Sam walks through White Pine Landscaping's growth from two acquisitions in 2015 and 2017 to monthly revenue of $50k, up from the previous owner's $50-80k yearly. The five-person crew runs mowing through November, uses Jobber and vehicle trackers, and recently bought a Hurricane mower out of state while raising prices and running EDDM direct-mail campaigns.
Questions this video answers
$800 per month.
Five.
Bought first company in 2015 and bought a second company in 2017.
June 15, 2015 (6-15-15).
Approximately $50,000 to $80,000 per year.
Chapters
So we have probably like 1500 square feet in here. And then we have in between these two rows of blocks we have this part.
Oh, so you're gonna get the whole.
Space there except for Jay. Joe uses it with his employees parking, so.
Okay.
But we use this dumpster stuff.
Cool, cool.
Nice. What do you pay per month for this place then?
800.
That's not bad.
So I worked it so that in the off season we could only pay six.
Yeah.
How do you like this thing?
Hurricane? Yeah.
Want to take it out, man?
I've seen them. They just started dealing them at our local dealer.
Yeah.
So we got this last fall. We went out of state cuz my dealer didn't have it.
Yeah.
And we got it tax free cuz we got it out of the state.
Oh, really? So what did you pay for it?
10, 8.
Yeah, but you guys do a ton of leaves up here.
We do, yeah. I mean it paid for itself. It's basically three and pull. Employees showing up on time every day. East Greenwich, North Kingstown, where we are right now.
Yeah.
And then.
And then Jamestown.
That's awesome.
And we go a little bit further into Narragansett, but not.
So how many guys are at work in the day?
Five.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nice. Very cool.
So we've been running five. Pretty steady.
Cool.
So when did you start the business then?
In 2015 I bought out the first company. And then in 2017 I bought out the second company and just growing it since then.
Cool.
And so was it like a friend that owned it beforehand?
Through my dentist. It was his landscaper. He was a 22 year old kid going to med school.
Couldn't take care of it anymore. Sell it.
And so I bought it for him. Got a pretty good deal and that's how I started.
So yeah, I bought him out. What did I do?
I've borrowed $4,000 to buy the equipment. Yeah. Put a thousand up of my own money. He financed the accounts, paying off like 5,000 in four weeks by just working it.
Yeah.
How much was he doing when you bought the place?
He was doing somewhere between 50 to 80,000 a year.
Okay.
He was doing about 4,000amonth.
Okay.
With mowing.
Yep.
And so we bought it basically at five weeks.
Okay.
So. And then we grew it from there.
Cool.
And then now this year, what do you think you'll be like three? Four. Four. Okay.
For four.
Okay, cool.
We've been hitting about 50amonth.
Awesome.
The last couple months.
Good stuff, man. Yeah.
So kind of the numbers we wrote down at the conference.
Yeah.
Hitting those.
So Your goal was 5 this year.
It was like 4, 450.
And so the numbers we wrote down per month, we've pretty much hit those.
For the most part.
Good job.
Yeah.
Good stuff there.
So do you want to go see them jobs and then, like, we can talk some numbers in between or like.
Whatever you want to do for the guys.
Oh, they're going to come back.
Yeah, we could get going.
I could probably just leave it.
Let me just check where they are.
Totally go for it.
What do you track them with?
One step?
What's that? Oh, really?
Is it pretty cool?
Is it for the trucks or for their. Like their.
So it's plugged into the trucks. We actually use jobber too.
Cool.
Does that connect with jobber One step?
No. So they're driving right now. They just left the job and they were there for.
And that just plugs in like. Kind of like Zubi. That's what we use. Yeah.
So it plugs into the port underneath.
What does that cost per year or.
Is it per month or.13 bucks per month per vehicle.
That's pretty average. Yeah, it's usually What? It's like 150 to 180.
Yeah. So I get text notifications and emails. That's cool, too.
Like when the speeding and all that.
But I had to turn that off.
Cause it was mostly me.
I was getting notified the whole time I was driving, so I had to turn that off.
So they're probably going to be like 20 minutes.
So what we could do is probably just unload.
Okay.
And just leave it here and they can pick it up.
Cool. All right.
So how much of it. How much of what you guys do is like landscaping versus just a longer mowing side?
Probably 90.
Oh, so you're a law lancer thing.
For maintenance? We do a lot more maintenance.
Got it.
So, yeah, so we do a lot of projects, like cleanups and projects along that line.
Yep.
Some installs.
We haven't done. We did a repair job.
3 $4,000 patio repair job.
We have done with drainage projects. We can swing by one of them today.
Running couple issues on, but.
And then do you guys mow till what, like, end of November? Usually beginning of November. Okay. Is.
And then it kind of turns into cleanups.
Yep.
That'd be pretty cool.
Oh, really?
I'm gonna buy one little stand on ones.
Such a pain in the butt.
On this guy. Oh, do you only use it for.
The air at mower?
Yeah. Got it's. It's. It's. Yeah.
So I worked with Mike, the first guy I took the company over from until the middle of June.
Yeah.
So I did all the cleanups with him, met clients and stuff like that. Along that he introduced me and I took it over 6-15-15. And then in 2017 when he took over his cousin's company, I worked with him for like a week or so while the other guys were doing other work. So I got to build the accounts and meet some people and stuff. So we didn't have any, we didn't lose any accounts.
We've lost some over the years. Yeah, but sometimes it's for better.
Yeah, yeah.
So we've actually like last year.
We were doing the same amount of hours on maintenance. We lost some accounts gains in a few months and we're doing the same hours now. We're doing almost 25, 30% more in revenue.
So you raised your prices?
We raised our prices. We got better clients.
So it's definitely going better now with maintenance before, I was sure.
Yeah, yeah.
So this year do you think most of the growth is mostly just from raising the prices, the main thing a little bit?
Yes and no. So we did.
We've done three marketing campaigns with eddm.
Okay.
We did one last fall since we had the hurricane. Like I was going to school full time and the guys were working.
Right.
And we were able to give them.
Probably an extra two to three weeks.
Worth of work from the campaign and.
Then that brought in more customers.
That turned into this year. Yeah, unfortunately it didn't turn into as many as I hoped.
Cuz we were doing probably about 60 to 70 lawns, maybe 80 last year and we're doing about 70 now.
Yeah.
So it increased a couple and we lost a few.
Yeah.
But yeah, definitely increasing prices.
We kind of went through measuring the.
Properties, figured out the square footage and everything like that. Cuz a lot of the pricing was set by the kids that had it before. They did great as a high schooler and young college kid cutting lawns on the weekend, making four grand a month, working two days a week.
