a really good camera, you can make everything look decent by just blurring it out. So it's great. Alright, so let's talk a little about why we're cutting out planting. Now, a lot of people will say, well, with planting you can sell the warranty and that's true. However, if you don't do irrigation, it's very difficult to ensure that the customer's actually gonna water their plants. And if you're in the south right now, you know what it's like to be in a drought and not have any water for two, three, four, five weeks. And so you might do all the planting just right, have the soil done right, have some compost around it. Everything is planted perfectly. But if they don't actually water the stinking plant, it will die. And then even if you do not sell a warranty, you are going to be held responsible. And when I say responsible, I also mean online reviews. Because when it dies three weeks later, because they went on a vacation to Tahiti and forgot to put any sort of water on their plants that you just installed for them, it's still going to be your fault. And it's also really annoying when you're doing planting is you've got to make sure that the nursery, you're in sync with the nursery. Now we have one of our franchisees who's epic and he has his own nursery. So that's awesome because you control the entire supply chain. But for us, we don't have a nursery. I don't want to do planting in the Pacific Northwest. And so we cannot know for certain whether or not the plants are there, whether or not they're going to have us enough supply, whether or not they sold the plants to somebody else without telling us. And so we have consistently seen the jobs that create the most headache, have the most callbacks, and more importantly, just create the most headache for our general managers to do. Scheduling is the ones with planting. And then it's also another skill you need to train your employees on in addition to the regular services, because most people don't know how to plant a tree correctly. And every single tree likes to be planted a little bit differently. So we have cut it out completely. We have really been trying to get away from jobs that take a lot of skill, jobs that are very difficult to schedule. And the thing with these nursery, these nurseries is it's not their fault. Like, they are having a hard time just getting transported these plants to their facility. And then once they're there, they have five people that want to buy them, so they literally could sell them out from underneath you. And now you've scheduled a job six weeks out in advance, and they're just trying to make a buck, and they're going to sell it to the first person that shows up potentially. And, you know, there goes your project, there goes your scheduling for the next two weeks. You now have to call, call the customer, cancel the job. You have to put the crew that was supposed to be on that job, the scheduled crew on the job on a different project, and it's a mess. So we've stopped doing planting completely. And I used to be of the opinion that you could warranty plants, make really good money on warrantying plants. I really believe you can do that. If you're doing a landscape design build type of company and you have the skilled laborers and that's really what you focus on. For us, planting is probably like 5 to 10% of our revenue. Planting bushes, trees, all the rest of it, we're doing none of it. No more planting. I don't want to have anything to do with it because whenever there's a problem, it's our fault. When the customer didn't water it, they don't have any irrigation system. It's like, look, in the past, we would do a drip irrigation system and warranty the plants. And I actually really like this model. If you're focused on landscape design, build is sell Plants sell planting, but then only warranty the plants if you put irrigation on them so that way you can ensure the flow of water. That's a really good model. But again, now I've got to train my guys that are lower skilled, excuse me, on irrigation and installing irrigation. Now all of a sudden the little pop thing pops off and they got a stream of water.
Flying across their lawn. And again I'm getting another callback and I want to reduce as many admin calls and rescheduling and calling supplier. Want to reduce that as much as possible if I'm trying to build a business that's super simple and runs on systems. Now if you like, design, build, this is what I would say, still install the plants, still install the trees. And make sure you sell warranties on those trees by making sure you upsell them into irrigation. So how you do that is like, hey, Mr. Jones, we are installing this 20, 20 row hedge, a 20 plant hedge of trees. And they're like, well, are you, if they, if they die, are you going to come back and fix it? Like, well, we only warranty the trees if we install the irrigation ourselves. And so here's another upsell. Here's an option for you to be able to choose the irrigation and you have to have that if you want us to do any sort of warranty on these. That's the only way I would do warranty. That's the only way I'd do planting. Excuse me, Mercy. Sorry. I drink one of these carbonated drinks. It has caffeine in it and I need caffeine. So I don't usually have caffeine, but when I'm really tired I need caffeine. So making me cough and everything this morning because the carbonation. All right, let's go ahead and jump in. If you want to give us a call, give me a call here. Give us, give me a call and I will try to answer it here. And. But the bottom line for today, we are simplifying services. And our local shop, for example, last year did like 1.6 million in revenue, 20 plus percent margin. It was beautiful, right? But guess what? All things must come to an end. And so we are having margin compression like most of us in this industry because of wages going up, fuel going up, cost of trucks and equipment going through the roof. And so we made the conscious decision to take a step back in our profitability this year in order to really, really dial in and focus in on recurring work and not skilled, skilled and work that requires a lot of skill. So that we can do better in an environment where the labor market's very unskilled. And then also to make sure that as we go into a recession that we are focusing most of our energy on recurring work. So we've gone from like 40, 45% recurring work to 75 plus percent recurring work. And that's going to take a step back in your profitability in the short term. Especially because we didn't raise the prices on our mowing this spring. So we've changed that. We've raise prices in June at the local shop. So take a little bit of a step back in profitability by cutting out things like planting, retaining walls, paver patios. We're cutting all of that out. And for everyone that is like, that's crazy. It's like, look, I do not want to have to take a month, two months, three months to train someone up on how to be efficient and skilled at those different services. I want to be able to throw them in the mix and within 2, 3 days, maximum a week, they are profitable when it comes to mowing, pulling weeds, trimming bushes, the simple services. And it's just a different business model. Right. If I had multiple people in doing, estimating and design and several people in the office and more admin, then I'd be more inclined to like, let's do larger projects. Let's do that 50, $60,000 paver patio and retaining wall and that, you know, massive excavation job. And so, you know, someone like Tigrin can do massive 120, $130,000 projects. That's fantastic. But I'm not going to go buy $70,000 trucks and pay people 30, $40 an hour because much harder to scale that. And I don't want to be hauling materials and juggling when jobs show up and the concrete doesn't set right. And I'm tearing up $40,000 worth of concrete. I don't want that headache. I can't scale and have 10 plus locations that I want to own personally across the country where I'm not there. I can't be doing that if I'm tearing out concrete and planting lemon trees across with a crane. It looks great, it's awesome, and you can make great money on it, but you're not going to create systems around putting a tree over a house or tearing out concrete. It's just very, very, very difficult to scale that in any meaningful way. So we are cutting out, planting. I am tired of dead plants, unhappy customers, because, well, I came back three weeks after my vacation. I know it's the middle of July, but it's dead. And I think you all should come back and fix it. It's definitely your fault. When you planted it, it was green, and now it's brown. And it's like, have you ever gone to kindergarten and realized that a plant needs water? And we put fertilizer and compost and great topsoil around that plant, and it was perfectly installed. And I'm sorry. It's not our fault. No. But I'm gonna go online and I'm gonna leave a very, very bad review. And so you literally will fix it just to appease them and prevent the public discourse with the customer. But ultimately, it kills profitability. It takes. Guess what? You. Your managers, your field leads, and the people that are, like, the most valuable in your company get dragged into these discussions and these yellow slips and callbacks of these customers. And I'm sorry, I'm going to forfeit the 70% margins that I can get on planting so that I can just scale it and not have calls all the time and not have to go back and have people fix and change out the tree. Well, now that tree is a month back ordered on at the nursery. So, sorry, Mr. Jones, we will replace the tree. But you're gonna see that brown one there for the. It's ridiculous. All right, call in. As always, everyone does not call in at the beginning, and then there's a backlog of calls at the end. So call the number here. 361-733-3333. I can answer any questions you might have. I wish I could put this at the top of the screen so you can still see the phone number. So, phone number is there. 361-733-3333. And it's Saturday. It's July 4th weekend. Um, but let's go ahead and jump into some of these that are popping in here on the chat. Cut out more. My company barely gets its lawn cut on a regular basis as it is from y' all now. More taken. Okay. I don't understand that. Richard Martinez. I have an hour and a half before I go to work on this yard. Mo weed, eat, and a trim on a small tree. Let's go. And by the way, it's not to say that projects and planting and all these other things are bad or wrong. You can absolutely do them. You just got to change your business model. And so I'm much more about creating systems, having the business run without me, creating as little friction in the day as possible, reducing project management, reducing callbacks. Allowing the crew to actually make P4P pay for performance. They can't if they're doing callbacks all the time. If they have to go back to a house and tear out a hedge of trees, it's going to take them an entire day and there's no extra P4P for them. So again, I do not want that to happen. So, Paul, wheel. Okay, here we go. 100%. We do garden bed, garden design primarily. It's a massive time suck to get job done. Definitely the most callbacks. And every garden design is different. A work of art. Yeah, and I'm all about work of art. I actually really enjoy design, to be honest. I enjoy actually creating designs by hand, by sketching. Some of you didn't know that, but I do and I really do enjoy it. However, it's just not good for the business because I might enjoy doing designs, but I know I'll go find a general manager in every single location that can do designs and is good at art and is good at like balancing out colors inside of a garden design. It's much harder to scale. And so again, it's not to say that is bad. If you want to stay in your business and you really enjoy it, you're going to be able to do planting and design and build and all the rest of it. It's actually really, really fun. I enjoy it. I enjoy grading and installing new lawns and all the rest of it. One of our locations out in Augusta, Geor, I don't know if they have yet or they were thinking about cutting out sod install now. Sod install is a very profitable service and in their area, I believe they do several like probably, I guess that's pretty. Probably over $100,000 worth of sod install every year. However, if every single time you do it, 80% of the time there's one or two pieces that are dying, the edges fray out, they don't get watered and now it starts to like fade and. And all these other problems. If you can cut it out and have a short term loss in revenue, but in the long term, you're cutting, baby. Back on admin, way back on your headache. That's the biggest thing is like I don't want to be in business in 10 years and still being worried about planting trees and whether or not they grow. I want the systems to be running without me.
I'm so happy I got here in the beginning. It was raining very hard today. The sun just came out. Okay. Planting trees equals extra maintenance, which by the way, you can actually make good money on that. You can make good money on planting trees and then selling a maintenance package on them. So it's not to say it's a bad thing. It's just to say that planting trees is one of the highest touch things that we see in our business now. We started when we started simplifying services the past few years. We started the most high touch things. The things that always create the highest, highest skill. High touch. Don't like those. I don't like it. First thing was like artificial turf. We cut that out delivering materials only because we used to have big dump trucks and all that cut that out trees. When we need the chipper, the tree chipper, we would go in there and have a big tree chipper. We cut that out because this is what I don't have to worry about. Someone getting sucked up into a 12 inch chipper. Was it 12 inches? Yeah, it was a big chipper. A big diesel chipper. I don't want no one getting sucked up in that thing. The insurance literally was 40% higher because we had a tree chipper. It was literally almost double because we did snow plowing. So everyone that talks about there's so much money in those things, but if you do it two or three times a year, if it's 5, 10% of your revenue, you just realize that like I just cut my insurance bill by 75% over the past couple years by cutting out these services. And when you have a big company, that insurance bill gets rather large when it comes to general liability. So just something to think about. Not saying it's the best thing for everybody though. Margins are excellent on garden design, but you got to be dedicated that side of the landscape industry 100%. And it's getting harder and harder to find employees, by the way, that actually understand garden design are good at planting trees and are going to reduce callbacks. It's just harder and harder to find those master gardener types. And if you do find them, you're going to have to pay them out to wazoo because otherwise there's a hundred other positions ready for them right now. Cool. There's no one calling in today. What's up with that? Everyone always call. Once we get the calls in, everyone starts like rolling in. I spoke into Existence. First call from, I think it's Michigan. I always get this one wrong. 51 7, you are on the show. Go ahead.
Hello?
Hey, how's it going?
Hey, how's it going, Mike? Thanks for taking my call.
You got it, brother.
What's up I, I, I got two questions for you. First one, first one being I'm, I'm in my third year of business and I'm doing about 170, 260 in profit this year. Obviously I'm putting a lot back into it after the summer. And I have a good friend of like six, seven years now. He works with me in the spring and fall, but he does like, he does pool installs for a company and works like 100 hour week. Great worker, is very talented in brickwork. I'm thinking about letting him, letting him buy me out next summer, half of me and we work together. What do you think about that?
99% of the time, I am not a fan of partnerships. They almost always.
It'S like even a good marriage eventually ends because one of someone dies, right? And so like when it comes to business, even, even though when they're buddy, their friend, like, you got to realize, like, I try to put even like we have a general manager and he wanted one of his friends to come work at his location. I'm like, like, I haven't said anything yet, but I'll probably have to address it at some point. It's like, hey, you're going to eventually have to choose, do you want to be a good friend or do you want to be a good manager? Right. And when it comes to, you know, your relationship with him, you have to realize that you've got to be willing to walk away from the relationship for the sake of the business if you're going to become a business partner. Right. And because there's gonna be times you guys disagree and then you gotta see each other at like the party and that's not fun. And.
I've seen so many partnerships fail and mess up. Maybe I'm just, you know, jilted, you know, kind of, you know, I have bad memories, PTSD of them, but I don't have any partners. I don't recommend people getting into partnerships unless they're gonna bring so much value and you literally can't do it without them. It sounds like you have a good thing going. Why would you give 50% of that away unless they're giving you a ridicul valuation to buy in?
Yeah, it was more than just. Or like you'll probably pay for half the assets, obviously, and then like a little bit of projected revenue. But it was morely just to get into brickwork next year. So I'll have hopefully another big truck and kid, why would you get into brickwork?
Why would you get, that's the question. Like, is it just to grow size and revenue or like just, you know, increase profits? Like, what's the goal in adding brickwork?
The goal in adding brickwork is we did like a patio in the spring or we did about three small patios because he was working with me and he basically, I paid him very well and he, he kind of took, took it under his wing while I was mowing too. And, and they're just crazy profitable.
Like I was.
Why not just keep subbing it like that though? Why not sub it like that? Like, why does he.
Reason being is he, he works like 100 hour weeks in the summer and he doesn't want to come work hourly or he, he doesn't want to work hourly and not get guaranteed hours like he's making. He's just a hardest worker, you know what I mean? Because I don't know if I'll be able to. I can't really, like, it's hard to explain, but I can't really just like send him out on a job and say, hey, go do this. And I'm paying him hourly and him just trying to figure this own stuff out. You know what I mean?
What if you give them a cut? What if you give them a cut or cut of the profits on every single, like Even if it's 70% of the profits on those brickwork jobs and then he's not, he's not an equity partner. Yeah. Like, just give him like literally like, hey, every single time you come and work for me, you're getting an hourly wage. But then you're also going to get 70% of all the profits on the brickwork because like, that's going to cost you way less than giving the equity away. If you're making $200,000 in annual profit, you're literally giving an annuity of $100,000 a year when he signs that paperwork. Right. And so in profits. Right. So I'd really, really recommend that because also by having him as a partner, he now has you as the, as the brickwork side of business grows, he gets more and more leverage against you because the more and more the revenue is going to be coming from the brickwork. And I don't think that's going to end well, to be honest.
Okay.
And this is the thing too. Hold the thought one second. So if you, if you took that same amount that you're going to get from him instead of going into brickwork, let's assume that you don't do the partnership, you do the equity or the profit split with him on the, on the brickwork that he brings in or that you, you get jobs for. And then what I'd recommend doing is putting the money that you would otherwise be Gates basically giving, giving to him. I'd put that into marketing. More of what you're doing now. It's obviously working. You're profitable. If you're trying to grow, just put more of what you're doing and I guarantee you have twice the return compared to doing more brickwork. If you put that same amount like the value of $100,000 a year, let's just assume a 10% return. You're literally like signing away a million dollar value to somebody just for them to join. Like if you just put that hundred thousand dollars and in profit you would otherwise just be giving to him. If you put 20,000 into marketing and growing your existing business, you'll double your business over the next couple years and do way more for profitability than signing away 50% of it up to him.
So you think, you think at the same point or is it obviously probably depends a little bit on location. But very easy to everyone say easy hard work. But to build the profit around 500 a summer, like doing this lawns and, and spring cleanup, fall cleanups. I mean, I guess that's what you're doing.
Yeah, more than I know. It's, it's, it's, it's easy. Like man, like I could just add more services and it's always easiest to add to grow via adding more services and geographical location. Like I just expand how far I can serve and I'll add more services. Those are the least profitable ways to grow. Because now when you add brickwork into your entity, you got to. It'll double your. If you go from maintenance and lawns to doing brickwork, you're gonna double your general liability. You're need bigger trucks, you need more trailers. Your profit margins will go down. And so I think what you have right now is really, really working. Unless you love brickwork and you're passionate about and that's like a goal for you. And having this really profitable lawn care business is just a means to do what you love, which is brickwork, that's fine. But I would. From a business and numbers.
Yeah, I'm not really eating.
Yeah, from a business and numbers standpoint, I'd be looking at like, hey, you got a good thing working. Like just keep pummeling that and then either keep growing it or go do something else you love or start investing. But I would not recommend a lot of times when someone starts making 200, $300,000 in annual revenue, they're five, 10 years into the business, or, sorry, 2, 300,000 in profit a year, and they are five, 10 years into the business. I find what happens is like, we're just going to go add another thing to the business. Not because we need the money, not because of profit. We're just bored. So you've got to figure out, like, are you doing this brickwork thing just because you're boring? Just trying to, like, you know, scratch an itch. You're kind of like, hey, I figured out this lawn care thing. What else can I do? You can scale it. That adds, create. That's going to create challenges, you know, an ability to actually have something hard to do, like having general managers, having different departments, et cetera, or two, take that $200,000 in profit and go do something else. Invest. Get a different business, whatever it might be. But realize doing brickwork is a different business. It's a completely different business. And so think that you're just gonna, like, throw it in. It's gonna be just as profitable. I think you'd be amazed that you'll go from, you know, 200,000 profit and the margins on any additional profit be much lower.
Okay. Okay. And then one more question for you if you got time for it. So like I said, I'm basically just sitting on all my money listening to what you're saying, just maximizing my truck space right now. I got two guys with me, and we mow every day. Just maximizing everything I have now and just kind of saving up waiting for this recession. But I kind of need land next summer, or I wouldn't say need, but just. I don't have anywhere to dump. I have nowhere to dump around here. There's no dump like weight center for 20 minutes away. And my parents don't really want me to be dumping anymore there at the airplane. So I. I'm. I'm kind of in a pickle with that. I need to figure out somewhere to dump, and I think. I think. Do you think it'd be smart by land this winter?
Yeah. So I. Last week or so two weeks ago, I made a video about, like, buying land shop space. Did you see that one by chance? Yeah.
Yes, I did.
So there's actually a piece of property that I am now in escrow on. I haven't talked about it yet. I'll talk about them next month once we click close on it, because people on YouTube like to report me. So I have to stay under the radar for next month, but yeah, so you can absolutely buy land. You have the profit to do it. I would recommend doing this too in your case, because at $200,000 in profit, you start. You need tax stuff. You need like an advantage of tax wise. And so buying land is gonna be a good thing I would recommend doing with a house on it. So that way you can just. Just lots of good things you can do and then have land where you can kind of gravel it, put your trucks, dump whatever you want, burn on it, etc. So more info. I'll talk a lot about that maybe next month once I lock this deal up.
Okay.
But I would definitely recommend doing it. I would definitely recommend doing that. Real estate's a great way to start offsetting all of those profits, and you've definitely killed it there. So best of luck, brother. Have a good one. Next one comes from Florida. We have an area code of 8-50- we now have a bunch of people in the call queue. Stick around and I'll make sure you get answered. Go ahead.
Hey, Mike, Andy.
My name is Bryson Turner.
I'm down here. And yeah, like you said, Florida destiny, Florida area.
So I started a couple years ago.
And I'm kind of like, this is kind of like my first year really scaling up. Right. And so I'm, I'm by myself at the moment, and I'm doing anywhere from 800 to $1,200 a week. But my problem is I'm 15 and the only people that, like, I can't really. I'm at that point where I could hire an actual person. And so I'm. My, my struggle is finding somebody to work for me because at this point, I'm having to turn down jobs because, like, I'm booked through the rest of summer at this point before I go back to school.
Cool. Does any of your high school friends want to work with you or not?
Yeah, so that's, that's, that's what I'm trying to figure out is like, I.
I've asked a lot of people, but.
Down here in Florida, it's either people work for, like, Winn Dixie or they work on a fishing charter. And so, like, kind of finding that aspect of trying to find people that for one, like, I love, like, doing quality stuff. And I just kind of that perfectionist of, like, I want people to do really good work to kind of uphold the name. But at the same time, I can't keep going by myself the whole time.
Yeah, well, the thing is that your size, you're still going to be working with that employee. Right. So even if they're not the best quality 100%, you can definitely take a B player because you are going to be working with them all day long. Right. And so you can kind of make sure that their standard of quality is high. So I wouldn't beat yourself up too much, but like having a great employee because you're going to be with them all the time, make sure their quality work is fine. So two things you can do. One, you can go ahead and hire somebody and hire them full time and just tell them, hey, this is a three month stint. Or you can go hire someone like, yeah, going to school with you and get them on board. And so regardless though, you don't, don't, don't beat yourself up too much about perfectionism when it comes to your first employee because you're going to be with them all the time. Right? Like that's why like with P4P even, you don't even need it for your first employee because if you're with them all the time, you are managing their performance. You don't need, you're making sure they're efficient. Exactly. That makes sense.
Okay.
Yep.
And then so my question is, do you have a. So you talked about like not hiring basically friends and I have a couple of friends like have worked for me for like a day or so. Right. That like, oh, I'm free to say, or I'm free to say, but nobody that like I know will be free consistently for me. So do you have any suggestions of like finding people maybe that aren't necessarily my friends that are like other teenagers in the area that I wouldn't know?
Yeah.
Would you like recommend like Facebook or something?
Yeah, I would throw up an ad on Facebook, Craigslist. I'd send it out like on your social media, send out the link to whatever those platforms are, you know, Craigslist. You're gonna pay like 20, $25 for a listing. I do two of them. One focused on like high schoolers and another one that it's like, hey, this is a three month full time position. Then you might get a 23, 24 year old to work for you because they're back home from college. Right. That's again another perfect person that's gonna kind of work for you. So I would make two different types of ads. One for a high schooler, one for someone that's maybe in their 20s and actually looking for a full time position. Everyone's like, man, I don't know, this is like I don't need someone for the next 12 months or, like, you know, long term. I just need them for. There's a lot of people looking for that that also have a deadline. They're going back to school. They have another contract position. They're going to the military. So don't shy away from it. Realize that if you just advertise it appropriately, you'll probably find someone.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I'm at the point at even.
15, I'm able to pay somebody like 20 bucks an hour to come work. So hopefully that'll work. I probably won't implement that, really, till next summer. Just want to. Because right now I'm only in my neighborhood, and I'm able to max out on jobs completely to the point where I can't take any more work this summer. So next summer, when I'm able to get my first truck moving, and that's probably when I'll. When I'll get somebody.
Very cool. All right, best of luck, brother. You have a good one. Take care.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
You too.
All right, next caller is coming from. Oh, I don't have a location, just an area code. 7, 1, 7. You're on the show. Go ahead.
Hello, can you hear me?
Hello.
Hey, how's it going? You're on the show. What's up?
Oh, so sorry about that.
I just realized I.
First things first. I do have a landscape company. I am 17 years old. There is one main question I have for you. Robot lawnmowers. There's a company called Baba Robots that is in my area, and they are selling well. They do leasing, and they lease out robots for only 50amonth.
Okay.
And I was thinking if I can maybe implement that into my landscaping business.
But is there, like.
Do you think that would be practical?
Okay, cool. So how big is the average lot size that you're mowing?
About half an acre.
Okay. And so those robots that you're. You're getting for, you'd have to buy one for every single property, correct?
Yes, correct.
And would you have to install the line on the edges for that specific robot? I'm not sure exactly what type of manufacturer they're using.
Yeah, we would have to install the wire.
Got it. So your plan is like, hey, maybe I get one robot for every single lawn, and then I just come and I do the edging, I do the blowing off each week, and the lawns basically stays looking good all the time. Is that kind of your thought process?
Yeah, exactly. And I can most likely upsell them on weeding. And just like edging and trimming. I can, I was thinking of telling them 50amonth for the edging and trimming. We come down bi weekly and get it done.
And then it's 50 total.
100Amonth.
Yeah. So 100amonth from each customer.
That'd be very, very, very thin margins. Because think about it. So if you charge a hundred dollars and then you're paying 50 for a lease, that's 50% right off the top, just for the robot mower, then you've got to deal with labor, which is typically going to be between 30 and 40% if you're efficient. Um, so you're literally. Best case scenario would be a 10% margin. And we're not even talking about like gas, insurance, et cetera. So I think your prices is probably too low. This is what I've, I've, I've realized is that for when it comes to robots, most customers are not willing to spend a single dollar more on a robot compared to a mower. So ultimately what you have to decide is, are you actually saving money by having that robot? And my inclination if it's $100 a month is probably not. Now, if you want to try to market these as like premium services, because these robots are gonna be on your property, you're never gonna, the lawn's never gonna be overgrown. Like, if you wanna go for 200 or $250 a month, that might look interesting, right? But doing what you're doing with $100 per month is the Amazon model, but you don't have, you're not making any margin. Right. You're gonna get a lot of customers. For a hundred dollars a month, your lawn always looks good. We come here and trim it twice a month that you're going to kill it. However, by the time you install it, that upfront cost to you is like three, four hundred dollars. That alone is going to take six months to recoup in just gross profit off of the hundred minus fifty. Then you got to deal with labor and all the other stuff that you're still going to have to get trucks or a van or something to go there every couple weeks. So I think your margins are way, way too small. And if you can't sell that as a premium service right now, where people are actually willing to pay more for the robot to be there, I would not recommend that just because if you get, say 100 customers, $50 a month sounds great. Until now you have a hundred customers, which is not a lot like you and one employee can knock Out a hundred customers a week, that's $5,000 a month. That's literally like every other month you go buy a zero turn mower. So I think sometimes when you start running the math of scaling robots, it becomes an issue. If you want 10, 15, 20 customers with a premium price of $300 a month with a robot, that might make sense, but with the margins you're talking about and scaling, that is gonna become very, very challenging. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Awesome, brother. You have a good one. Take care.
You too.
All right, next Questions coming from 737- the area code. Go ahead.
737.
Hello.
Hey, how's it going?
Good. How are you?
Good, good. What's your question?
So I've been doing business since 2016 and my question is I have been lacking on advertising my business.
And I have no other ideas to get through. Whenever I get the new clients, I very seeing your videos and you're like, hey, you know what, just add all the taxes and blah, blah, blah. So I started doing that and the clients started to complain and they're like, oh, my lawn service, my ex lawn service was able to do it without paying taxes and making all these excuses up in order for them not to pay me. And so my question is, what could I do at that point? Some of the jobs that I do, that they're a little bit higher. I do ask for a down payment, at least half, you know, just to make sure. But I just feel like there's something there that I'm lacking on or I'm just like a little chicken or something that I'm not doing right. And I just feel like I just need like a mentor. Tell me, hey, it's gonna be okay. This is what you need to do.
Yeah, like, part of it is a lot of the times when I see customers that are trying to push around a contractor, as much as I want to just say, like, that's so bad. And customers are, you know, whatever. The thing is, the perception of the brand when the customer comes to the company is what's going to be the determining factor of how they treat that contractor. So if someone's really, really professional, has a great website, they answer their phones, they show up in a uniform, their truck's decal and labeled and painted, that customer is much less likely to start haggling with them, asking them about taxes. And if the owner or the estimate that comes to the property doesn't lead on that they're the owner. Same thing, they're less likely. What about taxes? Can I get that cut out? What about 500 instead of 1000? Like they'll be less likely to haggle. So the first two things I would say is, number one, focus on your branding and having a very professional brand where they know that when you come in you're not making numbers up. They can't haggle with you because the last four guys that they have haggled with came in a beat up truck. No website, not licensed, not insured, no uniform. I still sweating from a day's worth of work and you know, dirty and all the rest of it. Like you be professional, have someone answer your phone, that sets you apart so they know, okay, this is not the same as the last four guys I've dealt with that have not paid my taxes. Like anyone who says I don't want to pay my taxes, like, I'm sorry, probably not a great customer. And so the question is, instead of how do I change the mindset of the customer? Because everyone wants a cheaper deal and that's not going to change. What you can do though is you can change the perception of your brand so that the type of customer that calls knows you're going to charge taxes, they expect it. They know you're going to be cost, you're going to cost more because you showed up in a nice truck and you had a uniform and someone answered the phone politely inside of an office, not with weed whackers in the going on the background. So I'd focus number one on your brand and then number two, when you're at the property, being the estimator, don't lead on that you're the owner. You don't want to let them know that you're the owner because then that opens up the door for negotiation. And can I cut this out? My last guy did this. You want them to feel like you're the estimator and you're going to get the estimate sent, the estimates going to be sent from the office and then the crew will show up and do the work. Now at the very beginning, when you're small, you're going to be the estimator, the office and the crew. But as you grow the company, they'll be in the expectation of being handed off from estimator to office to crew. So just don't lead on that you're the owner as much as possible during that interaction at the estimate. Does that make sense?
Yeah, because what I have is I got my stickers and I have a website. I did get triple B, so I'm Good with that. And I did so much, like, advertisement buyers and stuff like that they do call me and, you know, I do. Like I said, I have insurance and everything. Like, I'm up to date. My. Also for my insurance for my car, my truck and everything. Like, everything is set. But the thing is.
Also I have some contracts that unfortunately, I had to let go because of the people that worked for me.
They just didn't want to work. They're just like, oh, I want 18 an hour. But then you don't even know how to turn on the blower. Get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So it's kind of like, why am I gonna give you a job if you don't even know how to turn on the blower? And I need help, you know, and you're telling me, just don't tell me something that you don't. You're like, oh, I. Yeah, I know how to do that. But then whenever I give you a test, like, do a job or something, and I'm confident that you can do it yet I have to get out of my way with somebody else to teach you again, like I teach you. Yes, but you show me. Hey, if you tell me, hey, you. I. I know how to do it, then I'm like, okay, we'll turn on the, you know, like, the. You know, the machinery and go from there. But I have to see you. And they're like, oh, I don't know how to turn it off. How do you turn it off? So it's kind of like, why I'm gonna. Like, I just want to find the correct workers because, you know, there's none. And then they say things like, oh, because your girl. You can't do long service. And they just start pointing at me and laughing at me, and they're like, oh, you need to get off the truck to help me work. You know what I'm saying? So I'm just like. I mean, I'm trying to get some work over here to pay you, because if I don't get work, you don't get paid, nor don't I. So, like, I contact. I lost a big contract this year, and it just, like, went down. And I'm just like, basically the solo again. So I'm just like, what can I do at this point? Like, I'm like, gas is going up. You know, insurance is going up. Everything is going up. Food is going up. And I'm like, yo, like, if I'm giving you a job, please do it. And it's just like, it. It Aggravates me, you know? And the clients don't want to pay, or they. They pay, like, whenever they want to. And it just came to the point. I'm like, if you don't pay me by this time, I give you a certain amount of time to pay me, then I want to start charging. Sorry, charging you fee. And then they don't want to do it either. And I'm like, okay, well, these are the invoices. This is the number that I give you. I have it on my paperwork. Like, you need to pay me. And then they're like, how do I cancel? How would I cancel? And I'm like, you know, I just need somebody to tell me this is what you need to do, and that's it. Honestly, I just need somebody tell me, hey, you know, you are legit business. I do my taxes. I mean, like I told a client, I'm like, you know, what am I so different about another payment, like a phone bill? Like, you asked for my service, so I'm gonna give it to you. So, I mean, I don't want to be either mean to them, but also put my foot down, because I've been bullied basically, on clients and not even knowing, you know, how much they charge. One time, because I was working so hard. $15. I even said I was like, you know what? Whatever, Because I'm, like, barely learning. I didn't know. I didn't know how to charge, so I had to learn the way that people, like, come down. Like, my family tells me, too. Like, I have no motivation. Like, they. They say, oh, you little yards, your little yard. How are you gonna do it? You know? And they just make fun of me. They always say, oh, I did. I hired Raise law services and more, and they never showed up. And I'm like, I never had the other client, so how are you gonna say that? It's true.
Yeah. So. So I think the first thing is. I think the first thing is, like, really addressing, like, why. Why did you. What was your name again? Sorry.
Rosa.
Rosa. Cool. All right, so the first thing is, why. Why did you get into business yourself? Like, why not just go get a job if you enjoy mowing and landscaping? Like, why not just go get a job as an employee? Why did you start your own business?
Because I knew my. My parents are their own owners, so basically, like, I was raised to be, like, you know what? Start your own business. So. And I love nature. I love flowers. I love everything, you know? And you know how they say, like, tree huggers, you know, what I'm saying, but it's just like, I just feel like I'm in the right place. Like finally in my life, I feel like this is where I need to belong. This is who I am. You know, it's so hard to find who you really are. And finally I found something that makes me feel happy, something that makes me feel like I have something to give back, you know, and that's one of the reasons why. And honestly, like, I worked at the hospital before and I was like, this is, you know, I went to college for medical and I was like, this is still not it. You know, and I spent years, you know, going to school. So I'm like, finally I found somewhere that I know that I could get something out of it. But because of that, I'm still lost. I'm confused.
Yeah, like, I'm glad you switched there because at first you said you did it because, you know, your parents had always done, you know, owned their own business. That's a horrible reason to get into business. So I'm glad that you figured out that, hey, it actually makes you happy and it's fulfilling, filling you. Because any sort of extrinsic motivation for starting a business is very horrible in my opinion. And because your parents did, it's going to be eventually really frustrating. And what I'm sensing right now is you're frustrated with a lot of things. You're frustrated with the employees, you're frustrated with customers, you're frustrated with losing these contracts, et cetera. I think focusing on why you got into business is going to be a big thing for you because there's going to be frustrations in business, finding employees. It's difficult for everyone right now. Customers, as we go into recession, are going to start asking the questions of like, can I get this cheaper? Can I can. Like, they're going to try, try to push you around more. And so when it comes to like being a woman, for example, in a very much male dominated world of lawn care and landscaping, you've got to be very, very confident to make that work. Right? And so, you know, a lot of people ask me, like when I was in college and I was 13, 14 years old, like, how did I socially deal with that? I didn't even think about it. And I just was very, very confident in myself. And I want you to have that same thing when it comes to being a woman. Customers that try to push you around, it ultimately comes down to self respect and self, your vision of yourself. And right now you're being very hard on Yourself, you're doing an amazing job. You're in a very male dominated industry. To be doing what you're doing is phenomenal and you need to have a lot of confidence yourself. And if you do that, it will bleed over you into the way that you deal with customers and employees that are being a hassle instead of just letting them push you around. And there's, there's a, there's a way to be nice to customers and nice nice to employees. But as a leader in any organization, especially as a self employed woman in this industry, you're going to have to stand up for yourself and you're going to have to have a big backbone to be able to realize who you are, what you have and that you, you've done something amazing. And you don't allow a customer to push you around, you don't allow employee to push you around. And if they do, you're going to put your foot down and that's gonna be a challenge for you, I think because you have a really good heart. And I know coming from the medical industry, I'm the similar way. Like I don't like to ruffle people's feathers. It kills me when people say that I've done something wrong or that employee says that they don't like working for me. That kills me. I literally lost a bunch of sleep the other night because an employee questioned P4P and so you start like, man, I don't want them to feel bad and all the rest of it. So you have a good heart but ultimately you need to put your foot down and realize why you started a business. And what you just said is you're trying to give back. That is a good reason to start a business. So focus on that and realize that you do not need to come from a position of less than I'm not enough customers can beat me up, employees can say that I'm a woman and laugh at me like fire their butt and get out of there. And I think that's very, very infrequently what I say that to someone because most people don't have the issue that you have. And that is you come from a place of humility and to help and then people push you around and you can't have that happen.
Yeah, I just feel like they're just like kind of shots that a woman can write a V ride or stand on. And I can read, I can blow, I can do moats, I can do basically whatever a man can do. I can probably even do like, I mean, I'M not to that extent, like, heavy stuff, but you know what I'm saying? Like, something that it's so uncommon to see a woman especially work in this industry. Like, you don't see how, like, it, it bothers. Like, why are you saying that I can't do that? Because I'm a woman, you know, and it does hurt my feelings. I'm like, you know what? It's hurting you so much. It's burning you so much that you have to, like, humiliate me. Yeah, I'm the one that I'm trying to do my best to do what I got to do. Don't worry about what I do. Worry about yourself, you know, Like, I applaud everybody that does their work, you know, but, like, don't be bugging me and saying, you know, because I'm a woman, you know, but, but.
And confidence. Confidence is going to breed success in this scenario, Rosa. Like, you got to have the confidence in yourself, in why you started the business. And ultimately, people will feed off of that if they, if. If a bully or any individual that has that type of personality that wants to pick on someone. Even customers that are. Want to bully a contractor, they can sense, like, blood in the water if someone doesn't have confidence. And that's when they'll strike. And so you've got to come with confidence, shoulders back. I'm going to look this person in the eye, whether it be a customer, an employee, that's being rude. And you got to have confidence behind what you're saying and not from a place of being annoyed or being unhappy with them. You just got to, like, not even get, like, not be emotional about it, but just be strong about it. Those are two very different things. Being emotional, you start talking faster, you get worked up like this. Whereas if you have confidence, you speak with authority and you know what you're worth to a customer or to an employee. And so the first thing, though, from a mindset, Rosa, is you're coming from a place of people are after you. And I'm a little concerned about that. Like, the employees don't think about you being a woman. Think about you being a leader. Right. When it comes to business, as soon as we start taking the social norms and applying it to what we are supposed to be going through, we're going to come from a place of, they're after me because of X, my age, my weight, my sex, whatever it might be. If you come from a place of I'm a leader. And as a leader, this is what leaders do. Instead of, this is what a woman does, this is what a man does. This is what a tall person does. This is what someone who's young does. Forget about that same person who just called him about who was 15 years old trying to find an employee. You've got to get your own head right about that situation first, whether it be age or sex or whatever it is. And if you think about it, if you allow it to eat at you, you're going to. It's going to come across in the way that you communicate. And so when I was hiring really young, when I went to college, really, really young, I never, ever thought about it. And if I would have, it would have crippled me because every time there was a social interaction that was awkward and I didn't know what was going on or something, it would have crippled me and I would have had a big complex about it. And then I would have been like, oh, man, they're picking on me. They're, they're laughing at me. If you just, you've got to beat it up in yourself first. You got to beat up in your head first that I don't care if I'm a woman, I'm going to be successful. I don't care if I was digging holes and doing really heavy work, I'm going to be successful. I don't care if I'm in the medical, I'm going to be successful. And as a leader, this is what leaders do. This is not what women do. This is not what a tall person does or a fat person or a skinny person or my race does. This is about, this is what leaders do. And when you get into that mindset, you're unstoppable. And so stop thinking. And I'm just talking to you, Rosa, like, just heart to heart. Stop thinking about what a woman does or what your, as a daughter of your parents should do. Start thinking about what a leader does. That's the filter by which I want you to operate out of. And that way, when a customer talks to you, you don't put your foot down in anger or an emotion. You put it in a place of authority and confidence in yourself. If you have self confidence, you will beat up, you will beat up. Not physically, but you will absolutely beat up the people that are trying to bully you, whether it be employees or customers.
Does it make sense?
Well, the only thing I have to say is, you know, I don't care if I'm a woman. Like I said, I'm person that's trying to get by. Yeah, you know, but at the same time, I'm not going to let bully stop me from what I want to achieve in life. Because at the end of the day, like I do me, you do you, you know, and I would like, you know, talk to people and kind of motivate them, you know, but sometimes whenever you're such a, like a good hearted person, they take advantage. Like you're trying to help people, yet you know, they stab you in the back, you know, and that's what happened to me helping other people. And then now they look at me bad. So I'm just like, you know what, I'm not gonna do anything of like any like associating because that's really bad.
But see, you're letting them get to you, right? So you're putting the power in their hand if you allow it to eat at you like it is, right? Stay in a position of power and that is as an employer, as a leader, you cut them out, right? So you cut out the employee that mocks you and you go find another one because you're in a place of power, right? When you start thinking that people are always going to stab you in the back because they will, like, let's just assume that they will. You'll have bad customers, you'll have bad employees, you'll have people that take advantage of you, that's going to happen. But if you allow that to eat at you, you'll stay solo, like working with yourself the whole, the rest of your life. Whereas if it's like, hey, I know that's going to happen, I'm going to get rid of those people and I'm going to move on. I'm going to take power as a leader, I'm going to take power as someone who owns their own business. The best thing about owning your own business is you make the decisions. You make the decisions. If you let the customer go, if you fire an employee, like take control of what you can, you actually do have control over. You don't have control over whether or not someone's messed up from their childhood and is a bully to women. You don't have control over whether or not someone is messed up in their head and tries to get around taxes. You can't control those things. What you can control is what employees and what customers you choose. Because as a leader and a self employed person, that's the thing that you get. And so just realize that as soon as you say, oh, well, they stab me in the back or they take advantage of me, you're putting power with Somebody else and you can't control them. I can't control their messed up, their messed up family, what they've gone through. I can't control any of that. The only thing you can control is you and your headspace and what you do in your business. That's only thing you can control. And as soon as you start talking about other people, it puts you in a position of like feeling like a victim because you can't control the situation. News alert. You are the leader. You are the business owner. You have full control of what happens by cutting them out. Right? So just have a, I think a lot of it has the self confidence and you can't allow any of these things to eat at you. Take control of what you have control over. And that is, I'm going to market my business in a professional way so I get the right customers. I'm going to cut out the customers trying to push me around. When I have an employee in front of me that's saying I'm a woman and laughing at me, I'm going to fire them on the spot because I have the confidence that I can go find another employee. And how am I going to do that? I'm going to market myself as an employer that is wanting to give back to the community, trying to find other people that are like minded. And it might mean I go through five or 10 employees to find that individual. But I'm going to do that because I'm taking control over my business and my destination and my success, not allowing other people to determine that for me. Does it make sense?
Right? Yes.
All right, stay in touch. All right.
Okay.
All right. Yep. Bye.
Bye.
All right, last caller of the day coming from Indianapolis 31 7. Go ahead.
Hello.
Hey, sorry for being on hold there so long. Welcome to the show.
Hey, my name is, my name is Emmanuel and I get straight to a question. So I literally just started my mowing company and.
I, I've been kind of tracking, tracking the time that I've been on jobs and it seems like I'm taking a little too long. And when I watch some of your videos and you're saying God is taking 40 some minutes and right now I'm on average taking an hour to do jobs. And I think for me out here, because I think I have your course and I was looking at it and you're saying prior to me if I'm doing a job and it's taking me an hour I should be charging 60. But I've been trying to get customers at 60 and that doesn't work. So I've been charging 30, but I'm taking hours. So I'm trying to figure out am I my moving too slow and inefficiently or, or is it just because I'm doing. Because like a lot sizes are an average about like 4,500 like mowing spaces in like the suburbs but here are kind of big. So I'm trying to figure out am I being efficient or.
So you're saying a 4,500square foot lawn take you an hour to mow?
Yeah, an hour, hour to mow or like mow, edge trimming, blow.
So that is a little bit long, but I think you'll get more efficient as time goes on. Right. Like keep watching videos online about how to be more efficient in your mowing and like the direction that you trim things like that, because that is a little bit long. Like that should be more along the lines of just on average again probably 30 to 40 minutes. So I think you can bring that down. However, I would also be looking at the fact that pricing, you probably want to be trying to move that up. And in order for that to happen you're going to have to provide more value to the customer, whether it be a website, a better looking decal truck, insurance, things like that to convey a higher perceived value. That's gonna get you the 70, $80 per hour. But I do believe you're probably going to be more efficient. Like this is your first year that you're doing lawn care.
Yeah, this has been my first year and the first month literally just finished.
Yeah, you'll get more efficient, just keep doing what you're doing. Watch videos online about how to be more efficient at mowing. You know, the turning of the zero turn. Like there's, you can literally save one second every single stripe by just the way that you use your go ahead.
Using, using a push mower like 21 Honda push mower. Well then that takes a little time.
Then it's not going to be 30 minutes, probably more like 45 minutes. But I still think you'll be get, you'll get 20 to 30% more efficient just with time. Like in my first year or two in business I was probably 30 to 40% as efficient as I am now. Because when I look at a law now it's like literally programmed in my brain where to start, how to finish the job, where I'm going to fill up my gas, where like everything is programmed. Right. So even with a push mower that you know it's not going to be 30 minutes, might be 40 or 45, but you'll get 30% more efficient over the next six to 12 months. That's the first thing. Second thing is I would be looking at pricing and don't think you need to close every job. If you get a customer that says, oh, it's too expensive, whatever might be. Just realize if you can just close 50% or more of your jobs at the size of your business, that's fine. You're going to have customers who say it's too expensive, whatever it might be. But don't think you need to close every single job because if you are closing every single job probably means your pricing is too low.
Yeah, I mean that, that sounds right. And I, in your, in your course, you said not the price below 30, 30. I think you said 30 an hour. I'm not, I can't really recall. But yeah. So I try not to price below that, even though some people want to do that. But I've tried to price around like 40, 45 and people are saying that's too much right now. I think my focus is just, I'm pricing at 30 to get to my 50 customers. And then at that point I think I'm probably going to raise prices.
It's not a bad thing. You can do multiple things at the same time, like improving your value, perceived value, the customer by having like working your website, working your marketing, working your logo, things like that. At the same time, you're just getting more contracts and more clients to get to that 50 customer level. Because I like that strategy too. Getting a bunch of customers and then raise your prices, that's fine. You'll get retained, you know, 40 out of those 50, and now you'll be at a price that's actually good and you'll be more efficient by that time. Right? So just keep doing what you're doing. Don't overthink things, keep getting more customers. But realize that a lot of times when customers say you're too expensive or I need 30 instead of 40, that literally, that's one out of 10 customers that are saying that. But in our minds, because most humans are relatively weak in our heads, and I include myself in that. Like, we allow the negative to eat at us. So because 1 out of 10 says it's too expensive, it's like, oh man, I gotta lower my price. It's like, no, no, no. Nine out of ten are just fine with it. So track your close ratio, right? So how many estimates are given? How many people actually say no because of price? And I think you'll be surprised that maybe 20% say no because of price when you charge what you're worth and the other 80% are rolling with you. And if you're at 60, 70, 80% close ratio, I'd be thrilled. If you're at 20% close ratio, then we have something to talk about. You might need to lower the price. But I believe you're still probably at 75% close ratio right now. And we're allowing that one out of four that say it's too expensive to eat us up and think, oh, I got to lower my prices. No, no, no. If you're between 50 and 75% close ratio right now, that's just fine.
Okay, so on that note, with the close ratio, I don't have people live had. I put out mailers at first and I had one or two call. I took those jobs on. Well, right now what I'm doing is I've been door knocking. So pretty much I go, I'm going out two people. So how do I make like I'm keeping track of how many doors I knock on, how many people I talk to and possibly how many, how many people from that session I get booked on with me. And in my last session, I knocked on about 50 doors in two hours and talked to about 30, some 30 something people. And I have, I have one definite one that is.
That is now a customer that's recurring or ignored them at least once and they've agreed to a next, next. Next session.
Yeah, like that's a killer close ratio. You have a 2% close ratio and a 60% response rate. Right. So you went from 50 out of those 50, 30 people close or you communicate with. This is a 60% response rate. And then 1 out of 50 or 2% accepted the job. The bottom line is if you want to get more customers, guess what you're going to have to do? Probably knock on 50 doors. It's just a numbers game, right? So literally, if that, what you're saying to me is that 28 out of 30 said no. And so what that does is mentally like, oh my goodness, I got to lower my prices. I got lower my. No, no, no, no, no. You closed one person at 50. That's phenomenal. If you do that once a day for the next several weeks, you have yourself a business.
Right.
So don't be discouraged with the nose because like it doesn't have any indication as to whether or not you're, you're too expensive or anything like that. It's just that you're knocking on the doors.
A 60% response rate is pretty phenomenal. Like if you send out emails and you got 60% open rate. Fantastic. The fact that if you can get 1 or 2% of any sort of marketing to actually close a deal is phenomenal. Like if you sent out door hangers, you wouldn't even get a 2% response rate, let alone close rate. So I think keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a phenomenal job. Don't allow the 28 out of 30 that are saying no because it's too expensive to deter you from the fact that you're just. It's just a numbers game. You got to go knock on other 50 doors and you'll get another customer.
All right, I think, yeah, that's some good advice. Appreciate it.
You got it, brother. Have a great day. Take care.
All right, thank you.
All right, thanks so much, everyone. Happy Saturday, July 4th weekend. Hope you all have a fantastic time with your family. Take the day off, enjoy it. Middle of the year got literally still the second half of 2022 ahead of us. This is when we got to buckle down and realize that the next six months is where you make all of your profit in the home improvement industry. It is not the time the July 4th, when you spend time with your family, throw up some fireworks, et cetera. This is not the time like, ah, the rest of the year, we're, you know, we're good through the spring. We're done the spring rush. Now we're just coasting through the rest of the year. No, this is the time you actually make profit. This is the time you start stacking cash. This is how you buckle in for your business. And I understand it's been hard spring rush, it's been hard with inflation. Hard with inflation employees, I understand it's been hot. It's been difficult. And the natural inclination is to find a natural point in the calendar for you to start relaxing. I understand that this is not the time for that. This is the time to buckle in and do more so you can be more profitable. This is the time when you make your money. This is not the time when spring rush, when you're growing, you're expanding, you're getting more customers, employees and buying trucks. That's extremely unprofitable. Growth sucks cash. The rest this year, for most of us, we're not going to be necessarily growing a bunch. We're probably going to be growing incrementally or just staying with what we got. But now your crew is locked in your trucks are locked in. You don't need to buy a bunch of stuff. You don't need to spend a bunch of marketing. This is the time to actually start making profit. So please do not allow this natural sort of lull in the halftime show to be the point when you go back to the locker room like, oh, you know what? We're just going to take it easy and we're going to sit on the bench for the rest of the game. This is not the time to do this. This is the time to buckle in. I know we're tired. I know it's been hot. I know it's been very difficult financially and with finding employees because of inflation. I understand that. But this is the time to lock in and start making money. All right? So if you're like, oh, man, after this July 4th, it's going to kind of coast along. Maybe I'll go a little later into the office in the mornings now. Maybe I'll just take a couple extra days off here and there. This is not the time to do that. Wait until the winter. Wait until you're really slow. Do that in the wintertime. But this is the time to buckle in if you're in your first few years of business, that those grinding years is the time to do it. And I am very much okay with people that are misinterpreting my hustle as a matter of, oh, he's just trying to work people on the ground. There's more to life than work and making money. I understand that. But if you have a goal, an objective, trying something you're getting to, you better be willing the first three to five, seven years of your business to be putting in a massive amount of work. And it's not the first half of the year that the only time you work hard, it is the second half of the year when you're actually going to see what you're going to reap, what you sowed in the spring rush, what you throw in the ground with a seed in the spring with more employees and more customers, you water it with marketing and you water it with tons of hours and all the rest of it. Don't then neglect the seed. We talk about cutting out, planting. If you don't water the stinking plant after you plant it in the ground, it's going to die. So we've gone through the spring rush. You've spent a ton of time planting the seeds of success in your business. Hiring, marketing, getting more customers, growth, et cetera. But if you do not continue to maintain and water and tear that plant, it will die in the second half this year. That's what's going to happen. If you start sitting back on your laurels, taking it easy. This is the time to hustle. This is the time to grind. And if it's not worth hustling and grinding for, it's probably not. You shouldn't be in business. And so everyone that's trying to say that all the posts that I'm making recently are like, you know, you're telling people money is everything. It's not about money, it's about enjoying life. Obviously that's true. The thing is, for most of us, we decided that the next three to five years of pain and getting into business is going to be worth it for the success that it turns out to become. That allows us to spend more time with our family. That allows us the independency and the freedom to be able to do what we want with the money. Giving back to our church and our community, creating more jobs, whatever the goal is, we have somehow decided that the pain that we're going through now is worth that end result. So stop, stop complaining, stop being a victim, stop being a victim of inflation, victim of the labor market, and start figuring out, taking possession and ownership of the fact that you are a business owner. And you made that decision. I made that decision. Stop complaining and focus. The next six months is going to be where you make your profit if you put your big boy shoes on and keep grinding. All right, so hope that was helpful for everyone. Hope you have a fantastic weekend and make sure you check out landscapebusinesscourse.com because we are revamping that entire course here soon and the price will be going up. So if you've been thinking about it, check out landscapebusinesscourse.com thank you everyone that supported the channel. Longcarewebdesign.com HomeService web design.com MBA for entrepreneurs. We're creating a whole new website, the web. The media team is doing a great job there. I'm not doing too much there, but they're, they're figuring it out and it's gonna be really, really good. So hope that was helpful for you all today. Check out p4psoftware.com I gotta do this at the end to pay the bills, so please do it because it helps pay the bills so I can do stuff like this for free and help the community. Take care, everyone. Hope you have a great happy July 4th and we'll see you tomorrow.
